hi shane
I have been going to speedway most of my life i have seen you race a few times you can come back to super saloons be a 2 time super saloon champion,otago,canterbury, champ have the same set up as your championship winning car which is driven now my trevor elliot come on maaka come back to supers.
from andrew
Hi Andrew, I love the sport however the huge amount of time and money that it takes up is always a trade off with family time and working.
But the main reasons that I am not racing are below
Speedway at some tracks is absolutley awesome and you will have seen that at others it can be terrible. The sport as a whole needs a major overhaul, its fragmented and directionless and as a result it struggles to retain competitors or attract long term sponsors.
What Steve is doing with the DHL series is a huge step in the right direction as are the efforts of the super saloon guys in the north.
However at a meeting recently I had a saloon driver( Formely Limiteds) explain to me that Supers need to be changed because they currently are to similar to saloons and people are getting confused by the 2 grades
?
I have enough equipment to build a new car and my wife and children keep asking me to, however when you have people that are involved in making the rules making noises like this then its hard to justify the expenditure.
As I have said before the sport is directionless and like a dog chasing its tail, lots of noise but not moving forward, my qoute for the year was the persident of SNZ when he stated, "the sports been like this for 25years why should we change it", its simple, its out of date, provides poor value for money for sponsors,competitors and public a like. Instead of being a marketable commodity the sport is basically funded by its competitors instead of being the other way round.
there are exceptions to this but they are few.
Take the NZ Champs, there is a huge amount of work and effort required to stage one of these however lots of this is getting facalities and people up to speed and the getting the public along. Once this is done it s basically wasted because you wont get that event for another 12 years or so and all those people will be gone.
We are fortunate that our promoter got the NZ Sprintcar title for next year so work is being done on that as I write.
The Spanz/SNZ/Competitor process is what is killing the sport. Everyone wants to have something to say but no one is prepared to do anything.
The sport needs to market itself and that cant be done at the moment nationally because it doesnt have a consistent product to market.
The national titles for Super Stocks, Super Saloons and Sprintcars should be run over several tracks and have a major sponsor for each. Same points format for each show ending in a gp stlye feature for the winner of each event.
Combined points over the series should determine the national champion and the series would build over each meeting with the final meeting seeing the crowning of both winner of that meeting and the Series winner.
It isnt rocket science however there are numerous people who dont like these ideas as they see it eroding their percieved power, this is the main reason that the sport is stuck where it is.
If it was up to me I would sever the relationship and funding to Spanz, Drivers should Licence to SNZ and promoters should be appointed by there tracks and responsible to them. That way they live or die on there ability to raise the profile of the sport in their area.
If your promoter is not doing there job, simple sack him and get one that can.
The job that Jeanette Bolt did for CHCH was amazing, what she started with and what handed over set the bench mark for all track, yes I know she had help and we possible didnt get on the best but I had a health respect for her abality to run a speedway and wished that we had someone even 1/4 as good in dunedin.
If the national title is currently 15k and a promoter offers 40k how is that bad for the sport. If you really want the event put 5 tracks together and make it 60k. Yup your right someone could then say 100k but whats the problem with that?
eventually free market will alway find the right level.
If you want the superstocks and are prepared to punch 200k over 5 meetings why not work together and do that. The reason why you cant at the moment is that the SPANZ Relationship prevents that.
As I indicated its the Competitors, and paying public that are getting ripped and the sport as a whole suffers from that.
The competitors and SNZ need to take control of there sport and move it forward
The above is the main reason that I am currently not racing.
I have committed to help Cromwell with the Super Champs and then I will assess things after that.
I have been racing for over 30 years off and on and nothing has really changed in the sport, but alway the optimist I live in hope.
I am currently sitting by the lake in twizel after enjoying several days waterskiing and am heading to Cromwell for the Racing tonight, Racing overalls in the boot just in case I find something to have a skid in.
Merry xmas to everyone and a Happy New Year to you all.
Cheers Shane Maaka
