Barnstormers, snake oil salesmen and the art of sustainability

The other day I figured it was time to tidy up the house a bit. A fatal mistake, of course.

One finds things and one is quickly diverted. Suddenly I was reading Richard Bach’s book called “Biplane”, about flying a 1929 barnstormer from coast to coast in the United States, back in 1964. And as I read, it struck me that Formula 1 and barnstorming are not very different in the overall scheme of things.

Back in the 1920s a flying circus would turn up in town, put on some stunts, charm the ladies, let the locals go for a spin in exchange for a buck and then they would pack up and be off to another town. It was something different, a distraction for the locals and a living for the flyers. F1 is the barnstorming of the modern era. Sure, now you can watch it on TV. And ticket prices are now exorbitant. There are fancy facilities and sponsors with their over-dressed wives in tow, but the principle is the same.

Pay us a dollar and we will give you a thrill.

F1 people are probably the worst placed people in the world to appreciate the spectacle they offer. They have seen it all too often and the excitement is muted. To them it is humdrum existence. From time to time, rather than watching the cars as they accelerate away from the grid, I watch the crowd instead, to see how people react when they first see the unleashing of 15,000 horsepower en route to the first corner. People stand open-mouthed, some cross their legs in excitement. Some jump up and down. It is a great way to remember what this show is all about.

I am starting to look forward to Melbourne. It is still five weeks away, and the first month of the season is going to be really tough with four events on five weekends and about 50,000 miles worth of flying, but the thrill that first drew me to the sport is still there. Sometimes when it is quiet in the winter months one gets the urge to settle down, but the lure of the engines in the Spring remains as strong as ever. This year’s calendar is actually very good because the loss of Canada, sad though that is, means that we stay in Europe for the whole summer. There is no venturing away on long hauls again until September. This will save money for everyone – and that is what F1 needs more than anything else at the moment.

Over the years I have been a harsh critic of FIA President Max Mosley at some times and a strong supporter at others. Sometimes his antics have not bothered me one way or the other. Right now, I think Mosley, for all his faults and his foibles, has the right idea. Formula 1 needs to be sustainable. It has to survive. Worthless spending must be cut. I have believed for some years that a budget cap is the correct way to go, but the teams with money like to spend it because it creates their advantage. There are always going to be vested interests involved, but in such circumstances with the money supply dwindling and some teams in real danger, it is logical to try to turn the teams into profitable businesses.

There are two ways to do that: one can squeeze down the earnings of the promoter, forcing the Formula One group to give more to the teams. Let’s be quite honest here: 50% is a very high figure for any promoter in the modern age. Or one can cut the costs. The FIA shows no desire at all to go to war with the Formula One. A contract is in place, so they say. It should be respected. Up to a point that is a valid argument, but it would be a much stronger argument if the money was staying in the sport. At the moment a bunch of smooth-tongued bankers are taking it all.

Justifying this is work for the snake oil salesmen. It is not sustainable. It will reduce. The next few years will be one long rearguard action as the teams bite new chunks from the promoters slice of the pie every time the contracts come up for renewal. They will not be satisfied until it is down to around 15%, which is the normal sort of percentage for a promoter.

But F1 needs to be more than just financially sustainable. Gone are the days when one can race gas-guzzling monsters and say that it does not matter. F1 needs to position itself to be be seen as trying to help solve environmental problems. Let us be honest here, motorsport is hard-pressed to appear environmentally-friendly, but that does not mean it cannot try. The FIA long ago bought forests in Mexico to offset the carbon emissions of Formula 1, but F1 needs to be seen to be contributing solutions as well: KERS and its allied technologies are important in this respect. There are other practical ways in which the sport can help.

The biggest problem for every sport is the impact of the spectators travelling to the races. If one looks at this, soccer is the most environmentally-damaging sport because of the thousands of fans who travel to matches in their own cars. Some argue that it could be angling of even golf, but the key point is that it is wise for all sports to reduce the carbon footprint of their participants.

In Monaco in December Clive Bowen of Apex Circuit Design spoke to the Motorsport Business Forum about this. A crowd of 100,000 people travelling an average of 50km produces as much as 1000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, he said. If half the people used park-and-ride schemes in the immediate vicinity of the circuit this could be reduced by 29%. And if there was a mass transportation system another 34% could easily be cut from the total. It is therefore no great surprise that many of the new circuits being developed have elements of public transportation involved. The trend, in any case, is to move racing nearer to the people, with street events such as Sinagpore and purpose-built facilities near cities, such as Abu Dhabi. Donington Park is planning to use a lot of public transportation for its British GP in 2010.

Mass transportation systems are making a comeback in many parts of the world not just because of the pollution of automobiles but because they reduce traffic congestion. A recent study in Chicago found that the city loses more than $2bn in earnings each year because of congestion. The bill for the city’s mass transit system is $1.68bn, but if that was increased to $2.4bn a year, the reduced disruption would create an additional $3.86bn in earnings.

Transportation is only part of the story. Bowen said that while racing circuits can do many visible things to appear greener (such as erecting wind farms or using solar panels), but by far the best way to create energy-savings is to do a better job of construction, with better insulation to control heat loss, more efficient lighting systems, recycled materials (particularly tarmac), sustainable drainage systems and so on. These can create energy savings of up to 90%. Bowen pointed out that 20m tonnes of CO2 could be saved each year if the world did not leave its electrical machines in standby mode.

Using local materials, thus reducing the emissions that result from transporting materials around the world, would also make a significant saving. He illustrated this point by saying that the logic of transporting Welsh granite to the Middle East was fundamentally flawed, when there is no shortage of usable rock in the region.

However, the biggest impact that the sport can have is to publicise the problem, making people aware of the need to change their habits and take care of their world. This was the major messages of the much-abused Honda Racing F1 “Earth Dreams” programme and although Honda did not find a sponsor to save the day the company did benefit from being seen to be pushing an environmental message.

It is really not very different to barnstorming – which showed the world the possibilities of aviation.

Back to the tidying…

February 18 2009

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