Thank you for the kind comments - although quite willing to answer all sensible postings.

To be brutally honest, I was very depressed all day yesterday at comments elsewhere and felt very much like saying **ck it - but, that would be very defeatist - In the end I am the one who selected the May and July dates knowing they were graveyard slots but, in defence, where else could they have gone - and endorsed and supported Scunthorpe - which I do not regret - but was never likely to do many favours particularly as the economy has unfolded since the fixture list was planned/published. We had considered earlier in the year cancelling both - which certainly would have been cheaper - but decided that we should grin and bear it as cancelling events definately sends out wrong signals.

We acknowledge the speed and potential for damage at Sheffield is disconcerting for some drivers and we have to build confidence with them -although it is purely timing of these two event, nothing else that has led to the lower than desired turnouts.

I get depressed at the Weasels like Scully who continually infiltrate forums and create mischief and contribute to creating negativity which really is not justified - or helpful and just serves to sully Sheffield unfairly.

We have again written to all the drivers and it is heartening the support, I spoke to over 50% Sunday - one prominent driver came to me after the meeting, shook hands and thanked us for providing a great track and giving a days racing - another lower grade driver took the trouble to ring this morning and spoke to my wife and expressed similar - a simple thank you - and they were very welcome.

Reading comparisons / moans - one from a fanaical fan of another race team suggesting that such meetings, inference being because his men were not there - should not count for National grading points - how bizarre - penalise drivers who do support events - ? Did FWJ have an easy ride Sunday with some competivie racing - did he attend, did the team go the extra mile supporting the FCD to get it off the ground ?

Sadly, the power of the internet which we have to live with is light and dark and as above comments are made - and read by unconnected people creating a negativity creating a knock on effect which will close venues - we certianly will not long term continue subsidising Sheffield - but neither will we be beaten - and as I paid 4k for my ticket Sunday I thought it was a pretty good overall event, well run - and credit to our team - many the same team who ran Scunthorpe Saturday night and, listening to the forums should be the very people `learning' and teaching us how to run our events! Like I said - bizarre!

I am proud of our team, Phil,Kath,Steph, GG,Nik, Gary, Stuart, Pottsy, Tony,Big John - The Ford team and others who contribute like the Abbott, BT etc who ALWAYS try to work professionally - a number of them - and DP's staff work now at Coventry too - A lot of comment is dispiriting to them and disingenuous to their commitment - so again thank you.

The 22/23 F1 drivers producing great racing are they `unworthy' ?

I hope you don't mind my comments as a new member on here?

Me and our lass love coming to Sheffield to watch the F1's and 2's and when the bangers are on as a support formula it can add a bit of humour to the events and make it a really exciting day. I've no problem watching F1's on their own; the exitement of watching the 'A' graders fight through the pack is a sight I love! (I remember going to Bradford in the late 70's and 80's and it was mainly just F1 then).

For some reason the Sheffield crowd are banger biased, perhaps with a few more mixed events it could enlighten people to the ways of BriSCA F1 & 2's and help create a stonger following for BriSCA around Sheffield?

Again hope you don't mind a Startrax forum noobie expressing an opinion

I'm not on any of the other Stockcar forums as they do tend to be a bit negative for some reason at the moment.....

You are more than welcome to post and offer your views, thank you.

When we took on Sheffield in 2003 after a `wacko' period of stunts and gimmicks we have always tried to put on stock car events tailored to stock car fans - which by enlarge have been very,very succesful and well received both crowd support and car wise although never mega turnouts of cars due to the nature of the track.

Unfortunately we struggled to get the dates right this year - which, in part, has been the single factor.

I really do not want to comment on stox forums which really are totally depressing - and say something I regret, and therefore read no further from 10.am yesterday.

Back to the original point rather than provide oxygen to the.....there I go again........ We will review the situation after October 25th which we are pretty certain will see excellent fields of `ones' and 'Tooz' - I might decide to run this excellent event behind closed doors and invite close friends and guests only - and still someone will have an opinion!

