Calder - Sat 5 July - Club Cship Rnd 5 - Cancelled

[shepo]

this annoys me some what.

i still have unfinnished business with calder!...

[Downforce]

Wow... i wonder how this impacts the future of running a club motorsport championship

[Russman]

Yeah was slack with my entry. The forms are there just need to get to a fax.

Oh well. No need now. I really wanted to race calder. I'm spewin. What a shame that the place has just got worse and worse.

[Ant97GTR]

WHAT.....NOOOOOO I'm in the process of getting the car ready for this and I'm so close I can smell it (or maybe thats the oil and clutch fluid smell)

Ahhhh crap....not happy in fact I feel like calling Calder and venting

[shepo]

do it

doooooo it!!!

[archie01]

That's just fn great!!

The car is well on the way to being ready and now this....not happy.

[Scotsman]

Wow... i wonder how this impacts the future of running a club motorsport championship

Can I get you to eloborate please Matt?

What do you mean by this? What concerns do you have about the future of motorsport within SAU?

[Omurru]

Anybody know the actual reason calder are charging so much for everything these days?

[Downforce]

Can I get you to eloborate please Matt?

What do you mean by this? What concerns do you have about the future of motorsport within SAU?

What I mean, Chris, is that if it is becoming financially difficult for WRX club to hire out tracks to the point where they cancel events, then given that SAU joins the WRX days - perhaps there will be less available 'rounds' to make a 'championship' out of it.

Is the implication that there will be no more calder track days in the championship? will this decision carry over to other tracks as well? It's unclear to me... maybe you can elaborate on it for me from SAU's perspective.

[BBGTR]

Guys,

Let me give you my perspective having the organised the WRX championship with some other people for a couple of years.

Calder, and most other tracks for that matter, started charging clubs 50% upfront on the booking of tracks about 2 years ago. A track day costs a minimum of $10k to run, so you need to fork out $5k up to 10 months in advance (Calder) if you get a date late in the year.

Now multiply this by a few track days and it becomes untenable for car club, even the size of the WRX club (600 members) to justify such a huge financial commitment. We pushed back on a lot of these requests for advanced payment and won a few, but also lost a few, putting bookings at risk as well.

Sandown, P.I. and Winton have come to their senses I suspect, however as we all know, Calder are now pricing themselves out of the club track day market. To run the WRX Calder day on the fifth of July was going to cost $350 per entry to make it viable on what Calder was quoting. Unless Calder management pull their collective heads out of their collective ar$e's, the WRX club will never go there again. I'll be talking to Neil Choi from the ALFA club and Lindsay Coleman from the Marque Sports Car Club to see what their thoughts are, as I go to alot of their days.

If anyone knows the m/sport directors of any other clubs, it would be good to get their opinion on Calder as well.

At the end of the day, there will always be a championship at the WRX club, yes it will be smaller as there are now fewer dates to go around the same number of clubs. I suspect, and I have said this in a previous post, that there will be fewer individual events being put on as well, as entries start to dry up (V-Power Racing fuel will be $2.00 before XMAS I'm sure of it).

So Jesus ( I love that) - what this club needs to do is probably start talking to other clubs in preparation for next year to piggy back off their events, if we want to run an 8 or 9 round championship, as the WRX club will not have that many rounds next year.

I'll let everyone know what these other clubs thinks when I am able to chat to the relevant m/sport people.

Regards

Andrew

[Ant97GTR]

Calder, and most other tracks for that matter, started charging clubs 50% upfront on the booking of tracks about 2 years ago. A track day costs a minimum of $10k to run, so you need to fork out $5k up to 10 months in advance (Calder) if you get a date late in the year.

Sandown, P.I. and Winton have come to their senses I suspect, however as we all know, Calder are now pricing themselves out of the club track day market. To run the WRX Calder day on the fifth of July was going to cost $350 per entry to make it viable on what Calder was quoting.

Hang on what am I missing here...in the first part you say a min of 10k to run and then in the 2nd part you say it will cost $350 per entry.....90 entries x $350 = 30k+

Are you saying that Calder is now charging that to hire the track for the day? (aside from the other costs on the day which I assume to be small compared to the track hire)

[BBGTR]

Hang on what am I missing here...in the first part you say a min of 10k to run and then in the 2nd part you say it will cost $350 per entry.....90 entries x $350 = 30k+

Are you saying that Calder is now charging that to hire the track for the day? (aside from the other costs on the day which I assume to be small compared to the track hire)

They were never going to get 90 entries for Calder, it is generally 50-60 max. An no, Calder was going to be much more than $10,000 to run, that's the stupid thing about all this.

[Ant97GTR]

Ok, ok that was waaay over the top based on previous number of entries....my mistake.

In any case, it seems that with the increase in both in their drag and circuit costs the management of Calder WANT the facility going the way of Waverley football ground

[Adz]

Yeah ive heard this form a few sorces now. Calder has lost the plot. The prices for their facility are totaly unrealistic. Even if you want to hire out one of their carparks it costs a stupid amount.

I do not see a future for calder at all.

They are trying to attract corprate events and big events such as concerts etc. They also claim that there price is fair as Sandown run at a discount as horse racing is their mani sorce of income.

Either way it price in unrealistic and the place is an absolute dump as a result of poor maintance. It wont be long untill its a new suberb. Ill give it 6 - 8 years. That is if Bob hasnt poisned the soil with his thunder dump.

Im so happy that I dont have anything to do with running events there any more.

[shepo]

it seems like calder is a bit like the titanic.

she's going down fast!!!

[phunky_monkey]

That's not good at all guys, one less track to go to... Oh well, at least we still have the good ones

[Scotsman]

Thanks BB. Pretty much spot on, and exatcly as I understood the problem also.

Just to put people's minds at rest SAU will do whatever it needs to do to make sure we can keep a healthy SAU Championship alive. There are lots of options avaliable to us, so there is no reason for concern at this stage.

We are considering introducing an extra round now that old Morewell is gone and so is Calder. More on this another time.

[BBGTR]

FYI - more info on Calder....

Total cost including other incidentals is about $19,000.

On average at the last event at Calder there were between 50 and 60 cars.

$19,000 / 55 = $345. Therefore , so about $350.

Also they were told there was not guarentee that the long track would be available due to current construction works.

Speaking to the timing guys, three other clubs have also cancelled Calder due to cost.

To make it worth while running they would need about 110 people at $175 each. You would never get this at Calder. Not only that the supp regs only allow for 90 and 110 would not be value for money in terms of track time.

[Do-Luck]

Finally got all my gear together in my car and was going to prepare for this

Damn

[Ant97GTR]

Thanks for the info BB....makes it much more transparent for the rest of us.

$19k is way to much to ask for a track day at Calder if you ask me