"Secret" International Class at Hampton Downs and Taupo

[Murray Maunder]

The thought of a bunch of Cosworth DFVs and the odd V12 mixing it with the rowdy F5000s gets my juices flowing but I can't find anything better than a sports cafe blog that dates back to June or a Taupo generated story that's low on specifics. At this rate I'll be making my plans to be elsewhere if Tony Quinn, Chris Roberts or someone can't enlighten the historic fans in advance that it won't be just another season.

Considering we're only a few weeks out from the first of the NFOMR weekends I'm dismayed at the lack of buildup. Main points that are known - Kenny is this year's featured driver and - TADARRRR - there will be a class for historic F1s which will/may be included with the F5000s. Why the shyness? I'm not directly involved in the historic club, HD or Taupo racetracks so I don't get the inside line but what the.....??? Am I missing something??? Are the expectations of a big bunch of old F1 cars that was hinted to me by a reputable source back in winter grinding to an embarrassing letdown of a few cars doing demos or being parked on display? Word of an M26 McLaren, sorry that isn't good enough.

Seems a shame that 2017 marks 50 years since Denny Hulme pulled off the unbelievable for himself, Jack and New Zealand and there is no fanfare of big things for our premiere historic events of the calendar.

Someone - please?

[nigel watts]

Murray I agree with you.

We spectators have a much different expectation than those who are competing.

I know it can't be easy for the promotors to entice overseas owners to bring their cars out to NZ for us to see and enjoy, but like you, I would like to know what we're going to see or is it the same old same old.

So far I would say that the HMC class with the Aussies coming and the Central Muscle Cars would seem to be the main attraction for me.

I'll probably be there but it would make the decision a lot easier if we knew for sure what was going to be there and racing.

[ERC]

The HD Festival is being run by Hampton Downs, not the 'old guard' (Chris Watson/Tony Roberts etc), although Chris Watson via the Motorsport Entry website would have a handle on entries to date. A slight hiccup in the system printout meant that an up to date list of cars in their correct classes wasn't available 2 days ago. I'll happily pass on any info I have, but as I am no longer directly involved in any way, shape or form, any info will be second-hand.

I believe there is a large contingent of Formula Juniors expected, as part of their 'World Tour'. I'm not sure but I think there are two classes.

I believe our own series entries weren't as high as in previous seasons as at the closing date (December 16th) but as is normal in NZ, drivers seem to leave entering until the last possible minute, even if it means paying a late entry fee (a measly $40). This puts a strain on organisers trying to promote an event when so many drivers are so slack about entering.

For most local drivers, this may be their only chance of running on the full 4km track.

Are you on the Hampton Downs and HRC mailing lists?

[Murray Maunder]

Are you on the Hampton Downs and HRC mailing lists?

Thanks for the background Ray. The answer is no. As a diehard HMC supporter I get good info from Dale and his guys. These guys really promote their class well as do others, eh?

But when it comes to a potentially stand-filling class like pre-76 F1, the "promotors" forget to tell the peoples. Can't recall a better circuit racing promotor since Pete Hanna way back when. And when you think how much it costs nowadays to put on an event like the HD ones it beggars belief that they keep their plans virtually secret.

[Andrew Metford]

Exactly Murray, well said. They cry about the cost of running a meeting, and then lump the "increased costs" onto the competitors, who then decide it's becoming too expensive and enter in ever decreasing numbers which causes the organises to cry more, when they have "free" money ( paying spectators ) not entering the books because they don't promote the meeting / who's going to be there / what cars are running etc. If you don't know who / what is going to be there, you're hardly likely to make the trek down there on the off chance you might see something of interest.

