Formula Vee no longer welcome at QR or Lakeside

[260BC]

...........

JT because I dare question the value offered to my club.

That sucks. I have a lot of time for Tetley because he saved Lakeside and spent money on it but those sort of bully tactics are not on.

[Gammaboy]

.

[Nafe]

CAMS do not own any race circuits. It's up the circuits to decide if they want to pay the sanctioning/licence fees for CAMS Permit race meetings. QR does for the Shannons Nationals and V8 rounds, but that's about it. Lakeside has no CAMS affiliation at all IIRC. Morgan Park does, hence holding all the CAMS State Championship rounds out there. That's my understanding of it at the moment.

[Shane001]

JT because I dare question the value offered to my club.

Wow, how to win friends and influence people indeed!

Is this a new trend for circuits to charge clubs a set fee for grid time? I know this is how it works for Bathurst, Prod Sports pays x dollars and we competitors pay prod sports our entry, and hopefully prod sports gets enough entries to cover their fee to the organiser. But tracks like Eastern Creek and from memory Oran Park, we the competitor pay the track/organiser, and the track/organiser takes the risk on entry numbers.

Smarter way to do it for the track/organiser as it removes their financial risk for the event, but puts a lot of pressure on clubs that may not really have the resources or setup for this. If this is the way it's going someone needs to form an organisation that represents all clubs with a single voice, to sway the balance of power back to a more nuetral position. And no I don't think this should be CAMS, as CAMS doesn't have total jurisdiction over all tracks or events. It would need to be an organisation nuetral to everyone except the clubs themselves.

[260BC]

I don't know that he "saved" it, he was certainly the one who put forward the winning tender.

I forget all the details but Tetley did have the option of buying the circuit or leasing it off the council. He went for the latter option because then it would be in the council's continuing interest to keep the circuit open. Keep in mind that there are still people who want to shut it down.

[TCR]

Smarter way to do it for the track/organiser as it removes their financial risk for the event, but puts a lot of pressure on clubs that may not really have the resources or setup for this. If this is the way it's going someone needs to form an organisation that represents all clubs with a single voice, to sway the balance of power back to a more nuetral position. And no I don't think this should be CAMS, as CAMS doesn't have total jurisdiction over all tracks or events. It would need to be an organisation nuetral to everyone except the clubs themselves.

Yeah, but what would be in it for this "organisation"? They would want a fee for their efforts and this would only come at a cost to us in the form of increased fees, and realistically I don't think any "organisation" is going to have any significant bargaining power with the track owners.

The reality is the track owners have some that we as enthusiasts/competitors want and it's up to each category to negotiate the best deal for their club. In the case of Prodsports, that just became a whole lot harder with the formation of the new Modern Sports Car category, as each category is fighting for the support of the same competitors. It's a shame because I think Prodsports had a really good series, but it all went a little astray which left some competitors feeling as though they needed to go out on their own.

[Shane001]

Yeah, but what would be in it for this "organisation"? They would want a fee for their efforts and this would only come at a cost to us in the form of increased fees, and realistically I don't think any "organisation" is going to have any significant bargaining power with the track owners.

The reality is the track owners have some that we as enthusiasts/competitors want and it's up to each category to negotiate the best deal for their club. In the case of Prodsports, that just became a whole lot harder with the formation of the new Modern Sports Car category, as each category is fighting for the support of the same competitors. It's a shame because I think Prodsports had a really good series, but it all went a little astray which left some competitors feeling as though they needed to go out on their own.

Yes, a lot of problems with prod sports, not the least of which is the speed of the cars! Class C cars doing 1:05 at Wakefield Park is ludicrous! Outright cars in Prod Sports are faster than Sports Sedans! The committee is looking at these problems but I think they may have left it a little late, it's going to be a difficult job pulling the category into line.

[Cal]

^I just worked out who you are. Do you remember getting upset with me a couple of years ago because I was holding you up across the top of the mountain? I was in a white Dodge Viper..... turned out to be the woefully badly driven white Corvette. I loled. We were also pitted next to you with the Ginetta G50 last year at Bathurst.

It's only the Qld committee that really cares about the speed difference. The NSW guys call it "progress".

[Shane001]

lol yes I know who you are Cal

And in my defence re the corvette incident, I didn't say it was you, I just reported to the powers that be that there was a white car that was all over the road across the top at low speed during practice/qualifying and that I thought this was very dangerous. Someone else ran with this that it may have been you, and the story went from there lol. So sorry about that

Don't know if anyone did end up having a quiet chat with the corvette driver though, he didn't actually hold me up but I did witness a couple of near misses with a few of the faster cars and his rear bumper!

[Cal]

LOL not at all. Not to sound like a prick, but it was pretty funny when Val asked me about it. We didn't have a great weekend at all, but we were doing low 2.20's. The previous time I was there was in the MX5 doing 2.46's and slower. I was more likely to be in the way then! That Corvette was a real worry that weekend. The mind boggles as to how you'd end up driving that with zero idea.

Are you getting out of Prod Sports or changing cars?

[Shane001]

Changing cars, need something a little quicker

[Cal]

I feel you pain! What are you buying?

[TCR]

It's only the Qld committee that really cares about the speed difference. The NSW guys call it "progress".

It certainly seems as though they're pushing to get the older GT3 cars included and fair enough if that's the path they choose, but surely they must realise that they'll alienate quite a few existing competitors, and can't be too surprised by the new category. I doubt they'll get enough GT3 cars to compensate for the loss of other competitors, at least for quite a few years. Could mean a rise in entry fees to make it viable, but I guess that might not really concern those guys driving the Porsches, Lotii and Lambos etc.

That being the case, maybe Modern Sports Cars will suit those guys that want to race their "cheaper" sports cars, who knows?

[Cal]

Modern Sports Cars certainly seems to be well supported so far.

[Shane001]

I feel you pain! What are you buying?

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