TJ’s pretty spot-on here as to how it’s gotten to this point. The series always start with relatively smart field sizes, but at some point in the season, you end up only barely over your cap, and the question becomes do you send a handful home to stay consistent, or do you let a couple in? Then, the slippery slope begins of – well you went from 44 to 46 last race, what’s 48? what’s 50? etc.
My $0.02 would be to do a threshold. 36 is the cap until you hit 37, then it drops to 30 until you get to 42. So you’re never sending a lone wolf home.
Stars’s Pre Final format seems to hit pretty well also, with 10 transferring from a B Pre Final, and the top 30 in points racing for spots 1-30 in the A Pre Final. Even if you only send a handful home, you’ve got a double-digit kart count B Main.
LCQs in general are also just tough to manage in the US simply because the penalties carry zero weight if it’s outside the transfer zone. Slap me with a 5-second penalty for destroying a guy for 9th when the transfer is 10 seconds up the road in 6th or better? I don’t care.
And between SKUSA and especially USPKS, it’s happened way too often. Torn up equipment and unhappy racers.
SKUSA did just a B Final with no transfers for KA Junior at the Winter Series and it seemed to go over well. USPKS was right on the limit at Daytona and started 50. A bit messy, sure, but in the overall I think it was probably cleaner than a standard LCQ with the current state of our lack of licensing and penalty carry-over.
Is the concept of “heats” not a thing in the US? Above 36, you create groups A, B, C, D. Heat A vs B, C vs D etc, until everyone raced each other.
Also, we had about 38 - 42 cameras during FIA Events, with three dedicated race control operators, 1 race director + 2 deputies on track and a Clerk of the Course that all acted as Judge of Facts that reported incidents and contacts to Race Control and i can guarantee that this amount of manopower was not enough to note all racing incidents, with 36 drivers on track.
You’d blow the staffing budget for a US National before you’d get out of the lounge on Thursday night.
CIK/FIA events can’t be compared to the rest of the world. FIA has a war chest in the hundreds of millions and underwrites premier karting in Europe primarily with a trickle down that impacts lower tier karting as well because the systems and protocols are in place.
Karting in the US is 100% participant funded with almost no outside assistance in terms of a benevolent dictator or even meaningful outside sponsorship.
World champs was 1020 euros, and 1720 for late entries. That’'s 230,000 revenue from entries alone. The pre-event testing was mega expensive too. I think Thursday test was an extra 100 euros or something too.
It was my budget and i can guarantee we did not have “hundredts of millions” to do anything lmao. We had a very high opperational cost, as we ran the event from A to Z in colaboration with RGMMC, our Promoter. My point was exactly this though : Even with all this capacity, it was still not enough to police 100% of all incidents, always.
Do you feel there were more or less incidents in the 80’s / 90’s with no nosecone and small rear bumpers? I feel drivers respected each other more precisely because the stakes were higher… This has bearing on field size because drivers who respect each other can tolerate larger fields.
When you have few limits on spending for officiating, facilities, etc you can host events worthy of those kind of entry fees. First exposure to events of this caliber is mind blowing, Particularly after Being part of what we would consider the best of the best events in North America. There’s just no comparison…
No hate at all from me - it’s stunning theater. Just a reality check for whoever mentioned all the cameras and officials at a race in the comments above. That’s just not reality in North America.
I don’t disagree with that sentiment at all. Officiating is really hard. Despite what the people on the fence watching their own kid battling for 27th think.
The World Championship last year was one of the most soulless kart events I have ever attended. There was nothing special about it. The officiating was something on par with a well-run club meeting. Nothing of what I witnessed would be unrealistic in America.