gamma racing day - why doesn't the uk do this!

[chunder]

Haha, I forgive the ACU accusation Dave, I know who you are very well, and how that just ahve made you chuckle as a result!

And you make a lot of valid points, events are the future. Race meetings are basically track days with a pay ticket.

A lot of club bike meetings are similar, but what bike racing has is that involvement from riders, it is more of a club than car racing and driving cars. Same as motocross and enduro.

Plus you have more variety in off road and it is far, far cheaper to get involved in, so a series like yours can have decent grids and be adventurous with new ttpes of class etc.

That does not happen in circuit racing anymore and you have series like rallycross that even tried to run two series at the same time and wondered why grids collapsed. And the bastion of motorsport for decades rallying has now been mismanaged so badly there is no national championship, imagine not having BSB! ( I know you wouldn't probably mind but remember what it was like in the early 90's nationally?)

It seems bikes are capable fo running plenty of different championships both on and off road, cars really can't manage it, yet for some reason the people in responsibility do not seem to understand!

[rich07]

Originally Posted by bella

meanwhile, here in the uk we've had to add a daily entrance charge (£15 for 2 days on the gate) for the normally free world series by renault event. no other event has felt this necessary on the calendar.

How does that work? I was under the impression that Renault covered the gate costs of the event? So would the circuit have to run any ticket prices past Renault? No free entry would mean less people coming through and less exposure for Renault.

Sorry to be ot but I'm rather intrigued.

[bella]

the events are run by the local renault lot - so renault uk in our case. as i understand it, they mostly pay for the event costs itself and put on additional entertainment etc to go with the travelling wsr circus of attractions (bouncy castles, kids entertainment, car displays, driving demos, etc). different countries put different amounts of effort behind it, for example the russians were pretty keen and had proper entertainment on a stage. the germans had a small fairground type effort. the french weirdly aren't that bothered, the round at ricard was well attended but most of the other events at ricard had more side attractions.

it appears the only way that it could be run here because of the scary cost of circuit hire/people control/the popularity of the event being its worst enemy is by charging what is a fair amount for entry in relation to other motorsport in this country. but it says a lot doesn't it?

(incidentally, please continue with the thread hijacking - all adds context to the entire point of discussion!)

[chunder]

Britain is a rather sad place when it comes to sport and what people will pay to watch sport.

But thankfully there are still countless sports that are relatively cheap to watch.

I do not think 15 quid to watch the WSR is a bad deal, but all that does is prevent those people from turning up that were looking at it as a cheap day out from coupons or publicity.

Motorsport CAN afford to do that once in a while. But what it does instead is have a grain of an idea, make it cheap to get people interested, then charge the earth after and try and milk the idea for cash so that the poeple invovled can cream off a profit.

I would be interested to know how much Silverstone, Brands, Assen, Hockenheim are to hire for events and if our prices are so insane.

I can believe security here is expensive, they have suddenly become big business and have somehow managed to convince this country that security guards are necessary in supermarkets, railway stations, pubs, shoping centres! Where do you think your car parking, ticket prices etc go then eh? Are we really that dumb!

It sadly appears so

[ss_collins]

Hey Maria, it has been done once before in the UK, the MN50 meeting at Brands Hatch 10 years ago. MN took over the event and jazzed it up, and did the promotion resulting in a big crowd a good day of racing and Barry Lee doing doughnuts in the pit lane.

[bella]

ooh that's interesting - must have cost them an arm and a leg in the end, though i guess oulton by nature limits the crowd a bit!

was the powertour thing back in the day cheaper/some free tickets, or was it just the promotion thingy?

[kipper]

Originally Posted by bella

was the powertour thing back in the day cheaper/some free tickets, or was it just the promotion thingy?

I seem to recall that tickets for the bulk of events were priced at the normal levels. There were some events (one at Rockingham springs to mind) where greater promotion/reduced price tickets were available.

[chunder]

Powertour was built and set up to rival BTCC, they ran F3 abd GT I think.

The same people later took on the PR at the Classic. Roger Etcell I think?

