Ryan Norberg talks about to get into karting (video)

How did this turn into an English Language and English slang lesson? It basically means obsessive on a niche subject generally - Anorak (slang) - Wikipedia most commonly associated with trainspotters due to their historic enthusiasm for wearing parkas (anoraks) :slight_smile:

Ah, a trainspotting reference. That makes more sense now. Couldn’t figure out the coat angle.

Just going to chime in that I’m not interpreting any meanness from anybody in this thread, just thoughtful discussion. It’s okay to disagree with one another or engage in a debate, and doing so doesn’t inherently mean that you are being disrespectful or unreasonable. Just want to throw that out there since it seems like you may be picking up a disrespectful tone that Alan is likely not intending.

It’s possible he doesn’t like the package nor feels the L206 is indicative of ‘professional’ karting. The problem is everyone is bias to their own thing. Some love the L206, some don’t. Some include them in videos, others don’t. Maybe Ryan wants to encourage more people to try 2-stroke karting. I have no issue with this.

The thing is, we can be real picky on these videos, but karting is so fragmented it becomes a nightmare to produce any content. I got literal abuse because I had the audacity to say a class was a ‘non-tuning’ class in a brief comment on one of my videos (I stand by the statement). That’s not the half of it.

We all have our biases to what we think should be included (I am including myself here I moan the most :slight_smile: ), I just think it’s cool someone like Ryan is putting stuff out there.

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Cool, it seems like Norberg’s content is targeted at karters other than n00bs like myself so I’ll skip.

It seems from your various posts that a ‘professional’ kart has a fluid definition, at best, so I’ll just focus on having fun driving an owner/race kart when I do get one and leave the pro stuff for other people to fret about!

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100%, I would agree. I applaud him for being a top karter who can be bothered to make content, and then take a step further and make some decent content (his other videos are pretty good too).

But I imagine his subscription list is karters who are already in the sport, and he started as a kid. I think its a bit of a miss for him to skip over rentals and LO206 which are really the cheapest way in, but given his background I’m not surprised. It would of been simpler, because everywhere in North America has rentals, and LO206 is pretty much everywhere too. It gets more fragmented in the TAG classes, and therefore more difficult to explain.

I’m glad he mentioned the first simple steps though that most people I speak to miss. Like google for tracks, talk to the track, find a shop etc. I’d only have added find when a race is and go talk to the drivers (or their parents).

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Worth noting my ‘how to start karting video’ viewership was 70% non-subscription. This kind of content is really good for search terms and to build subscribers. It’s good to have videos that stay relatively fresh over time on a channel.

I don’t have an issue skipping rentals. Rentals came into the UK market late 80s and we’ve seen owner driver decline quite steadily since 96 (maybe earlier I don’t have data that far back). It’s intuitive to think “they are a good way in” because cost and availability but actually, we never needed rentals when karting was a growing sport. Rental businesses don’t want drivers leaving so they aren’t our supply routes either. At some point you end up talking people out of the concept of high-performance karts because we present them as ever more exclusive and ‘top-end’ of the market.

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Anecdotally, Alan, my experience is different. In my rental league, we have so far had 4 lads get race karts this season. My old kart will drive again under someone else, actually.

I am playing devil’s advocate a tad, that’s my MO, but that anecdote is tinged with cognitive bias. You see 4 karts being sold. I see 26 karts (presuming the league has 30 drivers) NOT being sold :slight_smile:

You think far too highly of NJMP program. We run 12 karts only. They claim it’s due to insurance. I say it’s because their fleet of 25 is so broken they can barely field 12 karts.

Maybe that’s why some end up buying their own! :grinning:
But seriously, I am probably done with NJMP rental league until they get karts that aren’t 5s off each other and falling apart.

If they had a good league, folks would stay.

The reality is most rental kart do double duty as concession karts getting beat up by people that are more interested in playing bumper cars then racing.

Amen to that lol :joy: