Best Karting Suits

A karting suit is obviouosly a vey important part of a racers gear. It covers the major parts of the body, it ensures saefty and needs to be very conformtable. When buying a karting suit you need to choose the right one.

Our top pick is the Alpinestars KMX 5 suit. (Check it here). This suit is very good looking, complies with the CIK FIA level 2 which means it is very safe, is very good comfy and not that expensive. This is not the best suit out there but the one with the best value for money. The suit has mesh panels on many areas in order to improve venting and reduce sweating. It also has a collar and a belt in order to make it fit perfectly. The best choice in our opinion for the money.

If you are really on a budget we recommend the Alpoinestars Indoor Kart Suit (check it here). This should be used only for recreational karting activities. It covers the bare minimum for a karting suit. W estill highly recommend the KMX 5 if you can affort it.

We insist on the value for money critera. When buying karting or racing suits, contraty to karitng gloves or shoes, the price gap between the best suit and a bad suit is huge. The best suit on the market can go up the $3.000 while the worst can cost as low as $200. You don’t need to add thousands of dollars or euros to the Alpinestars KMX 5 cost just to get a marginal gain. Stick with the best value for money suit.

What To Look For In a Karting Suit

Safety. You should look for a multilayer suit, ideally made with Nomex which is a fire retardant used on racing gear. Look for Nomex for racing suits or Cordura for a karting suit. The Suit should be FIA/CIK certified if you want to be sure of the protection it will provide in case of fire.

Comfort. Covering most of the body,a karting suit should obviously be very comfy. Lookf or a suit with adjustable belt or collar to fit it perfectly.

Wieght. As all the other karting or racing gear, a suit should be as light as possible for obvious reasons. The lightes the suit, the easier it is for the drivers during the last laps. Best materials are resistant and light at the same time.

Ventilation. For most suits, ventilation is non existent as they are tight to the body. But, if you can get one which is slightly better vented than other suits it would a nice advantagte.

Design. Exterior looks are very important. Many suits are well designed and most of biggest suit producers offer various design to choose from.

Price. A very important point. The price range of karting or racing suits is enormous. A bad suit can be very cheap and an excellent suit can be incredibly expensive. You should not buy the most expensive but the one for which you get the most value for money.

Top Bran ds That You Should Consider

OMP. A solid choice. They make very good karting suits. Check the OMP KS-3 it seems to be a very solid choice. (Check it here). Thius brand has approximately the same price range as the Alpoinestars.

Sparco. Also a solid choice. Definetly one of the best auto brands out here. Check the Groove KS-3. (Check it here). The only thing with Sparco is that it seems a bit overpriced. I fyou have big gubks to spend, this is not a problem.

K1. A good brand with good value for money suits. W eonly recommend it if you are short budget wise.

JXH Racing. Pretty much like K1, this is good only for entry level suits. We don’t recommend it if you look for the high end suits.

Racequip. Again, we recommend only this brand for entry level suits.

Sabelt. A high end brand with preimum suits but it is too expensive for the value. It is one of the best brand out there but we don’t think it is wise to spedn $2.000 on a racing suit when you can have something almost as good for $500. It just doesn’t worth it.

As a general rule, if you are willing to by th e best suits out there, focus only on Sparco, Alpinestarts and OMP.

Things to Know About Safety

As said earlier, the FIA and CIK homologates the safety levels of racing and karting suits. There a 2 levels of certification: Kart Suit Level 1 and Kart Suit Level 2. Simple put, the level 2 has more material and is thicker than the level 1. Usually, the level 2 are more cutting edge than the level 1 and cost 2 to 3 times the cost of a level 1 squits; When searching for a good suit, look for a CIK/FIA level 2 suit. This is the cas for our top picks abiove.

In order to chose the right raing /karting suit for you you need to understand the color that the FIA has oput in place. Basically, the FIA imposes certain areas of the suit to have colors, this colors showing a certain type of resistance is required by the homlogation in tht area. It goe slike this:

White	Does not contain abrasion resistenet material
Grey	Must contain abrasion resistant material. No other materials are permiited.
Yellow	The seams of threded are of the sleeve attachement must contain abrasion resistent material.
Red, Dark Green, Light Green, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Purple	These areas permit up to 1/3 of eahc zone to use mesh. The other 2.3 must containt level 1 abrasion resistent material.

Conclusion

There are lots of good suits out there. We recommend the Alpinestars KMX 5 (check it here). You should pay particular attention to safety and comfort and go for an Alpinestars, a Sparco or an OMP. Don’t buy the most expensive but rahter the one with most value for money.

If you are looking for other karting or racing gear recommendation, we have other pages just like this one on our recommended products section. We also have a section for sim-racing equipment. This is the best gear on the market in our opinion.