Hey Will! I believe we crossed paths a few times when BeaveRun hosted the traveling club back in the late 2000’s – I ran the kart track there for awhile and we’d incorporate your classes in to our club days. Always a great group of folks that made the trip!
While I don’t work for the track any longer, I do run a trackside support shop for the local community and help the track with promotion, intro programs, etc. A pretty cool symbiotic relationship that has paid dividends for both parties. We’ve grown from a local series that would draw 40ish club entries a few years ago in just 4 classes to averaging 105 entries so far this year.
A few thoughts on what has made it succesful:
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Trackside pro shop open every practice and race day with basic consumables, tires, etc but most importantly general service, quality new & used karts and coaching/instruction.
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Trackside storage – as simple as racks for flat storage or space for vertical storage plus tire racks for rain tires and a tote rack so racers can have basic lubes, spares, etc.
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Intro and Arrive & Drive programs – try before you buy programs let people try the sport that would never buy first just to see if they like it. Also eliminates the “bad experience” scenarios where someone dumps a ton of money in for the driver not to like it. People that have a good experience entering the sport tell their friends, people that have a bad experience tell everyone.
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Keep classes simple and the day only as long as needs to be. Having 16 classes with 5 people in each on average makes for bad racing and general ambivalence. We ran just 4 classes (KK, 206 Cadet/Junior/Senior) until three years ago and have added just one of 206 Masters, KA Jr/Sr and Swift each year for the last three years to go from a 5 hour day to an 8 hour day over that time. Compressed classes drove excitement and growth 100%.
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Benevolent dictatorships > committees. Have someone in the series director role that listens to racers but ultimately is willing to make the tough decisions and stand behind them. Racers are their own worst enemies when it comes to rules.
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206 is your primary driver and the ultimate entry package. I wasn’t a fan being a 2 cycle guy myself initially but it is the greatest thing to happen to club karting and is dirt cheap for racers. Don’t get caught up in cheaper alternatives, just work to channel everyone in to 206 at the entry level with the primary 4 classes.
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Pick a tire that lasts a long time and doesn’t reward buying new tires to qualify. The Mojo D2 is the ultimate club 4-cycle tire. Consider it at the very least and maybe talk to our local racers that use it.
Just a few thoughts!
Maybe bring some folks down for our season ending double header Sept 28/29 and ask our racers questions if you guys have some time. We have a paddock that is probably 60-70% plus people that have been in the sport less than three years. No better way to find out what attracts new people to become kart owners than finding a pile of them in one place. If you need a kart to play with for the day I can probably make an OTK 206 appear! Lol
