Karting the street race perspective

, , , ,
1

So I’ve come off the 2024 Rock Island Grand Prix. And being someone who has grown to love the street racing aspect of this sport over the past decade i thought id share in the chronicles of what it takes to run these races. I’m here to offer nothing but my perspective on a weekend of fun but i excited to see what this thread may turn into as i plan to share some thoughts meeting to meeting from the rock as im on the committee and race to race for the other two events i go to Elkhart and Quincy. without further to do let me begin Karting the street racing perspective.

My 2024 RIGP experience was one to remember surrounded by family and friends. The quad cities is where i grew up and is always a trip home for me. A different track led me into the weekend open minded and i took a well get what it gives us mentality into the races. Little did i know id be struck with quite a head cold on Friday night and sleep less the then 30min before action on Saturday.

As is typical with street racing i eased my way into the track. leaving room to the barriers and getting to know the new bumps. both karts seemed to be decent all morning my margay seemed to be a bit faster then my coyote at times but i ran my coyote in less of a draft. So im thinking it was that. the karts felt well balanced for the time being

In heat racing action we had some clutch issues with the coyote it seemed putting us further back in the field and the margay which had performed well in the medium classes brings was cruising good until its first heat race in king of the rock.

I hit the barrier while passing a kart in turn 6. Well more like shoved passed and into. the kart hit wall close to 45-50 miles an hour and immediately i new we were gonna have some work to do on the kart for sunday.

We rand the coyote in the last two heats of the day with little time we had to run it a heavy weight for medium 1 and fell through the pack and in medium two we were able to qualify 8th due to having time to get the weight off.

ill come back later to go through Sunday but for now i leave with this a a lack of entries at rock island this year. what seems to be kartings current beef with street racing? and is the Shifter category slowly dieing? i don’t see them anywhere in the Midwest.

5 Likes
2

I’ll let someone else explain the culture shift that has happened in karting that may have had an effect on the RIGP. Also possibly having an effect was the big IAME event at Trackhouse the same weekend.

As for shifters, they’re not widespread on the sprint side in the Midwest, but there are a few pockets here and there that still get a few 125 shifter karts. New Castle Motorsports Park has seen a real boost in their shifter numbers the last couple of KRA seasons.

But, and this has been the reality for many years and still remains true now; from Oklahoma to Pittsburgh, if you want to be guaranteed seeing 125 Shifters in the Midwest, you have to go to the big tracks:

https://speedhive.mylaps.com/sessions/9198515#byclass

https://speedhive.mylaps.com/sessions/9465800#byclass

https://speedhive.mylaps.com/sessions/6751633#byclass

3

It certainly feels that way. Everyone seems to want to go slower. But I think IAME Grands was a big culprit that worked against Rock Island this year.

4

what happened at IAME Grands?

5

It existed the same weekend as RIGP

1 Like
6

Shifters have been dead/dying in the Midwest for years. New Castle and Indiana area get a good turnout but between there and the Rockies it’s basically non-existent.

RIGP numbers have been declining for a long time too. And unfortunately now I think it’s stuck in the paradox of having no entries because there is no one to race against. The shine of that particular event sort of wore off. Races like that are great for privateers but high level karting has seen a big rise in “teams” rather than privateers, and the teams support series and championships and not one-off races as much.

I hope RIGP rebounds. Running it as it is is a sad and slow death. It’s historic and needs to be preserved.

1 Like
7

Can we really say many that were on the roster for the grand would have otherwise gone to the rock?

One think you can’t say about the rock is knowing when the event is on.

8

Agreed, I don’t think there were many people at IAME Grands who would normally have run the Rock. The event is mostly shifters and 206.

9

Sunday Here we go the big day…
warmups go great and all is in full swing for an epic day of racing. signing autographs for kids seeing the sights fans begins to line the track.

First race of the day heavy after a decent start carnage on lap one put up inside the top 5 we drift back to 5th as the race progresses and make it out untouched.

