[Magazines] Motorsport Magazine, is it me or is it getting repetitive?

[Al Weyman]

I am thinking of cancelling my subscription as I am now finding it a complete bore. Yet another massive section dedicated to that James Dean of motorsport Jim Clark. Yes he was good and I am not knocking him (its out of his control anyhow) but how much can you write about one man and a truncated career that many people today have not even heard of.

Can you imagine in 20 years time every month will be full of articles about Shumacher! Anyone want this months edition before I bin it!

[Adam43]

I'll have it, it sounds good.

They cover historic motorsport. Let's say there that is over ten years ago (generous in this calculation). That means there is about one hundred years of motorsport to cover. Realistically the main age of coverage is during the life of the magazine, call that 70 years. There are 12 editions to fill in the year, say five main articles a month. 60 main articles a year. Well there is has been a lot of motorsport, but the main story has to be a big one with mass appeal. We will always have a certain amount of repetition.

In addition they don't have the format to write a detailed book.

It is the nature of the beast, and the articles are normally written by different authors with a different slant each time.

[John Turner]

A bit harsh, there, Al. Clark is one of THE iconic drivers of the past, and after Moss's premature retirement, he was the benchmark until his death. They were taking a different slant by focusing on his non F1 performances. There are also plenty of other articles to read. What sort of features would you like to see in there?

[Peter Mallett]

Hmm,

I only ever see it on occaisions when I'm in the UK. I like it now that its gone "green". They've covered Big Ger, James Hunt, a great piece on McLaren recovering from the death of Bruce, Ronnie P (a picture postcard style piece) and a few others in the last year. Can't complain and if Jimmy comes up I'd like to read it.

They can't always cover the Cevy's y'know Al!

BTW. This one would go well in Armchair.

[Al Weyman]

I think I will try to change my subscription to Classic Car as I think it has more interest to me as i am more interested in the cars than those that were lucky enough to race them. If you asking what I think is wrong with it and what I would like to see it is probably that and more reporting n Historic Racing today of which in this edition there was not a single mention. Not being hard on Clark and maybe its my age but I seem to have read just about everything there is possible to read on the man and his career over the years so I just fail to see the attraction of yet another issue given over to him however good he was.

Send me a large stamped addressed envolope Adam and its yours.

[Peter Mallett]

Certainly you have a point about the contemporary historic racing. Neither Motorsport or C&SC or Classic Cars magazines do justice to the wealth of racing happening out there. They tend to concentrate on the "high end" events and leave the others to a couple of lines at the end of the page.

As to this issue. There hasn't been that much historic racing since the beginning of October anyway.

[leonidas]

I think the problem is that the coverage is variable in quality from issue to issue. In general there is a lot of predictable stuff about F1 and 1960s sportcars. There tends to be very little about rallysport. It would have been great to see a detailed feature about the upcoming RAC, leading cars and personalities, or the climax of the historic rally championship. Don't tell me 1970s Escorts aren't popular enough to attract readers...

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Not being hard on Clark and maybe its my age but I seem to have read just about everything there is possible to read on the man and his career over the years so I just fail to see the attraction of yet another issue given over to him however good he was.

I haven't read anything on him so I may well go and buy a copy to find out more. Don't forget there are youngsters like me who were either not born or very young when some of these legends were racing.

Although they may be repeating themselves where you are concerned, for me and others this will be the first time we have read about Clark.

[Thundersports]

I agree with Al they seem to be running out of ideas?

[Al Weyman]

There hasn't been that much historic racing since the beginning of October anyway

I think there was actually, our CTCRCC meet at Donington, The TopHat (I think) and the Historic Meeting at Brands on the same weekend as us to mention a few.

I haven't read anything on him

You obviously don't buy Motorsport Falcemob :-).

Maybe its me as i have always been more interested in the machines than the personalities that drove them. As far as I am concerned none of them deserve the godlike status they are revered by. I have come across and raced against many many good club drivers that given the breaks would have been equally good.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

I think there was actually, our CTCRCC meet at Donington, The TopHat (I think) and the Historic Meeting at Brands on the same weekend as us to mention a few.

Yes, but they would have been too late for this issue. I suspect you'll find them in next month's, although you won't because you're cancelling your subscription.

[Graham Goodwin]

It's the only mag I subscribe to and in truth it has been pretty poor of late - An awful lot of their articles seem to lack depth, even those which are of interest to me but on subject matter I know little about, leave me feeling rather short changed. I hope it raises its game again, if not then I'll be cancelling in a few months time I'm afraid.

