Kart racing or Karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on full-size motorsport circuits. Karting is commonly perceived as the stepping stone to the higher ranks of motorsports, with many former and current Formula One drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Ayrton Senna, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso, having begun their careers in karting.
Karts vary widely in speed and some (known as super karts) can reach speeds exceeding 161 kilometers per hour (100 mph), while recreational go-karts intended for the general public may be limited to lower speeds.
Karting became famous in Sri Lanka in the early eighties when some of our veteran racing drivers decided to import a few Karts and race each other which fast became very popular amongst the racing fraternity. Thereafter regular Kart meets were conducted at various venues such as Independence Square, Taj Hotel Car park, BMICH & Parliament grounds car park until purpose built Karting tracks were established in Sri Lanka in 2009. Since then Karting has developed and many tracks have been built up to international standards which conducts international meets in Sri Lanka. The CMSC pioneered this with holding the X30 International Kart meet at the Sri Lanka Karting center, Bandaragama.
The CMSC is actively promoting Karting Slalom in Sri Lanka with the assistance of the FIA to develop grassroots level motor sports with the intention of encouraging youngsters of both genders to take up to motor sports.
