Promotion in the wrong direction.
After Drammen I have been thinking of the promotion of our sport, and I think its going in the wrong direction. Why ? I just looked at the results – and there is the answer.
I was racing the Zafin DAC boat for the Latvian KRT Racing team – a good boat, but not a sprint boat for F2 in Scandinavia, not to win anyway. Why ?
Because we are now running on 35 sec course with left and right hand turns, 5 to be correct, and this killes the speed to sum 90 km/H. Less than 50 nots average speed is not impressive at all to me, and this we try to sell as Formula 2.
The true racelovers knows that we swing on th short courses 170 km/h top speed, 90 nots plus, but with left and right handers on 1400 m course it makes for NO passing. Personally I think its a shame, because the people comes to see racing, fights and actions. Not just DUMB idiots who crash into you and can not hold their line when there is only 10 boats on the water.
I have never seen anything like that, I was crashed into in both the sprint races, and for god sake, I think most of you who follows my site knows that I dont give a shit, buy for witch reason ?
In Drammen we saw alot of stupid idiot driving in the mid pack, and it gives me NO motivation to return to this format. If I wanted to joing the “Crash havock” team I entered it with a car, on a stadion.
Worst thing is, In drivers breefing we was told that they had video on the roof, the maintain your line was going to be followed etc etc – and that did not happen, Like usual in this serie. No penaties, only penalties was for taking out a bouy to boat 44 of 200 euros.
So where do I want to go ?
Well, we have to think outside the box, get some straight lines cause I can assure you, some of the driving i saw with 10 boats on the water in Drammen has a death wish on their name, Next time they will be ran over ! For sure, but I had no motivation to even start fight for it, I had no reason.
In the world cup however, it would have different result, I can tell you that much !
Brgs Frode
f2boat.com (37)
F2boat.com is probably the fastest news site online for Power Boat Racing. Established by Frode Sundsdal in 1998 - we will envite you to celebrate its birthday in December. Contrebuters from all over the world makes F2boat.com what it is today. Frode Sundsdal will continue to race in F2, and be the President of Norwegian Powerboat Federation.
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I don't understand also motivation to do such a short circuit for F2000 boats. We had in Imatra 1780 meters long course with one straight 700 meters long and I heard that was longest circuit with longest straight in F2000 Nordic Series! And I thought that it was short track, but it was almost imposible to do longer in that area. And as an spectator, I can tell you it wasn't too long for F2000!
My opinion is, that race course should be long with many kind of different corners (yes, right handers also), for F2000 atleast 2 km long. Then it would be real test for equipments and drivers and there would be lots to see for spectators.
How is possible, that F2000 was racing 1400 meters long circuit? UIM Rules 301.1 orders lenght of the circuit for classes over 550 cc to be atleast 1500 meters long, so race course was against rules. How they can do Scandinavian cup and especially European Cup with illegal race course???
One reason for this sports problems is that rules are not followed even by UIM!
*Frode:*
Good point ! I will check, Frode
*Frode:*
The promoter confirms that in the blue pages there is no info of distance. Its free !
Really? Well, rule book says other: In Blue Pages UIM F2 World and Continental Cups rules rule 6.1 says "Course and safety rules shall be those of the UIM applicable on the date of the race unless specified otherwise by these rules". I understand this sentence that circuit lenght is ordered in white pages, because in that rule is not mentioned otherwise. Maybe that promotor should read rules of his own class?
Why didnt any of the local sponsors have their logo on the boats?
The show in Tønsberg last year was nice and looked good for the spectators with live coverage on a big TV screen in the city center, one of the boats standing in the city center to show people what this is....
It is a long way for the promotors to go to get good coverage and interest around this great sport!
ps when you sent your entry in for the euro cup race it would have published the length of the circuit, it was your call race or not.
anyway 'frode' look on the bright side.
*Frode:*
Hi Dave, your spot on. As always, brgs to your wife;) Frode
Like Nottingham, Paris and Idroscalo and more.
Really long 2 point Race courses is very good for fun Boatracing.
Look at the history when Boatracing was great.
*Frode:*
Yup, now we avrage 88km/h - what is that ? Boring if you as me.. F
At your request, I have looked at the rules and see that under rule 302.01 we must have a minimum circuit length of 1500m
So the answer to your question is - no you should not have run on this course - promoter information is incorrect - there is a very clear rule.
F2 World & Euro cup run to both the blue and white pages.
*Frode:*
Thank you, Frode
Drammen GP is now a part of The River Festival with a lot of interesting
happenings. One of them is the very popular Dragon Boat Race. They do want the upper space of the river for their activities. So the decision was made to move it to below the main bridge. That`s why we must have a one day event which went very well I understand this time.
The Town Hall has upgraded the whole area and it must be one of the
best looking site in Europe. Since many years we are very welcomed
in Drammen
The course length:
It is true that basically it should be min. 1500 m but the rules also says
that the distance between any straights must maximum be 850 meters.
I believe the rule-makers want to have the speed reduced.
The course has the UIM reg. no NOR-030308.
The Security Officer of the day was not happy and changes was made together with UIM Commisionar/OOD which made the course slightly longer.
The exact length I do not know, but it must have been close to 1600 meters. We will look into this matter further.
I want you all to look up in he rule-book : 106.1 - 302.01 - 307.01 -
407.2 - 313.03 - and also on the blue pages section " UIM Circuit Rules" if you please.
We tried to make it both safe and demanding to the drivers and friendly to the spectators and media.
We know the "light boat" was not in the correct position the first start
and this was later corrected. It had something to do with the position of the start-platform that was alongside the river.This means that all the boats, may be except from the pole and the next to him, is taking a small left turner to start with.This I did not like.
We will work on this problem because we are allowed to have the start-bridge up to 50 degrees from the shore/turning buoy acc. to the rules..
My personal comment is the following:
The organizer of Drammen have produced a very good course. From my experience from 18 years of circuit racing and 10 years as a team owner,I very seldom found one that suited me and my set up perfectly. But I always tried to do the best out of it. What else is there to do ?
What I see today is that knowledge of rules an behavior on the course
could be much better among the drivers ,to say i nicely. This is the wrong direction somebody was talking about.
You should all start with the" Over Lap" and " Overtaking"rules
This is something that Jennifer an Frode should concentrate on and not complaining about the racecourse firstly.
So why not have the Rule-book on the night -table and have some pages read before you go to sleep ?
If we are lucky ,we all see each other in Drammen next year.
Thank you for your attention.
Erik Braaten
NMF Senior Advisor.
If you look back at the comments on this story, you will see that Frode openly asked me a question.
Frode Sundsdal:
Might be your right, I will herby herby ask Jenny Jelf – Team rep to answer this question. Jenny, Is it allowed with 1400 M race course ?
I was not 'complaining' about the drammen course, just simply answering a question, that I was directly asked for an answer.
*Frode:*
Yup, I agree - and thank you for that. We will have to look into this. Brgs Frode
Gordon mentioned to me in Drammen, this venue is good even for F1.
*Frode:*
It will be complains for the future;) Frode
"So the answer to your question is – no you should not have run on this course – promoter information is incorrect – there is a very clear rule"
Dear Jenifer
This is what you said and
I beleive a strong advice like not to run a race on this course has a built in complaint May be a little more diplomacy next time, please.. Not because of me but for all the other readers , especially after the information from the promoter.
Thank you ,
Erik
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