To be fair, Challenge isn’t a big entry series anyway, so they are often hurting for entries. I’m sure OK-N was their way of trying to get the jump on a new demographic of karters, since the main national series eat up all the big entries with X30/Rok/Rotax. They figured if they do something different they will get support from a different market.
Unfortunately it seems like really no one is all that interested in taking the leap into OK-N seriously. It’s a shame because this happens all the time with new classes. Entries breed entries, so the only way to get a class off the ground is to cast a wide net and offer very lucrative deals on engine packages or something.
When KA debuted here, it was immediately successful in part because IAME gave huge discounts on engines to get them into people’s hands. When you have a class of 20 right off the bat, it’s more fun and a lot easier to commit to.
Challenge has specific challenges, but here in the UK I have yet to even see the class mentioned at all… bare in mind we are hosting the World Championship in August where these things are supposed to be raced. I think the allure of the event should make it easy to scramble some grid together, but there’s no effort at all. If there has been some marketing and promotion it’s flown under my radar which is possible because I have taken a step back.
Multi-manufacturer classes always suffer unless there’s some cultural weight behind them that’s often hard to quantity. KZ for example seems to manage it for the most part. Everything else though? The elite single-gear classes for the FIA have long shed their association with past heritage in favour of F1’s. This really has made any CIK class that’s single-gear nigh-on impossible to get off the ground, and it’s their own fault for being so weak.
In the end the governing body should be the base promoter, and they put in a weird amount of non-effort. Getting regulations agreed and manufacturers committed (though we aren’t talking huge re-tooling here) is effort, but beyond that it’s been almost non-existent. It’s truly remarkable people are paid actual money to do this job.
I realise they should, but has the FIA ever promoted a series. Even from the formation of F1 they expected tracks to do it. It was really only Bernie Ecclestone recognising the value (and being Bernie) that got F1 the level of promotion is currently takes value from.
Personally I don’t want that for karting but some people would. I believe in a good strong governing body that sets the rules, administers licenses etc but otherwise barely gets involved.
But maybe I’m nostalgic about 90s karting in the UK.
People need to remember that the Challenge is basically just a western-based winter series.
Unfortunately, karting in the west is a bit of a mess these days (a trend that started when IKF - which provided a consistent set of classes from BC Canada all down through California - died off).
Despite being among the best run events you’ll find anywhere, with a promoter who listens to his customers, the Challenge is a victim of the mess of karting in the west. It started as a great Rotax series - then Rotax introduced one too many changes, and basically killed the platform in the USA. They had to do something, so they switched to ROK, and while the events were still great, the ROK platform never really caught on in the west outside of the drivers and teams who were loyal to the promoter and series.
Bottom line, in the Challenge’s case, I really don’t think it’s a problem of the OK-N engine package. The series had the same problem with the ROK GP engine package - aside from 3 races in the winter, there was nowhere for most people to run the motor until you pull it out 8 months later for ROK Vegas.
I suspect that focusing on 100cc (KA and VLR) for Junior / Senior / Masters, 60cc (IAME and ROK) for the young kids, and Shifters (KZ and ROK) for Senior and Masters, will see more participation this year because people will actually be able to use those motor packages for more than a 3-race series once a year.
As cool as it would be to see OK-N succeed, I don’t know if the west is the place to see it happen if it’s a motor that you use 3 weekends a year.
Like Rob said above, there is zero appetite for 125 karting in the west. Apart from a good size group of Rotax in Arizona, 125 is as dead as a doornail out there. In others words, Challenge is a very poor bellwether for any trend in karting. They only had 8 or 9 entries last year, and with some of the guys who raced Challenge last year racing in Florida for this winter, it did not have a chance this year.
That said, Stars Championship has done a great job promoting the class, and had a very successful run last year. They had from 15 to 19 at every round, which may not sound great, but recall most X30 races were only mid 20’s for entries last year. I was really pleasantly surprised at the numbers. The racing was great, and everyone involved really like racing the class. This year should be even better. I’ve had a lot of interest from drivers interested in OK-N Junior, and I know of a big team that is planning on getting involved as well. I myself will have 5 Senior drivers under my tent for Stars this season.
I have a full rack of engines, and I’ve shipped a number of them out to drivers interested in testing the package. If anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll set you up.
I would be all over it if there was an old guy class. I doubt I can hang with the kids in one of those. I can hold my own with the young guns in a 206 on a good day, but anything faster is questionable.
To add onto the stars point, it would be a shame if they don’t have a decent field again this year especially considering it was one of the best championship battles right down to the last lap in 2023. Seems like they will though especially doubling down in the oknj
Why the hell does anyone think that ANY additional senior non shifter class would succeed next to a full field of KA100’s?
It’s the same target audience. Theres no 125cc non shifter racing in the west any more, everyone already has a KA. If all the “premier” drivers are already in KA, why would they suddenly run out and buy an engine they know even less about, to race the same people?
Whether we want to accept it or not, if you’re in the west, the premier class is KA. PKC can’t even make an X30 class work.
It’s true. TAG racing literally doesn’t exist here in Northern California even for the bigger events, and there’s 4 tracks within an hour and half of me. It’s not hard to understand why. They did a great job with the KA. It would be intriguing to see a KA big bore delivered at some point, because as of right now the KA checks all the boxes except for outright speed. (great speed for a 100cc engine spinning at the revs it does, but ultimately there’s only so much you can do - either need more revs [expensive, fragile] or more displacement)
but… why? what would that accomplish? It would be targeting the same drivers who all already have the same engines, and run the same tires on the same tracks.
More engines don’t do anything to meaningfully expand participation.
Faster does not equal better. Just look at every professional racing series in the world. They are not trying to figure out how to go faster. They are trying to figure out how to make it cheaper. Don’t ruin the good thing you got in an affordable KA100 class.
While in some parts of the US the KA appears to have ‘taken over’ two stroke racing, it certainly hasn’t achieved this status across the world or on the international stage. This whole thread is basically a theoretical/hypothetical exercise in looking at other/new ideas.
Also, for me personally in terms of driver development, it’s widely acknowledged that higher speeds do have higher skill requirements as well as finer skill development (as well as a fun factor, let’s be honest), so having something between KA and shifter (which I’ll note OK-N does actually fill, even if some might not like it in the end) has a real value.
With engines open to development I’m not buying one. I’ll rent one so when brand X is the new hotness over Y I’m not out $3K-$4K. But the cost of renting for a 3 to 4 weekend series = the cost of buying one and I have nothing to show for it.
They look fun and fast and I’d like the challenge of direct drive, but I’m still holding out and that’s with a “major” OK-N race being held 5 minutes from my house again.
