Msv & Brscc

[Dan Friel]

Sorry, having looked back at my original posts – they’re not worded very well / carefully! I can understand the issues relating to running a major meeting, but then I don’t understand why MSVR are now starting to run smaller open type meetings (if they don’t intend to become a rival to BARC / BRSCC). And I don’t understand how MSVR make any money from these events if they are charged the same circuit hire costs. Why bother at all?

The way that I see it is that MSV are putting themselves in a strong business position by controlling some of the strongest motorsport assets, and squeezing those who want to use it. This I have no problem with whatsoever as motorsport has be profitable, and JP isn’t doing this for fun. However, club motorsport could suffer for a decent while as the clubs sort themselves out in light of increased costs.

I can see things changing quite a bit over the next five years.

[Ian Sowman]

Perhaps true, but the meetings that they have tended to run at have also had open sports/saloon type races.

[Stephen Green]

Very true Ian but as a filler for the JP run series I suspect.

I agree with Dan, JP is in it as a business man and not as a benefactor to UK motorsport.

[Piglet]

I think the Octagon debacle was a reminder that race circuits need to be profitable businesses.

Certainly JP was clear that MSVR was not a "race club" and it is not in MSV's interests to put any of the other clubs out of business. How would that help? These are customers who rent the circuits. MSVR is highly unlikely to be in the position (or want to be) of running as many meetings as say BARC and if the other clubs aren't around to hire the circuits then that is lost revenue.

Someone did tell me the daily running cost of Brands Hatch earlier in the year but typically I have no recollection of it now. I do remember being shocked at the figure, I imagine it included the capital cost of the circuit but these places are not cheap to buy, maintain and run.

As for professional marshals - 30 marshals at £5 per hour for 8 hours is £1200 per day plus the other costs of employing staff (NI, safety clothing, holiday/sick pay etc. etc.). That might cover the track but then you need race admin/race control staff, OK you might have some of those already on salary. In my experience race meetings don't generate anywhere near enough profit that you could afford to hire staff.

[Novice]

JP is in this to make money, if he does not we will not have the circuits. Nice new housing estates, business parks or supermarkets will soon spring up where the circuits once stood, seem to remember us all worrying about that when Octagon put the circuits up for sale. BARC have realised that to continue to function they have started to acquire circuits to try and guarantee their future. Other clubs like the BRSCC seem to want the big corporate status without owning their own circuits. This costs, and with declining entrants and failing series, are pricing themselves out of the market.

The motorsport world is a very small market with too many clubs fighting for track time, competitors and marshals. Some clubs will fall by the wayside, others will have to join forces to try and and maximise their strenghths. HSCC should survive as they are aiming at a single market, JCC, MGCC and similar clubs might survive or find that they have to combine their efforts as they are aiming at limited markets. 750MC arer catering for the club racer with a varied choice, low costs (achieved by the number od competitors) and good racing and will survive. EERC are aiming at a small market and have used the BRSCC to run these for them. Their viability remains to be seen as there are quite a few comments on this thread about club level endurance racing.

Well too many words from me so I'll shut up and go away now.

[JimW]

Originally Posted by Stephen Green

MSV don't have their own race club and my information says they don't want to either. the reason MSVR was formed was to allow MSV to run their own promoted meetings. By this we are talking WTCC, DTM etc.

I can see the reason why they took this route. If you pay a lot of money to attract a major meeting to one of your circuits, why then have the additional expense of paying a club to provide officals?

Piglet and I were both at the launch of MSVR and it was made abundantly clear by JP that he did NOT want to start another club.

Technically, not quite true. MSVR is an MSA registered Club - that's how they can be allowed to organise events.

I presume that JP meant that he did not want another "membership" organisation.

Regards

Jim

[Stephen Green]

Sorry Jim, that is what I meant...

[JimW]

I have had a look in the Blue Book and see no discounts offered for "no spectator" events.

That is only part of the story. "Clubmans" events (is that term continuing in 2007?) do cost less than Nat B which in turn costs less than Nat A. I seem to recall that Clubmans events have to run without spectators? Perhaps that is factored in to the reduced permit and insurance fees.

If you are trying to cost a 'cheap' event (possibly using mid-week) then have a look at what Dennis Carter (BARC Chief Exec.) has just published in the BARC newsletter - Startline. Available online at http://www.barc.net/news/startline_n...ember_2006.pdf and go to page 3. He splits up the cost of running a race meeting by category - no figures, only proportions expressed as a pie chart.

(The following figures are estimated by eye from the pie chart which he publishes.)

45% - Circuit hire.
Timekeeping, scrutineering, medical. - 20%
MSA fees - 8%
Event staff - 5%
Commentators, programmes and radios etc. - 6%
BARC Office costs - 8%

Even making all the savings one could, that does not leave much room for radically affecting the cost of putting on a race meeting.

So cut out or reduce:

Timekeepers (random draw for grid positions).
Have many fewer marshals and accept a "stop" every time a car pulls off.
Run the event only for "Clubmans" licence holders?
No commentary or programmes.

