(For the Laydown folks . . . ) I posted this on the old forum in this thread and really didn’t get too much response but thought I’d post it again just in case. I gotta tell you, I’d really like to go run this track, but I don’t want it to be like the 2009 Miller race again. If there is not a laydown class that looks like it will be a fairly large grid, I won’t bother and I’ve talked to others who feel the same. It’s going to take us, the racers, to get together and make it happen and to do that, many of us will have to step away from our “it must be MY class” mentality. I’m one of them. If it’s not the class I suggest below, name another one. I really don’t care.
Here is what I posted . . .
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I have a suggestion for the laydown guys and gals. (I’ll get to the suggestion in a minute . . . )
I went to the first Miller/Utah race in 2009. Planned for it a year in advance. I brought two of only about a dozen or so laydowns. Lots of karts there but very few laydowns. Even so it was an awesome trip (from Indy) and event, wonderful track and facility, got to meet lots of great people, and I have a lot of great memories from it. I turned it into somewhat of a vacation . . . . Leading up to this Miller event I talked to many laydown people that said they weren’t going because they didn’t believe there would be many laydowns there. Of course, you get much of that and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. COTA will likely be the same unless the dwindling number of laydown drivers out there get together and figure out a way to get enough people there to make it worthwhile.
How about this? How about we get together here or elsewhere and decide on a class to target for this event as the “big one”? I suggest we target a class that I think many if not most laydown folks could do even if it is not currently their primary class – Yamaha Pipe. I’m not talking about the F-125 or 80cc shifter guys – once those karts are set up they’re pretty much fixed. I’m talking about the guy that is running Yamaha Sportsman or some other piston port or 100cc Controlled with a Reed Jet or whatever. Most of those folks that are not running a KT right now probably have one on the shelf or can borrow one. If we could get twenty people to commit to that then you’ve got a pretty good grid (really good these days!) that then would get others interested and maybe we can get the grid up to thirty . . . or more. If you want to switch to a Sportsman pipe for another race later in the day like Chris said, great, do it.
This will take some people stepping up to put their normal preferences aside. I’m one of them. I’ve got Yamahas, but don’t normally run them these days. But I will for this event and can probably bring one more driver/kart to do the same. There you go. There’s my two. Chris Larson has already said he is in. Who else?
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