Karting at Road Courses

[rct25]

I was at Road America this weekend for the WKA Manufacturers Cup at the karting sprint track.
I have to say that I am very surprised of how fast the karts go on the road course and more than ever I believe that a GO KART.....yes a GO KART was designed and manufactured for a SPRINT GO KART track.
The chassis, bearings, tires, brakes CAN NOT take that much speed and stress on the components.

Roberto

[Jeff Salak]

I think the you really have to check and re-check everything before you go Road racing. Its very important to have everything that you can, have tie-wired so nothing can back out or fall off.

Most of the problems with karting on Road tracks in my opinion. Is that there isnt enough run off space in the turns. They are designed for the most part to keep cars from leaving the track itself. With a kart not much you can do when you go into a concrete wall 10 or 15 feet off the track.

Jeff

[rct25]

. They are designed for the most part to keep cars from leaving the track itself. With a kart not much you can do when you go into a concrete wall 10 or 15 feet off the track.

Jeff


Jeff,


EXACTLY.....those tracks are designed for cars not for GO KARTS!!!!!

No matter what you do, the go kart is not designed for the track and the track is not designed for the go kart.


Roberto

[Jeff Salak]

I think there are some safe Road tracks for karts. You really have to look at the lay-out and see where all the concrete walls are.

When I raced in Virginia at VIR, thats one of the first things I noticed. Plenty of run off space. VERY VERY safe track to race karts at.

Now if I road race I look to see the lay-out first. There is some tracks I would never race. This being one of them.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3211177339947760903

Plenty of run-off in some spots. Guard rails could be just as bad as concrete. Plus nothing like some Solid Concrete Paving stone pillards in a turn. NUTS! And just in case that wasn't enough, throw in some huge trees 10 or 15 feet off the track!

Jeff

[Mark Hirt]

Guard rails could be just as bad as concrete. Plus nothing like some Solid Concrete Paving stone pillards in a turn. NUTS! And just in case that wasn't enough, throw in some huge trees 10 or 15 feet off the track!

Actually Guard Rails are MUCH worse than concrete walls for both Cars and Karts.

If you want to stop the insanity DON'T attend the event and get the other 3 to 5 hundred entrants to stay home too.

Then and only then the organizers (not the track) might get the hint that they need to enforce the rules they put in place (like the bump drafting that took someone last year)

Road America is NOT going to remove the Concrete walls for any event much less the one Kart event each year. AMA requires Hay Bales and Air Fences in high risk/impact areas. Yes the club will have to pay to have these installed but it might save someone. Keep in mind there would NEVER be an Air Fence or Hay Bale where the 2008 incident happened. That burden falls all in the racers in the pack.

[rystar]

I am not taking sides on this one. I raced my first road race last year at Blackhawk and had a blast. Am I doing it again this year. Hell yeah. Is it dangerous? For sure. We all take risks every time we get into our karts, cars, bikes, ect.. I may agree with Roberto that karts were not designed for road racing, however the unfortunate loss karting has had the last 2 years at Road America had nothing to do with component failure (at least to my knowledge) on the kart. Both accidents ended with the driver hitting the concrete barries. Why arent hay bales put down for these events? Would they even help?

[D. Harrington]

I heard that the driver that lost his life at Road America this past weekend had brake failure due to the clevis breaking or becoming disconnected. Do they require a secondary brake cable in road racing?

[Rick]

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but Jim told me that this makes it 3 years in a row where there was a kart related fatality at Road America. You would think that one would be enough to get someone's attention. With 2, something should definitely change. With 3 in a row, the message is clearly not getting across.

[JAYKAY]

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but Jim told me that this makes it 3 years in a row where there was a kart related fatality at Road America. You would think that one would be enough to get someone's attention. With 2, something should definitely change. With 3 in a row, the message is clearly not getting across.

I went back to double check and I was mistaken. The fatality I heard of was actually on a motorcycle at Road America in 2006.

Jim

[Jeff Salak]

Roberto asked this same question on ekarting. Here is the link.
http://www.ekartingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=84549
Some of the RR expressed there opinions. Its just not for everyone.

Road Racers will always have there opinion and Sprint racers will have there own. No right or wrong answer. Its everyones own choice to do it or not to do it.

Jim, they had a bad crash at Road Atlanta the year before. It took the life of one of the guys involved in that accident. Maybe you got that mixed up in with what you were thinking.

Jeff