Racing costs 'too high' - Ford Racing boss Ray Price

[emjaya]

V8 SUPERCAR racing needs a radical shake-up to survive, according to Ford Racing boss Ray Price.

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Price's opposite number at Holden, Simon McNamara, agreed and said his company was already well advanced with plans to curb spending.

[Trevor]

These two are the only ones that are going to be able to make an impact on costs.

I reckon if they push hard enough they may even get it back to where it should be - a production car event - BRING IT ON!!!!

[johnh875]

I think it was on one of the V8 Insiders podcasts I listened to the other evening they commented that after watching the NZ V8's you wouldn't notice the difference in the racing or entertainment but the cost was a few hundred thousand a season rather than a few million.

Trev I am with you - the main thing that production car racing is lacking is the envolvement of the big name drivers and the best teams.

[mac]

Production cars are boring... a handy support event, but I'd much rather watch racing cars race.

[Raglanparade]

Well if Ford and Holden pull the money out.. and we want to maintain the series we have with the current cars... looks like we might need more manufacturers...

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by johnh875

I think it was on one of the V8 Insiders podcasts I listened to the other evening they commented that after watching the NZ V8's you wouldn't notice the difference in the racing or entertainment but the cost was a few hundred thousand a season rather than a few million.

I made that exact comment in another thread after last weekend race at Ruapuna. The cars are a bit slower, but I think they have an easier time passing one another. I don't feel short changed in comparision to a V8 Supercar weekend. There are no question costs need to come down. I think a lot of it is people trying to reinvent the wheel to little end.

[browney]

I don't think production racing would work. Homoligation specials are expensive to make (especially if they have to make thousands). If they don't make homilation specials, then they have to make there mid-sized family cars more like race cars. This means you get the superbike effect, where you are starting to get bikes that aren't as good for the road (the new r6 is famous for producing power too high in the rev range). If this can happen in bikes (where people are willing to accept lower comfort and want high performance) I think it'd be a big problem on the road.

[Dazz]

I've always thought one way to save engine money was go up to 6 litres in capacity and drop the rev limit to 6,500 - 7,000rpm.

HP would be almost identical, the valve train with 1,000rpm less would have to last longer, you could get away with fewer big over revs and the cost to go to a 6 litre engine with a basic bore and stroke increase could not be that much.

[Pro Racer]

i agree about the NZV8's awesome racing bit less power but who notices, if they revised V8's to cost less they can still look and go like race cars but cost less.

[Trevor]

Take the V8 Utes as a good example of how simple and easy things can be, and there is no doubting that they are fantastic to watch.

Simple production Utes with a few safety and brake mods.

[Bimmerhead]

Fiord and Holdung would never let it become production based - they might have to race other makes then. Can't have the Falcadores being beaten by the rice crackers can we...... :-)

[Wood-duck]

It is about time the two real key stakeholders of V8 Supercar racing got together for the common good and realised, openly, that the battlewagon V8 Supercar is now a cash-thirsty beast that desperately needs to be tamed...

Some rationalisation is needed beyond the cost cap and project blueprint. It is interesting that Ford and Holden share similar views.. this is certainly the beginnings of what could be a 'line in the sand' for V8 Supercar as we all know it.

Reminds me of the "United front" put on by Ford and Holden (then spearheaded by John Liddell and Peter Gilitizer) at Bathurst in 1991 about the future of Group A touring car racing.... Eventually that landmark uniting of enemies was the political precursor to what we all now know as V8 Supercar.

The very reason in generalised form for that watershed alliance was that the current set of Touring car rules was too expensive, and lacked Market relevancy and that the two longest serving marques wished some clear direction on the future of the sport prior to confirming their involvement beyond 1992...

Amazing how things change, yet stay the same....

The simple fact is that V8 Supercar is getting too expensive for the main protagonists and sponsors to support it, and with the increasing 'cross-polination' of teams and equipment (such as WP customer engine deals and T8 customer suspension goodies) that teams are in-danger of losing engineering identity primarily due to cost.

TKR is a case in point - they have excellent support for a mid-back end of grid team yet struggle endlessly to make the book balance. It is not as if they have no sponsors or assistance...

Most team owners would welcome a reduction in spending i am sure.... but how to achieve this without wholesale change to the rulebook would be interesting...and the binning of nearly all of the current equipe on the Main game and Fujitsu grids....

Perhaps that rulebook could be adjusted to allow more manufacturers involved..

[pete55]

Even if another manufacturer or two entered i think costs would still be an issue. They need to be reduced and reduced considerably.

