The Go-Go Karts

Until their engines start, the cars look like casual products of the neighborhood junkyard. The body is an open, tubular-steel chassis with a wheelbase of some 40 in., a bucket seat that rests a scant two inches above the ground. Knees stuffed under his chin, the driver cramps behind the wheel like a frog in a walnut. Then the two dinky, 6-h.p. engines perched behind the seat begin to snarl, and the bedspring contraption becomes a hot, highly engineered racing machine that can hit 85 m.p.h. on the straightaway, drift through corners like a Maserati. Says one driver: "The feeling of speed is fantastic! Even at 30 m.p.h. you feel like you're leading the pack at Le Mans."

From Six to 60. High sensation at relatively low speed and cost has turned the so-called "go kart" into the newest sensation in auto racing. Born in California three years ago, go karting has grown into a coast-to-coast sport and attracted something like 100,000 lead-footed devotees from six to 60. This year, say the addicts, another 100,000 will go kart crazy. New clubs are springing up at a one-a-day clip, and in California, a town of 5,000 can draw 10,000 visitors for a race. This week Westbury, L.I. will inaugurate a track for the tiny racers, one of 3,500 around the U.S. Nor is the U.S. alone in the sport; go karting is growing at full throttle in Europe, and colonies are flourishing in Australia, Peru and Mexico. Explains one official: "Every frustrated driver who could never afford a competition car is putting himself or his kid in a go kart."

Today's go karts are direct descendants of the first model put together in 1956 by a crack Los Angeles mechanic named Art Ingels, 41, who set out to build a cheap, pocket-sized racer in the spare time from his job of working on the "big cars" that race at Indianapolis. Ingels' prototype, made from spare parts, was powered by a lawn-mower engine. The new models are often precision-built from equipment specifically designed for go karts, including tires, tiny high-speed (up to 16,000 r.p.m.) engines, steering gears and bodies turned out by some 65 firms that know a good thing when they see it. The finished kart can cost as little as $150 (top speed: 38 m.p.h.) or as much as $700 (85 m.p.h.). This year go karters will spend an estimated $30 million on them.

Handle with Care. In the eyes of critics, go karters take plenty of chances for their money and fun. On the theory that it is better to be thrown clear of a flipping car than pinned beneath it, the drivers wear no safety belts, rely on heavy leather jackets for protection. Brakes are sometimes rudimentary; the steering is so sensitive that the slightest nudge of the wheel is enough to jerk the nose around. Most important, a 125-lb., 18-h.p. go kart can match a red-hot Porsche "Spyder" in weight-to-horsepower ratio, and is just as likely to spin out on high-speed curves. After turning two laps in a go kart, Sam Hanks, winner of the 1957 Indianapolis 500, pulled up with a sigh of relief: "This is the most overpowered car I've ever driven in my life."

The national clubs are doing their best to make the sport a little less hair-raising. California's Go Kart Club of America and Florida's Grand Prix Kart Club of America have both set up rigorous standards for their races. The Go Kart Club does not allow anyone under 16 to race, claims it has never had a fatal accident in an authorized race. So does the Grand Prix, though its rules permit six-year-olds to race karts held down to 30 m.p.h. and twelve-year-olds to compete in the karts that will turn 85 m.p.h. What both clubs fear is the unsupervised novice who spins around suburban lanes, and the impromptu races held in supermarket parking lots. Last year's casualty list, according to the National Safety Council: five killed. Admits Grand Prix Founder Sherman ("Red") Crise: "If not handled with care, a kart can be darned dangerous. We have to make this sport safe or we'll be out of business in six months."

The Sports Car Club of America still shuns the upstart go kart as unsafe and undignified. But many a driver of 150-m.p.h. racers keeps a go kart in his backyard, insists that the wide-tread width (two-thirds of the wheelbase) makes the kart safer than most bigger machines. Top sports-car men who get a kick out of go karts include John Fitch, Jay Chamberlain and Dan Gurney, despite the fact that one knocked him down last year in the Bahamas and broke his ankle. And in Britain, Stirling Moss, the finest driver of them all, is a partner in one of the 50-odd British companies that are hurrying to turn out equipment for a booming sport that has attracted none other than Prince Charles, Princess Anne, and Mr. and Mrs. Antony Armstrong-Jones. Properly handled, claims Moss, the go kart is as safe as a go cart. "Some people," says he, "can kill themselves standing still."

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