Motorsport News

[the_tsar]

There was a letter in Motorsport news about the new rule allowing ETCC cars to enter the BTCC. One of the things it said is that it would be a shame for Alfa, BMW and SEAT to enter and manipulate the rules to suit them i.e like Alfa and the aero package in 1994. I hope this does not happen.

Oh and quick question which will probably make me sound thick.
Do the ETCC cars use aerodynamic aids?

[Andrew Kitson]

Another thing about Motorsport News:
What on earth is going on with the front page this week? Ok, I know I am in the Touring Car thread but surely you will agree.
Bentley historically win Le Mans for the first time in 73 YEARS and the headline story is about a non championship touring car race at a race meeting 13 months in the future!! Oh, and it will be held after the main event when half of the crowd are going home.
Get some perspective please..

[Dave Brand]

Originally posted by Andrew Kitson
What on earth is going on with the front page this week? Ok, I know I am in the Touring Car thread but surely you will agree.

In fairness, there is also a big picture of a 'Bentley' on the front page.

'Secures' British GP slot? It's only provisional!

[Maisie]

I sent an extremely stroppy email to them yesterday at the woeful lack of coverage of the 24hr 2CV race. The first 24 hour race on mainland soil in 10 years, with a fantastic atmosphere and the potential to be a "must-see" event for next year, and what do they do? One small column amounting to "So-and-so won, X was second and Y was third after a few problems. Oh, and some other stuff happened to some more cars on the way."

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen amazing racing over a weekend, then turned to the club pages of Autosport or MN and been gutted to see only one paragraph detailing the top 3 finishers.

So much for the "Voice of British Motorsport"

[jase]

Maisie, the reason for just putting down X/Y/Z result, is because some of the reporters tend to sit in the press room and look at the timing screen, they don't go and watch the race, and only come out to get soundbites.

[Peter S]

Motorsport News and Autosport are getting to be a waste of time. It takes about 10 minutes to read them both. In fact autosport should just be renamed F1 weekly. Motorsport News seems to be heading the same way as the coverage is getting poorer and poorer. Motorsport News dont even cover Euro rallycross. They also ignore what readers think, as the email route never seems to work.

[ss_collins]

so what is you want MN to do then?

[jase]

The cover of this weeks Autosport has a Green banner (rightly so) and is 50% Bentley/F1. A friend of mine complained to Autosport a few yers back about it's LM coverage, a British winner but F1 on the cover. The answer, "we don't sell as many copy unless there is an F1 car/story on the cover."

So there it is, it has nothing to do with reporting, and everything to do with money.

[Maisie]

I would like Motorsport News to devote as much coverage to the fantastic club racing that goes on every weekend all over the UK and Ireland every weekend as they do to F1 (which they should have as a sideline since they're supposed to be the voice of British motorsport), rallying and karting. I would like more pictures, more in-depth writeups containing something other than the results as seen on MST, with some passion and enthusiasm.

I have emailed MN before to ask why club racing gets such poor coverage stuck out of the way in the back of the paper but never got a reply, and to be honest I'm not expecting a response to my latest letter either, let alone anything to change.

[ss_collins]

but there is a bentley on the front cover....

[ss_collins]

well reports follow news and features thats just the way mags work. Is there not a two page feature on the TVR tuscans? with the amount of club racing in the UK some things are gonna lose out, especially during Le Mans. However formula student is gonna get a half page editorial feature and an advertising bit on the back of it.

[Andrew Kitson]

To be fair to MN I think they do a pretty good job in covering a lot of grass roots Motorsport but I too was disappointed at the few lines given to the other 24 hour event at Snetterton. They seem to put a lot of effort in covering karting. Drag Racing too for example is covered a lot more comprehensively than in Autosport. The big meetings at Santa Pod draw crowds easily on par with or better than the BTCC yet for some reason this tin top championship seems far more important on their front cover than a very famous day for British Motor Sport at Le Mans. At least Autosport favoured the Bentley win over the Canadian GP with a bigger headline and photo.

[Maisie]

Yes, there's a 2 page feature on Tuscans, but that could have happened any weekend. Why virtually ignore an event as groundbreaking and exciting as the 24 hour? Why is a tiny rally somewhere no-one's ever heard of worthy of half a page and a big picture and a whole event's worth of doorhandle-to-doorhandle racing relegated to one column out of the way?

[iucrmh]

Originally posted by ss_collins
but there is a bentley on the front cover....

Shame its the one that came second though, rather than the winner.....

[ss_collins]

Shame its the one that came second though, rather than the winner.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was waiting for somone to point that out...

the BTCC and F1 sell the paper more than the club stuff, and the club stuff is supported by the big stuff. As for the tiny rally no-ones ever heard of - well that one rally will sell more copies of MN than a month of club racing and is also a round of a national championship, note the feature on the SEMSEC chappie. The 24hrs 2cv is hardly groundbreaking, theyv'e been doing it at mondello for years. Also the event went rather wrong as the timing got messed up totally.

[Andrew Kitson]

I can understand the F1 stuff selling the comics but not the BTCC. Only 20,000 at most attend BTCC meetings these days and a lot of those are on freebie tickets from the dealers - CART Brands was different - yet 70,000 Brits ( apparantly ) went to Le Mans. Surely a big BENTLEY WIN LE MANS headline would sell more copies?
I've had my say now..off my soap box!

