On The Fast Track

World Karting Association Series Produces Race Car Stars

By Jim Dunn

Get one thought right out of your head, before this article on karting even starts: the go-karts you buy your kids at Western Auto, the kind you probably trundled around on yourself lo those several Christmases ago, have little to nothing in common with racing karts. Four wheels, a steering wheel and a braking system are common to both styles, but that’s like saying a fully automatic Kalashnikov machine gun is like a Daisy air rifle. It’s a true statement, but it doesn’t adequately convey the disparity between the two.

Christmas present go-karts barely get into double-digit speeds. Racing karts can get into triple-digit speeds that the family transport vehicle will never see. (Unless you’re the mad scientist kind of parent who’s tricked out the minivan to hit 160 mph.) Christmas present go-karts are low-tech, Fred Flintstone-level technology. Racing karts are carbon-fiber, George Jetson screamers. And while it’s doubtful anyone ever went from Christmas present karts to major-league racing, kart racers have gone on to NASCAR and Indy Racing League success.

According to Buddy Long, director of operations for the World Karting Association (WKA), “Kart racing is a tremendous stepping-stone. It’s the foundation of motorsports, and that’s our moniker here. It’s advanced dramatically since the days when I was young, riding a kart in the backyard.”

Even some big-time racers started out in karts, including, on the open-wheel side, Sam Hornish, Danica Patrick, Marco Andretti and Sara Fisher, who all came from WKA, and Brian Vickers, Ricky Rudd, Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart and Colin Braun on the stock-car side.

Whether or not the driver behind the wheel realizes it, racing is physics, and physics is universal, so getting a grip on things like cornering apexes, braking points and drafting can be accomplished on a kart as easily as on a race car, and for considerably less. Plus, the close-to-the-ground thrill is even better when the speeds are several orders of magnitude higher.

Then there are the other intangible benefits to kart racing. “There’s a tremendous amount of family participation,” Long said. “There’s a lot of bonding and development of drivers, and that makes them much better drivers on a higher level.”

WKA oversees five different national series of kart racing: Speedway Dirt Oval, Speedway Paved Oval, Gold Cup Series, Manufacturer’s Cup Series and Road Race Series. WKA races on dirt and asphalt, small and large tracks, and with two-cycle and four-cycle engines. “We provide a competitive, organized atmosphere in which racers can eventually move up the ladder if they choose to follow a career in motorsports,” Long said.

The top speeds of the WKA classes vary tremendously. “As a prime example, let’s look at the three series that were at Daytona (Fla.) Kart Week between Christmas and New Year’s 2009,” Long said. “Your road race guys got to the top speeds, clipping about 120-160 mph on the back straightaways on lay-down karts. The Manufacturer’s Cup guys probably got a good 60-70 mph clip in some of the faster portions of some of their sprint tracks. As far as the dirt guys are concerned, typically, those tracks tend to be a little under a quarter-mile, and we traditionally like to see fifth-mile tracks built, so being a quarter-mile is going to be a huge drafting track for them, with speeds in the neighborhood of 60-70 mph on the dirt as well.”

WKA oversees all the series, but there are clubs that function under the organization. “We have nine national races for the road race series, specifically,” Long said. “Different karting clubs in the different regions of the country where we go—the South, Midwest, and Northeast—actually serve as the promoter for the event.”

WKA promotes events for its other four series, according to Long. “We work through the racetracks. A lot of these tracks have what you call a regional or divisional program, in which racers basically accumulate points, and they can transfer those points, and part of their national points tally in helping them to strive for a national championship or a top finish. But there are quite a few karting clubs on each series, one level below us, that continue to create the stepping-stone to get them to the national-level participation.”

Kart racing may be much cheaper than stock-car or open-wheel racing, but it’s still an expense, and expenses get cut when times get tough. “The economy has been challenging for us the last year and a half,” Long said. “We’re in the entertainment business. Karting doesn’t have to exist; it’s purely entertainment. But a lot of people have been very supportive even through the tough times.”

Long cites the construction of a new dirt track at Daytona International Speedway as an example that support. “We held the Manufacturer’s Cup and the Road Race series there in 2008. The Road Race series had 542 entries, and the Manufacturer’s Cup series had 623. Now, with the insertion of the dirt track, we hope it will bring back the glory days past of Municipal Stadium in Daytona—during the great days of that stadium, we had 2,200 entries in four days.”

While WKA is the major power in the sport of kart racing, there are competitors for the kart-racing dollar. “There are other groups, ‘outlaw groups,’ that pay money, which have forced competitors to make a choice as to where they want to race,” Long said. “Some teams can afford to run more than one series, but, because these outlaw groups have a tendency to schedule their event on top of yours, most racers are forced to choose. That has made it really tough on top of the bad economy.”

The fact that competitor series have begun offering cash prizes has prompted WKA to change the way it conducts business, Long said. “We’ve realized, at least on the dirt side, that the influx of money from these other groups has created the concept that we have to begin to pay prize money. So beginning with Daytona, all of our dirt classes will run for money, with the top five winning a money payout. People want an immediate return on their investment, on their racing fee. We’re not covering all of their expenses, but we’re giving them something that they’ve wanted for quite some time.”

WKA operates its five series with a full-time staff of only five. That kind of lean operation has to rely on simple means of spreading the karting word. “Basically, we market through our website (worldkarting.com) and our magazine (Karting Scene) and the help of other karting-related forums,” Long said. “On the two-cycle side, it’s eKartingNews.com, which heavily promotes all of our activities. Then on the four-cycle side, it’s called Bob’s 4 Cycle (www.4cycle.com), which is a major website for all four-cycle racing throughout the country.”

The economic impact of a karting weekend can be in the millions, Long said. “Even before we had a Daytona Kart Week, we had several hotels and businesses calling us, asking why we weren’t coming. We’re the little guy when it comes to putting people in the grandstands, but we’re not the little guy when it comes to the economic impact we have on the host community.”

Here’s a quick, simplified motor lesson for the non-gearhead reader.

Internal-combustion engines generate power by exploding a mixture of gasoline and air. The explosion drives down a piston. The piston turns a crankshaft, the crankshaft turns the transmission, the transmission turns the axle and the axle turns the wheels.

Karting uses two-cycle and four-cycle motors. Two-cycle motors fire the sparkplug every time the piston reaches the top of the cylinder. (Down being one cycle, up being the second.) Two-cycle motors tend to be buzzy and high-revving. Four-cycle motors (like the one in your car) fire the sparkplug every other time the piston reaches the top of the cylinder. The first stroke takes in air and gas, the second compresses that mixture, the third drives the piston down explosively, and the fourth pushes the exhaust out of the cylinder.

Sport Report
World Karting Association
Number of WKA members: 4,000
Number of WKA race series: Five (Speedway Dirt Oval, Speedway Paved Oval, Gold Cup Series, Manfacturer’s Cup Series & Road Race Series)
Contact:
Buddy Long, Director of Operations
World Karting Association
(704) 455-1606
buddy@worldkarting.com
www.worldkarting.com