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Some good posts. I am under no illusion whatever that 200 plus classics does not in itself mean that people will pay to watch. From my perspective, at the end of the race, I'll be waving a thank you at the flaggies. Whether there are spectators or not, it will not make a blind bit of difference to my enjoyment.
An open (free) gate policy is far preferable to a locked gate policy. Why put off the casual caller? They may well be the ones that pay next time.
However, to pay to go to a so called tier 1 meeting and only have 67 cars competing is a massive turn off. I don't see any problem with race tracks running every weekend of the year to cater for the competitors and being self funding.
It is after all, an amateur sport. The fact that we play on the same track as the professionals is no different from golf or tennis. Smaller meetings are NOT promoted so spectators are irrelevant.
Our big problem is that the money thrown at promotion has largely been wasted, as spectators soon learned that what was on offer was not deserving of the hype.
Super Tourers changed their stance very quickly and started to have meetings that had considerably more appeal than initially. Once a sport is damaged however, it takes a long time to get people back in through the gates and in many cases, it will never happen. Like a restaurant having an off night with the staff or serving up a cockroach in the curry or a snail in the salad, or a frozen pizza containing bits of mouse, damage is widespread and sometimes, it is irreparable.
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