Formula eBay

We tend to have a lot of rules in karting, and although most of them are implemented with the best of intentions and are good for a lot of people, they are probably putting just as many people off.

Depending on where you race, you probably don’t get a choice of tyres and probably not engines either. If you’ve been in karting for a while it’s quite logical to make attempts to level the playing field and maybe subsidise championships by selling the right to supply the racers, but to someone just coming into the sport does it really make a lot of sense?

The Competitors

I thought of a couple of groups of people who could easily be interested in karting.

The average motocrosser I meet is amazed at how restricted karting is. The thought of racing a Rotax and being told who is allowed to rebuild it is crazy to them. And they are equally amazed at how much we spend (twice as much at a low bbudget level), so we’re not exactly keeping costs down compared to other grassroots motorsports.

Then you’ve got car modders and cruisers, I’ve had some of them express interest in karting as well. Again, the restrictions just don’t make sense to them. Critics of open formulae say that people won’t want to compete if they can’t get a kart that is quick enough to win if the driver is good enough. I don’t think that’s true - people don’t stay away from Swansea Kingsway if they have a tricked-out Nova instead of a shinier tricked-out Peugeot. They get the car they can afford and add bits or get a new one when they can afford it.

The Formula

So if they get sick of the speeding tickets from tearing about on the road and decide to race something instead, why shouldn’t they be able to buy a kart and engine off eBay for a few hundred quid? Lots of them do already, and just stick to testing.

What about a gearbox class (kart engines, bike engines, the lot) and a non-gearbox (100cc and TaG) class? Keep it very simple and just have safety rules. I don’t know if it would even need a weight limit. In entry level racing, the difference between a new reed engine and an older rotary engine could well be less than the difference between two drivers so the level playing field thing is a red herring.

We also worry too much about people who don’t want to deal with the technical stuff. Those people are already well catered for with the sealed Rotax, Easykart and even Club 100 type racing. We should be expanding the sport into other markets, and plenty of people are only too happy to spend a few evenings sorting out their kart, and indeed feel it is part of the enjoyment.

Promotion

I have been thinking about this for a while, but Alan Dove (OldSkoolKarter) hit on a name for it. I doubt eBay would let us use it for copyright reasons, but until I have a better idea it will have to do.

The biggest problem is who would promote this Formula eBay. It needs someone with clout behind it, but no dealer is going to make money from a class that by definition is cheap and second-hand.

There are a lot of people talking about promoting karting, and the manufacturers and dealers are obviously putting a lot of effort into marketing. But there is almost nothing going on to attract people in from outside the sport, and it is stagnating as a result.

2 Responses to “Formula eBay”

1. Mike Delaney Says:
   April 10th, 2006 at 11:17 pm