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Rich
One time I was looking at the number of guys who run Tag (master and seniors) with in the CSC and club who have not done a RMax race. The number is surprizingly large. The majority of Tag karts are Rotax and most of them have not run a RMax race. I think if given the option, many would.
If you remember last year Stacey was thinking of doing RMax races before the CSC events at his track but Mojo’s got in the way. With that lifted, it might make sense to do RMax races on Saturday now.
@Mike Jansen wrote:
See you at IMI when it’s warm
Now you won’t run in the cold? And from the guy who wants 20 laps? Awww come on Mike, you need to bulk up. Get you lazy butt out there. 😀 Maybe this is why you can only make 8 or 20?????????
Its too cold for us too. We’re thinking of making a quick trip to Tucson over Hew Years weekend. Do a little testing, get a little warmth, do a little racing, its all good.
Rick
We may be able to get something up over the holidays if I can get that college kid to do something! We have been so busy with them. We’ve sold just about everything we got in so far plus some that are shipping out this week.
We have almost 40 frames shipping out this week from Italy. I’m hoping to have them before Christmas but I doubt it. Customs always finds a way to hold them up. We have cadet, Tag and shifter applications. If you have time between the holidays, stop by and help unpack!
Mike
Last year we did a training class in Grand Junction that was a combination of class room and track time. We will be doing it again this year as soon as we can find a date in an already busy schedule.
We will also be doing one on this side of the hill that is class room only in conjunction with our open house. Look for details shortly.
The year before we did one on this side of the hill, free to all, that Curt set up. There are also several tuners/driver coachs available for hire for more personalized instruction. Give us a call and I can point you in the right direction.
The problem with G1 is it’s not really a heavy class, just a skinny old farts class. With the puppies running at 385# and G1 at 395#, its really just a medium class. If it was a real heavy/old class, it would run at 410#. Tag Masters is 30# heavier than the puppies, not 10#. In my rose colored, totaly unrealistic world, the puppies would run on 375# and the heavy/old at 410#. Sam Walls proved that a skinny old guy could run with the kids.
Take a look at the first year of the CSC. Who won the Pro class championship?
Also, if you want to take a minute to look at history, look at the level of participation of the Briggs adult class away from IMI. That will tell you why its not in the CSC.
History folks, history. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Look at what was done in the past and why it worked and why it didn’t. Before there were any other tracks besides IMI, we only ran two 125 classes, novice and Pro. You were considered a Pro if you broke 54 seconds. If you showed up with an FC motor, like one racer did, you ran heavy, 420# if I remember right
@stacey cook wrote:
Dear Sirs: my namE es StAceyCoOK we ONW a trak aNd nEed Help wILL u SponOR uS? 😀
I’ve seen worse! At least you gave your name. I’ve seen some with only a screen name.
@Jim Keesling wrote:
When do you want to work together with a positive attitude and help fix any of the problems you always point out?
Jim,
I’m sorry if what I just wrote was not spelled out clear enough. It was positive. I complimented the current CSC staff on running better races. Without question, the $50 I spent to be a member of the CSC was one of the best investments I’ve made in Colorado karting. I got much better run races than in previous years. I’ve thanked them many times for it.
But we can improve. We had some difficulties that could have been avoided or minimized with additional trained and experienced staff to help. What I’ve done is tried to demonstrate that without asking for one more dime from our customers, we can get two things we need, a black and white rule book AND increased staff. What’s negative about that? I don’t know how to make it more positive!
The bottom line of my post is simple.
1. The CSC did good.
2. We could do better.
3. I gave a plan on how to do it better with out increasing costs.
What’s negative about that? Oh I see, it doen’t fit your plan!
Now lets get to your other point and lets clear it up so there no misconception. Did you or any other person in the CSC give us a written proposal for sponsorship last year? This year? No. You won’t get if you don’t ask!
We get requests from all over the country every year to sponsor classes and events. We get kart clubs from Washington to Florida, from Maine to So Cal asking for money. They all do it with written proposals. We get on average requests from 50 to 100 karters asking for sponsorship. They do it with written proposals. If you submit a written proposal, then it will be given the same consideration as all the rest.
Shockwave Karting is a national company. More than 70% of its sales are to dealers. Our largest customer base is in California followed by Florida. Maybe you are a bit confused about what Shockwave is, It’s not a local kart shop. It’s a manufacturer of karting products that just happens to be local. It is bringing money into the state as 95% of its sales are out of state.
In fact, it’s bringing in more money in to the USA than we are exporting. We export more products than we import. Canada and Mexico are big customers of ours. We are good not only for Colorado karting, but the USA! We’re bringing back some of the money guys like you are exporting by buying Birel’s!
Brian
You’re absolutly right, we got a book in black and white. But at what cost? Last year, we had 144 racers who took points in the CSC. I assume that in order to get points, you needed to join the CSC and SKUSA. Now I know that some of those racers did double duty so lets knock off 10%. That means we most likely had around 130 racers who paid.
130 X $50 = $6,500 to the CSC. Thats $6,500 that went directly to the CSC for running the races. That is money that gave us the very thing that impacted the quality of the racing. It was money very well spent.
130 x $75 = $9,750 to SKUSA. That is almost $10,000 we sent out of state to buy a rule book. Since I’ve showed the sources of the rule book, might we have been better off to pay some one in state to download the information, format it and publish it? I bet we could have gotten it done for $3,000 and had a better quality of a rule book.
That would leave us with almost $7,000 to buy additional staff for our events! If we could double our staff, wouldn’t that make the races better still.
