My hometown need a decent environmental permit to race - in order to re-engineer & keep up with the global economy pace

Dear blogreader,

The brand name of my hometown was created around a race track, that was constructed in a useless swampland, and financed by locals with the vision to host Formula 1 races one day. The vision was realized in 5 years during an era were the sport was at a different level and the TV/Media coverage in the 1970's of a full race weekend was restricted to 5 minutes.

Today such projects are coming with a $100M price tag but still a number of new projects have been completed in Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, South Korea and with India under way. All with the objective to reinforce the global profile of these places and countries. It represent an opportunity to create high profile events with global attraction capabilities, and hefty media coverage. Motorsport and Football/Soccer are not only sports that capture large TV crowds, they are in the category of the rare few that have traction to drive a dedicated channel line up.

The 40 year old track in my hometown have over the last couple of years been renovated and turned into a national Motorsport high school. The primary outstanding problem is that their environmental permit, the one that is required to host motorsport events, have been restricted to 2 weekends per year. Even tough there are no major Formula 1 races anymore, it is easy to see the limitations that such in permit introduce for all involved.

During the the last 2 weeks 12 000 people have signed their support for a change of the permit, and this in a town with 5000 inhabitants. And 1244 cars did show up last Saturday (here in an aerial view) to further show their support, for what I think is a dual edged business opportunity of meaningful proportions.

1. The races themselves and the business they bring in during a weekend
2. The larger opportunity to exploit a worldwide known brand for all kinds of new local businesses and that in a highly entrepreneurial area

With the rapid development in the personal vehicle market segment it is easy to see how motorsport will be changed during this decade with access to completely different types of engines with a different environmental impact. This at the same type as the automotive industry is re-shaped and the the likes of BMW, Toyota and Honda having exited exit the pinnacle sport and new ones like Virgin, Campos Meta, US F1 and Mercedes entering. All could be interpreted as clear signs of a changing global economy.

If the larger global business context can come through to the policymakers in charge for this topic, it is likley to allow the region to exploit a strong brand with a variety of new businesses. By revoking the permit, the Brand and the associated opportunities will be significantly smaller and likely to be erased during this deacde.

The alternative is to leverage the existing motorsport infrastructure, adopt a decent environmental permit level and to develop a new businesses associated with motorsport. I am convinced that all the local entrepreneurs can and will capitalize on such an opportunity and thay will play a role in re-shaping motorsports to meet the future environmental demands if they get supported by a decent permit.

It has been a great pleasure to travel extensively across the globe and to recognize that most people are familiar with the company I work for, some know something about my home country and all that are motorsport interested know my hometown! And believe me they are quite a few in the world.

All the best!