The future of Silverstone?

[JAG]

After reading on DSC about the dreadful lack of promotion for the BritCar 24hr event, after a similar sitiuation with the LMES race at the circuit, is it not time for major sportscar events to abandon Silverstone once and for all.

Lets face it the circuit is only interested in F1 and World/Bristish Superbikes, only jumping on the Superbike bandwagon after the hard work of Donnington/Brands to build up the supporter base. Now the BTCC bubbles burst they appear to have abandoned that also.

The 2004 LMES race only had a decent first time out crowd due to Audis promotion, which thankfully we are likely to see repeated when they and other manufactuers return to the series.

If Silverstone believe they can survive on a handfull of big events each year, leave them to it and link up with Brands and Donnington.

[roys1]

Quote>>>[Now the BTCC bubbles burst they appear to have abandoned that also]

......
Isn't BTCC on this weekend at Silverstone?

[rdjones]

Originally Posted by roys1

Quote>>>[Now the BTCC bubbles burst they appear to have abandoned that also]

......
Isn't BTCC on this weekend at Silverstone?

It is, now will be there as ever. Silverstone have really pushed this meeting if you bought a weekend ticket for the FIA GT/WTCC meeting back in May you got a ticket the BTCC meeting for £10. There is also the BTCC street demo in Milton Keynes this evening and there is also all sort's of ticket offers there too I understand. The sort of event they are having in Milton Keynes, is the sort of thing that should be happening before the LMES meeting, I know that it is common place both in Europe and in the States.

I have also read the article on DSC about the lack of promotion regarding the Britcar, which I was orginally going to attend, but I didn't get to it in the end due to some cropping up, so I ended up at Donington instead with my free ticket for the Renault event (BTW see page 9 of this week's Motorsport News as one of my photos seems to appear there).

[JAG]

Originally Posted by roys1

Quote>>>[Now the BTCC bubbles burst they appear to have abandoned that also]

......
Isn't BTCC on this weekend at Silverstone?

You wouldn't think so, and thats the point.

Apart from F1, Silverstone appears to do the bare minimum promotion for most other events.

My impression is that they want you to be grateful for letting your series on their precious F1 course.

Talking of promotion, what exactly are the ACO paying Ratels SRO organisation to do?

Do they help put together the grids, or do they simply 'promote' the LMES races?

If the latter..........................................

[Gilles lives!]

Quote: ''If Silverstone believe they can survive on a handfull of big events each year, leave them to it and link up with Brands and Donnington.''

Well I'm all for that! Now that Brands has it's grade 2 licence it can cope with LMES, certainly in my opinion, it would make far better sense.

[spectre200]

Originally Posted by Gilles lives!

Quote: ''If Silverstone believe they can survive on a handfull of big events each year, leave them to it and link up with Brands and Donnington.''

Well I'm all for that! Now that Brands has it's grade 2 licence it can cope with LMES, certainly in my opinion, it would make far better sense.

Brands is a beautiful circuit (and a bit closer to home), so I would love to see an LMES race there (if anyone's listening).

[Bentley03]

Originally Posted by spectre200

Brands is a beautiful circuit (and a bit closer to home), so I would love to see an LMES race there (if anyone's listening).

Likewise!

I think it's fair to say that JP and his team would give an LMES race the promotion it deserves. And I can think of no better venue for such an event. Something needs to be done to raise the profile of the series. 9,000 at Nurburgring was positively embarassing!

[Piglet]

Whose role is it to promote a meeting? Is it the circuit owners role?

[panoz.lmp1]

Originally Posted by Piglet

Whose role is it to promote a meeting? Is it the circuit owners role?

That´s the sentence whicht stops these discussion

If you rent a shop from the owner of the house - must the owner promote your shop?

[Truckosaurus]

Originally Posted by panoz.lmp1

If you rent a shop from the owner of the house - must the owner promote your shop?

But then the landlord doesn't get to keep the money in the till.

