Chris,
We stopped for a number of reason probably not fair to blame one of them totally;
- Rotax, cost of competing due no parity on engines, and ancillaries.
- Mojo tyres, having to buy new to compete when the tyres weren't worn out, just 2 to 3 tenths slower than new. No industry or MSA incentive to reduce this cost - i.e. making people use the tyres more than once, could be done on a national database.
- Occasional inconsistency from officials keeping on top of driving standards.
- Constant loading with no real control.
- limited grids at sensible MSA club level, short of racing at PFI which was beyond our budget against value on track time and against all the top teams budgets, I know someone whom raced with a top team @ £850 a day with no team gear - you provided your own kart , engine etc.
- we wanted a chance of winning which we used to; we won MSA club champs and broke lap record etc with no professional support, but most important we just wanted close and fair racing without spending a fortune.
The above is what pushed us away from karting, the rest is the usual in terms of what pulled us away from karting - money, time, lad growing up and will be going onto to uni in a year or so, so no point in re investing in something new (i.e. X30) to have the shelve it while money goes into that. One good thing is it looks like he wants to do motorsport engineering, and we had some great years as lad and dad which will always give us great memories.
In summary lads and dads need value, close, fair racing with consistency which allows progression through Junior ages to senior without spending a fortune on the swap over. Unfortunately not all of those attributes ever go together. Cest la vie!
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