The Seminar Schedule for the OVKA Swap Meet has been released.

Sign-Up today at:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/409094BAAA623ABFC1-46760956-2024#/

Seminars are free to attend with paid entry to the Swap Meet. Registration helps us ensure that each room is sized and setup appropriately for the attendees. This year's classes include:

Intro to Karting Open House (9:00am - 1:30pm)

with Elliot & Ethan Bokeno and OVKA Karting Ambassadors

Welcoming Remarks & Basic Karting Explainer - 9:00am

Open Q&A session until 1:30 pm with OVKA Karting Ambassadors

Hands-On Explainers and Technical Help

Get a Head-Start as a new racer by reading our Intro to Karting Guide

Branding Speed: How to Market Your Club Racing Team and Create the Image You Want (9:30am - 10:30am)

with Fritz Wilke of Ollie Rocket Racing

How to apply motorsports branding lessons to your your race team

Marketing yourself to sponsors and partners

Building and Growing your brand personality

Foundation to Victory: Exploring Fundamental Kart Chassis Tuning Strategies (11:00am - 12:00pm)

with Dan Schlosser of Pro Kart Concepts

Sprint Karting chassis setup

Handling change characteristics

At-the-track tuning strategies

Unleashing Power: Optimizing Performance of the Briggs & Stratton LO206 (12:30 - 1:30)

with Gary Lawson of Lawson Speed Shop

Maintenance tips and tricks

Getting the most out of LO206 performance

Tuning and Gearing

Learn more about the OVKA Swap Meet HERE

The following list of classes has been submitted to the OVKA Board as part of the 2024 Rules for final approval. The changes and additions include:

-IAME Micro Swift will run as a points class (225 lbs kart+driver, w/ IAME 16mm restrictor)
-206 Senior and 100cc Senior weights will return down to 360 lbs to align with national series
-206 Masters and 100cc Masters age requirement is lowered to 30 years-old to align with national series
-206 Legends will be added for age 50 & up (390 lbs kart+driver)
-OVKA 420 will return as a points class (450 lbs kart+driver)

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE CLASS SHEET

View the upcoming board meeting agenda occurring Tuesday, December 5th at 7:00pm via Microsoft Teams

Reminder: The January Board Meeting will be held in-person at the 2023 Season Award Banquet and not on the regular 1st Tuesday of the month Date.

OVKA will be hosting an Opening Day Test & Tune Event for the freshly repaved G&J Kartway on March 2nd, 2024! We will kick off the day with Ceremonial First Laps for the Gregg Family, followed by a Structured Practice Day to give everyone safe and useful track time on the new surface.

The tentative format for the day is shown here. We will keep you updated as we get closer to the Spring and as always, format, schedule, and date will be subject to change due to cooperating weather.

The Official Schedule for our 60th Anniversary Season is also here! A couple of updates from the Tentative Schedule we released in October:

>No Spring Clean-Up Day: we will be taking care of our regular track preparations in the off-season as we continue working with our contractors on new curbs, upgraded electric, and restroom renovations for the Spring.

>Points Race #1 has been shifted back one week to April 28th to deconflict with the CKNA date.

>Weather Dates have been added.

We will be revealing the full details, with Formats & Configurations at the OVKA Banquet on January 20th. We hope to see you out for an exciting Anniversary Season on the fresh track!

Our 2023 Season Banquet will be held on January 20th, 2024 at the Cincinnati Marriott North in West Chester, Ohio.

Registration is now live at OVKA.com/banquet/ including tickets for the Dinner & Awards Ceremony and a link to book hotel rooms at the discounted OVKA rate. Your annual letters with final points and participation breakdowns will be sent out in the coming days.

Please complete registration before January 13th, 2024.

We will also be offering a chaperoned experience at Main Event West Chester for our younger members after the awards banquet for a place to play and catch up! This 2-hour event will offer 2 hours of unlimited bowling, laser tag, high ropes and 1 hour of unlimited arcade time with snacks and drinks, and is available for signup at the registration link or on the print & mail banquet registration form.

Come out and join us for a great evening to celebrate the 2023 Season!

The OVKA Board has voted on our Spec Tire compounds for the 2024 season:

ALL CLASSES will run the Hoosier R70 slick tire and Hoosier WET compound rain tire.

This is a change for most classes from the R60B compound used in 2023, based on the positive feedback we collected during the season from our 100cc Masters/Heavy trial of the R70. The OVKA Board will provide details at our December meeting about opportunities to swap out any unopened Hoosier tires and discuss if we will allow a grace period for leftover R60Bs.

View the upcoming board meeting agenda occurring Tuesday, November 7th at 7:00pm via Microsoft Teams

The OVKA Rules Committee will meet online on Wednesday November 8th at 7pm at the link on the Board Meeting Page at OVKA.com. In preparation, please send any suggestions for rules updates to our Race Director at: dylancradlebaugh@gmail.com or as Direct Messages to the OVKA facebook page.

