First Kart...a memorable experience

[REAR]

Remember your first kart ? Remember the sight, the sound, the speed ? Sure you do.

Recently while looking around on craigslist and seeing ads for some old homemade karts for sale they brought back a lot of memories of my first experience with a go- kart as a 9 year old kid. I remember me and few guys from the neighborhood had seen pictures of a kart in some magazines and we were on a mission from that day on to build us a go-kart and we ended up with something kind of like the kart in the pictures below.



If memory serves me correct we ran a direct belt drive Clinton 4 stroke motor we got off a Western Auto reel type lawnmower that we found in a neighbors garbage can that we nailed down on the chassis. We then took a piece of wire and attached it to the carb butterfly for a throttle and rope got tied to each front axle end to help aid your legs in steering. Wheels were supplied by the same Western Auto mower for the back since they already had the drive pulley mounted and we scrounged up some front wheels from somewhere else.

Since I was the guy who was spearheading this mission I was also elected to be the driver [sucker] on the karts maiden voyage. I remember the sound of the motor turning over as I was pushed off down the street and then all of a sudden the motor started, OH NO, NOW WHAT !!!!! I thought to myself, this thing is actually running and I'm driving it and I don't even know how to drive it.

As I moved down the street I remember the neighbors looking on in amazement as this young kid [me] drove by in a miniature motorized vehicle. Shortly there after as I was going down the street I was starting to run out of road so I figured I'd slow down a little bit, cut the wheels hard to the left and do a 180 and head back up the street for a victory lap. This was NOT meant to be.

When I let go of the throttle the kart didn't slow down, remember this thing was direct drive so even at idle its still moving. Then I thought about plan 'B' which was scraping my feet on the ground to slow it down but I couldn't do that either as my feet were steering stabilizers keeping tension on the front axle. With no options left I went to plan 'C', cut it hard to the left and hope for the best.

Well...I'm here to say that things didn't turn out to well. As I yanked on the steering rope pulling the axle to the left the left wheel turned all the way into the side of the chassis locking up the wheel immediately and into a skid because the motor was still driving the kart. Now bad goes to worse, I soon found out the hard way that I didn't have enough steering radius and the kart wasn't going to make the 180 no matter what I did so at this point I just rode the kart head-on into the curb on the street where it ripped the front axle clean off of it and luckily stalled the motor on impact as I rolled off of the side of it.

Hell of a first experience with karts but Its been 50 years since my first drive with that Clinton powered kart and I'll be honest, I can't wait for my next kart experience

R.E.A.R.....We've got our head up our past.

[ted johnson]

Ya gotta LOVE IT! My first vehicle was very weird, too. A Michigan inventor named Sam Horst used to come to FL for the winters. He had built an all aluminum platform about four feet long, three wide and maybe a foot high with four axles, with sealed ball bearing multi groove sheaves on each side arranged like a tank. Each side had four 3/4" wide steel cord belts for "tracks". The front two sheaves had a smaller sheave cast in on the inside, between track and vehicle sides. He had a ton of machining, material and aluminum in it. He'd always liked me, and one day he brought the "tank" to Pop's shop and gave it to me. I installed a four cycle Clinton with centrifugal clutch, cross shaft with belts running down to the inside sheaves and lever operated belt tightening idlers. I was maybe eleven. Darn if it didn't work after Pop helped me tweak it a little. I and my pal, Jerry and the kid next door drove that thing everywhere for three years, until I got my first Bug. It sat in the corner of the shop for about a year after that, until we learned of a polio-striken lady doctor named Gayden who'd lost the use of her legs. Pop put a bigger engine on with electric start and he and I upgraded the entire drive and control system and added a seat so she didn't have to kneel. She lived down by Melbourne Beach, and she drove that thing up and down the beach for years. When I got married eight years later, she was still driving it. Pop would go to her house occasionally and bring it back to the shop, and he'd make sure everything was O.K. with it. The main eight belts only had to be replaced one time in all those years. Old Sam Horst was sure proud of the good use we got out of the "tank". Ted

[REAR]

Teddy,
Sounds like a pretty cool contraption that fellow gave you.

Never thought of using 'wagon' steering on our kart like pictured below.



