Setting the stage

The modern world of technology and innovation tends co-exist peacefully on a crust of technical standards.  We can go into any electronics store today and buy a DVD burner off the shelf, and typically it will plug into nearly any PC you have.   We can drive 99% of the automobiles produced in the last 50 years and fill up at any gas station.  We can buy any wireless telephone and bring them home to plug into the same receptacle.

But show up at the average kart track with one of the more prominent engines run in Europe like ICA or FA, and your likely not to enter a race.

Tracks often look up to organizations for simple things like insurance and class rules.  Between the largest two organizations, IKF and WKA, the consistency of rules for the same classes differs.  Beyond the myriad of excuse either gives as to why, the root cause is one and the same - they have no common interest in merging rules as a type of standard.  Thank goodness these organizations are not in the telecommunications or PC industry.

Karting was invented in the USA but our profane lack of the ability of major organizations to cooperate on standards for rules has allowed the major karting industrial strength to build in Europe rather then the US.  Sure we have a few struggling chassis manufacturers, but not one purpose built motor.  Certainly the Briggs power would not exist if there weren't potato diggers that consumed 98% of the production, so they really don't fit the purpose built motor definition.  Long gone are the McCullough motors, and West Bend is merely a relic of the past.

Like most everything else karting, TAG was originally conceived in Europe.  Manufacturers were actually looking to replace the costly 100cc air cooled packages with a larger displacement water cooled package.  As what was really a parallel evolution, Bombardier put their corporate bucks to work committing to the development of the Rotax.  Shunning the ways of the cottage industry driven CIK, Bombardier launched their product years ahead of the rest. 

Rotax is probably the best thing to come to the shores of America in many years.  The entire program was simplicity and shear elegance.  It was very much a stand-alone and fit that badly needed gap between the underpowered, over stressed Yamaha based packages, and the powerful yet costly shifters.  It provided the average Joe who cared nothing about pipe of the week, or the constant replacement of internal parts, a chance to go out and drive a very challenging package.  Good stuff indeed.

Rotax was successful egging on some of the manufacturers in Europe to continue to pursue their original concept.  Biland having been conveniently left with a basic motor tried to clone the Rotax program in Europe.  Didn't really work as their eventual bankruptcy proved - but they still build and sell the motors.  Parilla, always progressive was one of the first to mass market the new TAG motors in America.

Meanwhile Rotax was not without growing pains.  Not every corner shop was a dealer, with good reason.  That also meant not every kart track had a local dealer.  Parts were occasionally in short supply.  Some dealers were not exactly giving their customers acceptable service or pricing.  Some customers were a bit disturbed by having to pay to ship their motors to an authorized Rotax facility and pay as much as $300 just to freshen the top end, when they were accustomed to doing it themselves.  Overall, Rotax was great stuff, just not for everyone.

Conception of the TAG Standards

The Italians are no different then Americans when it comes to boasting about the launch of new products.  Going back a few years, talk of new 125cc water cooled electric start packages.  Horstman was actually among the first with the IAME built water cooled 125CC sans on board starter, but it was obvious they were coming.

Moreover, the big two orgs IKF and WKA were not about to take a pro-active position and develop rules to accommodate these new packages, that would simply be too far above the level of cooperation either organization has demonstrated to date.  It takes one of two things with either of them to launch a class -

1. Grassroots popularity
2. 6-figure check from manufacturer 

We knew no 6 figure checks were coming.  That left it to grassroots development.  But the only way Grassroots development was going to work is if local clubs had free access to some form of standards that other tracks might use too.  But look at the picture here a minute - Say for reference sake a dealer in New Jersey begins to import a Parilla, and a dealer in California imports an Italsistem, and a dealer in Colorado imports a Biland, and an importer in Florida imports a Vortex, will this stimulate any realistic grassroots growth?  Obviously not.  Within two years those importers will be back to hawking Yamaha KT100s or trying to sign on as Rotax dealers.

Worse, what happens when at Average Kart Club in Anytown USA when two different dealers begin selling two different motors?  Oh really great racing, we have two Rotaxes serviced 150 miles way, 4 Parilla Leopards, and maybe 2 BM's, all racing in separate classes.  That won't last long.

So in late 2001 we came up with the concept that was simple - run them together, and use weight to balance out competition.  Not a perfect solution, but as we see now, very effective.  Remember, this was a concept to target the local club racers and was never expected to grow to become a SKUSA SuperNationals class in under two years.

The development of the TAG Standards was released as an Open Protocol document.  Open Protocol is the same method used by nearly every "disruptive" technology in electronics since 1986.  Simply put, it is an Ad-Hoc standard released for anyone to use or alter to their specific needs.

Public release of Issue 1.0 of the TAG Standards dates back to January 1st 2002, 6 months before KW was launched.  Issue 1.1 was released in November of 2002, with updates for primarily resulting from collaborative input and testing of the three most popular packages to nail down equality.  The Rotax was provided some external modifications to overcome two problems it had;

1. Open Jetting, that was intended to include Needles, Emulsion Tubes, main Jets and Idle Jets.  The Rotax as delivered comes with the K27 needle and no matter how you jet it, this needle causes a throttle hesitation.  The throttle hesitation varies the time differential from track-to-track too much to rely on weight alone as an equalizer.
2. The Rotax Airfilter is almost impractical in the wet.  It also has quite a bit of restriction particularly in the higher RPM range.  We could have shaved another 15 lbs and left the Airfilter as OEM, but chose to allow the CIK Air Box and the 360 Lb weight.

