[Dave Hosie]

I agree a lot with what Patrick is saying here, he knows my son, who is 12,  and has raced with him in shifters.  Typically at our club the Jr, Sen & Master classes are all running together. In a short time he has developed a lot of respect from many of the senior and master drivers.

HOWEVER, Frankly I recognize and I feel most of you would agree that he is still a novice. The ability to wheel a kart and race it are two entirely different things, both are developed through experience. This is true regardless of age.

Developing driving skills, at any age is about seat time and my son certainly gets a pile of it, this weekend alone, he did 267 laps at our track in three different karts, S5, Tag Jr & and LO 206. In 9 months he has probably made more laps than some of our older drivers make in many, many years.

Developing race craft skills however is a lot harder. Frankly the boy is able to qualify the kart way ahead of where he is able to race it and he and I, and I hope our more mature club members, recognize that. Developing race craft comes from racing and it has to be meaningful racing. Again that holds true for the 12 year old novice AND the 30 year old novice!

The problem gets further compounded when running the different classes together, The juniors may be fast in the in-field and the seniors will be able to drive by them down the straight. Yes we have had a few issues with the boy running up the back of a senior mid corner, “Dad he parked the car on the Apex! ” Apologies then ensue. However when he passes the same senior 2 or 3 times on the infield and the senior then drives by him down the straight each lap, he and I both take that as a declaration that that senior is quite happy to go race him, two corners later he will right back on him trying to get past.

Race craft comes from racing, no where else, and my boy will run multiple classes at local events and will also run regional and National events this year to continue developing those skills. I will as I have always done coach him to avoid contact and would certainly never condone deliberate contact. This should be the goal for all classes and all ages. I frankly believe that if  you are racing, regardless of how old you are, or how long you have been doing it, your race craft should be continually developing and improving, isn’t that part of the point in doing it?

From the above discussion I feel that what most people are concerned about is that they feel most junior drivers do not have the experience or maturity to have developed good race craft or good judgement and will cause foolish and unnecessary contact. I disagree that this is an age dependent issue, there are many youngsters that have better judgement than some people twice their age!

In my opinion the issue of poor race craft and unnecessary contact is a race experience and race directing, issue that can bee seen across all age groups in our sport. Where I feel we are falling down is we frequently have contact that we do nothing about, where there is no discussion following the incident with the race director and certainly no explanation to the driver of what he did wrong.

Until we start doing this and perhaps assessing a points or position penalty for causing unnecessary contact then we will continue to have this issue!

I know it takes time during the event but frankly I believe every incident should be discussed between the race director and the drivers involved!

 

[Dave Hosie]

Rob, was that an offer to become the Czar? People might start voting!!!

A lot of what you are saying makes sense. Indeed the CIK will be returning to ICA direct style next year, a new form based on KF technology. Unfortunately we already have one manufacturer who has released a NON CIK direct drive ahead of finalization of the CIK standards. No doubt they are thinking about the American Market where of course they want us to have different engines that are not equal and cannot be run in the same class. Hopefully as the Czar you will simply say NO and mandate that the manufacturers follow the spec and give us engines that can all be run together competitively at the same weight.

You then have a chance of developing a strong local following with a defined path to your regional and National final. You may even be able to call the final a US or North American CIK-FIA Championship. Of course that would give our drivers some recognition on par with the Europeans and no one wants that.

Now all that remains is to organize our Czar sanctioning body so that we can find a way to get some money out of unsuspecting people and start sending you your check.

Joking aside, I frankly believe that the move today by MaxSpeed group just emphasizes that we really do need some kind of new leadership. What we are getting is absolutely a top down approach. We need to establish what we want and push it back up!

[Dave Hosie]

Jim, we are just bringing the LO 206 into our club, so forgive me I am not that familiar with the regs, I do see that there is a multitude of Junior specs for it with different restrictors and carb mods, does no one run this?

I actually just bought one but for my wife, my boy will be running tag and s5 this year. Frankly I feel it is a great package for the low budget racer. That said we wanted to be doing something at a little higher level, that does not mean that we are not doing it soley for fun. We have no asperations of a carrer in racing just trying to get him hooked on a legal drug for the rest of his life!

