Losing the passion

[yasushicho]

It's difficult to understand if its a case of rose tinted glasses or not but I definitely have lost a lot of passion for it. It's all about the circuit and one off events for me now. Circuits like Silverstone, Shanghai, Austin etc etc. I just cannot get excited by any race going on there. Why the hell anyone would pay to spectate at Silverstone is beyond me. One of the most souless circuits I've ever been to, which condisdering the history is strange. I tend to just pick out events from different series and watch them on decent circuits Blancpain at Brands Hatch GP, BSB at Cadwell, 12 Hours at Bathurst, USCC at a few of the US cicruits. The US cicruits seemed to have been kept fairly untouched compared to the European ones. Also another downfall in my passion is rules, rules and more rules. Penalties for this that and everything! Whatever happened to keeping things simple!?

[tux]

I know what your saying, for me a large amount of the excitement has gone. There was a time i would stay up/get up at all hours to watch motorsport but now it really doesn't bother me.

[Paradise City]

I always enjoyed the TVR Tuscans and such. But single-make series within international level just seems very underwhelming and barren - even if the racing is good.

[chunder]

Strong agreemtn with bert here.

Next weekend there is Modified live at Brands aswell as a single venue rally. BOTH events for a cheaper price than damned practice at the Classic. Two great events, different disciplines, great cars. What more could you want? OK it might not be fashionable, amazing racing, lovely old cars. But its new, huge horsepower, different and interesting.

I do realise that if folk are quite happy to pay for overpriced events like the Classic, NEC show, F1 and the like then it must be seen as a success. But as a fan of many years, when you see an event doing fairly well, you just imagine what it might be like if it was still 20 quid? Would you get another 20,000 in the gate?

I expect not, but when I can watch most of the same cars at Brands for half the price to watch racing and not pay backhanders to bands, clubs etc I would rather do that I'm afraid.

[Razor]

Thanks for all the support and shared stories. I still get excited when I see the WRC after being out of the loop for a while. As someone posted, time to create the story instead of watching it. Just put in order for some race apparel and heading to Eastern Creek soon for some serious racing.

[275 GTB-4]

Originally Posted by Razor

Thanks for all the support and shared stories. I still get excited when I see the WRC after being out of the loop for a while. As someone posted, time to create the story instead of watching it. Just put in order for some race apparel and heading to Eastern Creek soon for some serious racing.

Captain to crew. Those of you who have served for long on this vessel have encountered alien life-forms. You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there's no such thing as the unknown--only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilization is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a life-form advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives. All decks stand by. Captain out.

Onya Razor...get stuck into it!

[Razor]

Nice work Captain. Watch this space because 2015 might be a big surprise come Bathurst (12hr and 1000)

[Ford289429]

Monster Girls, Grid Girls, IA Girls, Sprintcupnascar girls, Trophy Girls! Only reason to watch! Who cares about guys in cars?...

[chunder]

Oh dear,

[ascarmarshal]

I lost my passion when my mother died in 2006. I gave up marshalling a year later and in recent years I have only been to 4 meeting is since (despite the fact I get a free season pass for Brands Hatch). My life is now taken up with WW2 Living History and shooting. I am currently aiming to get into the Team GB shooting squad for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. I watch races on TV if I am at home and nothing else is on. In fact the only race I make sure I watch is Le Mans

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Ford289429

Monster Girls, Grid Girls, IA Girls, Sprintcupnascar girls, Trophy Girls! Only reason to watch! Who cares about guys in cars?...

Think there are easier ways to watch girls - with much less clothing and performing various exercises too - than tune in for some motor racing to catch a brief glimp of few of them

[Andy77]

When my interest in all things 4-wheel racing dropped, my old love for motorcycles broke up. Love road racing. but also follow world endurance, sidecars, speedway, idm, bsb. I do follow the major series too but from a greater distance I used to follow 4 wheel racing. A fun thing to follow the past year was my local lawnmower race team becoming german champion.

Also it still is possible to race on low budget with 50cc mopeds and rollers in fun cups.

[tux]

I dunno whats wrong but in past years my weekends would be full watching anything and everything. I used to get up at all times of the morning to watch F1 practice sessions, V8 Supercars etc. However the last 4-6 weeks ive just lost all interest in everything. Anyone else feel the same?

I dont know if its just overkill with almost every major series being available to watch online or if its just the same cars every weekend. (one make, GT3, TCR).

