I believe IAME wants to phase out the leopards just because of money…Figure IAME has made a ton off of the leopard. The market is flooded with leopards, so you get everyone who has bought a leopard to buy an X30 and you’re a genius! Even with the buy back IAME is still making money since the X30 and leopard are fairly similar. Since everyone and their sister has a leopard, lets phase it out and get everyone and their sister to buy the X30! Marketing brilliancy!
On the flip side take Briggs and Stratton for example. The Raptor flathead in comparison to the market with the leopard was the same and a very sucessful engine, ..Very flooded and everyone who raced 4 cycle had one. Briggs announced the ol reliable flathead would no longer be produced and the animal wasn’t a huge success like the flathead. That backfired on B/S very quickly, but they took the risk thinking that everyone who had a flathead would buy the animal, and unfortunately it didn’t take off. The point of it was that the development had plateaued and the profit vs cost for B/S wasn’t there anymore, because everyone already had one! Create a new design and hope people buy it. I know at that time everyone here in Kansas City had a Flathead, and when the flathead went away we all switched to 2 Cycle, didn’t see the desire and benefit of the animal.
As far as seeing it ran in WKA. I believe Chris Wehrheim ran one at Norway in Man Cup and lost to his teammate who was on a Rotax. So if you’re going to tell me the X30 is better than the leopard, why didn’t it out perform the Rotax?
I don’t think you’ll ever get rid of the leopard and rotax’s. Very cost effective and very reliable unless you’re on the national level cranking every bit of power out you can, but that’s racing!
In my belief I will always own a leopard until something comes around and puts it to shame.
