Rallye Sunseeker's Magazine front page
School of Tourism research has made the front page of Rallye Sunseeker’s flagship magazine.
In 2009 BU’s Motor Sport Research Group carried out a study focussing on the economic impact of the British Rally Championship (as pictured above) which takes place in Bournemouth and Poole.
The academic research into round one of the British Rally Championship was designed to look at the economic impact of the event. The findings featured in the magazine and on the website included that over 60% of the event spectators were from the A, B, C1 category and over £700,000 of revenue was put into the economy as a result of the championships.
At the time of the research, Rick Smith, Rallye Sunseeker Event Director commented “We have always been certain in our own minds of the economic value of the event to the region, to have that quantified by this robust research by Bournemouth University is excellent news.”
The full Rallye Sunseeker website can be viewed here.
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would realise that any event with around 100 entrants brings in a lot of business, let alone the moneys paid into the local forests for their upkeep to enable public access to continue.
Without Rallye Sunseeker’s valuable contributions many businesses would have no income through the latter parts of the winter and would either have to find that income from somewhere else, or close down.
Long may Rallye Sunseeker continue, and hopefully draw in more sponsors. The more smaller sponsors it attracts the less is needed from the larger sponsors, thus the substantial costs of setting up and running the event is shared, more people can genuinely claim to be part of the event and advertise as such.
I have family and friends in the area, they would be very saddened if the event couldn’t run due to lack of forward thinking and understanding this Research has highlighted.
Going further afield, many Motor Clubs are finding venues closing and becoming harder and harder to find, even for ‘Club Level Events’, this research should be made widely available as an example of how Motorsport can benefit many parts of the Country, and a lesson to NIMBYs that properly regulated Motorsport is a benefit to their communities, and IS NOT associated with the ‘boy racer’ fraternity that continue to plague many areas.
Perhaps if more venues were available, and suitable types of events were promoted, we could attract the ‘boy racers’ and give them a safe and controlled environment for them to ‘blow off steam’.
We may seem like a bunch of old ‘fuddy duddies’, maybe that is because we don’t know how to attract younger members, but many of us can’t find budget to do high profile events, and are quite happy to throw an ageing fiat around a field or car park a few times a year, on a budget of around £500 to get up and running, AND be competitive with it.
Long may Motor Clubs, AND their events at ALL levels continue, and hopefully flourish.