FIA Wheel Pods Are CHANGING Karting Safety Forever
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ธ.ค. 2024
- In this video, we dive into the FIA's latest proposal for karting safety-introducing wheel pods to reduce the risk of karts flipping during wheel-to-wheel contact. But will these pods truly make karting safer, or will they change the essence of the sport forever?
We'll explore the reasoning behind this controversial move, which was sparked by tragic accidents in 2024. With a potential reduction in flips by up to 70% and an 8% weight increase in karts, the decision is stirring debates among drivers and experts alike. Could these changes compromise the raw, competitive nature of karting? Or will they offer a much-needed boost in safety?
Join us as we break down the pros and cons of FIA's wheel pod initiative, look at the stats, and discuss the future of karting.
#Karting #FIA #WheelPods #KartingSafety #GoKarting #Racing #Motorsport
For myself personally, all the FIA/CIK are doing is promoting bad driving.
More protection means less effort on enforcing safe driving.
I think it’s a cop out. Opinions?
Looks rubbish
Again.. you do have a point there. However, driver safety and safe driving are not, and should not, be mutually exclusive 😁
I won't argue that . Injury ruined my days as a kart owner . The rental tanks may be safe but give the drivers the delusion of safety Have also done double duty as a track marshal and have had a front row seat for all sorts of things . Karting definately does not need another expense
@@meninoxico Learned my greatest lesson ! Patience 🤣 We had a really good indoor track and before started outdoors . I kind of helped a driver into the tires 💩 The driver had just finished in A1GP series ! Some Canadian kid named James Hinchcliffe 🇨🇦🏁 Only got 1 contact penalty since 2008 ! The story of Driver X is crazy ! A good 39 lap fight and could not pass him . When session done he gave me a hug hug . He worked hard to keep me behind and I worked just as hard to try and pas him ! Truly have no idea of his name ☹️
I have 2 mindsets: 1) if you're going to let 8 year olds race 2 stroke, everything should be done to protect them. 99% of them will never earn a cent from motorsport, and so long term injury should be avoided at all times (in my time in lower categories I saw 2 kids under the age of 15 have life changing injuries in big crashes in fully open wheel karts that prompted my parents to take me away from karting till safety improved).
But 2) it's important to learn wheel to wheel control early to train people for later racing disciplines and its better to do this at lower speeds early on than experiencing it for the first time in faster categories.
I think a mixture would works with some wheel protection in early years, moving over to extended bumpers and sidepods during middle age categories, and more open wheels at senior. Issue with fully closed wheels is you get rental karting mentality where you just barge past. It also comes down to club vs professional racing. Professionals can do what they want and accept the risks. But most msuk tracks are filled with lads and dads teams for whom a broken arm is going to impact their gsce results more than their racing career, and many casual racers would actually prefer safer racing environments. I'd personally have no issue racing in a rotax league that has a full plastic ring around the karts, since I have to get up for work on Monday and can't be assed dealing with a fracture wrist and a massive repair bill for a wrecked kart
Wtf no way
I'm am completely for keeping kids safe but point 2 is bs lots of people kart for fun and not career and will most likely never race closed wheel cars but they will be affected by this bs I feel like after 14 years old you should be able to make a choice
Kids are replaceable.
8 billion humans and counting…….
you first @@PhilbyFavourites
I find it interesting how much difference there is between people’s tolerance of danger. The difference between karting and motocross is huge.
Wider front bumber and a small rear bumber change would do the trick too. Covering is not right way. Some side pods are flexing easily. Putting front wheel on front of competetors rear wheel can easily roll kart. Less flexing side pods (and wider front bumber) would decrease this danger.
I've witnessed some pretty bad accidents stemming from small contact just due to how volatile tyre on tyre collisions can be. I've broken my arm after a kart got on top of me following such contact, and honestly came off lucky that it wasn't worse.
They're a horrifically inelegant solution, but if it doesn't affect the handling or create other safety issues, there's no good reason not to give them a chance.
