Appreciate you chiming in and taking the time to give context.
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Please sit tight until this coming Tuesday 
I don’t agree. I literally have 30 karts racing this weekend in the hardest class of them all. Motorsport UK would be DELIGHTED with that kind of entry for a OK-N grid. OK-N is not targeted at the general karting audience… and FIA kart will NEVER be that because it’s mutli-manufacturer. You have to ramp everything up to 11 and be unapologetic… 15k is apologetic and weak. Our regs literally state
People don’t mind if it’s hard to get into… people want to be entertained and feel special.
if the FIA were serious about real success this is the route they’d take. Admit they’re vulnerable because it’s multimake… but fighting that with single-make ideas (low revs) = failure
no one is talking about OK-N right now anywhere really…
had they pulled the pin and gone 18k and something special… it’d be different.
But anyway, I could be wrong. Just seems like another missed opportunity to me.
it isn’t about speed either, it’s about attitude.
A similar project was started here in the UK which is basically the same idea - KF Clubman. It was baiscally KF3 + 1000k revs ()KF2 ECU). OK-N is basically OK-J with 1000 more revs… i.e the same thing.
So OK-N is not a new idea within the FIA realm. KF Clubman failed very quickly in the UK. It wasn’t a FIA intiative, but the basic framework was similar.
I find it super cool to exchange with people all the time, and indepedent of opinion the fact that karting is STILL debated so intensely means that people care. It makes me happy.
Would you not argue that the reason for the rise of the monomake series laid in the initial fundamental concept of " racing equality" for all by the nature of the platform?
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If you are selling reliability in a multi-make formula you may as well quit and go home. Someone who value reliability, tends to value ‘fairness’ as well, or at least the perception of it. And you’re not going to win them over when you have different engine and carbs to choose from.
The only way to market an FIA class is to lean into mutli-make being proper racing. Real racing. Racing with passion that is elevated beyond the norm. Look at the array of enigne makes at this weekend’s race
My #1 rule with promoting 100cc… is NEVER EVER apologies for low piston life. It’s a feature, not a bug. This is a racing class, not Rotax. As soon as you venture into talking about reliability you lose drivers to Rotax or X30. This is about culture and passion. No one is telling stories 30 years later about how long their bottom end lasted before a rebuild. What people talk about is tuning, different carbs, living on the edge. If you aren’t bringing out the engine tuners and nutters like me to battle for you… who ahve you got? Motorsport UK? Karting Australia? … organisations that barely understand the sport and its culture?
I conversed a lot with Kees when OK was being developed as an idea. i know the FIA has some good poeple… but when are you going to grow some balls? honestly. I mean this with love. Why not speak to people who actually promote FIA classes … and do it well? motorsport UK and the ASNs don’t care. They don’t know or appreciate the culture.
I get it, you don’t have to justify yourself or your ways, I understand where you are coming from and it’s my pleasure to be here and exchange with you guys. I’ve been racing karts for the past 10 years and i am as passionate as you all are. I truly feel blessed to be able to make my profession through what i love most.
My only comment relative to the post (and im super happy to see this myriad of different equipment in your field this weekend) is that the engine building for the OKN platform (just like its OKs/Js counterparts) will be allowed within the envelope of the technical and homologation regulations. As such, the tuning aspect of it will indeed be a key performance differentiator (again, like the OK/Js and KZs)
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Dude, take it from me. The FIA need to up their game. People will not appreciate technical development if you’re selling this on any kind of “reliability” idea. Oil and water friend… they don’t mix. You think reliability will make it attractive? If someone cares about reliability (by that I mean talks of 50 hour bottom end rebuilds etc…), they are going to HATE technical development. Those two markets don’t mix. 15k reliability boring snooze fest engines aren’t the way to go. a 100cc will do an hour on a piston… and as an engine concept… it’s DESTROYED the OK class numbers in the UK… primarily because there aren’t any OK grids. Of course it’s historic racing… but the fundamental point remains. Why are more people happy to race old 30 year old 100cc engines that barely last an hour but the FIA can’t sell OK ? Think about it.
You need to table amendments to the regs. You need a different strategy otherwise you’ll continue to have morons like me getting more people racing 30 year old FIA spec karts than your latest and greatest stuff. The fact you’re here is great, but if you want actual success… big change is needed.
Then I could be wrong and you can tell me in a few years time "see… you were wrong " . 
I still remember the “10 key points to KF”. I suggest you look it up… and look up what the FIA said about KF (and especially KF4). Same mistakes all over again.
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Silly question for both Alan and Simone:
Why hasn’t OK caught on in a big way? It should be the best of both worlds - fast and scary enough to give a strong emotional response, engineered carefully enough to not need a huge budget to run. Does the 16kRPM limit and counterbalancer take away from the driving experience? Does attempting to run right on the edge of lean out cause detonation right at the decompression valve?
I really cant see that they fixed a single thing, the OKJ is a really Nice engine but still it do not have a large number In most national fields. The issue is not only the engine, its all the different choices, 4 engines, 4 carburators, different radiators. Most today want a single make class like it or not but it is what is popular at the moment.
