I do feel for you kelvin and obviously you're more involved than us. I think the emphasis of the thread was that due to the increased level of engine preparation, it's no longer the budget class it was originally conceived to be. I don't think anyone was saying it wasn't popular
But you're right, pooled engines etc. haven't proved popular in karting and that's the paradox, if you ask most parents, they say they want a level playing field but when offered a big engine, how many would say no. I'd made reference to the 200 extreme because that does seem to be revitalising the pro-kart grids, a class that is largely regarded to a suffered because of the belief the you needed sp engines to be competitive.
I think whoever mentioned envelopes of money, was being a bit tongue in cheek but it's true, pooled or standardised engines wouldn't be popular with those with a vested interest, selling, hiring or building "better" engines and if the teams turned away from the class because they could be seen to be adding value to their drivers, the numbers would probably suffer.
It's all partly the result of a mature class. When the Iame cadet engine first came out, it was widely heralded because of its parity compared to the comer. We had one of the very first and when I took it for its first rebuild, the builder said he'd taken 10 apart with a view to selecting the best bits but didn't find enough difference to bother, four years on builders are offering sp Iame cadet engines. Evidently even though the differences are much smaller, there is a comercial demand to have that advantage. On a side note, if builder is stripping engines to find the better than averge parts, would you really want one of their non sp engines, knowing that it's parts are probably below average ;-)
As you say, maybe that's just motorsport!
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