I’d definitely agree with that.
I completely agree. karting has little presence other than as a feeder to racing cars. The average person thinks of it as bumper cars, a motorsports fan may see it as a kids sport, and only karters see it as its own extremely competitive Motorsport that it is. The few drivers who have attempted to post karting related content have done fairly well. SuperGT, Broadbent, and now Quarant. Indoor karting has racked up quite a few views on youtube, and someone has to make a connection between the two. Karting has so many different variants, (bumper, indoor, dirt, sprint, rental) where as dirtbikes are just dirtbikes. theres no confusing what a dirtbike is. dirtbikes arent viewed as a ladder to anything (as far as I know), so theres no confusion on what youre doing if you want to get into dirtbikes. If you want to get into karting theres no obvious answer. I hope that made sense. I think if someone were to produce high quality videos of karting and shifted it towards whatever the fans would want it could be successful. If people are able to see it as its own niche and not just a feeder and fairground toy, I think there could be some cultural growth. Let me know if any of this makes sense
I mean it does. Someone would just need to spend the time and $$$ to create the content.
That’s where most of this discussion stalls. The action behind that good idea. 
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Funny enough, I got pinged on a podcast that James and I did with Ross Bentley where we talked about some of these conversations with car racers, casually.
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I’d love to after college. Don’t have the time money or talent right now. I have started a YouTube channel, maybe I should try voice overs.
Karting does well from a novelty point of view for an audience. That’s why SuperGT etc… can get the views on those videos. But it’s fleeting. Karting isn’t the foundation of the content. We don’t have our ‘own’ stars.
I think Norberg could do it if he just upped his game a little but with his content. He has a lot of potential. David Sera does a lot of coaching stuff nowadays, but he could do it. Back in the day when K1 started him and Ellery had the potential but were a bit before their time. I think they set the standard back then and I am not sure if we’ve matched it since.
We are getting there as drivers are so twigging that if they are a little bit brave and actually take pride in what they do… then something is possible.
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I agree. I think some people are a little scared to put out karting content aimed towards a larger audience. Maybe people are worried how non karters will view it? Its also not easy to put out quality content which has stopped many people. I agree that if Norberg tried to put out content aimed towards a larger audience (not just karters) that he could have success.
This makes sense, all successful karting content is created by… Streamers and F1 drivers.
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So long as they do not make content like that “kart life” show on TV, that turned karting into a shitty reality show about class.
Exactly, it’s because they’re working off a much larger audience. As much as we love karting, we have to remember that it’s a niche sport with a small number of people relative to other things. (Karting vs gaming, for example.)
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I could go on a rant about this topic ha.
(Following is not aimed at you personally BTW) This gives me pause… how are we measuring success? I feel like the sport gets caught up in vanity metrics a lot.
Karting doesn’t have an exposure problem. The problem is that karting doesn’t have a mechanism to leverage the exposure that’s already out there. To put it another way, the customer journey is broken.
Person sees content, OK cool… now what? That’s where the chasm is. Exposure is a convenient excuse, more of it won’t really help… yet. Exposure is cheaper and more targeted than ever, but you won’t get an ROI from that alone… You need a vehicle, a process to move people along to the next steps.
Honestly, I got so fed up preaching about this I just went ahead and opened my own (temporary) track out of sheer frustration. All the dots have to be connected, this isn’t a karting thing… it’s just a thing.
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Exactly.
Sees video, “whoa that looks like fun! I’m going to research how to get into karting.”
see fragmented sport, no clear answers on where or how to start, division in class structure, varying degrees of local or regional support for brands, poor online presence from shops and tracks
“This is too much work to figure out, I’ll just buy a sim wheel and download iRacing and be driving in an hour.”
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I mean when you looked at series websites like IKF, WKA and etc, they are way too outdated, and needlessly complex to know where to start.
Even Kartpulse got too complicated, when some of the leadership team wanted to create a social media network for karting, when others just wanted a list of classes and some static articles on “How to get started in karting in 5 steps.” 
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So that brings me to another point, the sport is complex… but it can be simplified too. I think the members on the forums here do a good job of directing folks on the path to actionable answers, vs throwing a bunch of information that the person has to figure out.
That’s where the 206 program was so powerful IMO. It wasn’t so much the engine, or even it’s ease of use but the full package with rules. You could (well can) buy with confidence.
Pft, that’s so 2014/2015 and you’re still talking about it 
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Oh I completely agree. Hardly a straight forward path to get into karting. It could take an entire year from when you decide you want to race, and when you get on the track. There is no right answer due to everywhere being different.
Yeah, it took a while just doing research and finding common brands before landing on some engine packages that would work.
Your average newcomer will never do all of that. Nor should they have to.
the 206 has been great. Hard to find a place that doesnt run it. Kartpulse streamlines the whole process since it has members everywhere, and they can direct people personally. If people who wanted to get into karting knew about kartpulse they would have a much easier time getting into it and would be less likely to be thrown off by the confusion that is karting. It took me almost 2 years to figure out how and where to go karting with a non rental.
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There’s a small amount of that happening organically through the forums and google search. Which is good as that’s one of the main reasons the KP forums started.
As social media took more of people’s attention, karting’s visibility was disappearing from web search and to me that was a big risk.
KP is kinda at a point where a more active outreach would require more resources. So for now we’re relying on organic means via the community.
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Same. It took me a ton of noodling to get started. First two years I flew to California to kart because I had no idea of how to get going locally. I wanted turn-key solution and that’s what Jim Hall racing offered.
Agreed. I think that the organic community for KP is one of our strengths, since folks keep coming around.
I mean, we used to write articles, and we don’t have the time/money to make video content about this stuff right now.
I did take care of one low-hanging fruit today as far as awareness is concerned.
Added a link to kartpulse to the wikipedia article on karting: Kart racing - Wikipedia
Curious to see what, if any, referral traffic we might get.
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