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Of all the options in karting, Tag problay offers the newbe the best value for the dollar. There are several engine choices but the two most common are the Leopard and the Rotax. Both a 2 cycles. You can find many of them used right now as many racers are looking to get new karts and at resonable prices.
Of those two, the cheapest intially is the Leopard. With hard use, it will require a top end once maybe twice per season. The Rotax should go all season with out a rebuild. Both engines will consume chains and sprockets but the Leopard might consume one or two more over the season. For most racers, at seasons end, the costs of either the Leopard or Rotax will be about the same. There are other 2 cycles but none are as common as the above two.
There are some new 4 cycle options that have just come out. They are expensive relative to the 2 cycles ($2,500-3,000). Most of them are in the $4,500 range but they appear to go a lot longer between rebuilds. Typical 2 cycles are 30 to 50 hours where the 4 cycles are 200 to 350 hours.
A complete package for top line equpiment will be between $5,500 to $6,500 for a 2 cycle where the 4 cycles will be around $8,000 to $8,500.
Welcone to our sport.
I was asking Zalud about the spec class for next year as we will have at least one customer running it. He told me that they were adding Rotax and dropping the Easykart and PRD (No one ran one last year anyway). I think for the western events, Moran and Miller, the Rotax will have the advantage. In the east, both events should favor the Leopard as should the first event at Norman. So naturally, the next question I asked was how often could I switch engines. I haven’t gotten an answer for that yet!
Mike, its always about money.
Several of the FWT events last year were on the CIK calender. Bill did it because one of the drivers from England was threatened by CIK with a 6 month suspension for doing the first event. Randy did help them get approval for WKA is the US rep for CIK but WKA DID NOT sanction any of his events nor provide insurance. He did not run their rules, he did not require WKA membership.
Last year the Kart Sport Challenge was on the CIK calender with the help of Randy and $800. WKA did not sanction the event, they did not run their rules and did not use WKA insurance.
George, you’re wrong.
The FWT is a stand alone, not sanctioned by anyone or anything. NKA provides insurance. Bill has gotten the group B on the CIK calander so that international drivers can attend.
He uses Don Moormeister (some of you may remember him from the SuperNats and the Miller Summer Shootout) in tech, Chris E. from Oregon will be race director (he did the SuperNats). Bill will have many of the orginal SKUSA A team in place so the races are very well run.
For rules he uses CIK for the CIK classes. Stars for K80 cadet. Rotax for Rotax classes, TaG USA for Tag classes and for moto his rules are the IRA rules we use in stock moto and built moto. All of his rules are open source. You don’t have to join an org to use them.
Anyone who has read my drivel over the years, knows that I have always urged our regional series follow if not be sanctioned by a national organization. However, like any consumer, I want to know specifically what I’m going to get for my money. As a manufacturer, before I tell my customers that they should join ABC organization, I want to know what they will get for their money.
Outside of the Rodney King, “Why can’t we all get along” and go have a beer, there is nothing there.
Our series is bigger than PKC. We averaged more racers at our events then PKC did this last year. If anything, they should be asking us how did we get so sucessful. The CSC without a doubt, is the most sucessful regional series in the entire country. The only series that come close to ours is the MidWest Sprint series and the PKC. The CSC is bigger than all of them.
When we take our nasty glasses and really look at what we have, its very hard to believe that 4 track owners and a group of dedicated volunteers have created and given kart racers 5 distinctly different venues for a regional series to race these silly little go karts. When I tell dealers around the country that I have 3 kart tracks within 20 minutes of my shop, they just can’t believe it. Most areas of the country don’t have 1 kart track within a hours drive, let alone 3 within 20 minutes.
While an outsider reading our forums would think that we are a disfunctional family of over active keyboard fat heads, the reality is far different. We have a great community of karters, shop owners and track owners. Our community couldn’t be stronger. We should be extremely proud of what we have and realize that we don’t have to take a back seat to anyone.
Could our community be better, of course it can. Could it be stronger, yes it could. But lets not throw out the best, the strongest regional program in the country just because we are feeling inadquate today. Lets carefully examine the things we have done right and wrong. Lets fine tune this thing.