[bgeorge104]

I too would love to see LMES at Brands but I'd miss the camping in the infield at Silverstone & the race would have to be finished by 18:00 because of it's curfew so on balance leave the race at Silverstone & just promote it more plus buy some more of the good weather we had in 2004.

[JAG]

The manufactuers will raise the profile, as ever, so what exactly are SRO doing for their fee?

Half a DTM manufactuers budget must go on freebies and promotion!

[TheNewBob]

I think it would be best to keep it at Silverstone. I'd love it if it went to Donington 'cos it's much nearer to me, but Silverstone is a gud circuit for sportscars, and the race can go into the night, and the camping is in a gud place too, I just think some of the BRDC organising and some of the event promotion is somewhat suspect...

also I was quite impressed with the place when I went there for the first time at FIA GT in May, was a bigger stage than I'd previously seen that championship (at Donington), but having seen the F1 testing there yesterday I'm beginning to see Big Bernie's worry as to thinking the place is a bit "run down" for major events...?

[Kicking-back]

LMES should have been promoted heavily.

Britcar is club racing - you rarely see that promoted, regardless of which circuit it's at

[Piglet]

My point is that none of us know the deals that were done for the hire of the circuit/promotion in the examples given so we're debating in the dark to a certain extent.

LMES has a Promoter - the SRO - what is their role? They are not the organising club - that is the BRSCC. LMES at Silverstone was heavily advertised on Radio Le Mans in June - who paid/organised that I don't know.

Britcar - also has an "owner" (for want of a better word as I don't know the commercial set up so I'm not sure if "Promoter" is the right word) - in this case the EERC, as well as the BRSCC as an organising club.

Whilst I understand that the common response is that the circuit owner gets the gate money, we don't know if this was the agreement in these cases. Also, as has been said above, Britcar is a national B series and is effectively "club racing" - would a prudent circuit owner spend money advertising/promoting (it's expensive) a national B "club race" just for the additonal gate money that might come through the door. It is notoriously difficult to get bums on seats for club racing and more so for endurance races - the general punter just doesn't understand endurance racing. Circuits have meetings week in/week out - could they promote all of them to this level and should they promote all of them to this level?

For me the analogy is - if I hire a village hall for a function - the village hall staff run a bar which they keep all the profits from - do I expect them to advertise my function? Yes they have a vested interest in the number of bums through the door but is it worth the cost and the risk to them? What guarantees do they have that I'm actually going to run the event? Can they use my logo's etc? , Do I want them to promote my event or do I want to keep control over that?

[strider]

Originally Posted by Piglet

My point is that none of us know the deals that were done for the hire of the circuit/promotion in the examples given so we're debating in the dark to a certain extent.

LMES has a Promoter - the SRO - what is their role? They are not the organising club - that is the BRSCC. LMES at Silverstone was heavily advertised on Radio Le Mans in June - who paid/organised that I don't know.

I don't think SRO is the promoter of the LMES. Stephane Ratel lends his name to the Series as a sort of figurehead, but it is not organised by SRO direct. They deal with the FIA GT Championship. The BRSCC's only involvement was to run the race meeting, which included British F3/GT on the Sunday.

As I understand it, the ACO is heavily involved in planning the meetings, which would explain the advertising at Le Mans.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by foxy mole

I don't think SRO is the promoter of the LMES. Stephane Ratel lends his name to the Series as a sort of figurehead, but it is not organised by SRO direct. They deal with the FIA GT Championship. The BRSCC's only involvement was to run the race meeting, which included British F3/GT on the Sunday.

As I understand it, the ACO is heavily involved in planning the meetings, which would explain the advertising at Le Mans.

Although the LMES is an ACO run series, I understood that SRO were employed to promote the races.

There was an interview on DSC last year with Ratel, he was asked about his plans to promote the 2005 series.

If that is the case all I will say is, 'need to do much better!'.

[Pete Fenelon]

I think expectations of a big crowd at Silverstone for the Britcar race were somewhat naive. It was always an event that was going to appeal to the hardcore only - like the Willhire of old, in fact - and it competed with a free meeting a few miles up the road.

