|
Agreed fades
IMG are sucking the life and money out of rallycross. And that was my fear from the start. You can stick your head in the sand all you want, and lots of people do, but there is nothing there to establish the future. My biggest fear is that tracks like Holjes do this work, then get dumped for a venue in a car park in Stockholm who can afford to bid more and win the bid.
Circuits that run rallycross can only usually do so a few times a year, not like a normal track that can hold track days, race events etc all year to recoup the money to some extent. An RX venue cannot do this as easily, only with testing and national events a few times a year.
Because IMG don't give a flying about Holjes, not even a slight damn. What they want is someone else bidding to make them more money. To start a turf war as they have in Germany no doubt. Quite why we have 2 German rounds in a country that has never really embraced rallycross to the same level as Sweden or Finland or Norway is utterly beyond me, oh no wait, money. Of course.
Holjes are lucky they get big crowds, but I would think their race fee is massive, this is not a way to improve rallycross, make it better, it is simply a way of making money. NOTHING more. The tracks like Slomzcyn, Valkenswaard all knew they could not make this pay so bowed out, fair play to them. They came out with their heads and tracks alive still as they did not take on the debt. Some tracks no doubt feel trapped by IMG and that is exactly what they want, to push you into making unnecessary improvements to a venue that does not need them for what it does all year round. But for one weekend a year.
A decent promoter would have offered a better deal to these existing venues, to tempt them, help them, but no IMG said we'll go to Turkey they pay more, lol that went well, or Argentina, they pay more too, lol that went even better, Italy, yes they will pay aswell, and there were 5 people there and that failed aswell.
It's not big enough to warrant these pathetic fees, and it never will be for existing venues other than France, if even Holjes cant make money that ahs to be telling you something surely.
What happens then to Holjes if they lose the round, they probably go under and the sport loses another famous and good track possibly as does Swedish rallycross.
IMG would not even slightly care.
I hope that one day things change, but with these cretins involved my fears are that when they go and find something else to pump money into, rallycross has not been made a non event by greed and woeful foresight.
|