***In your suggestions for modified rules, please take the time to include the existing referenced rule number from the 2023 rulebook wherever applicable.***

This committee took the time in 2022 to clean up quite a lot of the language in the rulebook before 2023. Our hope is that we will only need to focus on minor revisions this upcoming year.

As discussed in this month's Board Meeting, here is the TENTATIVE 2024 OVKA Schedule. We've worked hard to factor in your feedback from this season, while also providing off-weekends for practice and family events between nearly every points race on the calendar. Here are the highlights:

CHARITY RACE: will be moved to the Spring, the day after Karting 101. This will act as a great Warm-Up Race for everyone to get used to the new track surface and dial in their setups.

NIGHT RACES: three Night Race dates (5/18, 6/8, and 8/3)

DOUBLE HEADERS: two double-header weekends (6/22-23, and 7/20-21)

MEMORIAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: 7/6-7

Congratulations to G&J Kartway on the completion of the major paving work and thank you for arranging for these upgrades for 2024! We also want to thank Wagner Paving Inc. for their fine work and dedicated efforts this week.

While we know many of you are excited to get out to test the new surface, G&J Kartway remains CLOSED while work is fully finished on the track and we allow time for the asphalt to cure. The track surface is still very fresh, and hot, sticky racing tires can risk pulling the asphalt apart if not given the proper time to fully set. Allowing a healthy curing period well into this winter will protect against premature damage and guarantee a longer useful life for the new track surface.

We will work with G&J Kartway to announce the official re-opening date for practive when it is appropriate, and we appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping to protect the significant investment that has gone into this project.

As always, keep up to date on all of our social media channels, as well as OVKA.com!

G&J Kartway Repave

Work at G&J Kartway officially kicked off on Monday, October 10th, 2023, with removal of the top layers of track surface, and grinding out and filling in of the larger cracks and seams that had opened up in the old asphalt layers. Work will continue while the weather holds to begin paving the new asphalt layers.

OVKA Off-Season Hangouts

JOIN US: Next Saturday for our first Off-Season Hangout at Dayton Cars & Coffee. We're going to schedule several of these meetups in the upcoming months at rotating locations around Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky, for our members to get out and mingle away from the hectic schedule of race days.

Come out and get to know your fellow OVKA members and help spread the word about OVKA Kart Racing!

ATTENTION RACERS:

G&J Kartway will be CLOSED starting on October 9, 2023 for a full circuit repave, modernization of the track's curbs, upgrades to facility's overhead lights, and other renovations.

OVKA would like to extend our gratitude to the Gregg family for the extensive and ongoing planning effort that has gone into this project, and we look forward to working with the track to debut a refreshed G&J Kartway for OVKA's 60th anniversary season in 2024.

This is a large slate of projects whose schedules may be influenced by weather in the coming months, so we thank you for your cooperation and understanding while the track is unavailable. If you plan to store trailers or equipment at G&J over the winter, they must be moved completely out of the pit areas and back against the tractor pull field.

As always, you can stay up to date with news at OVKA.com and our social media channels. We will keep you appraised of the progress of work and the planned reopening schedule throughout the offseason.

We ask you to please take the time to thank Gary Gregg and the whole Gregg family for their decades of support, hard work, and dedication to keep club-level kart racing thriving and affordable.

View the upcoming board meeting agenda occurring Tuesday, October 3rd at 7:00pm via Microsoft Teams

RACE REMINDERS:

The final OVKA points race of 2023 is SATURDAY September 30th, running a standard daytime timetable and will use the 5 min Qualifying-Prefinal-Final race format on the classic "A" configuration at G&J Kartway. See the SERIES INFORMATION page for more details.

**We will be hosting a Chili Cookoff (with prize giveaway) in the afternoon on Saturday, so bring plenty of chili and a big appetite**

THE FOLLOWING DAY (October 1st) is the annual OVKA Charity Race. This non-points event raises donations to the local Camden Food Pantry as well as funds for local services and clubs in the area. The race day will start an hour later than the standard schedule (8am Gate Time).

All regular OVKA classes are available for registration, and the race day will use the Pea-Pick format (two Heats and a Feature) with a random track configuration drawn for each round. Come out and join us for a fun and easy-going end to the season!

Join our Banquet Committee online on Wednesday 9/20 to discuss logistics, scheduling, and new ideas for the 2023 OVKA Season Awards Banquet! The meeting will be held on the usual Teams Meeting link on the Board Meeting page.

The 2023 Banquet will be held Saturday, January 20th at the Cincinnati Marriott North in West Chester, Ohio. Registration details and more will become available in the coming weeks on the Banquet Page.