Freddie Slater lost the FIA Junior Karting World Championship in truly horrible circumstances, but drop down bumpers do work. When karts are covered in plastic there's not much other choice. #KART #KARTING
I am absolutly 100% with you. I'm a former german karting championchip driver from the 90's. I still love to watch karting championchips around the world. But the biggest fail for me in mordern karting is the nose penalty system. For me, Freddy Slater is the real 2021 OKJ World Champion!!!
I started karting pre any plastics, the racing was cleaner, but we were not not all racing with deep pockets and knew we were not going to be F1 drivers. The pods came in and racing got more aggressive as we could rub with reduced risk. I retired for 24 years and then returned with full plastics, the racing now is a lot more contact, my class does not use the drop downs, and it shows, every kart would get a penalty if we did, if your nose cone is straight at the end of a race you were not trying hard enough. Plastics have been very negative for drivers over the years and the nose cone is one of the worst, as it makes you think your feet are safe in a crash, so you push harder.
Thanks for visiting this Alan, I no your not a fan of plastics. And thank you for using the correct term for the item, NOSE CONE. To many people refer to it as a BUMPER. I hear parents and teams referring to it as this all the time at our local events. What's the child to think? I watched a Kart Chaser video recently where they were discussing if the drop downs lead to lazy officiating, but they kept using the term BUMPER!!
If the problem is highlited in one time events, maybe the format of the event should be changed from a winner take all scoring of the final race. Change to a pill draw for position, start straight up for first race, invert for second race and line up the final race by results of the first two. Championship is determined by the combined finishes of the 3 races. This doesn't necessarily "fix" the problem, but the one incident might not completely wreck the weekend since everyone will be forced to run through the pack at least once. Clean driving will be paramount to a good starting position for the final race.
agree that the "created" problem is way smaller and drop down is still in my opinion the best solution. to be fair its really not an issue in the dry atleast when it comes to FIA WC the last few years. the issues mainly start in the wet where one mistake and bumping the guy infront means he then bumps into the next and so on. most likely what happened to slater probably. that first 2 laps where messy in that regard.
I got my first nose push back penalty last weekend. It was a wet race the two in front tangled with each other and one in front spun and I collected him totally accidently in turn 1 first lap. Then false start flag was thrown so we go again clean start and in the actual race there was no contact. Yes I get the penalty no one else does, but end of the day what comes around goes around, yes this time I was unfortunate, next time someone else will be unfortunate for them. It cost me 1 place in the race in the end, but move on fight back next time as it will happen to someone else and over time it will work itself out. You have to take all these things on the chin and look forward, this is racing. Next time I will gain a place because someone in front has a penalty. Everyone looks at unfair things when they effect them negatively but doesn't protest when it effects them positively.
Personally i think drop down bumpers should coincide with a warning, i understand this cannot be regulated at a start as you say.. but i feel it will damage the sport, a better way would to invest in a 'dash cam' fitted to each kart to determine if the contact was with intent or not, the footage wouldn't lie and although it would take time and cost, but when a world championship is up for grabs for me its worth it. Freddie made no contact which caused a driver to be disadvantaged by contact. There is nothing to stop a drop down happening during the formation lap for example. He won by 4.7 seconds, not to take it away from the 'winner', but no other driver can say they even had a shot of winning that final, to loose a world final by 4.7 seconds says enough for me, i wouldn't feel comfortable celebrating that win.
I also don’t think there would be as many appeals as we think, a driver who gets a drop down will not want to appeal and show video evidence if they actually did make contact unfairly.. so I feel only the drivers who do not deserve the drop down will appeal..
The driver often doesn't know they have a drop down or how it happened. So you have to appeal by default really because any video evidence will have to be controlled by the organsiers so you can't look at it first. The appeal systems do get exploited, especially if the light starts to dim and you want a race cancelled ;)
Mike Spencer poled the London Cup final and had a lights to finish lead win but incurred a drop down and lost the race. Everyone who watched, knew he never touched a kart.
drop down bumpers are just not good enough... its a great start... but no where near where we want it to be. best solution would be to keep the plastic - (yes its safer, honestly i wouldnt want my son to race without them). Then add a spring actuation that defines a force that is messuable and a microswitch. then you add a micro transmitter and a system like the unipro engine rpm/axle rpm messures. Live activation of the microswitches will light up in controle center, and they can review video immediately ... and a 3, 5 or even 10 sek ... or drive through... or black flag could be handed out... these penalties would be defacto, no appeal, since they are reviewed live/immediately. a bit like F1. Some of the penalties could even be automated... like, driver 1 and 2 crosses the start line ... somewhere on the track driver 1 rearback bumper is activated, and 2's front gets activated (contact) and driver 2 crosses the line first and then 1 ... bet that was a faul, right? =3sec or more. and yes... side bumper switches as well... i dont see why they are not covered, push one off.... go home, easy. I driver myself... i know how to push people off, and i also know how to overtake without pushing people off, Raikonen and Alonso... last race, they knew exactly what the limit was, and alonso did get a punishment - we could even have a "return that position system" ;) Go learn the real stuff...l like F1 now the reason why we should keep the bumpers are for safety of cause.... thats a no brainer (excuse me) - ive seen terrible accidents where people are pulled over each others - this gets minimized. now the reason to make penalties is obvious as well - when a karting driver progress to F3 or F2 ... or ANYTHING else ... its a fairly good ide not to have contact with other drivers as it tends to cost HUGE amounts of money. but yeah no drop down's - its annoying (i got one last time i went KZ racing which was not where near fair, got pushed into a corner and pumped into the guy in front - so yea, that sux because i really didnt think i was my fault.)
you lost me at micro transmitter and the notion of 'progressing to F3'. 99.99999% of karters don't move to single seaters. We should completely ignore car racing in that regard
point number 1. the 3rd world you wrote was Bumper. It isn't a bumper, its a nose cone. thats why its called a nose cone penalty. The bumper bar is behind the nosecone, and existed before plastics point 2. sounds expensive. every driver needs to pay for this system, and every circuit!!
