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Italy closes down for August. Right now, you can’t even get some one to answer the phone over there.
Mike
I’m afraid you may have completley misunderstood what I was driving at. Logistically we have real problems moving “to the streets”. The Rock Island GP has a budget of well over $100,000 and roughly 150 volenteers to make it happen. Rodger R. works practically full time, year round to head it up.
The Greeley GP has a core group of roughly 10 volenteers and a budget of less than $20,000. We have a huge gap between where we are and where we want to go. For us to take it downtown with the resources we have would invite disaster. We have to build credibility before we can get the funds necessary to do it right. What company in it’s right mind would give us $100,000 to stage an event with no track record.
We can’t make everything happen overnight. It will take years for this event to reach the heights that it has the potential to reach. I hope you would like to work with us. Give any of us call to see how you can be a part of it’s growth.
I have always refered to Greeley GP as a temp. Personally, I like temps. They are a true test of a racer, his chassis and his tuner. At a fixed track, any one with money can figure it out given enough time. At a temp, there is no time and no room for error.
Putting it “in the streets” considerably raises the anty. The budget would at least double if not more. It also considerably increases the logistical problems. For example, if we did it in “downtown”, we would be in the position of having to compensate busineses for lost sales. The entire event would have to disappear overnight. For example, the Rock Island GP has to be completely torn down and cleaned up by 2:00am. They have a crew of over 100 people who do it. At Greeley this year, the crew for setup was 4 adults and 6 kids! The tear down crew was 1 adult and 6 kids.
Given our current staff and budget, putting it “in the streets” is out of the question. If we found a sponsor who was willing to pony up $100,000, we might be able to do it. Did I bring up street repair?
The tents may have been empty but we have to ask the people who paid for them if they were happy. To that, the answer is an emphatic YES. The sponsors who paid for them want to be involved again next year. In fact, most of them are increasing their support and want futher involvment.
Do you need spectators to race? Do you care? Sponsors only care if they are reaching their target market and do they see potential in the event. Last year was our trial run. Could we be trusted to do a good job. We passed the test with flying colors.
We have learned from our mistakes and are working hard on improving in those areas where we know we need improvment. The obvious side, marketing and facilities are where we will be making strides. But cut us a little slack, last year this thing was done in 3-4 months. We are starting now, we have already contacted sponsors, we are already preparing the marketing side of things so that it will be bigger and better for next year.
If the sole measure of the event is on whether we had spectators or not, well then we failed. But if that was the sole measure of sucess for karting events, I don’t think I’ve been to a very many sucessful kart races in this country!
No matter what weekend we pick, something else is going on. We will be up againest something. The city wants this weekend, they want it to be sucessful. They have offered to do much, much more in terms of marketing for they have a vested interest in seeing this event sucessful.
We set it so that we have about 1/4″ to 3/8″ deflection. For Aluminum sprockets, some might consider it on the tight side. There maybe an issue with the heavy weights of masters. Several times I saw the rear ends of the karts coming off the ground this weekend. That can cause spikes in the rpm. Did you see any spikes in your data?
Tag is a race class in which several different engines are legal including the Rotax engine. Tag stands for Touch And Go for they all have electric starters on board.
Rotax is an engine that also has its own race classes and events called RMax Challenge. None of the other engines are legal in RMax. RMax is a world formula that has regional, national and world level events. If you have a Rotax, you can run in either RMax or Tag. If you have one of the other engines, you can only run Tag.
We’ve been using them for quite some time and have found out a couple of things about them
Chain tension is very important. While we don’t see as much chain stretch and that chains last longer, If we go out too loose, it eats teeth. And once they start to go, it peals every tooth off.
Sprocket alignment is much more important. If it is pulling even slightly off, it eats teeth.
Lubrication is very, very important. I use Motul off road. Lub it every time you go on track.
At the first sign of a hot or stiff chain. New chain. Don’t run it even one session.
The chain we had on Greg’s kart had 3 race weekends on it. Its still fine. The sprocket has many race weekends on it.
Craig screwed up and let some one else work on his kart for a change!!!!!!!! When he came in, he couldn’t believe it, he could still see the leaders at the end! Hats off to both Craig and Charles. They made the masters race very interesting.
There definitly needs to be a class between kid karts and mini-max as the hp and speed jump is more than I would like. A 7 year old is not ready for mini and yet is too big for kid kart. Rotax has recognized this and is working on another set of restrictors to bring the power and speed down further. When combined with a fixed gear ratio, this could bring the power in line with the ability of hte racers.
The restrictors are already made and the testers already lined up. The testing will start right after the Rotax Grands in September. I will try to get a set of restrictors here so that we can test also and determine if this is in fact a viable method.
If this were to work out, then a parent would only have to buy one motor and it would be good for the entire time the kid was racing. That was somthing I found very frustrating as a parent when we started. It seemed that every two years I had to give away all my old stuff and learn an entire new package. Had I been brighter, I would have quit, got a jet ski and hung out at the beach where there’s more women!
