Revved up and ready to go, go, go

IT belongs in the Smithsonian Institution, but the old relic instead sits in the middle of Ruth Ingels’ living room at her Leisure World home, making occasional side trips to the kitchen whenever it’s time to vacuum.

It is believed to be the first go-kart ever built, before the little car powered by a West Bend lawn mower engine was even known as a go-kart. It was the brainchild of Art Ingels, Ruth’s husband, in 1956.

“He passed away many, many years ago, and I keep that as a souvenir,” said Ruth, 92, who was widowed in 1981. “I couldn’t part with it.”

In the 50 years since its invention, the go-kart has gotten a lot of mileage. There are more than 1 million competitive kart racers worldwide, and thousands, maybe millions, more do it for kicks and grins. Weekend thrill-seekers, wannabe racers and future champions -- all use karts to feed their need for speed.

And go-kart culture, like drag, off-road and motocross racing, has been shaped by Southern Californians.

Ingels built his legacy at a shop on Echo Park Avenue. The first race took place in the Rose Bowl parking lot. The first manufacturer, who did business via mail order, was born out of a Monrovia muffler shop. The oldest manufacturer still does business in Azusa. The Adams Kart Track in Riverside, still in operation, opened in 1960.

About one-eighth of the 125,000 competitive racers in the U.S. are on the West Coast. Four karting facilities have opened in the last six years in the Southland, and more are likely as karting becomes an alternative to the date night movie or the business golf meeting.

“Everybody drives,” said Darrell Sitarz, president of the Wheaton, Ill.-based Kart Marketing Group. “Not everybody plays golf.”

If karting isn’t the new golf, it’s off to a good start as a means of corporate bonding and team-building. Local track owners say about 25% of their business comes from corporate clientele.

From Oxnard to Beaumont, hot-lap times at karting facilities play no favorites. The kid can beat the parent, the wife can beat the husband, the employee can beat the boss. Indoors or outdoors, gas-powered or electric, hobby or training ground, road course or oval, all are available options in the Southland, where fathers who aspire to be Mario Andretti and sons and daughters who aspire to be Jeff Gordon can come together on common asphalt.

The avocation can take hold in fun karts in your backyard, or in concession karts at SpeedZone or similar amusement facilities. The serious-minded graduate to indoor racing featuring hybrid karts on a self-contained track, or even competitive racing for drivers who own equipment.

“When people think of karts, they think of bumper karts at the miniature golf course,” professional driver Rocky Moran Jr. said. “They don’t think of true racing vehicles that are on par with an Indy car in terms of performance.”

Would you believe zero to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds?

It’s not child’s play.

The prodigy

Woody Ditsler is 11 years old. He is a drummer, like his father, and he is a hip-hop dancer. And he is just fractions off Matt Brown’s course record at Pole Position Raceway in Corona.

Ditsler seems to have a knack for driving a kart. His father, Mike, took him to Moran Raceway in Beaumont and enrolled him in the school there, “just to see where he fell with it.”

It turned out that Ditsler is more than your run-of-the-mill sixth-grader from Norco.

“He can get up to 65 mph at the end of the straightaway, get into a four-wheel drift and handle it perfectly,” Mike said. “At the end of the day, he was running times that would be expected for an older teen or adult who had an aptitude for racing.”

Ditsler would follow in some long shadows.

“The best example of karting in the race culture was the Indy 500,” says Randy Kugler, president of the Concord, N.C.-based World Karting Assn. “With three laps to go, Michael Andretti, a former karter, was passed by his son Marco, a former karter, who was passed on the last lap by Sam Hornish Jr., a former karter.” Marco Andretti, 19, has been down the same path as Ditsler, albeit with considerably stronger racing heritage. The Andrettis own an indoor karting track in Roswell, Ga. All the rage in Europe, there are about 60 indoor facilities in the U.S.

What Ditsler experienced at 65 mph in a kart is what most would sense at 130 mph or more.

