Track Tac

Whats going to happen in the karting world

Don K said:
As much as I hate to see an American company bite the dust it sort of serves them right for trying to cram the Animals down our throats years ago.

I didn't see them cramming anything. We raced everything including the peanut butter metal clones. It was a hundred bucks and worth only a hundred bucks. Compared to the Briggs they popped like popcorn. We quickly dropped clones and went back to the Animal which in the end turned out to be best motor in the garage given the number of times we raced and won with it. kartracer_3,,,, were they so expensive that Briggs did you wrong? Is a National, and I say National motor worth $2k? I think so.

It's ridiculous to think that the absolute cheapest piece of peanut butter metal clone (of Honda and built by slave labor from a communist country), is the only answer for a kart racing motor.

Personally, I believe it is, just reward, that the top line racing clones are now $2k. Fifteen hundred to make them last and $.5k to make them fast.

DK
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So you are ok paying 1500-2000.00 for a cheap industrial engine?
Remember briggs has a factory in china, and it was because of Chinese briggs rods that the billet rod was allowed
 
206. $700 to $800. National rules. Saved and brought back a lot of the right/ left kart racing across the country. Oval guys won’t even look at it. Why? Ran one for 4 years from time to time. Only work was oil change and head getting freshen. Still ran up front with different driver and karts. Only reason not running anymore is the tag is outdated.
 
kartracer_3 said:
As much as I hate to see an American company bite the dust it sort of serves them right for trying to cram the Animals down our throats years ago. They should have NEVER done away with the flat head engine.
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This is an interesting perspective to me. Not the first I've heard of it, but it makes no sense to me. Karting engines are what, maybe 10,000 qty. in the market, total? Mower and lawn equipment engines -- in the millions. Karting will never dictate to the small engine manufacturer what is profitable.... we get the "profitable leftovers." So when the EPA pushed for OHC engines, Briggs developed a karting variant, and offered it. I can't speak as to how the marketing of the Animal went, but for those paying attention, the writing must have been on the wall... I think for kartings' needs the flathead is perhaps better, but it's shortsighted to think that Briggs would have kept the moldings up to spec, etc. just for the karting world. A niche manufacturer could have taken over production, or we could've written a spec to allow billet blocks... OR.....WKA could've just written a SPECIFICATION instead of another unholy engine or tire alliance.
 
What is interesting in this matter is that a lot of tracks are offering a flathead class... And on top of that i have seen where tracks offer at least one "money" race a season for the flathead class... It may not be much but the flathead in fact is a engine that will probably never really go away... I have raced a 206 on dirt and after 3 races the cam went soft... I took it to the engine builder i bought it from and he sent it to briggs and i got another fresh engine out of the deal... The animal is quite popular in cage kart racing... The clones have so many variations of block size, manufacturers, and go fast parts to go in them... And to be competitive in a clone you have to spend anywhere from 750-2000 built... 750 will buy you a new 206... And the 206 with proper maintenance will last until the seals are outdated... Then take the 206 to a builder and blam you have a animal... The clone has to be freshened around every 6-8 races... When you are a racer on a budget the briggs engine is where the best money is spent...
 
Ted Hamilton said:
This is an interesting perspective to me. Not the first I've heard of it, but it makes no sense to me. Karting engines are what, maybe 10,000 qty. in the market, total? Mower and lawn equipment engines -- in the millions. Karting will never dictate to the small engine manufacturer what is profitable.... we get the "profitable leftovers." So when the EPA pushed for OHC engines, Briggs developed a karting variant, and offered it. I can't speak as to how the marketing of the Animal went, but for those paying attention, the writing must have been on the wall... I think for kartings' needs the flathead is perhaps better, but it's shortsighted to think that Briggs would have kept the moldings up to spec, etc. just for the karting world. A niche manufacturer could have taken over production, or we could've written a spec to allow billet blocks... OR.....WKA could've just written a SPECIFICATION instead of another unholy engine or tire alliance.
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Short sighted ? perhaps.
"A niche manufacturer could have taken over production " Yes that is what I was hoping for but it never happened.
 