Hold it on a weekend during F1's mid-season break, not clashing with another important meeting, and put some some races that Joe Punter will have heard of on early on the Saturday and you've got a recipe for success....

As for Silverstone - the place is virtually charisma-free, I've never really liked it. Give me Donny or Brands or Oulton or Croft or even Rockingham (at least you can always sit down!) any time!

[captain crunch]

I'd prefer a roval race at Lausitz compared to Rockingham, since Lausitz has two ovals on site that can be connected by some infield sections to run what is quite a long road course. AFAIK, it's never been used in that configuration for racing. And to be honest, I wouldn't miss Silverstone all that much. Hardly any elevation changes, so it doesn't seem all that interesting a circuit IMHO.

[Happy Snapper]

Originally Posted by Pete Fenelon

I think expectations of a big crowd at Silverstone for the Britcar race were somewhat naive. It was always an event that was going to appeal to the hardcore only - like the Willhire of old, in fact - and it competed with a free meeting a few miles up the road.

Hold it on a weekend during F1's mid-season break, not clashing with another important meeting, and put some some races that Joe Punter will have heard of on early on the Saturday and you've got a recipe for success....

As for Silverstone - the place is virtually charisma-free, I've never really liked it. Give me Donny or Brands or Oulton or Croft or even Rockingham (at least you can always sit down!) any time!

I could not agree more!

To quote you above “I think expectations of a big crowd at Silverstone for the Britcar race were somewhat naive. It was always an event that was going to appeal to the hardcore only - like the Willhire of old, in fact - and it competed with a free meeting a few miles up the road.”

I was surprised that any spectators turned up at all, the public in UK don’t understand what endurance racing is, they are spoon feed F1 and BTCC from babies so they believe that racing is F1 and that saloons knocking door handles and mirrors is the path to it.

We do nothing to encourage the public to embrace endurance racing, its not on TV, it only makes the papers once a year (Le Mans) and we don’t promote the races and when the public do figure out when and where a race is they haven’t got a clue what is going on.

Why would any “family” want to go to Silverstone or any other British circuit to stand in the cold and rain, having driven for hours on traffic clogged roads to watch a “race”. When all they see is cars going round and round then disappearing into the pit lane and reappearing to do the same again for hour after hour with no clues as to what they are doing!

Yet they are happy to pay an arm and a leg to watch F1 pay extortionate prices for refreshments to see bog all, cos it isn’t sport or racing it’s a commercial product that produces money, it’s a massive empire that’s managed to make money! It just happens to be the F1 circus that’s the entertainment if you can call it that…

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Happy Snapper

I could not agree more!

To quote you above “I think expectations of a big crowd at Silverstone for the Britcar race were somewhat naive. It was always an event that was going to appeal to the hardcore only - like the Willhire of old, in fact - and it competed with a free meeting a few miles up the road.”

I was surprised that any spectators turned up at all, the public in UK don’t understand what endurance racing is, they are spoon feed F1 and BTCC from babies so they believe that racing is F1 and that saloons knocking door handles and mirrors is the path to it.

We do nothing to encourage the public to embrace endurance racing, its not on TV, it only makes the papers once a year (Le Mans) and we don’t promote the races and when the public do figure out when and where a race is they haven’t got a clue what is going on.

Why would any “family” want to go to Silverstone or any other British circuit to stand in the cold and rain, having driven for hours on traffic clogged roads to watch a “race”. When all they see is cars going round and round then disappearing into the pit lane and reappearing to do the same again for hour after hour with no clues as to what they are doing!

Yet they are happy to pay an arm and a leg to watch F1 pay extortionate prices for refreshments to see bog all, cos it isn’t sport or racing it’s a commercial product that produces money, it’s a massive empire that’s managed to make money! It just happens to be the F1 circus that’s the entertainment if you can call it that…

I don't think this is to do with endurance racing alone, all series struggle to bring in the fans these days. The BTCC is a shadow of its former glory in the 90s. My local track, Oulton Park, used to draw in 30-40k, these days its more like 15k. I wouldn't be suprised if many of them were using complementary tickets!

