It is a common thought among professionals that practiced karting is increasingly becoming an exclusive sport for a few wealthy. This discipline is betraying its origins, a simple and ideal “racing” vehicle to offer the emotions of the track to a wide audience. Unfortunately, also thanks to the increasingly rapid path to motorsport that can be practiced at the age of 15, everything has become more competitive, extreme. And above all expensive. National races also take place over several days, greatly increasing both travel costs, but above all the technical ones for consumables and assistance provided by mechanics or teams. Engine management costs are increasingly higher, especially for those with competitive ambitions, just as expenses related to tires, registrations and services have grown in all categories.
Go-karts are increasingly sophisticated and regional competitions also require a lot of training to be competitive. All this has led the National categories, but also the main one-make series Trophies, to be less and less accessible, helping to generate more and more empty racetracks, which are then forced to resort to 2-wheel categories as well, such as mini motorcycles, if they want to stay open. But the “bill” of this negative trend is high in general for the entire production chain and for all professionals.
From these premises, which photograph an alarming situation, CRG, together with Briggs & Stratton has conceived a true promotional project, strongly based on simplicity and cost savings. It has been called Briggs Kart Championship and consists of a competitive program divided into 4 categories, all equipped with the same Briggs 206 4-stroke engine, capable of offering interesting performance with almost zero operating costs.
The Briggs Kart Championship takes up some principles that Briggs & Stratton has successfully experienced for some years in the United States, namely, making access to karting as simple as possible and above all economical. These points are the basis of the project and go in the completely opposite direction compared to the International categories, but also compared to the majority of Trophies with 2T go-kart, which for many years, are more an alternative to the International classes of which they replicate all the technical and organizational aspects, rather than a promotional and cheaper offer. Briggs Kart Championship, on the other hand, is a single-make with stringent Regulations, which means that it does not allow you to change anything with respect to how the karts are sold, while the engine is even sealed and you cannot work on it in any way. The drivers, however, are able to work with the set up, so that the driving experience on the track is much more competitive and rewarding than Rental karts.
A further important point to contain the costs of the Briggs Championship was to think about a single-day-race format in order to minimize not only the travel costs, but also the costs of the technical assistance services that the teams offer to the drivers.
But low cost does not mean disservice or poor quality for CRG; on the contrary, as in other sectors such as catering and fashion, the concept of “low cost” does not preclude services of a certain level, so in Karting CRG has created a Championship with all the useful ones to make drivers try a first-rate sports experience. First of all, the category runs on important racetracks, but above all live timing service, the official speaker, dynamic communication and exclusive management tools are provided, such as the dedicated App and the official website, where each driver has a personal page, which is updated with all the rankings and statistics, immediately at the end of each race.
Certainly, the performance of the 4-stroke Briggs engines cannot be compared to the 2-stroke ones, but thanks to the low weight of the chassis-engine package, the Briggs karts for the Senior classes are 5″ faster than the best Rental karts and the Mini category even has performances in line with the main Mini 2-stroke classes.
Karting has much greater potential than what the current categories are able to express to reach new practitioners, but also simply not to lose current ones and allow those drivers who have already “hung up their helmets” to get back on the track . The media and sector operators are putting all their energies on International races, a container that has a few hundred drivers, compared to a potential audience of a few million fans. The CRG project aims to reduce the gap that exists between the entry level activities delegated to Rental Kart and the 2-stroke competition kart. Briggs Kart Championship is a project active for only 3 years in Italy and in some European countries and, despite the objective problems it has encountered due to the pandemic, it is enjoying a growing success.
Over 100 drivers are registered in the Italian Series and some categories such as the Master one, which is reserved for gentlemen drivers only, has seen more than 35 drivers at the start several times during this season. These numbers tell better than any other thing which is the potential to bring new practitioners closer to the track and rebuild that base of the pyramid that has been constantly eroded over the last ten years.
For more information on the Briggs Kart Championship project, you can contact the CRG marketing offices and visit the official website www.briggskartchampionship.com