2nd race of the day less carnage and an ill handling kart leave me back of the top 10 and wishing i could find some speed. i see to be to slow for the fast group to fast for the slow foup but eventually get taken into the slow group due to the draft.

3rd race KOR 206 we start far back due to a crash on sunday and without having a great start there seems to be no hope to make it to end the end i self preserve to make it to the next race of the day.

4th race medium 1 some speed but still bad qualifying and a bad start leave us just trying to make it through and some first lap carnage puts us far behind any of the lead pack.

5th race medium 2 we have a great starting spot finally 8th! we get a good start and are up to 4th by the end of the first lap maybe 5th we get passed a lap later for a spot i try to fall in line to draft him back toward the 4 leader edging away. coming through six a slight push over the bump turns him sideways in front of me and i have to take evasive action. axle comes loose a few laps later for a dnf. Not the end we wanted but so much speed being in the top 5.

overall a relative clean day of street racing with minor repairs.

some thoughts yes IAME grand plays a part in declining numbers lots of there staff alone are the kinds of drivers that would run the rock Justin being one. and the teams hog driver coahes and tuners that no longer can come to the grand prix because of that event.

Street racing used to have teams why not now. SIRA runs a street racing series and has no big teams so is the series thing an issue or its the teams philosophy that is the issue.

Street racing is badass like real street racing not parking lot parties like vegas. ( dont get me wrong Supernats is badass just in a different way) Why does it seem the teams are not willing to show there talents on the streets?

Side note ive gotten bored of watching races at track house and Newcastle ive never been there but the style of racing has become mind numbing

1 Like
10

id disagree with this there were many industry members there working that would have run the rock.

1 Like
11

If this is boring to you, I’m not sure what to tell you or what you want.

I imagine that many teams don’t want to go run a race like Rock Island because it’s specialty race that requires some different things than normal circuit racing, and the potential to wad up a bunch of equipment is much higher. Teams make all their money on testing days and practice and obviously that’s not possible at Rock. IAME Grands paid out $5k to the winner of X30 I believe. Plus tickets to the World Finals. What were the purses and prizes for the Rock? With no huge purse or points championship or competition, there’s just no reason for teams to go to Rock Island.

1 Like
12

TJ i wouldn’t say the race product itself is not inherently boring the track is. its run so many times per year its like going to walktins glen for 8 indycar races. btw i watched the video . i was thrilled but like not surprised if that makes sense.

13

Cory Simson put up two ticket to SKUSA supnats in vegas. And shifter was 1000 to win on top of that not sure how much more money we need? what kind of prize package gets us what the drivers are looking for.

14

I don’t disagree on the fact that the same five tracks get boring every year, I think that many racers would agree with that. There are several popular touring series now and they all circulate the same tracks around here. I think that will change though moving forward. The series are aware of that.

Purses don’t draw racers necessarily. But if you are competing directly with another series that offers 2-3x the payout, that does become a factor a bit.

Like I said, teams make money off testing and practice. If you want to draw big teams, you need to make Rock Island like a 4 day event like SuperNats and hold it on a more interesting track. I understand there is nuance to racing that track, but personally I have no interest in going out there and making a few 90° turns on a bumpy street and risk tearing up my stuff as the end of the season is here and championships for other series are wrapping up.

There are a lot of factors as to why there weren’t a ton of entries this year.

15

TJ first off thanks for allowing this to be a healthy discussion. Part of the beauty of street racing is the equal playing field im not gonna disagree teams are gonna lose money not being able to test but there gonna make it back in other areas. and to some extent ill leave tonight off with this. Karting is starting to take itself too seriously. street races are fun because of the unique opportunity they provide. dont think of it as risk think of it as an opportunity as all races are you gain more skill when there is less room for error.

16

I am an outsider here, but the “entries down” is a familiar comment I am hearing more of.

