There's a couple of starry eyed youngsters at the gym that work for TAS, year on year the sparkle is going. I'd imagine it's great for a year or two.
Well I guess chasing rears could get tiresome…….A lad I knew worked for Kenny Roberts then Fogarty’s team, but only when he was young. Know a lad who works for OMG and a lad who swapped working for Rutter to F3 cars. Know a couple more but it’s a young lads job in reality.
Spot on. wages in f1 are crap as well. Data engineers are lucky to get mid 20’s I know a girl at the moment who’s racing this year. No budget and not really got the “hit the ground running talent” either entering a championship that’s very competitive and full of ex kart racers who race cars like they are karts #shuntsgalore. She’s going to get hammered this year and it’s going to financially muller her as well. It’s all going to be very emotional, but I guess as hard as it is, people have to figure these things out for themselves. - she’s lucky she has gender on her side though, she’d be in a far worse situation with it all if she was a bloke. I suspect there will be a few “it’s not fair” breakdowns incoming.
used to work for Pirelli at bsb ,wsb and road races. Very few of us in the paddock got paid and most riders only got their rides by bringing in money to a team. Top teams had professional mechanics but mostly it was volunteers. It was a few years ago but ducati used to run up tire bills well in excess of 5k for a weekend. All teams paid to race in bsb but recieved no prize money. As quoted earlier in this thread (clowns paying to entertained the crowd)
Stock1000 tyre bill for the year has got to be 25-30k+ I’d have thought. I’ve known riders do that in winter testing
I remember you Hayden, I hope you're keeping well. I seem to remember you collecting souvenirs just before you finished.
This has triggered some memories! We teamed up with Phase 1 for a couple of road races, The North West and on to the TT and those guys were all volunteers. They even paid there own travel and living expenses while away and that includes the year when they actually won the World Endurance Championship! Try telling that to kids today.......... Lol.
yes well thanks and enjoying riding them rather working on them. Still got all the signed photos of the teams i worked with. Some of the riders went on the bigger things. J Rea, Tom Sykes, cal Crutchlow. Lazzydog, who did you work with?
Ben Wylie for Wylie and Holland. We had great bikes but never set the world on fire in BSB. We did OK on the roads though.
Some people love to be part of racing. I have, and do but not so much these days, enjoy the racing paddock. Happy to give my weekend up to help mates etc. But when it’s a BSB team, incl lower classes imho, you have to commit to the whole season. Not sure that would be fun still for many.
For bsb we used to arrive late wednesday and set up thursday morning and start fitting tires and talking to the teams in the afternoon. Practice and set up was done on friday with race days saturday and sunday. If you had to take time off work to help in the paddock that word be 3 work days and a weekend every 2 or 3 weeks during the season.
When Sammy Coventry was riding in the Tri-options series he had to get a minimum of £35k a season to get his ride.
https://www.britishsuperbike.com/ne...ell-for-the-milwaukee-summer-grand-slam-prize ( Or a seven year old ducati 899 )
Where are the people who invented this? - PecinoGP.com “Yeah. The big problem in Britain is money,” says Oxley. “We enjoy a sport in which money is very important. In places like Spain and Italy where it’s a huge sport, there’s always money. Even if you not such a well-known rider, you can get like 200,000 Euros from somebody for a ride. In England, that’s impossible! Because for a long time now in Britain, people don’t care about motorcycles; they really don’t care. In Spain and Italy especially, and also now in southeast Asia, which are the big areas, everyone loves motorcycles. Everyone when they are twelve has a scooter and you know that once you’ve ridden a bike when you’re twelve, you are in love for the rest of your life. Even if you then go and get a car, you still love motorcycles. So, I think that is the basic difference. In Britain, being a motorcyclist is like being a second-class citizen … There is something a bit wrong with you ... How many British sponsors are there in MotoGP? None.” “In Britain, being a motorcyclist is like being a second-class citizen … There is something a bit wrong with you … How many British sponsors are there in MotoGP? None,” Mat Oxley Considering the words of our English colleague, this explanation seemingly does not fit with the massive presence of British riders in WSBK, a championship that has not only dominated for years but is constantly fed by young new riders coming from their championships. Oxley’s explanation of this is at least curious. “I can tell you the reason it started. Like everything in motorcycle racing, it has to do with the world outside. In Britain in the early 1980s we had a big recession. Everybody was riding RG’s and TZ’s and then there was no money. All the motorbike shops closed down, all the sponsors stopped. They were like, okay. What do we do? They had something called Superstock, which was introduced in 1985 and was basically street bikes with loud pipes and slick tires. This suddenly became the big thing overnight. So when WSBK arrived in 1988, all the British were ready and jumped straight into it. This has been the path ever since, the natural path. Cal [Crutchlow], he was very brave because he did one year in WSBK and then he moved to GPs. He took a total risk! For sure if he succeeded, he would make a lot of money and be very successful, but if he had not, he would have looked like a fool. Because in WSBK he had guaranteed money.” The mirage of WSBK Another idea that Oxley claims to be false is the idea that WSBK in England is what MotoGP is in Italy or Spain, where each GP fills the circuits. One imagines that the figure of Rea, WSBK World Champion in the last five editions, is equivalent in the Anglo-Saxon world to that of Valentino Rossi in Italy. But it seems that this is not the case. “The thing is that WSBK in Britain is not very popular with the fans. You go to Donington. Tom Sykes said he went a couple of years ago to a classic event at Donington and he said there were more spectators at the classic event watching Manx Nortons and everything, than there were at the WSBK round. Because of Rossi, MotoGP now is much bigger in Britain than WSBK. But BSB is also very successful as well.” It has come to light the national championship, the BSB, a format that has been and I think is still a model for so many national federations. But here things apparently are also not what they seem. “There is no money in BSB. For sure the top four or five earn some money but the rest… There is no prize money, no start money, nothing! So in theory you could win every race and the title and not make one penny. Jonathan Palmer, the owner of MSV, the company that owns all the tracks, arrives at the races in his helicopter and tells all the riders he cannot afford to pay them…And then he takes off in his helicopter.”
It has come to light the national championship, the BSB, a format that has been and I think is still a model for so many national federations. But here things apparently are also not what they seem. “There is no money in BSB. For sure the top four or five earn some money but the rest… There is no prize money, no start money, nothing! So in theory you could win every race and the title and not make one penny. Jonathan Palmer, the owner of MSV, the company that owns all the tracks, arrives at the races in his helicopter and tells all the riders he cannot afford to pay them…And then he takes off in his helicopter. great post @Red899. This bit especially.
I hope this photo is clear. It is a list of the riders and the start money they received for the Race of the Year at Mallory in the 70's. The top men made a good living and everybody got a slice of the pie compared to now with Jonathan Palmer getting it all.