“A good rule of thumb is that whatever speed you’re going in a kart, double it. That’s the sensation you get,” said Moran, who has driven a Champ car and races a Daytona Prototype in the Rolex Grand American Series. “When I’m going 90 mph at the end of my straightaway, it feels every bit as exhilarating as going 190 into Turn 1 at Daytona.”

Part of it is the scale. The driver’s seat can be less than an inch off the ground, providing a lower center of gravity. The kart is wide, preventing it from rolling, and there is no suspension. The tracks are smaller too, and the time from corner to corner is remarkably quick. “You have more time to relax in a race car,” Moran said. “That’s where the physicality comes in. It’s much more violent to drive a kart than a Champ Car.”

The proprietors

The Taj Mahal of American karting facilities may well be F1 Boston, a $7-million upscale entertainment and karting center that opened in 2000. There is nothing quite like that in the Southland, though Pole Position Raceway in Corona probably comes closest.

The indoor raceway opened last September and in its first eight months had more than 37,000 visitors. Instead of using the gas-powered karts favored by Dromo One in Orange, which opened in 1999, PPR runs electric karts, which sound more like sewing machines than race cars. It’s quiet enough to hold a conversation in the 4,500-square-foot viewing area, which has plasma TVs, simulators, a billiard table and air hockey.

PPR also has a 700-square-foot conference room to cater to the corporate world. Ken Faught founded PPR with Jason Williams with backing from several off-road motorcycle personalities, including Jeremy McGrath.

“My gut is telling me that in the next two years, in Orange County and Riverside, you’ll have four or five of these things around here,” Faught said.

The original indoor karting facility in the Southland is Dromo One, which provides a richer sensorial experience as karts spew exhaust and sound in equal parts. Larry Putnam, general manager, says most of the 5,000 customers who race there monthly are males ages 18 to 35, and about one-quarter of his business comes from corporate clientele.

“We get people here who have never experienced the sport; they come in here, and they end up buying a kart and taking it out to Moran Raceway,” said Putnam, who recently took his son to the outdoor track for the first time. “My 10-year-old had a blast. He had been in the indoor thing, but outdoors is much more exciting. You’re going faster. There’s more G-forces, more risk, more danger.”

Moran Raceway, owned by Moran and his father Rocky Moran Sr., just announced that it had sold the property and would close later this summer. But Rocky Jr. said they expected to build another Southland facility elsewhere.

The Jim Hall Kart Racing School in Oxnard, perhaps the most renowned teaching facility in the nation, isn’t going anywhere. In its 24th year, it has had more than 30,000 graduates, and clients come from as far away as Japan and India.

“If you have a two-day class, and with reasonably good eye-hand coordination, we can reasonably get within 15% of how fast the instructors drive,” Hall said. “You could never do that with tennis. I’ve played tennis for 20 years. I can serve 80 mph. The pros serve it 130 to 140 mph. My serve is 50% of a good pro.”

Troy Adams’ grandparents opened the Adams Kart Track in 1960, but the former stock car racer purchased the business two years ago. It is the only African American-owned kart racing facility in the country.

“One of the things I’m most proud of,” Adams said, “is that we’ve been able to bring the price point down for people who want to experience outdoor racing, and they can do it on a historic track that has produced more professional drivers than any other track in the country.”

Grandfatherly Gary Engelkes owns the Rialto Airport Speedway. With the influx of female racers, he has had a dozen girls train with him the last eight months. His granddaughter, Morgan, 8, beat 14 boys for the California State Asphalt Oval Championship. Young Morgan has already attracted the attention of an Engelkes acquaintance in NASCAR, who likes what he sees in the young racer.

Recalled Engelkes: “He said, ‘Call me when she’s 10.’ ”

The pioneers

Ingels invented “the little car,” which he later dubbed the Caretta kart, but it was Duffy Livingstone who popularized the “go-kart.” Ingels worked for Frank Kurtis, whose Kurtis Kraft Race Cars built Indy cars and midgets. According to Livingstone, Ingels told him that lawn mower manufacturer McCullough had recalled many of its lawn mowers because of a patent infringement. “So they had piles of engines sitting around for $25 apiece,” said Livingstone, who had the machinery to shape the metal tubing to build a frame. “Art put one on this little car. I thought that was right up my alley.”

