Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126543
..... ~ CD .c ~ o en ~ z ~ Race Karts I think I'd like to... ByW. F.Ohhh By now I suppose everyone has seen Yamaha's race kart ad - you know the one with the back lit shot of a wild kart completely going for it pitched to the right spewing a giant rooster tail across the top of its dusty wake it blurts out "TWO WAYS TO GET SIDEWAYS," Sideways indeedl I always thought karts fell oeaft Go Oat Wlth. .t It .•• 14 . . . Into two categones -. the kind you ~t by ~ lap at shoppmg center pa~mg lots and play bump the leader WIth your friends, or the full-on, no compromise race/enduro karts like the lay down jobs tbat blistered around the Long Beach Grand Prix road race . course. Now Yamaba's ad would make you think they might actually drive thOle things off the road, maybe even race them, so we just bad to find out more. . Actually, Yamaha had a number of objectives in mind when they began developing their kart program five yean ago. Fint of all, kart racing in general bad stagnated as the high per_ formance, highly temperamental exotic McCullough based cars had priced themselves out of most enthusiasts' bands. The entry level, grass roots product/environment bad virtua1ly vanished. Enter Yamaha. Combine a simple rugged overall chassis design whose original geometric configuration is still competitive with a basic l00cc two stroke engine in an embarrassing, mild state of tune (read reliability) and you've got a super beginner package. Add Yamaha's vast, easily accessible dealer network pi'ovic;iing immediate low COlt parts and servtce and a $1,500 price tag for the complete cart and you've got a ready made winner. Yamaba karts are uaed on and off the road and they are ra~ from bone stock ~o ultra modifi~. The International Kart Federation has a number of classes the Yamahas fit into and there ~ tentative .plans to develop IKF dirt tra~ senes fo~ 19B!. On the quarter mile oval bUlc stock models are good for 60 mph on the s~raightaway a~ 16-18 second lap times. Dual engine l00cc ka~ts a;re good for 100 ~ph on ~ half mile dirt tracks. Amazmgl That IS pretty strong perforrnanc;e for a ~ l00cc 15 honepower engtne pushing ~roun~ a !WO50~ pound package including the dnver. The very accommodating folks at Yamaha were happy to prove their prowess. We were invited out to a Yamaba kart orientation date at Sadd1eback Park's quarter mile. These gatherings do a number of things for Yamaba. They give the Yamaba kart marketing folks direct input &om average driven which filters back to the production line. Dealers thinking of taking on the Yamaha karts are invited out to drive the karts themselves. The same goes for a kart dealer's hot prospects itching for a test ride. It's also a great time to introduce micro dirt sprinting to us unsuspecting ATV staffers. We were introduced to the Yamaba execs responsible for kart marketing, Rick Johnson and Rick Gamez as well as others from marketing research and competition support. We were almost immediately dropped into our first kart and given our driving instructiom, "Gas on right, brake on left, kill button here (by steering wheel), keep turning left till you get tired - she'll run all day at 10,000 plus. Okay, you're setI Keep her revved up when she flJ'el, oh yeah put your band up when you spin to warn the other driven, okay, here we go - good luck!" All of the sudden things were going too fastl - wbat did you mean when 1 spin out?1 Good luck sounded like "I hope you make itl" Rick Gamez attached his Indy car type engine starter (kart sue of course) to my kart and the healthy bark of the very revable two stroke encouraged me to pull immediately on to the track. Right off the bat for two maybe three seconds my original thoughts seemed right - a whimpsy l00cc would barely lug me around the track at parking lot speeds. All of that vanished when as the RPMs went up as well as the power and 15 hones felt like SOl The acceleration was more than excellent. Next I wondered how the standard slicks would work on the Saddleback oval whose surface changes like a chameleon after a drenching from the water truck and bleaching from the typical California sun. The slicks worked fine especially with the gas on. Even the hot dogs generally use a slightly modified tire with their own special groove pattern. The latest ltarts bave two piece wheels fitted with O-ring seals for the tubeless tires and there are wheel spacers available to allow ownen to run wider tires without buying new wheels too. Neatl