North American Kart License Program

41

So we have a small percentage of problematic drivers causing the bad driving issues. The series could ban any of them any time and solve the issue. But they don’t because these drivers bring in lots of revenue. Many bring $15k of revenue a weekend to the event.

So now, NAKL is going to act as a 3rd party to tabulate penalties to ban these drivers. This is supposed to clean up driving because drivers will now behave. So the series, that don’t want to lose drivers, are now going to issue penalties and have no control over whether a driver gets banned, and they lose the revenue?

I think your net result here is going to be series issuing far fewer penalties because who wants to institute a policy to reduce a customer base.

I am sure it is all well intentioned. Just terrible aim at actually fixing anything. The most disruptive it should be is a backend admin level (which should be happening anyway) where the series communicate about the problem people, and ban them or put them on probation. The series could pay for this themselves. TK could administer the program on the backside if something like this even needs administering.

I look at all the crazy things that happen in karting and ask myself whether it will help or hinder karting. This program will not help. Potentially it could help if run on the backside, but it will certainly not help by being just one more barrier to entry for karters.

I think a license program would be great, and it could start with participation in regional events. This is where WKA (The foundation of motorsports) should be doing their thing, but that all died years ago.

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Tim,

If you are still around - will NAKL be addressing the younger categories in any way?

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The license points and cross-series tracking applies to all classes, including junior and cadets.

The “pro” license rules regarding participation are for the “pro” classes (X30 Sr. and KZ).

44

has there been any consideration to the “pro” tag and what that may or may not due to high school age kids that also play any other sports? This can take them out of amateur status due to holding a professional license

45

My understanding has always been that unless you are earning a living off the sport, you aren’t considered a pro. This debate has existed before the NAKL as SKUSA’s Pro Tour always required a license too, but I’ve never heard of it being an issue anywhere.

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46

was just curious as i had seen it asked in various places but no real answer. I have no concerns for my kiddo. If he is to slow in racing he will have to use his brains. Cause ball sports aren’t his forte.

47

I think I know that family - did you send him my way by chance?!? :rofl:

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$150 as a barrier to entry to a national event where you spend $5-10,000 to run??? A license being a barrier to entry to run a series at a top level??? You mean like the license you needed to acquire to run at any world final event??? You mean like the $300 TransAm license like you just paid for that came on top of the $300 SCCA Pro license you had to have before you paid for the TransAm license?

And here is the really crazy part - you drive like a wanker in TransAm (SCCA Pro sanctioned) and you get suspended you don’t get to race a Formula Race Promotions F1600 race because the sanctioning body has the ability to suspend you from all of your Pro races.

You can argue that you don’t like getting suspended or don’t like worrying about getting suspended but to argue that $150 is going to break a national racing hobby budget is nonsense.

Barriers to entry are what we discuss at club races. Barriers to entry are requiring new tires to enter club races or charging ridiculous practice/race fees at the club level. Barriers to entry and national racing really don’t belong in the same sentence when the delineating factor is a $150 fee.

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This is just one more fee. It is certainly not helping to grow the sport, therefore it is a barrier to entry. Just because people are spending $5000 to $10,000 per event doesn’t make it right. The SCCA analogy makes sense. SCCA is the same as USPKS or SKUSA. A sanctioning body. This proposal adds another level on top of the license. It should be something the series are doing anyway, not a 3rd party. It should be an expense the series bear, not the karters.

I am surprised to see your support of something to make karting even more expensive. Whether it is $2 or $2000, it is more expensive. Karting needs to be made more affordable, more available to the masses. Somebody on a budget that saves to do one national event a year just may get bumped because of this.

The licensing structure should not add expense. It should not be a system based on punishment. It should be a constructive system based on local and regional participation to build karting from the ground up. Again, where is WKA?

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Like anything there’s a few ways to look at it. Keep in mind this impacts <1000 drivers of about 22,000 in the US, I think that matters.

On barriers to entry, this does not impact entry to the sport of karting at all. At least not yet. I would counter that the potential of better driving standards and accountability at these events may in INCREASE participation by those on a budget that wish to run these events, but cannot justify the risk of wrecking the one chassis they have.

