Is Kart Racing Really That Expensive? The ROI of Investing in Your Kids (#202)
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 202
What are you really buying when you spend money on experiences with your children? Drawing on a season of kart racing with his son, Dustin Serviss examines the costs, shared challenges and lasting returns that never appear on a financial statement.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
In this episode
Compared to what? When people call kart racing expensive, Dustin asks: compared to hockey, horses, a ski boat idle eleven months a year, a trip to Disneyland, or another Saturday scrolling your phone?
Tracking every dollar. He built a spreadsheet of every chassis, engine, tire and hotel; the start-up cost was about $17,000, and spread across the season a full day of racing together works out to roughly $1,000, as he tells it.
The Hamilton story. Anthony Hamilton worked multiple jobs to get his son to races; Dustin's point is that he bought thousands of hours beside Lewis, and the relationship came before the championships.
What are you buying? Not a kart but confidence, as he describes following his son around the track and hearing an unscripted cheer over the helmet radio.
Costs versus returns. We have become good at calculating costs and poor at calculating returns; nobody remembers what the lift ticket cost, they remember the feeling.
The closing question. Maybe his son won't remember the gear ratio, but he'll remember that his dad was there every weekend, and Dustin says he would make the investment again.
Chapters
[00:00:04] Is kart racing really that expensive, compared to what?
[00:00:45] What did tracking every dollar show?
[00:01:18] What does a day of racing together actually cost?
[00:01:53] What did Anthony Hamilton actually buy?
[00:02:29] Are you buying a kart or confidence?
[00:03:03] What is a moment on track worth that no spreadsheet can show?
[00:03:39] Have we become better at calculating costs than returns?
[00:04:12] What will his son remember?
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Transcript
[00:00:04] Dustin Serviss: Is kart racing really that expensive? Everybody tells me the same thing when they find out my son and I race karts. Wow! Kart racing is expensive! Every time I hear it, I find myself asking the same question. Compared to what? Compared to hockey? Compared to horses? Compared to a ski boat that sits at the dock eleven months of the year? Compared to a yearly trip to Disneyland? Or compared to spending another Saturday scrolling your phone? See, expensive is one of those words we throw around without ever defining it. A coffee is expensive. A divorce is expensive. A bad business partner is expensive. A missed opportunity is expensive.
[00:00:45] Dustin Serviss: But somehow we rarely stop to ask what something actually gives us in return. Over the past few months I've started tracking every dollar we've spent on kart racing, Not because I'm trying to justify it. Quite the opposite. I wanted to challenge my own assumptions. So I built a spreadsheet, every chassis, every engine, every chain, race tires, fuel, hotels, practice days, repairs, trailer rentals, everything. The start up investment came in around seventeen thousand dollars. Then I started tracking the operating costs. Here's what surprised me. Once I spread the start up investment across the season and included our race
[00:01:18] Dustin Serviss: weekends, practice days, hotels, fuel, and repairs, the number worked out to roughly one thousand dollars for both of us to spend an entire day racing together. And that's including a few rookie mistakes on my part. Things like a set up that shredded more sprockets than I'd like to admit. Now before you shut the podcast off and tell your spouse I've completely lost my mind, stay with me because this isn't the first family that's wrestled with this question. One of my favorite stories in motorsport isn't actually about Lewis Hamilton. It's about his father. Anthony Hamilton didn't come from enormous wealth.
[00:01:53] Dustin Serviss: When Lewis showed real talent in karting, Anthony made a decision that most people would call irrational. He worked multiple jobs while still traveling to races almost every weekend. There were years of financial sacrifice, long hours, old vehicles, fixing equipment themselves and simply finding a way. Now here's the interesting question: if Lewis Hamilton had never reached Formula one, would those years have been wasted? I don't think so because if you asked Anthony Hamilton today what he actually bought, he didn't buy a Formula one World Champion. He bought thousands of hours beside his son, thousands of conversations
[00:02:29] Dustin Serviss: driving home after races, Thousands of opportunities to teach discipline, preparation, respect, how to lose, how to win, how to solve problems. The championships came later. The relationship came first. And that's what made me start thinking differently about our own karting budget. Most people look at a number like one thousand dollars and immediately ask, is it worth it? I think they're asking the wrong question. The better question is, what exactly are we buying? Are we buying a kart or are we buying confidence? Last weekend I was following my son around the track, corner after corner.
[00:03:03] Dustin Serviss: You could almost feel everything clicking then through the helmet radio. Woo hoo. It wasn't rehearsed. It wasn't for me. It was pure excitement. He had just linked together four great corners, posted his best sector, and for a few seconds completely forgot there was anyone watching. I was behind him. Watching it happen in real time. Watching him carry more speed. Break later. Trust himself. Those few seconds are worth more to me than the lap time. You can't buy that at Costco. You can't order it on Amazon. No spreadsheet has a column for that. The older I get, the more I realize life isn't really made up of purchases. It's made up of moments.
[00:03:39] Dustin Serviss: We remember our first powder day on skis. Landing the fish we've chased for years. Watching our kids ride a bike for the first time. Crossing a mountain summit. Nobody remembers what the lift ticket cost. Nobody remembers the fuel bill. Nobody remembers the receipt. They remember the feeling. Maybe that's where we've become a little confused as a society. We've become incredibly good at calculating costs and surprisingly poor at calculating returns. Maybe one day my son won't remember what car he drove. He probably won't remember what gear ratio we ran. He won't remember how many sprockets we went through.
[00:04:12] Dustin Serviss: But maybe he'll remember that his dad was there. Every weekend, cheering louder than anyone else, fixing the kart, driving the truck, believing in him, if that's what seventeen thousand dollars bought, I'd make that investment again tomorrow.