But that said i do like some of the things In this, 15000rpm and no powervalve will prolong the life of the engine, 6 years between homologations also helps.
The carburator choice between a floatchamber 
and a butterfly i really dont get, just stick to the butterfly its so much more easy to use.
Its stupid exspensive to run.
Alan, i still remember the CIK telling us that the KF2 was a longlife engine costing nothing to run 
it destroyed the CIK classes In no time, the OK engine changed about nothing to that it is still to exspensive and still gets new engines and carbs every 3 year.
This CIK still dont get the point, Rotax and X30 are having good fields and CIK still messing about on details doing absolutely nothing, OK-N is basicly the same as the KF4 which no one ever used….
Nope. 100cc is culturally significant (this is clear now. Nik G can regale you about his experiences of various motors and events etc… Like, we are still talking about them today… as much as ever). OK came off the back of KF and an irrelevance. Ok was better, but it wasn’t correct, it has failed (again, remove ‘F1 ladder’ from FIA karting and Junior and Senior OK grids collapse completely. Thats to say,… it doesn’t even exist on its own merits now). Fast doesn’t equate to emotion. It’s the whole attitude of the product. Slamming onto a rev limiter half way down the straight is just rank. I HATED the KF for that. Properly hated it. I never hate hitting 20,000… even if now and again it means you end up backwards into the tyre wall.
A lot of engines are fast and brutal, but people go “wow that’s fast”… but 100s are culturally different. It’s like v12 F1, Group B… it’s about attitude and purpose. The FIA know this, but for some reason wimp out every time in some misguided attempt to replicate Rotax. They need to create a demand… not trying to supply a demand (that they are not in a position to do)
Again what people think are bugs… are features.
You’re never ever going to go toe-to-toe with Rotax for relaibility and ‘fairness’. Ain’t gonna happen unless something drastically changes int he market that I haven’t anticipated.
As soon as someone has to buy a TM and sell their Vortex and get it tuned by someone like Gordy… it’s game over, people will flood back to rotax (as has happened with X30 in the UK… it doesn’t take much), unless the product is something very very very special. (i.e something like Formula A). Do we think teams around the world are going to risk introducing their customers to this?
FIA fail to understand their strengths and what they could do time and time again. instead they give out participation medals and walk about with white shirts and blue jeans.
But again, I could be wrong… I suspect we’ll get a few early adopters and then it will fizzle out.
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The FIA aren’t in the game of introducing spec-categories though (the academy isn’t a product sold to the market it’s something different). That’s the job of the manufacturers. They have to do something. But you can’t emulate the market demand of single-make with a multi-manufacturer product line. Trying to emulate that dynamic is an error. And yes it sounds like KF4 version 2.
I think some of us have unrealistic/misaligned expectations of the CIK/FIA. The way I see it there’s just different market segments that serve different demos. As always there’s overlap and outliers… but it’s how I like to frame it.
CIK/FIA: Steppingstone racers on the proverbial spending path to F1. Perceived prestige, pervasive factory/team support along with engine packages that lack the convenience of TaG offerings… which is offset by the presence of factory/team support.
IKR: basically everything else, hobbiest for lack of a better expression. Ease of use, value for money and perceived parity are the key drivers.
F100 was a totally separate beast. It’s not for mass consumption and doesn’t scale. It takes a very particular kind of person to get onboard.
The spec/manufacturer series kinda have feet in both stepping stone and hobbiest realms
In my mind CIK/FIA are basically committed to the path of path and not pursuing the likes of IKR and “hobbiest” racers.
Once I decided that in my mind, it made it a lot less frustrating when it came to CIK/FIA’s actions.
The annoyance for me is that OK-N is clearly aimed at the ‘adult’ non stepping stone racers. 155kg says it all. The 100cc market is relevant here because that market is entirely reliant upon the understanding of FIA racing and multi-manufacturer culture. That’s as close to the market OK-N can target then any other market.
The fact OK-N shows the right intent, yet falls short… that’s what gets me.
Anyway, I guess we’ll see.
Push start makes that a hard pass for many I think. I recon all the drivers that are content with push start are already at retro racer, F100 and super100.
The ones that cross over would be outliers I think.
In my humble opinion i think the time for multi engine classes at a national level has passed.
FIA won’t beat commercial interests and there’s no benefit for commercial promoters.
Multi engine classes are niche now, they exist at international level where the FIA force it , in historic racing with a small group of enthusiasts and (in the US) at regional series where no one can agree what engine package to run.
Multiengine classes were already dieing before KF and OK. Rotax had already started that death.
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Simone, Alan,
Which OKs have you driven, and at what tracks? What did you think of them?
What does an OK-N do for the customer that isn’t just satisfied by a class “OK-J for Adults, 160kg”?
-Charles
I have a dd2 and run pre2000 karts. The dd2 is faster has better brakes and sets better lap times but the 100cc karts are so much more fun to drive. The dd2 feels heavy and sluggish compared to the 100cc karts even though it is faster and more physical
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