​Time To Sever All Cooperation With 400 Thunder

Time To Sever All Cooperation With 400 Thunder

The announcement by 400 Thunder that they were withdrawing their GP1 round namely the Australian Nationals from Calder Park is a prime example of why we need to cut all cooperation with this organisation. This organisation made a commitment to the Victorian public to bring their GP1 series to Melbourne by including Calder Park as a round of their National Championship. Based on their recent announcement the Victorian drag racing community has been screwed over once again by an organisation that from the outside seems only interested in developing their own brand in lieu of the sport.

400 Thunder made this announcement.

 “Following concerns regarding the racing surface at Calder Park Raceway raised by 400 Thunder Professional competitor groups, today 400 Thunder has announced that these categories will not race at the Australian Nationals event in January 2018.

Both the Pro Stock Association and the Australian Top Doorslammer Association members have raised concerns about the ability of the Calder Park racing surface to deliver safe and competitive racing for the 400 Thunder Series.

After consultation with the Competitors, the sanctioning body ANDRA and the event Promotor Peter Pisalidis the 400 Thunder Board has made the difficult decision to withdraw the 400 Thunder round scheduled for Victoria.”

Ok let’s have a look at the decision. 400 Thunder state that the 400 Thunder Professional Racers Group raised the concerns.

Back before this year’s Nitro Up North, promoters Peter Pisalidis and Scott Maclean summoned up the GP1 racer groups to discuss a single Australian GP1 series which as we now know was the 400 Thunder national series. ANDRA was not a part of these discussions and in fact was not invited to take part. What transpired out of that meeting was the recognition of a single series run by 400 Thunder. Obviously, ANDRA had to agree to walk away from running their own series and allow 400 Thunder to operate their series on ANDRA sanctioned tracks around the country. ANDRA generously offered up $50 licences to the GP1 teams that were not currently licenced ANDRA members so they could run the Nitro Up North event. I know that was a commercial decision but it’s a slap in the face for our sportsman racers who pay way more that $50 to hold an ANDRA licence.

400 Thunder then proceeded to construct a series calendar that included Calder Park Raceway as one of their rounds. 400 Thunder boast how that have the Racer groups involved at board level to help make decisions on the sport. So, what went wrong? The racer groups were the first to sign on to a national series that included Calder Park, 400 Thunder included Calder Park Raceway into their National series only to come out and do a backflip some 6 weeks out from the event. What has changed with the track condition at Calder Park Raceway between the dates of releasing the calendar on the 2^nd of August (http://www.400thunder.com.au/10593-2/) and last weekend? On the 2^nd of August, 400 Thunder made the decision to race in Victoria, today they are not.

Yes, the racing surface at Calder Park Raceway is below par when it compares to Sydney, Willowbank and the Motorplex, but lets just look at some of the numbers from last year’s Nationals. Although GP1 raced over 1000ft at Calder, a multiplication by 1.2 will give you a close ¼ time. The Rapisarda Top Fuel cars twice posted 4.90’s while Morgan was around the 5.03 mark. The #8 qualifier at the East Coast Nationals was slower than the Rapisarda passes. Don’t forget that Top Fuel was only tuned for demonstration runs. Top Doorslammer had Zappia around the high 5.80’s all weekend, Belleri and the Brays in the 6.10’s to 6.20’s. Cannuli bested a 6.09. Only the top 8 Doorslammers qualified better than Cannuli with Zappia one of them. Pro Stock only had 4 cars at the Nationals but Bektash’s 7.18 in the final would have been the 5^th quickest time in the East Coast Pro Stock qualifying. Aaron Tremayne had a best in Sydney of 7.001. John Cannuli ran an equivalent 5.76 in Top Alcohol at the Nationals, a time that would stack up in any round of Top Alcohol. So, I say again, what’s changed so dramatically that 400 Thunder had to cancel the Calder Park Raceway round?

 I’m not sure if people picked it up but many race teams and fans were referring to the recent East Coast Nationals as the “Nationals”. ANDRA has the “Nationals” and know one else, but you can see how easy people fall into the trap of thinking an event is the Nationals. This is why we need to act on this now and walk away from 400 Thunder.

Why on earth would the ANDRA board roll over and hand over GP1 competition rights to this organisation? I have heard numerous reasons/excuses why the decision was made to sell our arse and let me tell you, none of them stack up. There were stories going around that GP1 teams suggested they would only support one series being the 400 Thunder series and then there was the line that ANDRA couldn’t afford to run the series and so on.