[AllonFS]

I had a subscription for a couple of years upto the year when they 'went red'. The articles were interesting and indepth then. I now use my local library (WHSmith!) to decide whether to buy it each month and I have to say I haven't actually bought it in the last year. It is definitely thinner, the articles do feel shorter and have less depth generally. Even issues with what seem like great articles on the front cover have disappointed when I have skim read them (whilst avoiding nasty looks from staff)! I would rather save my money and a few months later I have enough to buy a proper motorsport book.

[Vitesse]

I think we have to wait and see. Motor Sport is on its third editor in two years and he's barely got his feet under the table. The title has now been sold by previous owner Haymarket and editorial has just moved from Teddington to Chelsea, so the whole thing is in a state of flux. Changes won't happen overnight, but I felt that the current issue was the best for some time - although mention must be made of the excellent piece on board track racing last month - and I think they're moving in the right direction. It was good to see them mining the archive and reprinting the Antonio Ascari article from 1925: the first of many classic pieces, I hope, since original pre-1950 copies of the magazine are virtually unobtainable and when they do come up they go for terrifyingly high prices.

I'd be quite happy if they dropped most of the historic racing coverage, which is adequately served by the weeklies (at least for UK events) - they should stick to the major ones only: Monaco, Goodwood, Speed on Tweed etc.

(I have a complete set from late 1949 BTW!)

[John Turner]

Great post, Vitesse, although I'd like to know what weeklies in the UK cover the historic racing, apart from Autosport that is, which obviously has word number constraints. Personally, like Peter, I'd like to see Motorsport cover the historic racing scene in greater depth.

Actually, otherwise, I think Motorsport is pretty good, although I worry that it might become too Octane like. Since I subscribe to both, I hope they remain distinctly different. In view of Al's interests, I suspect that he may well be better with a subscription to C&SC or Classic Cars.

[Peter Mallett]

Certainly the historic racing scene is bigger than perhaps most people percive. Apart from DTRC and the Ford Chsmpionship there are very few club racing championships (touring cars) that attract as much atttention as the historics. Likewis the Historic FF, Derek Bell Trophy and TGP attract more attention than Eurodross.

[Al Weyman]

Agree with you there Peter, and John you are right C&SC I came across the other day and it was a good read.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Agree with you there Peter, and John you are right C&SC I came across the other day and it was a good read.

Thanks I'm praktissin me spellin.

[mountainstar]

I buy it for the features and skim though the other parts. But I would agree with many the features lately have been pretty weak and they keep recycling the same stories from just a few years ago. There are so many other personalities, race teams, race series from the past to cover, but they keep recycling the clark, stewart, moss, etc. stories. Nothing against those guys but we've heard every angle about their lives, let's put it to a rest for a while.

I already dropped my subscription, but I do look at it at the newsstand and buy it if it has something of interest. The only thing now like other british magazines here in the USA the price has ballooned from the $7-8 range to over $10 which makes it much less likely for me to buy.

[Craig]

I cancelled my subscription to Motorsport about 18 months or so ago. I'm not sure if it lost something or if I just lost interest in the subject matter.

[strider]

By coincidence, I was talking to my son last night and out of the blue he said that he has been buying Motor Sport for the last 3 or 4 months and finds it really interesting. I suppose it's all new stuff to him.

He has been working in F1 for the last few years and I think he's had enough of it. I told him to have a look around the historic scene, because the CV he has should be enough to get him a job anywhere.

I do agree, however, that the magazine should cover the racing scene in more detail and not just be a nostalgia trip. Imagine being a latter day Jenks and going to all the major historic meetings rather the GPs. What a thought!

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by strider

I do agree, however, that the magazine should cover the racing scene in more detail and not just be a nostalgia trip. Imagine being a latter day Jenks and going to all the major historic meetings rather the GPs. What a thought!

Hmm, in a Porsche 911?

[strider]

I wondered about that, too. It should definitely be a Porsche to maintain the tradition, but which model? If an old one, how back would you go?

[John Turner]

Why a Porsche? He also used an E-type!

Actually, I think that Motorsport should take a leaf out of our book (er .... website!) and focus on 'Motorsport History' and 'Historic Racing Today' but then, I would say that wouldn't I.

[chunder]

I didnt realise that trhe mag had been sold by Haytrash! That is quite a shock as it used to be one of their permier titles purely for the ad revenue it used to make, the classified section used to be half of the magazine!!

But the editorial content is truly appalling, just olike most of Haytrash papers, they just skim over stuff in the hope of attracting more readers, when in actual fact as seen on theis thread, they just end up losing their most valuable ones, the subscribers!