In the UK licences have consistently declined since 1996. This is UK specific
Inflation + a declining economic standard of living is at the root of it, IMO. Hobbies aren’t free. Diminish/eliminate disposable income, & watch as hobbies suffocate.
Wasn’t 1996 when it was announced that 100cc air cooled would be no more after the next homologation, surely that cant be a coincidence 
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The year Rotax MAX was introduced. Also Champions of the Future hit mainstream TV that year.
I really use the data to highlight that Rotax MAX didn’t grow UK karting, from a licenced perspective, and F1’s close relationship with karting didn’t either. Of course we can’t run another experiment to see what would happen if these things didn’t happen, but an interesting trend to observe nonetheless.
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Regarding the content creating/creators idea, I don’t think the trend needs to be more professional, how to, club/team driven content. I’d like to see more racers or parents or siblings or ??? out there making cool, fun content. Frankly as an industry we aren’t all that good at finding new participants. But happy customers/racers are hands down the best salesmen for us.
While some quality industry pro content would be appreciated by many, I’d like to see more karting influencer style content. As silly as that may sound. Lol
Get friends and families excited!
Perfect example - yesterday we ran two brothers in a cadet arrive & drive for their first outdoor experience. They reached us because they met someone at indoor karting that recommended us. That person had started indoor karting, and already came to us to get their first owner karts (2), because their kid saw a TikTok post one of their buddies made. And yhat kid is from one of our long time customer families.
So I’m the third step removed in the process yet I’ve now sold 3 karts, started 3 new younger racers and a masters racer. All because a happy customer shared their sport with their buddies. Our investment in that marketing pyramid? Just doing our job well. And the cost was $0.
I owe that kid something! 
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In terms of content creation it’s really about what the audience wants and what the likes of Youtube want. Right now specific owner-driver karting content channels have a rough audience of around 10,000 views per video. There’s odd breakout hit, but that’s the audience YouTube expects to be interested. That’s the number I’d expect on one of my videos. It’s not worth the investment to be perfectly honest, no where near. YouTube wants weekly videos from channels, and it’s either too expensive to do stuff worth watching, or difficult for karters to generate anything interesting enough.
Karting can draw big numbers, but generally its outside the context I am referencing here. Like mad build channels and that kind of thing that do something with karting. Acxtual karting centric content is immensely difficult to generate an audience for as it stands. Not impossible, but YouTube is such a competitive space now, the market is so saturated it’s very difficult to breakthrough. This is why karting has become so dependent on the F1-dream and kids karting. It has very little penetration elsewhere.
This seems to be equated to “people are leaving the sport” but can it simply mean that fewer people are getting licenses? Here in the US, I know exactly 0 people with a license to kart, so that metric has also exactly zero correlation with the number of people karting.
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This is UK data, it’s hard to study American karting. Yes there probably is migration to IKR stuff, and that has happened in the UK. But also, I can’t measure how much IKR stuff existed back in 1974. I am pretty sure there was a club or two doing it, and there was certainly stuff in the 90s. In addition there’s a lot of crossover. Those with licences race IKR so going through he data is tricky.
However, I can follow my instinct a bit, and the demographics of karting are vastly different than they were 40-50 years ago. That there is no question.
I think it’s what you are basing your success on. To you it is monetizing your content, and effort put in to making that content, to justify the amount of time and work required to produce. And it’s always seriously good content - no doubt.
My goal is much simpler - I want someone to introduce a new audience to what we provide. Get me someone excited and motivated that I can’t reach through my normal channels. That’s what I want. That’s what drives our growth.
I don’t need 100K views to generate my $100 for YouTube, I need one set of motivated eyes to find me through one of my happy customers.
Build the pyramid…
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Correct me if I am wrong here but what you want is karters to make fun content that you earn money from? So you are aiming to monetize their content for yourself, essentially. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s good that people making said content, understand the inherent value of what they produce. This is why I talk about the value of creating stuff and how much it costs, and why I wrote in the article that you either need a team or tyre contract for it to be worth it, because in the end you just end up making other people money.
To make a living in karting now, one needs more than just talent; they need a team, a shop, or maybe a lucrative tyre contract and be utterly ruthless.
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Sort of correct. I want people to be having enough fun that they create their own content for their own enjoyment. I’ll help facilitate them doing so any way I can if they ask or if they have ideas.
I want them to want to do it to share the excitement they have for the sport they participate in. The minute it becomes a contractural arrangement or a business partnership or financially motivated it changes things.
Do I benefit by my customers being excited about their hobby and bringing new people in to the sport? If I have done my job right to date, and they make that recommendation, then yes. Does the track/club benefit by their customers potentially bringing new people in to karting? Without question.
I’d like to find a way to incentivize my customers to be creative and spread the word without making it something contractural with obligations and expectations. Just like I tell parents all the time - the minute this sport becomes an obligation rather than a hobby, stop doing it. I don’t want structure, oversight, templates, key words, etc - just people having fun with their hobby. Long term our local programs will be better for it.
I could be wrong but I think my stuff helps promote the series I’m in. I get folks saying stuff to me like, I watched your videos and they helped me learn etc.
