Another late 'un for Donington [merged]

[Stack]

I received an email the other day from the BMMC Midland region beging for marshals for the AMOC meeting on the 25th and 26th June. I quote..

"Saturday 25th June will feature six races culminating in the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge of Great Britain. This three-hour race, starting at 16:50 hrs, will finish at around 19:50 hrs."

I checked the Silverstone round and there where only 13 starters.

It goes on....

"A further sixteen races are scheduled for Sunday 26th, thirteen of which will be televised and transmitted live to 39 countries! (wow, I bet they can't wait!!!) All televised races are rolling starts and will last for 10 minutes each."

I had a look at the timetable and the last race.....
Race 22 – David Brown Relay – – 18.20 – 18.50 (30 mins)

An hour dinner break is planned(!) for each day.

Personly I would like to thank AMOC for providing this timetable so much in advance that I can now plan to do something else!!!!

Its about time the clubs realise that cramming a meeting with umpteen races so they can gain more entry fees from competitors aint going to wash with marshals much longer-recent manning levels at Donington meetings point in this direction already.

What was really refreshing was receiving my passes and timetable for this weekends MSVR meeting at Cadwell and finding out that the last race finishes at 16.15 on Saturday (nice and early to stoke up the BBQ) and 18.07 on Sunday.

So come on clubs, if MSVR can do it so can you!!!!

[The Fat Clerk]

Must admit I laughed when I read the email, I'm going to Oulton for the CSCC meeting and reckon that I'll probably be home earlier ( I live @ Mallory).
Do you remember that line from a song 'When will they ever learn?'

[HairyDJ]

There are only 2 marshals' clubs that I'm aware of - all the others are racing clubs / circuits aka businesses!

As in other walks of life, some businesses are nicer to deal with (and gain "customer" loyalty) than others.

feet - vote with

[The Fat Clerk]

feet - vote with [/QUOTE]



Exactly Dave, hence a 200 mile round trip instead of a 50 mile one!

[KayBee]

Originally Posted by The Fat Clerk

Must admit I laughed when I read the email, I'm going to Oulton for the CSCC meeting and reckon that I'll probably be home earlier ( I live @ Mallory).
Do you remember that line from a song 'When will they ever learn?'

Twice in one season, you're getting to be almost a regular.

Are you going to Anglesey in August?

[The Fat Clerk]

Sadly no, I'm @ MIRA on the Saturday and Clerking the Masters @ Mallory on the Sunday. Busy boy!

[RCMADD]

oddly.. i have just volunteered for the sunday...

[chezza]

One of the issues is that circuit hire fees are so high that the clubs need to cram many races in to even stand a chance of making the meeting financially viable and so their hands are almost forced.

MSVR are probably one of the luckier ones, because they're MSV's racing arm I'd imagine they either don't have to pay circuit hire costs or get them at a lower rate and so don't need to cram in as many races to get their money back. (Please note that is my thoughts and I don't know if thats actually the case).

[Hepatic]

I gave up Donington events that were televised a long time ago. WSR looked like a cracking meeting until i got the timetable through a few years ago. 20 minutes scheduled for lunch for a near 12 hr day. I duly returned the tickets with letter of explanation and have not been back since. Not all events at Donington are like that thankfully, but once people get bitten like that its hard to tempt them back...

[Stephen Green]

Originally Posted by HairyDJ

There are only 2 marshals' clubs that I'm aware of - all the others are racing clubs / circuits aka businesses!

As in other walks of life, some businesses are nicer to deal with (and gain "customer" loyalty) than others.

feet - vote with

I thought there was only One marshals club?

[The Fat Clerk]

Now, now Mr Green

[M Greenslade]

What was really refreshing was receiving my passes and timetable for this weekends MSVR meeting at Cadwell and finding out that the last race finishes at 16.15 on Saturday (nice and early to stoke up the BBQ) and 18.07 on Sunday.

So come on clubs, if MSVR can do it so can you!!!!

Ably assisted by David Owen, John Watson and all at Cadwell that make their meetings some of the most slickly run in the UK...............

Bladders....

[Stone-kicker]

One of the issues is that circuit hire fees are so high that the clubs need to cram many races in to even stand a chance of making the meeting financially viable and so their hands are almost forced.

Alternatively, make your championships attractive enough to get full grids, same number of entry fees but needing less races needed.

[chezza]

That is a good point Stone-Kicker, but even that is becoming harder, we're lucky in that we have three series that have high/full grids, but to get that you have to keep the fees down (people at the moment are only looking at the bottom line when it comes to races) which means the margins become tighter and so your still needing to put lots of races on.

If you have popular series they're not going to want to pay over the odds to race at a circuit so you still need to put on lots of races to cover the costs.

Also with some circuits the costs are very high compared to the number of cars the MSA will allow on the grid, this puts the entry fees up and sadly usually lowers the numbers of cars that will turn out.

Its all a big nasty catch 22 situation.

[Stone-kicker]

So you run grids together.

I know it is sometimes not popular with the coordinators but but a grid of 28 cars has to be more viable than 2 grids of 14! Its more interesting for the spectators - bonus.