So my son’s club allows the cadets to run with normal fixed bumpers, since, lets be honest, most cadets have a hard time keep things clean out there. Anyway when he moves up to Novice next season he needs a push back bumper. Is there a kit that gets added, or do I need an entire new bumper and mounting bars?
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You will need to install the push back mounts to your existing front bumper.
KG CIK Drop Down Nose Bracket Kit :: CIK Steel Front Bumpers and Nose Mounts :: Bodywork :: Comet… (cometkartsales.com)
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Well that seems simple enough! Thanks
Sort of on topic question. If you are running a push back bumper and someone hooks it with their rear bumper, does it pull itself back out?
That would be a sweet trick to learn!
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Here’s why you don’t try and push the bumper back out.
Hiltbrand, completely DQ’d from the World Championship for trying to pop his bumper back out after getting a bumper penalty.
I both love and hate this sort of officiating.
Do the crime and pay the time and move on. Everyone then knows where the line is and not to cross it.
But absolutely destroyed that bloke by the looks.
It is the world championship so, if there is ever a place to do the right thing, here it is.
So, I’m 100% against pushback bumpers for many reasons.
I think this should be its own thread though so not to derail but when you fit your pushback bumper many kids will make it so they can push back out on the front bumper and as such not mount it super tight as well as file the 1 way action. This way you can use your foot to push the bumper back out to avoid a penalty.
If you’re caught doing this, it’s an immediate un-appealable DQ for most series. And as noted in the post I made above, one of the best drivers in the world currently did this and was excluded from the entire World Championship event.
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In some series, isnt the bumper tension a tech item? Seems like a fairly easy check.
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I know SKUSA, Route 66, and USPKS check it. But they’re generally looking to make sure you haven’t tensioned it with tools so that it’s hard to push in. They make you take the bumper off with your hands coming to grid and put it back on by hand to assure it is “hand-tight”.
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Pushbacks 100% fix more problems than they create.
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Here’s what Tom Kutscher said about them a while back. Basically, less red flags and ambulances. But more side-on collisions and demand for officiating.
You will get DQ’d for trying to push out your front bumper, I’ve seen it happen, and they’ll check your bumper mounts as well to make sure that they are unmodified from the way they are designed. Filing down the bracket, or any other change, is prohibited in the rules.
Regarding driving standards, there was a marginal increase in sidepod contact versus bumper to bumper issues, but not nearly as bad of an issue as it used to be. I said this back in 2017 and I’ll say it again now, I see less DNF’s regionally/nationally with the pushbacks now than I did at a club race before pushbacks, even when the national race carries more entries. I ran the CKNA Grands 2 years ago, coached last year, and there is still a noticeable driving standards difference that would be fixed by implementing pushback bumpers.
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While I don’t disagree with what you are saying, you cannot use the 206 grand nationals as any kind of argument for or against push back bumpers. There is no other race in the country where you have 50 206s on a drafting track like NCMP. It is its own animal. You add push back bumpers to the grands and you still have dive bombs, hip checks, blocking, and everything else that is 4 cycle racing at that race.
Now, I’m not saying the grands doesn’t need to be cleaned up, because it absolutely does. But we gotta go apples to apples when comparing races.
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I’m not saying pushbacks will fix everything, but the problem would be significantly lessened with the introduction of them. We mentioned in the other thread too, but the officiating needs a real overhaul as well for the Grands. Your officials (you meaning any driver at a series, not you specifically) should be looking at side pods and blocking. There’s not a tool available to help with that, just more eyes on track.
For the sake of fun internet discussion (not real argument), I contest these two statements:
and
I am only talking about 206 karting here. I fully trust yours and TJ’s opinions on higher hp stuff as you have TONS more experience there than me. My question is this:
Is the front bumper the problem? Or is it the lack of room given side to side? Again, I am actually a fan of push back bumpers at all major events. I guess my questions are more around how do we clean up the racing in 4 cycle (low hp) karting where contact (side pods on exit and entry, late passes resulting in contact, etc) seems to be a norm? Maybe a different thread? Maybe its already been covered on here somewhere? I’ll go dig and see…
I will note that in the slower 2-stroke mini and micro classes, the bumper does clean some things up as well, so it isn’t just high HP classes that benefit from it.
But agreed, it does not fix the podding moves which you’re more likely to see in a lower horsepower class like 206 where the braking zones are almost non-existent, or in some of the higher-level 2-stroke racing where the driving is more aggressive in general. Certainly there needs to be a strict enforcement by officials as well. The bumper isn’t a fix-all, it’s a supplemental tool.
I haven’t been to enough races to know this, but in a CIK-bodywork 206 class vs. a full fiberglass bodywork 206 class, are the driving standards different?
I still have a sour taste in my mouth from when I worked for a few clients at the Delmar CKNA race last year and I watched class after class exchange punts down into turn 1 all weekend long, with minimal penalties handed out. I recall standing on the grid and overhearing another dad tell his 8 year old to “move him out of the way on the start” with regards to one of my drivers. It seemed like this was an acceptable mindset.
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Explain what you mean by this? Are you talking about not leaving space on the exit of a corner when overtaking a driver? That’s a different discussion. I remember back in like 2017 I got frustrated after what I thought was being run off track by someone at a race, but TJ explained to me, on here actually, that if you’re being overtaken and the passing driver doesn’t leave you space on the exit of the corner, that’s on you to not get run off track, not them.
I’m not sure what you mean by side contact on the entry of a corner, but late passes resulting in contact should just be an avoidable contact penalty, simple as that. Stricter officiating standards will clean up all the issues, and it might piss people off at first but they’ll need to learn how to drive within the driving standards of the track.
In my personal experience, it was more of a front bumper issue when I ran CKNA, but I also had to throw a couple side pods out when people tried to hold the outside on a pass. The series encouraging drivers to hold the outside is going to promote messier racing too.
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