Galletta's Karting Club

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1. 
   Chrusher.Com

   July 31, 2017, 6:12 am | # | Reply

   For 22 of Harborfest’s 30 years, we have held an Oswego Karters Invitational Karting Championship at the end of Harborfest weekend to determine the best karter of the week of all classes, but ZERO visiting drivers showed (although 2 were available to come if others came, but didn’t). So, we are cancelled for this week and without more drivers soon, it’s not looking good for the rest of the year. So… why?

   We write this because it’s baffling to us that we can’t get more people to come out and race. Think about it! While you have to own your own kart to race at the local pay tracks, there are 20 arrive-and-drive karts on location at Galletta’s and if a driver has balls and confidence in their abilities, they’d show up and show what they got. Problem is… they (local karters who race on pay tracks and avoid ours like the plague) puss their bungholes out by not showing, proving to us they’re all either cheats, cowards, and/or racing snobs — a combination of all three is usually true from our three full seasons racing at the local pay track. Considering it costs anywhere between $2,000-$7,000 to field a somewhat reasonably competitive kart at any of our local pay tracks, and the local New York economy stinks, why is it that we have so few drivers racing with us? So why do we have a…

   Driver Attendance Problem

   We are a FREE backyard track. We don’t charge attendance to watch the races. We don’t charge money to race. We run 100% on nominal donations that simply cover kart parts, track work, lights, water, gas, the bare bones minimum. Consider that it usually costs spectators admission at the gate and $2,000-$7,000- to field a somewhat reasonably competitive kart on the local pay tracks, one would THINK that the economy would lend more people to look to race cheaper. Our karts usually only cost around $250 used to buy and a measly $25 to rent for a good 40-70 laps a week. So why can’t we get drivers?

   This year, a paltry number of 6 or 7 active drivers were available (and considering three live on the same property as the track and are available for every seasonal points race, only two veteran visiting drivers and maybe one or two rookies were available). For the sake of the track, the karts, the webmaster/statistician/video producer, we cannot run a regular points show with so few drivers. We prefer 10 drivers overall, but usually we do settle for a cutoff of 8. And that usually includes Melissa, who takes one or two laps for points and pulls in, so usually 7 vets. We did not have that and we are in great need of new drivers.

   Somehow the club got a bad rap and/or no rap and has lost drivers. We used to get 10-15 drivers almost weekly between 2004-2011. Now, we’re looking at 3-7. Now, while there are many reasons we attest this to the following:

   Granted, the economy isn’t the best, but I just went over how cheap our karts are and how basically you CANNOT race any motor sport cheaper. I;ve been asking anybody if they know of anybody, and I never get an answer.

   Now, our reputation for being fast and somewhat dangerous for anybody under say 150 lbs. and the strength of at LEAST a teenage boy (the karts take weight to hold down and upper body strength to muscle through the turns) is true, but there are a LOT of people who have the upper arm strength of a teenage boy and weigh more than 140-150 lbs.. Most of our drivers weigh between 140-250 and are all pretty close in speed. Close enough to make passing EXTREMELY difficult and require a lot of driver skill and patience.

   Then you have some racing snobs WANT to be able to blow a grand or two more souping up a kart to win a sticker and get their name on the paper or a website. Well, we have pretty damn elaborate website, showing VIDEOS on it and all over the world via YouTube, descriptions and POINTS for every race dating back to the 2005 season (and seasonal descriptions and a few Klassic races even before then). So, I guess that isn’t enough… they want the prissy feel of an expensive cookie-cutter kart and show it off outside their garages because I think more than half the time, they seem to just be in it to say how much they spent and how shiny the kart looks, because I rarely see very many stick it out for a decade and rack up wins. Seems like it’s more about self-esteem and racing in back of the big famous track at that point. And… get lost in the shuffle of a few hundred drivers and a dozen or so classes a week in 3-5 minute races. What does that prove? I spent more on my kart and started up front and won a five minute race! Hell, yeah! Try our marathon races in karts that are pretty close in speed and handling? Why not prove something other than how much money you spent on your kart? What, we aren’t “cool” enough to race with? Maybe — stop to think for a second — that it isn’t about the racing then? Maybe? Hmm?

   Then some of the less witty complainers against us are the ones that say, “wrong way”, and “unsafe track”. But since we are 1-WD, our karts just handle so much better that way. Are Grand Prix racing less talented or less cool than counter-clockwise/left-turn racers? Some would argue it takes more talent to navigate different turns instead of the same one all the time. And unsafe? Well, the fact of the matter is that, thank God, we have had so few injuries that required hospitalization that it could be considered statistically VERY low, and just as low if not lower than any pay track. In fact, in hundreds of races involving thousands of laps with a few hundred drivers since the 1990s, if one removed four girls who were injured in LIMITED track time, there would be only two injuries from men that required hospital attention. Statistically, that would be probably less than 0.0000001% chance of injury. We know that any of the local pay tracks have operated for 12 years less than our backyard track and have heard that they had more visits to the hospital than we did. We’re not bragging, but we DO strive to race safely and respectfully, which goes a long way. Prayers help, too, at least to us.

   Then speaking of the pay track, we know that we were mocked and threatened by people there, and of course some people got some bad vibes and lingering rep from that. Although it was almost a decade ago, some people may think we are mean, crank, cheating @$$#0!&$, and it’s the furthest thing from the truth. If anything, we’re often too nice, trusting and accommodating with people even when we get taken advantage of, so if people think that we’re cutthroat b@$t@rds treating people like $#!t and cheating up a storm, it’s a shame and pretty evil of people to spread bad stuff. People that really know Matt and myself know we race for the fun of it, and Matt in particular is completely selfless about helping each and every one of our drivers get up to par at minimal and give them a kart that is MORE than capable of beating him (time trial sessions prove this time and time again how equal the karts are and he even gives a little extra oomph to heavier guys). In anything, he does too much, where many pay tracks have drivers and teams who only look out for themselves and if they have a secret way to speed up a kart or what not, they’ll keep it to themselves and win every week. While Matt wins a lot, it is usually because the kid has raced karts for over 20 years and is pretty good, and yet every kart that beats him was HIS OWN CREATION. How many could say that?

   Some say we start the races too late or there is too much waiting for the races to start or it’s silly how we do timeout repairs. And sure, those are things we can discuss about fixing and take suggestions upon how to speed things up or eliminate driver timeouts. But when it comes down to it, with so few drivers, if we have to wait for 1-2 guys to get out of work or drive across town, we almost HAVE to because if we don’t wait, we don’t have enough drivers. And then when renting karts to newbies (who, due to inexperience, do break the karts down more often than the veterans do), and it being backyard racing for fun (not cash payouts or anything), then we have either repair timeouts or backup karts to hop into and do just do what we can to keep as many drivers on the track as possible. This means occasionally a late race, but we’re not charging admission and, well, if we start a race with only 3-4 drivers and then a 5th and 6th comes late and we started without them, then we just lost those guys, sometimes for good. The endless cycle over and over.

   So just why is it we can’t get more drivers to come out and not only just try it, but keep trying? When people do so, we have FUN and COMPETITIVE races. Problem is, only a few at a time do so, and then leave before the next batch sticks to it and so on and so forth, hence an endless cycle. If all our all-timer vets stuck to it? We would have THE best kart races around, BAR NONE. No pay track class could compete. We’ve had many damn good drivers before, but they don’t always stick it out for more than 1-2 years. if they did… MAN, these races would rock.

   So racers… where the f*** are you? Come on out!

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