Some more ideas on growing the Nationals

[JayRacer37]

Yeah, drop the current format of the nationals round break it up into some rounds of the club events where they gain Points that will contribute and qualify them to go into the final also from this (as you suggest) gain your N.I and S.I Leading riders and throw them into one BIG SHOW for the final championship event so if I was a racer in the north island wanting to be the NZ champion my Nationals calendar would look like this

VMCC round 4 & 5 National Championship round
AMC Round 2 National Championship round
TRRS National Championship round
THE BIG SHOW

As well as any other racing I wanted to do.

that work ?

Yeah,

I was worried that you proposed that you had to do all the club rounds. That would just end up being more expensive as you traveled around the country randomly rather than the set schedule of the nationals. Disadvatages I can see to this idea are:

1) Club weather/winter. The best part of nationals is racing in decent weather. Either the clubs would have to move their rounds to be more in summer, or all the riding in NZ would become Shitty halfarse weather like we get in the club championships currently.

2) The whole championship coming down to one meeting. At the moment with 600/superbikes we are only doing 2 races a round and that makes it a ten race 'championship'. I think we need to go back to 3 races a round, or more if possible.
I do not like the idea of the whole championship decided in one round. If you were to have a fall or two in the national championship as it is now, you can recover and not be massivly disadvantaged (Dennis Charlett won 600sp 2008 with a fall). This would be even better with more races or more rounds in the current national championship. But with your idea, you fall, or run off track, your f**ked for a result. Why spend the money to build a bike for the purpose of one meeting (as Stroudy said). There would be little point risking that much money when it could all go down the drain that easily.

I'd like to see a national championship that went:

Wanganui
Nelson street races
Teretonga
Levels
Ruapuna
Greymouth street races
Paeroa
Manfeild
Taupo
Hampton Downs
Pukekohe

With Two races at least at each.

Now thats a championship!!!

AND I'd like to see NZ follow World Superbike/World Supersport/World Superstock rules. Give us cool bikes that we can take international!!!

But all of the above is ABSOLUTE dreaming. Forbid making a championship worth racing!!!

[scrivy]

maybe.....I was thinking about it last night actually

WHAT???? You mean with a dirty nappy in one hand, and a baby in the other...

Seriously mate, you and Karyn together would make a great promotions team.

[Shaun]

WHAT???? You mean with a dirty nappy in one hand, and a baby in the other...

Seriously mate, you and Karyn together would make a great promotions team.

I told them both the same thing about 1 month ago mate. Andrew and Karyn as a team doing this, WILL = Success

In fact, I vote for Andrew and Karyn to take over the roll of Joint CEO of MNZ

Just having Andrew in that role, all but Guarantees huge support from the industery

[racer40]

sounds good jay, especially with all the street races, but in reality we cant even get good grids for 5 rounds so it wouldnt work

[JayRacer37]

sounds good jay, especially with all the street races, but in reality we cant even get good grids for 5 rounds so it wouldnt work

If your going to go racing, why not do it properly? Perhaps the entries will come up since there is so much more national racing to do...

The whole thing is kind of odd to me. For our population base vs. other countries we get pretty good grid numbers really don't we?

[Quasievil]

1) Club weather/winter. The best part of nationals is racing in decent weather. Either the clubs would have to move their rounds to be more in summer, or all the riding in NZ would become Shitty halfarse weather like we get in the club championships currently.

No mate I suggest races that are in the latter part of the year say October/November on

Wanganui
Nelson street races
Teretonga
Levels
Ruapuna
Greymouth street races
Paeroa
Manfeild
Taupo
Hampton Downs
Pukekohe

With Two races at least at each.

Now thats a championship!!!

well yeah in a ideal world but this goes against the core of the problems now, ie rising costs and lack of supoort coverage sponsorship la de da........

needs to be smaller with a bigger impact

[koba]

We came up with the idea of holding a separate North and South cup within the nationals where your points at each island counted to a championship result. Sketchy is actually a good representitive of this - he couldn't do South island this year so finished 5th in F3. With a NI/SI cup his seasons results would be F3 5th, NI cup 1st, SI Cup not participated. This gives the club guys more of an incentive to show up at the national rounds for their island and try to get a result within that. It's also something that bridges the gap between localised club meets and the whole national series.

