Motorsport.. where is it going?

[4Vman]

I see on an almost weekly basis car manufacturers withdrawing funding and involvement from motorsport both globally and locally, and it begs the question what does the future hold for motorsport in a time where greenhouse issues, "hoon" issues and a struggling world economy seem in our face constantly.
Its fair to say the old "win on sunday, sell on monday" mantra hasn't worked since group A died..

This raises a bigger issue.. will car manufacturers gradually withdraw completely from motorsport both locally and globally?
There seems to be less and less spin-off from motorsport activities for the larger companies world wide (Honda F1) and here.
Group c/A offered car manufacturers the ability to R+D car components to some degree.. but the current worldwide formula's offer virtually no R+D for their road cars.
To the point where i get the feeling that our car companies may start to distance themselves from motorsport out of political correctness (greenhouse/"hoon"/economy link????).

It seems to be a case of "you go first, no you go first"... once one goes the others will follow...
Interesting times ahead for Motorsport i think. Thoughts?

[Daymoe]

Originally Posted by 4Vman

I see on an almost weekly basis car manufacturers withdrawing funding and involvement from motorsport both globally and locally, and it begs the question what does the future hold for motorsport in a time where greenhouse issues, "hoon" issues and a struggling world economy seem in our face constantly.
Its fair to say the old "win on sunday, sell on monday" mantra hasn't worked since group A died..

This raises a bigger issue.. will car manufacturers gradually withdraw completely from motorsport both locally and globally?
There seems to be less and less spin-off from motorsport activities for the larger companies world wide (Honda F1) and here.
Group c/A offered car manufacturers the ability to R+D car components to some degree.. but the current world formula's offer virtually no R+D for their road cars.
To the point where i get the feeling that our car companies may start to distance themselves from motorsport out of political correctness (green/hoon/economy link????).
It seems to be a case of "you go first, no you go first"... once one goes the others will follow...
Interesting times ahead for motorsport i think. Thoughts?

By no means am I a motorsport expert, so just here to give my opinion, but I believe motorsport will succumb to the Today Tonight/A Current Afair militia to being a sport just for "hoons" and it will soon become hated by the "educated" masses (Educated by the rollin' propaganda machine called the "media"). I'm surprised that the greenies haven't had a sook about it much, yet.

The manufacturers would probably want to distance themselves from it, because they can't afford any bad publicity in the future. Then again, publicity is publicity, no matter how much you can hate something, the more you spout your hate for it, the more free advertising you give them, good or bad.

But, thats my opinion :

[TadKa]

Originally Posted by 4Vman

There seems to be less and less spin-off from motorsport activities for the larger companies world wide (Honda F1) and here.
Group c/A offered car manufacturers the ability to R+D car components to some degree.. but the current worldwide formula's offer virtually no R+D for their road cars.

Just a thought. The F1 KERS developments may lead on to road car useage.

[bathurst77]

I also think that in these days of Greenhouse sensitivity (rightly or wrongly) and with oil considered a precious and dwindling resource, motor sport will be considered not the right image for many car companies.

These days, with cars seen as one of the biggest pollutors and contributors to greenhouse etc, car companies wont want to be associated with cars that do 4MPG and dump tonnes of toxins, just to prove they are faster.

Most car makers want to be seen as "green" and socially, environmentally conscious, and the message they want to push is our cars are environmentally friendlier, more economical, use less fuel, not that our cars thrash the others up a mountain.

These days people buy a car coz its economical, cheap and green than buy a car coz its fast.

I dont know how car racing fits into that model.
I was wondering if Honda's decision to drop F1 was partly business and partly coz it doesnt suit their socially responsible green image.

[SB076]

I beleive motor sport will continue, it may change slightly, time will tell. The interesting thing is how many of the manufacturers will survive - some obviousy must (the world will still need cars and humans being humans will race whatever is available, whether the manufactuers support it or not)

Are the V8's going to ethanol or something next year or is it 2010?

[GTP owner]

Motorsport will continue - i have no doubt about that, but i do not believe that car companies will keep pouring the huge dollars in for much longer. Say goodbye to F1, indycar, Nascar, v8sca in their current forms.

To me that is no big deal - i have not been a fan of cheering on a particular colour of stickers on the side of a "Fowlden", not have i stayed up late to see a train of f1 screamers play follow the leader.

I do believe that there will continue to be some form of company assistance for teams, but they will not go the whole hog.

And ground roots racing will continue for us at the amateur level. What happens to 888 racing gas no impact on us at a club day in our toys.
As for the greenies and the fuel consumption - i ask them how many movies they watched last year - and how much resources were used in the making of those movies??? Or how about that trip overseas - how much jet fuel did they spew into the stratosphere going for a holiday??? That is their entertainment, leave me to mine. I used less than a 44gal drum of avgas last year - which is a lot less than they used!

[Rev28K]

V8 supercars – well it was always going to be a bit shaky when they were a bit arrogant and you had to race what you sold (RWD V8) and excluding other manufacturers. Parity issues nailed a lot of my interest in it even though it made the racing closer. If you have a series with only 2 manufacturers involved, both of them aren’t travelling that well financially, and there is a history of brickwalling other manufacturers from joining (Chrysler & Toyota) then I don’t see the long term health being good.

