When I was 16, I was at highschool. I have no idea how one gets 26k pa from that lol.
As for the lack of Jappas on the race track, I can't say. Unlike most people in my age group (20-30) I have very very little interest in them. I prefer British cars and I'm sure there must be a few MGB's and Mini's kicking it around the track!
geedubu,
Mar 29, 11:39pm
Maybe part of it is the people who run, care about and participate in track sport (mostly an older crowd) cut the next or the next + 1 generation a bit of slack, stop calling them hoons & boy-racers, let them move past drifiting & make the whole experience a bit more youth friendly!
pollymay,
Mar 29, 11:57pm
I agree, who wants to do burnouts with the front tyres anyway!
pebbles61,
Mar 29, 11:59pm
Maybe they're all on bikes! if you want bang for buck speed you can't beat a motorcycle! =D
Also too many young knobs doing 'drifts' etc on the public road. You're not impressing anyone and you're just gonna end up killing some poor bastard on the way home.
elect70,
Mar 30, 2:09am
Getquite a few at Manfeild for the winter seriesI guess they dont want to raceseriouslyin thesummer series .
socram,
Mar 30, 2:33am
I was meaning that 16 year olds in the workplace of course! I left school at 16 - $9 a week!(Gross) I first hit $26,000 a year when I first came to NZ as a senior manager with a major local company and that put me in the top 10% of wage earners at the time. I think they call that inflation.
socram,
Mar 30, 2:35am
I haven't forgotten your CD.
michael.benn,
Mar 30, 3:27am
I'm aiming to get into some serious track days eventually. Would love to do some circuit racing. or even rally.
I echo pollymay here . motorsport was never really given the spotlight at my high school either. It was rugby, football, netball, basketball . but motor racing! haha no.
chunkybob,
Mar 30, 6:43am
Im 23 and getting into circuit racing. Ive been building my evo 3 for the last year or so for the track. I think it will just be club days and racing at Manfield, but i would love to race in SS2000 or GT2.
socram,
Mar 30, 4:17pm
I formeda "Motor Club" at school when I was 15. (Too young to drive or own a car in the UK.)I managed to get sufficient interest from my school mates to hire a coach from a local company and we went to the 1962 British F1 GP at Aintree.
I never thought then that 50 years later, I would be organising a race meeting (tomorrow, HD) and also racing, on the other side of the world, then attending the Historic GP at Monaco with a group from the Bruce McLaren Trust, celebrating Bruce's win!
foxdonut,
Mar 30, 4:48pm
It's because Japanese cars have no soul, and the owners of them realise that they are driving an appliance, not a car.
You might ad well be asking who races their washing machine in the weekend.
budgel,
Mar 30, 4:52pm
I agree with foxdonut to some extent, and reckon it is because most Jap cars arent driver's cars in the way that many (most!) Euros are, hence not attracting enthusiasts.
Younger guys seem more attracted to drifting which has mainly Jap cars.
ryanm2,
Mar 30, 5:06pm
You can also pass a lot of blame on the to the track promoters. Both my father and brother raced here down in the SI with OSCA. I attended, with mother and friends and each year we could see the crowd size continually decrease - obviously if you can't get youngsters watching it at the track you are going to have a bloody hard time retaining interest to the state where they want to race. For a basic track meet these days a family of 4 need up to $100 (tickets , food, programme etc etc) .
ryanm2,
Mar 30, 5:12pm
Im 30 - i weighed up buying a house or a car when i was younger. I bought the house and a KT 100 Arrow Go Kart. There would be heaps of people like me out there. Ideally in 10 years time I will either have a RS500 Sierra or a R32 GTR that i can trundle out to the track. Sadly, you will eventually have a whole bunch of old farts in their cars they desired when they were young.
geedubu,
Mar 30, 5:39pm
I don't think it's"eventually", that's pretty well how it is today, and a good thing they're racing instead of playing lawnbowls or the tracks would be empty.
foxdonut,
Mar 30, 6:25pm
Seriously though, I reckon I know a real reason. How many young people, ie under 20 have a father figure who's shown them how to maintain a car properly! My dad got me started on a wolseley hornet, stripping carbs and rotating tires. I live in a city now where people my own age ask me how much it costs to get a mechanic to fill up the windshield washer tank.
