The 'Credit Crunch' and the Future of Club Motor Sport

[Al Weyman]

You are missing something and a very important something, all the track days (except winter ones) are exclusively held on weekdays whereas races are always at weekends. I am sure if we were prepared to race during the week they would cut us a similiar deal but then you would also have problems getting marshals to take time off work so thats not goingto happen.

[Rod Birley]

For a club to hire somewhere like Brands Indy circuit on either a Saturday or Sunday it costs well over £20,000 plus VAT. On top of that there are the timekeepers fees (often over £1600 per day), then there is the MSA permit, costs for recovery vehicles, doctors, paramedics, ambulances, scrutineers, some clubs either pay a small amount to marshals or provide raffle prizes.
MSV will argue that they "promote" the truck meetings by advertising them in the local press, radio and sometimes on TV.

[retro_msport]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

You are missing something and a very important something, all the track days (except winter ones) are exclusively held on weekdays whereas races are always at weekends. I am sure if we were prepared to race during the week they would cut us a similiar deal but then you would also have problems getting marshals to take time off work so thats not goingto happen.

The land, the tarmac, the buildings dont know if its a monday or a sunday.

The overheads stay the same no matter what day it is

And at that trackday there was an ambulance, recovery and catering .. yes on a smaller scale, but then as shown, so was the fees.

I'm sure £300,000 buys a lot of recovery, doctors etc

[Chris Y]

Thing is Gary, the circuit has quite a lot of money to pay out over the course of a year, to pay for that land, tarmac, buildings, etc.

Obviously there are only so many race weekends that can take place, so the rest of the money comes from trackdays, corporate events, etc.

If those events didn't happen, race meetings would have to be more expensive to make up the shortfall.

Or are you suggesting that the circuits charge more for weekday trackdays, and make the racing weekends cheaper? That will more than likely drive away trackday customers, resulting in more of a shortfall, which will have to be taken up by the racing customers.. It's not a simple fix.

[Piglet]

Originally Posted by retro_msport

The overheads stay the same no matter what day it is

Seriously? You tried getting enough marshals, senior officials, medics, timekeepers etc. to adequately man a mid week race meeting to MSA standards?

I'll turn up to a small number of "big" Friday meetings for free but you aint getting any more of my hard earned (and expensive!) holiday....

[Bob Pearson]

Originally Posted by Piglet

Seriously? You tried getting enough marshals, senior officials, medics, timekeepers etc. to adequately man a mid week race meeting to MSA standards?

I'll turn up to a small number of "big" Friday meetings for free but you aint getting any more of my hard earned (and expensive!) holiday....

Most club drivers work for a living as well, so anything other than a weekend event turns out very expensive for them too.

[retro_msport]

Originally Posted by Chris Y

Thing is Gary, the circuit has quite a lot of money to pay out over the course of a year, to pay for that land, tarmac, buildings, etc.

exactly .. 'over the year' middweek costs of land are the same as the weekend.

Originally Posted by Chris Y

Obviously there are only so many race weekends that can take place, so the rest of the money comes from trackdays, corporate events, etc..

yes the rest of the money comes from those events, which tend not to have spectators, those same spectators that pay even more money into the coffers, so why does a race meet have to earn 100k, when a trackday only has to earn 10k
Fairs fair and all that, but remember, the racing makes the most, so drop a few quid off the drivers, even 50 quid off, say 150 drivers is only £7,500, that from say a race meet that earns £200,000 is a drop in an ocean, but that £50 to a racer... and may see other drivers coming .. if the £50 off a £300 race meet brings in 25 more drivers, well thats the £7,500 made up.

Originally Posted by Chris Y

It's not a simple fix.

its only as complicated as people want to make it, supermarkets pile it high, sell it cheap ...

[retro_msport]

Originally Posted by Piglet

Seriously? You tried getting enough marshals, senior officials, medics, timekeepers etc. to adequately man a mid week race meeting to MSA standards?

I'll turn up to a small number of "big" Friday meetings for free but you aint getting any more of my hard earned (and expensive!) holiday....

You totally missed my point.. a weekday full track session needs 10k to run, yet a weekend day costs over £200,000 .... what i'm saying, is the air at weekends suddenly charged for? , ok medics, recovery etc are needed in bigger numbers, but Marshalls, you guys do it it for free, and thank god you do, so are the medics, breakdown trucks, and time keepers costing .. what .. £190,000 ???

