Grand Prix Shootout

[Flavio Galtieri]

I understood the first "round" of this year's competition was to take place in early April. And at a significantly reduced cost.

There's another earlier thread on this subject somewhere.

Perhaps Driver database will be running another competition for a free place too?

[Morris Dancer]

Originally Posted by Redracer77

Scam or legitimate scheme?

It seems that the “2” winners of the scholarship in 2009 are having to fund UK Formula Ford drives themselves and as we speak neither is confirmed for Knockhill this weekend. So after all the hype that the winner will be racing in the prestigious Formula BMW Series supporting F1 they are not getting any funding at all. I would be interested in other people’s views on this and maybe some clarification from David Fleming if he reads Ten Tenths.

Grand Prix Shootout were advertising a 2010 Scheme a few months back but all gone quiet now and no real updates in the website.

Any views?

It has all the hallmarks of yet another unfunded scam that anyone with an once of nous would have realised from the beginning. Peter Windsor's involvement should have set the alarm bells ringing too.

[Morris Dancer]

I'm not qualified to say whether this article is factually correct, but it makes intersting reading.

[chunterer]

Didn't we have a thread about this already?

[F1 Prospects]

And I was just about to contact these guys for an interview. What a shame that yet another young driver competition is not all it was cracked up to be.

[Morris Dancer]

It would appear that predictions of Elinas and Domit not turning up at Knockhill were wide of the mark. They're both on the timesheets from today's practice/testing sessions!

[Morris Dancer]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Didn't we have a thread about this already?

Link?

[jondownunder]

This useful feature finds it just three pages back:

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118388

[F1 Prospects]

I am trying to get some sort of comment from the organizers. I will post if by chance they respond.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

This useful feature finds it just three pages back:

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118388

Thankyou Jon, I thought it was somewhere

[Redracer77]

I gather than the boys money was transferred on Wednesday which allowed them to race this weekend. I still think they are paying themselves and there was definitely no representative from the Grand Prix Shootout with them at Knockhill.

[FFfan]

Originally Posted by Redracer77

I gather than the boys money was transferred on Wednesday which allowed them to race this weekend. I still think they are paying themselves and there was definitely no representative from the Grand Prix Shootout with them at Knockhill.

Actually David Fleming was there. Spoke to him several times over the weekend. Good result for Tio as well in race 2 whatever your view on pretty dubious driving standards by some!

[F1 Prospects]

I have an interview in the works about the 2010 Grand Prix Shootout. We will see what they see but on the surface it looks good.

[Redracer77]

No mention of the Shootout for 6 months and no news on the website? Has this scheme died? Testing days were meant to have started in October but no info regarding who if any have signed up? No free entry for the festival winner either?

Does anyone know if this has now gone under?

[Redracer77]

Accounts for the company were meant to have been submitted to companies house by the 3rd February 2010 and still have not been submitted so it doesnt look good. Their is a proposal to strike off the company and shut it down by companies house

[Morris Dancer]

Time to sound The Last Post on this scam.

[runshaw]

Did Elinas end up funding himself in FF? I followed this shootout on its website last winter and the prize was a season in FBMW Europe wasn't it? They never work out these things. Looked quite professional at the time given the talent of the entrants, and with Danny Watts and Stephen Jelly as coaches. At least we got to see how good Elinas is. Dean Stoneman was one of the entrants, good job he didn't win it!!

[Redracer77]

Originally Posted by runshaw

Did Elinas end up funding himself in FF? I followed this shootout on its website last winter and the prize was a season in FBMW Europe wasn't it? They never work out these things. Looked quite professional at the time given the talent of the entrants, and with Danny Watts and Stephen Jelly as coaches. At least we got to see how good Elinas is. Dean Stoneman was one of the entrants, good job he didn't win it!!

Is it time the MSA got involved in some of these scams and stopped them from happening unless they can produce a valid business plan otherwise it just makes a mockery of our sport. Both the Grand Prix Shootout and RPM Formula Renault Scholoarship both seem to have taken hard earned money from want to be racing drivers and the winner doesnt seem to have got what was promised.

