ICC Climbs to the Top

Perhaps the most controversial news among the shifter kart community this year will be the change in direction that SKUSA recently made with SuperPro motor rules.

Is it really a good or bad thing?  You have to decide that for yourself.  But in arriving at your conclusion, at least be cognizant of all the elements in place.  The following is a compilation of factors that provide several different perspectives.  SKUSA has been around for ten years now, and has done an excellent job overall in meeting the objectives of the organization.  Sure they have made some mistakes along the way, but it takes the occasional off-track excursion, or stuck piston to find the best set up.

It is important that you understand that the article is based entirely on our observations from Kartweb, and are not the result of any statements beyond which have already been released by SKUSA.  It is an attempt to address the logical elements of this change in the face of some of the controversy surrounding it.

While the Kartweb Racing Team does participate in SKUSA Regional events, the changes announced have no impact to our own racing plans or goals, and we feel this allows us to be objective in the content of the article.

Organizations and Fragmentation

SKUSA adopted the bastard step-child of shifter karts and developed a well oiled organization to provide America with the most professionally run kart racing series in America.  After several years of hard work, other series sprang up to carve away some of these competitors for their own series.  Although the foundation of SKUSA was built on MX based motors, the Europeans were making strides with nurturing the purpose built formulas of Formula C and ICC.  As ICC became the better of the two European plans, it became the staple of European shifter kart racing.

Today there are two new American organizations that scrapped the MX at the 125 level in favor of the ICC.  Both of the new organizations have been successfully siphoning off some of the talent that was SKUSA-Centric.  The good news is in the initial offerings these new organizations bring more prizes and recognition to the table.  The bad news is that every new organization dilutes the value of competing organizations on a long-term value.  One needs only to look at the CART-IRL battles to know there are numerous issues that create conflict.

Suddenly, to be an American Shifter Kart Champion, you had to win the majority of 3 separate series.  One powered with MX, two powered with ICC.

Internationally there are no World Championships that include the United States.  In this modern age of transportation a World Championship is indeed coming, and it will not be based on an MX formula.

It appears the only way to de-fragment the American organizations is to adopt a set of rules that is the most universally applied, and that would be the CIK based structure.

But there are many factors that could lead to yet another fragmentation in the creation of yet another MX based series.  If this were to happen, it is not likely to achieve the superior level of competition present at the SuperPro rung, but there are many other factors yet to be revealed.  Read on.

SuperPro Operations Background

Many competitors aspire to reach the pinnacle of karting, to compete in the prestigious SuperPro race meets.  It takes a tremendous effort with commitment in time and money to be crowned among the top ten in the SuperPro ranks.  The reality is one can expect to need fresh equipment at the least annually, but often at nearly every race.  The development curve in learning to tune an MX motor of a particular breed (Honda, Yamaha. etc) is enormous and usually takes a few seasons.  But as some competitors have proven, the more restricted nature of the ICC motor does have a much lower learning curve.  Much of what is learned with the MX formula in tuning serves very well to prepare a team with serious intent to run in the top ten of SuperPro.

Whether it's MX or ICC is not really likely to matter to top SuperPro teams.  Most of these teams will just get on with testing and development and to those planning to compete in multiple series, they will view this as a very good thing.

The question arises; would this make S1 a faster class then SuperPro?

If the rules are left as they are, yes.

Is that important to you in validating the SuperPro move to ICC?

MX vrs ICC

MX motors are very abundant and the number of MX packages in competition are in the thousands.  ICC numbers are in the hundreds.

MX motor rules at the current S1 and SuperPro levels are virtually unlimited.  Every year the tuners find just a little more power and push the motor ever closer to the limits of durability.  The biggest problem facing the top MX teams today with durability is detonation.  Mostly this is due to compression, and in part due to ignition curves.  MX motors also compromise the optimization of exhaust design by requiring a 180° bend in the pipe that adds chaos to the perfection of the exhaust.

MX motors have an abundant availability of parts and being produced in mass production are generally of higher quality overall.

ICC motors have a set of pre-existing international rules that tend to improve the reliability at the front running level of competition.  Cost of replacement parts is higher, particularly bottom end and gearbox components.

An ICC motor can be tuned to generate more power, but with less deviation then an MX motor.  This is mostly due to the CIK rules coupled with the application specific nature of the beast.  Honda could care less if you want to use their motor in a kart, it was designed for a motorcycle.  TM or CRS etal, are only interested in giving the customer the best kart motor they can provide.

The talk of suitcase motors brings out a valid point, but only if one expects to run at the front of SuperPro with an out-of-the box ICC motor.  Won't happen.  Give Swedetech, or Woltjer, or Paul Leary (and indeed the list goes on) and they will find a way to make these box motors every bit as fast as a suitcase motor.  In fact, it would appear that they already have been providing suitcase motors to the SuperPro MX crowd.

