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Just a few personal thoughts on this thread.
Firstly, I know where blackx is coming from re cringing - there are some 'kart-type' vehicles running at the moment (ie small wheels), but they are all pretty ghastly, they are not, however, really karts.
Hill climbs are comparatively dangerous places. Any error usually results in contact with something solid, and banks are genrally fairly lumpy, so the flight and landing is not smooth. Most of the notable injuries that I have seen since I've been marshalling hills have been bikers - 2 or 3 wheeled - and karts have a similar level of protection but greater capacity for speed. I personally feel that the risk of serious injury goes beyond the acceptable level, much as I would like to see the spectacle of these types of vehicles. It's more a case of horses for courses. You wouldn't run an off-shore power boat at Bristol docks, for instance, and I don't believe you could make many of the current venues safe enough. OK, I accept that it's the choice of the participant as to what is safe, but I'm not sure I want to be dealing with the results. HAving said all that, when Phil Jeffries crashed his Trakstar, he had it repaired and running again the next day without any obvious detriment to his speed. The general feeling at the time, though, was that he had been lucky to escape serious harm, and I would prefer the equation to be 'unlucky if you do' rather than 'lucky if you don't'
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