Galletta's Kart Club | September 7th, 2008 Twin-35s Night at Galletta's Go-Kart Speedway!

Welcome! We are a Karting Club that invented and races extremely affordable 5hp, Single Wheel Drive "Gas stocker" go-karts for a Points championship every summer at Galletta's Greenhouse Karting Speedway and a Gas Stocker division at Oswego Speedway's Clay Kartway. We also record weekly dirt karting classes in the Oswego area and make them available on DVD! Join us racing by either building your own or renting one of our team backup karts. Or just watch in person, or by buying our DVDs. Please read on and learn more about our extremely affordable brand of highly competitive racing!

Chris's Post-race blog:
Again, 2008 has been our lowest driver attendance year since possibly 2001. Odd, considering more people know about now than ever before. Race at our Galletta's Klassic people! The hybrid Galletta's Gas Stocker kart is probably the most affordable motor racing vehicle known to man. If you are a racer of another type of racing or wanna-be racer, you can (1) build your own for a few hundred dollars, or (2) rent a potent Galletta's Team Kart, all of which have won features and can win features if a competent driver is in them. So... this means that if you are a karter or wanna-be racer, there are only three reasons for missing it. (1) inability to make the show because of prior commitments, (2) snobbery, or (3) or cowardice. Why?

There are legitimate reasons. Some people work or relax when we race. Some people live too far away to attend on a regular basis. Some have scheduling conflicts. And then there are just flat out many people who have absolutely zero interest in racing of any kind. These are legitimate reasons. However, here are some illegitimate reasons listed below:

Snobbery of our karts: Some local karters use the excuse of "yard karts?!" or "but they go the wrong way!" and mockingly turn away. We see it in person and also hear it second hand. Odd considering we respect the amount of money they spend on their more expensive brands of karts, but we do not respect their unwarranted snobby attitude. Just because we instituted rules to keep prices down, race with inexpensive single-wheel-drive setups, and have built (or rebuilt) most of the karts 100% from scratch, some karters believe that their pre-fabricated, expensively-maintained WKA-rules methanol motored cookie cutter karts are all the $#it. We have a lot of respect for that brand of racing, and consider racing them in the future, but for the most part, we have more fun and especially more AFFORDABLE fun in our specialized brand of karting then they do. They spend several times more money on their karts than we do, but just go a little faster than us on the average karting track. Plus, they cannot navigate a slightly bumpy track. Yet we all, no matter what class, can only win VERY little prizes or money in any local karting class (far less than the average WKA-rules karter spends). Finally, we have twelve operational karts, while they have only one or two. So who is the one who looks foolish or should look snobby towards the other? Try building your kart from scratch - no, excuse me, TWELVE karts from scratch - and race them every week before you mock us, slick.

Snobbery against us as racers: Many of the regular racers in the Galletta's Karting club are good drivers, and would be better if they simply raced more often. Look at our past points standings and our history. We have many good drivers who have raced with us in the past, and although there are a few here or there who complain, the vast majority of them have fun, respect us and our racing league. Look no further however, at one of our favorite Galletta's Kart Club alum: Kyle Reuter. He's a great driver, and especially with his dad's expertise with motors, flat out near unbeatable in anything he's raced - Quarter Midgets, WKA karts, whatever. Usually the only way he'd lose is if his vehicle died on him. He raced with us for over a year and had a great time, and he can tell you for a fact that we are good drivers with simply our own brand of inexpensive racing. So don't look down on us when a guy who beat you on a regular basis raced with us and knows how tough it is to win in our class.

Cowardice against losing: Yes. Many people of other racing classes, especially other karting classes, fear racing us. The fact of the matter is, very few local karters have more experience (or wins) than Matt and his brother Chris Stevens; probably very few anywhere when you combine the two. They have been racing on a weekly basis every summer-through-fall since the early 1990s. And nobody has ever beat Matt and Chris in a points standings, nor has anybody but Matt, Chris, and Wes Stevens won a "Championship Classic" race in our over-a-decade history of racing them at Galletta's, and our two-year history of racing them at Oswego. But the fact of the matter is, most of our regulars get disrespected unfairly as well, as most people couldn't beat them either. Usually, the only way they ever do is to cheat and break our motor rules.

Cowardice against getting injured: Galletta's Karts have been racing on a weekly basis all Summer and Fall since 1990. In that period of time, with hundreds of races and hundreds of drivers racing thousands of laps, we've only had ONE time where a driver broke a bone (last season, in a freak-luck accident where a kart flipped onto him after awkwardly hitting a tire wall). Every crash, collision or fall in any sport will have minor scrapes and bruises. Most have more significant injuries than than us. So, don't be afraid of getting hurt. We've made the karts safer in the past year, and are constantly working more safety features in one thing at a time.

Belief that we "fix" or "rig" our events and cheat: This one is easy to disprove. In fact, Matt works very hard to make all of his karts as fast as he can make them. Sometimes one or two get a bit beat up from being raced by inexperienced or wreck-prone rental drivers, or the motors get tired from so many races, but they only need a little TLC. Matt proves this time and time again by hopping into any of the karts - no matter how crappy or slow people think they are - and not only time-trial them faster than anybody else, and often win or place high in any race he races them in. Chris also does this, but not to the frequency that Matt does it with. So, our backup karts that we rent out are good karts, but if they aren't quite as nice as the starter karts, that only means that renters have been crashing them and wearing their motors and parts out, NOT because we are rigging them to be slow. Countless experienced drivers scoring wins in them should prove that.

Belief that they are "too heavy" to win: This used to be a big problem for us. We used to have no way to make a driver over 200 lbs. have a chance in hell of winning. All of our winners weighed between 135-190lbs. between 1990 and 2004. That was when every motor was an absolutely equal box-stock 5hp flathead Briggs. We now make certain allowances for drivers over 200 lbs, such as lighter karts, allowing certain Dyno racing cams, more shaved heads, and/or racing headers or pipes. And for drivers over 250 lbs., we now allow Raptor carburetors. We used to allow 5.5hp-6.5hp OHV motors, but some people took them too far and began putting racing parts in them, which was unfair overkill against the spirit of good sportsmanship and talked-to-death in past pages of this website.

So, do not fear. Grow a set. No matter your age, weight, or racing experience, you can race and have fun racing in the Galletta's Karting Club. No, it will NOT be easy to get a win, but certainly not impossible. You will be given a sporting chance for very little money. But you get bang for your buck and you will have to out-race VERY talented drivers. There is no better or cheaper motor sport competition ANYWHERE. Stop being a snob. Stop being a coward. Stop being such a whiney loser. Come on out and try!

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