Dunlop Sport Maxx championship 09

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by Thorney

Al, did you manage to get into your car on Sunday? I sorted someone a coathanger to create a universal key

Are that was you Thorney thanks for that. Yes fortunately I left the keys on the front seat and who ever was manipulating the coathanger managed to press twice on the rear hatch release button and we were in!

[Thorney]

Well we are certainly treating the Sportmaxx as a feeder to BTCC, indeed combined with the BMW's we run (kumho and perhaps Britcar next year) we are planning to be in BTCC in 2011.

As for being recognised and offered a sponsored drive.....er, pretty much forget it. Pretty much all of BTCC are drivers paying (this inludes the top teams, including factory), there are a couple of exceptions of course (Plato, Giovanni, Neal etc) but everyone else (drivers) pays to be there, even if they dress it up as some kind of sponsorship. Teams like us subsidise drives for drivers where we think they are good enough (both Simon and Leyton are on subsidised drives for a variety of reasons) as do others but we are a rarity in the national racing fraternity to some extent.

As for comparing motorsport coverage to other sports - here here, to make it worse the process of attending is perverse. Footballers get paid shed load of cash by teams beacuse they can afford them, the teams earn money from TV and gate sales because people want to see thir team play. Compare that with racing, where I pay to attend, I pay for my own tickets, I pay for the sheer privaledge of having spectators pay someone else to watch my cars (and others) compete. Take this analogy to football, it would mean that when Liverpool play a football game they pay for each player to attend, buy their own tickets and anyone who wants to see them pays someone else - and you wonder why motorsport is the domain of the wealthy (and certified insane).

[EdLeake]

Could you PM details on your race package and what you'd charge? By the sounds of it you already have drivers but it'd still be good to know whats theoretically available - especially as I don't have the space/time/energy for another car right now!

[S14GJC]

Originally Posted by kelvin88

It wasn't quite the simple death you make it out to be, Dan. There was internal politics, the BRSCC, The addition of National saloon and the conversion of BTCC to class 2 touring cars all played a factor. I think the Sport Maxx is a good idea. It just needs some fine tuning.

What happened back in the late 90's was this. BTCC was going through the transition period from Super Touring to the previous spec BTC under Richard West guidance and grids were dire! The National Saloon Championship was thriving with Works Peugeot's run by Vic Lee under Peugeot Sport also GR Motorsport, Mardi Gras Motorsport, Barwell to name a few well known teams who were in it.

National Saloons were "stolen" from their own healthy BRDC championship and promised to be the feeder to BTCC but were dropped a few years later just to make the new spec BTCC grids look better. I raced in the National Saloons for 3 years and was gutted what happened to it. The Sport Maxx Cup needs to adopt the National Saloon regs as they aren't far off an S2000 car spec and are much more relevant to being a feeder series. The Sport Maxx Cup is going to be good this year but the National Saloon cars were fantastic, with great racing!

[kelvin88]

Sorry, I was thinking of Production cars in the early '90s. I still think of Nat Saloons as Grp N.