UK Karting - Karting Kid Article

The Karting Kid
"Don't Shout, We're Listening"

This month the Kid turns up his hearing aid and delves into the issues of noise testing...

" Don't Shout, We're Listening "

With the reintroduction of noise testing from the beginning of the year we have seen some rather heated debate as to penalties applied, the methods of testing, and a little about how to effectively silence Karts for the future.

Noise testing has been around from the beginning of Karting time. In the early days most noise tests were carried out around 2 metres from the track, on a drive-by system using anything from a relatively cheap Tandy meter up to the more expensive needle display unit (one of which is still used by the MSA's Alan Foster, despite every other Club having to purchase one of 3 or 4 digital meters). In the 80's the then MSA Guru of Karting Ron Brassey tackled the noise problem by making all 100cc karts fit an ugly end cone, which in most cases had little effect, and introduced static testing that allowed the then ultra noisy gearbox karts to pass the regulations with flying colours, whilst the quietest class of the time - Cadets, where dumped on to a totally unsafe noise rig and proceeded to fail the test, because at the prescribed level of revs the rattling of the Cadet Karts exceeded the noise limit by far. Needless to say, these rigs were soon rusting unused, behind scrutineering bays and for many years no effective testing was done at any circuits other than the ones that had an obvious noise problem, like Camberley and lately Shenington.

With the increasing awareness of the 'Green' movements it became increasingly apparent that testing had to resume so after much testing by the ABkC, aided by the BKIA, the conclusion was to adopt the European system of overhead testing. This was trialled very successfully at Shenington circuit before it's inception and indeed has been successful at most Clubs throughout the UK, with an odd exception where anomalies have been found and is now well documented for example at 3 Sisters. The success of this system must be down more to good luck than good management, because there has been no training of Environmental Scrutineers for Karting, despite the MSA spending huge budgets on training for officials and marshals, which must point to the high calibre of the people within our sport, on the whole carrying through what was a half cocked introduction at a new attempt to effectively measure noise, especially when it has been proved on a regular basis that one of the meters gives very suspect readings in wet and damp conditions and unfortunately is also being the meter that attracted most Clubs to buy it, due to it's attractive pricing.

It would appear that there is still much work to be done in the training of officials and ensuring the reliability of equipment, but this is slowly happening thanks to our largely unpaid stalwarts, that despite the abuse they receive still work in our sport to further your hobby, but what can you the competitor do?

The answer is help and work alongside the people who are enforcing the regulations, be it from stopping your fins from ringing, to lowering the revs for a class collectively. This of course would have to be done by legislation, fitting acoustic covers, changing over to water cooled where applicable and even more importantly encouraging the manufacturers through direct contact with them, through your Club, the ABkC and BKIA to design, develop and run effective silencing for all engines. At the moment there is more moaning about noise, than efforts to help reduce it and that emphasis needs to change for the security of our future.

With the lowering of the dB limit next year by 2dB, there will be more controversy like the earlier 3 Sisters meetings, but the 'Greenies' are not going to go away and with many circuits having received noise complaints, we can not afford to lose more or even suffer more restrictions as to the use of our popular and favourite venues.

Until we wise up and fight for our right to make noise, which is not likely to happen, we must collectively work together towards more effective silencing of our sport both in it's measurement and the noise created.

The Kid.

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