Having wondered if national racing grids could be set to fall, the early signs in 2024 are encouraging
In Motorsport News earlier this year (see MN, February 8) we asked “are clouds gathering for club racing?” As, amid the familiar matter of rising costs, we wondered if grids could be set for a slip. But just over a month into 2024’s season, the first actual results are in. And it appears that overall things are holding up. For Classic Sports Car Club things are more than holding up, despite the caution expressed by director David Smitheram in our pre-season article. More than 400 entries raced in CSCC’s Donington Park opener, with Swinging Sixties having 20 more entries than at Donington the previous year, Slicks Series getting its first-ever full grid, and what was formerly the Kumho BMW championship attracting 22, six up on anything in 2023.
CSCC is set to continue the form this weekend where for Oulton Park, amid another strong turnout, its Swinging
Sixties grid filled up in 20 minutes plus the club has an oversubscribed 65-car grid at Spa. For Thruxton in May the BMWs have already topped their 22 mark.
The British Racing and Sports Car Club – whose chief operating officer Paul McErlean also contributed to our early-2024 piece – has had similar. Even its Silverstone opener in mid-March – ordinarily a tough sell – had Modified Ford and Clubsport grids in the
40s, and the rest of the entries were healthy. Fun Cup at Oulton attracted 24 cars, about six up on its 2023 average.
“Whilst things aren’t rosy out there economically, I think some people have realised that after a couple of years of being frugal that they’re doing alright after all and are starting to get the mothballs out their race cars and come out again,” Smitheram suggests to MN.
McErlean confirms to MN that the economy has yet to effect BRSCC grids. “We’re not seeing yet any real impact on the decision or ability to race at domestic level inside of our portfolio,” he says.
Yet within the positive overall picture there is the worry that some contests, such as trucks and the Ginetta GT championship, kicked off ’24 with underwhelming entries.
McErlean suspects there’s a pattern. “We do look outside of [BRSCC’s] portfolio and we can see that some formulas seem to be struggling with subscription. But maybe that tends to be the higher-value products. The lower-cost domestic marketplace particularly for us seems to be reasonably stable. Higher-value weekends I would imagine are more difficult to subscribe to regularly but if you are only needing to find £700-800 a weekend then I guess there’s a lot of people out there that can do that.”
Is that TCR UK started its season with a slightly disappointing grid, but its supporting
Civic Cup – with the same promoter – by contrast had a vast entry, a case in point?
McErlean also perceives value in novelty. “New championships seem to do very, very, very well,” he says. “Is it if you’ve owned a car for 10 years you’re not so sure, and when there’s a new project and it’s all exciting and brand new and lots to learn, are you motivated to find the money? I don’t know, but [Audi]
TTs is a perfect example, [as is] Clubsport Trophy, CityCar Cup. We’ve just launched a 1 Series BMW and before we got to media day there was 10 cars built.”
It of course remains early days in ’24, and Smitheram concedes that Donington is always popular. Plus he notes that what caused much of his pre-season concern is still occurring. “There is still a degree of cherry picking going on,” he explains. “If you have a chitchat with someone they’re perhaps saying ‘I’m just going to do X and Y rounds this year’ without going into why, whereas in previous years you think he used to do four or five rounds. They’re just being a bit careful.”
McErlean again concurs: “It’s still quite early. I guess you could always say that everyone’s got enough money to race once, so let’s see what happens when they’re out there to race twice.”
As our early-year article noted, it pays to be paranoid on this subject. And MN – like the clubs – will monitor the matter closely.
But Smitheram is optimistic.
“Donington being first round, that was, I wouldn’t say a flash in the plan but it was higher than we’re expecting at other rounds. It’s impossible to predict isn’t it? But what we’re seeing so far is we’re hopeful for a year we will turn the corner on what has been two challenging years.”
“More than 400 raced in CSCC’s opener, and the form is set to continue”