Aust Motorsport Foundation

[alfagtv58]

Does anyone else find it staggering that Mark Skaife's racing company takes over the Aust Motorsport Foundation and the first cheque they write is to support the motorsport ambitions of a 15yo that goes by the name of.....Mitch Skaife.

[Davidm1750]

Hmn nepotism perhaps  , at face value one could be not blamed for thinking that it sounds a little suss.

[ChrisGTA]

Hi Phil - is this in relation to the Jean Todt presser today or something else? Skaife doesn't seem to benefit from the intended purpose of the funding announced today, except for some happy snaps - although the headline "Mitch Skaife inducted into CAMS program" is far removed from the substance of the story.

Cheers

http://www.speedcafe.com.au/2011/03/15/mitch-skaife-inducted-into-cams-program/

[Neil Choi]

Interesting reading.

The Alfa club has for years under the comp sec role being encouraging young members to be good drivers via the Race Craft and Driver Safety program and sprint series.  It is quite evident from the members currently driving and competing, and gaining their driver's license.

Now reading the article and the Ignition program, perhaps, we as a club should be applying for some funding, we certainly have a good history and CV to proof our value and already have proven initiative.

So how about it, any ideas.  I am willing to do some work on it, but just overworked with all sorts of stuff at the moment.

Cheers
Neil

PS I am sure some of our younger members can do with a $125K encouragement!!!! 

Nepotism, you reckon, certainly not, not in motorsport. 

[Ray Pignataro]

Neil I need you to define younger. Certainly I am not to old to benefit from 125k for motorsport

[Victor Lee]

Neil,

You should have a chat to long time club member Dino who helped organise the racecraft weekend.  In his day job as CEO of Driver Education Australia (http://www.drivered.org.au/index.html),  I recall him telling me that he approached CAMS years ago about a young drivers program.  Perhaps the Ignition program is CAMS version of that?

Yes, we should something.  For example, the Beemer club in Victoria bought some old cars to use as young drivers cars (not that I am suggesting we do that).  This would mean a shift in focus from racecraft to basic driver ed. (From the recent weekend we had, that's 40 drivers doing racecraft and 6 doing basic training).  One un-named AROCA instructor told me it wasn't our job to teach youngsters basic car control and how to drive.  Maybe it's time to change this? 

[Neil Choi]

Hi Victor,

I have already had thoughts and plan on doing something (perhaps even today), just got to get over this coming weekend and a bunch of Alfa work that needs to be done.

I would have the opinion that it would be part of our passion in the club to encourage and teach our (young and all) members to drive sensibly, properly and well while enjoying our Alfa's.  Well, that's my attitude anyway, hence my continued involvement.

We will see how we will and can get on.  We do have our second Race craft and Driver Safety weekend in August.  Lots of talk and suggestion came out of March's one, there should be some work to do on the second one to make it much better and professional.

Neil

[aggie57]

Hey Neil - would love to have some more input and involvement from newer members for the circuit training days.  We've been running the same format and pretty much the same thing for many years and quite frankly it needs a freshen up, some new faces and some new content.

[Neil Choi]

Yep, I had intended to include newer faces and newer racers, managed a few but we have more.  Hence we will be developing it further for August.

Once this busy time is over, we will or should be getting into gear.

Open to suggestions and anyone wanting to leap in head first and take on the reins, most welcome, hint hint.

Anyway, lots of ideas.

Neil

[aggie57]

separate thread for ideas?