After 14 yrs old they should be a choice motorsport is dangerous and you have to accept that this will just promote unsportsmanlike driving
@@daveyab4889 Just because people accept it's dangerous doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to make it safer. Drivers are going to push the limits of sportsmanship no matter what the karts look like.
@patricklampe2840 and it still should be a choice when you hit the tires of another kart it's your fault and you bear the consequences this will only cause people to drive more dangerously because it's safer back in the day without wide rear bumpers people knew how to keep distance because it resulted in heavy consequences and that is the way it should be because now sportsmanship will get less look at rental kart sessions that have many crashes because people think it's safe to do so
As a Dad with a 9 year old son karting I think anything that can improve safety should always be considered.
My Son had a accident recently where his kart was catapulted into the air upside down.
He fell out mid air when they were upside down but the kart came crashing down on him, my gut feeling at time was no way that just happened, that's it this is bad he's going to hospital, the marshalls were fantastic in getting to the scene quickly and lifting the kart off him and to there supprise and the on site medical team and my relief he was OK, just badly bruised and suffering from sickness from shock of what just happened.
The marshall right at the scene said he had never seen a kart go up in the air that high before in all the time hes done the job and said he felt for sure this was going to be bad for my son.
I did question the safety of this sport and discussed this with my son saying if you want to back out of this sport then I will 100% support your decision, he as decided to carry on.
But he did say that he finds it fascinating that when you look at f1 and how everything is looked at to protect the driver a specially with the hallo to protect the head and the body of the car around is designed to protect the driver he finds it fascinating that there's absolutely no protection in karts that children are driving and in his opinion why can't karts look more like some kind of mini versions of f1.
He highlighted a accident that happened only a few weeks before his when a kart spun facing the wrong way and then got hit by a kart that went straight up the front nassau panel and then hitting the child's head, luckily the helmet did its job but was a right off with a smashed visor and the chin part of the helmet cracked but it did show how easy it could have been for the childs head could have received a lot more damage or even worse.
So yes why not do anything possible to protect the driver of karts, if it means changing the look of the body then I don't think many people would complain and may say about time because this design as just not changed for ages, but them wheel guards look dam ugly.
Granja Viana 500 would be a perfect improvement in safety in my opinion
Karting needs new leadership. the FIA and the "motorsport ladder" is the worst thing that has happened to us!
Before anyone replies to this. Go get your kart. Take off the sidepods, front bumper and rear bumper. Go on track with a few friends, watch how fast the driving standards are raised as soon as you have ACTUAL accountability.
Then take the same group of people. Add rear bumper, front bumper and sidepods. See how much the driving standards drop. The contact increases.
Correct. Improve all safety features on the driver wherever possibel and leave the karts alone.
I prefer the current European design but the advantage to the Brazilian design is you have space for advertising. Marketing will be easier with the surface area to sell.
As you spend most of your weekends at Club100 meetings, you see there is more contact in that then there is in BPEC for example. It safer, more side pods, less chance of wheel to wheel collisions.
Making it safer increases contact. That intern makes it more chance of collisions and flips if you don’t go fully covered wheels..
Like you said go full Brazilian cover everything and make it impossible to flip. But that takes the fun out of it.
Them wheel covers will just end up rubbing on the tyres and cause you to end your race early with DNF’s
The most sensible and well rounded thing you have ever said!
My kid suffered broken bones in a massive rollover recently. Not his fault, was caused by someone else's bad driving. You cant enforce safe driving after someone is in hospital. With wheel pods you can still police safe driving using action cameras on each kart, just like they do in car racing series all around the world. Wheel pods are a step in the right direction. Saying it will change the "essence" of the sport is rubbish. Did Formula 1 lose its "essence" when seat belts were introduced? What about the mandatory rollover protection and the halo? Lewis Hamilton would likely be dead if not for the Halo. And now F1 is more popular than ever before.