If i remember correctly honda tried to make its own variant of the flathead which flopped... I feel i may have tunnel vision on this matter... I guess all we can hope for is that someone takes over for briggs in the matter... I just cant see how karting will evolve if all the engine packages offered are the clone and the predator... Just like the clone the predator will start getting more expensive as this class grows in interest...
 
Ted Hamilton said:
A niche manufacturer could have taken over production,
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On the flathead, that was tried. Briggs kept throwing lawyers at anyone attempting to do so.

And the last couple of years that Briggs had "red box" assembled Raptors, they sold 40,000 of them in two years, if Dave wasn't exaggerating when he told me they had 40,000 red box Raptors assembled and warehoused.
If they'd sent the Model 13 molds to China instead of Mexico and maintained motorsports production, there never would have been a clone, and there would have been a couple hundred or more Mom and Pop kart shops that would still be around.
It's important to remember that those Mom and Pop kart shops were the places where many, if not most, new kart racers got introduced to the sport.
Now it's 2020 and everything is done by mail and on-line by larger companies.
Is it for the better? Sometimes I have to wonder. Of course I'm just an old dinosaur. :)

By the way, don't forget that the LO206 and the Animal are based on the Intek, which is a $99 engine.
 
Bob Evans said:
On the flathead, that was tried. Briggs kept throwing lawyers at anyone attempting to do so.

And the last couple of years that Briggs had "red box" assembled Raptors, they sold 40,000 of them in two years, if Dave wasn't exaggerating when he told me they had 40,000 red box Raptors assembled and warehoused.
If they'd sent the Model 13 molds to China instead of Mexico and maintained motorsports production, there never would have been a clone, and there would have been a couple hundred or more Mom and Pop kart shops that would still be around.
It's important to remember that those Mom and Pop kart shops were the places where many, if not most, new kart racers got introduced to the sport.
Now it's 2020 and everything is done by mail and on-line by larger companies.
Is it for the better? Sometimes I have to wonder. Of course I'm just an old dinosaur. :)

By the way, don't forget that the LO206 and the Animal are based on the Intek, which is a $99 engine.
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Thanks for the history lesson , I was completely out of karting during that time frame and never knew that more production of the flathead was tried. All I remember is they stopped making them, introduced the animal and then folks started racing the clones
I tried getting an animal class going but was thrown to the wolves in the open class which was not fun at all, same thing with the World Formula a year later because the 3 guys that said they would race them bailed on me.
Also wondered why China did not clone the flathead as well, maybe thats why Briggs sent the molds to Mexico so that would not happen.
 
You’re right they are all based off lawn mower engines. B&S is no saint we all know that. If you ran a flathead years ago you paid big bucks for a potato digger. Same with the animal. Now it’s the same thing from a different country. I feel and you all may feel differently but my point is that the 206 is yes based off a $99 lawn mower engine with tighter specs, and national rule set, and a track record for being low maintenance. Which would make people focus more on their driving and set up. It helped the asphalt stuff to bring kart count up. Maybe it could help the local dirt tracks. Just my thoughts.
 
RacerTB said:
You’re right they are all based off lawn mower engines. B&S is no saint we all know that. If you ran a flathead years ago you paid big bucks for a potato digger. Same with the animal. Now it’s the same thing from a different country. I feel and you all may feel differently but my point is that the 206 is yes based off a $99 lawn mower engine with tighter specs, and national rule set, and a track record for being low maintenance. Which would make people focus more on their driving and set up. It helped the asphalt stuff to bring kart count up. Maybe it could help the local dirt tracks. Just my thoughts.
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I think it would be tough to take over the Predator classes. With that said, a national predator rule set wouldnt be bad. As it is I have to check everything with a fine tooth comb before going to a new track.
 