One thing led to another and Livingstone, who owned GP Muffler with Roy Desbrow, built two karts. Livingstone and his buddy, Dick VanDeVeere, who financed Livingstone’s project, went to the Rose Bowl to race Ingels’ kart. They raced in circles like the quarter midgets that also showed up on Sunday afternoons at the Rose Bowl. Livingstone brought rubber cones a week later to create a road course. “To hell with that roundy-round stuff,” Livingstone said. “That’s where it started. They’re all racing on road courses now.”

Tourists, there to see the Rose Bowl, and enthusiasts racing the quarter midgets, were immediately smitten by the little cars doing 35 to 40 mph.

“I got to talking to Roy and I said, ‘By the way these little cars are moving, let’s forget the mufflers and we’ll sell these little cars,’ ” Livingstone recalled. “I got hold of Lynn Wineland, who did advertising, and told him we need a name. He came up with a few, go-kart, zip-kart, dart-kart, fun-kart.”

Livingstone and Desbrow sold their go-kart kits via mail order. They advertised in the back of magazines: “Most fun since Jane,” said Tarzan in one ad, and “Not as snooty as a Ferrari” claimed another ad. They sold for $129.

Today, new karts start at about $3,000, with shifter karts ranging from $8,000 to $12,000.

At one time, every kart in the world -- all 14 of them -- was at the Rose Bowl.

A Pasadena newspaper ran a story about the phenomenon; the next weekend the karters were run off by police. On advice from attorney Don Boberick, they formed Go-Kart Club of America to get their own insurance and eventually found a home in the Eastland Shopping Center parking lot in Covina. “That’s where we actually had the first organized kart race,” Livingstone said.

It was 1957.

The professionals

Alan Sciuto’s foot laid heavy into the throttle. As the RPMs climbed, so did Sciuto’s speed ... 97 ... 99 ... 103 mph through the Streets of Willow in Rosamond.

He was (gulp) 13 years old. And in a go-kart.

Now 18, the Orange resident is perhaps only a year away from realizing his dream as a driver in the Champ Car World Series and piloting a 750-horsepower race car in the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Last year, he was the youngest No. 1 qualifier in the 32-year history of the feeder Champ Car Atlantic Series.

Sciuto joins a long list of professional racers who got their starts in karts.

“There are very few extremely good drivers who achieved the top professional levels without prior experience in go-karts,” said Sebastien Bourdais, who has won the last two Champ Car World Series racing titles, and last weekend won his fourth race in a row.

Bourdais grew up in Le Mans, France, site of the famous 24-hour race. Paul Tracy, the man who preceded Bourdais as champion, grew up outside Toronto, Canada. Fierce rivals on the track, born worlds apart, both began their racing careers the same way.

“It starts with something to do with your family on weekends,” Tracy said. “It starts out as fun.”

Professionals often maintain their competitive edge by racing shifter karts.

“It’s a great way to compete in motor sports,” World Karting Assn. president Kugler said, “without the financial burden of the bigger cars.”

The patrons

Don Walters, 54, in short pants and a John Deere cap, wore his game face at 11 o’clock on a recent Friday night. He slipped into kart No. 19 at Pole Position Raceway, made a nice pass on one car, scooted another out of the way and intimidated a third into a mistake. He peeled off laps a full second faster than anyone else in the race, even at 20 years older than the next youngest competitor.

It was his 172nd race since his first visit in December. “I’m obsessed,” he said as he retrieved his scoring sheet. “This is my second time here today.”

Walters, a heavy equipment operator from Riverside, is a former flat-track motorcycle racer at Ascot Park in Gardena. Karting is a good release for him, and also a means of staying connected with his son, Dusty, 25, who three years ago was in a motocross accident and was in a coma for 15 days.

“It’s about as safe as you can be, and still get the feel of racing,” Walters said. “For us, it’s everything. This place is the ticket.”

