Vintage Karting Forum
My start in vintage dave l. - Printable Version

+- Vintage Karting Forum (https://www.vintagekartforum.com)
+-- Forum: Karting history (https://www.vintagekartforum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=35)
+--- Forum: Member reminiscences about karting early years (https://www.vintagekartforum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=34)
+--- Thread: My start in vintage dave l. (/showthread.php?tid=26)



My start in vintage dave l. - David Luciani - 01-19-2016

This will get updated but for now.
i never formally raced back in the day.
my family was simply too poor in many ways to spend money freely.
with five kids you get the idea.
anyway i always wanted a kart racing play whatever and tried building one many times.
my skills were lacking and by the time i could build things cars came into the picture.
i bought a 1965 mustang at 14 years old and spent years buying and selling muscle car relics to afford building one of my own.
back then a decent car was 1,000 bux and parts cars were 25-200 so we went through alot of iron.
later on i bought my first harley and never looked back.
years forward the "biker" scene for yuppies was a growing thing and just sucked the fun outta riding for me.
at the time i was building bikes from other people junk for fun.
then about 2004 my nephew showed up at the shop with what was left of an old go kart.
he asked us to get it running.
when i went to look at it i decided it was a pos and we just found one that was intact for him to ride.
so it just sat there.
one day we were sipping an adult beverage or two and the old two engined go kart was brought up.
i maintained even though it was heavy as heck it must've been raced.
a dispute with a minor wager later i was on the net trying to prove my side.
MONTHS later i found a site vintage karting and eventually id'd the karts as a 1959/60 sears racer kart.
never did collect on the bet maybe i should??

anyway i was FASINATED with these tiny racers.
like everything else i do led to being obsessed and i read EVERY post on any forum or book i could find.
that rapidly led to me buying one and as anyone knows if you have two vintage karts THEY BREED!!!
now ten or so years later i have so many i won't count them anymore.
enough for now
dave l.


RE: My start in vintage dave l. - steve welte - 03-06-2016

I had no idea you are that new to karting. You have spent a lot of time for sure as your knowledge of the sport is pretty darn good. Never stop David for karting can be for a lifetime.


RE: My start in vintage dave l. - Scott Elkes - 04-10-2017

Well David I can vouch for you that that Sears karts were raced. My childhood buddy raced his bushing Clinton A490 powered Sears kart back in 1963.


RE: My start in vintage dave l. - ted johnson - 04-10-2017

The kid "across the street" raced Junior with our group in Brevard Co., Florida. He had a pal named Clinton Rogers who hung around us and went to the track a few times with us. Clinton drove the neighbor's Bug a few times, and it was obvious he had talent. His step=pop was a contractor with a glass eye and a cigar that hung out the side of his mouth opposite the glass eye. Clifford. Clinton bugged heck out of Clifford for a kart. Clifford's reply was always: "Ya don't NEED no God-D$*$ money!" After months of bugging Clifford, he finally decided to buy Clinton a kart. He didn't particularly like either me or my Pop, and he refused to buy a Bug or Go Kart from us, so he went and bought a Sears kart with dual '58 Power Products engines. Of course, Clinton wasn't allowed twin engines in Junior, so he had to take one engine off the heavy beast. Poor kid was up against Bugs, Darts Foxes and Go Karts, most of which had built Mac 6's on board. Clifford wouldn't pay for decent tires or for any speed equipment ("Ya don't NEED no God D$*$ money"), so my Pop gave Clinton some good tires and a Mac 10 carb and Homelite reed manifold. After weeks of being eaten by modified Mac 6's on light karts, he gave up. I still don't know what became of the Sears kart. This is all true. Ted