Best place to gather local data is right here in the race results section. The National scene information is found on http://www.ekartingnews.com and in the national rags like SuperKart, and Kart Sport.
What’s most important is what you want to do, and have fun doing it.
4 Stroke shifters are not going to happen in mass. It’s going to take a national ban on 2 stroke engines and emmisions to promote a solid effort in 4 stroke shifter racing. Unless someone decides to build a road track that can allow these motors to unwind, it probably won’t happen. IMO.
As far as 2 stroke cost. We raced 7 times at IMI and all 7 CSC races in PRO ICC and went thru 6 top ends at $145.00 each + tires at each event.
If the truth were known, we only needed 3 top ends for the year. And we did have a fun year running mid pack.