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Rich,
That will be spelled a little different if Mike is. 😆
Congrats on finding work.
Will we see you racing again soon?
Rich: Now that you’re employed let’s see ya back at the tracks okay? Good job on getting a job. :cheers:
I wouldn’t make a good dictator, I race and that would be a conflict of interest! And I don’t have enough experience in the middle classes, namely the junior program!
I (hope) that Bandi has bails in the places that Charles was talking about. Dodging rocks isn’t fun…
Just drive some metal fence post in the ground at these inside corners, that should take care of the cutting! 😕 How about tack strips off the inside of the asphalt edge! I like that better, you cut the corner and you flat.
Just having fun
Want the newbie perspective? I?ve been reading this thread and I thought you all might be interested in a fresh look at the karting scene. Here?s my story. I?m 54 years old, and looking to spice up my life with some exciting hobbies and experiences. You know, have some fun and stir up the juices before they harden in my arteries. I?ve always been inclined to cars and racing, so karting seemed like the logical thing to try. I don?t have much money to spend, so racing full size cars is out. Recently I went to Action Karting to give it a whirl with the rental karts. The folks there were friendly and very helpful in showing my friends and I the basic karting experience. It was a blast! Now I?m smitten. So, with my rich history of two rental sessions, I dived into the internet and researched everything I could about the karting scene, both locally and in general. I was thrilled to find that there are four tracks here on the front range. Variety is good! My quandary is the same as most in my position, I imagine. What do I do to start racing karts, and how much will this cost?in time, money and energy?
This is where the digging began, and then bogged down right away. For those of you in the karting business, please pay attention. People like me are the future of your business. The name of the game is marketing, and here?s where the industry needs help.
After a solid week of trolling the net, I found very little useful information on how to begin. Even the karting organizations offered little. There is a bewildering array of classes (and many of them appear to overlap each other), with tons of arcane rules linked to them. A rat?s maze! The manufacturer sites were not any better. If you?re lucky you can find some of the specs for the karts and parts they offer, but no real basis of comparison with other similar products. And many of the key criteria like horsepower, weight, and price are rarely mentioned, and no measurable performance info is offered by anyone! If you want people to enjoy your sport, make it simple, easy and inviting, and provide all the info anyone would need to start and progress in the sport.
It looks like there are a few enterprising companies (Rotax, Easykart, etc.) who are trying to simplify the process, but in doing so they create their own proprietary solutions to industry-wide problems. While this starts the ball rolling, it runs counter to an open market approach. The web sites I visited (at least a hundred or so?) provided little guidance. Go look and you?ll see. The typical track?s site shows a track map, when they are open, what brands they carry and their race schedule. This may be fine for those who are already involved in karting, but for the newbie, that?s not very much enticement? For the manufacturers, tuners, track owners and karting organizations, it?s time to view your field from the outside in, instead of the other way around.
It seems to me that there are five basic markets for the sport of karting. Let?s call them: Serious Racers, Dedicated Hobbyists, Thrill Seekers, Corporate Teammates, and Family Funsters. For most people, the slow concession-style go-carts provide the first step up from bumper-cars, and satisfy most of the FF people. If the local track owners and kart manufacturers would build on this beginning, and market to the TS, CT and FF folks, that will bring in plenty of new people to the sport. The next step is to nurture those newbies into DH or SR karting enthusiasts. This means turning rental customers into kart owners and racers. This is where organizations like CSC can help clear out the clutter, by providing the middle-ground guidance between kart clubs and track venues and the national organizations. Promote the most popular classes and take the sport where you want it to go, instead of being all things to all people. It could even act as a cohesive marketing force for the sport in Colorado.
Some of you mentioned reducing the number of races and classes offered by the CSC. Others mentioned the difficulty and expense involved with investing in new equipment every few years to compete successfully. I agree with both. As a (potential) newbie, I want to know that my investment in karting will offer: 1. speed and excitement; 2. lots of competition to hone my skills and increase the fun; 3. equipment that won?t become obsolete before it wears out (and that better be several years!); 4. a hobby I can share with family and friends; and 5. an inexpensive way to start, along with an opportunity to advance in the sport with only a modest additional investment.
