Quote Originally Posted by Terry S View Post
Re the F5000's at this meeting, I personally believe the low number of competitors at this high profile meeting was pretty poor.
I think there were about 9 cars that participated, of which 5 were Aussie and 4 were from NZ.
For their main feature Trophy race there were only 7 starters.
This is an opportunity to be seen by a large audience that wouldn't go to Historic meetings, and let young people see what they were all about. I believe they did not come up to expectations..
The thing about F5000's was the thunder from a big field, particularly at places such as Oran Park. There as they came over the dogleg and into the dipper the noise was unbelievable and made the whole amphitheatre shake.
I've seen them in their prime at Warwick Farm, Amaroo (completely unsuited) and Oran Park. I can still readily recall that Australian Grand Prix there with Lella Lombardi in a Matich.
I believe this lot have got to raise their game, or risk being omitted from such high profile meetings. Plenty of other classes would like to take their place.
Yes it is disappointing Terry. Full credit to those who made the effort to run their F5000s at this event. Just a shame there weren't more of them. I know these cars aren't cheap to run, and neither is it shipping them around Australia or from New Zealand. This is obviously an event outside their existing championship, and maybe the MCM organisers need to somehow find a way to make this part of their series.

I remember asking Mark Oastler about this following the very first Muscle Car Masters, back in 2005 (?) as the intention back then was to have F5000s there. I think initially from memory they'd advertised that F5000s would be at that first event, but in the end it came to nothing. He told me many of those running the F5000s, especially those from NZ, weren't very interested in racing at the MCM. They felt it wasn't the right fit for their class. Thats what he said back then. I actually suggested the NZ racing class Central Muscle Cars could be a good fit with MCM (because I was involved with CMC back then), an idea he really liked, and the idea sort of grew from there to have CMC at the event. Thats back when CMC cars were a bit closer to historic type cars than they are now.