Thruxton 40th anniversary 23rd 24th march

[cornish git]

Were do i start.40th anniversary f2s great, then wife with flu, not good phoned barc sorry will have to miss meeting, sitting home sunday night phone rings, one of my marshall friends. a ex observer of some 40 years, who was at the 1st meeting, how was it i asked,his reply was as follows, the grids were poor, the racing was poor, not many people,this was one of the worst meetings i have been to in a very long time,as a good marshall will go again tommorow, but not to Thruxton, but to castle combe where there was a 11 race program with over 40 cars in most races.were he had a very good day. and even with not so good weather lots of people, who came to watch the raceing, not to be negative we need good meetings to keep all the new marshals happy and coming back, so what went wrong at thruxton, or was it just a bad day

[M Greenslade]

Don't judge a venue by one meeting, both Thruxton and Castle Combe offer excellent racing and in general are slickly run.

Bladders...............

[Circuitmarshal]

May be I'm old and easy to please but I saw some good racing over the two days.

[kipper]

I have to admit that I enjoyed the meeting. Whilst I'll accept that the entry level for the Sports Racing Masters were rather on the small side, which was accerbated by their antics on Sunday, the races were entertaining enough. On the whole though, the racing was of a good standard.

[ffracer]

From the racer's side of the armco I also have to say Thruxton wasn't that great. The programme had a "structural" problem from the outset, with practice on Sunday and race(s) on Monday for most people. Costs of staying overnight makes this an expensive way to do a 15 minute race and I think this puts competitors off. Then the regs didn't actually appear until 2 days after the closing date, so that can't have helped to get entries either. A further factor is that most series don't race much at Thruxton and you can't in effect test there. I think this also discourages some entries and affects the quality of the racing - it's quite an unusual circuit and it's hard to go well there if you haven't been around a long time and done it before...

Given that the Sunday was mostly practice (I think there were 2 races only on Sunday) it's a bit unfair to complain of poor racing on this first day. However, come Monday and our race at 9.45am there was about as much glamour and excitment as a cold potato. For example there seemed to be no circuit commentary - my crew certainly didn't hear one - and after the chequered flag fell the podium finishers were briskly waved off the circuit into parc ferme - no interviews with commentator, no garlands, no nothing. I'm told that there were commemorative medals, but I didn't see them. I was perhaps expecting a little more bazaz at Thruxton's 40th birthday...

I think it would have been much better to split the practice and racing more evenly between the two days This would have made the Sunday more interesting for marshalls and spectators, avoided running races early in the morning, given more time to fix some of the more exotic cars between their races, and enabled the single race entrants to attend on one day only.

[ffracer]

...and another thing...

the Race Programme was dreadful, I've seen better at small sprints.

[Teletubby]

Erm, ffracer, I listened to the commentary and heard the top 3 being interviewed from each race!

The grids weren't as big as they could have been but there was some very good racing going on.

[Stacy]

Just had a look through the timesheets:

http://www.tsl-timing.com/barc/2008/81222.pdf

Grids did seem a little thin on the ground for everyone, and I was surprised by Top Hat only putting on 20 cars as I thought it was better supported than that. SRM was well under red card territory should that apply.

It seems though that everyone took a hit of some order, including some series which would put on sizeable grids ordinarily (ff, fjnr, fvee - or am I out of date with that assumption nowadays?).

That would suggest some generic issues which exacerbated the situation of the weaker series, and perhaps timetable, promotion, etc are indeed players here.

Grids in the teens do no-one any good of course, so lets hope someone does put their finger on it.

S.

[ffracer]

Originally Posted by Teletubby

Erm, ffracer, I listened to the commentary and heard the top 3 being interviewed from each race!

Indeed you are wrong - I won the FF race and none of the top three were interviewed. Other races possibly were, but not the FF race.

[FA73]

Originally Posted by ffracer

Indeed you are wrong - I won the FF race and none of the top three were interviewed. Other races possibly were, but not the FF race.

FFracer is right - I was 4th (by 0.002sec) in the same race and all three in front of me were flagged straight off with no ceremony.... (However we always do our own prize giving in the paddock afterwards)

Both the FF1600 race and FF2000 race featured close battles - 2nd -5th in the FF1600 race was covered by 1 second at the flag and 2nd to 4th in the FF2000 race was covered by 0.3 seconds.

[Jon Davis]

ffracer is quite correct about the lack of podium presentation and interview. It is a real shame not to get a chance to thank friends and family for all their efforts in getting us up there in the first place. It did feel as if we were perhaps getting in the way of something more important.

I think the weather probably put a rather large dampener, no pun intended, on the weekend but we shouldn't really judge the success or failure on something over which we have no control.

I stepped both sides of the armco over the two days and enjoyed viewing some pretty good racing from all the different disciplines present. I know I left on Monday afternoon with a smile on my face. It was just very difficult to stand still for too long with the biting cold wind.

The question of spectator numbers at club events is one that regularly gets raised and is obviously not an easy one to answer, otherwise every weekend would have capacity crowds, but ticket price must be the biggy. I think the gate price was £15 with an extra £7 or £8 pounds to get into the paddock (correct me if I am wrong) and that is just madness . . . isn't it . . . ?

[johnw]

Certainly is

[happyhammer]

I think the weather probably paid a large part in the low turnout of spectators. I don't know if it was because of the post I was on (I couldn't see post 22 - 5) but it looked to me as if there were more marshals than spectators. Were I not a marshal but heard that it was the 40th anniversary meeting I might have gone along on the Monday. However, were I not a marshal I wouldn't have had a volunteering form to see this on..
There was some good racing despite small grids, just thought there might have been more of a show at an 'anniverary celebration'.

[bigal]

Shame the 40th anniversary meeting was held in March but IIRC Easter Monday was the traditional F2 date. I marshalled at the Thruxton Silver Jubilee meeting (gosh, have I been around that long?), which was on a fine summer day. I remember it being very busy with car, bike and kart races, air display, demo laps by the (then new) McLaren F1 road car and, again IIRC, a Williams Renault F1 car on site but failing to take to the track. Watch this space in ten year's time to see what happens for the Golden Jubilee.

[Teletubby]

I apologise profusely for my error, maybe I didn't have the radio on that early!