F1 – Honda really stuffed up their return to F1 this time. The initial Harvey Postletwaite led return seemed good. The Reynard/BAR team was like burning cubic dollars at the start for little or no results (much like Ford with Jaguar’s F1 effort), The Aguri Suzuki “B” team was screwed when they weren’t allowed to run the Honda versions that they wanted too (although that may have been a blessing in disguise) – yet more millions and millions of dollars wasted. Honda is a relatively small company compared to Toyota yet they are competing in so many series like Moto GP, Indycar, Rolex sports car series, American Le Mans, etc that something had to give. No company has that much money to spend/waste. “Maybe it’s true that “If Honda doesn’t race then there is no Honda” but if they kept on splashing money around like that while sales are down 30-40% then they would be “no Honda” then either.

Part of the reason that BMW are in F1 is that Mercedes is there (although the cars will always be perceived as McLarens no matter how much Mercedes owns). If either one leaves would the other want to continue. Toyota has deep pockets so can continue on (as the only Jap manufacturer) especially as they seem stronger than their “B team” Williams. One of the problems with letting manufacturers run teams instead of constructers is that they are there for the good times but as soon as they have a financial blip they are out of there. There are now more restrictions on aero, engines are rev-limited and can’t use super-exotic materials so some of the points of differences between the teams & manufacturers are being eroded (the “manufacturer A wins more races and titles than manufacturer B therefore when I go to buy a road car I will be buys from manufacturer A because they are winners” argument.) Jaguar & Land Rover are asking for British government money does that mean that the Force India F1 team is in trouble, if you needed a couple of hundred million dollars wouldn’t you cut motorsport $$$ first.

The last argument also carries over to the Yank Big 3 if you were pleading for more money from the US government wouldn’t the government want to see you stop wasting $ on frivolous pursuits like Nascar, drag racing, etc. If they want you to sell your corporate jets why spend money on cars running around in circles to finish at the same point that they started from? Nascar is running the Car Of The Future and there is bugger all difference between the manufacturers now. Same with the Rolex sports car series – it’s cheap but it seems a dumb idea for trying to get manufacturers on board. If I was involved in any sort of American racing series with big 3 support I’d be very, very nervous now (and considering changing careers to flipping burgers for McDonalds).

Maybe it’s time to bring up the argument from the 70’s that it takes more fuel to fly an American football team across the country than is consumed during the Nascar season (now it’s about 17 flights = 1 Nascar season). Or bringing back fuel efficiency formulas with very limited fuel capacity to encourage aero, Kers, drivetrain, engine developments. Loosen the shackles on what is and isn’t allowed so that we can really see what the bright engineers are capable of. Let electric Telsas and Lightnings race in various categories, they mighn’t win but it would toughen them up.

And Gordon Murray your T-25 economy car can’t come out soon enough, maybe that will be the race car of the future.

[irlewy86]

Motorsport and the Auto Industry in general will go the way everyone else will in these tough times to survive, consolodation. We'll be lucky if all the car manufacturers who went into this crisis come out the other side and I think we'll see less motorsport catagories as the funds dry up. Doesn't mean they will be gone for good though.

As for the political pressures (hooning and environment) they are probably going to take a back seat in the near future as job creation becomes the buzz word of the next decade.

[prydey]

i would imagine a lot of govt's wouldn't mind motorsport as they can and do generate a lot of income back into whichever state they are in.

[FPV8U]

Racing like Endurance racing in the states and Europe will be strong as they encourage development of the cars, series like the V8SC forcing them to run 5.0L Pushrod Engines From the 90's arn't going to stick around forever.. why we arn't running the newer generation engines is beyond me, have Ford and Holden do sealed unit engines, set at a certain Hp.. the teams can't crack the engine but can tinker with the Ecu all they like.

How about Direct injection?

Also racing needs to become about economy to encourage the use of less fuel, like a maximum number of Lts put in the car per pitstop.. instead of the more powerfull car gaining a lead from more Hp and just having a 2-3 seconds longer pitstop.. factor in another full pitstop and a few more teams will be setting rev limits lower and tuning the cars a little differently..

Motorsport was once the leading light in the development of new ideas for road cars and thats where it should be placed again.

[vztrt]

In regards to V8SC's:

As for the hooning aspect I guess they could do add's about doing things on the track and not on the open road and have a main driver as the face of it.

V8SC is going to E85 next year (T8 Racing was involved in getting this ready) so they should make the comment's during the race that its green.

[bafel]

Originally Posted by FPV8U

Also racing needs to become about economy to encourage the use of less fuel, like a maximum number of Lts put in the car per pitstop.. instead of the more powerfull car gaining a lead from more Hp and just having a 2-3 seconds longer pitstop.. factor in another full pitstop and a few more teams will be setting rev limits lower and tuning the cars a little differently..

Motorsport was once the leading light in the development of new ideas for road cars and thats where it should be placed again.

on the right track i think(npi), if the race winner hits a certain fuel burn target they recieve bonus points?

greener tyres? a slower tyre but if the car finshes in the top 5 they could earn bonus points. etc

[Nikked]

Just had a random though, imagine a cap on the fuel expense per year or round, swing some of the engine deveolpment towards a balance or economy and power...

[vztrt]

What car companies have pulled out or partially pulled out?

The only ones I know of is Ford only sponsoring 2 V8SC teams and Honda pulling out of F1.

What are the others??

[bafel]

Originally Posted by vztrt

What car companies have pulled out or partially pulled out?

The only ones I know of is Ford only sponsoring 2 V8SC teams and Honda pulling out of F1.

What are the others??

it just seems to be trend developing, if the situation in the u.s gets worse (if thats possible) more categories could be affected

[Ghiadude]

This isnt the first time that car companies have faced pressure to be environmentally responsible/economical. Its the reason ford dropped the v8 in the 1980s. It will pass like n it did last time and then we can concentrate on more important things like going faster and braking later.