... But seriously Why there aren't any american drivers in F1

What fact? That Gordon got within a second or two of Montoya's time that morning first time out in an F1 car and first time in an open wheeler in about 10 years? And the fact that Frank Williams seriously had talks with him about switching? Those are facts, what you are talking is nonsense.

 

We like things that go fast!

Actually, I have been told, but have never personally experienced, that a shifter kart is the closest that you can come to a Formula 1 car in terms of G forces than just about anything else.

Plus, compared to any Formula Cars they are cheap and widely available. Thus, to get kids into road racing, you need to have a series that starts as maybe as young as 5 or 6, with bump steps along the way. I don't think that you will be able to gin up such wide based popularity with any Formula class.

Dale

 

I remember Sarah Fisher in the Mclaren actually and at the risk of sounding like a chauvinist, I remember thinking I could go faster. Then again she didn't have much road course experience. I think it would be hard for any woman to do well in F1, the strength required to drive the car at it's limit would be a lot to ask of anyone. A female is at a disadvantge because of thier size.

 

Me too ... but I confess to getting a little too crossed up for the perfect lap (er, store) time

Pete

 

Because my mom wouldn't let me.

 

Behold, The future is bright for a US driver in F1. Karting has taken off here ( as well as soccer ) and its just a small mater of time before one of the Lion cubs are recognised. I know of several 16 ( or less) year olds which are now knocking on the lap record door at least at Motorsport Ranch. All have extensive karting experiance here in DFW. But yes ,to experiance raw competition one still has to CURRENTLY go overseas. Pro Formula Mazda Is going to change that.

 

I so hope you're right about racing and soccer. Whatever sport the US picked up, they became winners eventually. As much as I admire the women's soccer team, I'd love to see the men reach similar levels in their game. And a US born Michael Schumacher would be the icing on the cake. We're allowed to dream, aren't we?

Not just being chauvinistic here, I'm also thinking about the tremendous boost that would give the sports here with all the positive side effects such as TV broadcasts, events and the like. NFL and NASCAR can remain #1, as long as other sports get a bit more attention.

 

I don't think anyone has given a relatively youthful perspective... so just my 22 year old $.02…

I think about this a lot when I am cycling (like an hour before work each day, 3 hours on Saturday). The obvious answer is that karting is not big here (especially true in the northeast, which is like 1/3 of the country, and holds a lot of the wealth), which puts Americans at a huge disadvantage because there is no where for aspiring driver’s to be discovered. That immediately reduces the talent pool to kids / young men (often inherently spoiled and lacking work ethic) whose daddy can throw down $40k a year to run skip barber, etc. Senna had the combination of wealth and unfaltering work ethic which made him so great, but a Schumi here in the States would never be because his family did not have the $$$, hence here he probably would have played high school soccer and then become a banker. I think this combination of a miniscule talent pool, often coupled with watered down athletes in that pool, just makes the U.S. very bad at racing in general. From what I have gathered, to be successful in racing you have to be a combination of ultra aggressive (not necessarily on the track, but training, etc.) and very brave / have huge balls. Most of my friends are well off, and I can say without a doubt that these are extremely rare qualities to find in young men that can afford to make their way in the current racing ladder in the U.S. Thankfully not in my friends, but more often I find that you get whining *****es when you put most well off kids in a really competitive situation. Although Senna is my favorite driver, there a lot of instances where you could apply that to him. The difference is his whining was about his inability to achieve perfection, whereas most well off kids whine because they don't get what they want, it's too hard, etc. As long as you're pulling from this talent pool don't be surprised to consistently get mediocre results.

