Spectator support for NZ racing

[Kickaha]

I'd expect turnout at the North Island rounds to be quite good.

You'd be wrong, turnout at Ruapuna last year was as good as any round and even though there wasn't much of a crowd it was far better than 4-5 years ago

[Clivoris]

Did I hear correctly , that if the VMCC don't make any money putting on the Manfeild points round, that the Winter Series will be canned this year ????
I see they have posters up in the shops , but I think it will take more than that to get the crowds in ? Gaz.

No you didn't hear correctly. If we LOSE money running the Manfield round then the viability of the Actrix Winter Series will be challenged. If we have done the planning and budgetting well, and the weather co-operates we should be fine. The risk has also been increased by the fact that the last winter series cost us more to put on than we took in. The sound financial position we were in meant that we had the reserves in place to cover this. Our Winter Series costs have increased dramatically for a number of reasons but we believe that it will be running it as usual.
But to get back on topic. The Manfield and Puke rounds are in pretty good population centres but motorcycle road-racing, on race tracks, doesn't seem to have the appeal that the cars have. The Classic festival seems to be the exception along with Paeroa and Wanganui. The more successful events get more successful I s'pose. Chances are we are only going to people to Manfield who are very keen on seeing bikes go round and round fastly. The Vic Club would like to make it more of a festival event but we are a small group of volunteers who need to focus on the essential features of the event first. Once this is done, none of us have the energy left to do anything else. Of course, if there is anyone out there who has the energy to back up their ideas they are more than welcome to jump aboard.

[Dodgy]

Maybe part of the problem is that you dont have a target market, or have no idea what market you should target?

Consider that the riders will race and their family/mates/fans will turn up is taken. Quite a few anoraks and bikers will turn up as well. Then, who else? Well, probably no one as they have not been targeted. Stevey B I know has often talked about this.

Its about competing with all sorts of other events for money and leisure time too. In the airshows we organise, we get crowds of (I recall 20,000). Very few of them are aircraft anoraks, whole familys come along who dont really tell a tiger moth from a sopwith camel (and prob dont care either). But, we put on a hell of a lot more than planes cruising around and have a huge range of catering. Manfield for example is pretty crap. Some old hot dog vans serving battered lips and arseholes. Nothing to keep the kids amused. Someone asked me about doing an aerobatic display at lunchtime for Manfield, which I was more than happy to organise. Once the $$$ were mentioned - silence and we were only looking at a few hundred $.

Hell, I am not surprised money is not made as bugger all is probably is invested in the first place and it is run by a bunch of volunteer bikers (who do the best they can. As an ex racer I thank the organisers, as a spectator I may well think.. WTF??)

I can understand North Islanders not wanting to spend around $600 to watch Ruapuna for the weekend. Sadly, they are missing out on a great event. Certainly as an ex 125 and F3 racer, the South Island tracks were far more fun and challenging from a riders perspective than Manfield and Puke. it may well be different for the rockets??


Shaun, so great to see you well dude. We went to cheer you on at IOM and were horrified to hear of what happened (and see the marks on the wall). The island breathed a collective sigh of relief to hear of your recovery.

[Dodgy]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that on Monday I checked out the Dom Post for an article in the sport section for an exciting race update.

Well, for sure the lawn bowls, tennis, cricket, target shooting, turtle racing and pretty much everything else got an article. I had to search the quick results to see that something had indeed happened at Ruapuna.

Sadly, the marketing for the Nats really is shite. Even just now looking on stuff, 44 articles on motorsport and not one mention of the nats or GP... Dunno who the media/public relations person is for the series, but they would be pretty broke if there was a performance measurement bonus in their contract!

[Clivoris]

Maybe part of the problem is that you dont have a target market, or have no idea what market you should target?

Consider that the riders will race and their family/mates/fans will turn up is taken. Quite a few anoraks and bikers will turn up as well. Then, who else? Well, probably no one as they have not been targeted. Stevey B I know has often talked about this.

Its about competing with all sorts of other events for money and leisure time too. In the airshows we organise, we get crowds of (I recall 20,000). Very few of them are aircraft anoraks, whole familys come along who dont really tell a tiger moth from a sopwith camel (and prob dont care either). But, we put on a hell of a lot more than planes cruising around and have a huge range of catering. Manfield for example is pretty crap. Some old hot dog vans serving battered lips and arseholes. Nothing to keep the kids amused. Someone asked me about doing an aerobatic display at lunchtime for Manfield, which I was more than happy to organise. Once the $$$ were mentioned - silence and we were only looking at a few hundred $.