[touringlegend]

To be fair about the club racing, how many people go and buy Motorsport News / Autosport to read about someone racing a 15 year old hatchback somewhere in the country?? I attend more club events that national events, and MN is dissapointing because basically the "report" is reading out the results to you...

Yes, plenty of Brits go to Le Mans Andrew, but I'd say more go for the beer than the racing to be frank..(hence how many would be interested in reading about the race?)

[ss_collins]

the club racing stuff is, with the state of club racing a bit dull. Rallying however is boyant and is getting better coverage - because its more intersting.

[vtti]

Maisie, why would anyone want to read about 2cv's, no one in there right mind would take those things seriously.

[Maisie]

I take it you weren't at Snetterton last weekend then. You speak of something you obviously know nothing about. Yes, 2CVs aren't exactly the fastest or most serious racing cars out there, but they take a hell of a lot of skill to drive fast. Oh, and there was probably more overtaking in one lap (same goes for most club racing) than a whole season of F1.

Touringlegend, you've also made my point, in a way. "how many people go and buy Motorsport News / Autosport to read about someone racing a 15 year old hatchback somewhere in the country??"

That's precisely the problem - nobody will read it if all there is is a tiny boring picture of a Ford Fiesta and a list of results. OK, MN is at a disadvantage in that it's in black and white. But you look at something like In Gear mag - the pictures are bold, bright and colourful, and attract the eye, and the text is laid out in a way that demands to be read. I wouldn't ordinarily find myself remotely interested in, for example, a hillclimb, but show me a bright picture of a VW Beetle waving its front wheels madly in the air and you might just get my attention!

So why not read about 15 year old hatchbacks? You know very well Chris races a 15 year old hatchback, and I've seen very few races in that series that have been boring. And yet Motorsport News and Autosport continually give the impression that it is boring, and not newsworthy or exciting, and not worth writing about, reading about or going to see.

Perhaps when every racer of a 15 year old hatchback gives up in disgust when they can no longer get sponsorship because no-one comes through the circuit gates, no-one knows the championships exist, no-one wants to pay money to see them, when the circuits can no longer afford to survive, and the racers can no longer afford the fees they are forced to stump up to keep the circuits going - when the rich motorsport heritage of this country disappears and every circuit is closed save for one boring concrete airfield, then perhaps you'll wish there were some 15 year old hatchbacks for you to look at.

[the_tsar]

This is all great but what has it got to do with the BTCC?

[Dave Brand]

Originally posted by vtti
Maisie, why would anyone want to read about 2cv's, no one in there right mind would take those things seriously.

Have ever actually seen a 2CV race? No? I though not!

[Peter S]

I have now been a subscriber of the motorsport news and Autosport for 18 years. Each year the coverage and content in each magazine regarding club and national motorsport has decreased in comparison to Formula coverage. This has been more notable than ever in the past two years. Ok today we have a Bentley on the front cover of the magazine, which is to right, but that will probably be the only time in the 48 editions this year. The quality of whats in it is poor and probably takes about a quarter of the time to read it compared to the olden days. Also if you notice the motorsport news and autosport have similar content and storys including using some of the same pictures. European rallycross which was so big in 90's no longer even gets a mention, and Nascar hardly gets much of a mention whcih is probably one of the biggest motorsport championships in the world. I also remeber when the 2CV race got big coverage in the motorsport news, as did events such as the Willhire 24 hours. As for Touring cars, then the motorsport news hardly mentions foreign championships, and the Australian series should have at least a page.

[redshoes]

The 2CVs got a full page preview in MN last week but the lack of a good report was disappointing. No mention of the timing problems or the non-apearance of the Stig, both of which I thought would warrrant even a brief news snippet at least. For once Autosport's coverage was actually half decent.

[touringlegend]

Originally posted by Maisie
So why not read about 15 year old hatchbacks? You know very well Chris races a 15 year old hatchback, and I've seen very few races in that series that have been boring. And yet Motorsport News and Autosport continually give the impression that it is boring, and not newsworthy or exciting, and not worth writing about, reading about or going to see.

But it's one of those situations, where, there are not *enough* people wanting to read about club racing to warrant large reports, but in turn if there were large reports then people would read them. It's all down to the money, as has been said putting Mr X instead of Mr Y as a feature or on the front cover of Autosport / MN will shift so many more copies...
But I think there is a way round this - the net. Here in Scotland, one of the XR2 drivers has a very nice little site going with plenty of attractive features to make people want to visit. Even one of his main sponsors is a website! There's also a dedicated site to the Scottish Motor Racing Club (an unofficial one) which provides excellent coverage of the races in both pictures and words.

Perhaps when every racer of a 15 year old hatchback gives up in disgust when they can no longer get sponsorship because no-one comes through the circuit gates, no-one knows the championships exist, no-one wants to pay money to see them, when the circuits can no longer afford to survive, and the racers can no longer afford the fees they are forced to stump up to keep the circuits going - when the rich motorsport heritage of this country disappears and every circuit is closed save for one boring concrete airfield, then perhaps you'll wish there were some 15 year old hatchbacks for you to look at.

I was going to mention this in the previous section, but thought it was relevant here. It's something I think is very important - do club racers actually want large reports on them - they simply do it for the "fun" of it and I don't think there'll ever be no club racers in this country. There'll forever be someone out there willing to spend their hard earned cash (and their sponsors...) on racing. As an example, I really do wonder how a "club racer" can justify £20k for a Mini in the Scottish Mini Cooper Challenge - obviously they have a large bank balance somewhere and do it for the enjoyment.