Another point to consider with the ICC motor is the homologation aging factor.  Will 2004 see a whole new breed of ICC motors that obsolete the current homologation breed?  If so, what will it take to update the current motors?

Another stirring issue among the future are the up & coming 4 strokes in the MX world.  Yamaha, Honda, and a few others already have very good 4 stroke motors in production.  The debate on 2 strokes and government regulations have raged for many years yet 2 strokes still persist.  However as the visibility of the sport grows, 4 strokes are almost a certain future likelihood. 

Shifter kart technologies have trailed the MX racer market with a decreasing scale.  Two years ago, shifter karts were about 3 years behind the MX racer market, where today the shifter kart technology may be less then a year behind overall.  With the changes in direction of the MX market to 4 strokes, and the quality levels of the new 4 strokes in the MX market where they currently are, it is feasible to expect that 4 strokes will be coming to the shifter kart market within the next two years. 

That does not mean that SuperPro will migrate to 4 strokes in the next two years, but other organizations are certain to take advantage of the up & coming 4 strokes.  CIK has already made announcements of migrating to 4 stroke based power for many of their premier classes.  These announcements have been met with considerable protest among several European icons, in many of the same ways tobacco advertising was in Formula 1.  But in the end the regulatory agencies prevailed, and it is likely to be no different in karting.

So that leaves a very unpredictable future of the next two years for the rules stability of MX and ICC power.

In the long run, it is important to acknowledge that for those planning to step up to SuperPro whether for 2003, or long term for 2004 and beyond, it almost a certainty they will be using the newest state-of-the-art equipment.  That factor very much nullifies the concerns over the costs of changing from MX to ICC in the big picture.

Impacts to established vendor base

The effects of this change may appear to only impact the 30 or 40 teams to run SuperPro, the ripples will be felt through the entire supply chain.  Existing motor tuners such as Swedetech, SRS, and others will no longer have the investment benefits from the SuperPro teams without investing much into ICC development.  Some tuners already have made the preliminary investment, but the amortization of 2002 developments will not be fully realized as a result of this change.  That's simply the business risk presented by free enterprise.

At least one of the larger retailers is already clearing their shelves of MX inventories to make room for larger ICC inventories, and no doubt others will follow.  This could be a real bonanza to those choosing to step up to S1 for 2003 as there will be many good deals to be found on MX packages and components.  The downside is the trickle down effect of these products to the club markets forcing others to step up incrementally or face becoming less competitive. 

ICC suppliers will now face a higher likelihood of selling more motors, components and profits.  As the ICC supply chain is almost exclusive to the karting industry, it is a very good thing for the sport.  But they will also need to fill the void left by those who choose to depart from the motor tuning sponsorships, promotions, and advertising in rapid order to avoid further secondary impacts of this changing of the guard.

Impacts to the competitors

As SKUSA is by far the largest Shifter kart organization, and offers the best program at both regional and national levels, the impacts on the plans to those climbing the ladder are not as significant as many seem to feel.

As SKUSA has not announced plans with licensing, or ProMoto class compositions in the wake of the SuperPro change, one can bet the decisions they make will be in the best interest of keeping the SKUSA Series on top.  That translates to doing what it takes to keep the SKUSA members coming back.

With S1 being the largest entry class of the overall 125 classes, it would only make sense to maintain this class and license.   FIC once considered to be an FMX equivalent class will likely be an equal status to S1 in license.  SuperPro will be SuperPro regardless of MX or ICC power.

Two of the most legitimate questions coming forth is;

1. Which classes will be a part of the ProMoto tour? 
2. What are the licensing plans?

Given the excellent history SKUSA has with managing the organization, it is pretty certain they will be following up promptly to address these questions.  Re-writing the draft of the 2003 Rules will take a considerable effort, but it has been our experience that this is the hardest working organization out there.

Why not a transition period?

There are probably at least a few teams out there that are not going to take this change lightly.  For example there are a few that have invested in the time and equipment in S1 with intentions of moving up to SuperPro for 2003.  They may have already invested in MX development beyond that they will use for 2002 S1 with the intent of using it in 2003.  Any number of reasons could be inserted here.  The bottom line is they may be compelled to ask; 

"Why not a transition period to allow mixing ICC and MX"?

From the statement provided by the SKUSA organization,

"Concerns over the possibility of blending the formulas in SuperPro have been deemed impractical. Motorsport history is full of failed examples of such efforts, and there is no clear consensus on how to ensure equality. "
 

While this statement could lead to significant disagreement and propositions of lower compression or smaller carbs for MX, or larger carbs for ICC, the point is moot.  Merging the two classes would mean certain headaches for competitors and the organization overall.  There is simply not enough empirical evidence to identify the proper adjustments of rules to give everyone the perception that a fair set of rules have been applied. 

What do you think of this subject?

Feel free to post comments, questions, or start polls in the Kartweb Forum.