Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Bold start, Brian! Welcome to the site. Old crotchety guys like Curt Kistler and Ricky Booby will offer you some great advice in between stories of their latest heart attacks and back injuries. Local announcer and TaG World Champ, Tony LaPorta will provide instruction on inverted pickup truck flying.
Have you had the Cr250 out at IMI yet? Did everything hold together? any kart problems? Make sure you do a once over of the kart before you go on track each time. This stuff vibrates worse than a helicopter and stuff will fall off if not secured with nylocks and/or safety wire. We’ll look forward to seeing you at the track. Ask lots of questions or you’ll never learn.
Awesome! Can I learn valuable skills like…say…spamming? Because I know people love spam, email spam, canned spam, message board spam, spam sandwiches, boiled spam.
Team JB Weld will be there with two S5 drivers. Jack Bradley is usually up for a race. Connor Wogrin might make it, too. I’ll call his dad. Maybe Ben Schermerhorn (spelling?)
Geez, Milne, I hope you remember the rest of us when you are are BIG TIME. Congratulations on your strong season and the rewards that come with it.
Ignore the diversions, Eric. What karts are you looking at? I’ll bet if you ask nicely, there are plenty of people that read this site that would probably be willing to give you a free ride (First one is ALWAYS free!!) to see what you like.
Can’t hear you, Ricky!! The music is too loud in here!!
Can I see your pass, please? Ooooooh..see that big guy over there throwing people out? Yeah, go show him your ‘visitor’ badge.
LOL, my mood altering drugs and post race beers helped me to achieve the CLARITY I needed to understand that I can’t afford to race these damn things. Add another zero to your figures and that will help you understand my hospitality budget for each race weekend; The skycrane that delivers the Party Paddock to my pit area has been eating up a lot of my beer budget. I may have to look into ground transportation–but that’s SO passe’. What’s next for Team Polyester? Briggs and Stratton? *shudder*
Phew—(can of worms). You’ve been around racing vehicles, stuff breaks on all of them. There are too many variables to say A is better/cheaper than B. Tag–how high are you going to spin it? Shifter–is it a modified or stock shifter? Figure 1,000 bucks or more for a full rebuild on a TaG at least once/year. A honda can go a bit longer and parts are often cheaper on a stock honda. I’d put a new piston and ring in a TaG at about 10 hrs, similair on a Honda shifter, more often if you are racing at the front for both.
Tires will eat your budget, a weekend of racing is about the same price as drifting (you mentioned about 400 bucks.) Figure 75 bucks for an entry fee, 240 (ish) a set for tires, fuel is about 10 bucks a gallon, plus castor oil that I think must be squeezed from baby seals,sprockets and chains are essentially disposable on a TaG if you buy cheap ones, plus the normal food, travel, etc and you are easily looking at 400 bucks. A shifter does not go through chains and sprockets anywhere near as fast, but honestly, that is a minor expense.
Someone will tell you to get a Rotax and may even lead you to believe they are cheaper than other TaG engines and shifters. Leopard(my09 and up) is a good choice as well. If you want to shift, go with a spec honda for reliability and reasonable parts costs.
I forgot this part–a shifter chassis will need front brakes, TaG does not.
I love these questions!
Eric, we were all in your shoes at one time. Everyone on this board is very helpful and will be happy to answer your many questions. It sounds like you have more than enough time behind a wrench to dive into karting.
I won’t dive into the subject of which kart you should buy, but you did ask about shifters. yes you *can* start a shifter by yourself by push starting and jumping in. It is much easier if you ask the guy pitting next to you to give you a push, though, and then drop it into gear and motor away. Almost anyone will do it. The TaG advantage is the push button starting.
As you know from other forms of racing, the initial purchase is only the BEGINNING of your expenses. I also think you should reconsider your thoughts about not racing. Lapping is fun for a while, but local club racing can be affordable and quite a hoot.
You may want to draft a buddy to come help you in the pits until you get the hang of everything. Or, better yet, have a local karter help you and look over your stuff.
4 Races, no drops. GJMS, Centennial, IMI, and PPIR.
No kid karts, leave that to the club series’, and this is not because I am a kid hater (I have one, she is swell) but the kids should aspire to race in this state championship level series when they get a bit older. Make it an aspirational goal.
Get all of the disgruntled old farts back for those huge fields of crash-o-rama TaG Masters. Make it an over 40 open class which would include any and ALL TaGs, 4 stroke shifters, wankels, vampires, modified briggs, ICC, etc. Then have a pea pick for grid position so there will be tons of passing. Commence backslapping jolly fun.
Here are two more JICA motors, CHEAP and with spares. Team HARDKart ran into some financial issues in the reassembly of their race vehicle but hope to be on track soon. Who knew racing was expensive? It’s never as simple as ‘just grabbing that old chassis off the wall and slapping a spare motor on there’.
Good luck, Tony. Have fun, the first year is tough until you get adjusted. The internet was made for porn, not research. Good job announcing this year, you are WAY better at that than–well–anything. ( I meant that as a compliment but i think it came out as me saying you suck at everything -but you don’t).
