How to Become a Race Car Driver – Karting First

Most Professional Drivers Started in Kart Racing

Jul 10, 2009

To become a professional race car driver takes many years of hard work. Selecting a career path at an early age is essential if a driver is going to make it to the top.

For most future racing champions, the racing bug starts to bite the first time they drive a Go-kart. Indoor and outdoor recreation Go-kart tracks have become very popular all over the world. For a small sum, young drivers can get their first taste of racing. The sheer thrill of driving fast (relatively) and the adrenalin rush associated with motorsport competition often leads to a lifelong involvement with motorized sports.

But once the young driver has convinced his, or her, parents that this is the career they want to follow, the decisions made from this point forward will make or break their ambitions. Most parents will be supportive of their child's ambitions, but they will almost certainly temper their enthusiasm and encourage them to work hard at school (just in case the motorsport career doesn't pan out!).

High Speed

Starting motorsport at a young age is almost a prerequisite to future success. And driving close to the ground with a highly responsive vehicle (such as a race kart) will give the driver a sense of high speed and, combined with the incredible directional response of the kart, will help to train the driver's reaction timing.

Important Lessons

Besides learning essential driving skills doing kart racing, being involved in a race series will teach the driver many important lessons that will help them later in their racing careers.

Depending on the age of the driver, a number of professional companies offer endurance karting. For a moderate fee, drivers will team up and race in a professionally organized series where the Karts and equipment are supplied by the company. Races can be over as little as one hour, or as much as 24! Depending on the number of drivers in a team, the endurance series gives drivers a lot of track time for a relative lo-cost.

Budgets

After competing in a series like endurance karting, the driver may want to consider purchasing a kart for himself. At this point a driver will become familiar with a word all race teams use a lot: budget. It is not sufficient to simply purchase the best kart available and use the entire available budget doing so; to go racing with your own team requires equipment, tools, spares and a transporter. All of these items must be budgeted for before purchasing the race Kart.

The first kart that a driver will likely purchase is a non gearbox type. These karts (also used in the endurance series) have two foot pedals (brake and throttle) and are relatively easy to drive. There are many local and national race series available for them and the costs are much less then a shifter (gearbox) type.

Gearboxes and High Speeds

Although there are many variations, shifter karts generally come in two sizes, 125 cc and 250 cc. The 125s are an ideal stepping stone from the non gearbox kart to the full-blown 250 superkarts. Racing a 125-shifter kart will give the driver experience of using a gearbox and also introduce him to much higher speeds.

The superkarts are extremely fast racing vehicles. The list of champions in superkart racing includes Michael Schumacher, Tony Stewart and current F1 champion Lewis Hamilton. All of these drivers learned valuable lessons that would help them become F1, IRL or NASCAR drivers of the highest order.

150 mph Karts

The jump from 125 cc shifter karts to superkarts is quite a large one. Superkarts can do more than 150 mph and lap race tracks faster than a lot of much more expensive race cars. However, many of the professional race car teams will consider offering a drive to superkart champions before competitors from most other series.

In a nutshell, besides learning basic race driving skills in kart racing, drivers will also have the chance of starting at a young age - as young as eight years old in the UK and five years in the US. Learning how to race from such an early age will not guarantee future F1 or NASCAR drives, but it will put the driver into a much stronger position.

The copyright of the article How to Become a Race Car Driver – Karting First in How to Race Cars is owned by John Glimmerveen. Permission to republish How to Become a Race Car Driver – Karting First in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.