Racing on a weekday wont work, i'm just pointing out that weekdays, the track costs the same as weekends, its the same tarmac remember.

[SWCRacing]

I think you need to re-do your sums as they are WAY out by a major factor!!

Firstly, track hire costs for the major circuits are in the range of £15,000 to £25,000 per day plus vat. Midpoint £20,000 +vat = 23,500

Next you have to factor in the per-capita charges from the MSA (Insurance, permit fees etc) Basing it on a 10 race programme with an average grid of 20 cars per race this comes to a figure north of £4,500.

Add the doctors (two are required for racing) at say £200 each, plus a nurse or two, paramedics, radiographer etc to staff the med centre. Easily get to £1,000 for the medical staff.

Recovery vehicles, say three to adequately cover the meeting at £500 each, another £1500. Rescue Units are required by the track licence, normally two at say anther £500 each. Another £1,000 to the total cost.

Then there are the MSA Steward, scrutineers etc expense (because they are volunteers and dont get paid) say another £2,500

So, total cost is in the area of £32,500 for a one day meeting.

Entry fees would be 200 at £175 =£35,000, out of which the organisers have to get programmes printed, results photocopied etc

The circuits keep the gate, which at a normal club event probably wouldn't cover the cost of printing the tickets!

If you want to check the figures, go to the Blue Book.

[Bob Pearson]

SWC, speaking of re-doing sums, where can you get an entry fee of £175, a single header event with the BARC is about £220 which makes the income from entries £44k

[SWCRacing]

Bob, Good call. Been a few years since paying that for entries. However my point still stands. Also, do BARC still do the reduced entry fee if you enter two races at the event? Would need to factor that in as well. I am sure I have missed off other incidental costs as well.
There isn't a huge great pot of money being hoarded by the organising clubs from Club racing

[Bob Pearson]

Originally Posted by SWCRacing

Bob, Good call. Been a few years since paying that for entries. However my point still stands. Also, do BARC still do the reduced entry fee if you enter two races at the event? Would need to factor that in as well. I am sure I have missed off other incidental costs as well.
There isn't a huge great pot of money being hoarded by the organising clubs from Club racing

There is a sort of reduction for entering two races, a BARC double header is a little over £400 so that shows a small reduction that is complicated by the fact that double headers are usually over two days, which even if that doesn't earn a circuit hire reduction at certainly reduces some overheads.

I'm sure you are right when you say that clubs are not hoarding money, but the difference between now and the "good old days" and I say that with tongue in cheek, is that the clubs have a large number of salaried staff doing work wkich long ago was done by volunteers who simply loved the sport. Now, a lot of people stand between the racer and the grid making a living from "helping".

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by Bob Pearson

........ Now, a lot of people stand between the racer and the grid making a living from "helping".

Hit the nail right on the head there; unfortunately in today's society there are far more takers than givers and I don't think it possible to turn the clock back, so

[ukaskew]

Originally Posted by R59

What's there solution?

To get the public in. And to do that, you have to put stuff on that the public want to see. What's more, there's no point in just doing it, and not telling the masses that you're going to do it, so they have to market the events.

Marketing is key, and it doesn't need to expensive. I'm always looking out for events to attend, but even for me when I'm specifically looking, it's still really easy to miss things. There have been many occasions this year where I've felt that certain events don't seem interested in spectators attending, which is bizarre considering the event is set-up to accept them.

The Longleat Hillclimb amazed me this year, they had spent the money setting it up for spectators to visit, but forgot to tell anyone! I fortunately caught wind of it the night before, even though I only live 5 miles away, and when I shared my photos after the event I had loads of "I had no idea this was on" comments. The Britcar 24hr was another good one, they got the most amazing press in the form of nearly a full episode of Top Gear the previous year, yet completely failed to capitalize on that for 2008, as a spectator it was an extremely frustrating experience planning to attend, there was simply no information, which is kind of essential when you want to plan to stay overnight.

Once the facilities are set up, any extra spectators are essentially 'free' money for an event, as the costs won't increase if 100 people show up instead of 10. I would say though, that many events have been prohibitively expensive this year, with petrol prices being so high, it's extremely hard to justify that cost and then a further £20 on top to enter the event, it ends up making a day out very very expensive.

From a purely spectator point of view, motorsport in this country can be a frustrating experience, which is a shame as it would be relatively cheap and easy to fix the problems many of us experience.

