Morgan park rd4

[Phast Phil]

Yes, we definitely need to find you some playmantes for 2012.
You could always bolt a blowdryer on it and run in open?

When I received the notices of intention to participate early this year I had 20+ at each round bar Mallala. Since then it has been a disappointment as a number of people who implied they would compete at many or all rounds simply have not been seen at all. This puts some financial pressure on the organiser and to be blunt the system will have to and will change for 2012.

I see no point continuing with the current process as if I keep having the same approach I expect we will keep getting the same result and that is plainly not good enough.

I have been and will continue to look at how some other more successful categories run and hopefully will learn more about what makes them tick and then put some ideas forward. One thing that I have learnt and no-one will ever convince me otherwise is it is not about the entry fee. It does not seem to matter if the entry fee is $400, $500, $800 or $1,500 as nothing changes. I have tried to run lean and keep the entry fee down as the arguement was if the entry fee is lower then we get more entries. Well I got to say that this arguement turned out to be total horse s***. If it was real then nobody would be going to Bathurst next February and they have 30+ entries. If it was real then there would be no entries in most other categories as we have the lowest entry fee in the Nationals. If it was real there would be no ute racing, no aussie cars, no Biante series and no GT.

Keeping it lean has not worked so I reckon it is time to build up the hype, offer more facilities such as hospitality, more TV, more glitz, glamor and signage, hire a PR company and a full time manager, bring in parity and success ballast/RPM reductions, raise the minimum weight or whatever to start making a show of this. The outcome will be bigger fees and maybe some of the fringe dwellers will fall off but those that are in the sport for bigger career or ego reasons will enter the fray and take up the slack?

It must work as nothing else has, otherwise tell me another reason why aussie cars, Ute racing, GT or the Biante series is so popular?

Yes there are new cars coming, and some have been coming for a long while and some may still be years away while many others seem to think taking 2 years to change a set of spark plugs is acceptable. Well if ya gunna sit on the toilet then you need to crap or get off. It is time for a few people to take this bull by the horns and take a calculated business risk to turn it around. There are plenty of state series that some who do not want to progress can fall back into and I am sure that each state will welcome those with open arms as they need some numbers also. I think the Queensland c'ship would be under threat from the minimum participation numbers as NSW was a couple of years ago.

Happy to hear your views, love me or hate me we need to argue this out so feel free to attack or support or offer your own view, I do not take it personally. As for the purist arguement of this is not what sports sedans is about, it is about Bob or Bill building what they want and expressing their engineering skills in the back shed, well that was fine in 1970 but something must have changed.

[Mopar358]

The only response to this passionate and informed response is Hear hear or here here lol. I hope this invites intelligent conversation and the establishment of a working group or similar with those interested in taking Sport Sedans to their rightful position. To the halcyon days of Grice, Gardner, Jim Richards, Edmondson, Rogers,Brock and Jones. With the cars already available coupled with the capacity of Phast Phil, Gourlay, Riverside and Ron Hossack to build robust, rigid, fast easy to prepare and repair cars we have the technology. It is the marketing of the product not the product that needs help. Phil stated that he doesn't have all the answers but he knows what is needed. Let's hope he gets the support needed and SS jumps in participation and profile. Please discuss!!

[FalconEL]

Very dissapointing grid there.... Wheres the Baily Aston???. The word was this would be the debut but obviously not...

Jeezus, don't chuck the towel in just yet Nadz...

I suspect the Sports Sedans will probably be one of the better supported fields out of all the Shannons categories next weekend! We'll still put on some great racing I'm sure!

I'm disappointed with the number of State entries, but as I mentioned to you at Eastern Creek, a select few know the full story of the Queensland circuit racing landscape as it stands currently.... Mix that with the typical shortsightedness, apathy and lame excuses from the competitor group, and there's your 6 state entries....

[Blind Man]

Good to see that you're back behind the wheel FalconEL

[MrBoost]

Sounds good to have a proper discussion phil, how do we make it a topic and keep it going properly? i have tried in other thread and it dies down....

Personally i think they only way you will ever get to have fields and interest like utes, ozzie racers etc is to go down the route of cars built by workshops that are basically arrive and drive or 'parts off the shelf ' that is the interest in those categories and why people with money seem to go to them. Most people with money arent mechanics or backyard engineers and dont care to get in there backyard and build a sports sedan. ( i said MOST :) ) They want to turn up to tracks and jump in a car that will go all weekend and if they break it they can just buy a new bit tomorrow.
So in the interest of sports sedans what would that scenario do to our category? well i think it would definately relegate alot of cars to state level only as lets face it if costs go up to like a gt category then we will lose what 80% of our current field? These cars running currently dont and wont have parts off the shelf available really for people to be interested in buying them. Lets say phil and gourley etc built these cars that are fast, reliable and servicable and sold 20 and these guys paid the gt money style series. That would be the national series and you would get support at all rounds from these guys and from the state guys when it comes to there town (state guys being most of the current field). Is this good? is this bad? i dont know. For people like me it would be bad if it ended up with 30+ rich guys locking out the gird every national round. But it would be great for sports sedans as a category to get back in the spotlight.
In terms of our current lot getting sponsors and the like it is a bit difficult, though im sure more of us could try a bit harder to find sponsors. How many of you have a sponsor booklet or info booklet on your car to present to potential sponsors?

