Baby Chair

Most people will probably do half a dozen sessions in their racing chassis.

Kate has been karting pretty much non-stop in her gap year between A levels and university, and her racing chassis has done 38 sessions – a bit more than half a dozen.

The last session at Shennington finished with a big crash (not her fault), and the chassis went off to ASR Fabrication to be straightened (again).

One of Kate's chassis going off to ASR Fabrication to be straightened

If you’ve done the spoon bending thing, you’ll know (unfortunately) that there are only so many times you can bend the spoon before it snaps. A kart chassis is a bit like that. There are only so many times you can bend it before it’s no longer a racing chassis.

Kate moved on to her second racing chassis after the Shennington crash, and she’s already done 6 sessions in that chassis.

So, we really needed to get a new chassis for the 2026 season.

Kate's new chassis for the 2026 season

Thankfully, Ollie Hancock had just had a delivery of five 2025 LN 4 chassis, and he put aside the best one for us. (It was actually the chassis used by Macauley Bishop, the same Macauley Bishop who’s just become this year’s Senior Rotax world champion. And, if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for Kate.)

Kate’s seat has just about worn through too. There’s only so much scraping along the ground that a fiberglass seat can do, and we popped over to Ollie’s place to collect the chassis and get a new seat fitted.

I don’t know if you’ve seen those racing car seats in barbers for little children who can’t keep still. Well, there’s an equivalent at Ollie’s for little racing drivers who can’t keep still either.

Actually, it’s just a way to make sure the kart is set up properly, with seat, pedals and steering wheel moved to the optimum position for the driver. The kart sits on a kart trolley, and the driver climbs on board, and then Ollie and his team do the rest.

It’s a great process, and something that Ollie’s ‘Used Kart Shop’ offers as part of the chassis purchasing process.

So, now we just need to get Kate’s racing engine rebuilt, and then we’ll be ready for a season of national racing in the Ultimate Kart Championship. (I hear Macauley Bishop’s racing in that championship too!)