Let’s hear it for the fans!

For a while there I honestly thought we had cracked it. For six or seven heady summers our annual NZ championship motor racing series was anchored by a simple, practical BNT-backed V8 ‘Touring Car’ class, supported by Porsche and Toyota-backed ‘one-make’ series, and genuinely popular with drivers, fans and sponsors alike.

It wasn’t perfect, but in my humble opinion, it didn’t deserve the ignominious, not to mention litigious, end it received.

Because I was there – working as the go-to media guy for the Batterytown Porsche GT3 Cup class, Greg Bellingham’s Caltex-backed Ford Falcon-based V8 Touring Car team, and in later years, International Motorsport’s Toyota Racing Series team – I saw first-hand how well the series was received by motorsport fans young, old and in-between.

They didn’t give a stuff that the Falcons and Commodores ran a big old carby rather than fuel injection. Or the fact that they still rattled around with a mini spool (a simple locking mechanism which replaced the spider gears) rather than a proper Limited Slip Diff) in their Ark-era Borg Warner live rear axles.

No, they just loved the capacity fields of cars that looked vaguely like ‘the Aussie ones’ and the close, ‘rubbing is racing’ competition produced by a set of level-playing-field rules.

Incredible as it might now sound, you could – and I know this because mate Phil Stewart did – buy a lightly damaged car from a crashed car auction, strip it, cage it, add your spec engine, gearbox, diff and wheels and tyres, and have as much chance of a spot in the top six as an Andy Booth, Paul Pedersen or Johnny Mac.

At one stage (I’m sure) we had over 30 cars on the grid. And – again I’m pretty sure it was for the first time – we had drivers from other codes like Speedway champ Craig Boote ‘crossing over’ to see what all the fuss was about.

In theory the category could have gone on and on – and it sort of does today. Albeit, as a shadow of its former self. And therein lies the paradox at the heart of all that is wrong – and in a weird kind of parallel universe way – right with the New Zealand motor racing landscape at the moment.

Bottom line? We’re all running around looking after our own interests and no-one is looking at ‘the big picture,’ or how best to entertain ‘the fans’ rather than ourselves.

People, of course, are fickle. But with all due respect, I see little thought given these days to the sort of question the committee members responsible for the annual NZ championship motor racing meeting at Timaru International Motor Raceway used to ask themselves before settling on the programme each year; “what’s going to pull in the punters this time?”

I was chatting away (as you do) with the club president one day and he told me straight.

‘Trucks, mate,” he said. “They’ll come from all over the South Island (literally in their thousands, too) if we run a “Truck meeting,” or if we can run the Trucks as a support class at one of our other big meetings.”

It’s not rocket science either. Sophisticated they are not, but another category I have been doing the press and publicity for, for a while now (14 years and counting), Formula 5000, is also popular with major meeting organisers.

Because?

Strange as it may seem in this supposedly clean, green, metrosexual age we are supposed to be living in, it’s the bellowing V8s rather than the purring Priuses (Formula E anyone?) the fans want to see, hear, feel and (if possible) touch.

Which is why I roll my eyes heaven-ward when I find out that, at their discretion, clubs running rounds of the annual summer motor racing championship series add club-level ‘owner/driver’ classes like the Castrol-backed E30 BMW, Motul-sponsored Honda Cup, Nexen Pro 7, or (is it Nitto these days?) NZ Six (home of HQs and spec-based Falcon and Commodore racing) series to their programmes.

Sure they get to share a shed-load of entry fees with the series promotor. But at the cost of boring the socks off your average fan.

While I’m sure – particularly if you build and fettle the car yourself – there is a lot of satisfaction in running in one of these club-level classes, the key to winning in each and every one is grip. And if every car has the same chassis, suspension and wheel-tyre package, and – give or take – the same amount of power, the only way to differentiate yourself from the other mug punters in your category is to focus on qualifying and winning the first race off the front.

Then, all you have to try and do is not get taken out in the reverse grid (or whatever other artificial ‘action-maker’ the series committee has come to try and spice things up) second or third race.

These categories all definitely have a place. Just NOT on the support roster at a major national championship meeting which you are trying to attract fans too. Because – again this is just my opinion, grip is the enemy of excitement. And it is excitement – and with it the frisson of danger – that attracts your typical fickle fan.

Provide it and he (or she) will vote with their feet. Play it safe and they will stay at home. It is as simple as that.

It’s not all doom and gloom of course. Each year the largest crowd to a single sporting event……………………. ( and wash your mouth out if, even for a second, you thought I was going to change the subject and talk about cricket or rugby) descends on Pukekohe for the annual NZ round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Chmapionship.

They go because Supercars are a world-class drawcard easily worth the price of admission because they provide close, exciting racing in cars the fans recognise being driven on and often past their limit by a field of professionals who think nothing of the odd bit of ‘bump’n grind’ as their cars buck, kick, spit and backfire at lap record pace lap in lap out.

This, I don’t need to remind anyone, is as potent a mix of action, excitement and the ever-present opportunity for things to go pear-shaped as you are ever going to find on this side of the Tasman.

The fact that the local organising partner, ATEED, also understands the role of large scale carpet bomb-style TV advertising in building anticipation and encouraging fans to buy their tickets early and on-line (as you would if you wanted to see The Rolling Stones for instance) doesn’t do any harm either.

If they’re like me, most keen motorsport fans have to pick and choose which events they go to each summer. Few of us are made of money, and most are juggling all sorts of other family, work, hobby etc etc commitments just to be able to go to the local show.

Which brings me to another point of contention, calendar clashes.

While I understand the reason why the Toyota Racing Series has to be run over consecutive weekends (to make it attractive to all the young Euro and US drivers keen to hone their skills during the Northern Hemisphere off-season) I can’t for the life of me work out why MotorSport NZ allows organisers to run major ‘current era’ and ‘classic’ meetings with cooee of each other on the SAME weekend.

If they are really serious about building up the annual ‘summer’ championship series, shouldn’t they be absolutely ‘ring-barking’ those race weekends…………….and providing club level drivers who would otherwise be competing themselves on those weekends free tickets as both a make-good and chance to rebuild the ‘mana’ of the annual NZ title chase.

While I’m on the subject of providing something actually worth the price of admission at each round, I think the organisers should take a leaf out of the D1NZ playbook and put on impromptu car shows (er, the kids call them, ‘hard parks’) at each round of the ‘summer’ championship series. We did it at a recent Targa event at Hawke’s Bay and had a 50-car ‘guard-of-honour’ of everything from late model Ferraris to classic Mini Coopers lining the finishing shute in Havelock North.

I can just see the result (a sea of old skool Ford Falcon GTs plus some rare-as Japanese classics) at Teretonga. It would be mega. And cost chocolate fish to run.

Finally, can someone please explain to me in simple language I can understand, why, if we couldn’t afford our own domestic NZ SuperTourer Championship series, how come we have so many stunning contemporary GT3 cars running here in the traditional ‘off-season’ in the ENEOS North Island and Carter’s Tyre Service South Island Endurance Series.

Surely, given the right mix of classes, promotion and pizzazz these same car owners could be convinced to – say – buy and run TRS, a ‘start from scratch’ NZ Touring Car, or car for a revitalised Porsche GT3 Cup (or let’s get really ambitious here) Ferrari Cup support category.

Add in a different classic guest category at each round from fan favourites like the SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series, Central Muscle Cars or new Historic Touring Car category, throw in a ‘novelty’ North vs South, or Saturday day/night enduro event for a ‘fun’ class like the 2K Cup and you’re starting to get somewhere.

Or at least I think you are. What do YOU think?

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