A friend of mine worked at a local factory that is a division of Briggs and Stratton. Back in the spring he was laid off without the possibility of recall, along with many others in the factory. The other day there was rumor floating around, they might have had a radio add looking to hire new employees. There is word that they are re-organizing and will be back in business soon. That is not their major engine building plant, they build generators or construction lights or something along those lines. There are still a few around here that run the Flatheads in open backyard classes, and some tracks are running classes for the 206. Most are all clone. At least one track in the eastern part of the state are predator only. Those guys are wanting all tracks to go predator, we wanted to run those tracks this year for fun but with the predator and Hoosier tire rules the cost would be too high. Those guys claim the clone classes are quickly dying out, and kart racing will be all predator in a couple of years.
 
jacobsdad said:
A friend of mine worked at a local factory that is a division of Briggs and Stratton. Back in the spring he was laid off without the possibility of recall, along with many others in the factory. The other day there was rumor floating around, they might have had a radio add looking to hire new employees. There is word that they are re-organizing and will be back in business soon. That is not their major engine building plant, they build generators or construction lights or something along those lines. There are still a few around here that run the Flatheads in open backyard classes, and some tracks are running classes for the 206. Most are all clone. At least one track in the eastern part of the state are predator only. Those guys are wanting all tracks to go predator, we wanted to run those tracks this year for fun but with the predator and Hoosier tire rules the cost would be too high. Those guys claim the clone classes are quickly dying out, and kart racing will be all predator in a couple of years.
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I see more tracks going to the animal or 206. The Chinese can’t keep up with production as is. Our local HF never has any. Two local tracks here asked for a poll on the clone vs animal in champ buggy’s and everyone is posting animals. So it will be interesting.
 
kartracer_3 said:
I thought almost everyone was already running clones. Here in southern Indiana we have had a good bit of flathead racing going on basically for old time sake because most all of us started racing with FH's years ago but for the most part its clones. We currently have zero classes at any of the dirt tracks around here that run an engine that Briggs currently manufactures. So Briggs going out of business will not affect my karting world at all.
As much as I hate to see an American company bite the dust it sort of serves them right for trying to cram the Animals down our throats years ago. They should have NEVER done away with the flat head engine.
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You can thank our government for stopping Briggs from building the flathead engine. The Government through the EPA determined it put out too much co2, smog. Briggs fought the decision !! They did not try to cram the animal down our throats. As usual our problems started with our government.
 
One Fast Kat said:
You can thank our government for stopping Briggs from building the flathead engine. The Government through the EPA determined it put out too much co2, smog. Briggs fought the decision !! They did not try to cram the animal down our throats. As usual our problems started with our government.
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Briggs could have done nothing, keep that in mind. They came up with the Animal and 206 to help karting. None of it is to make money, regardless of what anyone thinks. It was all done with good intentions. Remember they are still assembled in the USA giving hard working Americans jobs, so the rest of us can have fun! Remember guys this is all about fun, it’s kart racing!
 
One Fast Kat said:
You can thank our government for stopping Briggs from building the flathead engine. The Government through the EPA determined it put out too much co2, smog. Briggs fought the decision !! They did not try to cram the animal down our throats. As usual our problems started with our government.
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BS, they could of sold it in kit form and circumvented the EPA rule.
They still build a flathead for lawnmowers
 
Whitford92 said:
Briggs could have done nothing, keep that in mind. They came up with the Animal and 206 to help karting. None of it is to make money, regardless of what anyone thinks. It was all done with good intentions. Remember they are still assembled in the USA giving hard working Americans jobs, so the rest of us can have fun! Remember guys this is all about fun, it’s kart racing!
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LOL the animal is just an intec with a fancy sticker, Briggs was approached about offering a cheap engine way before the 206 came out and they wanted nothing to do with it, until they saw a massive drop in sales from the clone.
The clone gives hard working Americans jobs as well
 
Whitford92 said:
Briggs could have done nothing, keep that in mind. They came up with the Animal and 206 to help karting. None of it is to make money, regardless of what anyone thinks. It was all done with good intentions. Remember they are still assembled in the USA giving hard working Americans jobs, so the rest of us can have fun! Remember guys this is all about fun, it’s kart racing!
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Clone is also, by many builders.
 
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