Sprint yes, road racing no.
Even in road racing Iāve seen too many people get in over their head with a 125 and itās scary to watch.
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Not at all.
You could buy a shifter kart, pull the engine and the brake bias bar, install a 206, and race it for a season.
Then you could sell the 206, install the front brakes and shifter powertrain, and go race a shifter kart.
That way you get to skip all of the 219-chain-and-diaphragm-carb classes.
Now that doesnāt sound fun at allā¦
But I love diaphragm carbs. Bowl carbs are the devil.
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Is there not Licence requirements for shifter karts in the US?
Here at least you have to have a B class licence to run shifter
D is provisional - entry level licence
C - must complete 4 meetings at D grade before issue
B - Must complete 6 meetings at C grade
A - Top 5 Placing at National level or top 3 at state level
So there is at least 10 events of racing before you are even allowed on a Karting track with a 125 direct drive or shifter.
None - at least at the club level other than you need to be at least a junior driver. Seems right to me.
Good thing, because thatās what I started with (80), although it would have been better with a 125 so I could share parts and gearing knowledge.
No national licensing system here really. Yet.
SKUSA requires a certain level of experience to race shifters nationally I think but they arenāt strict about it.
Thatās really lacking IMHO. The US karting scene isnāt organized, not the same tyres or weights betzeen two leagues
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The US is too vast for that to happen. Firstly, local demands are different in different regions. Wealthier regions donāt mind sticky rubber, poorer regions, I would hazard a guess, prefer harder compounds.
The UK has a centralised governing body, and we have a lot of MSA clubs going IKR in recent years in an attempt to stem the flow of drivers leaving. Some of the biggest championships here run completely outside of the MSA - NKC, UKC and S1.
The positives and negatives for a central govering body, but it is far from a cure all.
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I think you arenāt taking into account the vastness of the US. The UK is as big as New England (with New York)
The UK also has a lot Independent Kart Racing too whether that be club or championship. So even with a small geography, it doesnāt necessarily mean dominance of a single governing entity.
A day in the life of sLO206 drivers in multi-class races
Good one! I experienced this in a practice session once at OVRP. From Reddit.
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They could do it, but itād require some effort and it would need to be different then the UK.
The overriding problem here is if you force a rule set on someone you are infringing on their god given rights to be 'murica!
That and capitalist furore! In the UK people used to get upset if you introduced a new class. My experience here is if you canāt introduce a new class people get upset because someone is missing out on the opportunity to make money and socialism!
I actually held my fingers back from making a response to that on Reddit when I saw it.
Itās a great example of karting stepping in its own dick under the guise of āhawhaw funny jokeā.
Who wants to run a class that gets ridiculed?
(Some) people complain about the sport not growing while at the same time saying āmy karting is better than yoursā.
Itās a dumb narrative and a poor look for the sport. Esp when now that class is essentially the backbone of the sport in the US.
At the end of the day, to any sane person outside of karting weāre just weirdos playing in gokarts. Spatting over different classes makes us look like a bunch of assholesā¦ nobody wants to play with assholes.
Thank you for coming to my KP talk.
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I hear ya butā¦
I wonder if anyone who LOās actually cares what anyone else thinks and has probably made peace with their pace relative to our two stroke pals. End of day they karting in a way thatās affordable, as opposed to not karting at all. I think itās ok and healthy in that it means they can laff about it.
Iām cool with being a rental racer, for example. I know itās slow but itās also itās own thing and yāall drive scared of touching wheels. I donāt. Our cage is part of our thing, so is our weight, and all of that on hard tires. Thatās itās own bag, baby, and I respect a racer who can hustle, regardless of vehicle they drive.
It is rough getting passed by a cadet tho. But itās also funny.
Iām looking at it from a growth/community perspective.
Itās not about people already in the sportā¦. more about how we look like a bunch of infighting dickheads arguing over which gokart is better 
Who wants to join a community like that seems to ridicule newcomers? (Basically) Nobody.
Itās a hard enough to convince people to buy-in to a niche sport that involves driving ālittle toy carsā vs āreal carsāā¦ then we take it to a new level and say your silly gokart is even sillier than mine.
In shortā¦. sure itās in jest as an inside jokeā¦ it seems like harmless fun but Iāve had enough conversations with folks that were starting to convince me that those jokes have a cost in terms of perception.
Lastly, the only person that can talk shit about the speed of other karts is Capt Jack McClure.
If youāre not him, you (literally) aināt Jack 
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I hear ya. I guess itās touchy like when the announcer made a joke at that big race.
The lo206 people need a brass ring, then. A uspks/skusa type championship, but bigger and broader in scope. I do love watching Ryan and the gang race but I canāt afford to emulate them. Iād be totally interested in seeing the best 4-strokers in the world go after their own title.
What are rhe 4-stroke numbers as compared to 2? Iād imagine 4 blows the doors off 2 in terms of participation.
Yeah but karting reality check (money) causes one to reasses oneās perceptions and prejudices. Also, neither on Reddit, nor here, nor in my discord have I ever heard anyone talk down about LO. Typically the opposite. More like you should start here so you learn to actually drive well, faster.