Even F1 has struggles to sell out in recent years due to very, very high ticket prices.

It seems the only series that has grown in recent years is British Superbikes, simply because they cater for the fans and the manufactuer bucks help to promote the series to the general public.

As the DTM has shown, you can only draw in the really big crowds when manufactuers enter your series, so I would hope Audi, Peugeot etc. have big plans for the LMES!!!!

[Bentley03]

There's a real truth in what you say Happy Snapper. I do think modern lifestyles have a lot to do with peoples attention span.

It's fast everything! Fast food, not just at the burger/pizza chains, but in the home as well. Easy cook ready prepared meals, micro meals etc. 20/20 cricket, because even a one day match is too long for todays thrill seekers. People generally prefer a quick fix of whatever it may be because they are simply not used to having to wait for things. It comes down to culture.

I accept all of the above, and understand that endurance racing goes against modern sporting trends. But I am convinced there is an untapped audience who would very quickly grow to love the sport if only more was done to attract them in the first place, and involve/inform them once they had decided to give up their free time and spend their hard earned cash to attend a race.

My biggest bugbear is the lack of information available at the tracks. Why on earth do circuits/organisers assume that a live viewing audience has no need of a scoreboard to follow what's going on. At the Silverstone LMES race in 2004 I ended up telephoning my wife at home for race information! Scoreboards are provided at cricket/football/rugby grounds. Can you imagine Wimbledon without any scoreboards? Why is motor racing different? For short/sprint races they're not needed, but as soon as pitstops are brought into the equation they become a necessity. It should be a requirement of all circuits staging races of this nature to provide adequate scoreboards.

But so long as endurance races are not properly promoted and audiences remain small, organisers will consider such steps to be an unnecessary expense.

[jna]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

My biggest bugbear is the lack of information available at the tracks. Why on earth do circuits/organisers assume that a live viewing audience has no need of a scoreboard to follow what's going on

Yes, just imagine Le Mans without RLM. It was dreadful before them. Straining to hear the PA whilst a train of cars (usually including the Mazda rotaries) timed their run past you at the exact same moment as the info. you were waiting for.

I have a feeling that British tracks rely too much on the public being prepared to buy personal radios in order to obtain info. in that way. I'm kitted up with the right gear, but I took my wife and thirteen year old daughter to that 2004 LMES race (they wanted to go!) and it was a pain having to share the radio. Otherwise they may as well not have been there.

At the ELMS race a couple of years beforehand, some friends of mine came along at my suggestion. Without radios they had so much trouble listening to the dreadful PA, they left well before the end.

It is a couldn't care less attitude by the organisers - kind of here we are, pay your money and stand around for five hours in complete ignorance of what is happening. Oh, and don't forget to come along next year and pay for the same shoddy over-priced service. If it were not for the fact that this year's LMES race coincided with the family summer holiday, I am sure we would have gone, as they were keen to see racing after dark, but having heard from someone else's personal experience of the failure of Silverstone to cater adequately for people walking around and returning to the car parks in the dark, I am very glad that we didn't.

I'll not listen to any defence from those in the motor sport business, because there is no defence. Silverstone is still the old airfield it once was - unless of course you are one of the good and the great!

Anybody know how American tracks cater for their audience. Is it better?

[Happy Snapper]

Originally Posted by jna

Anybody know how American tracks cater for their audience. Is it better?

I was at Sebring back at the beginning of the year the organisers published the radio frequencies of the teams and race control nearly every one had a scanner or hired one from the shop on the circuit so yes they do it better!

[jna]

Originally Posted by Happy Snapper

yes they do it better!

I'm not surprised, and Sebring is a race I'd love to see.

The only time I have ever been to a sporting event in the USA was back in 1978. Baseball in the Houston Astrodome. Boy, did I recall the superb facilities available in Texas when visiting my favourite Football League club's ground a few weeks later.