>Dennis imagined:
>Like much of life and much of SCCA there are two
>answers to one question.
And more than one side to the story. Being one of "the fathers", I was
witness to the conversation, Dennis wasn't. His recount is second hand and
no where near what actually occurred. The individuals in this (year old)
conversation (which took place at a Junior kart school being held at a NASA
school before the 2000 season started) have _long_ since cleared the air of
the resultant misunderstanding. There was never an attack, nor was anyone
chased off. This father never had any intent of runnng with SFR, though we
certainly were trying to recruit him to do so!
Unfortunately Dennis's portrayal paints an inacurate and negative picture of
the SFR Junior kart participants that is both unfair and untrue. We had a
wonderful and fun season for the kids last year. There were no episodes of
"little league syndrome" amoungst anyone in the SFR program, the kids had a
great time (the most important element) and they learned a great deal - but
then Dennis would not know this as he does not participate in the SFR SCCA
events (something (I don't know what) happened long ago that he can neither
forgive nor forget - it would seem).
Dennis is correct in his statement about SFR having classification rules
(and who doesn't - even his local NASA series has them amazingly enough). We
(SFR)initially adopted the National rule-set for Junior Karts which does
limit the type of engines (you have to start somewhere when forming a new
class - Formula Junior). We currently have 3 separate Junior classes that
incorporate a variety of the most common set ups that we see at the local
kart tracks and in WKA classification. Nothing hidden, hard or out of the
norm for both the SCCA or WKA. Dennis just doesn't like the SCCA or its
classing structure and seems to take any and every opportunity to voice his
dislike of it. Which I have no problem with - he certainly has a right to
voice his views (and I would never take away that right) - but I have to
take issue with his false characterisation of this specific event and of the
SFR Junior Kart program we have worked hard to build here. Sorry to air this
in this forum. My appologies to team.net.
Pete Mottaz
>The tight answer is there is just one specification
>or a kid kart and the Comer would not be acceptable.
>The friendly answer is whatever the fellow competitors
>agree to is perfectly all right, it matters not to
>anyone else. Only safety issues may be protested by
>someone not running in class, and I doubt the kids
>will want to play the protest game.
>Locally [SFR] the fathers of the kid karts took the
>hard case approach and chased off participation before
>they developed a viable class. Shame on them. At least
>one father bought a couple of used kid karts and
>intended to participate with his two kids, was
>attacked over wrong specifications the first time out,
>and took his family to the karting club. He had
>autocrossed for 20 years and was shocked by the
>attitude displayed. I think we have lost him as an
>autocrosser too, 8-[
>So checkout who is running the karts in your area and
>how they are doing it. Or start the group in your area
>and see to it that the kids have fun and bag the
>foolish restrictions.
>IMHO
>Dennis Hale
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