[Dave Hosie]

Greg, as a Scotsman I am pretty thick skinned, don’t worry about feeling that you are picking on me. Any of us that actually try to do anything about this are going to take a lot of abuse for our efforts! I actually appreciate your insight.

While I take your point I think that kids should be a part, at least, of the plan. That said how do we increase our exposure to the 20 some demographic. Any ideas? What I largely see is that people have no idea the sport even exists!

Unfortunately motor-heads are becoming a thing of the past!

[Dave Hosie]

How can these guys in any way say that they are doing this in the interest of the sport!

Business competition is fine but to put this back to back with the SKUSA SuperNats is declaring a blatant war on SKUSA using the customers as the weapon! To attend both events will require drivers to spend 1-1/2 weeks in Vegas, a cost and time away from work or school few of us can afford.

Half of Rotax and half of SKUSA tag run both classes, this basically forces the customers to make a choice between the two series. The result will be a split and diminished numbers no matter what happens!

It’s going to be an interesting year.

[Dave Hosie]

This thread is developing into a tremendous discussion on where we all see issues with the state of karting in the US. There have been contributions to the thread from some very knowledgeable people, giving valuable input. We do not all agree on the issues and never will, however the common elements from almost everyone is that we are passionate about our sport, feel it is broken and need to fix it!

I believe most of us agree that part of fixing it must be to increase the visibility of the sport and attract more people into it at the Grass Roots Level as EKN calls it. Frankly the people we want to attract are the kids, once they get involved they want to stay involved. I know many parents that are spending $ 400 or more a month on their kids sport, be it football or any other regular sport. Over the course of a year +/- $ 5 K which would be ample to run an entry level kart in a 12-14 race local series.

The question is how we attract these kids? And are we prepared to invest some time in trying to make it happen, when it is not for personal financial gain? I have some ideas, I also know that some will disagree, and hopefully put forward other ideas.

One idea I have revolves around developing a series that provides scholarships to the kids. This is probably one of the single biggest drivers for kids in other sports and interests, heck today, we have kids getting scholarships from playing video games or raising a sheep for gods sake! Even with my business connections I cannot get sponsorship money for my son to race but I can get business to make contributions to a competition based scholarship program.

With a scholarship program in place the sport can and would be able to access promotion in the schools, it could even be marketed as a method of increased driver ability, awareness and safety. It also introduces an element of encouraging the importance of education. A subject that our sport comes under criticism for too often with parents pulling their kids out of school to attend National events.

Perhaps such a series could be internet based where participants at local tracks are scored against other local events being conducted all over the country, a National or regional scholarship championship without the need for any travel? With a junior series 12-16 year olds, this could allow kids 4 years of competing for scholarship funds, Most other sports, they get 1 shot! Or perhaps it needs to be organized on a basis of a Middle school and High School program, rather than age driven, which could allow participants 7 years of competing for scholarship funds.

I still feel that the higher levels of Karting also need to be addressed. If we are successful in bringing kids into the sport, there will be many that want to go further than competing for up to 7 years in an entry level class and a better defined structure for this would benefit the sport.

From here, how do we move forward? Should we form a new group??? Should we try to get one of the existing bodies IKF / WKA involved? They both seem to be struggling!

Again I know that there will be many of you that read this and disagree, but rather than shooting it down and ridiculing people, put some thought to it and put forward some positive ideas. Perhaps, together, we can make something happen, that will benefit our sport!

[Dave Hosie]

SKUSA, have made several statements on this issue. The common theme is as long as Honda are committed to producing parts! That day will come. It will not be SKUSA that makes that decision it will be Honda!

[Dave Hosie]

Greg,

Couldn’t agree with you more on the issue of manufacturer / importers driving the business. We are moving to one make engine series, Rotax, IAME, ROk.

How long will it be before someone comes up with the idea of a one make engine / chassis series! It may not be far away!

My point from my posts on this topic is that we need to have leadership if we want to avoid what is coming. Provided we just sit back and let people driven by financial gain decide where and what we race then we will only get what they want us to have.

Having been involved in racing for the past 40 years both on an amature and professional basis I am well aware that it is the racer and small service company like yours that suffer.

Without either we do not have a sport!

You are right about racing in the US. It is a farce all over, but that is an excuse. The reason for this is exactly the same in the other series you mention. No leadership!

