New CIK/FIA class, OK-N

2 Stroke Kart Engine Forums
276

I appreciate the kind words, and i assure we are all pushing as hard as we can to try and get the program going as many places possible. We all truly believe that, combined with lighter and more approachable racing weekends, the OK-N can allow single speed karting to develop well beyond what it currently is. Nevertheless, i still need to dedicate 85% of my time to planning and running our own championships, which have also thankfully done very good in terms of participation and other various metrics, this year.

Overall, our new team has really aligned on the mission of expanding the CIK-FIA’s effort well beyond only the FIA Karting Championships and to actually look and provide for the entirety of the karting universe, all the way down to the base of the pyramid. As motorsport’s governing body, we need to help people race as much as we can, at all levels.

Running through a bunch of threads on here, it is clear that the CIK and FIA were perceived as this very very distant entity that only encompassed 450 or so drivers, which we are trying to change.

I’m particularly happy with the projects that are currently ongoing and with what we are outputting :slight_smile:

277

Any ASN`s chosing the float carb should have their heads looked at. I really dont se any solid argument for the float one.

278

That’s just the thing, there’s no objectively clear better option.

It’s personal preference and there’s a pretty successful engine that has sold over 100,000 units with a float carb. I don’t think there’s even that many pumpers made for karting in total since the 60’s [citation needed]

The saving grace maybe being that the ASNs at least need to pick one… vs everyone chopping changing and testing all the time between float and pumper.

279

To expand further, there was a half tenth to a tenth difference in controlled tests between float chamber and butterfly. Its very close.

280

I don’t see the big deal about potentially having to buy both to run multiple places. We do it with tires here. It’s 200 whatevers. That’s a drop in the racing budget bucket if you’re running OK based stuff.

281

Yeah that’s fair, the demographic for OK-N is probably a little less price sensitive.

282

Tyres are already factored into the budget and are somewhat disposable. Having to buy another set of carbs that you have to match to your engines is a ballache. It may even force you into buying more engines. It makes no sense.

So it’s an additional cost AND additional time AND additional hassle. OK-N isn’t being aimed at the BIG spenders either. They are aiming at cost conscious karters, that’s clear in the marketing.

283

You just added into the budget to start the year @Alan_Dove

I don’t care what the marketing really says, I don’t think anybody is under any illusion that this is a budget class. It’s actually quite the opposite sentiment over here right now.

284

They are competing with Rotax and X30, otherwise what market are they trying to attract? Those who sit above Rotax but below Senior OK? They don’t really exist. We absolutely have to observe OK-N as the FIA’s (final) attempt at grabbing the X30/MAX market. Or at least make in-roads. Sure we’re not talking ultra budget, but we are talking budget conscious people.

So when you’re planning the year these kind of things make a difference. The FIA want a world final event and thus the FIA themselves will impose a carb choice that may be the opposite of your ASN. So you have a choice. Race all year in a stable class where everything is uniform and if you get the grand finals, all your gear is supplied, or do you race a class with carbs that are different to the world final and thus you have extra layers of hassle. Multi-manufacturer classes absolutely can’t afford any kind of instability from the decision makers.

It’s stuff like this, the even big spenders, really don’t like.

285

Apparently I have trouble thinking like that being an “outsider” to the Euro scene. We don’t have that “in between” here as it’s basically X30 to KZ. You make a fair point.

286

Fair points here for sure. Speaking for Americans at least, we’re somewhat numb to running a slightly different setup than a European-based world finals race since we ‘spec-locked’ our X30 package for nearly a decade.

And for us over here, I’m quite curious how much the idea of a world finals ticket in OK-N will move the needle. Whenever any of our guys, or Australians and South Americans for that matter, come to Europe to race, the biggest cost is the travel and then the arrive-and-drive team fee. Sure, less tire sets and engine leases can knock that number down a bit, but it’s a ton of effort to just get to the event to begin with. If I had the money to go run over there, OK or OK-J would make more sense.

But then again, we also give out tickets to national races here at regional series where the driver had no intentions of going. And off of free entry and tires they’ll spend an additional 4-8k on travel, team fees, practice tires, etc., so they get to use the 1k coupon. So maybe I’m off base and it’s the special feeling of getting an invite to the dance that nobody else can get.

287

It’s a fair point. But I would say OK-N can’t sustain itself with just the American market. You need a healthy European market (as is the case with KZ) to help keep it all flowing and worthwhile for the manufacturers. So anything that negatively impacts a possible European take up may effect America

288

Is there anything like this in place yet? I think there needs to be some sort of incentive for OK-N here in the US, otherwise what’s the point of trading up from X30? Stars seems like they have nothing to lose by offering OK-N, since they no longer have an X30 class, but there needs to be a clear plan to prevent this new class from going the way of KF. Not saying a world finals ticket would accomplish that, but it would at least make it more attractive for racers to support the class in year one, and year one success is going to set the trajectory for future years.