[JamieStewart9]

Bella - You are quite right about the cost of circuit hire frightening off prospective event organisers, but that is slowly starting to change as more and more weekend dates are going unsold to racing activities.
With many venues now being forced to run Trackdays on what were once Prime weekend dates, the operators are beginning to become more open to unusual ideas.
Watch this space.

----------------

Powertour was a Roger Etcell/Chris Norman/Peter Gaydon project, designed to make the old F3/GT package more promotable and welcoming to prospective spectators.
It got swallowed whole by BMP (remember them?) and the new people running it didn't have the passion or knowledge to follow the idea through correctly.

Stephan Ratel (SRO) who has come in for much - mostly unfair - critisism stepped in to save it from being dropped entirely from the promoted calendar. It has never really recovered from the BMP years.

[chunder]

I do remember Powertour, and at the time it was promoted very much to rival BTCC, but obviously without the real background of success that had.

If yu think about it though, both sportscars and F3 have since turned into Europe wide series, it i difficult to attract racers to rcae at Knockhill, Croft and Rockingham when for a little extra budget the drivers and sometimes teams could be racing at Monza, Spa and Barcelona. Similarly to F3, the budgets there got insane, almost F3000 levels.

Track days are interesting, a clear way to maiximise profit at circuits without the huge outlay in terms of security. And they have done very well on both two and four wheels.

But, they do not involve people new to the sport, that is done by experience days that can be done anywhere from a disused airfield somewhere to Silverstone. Rockingham in fact has made this their core business. And seem to do OK with it, after spending an inordinate amount trying to get poeple to go there and watch races with concerts, free days etc.

So the trouble seems to stem from getting people along first, and then most importantly keeping them interested.

[bella]

Originally Posted by JamieStewart9

Bella - You are quite right about the cost of circuit hire frightening off prospective event organisers, but that is slowly starting to change as more and more weekend dates are going unsold to racing activities.
With many venues now being forced to run Trackdays on what were once Prime weekend dates, the operators are beginning to become more open to unusual ideas.
Watch this space.

for example, croft have a 2 day trackday on the sunday/monday of august bank holiday weekend which just seems ridiculous. it's great for the trackday industry because people don't need to be out of the office and can still have a go, but it can't be good for the "sport" bit of the "motorsport" industry. if people can't go and see racing, what are they aspiring to when they take their road car/trackday special on track?

i'm not sure this rapidly expanding idea of a big summer break for the entire sport is such a good idea either - many of the big series taking a break during the month of august seems like a prime time for circuits to be booked solid with stuff for parents and kids to go and watch. and let's be real, we don't exactly have a summer here either, and august is one of the warmest months of the year. it's fine for f1, but anything below that really should be capitalising on it, not joining them.

[courageous]

The fact that people consider this headline worthy puts it into perspective for any club events

BRDC & ACO to work together to promote Silverstone 6 hours
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2015/0...six-hours.html


If this is an issue for arguably the no.2 series (4 wheels) in the world, what chance does a group of weekend warriors have?

[chunder]

Saw something hilarious today which just about sums up the MSA's approach to this kind of thing and participation in general.

They were advertising for a job to sort of promote take up and increase participation in club levek motorsport. Soudns awesome doesn't it?

Except it wasn't a job, it was an internship! So they get some kid out of uni who has probably done Formula Student, real groundbreaking stuff. They mght do good, but theya re not proven.

Why not advertise for a proper person, someone quallified with a proven record instead of kopping out and recruiting someone on the cheap!

Makes me laugh

[Adam43]

It depends if it is the only role doing it. I've come across departments where everyone in it would have a very similar job description (hence advert), but the level of responsibility changes. Can you tell from the advert if the intern is the only person working on it?

[chunder]

I dismissed it quicly Adam, I am looking for work myself at the moment and often type in random motorsport things into job searces more out of interest than anything, and it was definitely an internship.

As you say is pretty much clear it would be an assitants job, cheap labour, as most magazines do now,a nd roll them through three months at a time.

[midgetman]

Or....its a toe in the water. Find out with a cheap intern whether the job would work before rolling it out to full timers in the future.

[chunder]

Lol you would like to think so

But this is the MSA!