Is Our Sport Broken? - Road Racing - Part 2

Chris Hegar · Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:59 am Post subject:

I competely understand and agree. If it's not the chassis it's the motor package discredited by the first person trying to make a $ on new runners showing up at any track. In our situation we went from 8 year old Emmick and Motive laydowns (in 2001) that were new when we bought/built them into used at least 2 or 3 year old SKM cik chassis, the chassis we still run everything from 4 stroke, yam to open shifter to now days stock shifter on these same cars. When I see a new person thinking about running I always push used and cheap and honestly slower packages so a person learns. To many people want shifters right out of the gate then find it's to hard on the body, wallet, ect and they learn nothing but how to catch a cross up as it exits over the curbs. Sometimes they get it though. "Sell it I don't like it" is often the final ending. The other problem is the used kart guy pushing something they should not to a new person.

Had one in the shop the other day. Met him at the track during an event, he was intrested in rr karting with no history in racing except perhaps some bike stuff. Showed him my rig, told him it's not overly easy but is fun taking lots of time to master, recommended slower package. The guy was really excited but was not going anything but shifter. I actually offered to sell him my stuff noteing it's older and cheaper but has a great motor and is well maintained. Offered full instruction/training/ratio's/motor tuning/sprint track/rr track, ect. I would not just drop it on anyone and walk away. Guess what, he walks down the pit and buys a 250. He looked a little puzzled when he came in the shop. Tells me the deal and how great it is. Next question to me... so I can take this to the sprint track right? Were talking full bodywork 250 single, wing pods, nose. Ahhhh not really. This is another issue in rr karting that kills people off and makes me sick.
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Bob Vehring · Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:11 pm Post subject:

I got those stories too Chris.
A father calls us up, someone sold him a kart to get his 8 yo kid started in. Over the winter, He buys a engine from us, all the little stuff, has the kart lettered. In spring he brings it to Milw to have us set it up, its a 125 shifter chassis with a pur plate Flathead on it.
OR, my favorite, At Badger we finnally put a one year expieriance rule on Shifters because of this.
4 collage age guys, pool their money, go to a shop and buy a new Shifter.
One day a pickup truck shows up at the track with a new shifter and a case of beer, these guys want to know where you put the gas in this thing...........
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Gerry MacNutt · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:10 am Post subject:

Bob Wilson · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 6:50 pm Post subject:

Situations like this just raise the need for a novice class. Earlier in this thread I was pushing the Sprint Stock class that we are trying up here, but that class is intended for the sprinter crossovers. People with experience in a kart, just not at a road race. As Chris and others recently have addressed is the guy that just walks in off the street, gets chumped into a bad deal and walks away with buyers remorse. This is where a novice level class in a clutch kart for one season minimum would make sense. Would it take off? Probably not. And yes, the economy is the elephant in the room that raises it's ugly head as equipment, used or not, is not cheap. A "novice class" set-up might not be an easy move when the competitor is ready to move up. A Yamaha is the best to learn on, but a TaG makes the most sense because of it's popularity in sprint and road race and with it's ability to move to open competition (non novice only classes), it is proven versatile. I believe in the teaching aspect of running a Yamaha, but up here the Yamaha is dead for all practical means and TaG's are readily available and relatively cheap. I wish I had all of the answers and had a fool proof solution. In a perfect world.........
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David Cole · Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:07 am Post subject:

Getting back to race schedules, reviewing the WKA points, it seems that roughly 80% of the entries for the 2012 season raced 3 or less times on the year. 2012 was a 7 weekend series. With that in mind, I'm interested to see what 2013 will be?
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Brian Wilhelm · Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:20 am Post subject: ?

I noticed that too. It's obvious there's more "picking and choosing" going on than people chasing points. is that a bad thing? I don't know that I know....
2012 was a very good year for roadracing. We got back on some tracks we have not been on in a while, Barber, VIR Full Course, Gratten, etc.
Also, with the exception of the MIS weekend in September, the schedules overall didn't step on many toes. Numbers were decent, were they back to peak numbers of a few years ago? Nope. Face it, some people are just gone. Time to move on and work with what we have.
I'm hopefully waiting to see what 2013 brings. I sincerely hope the momentum gained is not broken. Just talking around, several folks bagged the last couple of races this year so they could do Daytona. Daytona should be pretty good.
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Jeff Wesell · Advertiser Joined: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 128

As one of the teams whom ran 100% of the WKA schedule this season, we couldn't right now commit to doing it consecutively if the schedule/venues played out again as this past season. This is in no way, shape or form a rip towards any sanctioning body, track, or club at all- as we know running a "National" schedule equals lots of travel and cost. No different for anyone running any National acclaimed series/event. I know the story.... "Ya' gotta pay to play". We only committed to the full 2012 NRRS Schedule after our Daytona adventure and planned accordingly for the remainder of the season.

