Had a few conversations with various people recently over the state of karting at the moment. Lets be fair, it's not in a good place. Personally speaking I come from a TKM background at MBKC and S1. Started in 2004 and raced until two years ago. I now run a team at S1 level so have actively remained within the sport.
When I started there used to be threads on this website by drivers, involving drivers and generally most communication was done within this forum in terms of generating interest for race weekends etc. Now look at it... The most exciting forum page we have now is when it doesn't' work because SQL had some sort of an error or exception.
This isn't an attack or criticism of the actual website or its developers but of the users or lack of users now. I rarely see any posts asking who is racing here this weekend, who's going to win this event etc. it's a huge shame because that is what helped build grids when I raced.
Karting is struggling, numbers are poor. So there are issues here. How can we fix them? Reduce costs? I would say at club level things are reasonable for the newcomer. Increase insentives? Maybe a little tough for clubs to put their hands in their pockets with such poor numbers. Promote the sport more? Potentially viable... But how do we do this? Can we as members of the community actively promote things? What incentives can clubs, the MSA, the trade offer drivers to bring new people into the sport? I'm not seeing any ideas from anywhere at all?
Recently it was announced that the Cadet/TKM/Rotax 0 plate was at Rowrah again for the third year on the trot. Initially my thoughts were 'if that isn't a sign of corruption within karting then I don't know what is'. However I was informed that potentially only Rowrah bid for the event!!!! What on earth are the clubs doing then? Events like these should be important to get!
People at the S1 series I attend complain about the state of tracks we visit year in year out. Why aren't these tracks removed from the calendar and we visit somewhere else instead? Well... Firstly well done to those clubs that actually go about getting an S1 event. It would seem there aren't many of you out there. Next... there appeared to be an issue with clubs not having facilities fit for large events. im not being funny but shouldnt we be there for the racing???
The class of TKM should be booming, it's cheap, competitive and second hand equipment is not hard to find... So why is shenington struggling for a grid of seniors at the moment? Why is whilton mill dead for TKM? Why does three sisters struggle for numbers? PFI hasn't got TKMs... Why??? What's the problem here? Senior TKM is about to hit a real crisis at club level and national level too. At club level the numbers are now remaining low, apart from some localised places and a little none MSA that's happening. At national level the grid is similar to 3 years ago, not many new drivers are coming into it. Juniors are not moving up. KGP looks more viable now than TKM. Why??? Are new wets really the answer Tal-Ko?
Seriously guys where is karting going??? It's feeling a lot less like a community and more like a small group of people who race and don't talk or communicate.
TKM GP plate this weekend at PFi, who knew? Who's going to win? Who cares anymore?
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