Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Tony Fernandes is learning what most of us around racing already know, changes to rules cost money. They cost the car builder and the track owner money, everyone except those making the rules. I noticed this when running motorcycle GP's. I would go to meetings of the Road Racing Commission of the FIM, along with sponsors, teams and manufacturers and other track owners, and be forced to listen in silence while 16 men with not a dime invested between them discuss changes to rules. I well remember one poor soul from Yugoslavia, as it was then, who had made all the upgrades to his track as requested, and then was not given a race! He just about cut his wrists on the conference table.

The FIA and FIM keep going on about cutting costs, and then proceed to make the teams redesign the cars or motorcycles each year. And not just a little. We go from movable front wings to movable back wings next year, or has that been dropped? It is hard to keep up, let alone try and design a car for next year. The 125cc class disappears, so what happens to all those machines? Are they now so much junk?

Korea is a running sore now for Bernie, and it seems our friend Mr. Tilke is getting some flak about the lateness in completion. To put the record straight I met Peter Wahl, Managing Director for Tilke, at the Forum in New York back in April, and he said then that the Koreans only wanted them to design the track, the Koreans would build it themselves. Now it seems the Koreans are pleading that they had not built an F1 track before so should be excused for being late! I presume they knew before they started that they had not done this before. When I did Adelaide I had not done it before either, but we still got it done. I know what they mean though, it is more complicated now, but there are also people available now that know how to do it, so there is no excuse if you choose to ignore them. As I try and tell potential clients, it costs just as much to build it wrong as build it correctly, the only difference is the fee for someone like me, and that is peanuts in the scheme of things. The cost of rebuilding it, or not completing it is enormous, as the Koreans are about to find out.

If you want to see the next disaster go on the ESPNF1 web site and look at the photos of the Indian track for next years GP. They are already complaining that the weather is delaying them. When I built Eastern Creek there was a famous photo of the Minister for Sport and I under an umbrella standing in a lake it was raining so much. That was January, and we ran the first race in July. It was not pretty, but by September we ran a test for GP teams following the Oz GP at the Island. You can either get it done or you can't.

Here we are on Sunday, and I do not know if it is just me, but there is not much getting my juices flowing. Congratulations to Casey Stoner for his win at Aragon, and just maybe Valentino has made a brilliantly timed move to Ducati. He is talking about missing the last two races to get his shoulder operated on, sounds like a very smart move to me.

I mentioned the discussion on LinkedIn the other day about the loss of TV audience for NASCAR. I commented, but I am having my doubts as to the value of such discussions. I am amazed at the lack of knowledge or analysis that people in these groups have about the sport that they profess to follow. It is as if they just watch the races and believe everything they hear from either commentators or promoters without question. I am seriously considering stopping my involvement, but then they will all talk to each other and promote more disinformation.

So, back to the racing. IRL went to Motegi because Honda supplies the engines, I doubt the number of spectators made the trip worthwhile. I watched a little of the race towards the end, but cannot get excited by it. Have I been spoilt or just getting jaded and old? DTM, WTCC, FRenault3.5, BTCC, FIAGT, and Superleague all raced, but we do not see any of it here despite having a dedicated race channel, sorry NASCAR channel, so it is hard to follow these and comment. The Fords have been winning in BTCC, but stirring up controversy over their engine package. Sounds like good racing, but it is going the way of most series with spec body shells by Toyota and engines by the series. Formula Ford or Formula Vee have been delivering close racing for probably over twenty years, but who watches?  Nice to see Donnington back in action though.

There are signs that the honeymoon for the new CEO of the IRL, Randy Bernard, is over. It seems the team owners are not happy about the new car for 2012, and I admit to being wrong when I said that teams like Penske and Ganassi would dominate because they had the money to design and build the aero for the bodywork. Penske has come out and said he will not be producing his own aero kit as he would have to commit to selling it to any of the other teams who want it, so we are back to a spec car again because they will buy the best package from whoever comes up with it. That whole idea sounded goofy to me when it was announced.  The Indy boss also wants to go back to Milwaukee because they have a tremendous fan base there. That is why the last couple of promoters at the track went broke.

Here we are on a Saturday near the end of the season for most series, and I do not have a clue what to write about! The F2 and F3 championships have been run and won, and it will be interesting to see where these champions go from here. The British F3 Champion, Vergne, won in his second FRenault 3.5 race, the drive his reward for wrapping up the F3 series early, but won after the winner was disqualified for a piece of tape on the bodywork following a morning crash. Sounds a bit harsh, but I guess the rules are rules.

On two wheels Casey Stoner finally has the Ducati working the way he wants, or he has found a track he likes, and is on pole for the MotoGP race from Aragon, Spain. Rossi is struggling in seventh, the shoulder being a big problem for him. It will be interesting to see the track tomorrow and if Casey can turn pole into a win.