60% increase in costs if wheel pods become mandatory? That's gotta be an error!
Sorry, I didn’t make it clear. Was meant to be a 60% increase in the total price of plastics
I would like to see it, but then maybe on mini karts only. the small kids can be reckless and see less danger than an adult.
You could also say that adults will put themselves in more danger as their skills improve in competitive nature, pushing closer to the edge, and the older you are the harder it is to recover from even minor injuries
True but they know this. I saw more kids flipping over than adults. Also the juniors. An adult know the risk he is taking at that moment. But i dont think it is a wrong idea for adults aswell, but make it a bit smaller so it looks a bit better
Security evolving is part of the game. There was a time in which crash helmets weren't even around.. and we all know why Gilles Villeneuve sadly past away. We were all there when carbon monocoques made an appearance, HANS became mandatory, and the HALO was introduced.
There's always a trade off. I understand that more safety may mean "a little less fun".. but.. not being able to race at all is just not an option. I'm all for doing everything we can to keep karts on the road and races going. I don't particularly like the aesthetics of the wheel pod; but I don't mind it either. If it allows me to keep on hitting the track, so be it.
the only way is 2 fold -
1 - Firstly teach the drivers to race and not barge through groups of Karts - there will always be contact in short circuit karting - in my 100Nat days we raced, hard and fair, of course incidents still happened. I used to race Rotax Max for about 8 years, and the contact was terrible even with knock down nose.
2 - Full Body Karts actually look quite good, but it won't solve the issue, just added moohasive costs
3 - Ban Karting.....lol - only have indoor electric karts!
1. Drop downs were a lazy soloution.
2. i dont mind them but it takes away from the ethos of karting imo
3. no thanks :(
The current solution looks horrible, but i do feel we need to protect drivers. this may even increase participation, esp at the junior level due to the much improved safety. I am less concerned with looks as have always been a substance over style person. If they work then that is one step, we can make them look better later. What we all want in our sport is people getting involved and it to be safe. If this this does the trick then play on. We must actively promote getting kids in as this will bring parents in as well.
Safety first with participation, looks and higher weight, worse looks and slightly higher costs are an unfortunate by product, but worth it.
A heart attack in a kart is a fatality in karting right? But I think this design is a throwaway hatchet job. My thoughts are they will rip/twist off in the majority of incidents. As for additional pinch points for limbs? It would certainly make the risk assessment for sure. I think a better question would be what's the alternative to this design? I like the current generation kart aesthetics. But for me the body work ends could flare and reach over and above the wheel heights more. This is so the bodywork is put under load and braces on the track holding a poorly positioned competitor on the flared edges and off the rolling tyres. I also see opportunity in the side pod bars being standardised with drillings to allow the extension of them to change and keep wheels inside the gaps between flares rather than the current attack with a dewalt to suit aesthetics. But yes less keep them looking like race karts not hire karts or dodgems.
Perhaps offer a send in your ideas video?
Just a note...your Elliot Dimelow Shenington Intermax video...as the kart rolls backwards off the track, my lad is the #24 mad croc that goes by. Small world. Stay safe.
It is a small world!
I think there is definitely a need for better bodywork solutions to stop rollovers but I think there are far more elegant ways of doing this.
For example, what you mentioned about them being flared at the ends to go as high as the wheels would be the way to go. Will get essentially the same results but far better looking.
Advantage for teams who will have more mechanics to deal with extra effor of these pod vs lad and dad. Interested to know more about the rolling bumbers...
So the Rotax dd2 had an innovation on the rear bumper, they would be free rolling so a kart couldn’t roll over the corner and launch. Was a very good design but for some reason stopped and I don’t know why
@@Wolemid Rolling bumpers would be more pleasing to the eyes. Perhaps come out with the rollers set higher and bigger
From a bit of research on the web. The injury rate from 4 wheeled motorsports is higher than contact sports like rugby and AFL, and even more than sports with ntoriously high injury rates such as equestrian, skiing and snowboarding. And the nature of injuries (head, neck, spine, Brain Trauma) have more long term effects, and are more costly to treat than from most other sports. In karting, most of the injuries are to under 15 year olds.
