Tri City Kart Club, Not Novice Friendly!
Provided by:  FloridaAutoRacing.com - Rob Elting

Tri City Kart Club, having no current class for novice 2 cycle drivers, allowed for a couple of races, for Amanda to run with the 4 cycle novices. I appreciated the fact that they let her do that, but this week, we were told that she would have to race in one of the other 2 cycle classes. Well, "H" has wanted to race a Yamaha kart as well, and I had a person interested in buying a kart so I had them meet me at the track and I was going to let them drive a kart. I went to the head person in charge at Tri City Karting, Harriet Andries, and nicely asked her if she could make a novice 2 cycle class, for the three of them to race so they would not impede any of the point racing that is going on in the 2 cycle classes. I was promptly told that, "There was no 2 cycle novice class... There never has been... And never will be one!"

Now at this same time there was a man who is new in 2 cycle racing that wanted to race in a novice class, and he too, was told they don't have one. Prior to this conversation, they all tried to practice and all were in the way of all the experienced drivers, and them not knowing where to go they were not able to even get any practice. So that's why I asked Harriet if there could please be a class for them, so they can learn... She said "no… And if you don't go away, I will kick you off the property." So then, I told her that if she did not offer the class, and Amanda got hurt by one of the overzealous point racers, she would be to blame. Then she told me to "load up and leave."

The whole purpose of karting is to get started in racing, so if you don't have a class at the starting point, you will run potential racers off by putting a bad taste in there mouth, and new racers not wanting to race anymore, does nothing good for karting.

You folks all know, I am all about racing, whether its karts or cars, I am the guy that wants to help someone get started on the right track, so they will have a good time in racing. Harriet Andries thinks her 104 karts is all she needs, so she sent us away, after we drove over 60 miles to get to her race. Also, I want to know why every one of the people that work as an official at Tri City Kart Club are so rude? (Except for Vinny Crawford)

Food For Thought.... Please Harriet, don't think that Tri City is the only karting club, Ocala, and Lakeland, have great races and I will assure you that if 4 novice 2 cycle karts show up, they both would make concessions, and not turn new karters away!

Bottom Line........ If the sport of kart racing is to flourish, a track cannot turn away novice racers, 2 or 4 cycle. Remember, that it doesn't matter what the age, if you are a new racer, you are a novice, and starting your racing out with others just like yourself, will make that learning curve much easier

Till next time,

Bonehead
11/11/02

You can be assured that you wont see the BoneKarts.com racing team supporting the Tri City Kart races, but we will be at Ocala Grand Prix, at their next event.