Basic go carts are not meant for off road. They usually have one wheel drive and a small engine. When you consider one wheel drive, you need to consider that the engine is just turning one wheel at a speed directly related to the throttle. In other words, add more gas and the wheel turns faster! A basic go cart doesn't need much more. Anyone riding down flat dirt roads or esp paved roads should be looking for a basic go cart.

As far as the engine sizes vary from 3.5 horsepower to 6 horsepower. The most visible feature is the roll cage or roll bar. A basic go cart does not have a roll cage which makes it look very low profile. Although they have a hard time off road, basic go carts can be very fast since they will be mainly on a track they don’t need a lot of low end power freeing up that power to go into the high end speed.