Palmer Audi Winterseries, worth the dosh? Alternatives?

[ghinzani]

Ok a friend of a friend is putting some money into a driver to race in the FPA winter series, however having seen a few FPA rounds on TV and seen the abysmal level of driving talent I'm not so sure this a good place to be spending money if the driver involved wants to be taken seriously. To me the series for the most part looked to be full of rich kids spending daddies money and old men living out their race driver fantasies. Correct me if I am wrong, but for instance De Villota jnr who looks one the quickest was nowhere when he raced Spanish F3 or Renault (I forget what I saw him in but it was towards the back). Add in all the previous mutterings of favouritism and a lack of parity in the cars when it was an allegedly Pro series and I am bit concerned the guys wasting his money.

What are the winter series alternatives? I would have thought Renault, FFord and Formula BMW would be taken far more seriously but is the budget a whole lot more for these?

[Kicking-back]

The allegations of favouritism and a lack of parity were generally excuses from drivers who found they weren't as quick as they thought they were.

[Elio]

Apologies for straying slightly off topic so early but....

The FPA Autumn Trophy/Winterseries is alleged to be 3 races at Snet the first week in November and 3 at Brands the following weekend, but.....

There appears to be NO meeting at Brands on 12/13 Nov. The MSV and BRSCC`s websites list nothing. There are no supports listed for the FPAs anywhere that I can find. Just wondered if the Brands event is going ahead and who is running it? I was envisaging perhaps a BHRC run event maybe??

(I did see a snippet in MN a few weeks ago that the BRSCCs Super Silhouettes would have a winter meet on Nov 12/13 but it all seems very quiet).

[ghinzani]

Hmm so if the calenders up the creek what about the alternatives? Is Renault a lot more expensive? What about FF - I assume the FF & FR championships will be on the same bill?

BTW KB believe what you will but I know of one driver who was quickest or in top three in 5 out of 6 pre-season tests then after refusing to sign a management deal with the good Doctor suddenly found himself qualifying 20th at the first race and not being able to come within a second of his pre-season times. He was'nt the only one who suffered this fate too. Interestingly the Champion had a contract signed up with JP.

[JNWRF01]

Management contracts - come on...vast majority of the grid are businessmen...if you can't beat the likes of Prior et al your hardly going to make it to F1 (take a look at some of the front runners results in more competitive series). I don;t doubt the two young lads at the front are good - but they are hardly going to make F1...I seem to remember Epton being pretty average in FR. I assume by the above statement your talking about a certain ex-Jamun FF driver - and if thats the case he should have signed it - as the chance of it ever needing to be exercised is nil... Modern datalogging will show very quickly if there is any mechanical deficiencies with your car so all this talk of preferential treatment is sour grapes...

[Elio]

Don`t think there is a FF winterseries this year. BRSCC usually run it and they appear to be having no winter dates. FR and BARC FR run at Brands on Nov 5/6 with trucks - then a week later at Croft I think. Legends have a 2-day winter series with trucks at Brands also - that`d prob be cheapest and by far the most exciting Winter event around. Sponsor friendly too I`dve thought..... Imagine putting a young talented Single-seater driver into one of them for the weekend and have them caning the rest of the field from "back-of-the-grid" starts! - Excellent!

[Kicking-back]

The series makes telemetry from all cars available to all drivers, which would make it very difficult to pull any tricks

[Ian Sowman]

There is still the possibility of winter series events for FFord/single-seaters and Sports/Saloons organised by the BRSCC, I am told.

[ghinzani]

Originally Posted by JNWRF01

Management contracts - come on...vast majority of the grid are businessmen...if you can't beat the likes of Prior et al your hardly going to make it to F1 (take a look at some of the front runners results in more competitive series). I don;t doubt the two young lads at the front are good - but they are hardly going to make F1...I seem to remember Epton being pretty average in FR. I assume by the above statement your talking about a certain ex-Jamun FF driver - and if thats the case he should have signed it - as the chance of it ever needing to be exercised is nil... Modern datalogging will show very quickly if there is any mechanical deficiencies with your car so all this talk of preferential treatment is sour grapes...

Sorry for the confusion the driver contracts comment thing was back when it was a Pro series.

[Redracer77]

for sponsors cash benefits then Palmer Audi would be better than most. If the driver is quick then coming second in 6 races will get good TV for the sponsor. Renault, Ford or any other can't do that

(Hopefully Peter Dempsey will be winning hence the coming second part )

[Bob Pearson]

I've never had anything to do with FPA, so cannot comment on the dirty tricks story, but I would like to add to Kicking Backs comment.
There are many ways that the performance of a single seater can be ruined, and a lot of them would never show on data logging. Toe in/out settings at both ends, corner weights, rake angle, a click or two on the dampers, spring pre-load. It is highly unlikely that the driver would actually notice from the feed back from the car, but the lap times would eke away a few tenths here and a few tenths there and the first the driver knew would be when he looked at the lap timer as he passed the pit wall.

[Bob Pearson]

I was too busy waffling on about car set up and forgot to ask how much is the winter series with FPA. UK FR with 4 races and tests looks like about 25k

[Redracer77]

£9,500 plus vat

[ActiveMS]

Why bother with a winter series, why not just use the money for a full 06 budget??

