Rental Karting vs Owner Karting Explained

If someone came up to me and asked me, what were the major differences between rental karting and owner karting, I will tell them, of course, that differences are pretty big.

You normally start in rental karting and then transition to owner karting. Rental karting is more of an entry level, affordable way to get into karting.

Owner karting is more of a professional, elite, more expensive league. And of course, it has more power, more G forces, more fun, in a way. And of course it comes up at higher costs.

In the US, there’s very famous k1 speed venues in the UK, there’s team sport, there’s a bunch of different brands, but you can go up and just show up for 15-20 minutes, you will be able to drive and kind of have fun and practice rental karting.

And then you can always sign for races if you wish to, or you can just play, just play and drive with friends and have some fun, organize some corporate events, etc, birthday parties. So there’s my many different ways and reasons why people choose rental karting in the moment you choose owner karting.

It’s also maybe for fun, but it will be much more adrenaline reached. And of course, it will be a great feeling. Will be more professional, and, yeah, you will have higher speeds, and the feeling will be almost like a mini Formula One, and yeah, one of the most thrilling things you will do in your life.

When they go from rentals to owner karts, it’s because they want to, you know, enjoy more speed, enjoy more G forces and and have a greater adrenaline overall.

What skills can you realistically learn in rental karting?

In rental karting, you can definitely learn a lot of the skills that you will need for professional karting as well as racing cars, GDS, formulas, etc, you can definitely learn racing lines. That’s the first thing the lines you learn on rental karts, the same as you learn on the racetrack.

Of course, you are normally dealing with barriers if you’re driving indoor tracks, whereas if you’re driving outdoor rental karts, you are going to deal with the same tracks as you drive when you drive with a professional owner karts.

So you will deal with apexes. You will deal with curbs, which you have to use, of course, to go faster, not the apex curbs most of the times, but the entry and exit curbs to make the corners wider.

So yeah, the racing lines, the braking efficiency, dealing with brakes, learning to brake late and hard, and of course, the steering inputs, you have to be nice and smooth, because the the steer ratio, it’s so much smoother, so much more sensible, actually, compared to a normal road car, so you will need to use very few degrees of steering wheel compared to what you normally do on a road car on a racing car.

So that’s pretty much similar between rental karts and professional owner karts. But of course, the owner karting are much more responsive. The setups are stiffer, and of course, the frames are stiffer, the karts are lighter, more powerful, so you will need to use even less steering wheel with those karts.

But still, rental karting is a very good way to learn all the basic driving techniques that you will need also to go fast with owner karts.

At what point does rental karting stop helping progression?

If your end goal, of course, is to become a professional karting driver or even formula in the car racing driver or GTs, you will have to at some point, transit into owner karts, because rental karts have limited cap, in my opinion, because the speed of the setup pretty low, the the weight is quite high, the G force are not that high.

So at some point, I believe you’re going to plateau your development if you stick to driving rental karts. So you would have to shift to owner karts at some point.

And I feel that once you are able to consistently win or drive very fast lap teams on the rental karts, and you feel like, always feel like you would like a faster kart. You would like to get faster in the corners, that’s moment I think that you’re ready to transition into professional karts.

But of course, just be aware the costs are going to be much higher, and so you need to be ready to use up a bit of your savings from your wallet.

What’s the biggest difference in driving technique between the two?

So the major difference, I think, is that, of course, in professional karts, you have more speed depending, of course, on which category you you choose to drive with. But yeah, there’s going to be a bit of difference in speed.

And so with higher speeds, there’s going to be longer braking distances. So the braking efficiency is going to matter even more in professional karts compared to rental karts.

Because rental karts, you may have to break for just like 15 meters, 10 meters to stop, because maybe you go from 50 kilometers an hour top speed to like 35 minimum speeds to make a hairpin, whereas in the professional kart you may get from 130 kilometers an hour all the way down to 50 kilometers an hour, minimum speed for a hairpin.

So you will have to slow down like 80 kilometers an hour, and so you’ll have to do a very hard braking for a longer time than on an average rental kart track. So that is definitely one of the things that braking technique is going to be much more enhanced in the professional karts.

Of course, the grip level is going to be higher, so you’ll have to be even smoother with the steering. And of course, the racing lights are going to be important too. But again, that’s pretty equal between the two.

