KARTING'S GOLDEN SUMMER; Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Modern Auto Racing's Cornerstone.(News)

Byline: PETE LYONS

One August day in 1956 a creative soul named Art Ingels, nominally employed by Frank Kurtis to build Indianapolis Roadsters in Glendale, California, found himself with too little to do and a little lawnmower motor that had been rejected as unreliable. A few feet of Indy car frame tubing, a few welding beads, and presto: Ingels erected a new foundation for world auto racing.

He didn't realize that, of course, nor did he coin the term Go Kart. Those things happened after a buddy named Duffy (we know his real name, but he says if we tell he will have to kill us) Livingstone dropped by. "I saw this thing sittin' on his bench and I said, `What the heck is that?''' Livingstone recalls. "He said, `I call it a little car.'

"I said, `Well, it's right up my alley. Mind if I make one?'''

Livingstone had been road racing a Track Roadster he had put together himself. (It's now Brock Yates' vintage racer that has won an unlikely prize at Pebble Beach.) Whipping up his own version of Ingels' invention was child's play.

So was racing it; play-racing at first in vacant corners of handy parking lots against a growing number of other home-builders, "until the cops would run us out. We'd just go someplace else.'' The fun was so informal, Livingstone adds, that their official starter would wave the green flag, jump aboard his own kart and drive until he got tired, then park and wave the checker.

Fascinated bystanders kept asking how to get their own "little cars,'' prompting Livingstone and some partners to get serious. But not so serious as to construct complete vehicles. It was enough to offer kits of parts, including cut and bent pieces of tubing customers were happy to assemble themselves. If they asked for assembly instructions, Livingstone would make sketches on paper bags.