Spare a Thought for the Organisers!

[admin]

Although I run this Forum & the VHRR Website, and the VHRR Newsletter, I'm not a VHRR Committee member as such. I do however have an open invitation to attend any of their committee meetings & I would use that to discuss various aspects of my work on the race programmes, Newsletter, etc. So, I had no part in the decision to leave out the categories being discussed. I don't speak for the VHRR Committee, and the following comments should be read as from an interested bystander.

Reading some of these posts cannot help but give me the impression that they are directed at 'faceless bureaucrats' or 'directors of large corporations' whose job it may be to fend off criticism from afar, never having to come down from their ivory towers.

For those who don't know me, Brenda (my wife) & I ran Historic Winton for over 20 years, Brenda as Secretary of the Meeting for most of those years, me as self appointed promotions man, programme publisher & advertising salesman & general dog's body. I was also Secretary of the Meeting for the last three years we were involved. I'm also 'Historic Events Coordinator' for the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. So, I have some empathy with how decisions are made, the anguish (as Peter Mohr puts it) involved, and the resultant dramas when those decisions are implemented.

Frankly, the soft option for the VHRR Committee would have been to just send out entries to everyone as usual, then accept entries for the meeting in accordance with Regulation #7 ~ "The organisers reserve the right to refuse an entry without assigning a reason......................." End of story. But, the rationale was not only explained at the MGM, as mentioned elsewhere in this forum, it is explained in the covering letter with the Regs. I very much doubt whether a schedule of rotation could be set as early as this. Who knows what groups are about to vanish, amalgamate, regroup etc. Group M is on the wane now, as is Sa, but may revive in due course. I reckon all the committee could do is see what transpires in a year or so.

During our Historic Winton days we spent countless hours fending off requests for new Groups, simply because we didn't have room to fit them in. We saw the introduction of Groups S, Sa, Sb, Sc - from Group La, then Group N, then Nb, Nc, then Group O, Q, then F5000, then FFord as Q, then Group R. At every turn this was accompanied by much gnashing of teeth, wrist slashing, irate phone calls and letters - some nice, some not so nice (before emails were invented!). Not that we didn't try to help fit them in, much negotiation with CAMS, the HCC in getting grid limits extended - from about 20 in the first few years to around 36 in recent years. Even when we did fit them in, we still had to make sure they could, and would, race together.

That's the rub, of course. Many competitors don't want to race other competitors for a miriad of reasons, some valid, some not. But, it is Historic racing, definitely not mainsteam, sanitised, 'do as you are told' racing. Therefore, some compromises have to be made.

It was always on the cards that the present situation would be reached. That some groups would have to miss out. Happens all the time overseas. Certainly at the AGP we can only invite sixty cars altogether!

Any organiser of an Historic - read 'amateur' - event has to ensure the best possible level of entries to even get the event underway, but really, to even get that to happen is no accident. What the VHRR have done in bringing in OS glamour cars is a twofold thing. Any competitor likes to rub shoulders with 'the rich & famous' and the presence of 'internationals' most definitely has an effect on entry levels. We certainly found that with Winton. And of course that always affects the gate. Without question!

Keeping an eye on the bottom line is not a sin, just a matter of degree and commonsense. Many, many amateur meetings throughout the country, and I guess the world, run events at a loss just using members funds to stay afloat. Moreover, I would say most onlookers, including some who should know better, would not have the faintest idea how much or how little any race meeting makes, or loses. The vast majority opine that the media says 25000 people attended, then we simply extrapolate that by $40.00 to get in = $1,000,000.00! Simple - Rubbish! Nothing could be farther from the truth. Until anyone gets to actually count the money, nobody knows.

Anyone attending the VHRR monthly meetings will know the $ turnover for Phillip Island. Anyone going to the V8 Supercar 'Toll Racing' Team outing recently will also know that the budget to run that one team is something like six times the turnover for the whole event at PI. That's the difference between 'amateur' & 'professional'. And, to even get involved at a 'professional' level, someone has to be paid a 'franchise fee'!

So, for the VHRR Committee, with it's small band of unpaid volunteers to have achieved what they have with The Phillip Island Classic, by focussing on the Big Picture, deserves not only the highest accolades, but some respect for their past achievements, and feelings.

Regards
Grant

[Big Rev Nev]

Grant,
well said. I was on a committee of another car club some time ago and its hard; you never please all the people all the time. The various VHRR committees are acheiving fantastic results with the club, Philip Island, Sandown, hill climbs, etc.... Everyone must understand that it is made up of volunteers, doing their best (and its fantastic) to provide top quality, safe and profitable events for members.

Keep up the great work committee's and thanks,

Big Rev Nev.