Race Car Entry Costs

Author
Discussion

C-Clark1964

Original Poster:

17 posts

16 months

Monday 14th November 2022
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I know the circuits and the clubs have to make money to balance the cost of running an event, but I do find certain circuits put a premium on competing or using their circuit. One in particular is Goodwood Circuit. It cost an eyewatering £600 for a short days track use.
Have other club members and competitors have the same feeling that circuit entry costs should come down and what circuits have best cost value.

mcflurry

9,079 posts

252 months

Monday 14th November 2022
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How much would you think was fair, to cover the costs of staff, utilities and maintenance?

SimonTheSailor

12,543 posts

227 months

Monday 14th November 2022
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Why should the prices go down ?

(But yes, 600 quid seems a bit rich to me but it seems Goodwood always charges a premium over others)

C-Clark1964

Original Poster:

17 posts

16 months

Tuesday 15th November 2022
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mcflurry said:
How much would you think was fair, to cover the costs of staff, utilities and maintenance?
A fair price would be in the region of £350 for a days testing at Goodwood, Brands and Silverstone. £275 for a days testing at other circuits such as Mallory, Castle Combe, Snetterton 100 and 200.
Blighton is very fair in their costing at £135 to below £200.
Goodwood for example charged us £595 and the marshalls for fire at points around the circuit was less than some of the restricted speed events held there that charged £280 for the days event.

C-Clark1964

Original Poster:

17 posts

16 months

Tuesday 15th November 2022
quotequote all
SimonTheSailor said:
Why should the prices go down ?

(But yes, 600 quid seems a bit rich to me but it seems Goodwood always charges a premium over others)
Several reasons for places such as Goodwood. These extortionate high prices of £600 a day can be afforded by wealthy competitors and sponsored teams, but for the ordinary club competitor it is a shame it is too expensive. He may go out on the circuit and manage to have a first lap terminal car fault and he has just suffered the loss of £600, with no refund, but that is motorsport.
You would expect that the facilities would be superior at Goodwood, but they are not compared to say Brands. There is also a bare minimum of marshalls at strategic safety points around the circuit, especially during the week days on Track and Testing days. This is due to many healthy fit marshalls having to work during the week. So it leaves many of the marshalls on the day being retired or unemployed persons and many to old to run a hundred metres with a fire extinguisher to put out a fire, quickly. Where as a younger person with experience gets there quicker to save a life.
This is the circuiits fault not the marshalls who do a fine job, many unpaid and with whom there would be no motorsport without them.

Draxindustries1

1,657 posts

22 months

Tuesday 15th November 2022
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Pay per hour would be fairer. £50 ph would be a fair rate.
I'm not sure what the situation is now but Snetterton used to have days with hourly rates available but that was before MSV's takeover..

Edited by Draxindustries1 on Tuesday 15th November 11:54

CraigyMc

16,333 posts

235 months

Tuesday 15th November 2022
quotequote all
C-Clark1964 said:
SimonTheSailor said:
Why should the prices go down ?

(But yes, 600 quid seems a bit rich to me but it seems Goodwood always charges a premium over others)
Several reasons for places such as Goodwood. These extortionate high prices of £600 a day can be afforded by wealthy competitors and sponsored teams, but for the ordinary club competitor it is a shame it is too expensive. He may go out on the circuit and manage to have a first lap terminal car fault and he has just suffered the loss of £600, with no refund, but that is motorsport.
You would expect that the facilities would be superior at Goodwood, but they are not compared to say Brands. There is also a bare minimum of marshalls at strategic safety points around the circuit, especially during the week days on Track and Testing days. This is due to many healthy fit marshalls having to work during the week. So it leaves many of the marshalls on the day being retired or unemployed persons and many to old to run a hundred metres with a fire extinguisher to put out a fire, quickly. Where as a younger person with experience gets there quicker to save a life.
This is the circuiits fault not the marshalls who do a fine job, many unpaid and with whom there would be no motorsport without them.
Goodwood is expensive for a number of reasons, but one of the main things is that they have a limited noise budget of days in the year where they can make noise.

It is actively monitored and reported on (and you can look at reports here --> https://www.goodwood.com/motorsport/motor-circuit/... )

They have very few cat.1 days available per year, I think basically for the GRRC and revival.
The Cat 2 and 3 days are generally trackdays I think.

Givent the limits on the days they can run, they set charges to make the business work. People pay it. *shrug* that's how the market operates.


CoolClarky64

Original Poster:

17 posts

16 months

Tuesday 15th November 2022
quotequote all
Draxindustries1 said:
Pay per hour would be fairer. £50 ph would be a fair rate.
I'm not sure what the situation is now but Snetterton used to have days with hourly rates available but that was before MSV's takeover..

Edited by Draxindustries1 on Tuesday 15th November 11:54
That is a good price guide, as long as they monitor the time you spend on track, not from signing on, as that would be a very expensive breakfast.

Places like Lydden and Brands, one circuit hour equates to approx 60+ laps. Super Great value.

