It struck me – literally – like a lightning flash. “Where,” I thought as I speared a second roast potato quarter and popped it into my mouth, “is our ‘ANZ Premiership’ final?”
It was Sunday evening and I was sitting – dinner plate on my lap – watching ‘the netball final’ with my wife Delia, son Andrew and daughter Kate.
My wife, it must be said, is an avid ‘student of the game,’ and my daughter played school netball (in a team her mother helped set up and manage I might add) from the age of 6 to 18 before coaching a couple of college teams with a friend, and only really giving up this year to focus on her studies at Uni.
So, it’d be fair to say that I’ve watched the odd game over the past 20-or so years. Actually, my casual involvement with the sport goes back even further… to Southland in general and my hometown of Gore, in particular, being real hotbeds of the game.
In fact the ‘Grand Final’ we sat and watched on Sunday evening – between the nominally Wellington-based Te Wananga O Raukawa-sponsored Central Pulse and Christchurch’s The Good Oil-backed Tactix was actually played at Invercargill’s ILT Stadium Southland, home of last year’s top ANZ Premiership team, the jointly head-quartered Dunedin-Invercargill squad, the Ascot Park Hotel-sponsored Southern Steel.
Which is more than enough background on the sport of netball for an opinion piece on a site called Talk Motorsport!
The reason I raise the issue of netball and this year’s ANZ Premiership, however, is simple. And this is the point that hit me with such clarity on Sunday evening.
How come we, in motorsport in this country, don’t have some sort of similar regional – or even Island-based – competition for teams and drivers to focus on and fans to follow and get excited about?
Yes, I know we have our annual ‘summer’ motor racing championship series headlined by the Castrol Toyota Gazoo Racing Series. And in the past, we’ve had a successful domestic V8 one.
But I’m meaning more than that, much more. I’m talking a series with some sort of regional, or even North vs South, component, one where during the early part of the season you have a round-robin-type competition, before a series of semis then an all-singing, all-dancing live-televised final?
Like last week, though, all I can say is I honestly don’t know? Either why we don’t? Or why I have never thought about the format of our championship series in this particular way before?
Even when arch-critic Allan Dick was regularly raising the issue of ‘what’s wrong with the state of our sport?’ in the pages of his various magazines and more recently on his Facebook page I can’t remember anyone coming up with a simple format change along these lines.
In saying that I can’t help agree with the basic premise – that our sport – and by association every last one of us who have played a part in it – has been badly let down by those who have sought active management roles in it in the past.
Back in the years immediately after WW2 we as a nation were probably better off – financially and definitely in terms of well-being – than most of the protagonists in the ‘war to end all wars.’
Yet just 10 years after peace was declared, in the USA a bloke called Bill France Snr was well on the way to turning his local Stock Car series into a veritable ‘money tree’ known these days simply as NASCAR.
And, on the other side of the Atlantic, a fast-talking used car salesman named Bernard Charles Ecclestone was slowly but surely putting the steps in place to establish Formula 1 as the only truly annual, pan-global sporting competition.
Along the way both France Snr and Ecclestone made themselves fantastic fortunes – which obviously pissed off their many and vocal critics.
What these small-minded idiots (the critics) don’t seem to grasp is that by doing what entrepreneurs do best – making ‘something out a’ nothing’ both gentlemen creating platforms on which others could establish teams, businesses, consultancies etc on and make enough money from this to do it full-time.
Where, for instance, would Ferrari, Williams or even McLaren be without Formula 1? And where would self-made men like former driver and now team owner Richard Childress be without NASCAR?
Answer? Arguably like a lot of teams and talented ‘racing folk’ here in NZ to this day; combining their passion for racing with the often wildly conflicting demands of a ‘day job,’ with many either earning or paying themselves so little just to ‘stay in the game’ that most have no prospect of ever owning ‘a’ house, let alone the ‘big houses’ of their compatriots across the Tasman or in the US or even the UK.
And all because of the ultraconservative, buttoned down nature of our own ‘scene’– incredibly – still ruled over and managed by a ‘confederation’ of clubs, like it was back in 1948 or whenever.
Not to mention a ‘scene’ where any entrepreneurial types who turned up since 1948 (or whenever) with a spring in their step, twinkle in the eyes and ‘a good idea’ have been viewed – and many treated – with suspicion at the best of times and out and out hostility at any other (time) by those ‘in charge.’
Obviously the odd one or two have been able to break or sneak through and make a difference.
I know, I never- ever – feel less than energised when I get off the phone from Peter Martin, the livewire former motor and finance industry executive who ‘liked the business of Targa NZ so much he bought it’ off founder Mike John and whose constant innovation is what has kept the tarmac motor rallying side of our sport fresh since that time.
I’ve also written, of late, of the P.T.Barnum-like exploits of D1NZ main man Brendon White and – just some of – the innovations he has introduced in an effort to keep the good ship D1NZ not only afloat but also front-of-mind in terms of his target audience!