Hell, I am not surprised money is not made as bugger all is probably is invested in the first place and it is run by a bunch of volunteer bikers (who do the best they can. As an ex racer I thank the organisers, as a spectator I may well think.. WTF??)

It's all true and thanks for the appreciation of what we do manage to provide. We do get lots of people telling us how easy it would be to do this or that to make things better, but very very few of them step up to do these "easy" things. I suspect that SteveyB will agree with this. Unless we have more people getting involved to help out the pattern of recent history will be repeated. A small core of people will burn out delivering what they can, only getting fresh input by pulling the pin and walking away. It's just a matter of time until "professionals" will have to become involved and turn things into a money making venture. Then we will see how expensive club racing can really be.
Regarding the catering at Manfield I have to agree again, but we aren't even allowed to get a decent coffee cart there. No outside caterers allowed.

[Paul in NZ]

Sigh........

I'm not trying to be critical of what people do - hell, if you hire the track you can run gerbil races as far as I'm concerned........

I have investigated investing reasonably serious effort and $$ into this and its not a flyer. Turn it into a festival and the trainspotters revolt etc - I don't have the energy for it but I see your point - I'll delete my earlier post..

[steveb64]

Shit - I'd love to have been there... but too far....

Besides - the race bikes these days are too quiet. Like watching a bunch of high speed vacuum cleaners - whhiirrr wwhhoooosshhh fffftttt vrrrrmmmmmm Just seems to take something away from the atmosphere.

Yes, I know that most tracks have noise limits - but ALL of them? Come on MNZ - bring back the full blooded scream of a barely baffled race bike - at least on the tracks where local noise limits aren't mandated.

[Clivoris]

Sigh........

I'm not trying to be critical of what people do - hell, if you hire the track you can run gerbil races as far as I'm concerned........

I have investigated investing reasonably serious effort and $$ into this and its not a flyer. Turn it into a festival and the trainspotters revolt etc - I don't have the energy for it but I see your point - I'll delete my earlier post..

I must have missed something Paul. I don't think any of the posts here have been critical or negative. I hope that my replies have not been perceived as critical. Like others here I am just calling it how I see it. Those who choose to get involved in running these things are responsible for our decision to do it. We do what we can when we can. I certainly enjoy enough of it to keep doing it in the short term, but can see that it isn't really sustainable. My priority is having somewhere to race. The question this thread has prioritised is how do we get spectators to the race meetings? I agree with others that there are probably lots of ways to do this but it probably comes with increased financial risk.

[roogazza]

No you didn't hear correctly. If we LOSE money running the Manfield round then the viability of the Actrix Winter Series will be challenged. If we have done the planning and budgetting well, and the weather co-operates we should be fine. The risk has also been increased by the fact that the last winter series cost us more to put on than we took in. The sound financial position we were in meant that we had the reserves in place to cover this. Our Winter Series costs have increased dramatically for a number of reasons but we believe that it will be running it as usual.
But to get back on topic. The Manfield and Puke rounds are in pretty good population centres but motorcycle road-racing, on race tracks, doesn't seem to have the appeal that the cars have. The Classic festival seems to be the exception along with Paeroa and Wanganui. The more successful events get more successful I s'pose. Chances are we are only going to people to Manfield who are very keen on seeing bikes go round and round fastly. The Vic Club would like to make it more of a festival event but we are a small group of volunteers who need to focus on the essential features of the event first. Once this is done, none of us have the energy left to do anything else. Of course, if there is anyone out there who has the energy to back up their ideas they are more than welcome to jump aboard.

Thats great to hear, my source must have been a gum flapper ?
You are quite right we owe it all to the workers who donate their time and money. Wouldn't it be great to see it get back to the days of the Shell Two Wheeler that the Vic club organised ? Gaz.

[GSVR]

Interesting small item in the local paper about the New Zealand Grand Prix by Penny Miles. In it shes say Manfeild had to be dissapointed with the crowd figures for the event.

Over the 3 days the event was held they got 5000 punters and on the Grand Prix day they had 3500 thru the gate. She compares this figure to the 14000 that attended the event last year at Teretonga.