Kickstart

1,061 posts

236 months

Wednesday 16th November 2022
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We used to pay £24 for a day's testing at Goodwood in the middle 80's...just saying

Boggo

152 posts

53 months

Thursday 17th November 2022
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I'd love to see some of your P&L's on running tracks for such a small amount. None of these tracks are raking in huge amounts of money, yes they are profitable, but so is the bank that you pay your mortgage to, or the takeaway shop you get friday night tea from.

Motorsport is not a poor mans game - never was, never will be.

LukeBrown66

4,479 posts

45 months

Thursday 17th November 2022
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Most tracks are now track day profit poolers, they dont make much money from testing or racing. Track days make most money. less staff, elss incurance less noise issue. No clubs. Easy deal, just a shame it is dulla s dishwater

Dynion Araf Uchaf

4,424 posts

222 months

Thursday 17th November 2022
quotequote all
track hire is inexorably going up.

I think it's mostly the Silverstone effect. In as much as they have the GP, they have to pay for the GP, and part of that payment comes from circuit hire fees. Incidentally, if a car manufacturer hires the circuit it's significantly more expensive than a motor club or TDO.

However Silverstone sets it's price based on it's commitments and the other major international circuits peg their prices accordingly.

So you can blame Bernie and the GP hosting fees ( at least in part).

Goodwood and other outliers have limited day's per year usage so I guess they have to make them count.

LukeBrown66

4,479 posts

45 months

Thursday 17th November 2022
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I dont think many manufacturers hire circuits much these days, not as much as they did, Nurburgring maybe, but not tracks over here much. Maybe for launches, but I cannot recall seeing it that much.

I would think Silverstone managed fine right now with its ticket costs and 2023 pricing policy, there are multiple revenue streams there, the venue often has two meetings running at once, with the racing school stuff going aswell, I would think Porsche are paying immense rent on their pad, the hotel perhaps too, and the college, if not all bought and paid for will be renting the land form Silverstone as will the new yuppie flats I would think.

Tracks days I would guess make very little money for them, in comparison to business hire for the Wing etc.

Dynion Araf Uchaf

4,424 posts

222 months

Friday 18th November 2022
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the margins may be slimmer on a track day, but there's many more of them.

LukeBrown66

4,479 posts

45 months

Friday 18th November 2022
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Agreed, you only receive say 150 - 250 quid each for a smaller track from say 60 - 80 people, decent money, but you need staff, and marshals for track days are perhaps paid I dont know. You might make a few quid on food, but you have to provide staff, security, power, water food etc.

You can also see why airfields are a boon here, far less cost, hardly any track to maintain, a few cones!

For a manufacturer you would not need anywhere near as much, but sadly in the UK we have none!!

Hence you can see why entry fees are now absurdly high for what you get.

andy97

4,691 posts

221 months

Friday 18th November 2022
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LukeBrown66 said:
Most tracks are now track day profit poolers, they dont make much money from testing or racing. Track days make most money. less staff, elss incurance less noise issue. No clubs. Easy deal, just a shame it is dulla s dishwater
1. The track operators rent out their tracks to the clubs or track day operators for a fixed fee. They don’t care how many people turn up and take part or race, the club or TDO takes the risk, so the track owner is making whatever margin they deem to be acceptable within their business model from the circuit hire fee. The circuit hire fee will be greater for a Saturday in the middle of summer than a winter Wednesday.
2. The track operator has full time and part time maintenance and admin staff to pay for. The clubs will have to provide the marshals, medical cover, recovery crews etc for race meetings (marshals being volunteers, the rest paid), whilst at a track day, the circuit will generally provide that as paid staff.
3. Track days do have noise issues- probably more so than race meetings, because the local population often get fed up of the the track noise 5/6/7 days a week, even if the level of noise is usually lower than at a race meeting.
4. Circuits are 7 days a week operations and are run on pretty tight margins. Yes they are businesses and they are there to make money but I am pretty sure it was Jonathan Palmer who said something like, “if I wanted to make the maximum money possible, I would sell off the circuits for building houses on”. JP is known to have a very tight handle on all costs and as most circuits will have been bought (or leased) with borrowed money, then their interest repayments will be increasing in line with everyone’s mortgages right now.

miloudiben

17 posts

141 months

Saturday 19th November 2022
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Take a look at how much testing costs at Kirkistown. A fraction of the price, unfortunately i think prices over here are affected by supply and demand. I remember a pit garage costing £50-70 to hire....last time I looked £120 on top of the test fee.

Unfortunately, for individual competitors funding themselves from a salary it is becoming more difficult but as someone else said it was never cheap.

Chamon_Lee

3,779 posts

146 months

Saturday 19th November 2022
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Kickstart said:
We used to pay £24 for a day's testing at Goodwood in the middle 80's...just saying
Wow

andy97

4,691 posts

221 months

Saturday 19th November 2022
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Kickstart said:
We used to pay £24 for a day's testing at Goodwood in the middle 80's...just saying
So it “should” be about £85 today, if all other things were equal. Hmmmm.

hunter 66

3,890 posts

219 months

Saturday 19th November 2022
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5 Race entry at Peter Auto , up from 14 K Euros to 18.5 k Euros .....post pandemic recovery . Putins fault