A SPORT ON THE VERGE KARTS MIGHT BE SMALL BUT THEY PACK POWERFUL PUNCH.

Byline: Aaron Levine Staff Writer

ROSAMOND - When the green flag dropped, Anaheim's Scott Meadow released the clutch and slammed the accelerator. He shot off the starting line and into the straightaway, reaching 60 mph in less than four seconds and rocketing around the corner at 100 mph.

But as Meadow fought up to two G-forces when he glided around the track at the Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, he was barely half an inch off the ground - in a vehicle about the size of a coffee table. He wasn't surrounded by a protective cage, nor was he held in by a harness or a seat belt.

Safe to say, this was not what you'd find at Malibu Grand Prix. This was kart racing at its best.

``This is definitely the fastest thing I've driven,'' Meadow, 21, said of the 55-by-72-inch speedster. ``This is as close as you can get to a Formula One car because the reaction times are so fast.''

Racer Shaun Modiette, 15, added, ``You see everything fly by, and you almost lose your stomach.''

Racing karts are built like miniature Indy cars. They have the same power-to-weight ratio and can reach speeds of up to 140 mph.

A kart, which weighs 200 pounds, is the perfect training tool for anyone wanting to be a professional racer.

Many current Indy car and Formula One drivers, including Michael Schumacher, Michael Andretti and Paul Tracy, learned to drive in karts and most race them in the offseason as a cost-effective way of keeping in shape.

``It teaches you all the basics. It has a normal engine, four-wheel brakes, it's fast and you get all the skills you need to race,'' said Ryan Negri, a co-founder of the Kart Racing Company, one of the area's fastest growing kart schools.

Although an estimated 100,000 people across the country participate in kart racing - from aspiring professional racers to the weekend enthusiast - many believe it is the best-kept secret from those who feel the need for speed.

``Karting ... is on a perpetual verge of explosion. We've been on this verge for some time now,'' wrote editor Rob Howden in this month's edition of Shifter Kart Illustrated, one of two major karting publications.

Two weeks ago, Meadow was one of about 200 drivers who came from as far south as Corona Del Mar and as far north as Monterey to the 1.7-mile course called ``The Streets of Willow Springs,'' 80 miles outside of Los Angeles, to test their driving ability. They ranged in age from 12 to 65, from novice to advanced.

Some drivers, such as Meadow, aspire to be a professional racer but most were there for pure enjoyment.

``A lot of people in my industry come out here, and the minute they get in a kart, they're hooked,'' said Fernando Diaz, a mortgage banker from Hermosa Beach who attended the weekend races. ``If you like racing at all, you're going to come back again, no questions asked.''

Diaz, 30, hadn't tried kart racing until he took his first class at KRC three months ago. Since then, he has attended four classes and two races and plans to bring two clients to the track this month.

``For business reasons it's great because if you introduce this to them, they just flip out,'' Diaz said.

The bulk of KRC's clientele is middle-to-upper class males between 25 and 45, according to Negri, who founded the school in 1994 with partner Rudy Courtade.

Diaz is one of the many every-day businessmen who simply enjoys the adrenaline rush and wants to hang out with his friends. Celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage and Edward Norton Jr., also have taken classes at the Rosamond track.

KRC, which teaches almost 1,000 students every year, and Jim Hall's Racing School in Ventura are two of the top kart schools in Southern California. Hall has a 0.4-mile track and karts that travel as fast as 90 mph on an 80-cubic-centimeter engine. At KRC, almost all students drive shifter karts that have a 125-cubic-centimeter engine, 40 horsepower and reach speeds of 110 mph on a longer track.

Both schools offer introductory-level and racing-level classes for comparable prices, starting at around $300, which includes all essential materials. Drivers are in a kart from the first class, learning the basics, and can expect to be racing at maximum speeds by the third class.

In general, karts cost $3,000-$12,000, and a full set of protective gear is $600-$1,200.

Because of the expense, kart racing, as many other forms of racing, faces criticism that the wealthiest drivers have an advantage because they can afford superior equipment. But many racing clubs, including KRC, have countered those arguments by becoming ``spec series,'' in which drivers are required to use the same motor, tires, gas and other parts.

Kart racing hasn't been immune to concerns over the racers' safety either. Sunland's Bob Faieta, who is the current points leader in the KRC F1 Super Cup Series, has broken his ribs three times in three years. A kart racer also was killed at Daytona in December.

Two or three racers die from karting accidents every year, according to Fred Marik, executive director of the North American Karting Association.

``It tends to be less than other types of racing, though,'' Marik said.

Racers are protected by a helmet, neck collar, gloves, specialty shoes and a polyester and nylon racing suit. As in riding a dirt bike, they are not strapped in because it is safer for a driver to fall out of a kart if it catches air than to tumble with it.

Because of its low center of gravity, a racing kart is more likely to spin than flip, unless it makes wheel-to-wheel contact with another kart.

``The only thing that is dangerous about these karts is that they are open wheel,'' Courtade said. ``If you spin out, there is a lot of open area around the track, so you will scrub off a lot of speed before you hit anything solid.''

Added Meadow, who raced stock cars for three years: ``It's nerve-racking. Going from cars with a cage and full safety to being totally exposed was something that I had to get over.''

