When we have motors of variying horsepower, weight can be used as an effective method to help balance the packages. We see it it many forms of racing, not just karts. World challenge for example uses weight to help balance the competition. In World Challenge, if you win, next time out you are carring more weight.
Jim brings up a good point, how much does weight really impact the performance. I can give a little insite Recently Greg was asked to test drive a customer’s karts where he works. Greg was almost 2 seconds faster than the customer. The customer said it was because he weighed 35# more than Greg. So they added 35# to the kart (including the ankle weights Greg wore) and it slowed him only .2 to .3 of a second. So the weight clearly had an impact but not as much as some people may think.
The must larger impact on performance is how the engine delivers the power and what are the requirements of the track. IMI is a very unusual track. It is long and has no slow corners. In our kart, neither of the boys hardly touch the brakes. They only use the brakes twice or three times, depending on the direction of the track. And then it’s not really to slow the kart, but to set the kart for the corner.
The Rotax has a limited power band. It has nothing below 7,000 and nothing over 12,800. But in that range, it is very strong. It has better mid range than any of the engines. At a track like IMI, we can run our engine between 8,500 and 12,500. At a track like that, the Rotax will be king. It is no surpise to me that Rotax owned the front row in senior. Combine good drivers with a engine package well suited for the track, what else would you suspect.
The Sonic has a range from around 7,00-8,000 to over 17,000. That is a usable power band of almsot 10,000 rpm. The usable power band of the Rotax is roughly 5,500. If the track requires a wider power band, who do you think is going to dominate?
At New Castle, it is just the opposite. That track has three very slow corners. We were out of gear 3/4 of the way down the straight yet we were at or below 6,000 of the slow corners. The Sonics were 1 to 1.5 seconds quicker. It wasn’t any where near close. If I was going to race at New Castle, I certainly wouldn’t take a Rotax or any other motor at the current weights. We were able to match the Leopards there (we beat all but one), but neither of us could come anywhere near the Sonics. New Castle is more the norm in tracks in that it has slow corners and fast straights. At Bandimere, the Sonics should have a clear advantage, at CRE, the Sonics should crush. At Grand Junction, it will be a bit more balanced, but a quality driver with a good chassis should dominate on one of the eight port designs. At Steamboat Springs, the straights are not that long so it should be a little more even.
The biggest problem is the basic design of the engines. We have motors that are 8 port designs that a little more than punched out ICA engines with starters and we have motors that are designed for recreational purposes, like the Leopard and the Rotax. For purposes of this discussion, the Biland is more like the Rotax and Leopard than the 8 port engines. As long as Tag allows such disparete designs to compete together, one motor will always have an advantage at some track. The challenge for TaGUSA is to find a balance for most tracks in the country. Most tracks are more like New Castle than IMI.
My concern has never been with my own team but for the sport as a whole. Since we are not running any series for points, I really could care less how well we do overall. We race simply for the joy of racing and to do the best we can. Our over riding goal is to have a safe and fun weekend.
But I am very concerned about the direction of our sport. Tag has been sold as a low cost, bolt the engine on your kart and go out and play. When any engine dominates, it’s bad for the sport and it’s bad for TaG. Some of the engines are not low maintenance. Of allthe TAg einges at New Castle, only the Sonic failed. If one of the low maintenance engines dominates, it will kill TAG. What the importers and the manufacturers have to realize, if they want to be successful in TaG, they must make their engines easy to maintain, easy to tune and last a long time. They will “win” in the market place with customer service, not on the track for Tag USA will make sure no engine dominates by adjusting weight, mid season if they have to. That is the entire premeise of TAG. We all knew that TaG USA could and would adjust weights during the year. Now when they are doing what they said they would do, some of us don’t like it.
Personally, I would rather have seen TaG USA take a bit more ballanced approach to the weight issue. By that, I mean take weight out of the slower karts and add weight to the higher hp karts. I think that makes a bit more sense for a kart owner.
The last thing and it was the reason for my earlier post, is a simple question. Are we going to follow a national set of rules or are we not? If we say we are, then we have to follow them regardless of where they lead.