Most people (myself included until about half a year ago) also have absolutely zero idea where to start when getting involved with karting around here. I live 20min from NYC and there are two sprint kart tracks, each over an hour from me in opposite directions. Not exactly a stellar situation for the financial capital of the world…

 

One of the biggest problems here in the US for anyone to make it to F1, is that nobody knows about it. Americans think racing is Nascar, so the kids who inspire to be a race car driver think NASCAR is the pinnacle of motor racing. In addition, perception of karting in the US is go-karting at your local amusement park. They don't look at it as way to start racing. Everytime I tell someone I race, they ask me what do you race. I say karts and they say "Oh, go-karting. Yeah I have raced those at Malibu Grand Prix" and they laugh. I see this only in the US. I have talked to people from India about karting and they all know it is a form of racing. I think part of reason of why karting is not popular in the US is that it so fragmented. I race shifter karts myself and the big problem we are having is the fact there are so many series out there at the regional and club level. At the national level you have two series duking it out, Stars of tomorrow and SKUSA. At the regional level you have the WKA, IKF, Stars regional, Skusa regional, prokart challenge and etc. These are the main regional programs but there are many others that come and go. This is pretty much the same at the club level. In Europe you have one series called the CIK world series, which is basically the F1 of karting. This is the series where the best of the best compete. Another problem with karting in the US, is the kart races. At the national level which you want an audience for, are held a tracks which are hard to get to. Most kart tracks are in the boonies and people don't want to drive an hour and half to the desert. You need to bring the races to them. It would be great to stage a national race with a supercross event. This way you have audience of about 15,000 people who can identify with karting because of the 125CC motors. The parents and the kids would get excited about it and you would attract more sponsors, like Honda and Kawasaki. As for F1 to become popular in the US, Redbull is doing a great job of putting on a program to find the next F1 driver. Having Scott Speed on his way to F1 will open alot of doors. The good thing about the Redbull program, is that anyone can particapte in it. You don't have to be known in the racing world. I am also sure it will make karting more popular.

 

Talk about hitting the nail on the head CRG125. Trying to figure out what class, what kart, and what motor is annoyingly difficult for a noob. I haven’t even begun to contemplate governing bodies at this point. I’m going to the better of the two tracks (an hour northwest, has sprint and dirt oval) this weekend to check out their first race of the season. They run 26 separate classes though (btw juniors, seniors, etc.). Wtf, is this necessary? The track I went to last week had 8 classes, and that was about right to divide up btw kids v. adults, competitive v. having fun. I’m trying to keep things simple, but get in a series that is recognized on the regional / national level (why get in a series that is limited to like one local track…). I’m looking to get a kart around June, leaning towards a used CRG kart in rotax, seems to be the most simple. I like TaG also, but it seems you can run a rotax setup kart in a TaG race, but not vice versa. Did I mention it is pretty hard to get solid answers on any of this stuff… I also found it somewhat comical that they don’t run kart races in the rain in NJ apparently from what the track marshall was saying last weekend (we got rained out like 2 hours in). Luckily the better track I’m going to this weekend is in NY, where they do. I also don’t understand why the popular single speed classes (tag and rotax) run electric starters, but that’s another story.

 

Brtm,

You are the prefect example of what I am saying and we both agree on that. If you were in California, I could easliy tell you what series to run, what shop to deal with and what class to run. But because you are in NJ, I have no idea on how to help you. You brought up another good point about how you are not getting any feeback on what chassis to buy . This is another problem with karting, the "damn shops". Most kart shops I have dealt with care only about making a buck. They could care less about helping the sport of karting. I think I went through like 4 different shops until I found someone I could trust. I always had to worry about shops selling me used stuff when they would say it was new. I could tell you so many other things that are wrong with karting, but it would take forever. My advice to you is that you are on the right track. I am glad you are willing to buy a used chassis instead of new. I would recommend you buy a CRG, personally I think they are the best. Good luck!

 

Cool stuff CRG125. The Birels are pretty nice too, there were quite a few as this track (www.ovrp.com) had a shop that supported them, but I keep leaning towards the CRGs, they just seem to have more character. In addition to their karts being cooler, the company itself is more what I am into than Birel or Tony Kart. The blue demon is supposed to be more of a rotax / TaG chassis, but from what I have seen, used road rebels are more available, so might go that way depending on what I can find. They broke TaG into easykart and rotax at this NY track (had 10 diff classes btw everything, so not that bad). Still looks like rotax is the way to go, gonna go to the NJ track again though and see what their turnout is on a sunny day. Thanks. Any heads up on a good place to check classifieds (been checking ekartingnews.com)?

