" Do the MSA have professional sourcing teams, do they run proper tenders, etc?"
OK, I see a problem here. You seem to think that the MSA is responsible for decisions like who buys the tyres, who races what classes etc.
They don't.
The MSA appoint expert committees to advise them what direction karting should take and their rules oblige them to take note of the committee decisions.
So, there are rules which state how one raises a new class, and the market place (that's us karters) make the decision which classes to race. There's then a further degree of freedom given to the kart clubs who decide what classes they are going to support each year. This is usually done at an AGM, which any club member can attend, or send in a proxy.
In other words, it isn't the MSA that makes the decisions, it is the karters themselves. They make decisions that do not always seem rational to other people.
The real problem is that karters in general are extremely apathetic about almost every aspect of their karting . It is very difficult to get karters to serve on the committees of anything, from their clubs, through their championships to the MSA.
As a result, many of the committee members at all levels remain unchallenged and acquire a considerable political skill in getting their own way, even when the MSA as a body would wish to redirect the course of karting.
Given that all the popular classes in karting are proprietorial (Rotax, TKM, Blue, X30, iame Cadet, honda cadet, comer cadet) the MSA currently has no role to play in sourcing and tendering within the class.
It will be interesting to see how they manage the conflicts of interest in 2017 for example. The various classes, as they are now, have different performance parameters and while we don't yet have any clarity as to what the 2017 regs will be, you can bet there's some adroit political negotiation going on in the committees to try to get 'performance advantages' left in that will result in these mixed grids becoming one make.
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