THE DEMISE OF MONO 2000?

Never one to mince his words, Phil Moore asks if Mono 2000 is due for a fall if change doesn't happen, and soon. The technically challenged editorial team give a few responses, and doubtless the 2litre experts will also respond later. Over to you, Phil:

As we all know the Mono Forum has become a little quiet recently, however a very interesting post was made by Andy Yeomans regarding how Club 750 had stolen the initiative in creating a class for pre 2000 Formula Renaults, within their F4 series. It seems that Renault UK, for image reasons, decided they wanted to make BARC FR a series exclusively for the post 2000 era carbon cars. That left a number of older FR owners with nowhere to race in 2009. Andy made the point that the 750 Motor Club had spotted this while Monoposto had not.

In a separate move Club F3 invited Monoposto members to enter their post-96 Dallaras in last weekend's season ending Club F3 event at Brands. Kevin Mason took up the invitation and I know he would have been joined by at least one other Mono member, if their car had been ready to race. Kevin's car was running free ride height but was otherwise in Mono spec. He has proved to himself and the powers that be in CF3 that newer Mono cars can easily be integrated into the F3 grid. In fact Kevin out qualified a number of full blown F3 cars, including mine, for one of the races . I have not looked but I doubt his gap was any greater than the tail enders of Mono 2000 to Jeremy Timms.

It has been well documented in the past that I wanted to run my F304 in a Mono race during the 2008 season and I think Mark Harrison would have done the same. We met with a lot of negatives regarding this and even when I offered to provide my F3 car for back to back test against a Mono car all that really evolved were snide remarks about the quality of drivers involved in testing. I considered racing at Spa but decided against it because there was nothing to race for. I tried to suggest a handicap that would allow me to be part of the race but that wasn't accepted. I hindsight I should have suggested a trophy for first over the line despite class, ie; the winner could be from Mono, CF3 or Jedi.

2008 has seen Mono 2000 grids shrink and the few cars that did enter seemed to favour the new 'classic' grid. At the front of the grid, it was left to Jeremy Timms to drive around by himself, often at a worrying lead from the rest of the field Certainly once Neil Harrison's challenge came off the rails at Oulton, it was very much a one horse race for Jeremy. It would not be hard to imagine that a driver of JT's skills will grow tired of this dominance. Joining Club F3's grid must be looking a very attractive option for all the Dallara owners next year. . Neither Mono or CF3 can, I believe, be won for the sort of figure bandied around on either the Mono or the CF3 websites. Motorsport is expensive and a competitive season in Mono 2000 is in my experience similar in cost to a season of CF3.

New blood was injected into the committee this year in the form of Nick Harrison, a man with plenty of drive and vision, but is anyone listening? A very good working paper was prepared to try and take Mono 2000 forward but from what I hear, too many of the old guard were convinced change comes only on an ill wind. It seems to me that far from strengthening the Mono 2000 grid, all we may see is lost opportunities and the erosion of the current membership.

The 'Credit Crisis' is going to evolve into the 'Cash Crisis'; are we going to be watching Mono 2000 (as we knew it) disappear faster than a merchant bankers bonus pool? The way things are heading, one can easily imagine Mono 2000 being a collection of old bangers running alongside Mono 1800.

Phil Moore

Phil makes a number of interesting points in his piece. It really wouldn't be a piece from Phil if the editorial team at Startline agreed with it all, and with Phil's permission we have appended a few responses . As usual, these are the views of the editor and assistant ed, combined into a sort of “Patony Hutton”, a frightening thought. Unfortunately the assistant ed in particular doesn't do brevity so the response is longer than the question.

A separate class for older FR's was discussed at the September board meeting. We already allow older FR cars to race with us and some do (see pictures). There is a problem in that they do not fit easily within our class structure, because with 155bhp they are 20bhp more powerful than the Mono1800s and around 20bhp less powerful than the 2000s. with 6 classes already, we would not wish to add to the class structure. Certainly, if a significant number of FR's showed an interest in competing then a separate class might be considered, but traditionally Monoposto has not run one make classes.

Club F3 including a Monoposto car in their race presents an interesting point. There can be no doubt that a second option for racing is attractive to some, but the MSA (bless them) have an objection to over-40mm ride height cars running with “thoroughbred” F3's, and this could be an insuperable problem, as it isn't usually an issue for discussion as far as the MSA are concerned.

Comparison of performance between CF3 and Monos will always be difficult. There was far more to the discussion on the forum than Phil infers, and whilst the editorial team were enormously flattered (and not a little tempted) by the generous offers of back to back tests, we felt little would be proven by a single test, which is never going to be statistically valid. And neither of us would have done justice to a Dallara, even if at least 50% of us would like to try. Startline carried comments on the relative performance of Mono2000 cars and CF3 cars at a Silverstone meeting in 2007, but no definitive conclusion was reached.

The number of competing cars in any class has historically varied dramatically. We can all remember the few 2000 cars that appeared at Cadwell in 2006. Although Mono 2000 numbers have diminished during this year, Mono Classic numbers have been maintained throughout the season. Jeremy's performance has been impressive but since Neil's departure from the 2008 championship he has, on occasion been out qualified and out raced by a Classic.

The cost of a season with Club F£, sorry finger trouble, Club F3 is again a debatable matter. Two CF3 teams (and a third Mono member who has looked into it quite closely) have told the assistant ed that the costs are noticeably greater than in Mono, which in part is due to the nature of the engines. All of these are "self run" cars, but experienced competitors. The big issue is obviously whether the car can be self run or not. We have seen the difficulties that such F3-type cars have given this year - it's unlikely that Geoff Fern will object to being cited as an example of a person who has had some issues, and clearly if it's necessary to have a professional team around a Dallara then that will dwarf the costs of any special fuel, spec-tyres, etc in CF3. However, this assertion is still disputed by a number of people. We believe that Mono 2000 is possible without a professional operation, and this isn't based on blind assertion but on discussion with those who know rather better than the editorial team.

The delay to the introduction of the Russ Giles/Nick Harrison paper has been caused by consulting the membership with a stake in Mono2000. The intention of the paper is to re-invigorate the formula and bring in new competitors. Even without the proposed changes several owners, currently racing immaculate cars in MonoClassic, intend racing Dallaras in Mono2000, hopefully next year. Admittedly we have heard that others may be considering delaying until new engine rules are finalised, and in this respect the sooner a decision is reached the better.

Mono has, since the 1960's, had a place for recent technology cars. Look at our 1965/Terrapin piece where one of the runners was a Lotus 18. Moss won at Monaco in a 1500cc 18 in 1961 - 4 years earlier. A close look at the (dire) 1981 Toleman F1 car will show similarities to an RT3. The fact remains that Mono 2000 is the only place that the “man in the street” (provided he is a company director, a solicitor, a commodity trader or a consultant) can race a car which has most of the chassis features of an F1 car of recent memory. Long may that continue, though it can only do so if Mono 2000 moves forward with the times.We hope that on that we are all in agreement.

Patrick Huston & Tony Cotton

Illustrations get more desperate the lower you get.

Author Phil Moore in his F304 at Oulton

Geoff Fern has had a less than euphoric season in his F301

Jeremy Timms has a dominant season in his Dallara..

...but has been challenged in some races by Tristan Cliffe in his Reynard 883.

Kevin Mason forsook Mono for CF3 Free Class at Brands. We don't have a pic so here's a Mini Kevin used to race - now on sale in the USA for $23k

"Reports of my death have been much exaggerated" wrote Mark Twain (above). The same might be said of Mono 2000. Mark Twain was an American writer who also invented scanners.