[DJJ]

Originally Posted by Wood-duck

TKR is a case in point - they have excellent support for a mid-back end of grid team yet struggle endlessly to make the book balance. It is not as if they have no sponsors or assistance

I would hardly use them as a point, get this the main sponser is TKR.

They have sponsers yes but nothing to what they need to go racing, they also have no car and driver as at the end of this year. even though the owner said they did.

You see there is a way to run a team and a way not to with constant lies.

If you were a betting man, what TKR says bet against it and you will come up trumps.

[WebberForWDC]

boohoo

The cars are not too expensive.

If 888's want to spend thousands on development they can knock themselves out.

Before touching the cars, obviously a needless increase in cost is the excessively length races.... surely there are hundreds and hundreds more kilometres now compared to 3 x 20 min sprint races. So they can swap that back to how it was, to reduce costs if need be, a simple move.

But other than that, surely the racing could be conducted on vastly reduced budgets for the same regulations with beefed up enduros spec bits in the cars, or they can knock themselves out spending however much they want.

So an AU with buckets of understeer and an aging motor putting out 590 hp is a fully regulation compliant v8 supercar, and it is done for much less..... If others want to spend more pushing the envelope they will...... that's right 888 and WP will still find a way to build a $600, 000 NZV8 regulation car or $750, 000 V8 Ute (with high precision componentry that can only be assembled in the micro-g environment on the international space station of course ) as they try to outdo each other ............ !! so why change the rules in this case?

[Pro Racer]

but the likes of WP/888/Prodive endlessly developing/spending it's going to screw the likes of Britek, PMM, etc.

you might say no loss, but when there is a field of 20 or less cars due to cost you wouldn't be saying that.

[racer69]

I'm all for the production car thinking, that would produce fantastic racing, but it just won't happen, TEGA won't let it.

Not because the racing will be boring (), but because they will never allow everything they currently have invested to be ruled obsolete and unusable at the stroke of a pen, like what happened with Group C to Group A, and from Group A to the current Group 3A formula....

All we are likely to see while is constant (and likely unsuccessful) tinkering of the regulations (as we have seen with the rubbish like the TREC, and the common floor plan) while ever TEGA is running the show....

Something not dis-similiar to the 1991/92 ultimatum from Ford/Holden/Channel 7/Shell is what needs to happen, before anything will happen....

Originally Posted by Pro Racer

but the likes of WP/888/Prodive endlessly developing/spending it's going to screw the likes of Britek, PMM, etc.

A) You can't stop development

B) Development is a part of motorsport, always has been, and always should be.

How does it screw the likes of PMM, when albeit they haven't been that successful, they are one of the teams that has done alot of it dvelopment inhouse in it's own direction.

In motorsport there is always the quick people and the slow people.

[AU N EGL]

Originally Posted by Raglanparade

Well if Ford and Holden pull the money out..

That means teams and sponsors will have to put more money into racing.

[Peter Nightingale]

Originally Posted by Big_Trev

These two are the only ones that are going to be able to make an impact on costs.

I reckon if they push hard enough they may even get it back to where it should be - a production car event - BRING IT ON!!!!

Yes please bring it on, bring down the costs and bring them back to REALITY , please.

[Trevor]

And I notice that TWR have lifted to game to another new level with even more expensive gadgetry in Skaifes car today at PI - when will it stop?

[Pro Racer]

i feel sorry for the little guy.

[pete55]

The stupidity has to stop sometime.

[WebberForWDC]

A $10, 000 widget is not a big deal.

It does not make the car any faster, and the BJR WP commoores will be quite effective at an older spec, just as the K-Mart commodores (Vys) were more than effective even as older specification units & some of the oldest cars out there.....

Surely this indicates development is not the be all and end all. At least not with cars with such bad tyres and long races as V8 supercars !!!

The PMM VX turned Z has still been known to run well in terms of race and even qually pace after all.........

[WebberForWDC]

If you announced a grid of 100 cars for one special round a year and had very reasonably priced entry fees and allow any type or age of V8 Supercars to enter you would have very nearly a full grid! That's hardly a class in crisis!

Only when the field has 11 cars and there are no other V8 Supercars in the land ANYWHERE at any state anywhere near race ready, and the field needs to be propped up with NZV8s or V8 Utes... then and only then is it time to move the whole field and the ATCC to NZV8 or V8 Ute regulations.

[mac]

I had to laugh at manufacturers complaining about the high costs of the category today as Neil Crompton listed some of the trick things in Skaife's new car.