I'm in the same boat, dying to see an entry list to decide whether it's worth going, or another year of the same old same old. How hard can it be to put up an entry list as the entries are processed and accepted? It doesn't need to be sorted into class or anything flash, we can all work that out, just need driver name and year / make / model of car. Buying a program at the gate on the day is no good as you're already committed, and only the real diehards turn up in hope. It's the people that are on the fence about attending or not, that the advertising needs to be aimed at, people have a lot more demands on their time these days, so you need to give them a reason to attend. If that happens, then the stands and the coffers will be fuller, opening up other options for the future. It's like advertising there's going to be "a concert" on, but not saying who the artist / group is, who's going to go on that little info? We have "a race meeting", but no info about who and what will be racing.

Every year it's the same, and every year I raise these issues, and every year nothing changes. A few years ago I got an email survey after the NZFMR, a whole range of questions, then at the end a "write your own comments". Complete waste of 1/2 an hour of my life that was.....

So at the moment I've got better things to do with a whole day, 40 bucks to get in the gate, 10 bucks for a program, 5 bucks parking, 10 bucks for lunch, 20 bucks petrol to get there and back, and sunburn 'cos there's not an ounce of shade anywhere to sit / stand under for a bit. And thats' just for me, 1 person, think about the average guy who's got a wife and 2 kids, it's getting on for a $200 day. I'm no marketing guru, but jeez it's not rocket science.

[Bailey]

As I understand it, the F1 cars that are coming from England are a Taupo promotion
It is probably a David Abbott idea, that without the help and enthusiasm of Frank
Lyons, most likely wouldn't have got off the ground I'm told that there will be 7 F1 cars
running They are running at Hampton because Frank will want to run more than one event,
as with the logistics of getting the cars here for just one meeting, Taupo, wouldn't be sensible

I have heard the Taupo meeting promoted on the radio plenty of times in the last month
If you want to see BRM V12s and Cosworth DFV powered cars from the 70's, you will probably
want to go and take a look, as these are valuable cars that have plenty of opportunity to run in
Europe and the USA, so don't really have to come to NZ

[ERC]

Well said. Couldn't agree more Andrew. Like Dale and John Mckechnie, I used to post our entries whenever possible as at least I felt I was doing my bit.

I did get frustrated that we had full grids once I finally managed to get the ERC series accepted, but not once was our class mentioned in any pre event publicity, nor any mention in most race reports, despite the great, close racing with bags of overtaking, which most spectators want to see. Quite why that is I have no real idea; I can only speculate. Jealousy? A reluctance to accept that it took a lot of persuasion to break through some entrenched incorrect perceptions and they didn't want to acknowledge the success? (Despite contributing more to the coffers than any other class...)

Most Festivals after the initial McLaren opening had relatively small grids and certainly our Series drivers used to close handicap racing, just couldn't be bothered with scratch races amongst cars that were blatantly not compatible, getting lapped within 5 laps.

'Same old, same old' presumably means regular supporters of local classic racing? But they are the core, so without them, there is very little from outside the region.

Some classes seem depressingly small on a regular basis and given the long history of motorsport in NZ, one has to wonder how many cars are just mothballed and then the question must be, 'Why'?

Shipping cars to NZ SHOULD be an attractive proposition for overseas owners, given the huge costs of race entry fees in Europe, particularly prestige events such as Goodwood and Monaco and the relatively modest cost of entry fees in NZ and also the opportunity for more races. (Goodwood/Monaco, 3 day meetings, huge entry fees, possibly just one practice and one race...) Maybe the summer classic events, north and south island need more overseas promotion aimed at drivers first? Only then can the promoters shout from the rooftops or as originally posted, use free social media.

[GD66]

I'm a long way away, but I've been trying to find out which F1 cars may be rolling out for a gallop at these meetings to radio silence. Murray and the lads are right, here we are almost at Christmas and there's still no word. The Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park has a couple of links, Historic Formula One Cars to Race at Taupo, and Taupo Historic GP, and neither link works. With the limitations of international transport, the cars participating should be well locked-away by now, and even if they are of a lesser headlining calibre than the promoter may have originally hoped, it is still well within their interest to circulate the info on who and what will be appearing. I figured because I live so far away, it was just me that had heard nothing, if the lineup is still unknown in NZ it's really rather unfortunate. Glad to see this issue brought into the limelight.

