12-20-2017, 12:49 PM
GUYS,
MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
JUST IN CASE I GET TOO BUSY I'M POSTING THIS NOW
sometimes life has a way of happening that just consumes alot of time.
lately that has been me so i've hardly posted anything.
i suppose a good many think that's just fine as i can be a bit annoying!!!
Anyway , thanx for a great year in vintage karting. we've seen alot of growth both in membership here and on facebook sites.
we've seen attendance at events growing though some may disagree. to really understand just how much we've grown a little history is in order.
Way back when around 2004 i was recovering from a life event that nearly killed me. i was back to building stuff and my nephew brought and old ratty 1959 sears racer kart to the shop to be rebuilt.at the time i had no idea what it was and tried researching it on the new internet thing. i found out it was a racing kart and found several vintage kart sites which i joined.roughly , i came in about ten + years after vintage karting had all started . the guys involved we awesome and despite my ignorance i learned alot about the old karts and became obsessed.i found stuff and started building karts. back then there were nearly no tracks that allowed vintage karts to run and TBO was the main event every year.
the hobby vintage karting as best as i can see began around 1994ish and started growing with the first web page around 1996. the forums back then were pretty crude but they managed anyway. time passed the internet grew and vintage karters gained ground. More and more people found the web sites and friendships were formed. we found ways to get track time ,rules were refined and a god awful amount of arguing happened about those rules.despite alot of mis starts confussion and arguing we grew and grew.
Vintage Karting went from a very few weird guys living in the past running obsolete equipment that wasn't allowed on a "legal" track to a viable hobby. we went from using old seals gaskets and bearing left over from fifty years before to being able to buy/source or repop new parts for old gear. we gained talented fabricators that built just about anything. parts we argued about running out are now being manufactured. the issue of "low event attendance" is often discussed and that makes me smile.
to me it's amazing how much vintage grew in the last ten years. the thing is back in 06 we barely had ANY TRACKS that allowed us to run. finding a track was the first problem then getting the word out then having good weather for the only close event were all issues back then. we only had a couple to chose from ALL YEAR. back then new events getting 20 or more guys was considered pretty good if we could even find a track to let us run. tracks laughed at us for wanting to run old, "illegal" equipment. there was ZERO events on the East Coast now we have 4 on the upper East Coast alone , enough to try a series on all those tracks!! a huge change from back in 2006 when parking lots and low use streets were often our only options to run the karts.
now we have a silly amount of vintage karts events, promoters are disappointed with 30 attendees and tracks ask for available dates. arguments about who gets what date are more likely on the forum than equipment arguments. rain dates are scheduled and we even have a series starting to grow on the East Coast. AND the promoters are discouraged if "only" 30 drivers show up!!
to be sure we have alot of growing pains to still get over. this year VKA has decided to allow vintage four strokes the biggest bogeyman we imagined ten years ago. while i don't know if allowing series or 4 strokes is wise i do know we'll never find out if we don't try new ideas. it is my hope we'll find workable solutions as we go just like we've done in the last ten years.
30 years ago vintage karting was an idea that gained traction even though kart racing was barely old enough to have vintage equipment. it grew , then lost momentum in the nineties. with the internet to help find people interested Vintage Karting recovered it's momentum and has moved forward. the last ten years has been amazing with new people popping up daily. we've seen it spread to other countries and watched them develop different approaches to the same idea, we all love the old machines and want to see them run again. some like the restoration,some like to run them as they were meant to be run some just think they're cool as is but we all love them in some way. i see this hobby continuing to grow into the future. i see the level of track participation on a growth curve that should continue upward and possibly get insane.
so to all of you who have been there then,are here now and to the guys we've had to say good-bye to this has been and still is a blast. out of all the things i've done this group is the best set of guys i've ever known.
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND A
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Dave L.