It looks like karting has a problem to fix.
If wheel to wheel contact is a major source of the accidents that lead to injury. Wheel pods are probably the least solution that should be considered.
We already use bumpers at the front, rear and sidepods. Original karting didn't have those. The only reason people are reluctant to cover the wheels is because of how bad these early prototypes look, but they could be implemented in an attractive way like they do at the Granja Viana 500 in Brazil.
Plus, nowadays it's trendy to make bumpers and nose cones to be more aerodynamic so, it is a perfect excuse to charge parents more, Implement it all together to make one aesthetically pleasing vehicle AND bytheway, get the sport safer for kids. I don't see any drawbacks.
i mean, im not 100% off the idea of the Brazilians karts (i included them at the end of the video)
@@Wolemid Looks could be changed to look better, I reffer to the concept. it coul be an aesthetic evolution of what we have right now instead
Why not over regulate the driving standards. Teach everyone how to race with respect & fairness? The bit about increasing bumping is the problem.
Great point, Scott.
💯
you already answered yourself. OVER regulating the driving standars in entry racing won't work. Many kids won't even understand lol. You need simple solutions. Unfortunately, you can't ask that much.
the issue comes that majority of wheel-on-wheel contact is complete accidents and often racing incidents where neither driver did anything particularly wrong just happened to be on a collision course. I do however, think there may be more elegant solutions that could be discussed
@Diabolical-Tyrant yes & no. My son has been racing for about 2 years in Australia. Seen some really good racing & some really terrible racing. Seen some crashes. Some of the crashes I've seen would be exacerbated by the wheel covers, plus some of the racing here is really really dirty. These wheel covers would give everyone confidence to blantaly push people out the way & cause more crashes than solve the issue. The issue is people's behaviour on track. If people wanna push & shove their way through they will, regardless of amount of safety gear. Yes it may solve some of the accidents that are accidental & racing incidents. But there are some crashes that will still happen & cause injury. It's better to over penalise people to teach them how to race fairly than it is to make us pay more for more safety gear.
This will make driving standards even worse than they already are
Didn’t a certain Max Verstappen come through Karting……..
He of the cut and thrust and dive over the top of others
The more body work that is added it just gives them more leeway to bang wheels without consequences, kids need to be taught to race with respect, look at most proper gearbox classes all metal bumpers and hard fair racing
💯 just allows people to be more aggressive with the added belief they are safer
@ absolutely, should go back to basics get rid of big teams as well make it all dad and lad type racing 👍
The consequences don't have to be said kids getting injured, that's what rules are for
Yeah no they can try all they like that isn’t going on my kart. The main issue I see is those getting stuck on a kerb, either flying off or causing a spin or flip, sure, worst case but still . Improve driving standards over promoting worse ones. The amount of flips caused by genuine accidents is extremely small, most of them come from over aggressive moves. These encourage those moves, and don’t prevent anything, you will still flip if they go in hard enough.
Just look at rentals, those still flip fairly often
I agree, I fully meant to add a video of a rental let flipping but totally forgot 🫠
Safety is more important, and the points you've made will seem as ridiculous as any other anti-safety in the past
@@-YELDAHyou have your opinion, I have mine, but the day safety goes truly mad like this is the day the fun leaves the sport.
@@master-class8888 a lack of safety doesn't make something more fun, these are completely different metrics, I've had this discussion many times before with the F1 Halo, now people are thankful for all their favourite drivers not being dead from vehicles directly colliding with their squishy bodies, same goes for karts
If this gets put in, i myself as a coach would be internationally telling the kids i coach to just push their competitors out of the way. If there is no sporting penalty. There is no saftey penalty.
Everyone above that thinks this will save their child hasn't been in the coaching sessions where parents are spending 40,000 euros per weekend for karting.
