RE: Autocar Backs British GT
Thursday 9th March 2006
Autocar Backs British GT
Weekly mag to extend motorsport coverage
Autocar has become the official magazine partner for the 2006 Avon Tyres British GT Championship.
The weekly Haymarket Publishing title will extend its motorsport coverage from F1 and a few World Rally stories to include support the championship throughout the year, with features, competitions and promotions.
Autocar editor Rob Aherne said: “Our readers like to read about fast, exotic road going machinery and we think they’ll love the racing versions, too.
“We’re going to work closely with championship organisers SRO and look out for some special features and competitions in Autocar over the coming months.”
The 2006 Avon Tyres British GT Championship starts at Oulton Park in Cheshire on April 17th (Easter Monday) and continues over a further eight weekends, including trips to the French circuits of Pau and Magny Cours. Each race weekend features a full racing package including British Formula 3, Caterhams, Ginettas, Volkwagen Cup and UK Formula Ford.
To see the full 2006 calendar visit www.britishgt.com.
Discussion
mutley said:
You won't until after the media day (earliest) on 22nd March.
Going on past experience, no real knowledge of real regulars until a week before the 1st race
Yes and how many times have we had cars appear at Media day and only do one or two races!
I'm driving Captain Black (AKA Dave Stephens) up on Wednesday see you there? Thats if I dont see at Brands on Sunday...
>> Edited by happy snapper on Friday 17th March 06:51
happy snapper said:
You won't until after the media day (earliest) on 22nd March.
Going on past experience, no real knowledge of real regulars until a week before the 1st race
Yes and how many times have we had cars appear at Media day and only do one or two races!
Too many times!
happy snapper said:
I'm driving Captain Black (AKA Dave Stephens) up on Wednesday see you there? Thats if I dont see at Brands on Sunday...
>> Edited by happy snapper on Friday 17th March 06:51
Can't make Brands
too much hapening in the house. But will be at Silverstone on Wednesday. See you then.Gazboy said:According to this week's Autosport, Maxspeed's Supra is set to race by mid-season, possibly sooner. It's likely to have to carry ballast to meet the power to weight ratio. An engine was completed for it last week and the team are looking for drivers to partner team principal Graham Dawkins's son, Chris.
I heard rumours of a Supra VVTi taking part in GT3, but all news of it have been very scarce- it's nice having some sort of connection to a race series so you can really get into it and support them.
GrahamG said:
Nothing that I've seen I'm afraid
Preview and post event reports in the sport section (with the exception of Pau) plus 1 page adverts for each of the UK rounds.
Also two 6-8 page features in the pipeline - first one being shot at Donington in early August.
Also the Maxspeed Engineering Supra is on the entry list for Snetterton I received today (see www.britishgt.com)
macsport said:
Also two 6-8 page features in the pipeline - first one being shot at Donington in early August.
Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but in August we're nearly at the End of the season, and it is when you're shooting the first "feature" ?
It the articles are being written with the view of getting 'bums on seats' or raise the profile / awareness of the series, it seems a bit late in the day to me.
mutley said:
macsport said:
Also two 6-8 page features in the pipeline - first one being shot at Donington in early August.
Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but in August we're nearly at the End of the season, and it is when you're shooting the first "feature" ?
It the articles are being written with the view of getting 'bums on seats' or raise the profile / awareness of the series, it seems a bit late in the day to me.
In an ideal world we would've prefered an earlier date, but we don't live in an ideal world Mutley. These things take time to pull together and we see the Autocar partnership as longer than just one season. It takes time to build a partnership but just seconds to destroy one.
How much regular coverage has British GT received in a mainstream, non motorsport, publication before this year? Answers on a postcard!
Good - I hope the coverage lives up to everone involved's expectations - I'm a regular Autocar reader and have to say that whilst I'm happy Brit GTs gets covered at all I'm not massively impressed with the prominence or the length of the editorial coverage so far.
BTW good to see that someone finally reacted to the written suggestion to do just exactly this that I made to the series 2-3 years ago!
