There's loads of reasons why numbers have dropped off, but outside of the karting itself, pretty sure the economy at present means people have less money to go racing. Look at Super KF - arguably most prestigious class in British Karting, and same numbers as TKM 4. Does that make it less prestigious? I doubt it it's still a tough competition, but people like to see numbers.
As far as getting people into it, Talko need to make it more fashionable and change people's perceptions which is a tough thing to do!
Like it's been said, 4 stroke is seen by most in the karting world as inferior to 2 stroke racing - it's associated with corporate racing - like any joker could just get in and race it. So it doesn't have the prestige.
Having done both, for me there are plus points to either - I loved the technical aspect of the 2 stroke and the fact that you could try and squeeze an advantage out of carb settings or some sort of 'magic' from your engine rebuilder and equally at the same time, it p*55ed me off! Great when it's you the one with the strong motor down the straight and off the corners, not so great when you know you're quicker through the corners but can't get near down the straight!
In that respect, the 4 stroke is great. Engine, barely have to worry about it, just change the oil regularly. Maybe try different plugs if you want, but they probably won't do anything unless it's super hot. Carb, well you can change the jets if you like, but generally standard does the job. So this is all good because you can then focus on the set up and the racing.
One of the main reasons people won't take it up is speed and noise and with the 2 strokes now faster than the 4 strokes over a laptime, there is even less incentive to spend more money getting the 4 stroke motor. When we took it on with the red maxxis back in 2003, the 4 strokes were about 1.5 to 2 seconds quicker over the lap than the 100cc 2 strokes and Talko put a lot of media into pushing that as the future or the premier class in TKM. Then they kind of did a U-turn on that when they brought out the extreme 115cc motors which brought that back to about a second a lap quicker at most circuits. Now, the 2 strokes are actually faster with the lower weight limit and stickier tyres so they're pretty much going to kill it off with the tyres the same. Well they are for me anyway...
But basically, to go faster, you generally need to spend more money. Aside from the speed, motorsport is all about the noise for me - and low cc 4 strokes can sound good I'm sure and when you drive the TKM 4, it sounds good next to you, but as a spectator, it isn't a great sound. The sound of a full grid of 2 stokes vs the sound of a full grid of 4 strokes? I still like the 2 stroke sound. Maybe there's something they can do to the exhaust as it must be well below the db limits...
With the risk of sacrificing the control on the engine, maybe they need to be more lenient with the rebuilding - there's no incentive for teams to get into it because there's no opportunity for engine builders like Paul Carr to make money on things like that or put their own identity to it. Teams need an incentive to take it on.
All in all, these latest changes have made it less fashionable and unfortunately, we can talk about the close racing and level motors all day- it is fun to drive in, and great to watch, but this isn't enough because even when you could at least say that they were faster than the 2 strokes as a class it was hard enough to get people involved because of people's perceptions and the noise (lack of). Now that they are slower over a lap now too, well. We'll have to see what they come up with... the only reason I came back into it last minute was because of that rental deal that Talko and JKH offered - which I reckon is a great idea.
Chris Needham
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TKM 4S Seniors Tyre change for 2011 by 'pccsystems' (23 Jun 2010 @ 10:10)