[ERC]

The race categories for the (Kenny Smith) festival are as follows:
1.Formula 5000
2.Historic F1’s
3.Central Muscle Cars
4.Group A / Heritage Touring Cars
5.Formula Junior Group 1
6.Formula Junior Group 2
7.Historic Formula Ford
8.Libre / Historic Single seater / Atlantic cars
9.Historic Muscle and Historic Saloon cars
10.European Racing Classics

[GD66]

Thanks Ray, I probably haven't been clear in asking who are the drivers, or what specifically are the F1 cars scheduled to participate ? This has been the hardest info to obtain for me. I am happy to wait until the links on the Taupo website work, but for others close at hand it would be nice to find out so they could get the message around by the old but still-efficient Word Of Mouth method.

Incidentally, I have always found the practice you have outlined above of progressively posting your entries to work very well, especially when promoting a national event : it gives potential entrants the opportunity to get their entry in to knock off a suddenly-spotted long-term rival, or for others to see numbers may be low in their category so they can fire an entry in and swell the field.

[RogerH]

Historic F1 cars entered so far at Hampton Downs Kenny Smith Festival are :

1976 BRM P207
1976 Lotus 76
1974 McLaren M23
1976 McLaren M26
1974 Hesketh 308
1971 Surtees TS9
1976 Hesketh 308
1974 BRM P201

Plus 27 F5000 and 43 FJ - with apparently more still to come.

[ERC]

Thanks Roger. You posted as I was responding!

I'll try and get hold of the full entry list to date - but don't hold your breath. Although I'm not running the ERC Series anymore, I'm still in handover mode, as Chris Browne tries to come to grips with the extensive Excel based systems I'd set up over the last 20 years.

With the long track being used for the first time for our drivers, we have no historical data to work on, so the handicapping may not be as accurate as in the past, as drivers learn at different speeds. Some get a grip quite quickly and others take a fair bit of time. The new 'Double B*****d' complex seemed to catch quite a few out at the 101 in practice.

[John McKechnie]

The race categories for the (Kenny Smith) festival are as follows:
1.Formula 5000
2.Historic F1’s
3.Central Muscle Cars
4.Group A / Heritage Touring Cars
5.Formula Junior Group 1
6.Formula Junior Group 2
7.Historic Formula Ford
8.Libre / Historic Single seater / Atlantic cars
9.Historic Muscle and Historic Saloon cars
10.European Racing Classics

Ray , you forgot us
11-Historic Sports Sedans and Invited Allcomers
Re- edit..Sorry Ray, not your mistake, we got left off the Facebook page,

[ERC]

Ray , you forgot us
11-Historic Sports Sedans and Invited Allcomers

I didn't forget John. I just copied and pasted that straight from: https://hamptondowns.com/nzfmr/ so I assume their website isn't up to date.

[Andrew Metford]

Thank you Ray and RogerH for the info, much appreciated.

[ERC]

Spgeti has just sent me the entry list to date. The invited Central Muscle Cars seem a bit tardy entering...

ERC now has about 42 cars entered. I'm saying about, as only yesterday at Ivan Selak's funeral, Liz seemed happy for Neil to race Ivan's Escort, so he isn't yet on the list and that grid is therefore almost full. One or two tardy ones may yet find themselves on the reserve list...

Apparently the maximum grid size is 47 saloon cars. As there is no stand alone Sports/GT grid, I note that one driver who is not part of the ERC Series but a regular at the Festival has entered and there may yet be another overseas driver allowed to run, but they are not my decisions to make.

There is usually a degree of attrition both before and during the event, but that cannot be guaranteed as we found out two years ago.

[GD66]

Historic F1 cars entered so far at Hampton Downs Kenny Smith Festival are :

1976 BRM P207
1976 Lotus 76
1974 McLaren M23
1976 McLaren M26
1974 Hesketh 308
1971 Surtees TS9
1976 Hesketh 308
1974 BRM P201

Plus 27 F5000 and 43 FJ - with apparently more still to come.

