Where karting came from, and what that means for a circuit today

Karting became its own form of motorsport in the middle of the twentieth century. In 1956 Art Ingels built an early kart around a second-hand engine. The sport then spread because it cost less than formula racing.

By the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s it had reached North America and Europe. In 1960 the Commission Internationale de Karting (CIK) was formed, and race rules started to line up. Engines, chassis and protective kit kept changing. In the 1980s electronic timing entered racing, and a result was no longer only a hand on a stopwatch.

In this century, electric karts became a common choice for indoor venues and city circuits because emissions and noise are lower. Petrol karts are still more often seen in outdoor competition. Today karting runs from a child's first session to the professional ladder, and the CIK-FIA World Championship is one of the international events.

For a rental venue, that history comes down to two purchases: a kart that suits the building, and a timing system that can state a lap time. The second is what GEBI TECH sells.