[Al Weyman]

I'm sure you are right when you say that clubs are not hoarding money, but the difference between now and the "good old days" and I say that with tongue in cheek, is that the clubs have a large number of salaried staff doing work wkich long ago was done by volunteers who simply loved the sport. Now, a lot of people stand between the racer and the grid making a living from "helping".

And that with respect is I believe how (not sure and prepared to stand corrected) Highside's TTRS get their entries down or at least using volounteers to do the admin goes a long way towards it but I would like to honestly know how long can they be relied on to do this as just looking after one championship and not doing any entries whatsoever became a pain for me after a few years.

[Tim Falce]

One thing in defence of some clubs and how much they charge, if you take the MGCC meeting at Snetterton a couple of weeks ago then the Sunday was rained off. I doubt MSV will refund anything for that but the club are refunding all the drivers entry fees. They will take quite a hit on that meeting and unless they had rain insurance then they would need a healthy balance sheet to cover it.

[retro_msport]

Originally Posted by Retro_Msport

200 for the day, times the 50 cars equals £10,000 to Brands
200 for the race's, times the 30 cars (DMN) equals £6,000
then you have another 4-8 championships there,their costs may be higher with less cars, or lower with more, so we will take the average as £200x 30 cars.

Trackday £200x 50 cars there = £10,000
Race day £6,000/ championships x 6 = £36,000

SWC, you just backed up what i had guestimated in my first post ...

Originally Posted by SWCracing

So, total cost is in the area of £32,500 for a one day meeting.

My large figure of over £300,000 was at the Truck Grand prix which had a gate of 22,000 people.

And by your own admission your say the entry fees would be ...

Originally Posted by SWCracing

Entry fees would be 200 at £175 =£35,000, out of which the organisers have to get programmes printed, results photocopied etc

which when the entry fees are corrected to £45,000 gives in the area of £12,500 to print some programmes and results...

Now if we say its a small gate of 5000 people at £15 a ticket, thats another £75,000 ... and all i'm saying is drop the entry fees by 50 quid , which on a 200 car entry is 10k from 75k .. and thats 10k if the reduction didnt entice more cars.

another 50 entries at £200 would see that 10k re-couped.

Remember, these figures are the small ones, low entry fees, and low gate price. What was the BTTC or the DTM price, £35 a head, and at the final there was 18,000 people ..thats £630,000

Stone me, surely they can drop £50 of an entry

[Highside]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

And that with respect is I believe how (not sure and prepared to stand corrected) Highside's TTRS get their entries down or at least using volounteers to do the admin goes a long way towards it but I would like to honestly know how long can they be relied on to do this as just looking after one championship and not doing any entries whatsoever became a pain for me after a few years.

Yes, we are very fortunate in haveing a group of people who put in a hell of a lot of effort for Project 8, and like a lot of people who make things happen in motorsport, on a purely volounteer basis.

Frankly they are all heros.

It's not a big part of keeping the entrys down (maybe 5 or 10% or the saving I would guess), but it's certainly helps and is greatly appreciated.

However, my understanding of it is that 90~95% of the cost saving is down to buying a grid, filling it, then dividing the cost evenly between those taking part.

If you don't fill the grid, it won't work. Simple.

"Highside's TTRS"

It's not mine!.. but I am a very happy competitor in it.

[johnw]

Divide the total race day cost by 7 hours to get a rough cost per hour, allow for clean up time between qualifying; gridding up time; green flag lap and clear up after the race and you soon see why entry fees are what they are from the organising clubs.
Full grids are the only way to reduce race fees for the club racer.

I don't know which small clubbies you have seen with 5,000 spectators Gary, but at the majority of the meetings I've been to this year, I know the names of all the spectators. Gate income is negligible.

As described by Highside, there's no secret to achieving low entry fees.

pm me if you think that we can be of any help.

[Bob Pearson]

Originally Posted by johnw

Divide the total race day cost by 7 hours to get a rough cost per hour, allow for clean up time between qualifying; gridding up time; green flag lap and clear up after the race and you soon see why entry fees are what they are from the organising clubs.
Full grids are the only way to reduce race fees for the club racer.

I don't know which small clubbies you have seen with 5,000 spectators Gary, but at the majority of the meetings I've been to this year, I know the names of all the spectators. Gate income is negligible.

As described by Highside, there's no secret to achieving low entry fees.

pm me if you think that we can be of any help.

To the best of my knowledge ( unless someone can correct me) I don't know of any championship which runs with BARC that gets an entry fee reduction because it has a full grid, and there certainly are some full grids.