In those configurations, the Rotax, Biland and Parilla Leopard produced nearly identical lap times on two different tracks, run in both directions, all four test sessions on new tires.

In our quest for technical specifications, we had cooperation from Parilla and Rotax with providing the required specifications.  Biland was like pulling teeth.  We finally ended up completely disassembling a stock Biland and measured components for the specifications ourselves.  Technical Specifications on these three motors were included in the issue 1.1 of the TAG Standards.

In December of 2002, several clubs contacted us about using the TAG Standards.  We told them they were free to use/change etc. them as they see fit.  Several of them adopted issue 1.1 for the 2003 season.

The TAG Standards also contain a revision history in section 9.0 with dates and summary of changes.

TAGUSA & TAG Standards

Tom Argy was aware of the developments going on in Europe, certainly with a better handle on the specifics then any of the rest of us had.  Tom & I first opened a dialog on the whole TAG concept at Rock Island in 2002.   At that time Tom had not committed to founding TAG USA, but it was under consideration.  He wanted to visit with the Manufacturers and identify their plans with a dose of reality in their collaborative objectives.  Tom recognized that baseline testing was necessary to which Kartweb responded to and funded with what packages were available.  It was Tom's intent to have a set of rules written prior to January 1st 2003, the deadline for several local clubs to present and vote on 2003 rules.  Tom was unable to meet that deadline, so the TAG Standards were distributed and used instead.

Tom first drafted the TAG USA rules in February, and following the intent of the TAG Standards, much of the content and weights were based on the TAG Standards.  In February we updated the TAG Standards to reflect  those changes.  Knowing that weights were not tested for some motor packages that had not arrived yet, The Sonik, Rok, and Italsistem, we used our best guess.  For the purposes of those clubs that adopted the TAG Standards we made it clear that TAG Standards would be a "living document" that would be subject to revisions, and they were welcome to follow those revisions.  Such is the nature of an Open Protocol standard.

We were a bit concerned with the  that Tom introduced in the TAG USA rules that conflicted with our test results of the Rotax - requirement of a stock Airfilter.  Discussion with Tom followed and at that time he agreed that the Airfilter/weight would be subject to review after competition occurred, yet Tom agreed that "Open Jetting" would include Needles/Emulsion Tubes/Main/Idle Jets".  This discussion was again held during the Rotax 24 race in Arkansas, and again Open Jetting was indeed open.

However at the first TAG USA race in July Tom took on advisory from the TAG Board members that the Rotax Open Jetting should be constrained to the Main Jet and Idle jet.  While at some events the Rotaxes have not been as fast as others, it cannot be accurately attributed to the jetting definition decisions alone.  There are some events such as the SuperNationals where the Rotax in that configuration turned the second fastest lap times despite a 7th place finish.

The bottom line was we were looking forward to retiring the TAG Standards to turn over the management of TAG to TCM Racing under Tom Argy.  We were prepared to take soft copies of the Tech Specs that Tom had gathered on the Sonik, Rok, and Italsistem to complete the Tech Spec availability requirements on our meeting scheduled this week as Tom would be here for the TAG USA 10 hour endurance race.

With the loss of Tom we are compelled to maintain these standards to continue to support the TAG phenomena until a new home (free of conflict of interest) is found.

TAG - The next step

We don't know what the future brings for TCM Racing.  Everyone wants to see it continue but realistically that is a tall order that will take time to transition.  Time is a luxury that many grassroots organizations of local clubs and regional organizations don't have.  Many of them will be deciding on what rules to use in 2004 over the next two months, and frankly want something they can download a soft copy of to integrate or even edit to meet their needs.

There has been some movement among WKA and IKF to develop rules for less then generic version of TAG like "Spec 125".  While its gratifying to know the TAG phenomena has taken off, rules that require purchase of a rulebook are simply outdated and don't fit the 21st century demand.

In a discussion with Jim Murley of SKUSA there have been concerns with TAG rules.  No final direction was expressed in that discussion.  Given that SKUSA has a history of change, they have clearly done the best job with meeting the best interest of their audience.

A dialog was opened with Darryl Sitarz pertaining to KIC.  It would make sense that KIC manages standards for several classes if only they had the resources and endorsement from the competing organizations.

That leaves us with hosting the TAG Standards and archiving the TAGUSA Rules as we enter into 2004.  But we are lacking technical specifications beyond the original 3 packages, and quite frankly, we are not going to underwrite the cost of further competition testing.

If the motor package you are using is not among those qualified, then it would be strongly suggested that you contact your supplier to furnish the specifications prior to December 12 2003 when the next issue will be revised.  That is no guarantee that it will or will not be used by whatever organization you run with, it only guarantees that the Tech Specs will be available for those organizations that wish to use the TAG Standards.

Section 8 of the TAG Standards contains the necessary information for Tech Specs.