Is Racing Getting Too Expensive?

[Yorick]

Just been chatting to a racing pal.

He's doing the BMW 900 BSB support class. He told me the costs and was shocking. None of the sponsors money goes to the riders.
For some reason they're forced to use race fuel at £4 a litre.
And must buy tyres from designated seller who has huge mark up. Needs 4 per weekend.

He reckons he knocks out about £1,000 a meeting. Without entry fees

One of the British Talent Cup lads is part of the Michael Laverty camp.

Guess how much he pays each year for the ride?
Think big.

[Rockburner]

I'd imagine a BSB support class to be pretty expensive.

[Yorick]

£42,000. Just for the ride. He's about 16.

[mangocrazy]

Just been chatting to a racing pal.

He's doing the BMW 900 BSB support class. He told me the costs and was shocking. None of the sponsors money goes to the riders.
For some reason they're forced to use race fuel at £4 a litre.

There can't be any justification for that. It's a road bike, use road bike fuel at street prices.

And must buy tyres from designated seller who has huge mark up. Needs 4 per weekend.

That's just blatant profiteering. By all means enforce a control tyre, but allow the competitors to buy from a cheaper source.

There has to be some serious backhanders going on by the organisers.

[Bustaspoke]

There can't be any justification for that. It's a road bike, use road bike fuel at street prices.

That's just blatant profiteering. By all means enforce a control tyre, but allow the competitors to buy from a cheaper source.

There has to be some serious backhanders going on by the organisers.

Regarding fuel,if it's a control fuel the tank will be dipped & tested,non compliant fuel you get disqualified.
One of my mate's ran in the BSB 125 class & every couple of years a new fuel supplier would get the contract,one year when the contract fuel changed there were so many engine failures at the first few rounds that the teams had a meeting in the paddock.They reasoned that the detergents in the fuel was washing away the 2 stroke oil from the cylinders causing lots of engine seizures & all the teams wanted to revert back to the previous seasons fuel.The BSB management wouldn't back down so they were all trying different oils to try & get the bikes to last the race..
With the tyres,if they're all getting their tyres from the same supplier then in theory that rules out skullduggery & 'special'tyres.
They'll have to find other ways to gain an edge..

[KungFooBob]

I've raced in a control tyre series.

We used Dunlop's. The guy who organised the series went to Dunlop every year and asked if they wanted to provide a tyre.

They'd suggest a suitable model (whatever they wanted to sell I guess) and provided them to a specific supplier at a special price for the series.

Usually Dennis Trollope. They'd be provided to series competitors at a 'special price' if their name was on the list of registered racers for that series.

I used to get the Dunlop control tyres at £180 a pair, when we started using wets we got those at £180 a pair too.

I priced the wets up and we were getting them at least £100 a pair cheaper than anywhere else, the dry tyres maybe 50-80 cheaper.

Denis would fit them for free at meetings too. He even dropped a pair off at my house once as he was passing!

I had to put two full 'Dunlop' stickers of a certain size on my bike along with two Dunlop Arrow stickers on the mudguard.

This was a good 7-8 years ago.

[Skub]

It's nearly always been cost prohibitive without sponsors,but more so now. Can you imagine a privateer winning a world championship now,like Jon Ekerold did in 1980 and he did it against Tony Mang,a colossus of the time.

[Yorick]

There can't be any justification for that. It's a road bike, use road bike fuel at street prices.

That's just blatant profiteering. By all means enforce a control tyre, but allow the competitors to buy from a cheaper source.

There has to be some serious backhanders going on by the organisers.

Regarding fuel,if it's a control fuel the tank will be dipped & tested,non compliant fuel you get disqualified.
One of my mate's ran in the BSB 125 class & every couple of years a new fuel supplier would get the contract,one year when the contract fuel changed there were so many engine failures at the first few rounds that the teams had a meeting in the paddock.They reasoned that the detergents in the fuel was washing away the 2 stroke oil from the cylinders causing lots of engine seizures & all the teams wanted to revert back to the previous seasons fuel.The BSB management wouldn't back down so they were all trying different oils to try & get the bikes to last the race..
With the tyres,if they're all getting their tyres from the same supplier then in theory that rules out skullduggery & 'special'tyres.
They'll have to find other ways to gain an edge..

Tyres are standard Supercorsas. And they have to buy supersoft. A medium would do 2 races

[Flux]

I've not renewed my race license this year, but still enjoy a few Td's but even that's getting ridiculous. Oulton now £200/ day Donno not far behind. Just bought 1 front and 2 rears, £751.
Historically I've done about 20 days/year with closer to 30 when racing full seasons. Think I'm gonna limit myself to 10/year from now. It's not even that I can't afford it, I just think it's starting to take the piss and when I can have a weekend in Wales on the mtb for a fraction of the cost.....

[Cousin Jack]

All motorsport is busy pricing itself out of reach of private individuals.

Back in my yoof a mate was quite successful in local sprints and hill climbs with a Mini, modified but cheaply. He raced against all sorts, from Jags to JAP-powered specials. Today that just doesn't happen, all races have so many rules and regulations all of which seem to add cost. Just look at F1, many drivers have a Dad in the sport, or a millionaire Dad. All motorsport, car and bike, seems intent on going the same way.

