Is Motorsport in General better now than in the past?

[Amaroo Park]

Is Motorsport in general better now than in the past?

What do I mean well is the sport as a whole better or worse, by that I mean from V8's down to Supersprints and Motorkahnas.

So what do you think? Can you say that the all forms of Motor Sport are getting a better go? Before you answer consider that yes we all know that the top (V8's) are more health than it has been and yes there is more money in the top of the sport than there was before. BUT what about the lower levels, the guys who run the Dato 1600 etc in Supersprints etc trying to get experiance to get a CAMS GC licence is it better or worse for them now?

Now I will leave my thoughts out cause I don't want to be accused of being down on AVESCO or CAMS all the time (Although I am sure some of you know my thouhts). This is just a thread to get your thoughts particular people who are or have competed.

Thank You

[Lee Janotta]

Worse in every single regard _except_ safety and TV coverage.

[xrystl]

Worse - Bring back series production , let's see more manufacturers racing .

[Crash Test]

I can really only comment about what I know about here in QLD, but things are pretty good. The last two weekends we've had two hillclimbs at Mount Cotton, both with good fields of cars, and really big crowds on hand. The facility itself is looking fantastic after another $200K was pumped into it over the summer.

Around the traps we now have Morgan Park, a fantastic little track, and QR, which is still a lot better than most facilities around the country, and hopefully a new track run by the HRCC somewhere in the not too distant future...

For our size, we run some really top flight Historic Meetings, we have once a year carnivals like Noosa, Speed on Tweed, Leyburn, Gatton, Pittsworth etc.

QR has some great events, like their Saturday arvo sprints, burnouts, drifting etc that have a good following.

MP is also booked solid, and have to have 2 sprint series to cater for the massive demand.

State Championships are still trundling along, with a lot of competitors out there- for one thing, the QRDA would have it's strongest ever membership base, so if that can be used as a gauge, we're looking good.

[Mattracer]

I agree, the sport is very healthy. TV coverage of the top categories helps lift the profile of those catgories and there is , as a spectator and enthusiast, a flow-on effect.

Even 5 years ago, the profile of domestic motorsport in the general media was pretty invisible, yet now, motorsport does rate a blip on the screen. TV has been responsible for this.

My only concern is that the bubble gets too big and overseas venues other than NZ get rounds or the AUSTRALIAN Touring Car Championship.

It worries me.

[Bomn]

When it was racing it was good. Seems to have gone downhill since it became "motorsport".

[racer69]

Worse. All the sponsorship and attention is going towards V8s to the detriment of other categories, and the governing body of AVESCO welcomes it.

There should have been a follow on effect of the V8s success. All we have seen though is the demise of TOCA, the PowerTour, and AVESCO have done their best to try and drag down Procar.

It's getting all commercial as well, we need to put the racing back into motor racing.

[Mark Webber]

Worse with our lead class as Supertaxi I feel things will only worsen. TV is better more attenion to motorsport is a plus but the quality on the tube is rubbish (Bring Back GPA ) I love motorsport but when you start falling a sleep when its on thing are bad . Thank god for Rally and F1

[jetsetter]

It is better with things like T.V. coverage & safety but i think it's got worse in the fact that we have too many categories to spread our drivers over which means smaller fields in a lot of the categories.

[Amaroo Park]

What about at the bottom end of the sport, Supersprints etc, You know the grass roots................

[the man]

Yeah there is a a lot of catergories, maybe they should be bought together, Like Super Touring and another class to form Super Production, and Carrera Cup and another class Porchse Cup and form one catergory or something like that

[Crash Test]

CB- To be honest, Supersprints etc, at least up here, have never been stronger. We now have two circuits who regularly have their own series, which have relativly dirt cheap entry fees. Heck, Morgan Park had to expand their operations to take in two sprint series to cater for the demand, and QR's Saturday Arvo sprints have literally seen 100s of competitors take to the track in the last couple of years.

Really, this end of the sport doesn't suffer from the V8s hogging all of the press, sponsorship and TV, because it would never get any anyways. It does have the major advantage that you can do it in your road car, for very little cost. You still have your car clubs having their sprints which are good, but you've also got these other things that are being pushed by the tracks themselves...

[Amaroo Park]

Originally posted by Crash Test
CB- To be honest, Supersprints etc, at least up here, have never been stronger. We now have two circuits who regularly have their own series, which have relativly dirt cheap entry fees. Heck, Morgan Park had to expand their operations to take in two sprint series to cater for the demand, and QR's Saturday Arvo sprints have literally seen 100s of competitors take to the track in the last couple of years.

Really, this end of the sport doesn't suffer from the V8s hogging all of the press, sponsorship and TV, because it would never get any anyways. It does have the major advantage that you can do it in your road car, for very little cost. You still have your car clubs having their sprints which are good, but you've also got these other things that are being pushed by the tracks themselves...

Crash,

What is the price of entrie for a supersprint up your way these days????

[daz90]

worse here in the uk the btcc is no where near as good as in the glory days of the mid nineties, the cars no longer resemble the average road cars like they used too. and the crowds have stopped going to the events. the appeal of our british touring cars has dropped away. the same can definatly be said for f1, it is truly boring now. here in the uk we have a motorsport channel on sky tv, called motors tv, i have recently been getting into the v8 ausie tourers. this is by far the better racing on offer anywhere, it is what the btcc used to be. what ever happened to the 2.0 super touring car championship in australia?? is it no longer running.

[ttsoarer]

To me any of the successfull classes of racing have been bitten by the financial mossie

unfortunatly when moneys at stake the old saying dosnt mean squat " if it ain broke dont try and fix it"

my 2 c worth

[Crash Test]

See http://www.queenslandraceway.com.au/...lic_drive.html

Also, ever successive run you have after your first is at a discounted rate. So for $40 you get 7 laps, $5 you get a helmet, $30 a license. As you can in the results, they've had 120+ competitors in the first two rounds, with a ood mix of race cars, riceys, V8s, and dungers

[Crash Test]

I should have read it throuh... for $65 you get 21 laps... not too shabby

[Amaroo Park]

Originally posted by Crash Test
I should have read it throuh... for $65 you get 21 laps... not too shabby

Now i know why the sport down here is in trouble. $165 for a Supersprint at Eastern Creek. Bit of a discrepancy