Team Dynamics 2000

[John]

I know hindsight is a wonderful thing - but I was just interested in knowing how much it would have cost to run a secont car in the 2000 championship.

Before the season there seemed a clear disadvantage to having only one car when the works teams had three - both in terms of learning set up and in race strategy (often Matt was 'ganged up on' by those running around him).

I know the cars are expensive to run but theres a couple of points to make before you all say 'there was no way they could afford it'
-They won the £250,000 + a further £105,000 in prize money in 99 - the 250,000 esp could have been thought of as a bonus (ie not necessarily expected) and put into the 2000 season.
-They had a very experienced driver within the team in the form of Tim Harvey who could have been the second driver
-In the final rounds the team were forced to run their 98 Nissan as the 99 car was damaged in practice - the car still qualified 5th for both races, so even if running two 99 cars was not possible the 98 car would not have been totally outclassed.

I know its nearly 3 years ago now - but I'm interested to know what others views are - esp anyone with experience of running a team or being involved behind the scenes of a supertouring team.

Thanks

[King Cleland]

An interesting point of view... you are right! The 98 Nissan was not outclassed, however, I don't think it would be enough to run a car throughout the season on that sort of money!

[John]

Yeah I know - just dreaming I think but presumably costs would be offset to some extent by extra TV exposure and a better championship postion - and it would have made the indy championship more entertaining! (not that that would have been difficult!)

[King Cleland]

Would have been interesting!

Maybe a pay driver could have covered the cost for the second seat!

[touringlegend]

Hey they didn't have such sorts as pay drivers back in the day!

[King Cleland]

No I know, but they could have brought one in!

It was an independant team afterall and many of the Indy drivers didn't get paid!

[thommo_fan]

does anyone know if aaronn slight got paid last year?
i'd be surprised if he didn't

[John]

I would have thought he was paid (but that is just a guess) due to the perceived 'crowd pull' of the name alone - by this I mean there were probably far more people visiting Barwell's pit garage during the walk about to get Slight's autograph than Tom Chilton's (no disrespect to Tom) because of his reputation and time in WSBs.

However the other side of the coin is in terms of BTC experience he had only had one race in 2001 at Donnington and the Tourist Trophy in 1997 in a Honda - so as he is trying to get into car racing now maybe he would have been prepared to drive without pay.

Still would say he was paid by Barwell though. What about 2001 though - anyone got any ideas, it was a BMP funded deal wasnt it? But did Slight get anything?

[thommo_fan]

he did drive a factory pug in 2001 so i reckon he got a small fee, but then again it was only for one race.

[King Cleland]

It was planned for more but Eaves F*#@ed up his car!

[John]

Yeah you can see that towards the end of the season Eaves is racing a car with a blue 'Peugeot' sun strip when he started out with a yellow one - and I think Slight's was blue at Donnington (ie the same car??)

Shame cos we were expecting 3 Peugeots at all rounds with a 4th at quite a few and what we got was 2 and Matt at Brands and Slight at Donnington - pity!

[King Cleland]

2001 got better and the end of the season, with 11 cars, but at the rounds where it was like 6 cars racing, that was just ridiculous and embarrasing!

[John]

I was at Knockhill - Alfa only brought one car (which never made it past the parae lap in the feature) Dans car couldnt be fixed after sprint race and the Lexus went out on lap one or two - so there wasnt much out on track!!

[King Cleland]

I remember taking a car full of mates saying its awesome and all this, and it turns out with 7 cars and one Alfa Romeo smoke machine! :rolleyes:

I never noticed the visor thing, will have a look now! :)

[John]

Originally posted by King Cleland
I never noticed the visor thing, will have a look now! :)

Im sad like that - I prefer to use observant though!! ;)

Dont think Ive got any other useless info at the moment though!

[thommo_fan]

Originally posted by King Cleland
I remember taking a car full of mates saying its awesome and all this, and it turns out with 7 cars and one Alfa Romeo smoke machine! :rolleyes:

that was the worst possilbe start for the new style btcc.

thankfully they combined the 2 classes for the sprint race at thruxton.

[John]

The round one grid did look pretty pathetic didnt it?! I could have driven my car round and finished at least 8th with no problem!Could even have done that on my bike!

But at least it got better - and its worth pointing out that the alternative was to carry on with supertouring and how many STs would have been there? Less as the year went on and less in 2002 I would guess.

[King Cleland]

Yes, well luckily I took the same group to Donington and they loved it! :D