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Thank you to all that came to Summer Nats and supported the event.
Our staff did an amazing job officiating the race and implementing the new penalty points system. While we will be making some tweaks to the entire process in the coming days, we believe we are heading in the right direction based on the feedback we’ve already received from competitors.
As a part of our commitment to fostering a fair and family-friendly racing environment for all our competitors, CKNA will at times take additional steps after an event to ensure that these standards are upheld. We intentionally do this after an event, so all the officials involved have time to confer, ensuring we are as fair and consistent as possible.
The purpose of this report is to discuss the unacceptable conduct that took place this past weekend, the most glaring being the incident on lap 7 of the Senior Light feature race. Regardless of the actual driving standards infraction that occurred to cause the incident, the disrespectful behavior that happened after is completely unacceptable. As we have stated on the first page of the last 3 event’s supplemental rules, we have adopted a zero-tolerance policy for these types of egregious violations of the CKNA Conduct policies. Therefore, the following actions are have taken place specifically resulting from that incident:
- Driver of the #70 kart has received a suspension from all CKNA events for the remainder of the 2025 season. By flipping the #48 kart in the manor that he did, he not only caused additional damage to the competitors kart but also put other drivers and staff members at the risk.
Immediately after the incident above, supporters of the #48 kart were clearly heard by officials making antagonistic comments and threats to the #70 driver. Regardless of any incident on track, this type of behavior will not be tolerated. As we have clearly discussed in the CKNA Rulebook, Event Supplemental Rules and numerous driver’s meetings, a driver can be held accountable for the actions of their parents/handlers/team.
In this situation, there is no evidence that the direct family or representatives of the #48 were involved in the harassment. Therefore, we feel escalating the penalty to a suspension or expulsion would not be appropriate. However, there were unquestionably violations of the conduct policy made by his members of their pits. Therefore, the following actions have been taken:
- The driver of the #48 kart has received an additional 5 penalty points resulting from the conduct of his team/pit after the on-track incident. This will take his total penalty points to 8 after Summer Nationals.
- Team PPK has been placed on a 1-year probation period. Any drivers racing as a part of that team, or representatives thereof will face immediate expulsion and suspension if they receive a penalty rising to the level of unsportsmanlike conduct, retaliation or violate the CKNA conduct policies for the duration of the probationary period.
We will not tolerate pack-like behavior that results in the intimidation of other competitors. Through our investigation, we believe we have identified at least one of the offenders, but no official could undoubtedly identify who or how many others there may have been due to the sheer number of people yelling, making the situation even more egregious. If such an identification could have been positively made, much harsher punishment would have resulted specifically for those individuals. We understand that not all the competitors/members on that team/pit were involved in the incident, and PPK has been very cooperative with our investigation. It was obvious to all our staff members present that multiple people gathered in the group, which may or may not have included members of PPK, used threatening language which is why we feel this action is appropriate.
Incidents like these overshadow an entire weekend. From all accounts, the majority of the attendees at this weekends event had a good time. But when officials have to spend 90% of their time dealing with incidents being caused by 5% of the field… it takes them away from fairly and accurately officiating the rest of the event. This is why we instituted this new penalty points system. However, when people’s conduct on or off the track reach levels like this, it is our responsibility to take decisive action to eliminate this type of behavior moving forward.
Additionally, we’d like to remind everybody that the CKNA conduct policy extends to social media. We’re all for freedom of speech, but threats or talking disparagingly about officials, competitors or sponsors conflicts with the atmosphere that we are all about fostering. Respectfully, we are asking anybody who has made any posts or comments that are detrimental to that type of environment to please delete them. They do nothing to better any situation, or our sport in general.
Finally, there have been accusations of people smoking marijuana in the pits and drinking alcohol while racing is still taking place. I don’t know how to be more clear about this than we have. There is to be ZERO alcohol consumed while the track is still hot, and ZERO use of drugs at any time of an event weekend. If somebody states they have a medical reason, they need to leave the property and not return until the following day.
People are coming to the races with their families. These events should be a place where they feel comfortable letting their kids freely move about the facilities without having concerns about them being exposed to these things. It is also a safety issue to have people under the influence while the track is hot. In the event that further violations occur, individuals identified will be expelled from the property and potentially banned from CKNA events for a minimum 1 year. Law enforcement may also become involved if warranted.
If specific individual(s) cannot be identified, but there is obvious evidence that a specific group or team are violating this policy any one or all drivers under that tent will receive disqualifications. Lastly, if that group or team is a sponsor, CKNA will be forced to terminate the partnership and remove them from the Sponsor Roster.
Everybody at CKNA is committed to eliminating the conduct issues and making clear our expectations of anybody attending one of our events. Thank you to all that attended Summer Nats and put on an excellent show.
The team managers and competitors that these rulings impacted have already been notified, but if you would like to discuss these matters further, please feel to contact us via email. However, as stated in our notices in event supplemental rules, these types of decisions are not appealable, and the decisions are final.
Thank you,
Greg Jasperson
Cup Karts North America