In those meetings, there is no remorse. There is no safety. It is win at all costs. These wheel covers simply benefit us because we will coach how to exploit them the same way we did with front bumpers and enclosed rear bumpers.
I hope these get put on as mandatory ASAP
I don't understand your contribution to the video. Apart from how would you tell your drivers to manage bumper to bumper racing, do you think it will make the sport safer or not? I am asking seriously. I personally think that from a safety perpective it should be added. we already use bumpers at the front, rear and sidepods. Original karting didn't have those. The only reason people are reluctant to cover the wheels is because of how bad these early prototypes look, but they could be implemented in an attractive way like they do at the Granja Viana 500 in Brazil. Most drivers in Mini category don't even adjust any parameter in the kart while racing
Plus, nowadays it's trendy to make bumpers and nose cones to be more aerodynamic so, it is a perfect excuse to charge parents more, Implement it all together to make one aesthetically pleasing vehicle AND by theway, get the sport safer for kids. I don't see any drawbacks.
On the other hand, as you admit, you and the other competitors would tend to push each other off the track more often. But we have seen exactly the same phenomenon with front bumpers for DECADES. I think it should not be difficult to determine when someone has overtaken illegally... if you overtake someone while maintaining lateral contact during the turn and at the end of the turn the competitor on the outside was hitting you to stay on the track and still had to go outside, then clearly the marshals put in 5-10 seconds and that's it. With fully covered karts you could even teach kids to race "cleanly" even with contact.
The truth is that your comment has left me intrigued. I don't know if in some way you are trying to boast about being the proud fool who encourages unsportsmanlike behavior to win a child's game, or if on the other hand you are criticizing the fact that if they implement these systems, they should somehow control the bumper to bumper fights because it would end up being the same as what happened with the front bumpers that have served no purpose.
If you're bragging, congratulations, you are, first of all, stupid for sharing your strategies and tricks on TH-cam taking advantage of errors in the rules. And second, you are part of the crazy people who have ruined the sport because they have lost their way in life. Bragging about unethical behavior that you know shouldn't be allowed is being a bad person, and commenting on it publicly is being retarded. If you're going to be a bad person, try not to be retarded. You can even be a good person and be forced to do whatever it takes to win, but you certainly wouldn't feel proud of doing something that shouldn't be done, especially in a children's game with lives at stake...
@alvaroolavarria1832 mate I agree with you, but the people in the comments thinking this will make the sport safer for their kids are incorrect. So my position is this; these wheel covers will be an advantage for the people who have no intention to race clean. Will not raise safety standards.
@@alvaroolavarria1832 He will be internationally telling the kids he coaches.. Helmet is the perfect description of this guy.
We already have these provisions and many more for those that want them… Rental karts. Wraparound bodywork, wheel protectors, axle covers. The lot.
I’d also love to see the data to support that these tacked on, flimsy looking covers prevent consequences of wheel to wheel contact. The brackets look like a child could bend them by hand.
Like this it will be so safe we’ll start seeing more stupid dive bombs and major contact I don’t think that’s a good idea
💯
Motorsport is dangerous 🤷🏻
Enforcement of better driving standards would likely yield greater benefits than appliqué 'fixes'
Agree.
But that would involve more time and effort than yet another quick fix (I’m looking at you drop down nose cones!)
Once they have a decal set over them they will soon be forgotten about and become the norm. Safety can't sit still
i agree that saftey cant stay still and not objecting to a improvment, but there has to be a better way, maybe making nose cones tapper up to a finishing height the same as a front wheel, will be more elegant but achive the same thing
If it will make the sport safer, then it’s a no brainer. And if contact is that big of a deal, they should reinforce the rules.
100% the rules should be enforced more. But without employing more officials which will raise costs, how?
