How to get into motor racing as a kid/teen - any racers on here?

jaybee · 9 Jul 2021 at 17:00

I have a son that is starting to express and interest in karting. I have no experience in this as a hobby and have only ever done casual sessions with mates. Is the best way to join a local karting club? Any advice? He is 12 years old and has to drive the small karts at teamsport due to being smaller. I have always generally written this hobby off as something that would probably cost a lot so have never looked into it properly.

What typical costs would be involved and is karting the right route?
Do kids that do it tend to race on weekends?
Is it competitive at age 12 or does it start a bit later on?
Is 12 years old too late to start?
Do you need to invest in all your own gear and kart or can you rent at clubs?

I am into motorsport myself in terms of I watch it and have done karting casually from time to time. I'm also good mechanically would probably be able to maintain the kart with no issues if we did get one.

Cheers

EDIT: Sorry should have posted in the motorsport sub forum

mccarf · 9 Jul 2021 at 18:34

https://www.abkc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/StartKartingMS-UK_Leaflet.pdf

Edit: I've never done it (competitively) myself but if some of the kids have 4 years of racing experience by the time they're the same age as your boy, it might be very stiff competition

Nasher · 9 Jul 2021 at 21:13

You have to have rich parents with contacts and start very young otherwise you have no chance. Not of going to the big leagues anyway.

Until you start getting sponsorship it's super expensive to keep it up.

It's the complete contrast to something like football or rugby, where people are picked on merit alone and given support.

adam cool dude · 10 Jul 2021 at 09:23

Nasher said:
You have to have rich parents with contacts and start very young otherwise you have no chance. Not of going to the big leagues anyway.

Until you start getting sponsorship it's super expensive to keep it up.

It's the complete contrast to something like football or rugby, where people are picked on merit alone and given support.

Quite I did a bit of karting when I was a kid and the money even back then was astronomical. You really cannot have a full time job and do it either. My father had me quite late in life. (Mid 40's) and was retired by his 50's. Height and weight makes up a lot as well. I am 6ft 3 so too tall anyway. Everyone just used to beat me in a straight line as power to weight is pretty important. Strangely I enjoyed RC cars much more and did quite a lot of that in my teens till I learnt to drive ironically quite late at 20. Even RC cars were expensive. I think my TC3 which I was racing at the time must have been close to 2K for most of the kit.

It is why I have a lot of respect for people like Mansell and Button. Being tall is so fantastic in day to day life but is the hardest thing to overcome in Motorsport

.

Rroff · 12 Jul 2021 at 01:11

Like a lot of stuff like this I've just been a hanger on - used to do a bit of karting but it was more other people's interest than mine (I loved doing it but I wasn't that into it). As mentioned above power to weight is a huge thing at that kind of level - always used to puzzle me how some of the youngest kids would leave very talented racers in the dust until someone spelt it out LOL.

Deep pockets and a lot of dedication if you want to get anywhere unfortunately.

EDIT: No idea if they still do it but there used to be events where you could basically turn up and race in a variety of formats (usually lap time rather than head to head) with a chance of getting talent scouted.

kaiowas · 12 Jul 2021 at 15:50

Forget any ideas you might be having about it being anything more than a hobby. If you had the necessary funding and contacts required for anything more you wouldn’t be asking questions here.

If you’re still game and happy to accept that it’s still going to take up all of your spare time and money then proceed…

phil675 · 12 Jul 2021 at 16:00

While still a money pit, motorcycle racing is much cheaper and easier to get into as far as I know.

dave28 · 12 Jul 2021 at 16:02

Join a karting club, if you can ever build upto the top 10 kids there then have a look into maybe but your looking too far into the future i think.

EddScott · 12 Jul 2021 at 16:14

adam cool dude said:
Even RC cars were expensive.

It's not quite the same thing, but maybe get back into RC racing?

RC has been my main hobby for almost 3 decades (I'm still a fairly rubbish racer).

I got big into sim racing during the lockdowns. My rig probably cost the same as a cheap Clio, trailer and 4X4 to tow it all

Highly enoyable and I'm sure it's helped with my RC racing.

JohnStewart · 12 Jul 2021 at 16:29

I'd highly recommend the Junior Saloon Car Championship (as seen on Top Gear). They run older Citroen Saxos and are generally quite cheap to run and repair. From what I've heard it's significantly cheaper for a season than higher level karting.

https://www.juniorsaloons.co.uk/

Maybe do a few years of low cost club level karting to start with, to build up experience of racing, crashing, budgeting, writing race reports, attracting sponsors etc.