I have to say sometimes i feel for the national guys that arent 1st or 2nd that tell sponsors they will be on tv. They pay the higher entry fee to be at the big meeting with the tv only to see the tony and darren show even though there is some FANTASTIC racing behind them in big bunches. (Including alot of passing which i think i saw twice with tony and darren at e.c) The race of tamasi, jackson, whittacker, macready, camm, donnely etc in race 2 was awesome! didnt see it on tv though.

The joint state/national round seemed to work in terms of numbers at e.c and winton. I dont know the current situation in qld with there state rounds but that is pretty piss poor support. I never expect mallala to get off the ground.

"APPARENTLY" the northern territory circuit of hidden valley runs its meeting for the supercars itself and cochrane has nothing to do with the organising or decisions of support categories (to an extent) and apparently the northern territory government used to or does pay for categories to come up and race. How much i dont know, but maybe worth a phone call from series manager to see how much or if they are interested? but i heard this from someone i barely know.

Maybe since meetings LIKE mcm are seemingly such a success we could talk to the nsw committe and mcm to see if it could be part of the national round next year? The nsw committee are doing such a good job raising ss racing in nsw and for them to secure 2 awesome events next year they must be doing something right, right?

I think the shannons rounds are good too, as phil has said befor ethey give stability and all the needs of our category are met. Could we maybe have a list of potential meetings put together that the kerrick series is WILLING to run at as a potential round (ie what the kerrick series managers and sponsors are happy with) and then get everyone to write down which 5 or 6 rounds they would most likely turn up to?
Although after your 20+ confirmed people to the year at hand who knows if there kids fill them out hey?

[Nadz44]

I can never chuck in the towel in regards to this class CD..... See you at Morgan Park...

[Phast Phil]

Mt Boost quotes:
Maybe since meetings LIKE mcm are seemingly such a success we could talk to the nsw committe and mcm to see if it could be part of the national round next year? The nsw committee are doing such a good job raising ss racing in nsw and for them to secure 2 awesome events next year they must be doing something right, right?

I think the shannons rounds are good too, as phil has said before they give stability and all the needs of our category are met. Could we maybe have a list of potential meetings put together that the kerrick series is WILLING to run at as a potential round (ie what the kerrick series managers and sponsors are happy with) and then get everyone to write down which 5 or 6 rounds they would most likely turn up to?
end quote

If we start chopping and changing to events away for the Shannons Nats we introduce a few problems.

1) who will do all the work related to setting up an event with a new promoter that may have different systems let alone the intial negotiation for each round compared to me negotiating with Shannons Nats once per year and settling in to a management rythum. This would mean paying someone and the cost would be circa $12,000 per year. The chosen race meetings would have to carry CAMS National status and appropriate insurance also.

2) If we move away from Shannons Nats for any event we may lose the financial fallback position that we have with them. At the moment and in the past we strive to break even financially and sometimes becuase numbers may be lower than expected from time to time we fall short. This is when you need an understanding creditor as due to timing of revenue from entrants and sponsors the $ available are not always aligned with the amount that needs to be paid. Take your Bathurst event for example; you guys had to pay about 8 months in advance. How do you think the Kerrick series would go if I asked everyone to pay for any event 3-6 months in advance becuase we had no financial fallback position. We have a good working relationship with the Shannons Nats and the reason we have that is that i have not ripped them off, I keep them informed of our NASSA financial position and we work through the year in order to end up at a break even, or I have to cut costs like I did this year so we would not end up on the scrap heap.

3) While going to meetings like MCM and Bathurst offers something different and interesting it does not fill a long term security need that competitors investing up to $200,000 in a new car require. If the National series disappeared and there was only a couple or a few one off events with no overall series or Championship status then I suspect we would not have about 10 new cars being built nor cars being imported from the USA that are primarilly being built or purchased to compete in the Kerrick series. If the MCM or Bathurst decide not to invite you next year then you are back at square one with maybe no fallback position. I think this point is what Cranky is trying to get accross in the other MCM subject thread as he obviously gets it and cannot work out why so many others do not understand this point. His arguement is sound, he is just a hellavlot more blunt and less diplomatic than me..haha.


One thing that I do know is that most or all successful National series do not compete for the same entrants with a state series. For instance there is no state Aussie car series, nor a state ute series is there?

I am tempted to view the National Sports Sedan series as something quite different and maybe we should have our own franchised teams that are restricted to only competing in the National series?? This is quite different to the way we are trialling this year with joint Nat/State events. I like the joint concept and it has worked sorta well but it is too fickle when many state entrants say we are going to go somewhere else for a run and spend a chunk of our budget and not support the local National event or travel to a National event because something else that was closer is on offer.

It would appear that there is too many events or series competing for too few customers (race teams). This is what fundamentally has to be addressed.

[toranaracer]

It would appear that there is too many events or series competing for too few customers

Suzuki Swift Series..........What WERE they thinking?????
Just another choice for the small number of competitors out there......

toranaracer

[MrBoost]

all fair enough and understood.

(except i dont agree with you and cranky about the mcm issue, too much of a fantastic opportunity to showcase our category and entice people to come and join it, i doubt many are substituting it for a national round are they? Its entry and travel etc for the nsw guys would be less than a third of carting off to do a nat round somewhere else anyway) 4 races and a massive crowd is huge value for money to me.

anyway very understood that mcm and bathurst events could be wiped at any second, but i guess things like mcm can build a relationship in time and may become stable. only time would tell but yes i get it wouldnt be something on a near future calender.

[toranaracer]

All loaded up and ready to leave early Thursday morning. B)

See you there sometime Friday.

toranaracer.