All this talk of the "bad old days" of trackdays really is a load of crap. The only ppl who may have suffered from the competition back then were the operators, not the track owners or the consumers.
Like any business the strong survive and the others move on, its called competition, is part of the democratic society we live in and is a healthy thing for the consumers. The only ppl who have gained from the sole operator policy is the operator who got it.
The track owners were paid for the track hire and if ppl didn't show up to the ride day the owners still got payed.! If all these operators were supposedly doing it so tough why did they ALL line up every year to do it again, and don't forget the stink from them all when they lost the opportunity to "loose money" when the sole operator was appointed.
The prices have risen substantially, the amount of days have been reduced, they are booked out weeks, sometimes months, in advance and theres less track time at EC than before. Yeh, its much better for the riders now isn't it.??
Yes, the days are better organised and I'm sure the track owners (ardc or "OUR" GOV.?) and the operator are happy about this, there profit margins and ease of organisition but has it really helped the consumer or the sport.? Is it bringing more riders to the track, is it increasing the grids at race meetings as riders move up.?
Bring back the bad old days, as it was these days that built the popularity of track days that others have then capitilised on..
Have a talk to Dave Stone about it one day...
Please do not take this personally but there are a couple of obvious problems with your argument Mr Pirate.
To start off with if you don't mind a question, why did the majority of circuits decide to go down the exclusive operator path if the only people who gained from it were the ride day operators?
The circuits often were losing out quite badly as many of the operators were cancelling days at or near the last moment and then each year arguing with the circuit owners about the annual track hire increases, sometimes aggressively so I'm told. If it was so good for the tracks they would have stayed with the system because as you said there were more tracks days back then which meant more track bookings for them. The tracks business is to hire the circuit out so if your argument was correct then why would they turn away such good business? The reason was it wasn't good business and it was costing them to leave it they way it was.
I know Dave Stone quite well and while I have not spoken to him for sometime I think he would agree who in particular was usually the main instigator of the ride day operator related issues in NSW.
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Re: wakefield changes
Re: (Pirate) 21/12 09:43 AM 