True story. His name is robert. Knows everything about Steve jobs, fk all about anything else.
Without a role model its no surprise the average kid would rather have a fixed out, ghetto looking heap of shit subaru with big wheels than a well sorted entry level club racing hatchback.
fordkiwi27,
Mar 30, 6:46pm
foxdonut how did the bugeye jappa purchasego!
hotrodtodd1,
Mar 30, 7:10pm
Its not just motorsport tho.
The whole "club ethos" from a generation ago is gone from a lot of sports (club rugby struggles and how many people are actually members of soccer clubs!) and we have become a bunch of spectators watching the best that ESPN has to offer on a 50 inch screen.
Just face it, we are a bunch of old farts playing with cars and theres not another generation following us to take over. Heck, we cant even put all the blame at the feet of MSNZ for this one.
Society has changed, and we are the ones who are trying to cling to our youth
foxdonut,
Mar 30, 8:31pm
Lol, yeah, I was going to punk the guy but felt sorry for him in the end. Anyone stupid enough to buy that heap of shit probably deserves to get ripped off.
elect70,
Mar 30, 10:16pm
Even Wayne Huxford ,ex trans amman,races ahot subby wrx & does very well
socram,
Mar 30, 10:53pm
Depends on the level of the meeting.If you were local to HD, you'd get in tomorrow for $20 for the whole family, including the (one double sided page programme/list of entrants).It will only cost $20 if we have anyone on the gate!At the moment, I don't think we'll have anyone spare.
Cost of food is totally outside the promoter's control and I am damned if I am paying $4 for a can of coke that I can get from the local supermarket for under a dollar.
Having said that, $100 for a family for the whole day is pretty good value if you compare it to other sports and the length of the game.(90 mins for soccer, 80 for rugby.Not sure about basketball - 60 mins! Taking the kids to a paid attraction such as Kelly Tarltons would only last a couple of hours. Western Springs Speedway is a brilliant night out but I think even that would cost you more for 4 hours entertainment.
akaniva,
Mar 31, 4:37am
I agree, society has changed and it may also be that young people can't see the point of racing given that he who spends the most has the fastest car. The way forward is likely to be more informal events rather than series.
socram,
Apr 1, 1:40am
With that sentiment, I do partially agree.Of course we have to have winners at the top level, but 15 years ago I changed our seriesto 100% handicaps.It has grown to around 100 paid up entrants, over the last 5 or 6 years, so cheque book racers don't have an advantage. I think Auckland Car Club ended up with just 45 entries and finished the meeting 2pm today.We had just under 100 (classic) entrants and with practice and three races for all 6 groups, we finished at 5pm.
Two young helpers (flaggies) who were on the start podium, now want to join the Euros.
A great end to our season.
bubbles244,
Apr 1, 5:30am
Too much money in cutting them up for parts etc to keep the existing fleet on the road.
That and i spose that anyone seen to be moding a jap car is either drifting or dragging as apposed to circuit racing.
kcf,
Apr 1, 3:25pm
While I respect your opinion on the subject, my experience differs.I'm in a car club that has gone from around 100 members to around 200 members in the last five or six years.We've got a ton of guys and girls in the 20's getting involved in the sport, as well as our stalwart supporters who are in their 40's and 50's (and one guy who is in his 70's and still racing most weekends).
But it didn't happen accidentally, it was many years of hard work by the committee :-).Market to where the younger petrolheads are to be found, enthusiast forums, facebook, website.Publicise, explain, advertise, write articles, and generally do everything you can to hold people's hands all the way through their "getting started" phase.
But Wellington is incredibly lucky, because there are a bunch of clubs who work really well together, advertising for each other, and helping each other's clubs out running events.
Oh yeah, and the majority of our racers are racing Japanese cars . which is neither here nor there.Cars are cars, if you're having FUN in your car whatever it is, then all good.
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