AMOC St John Horsfall Trophy

[Peter Mallett]

Races to be added.

[brands]

Did this meeting used to move about to other circuits in the past ?

[John Turner]

Not that I recall. Almost always at Silverstone, although I think that one year it may have gone to Snetterton. Might be mistaken there, though.

[Bert Young]

Originally Posted by brands

Did this meeting used to move about to other circuits in the past ?

The "Horsfall" meeting was only held at Silverstone during the 60's , 70's and for most of the 80's . I would think that it moved to other circuits purely for £sd. reasons . AMOC does not seem to be the club that it used to be ; traditions used to mean a lot .

[john ruston]

AMOC-Not what it was!Pity.

[The Flagman]

Likely to have trouble attracting marshalling folk. Timetable is 8.00am to 8.00pm on Sat and 8.00am to 7.00pm on Sunday.

Was going to flag but now worked out it will be less arduous taking wifey elsewhere for the weekend!

[AGD A105/6]

Dates are now 25-26 June, at least that's when I plan to turn up!

Annual Sunbeam Challenge now split into 2x 10 minute races like most races on the Sunday, at the behest of Motors TV, should be interesting.

[Peter Mallett]

Calendar changed. That's the same weekend as MG Live.

[lml698]

Sadly AMOC have sold out and lost a lot of their usual customers after last years mess. They ended up PAYING a kings ransom to get the TV to cover the Sunday and then were told they had to have lots of 10 min races !!!
Sadly due to mess ups Silv' now won't offer them a decent Summer date for the Horsfal so they have to settle for other tracks.
I'm afraid that's what happens when the" bean counters" take over and others who are running Comps for their own benefit !!!

[John Turner]

Agreed and sadly so, Mark.

[grantp]

Weather not kind for this one although it seemed drier later in the day.

Anyway there I was sitting in the office listening to some pleasant engine noises so I decided to check the timing info.

Good grief, thought I, a 3 hour race to end the day with 12 runners in qualifying. The race was running by then and one of them, maybe two or even a few more, it's not always easy to tell, sounded rather splendid but I assumed the mix of 12 were not all as noisy as each other.

Then, perhaps 30 or 40 mins into the race, things went quiet. And stayed that way.

The TSL result sheet just says "Race declared null and void".

So what happened? Anyone know?

[brands]

Originally Posted by grantp

Weather not kind for this one although it seemed drier later in the day.

Anyway there I was sitting in the office listening to some pleasant engine noises so I decided to check the timing info.

Good grief, thought I, a 3 hour race to end the day with 12 runners in qualifying. The race was running by then and one of them, maybe two or even a few more, it's not always easy to tell, sounded rather splendid but I assumed the mix of 12 were not all as noisy as each other.

Then, perhaps 30 or 40 mins into the race, things went quiet. And stayed that way.

The TSL result sheet just says "Race declared null and void".

So what happened? Anyone know?

According the LeMans radio last night:

Damage to a barrier that couldn't be repaired in time. They are having another go with the race today.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by brands

According the LeMans radio last night:

Damage to a barrier that couldn't be repaired in time. They are having another go with the race today.

Ah, right. Thanks for the info.

Sounds like they are out there now but there was in any case a 90 min race set for this time in the timetable.

The TSL pdf file has times for the 'Sunday warmup' but no updates for the Sunbeam/Heritage races qualifying that was supposed to take place this morning so I assume that things have been re-scheduled somewhat.

The lists suggest, if all the competing cars did the warm-up, that thay lost 2 from yesterday and gained one today. So 11 cars on the grid for ... whatever length of race it is.

Good job there was a fairly long lunch break scheduled before the full race program was due to kick-in ...

[robhollyman]

I thought this meeting was an absolute cracker.
i only did the saturday (just watched today on motors),

Some of the best cars in UK club motorsport in attendance, great atmosphere, some top quality racing and brilliant driving standards as usual.

best of all.... no noise restrictions. racing cars should be noisy and this made the day that much better.

[andy97]

How can AMOC afford this sort of meeting, though? A quick skim of TSL shows 19 races over 2 days with an average entry size of 17 cars, with many of the races in the low teens. Donington is not a cheap circuit to hire and Motors TV can't be cheap either; you have to pay for them to be there, they don't do it out of charity!

[neilwaynesmith]

AMOC went out of their way to provide for the marshals on Saturday, to the point that I phoned home and said "Please don't cook anything for tea"!!!

Being served sausage sandwiches out of an Aston Martin Rapide was a bit bizarre, it's the most expensive 'chuck-wagon' I've ever stood next to!

Only one of the races during the weekend was, in my opinion, a bit dull, but that can happen anywhere. Agree with 'robhollyman', the majority of it was superb to watch, and I thoroughly enjoyed marshalling the whole weekend.

Reading up this thread, I haven't posted for a while, so don't know much about the politics of last year apart from the fact that I never received a single ticket from AMOC despite sending 3 volunteering forms and an email asking whom I'd offended!!!! Apparently the organisation of marshals had been outsourced?

[robhollyman]

Originally Posted by andy97

How can AMOC afford this sort of meeting, though? A quick skim of TSL shows 19 races over 2 days with an average entry size of 17 cars, with many of the races in the low teens. Donington is not a cheap circuit to hire and Motors TV can't be cheap either; you have to pay for them to be there, they don't do it out of charity!

the gt4 challenge is not an AMOC series so i imagine they sell the hours of track time to AMR regardless of how many cars turn out at a fixed price per hour. remember that they have a 90min + 180 min races + qualy so a lot of track time to sell.

also remember that a lot of cars/ drivers will do more than one series and each series had at least 2 races, some 3. a lot of the small grids were down to tired drivers and even more tired cars. so a lot of cars were withdrawn from second races. even though the cars aren't on the grid the slots are still paid for.

i have no idea how much motors charge but the 10 minute races on Sunday didn't represent good value for money compared with the longer races on Saturday, so I think a ploy to claw back some money.

another point to remember is that AMOC is not a racing club. i would think that if their race series ran at a loss the other events, membership and merchandise sales would more than cover a loss leader.

[99hjhm]

Originally Posted by andy97

How can AMOC afford this sort of meeting, though? A quick skim of TSL shows 19 races over 2 days with an average entry size of 17 cars, with many of the races in the low teens. Donington is not a cheap circuit to hire and Motors TV can't be cheap either; you have to pay for them to be there, they don't do it out of charity!

AMR are pumping money in, not even most of the management at AMOC know how much as it's kept so secret. As Mark(lml) said before, run for THEIR own good.

"Not what it once was" is spot on. Saturday was very poor all round IMO.