Home › Forums › General Discussion › Karting in Colorado is BROKEN › Re: Re: Karting in Colorado is BROKEN
Hi all!
Glad to see the community coming together again and looking for answers. We’ve had this discussion repeatedly for years now and I think Jon and others are right on with the root cause.
Cost, cost, cost.
When I started in this sport in 2006 it was possible to be competitive at the club level with a used 3500 dollar kart. I was fortunate enough to actually win some races in fields of up to 30 karters with that kind of investment.
Two years later I spent that in one weekend to compete in the CSC. I know that the CSC was not a club series but the issue we have now is that as costs have soared across all series, kart counts have dropped. As the counts have dropped, series have failed and we don’t have a tiered system anymore. That means that a weekend club racer is now trying to compete against racers with budgets over most people’s annual salaries. There are rigs at club events worth far more than my house. Those rigs are full of spare chassis’, engines, paid tuners and unlimited tires.
I don’t have a perfect solution but I do believe a low cost entry level class could help. I don’t care if it’s easy kart, Briggs, clone or otherwise but if a hobbyist like me can’t compete with an affordable kart and low maintenance/tire costs I don’t expect to see growth. If I wanted to start from scratch today I would have to pay triple what I did 6 or 7 years ago. That doesn’t add up for me.
Skusa and Rotax are great for the competitive regional or national racer with a big budget and believe me, I love banging gears. That said, I believe we need an affordable option like we had back in 05-08 if we want this sport to grow again.
This is only my opinion and I’m not interested in a debate. I just wanted to echo what I’ve seen others say and suggest a low cost option.
I hope that karting in Colorado is healthy when I make it back to the states!