Negri said there never has been a serious injury at KRC, and there is always an ambulance close by on race days. According to Courtade, crashes are simply bound to happen.

But risking one or two dives out of a kart could be considered a marginal risk compared to the risks of racing a larger vehicle. And a couple of spills might serve as a warning to the new onslaught of kart drivers who want to take racing to the next level.

In fact, the number of national kart-racing competitions has grown during the past 10 years - there were 309 last year - and they have served as a stepping stone for racers who want to drive professionally.

Three years ago, the Championship Auto Racing Team (CART) began the Stars of Tomorrow racing series, which has become one of the many leagues designed to develop future racers.

Marik compared the Stars of Tomorrow league to an older form of Little League baseball, in which 55 percent of the participants range in age from 13 to 21. It is also an attempt to centralize the process of new-driver development.

``This league is giving more direction to the industry. This industry has lacked organization for years,'' Marik said.

Every year, the Stars of Tomorrow racers compete at one of six regionals held throughout the country, including Willow Springs and Laguna Seca. The top finishers move to the Grand National Karting Championships in Las Vegas in November.

The top racers from the Stars of Tomorrow series then move into more sophisticated racing in Skip Barber's Formula Dodge Series and the Atlantic Series, and gain financial backing for a potential career in Indy car racing.

The many avenues toward becoming a professional racer through karting is certainly more than what kart-racing founder Art Ingels might have imagined in 1956. That year, Ingels took a Westbend engine, which primarily was used for lawn mowers, attached it to a frame, and then rode what became the first racing kart in the Rose Bowl parking lot in Pasadena.

At first, karting caught on quickly, prompting the establishment of the International Karting Federation one year later. Adams Kart Track in Riverside opened in 1960.

However, throughout the next few decades, as kart racing caught on in Europe, it struggled to maintain its popularity in the U.S.

A second wave of interest is emerging. Four main governing bodies oversee kart racing in America: The World Karting Association (WKA), Superkarts! USA, the IKF and the NAKA.

There are three primary types of racing karts: sprint karts, speedway karts and shifter karts. Sprint karts shift gears automatically and are used on shorter road courses, and speedway karts are used primarily on oval tracks.

Shifter karts have become the most popular because they are the most similar to Indy cars. A manual shifter is located to the right of the wheel with five forward gears and one reverse gear.

The most popular type of shifter kart contains a 125 cubic-centimeter engine, which was introduced by Negri and his father, Giovanni, when they came to the U.S. from Italy in 1985.

Therefore, when the younger Negri was jobless in the early 1990s, introducing his unique engine and kart to interested parties seemed to be the perfect plan to bring in a yearly income. He founded KRC with Courtade, and they began renting their two karts to the small number of private parties who were interested.

``We pieced those karts together really quickly,'' Courtade said. ``They were really cheesy.''

Although KRC had fewer than 50 clients after its first year, by 1997, when it owned five karts and developed the KRC Racing Series, the business took off. Previous students returned to race and began to spread the word.

That brought people such as 47-year-old Craig Cutler and 38-year-old Numarl Thompson.

Cutler, a resident of West Los Angeles, doesn't have time to work on his kart at home, nor does he have the space to store it. Through KRC, karts can be maintained by professional mechanics, and drivers have the option of leaving their karts in a garage at Willow Springs between races.

``It's been a great program for someone like me who wants to just show up and drive and not worry about too much else,'' Cutler said.

Thompson, on the other hand, simply comes to KRC as a form of therapy. Until two years ago, the Bellflower resident had been feeling the effects of long, taxing days at the office.

``My doctor told me to find something to do for fun to relieve my stress or I'd have a heart attack and die,'' said Thompson, who owns his own aircraft metal forming company.

Some might've turned to golf, tennis or another common form of exercise. The solution for Thompson was kart racing.

Thompson, who hadn't raced since 1988, returned to Willow Springs 12 years later and fell in love with the smell of burnt tires again. A member of the KRC School Series division, he now devotes at least 10 percent of every month to working on his kart, testing it and racing it.

``I needed something to take the edge off,'' Thompson said. ``Now, I don't go into shutdown mode as much as I used to.''

KART AT A GLANCE

LOCAL KART TRACKS:

Adams Kart Track: 5292 24th Street, Riverside, [phone]

Jim Hall Racing Track: 675 Harbor Blvd., Ventura, [phone]

Willow Springs International Raceway: 3500 75th Street West, Rosamond, [phone]

KART SCHOOLS:

Kart Racing Company at Willow Springs Raceway, Contact Ryan Negri or Rudy Courtade, [phone], www.kartracingco.com

Jim Hall Racing School, Contact Lisa Black, [phone], www.jhrkartracing.com

Adams/Speedzone Racing Classes at Adams Kart Track, Contact Sharon Lisberg or Troy Adams, [phone], www.adamskart.com

KART ORGANIZATIONS:

International Karting Federation, 1609 South Grove Ave., Ontario, [phone]

North American Karting Association, 15000 South Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, [phone]

Superkarts! USA, 6365 Old Avery Road, Suite 6, Dublin, Ohio, [phone]

World Karting Association, 6051 Victory Lane, Concord, N.C., [phone]

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

Racers get ready to start practice at the Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond. Karts are miniature Indy cars and can reach 140 mph.

Box:

KART AT A GLANCE (see text)