"The karting market has – resoundingly – decided that it wants Rotax rather than anything else. Repeatedly call this purchasing decision into question comes close to declaring the majority of karters stupid."
I don't this is an accurate statement. I have just taken a couple of novices through the procedure of starting karting and several things become very obvious.
First most adherents to one class become fervent apostles of the class. They don't drive or test in another class because "their class is best". There is little or no selection, if only because we have a forum where we say that the best thing is to go along and race in the biggest grid at your local club.
Second, newcomers to our form of karting have very little knowledge or experience, by definition. So they are at the mercy of traders who often have a vested interest in one class or other apostolic drivers. We know that there are classes that have begun entirely because a person has lost his income from one product and needed to invent a new class to replace that income. It is very difficult to explain to a newcomer that almost all DD karts go the same speed, if only because their power to weight ratio is so similar and that the difference comes largely from the consumables, like tyres. Going fast in a Rotax requires the same skillset as going fast in a Blue or a TKM or even a ProKart. The Laptime difference is mainly down to rubber and powercurve. (For example, look at the average lap times of the cadets
Yes, there's a difference in the way karts get the power down, so a Rotax can outdrag a Blue on the straights, but the Blue can often regain the ground on the corners.
Thirdly, there's an enormous amount of politics involved, with a small number of traders wielding a disproportionate influence. For example, one might ask why the 'Lets Start Karting' sites don't mention certain kart classes as popular, but do mention classes that have only about 12 karts nationally!
Fourthly, there are a huge number of people involved in Karting. Most of them make the choice not to be involved with the elite and expensive form of National Class Racing, instead either hiring a kart, usually deliberately slow or adversely set up to limit the scope for damage or accepting other risks in Local Class Racing (what might be termed elsewhere as "Independent Kart racing". Getting rid of those risks; such as having a route of objection, the MSA 'courts' or having narrow class specs or having approved safety standards and the monitoring system to police them; reduces the costs significantly but are factors that drivers choose to take into account (or simply ignore). But then all drivers make that choice when 'practising'.
What we lack is a system that attracts people to spend the extra money.
There are also many debates surrounding Classes. Take the 'big grid' argument. We regularly advise that one goes into the biggest grid because it's more fun.
The truth is slightly different. Big grids typically have more accidents (in NCR, anyway) because there is always someone who gets it wrong, and after the first couple of laps one is back to racing the same 5 people that one usually races. So our advice possibly should be go with a grid that seems to have both a reasonable spread of talent and reasonably close racing but most importantly, seems to have people enjoying themselves. If parc ferme is filled with grumpy, miserable faces and people avoiding each other, then they are taking their racing too seriously and it isn't a grid for a novice. If there are smiles and people congratulating each other on an awesome race even if they didn't get onto the podium, or giving the novices a boost then consider it.
Big Grids do not automatically ensure 'better karting', unless the grid is good tempered, has people who respect racing rather than punt-and-win and has a spread of abilities. And yes, I have raced in grids regularly 25 and more and grids of 3 and 4.
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Why do you race Rotax Max? by 'NJB' (19 Sep 2013 @ 18:56)