I dont know, i just felt like i needed to moan about it..

[coppice]

I fail to understand how anybody thinks that being interested in motorsport means just watching TV . It is not a sport that works at any level on telly -the director decides who you see and where , and the commentator assaults you with hyped up drivel on what you are watching. I try to watch most GPs and end up fast forwarding . BTCC ? Deeply tedious , not to mention its achingly dull support package .



Motor sport for me is a visceral, live , 3D experience - not sitting on a bloody settee and getting worked up about Jason Plato's boost settings. This year I've watched live HSCC and CSCC racing , some modern stuff including BTCC , drag racing , hillclimbs and autograss . Each has its own appeal but the one thing they have in common is that it is only fun if you are there. And if it is televised it usually means it is less fun - TV has both made and destroyed our sport

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by tux

I dunno whats wrong but in past years my weekends would be full watching anything and everything. I used to get up at all times of the morning to watch F1 practice sessions, V8 Supercars etc. However the last 4-6 weeks ive just lost all interest in everything. Anyone else feel the same?

I dont know if its just overkill with almost every major series being available to watch online or if its just the same cars every weekend. (one make, GT3, TCR).

I dont know, i just felt like i needed to moan about it..

I have a little bit of the same feeling, although not to the extent you have. I very much have it with F1. I'll sometimes find an online stream, but I used watch every FP, and now I don't even watch every race.

But I do watch more sportscars than ever. Blancpain (although a bit poor this year), Blancpain Asia, GT4, VLN, etc. But now it seems that if a car has open wheels, I just don't care as much as I used to.

Maybe in your case, you just need a break. Burn out is a thing.

[S griffin]

I still enjoy watching motorsport. Maybe having freeview helps. Means I don’t spend all day watching TV usually

[Racer65]

Totally lost interest in F1. Haven't watched a single race live on TV this year for the first time in decades and I've only watched the highlights of two.

Watched a lot of other series though. On top of Supercars, WEC and BTCC that I've always enjoyed I've got into the Blancpain Series and WRX. Goodwood Revival and Members Meetings races are probably the ones I enjoy the most though.

Seen a lot more racing in person as well but I must admit I actually prefer it on TV so I can follow what's going on. Having a group of cars blast past every 2 minutes is all very well but it's hard to actually follow the race if it's anything other than a sprint. Like looking around the paddocks though.

[coppice]

If the result of the race really matters to you then TV is better. But it spends most of the time concentrating on the 'battle ' for the higher places , meaning one misses out on the lower.


The Goodwood MM was a classic example - watching it trackside (Christ was it cold ) our little group enjoyed the top six in the pre war race but we really only had eyes for the guy , Mark Walker I think, running in near last . But every lap an even longer slide - massive opposite lock slides of 50 yards or more. Never saw him on TV - just a 42inch 2D picture , no smells , rubbish sound , no atmosphere , nothing. Only plus of the TV coverage I saw later was it didn't cost £120 to get into my front room , nor £18 for breakfast ..

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by coppice

Motor sport for me is a visceral, live , 3D experience - not sitting on a bloody settee and getting worked up about Jason Plato's boost settings. This year I've watched live HSCC and CSCC racing , some modern stuff including BTCC , drag racing , hillclimbs and autograss .

This is a good point - being trackside and seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling the cars is a very different experience to watching on TV. Watching motorsport on TV is generally what I do when the Mrs is watching some crap I'm not interested in, it's a evening pastime. DTM at Brands this year was superb - as the cars blasted past you could feel the 'crack' from the exhaust as they changed gear, that along with the howl of the engines and the incredible way they change direction really makes a different experience to watching on TV. Rallycross - standing near a full grid of Supercars bouncing off the limiter with anti-lag battering away is one of the greatest things in motorsport - doesn't come across so well on TV. The Historic meeting at Brands - the noise of a grid of DFV powered F1 cars, the howl of Judd V10 sportscars - you just can't get that on TV.

This is part of what makes me fear for the future of the sport - electric cars can't touch the internal combustion engine for noise. The sound is such an integral part of the experience.

Originally Posted by coppice

The Goodwood MM was a classic example - watching it trackside (Christ was it cold ) our little group enjoyed the top six in the pre war race but we really only had eyes for the guy , Mark Walker I think, running in near last . But every lap an even longer slide - massive opposite lock slides of 50 yards or more. Never saw him on TV - just a 42inch 2D picture , no smells , rubbish sound , no atmosphere, nothing. Only plus of the TV coverage I saw later was it didn't cost £120 to get into my front room , nor £18 for breakfast ..

