BRSCC 2019 AGM CHAIRMAN’S SPEECH

Good evening, and welcome to the 2019 AGM. Thank you for taking the time out to attend the AGM of your club, a mutual club run for the benefit of the members to take part and assist in motorsport in many ways.

Firstly, thank you to the staff at Wrotham Heath, who have worked hard all through 2018 and put in place changes to processes, dealt with changes to personnel within their own team, as well as delivered race meetings for all the Centres to deliver on race day.

There have been a number of office changes, not always visible to members, including an increase and improvement on financial management and reporting. I want to thank Noel Taylor for his work in assisting Laurie, Chloe and the team in setting out and delivering reports.

On the competitions side, Dominic and Liz have been joined by Antoine, who as the Competitions Assistant has been able to take up some of the work in delivering timetables and finals earlier than previous years. This extra office capacity will also help with planning for future years, championship planning and new ideas for the club going forward.

We have been investing more into the automation of race entries and also volunteering. With most people now able to access the internet, Trevor Parry has been working with the HQ team to put in place methods for volunteering through RevUp. This will assist marshals and officials with ticket allocation and final instructions, as well as support regional centres with personnel and duty lists. Thank you, Trevor.

I would like to thank the Board of Directors for their support, along with Glynn Lee and Noel Taylor who, with me, work with the team at HQ on an almost weekly basis.

In 2016 the BRSCC invested in the BMW Racedays Compact Cup Championship. This has seen further growth in grid sizes, and we are also pleased to continue our work with Paul McErlean and Greg Graham in future projects. Many of you will notice that the BRSCC website was upgraded in 2018 for the start of 2019. Thank you, Paul.

Our Mazda championships continue to thrive, and thanks go to Mandy Andrew and the coordination team in looking after customers.

There have been some championships that have suffered with low grid numbers. Due to the nature of the Fiesta Junior Championship, we cannot mix it with anything else on track, and as a result, we saw a large financial deficit from the 2018 championship. We were faced with either discontinuing it or changing the race day format slightly and working to get some more cars and some more support. The co-ordination team are currently working to get some ideas for a new taster day, as well as sponsors and potential competitor engagement. As with all motorsport, it is not cheap.

We have seen a variable number of Fiesta competitors on our grids. This championship has previously suffered with organisational changes – a legacy of previous management – and we look forward to returning it to a level and atmosphere where a good club motorsport championship should sit.

We continue our relationship with Caterham. Last year they recorded their one thousandth new driver into the world of motor racing. In March this year, we put on a successful Enduro team event. With over eighty competitors, it proved very popular with both drivers and marshals, watch this space for news of 2020!

I mentioned the marshals. Thank you to all our marshals, officials and race day volunteers who give up their time to support the BRSCC race meetings.

Our Formula Ford Festival proved that the value of the trophy at the year end is still recognised around the world. With over eighty cars competing in different classes, Brands Hatch was again buzzing with the Formula Ford 1600 engines.

Our National Formula Ford 1600 Championship, along with the Mazda SuperCup, have proved to be worthy supporters to the TCR UK Championship. Unfortunately, the TCR UK Championship did not attain the grid sizes forecast. A post year review and a new action plan have now taken place, and we will be running the TCR UK Championship alongside the new-for-2019 TCT Series. We are working with Stewart and Nicki Lines of Maximum Motorsport, as well as WSC, the rights holders, to deliver a stronger championship for 2019. The fallout from the above will mean that there is no TCR race at what was going to be the first round. This race meeting will now headline with National Formula Ford and Mazda SuperCup, as well as support races from Honda Civic Cup. We have, however, kept our commitment to these championships and will deliver the live TV streaming that we had previously committed to for Snetterton.

During 2018, the BRSCC delivered race day organisation to a series of championships including British GT, Ferrari and of course TCR. We reached agreement with Ferrari to run the new Ferrari UK Challenge Championship. We are also continuing our relationship with SRO and British GT, as well as being the organisers for the Silverstone round of the International GT Open.

Financially we found the 2018 season challenging. The loss of £40,000 was primarily from an increase in track hire fees relating to the venues that we booked. We basically had overcapacity. For 2019, we have addressed this. We have changed some venues and reduced our committed days.

We saw a small drop in competitor numbers and entry revenues. With the staff changes, we have increased the office overhead by around £1000 a month, a reasonable price when you consider the increased resource we now have to deliver good competitor services. This has also been offset with a tightening up of club expenditure and a proper expenses management process, something that had been lacking previously.

Thank you to the centres who meet and plan the relevant race meetings. We have the local resources that they use and also hire out, including radios and rescue vehicles. Thank you to the RV crews who do travel to assist at other race meetings.

Unfortunately, in 2018 there was no rebate from Motorsport UK. This had quite an effect on our budgets to the tune of about £26,000. We do not expect a rebate going forward for the next couple of years, as the governing body sort out their own insurance policies and deal with the wider fallout of the tragic accidents that took place in the world of rallying.

I cannot deliver a report without mentioning something about our future. We are keen to continue our recruitment of officials and marshals. The sport has been reliant on an aging population of very experienced and dedicated people. We need to encourage more of our friends, work colleagues and acquaintances to come and try out motorsport for themselves, as a competitor, an official, or a marshal.

Peter Daly

BRSCC Chairman

17th April 2019