If these come in, I think people will be stunned by two things:
I know this, because I designed and engineered the wheel spats for the Aptera .
You can invert a trashcan over a wheel, and then you’ll have all sorts of trouble. Start actually engineering them to be a useful consumer product and the engineering gets more complicated.
Nothing. I can make it at home and it’s a different formula of kart. And there’s no mandated wheel coverings.
The main issue is that in sprint karting more bodywork = more expense, more contact, worse driving standards. And karting at its core is an open wheel discipline.
On big tracks or road racing with Superkarts, the bodywork doesn’t take a beating like it does on a sprint track.
Superkart bodywork is a lot of weight too….
How much downforce gets made in those? Measurable?
Enough. I don’t have exact figures, but it’s a fair amount. The rear wing is not as effective as normal because of the blob sitting in front of it, but the floor produces negative pressure.
https://tkart.it/en/news/events/exclusive-here-is-the-new-rear-protection-for-karts-promoted-by-the-fia?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAYnJpZBExbTFWRDNxdnVvc3J5ZjYwaAEe0bwG0ZxgUe_Wx0wzi7OMPBnyPlpHHoBpJBHG3FlP26jD-J50Ceqd83IVMG0_aem_ZfdsaqkDjRbVq1U0ZkJxMA
Don’t know if this deservers a new post, but because it’s a continuation I will let it here for now
Yeah, they hinted at it in the GPDA rebuttal.
I’m done with this sport tbh from a modern perspective. it’s embarrassing to be involved with.
A complete joke. The FIA is so tone deaf with regards to what karting needs.
All FIA care about is F1 kids in my view. They don’t want kids getting hurt because it’ll attract a wave of negative attention. They dodged a bullet when some kid’s helmet came off live on a stream when a kart went over his head. The tide is flowing in one direction and the FIA, I suspect, know karting won’t survive a kid being killed at a big event when it’s all live broadcasted. The more karting gets flooded with kids, the more incentive there is to basically kill the concept of a ‘kart’ and replace with some weird hybrid machine.
They’ve bet on F1, this is a natural consequence.
To some extent, if karting needs this to protect kids… I think the sport is probably too dangerous for kids.
The FIA created these high speed karts them selfs, no one asked for a junior kart to be (on some tracks) as fast as the KZ2, no one asked for sticky tyres bringing up corner speeds.
They should start with removeing the drivers that insist In bumping other drivers to gain a spot and the ones that generally dont behave, then look at the speeds these things runs at.
The FIA completely lost the plot, i hope these things stays at the FIA run events.
Whelp… glad I live on the side of the pond that don’t give a s*** what the FIA thinks or says.
The most ludicrous thing I’ve seen in karting.
On my end it depends if the local RMC suddenly cares for homologated equipment for the final rounds. Happened last year when a Junior driver used a non-homologated suit because they told him it was alright and then in the inspection they disqualified him because of the suit, lost the RMCGF ticket to the sons organizer.
looks like my rental karts a bit. 
This is like Victorian ankle covering.
Two sides to this issue. The first one the typical old time karter. "Back in my day you had to be smart / brave / careful to race like a real man. Blah, blah, blah. The other side is we heard of an accident that happened and were horrified so we talked about and decided to form a focus group to decide what to do. If it saves one life, it’s worth it!
Neither one is the answer.
Having bumpers is a good idea. How much of a bumper is what matters. I’ve run karts with no front or rear bumpers (or side protection). You dealt with what was the status quo, didn’t even think about it. Having a front bumper was certainly welcome when that happened. Having a standard height for the rear and later the lower rear bar was also a good idea. Side bars and pods changed things a bit but eventually they found versions that were not too offensive but they did increase the amount of “rough and tumble” that went on. Full width rear bumpers allowed a more thump and bump. Bit of a down side vs the amount of safety improvement IMO.
The trick to all these changes was that they happened slowly - a piece at a time. How the ideas got implemented mechanically and how the drivers dealt with them. This happened over many years.
The focus group solutions are usually giant changes intended to solve ALL the problems, with limited success. A change in one thing end up creating a whole bunch of other “unintended consequences”. Changing the rules to require these things means a big money outlay to a manufacture and the customer (you). Aggravation dealing with how the devices are policed with officials, and how they have to rule on decisions they make (pushback bumpers for example). Many difficulties all around.
This kind of thing needs to be eased into. What works on it, what doesn’t work. Do the benefits out weight the down side. Only time and testing can show that, not new rules and mandates.
No one wants anyone to get hurt, but it seems to me like each step is one step closer to closed wheel racing. I’m fine with that, it’s what I do in wraparounds, and I enjoy the playfulness and freedom it brings. But closed wheel racing makes contact less consequential and therefore you drive even closer, riskier. The medium dictates the technique.
It seems an impossible task to ensure safety without changing the behavior and fundamental nature of how racing is expressed on track. I have no clue what the answer is to this conundrum. That rear wheel thing basically takes rear tire out of play. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Has there been some sort of rear tire to front wheel contact epidemic of late that precipitated this?
The thing is its gond to far, everything about the bodywork are getting silly and expensive.
Regarding the rearbumpers its a result of drivers that dont Care about others and showing a complete lack of racecraft, and officials that allow bumping and bad driving to happen. Even In the Euro/world champs bad driving is more or less accepted and not dealt with.
My point is, dont try and treat the outcome deal with rootcause impose strict penalties on the idiots that refuse to behave, make sure the officials are awake and a 3/5 sec penalty is not enough.
These things will not treat the main issue only make karting more expensive, and make the driving standards even worse.
Karting needs to get out from under the FIA. They see karts as just “small cars”. What they’ve done for safety in car racing has been great; but the safety improvements there are not fundamentally changing the nature of the sport. With karting every change they introduce is taking us further and further away from what karting is supposed to be. This is akin to adding two additional wheels to a motorbike to prevent riders from falling off. There’s also no data that I know of suggesting karting is safer now than in the past.
Even worse though, is that it doesn’t actually solve a problem. Firstly, karts are still going to roll. Most flips happen with side or front contact. Very few rolls these days are because of an interaction with the rear wheels. It’s usually caused by front wheel contact or an initial heavy impact causing wheels to leave the ground. As it doesn’t solve the problem, they’ll end up adding more protection (wrap-around bumpers like rentals). The issue with the wrap-around bumpers is that the energy of the impact dissipated over a very short period of time. With a more spectacular looking crash, the energy is dissipated over a longer period of time and is therefore safer.
If they were really worried about safety, they’d simply slow down and lighten the karts and enforce driving standards much more strictly.
