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Personally other than doing some karting for fun with other drivers I know, I've never run in karts, never been into karts and probably never will be. So I'm no expert on it.
But what I have seen with karting is similar to what other people have mentioned. I'll never forget seeing at one national meeting I happened to be at(for other reasons), Nascar sized car haulers turning up and disgorging one little tiny kart with 4-6 mechanics fawning over it.
To me that approach is like using a B-52 to open a can of Coca Cola. Karting today is very far removed from what it once was.
It's too much and it's way over the top and to me compared to the good ole days, the "fun" element is totally missing from junior formula categories, even from 10 years ago. And by fun, I don't mean extra curricular activities at or away from the track, I mean the racing itself today is both boring, plain, soulless, emotionless. Too much over reliance on one make cars and control parts. Dull.
It's almost like people are spending enormous sums of money going through the motions to be a robotic racing driver, almost all of whom never even touch F1. I just don't see the passion or interest from drivers like I used to. And it's probably why up until a few years ago, I knew just about every formula series in the world and about all the drivers and now I could care less for the most part.
And I'll tell you another thing I see is all this obsession with data logging and engineers and that blah blah you've got to have it in all these junior formula cars cause that's what they've got in F1. #1, most race engineers I have met don't know a damn thing about driving and all that data is two dimensional because you have to have the context of the whole situation from the person that actually sits in the car. I see a huge over reliance on it and drivers are not developing their own instincts and race craft and the ability to communicate and provide feedback.
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