Yes, well, MotorSport NZ has just completed a ‘comprehensive review of its strategy for top level saloon car race categories in New Zealand’ and President Wayne Christie says he is “keen to hear the feedback of competitors, clubs and event organisers.”
I note that he didn’t include ‘pesky journo/PR-types’ like my good self in the latter list but, never being short of an opinion, and now having a decent sort of soapbox (in my weekly column here on Talk Motorsport), here goes!
Really Wayne?
By definition, a ‘review’ should be – and I quote from an on-line dictionary that Google found for me – ‘a formal assessment of something with the intention of instituting change if necessary.’
Yet in the press release announcing the fact that a review had taken place (which was news to me) Christie is quoted as saying that; ‘the review sets in place a strategic direction for top-level circuit racing for the immediate and medium future.’
So…. why is he ‘keen to hear the feedback of competitors, clubs and event organisers’ if the ‘strategic direction for top-level circuit racing for the immediate and medium future’ has already been set………….by a quick look backwards!
Actually, that’s probably the reason he DIDN’T include the words ‘pesky journo/PR-types in the list of people he wanted to hear back from because I’m not particularly good with a rubber stamp.
I’m also, obviously, going to have to brush up on my knowledge of the solar system because my first thought on reading Christie’s comments in the press release was ‘what bloody planet are you on, mate?’
OK, from Motorsport NZ’s perspective the rag-tag bunch of saloon categories we have at the moment, is – I’m sure – a good thing. Particularly in an economy as vibrant as ours has been, and it would appear will continue to be, in the immediate and medium-term future.
Each time someone enters a race meeting a significant portion of the entry fee, for instance, goes to………MotorSport NZ!
But really, does anyone seriously believe that there is – and I quote – ‘a clear pathway for competitors who choose to race saloon cars – starting with club or grassroots racing with dozens of events being run by clubs all over New Zealand every month, then moving to one of the sanctioned series such as Pre-65, NZ Six or OSCA, and then on to a premier level category such as the Toyota 86 Championship, V8 Touring Cars or TCR?’
Or, as Christie himself says (and I guess if you repeat something often enough you start to believe it); ‘the saloon car pathway provides for a competitor to commence their racing career in an entry-level class such as 2KCup and progress right through to V8 Touring Cars or TCR as the pinnacle in New Zealand, and beyond to an international career.’
Not sure about you and yours. But the blokes I know who have got into 2KCup have done so because it is – for them – the ultimate means to an end. Most are wage earners or self-employed and the 2KCup was the first category I can think of where you didn’t have to take a mortgage out just to buy your car – let alone run it for a season.
The odd one has used it as a stepping stone but most appear happy to give it a go until the money or enthusiasm runs out then move on to something else, like 4WDing, or buying a share in a boat to go fishing in.
I also question – from my own direct experience – why the ‘review’ chose to split motorsport here into saloon and single-seater sections with (bizarrely in my humble opinion) single-seaters being treated as some sort of afterthought.
Christie is (again) quoted as saying; ‘This updated strategic plan provides for a clearly defined pathway for competitors who can easily differentiate between a single-seater or saloon car career, and how they can map their way to the top.’
Really?
I’ve no idea what the terms of reference were but if they were just to look at MotorSport NZ and the categories it currently administers they were woefully inadequate.
There appears to be a confusion, too, at the heart of the review/document/debate about the actual purpose of motorsport in this country.
Is it, for instance, a fun hobby for those who can afford it? Or a medium by which talented and tutored young men and women can develop a professional career?
That’s more than enough scene-setting though. My own ‘review-of-the-review’ starts with the terms of reference.
Ask any 6-10-year-old kid racing a Cadet ROK kart anywhere in NZ at the moment what they want to be doing in 10 years’ time and the answer will either be ‘be a F1 driver,’ or ‘be racing a V8 Supercar’
Even the teenagers who stick at it and race karts here, across the Tasman, and more and more (the likes of Marcus Armstrong) in Europe, do so with the intent of ‘stepping up’ to a car and (hopefully) enjoying a long and prosperous professional career.
How they achieve that, obviously, is a moot point, but either way these kids are the ‘future consumers’ of Motorsport NZ’s services yet it appears no one in KartSport was consulted when the review was being prepared.
Which would be my first bone of contention.
(Way) back in the day, karting might have existed on an island (or planet!) of its own. But since top karter Craig Baird burst onto the local (car) scene with a first-up win in the New Zealand Formula Ford championship in 1988, most of the drivers who have followed in his wheel tracks have been karters.
