Too quiet in here ...
Discussion
Kiltie said:
Neil,
Wouldn't you now go into the marques class with the likes of Ali and Tut?
Eric
Ah... I obviously haven't looked at the regs for the last couple of years, that class didn't exist then... I think I did compete with Tut at Boyndie 3 years ago in the old classes.
Mind you, getting a TVR round Boyndie wasn't exactly quick - deliberately throwing the car in sideways to get it round the sharper bends...
And there's only so often you can go round Kames too.
It was fun to do for a couple of years, but on reflection sprinting cost a lot of money for relatively little time actually on track - I probably spent £1.5k on a full season (entry fees, accomodation, fuel, bit for the car, and that was staying with my parents in Aberdeen for the Alford/Boyndie events) - one track day would get more track time than the entire season...
Money no object I would probably do a few events in the year - I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for the heads up...
Size Nine Elm said:
tuscan_thunder said:
I think the current class structure is stopping a lot of people bothering to compete:
That includes me - when the roadgoing sports were merged with the 7s a couple of years ago that left 'big' sports cars with nowhere to go... but this was a change to make the sprinting classes more in line with the hillclimb classes, so there was a rationale there.
Yes, I understand that some of the classes were merged/changed to bring them into line with sprinting, but I do kind of fail to see why.
Sprinting and hillclimbing existed for several years with different class structures.
If we look at it objectively, they are different sports - although I do appreciate that they work under the same banner with regard to some championships.
Yes there are many who compete in both classes but I fail to see why the two sports should have identical class structures - who's to say that one stucture is correct? It needs to be looked at again and reviewed.
However, the word I have heard, is that the structures will not be looked at for a few years to see if there can be any kind of stability built up.
I see the point in that, but it could end up with a lot of people leaving championships/the sports and going off and doing something else - track days have been mentioned on this thread and for someone with a dedicated track car, or car they are happy to use in competition, this does seem a very appealing option albeit with no competitive element.
I think that hillclimbing and sprinting are helped, in Scotland at least, by the sheer lack of facilities - if we lived somewhere with numerous tracks instead of just one 'proper' track, the sport would probably have floudered by now.
I'm not saying one person is to blame at all. I am saying that a group of people, probably more my accident than by design, have built up a mentality whereby they feel that because they have been competing for a long time, or have retired from competition and saw hillclimbing in Scotland when it was in its heyday, that they 'know best' . That they are can say 'oh, when we were gettting x thousand spectators to whatever-venue we did this' and that that same ideas will work today.
They won't. The sports have changed.
We need new ideas, we need things to change if we are to keep the sports alive and functioning to their potential. I'm not suggesting, as was suggested at a committee meeting last year, we go down the m*x pow*er route and have all manner of tat on show - that's not the way to go about it.
We need to find out what people want be they spectators or competitors. And therein lies a big problem. The lines of communication between the competitors and organisers are basically non-existent, especially when many of the organisers aren't interested in what anyone thinks.
It should be remembered that, increasingly, motorsports are under threat. The volume of garbage I receive via my work about the evils of cars etc shows that there is a lot of misguided people out there who will do all they can to stop people using their cars, and not just for pleasure. Clearly, motorsport is at the top of their hit list. I am amazed, truly amazed, we have not had some kind of protest against motorsport at any events yet.
This might sound like I have a downer on the sport. I do not. I just hate to see a sport that I love be pulled apart and slowly killed by misguided 'crusades'.
I want to see motorsport in Scotland grow, I want to see thousands of spectators turn out to events, I want entry lists to be full, even overflowing for every event, I want more events per year - I just want people to band together to achieve this as best we can.
(rant over and apologies for the sheer length of this post)
>> Edited by tuscan_thunder on Tuesday 1st November 09:26
Kiltie said:
What's everyone's plans for competing next season?
That'd be telling
Prolly road sports up to 1400 as usual. Saying that, my fingers remain firmly crossed that there'll be a change to the classes and I won't be up against those pesky 'busas anymore.
Cheers,
Eric
Well I suggested in the questionaire send by Highland Speed Championship, that the road sport classes should be changed from three to two classes.
Up to 1000 or 1100 bike and up to 1700 car engined.
Over 1000 or 1100 bike and over 1700 car engined.
What do others think of this idea ?
tvrolet said:
Jeez - just seen the time... red-eye to London in the morning, alarm goes off in 3.5 hours ... g'night!
Eric
red-eye...I wish
Crawled out of bed at 4:15...got to te airport at 5:00...and they cancel the bl**dy flight. Flown EasyJet once or twice EVERY WEEK for last couple of years and never had a cancellation or a delay over 30 minutes. No compensation, not even a food voucher. I could have booked the later flight I've been bumped on to and saved £40, but I paid more for the earlier flight. Do I get the difference in fares back? Do I bugg*ry! I hope you had better luck Eric!
B@@@@@SSSTTT@@@@@RRRDDDDSSS they've cancelled the flight back to Edinburgh. Getting deposted in Glasgow and then a coach to Edinburgh
If they'd bl**dy told me the return was cancelled too this morning I would have taken a refund and booked with someone else. Maybe 300+ flights with EasyJet over the past couple of years, and no real problems; certainly no cancellations! One experiment with FlyBE and they have me stuck in Edinburgh for 4 hours this morning, then ship be back to Glasgow FFS tonight. Not even the whiff of a free drink.
I read the inflight comic on the way down and the MD of FlyBE is a beardie. I've always said 'never trust a man with facial hair'. I should have checked him out before I booked
If it wasn't for the comfort of a GPRS connection and PH I'd definitely have thrown my toys out the toybox by now. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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