Singapore Karting Championship needs to be improved!
Ex-Singapore Karting Championship (SKC) promoter from 2011-2013, Yuey Tan says the championship needs to improve after three rounds of the 2014 SKC season.
“For those who have been following the story, I think we need to stop and take a minute with what’s happening with the volunteers and marshals, and the SMSA,” said Tan.
The SKC 2011-2013 grew over three seasons, achieving numbers of 65 drivers during the 2012 and 2013 season setting records for the highest number of individual participants ever in Singapore’s National Championship. Though now, there are problems in the series starting with a lack of a proper racing circuit for competition.
“Can’t go competitive swimming if you don’t have a 50 metre pool. Right now Singapore has a 30 metre pool so no one can really go racing for real. As a community, it’d be great to come together and bid for a plot of land to build another racing circuit to go racing again. A new circuit may be coming. Let’s hope it can be bigger than the current one and almost as big as the Changi Circuit.”
There have been some fantastic Singaporean drivers in the SKC and International competition in the past.
“Drivers like Amin Noorzilan and Thaddeus Lee were at the top of their games on smart expenditure. Opai too found a way to make it work and drove very well. Randall Ng became a fantastic driver over the three years I watched him race. I really enjoyed watching Arvin Esmaelli improve which was so much faster than other drivers maybe partly due to the Changi Circuit. Pavan Ravishankar’s progression was also very special.”
Though in 2014, the Singapore Karting Championship is not looking quite as rosy as the season before.
“I read what was written in the paper about the volunteers and marshals walking off the job.” commented Tan. “I’m hearing that the volunteers and marshals need to answer for not turning up. I think we all need to stop and have a think.”
“The volunteers and marshals are a mixture of experienced and newbies to help officiate a race event in Singapore. They are being trained at SKC because this is not the top tier of motor racing in Singapore. They are some of the longest serving servants of Singaporean Motorsport and we owe them a lot even if wasn’t perfect.”
“I have a feeling the reason why the volunteers didn’t turn up was unrelated to the teams, drivers and parents’ dissatisfaction. I do however wonder why the ex-VP of Karting excluded most of the experienced crew that put together SKC in 2013 for the 2014 season.”
Tan does have a belief from his SKC experience, that parents are one part of the equation that cannot be controlled externally. The only way to address their concerns is to band together internally to try and hear what they have to say.
“The SMSA need to decide which parents understand what is happening and acknowledge their statements, and which parents are just angry and talking rubbish. I know some of the parents. Some of them have a point for sure; I have a neighbour that I often agree with! Sure, no one likes complaints. Though some like to blame as a solution within the SKC, in response to the parents that are talking rubbish. That is not a solution.”
“I wasn’t there for any race weekends of the 2014 SKC but this I know: this season, SMSA has a lot of new people working on the SKC though the volunteers and marshals definitely have a useful amount of experience that can improve the SKC. The VP of Karting is new at SMSA and so is the president. There was talk about disciplinary action for the volunteers. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
It is believed that there will be further statements released from various parties involved in the SKC in the coming days. It will be interesting to see how things unfold but one thing is for certain: the SKC needs to improve and there is always more than one side to this story.
