I rember when I started racing in the early 70’s you did not tun inot another driver because you did not want to hurt yourself or go for a ride you did not want to go on.
As far as weight when I started in A-Open light I believe the weight was 265 pounds. I weighed 120 pounds and ended up having to add less than 10 pounds to the kart.
As time progressed and by the 80’s in the controlled stock class I had to add over 40 pounds to meet the minimum weight.
Go back to karts that look like karts, reduce the weight and have heavy and light classes.