Jay

This has the added advantage of a racer in the same situation as Glen who could only do one Islands rounds still gets the chance to measure up at a full paced national event, possibly providing the opportunity to prove himself worthy of enugh extra sponsorship $$ the next year to take the full sized nationals on.
Hearing "I won the North Island Champs last year". is surely far more attractive to a potential sponsor than "I beat some guy you have never heard of that is a kickarse racer" (I don't mean to be rude GW!)

Quasi, While THE BIG SHOW idea has merit I think other rounds are important too.

If THE BIG SHOW was just one round but big enough it could perhaps allow racers to seek out enough extra sponsorship coin to be doing a whole series for the massive publicity payoff of a big enough event.

I think jelly wrestler make a very good point, Publicity is lacking to the average punter. Increasing it damatically from its currently woeful level need not be expensive or complicated.

Us being proactive (Like Scrivvy and Sidecar Bob and crew) is what will improve nationals.

Just ideas...

[JayRacer37]

No mate I suggest races that are in the latter part of the year say October/November on.

Yeah but even then the weather is temprimental. The nationals chaged a few years ago to all being in the new year rather than being split around Christmas and the weather has been better since then. October/November...its still hardly worth racing.

needs to be smaller with a bigger impact

Thing is, its too small already. Looking at all the talk on here, i'm very close to flagging this years nationals full stop, and taking off overseas any way that I can. I want to do it anyway, but if there is a way I can race here I want too. Making it into esentially a one event nationals would absolutly stop me bothering to race in NZ at all. There would be no point without a championship, why would I put myself in esentially $20-30k debt to race in one meeting that could all get wasted in one accident. I'm much more likely to pay $40-50k to have a proper championship...its a better investment of my money.

[Quasievil]

Yeah but even then the weather is temprimental. The nationals chaged a few years ago to all being in the new year rather than being split around Christmas and the weather has been better since then. October/November...its still hardly worth racing.

Tuffen up Au!! what are we a bunch of sun worshippers, I would like to think the NZ champion has skills capable of racing in a vareity of conditions, just like international racers do.
Kiyonari in Donington
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Etb_kqxnI&feature=channel_page[/YOUTUBE]

Thing is, its too small already. Looking at all the talk on here, i'm very close to flagging this years nationals full stop, and taking off overseas any way that I can. I want to do it anyway, but if there is a way I can race here I want too. Making it into esentially a one event nationals would absolutly stop me bothering to race in NZ at all. There would be no point without a championship, why would I put myself in esentially $20-30k debt to race in one meeting that could all get wasted in one accident. I'm much more likely to pay $40-50k to have a proper championship...its a better investment of my money.

Yes it is to small already, but I suggested it wont be one event as I earlier posted, How many rounds are there currently 5?? so youre paying $10k a round now ???
Investment and Bike racing ??

[Shaun]

Tuffen up Au!! what are we a bunch of sun worshippers, I would like to think the NZ champion has skills capable of racing in a vareity of conditions, just like international racers do.
Kiyonari in Donington
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Etb_kqxnI&feature=channel_page[/YOUTUBE]



Yes it is to small already, but I suggested it wont be one event as I earlier posted, How many rounds are there currently 5?? so youre paying $10k a round now ???
Investment and Bike racing ??

PS, shame Kiyanori does NOT have the balls to ride that like all the time


Carefull with your choice of words dude, ( RE $10K Per Round) REMEMBER there are many people reading this, and MAY NOT understand all that is being said.

That is what it would cost, LESS the re sale of the bike!

[koba]

Tuffen up Au!! what are we a bunch of sun worshippers, I would like to think the NZ champion has skills capable of racing in a vareity of conditions, just like international racers do.
Kiyonari in Donington
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Etb_kqxnI&feature=channel_page[/YOUTUBE]



Yes it is to small already, but I suggested it wont be one event as I earlier posted, How many rounds are there currently 5?? so youre paying $10k a round now ???
Investment and Bike racing ??

