Originally Posted by
George Sheweiry
The overall views expressed here have hit the nail on the head, numbers, variety and public appeal. Give the public what they want and you will increase spectator numbers. Graham Pearce and Peter Hanna got it right "Big banger Saloons", thats why they had to close the gates at their meetings because they were full and had the likes of NZIGP clamoring to get the saloons brought over to NZ by those 2 to their single seater based meetings. The Frost brigade had it wrong and thats why everybody went to get lunch when the single seaters came out. the F5000s with their brute power got a few more people interested but the average person still wanted to see the saloons because they were the cars they would drive on the road every week. They wanted to see how their car would do when pushed to the limits against other cars. Remember Henry Fords famous quote Race on Saturday, win on Sunday, sell on Monday!! (or something like that). Dont get me wrong their still needs to be a single seater class but as suggested a new version of the most popular, F5000!! with a standard chassis from all the makers as well as joe average can build, stock block with one of at least 10 of the current V8s available and weighted to a power to weight ratio but in conjunction with Australia, Great Britain and US if they could be bothered and they need to be spectacular with big wings and aero, but do them out of Fiberglass and have a road car transaxle like the new GT40s and pick a road car brake package that is up to the job, basically like the early days where people could make their own car and that would most importantly keep it affordable for most people. Stock saloon cars, Bring back the Benson and Hedges 500. This was always a big deal in our race categories each year, approach all the new car dealers here and get them to put up some prize money and call it The combined dealers saloon car 500 and a flag with all their logos on as the emblem for it all and every new car sold gets a TCDSC500 sticker and race series blurb sheet/programme so they actually know in advance when and where the series will run. So you have your big deal 500 race and then smaller support races at T1 after that. Modified saloons, people loved these because they all wondered just how good their road cars would be with some mods. IMHO the class that was the closest to this was NZV8. Joe average could by his cheap high mileage car and convert it into a racer and be as competitive as the big boys, and that showed with the big fields they had. the thing they were lacking was variety, open it up to more V8 makes and models, Chrysler 300s, Montecarlos, Fusions, Mercedes, BMWs but let them run the strongest/ cheapest and available gearbox, diff, brake road car parts and emphasize to the public this fact and again power to weight managed. Full Race Saloons has to be Trans ams, a class that has been around for years with a good solid set of rules that again joe average could run a competitive car against the big boys. They have everything / V8s, variety, big wheels, aero, wings and because there is now a lot of V8 super tourers, incorporate them into the class. Production Muscle cars, people still like high performance road cars, Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, Cudas, Firebirds, Plymouth RTs, Commodores, Falcon FPV and there is probably even some Euros. Now days they come out with massive brake packages, 5 & 6 speed HD boxes, killer supension packages so again to keep it affordable base it on road cars from say 2000 to 2010, take all the interior out, cage them, race seat competition pads and that's it again power to weight ratio them. Put them on a road tire with only 180 tread wear to make them slip and slide and so that you get the maximum amount of miles on them before it makes a difference in times to buy a new set and of course this will limit oil surge, and with all these classes any parts needed let the competitors source their own parts not having to buy them like as some cases in the past from one particular deal. Another thing all the classes that run slicks make them run the hardest compounds again for economics and that's it . There's your Tier 1 Classes. What do ya think?