206 Cup is Now Cup Karts of North America

Last season, our series saw incredible racing and record setting fields. Many new friendships were made along the way. By every account, we consider 2017 a resounding success. We want to again say thank you to all our sponsors, staff, and of course our racers.

As any organization grows, it will undoubtedly experience growing pains along the way. Our series is no different. Shortly after the Grand Championships, we received a letter from Briggs & Stratton’s attorneys stating that there was growing concern regarding the use of the company’s trademarks as a part of our series’ name. Although we had been given permission to use these trademarks as part of Briggs & Stratton’s past sponsorship as the Title Sponsor of the series, our success and expansion has resulted in Briggs & Stratton becoming concerned that further use of its trademarks will cause confusion amongst consumers about the level of the company’s involvement in our series.

To that point, we would like to clarify that Briggs & Stratton has never had any ownership stake in our company or our series. Briggs has been a valued sponsor of the 206 Cup providing us with advice, financial and product support over the years.

After exploring all our options, we have determined that the best course of action for our series AND our racers is to comply with the request from Briggs and change the name of the series. To be clear, our series will continue to feature 206® engines even though the number “206” no longer will appear in the series name. This transition to a new name will cause significant expense and burden, but we believe that doing so will allow us to continue to grow the series and advance our mission of making karting accessible and affordable. Ultimately, our goal is to serve the racers and their fans the best way that we can.

We would like to thank Briggs & Stratton for its support over the past four seasons. Briggs & Stratton has helped to get our series to where it is today, and we are grateful. And although Briggs & Stratton will no longer be the series’ title sponsor, we will still be racing the 206® engine and promoting Briggs & Stratton’s product. We believe that the 206® engine is the most important engine to come to karting in a long time, as it is competitive, consistent and affordable.

We have already begun the steps of establishing a new identity for the series. There is a lot involved in doing this, and we want to make sure that there are no issues with the new name of our company, or our series. We appreciate everybody’s patience while we complete this process. Make no mistake, we will be racing in 2018; and it will be bigger and better than ever!

Admittedly, all of this has distracted us a bit over the past few months, but we haven’t taken our eye off the ball for 2018. The schedule for the to-be-named series is nearly complete, and we will begin sharing the confirmed dates with everybody in the coming days. Stay tuned to our existing website and Facebook page for these details. A complete official schedule will be made available when our name change becomes official, and our updated 2018 rulebook will follow.