ONE on ONE with Empire Karts
Behind the Scenes at Empire Karts
Photos: Go Racing
Go Racing: You guys are starting your tenth year of business now. I know it has been that long since I’ve had 10 years of advertising with you. Does it seem that long to you guys?
Empire Karts: March will be ten years. Seems like 20 some days and only one on others. We got involved in racing in 1986 and we opened Empire Karts in 1999. The sport has changed a lot, but it’s been really fun. We’ve learned an awful lot in terms of karting, karting people, etc. We learned that you really have to love the sport to make it your business. We probably work harder at this business than we have in any of our prior businesses. People look at it as a profit center because the numbers are big in terms of a basic go kart now costing me $5,000.00. On the other side of the counter there really isn’t the profitability unless you move a lot of inventory. Things have improved a little bit with the euro coming down, but of course like everything else they’re not going to drop the price because you are used to paying it.
Go Racing: Exxon Mobile owns go kart manufacturing too.
Empire Karts: Exactly. But other than that it’s been great, we’ve met a lot of good people, including yourself. Still a lot of good relationships with people, even out of the sport we’re still talking to those people.
Go Racing: Over the ten years you guys have been pretty consistent with the product line that you have, which is very rare in the karting business. What are some of those?
Empire Karts: Top Kart. We started with Top Kart, stayed with Top Kart. We believe in the product, it’s a very good product at any level. One of the biggest things in why we chose Top Kart was because of the stability of the importer (Grand Products). Since Charlie owned it (original Grand Products owner) it’s been Top Kart. Twenty some odd years of Top Kart as the importer. Because of that we felt, and still do that Top Kart is and probably always will be one of the leading karts. Basically you have four leading imported karts in America and Top Kart happens to be one of them.
Go Racing: A recognizable brand for that 20 something years it is certainly a value to have in the showroom?
Empire Karts: And parts availability. Grand Products stocks a large amount of parts so that we don’t have to worry about, “well we’re not going to be able to get this part.” It’s like anything else, you will have some items that you cannot get because it is on a back order situation, but for the most part they’re very, very good with their inventory. We carry a couple lines of apparel, including MIR, Sparco, Oakley. We just added K1 to have a lower price line for entry level karters. We also carry some of the Freem products. They did all of our custom driver suits for our race team this year. Steven did the design and Freem made them. We really like them, they turned out very nice looking and are well manufactured.
Go Racing: Aside from all of those valuable products that you guys stock, you recently branched out into manufacturing as well?
Empire Karts: We manufacture; we bought TDC in 2005. TDC does sprockets, gaskets, and a few carburetor accessories. We’ve been slowly expanding the karting specific product line. Even more recently we bought a CNC mill and lathe to bring everything in house. Machine shops don’t like running orders of 200 gears at a time, so it was just better for us to do it ourselves. Bill sat down and learned how to do some programming.
Go Racing: Who knew you could teach an old dog new tricks.
Empire Karts: Bill’s gotten real good at it out of necessity.
Go Racing: That’s always, the “mother of invention.”
Empire Karts: We needed to because complex programing is an art form and that requires an artist. Good programmers are temperamental artists; they work on their own schedule and that might not be the same as yours. So basic programming was just easier to learn than to hire out.
Go Racing: I get it, they are hard to deal with like magazine editors?
Empire Karts: Oh god, editors are the worst. So I sat down with books and tapes and on the internet and took some classes. Now I can program what I want. I still have some of the stuff programmed because it would just take me way too long. We do dial gauges for measuring clutch spring heights, we do chain guards, we do spacers, we make all kinds of spacers. The first thing that we did was start manufacturing all of the things that we were sending out to be made. Then we turned our focus to what we were buying. We can make it ourselves and offer it at a better price to the customer. Soon we will be getting into things that are new and different.
Go Racing: What do you feel sets you guys apart from other kart shops? Geographically you are the only one in the eastern Inland Empire.
Empire Karts: What really sets us apart is our people, we have great people. The entire staff here at Empire is knowledgeable and friendly. Another thing is one stop shopping. You can get anything and everything. We support all chassis brands. We will work on any other brand it doesn’t have to be Top Kart. One of the biggest differences though is our manufacturing and because we do stock a significant number of Top Kart and Comer products. We supply a lot of the other shops and I’ve learned when I buy from other shops they never give me the deals that I give them. Well we’ve been in the karting business for 10 years but we have a business background. We got married in 1979 and we’ve been in business since 1981 together. We found that a lot of the things that we learned in our original business have carried over. It’s just the product line is more fun now. One of the things that we found too is that in our other businesses the manufacturers supported the dealers 100% and in this industry they don’t. Some do, but some of them don’t. What happens is that anybody and their brother can become a dealer. In our other businesses, those industries would not allow it. If there was a dealer and the dealer was doing a good job in that territory, they would not put on anybody else, they protected you. For that you would work harder to maintain good service and good product support for that manufacturer. One hand is helping the other in terms of business support, but in this industry it is totally different. If you’ve got a garage and you want to open a shop boom, you’re a dealer.
Go Racing: No - if you’ve got a garage you can open a shop, you run an ad in Go Racing Magazine – then you’re a dealer!
Empire Karts: Very official. But the loyalty from the shops just isn’t there because they know that the manufacturer will come in and boom there is another dealer right down the street. That’s another thing with Mike at Grand Products if somebody asks for dealership he’ll ask us, “what do you think about so and so” and we can tell him yeah or nay.
Go Racing: What plans do you guys have for ’09 besides the new super secret product? Where are you guys racing, what series is going to be huge, what can we expect from Team Empire?
Empire Karts: We’ll probably still do the club stuff because that’s where the base is. Hopefully more than we did last year. We will be at Tri-C, So-Cal, LAKC. Region 7 IKF, and of course IKF GrandNationals. I don’t see us going out too much further than that. The SuperNats were fun, but that’s not where our main customer base races.
Go Racing: Anything else you guys can think of that you would like to add?
Empire Karts: I think that the ads that you have built for us over the years have really represented our statements, our philosophy, our business style and us well. Everything going back to when we first started – we did ads with product, we did ads with stuff, we did ads for our new online store. Then we did the “No Regrets” ad because so many people would come in here after they bought something that started out as a “deal” but really wasn’t and they regretted it. We didn’t really tell you much about the products that we have here, we try to have pretty much everything that the people who race in this area need– all the mainstream stuff. You name it we have it. We sell Horstman products, the HPV engines, the clutches, we sell RLV products, we sell the DWT wheels which a lot of people remember as the Douglas Wheel brand, we sell all the MyChron products, we sell Beta tools, Odenthal motor mounts and alignment tools. We also sell the Sniper alignment tools, MOC parts wash, IAME Leopard, a very good stock of parts for Leopards, Comers, Yamahas, Honda, Pavesi stuff we’ve got to get rid of. We have our Ebay store with all of our closeouts and only one left in stock products. We have hitchhiker kart stands, HJC Helmets, Bell Racing Products. The kids like to come into the shop with their parents because they know that they can always play the racing game for free and there is free licorice and stickers. They know where the sticker box is and they know they can help themselves.
Go Racing: Free stickers are a big thing for kids.
Empire Karts: Oh yeah. Don’t forget all the bodywork, including the new 09 stuff, multi colors, KG and Comer brand. VP Fuel in bulk and easy to pour containers. Memo Gidley’s Secrets of Speed, Yeah and Go Racing. We carry Long Acre gauges. Brake pads for all different kinds of karts. Burris products, Tomar, Molecule, Suits, Leatt Brace, Tillett seats, Ribtect. We try to cover the whole gammut and have both high end and low end, cost effective and stylish.