"the big question is why are the numbers down ?"
The numbers are up, up by a huge amount, up by so many that we have lost count.
The difference is that 20 plus years ago, when I re-started, there were two sorts of karting, indoor and outdoor and outdoor was mainly MSA with a few noddy tracks (the archetypal "tyres on a tennis court" and a mower engine kart). So karting, real karting meant finding your local track and joining the MSA
Now you can go to almost any 'real' kart track in the country and hire a corporate kart.
Another difference is that 40 years ago, when I first karted, I got to drive a class 4 super with two Bultaco 125 ccs, fully tuned and fitted with the new Sheene tuned 'volume' exhausts and producing all of 9hp from each engine...about what a ProKart does today and on tyres that had been taken off the nearest Lambretta.
So back then MSA karting was establishing the boundaries for a sport as fast and competitive as corporate karting today, about the club 100 level.
Today we have 100cc karts that have far more power and performance than the old class 4 super and we have the kind of grip that one could only have dreamed about then; chassis and tyres have come a long way even if we don't notice it, year on year. (Someone asked why modern karts had a much more laid back seat than old ones. One of the reasons is that the old karts didn't work in quite the same way).
So we get down to performance safety. We know, most of us have experienced, just what happens when a modern kart leaves the track. We use up all the safety margins available. We also know that if one is used to the performance of a modern kart that the corporate kart seems sluggish and clumsy. Not better or worse, you need a whole different technique and one of the features of NKRA rounds at Lydd used to be the evening race when we got the full complement of hire karts out on the track, for teh drivers vs. mechanics races.
Those races highlight another difference between driving too. The races stopped, among other reasons because we 'real drivers' were happy taking the kerbs in a way that other, less ferocious drivers weren't. The damage done to the karts was prohibitive for the operator and no matter how much we were told not to, we continued to take the kerbs because 'that was what real drivers did'.
So, the MSA has shifted from a fairly gentleman's sport where safety was as much a function of performance as trackside measures, to something where safety has to be actively and expensively promoted. As is proved from the safety records of hire karts, you don't need a licence (and test) when the speeds are limited and the rules of driving enforced. But the record of club karting shows that the increase in speeds and the sheer stupidity of a few drivers who 'have to win at any price' and the lawyers to enforce winning in the office, needs expensive safety precautions.
Another problem is the 'fastest is best' philosophy. There are still people who think that the Aixro is the answer to all their prayers, without thinking that it will demand huge changes to track and procedure if it is to be raced popularly and successfully. Now, I have no doubt that the Aixro is a tremendous engine, but the idea of 20 plus drivers, rushing into the first corner on the average kart track, where we currently have lots of accidents at an additional 10 mph and even shorter braking distances is, frankly, scary.
" i think the lack of a true clubman class ".
I think the idea of a clubman class is dubious, because it panders to the idea that there's a mystical perfection acheived by tuning that gives all engines the same power. What happens is that those with money bore out their engines to the largest bore, skim off their components to the minimum and then indulge in a little creativeness. One is aware for example that F1 engines are deliberately off centred by small amount so that squirm, the compression and expansion of the conrod and its effect on the piston, occures in a predictable way, and the cost of such accuracy is thousands.
People who currently get an 'unfair' advantage out of sealed or fiche engines will continue to do so. Those of us happy to race 'out of the box' will continue to get our share of fun.
As it is, practice sessions have shown me that the difference between the three main non-gearbox classes, Rotax, Blue and TKM, are very small. Indeed TKM found several seconds a lap merely by changing the tyre rubber and I suspect that Blue and TKM would be comparable on teh same rubber being designed to be comparable. (the Blue is based on the Formula A engine of 1989, hence their previous description as "classic 89" until the MSA required a change).
Sorry for the long post, but the answers are complex. The real question might be whether the extra expense of MSA racing is caused by driver behaviour and the associated risk since more or less the same engines (there are as many Blue engines in non-MSA racing as MSA racing) are used, or is it that the non-MSA drivers are willing to ignore the benefits of MSA safety and insurance?
|
|
just a thought by 'gaz47' (13 Dec 2010 @ 14:05)
