Interview with Alan Gow: Part 2

In part one of our pre-season interview with Alan Gow we asked the BTCC boss about manufacturer involvement in the series and what he’s doing to tempt new entrants into the championship. In part two, we find out what’s in store for the fans. So, in terms of attracting more people to the series, what’s Gow doing?

“It’s up to the circuits to attract the people in to the gate, it’s not our job,” says Gow. “Our job is to organise the championship, promote the championship; at individual race meetings it’s down to the circuits, some of which do better than others.”

MotorSport Vision boss Jonathan Palmer has suggested that he wants to take a more hands-on role with organising championships run on his circuits and this could suggest a divide in motor racing, but Gow says it’s no different to any other sport.

“We always work with circuits to promote the events but the analogy I’d use is that the FA organise the premier league but they don’t organise the fans going into each individual venue. It’s the same with any sport you can think of; whether it be the pricing of the tickets, the advertising, the promotion, it’s up to each venue owner to do that – it’s not our job.”

So without total control, does it ever annoy Gow that he can’t get something like a straightforward ticket price at every circuit?

“Yeah, There’s a lot of things that in a perfect world I would do – we would be able to offer season passes; it’d be the same price at every circuit, the circuits would do more advertising. There are all sorts of area that if it was down to me I would do, but it’s not. Donington last year was a very good example. They did a hell of a lot of promotion around the last race meeting of the year and got a huge crowd.

“There are some venue owners that are much better at it doing it than others, and you can see that all last year. Croft were very good at it, Knockhill were very good at it, Donington were very good at it, Thruxton were very good at it, then you went to some others that quite frankly didn’t put enough into it and they got the small crowds as a result of it. Maybe they’ve learned from that.”

"I would probably go to Castle Combe before Rockingham...but Rockingham has got the best facilities"

A.Gow

So on venues, what are the chances of adding a new track to the championship?

“There’s two venues I’d like to go to and that’s Castle Combe and Rockingham, but we’ve only got ten rounds in the championship – someone has to drop out. I would probably go to Castle Combe before Rockingham because Rockingham is part of the Midlands and there’s a lot of motorsport in the Midlands – by the time you go to Silverstone, Donington and Rockingham it’s three in the same market area. Castle Combe’s a whole different area, I’d rather go to them probably before Rockingham, but Rockingham has got the best facilities.”

So does the series have to go to Silverstone and Donington?

“We don’t have to do anything, but manufacturers and teams do have their desires as far as going to certain market areas. The Midlands are important but there are three circuits, we go to two at the moment. It’s the same as Ireland – Ireland we go to for marketing reasons rather than crowd reasons because the crowd is not that big; there’s different reasons why you go to different venues.”

Finally, after a small insight into what goes on behind the decisions that affect the championship, we had to ask where Gow thought the 2005 championship would go and, as throughout the rest of the interview, he gave a straight answer.

“You’d have to be pretty brave to bet on anyone; there’s so many different elements. The only team that’s the same is SEAT who’ve got the same car. You’ve got new cars from Vauxhall and Dynamics, you’d have to be pretty brave to bet on anything at the moment, but I would imagine that you’d reckon that SEAT would be the favourite going early into the season.”

By Paul Rayner