I feel definitely the power is quite higher on professional karts, and therefore being able to get on the throttle at the right time, using up the track properly and taking advantage of the exits is very, very important. And again, once you have high power, the exits, as well as braking, are very important. The minimum speed is also important, but the major bits are on the braking phase of the corner and the exit phase of the corner.

What do people misunderstand about kart racing karts?

Well, one of the thing that people misunderstand the most about racing karts is that they think it’s not a physical sport, but racing karts are actually very physical.

With your legs, with Your core stability, with your neck, with your chest, with your forearms. So it’s a whole body exercise. And of course, you need to have great stamina endurance to not get tired too soon.

But also, racing karts are very, very agile. So, you know, they sit on the ground, basically. And the the power to weight ratio is, is very it’s pretty high because the karts are quite light. There are, like, about 150 kilos, including kart, sorry, including the driver. And the horsepower is obviously range between 40 to 50. So yeah, there’s a lot of acceleration.

But the most important thing is that the G forces felt are pretty high. You get up 2.5 G’s in the corner, laterally, and that, of course, is a great feeling, and you don’t get to experience very often.

And of course, bear in mind, you have no seat belts in your kart, and you’re literally sitting on the ground. Your Your butt is scratching the ground for how low you are, especially if you’re a tall driver, and you have to sit very low. So in that case, you will experiment even more.

Sure, the feeling of being super low, and, yeah, the feeling of speed that you get from it. And of course, the professionalism and the level is really high in karting. And I believe that’s one of the other misunderstood thing. They believe is like just a hobby, but it’s a proper sport, with people putting their lives and passion and yeah, realistically, how much faster is a racing kart compared to a rental kart?

If we consider a 1200 meter strike, like in Lonato, South Garda Karting, where we normally do 46s-47s lap time with senior karts, or even with junior karts that have under 45 kilos of weight in a rental kart, you would definitely do at least 20 seconds lower.

So yeah, there’s a significant speed difference we need to you know, juniors and seniors reach up to 140 kilometers horsepower in the track, 135 140 whereas rental karts, I believe they reach up to 75 kilometers an hour. So there’s a pretty significant difference you will feel like, so slow when you drive a rental kart.

But yeah, I mean, they’re not built for performance. They’re built more for fun and and hobby. So of course, it’s not that powerful, but you definitely feel it over. You know, if it’s, if it’s over a lap, 20 seconds difference in you can imagine, during a race distance, what kind of driver should stay in rentals longer.

For sure, rental karts are a good option for drivers that have low budgets. They are maybe still at school, or they have they’re working for for they’re working at the job, and they may not have that much free time, and they may not have that much spare money to to spend on karting. So that’s probably the best choice to stick to rental karts.

And they may not necessarily want to go for the high performance, eye competition, karting level, that is really, really exciting for some, but also may be quite demanding for others.

So I feel those kind of drivers, even kids starting out, I believe that’s a good thing for them to stay a bit longer in rentals, again, depending a lot on the financial availabilities and time commitments, I would say, and also sometimes based on school, etc. So that’s another thing to keep in mind. But of course, if you instead want to go to professional karts, then you should make the switch early. If you want to wish to, if you wish to win lots of races and make a make, make a name for yourself internationally.

What kind of driver should move early to owner karting?

The drivers that, of course, are committed, motivated, have the available budget to spend, and, of course, the available time to allocate, for sure that will be, that will be a thing in the drivers, of course, that overall, feel like they need to to level up.

They want to go faster. And so for sure, that’s those are the kind of drivers that I would recommend to go into, into owner karts, early.

What hidden costs exist in owner karting people don’t expect?

There are many costs that are not expected. For example, besides the costs that like, including, you know, getting your own kart. People need to understand that you need to have to pay your mechanic many, many times.

Professional karts are that complicated that you know maintenance is high and you need to, of course, either learn how to do it yourself, which takes time. But. But also, even though you may know how to do yourself, you may still want to have a mechanic to help you.

So mechanic rate normally goes between 220 50 euros per day, and that’s definitely a cost that many people do not expect. It’s not mandatory, but if you want to have everything really high performing, you may need a very experienced mechanic that gives a big difference in performance.

Karting tires cost about 220 – 250 euros.

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