Quote Originally Posted by crunch View Post
We need to stick with what we already have here in NZ, and attract those back. Would purely prizemoney/startmoney do that?
I agree, and the major problem is the dozens of eligible cars out there that are not appearing. In my opinion, as stated before, if you don’t want to cross the Strait it’s not worth preparing (or even owning) a car for only three meetings. There need to be more meetings available in the NI. I don’t think prizemoney/startmoney (although it would be good) in the National Championship would have a lot of effect, but I think what I have outlined below would.

Quote Originally Posted by Russ Noble View Post
How about someone sets up a NI series, finds a sponsor for it and then have MSNZ give that sponsor the NZ naming rights as a bonus? There has to be a bit of lateral thinking involved if we are going to pull FF out of the mire.........

Whilst there would be no money going directly to MSNZ, a set up like that would do more for FF than just selling the NZ naming rights would. And presumably they haven't been able to do that anyway in the last year or so! So really no skin off their noses, but a big boost to FF should it happen.....

Regardless, it's time to take the Ford name out of it.
It’s now a manpower and legwork thing. Someone needs to contact the NI owners and get an undertaking that they would support a NI series. Then go to the promoters and get venues. Then go to MSNZ outlining what is proposed and see if they would give naming rights to the NZFF championship as a bonus for a sponsor who would support the NI series. Then, as the icing on the cake, find a suitably altruistic sponsor, probably someone already involved in motor racing who would be prepared to put up a prize fund to further entice competitors.

But it needs someone to do it. If someone doesn’t step up then nothing will happen and all these cars will continue to lie around unused and the NZFF championship will continue to rely on mainly SI participation.