Although you might have more steering control and the 'foot brake' option that steering shaft doesn't look very user friendly in the event of any unavoidable contact.

As a side note....it was many years before the telltale Wolf's Head motor oil stain at the crash site washed away.

Merry Christmas....R.E.A.R.

[ted johnson]

It was good living right next to Pop's shop. I got to mingle with lots of "different" types. The younger brother of the guy who gave me the "tank", Joe Horst, had retired and permanently moved a couple miles West of our place. He was in and out of the shop, and had become friends with Pop, and I guess he liked me. He was driving on Hwy. 192, right in front of the shop, when a pulp log truck lost its load right in front of Joe's car. He swerved into the ditch in front of the house across the road and crumpled the fender, grille, hood and bumper of his nice old '48 Dodge Custom convertible. He wasn't hurt. He got out of the car, walked across the road to the shop and said "That's it. I'm not driving any more". He gave me the Dodge for $50. I had our body-man friend, Bert Carroll, fix the Dodge and buff the paint. It was my first car, and I drove it for two years. When we sold it, we gave the money to Joe. Beige convert, 230 C.I. flathead six, fluid drive. Wasn't a hot rod, but it ran good, and it was a convertible, so the girls liked riding in it.
Oh, yeah, I must've built three or four wooden "karts" with lawn mower wheels, but when I started guarter midgets, the wooden thingies got discarded.

[Rob Voska]

When I was very young probably less than 4 years old Dad stopped at Crescent Raceway in Toledo. I remember barely being able to see over the hay bails that were stacked up & also when we went into the shop that was an old house there was a stand with 4 karts on it kinda like a Christmas tree. Two sideways & low & 2 sideways & high. We were renting a house at the time next to a machine shop & the neighbor kid on the other side had a kart & would get it out once in a while & run it around the parking lot. Fast forward about 8 years & I got hooked on Go Kart Challenge book at the library. One day after reading it about 50 times I asked mom to call her old neighbor Pat & see if Ricky still had his kart & if he would sell it. Been hanging on the wall for years & yes they would sell it. $80 was a lot of money for a kid. I don't remember how long it took to save that much money but I do remember counting my kart money every day until I got it. Finally I had enough & the deal was done. I had my first kart. Still don't know what the kart was. Had a strange angled slot chain adjustment motor mount I have never seen again. It did have a PP Super 58 & a cool bullet spun aluminum tank. Nothing like a kid with tools & no engine knowledge & a dried out carb kit & dry seal 2 cycle motor. Must have pulled that thing a million times. Later a friends dad looked at it & got it running but then the clutch broke...... by the time I had enough money for a clutch it would not run again. Fast forward 40 years and who knows how many dollars and miles.......... but still plays with karts applies.

[ted johnson]

Rob, wouldn't you like to have that machine with the Super 58 back again? We first saw karts in a Lynn Wineland article in Rod and Custom in '57. Pop had bought a '32 Ford Roadster with a monster modified V-12 OHV Caddie engine from some rich guy in Miami Beach, and had begun reading R&C, Car Craft and Hot Rod. He said if I earned half the price, he'd pay the other half on a kart. He'd give me old cast iron mower engines that would've been put in the scrap pile, then he'd sell me the parts at distributor net to refurbish them. I had a wire rack in the mower showroom with good remanufactured engines to sell. I'd even get out the spray equipment and repaint them, though most of them ended up being Ford tractor red and gray, because we had buckets of both colors. I'd sell the engines, pay Pop for the parts and put the remainder in a big jug. I was thirteen at the time. Once I got half the money for a new Bug Custom, and half the freight, Pop ordered the kart. He liked Tom Pierson so much on the phone that he established a Bug dealership right then and there. This was in 1958, and by the time the kart arrived, I'd had a birthday and was fourteen. The kart was black and shiny, with an A400, a clutch and upholstery. By late '61, I'd taken over the kart end of the shop completely, and this let Pop put his time into the mower shop, where the real money was. We each did all the maintenance on our own karts, and did our own modifications. Mom had been a welder on submarines at Electric Boat in Connecticut during WWII, so Pop bought a TIG outfit and she taught herself to get good on it. She did most of our welding for the first couple of years. Ted