This is very true - quite often some of the best action is missed by the cameras. On the flip side - at some circuits you can't see much so when the cars come back in a different order or with bits missing it's very much a case of "what happened?" With BTCC I'll watch the races during the evenings after the event to "fill in the blanks" and work out what happened (again - the Mrs thinks I'm mad "Didn't you go and watch that?" ).

Some events though it's TV or nothing - Bathurst for example - no realistic chance of me seeing that trackside! (although if anyone wants to pay for me to go to Bathurst then go ahead ).

[chunder]

Being trackside means less to me than it did. Why? Because if it meant MM, it meant over 100 pounds, and that to me is preposterous, borderline robbery.

That is a big issue for me now, motorsport pricing itself well above it's level, because idiots are prepared to spend it.

Sorry to be harsh, but it is the truth. A lot of sports have stayed at a level in terms of pricing, but "supposed" major motorsport events have gone up astronomically, because a lot of people simply can't say no, don't realise what real value is, and are simply happy to spend hundreds of pounds to "be there", take their phone, spend most of the day taking pictures and not really taking much in other than a few, overpriced "street food" stalls, a washed up music gig from a 50 year old band, which is why your ticket is 20 dearer than it should be, and a queue to get out.

Sorry, major motorsport died the day tv got involved, series that are nothing special started demanding hosting fees, meaning tracks had to make tickets dearer to recoup any money.

Greed is the mistress here, and the more you keep handing over your hard earned the worse it will get.

So enjoy your lovely events, because eventually they will mean only the rich can enjoy this sport, and if that's you fair enough, but you will have been partly responsible for its death to poorer people.

You can spend your money on what you want of course, if you think 100 quid to watch a load of rich men ambling round Goodwood in winter is fine, who is stopping you. But maybe stop and think about the precedent you are setting for future generations.

And please don't start comparing with football or other sports, it's not the same.

[BertMk2]

With some events I'd agree - it gets to a point where I just think "nah" - too expensive for what it is. As you say the Goodwood events are very expensive (only ever been when I've been lucky enough to get a sponsors pass), the WRX at Silverstone was beyond taking the **** and the Classic is too much to be of interest to me.

On the other hand there are plenty of events where the pricing is ok - after all you can be trackside for 8+ hours so £20-£30 isn't bad for a day out (try going to stately homes, castles, theme parks etc and see how quickly to costs rack up). It's got more expensive since my son got older and now needs his own ticket - but we've just cut back on the number of events to even it out (and Brands have inadvertently helped - don't need a 2 day ticket for meetings on the GP loop now they've ruined that with fencing).

[coppice]

Originally Posted by chunder

Being trackside means less to me than it did. Why? Because if it meant MM, it meant over 100 pounds, and that to me is preposterous, borderline robbery.

That is a big issue for me now, motorsport pricing itself well above it's level, because idiots are prepared to spend it.

Sorry to be harsh, but it is the truth. A lot of sports have stayed at a level in terms of pricing, but "supposed" major motorsport events have gone up astronomically, because a lot of people simply can't say no, don't realise what real value is, and are simply happy to spend hundreds of pounds to "be there", take their phone, spend most of the day taking pictures and not really taking much in other than a few, overpriced "street food" stalls, a washed up music gig from a 50 year old band, which is why your ticket is 20 dearer than it should be, and a queue to get out.

Sorry, major motorsport died the day tv got involved, series that are nothing special started demanding hosting fees, meaning tracks had to make tickets dearer to recoup any money.

Greed is the mistress here, and the more you keep handing over your hard earned the worse it will get.

So enjoy your lovely events, because eventually they will mean only the rich can enjoy this sport, and if that's you fair enough, but you will have been partly responsible for its death to poorer people.

You can spend your money on what you want of course, if you think 100 quid to watch a load of rich men ambling round Goodwood in winter is fine, who is stopping you. But maybe stop and think about the precedent you are setting for future generations.

And please don't start comparing with football or other sports, it's not the same.

Oh give it a rest will you ? I know nothing would make you happier if more people had an awful time at Goodwood or Silverstone Classic but some of us love these events and don't consider ourselves either foolish or rich .



