[champcarman]

Originally Posted by Umai Naa

The motorsport landscape in Australia, particularly circuit racing, is too small to sustain such fragmentation. The top end of town is doing alright for itself. Grassroots-level racing is as popular as ever. The giant void in the middle doesn't seem to be getting much in the way of a retrun on investment.

Why GT remained split up this year, is beyond me. Given the dismal grids last year, they should have consolidated the whole lot into one package. For such small grids, long-winded endurance races are a waste of time. They would've been better off with a pair of 1hr races, 2-driver/1-driver - whatever, per weekend. As it is, they're not engaging enough to watch via stream, let alone trackside. GT racing elsewhere in the world is still a fair way ahead. That a breakaway series exists, along with GT3-spec cars being grandfathered into state-level racing, isn't a good sign.

Production cars; seriously. If you're sinking $200K+ annually (allegedly) into a new outright car, you should be playing elsewhere. GT4, perhaps. CAMS should have reigned this in years ago. Porsches, Lotii, high-end BMWs really don't do the catagory any favours whatsoever.

Formula 4, the racing is getting better but the slow uptake is a worry. Something is fundamentally wrong behind the scenes, if it's being side-stepped for Toyota 86s.

I would say the costs would be way higher for F4 compared to Toyota 86 so I can understand young drivers taking the 86 route, but whether that sort of racing will produce a great caliber of drivers compared to what the open wheel classes (FF etc) have is debatable. But I agree that the allowance of more expensive cars into production car racing may not be good for the category but neither is the age of some of the cars going around either (Toyota Echo, Honda Integra etc).