I primarily created this video to help people buy karts that want to run at PMP, but hopefully it can be helpful for many others! If you want to support what we do here: www.buymeacoffee.com/TurnLeft
Its so hard to even find a decent used Kart for a fair price, people think these are made of gold! Ive seen people trying to sell early 2000 karts for $800+ for just a roller, no motor, no body, beat all to hell!
It's really bad in West Michigan, there isn't any inventory over here. We'd be excited to find an $800 kart in that condition. All the deals seem to be in North Carolina. Most karts I buy I drive 1-3hrs for.
First I would check out your local track you plan on running and look at and their rules and try to identify what class you will want to run. I'd also encourage you to go to a race or two and talk to the parents of the kids running in that class or similar classes. There are "kid karts" out there, they look like race karts but shorter. I do not know too much about them myself, so I am not sure at what age they move on from that to a regular sized kart. I think at 7 you would be good to go right into a normal kart. Again look at your local track and make sure of that with their rules. The big thing for you to look for buying a kart is try to find one that is setup already for a kid, which a lot of them are. This means pedal risers, the pedals are moved back, and if your lucky a seat that will already fit your kid. This will save you a lot of time converting a kart that was setup for an adult.
Dool Banshee, I have one, a 1999 model. Some parts are no longer available. One decent crash and your kart is done. I bought mine new old stock 3 years ago at a great price and got a year and half out of it before the spindle was bent. You need a newer kart to be able to get parts.
Someone that runs at our track has one and is doing very well on it. Yah those spindles are unique. If you find a good fabricator they should be able to make a new one based on the old spindle, and the other non bent one. But it could be pricey for sure. Definitely a good point, if you go newer, and with L blocks part availability is more generic and better.
I got a banshee to it’s a very good handling kart. I play around in parking lots and at the track some. I got mine with no motor and only two wheels for 300 I built a non hemi predator and I can hang with the newer karts. I was at one track and a guy there had a banshee and he had converted the front end to a adjustable. Just because it’s old and cheap you can still have fun on a budget.
That's awesome, the old karts still can do work. I have an '00 Prowler and a '17 Rival, and the Prowler is my Primary. For some reason I just get more out of it.
I buy a lot of my stuff from BMI, but if you do some google searching you can find other retailers. My advice, it's much cheaper in the end to buy a kart as a roller, or as close to turn key as possible than to build one.
I’m kind of a fat ass at 220lbs. Is that too heavy for these things? I raced flat track bikes and street stock back in the day. Want to race anything dirt oval again.
I'm 6' and 210 and I do fine. There are a few people that run my track that are heavier than me. I think you'd be fine. I raced flat track bikes myself for about 8 yrs and occasionally still race a bike. I also raced asphalt sportsman too for about 5 yrs, and honestly the karts are as fun, possibly more fun