Okay Tio got through a season of Formula Ford....just and I am not sure who actually paid for it. But the organiser of the Shootout is deleting Facebook posts on a daily basis from drivers who have paid the best part of £8,000 to enter the scholarship but not had much else from the payment. It doesnt look good when the holding company for the Shootout hasnt supplied accounts to companies house and it now 14 months behind...http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/fb...prodorder?ft=1

Similar things can be said regarding the RPM Scholoarship as the winner James Tucker has not even recieved enough money to buy his lunch never mind a season in Formula Renualt which was the prize. It is interesting that the organisers of this "scholarship" have now changed the terms & conditions and the winner wins a management contract.....not worth the paper it is written on as a management contact doesnt get you a drive.

So James Tuckers has had to pull out of single seater driving a year after making good progress in the British Formula Ford Championship he is racing this weekend in stock cars in Skegness...not quite the Brands Hatch Grand Prix curcuit that he expected to be driving on.....

So these schemes are still promoting people to part with cash for "this years" scholarship...how do we get them stopped and more importantly regulated in the future...

Maybe the MSA can give an official licence to future schemes?

why do people always want to promote a prize in a high cost formula? Formula Renault costs the best part of £200k to do well. Why dont they pick a northern or a southern winner to race in regional Formula Ford. Lets face it, it is their first season and is what they should be racing anyway. Why put the stress of trying to bank £200k plus operating costs when most of the entries would give their right arm just to be on a circuit racing.......

Might give the MSA a call....

[runshaw]

Well said that Redracer!

[Mas]

Originally Posted by Redracer77

Okay Tio got through a season of Formula Ford....just and I am not sure who actually paid for it. But the organiser of the Shootout is deleting Facebook posts on a daily basis from drivers who have paid the best part of £8,000 to enter the scholarship but not had much else from the payment. It doesnt look good when the holding company for the Shootout hasnt supplied accounts to companies house and it now 14 months behind...http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/fb...prodorder?ft=1

Well apparently from last June Cyprus Airways sponsored Tio in Formula Ford, but in July a GPShootout entrant was asked to make payment (of their entrance fee) directly to JTR, so they were obviously still owed money or maybe that was to cover Dani's racing.

That wasn't a one-off either, another guy around the same time was asked to make payment to a "friend" of David Felming's, which turned out to be a tyre supplier who had never met him. These debts probably explain the lack of accounts.

Another potentially important point, most people (if not all) paid £2,500, the price earlier last year. One person had an assessment, in South Africa (I think), but no one else has had one. David said he was going to refund my money in installments starting the second half of this January (as I took legal action), then Tio was announced in FRUK on Jan' 26th, and I've never heard from David since.

For anyone who's interested I took screenies before David deleted comments from the facebook page. Now he's changed the settings so no one can post on that or his personal profile:

[Redracer77]

Great information Mas, the least he can do is take the website down to stop people paying more money to pay off his debts.

[Mas]

The website has gone down a few times, but only because he hasn't been paying his hosting bill. Trading standards are meant to be looking at shutting him down, but as with the police, despite treating it as fraud they don't seem to be doing much.

P.S. Small correction, I paid £2500 (due to the aborted Novice competition), but most people paid £2,950. There's even one person still owed money from David's F1 shootout competition!

[Mas]

Just a warning, David has launched the 2011 competition, and sent an email to most of the entrants (except me ) saying he may lose everything he has. I can paste it hear if you want, but he's offering entrants a place in the 2011 competition, or a refund even though he hasn't the money for either.

Some other worrying points were he mentioned a free Formula Ford drive that fell through. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Unless it's through the Racing Steps Foundation or something I've never heard of a free entry-level single seater drive.

Also he said he was going to sell remaining places in the 2010 competition to pay for our assessments. So what's he doing now by launching the 2011 comp'? From what I can see, the entrance fee's going down, whilst the supposed prize keeps increasing in value. It's currently a test in a Formula Renault BARC car (at Pembrey) for every entrant, & a winter series drive in FRUK for the winner. Anyone care to put a price on the cost of all that?

[alias99]

Should be in the region of £15k I would imagine. Just a rough guess.

[Redracer77]

Has this not been shut down yet?