Housey · 12 Jul 2021 at 21:57

kaiowas said:
Forget any ideas you might be having about it being anything more than a hobby. If you had the necessary funding and contacts required for anything more you wouldn’t be asking questions here.

If you’re still game and happy to accept that it’s still going to take up all of your spare time and money then proceed…

Yup.

Something like 100 race drivers in the world who get paid to race.

The rest fund it, 95% via a company/sponsors or in my case my after tax cash. You will be competing with rich dads (i mean 7 figure spending) even in karts. It is a tough game to get anywhere even if your lad is Senna V2.

MrKnifey · 13 Jul 2021 at 15:41

I do entry level car racing and it costs me on average £1100 a round..

Ninco! · 13 Jul 2021 at 21:01

No answers, the costs to compete were eye watering in the late eighties and I was too old as a teen to start - it was a pipedream. Stuck to Scalextric instead.

Lewis himself openly admitted that his family would never have been able to afford to race if his time was now.

Always think that Lewis would be an ideal role model to form an academy as his lasting legacy for young kids from less wealthy/diverse backgrounds to have a shot at racing.

robj20 · 13 Jul 2021 at 21:07

Something I wish I had got into, got a friend that's just been racing at Goodwood. Normally go down with them but busy at the minute, other friends goes with him as his mechanic.
The whole thing around the racing is just as good as the actual racing if you ask me

KiNgPiN83 · 14 Jul 2021 at 23:14

Rob Smedley is involved with some sort of karting startup here: https://totalkartingmotorsport.com and https://www.facebook.com/TotalKartingZero

I've had many a FaceBook ad fired at me about it. Seems to be based on electric karts and they do open days to show the kids the ropes. (No idea whether its any good or not but i doubt Rob would put his name to something rubbish)

Slackworth · 19 Jul 2021 at 12:09

I used to know a guy who's son was flying through the karting ranks even beating a couple of track records set by LH when he was in his karting days - at the time it was self-funded with the belief he would eventually push up into one of the Formula series and collect sponsorships to help pay for it. His parents sold their house and move into rented accommodation in order to free up some equity to fund it all and after blowing probably close to £40K per year for the best part of 7 years and dedicating every living hour on it, the money eventually ran out and he ended up just going off to University to study Motorsport Engineering - in reality he could end up working for someone like an F1 team with some of the contacts made within the industry but certainly won't end up being the next Lando or Lewis.

Unfortunately it's all about the money and if you want it to go anywhere, you're going to need lots of it. The last team he was in were charging tens of thousands per year to be in and they ended up going bust as they couldn't get the sponsorship money to cover all the costs either.

Hopefully something like the Rob Smedley project will get a few people without money into the sport but honestly - I still don't ever see how some of these guys would ever get seats in the likes of F1 when you have drivers paying tens of millions for their seats or wealthy parents such as Stroll who can gift a place.

Nasher · 24 Jul 2021 at 18:06

Ninco! said:
No answers, the costs to compete were eye watering in the late eighties and I was too old as a teen to start - it was a pipedream. Stuck to Scalextric instead.

Lewis himself openly admitted that his family would never have been able to afford to race if his time was now.

Always think that Lewis would be an ideal role model to form an academy as his lasting legacy for young kids from less wealthy/diverse backgrounds to have a shot at racing.

Hamilton was never really as poor as he makes out either. Stevenage isn't a "slum" (as he once claimed lol) and his Dad owned an IT company.

Terminal_Boy · 24 Jul 2021 at 18:10

Nasher said:
Hamilton was never really as poor as he makes out either. Stevenage isn't a "slum" (as he once claimed lol) and his Dad owned an IT company.

Parts of it aren’t far off, but the bit he lived was decent and, as you say, his dad was earning a decent crust.

Nasher · 24 Jul 2021 at 18:20

Terminal_Boy said:
Parts of it aren’t far off, but the bit he lived was decent and, as you say, his dad was earning a decent crust.

Every town has it's scummy area. It's kinda mandated, they have to put the scum somewhere.

Quartz · 24 Jul 2021 at 19:50

jaybee said:
I have a son that is starting to express and interest in karting.

Then go for it! While I do think that it's very late to get started if he's aiming at F1, for touring cars and banger racing it's never too late. And regardless, at the very least he will have tried it.