I’d like to add my thoughts;
Alan – reading your initial posting with the suggestion etc, I can see you have put a great deal of thought in to the idea. Although you have of course your own agenda to deal with, I personally believe you genuinely have the best interests of karting at heart. But, the mere fact you have raised this issue sends a message to me – there is clearly something wrong with the current set up!
What you propose makes considerable sense to me, but I will declare immediately we are not and never have been Super 1 entrants so cannot speak from any experience other than what I listen to from the mouths of others or what I read on these sites …….and much of that I would take with a pinch of salt anyway as every person can have a different view of things and is of course dependant on their own experiences.
Personally, I find there is no attraction for me to commit time, effort and finances to even watching a round of Super 1 let alone think about competing ……..this is my choice and the main reason for this is that as a competition, I find it is de-valued. I would add straight away that I am fairly sure those that compete in the series and particularly those that have done well will strongly disagree, and whilst I fully accept that, I am entitled to my opinion!
Sorry to delve in to finance issues, but it is my opinion that the main reason for the low numbers at Super 1is costs – whether you like it or not, the financial outlay to compete at that level is huge and can therefore, generally only be met by a few ..but this is not confined to karting, it is a fact of life in any form of hobby/pastime/sport or indeed just about anything we do in leisure time. I speak from personal experience where some very talented youngsters in the football arena could easily have made an impact at a much higher level but for the fact parents didn’t have the money or resources to fund that potential. They easily could have done and desperately wanted to have done but just plainly couldn’t afford it.
The fact is, Super 1 entry lists are somewhat lower than they should be and therefore the level of competition is, in my opinion accordingly lowered – it has to be as many of the very capable people who could easily compete at that level, for whatever reason aren’t there, so the spiral of devaluing the competition starts and the end result is people don’t go that ‘extra mile’ to get there as the outlay cannot be justified against the desire to compete.
I enjoy watching the coverage on TV and this has improved over the period since its initial airings (well done Alan!) but beyond that there is little to get me, personally excited – this has to change as I am sure I cannot be the only one who feels this way.
However, ……. reading your post with the suggestions/proposals immediately strikes me as a way of turning it around to make things a whole lot more entertaining and resulting in my interest raised so that there would be NO WAY I would miss that final round and I suspect that would be the reaction from many others …………..I could see that concept attracting so much more attention and therefore the whole ethos of the competition is enhanced which would surely attract more people, both in terms of entrants and spectators which can only be positive and therefore that spiral starts to go up again and so on and so on!
Well done to you for bringing this to the table …..I hope it gets some positive reaction further up the ‘food chain’ where those that can have an influence actually do sit up and take notice.
My thoughts (from my humble base as father of talented club racer with desire to compete with the best!!!!!!!)
:)
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