Karting has changed drastically from a media perspective in the last 3 decades. Various magazines and websites did a fair bit of the marketing for events just by their very nature of talking and writing about them. People interacted with karting via these media platforms. Once this shifted to Social Media then you had a weird situation where suddenly, as an organiser, you had everyone at your fingertips, but somehow, everything became more insular. When the media dies out, you suddenly become the sole hype person. The cultural footprint you once had goes with the media outlets. So effectively, you are starting from scratch. So, finding a new audience to sell to becomes a lot harder than you would imagine.

With Karting1, which had no active US presence, I would talk about and post about ROK Island. In a tiny way, I added to the marketing effort. Did it help? Maybe, maybe not… but all these small things add up.

It was a very cool event that media types would latch onto. Now? I barely see anything about it at all because social media is a bit of a walled garden. Back in the day, drivers could follow one or two outlets and be fed cool stuff, but now it’s different. Obviously, James raced last year, and that helped with what he did, but marketing is absolutely key here.

But it’s one aspect of many. Teams now dominate karting. No longer are people acting autonomously. The teams, in a way, have filled the gap between competitors and the sport. The media used to decide what was worth racing, but now it’s the teams. Now, that’s an oversimplification of market forces, but to some extent, it is a factor and already referenced above.

In the UK, the sport has flipped from being 95% adults to around 80% of kids. Whether this has happened in the States too, I can’t say, but demographic shifts will always change decision making processes.

I love Rock Island and all the street stuff. It puts karting in front of people and not hidden on circuits in the middle of nowhere. Whoever organises these events are top of the karting tree imo.

But it seems to be getting harder and harder to hold these unique events. The efforts required to just hold onto what you have go up each year. The energy and investment to grow are enormous. So it’s not something rectified lightly.

But the solution is probably a quardupling of marketing effort where nothing is off the table. The opposite of a good idea can be another good idea type of stuff. I know from experience that these things aren’t easy.

Vintage grid looks good though. I’d love to fly over and race.

17

Let me backpedal a smidge: I think it was the final nail for shifter this year. I would’ve been there, had I not been directing, and I know Budjoso and Myers had interest, just from talking to them about the schedule conflict. Two of my Maranello teammates were registered when the class was cancelled, so I think we would’ve had a race in some form, even if it was only King of the Streets.

Hoping for no schedule conflicts next year :crossed_fingers:

1 Like
18

I think Rob Howden mentioned it in his post race recap, but the problem here is that you need to appeal to a different group of racers. Not the big teams and the national level drivers. Need to go after the club racers that want to be a part of a cool event.

The first thing that needs to happen is to lower the price. The reason SIRA is still alive is because I can enter their races for $50, bring my own tires, and race for a whole weekend. Street racing needs to be affordable.

6 Likes
19

This is exactly who has always made these events big. Club racers looking for a unique and fun event who don’t care about points or championships. Rock Island, the Battle at the Brickyard, Quincy… these are all events that people race for the fun factor and the experience. The problem is sometimes those people check the box of doing the race and then decide they don’t need to do it again, they got their experience.

3 Likes
20

Haven’t had a chance to read this article yet, but here you go:

https://www.ekartingnews.com/2024/09/04/morning-coffee-rock-island-ramblings/

Along the topic of media, I’ve played with the idea of having a news aggregator site (think Microsoft start, or apple news etc) that pulls all of the various websites in to one place. Some OC content too. Even had an app for it at one point. Launch app, enjoy karting content without other BS.

This doesn’t solve the content\story part of the problem, but it at least gets all of us to one place to enjoy whatever content is out there… without a bunch of cat pics and purposely enraging memes.

That said, the tech\website\app is the easy part. The hard part is getting buy-in from the various websites to allow that aggregation to happen, and the terms that work for them as they rely on advertisers too… Never made it publicly available at the time for that reason.

I’ll see if I have some screenshots anywhere. (edit: nothing yet.)