Yes, I know, there have been exceptions; Shane Van Gisbergen got his start on ATVs and in Quarter Midgets, Richie Stanaway his in Jnr MX and Speedway Mini Stocks. But both did a couple of seasons in karts as a sort of ‘finishing school’ before making the move to cars.
Like most other successful Touring Car drivers Van Gisbergen and Stanaway also enjoyed considerable success in single-seaters before making the move to tin-tops, ‘The Giz winning the NZ Formula Ford title in 2006, Stanaway in 2009.
Both also moved up – albeit briefly – to the TRS, Van Gisbergen finishing second overall and earning the Rookie of the Year award in 2007, and Stanaway winning the first ill-fated TRS Lite (or whatever it was called at the time) race before heading to Europe and winning both the German Formula Masters and Formula 3 series there before a serious accident saw a long period of rehabilitation then move first to GT3s in Europe then Supercars in Oz.
These days karters still make up most applicants for the SpeedSport Formula First scholarship programme (the current incumbent is Ronan Murphy) as they did in the days when it was called the Shell Scholarship and the first winner was Ronan’s Dad, Greg Murphy (back in 1990).
Don’t think of these blokes as the exception to some kind of unwritten rule either. For every Scott McLaughlin, Shane Van Gisbergen and Richie Stanaway I could probably name you five other karters with similar skill sets who for a hundred other reasons (most, to be fair, tied up with $$$$) only managed to make it to Formula Ford, TRS, or one or other of the NZ categories.
Which brings me to my second bone of contention.
We have way too many categories fighting for a limited amount of circuit and media time. And despite Wayne Christie’s words there is no distinctive, pathway, from the bottom to the top.
I know this because I have watched first hand as karting Dad after karting Dad struggled to come up with one – which might lead somewhere, anywhere – other than to a big hole into which all sorts of people with vested interests invited him to throw his money!
For a while a path of sorts existed from the Nissan GT Cup to TraNZam Lights then on to the BNT NZV8 Championship. That worked for John McIntyre but foundered on the false hope, promises and eventual failure of the ambitious but ultimately ill-fated NZ SuperTourer series.
There was also a brief period when of you played your cards right you could parlay success in Formula Fords here into a drive in the NZ and Australian Porsche GT3 Carrera Cup championships…. stand up Fabian Coulthard and Daniel Gaunt….. then on to Supercars.
In the absence of a clear, stepped path from karts to some sort of regular gig here or on our ‘West Island’ (aka Australia) some karting Dads put their lads through the short-lived Suzuki Swift series and the longer-lived but more club race-oriented BMW E30 one.
Others have – pretty much in disgust – turned back to karts, where there are several clear paths, be they via the ‘world championship’ or world cup CIK-FIA route or one-make engine manufacturer ones like the Rotax Max Challenge and Grand Final, and/or the local (Vortex) ROK Cup and ROK Cup International.
The elephant in the room, of course, is the number of ‘time’s up lad’ classes cluttering up and confusing the issue on the NZ scene, and what appears to me anyway to be Motorsport NZ’s ‘possum/headlights’ attitude to them.
Rather than be disingenuous in the extreme in saying that there is a ‘clear pathway’ starting with club or grassroots racing then moving to one of the sanctioned series, it is my opinion that Wayne Christie should pull on some big boy pants on and cut out some of the dead wood.
Enough of it, anyway, to let the sun in so we could work out where the path was, and if it is clearable, or so far gone that we need to dig another one.
Sure, there are going to be winners (2KCup, Toyota 86, TRS and the new TCR series) and losers (Pre-65, V8 Utes, Honda Cup, Super 6, NZV8s etc etc etc) but that’s life.
Finally – though perhaps I should have introduced this point earlier – I know, through my media and PR work – a bunch of current racers who spent the first half of their lives working every hour God gave them to build up a business and provide for their families, and are now thoroughly enjoying the fruits of these labours in the second half (of their lives).
Some race F5000 single-seaters, others Muscle Cars, Historic Touring Cars, Speedway Saloons and even KZ2 karts.
To a man they’ve only ever wanted to race one thing and one thing only….so talk of ‘clear pathways’ is absolutely lost on them. As is most of the ‘blue blazer-style’ administration and ‘hurry-up-and-wait’ treatment they often receive (and reluctantly) put up with at race meetings.
But addressing that – let alone trying to come up with ways to improve the way Motorsport New Zealand treats its ‘paying customers’ – is a subject for another day!
As always this is just my opinion. Whether it is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ isn’t the point.
Like most of you reading this I ‘eat/sleep/breathe’ motorsport pretty much 24/7. So I’m passionate about it, and easy to spark up, if I think I see something wrong.
Your turn now.
What do YOU think about the current state of the sport? And if YOU think YOU could improve it what would YOU do?
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