BTW good to see that someone finally reacted to the written suggestion to do just exactly this that I made to the series 2-3 years ago!
macsport said:
In an ideal world we would've prefered an earlier date, but we don't live in an ideal world Mutley. These things take time to pull together and we see the Autocar partnership as longer than just one season. It takes time to build a partnership but just seconds to destroy one.
You're right, we don't live in an ideal world. It's good to hear that some articles/marketing are now on the horizon, I look forward to reading them.
GrahamG said:
Good - I hope the coverage lives up to everone involved's expectations - I'm a regular Autocar reader and have to say that whilst I'm happy Brit GTs gets covered at all I'm not massively impressed with the prominence or the length of the editorial coverage so far.
BTW good to see that someone finally reacted to the written suggestion to do just exactly this that I made to the series 2-3 years ago!
BTW good to see that someone finally reacted to the written suggestion to do just exactly this that I made to the series 2-3 years ago!
Up to December last year I was at Rockingham and have only been doing this for F3/GT since January so can't comment on the suggestion you made 3 years ago Graham. I did a lot of work with Autocar in my 5 years at Rockingham and decided to try and establish a working relationship with the magazine for British GT.
I'm never happy with the coverage we get, I always want more. I want two pages like F1 gets, but that is a little optimistic to expect that from the get go. British GT is a National series and magazines such as Autocar don't usually give much, if any, coverage to series outside of F1, WRC, WTCC and BTCC. As I said earlier this is a brand new relationship, one that we need to develop, and at the moment it is going to plan.
mutley said:
macsport said:
In an ideal world we would've prefered an earlier date, but we don't live in an ideal world Mutley. These things take time to pull together and we see the Autocar partnership as longer than just one season. It takes time to build a partnership but just seconds to destroy one.
You're right, we don't live in an ideal world. It's good to hear that some articles/marketing are now on the horizon, I look forward to reading them.
Thanks Mutley
macsport said:
Up to December last year I was at Rockingham and have only been doing this for F3/GT since January so can't comment on the suggestion you made 3 years ago Graham. I did a lot of work with Autocar in my 5 years at Rockingham and decided to try and establish a working relationship with the magazine for British GT.
I'm never happy with the coverage we get, I always want more. I want two pages like F1 gets, but that is a little optimistic to expect that from the get go. British GT is a National series and magazines such as Autocar don't usually give much, if any, coverage to series outside of F1, WRC, WTCC and BTCC. As I said earlier this is a brand new relationship, one that we need to develop, and at the moment it is going to plan.
I think you read me wrong - or perhaps I wrote it wrong!
I'm very happy that the series is getting extra coverage - I'm just sorry they didn't do it years ago! As for the level of coverage I'm naturally critical of the media, it comes from years of experience of them being blinkered and lazy. No criticism intended of what's been achieved, merely an impatience for them to see that GT racing has way more relevance to their core business of road cars than Formula Boredom ever could.
GrahamG said:
I think you read me wrong - or perhaps I wrote it wrong!
I'm very happy that the series is getting extra coverage - I'm just sorry they didn't do it years ago! As for the level of coverage I'm naturally critical of the media, it comes from years of experience of them being blinkered and lazy. No criticism intended of what's been achieved, merely an impatience for them to see that GT racing has way more relevance to their core business of road cars than Formula Boredom ever could.
Graham a few more
on my part would've helped in my post - apologies. The last line is exactly the reason Autocar are getting involved, the cars in GT racing are the type of cars their readers drive / aspire to. However like all things they are taking it slowly to see how the relationship develops, but they are happy with the progress made so far.
I work in PR so I'm with you - I'm naturally critical of the media and I also used to work as a journalist!
Blinkered? most of the time until you change their point of view with persistence and a reasoned argument.
Lazy? I would have to disagree, most of the motoring / motorpsort hacks I know work hard for not a lot of dosh, why do you think I switched to PR
Hopefully once we get the two features off the ground then you'll feel happier with the coverage Autocar is giving BGT - I know I will.
Jeff
Edited by macsport on Thursday 13th July 07:26
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