Banger Racing will be the central attraction and focus for Sheffield in 2010, the F1 Semi will definately be at Sheffield - perhaps in support of Battle of Britain [ sij]!!!!

HiSteve.
There's a fine line between negativity and genuine concern and by the very nature of how stock car racing is, fans feel very much involved in the sport, open pits allows fans to interact with drivers and many of the crowd know at least one driver. This though encourages them to feel free to comment and as we know, opinions vary greatly.
I think it was Andy Gray who said football is a game of opinions, Stock Cars seem to be the same, but wheather the comments are good or bad the person is obviously motivated enough to post them and that can't be a bad thing.
My son plays local football, and even at that level the forum he visits has the same, shall we say, varied opinions as any Stock Car forum, and I would imagine as does any sports forum.
Most of the time bad comments are bourne out of ignorence, our sport is not the best of keeping people abreast of factual information, the drivers never comment, BRISCA rarely comment and now yourself and Jeremy never comment ( this site excluded ). There is a discussion going on about the N/S shootout, all born through lack of information. If crowd numbers were published maybe some would understand the issues, if start money and prize money along with actual racing costs were published, again maybe they would understand drivers not attending meetings etc,etc,etc.
As a promoter, take the useful info from comments, ignore the blatent digs and savour the compliments, it's not ALL bad by any means

Tim

IMO bangers would be great run at both your shale venues, at EVERY meeting, "Startrax Banger World Of Shale", a combo of different classes ie, rookiebangers/bombers/streetbangers [whatever you choose to class them as], and 2L's, you will have your regular annual battle of britain for the big bangers to go with it

Already posted on allstox - plus additional info

It won't be a Bank Holiday as they will remain at Belle Vue - We will continue to find a long term key to unlock Sheffield - and try different things however we have to find a different solution rather than, as the past, being passive about this subject - fixture planning - Sunday's are difficult, probably two track [ only ] could run Sundays on a sustainable basis, NIR and Buxton, the former clearly benefits more on a Saturday hence the bulk of dates now on that.

Hedno for example does not get this forensic analysis but when F1 appears there on Sunday's other than Bonfire night, thye have a similar car count and crowd to Sheffield.

A lot of time [ and to be fair constructive comment ] has been spent on this topic - hopefully because people share our passion for the venue - let us remember car count etc has been a long term issue since around 1978/9 when F2's were added to Monday night's - newer fans will not recall that the stadium owners began losing money at the end of the 70's who then passed it on to a consortium of promoters who ran on Sunday afternoons and it failed and then was lost after the Hillsborough disaster.
It reopened under ourselves in 1996 and we passed it on to Vince where it lived on Bank Holiday Monday nights on the back of huge advertising and outrageous stunts.

Since 2003 it has ticked over nicely with odd exception and delivered a programme designed to be attractive to BriSCA fans.

It is a first rate venue, it has had a major overhaul of the pits [ first stage ], constructive solutions are being found to the fence within the parameters of what we have to work with and, respectfully fans really need to focus on the quality of the venue and whether the sport should lose a venue that is currently undergoing a £2m upgrade with more planned.

We acknowledge the solution is an equitable number of cars - not always an easy conundrum in a congested fixture list where everyone [ drivers and fans ] want to go racing Saturdays and have a family day Sunday - and in a worsening economic climate - those are the reasons and the posers we have to find a solution to - which we are and will address rather than sit back, get depressed and walk away - respectfully -
Few have commented on the quality of the racing action on Sunday - the support from drivers, many themselves in the Semi, the `perfect' track conditions, programmes reasonably priced at £1.50, a decision to not charge for the pit access after listening to fans, hugely discounted price for Vets members, season ticket discount and Kidz Club - trying something different in resurrecting the Fan Club Derby and appreciation of FWJ and Mike Shirleys efforts - and excellent entertainment provided by the support show which, after all is surely the purpose of attending, not to discuss 700 or 7000 people there and whether it was profitable - or not - our problem that!