[quote=“Jim Maier, post:49, topic:10370, username:Jim_Maier”]
It should be a constructive system based on local and regional participation to build karting from the ground up [/quote]

I think we can all agree on that, but that’s probably not the starting point.
As far as I can tell, this initiative is a starting point.

(Not sure why the second quote isn’t working :confused: )

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51

I am a strong proponent of barriers to entry at the spot where people actually enter the sport - club racing. I would not be a fan of this at the club racing level because it is unnecessary and would raise the cost at that level.

The concern at the national level is not barrier to entry - regardless if the fee is $1 or $500. At the national level the concern is customer retention. If you can’t keep people happy and coming back for more, you are going to have a retention problem eventually. What would make them happier and coming back for more? Some accountability for the habitual crashers and poor sportsmanship. And hopefully the end result of less crashed equipment eating in to their finite disposable income play budget.

If you told me that $10-15 of our weekly national budget cost (maybe $10-15 a race weekend) would go toward driver accountability and potentially cleaning up some of the racing so there would be less destruction and crash damage expenses, I’d be all in. Whether you called a license, insurance or putting $10 on black and spinning the wheel - I’d gladly take that chance. Cheaper than a sprocket guard saving your day…

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52

I agree that paying $15/weekend for better racing would be a no brainer. But this license honestly does not address better racing. It is simply a scorecard running in the background. The same people are calling the penalties. After NAKL they will have good reason to NOT call penalties so they do not lose revenue with banned drivers. My biggest point is that the series should be addressing problem drivers anyway. NAKL is an unnecessary administration level and expense that should already be getting done. Next we are going to have an appeal process, waivers, etc. Then what, do we hire a 4th party to oversee NAKL?

I get all sorts of people that message me about karting as I am sure you do Dan. This NAKL has come up in plenty of conversations and private messages. I have yet to find a person onboard with it. I have read all the interwebs chatter. Supposedly people in the industry, regulars if you will, were consulted about this. Where are these people? I can’t find anybody that was consulted aside from maybe Xander, and can’t find any industry people in support of it, well, aside from you.

As you know, it doesn’t affect me at all with the racing we are doing nowadays. But I am such a supporter of what karting should be. I am sure we’ll do some events here and there. Just got ben a Rok Shifter in fact. But another frivolous fee, and application, and whatever else will probably be enough to find something else to do. When is enough enough?

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I think we all know that the chatter on the internet is not representative of reality. Most of the people complaining on social media don’t even race nationally, let alone USPKS. On Facebook where KC shared the post, there were hundreds of likes and shares and maybe ten people in the comments questioning or complaining anyway.

I’ve spoken with probably a dozen drivers from big and small teams who are actively participating weekly in national karting who all think this is a great idea, and very few who have questions about it.

Teams, drivers, series, sponsors etc were all in the discussions regarding the license.

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54

A national style license seems to work everywhere else in the world. Why wouldn’t it work in the USA?

I’m not sure how it works in other ASN/CIK/FIA sanctioned countries but in Canada I pay a $150 for my club license and $60 for my national license. If I wanted that national license to be international it would be $240. I’m sure most of the EU and UK are similar

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55

This isn’t anything that should ever be applied to Club racing, where the true ‘entry’ to the sport should take place. This is to regulate activities at top level. $150 per year isn’t a significant portion of any of these racer’s budgets. And once again, better racing and less wrecks SAVES everyone money.

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56

I love it. So is this something if you are thinking about doing a national race you need to join while at the regional level if you want to start getting marks of experience. Or is it as simple as like my scca and nasa pro license where I provided races attended and was signed off to receive my license

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I don’t think the loss of revenue is that big of a fear, honestly. At least when it comes to troublemakers. The bigger fear I believe is the worry that your competitors’ will take in the strays that you ban.

And while, in theory, that would drag that alternate series down, it never really has. The average lifespan of a customer in the sport being so short means that the general public has a very short-term memory.

Like with most things in the sport, many of the major team owners and shop owners that regularly attend the events were consulted over the past year.

