The Right way to do Single Make Series

2004 UK 206 Cup

2004 Peugeot 206 Super Cup announced :-

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Peugeot TOTAL 206 Super Cup 2004

Peugeot Sport UK is delighted to confirm its 2004 programme for the Peugeot TOTAL 206 Super Cup. With spiralling costs for competitors, it has been decided to move the championship to a mainly one day format, with excellent compact events to test the competitors.

To accommodate this aim, the 206 Super Cup will contest the Kumho ANCRO Championship, starting with the Sunseeker Rally in Bournemouth in February. All seven ANCRO rounds will be tackled, which will allow crews to also contest this championship in full. However, the 206 Super Cup will add the Mewla Rally to increase the amount of asphalt mileage. This ensures that the 206 Super Cup maintains its eight rounds format, and the previous system of 6 events from 8 to score will remain.

Both the asphalt rounds will have recce. But the others six events will use Patterson route notes only, which will ensure a level playing field for all competitors and ensure that time off work required for most rallies will be limited to a Friday. The events will ensure top quality stages and a terrific arena for the 206 Super Cup competitors.

Pegged at 250, the registration fee will include 2004 Peugeot Sport jackets, dress shirts, and tickets for the end of season awards ceremony, plus of course access to the magnificent prize fund.

That fantastic prize fund should once again tempt ambitious young drivers to the Cup. 10,000 will still be on offer for each event, with 2000 to the winner of each round. The 100 start money will again be a bonus for every crew, but linked to publicity awareness, to ensure wider coverage of the Cup and its competitors.

The winner of the 2004 206 Super Cup championship will be presented with a newly homologated, works prepared Group N Peugeot 206 GTi 180 rally car to drive away, worth over 40,000, and 10,000 financial support to assist with running costs. Four runners up will all receive substantial cash awards.

Mick Linford, Peugeot UK Motorsport Manager, said Opinion shows that we run the best one-make championship in the UK, and 2004 will not be any different. The move to more compact events makes sense for everyone, especially our competitors. We are concentrating on giving a value for money package. I think we have achieved this here and I fully expect the competitiveness to be even greater than in the past

RE: 2004 UK 206 Cup

[snip] plane tickets
>from Chicago to London around $204,
[snip]

Before getting a ride with my current driver, I thought about this and discussed it in depth with two 206 Supercup competitors. I decided that the costs involved made it pretty useless for a foreign co-driver, but the economics might be different for a driver.

If you do consider this, book tickets early, and be aware that tickets in the summer are closer to $600 USD.

- Christian

Bjorn Christian Edstrom
www.christianedstrom.com

oi oi Ciara, so testy?

>There are good and bad things about both series (French and
>Uk 206 Championships). I posted my reply to show what the UK
>series is doing for next year as an alternative view. I was
>not aware that debate and comparison was not allowed on this
>forum. Apologies !!!!!!!

Ciara, I think you're Irish, no? I think you can really contribute a lot to this forum, since there is a rather healthy rally scene in Ireland (Hey, what's Jim Tolerton from Lisburn doing these days?) but I put this on the USA forum and not the World Forum because I intended the discussion to be relevant to the US scene. OK?
Can we all have a hug group hug, now, yeeeeeeees that's better.
Hey watch yer hands, eh!
The point about posting these French single make series was to simply show that it take some sort of OPEN Clear, readily accessable information about a single make series including the costs and the prizes and the persons to contact to make something a Competition and not just place for a few guys who have maybe squirmed their way or barraged the world with enough resumés to gag a maggot and stubled over some deal for themselves.
See Ciara, unlike any other country where I have ever been, including just last week in the People's Rebublic of China, and I know for sure in UK, Ireland, France, Sweden, and Finland, OZ, NZ, the center, the hub of motorsports is missing in USA, and that hub is the MotorClub.

So maybe you don't quite understand how the lack of motorclubs becomes a choke point, and the possesion of information in itself becomes a commodity which most here hoard rather than share.

I put this up not to discuss or debate Frenchie or Engleski or Irish single makes but rather to say this:
If we don't have even this sort of support for the series as a whole and with contact names of who to talk to printed abavailable for all to see, I repeat WE DON'T EVEN HAVE THE SORT OF SUPPORT GIVEN AWAY TO THE SMALLEST CLASS FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY to compete in a Nation about 1/3 the size of the US,
WHAT CAN WE DO _OURSELVES_?

Can we finally, by ourselves, on our own, institute a VW Golf Cup?
Produce rules and stick to them, calculate results ourselves and then when it has gelled, can the paricipants of this Golf Cup sell the naming rights to the Golf Cup to a small sponor themselves?

