Opinion | Go-karting: from humble beginnings to elite sport

An Echuca couple, who were friends with another local fellow who had won several karting championships, kindly took me to races at many Victorian tracks.

I was fascinated and for a few years thought about and studied nothing else as they appealed to most everything I aspired to: you drove them like cars; the racing was exciting; they were new, cutting edge; and appeared to make motor racing accessible to most people.

At first, most of the karts were homemade, using old lawn mower motors with the occasional chain-saw motor or some other stationary engine used as power.

There was, of course, a sprinkling of professionally built karts with a variety of motors adapted and purposely tuned to meet the dynamics of kart racing.

Adding to my interest was the use by the championship-winning Echuca fellow of the 125cc BSA Bantam motorcycle engine, set up and tuned in a Melbourne workshop.

I watched this fellow with particular interest, not only because he was from my home town and had become a friend, but my dad had a BSA Bantam, which he rode around forests, wherever they might be, in search of blossom on trees and so sites at which to put his bee hives.

Dad was a beekeeper, an apiarist.

As with everything, it seems, money began to change what had been motor-racing for the average man, and suddenly those with more cash to spend appeared on the racing scene with what in those days were exotic racing machines.

McCulloch chainsaw motors were at the time the ‘go-to’ engine, and the old lawn mower motor stood no chance against a kart with a brace of those highly tuned motors mounted over the rear axle.

Having had a taste of go-kart racing, that was more than 60 years ago, I was fascinated to read a story in The Washington Post entitled ‘The First Step to F1’ that discussed the professionalism and massive costs of karting in the United States even for competitors who were not even teenagers.

The Post said: “Elite go-karting has become both maniacally competitive and wildly expensive.

“To become one of Formula One’s 20 drivers — the sport has only 10 teams with two cars each — now requires an absolute commitment, years before a child is eligible for a driver’s licence.

“By the time a driver makes it to Formula One, his parents and sponsors will have invested several million dollars in his career.

“Go-karting has become a magnet for the money and power flowing through motor sports.”

Drivers pay up to $7500 for a four-day karting race event, plus a $600 entrance fee.

Sometimes, the story noted, the young competitors are flown to the various racetracks in a helicopter.

I only ever had one go kart, it was homemade, second hand, my dad bought it somewhere, and we used an old motorcycle engine. It was fearsome thing — I never raced it, but had hours of fun in the nearby bush.

Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.