Not xactly wat you want to attract large numbers of spectators...

[Quasievil]

PS, shame Kiyanori does NOT have the balls to ride that like all the time


Carefull with your choice of words dude, ( RE $10K Per Round) REMEMBER there are many people reading this, and MAY NOT understand all that is being said.

That is what it would cost, LESS the re sale of the bike!

Yes, I actually dont know what it would cost a round just took that what was posted by Jay

[Kiwi Graham:Me]

Isn't it all down to cash at the end of the day!
When I started racing I was able to get 'product' sponsorship but nobody (except my dear old mum) came up with cold hard cash. To get any cash meant you had to be top 5 and even then it barely covered the cost of the gas and entry fee.

Ask any small buisness how did you succeed and the answer would be advertising..............speculate to accumulate etc.

Where am I going with this?
Quasi has a good point, make the event/s a show, advertise it, mags, paper, bike shops, bill boards, radio, and yes TV..............."if we build it they will come!"

Who pays for all this?
If the idea is sold to many tradesman, exhibiters, media, spectators (pre ticket sales), caterers etc there should be money in the pot to get the ball rolling.

The key is to make a spectacle of the event, its a national series so promote it nationaly, aim it at familys, make it not only a bike event but attractive to the whole family, face painting fair rides, non bike related trivia and stalls etc.
Rob/Shaun could set up a suspension stand and provide hints and tips, Arai could set up a helmet grooming stand etc etc I've seen this at national events in Europe. Shaun will tell you what goes on, on the periphery of the IOM races its not all about bike racing.
Punters need things to do/entertain them between races and if they bring their partners along as well the $$$ should start to flow.

Decent prize money (sponsors) for more places will encourage more enteries.
Getting the media involved is the key, they have a massive captured audience, we need a figure head to promote our couse (Mike King is out of a job, just kidding) do you see what I mean. For it to grow and become popular it needs to appeal to a wider audience not just a bunch of race nuts, my Mrs and kids could be encouraged to come along if they had something to do in between those "fast loud things going round and round" as she puts it.

Just my 2c

[Quasievil]

Isn't it all down to cash at the end of the day!
When I started racing I was able to get 'product' sponsorship but nobody (except my dear old mum) came up with cold hard cash. To get any cash meant you had to be top 5 and even then it barely covered the cost of the gas and entry fee.

Ask any small buisness how did you succeed and the answer would be advertising..............speculate to accumulate etc.

Where am I going with this?
Quasi has a good point, make the event/s a show, advertise it, mags, paper, bike shops, bill boards, radio, and yes TV..............."if we build it they will come!"

Who pays for all this?
If the idea is sold to many tradesman, exhibiters, media, spectators (pre ticket sales), caterers etc there should be money in the pot to get the ball rolling.

The key is to make a spectacle of the event, its a national series so promote it nationaly, aim it at familys, make it not only a bike event but attractive to the whole family, face painting fair rides, non bike related trivia and stalls etc.
Rob/Shaun could set up a suspension stand and provide hints and tips, Arai could set up a helmet grooming stand etc etc I've seen this at national events in Europe. Shaun will tell you what goes on, on the periphery of the IOM races its not all about bike racing.
Punters need things to do/entertain them between races and if they bring their partners along as well the $$$ should start to flow.

Decent prize money (sponsors) for more places will encourage more enteries.
Getting the media involved is the key, they have a massive captured audience, we need a figure head to promote our couse (Mike King is out of a job, just kidding) do you see what I mean. For it to grow and become popular it needs to appeal to a wider audience not just a bunch of race nuts, my Mrs and kids could be encouraged to come along if they had something to do in between those "fast loud things going round and round" as she puts it.

Just my 2c

Yes to all of the above and more..............

[scrivy]

Yes to all of the above and more..............

and still a little boy waits........