FSRA F350/Post Classic Championship, Round 1 Donington Park

[pat]

Just a reminder that the closing date for entries for Round 1 of the 2012 FSRA F350/Post Classic Championship is today 23 March, if you intend entering this meeting and don't want to incur late entry costs, your entry must be with Auto 66 no later than Wednesday 28th March.

I will be accepting late registrations at this meeting for the series.

Pat

[G JONES]

We've just had our entry back - a bit shocked / disappointed to see we cannot get into the paddock until 7am on Monday - we can camp outside the circuit though on Sunday.
As we only have very "basic facilities" - we need to pitch our workshop tent & empty the van into it to sleep in the van - so it's not really practical to load it all again to move it a few hundred yards on Monday morning.
Does anyone know what the problem is with Donington ? - we can get into all the other circuits the previous night without any problems.
I guess it will just have to be an early start from home on Monday morning - but it's always better to get set up on the previous evening if at all possible...

[Big Tim]

According to the regulations, access should be allowed the evening before -

Competitors are not allowed into the paddock area before 6.30pm the night prior to the event.

Quite a few F2 competitors I know of are racing at Mallory with EMRA on Sunday, then on to Donington straight after racing to prepare for Monday. I'm sure they would like to have been able to set up in the paddock in order to clean / check over their outfits.

[G JONES]

According to the regulations, access should be allowed the evening before -

Competitors are not allowed into the paddock area before 6.30pm the night prior to the event.

Quite a few F2 competitors I know of are racing at Mallory with EMRA on Sunday, then on to Donington straight after racing to prepare for Monday. I'm sure they would like to have been able to set up in the paddock in order to clean / check over their outfits.

Hi Tim - the final instructions I have say:
"The paddock will not be open until 7am on Monday, there will be an area outside the circuit where you will be allowed to camp overnight. No fires must be lit and no loud radios or music played."
Not very helpful really - just wondering if there's any point phoning Donington or Auto 66 to see if that can be changed (waste of a phone call I guess )
Anyone doing emra Mallory is going to have to do the work before they leave Mallory - or Monday Morning before Scrut'ing...

[little chud]

Hi Gordon,

I just called and they confirmed we can't get in untill 7am. We can camp outside if we wish

However the lady did say there is a car meeting on sunday and that some people had said they were going to try get in after 8pm sunday night.

I'm glad we are getting good value for our vast entry fees

jc

[little chud]

perhaps this is why they don't allow us in?

http://www.donington-park.co.uk/about-d ... n/camping/

[David Stewart]

This doesn't sound like it's Donington Park being awkward. I know from my time there that the local NW leicestershire EHO set very stringent conditions on overnight use of the venue within the 10 foot wall (and obviously the paddock areas are within the 10 foot wall).

When we (Thundersport GB) were there 2 weeks ago, the circuit could not have been more helpful and a lot of our competitors were on site from Thursday until very early on Monday morning. It's just a case of doing a simple exercise with the local authority, a risk assesment, method statement, staffing level and providing overnight fire & medical cover. Obviously all of those things cost a few quid, but we were quite happy to pay it as our competitors had paid us £260 (£130 per day) for the weekends racing and we felt those extra costs were well spent in order to make things more comfortable for them.

Donington Park Farmhouse doesn't belong to the circuit either, it is independently owned and run by John Shields, so there is no motivation for the circuit to push you in that direction.

I think in this instance you have to enquire of the club (which club is it?) as to why they haven't done more forward planning, rather than automatically blaming the venue.

[G JONES]

This doesn't sound like it's Donington Park being awkward. I know from my time there that the local NW leicestershire EHO set very stringent conditions on overnight use of the venue within the 10 foot wall (and obviously the paddock areas are within the 10 foot wall).

When we (Thundersport GB) were there 2 weeks ago, the circuit could not have been more helpful and a lot of our competitors were on site from Thursday until very early on Monday morning. It's just a case of doing a simple exercise with the local authority, a risk assesment, method statement, staffing level and providing overnight fire & medical cover. Obviously all of those things cost a few quid, but we were quite happy to pay it as our competitors had paid us £260 (£130 per day) for the weekends racing and we felt those extra costs were well spent in order to make things more comfortable for them.

Donington Park Farmhouse doesn't belong to the circuit either, it is independently owned and run by John Shields, so there is no motivation for the circuit to push you in that direction.

I think in this instance you have to enquire of the club (which club is it?) as to why they haven't done more forward planning, rather than automatically blaming the venue.

Hi Dave - thanks for the interesting comments - as a comparison - we are paying £200 for the one day meeting (Auto 66) - a lot of cash for some of us - but to have no previous evening time to get set up for the day - it's a bit more disappointing (to say the least)
Anyone that doesn't have a motorhome will have to pitch camp twice - and just to move a few hundred yards into the paddock - there's not usually a lot of time on the morning of a race day - without having to set up before scrutineering.
OK - the Sunday (car) racing has a finish time of 1820 - I would be happy if we could get in to the paddock a couple of hours later to give them time to pack up - it would be better than having it all to do in the morning.
The club (AFAIK) - have not explained anything - just the final instructions stating the 7am paddock entry limit - would be interesting to know if it was the circuit - or the club imposing this...

