Post by agraderacer on Feb 16, 2019 14:22:15 GMT 12
A lot of the stuff written so far about night one has matched my views around the track, urgency, dust, ELS. One thing that I've only seen a passing mention of is the event programme - and that we had nowhere to write grids or points. That's the first of many issues with it, mainly because it cost $10.
I was happy initially to part with $10 for the programme as I could see it had a glossy cover was packed full of pages. On face value, this seemed good. One positive was the preview article that Graham Hughes had written of the entries from around the country and how the current titles have played out this season. It was also nice to see how much prize money is up for grabs and how it's distributed.
From that point, it all goes downhill. The programme is 44 pages in total but this doesn't mean it's full of good stuff.
Two of these pages were dedicated to all five groups. They were exactly what was posted on the facebook page, flipped 90 degrees so each could fit on a A4 page. However, no-one checked how they'd print as the result of this was that you had to turn the page over and flip your programme 180 degrees to continue through the list.
We then had 31 pages dedicated to the competitor list in number order with their name, sometimes a photo then their Age, Chassis, Engine, Racing Years and Achievements/Sponsors - if they were supplied. Great for the casuals, the only problem is nearly half the competitors didn't have a photo or any info. It became pages and pages of useless space.
Then we get to my biggest gripe with the programme - we had nowhere to write grids, placings, points or big moves. Not for any of the five qualifying groups, not for the second tier, not even for the championship. Even a half hearted attempt to match weekly meeting programmes to allow us to write the top 5/6 finishing order against each item in the schedule of events was nowhere to be seen. For any championship meeting, let alone a NZ title, this is unacceptable. I can't recall any other title I've been to that has had a programme without any of these. What's the point in bringing in the big gun commentary team of Paul Hickey, Barry Brown and Malcolm Sines who know what information to provide the die hard fans and then shackle them by not even providing them with the grids? Are grids, placings and points even a thing for the spectators at Baypark? The ELS there doesn't seem to think so. Those three were fantastic in commentary last night, despite what they had to work with.
I don't know why with 31 pages worth of profiles, we couldn't include 3 extra pages for allowing us to write in all the info for the five groups and the finals field. Luckily the profiles provided enough empty space for me to note down the official results that were correct and able to be read out.
There was also a whole lot of other small incorrect aspects to the programme:
All in all, this was not even a $5 programme, let alone the $10 we were charged. I've had much better from programmes that have cost $2 in the past. For $10, a programme should add plenty of value and be something the fans want to collect and look back on in future years, not be something that's only use tonight is potentially checking the schedule the events.
I was happy initially to part with $10 for the programme as I could see it had a glossy cover was packed full of pages. On face value, this seemed good. One positive was the preview article that Graham Hughes had written of the entries from around the country and how the current titles have played out this season. It was also nice to see how much prize money is up for grabs and how it's distributed.
From that point, it all goes downhill. The programme is 44 pages in total but this doesn't mean it's full of good stuff.
Two of these pages were dedicated to all five groups. They were exactly what was posted on the facebook page, flipped 90 degrees so each could fit on a A4 page. However, no-one checked how they'd print as the result of this was that you had to turn the page over and flip your programme 180 degrees to continue through the list.
We then had 31 pages dedicated to the competitor list in number order with their name, sometimes a photo then their Age, Chassis, Engine, Racing Years and Achievements/Sponsors - if they were supplied. Great for the casuals, the only problem is nearly half the competitors didn't have a photo or any info. It became pages and pages of useless space.
Then we get to my biggest gripe with the programme - we had nowhere to write grids, placings, points or big moves. Not for any of the five qualifying groups, not for the second tier, not even for the championship. Even a half hearted attempt to match weekly meeting programmes to allow us to write the top 5/6 finishing order against each item in the schedule of events was nowhere to be seen. For any championship meeting, let alone a NZ title, this is unacceptable. I can't recall any other title I've been to that has had a programme without any of these. What's the point in bringing in the big gun commentary team of Paul Hickey, Barry Brown and Malcolm Sines who know what information to provide the die hard fans and then shackle them by not even providing them with the grids? Are grids, placings and points even a thing for the spectators at Baypark? The ELS there doesn't seem to think so. Those three were fantastic in commentary last night, despite what they had to work with.
I don't know why with 31 pages worth of profiles, we couldn't include 3 extra pages for allowing us to write in all the info for the five groups and the finals field. Luckily the profiles provided enough empty space for me to note down the official results that were correct and able to be read out.
There was also a whole lot of other small incorrect aspects to the programme:
- A spelling mistake in the second sentence of the promoters prattle. This is the first thing to read when opening it up.
- The "Race Format" listed tells us points were 36 down. Despite no group having more than 36 competitors, points were 40 down last night. As a side note, I'm still unsure why we had groups of 33, 35, 35, 34 and 36 with blank spots put into the grid draws.
- That stupid highest heat 1 tiebreaker that got changed was written up in its original form. Interesting that they had a second tiebreaker if competitors were "still equal" when checking the finishing position of heat 1 to go and look at the finishing positions in heat 2. All the qualifiers for the different tiers were worked out by "next X on points in each group" so there was no chance in even needing a second tiebreaker.
- 29p "Stewart Rackman" was the most obvious driver misspelling and I don't think the only one.
- One of the drivers had big "WITHDRAWN" text written across his profile. Why not remove him and cut down on a page?
- Photo of 981r featuring twice next to itself as both 981r Steve Grey and 992W Taylor Lampp
- Photo of "last weekends NZ Stockcar GP winners" labelled left to right, actually being a photo of the 04/05 podium (a repeated photo from 30-something pages previous).
- Fairly certain the schedule of events is wrong too. I got there at 5:45pm last night and didn't see any signs of a grand parade. That was event one last night. I also heard last week that there's only 10 races for night two. Going to assume that the word of mouth is correct and we won't be seeing 16 events tonight. I'll sadly miss the random selection of three heats of "Tier 4 or Golden Oldies Stock Cars" - who knows what would've come out the pit gate.
- "Championship Qualifyers".
- "Graham Hughs" the photographer on the back cover.
All in all, this was not even a $5 programme, let alone the $10 we were charged. I've had much better from programmes that have cost $2 in the past. For $10, a programme should add plenty of value and be something the fans want to collect and look back on in future years, not be something that's only use tonight is potentially checking the schedule the events.
