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Is motorsport “a race out of place”?tourism and real estate development, the Gold Coastin Queensland is now permeated with an image ofexcitement, paradise, glamour, international standardaccommodation and entertainment, the fast life andyouthful experience. An international motor racingspectacle appears to fit the Gold Coast’s tourist-basedeconomy better than that of any of the other locationsdiscussed in this paper. The location of the racereinforces the perception that motorsport, and all of itsassociated activities, should be celebrated.Television coverage of the Gold Coast Indymotorsports events focuses on the distinguishingfeatures of Surfers Paradise in the promotion of theevent. There are repeated scenic shots of the setting ofthe race, the visual signifiers of the Gold Coast (thesea, waves, surfers, luxury cruisers, sand, rivers andskyscrapers) interspersed with colourful racing carsspeeding around the Surfers Paradise circuit. Thesubliminal message is that fast cars, masculine daring,cigarette sponsorship, alcohol advertising andconsumption and ornamental women are all anaccepted and ‘normalised’ part of the landscape ofAustralia’s Gold Coast. Even the name ‘SurfersParadise’ adds to the idea of the consumption of fun.The special symbolism of Surfers Paradise that hasbeen actively promoted by successive tourist and realestate developers is now used to promote motorsport.During the television coverage of the 2003 LexmarkGold Coast Indy 300, a commentator standing on thebeach made an explicit connection between GoldCoast imagery and symbolism and motorsport:“What a fantastic view. This is one of the bestbeaches in the world, and guess what, we’ve gotan Indy track just here within walking distance,one of the best tracks in the world. This is a totalpackage, this has all the elements of sun, sandand speed.”(Channel 10 Australia, October 2003)An important issue associated with the Gold CoastIndy motorsports event is the way in which its locationenhances the symbolic imagery and hence the powerof sponsorship by alcohol companies (and tobaccocompanies before 2006) associated with the event.Researchers have already identified the importance ofco-sponsors’ third-party advertising for publicity fortobacco companies:“The symbolic imagery that is linked withparticular cigarette brand names may be enhancedwhen surrounded by other products possessingsimilar desired symbolic qualities.”(Dewhirst & Hunter, 2002, p.146)This same principle operated when the symbolicimagery of Surfers Paradise surrounded the tobaccoand alcohol sponsorship of the Indy and V8 Supercarmotorsports events. Tobacco and alcohol companiesbenefited from an association of their products withboth the glamour of an international event and theexciting image of the Gold Coast. Alcohol, cigarettesand fast cars were presented as an officially sanctionedcombination in the Gold Coast. This, it could beargued, is an important way in which the geographyof motorsport contributes to the marketing and imagemakingof health-damaging products. Yet there may befar more serious public and environmental healthimplications from the location of motorsports events insignificant public places, relating to wider issuesfacing human society, with peak oil and global climatechange being two of the main concerns.Challenges for societyThere is a growing awareness in the scientific andacademic communities, and among the generalpublic, of the emerging threats to our economies andsocieties and even to our survival as a species(Flannery, 2005; Homer-Dixon, 2006; Leggett, 2006;Monbiot, 2006). For example, Thomas Homer-Dixonidentifies five “tectonic stresses … accumulating deepunderneath the surface of our societies”. These hecalls “population stress”, “energy stress – above allfrom the increasing scarcity of conventional oil”,RESEARCH PAPER● OCTOBER 2009 ● International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship71
Is motorsport “a race out of place”?RESEARCH PAPER“environmental stress from worsening damage to ourland, water, forests and fisheries”, “climate stress fromchanges in the makeup of our atmosphere” and“economic stress resulting from instabilities in theglobal economic system” (Homer-Dixon, 2006, p.11).He adds to this list two “multipliers”, which he argues“combine with the five stresses to make breakdownmore likely, widespread and severe. The first multiplieris the rising speed and global connectivity of ouractivities, technologies and societies. The second isthe escalating power of small groups to destroy thingsand people” (Homer-Dixon, 2006, p.13).A key argument of Homer-Dixon is that, incombination, any two or more of these seven factorscan produce negative synergies, perhaps leading towhat he calls “synchronous failure”. In response tosceptics who claim his views are alarmist, he argues:“we can’t know for sure what our future holds… butwe can still say confidently that we’re sliding towardsa planetary emergency; that the risk of major socialbreakdown in general – the result of something likesynchronous failure specifically – is growing” (Homer-Dixon, 2006, pp.16-19).This paper concentrates on the importance of justtwo of the seven factors identified by Homer-Dixon –energy stress, or ‘peak oil’, and global climate change.As Homer-Dixon argues (p.12), “energy is society’scritical master resource: when it’s scarce and costly,everything we try to do becomes far harder”. Globalclimate change is now recognised as presenting anemergency. These two issues are the focus of thispaper because they are most clearly linked to theimpact of motorsport on sustainability.Peak oil is arguably one of the most importantissues that will affect society’s ability to maintainconsumption-based lifestyles (Newman et al, 2009).Peak oil is the time at which the world’s production ofoil reaches a peak, after which production mustinevitably decline, as has already occurred in 54 ofthe 65 most important oil-producing nations (Aleklett,2006). The precise effects of peak oil are difficult topredict, but given that “oil is the lifeblood of moderncivilisation” (Hirsch et al, 2006), the potentialoutcomes of peak oil are, at the very least, disruptive.Growing numbers of researchers expect the peak tooccur within the next few years (Kunstler, 2006;Leggett, 2006; Vidal, 2005).Some researchers assume that the ‘laws’ ofeconomics mean that peak oil will promote higherprices, which will “provoke more drilling and thus willrender more oil” (Shah, 2004, p.26) or will lead to asmooth transition from oil to other products and formsof energy. Yet a growing number of researchersquestion such optimism. They point out that even ifhuge new oil fields can be found (an increasinglyunlikely scenario), it will take a “long time to produceit, and a long time to transport it to market” (Leggett,2006, p.78). They warn that no combination of newtechnologies or energy sources can be developedquickly enough to replace oil in time to avoidwidespread economic collapse (Deffeyes, 2005;Goodstein, 2005; Hirsch, 2005; Kunstler, 2006).A key consideration regarding the impact of peak oilis its timing: some researchers contend that if peak oiloccurs within the next 10-20 years, it puts the wellbeingof both industrial and post-industrial societies atrisk (Parker, 2005), possibly leading to what has beendescribed as a “second great depression”, swelling thenumbers living in poverty and leading to the collapseof globalisation (Campbell, 2005).Curtis (2007) argues that globalisation may bedestabilised by a combination of the “predictedimpacts of global warming and peak oil (depletion)”.These are likely to cause disruption to transport andincrease business risk and food and goods prices, and“the long distance exploitation of cheap labour maylose much of its economic profitability in comingdecades, and supply chains may contract to regionaland local lengths” (Curtis, 2007, p.385).Scientists are reporting in the strongest terms thatcivilisation itself is threatened by global warming, anissue that can no longer afford to be ignored. “Recentgreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earthperilously close to dramatic climate change that couldrun out of our control, with great dangers for humansand other creatures” (Hansen et al, 2007). These are72 International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship ● OCTOBER 2009 ●
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