We all know what the problems are, its the same across the entire country. Too many classes, fragemented rules. Also, lets not confuse regional racing with club racing and we often do that in our discussions.
@karterdad wrote:
How did you get the Broncos to reschedule once they found out the time of the meeting?
It was Blink. Mike calls him for advice.
How about Shockwave T shirts and a tie????????????
There are some in our community that we won’t recognize with out three layers of grease on their jeans.
On the Honda. We all know the Honda brand name is well know for quality. Having said that, I also have a customer from Toronto who recently pruchased a MiniMax chassis. We got to talking about the Honda they use up there and I asked him several questions about it. This customer’s son is a Canadian national champion in the class.
He told me that the racing was some of the most competitive they have in his area of Canada and the engines are very close. He also told me that you have to have a quality engine builder for they are not all created equal. Box stock, they vary greatly. Blueprinted, they are very close. He pays between $1,500 to $2,000 (candian) for his blueprints. They change out several parts in the valve train to make them dependable. The engines need to be freshened about every other month to maintain their edge.
They are switching to Rotax because the intial cost is about the same (including the Honda blueprint) but the maintainance is much lower. They plan to race mostly in this country this coming year as the competition is deeper down here. (Manufacturers Cup in Cadet, Yamaha Jr Sportsman, HPV Jr Sportsman, MiniMax)
From every one I talked with, many think the best choice would be the HPV. But since we have virtually no experience with it here, that option has never been discussed. Those who run it say you can get them blueprinted but its a waste of money and the engine just lasts all year. The clutch is supposedly bullet proof. I have no personal experience with it but I have several customers who run it (The Man Cup national champion (Nick Neri) in the class is one of my customers) His dad tells me its the cheapest motor he runs.
I only offer this for informational purposes only. I don’t really care which engine you guys pick. Please, just pick one. I remember the good ol’ days where we really only had one track and one class for juniors, Briggs flat head. The fields were hugh, I rebuilt the engines every week as I burned up 4 engines every weekend. I switched to shifters for two reasons, no tech ( I got real tired of leaving IMI every weekend at 9:00 or 10:00 PM every Sunday with my engines in a box) and much lower costs. (no need for re-builds). But then that got sideways too!
Give a racer a way to spend money and they will. Even if it dosen’t help them go faster.
I’ve not seen it but I’ve had calls from some who have. I’m told the first few seconds of the spot are very good.
We run 12/80 runing up the hill(counter clockwise), 12/79 or 78 down the hill. Masters usually runs a tooth or two more than senior.
I was asked the other day, what are the costs of doing the FWT. A person should plan on spending between $2,000 and $3,000 for the weekend. This number would included everything, airfare, hotel, broken parts, transportation of equipment, pit spots, everything. It could be done for a bit less, $1,500, but that means eating beans in the parking lot and sleeping under a bridge! If you do more than one event, it gets cheaper as we leave the equipment down there and fly back and forth.
But what do you get? A very well run event, Chris as race driector, Terry as assistant race director, Don in tech ( and a very good tech I might add). Three, that’s right, 3 solid days of racing. In the Rotax classes, the fields are huge. Last year, MiniMax had LCQ’s! We ran senior and had fields of over 40 karts. In our class, the top 35 were less than a second. .1 of a second was 4 or 5 spots on the grid. It was some of the most intense and close racing we have every seen. It was nothing short of fantastic.
The fields are international. There are drivers from all over latin america and the carribian. The Canadians come down in force and all of the top drivers from the USA are there. In my mind, these are some of the strongest fields you will ever race in. In our field, there were 3 national champions from three different countries.
It’s not too late but if you are thinking of going, its time to start planning.
Craig
They race up there. There are tracks in both the Calgary and Edmonton area. I can give you names if you want, I’ve some very good dealers up that way. Rotax is big with them. It’s been fun and I hope all things go well with you.
Basically it was an air leak between the case halves. The gasket surface between the cases was way out of flat due to a previous re-build. Aslo, an ear was broken off by the stud. Some one had used a screw driver in the slot by the clutch and had broken the case. We welded the pieces back in, then stoned all the major gasket surfaces flat. Also put a new power valve in it.
Now if I could just get Jay to use the Rotax jetting! :loony:
