AROCA 6 Hour Relay Races

[GTRMagic]

I might be a bit naive when it comes to the politics of the AROCA environment, but something doesnt sit right with me.

This weekend, Winton Motor Raceway is holding the Victorian Chapter of AROCA's 6 hour relay race.

Meantime, at Eastern Creek International Raceway, they are holding the NSW Chapter of AROCA's 6 hour relay race.

Two events basically doing the same thing, at two different race tracks, on the very same weekend!!!

As I understand it, the interstate challenge in each event was something much appreciated, however given a choice of running in an event in your home state, or one in another state, its not hard to work out there would likely be little participation from foreigners at either meeting.

Is this a political bunfight designed to have some fun poking at each other's management committees or a genuine stuff up??

I should have thought the chance to run in your icon car, the car prepared with passion and gusto and love, on 2 weekends in 2 relays on 2 different circuits would be far better than to have to make a choice about which one to participate in.

Or am I missing something??

[GTRMagic]

My mailbox gets all kinds of things sent to it...

A small insight into the NSW event, in terms of attendance numbers in recent years....

2001 - 49 teams and held Nov 4
2002 - 36 teams and held Nov 3
2003 - 30 teams and held Nov 2

This year - 22 teams and held in October....

While it seems like attendance is dropping off anyway, but this clash of dates has contributed to the halving of the field in only 3 years....

[pplater]

What's AROCA?

[GTRMagic]

Originally posted by pplater
What's AROCA?

The Alfisti who populate this forum (who are more passionate about their marque than the most solid Holden or Ford supporter!) will be horrified!!

Alfa
Romeo
Owners
Club of
Australia

[Matt H]

gtr magic, hate to tell you, but you got this one dead wrong :P

the event run at winton is and has been run by the MSCA, the marque sports car association, for a number of years....

sorry dude.

[Matt H]

this year in vic there is 28 teams entered, but the two years before that, there were in excess of 33 teams as well.

but across the board, entry numbers are dropping. i doubt it has anything to do with clashes in meetings

[GTRMagic]

I am wrong? The two events arent happening on the same weekend? :confused:

Does anyone evr actually do a strategic review on these kinds of things, to improve the sport (all eyes to CAMS) or do we just have to hope that the competitors do something themselves?

I wonder what happens when the volunteers administrators get sick of the declining numbers....

[Matt H]

i wasnt refering to the clashing in meetings, was refering to the fact that the alfa club isnt running the winton meeting, therefore the club isnt making life hard for itself in running two meetings, same style in differnet locations, as it isnt happening..

Does anyone evr actually do a strategic review on these kinds of things, to improve the sport (all eyes to CAMS) or do we just have to hope that the competitors do something themselves?

Perhaps you should monitor the CAMS website before sticking the size (?) 12 in mouth?

http://www.cams.com.au/Content.asp?PageID=Calendar

[GTRMagic]

I guess that would be fair, considering they monitor this one with a passion

[Matthew Ronke]

The MSCA is the Marque Sports Car Association. It is made up of a number of Sports Car Clubs. I believe AROCA is one of the clubs in the MSCA so technically GTR would be on correct.

[Bruce Moxon]

Never struck me as all that clever, having clashing dates. Can't always be avoided, what with circuit hire issues (a problem at Eastern Creek, they tell me).


Bruce Moxon

[PVDA]

The Winton event had something like 6 Porsche Teams and 5 teams from the Maserati Car Club this year.

Worse thing that happened as an Escort broke and axle and the wheel tried to part company in practice yesterday.

I think it was a Porsche 1, 2, 3 in the Handicap event.

[Morris 1100]

Wow, I was in the winning team in the 6 hour (handicap/marque) at Winton in 1990!
The poor Porsches could not keep up with a team of HQs!

[alfacors]

Unfortunately there were a number of reasons for the decline in numbers for the NSW event. Date clashes, competing events interstate, and the general health of the NSW State Championships....

The shift back into October meant that it not only clashed with Winton, but the BMW Club decided to hold a Championship Supersprint at Oran Park the same date (they assumed the race would be in Nov. apparently). The HQ Association also wanted to run a separate event as part of their championship - a race held on the Saturday , and Sunday before the race. This wasn't in keeping with the event however, and the suggestion was kindly refused. A number of competitors are apparently on the Indy Rally (not sure what they call it these days, used to be the Trading Post IndyCar Rally?).

Decline in numbers has been rampant across many categories in NSW State Championships due to issues such as category management, and entry fee increases each year, and the economy in general. If the other events had not clashed, I'm confident we would have seen closer to 30 teams entered.

However, it was a fantastic weekend - with the weather holding off beautifully, with the outright honours being decided by a margin of 3 seconds after 6 hours.....

Next year's event will return to a November date though...

[Crash Test]

I remember a few years ago (99-00) going down witha few of the QLD Gemini guys for the EC 6 hour. The boys were hosed for outright pace, but did very well in the handicap part of it. A lot of fun indeed

Maybe a challenge for JT and the crew out at QR to put on a similar event up this way, they've got a perfect track for it

[Bimmerhead]

I've travelled down to EC for the AROCA race for the last 3 years (not including this year) and would rate it as the best weekend of motorsport fun anywhere. Couldn't go for a number of reasons this year and am still disappointed...

Now having a similar event at QR - what a great idea! C'mon JT, how about it??

[prn 31]

GTR is not too far wrong when he talks about AROCA motorsport politics. There are factions within the Club who still don't talk to each other. However there are moves afoot to try and get things back on an even keel. This is one reason why there are less AROCA teams in the 6 Hour.

Clashing with the Winton 6 Hour was not good. In the past at least one NSW AROCA team has travelled down to Winton (sometimes more than one.) Certainly here in NSW there was no mention that the 6 Hour clashed with Winton 6 HOur. Also predictably there weren't any AROCA teams from Victoria - there haven't been for a few years, but it used to happen.

Which brings me to the real problem with the AROCA 6 Hour.

Lack of promotion. There really hasn't been any. Sure the change of dates messed with some teams plans, but other clubs (who we share supersprints with) weren't even aware the 6 Hour was on - how stupid is that! The Club's 6 Hour committee is actually seperate to the general committee and the lines of communications have not been what they should be.

I like alfacors optimism, but as I see it the 6 Hour is in a lot of trouble. At the current level of 22 teams its unsustainable (the Club stands to return a loss) and even at 30 teams its viability remains a question mark.