Go carts are simple four wheeled vehicles with a variant of open wheel motor sports. They are also know as go karts, off road buggies, gear box carts or shifter carts which depending upon the designs. The original go cart was first manufactured by an American company which is known as the “Go Kart Manufacturing Company” in the year 1958. The first go kart was built in southern California by a veteran hot rodder and race car builder known as Curtis Kraft. His vision has exploded into a mega industry where kids are racing go carts and getting into Nascar as early as 16 years of age. Go kart racing has a huge following and the go cart racing circuit is one that is getting bigger every year. Companies like carter go carts are making a huge impact on americans  and parents are even learning how to build a go cart for their kids because of the costs involved in buying a new one. Used go carts are all over Ebay making it very easy to get into the sport.

Go karts are the very high speed moving cars which can vary widely in their top speeds . Some go karts are known as Superkarts which can accelerate up to 160 mph which is approximately 250km/h. Since they are the very high speed moving cars, they are usually raced only on the scaled down racing circuits. Go Carting has achieved the appreciation that they are the stepping stone to the higher and also more expensive ranks of motor sports such as Nascar.Many of the famous drivers in todays Nascar circuit got their start racing go carts. It is very popular and definitely the gateway to racing superstardom.

Since go karting has become very famous in United States of America, these go carts are included in some amusement parks. The general public can rent them and can also enjoy them on a regular basis at home. Handling of go carts needs to be taken seriously and thus requires more training for the driver. Most go carts which are found in these amusement parks are just limited with the maximum speed of 15 mph which is not more than 25 km/h by way of a governor. A governor simply limits the output of the fuel pumpled into the motor thus limiting the speed of these machines for safety purposes in children.

A normal KF1 go kart will contain a 125 cc 2 stroke engine and it weight overall 150 kilograms including the driver. It can reach up to 85 mph which is about 140 km/h. it can attain 0 to 60 speed in 3 to 5 seconds, that's no small task. That is a lot of speed and torque for such a small machine.If you don't get your thrills with that kind of speed then you don't have a heartbeat. Some of the carts have Nascar body kits to make them look like a nascar or Indy car for racing purposes.

Later on go carting would eventually spread to other parts of the world and currently they are largely followed in Europe. During the year 1959, the McCulloch was the first company to produce go cart parts and engines for carts. Its first engine was McCulloch MC 10 and it was adapted in a chainsaw 2 stroke engine. Now there are several engine manufacturers that are putting motors in these carts. Companies like Briggs and Stratton and Tecumseh are producing excellent well designed engines for all types of go carts. Jehm powersports, Manco and Carter go carts are also companies building go carts for sale. You can find racing go karts or off road go carts or buggies as they are sometimes referred to.