EDIT: an additional thought- we Americans seem to like engines that we can race at all levels (local, regional, national). To me there doesn’t seem to be a place for OK-N in club racing, so that obsolescence may deter some who would otherwise be interested if there were top down buy-in.

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289

I’m not sure this is true. The US market is frankly huge and could sustain any product if the US market likes it. We already have “engine manufacturers” using KF units rebranded which are still being manufactured in Europe with nowhere to race them but here.

It would just need a successful series or even a few successful shops to buy into it.

290

I thought the same for a while. But X30’s held on relatively well for little to no regional and club action nowadays. And KZ seems to have more hype than ever.

Numbers wise KA and 206 will always have the higher classes beat, but that’s partially by design. Flip a pyramid upside down and it’s a filter.

If there’s any time to try national and international only engines, it’s probably now. The country’s as unified engine-wise and series-wise as it’s ever been and with F1’s meteoric growth spurt we’ve got more newcomers into the sport than we’ve had in a minute.

291

Sorry to digress… what are you seeing as the engine package that seems to dominate in that regional/club space? Just curious because it’s all been 125tag forever here. Just wondering what the rest of America is up to. Maybe the Nj/Ny scene is mostly a Marco’s series and not representative.

292

Varies a bit region to region, obviously.

In the 2008-2013 era, you saw a lot of Yamaha KT100s as the support class and Rotaxs and IAME Leopards as the TaG 125 class regionally and locally. Mainly because Briggs discontinued the flathead engine, and the 206 hadn’t yet come in to replace it. So the 4-Cycle world floundered for answers between a Briggs Animal, a Briggs Gasoline-powered Animal, and the Chinese Honda-equivalent ‘clone’ motors. None of which stuck and numbers faltered.

When the X30 really got its push it took over a lot of the Rotax space as Rotax fell from 2014-2016, but it ended up just never really catching the regional crowd as nicely as the Leopards did. It got close. So for that period, Yamaha KT100s were still solid.

In 2017, the KT100s were finally finished off nationally and somewhat regionally, right as Briggs 206 started to get hot. And in the same year, KA100 came in.

So then a lot of clubs slowly had this awkward period from 2017-2020 with KA100 eclipsing the 125cc space regionally, (midwest, southwest, southeast), and the 206 continuing to gain ground on new drivers and some KT100 fallouts. But mainly new drivers.

And now, here we are in 2022, and KA100 has completed eradicated X30 in the midwest, in the southwest, and west coast. The southeast still has X30 racing but KA numbers now almost dwarf it – Florida is still about 50-50 as the KA100 only debuted in 2020.

I think this is a good thing. KA is simpler to work on and assemble for the club and regional guy, and a bit slower. I’ve always thought the X30 was too fast for regional and club guys, but too slow for nationals as the fields were always a bit ‘too tight’. Too easy to hit a good lap time. So it shot the middle.

KA now shoots the bottom half of that number, and now OK-N offers the chance to go faster on the national scene which is what a lot have been asking for. Granted, 2021 and 2022 has been all about the RPG dominance, which has overshadowed that request. But it’s still there. X30 Junior is not far off X30 Senior.

293

And building off this, X30 is just too close to KA in performance and price point to compete. I think it’s the same concept as to why the Tillotson hasn’t fully caught on. The gap from KA to 206 is decent, but not insurmountable. So there’s not a huge push to fill the void with a class in between.

And that means that Tillotson gets naturally placed head-to-head against a market behemoth in Briggs, which is hard to beat.

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294

thank you! My racing started in that odd period where leopard was on its way out and Marco let the 100cc train sort of pass the station. He did offer a deal but I am guessing didn’t have much success converting folks. We ultimately had a small 100cc field, mixed ages and makes, which wasn’t competitive.

I suppose the NE is its own bag of weirdness. I think I gather from what you are saying that club fields are mostly ka100 these days for 2-stroke.

295

The big thing to note too is that the cost of living varies region to region, but karting costs the same.

I’ve always described Gearup as a ‘traveling NYC club series’. For the % of disposable income the average person living in NYC spent on karting, traveling and racing 125cc and shifter is the equivalent of a middle-class family (like my own) in Georgia racing 206 locally.

So because of that, it always seemed like the Northeast crowd picked 125s over 206 racing and 100cc racing as it never hurt the numbers. The rest of the country has to run those classes since the cost of living and average household income is significantly lower.

206 came and went in the northeast, KA’s currently trying to have a presence but it’s small. Ignite at OVRP is cool at least.

I haven’t asked Keith Raffa if the new series would have KA, but I imagine it will. I know they’ve got the support behind them of IAME USA East, and with Pittsburgh now adding KA100 and building club numbers there, it makes total sense to have a Swift / KA100 / X30 regional championship up your way.

Rotax also slots in between the KA100 and X30 in annual budget because they go so long between rebuilds. Having them based in the Northeast also kinda kept the 100cc stuff out.

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