Behind the Laptop: By the Numbers – 2024
How many karters are there in the USA?
(Photo: Studio52.us)
Hello 2025, and welcome to what is expected to be another exciting year of karting here in the United States and around the world. We’re all back into the EKN office full-time after the Christmas and New Year breaks, and we’re gearing up for what will be another busy opening three months of the season to kick off 2025.
Back in May 2024, I penned a column (One Down, Two to Go) discussing the numbers through the first third of the year. The core of the article was rooted at the popular question we hear every year:
How Many Karters Are There in the USA?
It was shocking to see the exact figure of just the winter programs, with my estimate that over 1,000 karters were competing here in the United States in that May 2024 column.
Over the past few weeks, I was able to collect the simple data of drivers who competed at the traveling series, including a total of 17 championship and one-off events that are at the core of the sport here in the United States. In addition, I’ve gathered the stats for the ever-growing 4-cycle program that is dominating the grassroots level – Cup Karts North America – including their four divisional programs and special events.
Of course, when collecting the data, there are a lot more factors that we could not include because of the complete lack of information. Among them is how many specific drivers are from outside the United States. In our data collection, it was names only, not the hometown or countries, due to lack of data available from the respective series and events. Should there ever be a national licensing system at all levels through one organization that oversees the sport of karting in the United States, we could arrive at true and exact figure in the number of karters here in the USA.
To compile these stats, I grabbed the names of competitors in the selected series and events. Each series or event total is the number of unique drivers, not entries.
2024 Winter Programs Overall: 638
SKUSA Winter Series – 266
Florida Winter Tour – 317
Challenge of the Americas – 168
A total of 638 unique drivers competed in the three winter programs for 2024. As we covered in the earlier column, a total of 98 drivers participated in both the SKUSA and FWT programs. Of those who raced at the Challenge, six competed at both COTA and SKUSA, while six race COTA and FWT. Of those drivers, two did all three programs (Dean Pedersen and Drew Jensen).
2024 Summer Overall: 589
United States Pro Kart Series – 403
SKUSA Pro Tour – 364
Over the course of five race weekends, USPKS welcomed over 400 drivers while SKUSA was over the 350 mark for three weekends, all of which took place in the two east time zones (Eastern / Central). A total of 178 drivers competed in both, which supports the theory that there is a core of 200 unique drivers who support the major karting championships.
2024 Regional Overall: 1600
Stars Championship Series – 419 (11 classes)
Texas Sprint Racing Series – 301 (11 classes)
California ProKart Challenge – 221 (8 classes)
Route 66 Sprint Series – 205 (9 classes)
NWKA Padholder Super Cup Series – 283 (14 classes)
Colorado Karting Tour – 177 (11 classes)
Sunshine State Karting Challenge – 173 (9 classes)
The unique part of the regional championships, five of seven include Briggs & Stratton 206 categories, from Kid Karts to Masters divisions. This overall total is a combination of all seven series drivers list to tabulate the unique drivers competing across them. Those who raced in multiple programs of these seven is 179 names. Example is a competitor racing at both Stars and Route 66, they were counted in the overall total as one name/driver. Adding to the stats, 265 of the 403 USPKS drivers (65%) competed in regional competitions and 217 of the 364 drivers at the SKUSA Pro Tour (60%) were among the list of regional competitors.
2024 Rotax Overall: 172
Rotax US Trophy West – 87
Rotax US Trophy East – 68
Rotax US Trophy Final – 74
The RaceRotax program held seven events over the 2024 season. The West had four weekends, while the East contested two events, with the Final event in August. A total of 147 drivers were at the West and East programs as eight contested both programs. There were only 25 drivers who competed at only the US Trophy Final event. There was the Rotax Winter Trophy program, however, we were not able to collect that data correctly.
2024 Vegas Overall: 578
ROK Vegas – 197
SKUSA SuperNationals 27 – 492
The season ends with two big events in Las Vegas. Drivers from around the world competed at the ROK Vegas and SKUSA SuperNationals 27. Both events had nine classes in total and 111 drivers contested both race weeks.
2024 National/Regional Overall: 2239
The total of unique drivers across the board, when combining all the lists of drivers from the programs above. There were 2,239 unique names in the 17 different programs in 2024. The regional programs certainly help bolster the total, as does the Vegas events when adding those who did not race at any of the championship programs throughout the 2024 season, including the many international drivers who travel to the USA. This shows how important the regional level is for the sport of karting, which helps bring club competitors up to the next level. However, I think the number shows the possibility of how much larger events COULD be here in the United States.
2024 CKNA Overall: 1060
CKNA Grand Nationals 8 – 497
CKNA Spring Nationals – 400
CKNA Summer Nationals – 210
CKNA South – 254
CKNA North – 210
CKNA Canada – 153 (eight classes)
CKNA East – 146
The grassroots movement of the Briggs 206 engine platform and the Cup Karts North America organization has helped to grow to over 1,000 drivers racing in 4-cycle competition. The total of 1,060 is unique names that competed in the four divisional programs and three one-off events. I calculated a total of 264 of the CKNA Overall list also competed in a national/regional competition outside of the CKNA program. This leaves a total of 796 drivers who raced only CKNA at the major and divisional level.
2024 Overall: 3035
The combination of all the lists put the total of unique drivers/names to over three thousand competing in national and regional karting events in the United States. Again, several drivers are from outside the USA as there was international participation at multiple events throughout 2024. This overall breakdown does help give us an idea to the numbers involved in traveling karting series from coast-to-coast.
Remember, this is just a simple breakdown of the participation we saw in 2024. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not factoring in other championships and club competition across the country in sprint racing. Add in the karters who are in the road racing world and the heavy populated oval karting community, and the numbers continue to rise. It may seem minimal, but karting is everywhere, you just need to find it. While the numbers exceeds my expectations, I wonder how the karting community views this data.
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