Dunlop Mid States Series Questionnaire

[David Cole]

For those that race or whould like to race in the DMSS, please go to www.angelfire.com/mi2/michigankartclub/DMSSQuest.PDF or the DMSS area of www.michkartclub.org and print out a form. You will need Adobe Acrobat. The DMSS committee really wants to hear what you have to say to improve your class and the series in general. Thanks.

Thanks Charlie for the help.

[ August 13, 2001: Message edited by: David Cole ]

[Ardy Sadeghi]

David,

Any chance we may also hear complete results from this survey? i.e. how many actually responded, stat on various questions, etc.. I think that could be interesting and helpful for all to see..\

thanks..

[David Cole]

We are hoping to keep the questionnaire out till after Gingerman. We hope to get good numbers there. Then after that, we will get all the results together and possible post the results.

[Charlie Tackett]

Dave, why don't you post teh link to the website.

[Dale Nickos]

I know there is a Questionnaire out there...But i want to get a Poll started.\

If the 125CC Situp shifter was CIK bodywork, do you think it would draw more Karts??

Just Curious

DN

[ August 13, 2001: Message edited by: Dale Nickos ]

[Charlie Tackett]

Overal for the whole series, nope. For the last two years a looked at the entrants, number of races run, etc. My observation is that those who support the entire series and compromise over 80% of the entrants over the course of the season follow WKA rules and run some kind of body work, most typically just adding some kind of nose. Those who tend to run the CIK seem to be those who seem to only run 1 or 2 events out of the series and race elsewhere, mostly on sprint tracks. It is very rare that a sprinter from a CIK bodywork enduro series has shown up at DMSS races other than at RA.

[Charlie Tackett]

Overal for the whole series, nope. For the last two years a looked at the entrants, number of races run, etc. My observation is that those who support the entire series and compromise over 80% of the entrants over the course of the season follow WKA rules and run some kind of body work, most typically just adding some kind of nose. Those who tend to run the CIK seem to be those who seem to only run 1 or 2 events out of the series and race elsewhere, mostly on sprint tracks. It is very rare that a sprinter from a CIK bodywork enduro series has shown up at DMSS races other than at RA.

[Scott Davis]

Is the DMSS planning on going to Summit Point again next year?

[David Cole]

We are currently working on next years plan. We wanted to wait till after the Summit weekend to find out if it is good or bad for the series. So when we decide, we will let you all know.

[John Clasen]

Guys, when it comes to cross over 125 shifters you may want to look at it this way. How may guys who don't normally run R/R are gonna go out and buy WKA style body work (i.e. full noses) and figure out how to mount it so they can be competitive at one or two road races? The answer is zero. If on the other hand a guy who normally races sprint 125 has an opportunity to go run Mid Ohio, Gratten, or Atlanta with an organiztion that runs body work similar to that of the rest of the country,(i.e. CIK) what do you think the chances are he will elect to run with your R/R organization. Much better, at worst.

Come on folks, lets get on the same page. It will help everyone if we get rid of the barriors that separate us currently.
JMHO, John Clasen

[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: John R. Clasen ]

[John Ferreira]

First item, David - NICE job on the survey.

2nd, When the WKA RR Committee did some surveys, like Charlie, we found that the people who "supported" the 125 class, most of them ran body work - mostly nose cones.

Of course, there are 2 sides to that statement; The question is; How many MORE competitors "MIGHT" we have if we ran CIK only?? (we do not know ... yet )

JR states; "How may guys who don't normally run R/R are gonna go out and buy WKA style body work (i.e. full noses) and figure out how to mount it so they can be competitive at one or two road races? The answer is zero."

I partially agree. I say partially, because I feel, that if a 125 guy wants to give RR a shot, he/she would show up without a full nose just to see what the big deal is about regarding RR. After that first outing - then they have to make a decision about body work ... but MAYBE not.. (see below)

As the guy who originally wrote the proposal for the WKA 125 sprint class, I have certainly heard arguments from both camps on the bodywork issue. So ….

The WKA NRRC will have a -proposal- before the WKA board of trustees to consider. We have proposed;
WKA 125 Sprint, Nose allowed, CIK side pods, radiator(s) to be side mounted. A competitor using a CIK nose gets a 20 pound weight break.

