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Sorry, but if you talk to the spectators at the classics, you'll rarely find that they made a conscious choice to avoid A1GP and go to Puke. Greater Auckland has a population of 1 million people, plus Hamilton and the Waikato region, within an hour of Pukekohe, so that is where the population base is, not Taupo.
The A1GP race itself seemed to have plenty of people in the stands on the Sunday, and according to the newspaper, a crowd of 65,000 over the three days, which seems fair enough to me. (Though I was surprised it was that large.) Note also that the main stands at Pukekohe are covered, but the Taupo spectator facility is open to the very hot sun/wind/rain. If like me you have a pale skin, and are advised to stay out of the sun, where do you think I'd choose all things being equal - which they are not?
At a guess, there would have been about 5,000 or less paying spectators at Pukekohe and the rest were on driver's allocation tickets and the crowd was much smaller than last year on the same weekend, so the meeting to suffer was arguably the classic meeting, not A1GP.
I'm no great fan of politics or MotorSport NZ, but in this instance, I see no reason to have Pukekohe empty on a holiday weekend when the local calendar is quite settled and the Rotary Nationsl (drags) are also on at meremere, next door to HD, the speedway in Auckland has its big meeting on the Saturday night, and the TV company had a total of 9 motoring events to cover.
I have booked Pukekohe for a sports/saloons/GTs race meeting November 29th, so if the A1GP is slotted into that spot, it is my hard luck, as the promoter, and I lose our one and only income earner for the year, and the two long established classic race series I convene, also lose a round.
We have to defer to an international series, and I wouldn't blame anyone or be bitter about it, but our marketing has already started with a meeting to celebrate 50 years of Marcos, but unlike A1GP, we have to book ahead to secure the dates, so to lose out will affect a fair few people who are aleady committed.
That is life, and the circuit/promoters of A1GP in NZ upset a lot of people in previous years, who have long memories, and it is up to them to repair the damage, not for others who run and compete in successful meetings to be penalised, especially when we have to pay for our own TV coverage, with no assistance whatever from MSNZ - even though we add substantially to their coffers through licence, permit and levy fees!
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