It seems like yesterday, but 2023 will be OK’s eighth season as the base category of international karting. Strongly desired by former CIK Vice President Van De Grint, after the disastrous 9 years of KF, perhaps the darkest in karting history. Conceived in close cooperation with engine manufacturers, the OK slowly caught on, confirming the validity of the project until it became what was initially conceived for: a field of true competition with performance karts that guaranteed hard-fought races. The point, however, is that the formula, “Original Karting” (an acronym for OK), came into being essentially for the promotional purposes of karting itself - not so much of karting as, instead, a platform for the supply chain, or feeder system, leading to single-seaters and eventually to the chimera of F1. Alas, thanks to the initial indolence of the ASNs, the national auto racing federations, no OK championship has developed in any of the karting countries that matter so much that today we reach the paradox that with these karts we race only in FIA races and private Series at what are insane costs.
In this justified reflection on the present and, especially, on the future of international karting, the OK world championship, this year held in Sarno, also ends up. The flagship event of the FIA Karting season is increasingly losing its luster and interest thanks to a congested race calendar. The Circus no longer offers any stimulus: same performers, same tracks, now addicted to this perverse mechanism and especially to the business it produces, acting, however, as a counterpoint to the propaedeutic value of karting. Thus, the world championship looks more and more like a very normal race with the same protagonists on the same stage every Sunday of the year. And because of this succession of events that have ended up not giving the right and proper value to the season’s most important race in which even those who win are in danger of taking a back seat. So, too, the entire kermesse...