Thoughts on this?
I wrote my extended thought elsewhere (tldr: Challenges around logistics, class standardisation, potential conflicts with existing championships, and audience development for a one-off race could make it difficult, but agree with the over-arching philosophy of a proper professional karting event/s). The only way I can see this happening in is is Danny leads it and organises it. I think he could. I don’t see financial incentives for anyone else, certainly the big championships.
Isn’t this the SuperNationals?
He lost me when he mentioned the race of champions and make karting grow. In my opinion, one has nothing to do with the other. Karting grows at the grass roots level. It’s mostly people stumbling upon it, or there’s a family member with a racing history. Youtube and social media are all about the algorithm. People that aren’t already in the karting word aren’t going to see this event on youtube, or even know it ever happened.
If you want to truly grow karting, focus at the club level and find ways to keep karting affordable.
I always say this, and never get any response. Karting is extremely expensive, yet nobody is making money off it.
Listened to the episode the other day. I have been working in professional level motorsports (actually racing against Formal at the moment) for many years now and have seen the backend that others may not get to see and surprise surprise (heavy sarcasm) like most things in life it all boils down to $$$.
From my take on the interview it sound a like it would be “professional” level drivers only. Not multiple classes, just KZ/shifter, whatever they want to call it. So instead of 400/500 entries like the supernats has you may have 50, even if the entry fees were super inflated you wouldn’t make a dent in the cost to run the event.
You would need a benefactor/ benefactors who have no worries of any type of ROI and are ok just spending that money for the love of the sport.
I agree that supernats is the closest thing at the moment, figure out a way to expand the viewership/ spectator only (ppl coming strictly to watch who have no involvement with anyone racing) to a point, I don’t know what that point is or how you do it.
I think at the moment the ppl who watch karting (Kart chaser, YouTube feeds etc) are ppl who are involved with the sport in some way, not just “fans”. Need to find a way to change that, karting is some of the best racing you can watch anywhere.
Reminds me when my local club organizer does events in rich schools to bring more drivers or do free days with the kart rentals, but 98% of the time doesn’t work ironically.
If done right I could see this event at least bring more expectators, but it should at least do various events to grow a solid fanbase
Ever notice how sometimes suggestions on how to grow the sport from drivers usually involve some sort of potential high profile coverage for them 
I’m guilty as charged on that too.
@revolutionracing , I agree with you fully. I’ve more thoughts and will circle back later.
The thing about growth is it’s hard to pin down where it originated and second-order effects. Karting has become more spec, more user friendly, and lost a ton of drivers, at least here in the UK. Sometimes that framework works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I can certainly see an event that put karting front and center, with actual adults, would have the effect of legitimising it back to being an adult oriented activity. it might not be a input output type thing, but the potential is there to drive down some of the “am I too old for karting” stuff we see quite often.
Getting to that level of exposure though is no easy thing.
I should add I don’t think Supercross suppresses dirtbikes in general either. That’s still a ‘working man’s’ type motorsport, though not aided by the move to 4-stokes I hasten to add
This idea strikes me as more of a big ticket showcase idea, which does generate promotional buzz/hype to draw interest, which indirectly helps with “growing the sport”, but only just.
The sport was never more popular than we had big events with big name drivers.
It’s no bad thing because it psychologically sets expectations. One of the (many
) problems karting has, and this is somewhat UK focused, is you can start karting at somewhere like PFi, and get absolutely smashed by a literal world champion. It’s cool on one hand, but given karting’s insular nature, most people are unaware of the level of driver they are facing. So you’re faced with overwhelming reality of needing to spend a LOT of money and time to get to a decent level at club meetings. A lot of people just look at that and go nah, no thanks.
When you create an ‘elite’ you create a psychological pyramid of expectation. A lot of karting would benefit with tiered levels. C, B and A grids as it once was in many respects.
Sim racing has big ticket tiered racing, dirt bikes has big ticket tiered racing… karting, for the most part, doesn’t really. It’s hard to do because karting’s obsession with spec-racing, but not impossible.
An event/championship like this might not see drivers through the door straight away, but it helps set expectations for those that do. When you have an ELITE you know your place a little better and can adjust accordingly. Combine with more tiered racing grids, then you might get somewhere. Expectations align with longevity in the sport, I posit.
in addition is helps change perception of karting being a kids only activity.
So we have two potenbtial benefits that are hartd to measure, but no less important.
Caveat, i didn’t watch the entire video:
How is this any different from the KZ category, populated by literal profesional karting drivers that are paid to race with the highest level material currently availble in the world, which already exists 
? Is he sugesting to replicate that in the US with US only drivers ?
he is talking big spectators and prize money, and pretty much invitational. Something more akin to a Monster Energy Cup that used to happen in supercross.
The FIA seem more interested in wasting money with FIA Motorsport Games and lavish opening ceremonies literally a couple thousand people watched, than making the type of event Formal is referencing here. I was at the World Championship at PFi and tbh club meetings have more atmosphere than that did. the FIA don’t seem that interested in elevating karting and karters, at all.