[bruce moore]

Gordon,,its shit like this that makes me glad i gave up

[G JONES]

Gordon,,its sh*t like this that makes me glad i gave up

Quite right Bruce - was talking to Joe Heys earlier - he's not had his entry back yet - he was intending going Sunday as well - not at all pleased either...

[WILSON RACING]

Hi Gordon, ive just been on the phone with Joe for the last half hour. Cant believe we cant get in the paddock , its ridiculous !! Especially for the teams with large awnings and gennys etc. Were just gonna pitch up outside on sunday then at least we are there . Your right we not had our entry back yet although i called Auto 66 today and they assured me that they will arrive tomorrow, i hope they are right though.......

[G JONES]

Hi Gordon, ive just been on the phone with Joe for the last half hour. Cant believe we cant get in the paddock , its ridiculous !! Especially for the teams with large awnings and gennys etc. Were just gonna pitch up outside on sunday then at least we are there . Your right we not had our entry back yet although i called Auto 66 today and they assured me that they will arrive tomorrow, i hope they are right though.......

We're very lucky to have got ours at all - I'm sending a waterproof SAE next time - the one I had posted through our letterbox this morning had 2 sides completely open - & soaking wet too
Not decided what to do just yet - I'd prefer to be there on Sunday - but having to move everything on Monday morning doesn't appeal too much...

[ChrisWells]

For each practice and race, just drive your sidecar in the front gate from your pit which you set up in the designated area the night before?

I once got lost on the way to a track in the Quebec country side (where the locals and I spoke different languages). Arrived in the pitch dark to find I had missed the 7pmish gate closing along with a big line up of other racers that filled the access road to the gate. So I struggled to get my van and trailer off the narrow country road for the night, finally getting parked on some grass, kicking my pit crew out with a pup tent and crawling in to bed in the back with my passenger/gf (luckily all our stuff fit in the trailer at that time and we didn't have to unpack to sleep in the van). I woke up early in the morning to one of my pit crew tapping on the window. When I opened the van door he said "the track owner would like us to remove our tent, van and trailer from his front lawn"

[David Stewart]

I'm not normally big on sticking up for circuits, because in many instances they do in fact coin it on race meetings, charging far more than a track day hire for a race meeting. This even though a race meeting creates gate revenue that all stays with the circuit and the hiring club supplies and pays for all the medical and marshalling serives (included in a track day hire). That my friends is a totally different subject and one that I could very easily quite easily get fairly "heated" about.

So just to make 1000% sure I wasn't defending the indefensible, I fished out the standard circuit hire agreement for Donington Park last night. There large as life in black & white are the conditions for paddock occupation the night before a race meeting. They are simple to comply with, clear & concise.

If the club choses to opt out of those conditions in order to save a bit of time, effort and money, I can't see how you can possibly lay the blame for any of that at the circuits door. You are the customer of the club, that is who you paid your money to and that is who you have a contract of sale/supply with. Did they tell you that you could have overnight camping WITHIN THE PADDOCK included in your entry fee?

The MSV Circuits (Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Cadwell Park & Oulton Park) and BARC Circuits (Croft, Mallory Park, Pembrey and Thruxton) circuit hire contracts are written slightly differently and the costs for overnight paddock use are already added into the main circuit hire. I was one of the people back in the mid 1990s who helped re-write those contracts, as Brands Hatch Leisure, as we were then, were fed up with clubs opting out of those costs and then blaming the greedy circuits for failing to supply services that had been offered and then declined by the clubs to save money.

The difference now being that Donington Park is currently much cheaper to hire than five of those circuits and not much more than Cadwell Park at the moment. They also have a very industrious and career minded EHO at their local authority who is intent on writing up every single breach of their new planning permissions with a view to getting the circuit useage minimised. If she found out that they were allowing people to stay within the restricted area without overnight fire or medical cover, the circuit would get its date allocation halved. Do you want that?

The club concerned is charging a very hefty premium rate for entry, yet has opted out of those extra costs, that don't actually add up to more than £1,500 plus a bit of effort in total. HOW is that the fault of the venue? I repeat, we had no issues with being able to comply with those regulations and our competitors were probably unaware that there even were any restrictions because we did the extra work and picked up the costs ALL for a much smaller entry fee!

Go figure, it's not that difficult to work out.

[G JONES]

The club concerned is charging a very hefty premium rate for entry, yet has opted out of those extra costs, that don't actually add up to more than £1,500 plus a bit of effort in total. HOW is that the fault of the venue? I repeat, we had no issues with being able to comply with those regulations and our competitors were probably unaware that there even were any restrictions because we did the extra work and picked up the costs ALL for a much smaller entry fee!

Go figure, it's not that difficult to work out.

Thanks for all that Dave - appreciate you taking the time
So to summarize - the circuit are not to blame ? - & considering the "hefty premium" - your (correct) interpretation - we might reasonably expect to have access to the paddock a bit earlier than 7am on Race-day ?
Or are we being unreasonable ? - I guess we've paid the premium before we know what we're getting for our money - the final instructions are the first we know about the lack of paddock access - "supplier" has the money - too late for "customer" to do anything about it ?
The Regs for the meeting state the following:
"Competitors are not allowed into the paddock area before 6.30pm the night prior to the event."
I had assumed from this that the paddock would be available....