PowerNights : Thursday Evening Summer Motorsport

08 March 2007

A new motorsport series has been created to stage three Thursday evening racing events in 2007. POWERnights will be staged at Silverstone and Donington Park this August and will be followed by a regular series of multiple events from 2008.

POWERnights is an all-new motorsport series aimed at attracting new spectators, along with existing enthusiasts, to a weekday evening 4-hour motorsport entertainment programme. POWERnights will feature a line-up of invitation races with Club and National level drivers in popular race cars that fill the grids and are easily identified by the spectator. Short entertaining sprint races with the traditional first across the line taking the race spoils, no points and no championships. The series has been developed to provide a non-stop on-track action sprint race entertainment for spectators and an attractive comprehensive circuit day for competitors.

POWERnights will be held on Thursdays where a full day competitor programme will provide; general track testing, followed by a short qualifying session in the afternoon and eight races between 6pm to 9pm. After the last race the paddock will be open to competitors, teams, marshals and spectators for a post-race BBQ, Bar and Race Awards Ceremony.

Each of the POWERnights events will be open to the public from 5pm, with the opportunity to purchase refreshments/programme etc before taking their seats/viewing positions for the 6pm start of 8 races. At Silverstone the grandstand seating in the Start Line, Woodcote & Luffield areas will be provided at no extra cost. At Donington Park available stand seating will be provided FREE. Tickets will be attractively priced at just £10 Adult in advance (£15 OTD) and kids go FREE providing an affordable, all inclusive, entertaining Thursday evening sport aimed at local commuters and families within a 30/45 minute driving radius of each venue.

For the competitor POWERnights will provide low budget one-day testing, practice and double-header racing during his/hers mid-week regular testing schedule, allowing them to arrive early and return home in a one-day schedule.


“Weekday evening events is something that has worked extremely well in other sports, such as 20-20 cricket and POWERnights will be targeted at driving a new audience for motor racing that may then be also keen to follow our traditional national motorsport series at weekends,” said Roger Etcell, Managing Director of Series Promoter Motion Works. “We have agreements in place with the Silverstone, Donington Park, MSA and the BRSCC to stage the three evening events in 2007 and, if successful, we’ll be looking to increasing this to around 10 events in 2008.”

“The idea behind POWERnights is to pack comprehensive entertainment into a short period of time that will appeal to people who find that their free time at the weekends is these days extremely limited, “Etcell continued. “Each event will feature four categories and each will have two races, the first starting at 6pm and the last before 9pm when the focus of the evening will move from the track to the paddock for the prize giving, BBQ and entertainment. We’ll be targeting large companies within a 45 minute radius of the circuit, promoting it as something employees could come along to after work with colleagues, friends or the family and the pricing structure is geared accordingly. The competitors get at great day of cost effective testing and racing and the spectators get an evening of action packed entertainment. Everyone’s a winner!”

Part of the 2007 trial will be to potentially assess new ideas in trackside recovery/marshalling, along with the regular methods, as the organisers recognise the current issues of volunteer marshalling within the sport, especially with this weekday schedule. All volunteer marshals will receive family tickets and evening BBQ voucher for the event.

See series calendars for all 2007 PowerNights