Well let’s look at both of these points. Firstly, the GP1 teams sole purpose of existence is to race. Yes, some individual teams may have used that threatening line but so what. Let them run SD and Willowbank. No individual team should be bigger than the sport and if it meant that some teams parked up then so be it. ANDRA has to realise that they are providing a complete sport for our spectators not just Top Alcohol, Pro Stock or Top Fuel. Luckily for ANDRA there have been Top Fuel teams that have supported ANDRA events over the past few years. We have seen Top Doorslammer along with a minority group of Pro Stock, Fuel Bike and Alcohol also support ANDRA events so why were we in such a hurry to sell our arse to 400 Thunder? As the leading organisation in Australian Drag Racing, why would you give away any of the assets you hold in the organisation to a rival and destructive competitor? This amounts to business suicide if it’s left to go on unchecked. I have heard first hand on numerous occasions by people in positions of importance within the industry that they are just waiting for 400 Thunder to screw it up all by themselves so ANDRA can reclaim the sport while 400 Thunder simply goes away. That is one of the most absurd comments I have heard in this whole saga. So, what this affectively means is that the peak body of the sport is prepared to give their destructive business opponents all the tools to succeed hoping that they will make a mess of it and hand back the sport. Fantastic business sense right there, don’t you think? Please name one professional Australian business that would adopt that same practice and if you can find one, I would like to know how it panned out. So, who made this decision, not the members, that’s for sure.

The other comment that has been flown around is that ANDRA couldn’t afford it. My understanding is that the tracks are responsible for covering the costs of GP1 brackets racing at their venues. Yes, ANDRA may assist from time to time but the responsibility of covering GP1 racing rests squarely on the shoulders of the track or promoter. We have seen ANDRA GP1 Championships over the last few years and we have also seen on several occasions where promoters have paid in a bracket namely Top Fuel, so how is this an ANDRA issue? Promoters pay in Top Fuel to boost the attendances and ultimately nett profit. If Top Fuel became financially unviable, do you think promoters would continue to buy in a show? And just on that, if you talk to Jim Walton or even Graham Cowin, they will tell you that back in the day they were part of a buy in show. Tracks complimented their normal drag racing meeting with a buy in show much the same as promoters have done with Top Fuel over the past number of years. Calder Park, AIR, Alice Springs and Hidden Valley come to mind. So, where’s ANDRA’s financial commitment required?

Once again, I just can’t justify what logical reason/reasons ANDRA had to hand over the top echelon of the sport to 400 Thunder. Every single time a spectator looks at a 400 Thunder banner it helps brand the organisation and ANDRA is currently providing them the platform all over the country. Spectators don’t walk away from a GP1 event saying “that was a cool ANDRA track sanctioned event”. Branding is everything in business and ANDRA is providing their destructive competitor the platform to build theirs. And another glaring issue with this dumb decision, is how on earth will ANDRA attract a naming rights sponsor when they don’t even have a series? I do understand that securing a major sponsor for the sport is proving extremely difficult, but under the present situation, ANDRA have nothing to offer with regards to securing a major sponsor, so have they given up on the idea of having a major corporation back the sport?

ANDRA employs Jennifer Harrison as their Business Development Manager and part of her portfolio is to secure sponsorship for ANDRA series racing. No doubt Jennifer was instrumental in obtaining the recent Summit Racing Equipment sponsorship extension, but how can she secure a GP1 Series (Major sponsor) if we don’t have a series? That’s like the AFL giving over the competition to the WAFL and asking their Business Development Manager to secure a major sponsor for the AFL.  It’s just stupid. What needs to happen is that we take back the sport of drag racing and in no shape or form continue to support an organisation that has been and will continue to be destructive against our own organisation. Today, we have no GP1 racing in Victoria unless the promoter Peter Pisalidis pays in a show. Hang on, hasn’t this been the scenario since 2013 at Calder Park Raceway including the past Australian Nationals? Wake up ANDRA, we don’t need 400 Thunder.

Some people will say, look at the television rights 400 Thunder have. Yeah, anybody can pay 7Mate to come out and televise a series. Word is that Yak couldn’t afford the $40,000 tv levy that 400 Thunder had imposed on Alice Springs to host the 400 Thunder. Actually, what track could afford the tv levy given the recent declining fan base? So what alternative does a track have with covering the tv levy? Pay it from profits generated through the gate or simply pass the levy onto the sportsman racers? Sound familiar? Do the sportsman classes even get coverage on 7Mate? Funny if the sportsman racers had to pay a tv levy so Australian drag racing fans could watch GP1 on tv.

