From what i hear it might take a while Orrinc are looking after it and i can't see them going ahead with eight rounds, so they might have to reject a couple. i would be happy with,
BAROOTA SEALAKE FINKE GOONDIWINDI MILLICENT
But i would like to see what the new Gatton event goes like
Only problem is Garry you cant have Finke and Sealake in the same Championship as they are on at the same time. It would have been good to see Griffith back or for that matter any AORC round in NSW would be good.
Yeah Steve Finke and Sealake are going to be the biggest problem Orrinc has to sort, if Griffith came back on board as a National round it would be my first choice the closer to home the better for me.
I still think have all the eight rounds that nominated but you must do five, it gives greater flexibility on time and budgets.
Problem with 8 and you drop 3 or 8 and you choose 5, is its makes it very hard to present a consistent product to the general public and sponsors. ORRINC would not know what they are selling round by round and organisers would have no security in what they are doing with their events. IMO For the championship to grow the events need to have some sort of security in the field of cars they expect so they can plan improvements to their events.
What about AORcom and Orrinc doing this abit different and puting up the dates and number of rounds they would like events run. i.e spacing, times etc then having all 8 of the promoters nominate for an event at the time they would like. It may work. It always seem that the most races are between June and the end of August on ever state calender but a September date for Pines suits them, Gundy's August date worked ok but the old October date may also work, sure Tassy may apply but i bet we wouldn't want to go in the middle of winter. Maybe March would work. We have 8 keen promoters that want to run events so lets give them 5 dates(seems a good number) and let them apply. just throwing it out there.
I can see your point Jeremy but with the number of cars doing Nationals if you have a more flexible series you might attract more State guy's further swelling the numbers and giving a guarantee of entrants (Sealake & Finke weekend around 200 )
There are probably guy's doing the series this year because they don't have to travel all over the country, with more rounds comes more options when you have a budget. For me i probably saved about twenty grand not doing Hyden and Finke this year.
Has anyone got any idea how many entrants at the average national represent each state? It would appear to me that NSW does not have many serious national competitors? (compared with other states) Do people think a NSW round would create more interest from us, or are we being left behind by the other states? Griffith has been a traditional round, but why does NSW rely on them? Other venues could apply?
I'm sure AORCom or ORRInc have their fingers on the pulse and know all those sorts of demograghic figures. I think it would be fair to say that a lack of a regular AORC round in NSW has left us behind the rest of the country i bit. I feel that in the past anAORC round in your home state has boosting effect on all the off road racing in that state. I dont think NSW relies on Griffith Jonesy but they are the only ones for a number of years that have run an AORC round. Big Kempsey died about 10 years ago amd Dubbo alot more than that. I'd love to see an AORC event at Milbrodale but I fear a change in Milbrodales race format would be neccesary as it wouldnt fit the AORC format and that would detract from what we love about Milbrodale. Wittitrin would be good but I dont think they would want it and Warialda isn't that far from Goondiwindi anyway and sadly there doesnt seem to be anything else on the horizon. Ofcourse we could always do 65 laps of Colo Park :) God I feel dizzy :(
I think competitors proved this year that it is the track & not the state. Sea Lake got great numbers, Milura never got anything like Sea Lake's numbers in recent times yet the tracks are quite close to each other. People see NSW as Griffith, I think if you want good consistant numbers then Griffith is your only option for a national. Just my two bobs worth.