From a Different Seat
                                                                                           A viewpoint
Greg Wright
Rapid Racing Inc.

                                  November Rain

'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain

    Although I realize that it is probably January when you read this it is late November as this is being written and there is a cold rain falling outside the palatial World Headquarters of Rapid Racing. This epic Guns ’n Roses rocker seems to fit my mood at the moment.
    As is typical for this writer at this time of the year I find myself in a reflective mood looking at where the sport of kart racing has been, is now, and where it will go in the future.
    With the exception of Daytona Kartweek the 2008 season is in the books and at the least it’s been interesting. Karting has shown a tremendous amount of resiliency and overall has held it’s own during tough economic times.
   In fact for most of the 2008 season I was amazed that despite four buck gasoline and a lot of belt tightening going on everywhere karting stayed pretty strong.
    Some of the economic chickens appeared to come home to roost late in the season with some upper echelon special events feeling the pinch with lighter than expected turnouts.
    I’m not preaching gloom and doom here at all, in fact current conditions could well result in the eventual growth of our favorite form of motorsport.
    Just like any activity or business for that matter we have to be ready and willing to change with the times and reinvent ourselves to some extent. One thing that kart racing must do is remain affordable particularly at the entry and club levels.
   We the karting community have fallen in love with the flashy, high end Euro inspired divisions such as Shifters and TAG (Me too!!) and we have given them so much attention that we have forgotten to maintain our infrastructure.
     Not everybody can or should start out in a high end, high performance machine but we have given those divisions so much fanfare that more sensible entry level packages like the Yamaha KT100 have come to be regarded as a “Lower Caste”. This is in spite of the fact that on a regular basis the best true racing often occurs in something like Yamaha Can.
    I hear a lot of discussions that we need to develop an entry level class. My view is that we already have entry level classes but we are not promoting them. In fact just the opposite seems to be happening in some areas with some orgs, shops and series appearing to be trying to wipe lower cost affordable racing off of the menu.
    Then  the same folks want to re invent the wheel by coming up with another new class based on questionable Chinese manufactured engines etc. as the answer.
     I call BS on this, instead I feel we need to promote what we already have in place, maybe fine tune it a bit to make it a little more user friendly. Entry level racing exists right now but we have to nurture it a bit and take the “Lower caste” stigma away.
    I don’t want the “Glamour” classes to go anywhere, I’m as big a fan of Shifters and TAG as anyone but if we want butts to put in the seats in the future we have to give them a ladder system to teach the fledgling newcomers a place to learn racecraft before we let them throw themselves to the wolves in the higher end classes.
     Putting all our eggs in the exotic machine basket doesn’t work any better than Dubya’s trickle down economics plan. Long run it just doesn’t work.
   And another thing, (Spluttering like Sylvester the cat) I fail to understand how and why so many groups continue to put a huge emphasis on Junior classes and young senior drivers (All the while encouraging them to move up and out) while often the biggest classes running are Masters classes.
     The thirty to fifty year old age group is and has been the group that stays in the sport for the longest and is in karting for all the right reasons. They are there for the love of the competition and the camaraderie that comes with it. They know that Chip Ganassi or Roger Penske don’t have their names on their short list and don’t care. These guys are there to have fun.
    This group is often the most faithful to the sport and its strongest defenders but so often they are merely left to their own devices in the overall scheme of things. Go figure!!
    I truly do not believe that karting is in any serious trouble, but like the rest of life we need to exploit our strengths and minimize our short sighted weaknesses.
   There may be some tougher times on the horizon but if we all pull together we will emerge stronger than ever. So during the off season that most of the country has to endure think positive, think about how we can improve our sport.
    Visit your local kart shop, call your racing buddies, start thinking about the great racing coming up in 2009, and when the cold and dark of the winter starts getting you down.
   Just remember;
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain

‘Til next time remember to Race Hard, Race Safe and God Bless America.