The biggest ouch factor on our budget (proximity wise) was the closeness of dates between the Summit Point event and Roebling Road event.

In hindsight, we did get the most bang for our buck track time wise, raced at some mighty spectacular and historic tracks, had some of the closest and fiercest competition in recent memory, learned a lot (even this old guy can still learn) survived the VIR storm, have second to none knowledge on fuel stops/hotels/tollways/touristy places from WI to the S.E. coast and without a doubt had some of the best times on track and off-track I've ever had in karting. I may have called that "Priceless" in the past. Probably now, not so much. Laughing

I agree with Brian, it's refreshing to see the numbers back up in road racing and I too hope the momentum is not broken.

Being one of the handful of WI WKA NRRS contingent- I guess we too will have to see how things fall into play for scheduling for 2013 and where our travels and adventures will lead us. Smile

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Chris Hegar · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 10:54 am Post subject:

Here in the NW we have 2 brand new tracks online in the past few years, really sweet ones actually. This addition has made some of our older track operators realize they may have to work a little harder to get customers. Our hope is price will not go up for rental and may even drop. In one case the track has asked us what we need to come back to them. For our runners entry fee is probably the first thing that turns them away, I know it's effected my program a ton.
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Thom Howe · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:13 am Post subject:

Todd Kageals · Joined: 15 Jun 2012 Posts: 271

Todd Kageals · Joined: 15 Jun 2012 Posts: 271

I have one other suggestion from a new comer. It would be nice if there were a spec shifter chassis/package. Perhaps a spec class where all the karts are basically equal in terms of equipment. Keep the chassis adjustable so that tuning plays a role but not the equipment. Preferably built in the USA, reasonably priced, all spec. equipment to keep the price down. Buy the package, take the classes I mentioned above, complete a practice day or two. Take it racing. JMHO.

PS. It would be nice if a US manufacturer would build a reasonably priced shifter motor that was as durable and cheap to fix as a CR125 (cheaper would be nice but.....).

Bob Vehring · Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2013 10:02 am Post subject:

Maybe this is part of the problem, looking here, my last post was Sept of last year, since then we have gone through another season of snowmobile racing, that having ended a month ago. Its time to race again, we were looking for something to go to. We thought about Kershaw, then it hit me, nothing has changed, all the things that made us pull away from this 3 or 4 years ago, are still exactly the same.
My kids first trip to Daytona was '94 we went to everyone they had until 4 years ago. We were lucky to race through the days of 1000 entries in the early 2000's, even after the numbers dropped, for many years Animal was the largest class at most races. That concept worked. Stock Animal is not my favorite class but overall it worked for the most people. Some of you remember our group from here, always was 10-15 racers all running several classes per day. The structure that made Animal good was it was simple, two identical classes one at 335 the other 360. My kids are 40 # apart, others were much more, but we all raced and most any of them could have their day.
I understand the business side of the sport. It is what it is, but the day quickly came when they added Animal 385 and 410 to the 335 and 360 stock classes. The we added Limited mod, then LO 206 classes and cloan classes. Everybody is split up trying to win their trophy and every class now has between 2 and 10 entries, the days of 40 Animals are gone

The other thing that led not just us, but our whole group out of this is the race structure. My conversations about this go back to the days Randy was driving the bus, but also of course include Van and Rick.
We all know who the WKA National Champ is, any class, Its seldom the fastest or best, it usually is the guy that can afford either the time or the money to go to every single race, most people simply pick a few races to go to. I'm a SERIES kind of guy, anyone can be lucky at a race, but can you do it consistently? Can you do it everywhere?
We had our years, won our championships, but we also drove all the way ( from here) to New Hampshire, to find 2 other people in our class. We drove 1000 miles when weather was calling for 98% rain because their just might be that break in the clouds and your class might run.
The concept has been around for years that SKC, WKC, CES and Kart all run their series as Reginol series, then have a couple run offs at say MO and Daytona. Now everyone could be a player. Sounds simple enough, until you try to get the business ends to sit down and agree.
All of us here miss doing WKA, RR, we miss the friends we don't see, we miss the parties and most of all we miss the races. But, we also know we can still get all that, race every week either at Badger or CES and do 90% with in a few hours of or home. I wish there was a true National series where we all could race. WKA doesn't fill that for us, looks like Gateway will be the next RR for us.
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