Brad is right on several points. We are basically a Colorado based series. However, our region, the state of Colorado, is comparable in geographic size to 3 or 4 eastern states!
We do have some of the best facilities in the country. Most areas os the country can only wish for what we have with in 30 minutes drive of downtown Denver. I won’t conceed that if we limit classes, we will only get 70 racers. That assumption is based on the idea that those racers whose class is eliminated won’t keep racing in a different class. For sure some will quit, but how many of them would have quit anyways. After all, remember that most racers don’t make 3 years in this sport. SSC has done some marketing surveys and they have found that most new karters only last 16 months on average. They buy a kart in the summer of one year, sell it during the fall of the following year.
I just looked at some numbers from previous years. In 2004, the Pro class had 30 racers who earned points that year. This year so far, 10. 2004, 16 racers did more than half of the events with 7 doing every event. This year, the number is 6 have done more than half the events, only 4 all of them. Of that orginal 30, only 14 of them are still involved in the sport in some capacity. Of even more concern, of the 10 Pros this year, almost half of them graduated from high school this year and are headed off to college. Their racing will be limited at best next year. If we can’t keep our Pros, our best racers in the sport, how do we expect to keep our weaker members?
At one time we did have a SKUSA region in our area. It drew around 60 to 70 racers at an average event, with the high mark over 100 at Second Creek. At the time however, we could only race the SKUSA region at CRE. As Action karting was much smaller then and run by the CIKF, which was a Briggs sealed based group. IMI would not have a stand alone SKUSA event at its track. SKUSA at the time was also limited to only shifters.
The CSC I invision would be much broader in its scope and range than the old SKUSA region was. It would include clutch karts as well as shifters and more junior classes. I think that with just a bit of effort, we could easily have only 9 classes and still have well over 100 racers at each event. By limiting the CSC to 5 races, I would be willing to bet that each of the two club series (I’m assuming that Action karting would still concentrate on its rental business) would start drawing better than 50 racers at each event if not more. The simple reason is this, 5 CSC races is not enough for a person to satisfy their need for speed. Most likely they would pick a series IMI or The Track, which ever is closer to their home, and do at least a partial series.
Good question Kurt. Not sure at this time. The DD2 is strong on top, every bit the Honda. The spec Honda would still be stronger off the corners so there could be problems with that. The relative strengths are in different spots of the track and it could make passing difficult.
However, lets look at trends. 2 years ago, our Pro class often had over 20 entires. That’s right over 20. Now, it can’t draw better than 5 at most events. How many are saying right now, that’s the class for me next year? If any thing, the class is dying. Spec Honda is going the other direction. Last year, only 3. This year, some of the closest shifter racing we’ve seen. Will that trend continue next year?
In part, I think that depends on what Stars does. If they adopt a Spec Honda class, look out, it will grow and quickly. If not, it will contiue to have pockets of strenght but not take over. And shifter sales will continue to flounder.
Who would go to DD2? The obvious customer is the Tag Master guy who wants to go faster, shift gears, but doesn’t want the brutal power or maintenance of a traditional shifter. He is not going to want to be on the track with a hot shot kid in a spec shifter. He will get lapped and the kid may not be a gentlman when he comes by.
Combining classes is NOT the answer. Eliminating classes is! No matter how you combine them, it doesn’t solve the root problem. It hasn’t worked in the past, why should it work now? We use to think that 3 karts made a class and that’s one reason we have so many. On a club level, that’s fine. But on the regional level, it’s counter productive. Its time to raise the standard of what makes up a class. If a class can’t draw 6 karts on a consistant basis, we need to give serious consideration to eliminating it on the regional level.
Curt
There’s not nearly enough info out there on it. Basically its a FR-125 engine with a different cylinder that delivers more power than the standard FR-125. It also has a two speed gear box with an ignition intrupt so you do not have to lift when shifting (but it is advised that you lift). The axle goes through the gear box so it does not have a chain. The clutch is an internal centrifical wet clutch so clutch life is much longer. The gear box is basically a high/low affair.
You do have the usual DelOrto carb so you do have to jet the thing. The gearing is high enough that on top, it should be just as fast or faster than most shifters. You gain a low speed range to yank the thing out of corners.
The main things it has going for it is that’s it fast, almost as fast as a full blown shifter. It is very low maintenance, the engines last at least 50 hours. There has yet to be a single reported failure of the engine due to a bent axle. I’ve looked at the internals and the axle is very well supported inside the engine. (better than a any current designed kart) There is no chain to maintain and no oil related mess.
Retail price of the engine is just under $3,500 and that is a very complete package including radiator, battery and pipe. The only thing needed in addition is the mount and a kart. A complete package is around $7,500. At Ocala, the DD2 were about .6 second quicker than the internationals.
One more thing. I like what I saw in the DD2. This package should take off now that the RM1 has been ditched. The thing is fast, much faster than a Rotax now that you can put a really good chassis under it. I will be offering a chassis for this class very soon.