On LinkedIn yesterday a discussion started in the Motorsport Professionals Group as the result of an article in the Sports Business Journal quoting David Hill of Fox and the drop off in viewing figures. To quote the discussion, "Fox Sports chairman David Hill recently told the Sports Business Journal that “the biggest problem facing NASCAR is that young males have left the sport.” Fox reports that ratings among men 18-34 have declined 29%. This isn't just NASCAR's problem, folks, this is racing's problem. If new life isn't injected into the sport in terms of technology and overall interest - and soon - before you know it there will be nothing left but vintage racing all across the country."

Just as an aside, David was the Producer for the telecast of my first F1 event in Adelaide in 1985, he has gone far since then.

Anyway, this seems to have struck a chord with a lot of the Group and there are several comments. Regular readers to my blog will know I posed the question, "Is motorsport in danger of becoming a non-spectator sport?' a few weeks ago, and commented that NASCAR were removing seats so obviously did not expect the audience levels to return.

It's interesting that the comment above talks about injecting new technology. Is that in the way that people interact with racing, or in the cars and motorcycles? One of the Group said that technology was killing the interest, but how can that be when just about every category is "dumbing down" the technology in the interest of cost savings? NASCAR still runs carburetors and five nut wheels and COT that is virtually a spec car, IRL is a spec car, as is basically Grand Am, Moto2 and soon 3 in motorcycle GP's, ALMS has two spec classes to make up the numbers, and even F1, that pinnacle of technology has control tires, common ECU, engine rules that are virtually spec, and moves for more common components. This spec racing is not reducing "costs" because it is costing racing spectators and viewers.

Then there are those that say that the marketers are getting it all wrong. So did they have it right when NASCAR went through it's growth spurt? I doubt it, it probably had more to do with Dale Earnhardt, a larger than life character. Where are they now? Only Tony Stewart even comes close and they slap him down every time he shows a spark of life. NASCAR went through a fad, and thought it would last forever and alienated it's fan base to chase the yuppie. It went to new markets. Did you read the piece here a couple of days ago from ESPN F1 about F1 chasing new markets like Korea?

So then there are the sponsors, who are pushing the sports towards these new markets and younger generations. Have they asked anyone if that is what the people watching now want? The sponsors came in because the sport was successful, and then they want to change what made it successful, and are then annoyed that the audience drops. I wrote the other week about Martin Whitmarsh suggesting F1 needs to market itself better and commenting that there is a problem marketing a product that is not good. Red Bull is probably one of the great marketing stories of the decade, and I watch their cars and motorcycles all the time, and did try it once. Hated it and have never bought one since. You cannot make people like something.

That is probably the nub of the problem. We have a generation growing up that does not want to watch what we are offering. No amount of marketing or packaging is going to change that. Some sociologists can probably tell us why they think this is. Maybe they are all brainwashed about global warming and racing wasting resources. Would they all watch if we raced electric cars? Maybe they cannot watch two hour races, but GT have tried shorter races and I do not think more people watched them. Maybe because they can all race every track and every car on their X-Box in their lounge room or on their phone they do not need to go to the race or watch on TV. Then again, as they get older will they "find" racing and become a fan? I do not profess to know the answer. But if we change racing to suit them, do we lose the audience we have now?

I do know that most tracks being built are non-spectator tracks for people to drive their own cars fast. This has to tell us something about the future? We may not like it, but we are not going to change it by "better marketing." Perhaps we have to adapt to a new world, or go the way of the dinosaur?

Sitting at home yesterday watching the first Sunday of football, American style. The night game was the Cowboys and Redskins, and towards the end there were two incidents where players went down with potential neck injuries. It struck me the difference in approach to the Misano accident at MotoGP. Play stopped, medical staff ran out, the first guy there knelt at the players head and held it in position so as not to endanger a spinal injury. Everyone took their time. There seemed to be no pressure to restart the game despite what must be a similar situation to the MotoGP telecast, if not more due to the network's schedule. The player is given the opportunity to walk off, no one rushes out with a stretcher and throws him on it just to clear the pitch. When footballers can run 40 yds in just over 4 seconds, or less than 20 mph, and bikes are running at over 100 mph, it makes you think. The NFL has learned the hard way about head and spine injuries, and sometimes I wonder if motorcycle racing has learned anything.

Hero to zero? Hamilton is now the one being questioned by journalists over his rashness after his dive down the inside of Massa resulted in broken steering. It is called racing guys, and Martin Whitmarsh rightly has told Lewis not to change. I do not put it in the Vettel at Spa class, even if it was very optimistic. When he pulls these passes off we all applaud his skill and bravery, he seems to be able to create passing maneuvers where others cannot or will not.

The rumors about Lotus switching to Renault power next year seem to have come true with the announcement that they are ending their contract with Cosworth. Interesting decision given that the Williams is doing very nicely thank you with the Cosworth.