Cochrane's ego trip

[troym]

good on you mr cochrane yet another aussie race bites the dust, i wonder how long we can afford to let rambo cochane run riot & kill off our aussie races before the bubble bursts, his comments that e/creek does not pull the crowds reflect on the effort put in by avesco on this years race, the last couple of years have had the saturday afternoon race, this year none, your great pit walk means less time seeing cars on the track, promotion of races in sydney, a few billboards here & there, you wonder why people don';t turn up, 1 race for the biggest city in australia tony you are becoming a joke & yes the bubble may burst one day, :mad: :mad:

[Leigh]

Why not reply in the other 2 threads discussing this?:rolleyes:

[toddy05]

I cannot say I agree with all of TC's decisions but I am not that quick to knock him as I remember what the days before AVESCO was like. The championship was dead, fan numbers were abismal, public knowledge of who the drivers and even the series was was poor also and that was only the late 80's.

I have to give TC credit as he and his AVESCO/TEGA/Channel 10 cohorts have really helped to make it a fantastic series. Yeah we are losing some tracks and it is a bit dodgy to be taking it overseas when we should be making it the best it can be in Oz first but boy he has done well. Public knowledge of the series is high, the female fanbase is at an all time high, many retailers are stocking the merchandise etc It is fantastic.

Let's be quick to remember what it was like and if you were not around then then maybe you should talk to people who were and remember what channel 7's lousy coverage was like as well as their sporadic schedules.

I personally would also like to see other makes come in to the series. Yeah I can hear the howling and wrist slashing and cries of heresy, I can even hear you all stocking the wood to burn me at the stake but why not????

First of all the only real differences now are the engines, rollcages and bodies, everything else that matters is shared across both makes. Hell the engines don't even appear in either manufacturer's lineup in Oz!!!

Why couldn't we have a control chassis, gearbox, diff, suspension configuration/spec and the manufacturers can supply their own engine and body panels over the top within certain guidelines?????

I realise to many it is all about Holden and Ford but these days I think the racing and the drivers are more the drawcards. Of course there are the diehard Holden and Ford fans and things would not change but let's see the common makes represented among the big time drivers and have a real stoush......

[arthur]

Originally posted by toddy05


Why couldn't we have a control chassis, gearbox, diff, suspension configuration/spec and the manufacturers can supply their own engine and body panels over the top within certain guidelines?????


We already do......
They're called "Sports Sedans" ;)

[toddy05]

The way I see it the AVESCO series is great but they truly are glorified sports sedans. The bodies may be production based but that is it in reality. Whilst I cannot see us going back to series production type racing, what is the hassle in letting other manufacturers in to this category of sports sedan racing, heck even the group c cars of 1984 were more related to their production based counterparts than the AVESCO cars are.

[arthur]

Hey, I agree, we might as well call a "spade" a "spade"
At least with other body types, it would be more interesting and I'm all for making them a bit more radical, but I'm not sure the series would have the wide appeal that the current series has, with its "percieved" Falcon and Commodore racing variants of road cars.
Maybe I'm selling the avreage punter short ?! but I think most people who are'nt motorsport followers probably think the cars that race are just modified versions of the road cars and just watch it for the entertainment value.

[alfa156]

Originally posted by toddy05
I cannot say I agree with all of TC's decisions but I am not that quick to knock him as I remember what the days before AVESCO was like. The championship was dead, fan numbers were abismal, public knowledge of who the drivers and even the series was was poor also and that was only the late 80's.

I have to give TC credit as he and his AVESCO/TEGA/Channel 10 cohorts have really helped to make it a fantastic series. Yeah we are losing some tracks and it is a bit dodgy to be taking it overseas when we should be making it the best it can be in Oz first but boy he has done well. Public knowledge of the series is high, the female fanbase is at an all time high, many retailers are stocking the merchandise etc It is fantastic.

Let's be quick to remember what it was like and if you were not around then then maybe you should talk to people who were and remember what channel 7's lousy coverage was like as well as their sporadic schedules.





I......


My concern that I've had with TC is that he has made the V8's the be all and end of all of Australian motor racing at the expense of alot of other categories. This surely can't be healthy for Australian motor racing as a whole. The open wheeler category is poorly supported, the GT series is struggling which goes for any category not AVESCO aligned. I would not necessarily say that Australian motor racing is in its greatest shape. The trouble with the trend of developing more street/temporary circuit races are that the permanent circuits that do not have an AVESCO round will struggle to remain viable and hence stay open. Which means where do local club racers participate.


Make it no mistake TC's main interest is his own bank account, I have no problem with that, but he should not be painted as some form of messiah for Australian motor racing when you look at how agressive he has been towards other categories such as the SuperTourers, Procars, even the Future tourers.

If you were a promoter trying to create a new series TC would do everything he could to crush you before you could get it off the ground


Even before TC was on the scene the V8 series or the Australian Touring Car Championship had healthy crowds on the track.
I will agree that Channel 7 really stuffed around TV viewers. Although RPM on Channel 10 will only discuss races that they have television rights for. An example was the fact that when Procar was in operation RPm never made mention of the series.

All I can say that whilst the V8's are a great series I miss the diversity of the Group C and Group A days

[toddy05]

Alfa156, gosh I hadn't realised I was projecting him as the messiah of Ozzie Motor racing. I was just recognising what he had done as a good job but I tell ya what you have got me thinking with the other comments you have made about other series and his attacks on them and lack of support of them, very true when I think of the past 2Ldays and even now the Gt series. We really do need to foster other categories of motors sport in oz hey? Aussie cars, GT, production based, one makes etc they are where it all starts, AVESCO is for many the inaccessible the I wish category but some of the best racing I have ever seen has come out of last years GTP category, whatever happened to it? Good points Alfa156!!!:)

[arthur]

Not to mention how he opposed the ARDC's attempt to re-launch the AMSCAR series at Amaroo and EC (when they ran both teacks) with v8s that were not running in the main series.
This has now become V8 development series run by AVESCO.
I guess TC was P#$@&d that he did'nt think of it first.
From memory he took court action to stop the first round at Amaroo but they ran a couple of rounds later in the year.
Strangely enough EC lost their Supercar round that year, ARDC abandoned the series and a year or two later AVESCO started the development series