Alan wrote in his recent little bookie about the narrative behind the sport and that inspired an attempt to provide more narrative. I’m trying to tell a bit more story when I can but importantly, I’m trying to identify and recognize others in my videos.
My logic is yeah tell the story a bit more rather than “here’s some laps” and have the other drivers see their names and driving mentioned. Folks like to see themselves.
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That kinda just sounds like you want them to do free marketing for you when all is said and done 
Once you’re successfully making content you become an economic entity, it’s unavoidable. Also, once you hit publish you enter contractual obligations with the publisher, so this can’t be avoided either.
Licence numbers, I suspect, are down again warranting a shift in focus
“The ABkC suggests making karting look ‘cool’ to younger generations by increasing the use of electric propulsion or promoting environmental benefits.”
…
Hi I’m old and hopelessly out of touch.
“Those who do are likely not interested in electric options and may even be hostile towards them.”
Never thought about folks being actively like, “NO, bad”. I can tell that alot of folks think it’s kind of a joke in terms of the rental stuff, but I’ve never encountered folks who were adamantly opposed. Something for me to consider.
“Motorsport UK’s primary challenge is reversing the ‘kidification’ of karting.”
I think I understand what you are seeing in your world… and that makes sense given the f1/european way things are going. I wonder if it’s the same for us here in states. I seem to have noticed a significant influx of adult enthusiasts over Covid/post covid period, primarily. Adults discover sim during pandemic and a couple years later started looking at karting.
@KartwerksDan who has been showing up for the learn to kart/arrive+drive stuff and who ended up buying a race kart? You have indicated that at Pitt you have seen a big influx over the past X years… is that playing out young or old?
"There’s nothing on the British Karting Championship website that even lists past champions let alone recognise the unique history of the sport… Heritage plays a crucial role in attracting new audiences because it imbues value, "
Interesting and yeah, fishy as hell. Thats a deliberate attempt to subvert the real history and craft a narrative of their choosing, (which is ).
What worries me stateside is the corporatification of karting, the “Supercharging” of it. Slice karting down to highly controlled, sanitized, 6 minute sessions, with maximum efficiency. This is why I am over the moon about my new GRX efforts with Keith and the gang. It’s dirty, raw, and somewhat dangerous. It’s real. That is missing from the electric/indoor tsunami wave that is surging inland as we speak.
I don’t always agree with @Alan_Dove but man I’m glad we have people that are paying attention like him. Is there any way we can subvert the FIA and get you as an insider so you can quietly throw monkey wrenches in all their shit ideas? Any chance you are a secret billionaire and can buy your way in?
There is hostility, absolutely. It may change but I think people are making assumptions about electric karts that may not align with human behavior and motivations. I could be wrong there, but I don’t think we should underestimate the current failure of Rotax and its electric program to gain significant traction. That’s not to say it won’t suddenly take off, but it’s not made any big impact yet, apart from when they hit barriers, given the weight of them.
Hard to know without data unfortunately. It’s easy to paint any picture with anecdotes. Even in the UK. Even the data I use is somewhat limited. The admission from Motorsport UK however is an indication my initial articles wasn’t wide of the mark.
Potentially. I also think they are totally ignorant to karting history and have no motivation or inclination to learn about it.
Been at it for 15+ years, just a shame it isn’t profitable any more 
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And thus deliberate subversion. The history they want to present is Lewis and Max’s karting. Don’t look at that - look at this, sorta… omission.
Funny! 
It’s a healthy mix honestly. Since Covid our Masters/responsible adult Seniors crowd has grown exponentially. From what started as a few 30/40 something guys coming out of rentals to race our senior 206 class, to senior fields pushing 30-40 entries and masters at 15-20 (since 2023 introduction).
And a whole other component that I haven’t experienced much in my 20 years there - the non-golfer hobbyist. These guys rarely race, if at all, yet they’ll be at the track a couple times a month for mid day practice like going for a round of golf. I bet we have 10-20 that fit that bill from month to month.
Our adult post pandemic/rental growth rivals our cadet/junior influx from Drive to Survive & rentals.
Healthiest I’ve ever seen it and we have a pandemic, a reality show and rental karts to thank for something we could never accomplish on our own. 
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Ethan,
I heard the same thing over and over about Bridgestone YBNs back in the day…“they last 3 races”. And yet when I ran my second race on them…I could not compete. 3rd race…forget it. And how come all the fast guys are always on new tires… ? By back in the day I am referring to NorCal in the 90s and 2000s…when we had very large and competitive fields.
All it takes is one person to put new tires on…and you quickly discover that it is not the tread left, but the number of heat cycles. If competition is tough…you always need new tires to run up front. I just do not understand why we insist on deluding ourselves about tires. No matter how hard you go with spec tires…the fast guys will always be on new tires, hard or soft spec, and they will be faster. It is really counterproductive, and misleading to newer racers to tall them they can get all these races out of set of tires. I have never found it to be true with any compound.
Some track/tire combos actually can get these results. Our track uses mojo d2 I set the purple lap with 10 heat cycles on the tires I usually buy one full set and two extra fronts keeps me competitive all year at the club.
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