I mean I really have no interest in P class at all, and think it should go away, and PGT and GpN are ESSENTIALLY the same thing and with the limits and consequent continual efforts at circumventing the rules, neithr of those classes interest me so that leaves the classes where the spec is free-er, so it occured to me rather than waiting for "Next Year in Jerusalem"*, what about participants in a given class taking control of the class including it's marketing?? Just for them in the that class.

Smaller sponsor might find that more palatable, no?





*Next year in Jerusalem we will enter the Promised Land!" an old folk tale and song. Here referring to the endless promises and wait for the BIG TIME.
John Vanlandingham
Seattle, WA. 98168

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

Black Rocket Rally Tires
http://www.blackrockettires.com/

RE: oi oi Ciara, so testy?

Mr. V. asks some really good questions here...

First, some reflections from our time in the Renault Cup. The amount of back-side $$ that the manufacturer spends to support something like that was pretty high. A few full-time administrators, indirect costs, a truck, spares inventory, and perhaps most important - the commitment to marketing dough to support the series. Compared to these costs, the $10k or $20k that a spec car costs is small beans so, in a way, the manufacturer (with the help of associate parts sponsors) actually get the competitors to subsidize their marketing, by paying for the right to be fodder for ad copy.

Prize money may or may not be a real return for the competitor, depending on how deep it goes, although it felt nice to deposit a check after a race (like $350 for 15th at Portland, as I recall).

Mr. Z's point about what happens when this tap is turned OFF is right on. We were left with an essentially valueless, uncompetitive ITC car after less than two full seasons. If as one-make series follows that outlined so far in this post, this kind of stranding is inevitable - the manufacture WILL lose interest (aka "changing market priorities") at some point. If you still have a car when the music stops, you are dorked.

This argues for a different approach - more of a grassroots effort that does NOT count on the long-term largesse of a manufacturer. This, compounded by the hight cost of current-model shells - argues for an older model. You don't want to go TOO old, however, as (a) the cars are perceived as junk, (b) there will likely be less sponsor interest in a car that is more than a generation out of production, (c) parts get harder and harder to source, and (d) advancing technology generally makes cars safer, faster, and tougher.

Perhaps MOST importantly, do NOT for one second fool yourself into thinking that spec series = equal cars. Parker Johnstone explained to me that he won the Alliance Cup the second year we were there by spending the same money he would have on a season of pro Formula Atlantic (aka big fish, small pond). The only way to control costs is by doing so directly - with a claiming rule a la short track USA - and that is not going to be palatable with this crowd. Bigger budgets make faster racing cars (and drivers).

This suggests strict cost controls - in a micro sense - wherever possible. The NASA SpecBMW series uses a sole-source shock that is cheap and tough, if not particularly snazzy so a single make rally class would do the same. This can also result in volume purchase opportunities and room for small-investment associate sponsors. Changes WILL be necessary over the long life of a series of this type so they need to be made proactively, with transitions planned years in advance.

It is VERY easy with a grassroots movement to let individual agenda and "mission creep" mess up a good thing. (Anyone familiar with East Coast Honda Challenge?) FOr example, someone is going to decide that rally cars always have some kind of LSD and, in a moment of weakness, it will get allowed. This kind of thing must NOT be allowed to happen since once you give something away, it can't be taken back.

So what's the answer?

CAR CHOICE - Model previous to the current body style. This means not more than 10 years aold (for the oldest MY) typically. Also needs to have extant aftermarket support. More options = better chance to secure cheap parts. It does NOT matter if the manufacturer has a history of racing involvement: Don't waste time dreaming that they will write big checks. There needs to be a good stock of these things on the roads and (increasingly) in people's yards on blocks.

PREPARATION RULES - To the extent possible align them with another recognized and popular class. This allows competitors to mooch off of an existing knowledge base and provides a market for used cars and parts. It also provides the opportunity for crossover, easing cost of entry for interested parties. The obvious answer is SCCA Improved Touring: I don't know what gland it is that causes rally people and road racing people to need different classes and rules, but it is a drag on the entire system. IT is recognized all over North America (with minor differences) and across multiple sanctioning bodies.

DETAILS - Institute a parc expose for all competitors the night before each event to allow everyone to peer at everyone elses chit. Cars must be on stands with the wheels off so we can all be tech inspectors. Build a points system (for a class within a series) that rewards relative success. You should get more points than I do if you finish first of eight cars, while I finish first of two. Keep points based on geography so people can local or regional champs if they don't want to travel. Require that cars LOOK LIKE racing cars, with graphics and stuff.

There you go. (My carpal tunnel is acting up again.) Finally, a disclaimer: Please be assured that the fact that I'm currently getting a rally-spec cage installed in a 1996 GTI (newly re-listed in ITB for 2004) has NOT influenced my opinion in this matter...

Kirk