The costs involved are a fraction of 2 stroke karting. A second-hand race-ready kart can be found from anywhere between R25k and R50K.
There really is no advantage to buying new as we run hard compound tires. With this tire the difference in a new or used chassis is marginal, most of our races are won by old karts. We run a very even playing field, with engines dyno’d and sealed all to the same spec and a weight limit of 185kg for kart and driver. So the racing is very close and competitive.
So based on a 3 man team, each driver is in for +/- R15 000 for a really good second-hand kart and then about R1 500 per person per month to race.
Obviously, like anything in life you can scale your team up or down, with many teams coming in cheaper and some teams spending a lot more…
You also need to consider things like a lap timer, trailer, helmet, rib protector, gloves and race suit.