Granted, it is annoying that it’s a third-party, but in a way it has to be if you want it to cover multiple series. And at this point, the same pool of drivers runs between 3-4 series on the year, so having an individual series cover their own penalties with the system would be somewhat useless.

The cost is what it is. I’m not in the 'well we are already spending ____, what’s another _____" camp. As much as I’d like to see some action to trim the fat of the cost of a weekend in response to this added fee, I’m not sure we’ll see much. Although, based on the response in Orlando this month, at least Wednesday practice won’t become the norm.

I’d still like to see Qualy groups set off championship points if we are going to tier them. Waste of tires for what’s basically a ‘pre-qualifying, qualifying’ session.

The real truth is that with the amount of growth the sport is seeing coming in, tracks, promoters, and some teams are all able to charge more and still see the same size turnouts. And at 250-300 entries, you can’t get much bigger. Only so many hours in the day. And most people won’t show up to miss a main event in our culture, for whatever the reason.

So as much as the purist in me wants to tear everyone up for raising the average cost, I can’t fully blame them because it’s no different than any other service industry. Charge more to customers willing to pay and make more money.

What my current gripe is that nobody doing that has any footing to stand on when it comes to drivers leaving the sport early. They’re all chasing an extremely high disposable income demographic that all minor league car series also chase. And the car series have realized that they can lower the minimum age, and parents will gravitate towards them due to the sexy factor even if the kid isn’t quite ready for the next step. At least, the parents that are willing to pay the prices being charged now.

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58

Xander, appreciate the reply. Love my Xander chats. I think my biggest underlying gripe is the absence of a true governing body with an actual infrastructure to make karting a real thing, a real ladder. As it is now, anybody can just spend to go race nationally. There is no merit, no accomplishments except another national championship, and a toxic culture. This 3rd party license is only going to add to the toxicity, and it really comes down to the people behind it. I am not talking about Tim, I am talking about the “Tom’s”. They will still be able to dictate who gets to play, and who does well. Nobody in the sport seeking another national championship is going to speak out about it, because they don’t want to get on the wrong radar. Just pay their $150 and shut up.

I think somebody like Tim who cares about the sport should figure out how to replicate or take over the WKA, organize grass roots karting across the country, then position the “national” series to host regional and national events that present a true championship that you qualify into. Karting would be so much more meaningful, have a positive culture, and keep people engaged longer.

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59

Good! Now lets get rid of Happy Hour next (the practice, not the show :stuck_out_tongue: ).

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Agreed. It shouldn’t have to happen this way. I’m right with you on WKA. You won’t ever see KC with them in any capacity with how they are now. How an organization with all the tools to do good for the sport continues to do wrong for it is beyond me, and equally frustrating.

There’s ways for this to give back though. Having guys ‘point out’ and then having NAKL-approved regional series available for them to race in to clear points would be great. Tim even tossed up the idea of taking some of the revenue to put towards partnering with KC to make videos and promos at local clubs. I told him I’m all in to do it at break-even cost.

Man, I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve told that we should do qualy groups off of championship points if we want to tier the groups. Don’t know if I’ve just not been loud enough or not been hitting the right ear drums.

I told Mark at USPKS that if he did that and saved everyone a set of tires, over the couse of 4 race weekends, a lot of the lower budget guys would have $1000 to put towards weekend #5.

Ultimately, the tracks, series, tire importers and engine importers have all become dependent on the additional revenue of added practice days and test weekends. So, we need to find a way to bring in some additional revenue to try and replace that if we want them to cut back. Granted, there’s no guarantee they would, as greed could force them to keep it, but all it takes is one series to do something different and grow in entries and then the tides could turn.

I know for both myself personally along with many families that are stoked that STARS is staying at a 3-day format with a practice ban. While it’s not at the level of Pro Tour or USPKS yet, it is getting bigger. But Joe and Christian are doing an awesome job at trying to manage things for racers.

Of course, they’re like WKA with NKA being the primary revenue stream for the overarching company. Financially motivated for more pit pass sales across 200+ clubs and traveling series. So the sport growing that means their bottomline is growing too.

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