Our leadership is supposed to come from the IKF or WKA, are you happy with the leadership they are giving the sport? It would appear not or we would not have the shared concern over the manufacturers / importers controlling the sport.

[Dave Hosie]

Sounds like a stuck clutch plate, did you try driving it? Some oils can get sticky when left to sit, I would have tought that it would have released if you tried driving the kart to get the oil up to temp and pulled the clutch a couple of times while under load. Short of that I would drain the oil and take a look at the clutch.

[Dave Hosie]

The rumor I heard was that K1 leveraged the deal with an order for $ 3 mil in rental karts, that probably will double CRG’s revenue next year! It probably did not take CRG too long to make a decision on this. The details in the post are very vague, but consider that almost all K1 locations have some kind of IRL, Stock Car display it is not hard to imagine that they may add a CRG race kart display! Maybe even have them for sale at all 25 locations?? The release also states that PSL and CRG USA will run the team, could that become a K1 team. K1 is one of the largest businesses in the karting industry world wide and what they do could have a big impact on karting in the US. They have acess to over 1 million customers that are all potential new customers to kart racing. They may even go so far as developing their own outdoor series? These are just my thoughts who knows what they plan but if they get serious we will definitely know they are there! They are a real business and are turning over big $, this was not done without a plan!

[Dave Hosie]

The sport of karting was started in the USA in 1956, America led the way! The original manufacturers were all American companies. by 1957 companies like the GoKart Manufacturing Company were producing 500 karts per month. Karting became a phenomenal sport overnight, with races starting up all over America, and the first set of standards were developed along with the formation of the GKCA, the GoKart Club of America. The sport became popularized through articles in American magazines and through American servicemen stationed in Europe.

Somewhere it all went wrong! “By 1959 a new club with national and international ambitions was created in the USA, Grand Prix Kart Club of America (GPKCA). In the following years many other associations were set up, to such an extent that their proliferation and the specificities of their different regulations slowed down the development of the sport.” ( Ref, CIK-FIA )

It seams we have never fixed this problem, the sport is now recognized as a European led sport and there is no question that the majority of the equipment we use is produced by European companies. Today we still have multiple organizations and companies competing in the US to try and take the leed, or in some cases the money, in our sport, WKA, IKF, USPKS, SKUSA, MaxSpeed Group etc. There is no question that some of these groups have been extremely successful and I am not in anyway diminishing their efforts. However, you can’t help but wonder where Karting in the US would be today if we had a single sanctioning body and a single set of specifications!

Today we have no or few American kart drivers that are recognized as World Champions! Indeed we don’t even have someone that is recognized as the US National Champion! Instead we have multiple drivers, all classed as National champions of the series that they run in, diluting the standing of their success. Indeed it really appears that we have no National series but rather a number of “ National Series “ competing for stature. Racing should be about the drivers and not which series is going to win!

This post was started by William Kinnear, and I cannot agree more with the intent of his post, I believe his point is that we need a stable set of rules. We do not follow CIK-FIA rules and we are not recognized internationally, the question is should we follow or should we leed?

The CIK-FIA whether we like it or not has developed a set of rules that are used widely though out the world. Their champions are perceived as the top drivers in the world, “World Champions”. We do not have a single series in the US that follows the CIK-FIA rules, however almost every series requires that our chassis are CIK-FIA homologated, which just about shuts out any US kart manufacturers. Why do we follow the chassis rules but not the engine rules? The same goes for Brakes, Body Work and indeed our Race Suits which are all CIK-FIA homologated!

Rotax, perhaps, has come the closest to developing as a series that is recognized world wide and also in the US, but as a program that was initially intended as a solution to the hobby / club racer has developed it’s own set of issues. Perhaps the EVO, evolution will address this. Even then their champions are recognized only as ROTAX World Champions. This is the key problem for any one make series, all throughout Motorsport!

We have to recognize that we have different levels of Karting needs throughout the US, Club, Regional and National, no one solution can be the answer for all levels. The LO206 for example is a great package for the club racer but it would be preposterous to propose it as the top level of Karting in our Nation. Similarly proposing running KZ engines at a club level would be equally preposterous!