And if someone wanted to pay people like me to attend as marshals including rescue crew the estimate of costs given in a post above above would have, in my opinion, the decimal point in the wrong place. Paying me puts the whole thing in a different perspective. What I do for my fun comes free, what I do for payment needs to be realistic.

And I suspect what you would have to pay for Doctors/Paramedics would startle you!

Regards

Jim

[Al Weyman]

Jim why does it have to be a random draw for grid positions, just why did I pay £175 for that transponder can someone remind me? Oh I know all the arguments on the transponder thread about having to have timekeepers to double check this and that but lets forget that and all agree to go by the discision the equipment throws up, it may not always get it 100 right but then agan I bet the same can be said for manual timekeepers, I personally am perfectly happy to put my faith in the technology. Can't scrutineers do the job on a volountary basis then it just leaves the medics well I used to do HotRods and the St. Johns ambulance brigade served us admirably.

[Ian Sowman]

So, more people should give of their time for nothing so you can race. Did I read that right?

[JimW]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Jim why does it have to be a random draw for grid positions, just why did I pay £175 for that transponder can someone remind me? Oh I know all the arguments on the transponder thread about having to have timekeepers to double check this and that but lets forget that and all agree to go by the discision the equipment throws up, it may not always get it 100 right but then agan I bet the same can be said for manual timekeepers, I personally am perfectly happy to put my faith in the technology. Can't scrutineers do the job on a volountary basis then it just leaves the medics well I used to do HotRods and the St. Johns ambulance brigade served us admirably.

I'm not really going to argue the timekeepers' corner for them. They can do that better and point out again that transponders don't do the time, they just tell the system which car has gone through the timing beam.

But I can tell you how many competitors appear to have the greatest difficulty in believing the professional timekeepers. Lots! So which one of you competitors is suddenly going to become trusted and believed by ALL of your fellows to issue correct times? I know that we will shortly be seeing a bearded gentleman visiting every house in the world in one night. And only if Pere Noel himself assured me that he would get a driver's times accepted by all the others would I expect it to happen. And they would, of course, have to be counter-signed by the tooth fairy.

Regards

Jim

[Al Weyman]

Ian, I give up my time to race and it costs me lot of money as well so yes why not if they enjoy doing it just why does every one have to be paid now in this world, I ran a motor sport club for 11 years and never got paid purely so guys could race and I did because I enjoyed it. I don't ask for a slice of the gate either what ever show we put on, its amatuer level I am talking about.

So Jim how do MST happen to get such (presumably accurate times posted so quickly on their site, surely that is a direct feedback from the transponders and yes i will say again I would be happy to place my trust in them if not I ask again why did I shell out best part of 200 quid with the vat and delivery? is OK for Go-Karts and model cars then its OK for me :-).

[Piglet]

Al you're preaching to the converted here. The majority of us here do what we do for fun for free in our free time. The discussion here was about running a mid-week race meeting when (even in our 24/7 world) most people are working and it was suggested that professional marshals be used and that this would provide a cheaper way of running meetings. The reality is that getting people to turn out for free at the weekends is relatively straightforward (I include scruits, timekeepers, clerks, medics etc.) trying to put these people together for free on a weekday is an entirely different story.

My understanding of transponders (and I'm happy to be corrected) is that the transponder identifies the vehicle that has broken the beam - it's not infallable and requires assistance where a number of vehicles are close together (not in the photofinish way but a bunch of cars in one go).

The system then requires equipment to convert that data to useful information (a result sheet). For a start you'd need the equipment which I'd imagine in incredibly expensive and then you'd need experienced people to run it.

I've had a go at timekeeping and I was crap - whatever you think about MST, it's incredibly skilled work and I personally couldn't do it!

As Jim says, this is my hobby and I love what I do, I wouldn't do it as a "real job" and a club couldn't afford me anyway.

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by JimW

.....point out again that transponders don't do the time, they just tell the system which car has gone through the timing beam......Regards

Jim

OK so I need to point out again too - when I race at Zandvoort my lap times (and everyone else's) are available freely on the internet in real time. One year by the time I was back in the paddock my pal in the UK had already texted me to ask why did I spin on lap so-and-so.

It IS possible, it ISN'T rocket science, look abroad and see how much better it could be.

[Piglet]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

OK so I need to point out again too - when I race at Zandvoort my lap times (and everyone else's) are available freely on the internet in real time. One year by the time I was back in the paddock my pal in the UK had already texted me to ask why did I spin on lap so-and-so.

It IS possible, it ISN'T rocket science, look abroad and see how much better it could be.

Then why does no-one do it? (that's a serious question BTW not a jibe).

I've only come across a couple of time keeping co's other than MST - the only UK one I know was involved in the great 2CV disaster of a couple of years ago. Other than that there is a spanish co that runs timing for World Series by Renault (and there were loads of them and huge amounts of kit), plus I think a french co who ran something that now escapes me but they also had loads of bodies and a huge amount of kit.