MM cost £ 120 but so what , it's a special treat. And I will compare other events - they may not be 'the same' (well they wouldn't be, would they?) but there are many perfectly valid comparators . Last night I went to a gig - much looked forward to and it exceeded my expectations - £120 . Meal at a decent restaurant ? Not much change out of sixty quid, about the same as it costs me to fill my car.



Ambling around Goodwood ? Your TV is playing up .... Messrs Needell, Watts , Blundell , Mass, Milocevic and many , many others were not ambling , I can assure you.



And as you should know by now , as someone usually reminds you, the Classic works out at £45 for 3 days if you book early and belong to a car club. My club costs me £30 a year.



By all means decide to stop at home and whinge, if it makes you happy, but many of us actually prefer to enjoy ourselves when we can.

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by coppice

Oh give it a rest will you ? I know nothing would make you happier if more people had an awful time at Goodwood or Silverstone Classic but some of us love these events and don't consider ourselves either foolish or rich .



MM cost £ 120 but so what , it's a special treat. And I will compare other events - they may not be 'the same' (well they wouldn't be, would they?) but there are many perfectly valid comparators . Last night I went to a gig - much looked forward to and it exceeded my expectations - £120 . Meal at a decent restaurant ? Not much change out of sixty quid, about the same as it costs me to fill my car.



Ambling around Goodwood ? Your TV is playing up .... Messrs Needell, Watts , Blundell , Mass, Milocevic and many , many others were not ambling , I can assure you.



And as you should know by now , as someone usually reminds you, the Classic works out at £45 for 3 days if you book early and belong to a car club. My club costs me £30 a year.



By all means decide to stop at home and whinge, if it makes you happy, but many of us actually prefer to enjoy ourselves when we can.

+1

[Akrapovic]

Silverstone WEC is £40 for 2019. Under 16s go free. I couldn't even put a tank of fuel in my very small tanked Ford Fiesta for that. Snacks would be half that for the day, even if bought cheap from a Tesco.

I'm not rich, but I'm not going to struggle to find £40 either. I guess I'm partly to blame for poor people not being allowed in...to sit on their phones or something something I lost track because this is a nonsensical rant.

Originally Posted by chunder

A lot of sports have stayed at a level in terms of pricing

<snip>

And please don't start comparing with football or other sports, it's not the same.

lol. Please don't compare it to other sports like I did!

[chunder]

It's a rant, I don't give a snots arse what any of you think, and I never will. This is discussion, raising a point, provoking a taling point.

For me anything close to 100 pounds to watch millionaires drive round a millionaires private test track is borderline insanity, you might think it's great, but it's not a treat, it's daylight robbery, your money, obviously, but I would rather burn it than give to a man who makes millions from horse racing and the events he puts on, I'm sorry. I tried it years ago, it was like being in a shopping centre on Christmas Eve, you could see the potential, but was far too busy, too many cretins and too many people driving at walking pace. If you cant drive it, dont, but hey he owns it he can do what he wants. Nah sorry, shove it.

You are right Akra, 40 quid for WEC is about worth it, I would never go obviously as the series died on its arse 3 years ago, and Silverstone, well you'd have to pay me to go there these days. But that's not bad, but if I wanted to go hiking I would go somewhere with nice scenery, not a washed up airfield in Northants lol.

Whats the most fun I have had this year? Watching my mate race enduro bikes round a farm complex down the road, why? It was free to get in, you could go ANYWHERE, help ANYONE if they fell, great talent on show, and good fun. Not for everyone I admit, but what if I told you to compete there cost 45 quid, INCLUDING a day licence? for 4 hours riding. Kind of makes watching rich men in misfiring old cars look a bit tame eh?

Also, cold war jets day at Bruntingthorpe, again, 20 quid, go anywhere within reason, talk to the guys running the planes, touch them, stand 50 yards from a Lightning on full burner, sorry but that doesn't remotely compare to anything you can see on a race track.

And MSA drag racing, 200+ cars and bikes, great facilities, long day of racing, close to action, far away for better vision, free parking.

Some folk seem happy to pay massive money for very little, I get it, if you imagination only goes so far and you have limited interest, off you go.

But there is a world of stuff out there, so much more accessible, friendly, off the routine, if you just explore a bit.

But if you don't want to, carry on, all you are doing is making the rich richer, moving racing away from newer, poorer fans who can't afford to attend or watch these events. And making the people that run motorsport richer. if that pleases you, keep up the good work.