Back in the 60's/70's heyday of british karting, if you said to joe public that you did karting, he'd reply "what?", and you'd say "karting - kart racing"! "Oh, that; yeah me and the kids raced go-karts on holiday last year"! And so you tried to explain that what you did was "real" kart racing, that it wasn't called go-karting, it was much faster -15000rpm etc etc...but you knew you weren't getting anywhere! My point here being, that real karting then, was direct drive, no clutch, no starting mechanism, no bodywork/all around bumpers, high rpm's .....in fact it was everything that it isn't today! I blame the MSA. They quite deliberately stopped karting from being a sport in its own right, and turned it into the bottom rung of the motor racing ladder. Their obsession with pseudo safety related rule changes, and pushing out the DIY karter by having everything homologated, has changed the nature of the sport and, crucially, the type of person that it appeals to, radically. Karting has changed from being a dirty, smelly, noisy, bump starting, dirt-under-the-fingernails, turn up with a roof-rack, working class sport; into a safe, sanitised, clean, quiet, electric start, turn up with a motorhome & awning, sport for the middle classes & their wannabe f1 driver kids. So, has rotax killed karting? Yes, karting is dead; rotax is GO-karting. The sport is now everything that joe public thought it was!
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