William’s original post focussed in on the issues we have evolving with TAG, we have multiple manufacturers all trying to compete with the ROTAX one make business model and carve out their portion of the money we spend. Some will succeed and some will fail, but we will pay for it! Meanwhile karting in the US will become even more diluted and less visible.

We now have K1 Speed getting in on the band wagon here in the US. Make no mistake that K1 is one of the largest most professionally run business in the WORLD when it comes to Karting. With their involvement with CRG they will have a large impact on where our sport goes, be sure that they will direct it where they can from your pocket to theirs, that is what a successful business does.

If we want control over where our sport goes then we need to be the ones taking control of what we want to do, we need a real National Karting Club weather it be WKA, CIK or something else, perhaps it should be EKN! Whatever it is it needs to be something that is developed for the Karters and CONTROLED by the Karters. It would need to be accepted by the karting community as their voice. That would take an effort by many of us and would require people to donate time, people to accept positions onto a board and for a method for the community to vote or direct how our rules were developed.

I cannot agree more with the original posts intent, If we continue to let manufacturers, series and individuals who are in the sport for financial gains to direct where we are going and how we race we will only continue to be frustrated by the outcome! The ones that suffer are the karters and the local kart shops. Lets not forget that without the these we do not have a sport!

[Dave Hosie]

The new series is offering travel incentives to the teams that bring  the drivers which we can then pass that savings onto the customers???

So the series will pay the team an incentive to bring drivers. The drivers will pay their entry fees, which is the primary revenue source for the series. The teams will then cut some slack to the drivers……?? Have we got that right?

A three race national series SWAG budget say $ 20K+, BUT we get to save $25 / set on say 12 sets of tires, so we saved $ 300. I am glad some hard facts & numbers are starting to emerge that show us this is a good thing.

It was pointed out that not everyone was happy. I hear there are a lot of people not happy with ROTAX too. Are we certain this is not a move from the frying pan to the fire!

Hopefully there will be some real numbers put out soon regarding entry fees, paddock space costs, prize funds, not to mention track schedules etc ( 13 classes / day may be a bit tough to get good track time in. )

[Dave Hosie]

Josh I hope you are right, but my fear is that both series are really pulling from the same pool, which will make it very hard for both series to prosper, its more likely that one will struggle / fold. For example, we will be running the SKUSA spring NATS and it is totally impractical to take time off from work / school 2 weeks later to attend another race. I believe a lot of people will be forced to make this same decision for one series or the other, that will effect the revenue for both series.

Your statement that it effectively produces a regional series with national exposure actually just about sums up most of our National series. Perhaps they should be called RegionNats! The only series that this year is coming close to having a true NATIONAL program is SKUSA with three races across the country. That is what a NATIONAL series is! The TPKS series is what you are describing.

I don’t see this series as a Stock Moto series with the inclusion of Rotax as you have said but indeed exactly the opposite, a ROTAX Series that has included Stock Moto to try and drive it’s popularity / profits!

[Dave Hosie]

Jim, The point here is not that we need a National body creating rules at the local level. Frankly we are doing quite well at the local and regional levels. Where we are lacking is at the National level!

What series is our National series? Is it SKUSA, WKA, IKF, USPKS ??? This is the issue. We do not have a leading recognized National series and therefore cannot identify who our National champions are.

While we have many many drivers out competing at the local level we also have many drivers spending tens of thousands competing at what we have as National events and frankly getting NO recognition for it.

Indeed it can be argued that we do not actually have a National series and that all of the series are in effect more like Regional Series than National.

This year we had several of our US drivers travel to Europe for the World finals, they all struggled with the same issue, the tires and engine packages were not what they were used to racing on. Basically our drivers were not prepared by our series to compete at the top level. Now frankly I believe that we have many very talented drivers that could be competitive at the World Finals but we do not have the venues / series here in the US for them to get the experience on the same package that the europeans are racing with.

Many people will argue that a True National Series running say CIK-FIA rules would be too expensive for the masses and they are correct for the masses it probably would be too expensive. A True National Series however is not for the masses, it is for the top say 90 – 120 drivers. Events like the Supernats with 500 + drivers, while spectacular are not really a very good venue for the top drivers as there is too much risk that an inexperienced driver has an effect on the outcome. A series at this level should require the participants to qualify for the series through the other regional series!

[Dave Hosie]

“We can call it Tag” Awsome!

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