Ive always been fascinated by them, two years ago when i was in florida i stumbled on a shifter kart track and they offered rentals and i was instantly hooked. Just found out that they just bult a shifter cart track 25 minutes away from me and they also offer rentals and just came back from another rental. Talk about a fun hobby! talked to the guys there tonight and every sunday they close the track for locals to come in and race with their own karts. Apparently it is one of the top 3 tracks in the world! Looking at diving into this race fueled hobby :)

Just curious if any one here is into it? if not i would recommend giving them ago they are amazingly fun!

Anything with a manual now that the autos dumped them huh?

I'm not but would be if there was something local to me. Where is this place maybe I can stop by and check It out tomorrow?

I really love go-karting.

I never tried a shifter kart but, last year I tried out a Formula 1600. It had 4 gears and was a pretty awesome experience!

I'll go and try that out this year again for sure.

I would also like to try out the Mercedes benz driving academy. You can drive the AMG class cars around a race track.

I'm a Mercedes car fan. One day i'll have a Mercedes and hopefully, it will be a C63. :-)

Sorry if I drifted a bit away from your main topic...

Where in fl?

We have several tracks around Houston.................a total blast!!!

I raced a few years ago until life got in the way.
I miss it A LOT!
My Rotax 250 was good for around 135mph when geared for a big track.

0-100 in about 7 seconds and cornered so hard that it would make your smile slide to the side of your face!
Whats not to love about that?

Orlando Kart Center http://orlandokartcenter.com/ its AWESOME!

And then there is one in Ocala http://ocalagranprix.com/


No way man! that is amazing. The karts they rent only go up to 62 MPH i was coming around the final lap on the inside and hit a rock and lost control and spun around twice. Cost me the race but man was that an adrenaline rush. Is there any good karting forums? im going to go tomorrow morning and watch them race and hopefully talk to some of them.

Seems like used karts are hard to come by. do they take alot of maintenance to keep up? are they easy to work on?

The rentals are set up to get the general,semi-skilled,public around the track in a relatively safe manner.
Still a ton of fun but nothing compared to full race trim!

Go watch a race!
Ask questions!
Most are enthusiastic and love to share basic info with others.

Maintenance isn't bad as long as you don't blow a motor(I never did).
Plan on a new set of piston rings every season and a couple set's of brake pads will get you through a year.

I consider them easy to work on along as you have pretty good mechanical skills.

I've never done anything with shifters, but have raced automatics a few times. They turned an old car dealership into a track locally and I have a friend whose boss rented it out for the night for their Christmas party. It was unlimited racing, which was pretty cool because you normally have to pay by the race..or block of races. We just went until we got tired of it.

I also tried it on a track in Ft. Lauderdale last year, which was even crazier because the straightaways were much longer, so you could really build up some speed coming into the corners. I separated my shoulder in a massive pileup in one of those corners, but had a helluva time doing it.