The State of NZ Motorsport.

[richard lester]

There is a real dilemma in motor sport that Jim has touched on. In the past such classes as Formula Ford were highly popular with strongly contested large grids. These grids produced a lot of our current top drivers. Now FF is but a shadow of its former self and it is lucky to get a handful of cars.
Where have all the drivers gone to? I'm not too sure but we do seem to have much larger historic and classic grids than we did in the past so maybe this sort of racing is more attractive - at least to a large number of participants.
Despite the spectator numbers at the Hamilton races I don't think the NZV8s were the attraction - the crowds seem to have gone to see the Australian V8 Supercars. When you look at the grids and crowds at the NZV8 races over the last season, it wasn't much better than you get at some club and national meetings - in fact there were so few NZV8s racing that they failed to met the criteria to qualify as a MSNZ championship series (a minimum of 15 entrants at 75% of the races).
I agree with Jim that we need to have a starting series to attract the new young drivers but we don't seem to have produced the right sort of grid to attract them - maybe we have missed the boat completely in that we are trying to provide the sort of grids that interest us but the kids are more interested in Playstation and drifting - not circuit racing??

couldn't disagree more Roger.
Tier 1 or level 1 motorsport has fallen foul of the economic climate and rising cost's in general for tommorrows talent to try and emerge.
The names Evans/hartley/Stanaway/Dixon have not progressed with mum and dads cash only,all were recognised early and picked up by consortiums or benefactors,but that doesnt happen to all obviously..
most grids are down for the youngsters--look at Karting apart from the big meetings,it starts from there.
a good percentage of parents just cant justify taking a punt and pouring there life into there kids right now when a bit of security is more important.
i have sweated blood with my son Jono to get backing for his racing and to do the TRS season this year we were virtually giving away sponsorship packages and doing all sorts of contra's to make it happen and we were fortunate to get a GT contract in japan out of doing the series(almost free)......
The sponsorship dollar is extremely hard to get now especially if you are unestablished--dont forget that the majority of classic/historic racing has competitors who by and large have reached the mid to later age bracket and are reaping the rewards of their years of toil in the business world.
i think its incorrect to generalise the current state of motorsport here the big grid classes as being the favourite of competitors and crowds alike.
Dont get me wrong the muscle cars etc etc are great to watch and sound fantastic but we also live in a modern world that keeps marching forward.if you guys have been around as long as some of you state you will well know that the top end of the sport goes in cycles of strength and this would be about number 5 or 6 in my lifetime and will come right again in the future as it always does......
Guys V8 SUPERCARS were the main attraction at hamilton-- every other class was a support class to make up an interesting overall program.
Just because one or two of you thought the nzv8's were rubbish doesnt mean everyone thought the same.I have spoken to many people who thought they were great....
remember that most of the new youngsters coming or- not coming into the sport come in because they want.. to and have either parental or commercial backing of some sort....most dont yet know or have not heard the various gripes and complaints about the governing body or event management etc etc that fill the forums, so i dont think MNZ can be soley blamed for struggling grids.
MNZ did years ago start letting individual series registers have more control of what and how they move forward which has resulted in some good and some bad areas of the sport..
i could go on and on but now need a jim beam.........