Brian -- makes a sad kind of sense. Maybe if it was something like Racesavers that restricted the breathing so that the rest was negligible....Dunno'. We're our own worst enemy. I guess it really depends on why one races. I do it for the sheer joy of it. Others have a compulsive need to be "the best," whatever that means to them. Perfection exacts a very high price.
Racesavers are basically an LO206 (or maybe more closely the old Blue Wazoom) of sprint cars. Chevrolet blocks only, spec. unported cylinder heads, all sealed (and resealed) by licensed engine builders. A guy can spend $20G+ on a Racesaver engine, or he can spend $12G. The end result will be nicer parts, sure, but no more power.
I think one of the keys to the success of Racesaver program is that it pays very little to win. There's no incentive for guys to get "creative" in the cylinder heads and cams to take chances on slight performance gains at a much greater risk and constant rebuilds. There was talk of a few guys that have tried that route for the one-off races that paid some money, but you can't justify blowing them up or needing to reseal them every other race for $400 (+labor) for a couple hundred rpm or 20 HP advantage.
It's "an" answer, but it's not "the" answer.
The LO206, whether you like spec racing or not, totally revitalized the sprint side of karting. It has made some inroads into the oval scene (at least here in the midwest and pockets elsewhere,) but hasn't even made a dent in the clone sales in the oval market. The Predator, on the other hand, is definitely taking some clone sales -- the problem is, that it is clone 2.0 as far as history and rules.
FWIW, we just got two new Lo206 engines in (back-orders) on Friday, and two more customer engines in for rebuilds.
We sure haven't seen a drop in demand for the 206, despite the uncertainty @ Briggs.
I know the saying that "no news is good news," but eventually I think we'll hear something from Dan about the direction of the company. I suspect that's still being ironed out.