HOW CLUBS ARE RESPONDING TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
“This couldn’t really have happened at a worse time,” says Ken Davies, chairman of the Castle Combe Racing Club. There is never a good time for a pandemic to strike the world but, with Motorsport UK suspending event permits just days before the circuit-racing season was due to begin, it has made the situation especially difficult for organising clubs.
“What some people don’t realise is a racing club has a six-month window to generate all of its income and then a six-month period where it has to live on what it’s been able to generate,” explains Davies. “All revenue stops until racing starts again the next April.”
So this year, instead of the difficult winter time for clubs lasting from November until April, it will continue until at least July and possibly even longer than that. Inevitably, such a long fallow period is going to have an impact, and clubs up and down the country are now working to minimise the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.
Governing body Motorsport UK is helping with that too, by offering a £1million fund to support struggling clubs through this difficult spell (for more on this, see p63). But the grants of
