How absurd….what are they going to do once these start cutting tires? The law of unintended consequences is never considered…fittingly.
Another step towards worsening driving standards.
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I think I will run a rental chassis and plastics next season and just bash people out of my way. Seems like that is the driving style the FIA is looking for. Can’t wait for them to add this crap to fronts as well. The game is truly gone.
I had hopes the tires manufacturers would have saved the day by strategically claiming that tires were homologated to opperate in a fully open environment and their integrity could not be guaranteed if they were to be covered, even partially.
Sad to see this didn’t work. What a shameful day for karting.
(This in addition to the OK-NJ being faster than the OK-N during today’s testing for the World Cup, given that the FIA had the brilliant idea to select LeCont as the supplier for OK-NJ and Maxxis for OK-N. Another smart move.)
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If I don’t see some serious bump drafting going on at the pro level, I will be dissapoint.
I assume SKUSA and USPKS will ignore?
This isn’t karting, this is Formula 5. We all know where the FIA is headed.
I can’t talk about this in the context as coming from ‘karting’. This is FIA Formula 5.
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They haven’t ignored all the other mandated bodywork, so if this becomes mandated for all FIA competition it’ll filter in eventually I suspect.
Some big series here don’t run pushback bumpers. They’ve removed them for KZ classes here, not sure if they run them in Europe for KZ. So we don’t always adhere to the FIA’s standards.
These covers probably will end up here eventually, as it is another revenue source, and likely what the karts will come with from the factory. But there is no real appetite for this kind of thing here, both from racers and organizations. Sometimes we have the play with the cards we are dealt though.
How is the driving standards In the classes that dont use the pushback bumpers, we tried it here and that was insane…
Pretty poor in my opinion. I can’t imagine trying it in Juniors right now. It would be a mess. But the KZ guys asked for them to be taken off because they felt they couldn’t race each other and with the heavier braking power and shifting, there was more chance for incidental front to rear contact.
Well, now there is more purposeful front to rear contact.
Pushbacks are a band-aid solution in my eyes, but a solution nonetheless.
That’s actually a very dope rental kart.
Pushbacks are lazy officiating. The solution is no pushback with harsh penalization. Driving standards improve because no one wants to be sent to the back and officials can still browse kartpulse during a race.
Don’t most US series still allow the full width metal loop rear bumper?
I think most bodywork is used because it’s what comes with the kart and the rules say you must have bodywork. These seem supplementary so I’d be surprised if they get mandated.
We can only run a metal rear bumper in most 4 cycle classes, everything else is standard plastic
It’s impossible for officials to monitor every kart in every corner with a 40 kart field of overzealous drivers, no matter how many cameras or officials you have watching. I don’t think it’s just lazy race directing. Series ARE handing out a ton of penalties.
I’m neutral on pushbacks. They aren’t perfect but they are something.
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I disagree. Try and watch a 30 kart field on the start and tell me you can catch every driver that causes an incident in real time. Pushbacks should not be a replacement for officiating, but they do have their place in helping keep races cleaner. The difference between non-pushback races to pushback races was significant when they were first introduced, and you can still see it if you watch the CKNA Grands running this weekend without pushback bumpers.
I’m not a believer in these wheel covers, but I wonder how we’ll think of them after actually seeing them on track. Every time something about safety comes up I mention the gladiator effect; how introducing something to decrease risk results in riskier behavior because there’s a perception of “well this is protecting me more now so I’m less likely to get hurt.”
I experienced it with cages in hockey. We were definitely more reckless with cages on than we would be with just a visor or nothing, but at the same time I would never advocate for allowing high school kids to play without a cage because “the cages are encouraging these kids to jump in front of more shots/swing their sticks around more/whatever.”
You can apply this to current discussions about bodywork and wheel covers. I don’t think that removing the bodywork is a solution to current driving standards, it just leaves too much up to accidental contact that may end badly, but I also don’t think that introducing more bodywork to insulate the drivers from the risks of racing aggressively/dirty is going to be good either. There’s some middle ground where we can protect drivers from accidental contact that goes too badly but without giving them the ability to throw caution to the wind and not worry about the aftermath, and I would worry we’re moving too far in the protection side right now.
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Extremely accurate. I have only officiated one race, and was shocked at how quickly you have to decide if you saw what you think you saw. As a race dad, I always watch my son on track, so when another parent asks, “did you see the bonehead move so-and-so made for the lead?”, my response is no, I was watching my son in 8th place.
So if you have 1, even 2 race officials, they can only watch a certain section of the track at a time. If there are more than 15 karts on the track, mid-pack and back is a free-for-all unless the incident happens right in front of an official.
CKNA Grands with the large field, low HP/Sticky tire, and no pushbacks will be an interesting watch this weekend, especially since they shortened the 2 drafting zones. Lots of push to pass I imagine.
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we are there with 50+ karts on track at the same time… and it is foggy !
I think the manufacturers have done a good job of making sure the bumpers cave in instead of deploying. So what do you guys think about a harsher penalty? Enough serious enforcement of penalties that send drivers to the back should stop this.
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