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THE RACERS EDGE

THEY BELIEVED THEIR OWN NEWS RELEASES.
Opinion by Jean Genibrel

I was very pleased to read an article in one of the recent karting magazines. The story was titled “The State of the Sport”. It was professionally written and the reporting was accurate. But once finished I had the same feeling one gets when eating a favorite food that is missing an ingredient. You know something is amiss, but what?

After remembering other stories that gave me the same feeling, I realized the missing ingredient was not in the publication where the articles were printed, but in some of the new karting organizations. The articles exemplify the results of someone attempting to build an edifice from the roof down. Those stories were well written and timely, replete with the “Who”, the “What”, the “Where” and the “When”, but they lacked the “Why”: The “Why” is a lack of perspective.

I feel the efforts put forth by SKUSA and Stars have been focused in the wrong direction. The efforts have been directed to fix what is broken instead of building something new. What broke karting is that too many have forgotten that karting is an amateur sport, and that karting is grass roots racing. In fact I would take things a step further by saying that karting is beyond grass roots racing. Karting is the fertile ground where the roots should grow… No fertilizer jokes, please.

SKUSA and STARS
Good try, but no cigar. You attempted to build the top of the ladder before you built the first rung. You both lost all or never had perspective. When I suggested a true ladder system to a founder of one of the organizations he replied: “We don’t need that, that’s what IKF does”. Further, you often speak of your “Ladder System”; but you have no ladder, only the top rung.

You have said that shifter karting is the first step before attaining professional open wheel racing. It is not. It is the last rung of the ladder. What is more, your form of karting is not the “Little Leagues” of racing. Dave Despain vividly placed things in perspective in “Wind Tunnel”, his phone-in radio motorsports show, by mentioning: “…$15,000 sticker covered go-karts…drivers seeking big sponsors were not little leagues.”

Let’s look at the players who did come out of the “little leagues” of our most popular ball sports organizations such as the NFL, the MLB, and the NBA. Their players were made from an early age. Their talent was identified and nurtured from a huge pool of players. They received training and practiced and played against players of equal or greater ability so they could progress based on their work ethics and talent. In 1999, for example, the NFL scouted 6000 college players. 340 were invited to play. Only 150 of those remained for four years or more. Those 6000 players who were scouted were a group from the 54,000 college players who had graduated from the 971,000 high school players four years prior. They were playing, and they were trained, in leagues even before high school. American racing has its equivalent of the NFL, but it lacks its own form of “colleges, high schools and little leagues”. Shifter karting is not the first rung of the ladder. It is the last one before big cars. As they say on Fifth Avenue: “Do not believe your own news releases.”

You get on TV you say? So what? How many new karters have come into the sport because of that exposure? Who really got the exposure? The sponsors? OK that’s cool. But isn’t that a bit backwards? I say sell a method with which Joe Six-Pack can get into the sport, like infomercials do. Have a phone number the viewer can call and buy the equipment to go racing, and have a follow-up program to make sure his buddies also get involved. The income will support the show and the racing. That’s marketing to the right consumer. Sponsor Thyself.

PERSPECTIVE
Allow me to set the playing field by placing a few things in perspective with what I call my undeniable truths:
1. Karting is an amateur motorsport.

2. Karting is an entry-level motorsport.

3. Shifter karting is not the entry level into karting.

4. The “lower rank” of karting is the entry level into karting; shifter karts and “direct drive”
are the top of the karting ladder and the last step before an open-wheel career, not the first step as it is so often wrongly reported.

5. Karting needs a method of karting to “attract, retain and train©” new drivers, not recycle those who have become disenchanted with other series.

6. The marketing of karting should not be handled like the marketing of a professional open-wheel organization.

7. What karting needs is not more chassis importers, two-stroke engines or associations! What karting needs is more karters!!

8. The place to get new karters is not from the existing ones and not with shifters.

9. While Man cannot live on bread and water alone, a karting program cannot survive on just sponsors and entry fees. Survive perhaps, but thrive and grow, no way.

10. There is no proactive program to sell karting, and there are too many people selling everything else for racing karts.

11. Times change and people change. We cannot change people. This generation, and those which will follow, are different from those past. Industries must adapt to the people, not the other way around.

12. Direct-drive karting has created most if not all the professional open wheel drivers. Not shifters. But those drivers started at lower divisions of karting first.

13. Drivers have always won and they will always win the races.

14. Karting sells old concepts to old karters. It should sell new concepts to new karters.

15. Drivers are made not born.

16. What karting needs is a good Nickel… (complete) package deal.

17. Throwing sponsor money at a program never works. Sponsors are not the answer to every problem especially in amateur sports. Participants are the answer.

18. The growth and salvation of American professional open wheel racing resides within American drivers first, and sponsors second.

19. Having many American drivers in F1 and Indy Car would gain greater international respect for America and our products.

