Only two Rockinghams in 2008.

[pickup]

After reading the report from the awards evening i see there are only two proposed race weekends at Rockingham next year and was wondering why and what other peoples feelings were about this.
I realise there are other planned meetings on road courses and one other oval but we are still only looking at a possible six or seven meetings, is this enough for a race series? especially one that is trying to expand.
Is there a problem with Rockingham, why not run four or five oval meetings plus three or four road course surely SCSA is predominantly an oval based formula.
I know Sonny is talking about four or possibly five Rockinghams for the trucks next year so that means at a majority of the meetings the trucks will be the only cars running on the oval!
Is this a step in the right direction or could it be detrimental to the future of oval racing at Rockingham.

[car20]

if you read a quote from duane regarding next season that some things people will like and some others won't,

My own take on it is that the hunt for oval drivers ai'nt going well and the compromise off more road courses to entice drivers in ??? i don't know i am only a fan and this is my own view from things that have been posted....

if there is only going to be 2 meetings at the rock then i hope they are going to be a lot longer races and a trip to germany but my own view is that it looks like they will be headeing to a new direction for the series ????? my own thoughts we will have too see !

[racing59]

I don't want to start rumours, but I was told the Trucks had three dates at Rockingham. That's probably excluding Motorfest.

Yes, it looks like they will be running on their own for most of their meetings.

When Mike Schmidt started ASCAR, the idea was that it ran at Rockingham and other circuits, which in 2001 meant that it would probably run on more road courses than at Rockingham. In the end it didn't, and because of the package operated by the circuit, paying the teams quite a good heap of cash, they didn't want to go somewhere where they wouldn't get paid to put on their show.

This carried on until the sale of the circuit at the end of 2005. Then the cash was stopped.

You could liken the affair to a Junkie losing his supply, followed by cold-turkey (2006), detox (2007), and let's look at 2008 as rehab.

The talk that our new drivers will be all road course people, well that's not right. We have 10 rookies chomping at the bit, three of which are short circuit guys. And they all expressed their intent before anything had been discussed about 2008 dates - at that time, it was expected that we would be running four events at Rockingham, Lausitz, and one or more road course meetings.

Getting road course drivers in to the series has been difficult, as the higher profile drivers (with the necessary licence) looked at what we did with two thoughts... 1. we're mad (the wall!), and 2. it costs loopy money.

Getting short circuit drivers in to the series previously has been difficult because they just thought it cost loopy money.

The loopy money thing has pretty well been put to bed now. The "we're mad" bit is relative. It's not everyone's cup of tea, racing at 170mph within a few inches of the wall, a very hard unforgiving wall.

My thoughts are that 2008 will see the series re-born as it should have been in 2001. It will stand on it's own two feet and grow on it's on merit, not on Gerry Forsythe's bank balance.

IF every rookie passes and commits to the series, there may well be a shortfall of seats!

I'm looking at some cars in Georgia which may need a small amount of changes to bring them back to our spec - which is the GTA spec - designed to do both road and oval courses.

The issue with "Rockingham" is that the SCSA did not deliver the cars/entertainment that was needed through 2006 and 2007, regardless of how hard we tried.

If we can impress Mr Buller next year, as he has the final say-so on what's what, we may get another date for 2009.

BUT, what IF the series does grow well, with only two visits to Rockingham.
Do we make those two BIG visits to the Rock, and be a BIG series like we should be.

Part of me says let's race at Rockingham day in day out, but the realist in me says we're not a one circuit one make series, and we HAVE to go elsewhere, road course or oval matters not. We will entertain even if we turn left AND right!

Sorry this has been a long diatribe, but there were some things I needed to put straight(er).

Rob.
Aiming to run two cars in 2008!

[darknessrock]

Great post Rob, Roll on next year!!!1

[Speedworx]

Great post Rob.

If this is true than its a step backwards, imo.

V8 Trophy is an oval series, not a road course series.

[racing59]

If we are to be compared to a "wannabe NASCAR feeder series", then we have to do both oval and road circuits - a proper mixed genre series. For it to succeed and grow, then it has to visit other circuits as part of it's season.

Here's to a growing series.

[Speedworx]

I never said it should solely be an oval series.

4-5 Rockingham meetings
1 Eurospeedway
2-3 road courses

That would be a great calender.

[shortb]

I have always been in the opinion since day one that ASCAR/SCSA needs to visit others circuits including road aswell as ovals.I also think that a short oval such as Warneton for example may help the series grow.We are not in America so we do not have ovals such as Daytona,Texas and Bristol (although it would be nice if we did!!!) to visit,our only oval option in europe is Germany.I would love to see more ovals in europe but I do not think that it can the series grow just visiting two ovals,so the only other option is road circuits.Watching an interview with Kyle Petty on the NASCAR website the other night,he expressed the opinion the the last ten races for the championship should include short,mid and long ovals aswell as a road circuit to see who is the best driver in the series.He also suggested a dirt track should also be included!!!(now that would be intresting!!!).As far as I can see,the powers to trying to take the series forward with the options that they have at hand.They cannot stay an oval only series if they do not have the resorces to do it.As for road circuits,Brands Hatch Indy and Knockhill would be two good circuits to visit to cover more of the country
I am not part of a racing team,just a SCSA racing fan expressing an opinion(which I don't do very much on here!)

[Duane]

Please View my Reply on the Club series thread.

Duane