Good stuff, thanks Roger.

[Murray Maunder]

Historic F1 cars entered so far at Hampton Downs Kenny Smith Festival are :

1976 BRM P207
1976 Lotus 76
1974 McLaren M23
1976 McLaren M26
1974 Hesketh 308
1971 Surtees TS9
1976 Hesketh 308
1974 BRM P201

Plus 27 F5000 and 43 FJ - with apparently more still to come.

Thanks Roger.

It's been about 35 years since I've been an event promotor but I reckon some things haven't changed. The "promotor' ( who ought to have a stake in the financial success of the event) fails to maximise the creative use of "free media" to build up interest in the event. A series of "leaked" media releases progressively informs the fans that the event is happening, that somebody or machine of real interest is coming, a competitor reveals a personal story (goes well with the motoring pages of the daily fish and chip wrapper), and so on.

As said, the cost of putting these events with all the modern enhancements, not to mention political correctness items, is quite an obstacle to conceiving of a balanced set of financials, let alone profit. I find it ridiculous that I'm effectively lecturing an unknown promotor on how to stir the public awareness, let alone passion. With all the social media opportunities there's no excuse for your likely paying customers from staying home through lack of awareness or interest.

The lineup shown, I guess, is as good as it gets down here for F1 cars. I'm not complaining but if half of them are static displays then I'm currently still sitting on the fence. The era concerned is right in "my zone" but I am thinking about not bothering and waiting till I make it to a well attended overseas historic meeting where there could be dozens of F1 cars plus CanAm cars etc.

I wish Tony Quinn all the best with HD but maybe his heart just isn't in this form of motorsport.

[Kiwiboss]

Thanks Roger. I wish Tony Quinn all the best with HD but maybe his heart just isn't in this form of motorsport.

I do too but from some of Mr Quinns past ramblings he's made it known that he doesn't have much interest in "Old car racing at the hobby level" as that's not were the money is(I agree with that) he has left this event up to his managers(one has just going on holiday for 2 weeks) to run but until several weeks ago they appeared to not even know about Historic Muscle Cars and even left Historic Sports Sedans of the list? last week their PR person phoned asking if HMC had ever raced at the festival before, Duh! and seemed unconcerned about the Aussies guys coming over as if a non-event. He's even charging them storage in the pit garages between events, that's gotta be good PR you think........NOT. The incompetence level and last minute running around has left me disgusted and to the point that we are now promoting the Tasman Revival as our premier meeting, and come what may the following.

I did earlier on express my interest in helping with the promotional side of HMC/HSC as I've done in the past(I do it for FREE, Duh again), getting our legends along and anyone else involved in helping promote this historic event, it required posting out free tickets as after all these people are what helps make these festival tick but told under no circumstance will even ONE single person get a free ticket and EVERYONE must pay so I shrugged my shoulders and went F-it, i'll just turn up and be another racer like everyone else so stuff-em.

[ERC]

It is very, very sad that a lot of the good work Chris and Tony did has now become totally business orientated and despite the chunterings about the state of the SPORT in NZ by TQ, he hasn't really grasped that the classic events rank second only to the Aussie V8s for competitor numbers - and let's face it, it is the competitors who really pay the bills and spectators are only icing on the cake IF the ticket sales exceed the promotional costs - and early Festival events lost money.

Charging the overseas competitors garage space beyond the event when there would be no rental oncome anyway, is just not on but as we apartment owners with units in the rental pool were totally ripped off for the HD 101, I doubt there will be too much support in the future. I have withdrawn ours from the rental pool for all 'premier' events unless a suitable rental cost is agreed in writing. I am not going to be ripped off again.

Dale, (or any other competitor) I currently have a virtually empty garage at HD and am happy for two cars to be parked in there for the event at no cost if that is any help for the impoverished!