A few hours earlier, Brandon Sudweeks, 24, of Canyon Lake and six friends spent the early evening at Adams Kart Track to celebrate a birthday. They have raced indoors, in Utah, but never outdoors. “It was far better,” Sudweeks said of the outdoor experience. “More track, faster cars, more extreme.”

Another driver there that night was Jim Sandoval, 19, a mechanic for Kyle Cline, who drives stock cars at Orange Show Speedway. “It adds a whole other dimension, knowing what Kyle is experiencing,” Sandoval said. “I have a new appreciation for what he does.”

John Bednorz of Grand Terrace developed a new appreciation too. He owns three karts, and he and wife Jill and daughters Sarah, 16, and Rebecca, 14, race at Rialto Airport Speedway. It has given timid Sarah more self-confidence, and made bold Rebecca more cautious.

“It definitely gives us something to talk about at the dinner table,” Bednorz said. “It’s brought all of us closer together. I’ve learned how to communicate better with my kids. It’s been a growing process for me. I’ve learned as much as they have.

“It’s Beverly Hillbillies racing, but it doesn’t diminish the fun.”

The Jim Hall school is more Beverly Hills than hillbilly. Motor Trend Magazine once called it one of the 49 cool things to do before you die. It has attracted the likes of David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Motley Crue, Michael Waltrip and Kyle Petty.

A regular at the track is comedian Ray Romano. “My wife thinks I’m a good husband because I take the kids kart racing,” he wrote in a note to Hall. “She doesn’t need to know that I have more fun than they do.”

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Martin Henderson may be reached at weekend@latimes.com.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Go (karting)

Selected facilities that offer indoor and/or competitive karting:

Adams Kart Track: Southland’s oldest outdoor track. In its long form, track is three-quarters of a mile with 14 turns and a 700-foot straightaway. Offers racing schools, professional instruction, open practice, arrive-and-race, corporate events, private parties. $25 for 12 laps around the standard track, $35 for full track, $5 off 5 to 7 p.m. daily. 5292 24th St., Riverside. (951) 686-3826, www.adamskarttrack.com.

CalSpeed: Outdoor 0.625-mile track in the California Speedway parking lot in Fontana has three configurations. Offers arrive-and-

race leagues, professional instruc-

tion, corporate events, private parties. Open practice $40, pit pass $10. 9300 Cherry Ave., Fontana. (951) 506-9363, www.calspeedkarting.com.

Dromo One: Southland’s first indoor facility has a 1,000-foot track. Offers league racing, arrive-and-race, professional instruction, corporate events, private parties. Cost: 1:30-5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday, $20 per race; evenings and weekends, $25. 1431 N. Main St., Orange. (714) 744-4779, www.dromo1.com.

Moran Raceway: Three-year-old outdoor track just over a mile in length with 17 turns, elevation changes, an 870-foot front stretch and 720-foot backstretch. Will close this summer. Offers arrive-and-drive, open practice, professional instruction, corporate events, private parties. Rentals purchased by hour: first hour, $165; next 30 minutes, $45. Costs decrease each hour; 4-hour block, $405. 9320 W. 4th St., Beaumont. (951) 522-9302, www.moranraceway.com.

Pole Position Raceway: Indoor quarter-mile track uses electric karts. Offers arrive-and-drive, leagues and professional instruction. Adult nonmembers, $23 for 14 laps; members, $18; kids, $20 and $15. 1594 Benley Drive, Corona. (951) 817-5032, www.racep2r.com.

Rialto Airport Speedway: Outdoor track is a 1/6 -mile oval, offering arrive-and-drive, open practice, instruction and racing leagues. $25 a day, arrive-and-drive, $40 per half hour, $60 an hour. 1450 N. Linden Ave., Rialto.

(909) 350-4050, www.rialtoairportspeedway.com.

Jim Hall Kart Racing School: Half-mile track is available to school graduates for arrive-and- drive program. Offers professional instruction. 2600 Challenger Place, Oxnard. (805) 654-1329, www.jhrkartracing.com.