August 2005 - TAG RACING — UNITED WE STAND; DIVIDED WE FALL
Opinion By Doug Welch

For years karters and kart shops alike have been asking for a simple package that is easy to sell, easy to own easy to race, low maintenance and fairly equal. One of the early goals of the North American Karting Alliance (NAKA – remember them?), was to create a race-ready package, one that could be on the dealers floor with minimal work, be in the racers truck on the way home. It is something that the big 4 motorcycle companies from Japan learned a long time ago; build a race-ready package that needs little maintenance between outings and you will sell more than you can make.

So, now we have TAG; touch and go race karts. But the bigger questions are…

How close are we to that ideal and can we screw it up?

The answer to the first part is – very close.

The answer to the second part is – very close.

We have been racing for years, shifters mostly. We started the year with ICC packages, but the cost of running one of them quickly consumed the racing budget. We had to seek an alternative. In early June, we held a family meeting to discuss where we were going with our racing and what was it that we really wanted out of our racing. The first thing on our list was to have fun. We know that higher forms of racing are not in our future, we don’t have the budget for it, we are ‘kart racers’.  I asked the boys; at which race did they have the most fun so far this year? After a  bit, they both told me it was the after hours race at the rental track where the younger boy works. Several of the employees and the older boy took the rentals out and held their own race. They went nose to tail for dozens of laps, just racing. Bingo, it hit them and me – it was the race that was important, not how big or how bad the karts were, it was the race that they wanted.

After looking at the options, we picked up two Rotax engines. We don’t have a problem with weight and Rotax runs on the lightest weight. Our first race was a TAG race in the Colorado Sprint Championship (CSC).

With a large field of seasoned TAG racers, the boys paced the field by a full second in qualifying and completely dominated the racing. The engines were new, out of the box motors from Rotax. We broke them in Saturday, raced them on Sunday. We became instant TAG converts. In no form of kart racing had we ever been able to do this sort of thing. I know from first hand experience, you can take a box stock engine, and with a good driver and well set-up kart, run in front and win in the TAG class.

Now comes the hard part — self-discipline. We all know that Americans have never been well-known for self-discipline and racers in particular are not well-known for it. We get something and we want to fool with it. Racers are by nature hot rodders and hot rodders just can’t leave it alone. But for the sake of TAG, we must fight one of our most basic instincts and leave it alone. Motor builders and karters, just drop the Dremel tool and back away from that cylinder. You may be creating more horsepower, but you’re killing TAG. And besides, in tech we’re going to toss you anyway!

Importers — I know you want your engines to win, but if you win too much, you will get more weight added and your “advantage” will slip away. Your best advantage will be to remember who your customer is and serve him/her it. Your customer is looking for a user-friendly, low-maintenance racing package. Build them that and you will have customers.

If your motor package lasts longer, is lower cost to run and maintain, you will sell more engines. If you sell more engines, your engines will win more. But if you’re tweaking out every last bit of power, it just blows up more and you won’t sell diddlysquat. Do you see how this thing works? Go ahead, make the crank a little bit bigger, make the head volume a little larger, so what if it delivers one or two less horses. They will take some weight off your karts for racing purposes. You motor will last longer and you will have happier customers, isn’t that what you want?

We really need the help of the various sanctioning bodies and their tech people. United we stand; divided we fall was never more true than in the case for TAG. I’ve heard all the arguments about how hard it is to tech for stock parts. I agree, it is hard. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t do it. We have got to keep these engines stock and we have got to do what ever it takes to keep engine builders, racers and importers in line on this. I am encouraged to see that at least for TAG, somehow the big organizations have been able to work together. Let’s keep it up. Maybe this new found spirit of cooperation could lead to other areas. That maybe asking for too much, I’ll settle for just working together on TAG.

But in the end, it really comes down to the individual racer. TAG could be what you’re looking for but we will lose the whole thing if you don’t have a little self-discipline. You need to fight that urge to rub on your motor, to find a builder who can screw it together just a little bit better and to fight that urge that this one little change won’t hurt. You need to insist that your builder uphold the principles of TAG — keep it stock. You can gain far more with seat time and chassis adjustments than anything you can do in the motor. For those of you who just can’t leave well enough alone, maybe we should have a stock-appearing TAG class. For you guys who just can’t leave well enough alone, you can have a class of stock appearing motors, no tech, run what ya brung. Just do the rest of us a favor — stay away from TAG!

Reprinted from the TAG Newsletter with permission

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