The decision to split the Comers and the Animals came before the decision to go with SKUSA. It was clear from last year that it would be next to impossible to make the Comer 80 competitive with the Animal – of course we were trying to speed the Comers up, not slow the Animals down. Since we split them, the Comers have to be run as they do at Stars, that only makes sense. Maybe we should have slowed the Animals down to match the Comer 80s… but if that is the case then why not just go with a Comer, as then you can race nationally. Many made that choice, anyway.
Yes, the Gazelle would have been a good choice. I think it is easy to say that we should have just went with the SKUSA classes down the line, offering the K80, and the Cadet TAG with the Gazelle and EasyKart 60. The reality is this is a transition year, trying to merge what we were doing with where we want to be doing in the future. I have a hard time believing that everyone would have run out an bought a Gazelle without complaint – my guess is that the Comer 80 class would be even larger. And even so, the Gazelle is a Cadet TAG, not a Junior 1, so you would still have 2 classes running together – just the speeds would probably not be an issue, as the Comer 80 and Gazelle are more compatible.
If there are that many happy Animal owners, then that class would hang around. Obviously the opportunity to switch to the Comer class was appealing to many. You just can’t please everyone, and the time to set the classes is past. Do you Animal drivers/parents that are left want to be slowed down, so that at least you could run on the track with the Comer 80s? I don’t think there is a way to, at this point, try to equalize the Animal to the Comer 80’s level so that they could be scored together. If you want the Junior 1 to be a one engine class – well it looks like it worked out for the Comer 80.
As for how many for a class… I think that number is 6, especially if it looks like its own track time. If there were, say 4, we would have to see how to safely run them with the Mini Max, or slow them down and run with the Comers. Unfortunately, you can’t have 4 karts in a class that need the track to themselves. I thought I did answer the refund issue, maybe in another thread. Send in your registrations, I can hold the SKUSA part until we know whether or not the class will fly. If not, I send the money back to you – If we have enough, then I send in the SKUSA forms. At least we can know ahead of time the numbers that we are going to have.
angie