CLUBMANS TO JOIN MSVR PORTFOLIO
Championship organisers decide to end long association with the BARC
Clubmans Sports Prototype Championship organisers have decided to end the category’s long association with the British Automobile Racing Club as the series will run with Motorsport Vision Racing next year.
The Clubmans Register was investigating buying track time from other clubs – following its 2019 season finale being at a British Racing and Sports Car Club meeting – when MSVR made a good offer to take the championship under its banner.
Clubmans Register chairman Mike Evans says that the category’s southern competitor base made the calendar the BARC offered unattractive.
“It’s a championship that people dip in and out – it’s not a championship where everyone does every round,” said Evans. “We have a core of a dozen who do every round and then there’s about 15-16 that dip in and out, and nearly all of those guys are from the south Midlands or south east so we get good grids at Silverstone, Donington Park, Brands Hatch and Snetterton. As we go further afield to Pembrey, Anglesey and Cadwell Park our numbers tend to reduce there.
“The calendar and circuits are critical to how it works out – if we have two meetings in the same month we tend to have lower numbers. We’ve been with BARC for about 50 years and they’ve treated us well but the calendar they came up with wasn’t very good.
“The calendar had Silverstone in mid-march which is not the best time of year – our guys don’t tend to come out of the woodwork until mid-april. Then it was Pembrey and Anglesey and it didn’t really work. Someone from our committee was looking to see if we could buy track time from other clubs. MSVR came back to us with a really good calendar and we thought for 2020 we would give it a go with them.”
Evans says the reaction to the move from competitors has generally been positive despite it being a major change after a long relationship with the BARC.
“There’s some people that are upset we’re leaving BARC because they’ve looked after us so well but they understand the situation and it’s about making the costs affordable,” he added.
It is expected that entry fees will be lower with MSVR next year and the championship’s provisional calendar begins at Donington Park in mid-april and also features trips to Snetterton, Silverstone, Oulton Park, Croft and Brands Hatch.