Go cart racing is a motor sport for small, lightweight, four wheel vehicles. These go carts, or karts, as enthusiasts call their prized cars, can run up to over a hundred kilometers per hour. Depending on their design, go carts can be built to withstand rain, snow, ice, heat, and the grueling, punishing acceleration, wind, and speed characteristic of the race track.

Go cart building is also as popular as the racing itself, and is a sport all its own. Go carts must be light, and yet stable; fast, and yet able to cling to the tracks through which they travel. Building a go cart, therefore, requires the best materials for the best go cart. One of these materials is the racing go cart chassis.

A racing go cart chassis forms the underbelly of the go cart, and will include the engine, clutch, frame, and tires. All of these have to be the best quality, but they all have to be compatible and work together to produce a go cart that moves fast and furious through any track in any weather.

The engine of a racing go cart chassis usually runs on petrol, gasoline, pressurized gas, or methanol. Engines nowadays can even run on batteries! Whatever the case, engines must be lightweight and produce the most power for the least amount of fuel consumed. Also fitted into the racing go cart chassis is the clutch, which can be cooled through a constant supply of oil, or dry and exposed to the air. Whatever the case, both the clutch and engine must be constantly maintained, and should be oiled after each use.

The tires are another important feature of the go cart chassis. They should be able to carry the go cart fast through the track, but possess good traction, so that they hold on well to the road and keep the go cart from spinning or careening out of control. The tires, therefore, should be built for all types of weather, and all types of racing conditions.

A racing go cart chassis is, essentially, a frame which holds all the parts of a go cart together. It may weigh anywhere between 200 to 300 pounds (100 to 150 kilograms) and it will determine how fast and where a go cart can run. A racing go cart chassis is built in the shape of a tube, and typically consists of steel, with tubes of differing diameters and grades to provide the frame with flexibility.

Racing go cart chassis can be classified on their overall structure. Open carts have no cage surrounding the driver, while caged carts do. An open racing go cart chassis offers the simplicity and light weight which go cart racers are after, but since it lacks the weight to keep a go cart on the ground, it can sometimes spin out of control, or be subjected to the tearing forces of wind drag.

A racing go cart chassis also has no suspension and differential. This means that the go cart can easily undergo wear and tear when speeding through turns. What carries a go cart through these turns is a flexible chassis, or one that can "go with the flow." During dry conditions, go cart racers prefer a stiffer racing go cart chassis with less flexibility. In damp or low traction conditions, a flexible racing go cart chassis is better. Chassis flexibility, moreover, depends on the engine in use. Low power engines need hard frames, while higher horsepower engines need more flexible ones.

When choosing your racing go cart chassis, consider the tracks you will be racing on. A go cart must be able to run through asphalt, concrete, or dirt, and a racing go cart chassis should be able withstand and flex with all the twists and turns of a race track built with any of these materials. Dirt track chassis should have a short front rail and a long back rail to minimize wind drag, since dirt can place a lot of stress on front rails. Long back rails also lend stability to a go cart when it makes a turn. When riding on stable concrete and asphalt, however, the opposite is true: racing go cart chassis should have long front rails and short back rails

As a rule, the more difficult the twists and turns on the tracks, the more flexible a racing go cart chassis should be. So choose the right tires, engine, clutch, and frame, and you'll be speeding down the tracks and to the finish in no time!