Speedway Dirt and Speedway Pavement Series
The Speedway Dirt Series is one of two WKA national series that holds races exclusively on oval tracks. It is the only series that races on dirt tracks. The track sizes range between (approximately) one-eighth-mile to one-quarter-mile.
The Speedway Dirt Series has been WKA's best attended series throughout the 2000s; although, recently entry numbers have dropped off due to a difficult economy and other reasons. The series is a five-race tour in 2009. All races are held in the South - specifically Georgia and the Carolinas in 2009. The tour has traveled to Tennessee and Florida in past years. Most speedway dirt competitors reside in the South.
The Speedway Pavement Series is the other WKA national series that competes on oval tracks. The series is a five-race tour in 2009, visiting New Castle, Ind., Chapel Hill Raceway in Humphrey, New York, Riverhead Raceway on Long Island, OCR Action Sports Track in Rougemont, North Carolina, and BeaveRun in Wampum, Pa. Contrary to the Dirt Series, Speedway Pavement races are held on asphalt tracks.
While Speedway Dirt teams are located mostly in the South, many Speedway Pavement teams are located in the Northeast. The Southeast also is well represented with Pavement teams.
Speedway Dirt and Pavement racers drive karts built specifically for oval-track kart racing. Unlike sprint-style and enduro-style karts in which the driver sits in the center of the chassis, oval-track karts feature an extreme left driver offset for a high percentage of left-side weight which greatly helps handling on an oval track. Engines are on the right of the kart - reasoning being that the driver weighs more than the engine. This is contrary to race cars, which the engine would greatly outweigh the driver and the oval-kart driver offset theory would not work.
All classes in Speedway Dirt and Pavement are powered by Briggs & Stratton 4-cycle engines. This has not always been true, however. 2-cycle engines (Yamahas and others) were once fairly popular on the Dirt tour.
Read more about this topic: World Karting Association
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