COVER STORY: THE PARTY TRAIN BY BA CARTS

If you have been following us on Facebook or on our website, you just might know that you can submit your cart to possibly be featured in the magazine. For those of you that have high quality photos and detailed information, you can go to our Instagram page (@golfcartingmag), click on the link in our Bio or just go to: https://drum.io/ golfcartingmag, and click on the link titled “Submit your Custom Golf Cart” to submit your cart.

This issue’s "Custom Golf Cart" feature comes from BA Carts of Van Wert, Ohio. The company is a leading 30-year-old audio/video business that started a golf cart side hustle around 8 years ago

and has expanded into one of the leading golf cart dealers/restoration companies in the area.

This custom golf cart is a 2022 gas Club Car Onward with a 2022 Tag-A-Long trailer, below is Sloan Whitaker’s written submission detailing the build.

Every winter we at BA Carts attend tradeshows, and every year we build highdollar, ultra-custom golf carts to show the attendants that we know what we're doing and that we are not just some schmucks trying to make a buck selling golf carts. Every year we try to one-up last year's show builds, and The Party Train is one of the results for 2022.

We regularly build Club Car Onwards with sound systems that are amongst the best in the country. This year we decided to build an even better system, but we would need more space, and that's when we thought of a Tag-A-Long Trailer. We steer far from building gaudy, tasteless carts that look like accessories and speakers were just bolted wherever we could fit them. So, after taking all of that into consideration, we spent many hours figuring out how to build a cart that has an insane sound system, has useful accessories, and that also looks beautiful -- we finished our game plan and went to work.

To power the trailer's speakers, subwoofers, RGB LEDs, overhead dome LEDs, brake lights, taillights, and turn signals, we had to run a 13-Pin European Style trailer plug. The female plugs on the Onward have hooks to grab the trailer’s male plug which ensures that no wires are yanked out of place during use.

We had our friends over at Sweitzers paint the Onward body black with silver flake, added a Modz Tower Top, and the rest of the metal parts powder coated Illusion Blueberry. UCU Inc. made the Suite Seat cushions which have double-top diamond stitch with black/blue vinyl to match the paint and powder coat. To help passengers step up into the Onward, we installed

Jake’s nerf bar steps and DoubleTake's footrest steps. We love Madjax's Alpha Armor bumper, so we installed that on the front. And to finish it all off, we sat the Onward on Fuel UTV's 14" Nutz wheels with 23" Kraken all terrain tires.

To provide the passengers with highs, we installed JL 7.7" M6 tower speakers to the Modz Tower Top, 7.7" M6s within our BA flush mount waterproof speaker enclosure, and two sets of JL 7.7" M6 tower speakers on the Tag-A-Long facing both ways. For low end bass on the Onward, we dropped in our BA Stealth sub which is a ported waterproof enclosure with a JL Audio 10TW3 thin-line subwoofer; and for low end on the trailer, we ran two JL Audio 12W0 subwoofers in a custom waterproof ported enclosure. The system runs on a Stinger high powered car audio battery, is powered by (2) JL Audio MXA600/3 Amps mounted in the dash, is controlled by a JL MM100s head unit and tuned through a computer software thanks to the Hertz H8 DSP we installed in the dash, which allows us to meticulously tune every channel of the sound system. If your trailer passengers don't want music, and to avoid powering the Tag-A-Long amp if you're not pulling it, we installed a switch in the steering column that turns the trailer audio on and off.

Both the Onward and Tag-ALong have an XK Glow Dual Zone controller, which means you have four zones for LED lighting (Onward speakers, Onward underglows, Tag-ALong speakers, Tag-A-Long underglows). XK Glow is controlled by your phone and allows you to run any thinkable pattern and color on all four zones. To help see the road ahead of you, we installed an 8" DB Link LED light bar in the Armor bumper. To see the road behind you (and to help you hook/unhook you trailer at night), we installed flush mount LEDs in the backseat. And to see throughout your Onward and trailer at night, we installed two dome lights in each ride. All four LED accessories are controlled by custom switches made by Rocker Switch Pros mounted in the carbon fiber dash cover.

- BA Stealth Sub - Our drop-in subwoofer (Ported waterproof enclosure with JL Audio 10TW3 sub). - BA Speaker Box - Our waterproof speaker enclosure that

mounts between the front/backseat which: 1. Protects the speakers from engine heat and weather 2. Allows the speakers to produce a much stronger mid-bass by being in an enclosure rather than just sitting in a hole.

MODZ: Tower Top UCU Inc: Suite Seats MadJax: Jake's Nerf Bar Steps - Armor Brushguard DoubleTake: Rear Footrest Steps CLUB CAR: Carbon Fiber Dash Cover DB Link: 8" LED Light Bar / LED Dome Lights JL Audio: (3 sets of 7.7" M6 Tower Speakers, 1 set of 7.7" M6s, MM100S Head Unit, (2) MXA600/3 AMP, JL 10TW3 Sub, (2) JL 12W0-3 Subs XK GLOW: 2 Dual Zone Controllers

Our story is long, so I'll keep it short. We are a 30-year-old audio/video business that started a golf cart side hustle around 8 years ago. All of us within the audio/video business were already versed in the powersports world, so we caught on quick. Starting out, our #1 goal (and one of the reasons we got into the business) was to truly restore golf carts inside and out instead of ignoring the mechanical parts, and just slapping a new body, backseat and wheels on a cart and calling it "restored." We emphasized that so strongly from the jump because we never half-a** anything in our audio/ video business, and we weren't going to start in our golf cart business.

Long story short, after building pre-owned Yamaha Drives for a couple years, word slowly got out that our restored carts were the most dependable, clean and restored golf carts in our area and customers started rolling in. It all happened very fast, but we ended up buying a large shop to build carts, turned 3/4 of our audio/video building into a showroom, picked up Club Car Onwards, started building Club Car Precedents, and now build and sell more carts in one month than we did in all of 2015-2016.

Our short-term goal is to build a much larger showroom here in Van Wert since we are always hurting for space. Our longterm goal is to grow, but to keep a very keen eye on our culture and the products/services we offer our customers. BA Carts means "skillful, dependable and welcoming" to our customer base now, and we want to make sure we mean that and more to our customers throughout the future. Last but not least, we will continue to sit at the drawing board exploring new ideas and designs for crazy builds, because we will never grow old of seeing our customers’ faces when they see and hear an insane cart we built just for fun.

I've been very eager to submit carts to you guys for a while now, but I wanted to make sure we had some worthy builds to submit!

Check out their website at: www.bacarts.com or their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/BACarts -GCM