So, How Does The Calendar Come About?

Monoposto’s Race Committee Chairman Peter Whitmore talked to Startline's Tony Cotton about the construction of the 2010 calendar

Tony – Peter, how did you start to put the 2010 calendar together?

Peter - We start by asking all of our previous organisers to send us the race meetings they will be running in 2010 and construct a large spreadsheet where we can compare each meeting during the year. Once we have this we start to look at who if any is offering the best spread of races at the best circuits.

At this stage things are pretty flexible as not all meetings actually eventuate and some organisers don’t want us to attend all of their meetings. Nothing personal, you understand! They may just want an all saloons race meeting for example.

At this point we have no costs so what might look good on paper may not be affordable.

Tony – How do you move the process forward?

Peter – Well Tony, it’s like juggling. Trying to get the best spread of events at the best price at the best circuits. A mutually exclusive process at the best of times. Over the weeks we put a number of options together and see how it works out. One of my objectives this year was to find a schedule of events that was evenly spaced throughout the year. Our first draft of the calendar did this perfectly, until one of our organisers said they had misinterpreted our requirements and could not fit us into one of the race meeting. Back to the drawing board as they say.

Tony – The move to MSVR as the championship organiser – why was that?

Peter – As a committee we have been trying for the last few years to improve our off-circuit experience to the point where from the moment we enter the circuit to the time we leave it we are being catered for as a valued customer and not just a bunch of ‘hot heads’ out for a days racing. Also, as the UK largest single seat racing car club we thought we needed to raise our profile within the racing community. This could not be done at the expense of the members and so the race entry fee was still very important to us as well as who ran our championship.

MSVR have for the last few years been more and more influential in the world of race organisation and have demonstrated the very essential ‘customer care’ we were looking for. Their web site quotes the following:

“MotorSport Vision Racing (MSVR) is the racing division of MSV, owner and operator of four of the UK's best racing circuits - Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Snetterton and Cadwell Park. MSVR is committed to providing the highest levels of efficiency, value and enjoyment for its competitors. Having run its first meeting in March 2006, MSVR successfully organises prestigious international events such as A1GP, DTM and World Touring Cars in addition to a number of club-level events, and is still the fastest growing race meeting organiser in the country.
MSVR's portfolio of race series expanded for 2008 to include the organisation of the British Superbike Championship, the worlds premier national bike championship. MSVR continued to organise the British Superbike Championship in 2009 as well as the Formula Palmer Audi Championship, the Lotus on Track Elise Trophy, the SPEED (formerly VdeV UK) series and the GT Cup."

As it turned out after meeting with MSVR and getting sight of their race schedule for 2010 and their price structure, I was pleasantly surprised that their costs were in the ballpark of our other suppliers, subject to the double header position which I will touch on later. They were the only organiser to have their 2010 costs nailed down, obviously as they owned four circuits they could do this.

Tony – What can we expect from MSVR?

Peter – I am hoping our on track experience will be up to if not better than previous years, mainly due to the number of MSVR circuits we are racing on of course, but I am looking forward to the off track experience where we should get greater consideration on things like paddock allocation, race schedules, signing on etc.

This year is a trial year for MSVR and Monoposto. If we like MSVR and they like us there is a possibility that next year we could work much more closely together, which would be very beneficial for the Monoposto Racing Club. But let's get 2010 out of the way first.

Tony - Tell me about the choice of circuits

Peter – Tony, this is where the juggling really begins. Because we decided to go with MSVR we were obviously going to go to their circuits: Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Oulton Park. Whilst Cadwell Park was on offer we decided with regret some time ago that the paddock facilities were not adequate to accommodate Monoposto so we gave Cadwell a miss.

We have been asked by members in the past to go to the more prestige circuits within the UK so when offered Brands, Oulton Park and the very exclusive Thruxton, we jumped at the chance.

Thruxton in particular, for those who did not go there last year, is one of the best free flowing circuits you could wish to race on and is very rarely offered to anyone outside of BARC. I believe this demonstrates the ‘power’ of MSVR in that they have been offered Thruxton to run a race meeting on. The main problem opting for these circuits brought was that they came at a much higher price.

Here we now start to get juggling yet again, circuits/cost/dates. In order to offset the cost of these circuits and because we know members like them we opted for Anglesey and Mallory Park, which come at a reduced cost.

I should explain for those that don’t know the Monoposto Racing Club has to pay the going rate for each circuit, usually a cost per minute, prior to receiving entries. Therefore it is imperative that we get the entry numbers and entry fees correct, otherwise we could end up with a big loss on our hands, obviously something we want to avoid. Going to Anglesey and Mallory Park allows some easing of entry fees because of firstly their lower price per minute cost and also where Mallory Park is concerned, its popularity. Silverstone National always attracts a great Monoposto entry and this year we decided

that it would be a great place to end our season and hopefully hold an end of year bash on the Saturday evening.

All in all we believe we have delivered a varied array of circuits neatly spaced throughout the year with a break in the middle for holidays, car maintenance etc.

It should be noted that as Donington was still in the process of deciding what was going to happen to the circuit, no race dates were offered there. However it is expected that future dates may be available in 2010 at Donington and if they are offered we may very likely take one as a non-championship round possible around July/August.

Tony – You mentioned entry fees and double header costs – care to elaborate?

Peter – Sure, last year we were able to take advantage of a deal with CSCC which meant that double headers didn’t cost twice the cost of a single header, based on cost per minute. That is if a 15 minute single header race cost say £6,000, a double header might only cost say £10,500. This allowed us to offer entry fees that provided remarkable value for money when compared to entry fees elsewhere.

This year this facility was not on offer from any of the organisers. Therefore all race costs are based on race/qualifying time. So for a single header we need 2 x 15 minute qualifying sessions and 2 x15 minute races, 60 minutes in total. If the cost per minute was say £100 the cost to Monoposto for a single header is £6,000. If we were running a double header at the same circuit, where we need 120 minutes track time, the cost will be £12,000.

Obviously with race costs being so high we need constant support from the members to ensure that we are able to arrive at a race entry fee that covers our cost, but does not prevent people from competing, more juggling. Generally speaking we used an average number of entry from previous years to help us arrive at the new entry fee for the coming year.

Fortunately Tony, this is where the Race Committee hands over to the Finance Committee and yourself to balance the books.

Tony - Yes, thanks a bunch! I'm already on the second bottle of paracetamol!

Seriously, thanks Peter both for talking to us and also for your work and that of the race committee. It looks a great calendar to me and I know plenty of Monoposti are looking forward to 2010 already

(More insight into race fees in Patrick's Editorial - to follow)