[Tricky]

Yup, no doubt about it, race entry fees have a risen a lot over the years, but what hasn't I guess, and tyre bills are a very big part of the costs these days , even to be competitive at club level in a lot of the classes- if you want to run at the sharp-end of the 600 supersport class at NG or Bemseee, then you will be looking at 2 sets of tyres min (which basically = £1k) per meeting
As @KungFooBob posted, there have been, and still very much are cheaper ways of going racing- The tyre subsidy is still there for the DesmoDues, and the Bandits, which also have had the Dunlop TT control tyre for the last couple of seasons- £220/pair fitted at the circuit, and you can do a whole season on two sets and still be up there

As @Yorick says in the OP though, the MSV cartel/mark-up is big, and just plain stinky IMO , not just on the fuel and tyres either- the F900R boys at least manage to escape having to fit the over-priced custom ECUs and looms etc that just about every other MSV (woops, I mean BSB ) class does

I know that Yozza's mate knows all this as he's been there, and done it at club level in many different classes prior to going F900R, but yeah, if you want to be in a UK National level televised class, then you really have to be in the BSB paddock, and that means bending over and chipping in to keep JP's helicopter in the air and his bank balance overflowing....

[Mr Moofo]

I was just invited to a Ducati track day ( can't remember where) but it's 200 GBP
That seems a little salty !

[Yorick]

To put it into perspective. Dave was doing Superstocks ( now BSB) in late 80s and was getting regular top 10s. Even held Cadwell outright lap record at one time.

Then did the Euro 500 champs on Padgett's ex Schwant RG500.

He reckons they were much cheaper than even the support classes today.

[Bustaspoke]

This turned up in my YT feed earlier.I think here's as good a place as any to post it.



He's burning through tyre's at Cadwell this weekend,13th in yesterday's sprint race

[weeksy]

This turned up in my YT feed earlier.I think here's as good a place as any to post it.



He's burning through tyre's at Cadwell this weekend,13th in yesterday's sprint race

Many of us gave been mates of Gav at MSG Racing for a loonnnnng time. The bloke gives a LOT to the paddock for sure.

[Tricky]

This turned up in my YT feed earlier.I think here's as good a place as any to post it.



He's burning through tyre's at Cadwell this weekend,13th in yesterday's sprint race

Many of us gave been mates of Gav at MSG Racing for a loonnnnng time. The bloke gives a LOT to the paddock for sure.

The vid was interesting, and the comment about how relatively cheap the entry fees are as they're about the same as club race entry fees made me smile- I think a more accurate statement would be how expensive club racing ones are.
I've just looked in my old 1980s racing folder- my 1987 entry fees for a full weekend at Cadwell with New Era which gave me 6 races was £38 back then- the Cadwell NG round I did earlier this year cost me £545 in entry fees, that gave me 2 races each day. and included the Friday test day

For interest's sake, I've just run that 1987 cost through the BoE inflation cost calculator, and it came up with a 2024 value of £106- that's a long way from £545
I realise that a lot of the then and now cost difference will be due to huge insurance cost increases, and I don't have hard evidence for this statement, but I am pretty sure that the lion's share of the increases will be due to the MSV factor

It was Gav who told me about the outrageous costs for the control ECU and looms that they have to run- apparently over £4k + VAT for the ECU and £2.5k for the loom, you can buy from one place only, and have to pay upfront without an agreed delivery timeframe- they were apparently kept waiting for their stuff for months.
I understand that the leveling of different bikes in needs to be done through a common ECU, but it the consensus seems to be that there's definite profiteering going on there.....

[mangocrazy]

The vid was interesting, and the comment about how relatively cheap the entry fees are as they're about the same as club race entry fees made me smile- I think a more accurate statement would be how expensive club racing ones are.
I've just looked in my old 1980s racing folder- my 1987 entry fees for a full weekend at Cadwell with New Era which gave me 6 races was £38 back then- the Cadwell NG round I did earlier this year cost me £545 in entry fees, that gave me 2 races each day. and included the Friday test day

For interest's sake, I've just run that 1987 cost through the BoE inflation cost calculator, and it came up with a 2024 value of £106- that's a long way from £545
I realise that a lot of the then and now cost difference will be due to huge insurance cost increases, and I don't have hard evidence for this statement, but I am pretty sure that the lion's share of the increases will be due to the MSV factor

It was Gav who told me about the outrageous costs for the control ECU and looms that they have to run- apparently over £4k + VAT for the ECU and £2.5k for the loom, you can buy from one place only, and have to pay upfront without an agreed delivery timeframe- they were apparently kept waiting for their stuff for months.
I understand that the leveling of different bikes in needs to be done through a common ECU, but it the consensus seems to be that there's definite profiteering going on there.....

I'm surprised no-one has thought to refer MSV to the Competition and Markets Authority. A monopoly is precisely what MSV has become, and they are flagrantly abusing that position.

[Bustaspoke]

The vid was interesting, and the comment about how relatively cheap the entry fees are as they're about the same as club race entry fees made me smile- I think a more accurate statement would be how expensive club racing ones are.
I've just looked in my old 1980s racing folder- my 1987 entry fees for a full weekend at Cadwell with New Era which gave me 6 races was £38 back then- the Cadwell NG round I did earlier this year cost me £545 in entry fees, that gave me 2 races each day. and included the Friday test day

For interest's sake, I've just run that 1987 cost through the BoE inflation cost calculator, and it came up with a 2024 value of £106- that's a long way from £545

I was surprised when he mentioned the race fees.I raced a 250LC in the early 80's & the race entry fee seemed pretty reasonable.
I know racing's expensive,but I didn't realise it now costs £545 for a club meeting
I guess the Thread title also applies to Club racing...

[KungFooBob]

£545 includes the pre-meeting practice day. Which many (only me) consider cheating.

[Yorick]

I was surprised when he mentioned the race fees.I raced a 250LC in the early 80's & the race entry fee seemed pretty reasonable.
I know racing's expensive,but I didn't realise it now costs £545 for a club meeting
I guess the Thread title also applies to Club racing...

I was racing at same time. Usually about £20 for one class. 2 races.
Then add £2 for each subsequent class.

I once did 10 races with Formula 5