While none of us will deny that SKUSA or any other sanctioning body has the right to cut the seal, to say its a cost savings to not have a seal is silly and ignors the facts.
First, the Rotax Biland and EasyKart are something most of the other engines are not, they last a long time between services and for the most part, do not require ANY servicing over the course of the season. In Biland’s case, it’s several years. The only maintenance racers are having to do is caused by SKUSA tearing into the motor! I was at a WKA race this weekend and they did an extensive tech but they didn’t go inside any engine. They checked the carbs, head volumn, squish, stroke and pipe. Tearing engines apart is for the most part, punative and rarely uncovers anything non-compliant that couldn’t have been checked by other methods. You can even check exhaust port height using the light method without removing the seal.
Properly maintained, we don’t have to do anything to the motor. I have one that is untouched since new over a year ago.
All cutting the seal does is this, it raises the costs for those racers who want to do both RMax and Tag. Most of those racers are on a budget and don’t have the funds to throw money at their engines, THAT’S WHY THEY OWN A ROTAX!
What you are telling the budget racers is, we don’t want you in our series. In this country, there has NEVER been a single thing found internally non-compliant in a Rotax (or any other of the sealed motors) that required breaking the seal to find. All of the non-compliant infractions could be found by checking the PERFORMANCE items I listed without breaking the seal. There was a non-compliance a few years ago but Rotax admitted they screwed up at the factory and it wasn’t a fault of the sealing program.
Todd, you have the right to break the seal, we have the right not to race at your series. You don’t have squat for customers right now, you want to lose more? I would think you would be trying to find a way to attract more customers, not running off the ones you have. Keep up the arroagant attitude and you won’t have to worry about customers.