Any sport that can offer the above knows the meaning of nurturing its customer base. Since I am blissfully ignorant of the local and national politics of the sport, I will offer my (perhaps na?ve) suggestions for streamlining and nurturing Colorado karting without pulling any punches:
First: Market the sport! We need more events like the Greeley Grand Prix, not less. Most karts tracks are located in the boondocks, so ya gotta bring the racing to the people. How many more people know about Champ Cars and open-wheel racing since the Denver Grand Prix began? Thousands! Imagine kart races in mountain tourist towns, suburban city centers, shopping center parking lots or local city parks, complete with cheap introductory rental rides. What if the Rmax Challenge Colorado championship coincided with the Denver Grand Prix? And how about a staged ?showdown? between a shifter kart and a Corvette Z06 at the DGP? Think that would stir up some interest in karting? (Check out the Bondurant Kart school website for a similar race, where the kart smoked the Vette!) And once you get the TS, CT and FF people in the door, lead them by the hand through the next few steps of becoming an enthusiast. At Action Karting I bought two sessions in the basic rental karts. On my second run I came tantalizingly close to the 56 second qualifying time for renting a TaG Leopard kart. I didn?t realize this until I?d already stripped out of my racing suit. It would have been an easy sell to a third session if someone had pointed that out, and offered some suggestions to reduce my times. Offer a discount on my first Leopard ride, and you could have reeled me in like a fish?
Second: Keep the CSC championships simple. The club races are the places to practice, build your skills and mix it up with the locals for bragging rights. This is where the nurturing and the fun happens? Regional championships help unite the various clubs and tracks, provide higher levels of competition and bigger goals for competitors, while being the qualifiers for national titles. This is where the racing gets serious and the true Champions emerge! How about 5 races (one at each CO track), and a final championship round in a neutral setting (a park or street course) with no ?drops?? Can?t make it? Guess it wasn?t important enough? For special showpiece town events like those mentioned above, make it open to all member racers, and invite the top three club racers in each CSC class to the event, and provide ?show? money to cover expenses and prize money for the podium winners from event sponsors. That would help insure high participation, and keep the competition high in the clubs, too. Offering cool prizes for the competitors increases the legitimacy of the event in the eyes of the public, too. In any showpiece event the top performers should be paid!
Third: Use the KISS principle. When the pool of available kart racers is divided into too many classes, they all get thin, and the racing suffers. Why not run some classes together that offer similar speeds? That would fill up the grids, and make for fewer events on each race day, so everyone could get in plenty of racing and practice time. It would also satisfy the need for adhering to the rules established by national associations, so that top racers would be ready to compete at higher levels. I suggest 8 CSC race classes: Four shifter classes and four clutch. Shifter: Senior 125, Master/Heavy 125, Spec 125, and Junior/Cadet 80, and Clutch: TaG Senior, TaG Master/Heavy, TaG Junior/MiniMax, and Spec Cadet/Kids. Combine the Pro and Novice 125 classes into Senior 125. Run the current Junior 80 and Novice 80 classes together as Junior/Cadet 80, likewise with the TaG Junior and MiniMax, each with their separate rule structure. The Spec Cadet would specify a Cadet-sized kart with spec 4-cycle engines, while running with the current Kid spec Honda class. Any other classes can be championed by the track/club who chooses to specialize in those classes. And let?s expand on the theme of integrating overlapping classes like Rotax Max, Easykart and TaG, with inclusive equalizers that help even the competition. Example: If your kart uses front brakes, then add 10 pounds of ballast. Can?t adjust the chassis on your Easykart? Then subtract 10 lbs from the weight limit, or whatever?
