Total karters in US?

J.G. Sikes · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:59 am Post subject: Total karters in US?

I am curious if anyone knows how many active karters we have in the US ? Total number including asphalt, dirt, sprint, oval, road race et cetera. I am guessing some of the kart shops would have an educated guess?

Greg Wright · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:22 am Post subject:

I doubt that anybody can come up with anything close to an accurate guess.
I think that most karters would be surprised how low the overall number is, I certainly don't know but I do know that it is significantly less than it was 10 years ago.
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Chris Beasley · Joined: 02 Jan 2013 Posts: 3

Well I certainly don't have a number for all karters of all forms, but I have some information for sprint karting.

Using the race result data we use to rank drivers at KartRank.com I came up with this:
For our Midwest and South Atlantic regions, I get nearly right on 3500 different drivers including all classes and ages.

By Midwest I mean these tracks: Midwest
And by South Atlantic I mean these tracks: South Atlantic

Obviously this hasn't covered the whole country, and there is some error because I was using some data we haven't had a chance to clean up yet.

I would guess the numbers I have are somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of sprint karting in the U.S. so a country-wide estimate just for sprint karting would be 7,000-10,500. Put a more depressing way, that would be <0.0035% of the US population.

Jim McMahon · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 2:31 pm Post subject:

First you gotta ask yourself what you consider to be a karter.
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J.G. Sikes · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 7:42 pm Post subject:

Tim Salvino · Joined: 20 Nov 2010 Posts: 261

Greg Wright · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 8:54 am Post subject:

Tim, I wouldn't want to commit to the percentages but you are right on, I've been in the karting business for over 30 years and a sizable percentage of the machines in the field do not race.
It seems that this percentage has grown noticeably over the last 10 or so years, my biggest customers are "Track Day Warriors" that express no interest in organized racing. Yes they are karters.
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"When in doubt, gas it. It won't help but it ends the suspense."

Tim Doll · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:02 am Post subject:

Back in those dark days when I was on the IKF Board, I learned something rather surprising:

The 'typical' karter in the USA runs a 4 stroke on a dirt oval, and run 'outlaw' (i.e. unsanctioned). They are common in 'flyover' country (midwest and south), rare on the coasts, and race pretty much weekly during the summer. At least 10 years ago, they outnumbered sprint karters by ~ 10 to 1.

I've not paid much attention since I dropped of the IKF Board in 2002, but I have little reason to think that has changed.

Tim
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John Matthews · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:29 am Post subject:

Yep,

Way more dirt karters than sprint. Simple reasons too, it's easy to build the tracks and you can run old stuff.

But the question about how many karters there are is one that comes up whenever somebody tries to write a business plan for karts. I tried to figure it out ten years ago when I got into the business and what I learned was it really doesn't matter. If you have enough money to target all the karters in the US you'll be a lot smarter investing it elsewhere and you probably already know it.

What really matters for most kart businesses is how many karters are at your local track. If they're under served, and you're going out there anyway, and you're willing to build a business around your hobby then go for it.

If you have a cool new widget you think everyone will want then go ahead and start selling it. Nobody except your mom is likely to invest based on the huge potential market of kart racers. If you need something for your business plan just take the numbers you can get and triple them. It'll be close enough Wink

Cheers,
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