Race of Complete and Utter Failure?
As a concept, The Race of Champions sounds like the sort of thing that should get motor racing enthusiasts frothing at the mouth. Bringing together some of the world’s best racers from a variety of racing categories under one roof to try and find out just who is the fastest of all. That sort of spiel alone is license enough to print money. So why then does the event continue to underwhelm year-after-year?
The biggest problem the organisers have faced is the number of empty seats. When The RoC first visited Wembley Stadium in 2007 crowd numbers fell short of 40,000 and pledges were made about drastically cutting ticket prices for 2008. This completely failed, with only a few thousand more spectators were in attendance off the back of world champion Lewis Hamilton’s appearance.
What didn’t help was the fact the cheapest half-decent tickets hovered around £50. Take a few kids along, add in parking or a train ticket, food and the questionable timing of it just before Christmas in sub-zero temperatures, is it any wonder it failed to take off during its brief spell in the UK?
For the event to work, it needs to be near full. It needs to buzz and have some atmosphere, wherever it is held, and watching the Nations Cup yesterday from the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, it looks as though the RoC has failed once again.
Whose idea was it to run the event across two days, during the middle of the week this year? Whose idea was it to run it so soon after the bigger racing categories have only just concluded, and while the likes of NASCAR are still running? Whose idea was it to take it to Beijing for heaven’s sake?
Lessons clearly haven’t been learnt. It’s simple really. Fly close to the red line in terms of profits on ticket sales, make up the shortfall once you’ve got the punters through the gates. Fill the venue, and you’ll start to get the attention of the general media and, by extension, the general population.
What is the biggest frustration of all is that The RoC is a neatly packaged and easily accessible to non-racing fans and has the potential to be an excellent entry point to motorsport for hundreds of new fans. The event could easily become one of the biggest highlights of the annual racing calendar, what’s not to love about seeing Michael Schumacher race Andy Priaulx in identical machinery?
There’s a huge opportunity – but it’s not being realised.
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November 4th, 2009 - 13:43
Agree with you on this. This event has so much potential to be the ultimate racing event of the year, yet the organizers have been failing to capitalise on it. Major fail.
November 4th, 2009 - 13:48
Totally agree Dank.
I was at the RoC at Wembley in 2007 – I thought as an event it was great.
Bloody cold, and seriously lacking in atmosphere though.
It’s a shame as you’re right, on paper it should be the blue ribband event in the Global Motorsport Calendar, being invited to participate should be an honour.
Sadly the organisers have dropped the ball massively in terms of fan numbers, and really should learn from their mistakes in the past.
November 4th, 2009 - 17:11
I watched religiously this year and it looks like great fun, although the winners’ ceremony was pretty awkward, which might be really due to a lack of atmosphere. And Beijing is a bizarre choice. Bring it back to Europe (or wherever else motorsport is loved!), make it cheap and advertise it lots!
November 4th, 2009 - 17:11
I watched religiously this year and it looks like great fun, although the winners’ ceremony was pretty awkward, which might be really due to a lack of atmosphere. And Beijing is a bizarre choice. Bring it back to Europe (or wherever else motorsport is loved!), make it cheap and advertise it lots!
November 4th, 2009 - 18:44
Absolutely agree!! This could be such a good event but it fails to get on the radar of most folks. I went last year and it was too expensive, freezing cold, and there was zero atmosphere amongst the scattered crowd. I’m also not sure that a stadium venue is the best setting. You really can’t test the driving greats on a such a small track. Plus, as a photographer, it was terrible as no “professional” cameras were allowed!!
November 5th, 2009 - 12:41
Like everyone else I agree!
I went to Paris in 05 and Wembley 07, both freezing cold but great events!
I think RoC needs to stay in Europe, it could could rotate around great tracks like Silverstone, Donington (if its put back together), Brands Hatch etc!
Although to be honest I love the super special stadium tracks, its something different and great to watch as its so tight and twisty.
Cheap tickets to get the punters in is vital, weekend events during the day rather than evening so its not so cold & lots of promo needed I think and it would be massive.
I hadn’t heard of it till a club i was part of organised the Paris trip, for an event going on for so many years it should be well known!
November 5th, 2009 - 13:36
Probably something else I should have touched on is the timing of the event.
There’s three or four weeks off mid-season in the F1 calendar, and other racing categories normally take August off, so they should host it then!
Venue wise, the Indy Circuit at Brands Hatch would be ideal. Small enough to be able to see the majority of the action, long enough to challenge them on a ‘proper’ race circuit.