Speedmachine
World Rallycross arrived at Silverstone for the first time this year, and it brought a festival with it – but did this attract more fans?
When you are an engineer, especially in the premier leagues of Motorsport such as Formula 1, every minute of every day is spent optimising the car’s performance to go faster and beat the competition. You are so immersed in this challenge that you, along with your team find yourself in a ‘bubble’ where only that all important laptime matters. Consequently, you lose sight of the big picture, you forget the whole point of your job and that is to provide entertainment for the fans. Like it or not, you are an engineer in the entertainment business.
Entertainment has been the recent ‘buzz’ word in Motorsport. With audience figures declining, other sports growing and the next generation of millennials perhaps not appreciating the monotony of circuit racing, there has been much discussion on how to improve the entertainment value of Motorsport. Aside from manipulating the rules to increase overtaking and developing the TV product to help fans understand the tech behind the sport, categories are also focusing on how to improve the trackside experience for the fans. This has led to promoters investing in a variety of areas, none of which are relevant to the racing. A perfect example of this is this year’s ‘Speedmachine Festival’ at Silverstone, which by the way, is also the UK round of the World Rallycross Championship.
‘We wanted to build a festival with World Rallycross at its heart,’ claims Paul Bellamy, Managing Director of FIA World Rallycross and Global Head of IMG Motorsports. But is this the best way to not only attract larger audiences at the racetrack, but retain them as well?
As a female in the Motorsport industry, I admire those who challenge stereotypes and encourage change so I was keen to discover what this Speedmachine festival was all about and more importantly, how well it was received by the fans.
The Speedmachine festival itself is located in the backyard of the Silverstone wing, and to get to it, fans are treated to a walk across the main straight of the F1 track, a nice touch considering you can’t get near this during an F1 weekend. In the paddock, you are greeted with the booming baseline of whoever is performing on the main stage, with the smell of dishes from all over the world filling your senses. As you wonder through the exhibitions of the Group B Rally cars and the manufacturer ‘showrooms’ where you can sign up to test drive the latest roadcar models, the paddock roars into life as the latest supercars and drift cars rev their engines for fun – much to the enjoyment of the crowd. Continue walking and you reach the business end of the paddock, where you are reminded of why you came to Silverstone. The teams live in unintimidating awnings, where fans can peer in and watch the mechanics prep the cars. In between sessions, the drivers have to weave their racers in between the crowd to get to the track, so with only a general admission ticket, you can get closer to the cars than most other types of Motorsport.
Then you get to the track, which was specifically designed for this year’s World Rallycross round. The design uses the majority of the Stowe circuit for the asphalt sections, with the infield area transformed into the dirt sections, incorporating the jumps and the Joker lap route. The viewing area for the fans consists of a large banked area and one main grandstand. Having witnessed my first Rallycross race at last year’s Lydden Hill UK round, undoubtedly the best thing was watching the action unfold around the entire track, as the topography of the land meant you could see all of the track no matter where you were watching from. Unfortunately, Silverstone’s topography is much flatter, which makes it difficult to see all the action, particularly if you are not in the grandstand. However, increased banking was considered throughout the design process, but the business case of the Silverstone Stowe circuit won, as this circuit needs to remain unaltered and the priority for all other weekends of the year. Despite this, the nature of Rallycross speaks for itself, relentless, short action-packed races with dirt spraying everywhere, drifts and spins equalling exciting racing, however much you can see of it.
When it’s all over, the usual trudge to the car, along with the masses, pre-empting the going-home-traffic never actually happened, because the circuit transformed into a festival. Headline acts such as Basement Jaxx, Dizzee Rascal and Lethal Bizzle performed late into the evening, with bars and cars adding to the entertainment. Infact, people were coming into the circuit, despite it being 10pm, specifically to watch their favourite acts – and they didn’t disappoint. The main stage included fireworks, smoke machines and the sound quality was fantastic, it was a proper concert and the best thing was – it was full of family’s.
For me, this is a key point. We cannot continue to satisfy the needs of the ‘dinosaur’ fans in our sport. Their wealth of experience is invaluable, and we should always reminisce of the ‘good old days’ and the rise of historic championships and events such as Goodwood are excellent for this. However, the world is changing, the behaviour and needs of the younger generation are changing and if we want our Sport to survive, then so must we. The Speedmachine festival had one objective: to attract a wider audience through the doors of a World Rallycross event and with over 27,000 people in attendance across the weekend, it achieved just that. Last year at Lydden Hill, I was battling the crowds of hard-core fans that were ~85% middle aged males. This year, I had to be careful not to trip over the toddlers and their prams. There really was something for everyone. However, the key to this festival concept continuing its success is to balance the needs of these new audiences without diluting the sport for those hard-core and dedicated fans.
Despite the monumental effort from Silverstone, World Rallycross and IMG, this year’s Speedmachine festival was the first of its kind and very much a ‘toe in the water’ exercise. Having received such a positive response, the question is now where to focus the effort? For me, the festival element was perfect, and maybe requires a few more food vans, with some additional acts. However, the racing element needs some fine-tuning – more grandstands, more banked areas and ideally some changes to the circuit topography. So that when the audience migrates from the festival entertainment to the racing on track, they are treated to the best experience possible, to retain their interest and hopefully convert them to fans of the sport. People need to leave Speedmachine saying ‘I had a great time and I can’t wait to see Rallycross again next year’ rather than ‘I had a great time, when is Dizzee Rascal playing again?’
BONKERS!! 🎶 @DizzeeRascal pic.twitter.com/TY2PdCByJk
— Silverstone (@SilverstoneUK) May 26, 2018