The sport has a lot of issues - the main one, how to get more people into our stadiums for `ordinary' meetings, Scunthorpe is an excellent new venue and will be a cult track in the future, it delivered on it's opening night through a great team effort - no slight here at all but Saturday's attendance was that of an F2 / Banger meeting in June/July at Belle Vue which we have stopped running because at that venue they lost money!
Whilst a train of thought goes with slashing the fixture list to make what remains `big' events - trust me that will only in the medium term erode driver and crowd levels further.
Why are promoters seeking to continually put even more and more cars on track ? To re introduce the action factor - to attract and keep - new people - because the cars have respectfully got too expensive to race and maintain and are stock cars racing - we have a newer [ smaller in number] breed of fan who prefer the cleaner cut racing - but a potentially bigger casual audience wants crashes and entertainment, not technical maenoeveres - and we are slowly drifting into an increasingly minority horsepower attraction - the same applies to F2 - We need a return to basics as the speed and technical revolution is moving the sport outside the ovals and the basic experience that thousands used to regularly enjoy rather than today, hundreds.

Whether it is Scunny, Sheffield or wherever we need more people through the gates - and we need to turn the negatively motivated threads into more positive ones.
I join everyones consensus in looking forward to the Oct Scunny/Sheffield weekend which will dispel the current debate.

The passion of fans on forums, promoters and drivers need to come together positively for the future of the sport. People come and go and want to become big fishes in small ponds, some start websites, there are mutterings of `cliques' forming and `fan agendas' much doubtless motivated by net `chat' activity which if true can only be detrimental and everyone needs to take stock a little of the cause and effect of things and subjective opinion.

Considering the economic draught blowing, the sport is in rude health although it is inevitable that there will be winners and losers as fans and drivers are forced into being more selective - the important thing is to face that challenge constructively and not over react. The evidence thus far this year is of buoyant attendances at major events and a substantive drop off at more domestic meetings - inevitable - the key is how to manage it and not exacerbate the situation by crucifying the perceived losers by introducing subjective intrigue and speculation when in the most part it is the economy stupid - But I guess that isn't as interesting!

We have to keep all healthy and find ways together of achieving that.

Hi Steve,
A very interesting and imformative post, and at last it's good to hear the comment of promoters, drivers and fans coming together. That is the key for the future, the views and opinons of ALL taken into consideration and decisions made accordingly. All three parties are vital for future success. As the various threads have developed over the past few months it is noticable the one voice being very quiet is the drivers, we want more cars at meetings, you want more cars at meetings and maybe the BSCDA voicing thier views occaisionally might not go a miss.
In reply to the comment of a more "clean cut" type of racing, what it does is attract drivers from other motor sport formula, even today a new driver from another formula took delivary of a new FWJ machine. It also reduces mass damage and therefore helps if two meetings a week is to continue. And in all honesty how could anyone not enjoy watching Gordon Moodie's work in the euro race, technical not bash and smash.
Overall the racing this year has been excellent, i've done more meetings this year than ever and not seen poor racing anywhere, the organisation at all tracks has improved dramatically also. The BBC seem impressed with what they are seeing, and the overall impression at tracks is of a sport moving forward.

Hi Tim,

Partially agree, partially disagree - The sport has made a major change of direction since the introduction of Hoosier tyres - grip means useable horsepower = better drive train [ quick change boxes ] and then bigger engine investment and a different hybrid car has evolved.

Few drivers come into the sport purchasing cheap cars as they are deemed now not up to the job - indeed these cars are now part of the Northern Dutch season who boast 170 registered drivers!

The sport in this modern era is excellent but we have had a drift of a few thousand spectators over two decades - for many reasons and we have become a sport that runs on passion and heavily influenced inwards as to what the drivers want - not necessarily the fans.

We may gain odd drivers who are stepping down in terms of costs into F1 but we have also put many people now well out of the frame of potetially racing an F1. It needs to expand it's driver base.

