Bright's Column on the Series

[Mike D]

Brighty's latest column on www.speedtv.com:

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BRIGHT: Feeder Fragility
Entry level motorsport is changing in Australia, including the Fujitsu Series that supports the V8 Supercars.
Jason Bright
http://www.jasonbright.com.au/
Posted July 09, 2010

Entry level motorsport is changing in Australia. The well-trodden karting-single-seaters-V8s path I used is now being reinvented, with young Aussie drivers skipping single-seaters and moving straight into the development series, a championship founded about a decade ago.

The Fujitsu Series, as it’s now known, was meant to be somewhere to blood young drivers for the V8 Supercar Championship but also an avenue for the main game teams to retire their cars. The idea was good but, like any motorsport category, the more competitive it gets the more expensive it becomes and now we’re seeing falling grid numbers, escalating costs and worse competition.

Front-running Fujitsu Series teams are competing for young drivers’ money and seeking out the best equipment from the main series. They’re paying a lot more for their cars than they ever have before and those costs are being passed on to their drivers with the average drive going from around $250k a few years ago to between $500k and $750k today.

The trouble is there aren’t enough drivers out there that have the money to respond and you end up with only a couple of drivers that can afford to be competitive. Numbers have been a bit better this year but you should be able to get 30 cars; at the moment they’re averaging between 15 and 23 and that’s not a healthy competition.

A lot of those drivers are more experienced guys, using the Fujitsu Series to gain miles for the main game enduros later this year. There’s long been a debate about which drivers should be allowed to run in the development series. Main game drivers aren’t allowed to compete because the management doesn’t want them in there winning all the races, but in my opinion that format works well in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series. My view is that if having main game drivers in there can increase the profile of the series and increase the crowd and TV audiences, that’s going to make it easier for everybody in the field to find sponsors and it will fill the grid up a bit.

Also, if it wasn’t for those more experienced drivers coming in this year, the series would be a lot worse off in terms of numbers on the grid and the level of competition. As I mentioned before, the numbers don’t look that bad this year but that’s partly because of part-timers like these enduro drivers and also young drivers who are only dipping in and out, doing the amount of rounds they can afford to do. That means the series doesn’t get any fan following, which means the ratings and sponsorship aren’t worth as much.

All the inequalities mean the competitiveness of the racing looks poor, which is the last thing you want to see in any series, but I honestly think that’s got more to do with the haves and the have-nots. The varying levels of funding, equipment and experience are much bigger factors than the caliber of driver I believe.

The answer: in much the same way that V8 Supercars has determined that they have to reduce the cost of being competitive, the same has to happen in the Fujitsu series. It’s all about the rules and the Fujitsu Series’ rules haven’t changed a great deal since its inception. Essentially, they run identical cars to the main game but there’s a two year window between something being introduced in the main series and then being filtered into the development.

V8 Supercars is currently working on introducing The Car of the Future (COTF), a concept that will be designed by V8 Supercars with teams either building from a plan or buying cars ready-made from another team. Teams won’t have the development freedoms that they’ve previously had, therefore cutting out design, manufacturing and development costs.

That means the cost of cars and spares will just drop massively for Development Series teams, who are currently paying more for their second-hand cars than V8 Supercar teams will be buying COTF models brand new. As the current rules stand, however, they won’t have access to the cheaper models until two years after V8s, which could see the end of the series in my opinion.

The market for young drivers’ money is getting fiercer by the day and I hear the Porsche Cup might be coming back in the near future. I don’t think the Fujitsu Series in its current format can compete with the cost effectiveness of a well run one-make series like that and 2014 might be too long for them to wait to get a control chassis for the COTF.

~Jason

Jason Bright races in the V8 Supercar Championship with Trading Post Racing. He is a race winner in the category and finished third in the standings in 2001 and 2004. He progressed to V8s after a successful single-seater career, which included winning the 1995 Australian Formula Ford Championship and finishing sixth in the 2000 Indy Lights series with five podiums.

Learn more about Jason by visiting www.jasonbright.com.au and on his official Facebook page.

[kennymiesta]

to me, there is really only one way to fix it.
i believe they need to bring back a privateer category in the main game, and then run them all together. this way you might get some of the cars that are just running around the back in the main game, who would then turn into privateers and actually be competing for something. this with a dozen or so fujitsu, and i beleive it could work quite well.

i dont see any reason why it wouldnt work. oh thats right, tony only wants 28 cars

[Marvin]

Did the Third Tier series ever get off the ground?

They were talking about a series with the old AU's and similar Commodores.

A lot of those drivers are more experienced guys, using the Fujitsu Series to gain miles for the main game enduros later this year. There’s long been a debate about which drivers should be allowed to run in the development series. Main game drivers aren’t allowed to compete because the management doesn’t want them in there winning all the races, but in my opinion that format works well in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series.

This the bit I dont agree with, the enduro drivers should come from the Fujitsu series (or elsewhere), not use it as practice, otherwise its a waste of time for the young guys time and money being in it.
Even with NASCAR its not the best idea, so Kyle bests some young guy in a second tier series, big deal, he is in the main game, and thats were he should race, not bouncing around between both series.

Think of all the young guys that arent going to be discovered because main game drivers have the seat, (in both NASCAR and V8SC).

Anyway, thats my two cents.