2nd class, to be run at the same time but scored separately.
CIK 125.
Both classes to be run Saturday and Sunday.
Hopefully the trustees will approve our recommendation(s)

John Ferreira
WKA NRRC

[Charlie Tackett]

Sorry, JR, but if that sprinter who wants to be *competitive, he has a lot more to do thatn worry about an enduro nose! And alot more expense. TO be competitive, he's going to probably need to buy 2 or three counter shaft and 3, maybe four rear gears, he is probably going to have to buy a differnt compound of tire than he normally runs, he may will probably have to change his chassis set-up, and he is going to have to play the fairing game, too, as CIK only seems to apply to pods and noses and not driver fairings ( and which driver fairing can make a difference). It isn't so simply as saying CIK and that one time RRing sprinter is going to be comeptitive.

Most of these guys come to these tracks that once or twice year just for the experience. Some come in little groups and are perfectly happy going out and just racing against each other. Some run whatever gear they got and are so far off base that I've seen Ted lap some of them at least 3 times in a race! If they want to be competitive to run upfront, then put the time effort and work into it that we do. We don't go to a sprint track adn demand that everybody take off their YGAs and put YDS on just for us!

We are talking two distinct and separarte market populations here. We are dominated by dedicated long track racers who rarely if ever run a sprint race. Your market is different. Yuors appears dominated by sprinter racers who also race some long tracks. Road racing in general is much healthier and different back here. I've read comments that folks out there can't even give a laydown chassis away. There are still very large #s of laydown's back here. I seem to recall #s from out there of like 170 entries for the event and 2/3rds of them were sprint shifters. Last weekend at the WKC club race, I hear #s like 400 entries and guess what....less than 10% were sprint shifters! Even at DMSS races where we may have 40-50 sprint shifters, we are still less than 20% of the entries!

You guys want CIK, you guys run sprint-motocross heat format. Face it, your market is the getting nteh sprint crossovers and doing everything to make them feel like they are still on a sprint track. Face it, they are primarily sprint drivers who run a sprint race on a long track. Back here it si totally different, I could count on one hand the # of drivers we have that are also fairly regular SKUSA sprint drivers and most of them are from one team. THe market back here in this half of the country is made up predominately of folks who run only long tracks. So that you guys can be on the same page as us, we should change the our ways which work very well to suit what works in your market. Sorry, I don't think so!

This is one case in which I believe the WKA has made a good choice in dividing it into a sprint CIK class and a sprint enduro class. After all, you guys have a formula 125 adn then a formula 125 international which makes as much sense to me as having teh two body work classes probably does to you. TIme will tell which class gets teh support.

BTW, Dave, how about a section in the questionairre about renaming classe?? I vote we change the Sprint 125 class to the GreenFlag-TOpKArt-Tm 125 Proseries! Seems to work elswhere and I'm sure Tom wouldn't mind the extra pulicity for sponsoring the class

[David Cole]

Boy Charlie, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. We are going to take more time to look over the rules for 2002 in our Sprint 125 class. You have to remember that no one in the committee runs 125 and has no knowledge. I am the only one who knows little and I am learning more and more this year. Hopefully we will have rules next year that will make everyone happy.

[scott berkheiser]

quote:

---

Originally posted by David Cole:
Hopefully we will have rules next year that will make everyone happy.[/QB]

---

David,

Surely you not that is not possible.


Scott

[Ardy Sadeghi]

I am with Charlie on this one JR!
If we want RR to prosper, we need to focus on RR issues and not sprint racing issues. This doesn't mean we should ignore sprinters.

We know how difficult it is to get enduro tracks. Dates and cost. and we are at the mercy of the tracks for available dates. so we change our rules to accomodate sprinters. what happens if the sprinters have a sprint race on the same weekend as our RR events? would they support the RR event?

Breaking up the class is probably not the best solution either. looking at wka 2000 results, there were a total of 30 individuals participating in one or more of the 8 wka enduro events.

2 participated in all the 8 wka events. 3 in 7. 4 in 6 races. with the 6 out of 8 races counting to championships, thats 9 out of the 30 who raced for the champ points.
here is the rest; 2 raced in 5 events, 1 in 3 races, 9 raced in 2 and another 9 raced in only 1 event.

this year too, there has been 30 individuals so far in the 6 races, with 2 more races to go. a few more are participating in more races. 7 people raced in 5 out of 6 races so far.. and now wka wants to break up the class? where is the logic in this? the class is just gaining some entries!

and what happened to all the yamaha sprinters that for years we have been catering to? while we have been left holding a handful of classes with 2-3 entries in ea. who is paying for all the track time, organization, scheduling, points and all the hassels of handling zillion classes? The rest of us Road Racers!

so whats for next year? heavy, med, light CIK 125, and same for body 125?

I fail to understand the philosophy in hand out a piece of wood to every one and they come by the dozens!!

and if thats the case, why don't we just give every one the peice of wood and let them think they won their own individual class!