Britain hasn't done badly for F1 drivers, world champions or even very good paid race car drivers. Motor sport is one of the true non-nationalistic sports, most kids have heroes regardless of nationality - mine was Ronnie Peterson, who of course was Swedish! I think what I'm trying to say is that if there isn't a pool of young British talent so what? There isn't a World Cup.
The problem is, so many people see karting only as a stepping stone to World Championship stardom. I think it should be completely the opposite - it should be the weeding out process where over ambitious parents actually realise that their offspring are not the next superstar.
I've been teaching kids kart racing at a low level for over 20 years and the best thing I see to come out of it is a sense of pride in the drivers - pride in their achievements, even if it is only beating someone else for third out of four. The biggest downer is their ambitious parents who start complaining about other people, it gives a really negative impression.
Hamilton wasn't talent scouted, he famously made himself known. Your average young charger in cars doesnt list all his individual karting result he just says "x number of years karting" on his CV. Karting is just a school, you don't have to win to learn.
So what's going to happen if everyone has pooled engines, pooled tyres, pooled karts? OK you *may* get a cash strapped kid winning but I doubt it'll make much difference. But where's that kid going to go? They can't move into F4, or FFord or whatever because if they can't afford karting they sure as hell can't afford cars. Finding the money has to be one of the skills they learn.
There ain't too much wrong with karting, quality always seems to rise to the top. Don't knock the MSA. The only money they have to put into the sport is OUR licence fee, and I think that should be spread amongst all of us.
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