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| Is Our Sport Broken? - Road Racing - Part 2 |
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Following the initial release of our ‘Is Our Sport Broken?’ commentary, we have received significant response from the karting community, via the discussion thread and through personal emails and private messages. We would like to thank everyone for their contribution, and while we know there are still a number of individuals who have not contacted us or added to the on-going discussion in the forum, we would encourage everyone involved in road racing in some form to contact us and let us know what you think. It doesn’t have to be in a public domain or through an email, but give us a call through our CONTACT page. The concept is to continue the flow of ideas so that road racing can solidify its current base and become stronger heading into the future.
COMMENTARY REVIEW
Roughly a year ago, we penned the editorial ‘Is Our Sport Broken?’ following our attendance at the 2011 IKF Road Race Grand Nationals, which suffered from extremely low kart counts and virtually no national participation. During the initial weeks following the release of the article, we received a ton of comments and ideas regarding the state of road racing. Upon reviewing the feedback received, it appeared that a change was desired by many for the IKF’s Grand Nationals program. Below is a general outline of the comments that were published in the forums and sent to us privatley.
Reasons not to attend the IKF Grand Nationals:
Economy, track rental prices, travel costs, other family activities
Neglect from the organization itself
Poor turnout – people expected that not everyone will attend Grand Nationals
Less than 200 racers in the three regions combined
Scheduling conflicts
Too many classes
No kart shop support
Ideas to help event grow:
Regions work together to put on one event
Shorten schedule
Develop a more appealing set of classes
Bring in sprint clubs to add numbers
More support from the organization
More road race ‘Arrive and Drive’ packages offered through the industry
Build up regions more before pushing on Grand National/Series
Host event every two years to increase the prestige
Run high-profile prestige tracks instead of club tracks
Market the sport and the event more aggressively
Now, one year later, there will not be an IKF Road Race Grand Nationals for the first time in many, many years. The Portland Karting Association was awarded the bid to host the 2012 event, but passed on the opportunity toward the end of 2011. Recently, they were awarded the 2013 event and plans are already underway to bring the race back to a higher stature. The future of IKF road racing, or at least the Grand Nationals, could hang in the balance based on the success of the 2013 event and the growth of its regionals.
CLEAN SHEET OF PAPER
After we put together the first column, one thing stuck in our minds. Is this a simple case where road racing needs to be reborn with a new mindset? Whether it’s religiously, financially, in personal relationships, or even as kids playing kick-ball, the phrase ‘do-over’ has been used before to help resolve a dying situation or to start over from scratch. Now we are not saying to wipe the sport completely clean and start over, but we could easily use the over 50 years of knowledge and history we have of the sport to move road racing forward instead of backwards. The possibility of using pages from the past in unison with the new concepts that are currently providing success in other areas of karting might be the best approach.
Let’s look at the primary problems, as we see them. Three areas that need to be addressed by any organization moving forward are 1) bringing in new racers, 2) class structure and 3) scheduling.
Decreasing participation numbers is the biggest issue that road racing is currently facing. Figuring out how to bring new people into this discipline of karting needs to be our #1 focus – everything else will fall into place as a result, because class structure and scheduling will need to be adjusted to make road racing more attractive to outsiders. So how do we start developing ideas to attract to racers? For me, since I’ve always seen a kart in the garage, I’m not armed with a personal story of how I got into karting. I was born into a family that raced, so it’s all I knew. That said, for the many racers already in karting, they were introduced into the sport some way or another. Getting feedback from these racers should be a key component to developing programs to bring new participants to road racing. If it worked for them, it can work for someone else. The development of a program to educate and attract racers to the road racing discipline needs to be a primary project for those who are at the forefront of the sport. And to get this started, let’s do what has already worked in the recent past.
Removing some of the obvious obstacles for entry would be a solid first step. As stated, one difficulty that road racing is facing is bringing in new people to the specific discipline. The list of reasons why people are not jumping on-board with road racing is long. Everyone has their own personal opinion, but what I see lacking is an easy way to introduce a new person to road racing. The current class structure is far too complicated and confusing, and there is no set line-up of categories that are being marketed to new racers, whether we’re talking about potential sprint racing crossovers or brand new competitors. However, within the massive list of classes, right now, I see four categories that would be perfect for providing easy entry for new racers to the sport. They are Stock Leopard, Stock Honda, Yamaha Sportsman Sprint, and Yamaha Sportsman Laydown.
These four classes provide a level where a racer can go to the race rack, and be competitive right away. During my recent return to the track, we were able to be in the hunt from the get-go. Our Stock Leopard is right out of the box and the First Kart chassis we have has all the same components it came with when we bought it. It’s nothing special and hasn’t been custom-built for road racing. The Stock Leopard class just eliminates so many of the variables that come with running classes that are more hardcore road racing. It’s this ease of entry and relative low cost that can help attract new racers. The same can be said for Stock Honda when comparing it to the open shifterkart categories.
To get people into the traditional style of road racing classes, the full-body and purpose-built sprint enduro karts in the Yamaha Sportsman Sprint and the laydown Yamaha Sportsman classes offer the same low maintenance as the Stock Leopard and Stock Honda divisions, while still giving drivers the option to move into higher speed categories down the road with just the change of an engine. One of the big issues in trying to get people involved in the traditional style of classes is the mechanical side of the sport. Many are not familiar with this level of prep or are simply less mechanically inclined, and the full bodywork required to be competitive is a must. As a person who has laid new fiberglass around a kart, I can confirm that it’s a tough and tedious job. I think if there was a manufacturer that could put together a kart with a spec body that will fit most body types - short or tall, 120lbs to 200lbs - it could help guide people into the traditional style of road racing for karting.