Fourth: At the club level, add a bridging race series (perhaps on every Saturday afternoon, when the rental business peaks) that takes people from the rental rides to the real race experience. For perhaps $85-100 you could offer the ?race package? rental kart with 7 laps of warm-up and qualifying, and two 7-lap heats. (That?s 25 laps total, with the in and out laps included.) Run the heats one after the other. After qualifying, line up the karts in reverse order for the starting grid, run the first heat, then reverse the finishing order again for the second heat. The winner would be determined on total points from qualifying and the heats. For maybe $150 you could offer ?fast? renters your TaG kart rental with the same race package. This could be marketed as the ?introduction to kart racing? at a fraction of the cost of ownership. This race series could also be bundled with practice lap packages that might provide, say ten 10-lap practice sessions in the basic rental karts, with 5 rental races included for $700. Step up to the TaG rentals for $1200. To make it more interesting you could cross-fertilize the rental market with the kart owners by introducing ?recreational? kart races in the same event?
Fifth: Lead off the rental-races with a few simple ?run-what-ya-brung? recreational races for kart owners who want to race ?just for fun.? Perhaps there would be just three basic classes: Shifter, Clutch and Cadet/Kids. No scrutineering, just safety checks. These classes would be all about having a good time and practicing your race skills on a limited budget. New owners would have to race in these classes first, and then move up to the club and CSC series. Use the same format as the rental races, with 10 laps instead of 7, or add another heat to make the race day worthwhile for the owners to participate. Entry fees could be kept small ($30-50, including unlimited practice) to cover the timing and race setup. If the time gaps between runners are large, then give the backmarkers a head start. Create it so everyone has a chance to win. The idea is to learn racing technique, so passing is the order of the day, and that should make for a wild and fun ride for all, including the spectators. (Remember them? Watching the owner racers go fast would entice them to give the rental races a shot?) Isn?t that what it?s all about? ?Recreational? kart racing would also provide a built-in market for used equipment with no big handicap for any lack of performance. Older equipment could be passed down to family and friends, or sold to others. Newbies could get started with ANY decent kart, inexpensively, and not worry too much about rules and classes and such. Simple and Fun! If marketed properly to groups of TS, CT and FF folks, kart sales and race participation would go through the roof! This would also prompt more manufacturers to build simple, fast, reliable, inexpensive karts for the ?casual? racer and rental markets.
For those who asked for concrete suggestions, there you go? I have no commercial interest in the sport, and no ax to grind, so these suggestions are just that. Take ?em, leave ?em, or use them to spark some better ideas. I think it would be a lot of fun to be involved in karting, so I hope to meet you all sometime soon, and you can teach me plenty. Thanks to Doug Welch for taking a couple hours of his valuable time to fill me in on the basics I was looking for. From what I?ve seen so far, the karting scene is chock full of great people. Let?s work on burying any hatchets you may be carrying and concentrate on making karting even more fun and rewarding than ever. (Isn?t there enough fighting and backbiting in the rest of the world? Peace and prosperity go together!) Meanwhile I have to scrape up the $8-10k it will take to get started in 2007. Any suggestions? I look forward to your replies.
OWL – Brian Davis 😀 [/b]Hey Brian,
Good post with a great deal of thought and suggestions. I second the recreational rental racer. I would love to see THAT come to fruition. Why the track owners haven’t done it is beyond my comprehension. Maybe I’m missing something but it’s a no brainer! I think there would be at least 5 entries!
My path is similar. I’d gone to driving schools and had fun doing it. Golf was competitive but not “gladiator” competitive enough and i (was) a good golfer till I started this sport. I met a guy at the gym in a Ferrari hat and a karting Tshirt and we talked. Then I rented twice at IMI and met the gym guy there. Make a long story shorter, Sam Walls was instrumental in getting me started and God knows I asked him and others plenty of questions. This crowd is truly a bunch of good eggs!
Hope to see you out there. Ask away and I’ll be more than happy to help you. I call it payback to something I truly enjoy doing when I’m not working! :cheers:
So when is the meeting to talk about these items that OWL just touched on?
Here’s a guy who wants to be involved and we have very little direction to give him……….Hello is anybody listening?
Mr. Davis, call me and I’ll share what little I know.
Mike Edwards
H 303-979-7983
c 303-598-2810Mr. Davis, I want you on my team!!! What a fantastic post. If you are going to be at Bandimere please look me up.
Rusty
Brian, welcome. Excellent post.