Also `new' spectators demand action and entertainment and they do perceive things differently to us.

Like all motorsports - and technically wise, this sport is dictated by drivers wishes to a degree and quite naturally all drivers want to go faster - fact of life. In reality costs need to come down and so do lap times - crash faster, more damge - the main way to do that is rubber. Whilst this area is in the drivers area - certainly not meant as any form of criticism - it is the way sport is and they have spent a long time evaluating tyres - was one of the questions as part of the evaluation speed ?

Having been involved in the BBC project since last year and they are very involved in the inside lane so to speak they are quite enthusiastic and are gaining good footage. Time will tell on how relates on screen and as to whether it influences attendance levels - and thereone whether new spectators find it live as good the TV angles. I suspect there will be an initial boost as Speedway had.

Interesting comments. I spoke to one of the drivers on Sunday and a former F2 pilot who both more or less said that they backed off from using the bumper on occasions in order to avoid the possibilty of damage in more importantly, the costs involved.

The bedrock of the driver base is your skilled blue collar 'man-in-the-street' who dosent have a BMW or Santander to bail out the costs of his hobby. Therefore, we must remain mindful that keeping costs down is fundamental to keeping the sport a contact one. Otherwise, as many have said before, the sport will simply price itself out of the market to those who are attracted to it to race - 'the-man-in-the-street'

Those who can afford things like circuit formulas will always do that, so there is no way to replace one set of demographics with another.

HELLO!

It's been questioned over the years, "What are stock cars?"...not just recently, either.

True, I think F1 "stock cars" are now, regrettably, an "elite" form of contact motor sport, but are they truly stock cars as we know them? OK, American V8 engines in "stock" bodies have never REALLY been "stock" cars (apart from spares(?) in the early years, and nowadays the hybrids in no way even resemble a "stock" car.

So, what ARE stock cars? Ask the general public even these days and they reply "bangers"! In effect, they are right! There's no other formula in contact motor sport which could be deemed a "stock" car more appropriately than a banger.

A close second comes Saloon Stox which, on their showing last time at Belle Vue, were very well received. Drivers were not afraid to "get stuck in", and provided great CONTACT racing....and the cars looked recognisable (just!).

It begs the question, then, whether a return to "basics" may bring more spectators through the gates, as it's obvious kids want to see bang and crash more than expensive advertising hoardings flashing by, regardless of the horsepower? Kids are the sport's future and if they are witnessing something that will be far outside their means in the future, it's not going to interest them, and F1 interest (in both spectators and drivers) will dwindle even more.

Put a smile on their faces and they'll want to come back...certainly the two forumlae I've mentioned above provides the fun and entertainment aspect more than the F1s.

It's a shame really, as you know I've followed F1s since nineteen hundred and frozen-to-death but unless there's a change soon, they may have run their course...

Never, ever thought I'd be in favour of the more fundamental (proper?) stock cars, but it's heading that way.

GED

In many ways, the sport needs to take a root and branch review of itself and make changes on both sides of the fence.

The debate that has raged since Sunday is not isolated to what happens at Owlerton but, is more symptomatic of the ills of the sport going all the way back to the formation of BriSCA and the BSCDA.

Off track we've suffered to many clashes between these two organisations and luckily in the last few seasons a more reasoned approach from both sides appreciating the good of the sport can only be acheived through co-operation. Fans have been turned off by years of a lack of investment in stadia and fan facilities, strikes, the dwindling car numbers caused by the spiralling costs (who remembers 30 car meetings at Bradford in the 90's?) and some very dodgy policy which believed in 'less-is-more' and as a result, track after track close and the sport retreat further and further into middle England.

The ills of the past will take a long time to fix but, I don't think the situation is helped by two organisations running the sport in tandem. One run by drivers, for drivers that won't grasp the nettle of keeping costs down because as someone once said to me 'turkeys don't vote for christmas'