AFAIK FormulaPA is not a very good yard stick in terms of talent. Personally, if I had the money and the talent (neither of which I currently do) I would be saving up for either FR or National F3...... much better PR can be gained from these championships aswell as credibility. The good doctor continues with FPA because alot of the "motorsport sensation" corporate clients have so much fun, and the spare cash to play "lets pretend F1".

Complete waste of time to be honest.

[Daf_Loz]

Add in all the previous mutterings of favouritism and a lack of parity in the cars when it was an allegedly Pro series

Oh boy, Steve. Missed your bit of FPA slating have you. Thought it was time to re-kindle it with some made up junk about a "friend of a friend". Yawn! You're the one who made up all the previous mutterings because JP wouldn't sign your autograph book once.

Management contracts, what are you talking about. No-one had a management contract with JP. It was when they became champion that they were offerred one along with, initially, a test in an F3000. If you know this guy who wouldn't sign a contract then say his name and once again he can come on the site and tell you that you're talking a load of rubbish and that you need to get your facts straight.

If he qualified 20th it was because he can't drive very well, he probably found it hard to admit, but let us know his name and we'll see how well he's doing now.

Remember everyone was given FULL data analysis after every qualifying and race which compared their driving to the fastest driver.

[Russfeld]

Originally Posted by ghinzani

To me the series for the most part looked to be full of rich kids spending daddies money and old men living out their race driver fantasies.

Take out the old guys, and you've just described any single seater grid.

[JNWRF01]

Surely if you;ve got the intelligence to have made £10k in spare cash for the winter series - you can figure out how to wind a damper fully stiff and then set it? Whilst I can't tell much difference in cambers - i believe most club level drivers can tell what too much ride height feels like and if the corner weights are wrong? So I suspect the cars are all with half a second of each other - which when it was pro-series was a big deal - but with the current grid a bit of driver coaching or a personal trainer will find more time on the track than worrying about dampers, springs etc etc

[Triple J Motorsport]

I believe there will be a single seater winter series run much like the BARC SE Championship with classes for most cars

[Redracer77]

Originally Posted by Russfeld

Take out the old guys, and you've just described any single seater grid.

Wrong some poeple work hard to pay for single seater racing and dont have daddy to pay. I race single seaters and pay for it by just dame hard work

[JEB]

Remember if you have a Zetec and wish to race in the 'winter' - come along to the Walter Hayes Trophy. You can race twice in televised races for £165. If I have good support, then I will run Zetec Trophy races at all BRDC race meetings next year.

[foreversideways]

So were back on knock FPA again. By any standards a winter or summer season in FPA is fantastic value for money at £10,000 or £55,000 approx. With the chance to race at Spa, Monza, Silverstone GP, Brands GP in Pukka single seaters with 300bhp. When people comment about Renault, BMW, FF1800 costs they have no idea what they are talking about. These series all cost over £100,000 for a full summer season. In fact, some people in NWFF1600 are paying over £25,000 for a summer season and it is a regional championship. Also everybody competing in motorsort is not 18 and aspiring to be the next Jenson Button. The grids are full of all ages and all abilities and that is how it should be. FPA appeals to quite a large cross section of drivers from the older guys who can now afford to compete in motorsport and pitt themselves against younger quicker competitors in proper racing cars to the younger drivers with ambitions to move up the motorsport ladder but cannot afford the mainstream route for the time being. Also let us not forget that Justin Wilson, Robbie Kerr and Ryan Lewis were all in FPA and i don't think anyone would consider them slow. FPA has a place in the calender, it attracts full grids, provides good racing and obviously makes a profit for Dr Palmer. Sounds like a success to me!!. And no i dont work for Motorsport Vision before anybody asks.

[Redracer77]

the people who criticise are normally the people who want to race in PFA but can't afford it.

[Ian Sowman]

I largely agree with what you say Ray, but it ought to be pointed out that Justin and Robbie graduated from Formula Palmer Audi 'proper', before it became Club FPA. The Club tag was subsequently dropped.

[ghinzani]

Originally Posted by Daf_Loz

Oh boy, Steve. Missed your bit of FPA slating have you. Thought it was time to re-kindle it with some made up junk about a "friend of a friend". Yawn! You're the one who made up all the previous mutterings because JP wouldn't sign your autograph book once.

Management contracts, what are you talking about. No-one had a management contract with JP. It was when they became champion that they were offerred one along with, initially, a test in an F3000. If you know this guy who wouldn't sign a contract then say his name and once again he can come on the site and tell you that you're talking a load of rubbish and that you need to get your facts straight.

If he qualified 20th it was because he can't drive very well, he probably found it hard to admit, but let us know his name and we'll see how well he's doing now.

Remember everyone was given FULL data analysis after every qualifying and race which compared their driving to the fastest driver.

Lisa is that you?

Seriusly I think the driver and/or drivers concerned would do very well, I'm just interested to know what the credibilty level would be and also how the costs stack up against FR.

I did meet the Doctor once, he stuffed a Renault 5 I prepared into the barriers at Thruxton during a test and then gave us a very long winded explanation about how this previously race winning car had handling faults when you came off the power. I believe the response from our engineer at the time was "you are supposed to keep you're foot in on a front wheel drive car".

Sadly it did'nt occur to me to get him to sign my autograph book of great drivers.

Anyway back to the relative costs and merits...

[ghinzani]

ps . Which I was hoping this thread would be, rather than a slanging match that got binned!