We can have our black and white rule book and we can double our staff with out spending one more dime than we did laast year. We just have to spend our money wisely.
I think Scott brings up some very good points but I want us to consider some other things.
It should be well known that I advocate fewer races in the CSC. My reasoning is simple. Too many CSC races is killing club racing and club racing is very important for our community. It gives new racers a place to learn their race craft before jumping headlong into the higher level of competition of the CSC. And we are in desperate need of new racers!
Secondly, too many races increases the demand for drops which in effect turn the championship into to an attendance award. Fewer races with NO drops makes the championship worth fighting over. I think a 5 race series makes the most sense, 1 race at GJ, IMI, Bandi, Steamboat and Greeley. The each track should do a 6 race club series, independant of the CSC and they can run what ever classes they want. If such a plan were followed, I have no doubt that club racing would flurish and that karting in our state would flurish. But if we do as I fear many are advocating, an 8 race CSC with 2 drops and a 12 race IMI club championship, we will see our numbers drop and we will have racers complaining, “Where is everyone at the club races?” We’ve seen it two years in a row, is anyone listening?
Fewer classes is always good. I would rather run in the middle of a big class (30+) than in the front of a 3 kart class. Four shifter classes with basically the same rules only the weight is different (10# hardly makes a difference) seems just plan silly. Why should the CSC have a novice class? Shouldn’t novices run in club races? The CSC should have only 3 125 shifter class, Pro (ICC and built moto), Heavy old (built moto and ICC at 410#), and Spec Honda (stock). At least in TaG, the weight difference between senior and masters makes sense.
Rules. No doubt this year was much better. With Rusty and Dennis, many of the aspects many of us have been complaining about have been greatly improved. Tires and fuel were checked at all the races I attended and thats a good thing. But who should we give credit for that, the CSC or SKUSA?
If you remember, we paid two fees at the start of the season. $50 to the CSC and $75 to SKUSA. I know what I got for my $50, for that I got Rusty, Dennis and Angie. The three who had the most impact on the series of any in the state in terms of the consistancy from track to track. It is they who are directly responsible for the operation of the races and I think they did a fine job.
Now what did I get for my $75? I got a patch, a decal and a book. Now lets look into that book a little closer to what was actually in it. The rules for running a race including an appeals procedure, yep they are in there. Rules for ICC shifters. yep there in there but actually they are nothing more than a repeat of the CIK-FIA rules. You can download them here.
http://www.cikfia.com Thats the bulk of our shifters.They have rules for modified moto shifters but hardly anyone runs them and besides, you can sum them up easily, they’re open except for a head volumn! That leaves only stock moto and K2 and K3. Yes they wrote rules for them but K2 can be found on Stars web site, and many of us argue that the stock moto rules aren’t really that good. There are better sets of rules out there for them.
That leaves us with Tag rules which come from TaG USA. http://www.tagracing.net So SKUSA didn’t do anything for us here. K-80 rules came from IKF and WKA, so SKUSA added nothing here. That brings us to the last class, kid karts. Those rules were written right here in Colorado, so SKUSA gave us nothing there. So outside of K3 and built moto, what rules did SKUSA actually provide?
I would rather take the money I gave to SKUSA and give it to the CSC. It stays in the state, in our community. If I got 3 people at every race, Rusty, Dennis and Angie for $50, then I can get 4.5 more people running the races if they get an additional $75 from me. A consistant crew at each race, from Chief steward to grid marshal would only make the racing better still. Besides, I’ve heard that the new SKUSA management doesn’t want junior classes anyway.
@Freezeman wrote:
I have been waiting to see a motor come along that has a real big advantage and gets penilized with a bunch of lead. I would start the collection of money to buy AJ that motor to race with.
I’d love to see AJ in a package that was “at weight”.
Its a falllicy to think that lead alone can balance the various TaG packages. The engine characteristics are too different. You bring up a good example, why 10# weight break for motos at the Supernats. Clearly its wasn’t enough. Yet if you talk with some knowledgable people, the motos were delivering more power. Yet they were slower. Do you know why? How much lead would you have to take off to make them even? I would contend that you can’t take enough off, the power characteristics of the motors are just too different. You need to find .5 a second and that would take stupid amounts of lead.
I can give other examples. The weight and power characteristics have a huge impact on how a kart handles. And unlike what most racers think, handling is everything, the motor is secondary. A chassis designed for 350#, will not work near as well at 395#. A chassis designed for 40hp running a 30 hp motor will not do as well as a chassis designed for a 30 hp engine. We can even change design based on tire used. For example, I have in our shop a chassis designed specifically for the Rotax engine and the Mojo tire. It is completely different from anything I’ve ever seen. Yet to most racers, it looks exactly the same as every other kart out there. But I can tell you that it is faster than a regular Tag chassis when running Mojos.
Given all these variables, do some of you think you can still use lead to balance the karts at the local/regional level? It is a very rough equalizer at best. If lead really had a signficant impact, how could a guy like AJ Hathaway, who is way over the minimum, do so well behind the wheel as he has. I’ve seen him take a kart that’s at least 40# heavy and beat guys running on weight.
This past wekeend, we delivered a new chassis to a customer in Florida. He got the kart on Friday, put his engine on it and raced it on Saturday, with no chance to test or practice. It qualifed on pole, .4 second faster than previous track record. The kart, while it looked like a normal kart had a couple of significant differences. Not your off the shelf kart yet it conforms to every rule.