Right now, every track in Australia is sanctioned by ANDRA with the exception of Sydney, Willowbank, Springmount and Warwick. This clearly puts ANDRA is a position of authority. Add to this the new tracks of Swan Hill and Tailem Bend coming on line within the next 12 months and it’s easy to see that ANDRA holds all the keys to building once again a successful GP1 championship. It’s time right now to move on this poor business decision of giving over the GP1 rights to an organisation that seeks out racers on a daily basis to give up their ANDRA licences in preference to an American licencing organisation. Oh, just in case people have forgotten, 400 Thunder have boasted previously how they have converted in excess of a 1000 racer over to IHRA just to rub salt into the wounds. This further demonstrates the lack of business sense our board had in supporting 400 Thunder. I just can’t for the life of me think of any logical reasons why ANDRA would think that this decision would benefit them.

So now is the time we say goodbye to any cross assistance with 400 Thunder cancelling out any future cooperation with the organisation. Let them run SD, Willowbank and Springmount while we promote our 2018/19 GP1 series headlining the exciting Tailem Bend on the back of Hidden Valley, Alice Springs, Perth Motorplex, AIR, Calder and sometime in the future Swan Hill. This is the only smart business decision ANDRA can make on this subject moving forward. If Thunder 400 can make a go of it on 3 tracks, good luck to them, but they will not use our tracks to promote their American licence backed racing.

So, based on the above, the current board and management needs to be held accountable for what was clearly a poor business decision and one that looks to have been made because it was the easier option. Peter Pisalidis or Scott Maclean would have bought in a GP1 show if it was still run under an ANDRA banner otherwise why would they be in the sport as promoters?

Furthermore, it seems that the power of the ordinary member has long gone which poses another issue considering ANDRA is a member based organisation. The DC was set up so members elected to the various councils could make decisions about their sport on behalf of the members they represent, and have them forwarded onto the board via the DD’s.  There are plenty of rumblings going on within the drag racing community that this procedure has long gone and the DC is now seemingly powerless. Surely if the 6 Divisional Councils are unanimous in their opinion on a subject, then that opinion should stand as accepted by the board. The Divisional Directors should be delivering policy to the board directly from the Councils knowing that the policy/ruling/amendment stand as law. Only in exceptional circumstances or a hung vote, should the board be in a position to override a recommendation from the Divisional Councils. The members certainly need to feel that they are the organisation, as set out in the constitution. The board is in place to represent the members not rule the members. Either the existing rules on the functionality of the board need to be policed, or changed in the constitution to reflect the ordinary member as an integral part of ANDRA. I wonder what the decision would have been if the Board sent back to the DC the option of handing over controlling rights of Australian GP1 sport to 400 Thunder? Maybe the Board structure needs to change or even be reduced. Something has to change in either the way the board is structured or how it conducts business.

On a positive note the Board has been pro-active in putting together a series to accommodate our Queensland members but has failed to look after what was once an integral part of ANDRA namely NSW. Yes, Queensland has purpose built racetracks which unfortunately NSW doesn’t, but has the board sat down with representatives from the Dubbo and Tamworth Drag Racing clubs to nut out a QLD style championship between the two tracks. It’s not the ideal situation for some classes but a NSW Championship of some sort would cater for some of our loyal members who want to remain under an ANDRA licencing system. Sydney and IHRA collectively, have taken over plenty of ANDRA subscriptions with the knowledge that some will never return to ANDRA whilst Sydney is under the IHRA licencing system, but what about the former members that would prefer to remain under the ANDRA banner? What reason have we given them to tough it out. What about the thought of offering a 50% discount rate on entry fees for any event they participate in outside of Queensland and NSW? Obviously track promoters and regional clubs would need to get on board, but ½ an entry fee from a NSW or QLD racer is better than nothing and I’m quite confident that all ANDRA members would see this as a positive move in the interim. Anything to been seen as genuinely trying to assist our QLD & NSW members will be a step forward.

ANDRA has lost a lot of revenue which has recently been well documented, primarily through the introduction of an American licencing body namely the IHRA thanks solely to the 400 Thunder organisation. Grant Goodall as CEO, obviously worked tirelessly in his effort to get ANDRA financially viable and then resigned from his paid position by making it redundant to save ANDRA some more overheads. I believe plenty of cost-cutting measures were put in place to ensure ANDRA remain viable well into the foreseeable future with regards to overheads but there are still plenty of financial decisions yet to be made

Both the Board and ANDRA management need to come clean on their decision making over the past year with satisfactory answers that address all the points raised. Not sure what the answer is, but getting rid of our ties with 4oo Thunder is a start. Our DC’s from around Australia can get the ball rolling by demanding that ANDRA sever all ties with 400 Thunder. What about it, DC’s?

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