Quote:
Originally Posted by socram
And therein lies the problem. When casual TV viewers see (supposedly) our premier classes, fronting up with less than 15 entrants on a regular basis, of course actual crowd numbers will be low and I think this low support (for whatever reason) is why circuit racing doesn't attract the crowds. If the tier 1 isn't attractive, then the casuals would believe that anything lower is less attractive. We know better. They don't.
Who wants to pay to see acres of empty tar seal? This is exactly why crowd numbers are litle more than 1100 at each meeting and quite frankly, that is a disgrace.
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Yes Socram, you've identified one of the main problems. The problem isn't inherently the NZV8 class, its the TMC running of the Tier 1 series. They have a contract with MSNZ to run these Championship events but over the last three years have done a pretty poor effort which has had a detrimental impact on all motorsport. The rot was setting in three years ago but TMC seemed struck with inertia.
The problem has been that Tier 1 has been portrayed to the public by MSNZ as the pinnacle of NZ motorsport. The dwindling grids of mainly boring racing (except perhaps for TRS) presents a pretty pathetic "pinnacle" and the message it gives to the public and potential participants and sponsors is far below the standard needed to attract new people to become involved in the sport.
As you say, the public will believe that if the pinnacle is so poor then the rest of the sport must be even worse - as a result we all suffer.
MSNZ should have been proactive in addressing this but it seems the inertia was contagious.