Often times I explain to people the business I try to operate called the Go Kart Guru.com. People often jump to the conclusion that I must have a cushy life seeing I have 5 go karts that I may be working on, or have in development. I don’t have a cushy life by any means, if anything I put a lot of effort in making go karts that people would like and most especially afford.
The Go Kart Guru.com has an aim and that is to put into the hands of the everyday person the ability to fabricate a go kart from straight forward materials, without busting your budget. I have personally made go karts with less than 200 dollars; sometimes even less than 100 dollars, depending on the gokart.
I take great pains into restricting myself on some of my go karts in the realm of expense and complexity. For example on the Phi-Alpha 20 the go kart sat for a year until I could figure out the steering that was not complicated, obstructive, and expensive. Also the restrictions on how much welding needed to take place always puts a damper on the design too. There were times I was wondering if it was even possible to construct a completely wood go kart with minor metal components.
There have been times that I have been working on the go kart and the design solution was so unique, yet simple that my sons have mentioned…you need to write an article about that. There are just so many things that I do intuitively that may not come to most people as simple and as solutions. So being the Go Kart Guru can be a little frustrating because there is a wealth of go kart information and tricks that I need to start tapping out and letting people know about.
Also, restraining myself so that I do not make it too complicated is always a chore. “Make it simple stupid.” Or as I like to say “It needs to be worked on and come apart.” Most of a design is about wrestling with the actual disassembly or the “being worked on phase.” Nothing is perfect and needs to be accessible for maintenance or replacement.
There is also the admitting defeat in a design. It is tough to realize you spent a good two weeks on something that is just not panning out. That is tough to swallow and being the go kart guru sometimes you consciously “gamble” on a design strategy knowing it could fail. For example, the two seater go kart that I started 5 years ago stumbled and fell into a steering design trap. To put it bluntly, the steering is awful and needs to be torn out. Camber, caster is to be thrown to the wind at this point. The hidden design frustrations in steering is the amount of force required to actuate steering. There is a reason for example why cars have powersteering, riding tractors have reduction and so forth, and these hard knocks can really smack you up side the head if you wander into territory unknown.
The steering performs as intended, making the go kart corner on rails, but at the cost of steering effort, and that is the hidden nemesis that makes the steering awful.
So being the Go Kart Guru is not all that is may be cracked up to be. As the go kart guru, I try to put myself into your shoes. What would you run into? Would you be able to make this? Would you really be able to get tires for free, and engine for free? Could you really make a vertical engine work on a go kart as we show in our vertical engine course, or are we just blowing smoke?
That is one major reason that we have a money back guarantee is to show you how serious we are about our products. We have go kart plans, ebooks and videos that try to get you into the go kart fab world before you start falling into deep traps of forgotten hood, where the go kart solutions just seem to be way beyond your capabilities.
Go Karts take work, they take mechanical knowledge, but they also take patience. They take “step- back from the table go into the house and think on it” patience. I know…been there…done that. Everyone of our designs has those moments. Our plans and books help to take the school of hard-knocks out of your lap and into ours. Learn from our mistakes and you can make winners.
Regards
Robert Gamble
