Really really late to the game here but my belated response:
Series/Events have to think about karting as a consumer product, just like ordering a pizza or buying a pair of shoes. The event is the product, entry fees and anything else we have to pay for is the price. The price needs to be appropriate for the product. I wouldn’t pay $30 for a small cheese pizza. Xander makes a great point about track challenge. Every street race except Quincy is a glorified square. For a while I stayed away simply because the product didn’t seem worth the amount of money and effort involved. Why would I spend so much money and time to drive in a square?
Carson Smith eventually convinced me to run Elkhart last year and I had the time of my life. Even though it is a square, the hard braking zones and differences between the corners actually made for a track that raced INCREDIBLY well. Matt Burpo and SIRA carried that momentum into this year and once again we had a track that raced really well and had enough braking to spread the field out and reward faster drivers. The layout at Rock Island this year had a similar feel. We were only on the brakes lightly, and only in a few corners, but the track had enough character to create some unique passing opportunities. If the track was smoother, I would say it would be the best street course layout I’ve raced on so far. If they can continue to create tracks that involve more braking and technical sections, they’ll garner even more interest.
Price is where I think SIRA nailed the mark and RIGP missed it a bit. Elkhart was a $100 all-you-can-race buffet and you could source your tires from anywhere. Some of the lower budget guys showed up with some lightly used tires, others may have a coupon from a dealer or may get discounts from dealers to get a set of new tires cheaper. In order to run both 206 Medium and 206 King classes, it costed me close to $700 after having to buy a new set at MSRP from the track. I think that was a little high. I dont expect the same kind of pricing SIRA provided, but certainly not 7x the cost.
I believe street racing is growing in popularity again. I’m here for it. Our group will be running all 3 of the big street races next year and maybe a few more. In order to get others interested as well, they simply have to cut the cost and relax the tire rules (a long-winded way of still cutting cost).
Us as racers, need to help curve the opinion that street racing is some blood-thirsty roman colosseum and convince others to try out street racing who otherwise wouldn’t.
Speaking of street races, the Clyde street race is next weekend (Sept 22). It’s a one day race and is the Sunday featured event at the Clyde Fair. It’s fun to drive and features the storied “Shitcane” on the back straight. I would encourage anyone in Ohio/Michigan/Indiana/Pennsylvania to come give it a try! I can’t get the link to the entry form to copy/paste on my phone… search Facebook toe the Clyde Grand Prix group page. The form is there.
Thanks Dylan. We actually agree, but the difference is we are a one-off race wwith many unique costs while others have revenue from a series. We’ve been at $150 per entry for as long as I can remember. But when Covid hit, we took a year off and a lot of racers retired. Since we came back we’ve been around 200 entries - down from about 300 pre-Covid and just trying to get entries back up. Plus being a street race and on Labor Day weekend, we’ve always had limited entries in Junior classes because kids are back in school, which right now is where the entries are post Covid. Then on top of everything else post Covid, our insurance costs went up 4X. For our event, the budget is about $100,000 with about $30,000 coming from driver entries, tires etc.
For example, we have more than 15,000 spectators that you get to race in front of, but as a result the city makes us hire police officers for crowd control and guards for pedestrian crossings at $11,000!
If entries were a bit higher, we would have more flexibility to control costs to the racers but compared to other national events, our costs remain pretty steady. Sadly there is a business side we have to work too.
But to wrap this up, I’d like to stress one point I made earlier that goes with what Dylan said.That is if your experience as a racer is running your home track, or maybe a few similar tracks, I promise that racing a street race – but especially Rock Island against many top national drivers – will make you a better driver. You will learn things about racing, your kart and setup that you’ve never thought about before. Hope to see you all here August 30-31, 2025.
Rock Island is a bucket list race for me. Attended my first to crew for Robin Bank at 2001 edition. We raced 100cc with a Parilla TT37 in Formula A setup. Alfonso Ribeiro (yes, that one) was there racing, and some drivers from Jamaica, and a wide range of states.
Shifters were the premiere class, and Alan Rudolph faced a stacked grid. Nothing like seeing the 125’s getting air on the 2nd straight crossing…
Your shoes would stick to the pavement in the groove. It’s an entirely different beast…simple only in appearance.
We were unlucky enough to find a hay bale that year, but recovered and finished top 5 iirc. I will look forward to adding my name to the list of entrants… But I do wish it was OPEN tire… Just get rid of the prep issue by not teching tires at all. People with Yellow Vegas or similar will be looking to lose grip, not add prep…
Oh well… Looking forward to this years’ edition. Thanks for keeping it up, Roger!
This year will be special – the 30th year. We’ve changed a lot in that time – as has the sport – but in my opinion all for the better (no more straw bales!!). But still one of the few places 2 cycles, 4 cycles, shifters an Vintage all have classes. Hope to see you all back August 30-31!
