Historic Formula Ford 2000 Association

I think we went back to Classic FF2000 in 2008.

Well it is a complicated old business and I have given it some thought… Trying to be dispassionate, ignoring my own investment in 82s. Looking at what this thread reveals and relating that to what I have been learning about UK motorsport in the past 12 months that is so much more than I learnt in the previous 3 decades as marshal and then competitor.

Bottom line – it is all about money. Might seem fairly obvious but to be able to run any series/championship someone has to bankroll it. In the UK there are basically two extremes of how that happens and some mixing of the variations in between

1. A Club (like BARC, BRSCC, HSCC, MSVR) that provides race meetings (hires the circuits, the time keepers, the scrutineers etc) is persuaded to run a series and they charge entry fees for the competitors. These providers take the risk (and any profit) from the entry fees against their costs.
2. A group (like Monoposto) or even an individual, hires specific track time from the meeting providers in 1 above in order to be the organisers of a series. The providers and organisers agree a financial deal and it is the organiser of the series who then takes the risk of profit/loss against the entries they can sell.

Between these two there may be some risk sharing where perhaps a meeting provider needs/wants a headline event to bring in the paying spectators – but at many club events it isn’t the providing club that gets those revenues but the circuit owners or someone ‘owns’ the series and has a financial stake in it.

Thus for any series to be able to ‘get on the grid’ someone needs to either convince a providing club to take the risk or stump up the track hire fees and take the costs themselves.

The Monoposto Racing Club prospectus says “MRC is constituted as a Community Amateur Sports Club. The Club spends approximately £200,000 annually, buying track time on behalf of its members.”

UK circuit hire ranges from approx £110 to £210 per minute depending on the circuit.

I was recently asked by members of another championship (hasn’t been mentioned in this thread and I won’t elaborate!) that is running only just into double figures.. “do you think another club would take us?”. My reply was, “Certainly, several clubs would take you if you are all prepared to pay 3 or 4 times what you currently pay – then you would be highly profitable to them”.

For CFF2000, unless there is a philanthropist prepared to bank roll the series then it will only be on track in the future if a Club is prepared to run it. BARC have been very loyal (and I give them MASSIVE thumbs up for running your Croft round with so few cars unlike 750MC who cancelled the first round of the replacement for F4 and that never ran again after loosing all credibility) and new guy Drew is very experienced after his time at BRSCC, but they will need to consider their options. Anyone will need to be really convinced it is worth doing.

In this thread I note that various possible mergers/grid shares are suggested but I do notice a common theme. The ‘we want our cars to be the Class A cars’, eg the ones who take the chequered flag theme. In other words, 'we don’t like class racing but would put up with it as long as we are the dominant class'. As a negotiating point to go in with any other series that isn’t a very good hand to hold as the likely reaction could be “why should we let you muscle in with us?”.

So I throw in a real ‘curved ball’ idea, CFF2000 run as the effective class B with BARC in a race series that also resurrects the BARC Formula Renault (the 3rd gen cars, say up to 2009 or 2010, not the very newest ones) series that didn’t get relaunched when it got dumped rather harshly at the start of this year. Both series would be ‘series’ as neither has a championship permit. Build a strong showing as a series and maybe work back to being a stand alone championship?

Funnily enough Steve, I made a couple of suggestions to Ian Watson at BARC for future single seater races. One was FF2000 up to 89 and the other was a Formula Renault with classes to cover all the various different eras. I didn't actually suggest combining FF2000 with them I must admit. Anyway, nothing much happened as we all know. Having run in all classes of Formula Renault, maybe I should make some approaches to Drew to see if I can generate some excitement with him.

Got to be worth finding out your options Bob.

For added info, Monoposto has announced that
"The Formula Renault 2.0L 16V 2000 onwards car will cease to be eligible for any class from 1 Jan 2017
Note that the 95 to 99 8V cars will continue to be eligible" http://www.monoposto.co.uk/2015/08/technical-update/

So BARC (who had become the natural home for FRs) could be the only place the 16V cars run (and there should be loads of them shouldn't there?)

Mono only has one 16V running this year and only three 8v.

Also a bit 'left field' but a number of Jedi run in mono as well as the BRSCC having the series for them. Drew might comment from his 'former life' but I think that Champ is fighting to keep championship status and may be another option for CFF2000 as a class B.

You can get some good info on lap speed differences (dry and wet) from Castle Combe on Monday when Rodney Toft ran his 82 within combined Mono races. http://www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=CCRC/2015/153568mon.pdf.

Since the reverse of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' is 'if it is broke then fix it', either CFF2000 is OK and rosy in its present form or it needs something a bit significant to fix it..... and number 1 of the fixes is making sure it actually has some races for people to enter next year.

I'm not sure there is an objection to running as a "Class B" car if that's in the best interest of the series. After all that's effectively the situation with the CF3 cars already (even though Ian does his best to make it seem otherwise!)

I guess one option is to become a classic single seater series (pre 2000?) including later FF2000, 1800 and 2litre 8 valve Formula Renaults. The cars should be similar in performance anyway, but equalising them could be an option.

The questions are however - would this be preferable to running with CF3/HSCC FF2000 on a more permanent basis? and would it attract enough extra cars? It's certainly something to explore though.

I suspect opening up to later Formula 16v Renaults could be detrimental to the current classic FF2000 cars. The later Renaults are significantly quicker, but also significantly more expensive/complex to run (carbon tubs etc). There is too much of a generational gap between the cars and it runs the risk of becoming too similar to what monoposto already offers.

I spoke with Allan at the Gold cup meeting and suggested that we need to make the URS package more attractive to lure the cars out of hibernation. I suggested some kind of Formula Ford festival which would include heats and finals, there would be races for FF1600 , FF2000, Classic and Historic (seperate races )and maybe even Sports 2000, Allan had also suggesed the same idea previously.
Yesterday I spoke with Peter Hacket who reckons he is already on the case and could organise something at Mallory Park, its only at the idea stage at the moment but it could well work especially with Peter and Allan behind it, then get Andrew Mansell to sort out the 1600's and you've got the three best organisers in the business.
What do you think?

I think it's an excellent idea, I don't think it will provide any permanent cure to the CFF2000 problem, but it could well be a superb event.

The idea of a pre 2000 classic single seater series is a good one. A well driven 8 valve Renault however would just run away and hide, 3 or 4 seconds a lap round Thruxton if I remember rightly, but it's still a good idea.

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If you can get a 'proper' place on the HSCC ticket then that would be ideal, finding the right slot with them and their existing series might be a challenge.

Failing that, in the short term you need to find a place to run in 2016 because if you take a sabbatical it is very hard for the series to ever come back.

When thinking about any new combinations remember that the MSA has to issue a permit and they do look to see if there is already a series/championship doing basically the same thing and they don't look kindly on such applications for obvious reasons.

The 1999/2000 era zetec ex F4 cars are in one of the strongest Mono classes and seem to get their best races when they are in the same race as the carbon tub 'Dallara F3' class (where the sole FRenault also races). I have no doubt a race of half FRs (with the BARC spec restrictors) and half RF82s would be just as good.

But if there is no objection to class racing and you are prepared to accept a non RF82 taking the actual chequered flag, the CFF2000 cars should want to see the others run away and hide as it is in effect 2 races on the 1 grid.