Sounds like a Bercy redux of sorts? Only works if you separate the karting hot shoes from the “stars” though. Otherwise most of the stars will have a hard time keeping up with the karting hot shoes…. I’d imagine. Not a slight on their abilities… but there is some specialization in karting that takes a while to (re)adjust to. I think Schumacher was just inside the top ten in FSA in 2001?
Huge event to pull off, as it seems drivers calendars are even more packed these days not to mention contracts being more restrictive on activities.
For anyone wondering what I’m referring to when I say Bercy:
Schumacher was about mid-grid until it rained, and he was fast. Fair play to him, no driver would dream of entering an event like that now.
Bercy proves why the idea of a karting race of champions is so hard because there are only stakes when non-karters (well ‘ex’ karters) are involved, in terms of audience perception. As you say the karters are separated out and no one cares. It does prove that as a vehicle karts can produce a ‘spectacle’, though the electric event in 2011 is a big warning sign that just because its a steel tubed chassis, other things matter too. When Bercy went MAX that sucked too.
Karting’s failure is we can’t develop stakes from drivers within the sport. Naturally this is because of the perceived subservience to F1 that extinguishes that kind of thing very quickly.
To develop those feelings of jeopardy in an audience you need a season long investment. As a one off it’s very difficult to get people to care about karters because the level of marketing and education required is enormous. Explaining to people what the ROK champion is and the SKUSA champion is, and somehow KZ and how ROK Shifter isn’t KZ etc… would be nightmarish. You need a single season long package that people can understand relatively quickly. for all the complexity of F1 it’s easy to explain: Teams build their own cars, and hire the best drivers they can to drive them. And then you need some time to develop rivalries and show character.
But if you include anything other than karters, I think it’s a waste of time. The non-karters would require to have some kind of advantage. They’d effectively be given byes against faster opposition because otherwise you’d be risking money and investment. It also make the event more ‘fun’ oriented because the non-karters would not hesitate to say “oh this is just a bit of fun” when they inevitably get beat by relative no-bodies.
If you build an event with enough prestige you can pull this off. I don’t think you can just decide to go do it and sell the idea to enough “pro” drivers to make it work.
Look at the Tulsa Chili Bowl. It is a unique one-off race that only offers a 10k 1st place purse, but it has grown to one of the most attended dirt track events of the year. It has attracted amateur and pro dirt drivers, indycar drivers, cup drivers, drag racers, you name it. They have a waiting list for spectactators and sell out standing room only seating every year. They will run P&Q Mains with bump-ups all the way to the A Main. The event has also spawned a pre-cursor event called the Tulsa Shootout for 5-6 classes of mini-sprints. This is in a form of motorsport that is not widely broadcast or viewed on TV and is on a long term decline from its pinnacle 60 years ago. So if Lanny Edwards and Emmett Hahn could put this together, it can be done by the right person with the right drive.
I was going to try to drag the STEM kids to the track for a field trip. Maybe its better at the track?
For sure, maybe in a week before a race when there are a lot of people. Although I’m grasping at straws here because that happened a year before I began, so I don’t know what methods the organizer used. From what I know only three kids came from that, so it was a mostly a failure. Maybe because they come from well-off families he used the F1 catch. There’s the values you can learn from karting, but maybe didn’t translated well to the children, who knows.
I actually don’t think this is too bad of an idea if you introduce it to a series or race that already has some level of prestige to it, like @Chuck_Goodson pointed out.
Despite Supernats, I honestly think the FIA World Champs are probably closest to this. The only problem is that it’s hard to make an event like the FIA World Champs, give it some more glitz and glam (which adds more money), and then have only a fraction of the drivers to cover the cost.
Of course, the FIA has enough bank to cover this. The problem being, they don’t want to (who would?).
My personal proposal is to make a race that is invite only, but the caveat being inviting all classes, but maxing out at 30-50 drivers max per class.
That way you don’t break the bank too much.
Of course, as @Alan_Dove mentioned, there needs to be an energy to the event such that the FIA invested into the Motorsport Games.
However, all of this means nothing if there isn’t a real audience. Of course, this being seen as a step on the ladder to F1 doesn’t help. However, lots of people watch F2. I would argue karting has more call than any of the sub-formula series because of its uniqueness. Want to watch F2? Just watch F1. This applies to lots of series. However, this really isn’t a thing with karting, as it’s really only just one sport with no differing of the chassis from race to race, series to series.
To me, the best path to getting a real audience is to launch a full social media campaign. Pay the “Memezar” group or something of the sort to make karting posts. Get some of the third-party F1 pages to make posts and videos about karting that will make the already motorsport-tuned audience want to watch. The best thing is, this can be done for a relatively cheap price. A few hundred bucks might provide karting with a huge influx of viewers. The closest I think we’ve ever gotten to karting having a lot of viewers was the Luca Corberri incident. Lots of F1 YouTubers, journalists, and even drivers were talking about it, bringing a lot more awareness of karting. Of course, this didn’t last, so it didn’t have a lasting impact.
All right, that’s about it. Gotta turn in for the night!