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John, Most of us over here in Grand Junction are really new to Karting, only a select few have raced more than 2 seasons. I for one drove a kart in Vegas for about 15 minutes and was so hooked that I came back bought ground and built a track(I am not very bright lol) We are very new to karting and do not know much other than we want to have fun!! I to love to watch the kids the most and really enjoy it when they have a great time, we sure did not get into this to make alot of money but to be involved with great people and familys. I think in anything there is always going to be politics and backstabbing but you just brush it off and ignore it. People that do that are not enjoying life enough and have to much time on there hands. Again, we are in this to have a great time and to be fair, the Mini Max jsut makes sense to us and I think we all can come up with a way to make all of them work together. Last year when the Briggs were killing the comer 80’s I did not see any of the Briggs drivers come foward and say this is not fair, but now they feel like the Comer 80 driver and don;t like it. All of these people are great people we all just don’t agree, not a big deal unless we make it one.
It’s really hard to express yourself in a written format on this or any open forum. And I hope that nobody ever takes what I say wrong on here. Those of you who have met me know that I am not like that at all.
I guess that my point is (and some of you have made the same point) that this is a real difficult sport to get started in. I must say though that I have met some really great people in person or on here that have helped us out big time. Without the help of these people we would not be able to do this.
As in any other sport or life in general you have to sift out alot of B.S. and move on. At the end of the day you only hope that you made the right choices.
Thanks again for responding and helping us get started.
Stacey: Can you send me some info on the mini max? Prices, specs and stuff and anything else that you think a dummy like me needs to know? I know that we won’t run one this year since we are just getting her started but, it sounds like a cool side project to work on.
Angie: It was so cool watching your son last week at IMI running his 60, its all that Nicki has been talking about.
Later, John
I for one will not go along with adding the minimax to the junior one class. The engine is to fast for the class. This class is for beginners. The comer 80 was slower, not faster. The engine is also to expensive for a junior one class. I have talked with JB and he feels the same way along with a number of parents that do not agree with adding this engine. We need to be more realistic when adding engines to a class. The world formula engine is the same power as the minimax and I would not let that engine run in junior 1.
Stacey, I have left a few messages for you to contact me or JB so that we can meet and hammer out what we want to do for the CSC series. I want to meet this week so that we can schedule the club meeting. I will be in Germany from Jan 21-26. CALL ME!! 303-833-4949 shop 303-596-5090 cell
Brad /IMI
Brad, I have called you back and left a message. We must be playing phone tag. We have our awards banquet this weekend, could we do it over the phone on a conference call? or maybe we could meet Friday. If you and JB could meet us part way would sure help. As for the Mini Max maybe we have a seperate class that possibly could run with the Jr1 but are scored separately, let me know. Stacey
I just wanted to correct a comment I made on this thread earlier, as someone was kind enough to point out my errors!
@Angie MacEwen wrote:
It has been stated that we are going to use WKA technical rules for the Junior classes and 4 cycles. Although they don’t run the Animal or Briggs flathead in Junior 1 type classes, they do have technical specs for the engines.
😳 I was wrong (yes I said it!)…. WKA does indeed run Gold Cup Classes with the Briggs 5hp motor, restricted for the 8-10 and 10 – 12 age groups. There is an Animal class, also restricted for 12-15 years old. These are all Methanol
this brings up another question because the only engine specs in the WKA manual are for the Animal Methanol set up – not gas.
I wish more people spoke up about the Comer 80 disadvantage. There must be an easy fix to get them up to speed. The set up that Rosse had in Steamboat seemed to be competitive, what was different about it?
Through all of this we have to keep in mind what will be safe out on the track for our kids. I know we can all agree on at least one thing, and that is that we have to put our kids’ safety first!
Angie
Regarding the “competitiveness” of the Comer80 at the Steamboat event, I have done the math. The best Comer80 finisher was 10.1 seconds behind the leader at the end of this 12-lap race on a 0.6 mile track. This works out to 711 ft behind the leader, or 0.22 laps, or 123 kart lengths. Now, everybody has his or her own definition of competitive, but to me, this is not even close to a competitive race. Comparing the fastest lap for these two drivers, the difference was 0.8 seconds, working out to 9.6 seconds down at the finish. Same deal.
People have been asking how to “fix the competitiveness” of the Comer80. This has already been done. The national sanctioning bodies here in the US restrict the Flathead and the Animal for this age group. The only way to match engines is to match the horsepower. Trying to equalize large HP differences (say greater than 5%) with weight is not gonna work. It will be very difficult to determine the correct amount of weight to equalize such a HP difference. It will be a large amount.
