WHAT WOULD you say if the Bathurst 1000 was the final round of this year’s Supercars championship?
That scenario is looking more likely now thanks to another complicated series of events that has caused further chaos to the calendar as the sport continues to duck and weave in it’s ten-round boxing match with the Coronavirus pandemic.
Events of the past week have seen the first of two Darwin events pushed back a week thanks to the Northern Territory Government declaring Brisbane a Coronavirus hotspot, forcing several drivers and teams to quarantine for a week before heading out into the population.
That has then shifted the second event in the Territory to what is expected to be a mid-week event, before the series heads across to Townsville for a pair of back-to-back events on the North Queensland street circuit.
With Melbourne in a six-week hard lockdown and it seemingly unlikely that teams will head home, a further double header in Ipswich will likely follow before the series wraps up at the Mountain in October.
An October finish will allow teams to head home for an extended off-season, allowing some recuperation after what will have been almost four months on the road and away from friends and family.
It also removes the risk of sending teams back to Melbourne and not being able to get them out again should Victoria’s woes continue for longer than the currently planned six-week shutdown.
Of course, the moment you suggest to anyone that you end with the Bathurst 1000 a raft of differing opinions are raised about the relative pro’s and cons involved in making the biggest event of the year also the finale’.
In a regular season, Bathurst’s traditional date in October doesn’t work for finishing the year; the championship runs through to late November in a normal calendar, so it hasn’t been an issue for a long time.
In fact, it’s been two decades since the Mountain also doubled as the championship finale’.
In the year 2000 the 1000 was run in November as the long-running Super Touring versus Supercars feud petered out – in favour of the latter.
But for two years, 1999 and 2000, the Great Race also doubled as the championship finale’ and ended the year with it’s biggest event.
While it is force majeure this year I have never been convinced that finishing with the Bathurst 1000 is the best thing for the sport.
There’s a mentality in Australian sport that the biggest game should always be the last one; but that is because it’s a Grand Final of a premiership season – of course it’s going to be the biggest game.
But look around the world and it is very rare that you will find the biggest, most famous event doubling as the championship finale’ as well.
In Formula One, the Monaco Grand Prix is usually within the first half a dozen races of the year in its traditional May date.
In America, the Daytona 500 opens the NASCAR season and the Indianapolis 500 continues to be held in the Month of May, as it has been done for more than a century. No one, not a single soul, cares that it neither stars nor finishes the IndyCar championship season.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans has finished the World Endurance Championship under it’s current ‘Super Season’ format, but there’s several factors at work there, most notably the fact that outside of the around-the-clock epic there are exactly zero other notable, famous events on the calendar to compete.
Supercars are lucky. There is the Adelaide 500, the Gold Coast 600 and Newcastle 500 as showpiece events that could all start or finish the year in style.
Bathurst is more than big enough to stand on its own two feet regardless of where it sits in the schedule.
What’s more, the champion isn’t always decided by who wins the final round, which poses the risk of diminishing the accomplishment of the title winner should it be decided on the Mountain.
Sure, people remember that Mark Skaife won the 2000 V8 Supercars championship, but how many remember that he claimed it at Bathurst, by finishing sixth? Exactly right – no one does; on that day, the remarkable story of Jason Bargwanna and Garth Tander winning in the rain driving a Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden dominated the headlines – and rightly so.
And what of the risks? A championship is won by just the one driver; but the 1000 is a two-driver race. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a co-driver if the title is on the line.
And if you’re in title contention and in contention to win the Great Race, do you make that risky last-lap pass or strategy call to win Bathurst, or do you play it safe to get the points but potentially give up a chance of winning a race you may never get a again?
The Bathurst 1000 is Australia’s most special race and is more than powerful enough to stand on its own two feet without needing a championship decider thrown into the mix.
Yes, it looks increasingly likely that it will happen this year – and it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
But, all things being equal, I suggest it’ll be a once and done thing.
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