 

Quote - Why should an American driver want to run in that series?

Why would a Finn, a German, An Indian, a Chinese, a South African (Russian to follow soon I am sure) - perhaps because these countries are aware of the rest of the planet, not raised in an insular society where world news in whats happening in the next state. I am not knocking the US here its just that the US is very US centric nation, i am sure there are many many talented drivers in the US that could be great in F1 if they had the desire to be part of a global sport. However, how could a youngster develope a desire to participate in a sport / country that is an unknown?

Its not about american driver skills, its about education and awareness of the bigger picture.

When last have you read the 'world news' section of the Wall Street Journal' and seen decent coverage of world events. Have a look at European, African, Asian news channels, they do have a local perspective but have a load of coverage of world events.

Knowlege is power - did you know there are more mobile phones in China than there are people in the USA, what happens when these millions become highly educated and hungry, which they will.

Just my 2c

 

Sad and true. Luckily I get BBC news here for the bigger picture.

 

Holy thread hijack.

You think this is about education and awareness? Surely you must be kidding. There are perhaps 5-6 Americans that could even be considered as a serious contender in the F1 game. There are hundreds of Europeans. Hundreds of South Americans. If anything this is purely a numbers game. If the Brazilian carting hordes outnumber Americans 15:1 I have no doubt they would field *many* more F1 drivers than the US.

 

Not really a hijack. You have to ask yourself why the Brazilians (e.g.) outnumber us. It is not that US genes don't have it. It is because there is a different culture. In Brazil it nurtures karting, here it doesn't. With about 260 million people to choose from the US has roughly the same pool as the participating countries in Europe. Yet we still have no F1 driver. It is because open wheel racing in general and F1 in particular is not as popular here. And that is a cultural issue.

 

I agree. But relating that to education or geopolitical awareness seems like quite a stretch.

edit: I didn't like his tone at all.

 

Fair enough.

But he hit a nerve with me when it comes to media coverage of world events. You really have to look outside the US to find it. True, that is a bit of a stretch, however you can argue if we'd care enough to look what's being played outside the US, we might realize that teaching our kids how to drive a kart instead of hitting a baseball might be a worthwhile endeavour. It has to start at the roots.

 

Maybe, but there are a lot more pro baseball, football and basketball jobs that open up every year than there are race car drivers of any type, especially F1.

 

Actually, I think of Americans know that Soccer is the most watched sport in the world. We simply just don't care. Who is to say that's a wrong or bad opinion though?

 

I was almost gonna harp on this. Virtually any other professional sport would be more advantageous to learn for a child(in the US). Football (American), Baseball, Basketball, Tennis, Golf...

 

That is certainly true at this moment. But why? Because we don't care enough about open wheel racing etc. If we would, there would be a different culture and plenty of jobs to participate in. As I said, it has to start at the roots.

Of course I'm dreaming, it won't ever happen. All I'm trying to say is, that e.g. Brazilians aren't born racers, they're brought up into it because their society considers that more important than baseball (not to pick on Brazil or baseball, these are just examples). As a society we haven't made that choice.

Reminds me of a scene from the Apollo 13 movie where Lovell (Hanks) looks up to the moon and explains to his wife, that going to the moon didn't just happen, but it was a conscious choice and decision of our nation.

 

No cupholders.

No XM radio.

No SUV variant.

You're assuming we'd fit in the seat.

 

The key here is HUNGER. How many young drivers have the burning desire to be #1 at F1? Most really are Daddy's boy who happens to have the cash to afford a racing "hobby". The US population has the money in the form of rich fathers, but how to ignite the fire? BTW on an up note, a young driver did recently set a naw lap record last Saturday at MSR (my local track ) by over .5 sec as I predicted in my last post on this subject.

 

You guys really want an american in F1? Sponsor me.
I'm young, quick, have my head on straight and I've got more enthusiasm and "hunger" for a race seat than anyone you've met. I'm a 100% serious.
Anyone have a race seat for me?