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« on: November 07, 2008, 04:49:53 pm »
Tony, I would definitely stay away from asphalt with the kids.
Mowers have a relatively high center of gravity, even at their lowest build. Unlike karting where the weight of the driver and the engine is all centered very low to the ground, on a mower you're essentially sitting on top of the engine, and said engine is 4 - 5 inches higher than the engine on a kart to begin with. All of that makes your center of gravity 12 - 18 inches higher on a mower, AND the mower weighs more. For that reason running a mower on asphalt, at speed, is very tricky... We did a film spot for the local news up here in ND; ran it in the church parking lot, as the grass was way dry in the back lot at the time, and we didn't want to tear it up. And, EVERY time we turned the corner we were battling rollover. Any lap that was even a little bit hot, I was up on two wheels, and there was a lot of daylight under the wheels on the other two machines as well.
While we were on faster machines than the IMOW, our speeds weren't any greater than what they run, given the confines of what we set up in the parking lot. Likewise, we were three adults out going round and round for the cameras, not kids or for that matter adults, racing to win. We were simply trying to run hard enough to make it look good for the camera. There was a lot of, "It ain't worth gettin scuffed up over!" judgement exercised in that film shoot. And, NOT wrecking in front of the news cameras was certainly one of our objectives.
You're going to see enough issues with machines wanting to tip on grass. If you go into a corner hot, they will hook in the turns occasionally and rollover over on you; on asphalt that's a constant, no questions asked there. It's not a matter of if it's going to happen, it's simply a matter of how bad they're going to get hurt when they do. Try to find a nice grass field someplace for them to play in, it'll be a whole lot safer for all concerned!!
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