IS JUNIOR RACING IN PERIL?
WE INVESTIGATE TROUBLED SERIES
“
ny series that has less than 10 cars, you’ve got to question it.”
Those are the words of a team boss who has run cars in various junior categories, so there’s a lot of questioning to be done in the junior racing world.
Many club racing categories are struggling for entries this year but nowhere is that more apparent than in the junior divisions. It’s been a difficult winter for all four of the series permitted by the Motor Sports Association to run drivers aged between 14 and 17. And for a variety of different reasons.
Ginetta Junior has emerged the strongest. Despite three of its four best teams from 2017 no longer being on the grid, at 21 cars it comfortably has the largest entry of them all. And the racing has been typically entertaining too, so no complaints there.
It’s elsewhere that there are problems. The other three series: the Junior Saloon Car Championship (featuring Citroen Saxos), the Fiesta Junior Championship and Renault UK Clio Cup Junior have all faced a drop in entries for this year. Undoubtedly worst affected is Clio Junior, with it featuring just four cars at its second round at Rockingham last month. And things could get even worse, as Jamsport driver Louis Doyle has left the series to graduate to senior racing in the Mini Challenge.
The category has had a very troubled birth – it was originally postponed from its planned launch date last year – with a fourround championship at the end of 2017 attracting a maximum of nine cars. But that’s still three times what it has now.
Championship manager Will Fewkes is clear why it has struggled so much. He has described a“a very challenging set of regulatory circumstances” and “numerous changes to junior formula requirements at short notice which have impacted the number of entrants this year”. There’s certainly no doubt over who he thinks is to blame – and both the JSCC and Fiesta Junior have also reported late MSA directives causing “stress”.
However, the MSA has defended the way it handled a review of the junior car racing regulations for this year. An MSA spokesman says: “The Junior requirements were reviewed in 2017 and the MSA met with key clubs to discuss proposals for changes to the requirements. Earlier this year it was discovered that three of the four junior racing championships had not fully complied with the updated requirements, therefore they needed to comply at short notice.
“We have given a significant amount of assistance to junior series with modifying their cars to ensure they meet important new safety requirements for junior drivers.”
A particular area of concern has been with driver’s door protection – and the adoption of FIA rules that necessitate certain amounts of foaming to be placed within them for safety, but there have been other modifications too.
One Fiesta Junior team boss says: “Everyone was told to make the changes, which was a bit of a rush to get in place. It was all last-minute.”
Further complications stemmed from materials sourced from Europe being unavailable and teams in some series had to make their own composite parts. The MSA spokesman continues: “Where it was brought to our attention that materials were unavailable, we approved alternative specifications.”
With that all going on in the background, it’s perhaps no wonder entries have suffered.
But looking beyond the issues of regulation, there are other problems.
The most fundamental question being whether there is a need for four dedicated junior championships in the UK, plus British Formula 4 that allows drivers as young as 15 to compete. Given that none of the junior series has ever reached anything close to capacity, perhaps not.
It’s not just the number of junior series, the similarity is another issue. The Saxo, Fiesta and Clio – while being different ages – are all fundamentally the same type of car. One junior racing insider says: “How many junior championships do we need in the UK? We should have one single-seater [in effect, British F4], one sportscar [Ginetta Junior] and one saloon car championship, but we’ve got three junior tin-top series.”
But there are other sticking points with the Clio series too.
“If Juniors were on the TOCA package I think it would be full,” says Specialized Motorsport chief Simon Horrobin. “They need a bit more publicity to get bums on seats.
“The pricing bracket is a problem as well. You’ve got Junior Saloon Cars that have 16 on the grid and costs less.”
The JSCC is certainly fairing best out of the three tin-top junior series and its lower costs have proved more attractive. A new Clio costs around £40,000 – and second-hand ones aren’t much less because there’s so little depreciation – a massive figure compared to a Saxo.
Fewkes says: “Once you’ve bought the car, the running costs are very low. One team has said they change the pads every weekend in the senior Clio Cup but only need to do that every three in the Juniors. If you wanted to run the car as a lad and dad we worked out for four rounds it would only cost £14,000 in 2017.
“I genuinely think it’s a shame [the small entry] because the car’s incredible: it’s the best out there.”
Pyro team boss Mark Hunt – who runs two of the remaining three Clio drivers – has a possible solution.
“I would put Clios with the Junior Saloon Car grids as a separate class,” he says. “Then the winner of the Saxos could get free use of a Clio the next year and the winner of the Clios would get free entry to senior Clios.
“I do think Clio Junior is very good, but I’m concerned by the numbers in it – I don’t want to run more cars, I’d just like more competition.”
But Fewkes has dismissed the idea. “I don’t think that’s realistic – the difference in the pace of the cars is too large, so they wouldn’t be racing each other anyway,” he says.
Clio Junior is not alone in needing more competition, there is also a need for more cars in Fiesta Junior. That attracted just eight drivers for its opening round in March and a self-inflicted regulation change has caused woe.
For this season, the series has switched from Dunlop to an MRF tyre supply – a move that initially proved unpopular. MN has been told the switch “wasn’t communicated very well” and that “the new tyre hasn’t been tested properly and the way it was dealt with was a problem”.
Now the new rubber is actually in use, the problem has subsided, but it certainly didn’t help over an already turbulent winter.
Both the JSCC and Fiesta Junior are confident of more drivers arriving later in the year and Clio Junior organisers insist the series will continue despite the current miniscule entry.
But for as long as the numbers stay in single digits, the questions over the future won’t go away. ■