Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan52
Commercial and spectator interest in Australian domestic open wheeler racing was always going to fall off a cliff after 1981.In May that year live or near live telecasts of F1 started in Australia.When the best drivers and teams in the world started coming into your house every other weekend it was always going to show up local racing by comparison.
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That would be a fair summation IF the local scene had not at the same time moved to categories that were not spectator friendly. With the push by CAMS to promote Mondial, Pacific and later Formula Holden, F3 and now the dreaded F4 open wheelers were left without a hook to defend themselves against the growing dominance on TV of the tin tops.
The idea that we were promoting a path to international glory for our drivers by adopting International formulas was well intentioned but a huge failure.
I guess I'm influenced by memories going back to pre Cooper days and then the Tasman series but I still think the F5000s gave us the best spectator racing experience ever seen at a local level. And it provided good TV ratings in an reasonable timeslot which F1 didn't achieve for quite a few years.