Positive Energy

In a period or era in which it is easy to become polarized on any issue, let alone controversial ones, it is the task of those who seek to be above the parties, unbiased, objective - as only, now rarely, journalism done well can be - to report the facts for what they are, without letting their opinions become the "fact" or the "news." In its 33-year history, this magazine has seen things change: it has seen them change in the form of technological advances, political choices, simply sometimes with the passing of time. It has been nice, often, to let the opinions gathered on the track, or among insiders and practitioners, find their place in the story, but the effort to make the idea as objective as possible of what was happening, in good faith, we can, indeed, say we always did.
 
Today, 2022, the debate on the advent of electric vehicles at every level is more open than ever: heated, polarized, indeed, fiercely anchored – sometimes - to our prejudices. The test we carried out on the track with BSR - as well as other recent tests carried out on this type of vehicle - gave us the opportunity to see that it is now possible to produce an extremely high performance 'racing' electric kart (comparable to the current OK category), put it on the track and give the driver the sensations he or she expects when driving a kart: acceleration worthy of a single-seater racing car, fun, and driving feel absolutely in line with what a racing kart must offer.
 
The absence of noise? Sure, it makes the experience special, different, for those who grew up breathing the smell of gasoline and oil and being fascinated by the roar or rumble that also gives our magazine its name, but that's not what we want to talk about here and now. The brake on the front operated by the pedal? An interesting innovation, which, by the way, back in the days when FIA imposed the bizarre steering wheel brake system on single-gear cars, Giancarlo Tinini and CRG had tried to promote the former, but it was rejected by the Federation. With these vehicles, moreover, it is an important step to improve their braking safety, given the significant weight that the presence of the battery entails. Weight? If we want to open the debate, and we will, at least we can say that here the weight is structural and related to the functioning of the vehicle itself, and not added by mounting pieces of lead around the seat: it goes without saying that every single aspect of the matter can make people talk, argue, divide.
 
For us, of yesteryear, in addition to the technical aspects that you will see carefully examined in the magazine, one feeling remains: the positive energy of the moment when we took off our helmets at the end of the day, the one that only our sport and a unique vehicle (whatever energy drives it) can give to those privileged enough to be able to practice it.
 
Note on the opening photo:
1995 (left, yours truly on the most regretted karts in history)
2022 (right, again yours truly quite a bit older on the most 'talked about' karts of the day)