THE ANSWER
I had a coach who used to tell us that the toughest part of getting to the top of the ladder is getting through the crowded bottom. We need to create that crowded bottom of the ladder before we can expect to have a crowded top. But the organizations rely on the instant gratification of drawing from the existing pool of drivers to develop their programs. This is a typical case of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, but in a more modern setting. By the way, karting also has a limited number of apostles.

If karting (and open wheel racing) is going to flourish in America, karting must be marketed with American marketing methods, outside of karting and with a product that is “affordable, user friendly and fun©” to create the American drivers at the upper echelons of international racing. Karting should sell new concepts to new karters. The product must be marketed to the masses, not just the few who already race karts. To which some in karting reply: “We tried the SEMA show and we did not get anything out of it”. Well, I tried a diet once and I am still fat. There is a big gap separating “trying” and “implementing”.

If it is not affordable, it is not user friendly and if it not user friendly it is not fun. If it is none of the above, why in the hell do it? A $15,000 go-kart is not affordable or user-friendly, and it is not going to attract the masses of people we need to create the crowded bottom of the ladder. And for the average Joe the technology is way over his head…no matter how many books I write. Incidentally, allow me to point out that about 70% of my karting books sell out of book stores like Borders etc. and not from kart shops.

The only source of drivers SKUSA and STARS have is from the existing drivers. The number of serious drivers who can afford, and who are qualified to compete at the highest level is highly limited to feed one program, let alone two of them. There is a need for a true grass-roots program to attract, train and retain the new drivers. This is why the World Formula was created, and why Americkart is proposed.

DOING IT
What karting needs is a good Nickel… (complete) package.
There is no reason a well organized (complete) package program, with a proactive purpose, marketed outside (and inside) of karting, could not attract five to six thousand new karters each year and retain them for several years, not the 2.5 years we keep our drivers currently. The program must be available as a complete package and by complete I mean complete not just a recycled two-stroke engine and chassis; that’s just an engine and chassis. The only things the driver should be required to purchase separately from the karting equipment to go kart racing is his underwear and socks. The new driver must receive instructions in the basics of karting and safety such as knowing the flags and the general rules. As the driver progresses he should be allowed to race in a well paced, progressively more challenging environment, based on his results on the track, not only his age, or how much equipment he, or his parents can afford. He should receive race-driving instructions from experienced instructors who understand the driver’s needs at a certain place in his career. And sorry, but having one of the professional (open wheel) race driving schools as a sponsor does not fulfill that need, and furthermore that is not “what the kart driving schools are for”. The package should be spec, the engine should be sealed, and the race day should last a few hours (like a high school game), not days. This is what Joe Six-Pack wants; user-friendliness every step of the way. Once the driver has a few years of racing under his belt he can move on to shifters, or direct-drive karts, and race with the big boys…but to be qualified those drivers must come from a large pool. All this takes time, because kids only grow twelve months per year. Instant gratification fades away as rapidly as it appeared.

RESPONSE
A complete business and marketing plan is available to potential investors for a (complete) package, grass roots program with instructions, and a (true) ladder system. Again some who were approached viewed the proposal as a million-dollar deal in a twenty-dollar industry. Their perspective was misguided. Such a program needs one thousand fifty-dollar bills (foundation) to build into a multi million-dollar edifice (roof). Again, instant gratification must not prevail.

Aside from a few visionaries in karting, the only people who have responded positively to this concept have been from outside the industry. Those in the karting industry often come up with responses like: “But the guys in the South like to tinker with their engines”. True, but for one of “those guys” there are a hundred others who would get into karting if they did not have to tinker, and spend the money and the time. About the sealed engines and spec packages others have said: “You will never get the karters to go for this” Well that is the very point; we want the non-karters. We want the guys and the kids who read the gearhead magazines, those who go to the short track races on Saturday night, and those who watch the NASCAR races on TV. There are many more of “those guys” than there are active karters. Such a program could be a source of income and future customers to organizations that are floundering. But that takes time…

There is an acronym used in the performance industry, which I believe, fits the bill here: “N.I.H.”, Not Invented Here. If it is not their idea, or if it has not been tried before (or was tried and failed) it will not work. People have the fascinating ability to fall in the same hole day after day, all the while thinking that it is acceptable because they have “always done it that way”. Besides, each day they find a better way to get out of the hole.

Too many people are trying to live off too small a pie. We need a bigger pie. The only way the pie will grow is if the karting population increases. The only way to make it increase is with a simple package Joe Six-Pack can afford. There is such a program. If anyone is interested in investing in the right place send an e-mail to Americkart@aol.com.

About the author: Jean L. Genibrel is the owner/publisher of Genibrel Publications. He has written several books on karting and has contributed articles to several karting and automotive magazines. Genibrel lives in Southern California.

END

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