The MSA & Championship Co-ordination

[andy97]

Falcemob

I think you are very definately correct. However, isn't it about time people woke up and smelt the coffee? Instead of paying an entry fee per competitor across a whole meeting why not charge per grid - those with big grids will have smaller entry fees & vice versa. There will soon be a move to find someone to merge with!

Perhaps the MSA could put a cap on the number of series/ champs that it allows - say 150 rather than the curent 160+. Again this would force sime mergers.

As for Supersports, Yes, awseome cars, I just hope that they join up with Britsports or with the Sports 2000 crowd so that we can still see them out.

Other candidates for merger: most saloon series!! Westfields and Kit cars and some Caterham series; F750, Sports 1000 and Global Lights; Porsche 924s and Porsche Club, TVR Tuscans (great but they've had their day) and the club TVR or 750 MC roadsports series; F4, Monoposto, F Renault and Avon Clubmans FF Zetec/1800.

There, that should have upset just about everybody!! Some of my suggestions are deliberatley contentious (and perhaps not entirely serious) but the MSA have got to take charge or else club racing will implode, probably due to spreading itself too thinly and wasting the good will of the officials and marshals on whom we depend.

PS. I see in the weeklies that Motorsport Vision are trying to develop a couple of race series for their own cars - great bits of kit undoubtedly but please don't tell me that this is going to happen. Race them in existing series!!! Please.

[ss_collins]

I agree I think the MSA should get harsh - the 750 MC ran sports 1000 with F750 at Brands - and it worked quite well as far as I could see, would putting GT lights in as well work? potentially. There should be a number of 'open' series for sports racers, single seaters and saloons.

VSR and Super silhoettes should be amalgamated with another series (not sure what) or perhaps go and run as a 3rd series for Rockingham.

BRDC single seaters works so why not a Formula Palmer Brands, Palmer can kinda do what he wants IMHO as he is no fool.

And hers come some heresy - can UK FF its dead or make it revert to 1600 regulations. The FFFest should be run to 1600 rules.

[greenamex2]

A multi class/level national saloon car chamionship that can take existing cars and allow them to stand a chance of being competitive sounds like a jolly good idea.

The BRSCC series almost qualified until it started allowing Elises and kit cars against saloon cars and hasn't got a class structure for the more modified saloon without going silly.

[andy97]

Perhaps MN and Autosport could include the figure for the number of starters in each race as part of their results sections. It would be then obvious to all which series/ championships are thriving and which deserve to be merged.

[R59]

Denis,

Are you calling me silly? ;-)

It can all be settled thus:

Production Saloons
Production Sports
Modified Saloons
Modified Sports
Special Saloons
Special GT's / Sports

6 Championships, in the blue book, with class structures, and rules already laid out.
That's saloons and sports trimmed up.

Now for cone-heads.....

Formula Ford, Formula 4, Formula 3, Formula 5000, Formula Libre (for anything that doesn't fit above).

Job done.

People upset.

Now run and hide (again)

Rob.

[Woolley]

racign59, I'm with you on that one. Perhaps not so harsh, but I've long reckoned that all modern cars (saloons, sportscars and single seaters) could be covered by no more than 18 championships, with a few extras for particlarly well-supported categories who can justify racing on their own. The rest seem largely superfluous, and are often run for the benefit of someone who isn't

a) the spectator,
b) a competitor, and
c) a marshal.

With the possible exception of a few competitors who want to be competitive and wouldn't be if there were more than 8 of them. Sadly, I've never worked out who that person is save for one of two individuals who are obviously making a packet out of it, or have egos that demand it.

No championship should be granted stand-alone status until it has run for 12 months with an existing category and proved it can be sustainable alone.

If you managed not to upset anyone with your post, Rob, I suspect I've finished the job for you!

[kickstart]

Why do I have this feeling that by next season we will in fact have more championships than this season and that despite cancelling 1 or 2 the MSA will permit a number of new poorly supported championships to run.
I would have to follow the view above that states that economics and the way to force culls/mergers and hopefully to produce racing with full grids. Charge per race and divide up the fees between the number of competitors.

[Flat Out Farr]

this subject has been discussed to various degrees for the last few months, by the MSA and all. When will common sense prevail? Simplify the various championships, so everyone can enter a race locally. So many people have cars collecting dust in their garages and cannot find anywhere to race them. BARC -SE have cracked it. The Track and Race Car Saloon series, as well as the Single Seater series (surely the best kept secret around) and the Sports Car Series have very flexible regs such that anyone can enter.
Come on guys; A practice, and 8min and 15 min races for anything between £130 and 165, depending on the circuit. Definitely value for money. We need full grids to get spectators in through the gates. So come on all you organisers. Stop acting like a load of Prima-Donnas. especially BRSCC. Talk to each other. remeber, full grids may actually mean our entry fees might go down slightly, then again Tony Blair might get voted out at the next election? no, back to reality!