[Ian Sowman]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

OK so I need to point out again too - when I race at Zandvoort my lap times (and everyone else's) are available freely on the internet in real time. One year by the time I was back in the paddock my pal in the UK had already texted me to ask why did I spin on lap so-and-so.

It IS possible, it ISN'T rocket science, look abroad and see how much better it could be.

That is possible here as well. But it is an extra service not needed to run the meeting, and so therefore would be priced as an add on.

[Ian Sowman]

Originally Posted by Piglet

I've only come across a couple of time keeping co's other than MST.

AFAIK, there is just a couple of companies that do it regularly in UK club racing other than MST - HS Sports Timing and the team from SMART.

[ActiveMS]

Fact is, that unless something is done about the political state of UK Motorsport and a re-organisation of the championships/series then driver numbers will continue to fall. It really doesnt help costs have gone up and families tend to have less free time these days compared with a decade+ ago.

It hasnt helped that the BRSCC have acted quite poorly in the past allowing small grids at many of their weekend events thus losing money. They then failed to support those with large grids, however I know this is now starting to change. But they have ended up having to use of over £100k of spare cash to bail themselves out. This is money that could have been well spent promoting themselves to encourage marshalls and competitors. A serious OOOPS as far as Im concerned.

And unfortunately I dont think it will happen in the short term. It will get substantially worse before the powers that be (those wearing the blinkers and still think they are invincible) action anything.

I have had to give up single seater racing purely down to the cost of competing. I can afford the car and the parts etc, but 10 double header meetings @ £300+ each plus the cost of sundries, BRSCC membership for the year and the championship registration meant I sold up.

Also track time has diminished over the last few years. Why pay £300+ for less than an hours track time!!! It almost sounds like RIP OFF BRITAIN is starting to hit our beloved motorsport!

I worked out that to be competitive in one of the most cost effective series I would need a minimum of £10k for the year and that would not include any accident damage. 4 years ago I was spending around £6k.

Im now karting, something that perhaps I should have started with in the first place. At £40 per test day and less than £100 for a full race weekend. Tyres at £100 a set per weekend and a rolling chassis every year @ £1500. Im have a wail of a time with a new kart every year and having just as much fun for less than £4k a year....and thats at a good level, not just club level.

[stroller]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

then it just leaves the medics well I used to do HotRods and the St. Johns ambulance brigade served us admirably.

Again its down to MSA regs and the minimum medical requirements.

As much as the St Johns performs an admirable service (again which the Clubs have to pay for) would you really want to race at a circuit with no adequate medical cover.

I also believe that many of the short circuit operators are now realising the possible (legal)consequences of inadequate medical and safety cover - not just for competitors, the general public also has to be catered for - and are acting accordingly,

[Stephen Green]

Oh the joys of health and safety!

[Piglet]

Originally Posted by Stephen Green

Oh the joys of health and safety!

The joys of the Watson v British Boxing Board of Control where the governing body were held liable for not mandating adequate medical facilities at venues where its sport was carried out.

Quite sensible in my view really. You have a sport where the chances of head and spinal injuries are likely, therefore you should have the medical staff and facilities to deal with them.

No disrespect to St John's etc., they do a fantastic job but in my view we should have specialised medics at the circuit (arguably the current system doesn't actually achieve this but that's another discussion)

Plus as said, businesses pay for St John attendance and if you didn't have two ambulances or two doctors as soon as you lose one to hospital with a casualty it's game over until you've got a doc back again.

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by Piglet

Then why does no-one do it? (that's a serious question BTW not a jibe). .......

I suspect because of the vested interest of the people that have this wonderful lucrative weekend job; they seem to use FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) to convince us that - '....the equipment which I'd imagine in incredibly expensive....' and '.... it's incredibly skilled work ....'
whereas my belief is it's much cheaper than you'd imagine, and technology properly set up virtually runs itself .
Another example of British disease, 'we've always done it this way, why should we change?'
<note to self - must find a way of having a peek at race control and timekeeping when I'm next at Zandvoort>

[kickstart]

Having raced with Mono in the past I was interested in Andy97's comments and had a look at their website.
I don't things are so doom and gloom but if Mono are going to put out 2 grids they will need to ensure they have the required number of competitors or else it will cost the club rather a lot of money.

Clubs and competitors surely realise that unless they are racing with full grids something has to give.

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

I suspect because of the vested interest of the people that have this wonderful lucrative weekend job; they seem to use FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) to convince us that - '....the equipment which I'd imagine in incredibly expensive....' and '.... it's incredibly skilled work ....'
whereas my belief is it's much cheaper than you'd imagine, and technology properly set up virtually runs itself .
Another example of British disease, 'we've always done it this way, why should we change?'
<note to self - must find a way of having a peek at race control and timekeeping when I'm next at Zandvoort>

I agree, 10 years ago my son used to do model car racing and the equipment worked faultlessly, you could sit in the control office and watch a screen they set up there and see the times as they happened and this 10th scale electric cars! And what about these new GPS systems?

[Tim Falce]

Didn't we exhaust the transponder subject here last year?