From NCMP’s Facebook page. What do you think?
As @Don_Westlie pointed out, this is merely a public announcement of them enforcing a rule that was already a part of the Briggs 206 ruleset.
Here’s the text from the FB post:
KRA LO206 Class Update, Effective Immediately - At the race director’s discretion, the track may ‘claim’ a competitor’s Briggs LO206 engine at any time. The track will supply the competitor with a new, factory sealed engine in direct exchange for the competitors ‘as raced’ engine. If the competitor fails to comply with the claim request, the competitor will be excluded from participating for one year and will forfeit all points acquired to date. The same will apply if a claimed engine is found to be blatantly illegal.
KRA is making every effort to keep the LO206 class pure and to the spirit and intent of the class. A low cost, economical class that allows inexpensive racing to all karters; where driver ability and chassis tuning are the haulmarks of the class. A class where engines; whether they come from the factory better than others or are deliberately altered are taken out of circulation for engine parity alone. We do not want special engines to discourage any karter from racing because they feel they can not compete or give anyone the perception that you have to have a “special” engine to win.
I like that they hand you a new engine for it. You actually gain something by having an engine claimed since it’s fresh and will last longer, assuming your previous engine was legal, that is.
Being a newby to Kart racing and the lo206 class. What can be done to sealed engine? The main thing we liked about 206 is not racing against someone’s pocket book so this does keep the spirit of the class intact.
That’s kinda the point. Nothing can really be done legally. This claiming rule isn’t to get the Frankenstein motors like the Rotaxes, just to make sure there’s nothing illegal going on. When everything’s legal, the engines are very comparable. The issue is people that may be running a cheater engine to get the advantage
For the record, this was already in the 206 rules under section 4. Posted below for reference. I haven’t seen anyone follow through with it though.
f. The tech official, at their sole discretion, may at any time replace acompetitor’s sealed engine, carburetor, or head assembly with another sealed engine or known stock part. Failure to comply is grounds for disqualification.
g. IF a competitor’s part is replaced per 4f it must be drilled or reconfigured in away that prohibits the reuse of that part.
I would hope any tech inspector worth their salt would have thoroughly torn down, measured and verified every inch on an engine to ensure it meets Briggs spec before even invoking this rule. Just taking someones engine paints them as a suspected cheater.
I agree. But in order to do a thorough check you’ll end up popping the seal, rendering the motor useless as a 206 anyway. Of course there are many checks outlined by Briggs that can be done without opening the bottom end, but if it gets to that point then the motor has to be scrapped.
What specifically can you not check without cutting the seal? Cam profile/duration? That can be checked. Stroke? Easy enough. Only thing u can’t check is weight of the crank, rod or cam if it has been altered or lightened in which case the seal would have been tampered.
Heck, I can make that even better: Before the start of the season, each driver submits his engine for inspection and sealing. The track tech staff tears through the engines, makes sure everything is up to spec, and seals the top end with a tamper evident seal. Engine is returned to the driver.
As long as the top end seal is not tampered with the engine doesn’t even need to be re-checked yearly.
I think its a great idea. Its just needs to be done regularly enough for it to not label anyone who has it happen to them a cheat.
All of the “spec” engine classes should have a claim rule.
And as for the seal being the end all, someone will find a way round it. The rotax seal was unpenetrable until someone worked it out and put a different crank in there.
Nah you could pull the wire our of the seal one strand at a time. Once you got the wire out you could open the seal and use it again.
The sealer wasn’t the one making any real money out of it, the family doing the cheat where renting the engines for 10k a weekend and sold one of them (reset to standard) to Brundle for 35k.
It was only found out because one of the other sealing agents go one of his drivers to rent an engine then he had a look, then told the scrutineer what to look for.
I would have liked to have seen this rule in place for the 206 cup event this past weekend at New Castle. There was a kid kart beating all the others by 1-1.5 seconds a lap. In one race he started last, spun out half way through the race, and still came back to win. Unless I am missing something I don’t get how a kart with fixed gear ration (17/57), 4100rpm rev limiter, max tire circumference, and slide checked every race can be that much faster.
But I am still new to this so I could be totally off base.
How often are folks ACTUALLY getting caught? Getting their engines pulled and cracked open?
I’m pretty new to the sport, so I haven’t been alot of places, but I’ve never seen or heard of anyone getting their motor pulled. Maybe its more prevalent at national level races compared to regional/local level?
Relative momentum can be surprising. If the kid was very good, it’s possible he was just more efficient. Case in point, I have been a lap down (pitted on formation) and passed everyone to take 1st (weaker field). It can happen. If he’s leapfrogging the other known fast guys inexplicably, that’s another story.
Dom is spot on, especially in kid classes. Carrying speed is the most important part. Now that being said I would also not rule out cheating. As we all know there is very small portion of the people that are willing to anything to win. It’s sad but true.
I would like to point out, I found this out relatively recently, New Castle made that specific post because of one driver that is notorious for cheating even in 206, but also any other class they’ve competed in over the years. I’ll leave out identifying info but it wasn’t the first incident with that driver.
Regarding kid karts, it’s very possible that specific kid just figured out driving way better than the other kid karts. The driving level in kid karts can/is all over the board, so sometimes you’ll see kids that come out way faster than anyone else on track. It’s very possible they were cheating, you do see kid kart parents get very competitive over a class for 5 year olds, but I wouldn’t discount the idea that the kid just had a lot of seat time or learned how to drive fast at a better rate than the other competitors.