It was definitely a mistake (partly mine) to include the Comer80 in the CSC Junior 1 last year as it did not have a chance. The good news is that there is a good resale market for them at CRE, CA and other areas, and nobody who was serious about the CSC ran them last year.
Let?s leave well enough alone. We have a great, competitive Junior 1 class with two realistic engine options: the old trusty and known alcohol Flathead, and the newer gas Animal. Please don?t buy something else and then ask the rest of us to make adjustments. Doesn?t it make more sense to buy what is already being competitively raced?
Rod Whetstone
Rod I did ask well in advance. I talked with Doug W about it last fall and he thought it would be ok. In my opnion Doug is one of the most knowledgeble people in Colorado and is responsible for making the CSC series happen. he thought we would need to test it against the Briggs and see how they compared and make adjustments from there. We are not trying to create problems, we just think it is a great package. We have a few more coming in that are spoken for so there is an interest. We also will have 6 Rotax Max regional events that the kids will be able to run. People sure are jumpin to conclusions when they know nothing about them and haven’t even seen them run, Lets get them together with a good driver andsee how they compare then we all have the info to make a logical decision.
Hi, I sure like the positive attitude this post has. I think things will work out
This is really what makes it tuff for every one to stay in karting in any class.
You are Lucky! There is just too many issues for me to even try and type about right now.
The season is coming!! 🙂As much as I respect Dougs opinion, Shockwave is only a sponser of the series not the one who make the rules or determines what is ok and what is not. This series was started by the three tracks. If you want to include an engine in a class it does not belong you will have more people to convince than Doug and the racers in your area that bought a jrmax. We just do not up and decide by casual conversation with Doug that it is ok to add an engine to a class and start selling them to racers with the promise of a class to run in. If you want to make a proposal that is fine with me, but a final decision will not be made until we have our meeting and the racers and parents have a chance to voice their opinion. This is one of the reasons I wanted to have private meeting between us first so that we can go through all of the issues. This thread is the first I have heard of adding this engine to the junior 1 class.
I have read the WKA rule book several times concerning the Animal. It appears to me that while it is a methanol class, most of the specs are stock, stock, stock. The only exception is the cam and from several builders I have talked too, if we keep the cams stock (not ground) and run the thing on gas, then the WKA rules will result in an engine that will produce about 10hp unrestricted. As we all know, that is almost identical to an unrestricted stock (WKA rules) flat head on methanol. The main reason we run unrestricted here in Colorado is because of our altitude. That is restrictor enough 😆
The Comer 80 produces roughly 9 hp so it is at a disadvantage at this altitude. However, we can get it very close. If we run the Briggs at 240, that is roughly 24#/hp. If we reduce the Comer to 220, it comes in at 24.4#/hp. The difference at that weight is almost negliable. The lighter kids could run the Comer (no need to add much wieght) and the heaver kids could run a Briggs.
The problem comes in for the mini-max, at 13 hp (just a guess), it needs to weigh 312# to be even with the rest of the junior karts. So we need to determine what its real hp is and then see if the weight will work.
I think that the 7 race series was perfect, however I also feel that we are in need of a 1 race drop. So lets do the 7 races and drop each racer’s worst race. A large number of us do have other races that may interfer with the CSC so 1 drop would be great.
Brad, I guess I should have called you and JB and asked for your blessing. Regardless the Mini Max will be running at Grand Junction Motor Speedway weather it is a stand alone class or in the Jr 1. If the Briggs drivers choose not to run against it that will be their choice. I for one am willing to sit down with you and JB and go over these issues asap. Let me know. I did not hear back from you on meeting maybe in Vail for a few hours and getting our schedule together. I have know problem on letting the drivers decide on what we run, but think that a seperate Mini Max class could be an option. Would like to hear you thoughts.
Stacey,
How many Mini Max drivers are out there, and how many are interested in doing the whole CSC tour?angie
Angie, there are 3 over here with 2 more in the next 60 days. I can only commit that 2 will do the CSC series, Sabre’ my daughter and Christian Bird. I think it would be really easy to run them with the Jr 1 and score them seperatley if there is at least 3 or see how they compare and then make the decision weather to include or not include them. Just my thoughts…
Rod W.
Now do all your calculations on the 2nd place kart or 4th place kart. Ben and yourself smoked the rest of us. Take that as a compliment. You and your family have worked very hard to get your performance to where it is at.Stacey:
The last race of your season we saw your daughter with her jrmax. What weight ws she running?Bill
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