Another factor that hurts the numbers at events throughout the year is travel costs. The past 10 years have seen a significant increase in hotel costs, transporter fuel costs, racing fuel costs, and food itself. In order for karters to make an event, they need to be able to deal with not only their race equipment, but all the travel expenses as well. With eight races on the 2012 calendar for the WKA Road Racing Series, it doesn’t really matter where you live, you’re into some serious travel costs to campaign the entire series. To transition from what we’ve seen on the national scene for sprint karting, a limited schedule of three to five racers with maximum track time has helped to build up entry numbers in a big way.
My thought for the last several years has been to decrease the number of national events to emphasize the national schedule and each event itself, while allowing the regional programs a chance to grow once again, which in turn helps to provide more racers the option of racing at the national level. Like I’ve stated before on the forums, I’d love to see a four-race national schedule for WKA - one for each season at facilities that people want to travel to - Daytona, Mid-Ohio, VIR and others. The cons to that approach are obvious, as the track rental is more expensive when compared to small facilities and the ‘lower-budget’ tracks that would no longer be on the national schedule - such as Grattan. In my opinion, I’d rather see four big events rather than eight small events, where they feel like it’s just another race. This would also help grow the regional series/clubs, because if drivers still wanted to run eight races each year, they could run their four regionals races and then all four nationals. Their travels costs would be cut considerably as the regional racers would require far less road time and missed work.
The recent WKA Grand Nationals at Mid-Ohio further show that people hand-pick the events they want to attend, welcoming a much larger crowd when compared to the earlier series events of the year. If we have three or four events like that, it can help to build some excitement about a national series. An informal poll on our forums section show the majority of people in road racing compete in five to six race weekends a year. 89% race 3 to 8 weekends a year, which fits in perfect with our program - four national events with four regional events a season.
That in-turn goes into scheduling and how it is always a problem when you plan out your racing season. For 2012, we saw some schedule changing to move larger events away from each other to help allow those from different areas of the country to make multiple events. I applaud those who are putting in an effort to do so. This year, there were not many races that were scheduled on the same weekend, aside from the Grattan WKA National weekend when the Southern Kart Club hosted a club weekend at Roebling Road. But issues like that need to be reviewed as much as possible and avoided. In road racing, conflicts only damage the current strength of the sport. If there were only four national races, that would help. In a perfect world, the national events would not have a regional or club race within two weeks to allow for competitors to do both if they choose to. And ‘competing’ regional programs do the same from region to region, allowing those who wish to travel outside their area not be penalized for trying to add some extra races to their schedule.
GROWTH
To me, road racing is like Radiator Springs in the ‘Cars’ movie. The busy highway is passing it by without really knowing it’s there. We need to get people interested in road racing once again. The road block in the entry level plan mentioned above is industry support. At Grattan, there were only two kart shops on site to provide trackside support - L.A.D. Specialties and DRT Racing. In year’s past, there were at least a dozen kart shops along pit lane that you could go to for parts and support. Unless we can get the industry back behind the sport of road racing, then an entry level program will be pointless.
Politics have impacted the sport drastically over the past few years. Similar to what we see on the national level, it has almost splintered the community and has certainly put people to one side or the other on a number of topics. While it would be easy to ask people to put aside their differences and move forward, it’s harder than it seems. In order to grow, we all need to put it behind us and move on, start looking at the future of the sport then what has happened already. The economy has hurt as well, but things seem to be turning around.
So, where do we go from here? If we can promote our entry-level classes, and get some industry members behind the sport again, we’ll start seeing new racers. We need the clubs and racers to start marketing to the masses. Certainly, promoting road racing to those in the sport already does help, but you can only reach so far. One thing I find when converting a sprint racer over to the road racing side is the amount of track time and bench-racing gained. Road racing provides a more laid-back atmosphere while still offering intense racing. It’s simply a different experience, and most people love it as soon as they try it. Sticking with people already in motorsports is another avenue. You may find a current car road racer that is looking for a new challenge. Working with car club to maybe slot in one or two karting classes may open up the eyes of those not familiar with karting, and could lead to some influx of new karters. Lastly, marketing the cool factor of racing the same tracks as IndyCar and the American Lemans Series is crucial. Many racers have run their first road racing events simply to have said that they ran on a certain marquee circuit. This can no longer be over-looked when it comes to marketing events.
CLOSING
In the end, I really think we need to look at making some big changes in order for road racing to turn around and stop its decline. For years now, its been done the same way, but now with numbers continuing to decline, I think we need to make some new changes and bring the excitement back. The ‘same way’ isn’t cutting it anymore. We also need some more input and help in promoting this type of karting. I still see the same people volunteering their 12-hours a day at the track to help put on these events with not much assistance from anyone else. I would really like to see more support from the racers themselves, and realize what kind of commitment it takes to put on an event.
Once again, we state that this article is to help begin discussion on how to make the sport better, and in this case, road racing. We want to continue to see the road racing community discussing on how to make things better, as there is always room for improvement. We ask that you participate in a constructive discussion on this topic or to provide your opinion in our Forum Discussion Thread that we have started. |
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