I’m – just – old enough, too, to remember the excitement generated around the first ‘Wellington Street Race’ and the introduction of Truck Racing here.
For both of these – not to mention the legacies they left – we have the late Ian Gamble to thank.
I can still recall the sheer spectacle of the first ever Truck Race meeting at Pukekohe Park Raceway; the mix of sight, sound, noise, vibration etc as the first full field of black smoke-belching Prime Movers came storming over ‘The Hill’ (well) on their way to a 160km/h rolling start, was real mind-bending stuff!
In each case the events themselves were run, won, and seemed to be enjoyed by all those who attended. Kiwis by and large are good at this sort of nuts‘n bolts stuff and you can always find someone with the necessary skills, desire and time on their hands to ‘run’ a meeting.
Our
ability to get events off the ground, is also, I would suggest, second
to none……you only have to look to our track record – from the first
fledgling NZ Motor Cup meeting on Muriwai Beach
on March 05 1921.
Or to the first NZ GP meeting at Ohakea in 1950, the first Lady Wigram
Trophy meeting in 1951, then the first of the NZIGP-run meetings at
Ardmore in 1953 etc right up until events like the Silverstone Race to
the Sky Hillclimb which started in 1998 and even
Rod Millen’s Goodwood Revival-style Leadfoot Hillclimb event which
kicked off back in 2011.
When you consider how few of us there are inhabiting our far-flung little network of islands tucked (way) down at the bottom end of the South Pacific, we don’t do too badly for infrastructure either…our latest circuits – Hampton Downs and Highlands Motorsport Park both truly world class facilities.
What – and it is so obvious to me now – we are not so good at is creating the sort of environment and/or infrastructure to allow the likes of Peter Martin, Brendon White, 2KCup pioneer James Watson and his Dad Chris of HRC fame etc, etc, etc, create viable platforms on which to build long-term, trend (and hopefully COVID-19) resilient businesses.
Motorsport, after-all, in this country is already the lifeblood for any number of small (think parts and accessory suppliers, fabricators, engine builders and such like) businesses.
I’m sure too, that if someone….(But who?) decided that it was in their interests to put together a serious survey of all those involved, asking them amongst other things the proportion of their income they derive directly from motorsport the aggregated total would be in the (many) millions.
But who knows it? Because as far as I am aware, nobody has never felt it necessary to ‘connect-the-dots.’ I’d go as far as saying, in fact, that even the most ardent of enthusiasts would get a hell of a surprise at just how big a deal – in millions of dollars terms – our local motorsport industry is, most still thinking that motorsport remains a largely amateur undertaking here.
Which is exactly the type or kind of blinkered thinking that held the Rugby Union back for so long. Yet look where that particular code is today – literally at the top of its game!
OK, it’s not the NBA, where I see Wikipedia lists Kiwi Basketballer Steven Adams 2017 salary as $USD22.47 million per season. But at least now, with the sport (rugby) operating on a professional basis, promising young players can not only dream of ‘becoming an All Black’ they can also do so knowing that if they do ‘make it’ they will be earning a decent whack on the way, during and even after…if the way bloody Dan Carter’s career continues to dribble on…and on.
League – for which there has never been any embarrassment over being ‘paid to play’ – offers a similar (funded) career path as do both Basketball and Football (soccer) here now that we have professional teams competing in pan-Australian competitions.
Which neatly brings me back to Netball and the ANZ Premiership, won, by the way, for a second time in a row by the Central Pulse,
Like the key stick ‘n ball codes Netball teams around the country now offer female players the same opportunity to focus 100% of their energies on their sport during the season at least, as their (male) counterparts in rugby, cricket and league have enjoyed since those codes turned professional.
Which is encouraging – particularly when we as a nation – again – are so good at it (the current World Champions as a matter of fact)
As anyone reading this column will, of course, already know we are just as good at turning out talented young racing drivers. Yet because we are still labouring away with an amateur infrastructure the only way any young driver can be expected to get paid to drive is to head off overseas.
Sure, you can stay at home and pursue what local opportunities that there are here – but if you do you will be racing on Sunday and back to work on Monday.
Even some of our most successful young Kiwi world-beaters in fact, still have day jobs……
Simon Evans won the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy support series (to the ABB Formula E Championship) with a win and second place at the final round in Berlin earlier this month. Which globally is what I’d class as a ‘bloody big deal.’
Yet when he is back home in Auckland, and back ‘home’ after isolating for 2 weeks he will be back working the floor as a sales consultant at Archibald + Shorter in Greenlane!
He might be the reigning ECB (Aussie) SuperUte Series champion, too, but former Christchurch now Auckland-based all-rounder Tom Alexander isn’t exactly sitting on his laurels.
Since he has been up north in fact, he has been working weekdays as an advanced driving instructor for Mike Eady’s Tracktime Driving Academy.
Which on one level is fantastic… yet on another is a sad indictment as to the way our sport has been managed – and multitude of opportunities lost as a result in just one (my) lifetime!
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