[andy97]

Entry Fees for the BARC-SEC single seater races at Silverstone Stowe are £110. I agree fantastic VFM and, unfortunately, one of the best kept secrets around. The single seater series is basically Formula Libre for any single seater up to 2 litres (including K series and Classic Clubmans spec Mallocks/ Phantoms etc)and non the worse for that.

[Chris Griffin]

Do we really need another thread on this subject? It's been/being discussed at length in the Marshal's and Racers forums I think. Mods... can we combine them?

[Ian Sowman]

Very good point Chris - let me have a play.

[Flat Out Farr]

yes Chris, why not combine them. It proves that everyone is debating this subject and, hopefully, sensibly. We all want to be out racing. A car that can't be used in any series is worth much less than something that is eligible for other series. I am trying to emphasise what good value teh BARC-SE race series are and ask the question why no other big clubs have not sat around and found te hcommon ground

[andy97]

The MSA might not like the words but regional Formula/ Sports Libre (with separate races for upto & over 2 litres) would work well for the majority of clubmen IMHO.

Force series with less than 15 regular runners to combine in such races.

Insist that new series run within a Formula/ Sports Libre series until it has proven that it can stand alone (as Radical did a few years ago within the 750 MCs Clubsports 2000 series).

Use an end of the day Libre race to give competitors in other series the chance of a second race.

Have an end of the year "national festival" with races for cars conforming to similar regulations.

[R59]

To be honest, I think that they are scared of making such radical changes, for fear of upsetting people.

I say, upset them, for the sake of the sport.

Can someone print out all of these forums, and ship them to the MSA!

Rob.

[ss_collins]

There are many series that can be ignored by this thread as they are so healthy. Sports 2000 for example always gets a great grid sometime combining the duratecs - I'd leave them to it.

But I'm in favour of a blanket class structure if its done right. Regional series should indeed run common regs - imagine the annual festival event. Mega!

[Flat Out Farr]

yes, Sports 2000 has managed to have a brilliant series. Look at the size of the grids! Now can you imagine a saloon festival at Brands, just like the F.Ford festival, when it was a Kent engined one only?? Bring on teh common regs and let's go for it! There would be no shortage of entries for that!

[andy97]

Sports 2000 was not always so popular. It was in serious decline in the mid 1990's and only survived because the remaining enthusiasts ran in the 750MC's ClubSports 2000 series (a Sports Libre type series! sadly no longer running). The Series became popular again thanks to the promotional efforts of the Sports Racing Car Club and Colin Feyerbrand (apologies for spelling) in particular.

The re-emergence of Sports 2000 (and the emergence of Radical) as a succesful national series is a fine template for other series - run as part of a merged series with good grids, build support and then establish your own series when viable.

[ActiveMS]

Perhaps then would the following be a good idea for 2005?

**************************
Decline standalone races for any series/championship if average grid size in 2004 < 16(?) per race.

**************************
Create a set of distinct series and sub classes within these series that can help all those competitors not with their own series/championship to merge with others so that performance is fairly matched without having enforce all sorts of daft regs. (Can & has been done before as discussed above). Whether these can be regional, Im not sure, what do you all reckon?

**************************
Run both standalone championship races and merged series races at weekend events so that people are entertained with enough different classes etc.

**************************
Towards the end of the season run festivals (as mentioned above) for the merged series.



Feel free to amend and lets see if we can get a really good plan that would suit the majority of competitors. You never know if may be possible.

[greenamex2]

Sounds like a good idea, coming from someone whose championship would fall into the less than 16 entries category.

The main difficulty would be if a championship/series had a sponsor that would conflict with other series in the amalgamation. As this would generally hurt the club rather than the competitor I couldn't comment how difficult this would be to resolve.

On the subject of having a large number of classes in a series/championship, does ANYONE really care? Some of the regional series have about one class per competitor and they don't seem to mind.

[ActiveMS]

Good points Denis, especially about classes.
Perhaps just keeping to a performance based class system to help competitors. This could be either engine size or avg bhp/tonne related, thus attempting to keep a levelish playing field.

So perhaps a merged series would be defined by the following:


1 - Type of car (eg formula, saloon, sports)
2 - Size of engine
3 - bhp/tonne

with 2&3 varying depending on the number of likely competitors. All the info is there from results sheets apart from bhp/tonne, but organisers can provide this.

Not sure about the sponsor bit. Are there that many sponsored series these days at club level? I know of a few, but most are companies of competitors themselves, so I guess some would be ok with it?? Hopefully will get some idea from other peoples comments.........

[Flat Out Farr]

From the research I have recently done, I could enter my XR2 in Toyo's, Classic Thunder as well as BARC-SE(where I run it), SEMESEC and Castle Combe. So it seems that the various clubs are halfway there. [I used to compete in F1300 when the Sports 2000 boys were there; they used to blow the doors off the F1300 boys as did the Radicals, which dis-illusioned everyone, which is why many of the same cars are now running in Classic Clubmans series! And surprise, F4 is currently a mirror of Monoposto, but that is a single seater thread!!]