This event has been talked up for a long time locally and its historically the single most important motorsport race in NZ. Although now with the A1GP event it can hardly be considered the most exciting. BTW for anyone thats interested the A1GP car went around Manfeild in 59.1 secs according to another report.

The Toyota racecars are quite dull to watch in comparision to Superbikes and Supersport races. This is not because I'm a bike fan as I enjoy watching cars just as much.

What is needed is for the punters to feel involved in whats going on there and have some interest in the outcome of the racing.
I bet if you asked 50 people on the street who Robbie Bugden was possibly no one would be able to answer "The current New Zealand Suberbike Champion" Infact if you asked motorcyclists only I doubt you'd get more than a handful.

Promoting the racing by putting bikes etc on display at shopping centers and using any other means to make the public aware of when the events are on and the fact that this is racing at a national level featuring international riders would also help.

[TonyB]

One thing I would like to point out- you get 5000 people at a street race and the place will look packed. Get 5000 at Ruapuna and it will look damn near empty.

But yeah, $15 for the whole weekend is bloody good value. As bikers we should be supporting these events.

[Bloody Mad Woman (BMW)]

Did I hear correctly , that if the VMCC don't make any money putting on the Manfeild points round, that the Winter Series will be canned this year ????
I see they have posters up in the shops , but I think it will take more than that to get the crowds in ? Gaz.

Absolute rumour and gossip. Or more plainly what utter bullshit.

The only reason the Actrix Winter Series for 2008 would be canned is if we did not have enough volunteers. I believe we have an adequate number but more help is always appreciated.

I do urge all riders for the Nationals to get their entries in as soon as possible - please do not leave it (as usual) to the last minute. Entries close 1 February 2008. I go into hospital for knee op on 4 Feb. Get the gist??!! lol

Chers
Shirley
VMCC Secretary

[Toast]

The risk has also been increased by the fact that the last winter series cost us more to put on than we took in. .

That's most interesting, seeing as the rounds seemed very well attended (by racers) for the most part. I assume the loss doesn't include those who sign up for Vic Club membership for the sole reason of racing though, so maybe a little money in that. Regardless I'd have expected the turnouts to generate at least a small profit for the club. Hopefully '08 will be better for it

[Clivoris]

That's most interesting, seeing as the rounds seemed very well attended (by racers) for the most part. I assume the loss doesn't include those who sign up for Vic Club membership for the sole reason of racing though, so maybe a little money in that. Regardless I'd have expected the turnouts to generate at least a small profit for the club. Hopefully '08 will be better for it

I'm not the treasurer so I might be making this up Our balance sheet includes the memberships. Our costs have increased for the same reasons that everyone elses have, i.e. fuel and general inflation increases. On top of this we are attempting (not very successfully at times) to ensure that the volunteers do not end up out of pocket for their support. The supply of volunteers has got so tenuous that we need to look after them. Four who helped out last season are no longer available. The inclusion of Taupo in the series dramatically increases our costs due to the expense of the track itself, cost of getting there and the expense of accomodation. Including Taupo again this season was a decision made on a knife edge, especially given the problems with round one last year. The racers won the decision to include one round simply because it adds some variety and it can be a bloody fun track. We have needed to rent a garage over the last year to store the trailer and other club equipment including the club scholarship 150s. This scholarship has been an expensive exercise but one that we though added interest and gave something back to the development of the sport. This year we have altered this so it is not such an expense for the club. Providing a prizegiving at the end of the series is a cost as well.
I wasn't sure about putting this information up here but in the end it is publicly available to anyone who attends the committee meetings. There are also other things that we are going to have to focus more budget and energy on this Year. We have struggled to get the club magazine out with any regularity and giving sponsors value for money needs some work.
I have a biased opinion but agree with GarryH that the bike racing is way exciting to watch. We would really benefit from someone/somepeople who would be able to promote the meetings, publish the Oily Rag and generate some copy for it and the media in general.

[roogazza]

The inclusion of Taupo in the series dramatically increases our costs due to the expense of the track itself, cost of getting there and the expense of accomodation. Including Taupo again this season was a decision made on a knife edge, especially given the problems with round one last year.

It wouldn't worry me or probably a lot of others if Taupo was canned ! ?
Would seem an easy cost cutting measure !
Anyway , in the meantime, good luck with the points round. gaz.