MARCH 14, 2005

Taking racing to the people

In recent years the need to attract more people to race tracks has led to the inception of more promotional events. Formula 1 has been slow to adopt the idea but last year held a big street promotion in London and recently ran a second such event on the streets of Melbourne. NASCAR has run its cars through downtown New York and city authorities seem to be more open to events even if there is still some resistance to noisy racing cars.

The FIA World Touring Car Championship is to kick off shortly at Monza and the promoters of the series have decided to take their cars to the people and will be putting on an exhibition in the famous Piazza del Duomo, at the heart of Milan's old city. Cars from each of the manufacturers involved will be exhibited and a number of the drivers will be attending to (horror of horrors!) meet the public and sign autographs.

Perhaps the Formula One group of companies, which promotes the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, might take a leaf out of the WTCC book and help to promote some of the weaker events on the F1 calendar. This is currently left to the individual race promoters.