Regarding your mention of confusion after a week of research…I can relate, which is why i spent over a year trying to find where and what I might like to drive. Okay..let me rephrase..if i had any money i would have blown it a lot sooner on something I might not have been happy with. (I’m now happy i did the research)I found this site to be a great resource.
http://www.ekartingnews.com/NewToKarting/ Sign up as a user over there, jump onto the forums as well.Go to the CSC race tomorrow (sunday) out at Bandimere. Walk around, introduce yourself, ask a BUNCH of questions. Everyone is anxious to share and want new people in the sport. Hopefully you’ll find *cough* Tag Masters will suit your needs. Disclaimer: I race this class (poorly) at the club level in my Easykart 125 and have a blast even while getting lapped. This is my first year racing karts and I never come off the track without a smile on my face. (was that a double negative?)
Good luck, we’ll be here to help.
Kirk
Thanks, Mike, Mike, Kirk and Rusty for the warm welcome. Don’t be surprised to get a call or email from me. I can’t think of anything to ask at the moment, though. I did go out to Bandimere this Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed the racing. It was tough to look up anyone, though, since I didn’t have a pit pass and have no idea who’s who… It was interesting to see the competitive driving displayed by all, and the different speeds of various classes. I’m amazed at how fast the young guys and gals in the cadet sized classes go! As I was talking to my wife after we left, and it occured to me that if I had a kart to race, I wouldn’t need a sports car for the road. My go-fast urges could be kept to the track and everyone would be safer! I’d even save some money. Hmmm… That sounds like a marketing message, too!
OWL
…it occured to me that if I had a kart to race, I wouldn’t need a sports car for the road. My go-fast urges could be kept to the track and everyone would be safer!
Brian,
This was also my rationale, I sold my WRX and my Ducati. Fewer telephone poles, concrete barriers, and no police oppression of my expression sessions. I am now a MUCH improved member of society with the safe outlet for my sickness. PLUS if you get rid of one of your go-fast toys, you’ll have the extra cash on hand to fill the void with a kart that much quicker.Kirk
(Angie, et al; sorry for hijacking..this portion of the thread could be moved with a new relevant title)@Freezeman wrote:
If you miss at dodging hay bails it hurts more.
Through extensive field testing, I have discovered that hay bales hurt less than other karts though 😀
Curt,
I will try again after attempting twice to respond to the thread and after seeing another thread started on the topic………..I appreciate your offer to host a regional kart racing forum to discuss Colorado kart racing and the future of the sport in our state and region. I agree that the meeting should be as soon as the current statewide season ends and would suggest a Saturday date that might be easier for some to attend but whatever the majority agrees on. I would also suggest that a moderator would be helpful to keep the meeting on course and subject. We should go forward with a meeting for ALL inspite of who may agree or disagree with the purpose. The forum should be open to all of the track owners and obviously the CSC reps since they are one and the same that want to participate, as well as the kart shop owners and a reasonable number of knowledgable and experienced kart racers. This is 2006 and ALL involved in our sport are important to the future success and growth of the sport in our state.
Once again, this is 2006 not 2000……the karting landscape in the state and region for that matter have changed substantially. There are now FIVE karting facilities in the state not just one. There are four other track owners who have heavily invested in the sport in the region. The population of the state and region have NOT declined over this period of time but the number of kart racers most certainly have.
Kart racing is an individual sport but a karting event and program is a collective team effort. A prospective kart racer without a supplier/ service center and a kart track is just a prospect. A kart shop owner without prospective racers and kart track is a bankrupt business……and of course a track owner without competitors and suppliers has just an empty field and a wasted investment.
Brian Davis, alias “The Owl” , an outsider looking in, who wants to become involved said a mouthful regarding his novice view of the Colorado karting scene and speaks to the frustrations of those that are already involved and those that would like to become involved but who have already turned their backs on the mindless confusion of the sport within our state and region. Brian Davis has spoken for what I believe is the silently majority in the state.
I am a track and kart shop owner……..I am here to say that our sport is BIGGER and has FAR more potential than the opinions of one track owner. We ALL are only one piece of a potentally larger and more successful karting scene in Colorado…….we ALL are important to the future of the sport and SHOULD BE heard!
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