bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:Seems like making the program safer would be smarter than cutting off their feedstock.
Yes you're absolutely correct. And they just spent the last year looking into it and determined that they couldn't increase safety enough to make it feasible in a way that more than a few regions across the country could actually support. So the risk wasn't worth the reward.
dps214 said:bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:Seems like making the program safer would be smarter than cutting off their feedstock.
Yes you're absolutely correct. And they just spent the last year looking into it and determined that they couldn't increase safety enough to make it feasible in a way that more than a few regions across the country could actually support. So the risk wasn't worth the reward.
The issue is all of those meetings happened behind closed doors with no transparency to the members at large, so we're all pontificating in the dark about what the actual decision process looked like.
I used to be a co-organizer of a SCCA stage rally event; insurance issues is basically what got SCCA out of stage rally. I didn't like it at the time but also understood it as well. Keeping stage rally would have meant an increase in insurance rates for all SCCA programs.
As for the feeder; how many kids participated in the Jr Kart program? I can only speak for our region, we typically had no more than 3 at any given time. In the last 20 years or so I think we've had maybe a total of 10 kids who regularly participated. Of those 10 only two of them are now regular participants as adults. I don't know what the numbers are nationwide but I'd be surprised if it's more than 2-3%.
So if your insurance is going to see a significant increase and 98% of your members aren't involved in the program the logical business decision would be to end the program.
Again I'm sad to see it go but it's understandable.
Unfortunate news to read, we need to do more for the youth.
Coming from the motorcycle dragracing world, Ive seen the Junior classes fall away years ago on a national level. Shame then too. Dont know if it was due to insurance reasons or because so few participants, there were very few kids doing it.
There seem to be a lot of kart tracks where I live. Both indoor and outdoor ones. It's not like SCCA is the only place to go.
We haven't run Junior Karts at our region in four or five years. None of the sites we run at allow drivers under 18, so it effectively banned them.
Obviously its an important part of getting kids into motorsports, and this might come off selfish, but, man, I do not miss them. After the final morning runs, we would have to shut everything down and we would have the Junior Karts do all their runs for the day. What followed was 45 minutes of off-courses, karts running like garbage and then stalling on course and parents having to run out there and restart them, kids spinning out and someone having to run out and get them pointed the right direction, and other days. Made for a long day and sucked if you were the course workers. None of the kids we had ever seemed particularly enthusiastic about it either. I remember a lot of them just taking two or three runs and calling it a day, or their parents unloading it out of the truck/trailer and the kids going "I don't want to today" and then the parents loading it back up. Even before we stopped allowing them, we had dwindled down to just one kid and that largely because his father was a diehard autocrosser and was already there with the truck and trailer with his racecar.
In reply to NickD :
The ones in Dallas seemed better than prepared that. They would get in their karts and take their runs just like everybody else. But there were only four of five of them at every event and most of them had parents who also had a racecar entered.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:There seem to be a lot of kart tracks where I live. Both indoor and outdoor ones. It's not like SCCA is the only place to go.
Full disclosure. I've only watched 3-4 autocrosses. Of those, one had two shifter karts running. As you know, my son raced sprint (i.e. tracks) karts nationally for 10+ years, so I know what I'm about to say is very biased and based on little to no info. No harm/insult intended.
Were karts in autocross, for kids, that big of an event? It seemed like it was geared more towards getting kids involved in the same sport as the parents more than anything else. There are hundreds of indoor and outdoor kart tracks that cater to karters and have a much bigger turnout of competitors. Cost might be a bit more for consumables because you get more run time but nothing crazy for parts and such if you stay local. Of course, it's wheel to wheel racing v. individual, which has it's own inherent risks and I can totally respect that.
One reason I ask is we had a dad and his two sons show up to local track one time on a normal practice day. They were regular autocrossers and apparently very good. However, in a wheel to wheel environment, they weren't even close to the rest of the field. Dad seemed to take the attitude that everyone was cheating so they packed it up and went home fairly early. I was disappointed to see them go, because I loved seeing new people come into the sport. I always wondered if his kids wins were because of low turnout in an autocross, so they never had competition to compare to? I'm sure setup/equipment had a lot to do with it, also. FWIW, his perceived attitude was not uncommon. We'd often see someone show up with their kid, put them in a kart for the first time (or maybe the first time not on a parking lot or in the neighborhood) and be very disgruntled when the kid wasn't beating everyone immediately. I'd try to explain to them that not only is your kid learning to drive for the first time, they're also competing with kids that do this every weekend, rain or shine. It rarely, if ever, sunk in. :(
If you know of a karter that will be affected by this decision and they're OK with wheel to wheel racing, please tell them to check out their local tracks. There are lots of club races happening every weekend and the kid will get much more seat time.
-Rob
rob_lewis said:I'd try to explain to them that not only is your kid learning to drive for the first time, they're also competing with kids that do this every weekend, rain or shine.
Also why starting kids in autocross karting is questionable to begin with. Five minutes of seat time once or twice a month isn't enough to get anything to actually stick. Not to mention the fact that you're changing the course every time so less of it carries over.
If I had a kid and the program still existed I could see letting them run if they wanted to, but not without first spending a bunch of time at a kart track having them turn laps in a much more controlled environment until they're comfortable with the, you know, driving part. Then move them to autocross where they're only trying to learn the course, not how to drive in general.
We ran from 2002 to 2008. My son originally saw a junior dragster and thought he wanted to do that (they are cool looking) but he found out he could autocross a kart and decided he wanted to try that.
I took him to a couple of Kart practices before autocross. My wife was not keen on the W2W karting as she'd seen some pretty wild and wooly stuff at bigger Kart events.
The sole purpose of his autocrossing a Kart was so that when he started driving he'd have some clue about car control and also be less inclined to drive like an idiot on the street (like his dad).
We bought a cheap obsolete Kart. I never drove at any event where he was driving, my sole focus was making sure he stayed safe. We'd also walk the course at least twice. I'd start him up and then meet him at the course finish and follow him back to grid. We only stopped because he'd lost interest in driving around 14. I asked him about a shifter kart for us to share a couple of years later but he wasn't interested.
Did anyone here get their start in autoxing in a kart as a kid? Do we know anyone that did?
I think it's an important question if we're going to argue kid karts are a feeder to SCCA autox.
One of the advantages to kids karting is that it becomes something the child does WITH the parent (assuming parent is also competing, which seems to be the norm), which has the potential to be a lot more engaging than just "dad is driving me to soccer practice".
But yes, I understand and agree with the logistical concerns. At the end of the day there's a business decision to be made by the SCCA.
It seems like just about every driver in Formula One started out in karts as a kid. It is the entry league for professional wheel to wheel racing.
Autocross is a different sport.
Apologies for dragging this back up from the semi-dead... and I understand this idea might be anathema to some here...
but, it seems like this program could/should be converted over to the SCCA sponsoring/supporting some form of AssetoCorsa / iRacing series specifically for under 18, and sub-divided by age group?
I mean, a 'good enough' rig would probably cost about the same as a kart?
Kids need to be encouraged to do anything outside and away from a screen these days. As a result any idea that does this, is worthy of consideration. I'm really looking forward to teaching my youngest to rallycross one day. And yes we've had younger teens out there competing. Two have become regulars. One is now faster than dad which is very cool to see. They run a 99 V6 Mustang. Other than eating struts like candy it does pretty well.
You'll need to log in to post.