[johnw]

The organising clubs necessarily have to take a view of how many racers they will get across a season and set a price accordingly.

If they discounted full grid entry fees to pro-rated cost, then fifteen car grids would be paying £320-£360 for a 15 min qually and 15 min race in order to compensate.

Of course the clubs also develop and seed new initiatives so that there will always be grids that start small with potential to grow.
Difficult to see how they would get started if race entry fees were entirely pro-rata.

[Bob Pearson]

Did I dream it, or did I read a year or so ago that the events at Castle Combe are now run by volunteers? If that is correct is there anyone on this thread who knows what the entry fees are for those events?

[retro_msport]

To sum up the last few pages, and its just my opinion, and ideas

Problem ....
cost to the racers, clubs, and circuits.

Solution for the circuits...........
More people through the turnstiles
To achieve that the races need to be exciting enough to drag people away from the TV.
What makes a race exciting? full grids
How do we get full grids? the costs to the racer needs to be affordable
We have seen on here, that the circuits seem to be keeping the costs to the clubs as low as possible, yet some clubs field 10-15 cars, an example, the Ford Saloons, costs have gone up, and this year from full grids before to half empty grids, and on thier unofficial forum, they all say, costs.
So to get full grids the the costs need to be reduced.

Solution for the clubs.........
Reduce fees to use the circuit

The clubs provide the entertainment by getting a bunch of nutters to spend hours in a garage building car, and then allowing them to get together and thrash the living daylights out of those cars.
I cant see what else the clubs can do to lower the costs, apart from trying to promote their events, but this would increase costs.


Solution for the drivers..........
More drivers out there

But again, it comes to costs, to get more drivers out there, the racing needs to be cheaper.

Perhaps an answer to fuller grids, closer more exciting for spectator is some of the smaller fields to join. Horrible as it may seem to them to join, but it may be their survival route. I'll admit i havnt looked at the one makes, but what if 2 small series joined, with the same sort of cars, MGF and MR2 for example... maybe they both have full grids allready but you get the idea.

Or even missmatched cars, a grid of AAAAA's starting 30 (or whaterver) seconds before a grid of BBBBB's and all finishing at about the same time..



We all have to try to get the answers, spectators are the ones that will help, we need to get them away from the TV's, perhaps on those rounds where the gates have seen one person through it, could it be a free gate. A taster of motorsport...

THIS WEEKEND AT SILVERBRANDSHILL

A FANTASTIC FREE WEEKEND OF MOTORSPORT

COME AND WATCH THE THRILLS CLOSE UP

SMELL THE ATMOSPHERE

TASTE THE EXCITMENT

HEAR AND FEEL THE POWER

etc etc

and maybe the spectators would come, new ones and ones that had become couch potatoes, and maybe just maybe it would lead to them paying next weekend ..and the weekend after.. and the weekend after that.



Like i said, its only my opinion and ideas, pull them apart, shoot me down, but come up with some other ideas

[johnw]

Bob, see your pm

[Piglet]

I think unfortunately that all the marketing and publicity in the world doesn't consistently get people through the doors in sufficient numbers.

I think (and I'm sure there are people around who could tell you) that Rockingham demonstrated that whilst you give away free tickets people come to your race meetings but that when you stop giving away free tickets they go and do something else. Rockingham also put all sorts of family entertainment on, had a circuit that you could see from most of the seats and had decent toilets. I know it has it's haters but from a punters point of view it was a pretty good experience. WSR is another good example, I know lots of people who go because it was a free day out, they have no interest in motorsport and wouldn't go again unless it was free. I was always a believer that this didn't matter as they bought food/merchandise when they were in the circuit but I now don't think that is enough for the circuit owner to make money.

Sadly, we have to accept that many people don't find motorsport entertaining and even with full grids it's really a bit niche. There are lots of F1 fans but they have little interest in anything else.

JP and MSV have spent a lot of money marketing the big meetings at Brands, WTCC, DTM, A1GP etc. and putting on family focused entertainment and the returns haven't been great. The biggest factor seems to be the weather, if we pull of a good day then punters come, get a bad day and they go shopping. Circuits try to address this by discounting pre-purchased tickets but lots of folks just wait to see what the weather brings before setting out for the day - I guess motorsport isn't fun when you're trying to keep dry and keep a couple of small people happy. The only thing that got lots of folks through the gate was having Lewis Hamilton at the DTM round, the place was packed which was great for that event but will they come back without that draw? Could you manage that for every event - probably not.