Wow! Thats horrendous! I get trying to make things safe but surely they’re needs to be a better solution
Well sim racing has to take some of the blame here i have witnessed generations of kids getting worse and worse as the sim racing genre exploded, where little Tommy can just hit the reset button and there are no consequences for his actions, in real life there will always be consequences for your actions as for every action there is an equal opposite reaction that can result in serious injury or even death.
So you have kids jumping 50 foot on a motocross track but they want to cover Kart wheels.
I'm all for safety but this is going too far . Considering how many people race around the world the percentage of terrible accidents in karting is very low .
At the end of the day people know motorsport is dangerous but we do it because we love it , taking raw elements away just numbs the whole experience.
its why we all have to sign a disclaimer before we get on track! 'Motorsport is Dangerous'
the thing is that jumping 50 foot on a motocross track is inevitable. Wheel flipping may be possible to avoid in karting. Some people like racing but would feel better if they know they did it the safer way they could. If you knew that it could have been avoided and happened to a kid... I understand why some parents would feel bad
If it was actual fenders I'd have no problems
Like I said in my video, perhaps it’s time to go fully bodywork ala the Brazilian series
Rollovers are the biggest safety issue in our sport. I dont know a good solution tho, maybe increase height of rear bumper and a larger front bumper?
Not for senior of shifter karts please. It looks horrible, for the youngsters yess it would be okay.
It's the Halo moment of karting. Adds cost, weight, ugliness and laptime, but save some lives will pay off. All categories are going closed. The 90's P2 endurance evolved to close cockpit, Indy made the bumpers, we get used to this.
A better solution would be extend the side pods and bumpers to the top of wheels not making a mudguard. For last make the contacts (any) lose time in race to educate the drivers.
Not interested in these. Side to side contact is already a significant problem as it is difficult to penalise and this just incentivises it further by removing any risk involved with that sort of contact as you can no longer drive over someone or rip a tyre valve out etc. It will also likely hamper lad and dads and benefit larger teams with more mechanics in interchangeable conditions (which are common in the UK) by making it more difficult to change wheels and alter setup regarding hub length, caster, ride height, etc. I think you have to accept motorsport has some level of risk and that you are accepting this by choosing to drive. At worst I think it could be used in lower classes, but removed in seniors where people have aged and are physically stronger, more durable, and have a more mature attitude toward racing. I think it is against the ethos of the sport and is putting it too far in line with arrive and drive karting.
The problem with pod and fairings is that bumping becomes a legitimate strategy that works, I'd rather everyone have to drive with respect. no accident is safer than playing bumper karts
totally agree!!
Racing is dangerous and will always be dangerous. If the kids only learn how to drive with wheel protector wait how the accidents are by the point they start open wheel racing. It's rubbish all anyway! Digital coaching, aerodynamics, wheel covers, bodywork, clutches, sensors, break cooling f*ck all this. The only way to be a good driver is the old school karting. Go down to the track and drive, drive and drive even more. As a driver u have to fully understand what's going on underneath you and the risk u taking. If u start thinking about more and more safety u are in the wrong sport.
Close them now u protect them, in f4 they assume it’s still closed and do the same thing resulting in accidents so they close f4 wheels too, this will repeat and repeat until f1 isn’t an open wheel racing series anymore. Teach em young get rid of the wheel covers
imagine this ends up like the halo
Karting will never be 100% safe, but it's already safe enough. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.
If this happenes I’m quitting karting
Arr hell no! I ain't putting them on anything I drive
This better be a troll
A lot more expensive for families.
Yup! Another expense incoming for sure!
fuck safety, just let us race
Less HP and Harder tires is the only step to make it safer. Can it be done, yes. Will there be more cheating (tire dopeing) YES. but its only way to make A race "SAFE". Its not going to happen though, so We will do the typical karting thing, LETS MAKE ANOTHER CLASS. HAHA
GX-UK has you covered for Low HP Hard tyre combo
Absolutely Honkin!
utter woke nonsense
NO....just...NO
Is that a No then?
so gay
It is Shit.
I agree with the Muslim dude
Fenders