So fair readers, I have failed you (again). I have been picking away at the internet for weeks to get some information on the wild ass machine you are about to see in this video. The title of the film calls it a Kenick Dragster and I’m guessing that’s the make and model because I am like an FBI level investigator up in here. I know that double engine karts were a big thing during the karting boom of the 1960s but I had no idea that someone was making a four engine kart, especially one meant for drag racing. There’s no way this thing was intended for “road course” use as you’ll see how long and ungainly it looks in the corners, not to mention the fact that the driver’s lay down position means that even seeing over the little engines is nearly impossible. Does anyone know a damned  thing about this creation? Was it homemade? I love all of it.

The starting procedure is interesting. All of the engines are started one by one. I would have guessed there’d be a situation like in tractor pulling with the multi-engine units where once a single engine is started the rest of them are fired off by that already running mill in sequence. Here there’s little starter cart rolled up and engine engine is belt started by itself. It actually seems to be quite the trick to make them all happily idle at first! The guys constantly running their hands over the exhaust is a good tell of that.

Karting was born in the 1950s and exploded in the 1960s. The racing got more serious and it did not take long for people to understand that karting could be a very competitive sport and tracks blew up all over the place. Weirdly karting on the drag strip never seems to have gone anywhere. It would seem like that would have been a thing. Junior dragsters are the closest thing it seems we’ll get!

Press play below to see this vintage Kendrick Dragster kart get busy on a road course –