Behind the Laptop: One Down, Two to Go
EKN's David Cole breaks down the numbers into the first 1/3 of the 2024 season (Photo: On Track Promotions - otp.ca)
As we close out the month of April, the first third of the 2024 season has been completed. In a blink of an eye, four busy months of racing have been put in the books as the warmer states in the south and along the west coast have enjoyed a packed schedule. Now that the weather in the northern half of the country is warming up, tracks are gearing up for their season openers to kick off club and regional racing all over the USA and Canada.
If you didn’t know, I love statistics. Records are something that I believe should be kept for our sport, which is nearing its 70th year anniversary. Magazines from the past are really all we have before the internet arrived to provide us with the opportunity to archive a digital footprint as to what has occurred within our sport. The last 20 years have been published on the pages of eKartingNews. Keeping these stats and numbers also helps to measure how well the sport is doing. Along those lines, the stats we are seeing at some of the events this year at the ‘national’ level are new records.
One of the most often asked questions I have received during my now 20-year tenure with eKartingNews is:
“How many karters are there in the USA?”
It’s one of the more difficult questions to answer. There is no one organization or outlet that has tabulated the different names of competitors from all the different races at the local, regional and national level. Without a proper national organization to track, monitor, oversee, or even license karting competitors in the United States, getting a close or even rough estimate is impossible. Since we are the hub of karting here in the USA, let’s get down to the putting together some numbers as we go forward through the 2024 season.
To begin, we are going to look at the first three programs that are already completed – the Superkarts! USA Winter Series, ROK Cup USA Florida Winter Tour, and Challenge of the Americas. The SKUSA Winter Series set a record at its opening weekend in January, reaching 285 entries. The Florida Winter Tour saw an increase in participation, welcoming over 200 entries over its 11-class roster. The Challenge of the Americas saw a decrease in overall entries, eclipsing 110 twice over its three-race program.
This will be an ongoing segment that I’ll continue to add to when programs conclude, providing two or three updated stats and figures as we go through the season and championships are completed.
2024 USA Karting Driver Statistics:
Total Number of Drivers (SKUSA Winter Series): 266
Total Number of Drivers (FWT): 317
Total Number of Drivers (COTA): 168
Total Number of Drivers (Overall): 638
Over the three programs, over 600 different drivers competed. A total of 98 drivers raced at least one race in both SKUSA and FWT, while only six drivers from COTA also raced at a FWT event. One stat stood out as only two drivers in total competed at least in one round in all three programs – Drew Jensen and Dean Pedersen.
Having never really broken down the total number of drivers before, these numbers surpassed my rough estimate of how many drivers are competing at the major karting events. While I thought there were maybe 500 drivers competing at the ‘national’ level, we’ve already surpassed that number.
As the season goes on, we’ll include the numbers of the United States Pro Kart Series and Superkarts! USA Pro Tour, along with both US Trophy West and US Trophy East, in addition to the US Trophy Final, ROK Vegas and SKUSA SuperNationals by the end of the year. As we move along through the season, we’ll put together the stats from the regional programs as well – Texas Sprint Racing Series, California ProKart Challenge, Padholder Super Cup Series, Route 66 Sprint Series, Stars Championship Series, Colorado Karting Tour, and Sunshine State Karting Challenge. Maybe after the Cup Karts North America season is completed, we’ll breakdown their numbers as well.
My estimate is that we’ll get close to the 800 driver mark when we begin to factor in the SKUSA Pro Tour and USPKS programs, and then when including the regional programs, it could get closer to that 1,000 mark.
Stay tuned for more stats as the 2024 season continues.
Archives
