Colin Chapman of Lotus Cars always preached about the benefits of being lightweight, instead of powerful but heavy. He wasn’t wrong, either…the less fat you haul around, the more ass you can haul. Ask anyone who has operated the car Lotus is probably most famous for, the Seven, and any of it’s knockoff variations that have been built over the years. But the lowly go-kart can trump even the standard of the light-weight category. Provided the sole rider isn’t too full from lunch and that the engine of choice has a few more oats than your typical Briggs and Stratton unit, a kart can be one of the most wicked machines on the planet.

You might be familiar with the concept of a “Gixxerkart”…while one machine in particular earned the name, we’ve heard it used for any racing kart frame that is now packing streetbike power. Your average crotch-rocket is already a frighteningly fast machine, so the only real change when the engine is placed onto a kart is stability and driver-style controls. Case in point is this Ducati 900-powered four-wheeled insanity creation here. Originally built quickly for a television show, what you’ll see here…besides the kind of acceleration that can leave bite marks in the shorts…is a re-engineering of some of the details that got rushed. Per the words of the guys themselves, “It’s geared for 150+, but chance of death is 100%”.

I’d be good with those odds. I’ve got a helmet and I can get a heavy coat. When can I get a crack behind the wheel?