[Woolley]

Porsches used to run a very good mixed-model series based on power to weight, and the VW championship is working wonders on the same basis. You only need to widen it to include more cars, and you could draw many championships in.

Single seaters can work in a similar fashion with ballasting and minor changes equalising them. It justs needs someone in a position of power to decide it will be done.

andy97, you've provided a great example of how things sholud work. With close regulations, if one particular element grows particularly strong, then it can play on it's own, coming back in if the numbers fall again.

I like the regional idea, because it gives the marshals and the spectator(!) a better chance of getting familiar with the competitors - hill climbing in the midlands illustrates this well. Perhaps with each region based around say, 4 circuits, with one of the rounds designated 'national' so thaat competitors from other regions can join in, or maybe have a national championship that can be followed by taking in one round from each circuit?

[R59]

If the truth is known, the average spectator isn't interested in classes. They are looking at who wins the race overall, they couldn't care less if the first, second, and third, placed cars are all different classes, and thus all winners...

The best plan of action is for all cars to have the same power to weight ratio. So that means weighing the car, a rolling road visit, and then ballasting. The weight of the car can then be adjusted to keep the laptimes close.

Look at the Speedsport GT's, which fiddle with the weights to tighten competitiveness.

If it's done properly, it negates the requirement to spend bags of money of screaming racing engines to get something better than someone with a similar car. You get quicker, you get more weight to slow you down. Which in the end makes closer racing cheaper. We all win.

Flat Out, you mention all of those championships, which shows how good regional racing can be, with the exception of ModProds and Classic Thunder which are the nationals. BARC-SE and SEMSEC almost duplicate each other, but don't tread on each other's toes, and seem to share many competitors. Castle Combe is the pure single venue success story, and a credit to Howard Strawford and his team.

The F4 / Monoposto story is one of two clubs running virtually the same rules. I'm not sure about the health of F4, haven't seen it recently, but Mono looked fairly shaky last time I saw them. I remember, when I was a lad, and Mono running two fairly full grids...

Regards sponsored series...

Other than Toyo Tyres, which tyre companies do we have in the frame?
Could we get a combined sponsorship, say, for example, Toyo Tyres with Millers Oils? More chance of catching leperosy!

Rob.

[Ian Sowman]

Monoposto is still getting two full(ish) grids at most circuits.

[andy97]

Originally posted by racing59

The F4 / Monoposto story is one of two clubs running virtually the same rules. I'm not sure about the health of F4, haven't seen it recently, but Mono looked fairly shaky last time I saw them. I remember, when I was a lad, and Mono running two fairly full grids...

Rob.

Sorry Rob I have defend Monoposto vigorously - Monoposto has approx 89 registered competitors this year and virtually always has 2 grids in the mid 20s. Most clubs would kill for regular support like that. The lowest grids were at Pembrey for a non championship race when the club tried to run 3 grids for the first time.

The club runs 5 classes for Mono 2000, 1800, 1600, 1200 (free) and 1200 (standard). The classes are usually allocated to one of 2 grids with approx equal race numbers. Mono 1800 usually "floats" between the Mono 2000 grid and the Mono 1600/1200 grid, to even things up depending on numbers.

So far this year the competitor numbers have broken down as follows:

Mono 2000 - Highest Number 30, Lowest 9, average 18
Mono 1800 - Highest 9, Lowest 3, average 5
Mono 1600 - Highest 15, Lowest 9, average 10
Mono 1200 (F) - Highest 10, Lowest 4, average 6
Mono 1200 (S) - Highest 6. Lowest 4, average 5

Mono 2000 attracts a wide variety of cars from modern F3 Dallaras, older F3 Ralts, Reynards and Anson, Modern FF 2000, F Renault, and F Vauxhall. All the engines are in standard road configuration (as they are in Mono 1800, 1600 & 1200(S) meaning that the formula is extremely cost effective to run in. There is a car available to suit most budgets and older cars have proven to be as equally effective as the newer chassis; the front of the grid usually being fought over by Jonathon Lewis ( VD 98 FF 2000 (US Spec)), Jim Blockley (Ralt RT3), Robin Dawe (Dallara 398), Richard Purcell ( F Vauxhall).

I would contend that Mono is extremely healthy and would grow further to reach its aspiration of being able to run 3 full grids at each meeting if more people realised how accessible & (relatively) affordable the championship was, and in particular, if the owners of a significant proportion of the F Ford Zetecs and F Vauxhall Juniors that were built would come out to play in the Mono 1800 class.

Monoposto is one of the successes of club racing! I don't want to get in to a kicking match with the F4 guys but F4 has recently adopted a lot of the Monoposto iniatives (Motor bike engined cars/ FF Zetecs/ F Renault cars because its own classes were running ageing engines that were difficult to support.