THINGS have been pretty consistent in the Supercars world for the last few years.
Sure, the introduction of the ZB Commodore and Ford Mustang changed the look of the championship, but outside of that consistency has been the name of the game.
Race formats have been settled, the calendar has looked very similar for several years and the biggest changes have been the addition of night racing and an additional round at The Bend Motorsport Park.
That status quo, however, looks to change next year as the series continues to investigate one of the biggest overhauls of the calendar and the on-track product in some time.
Here’s a look at what is being speculated, the chances of them getting off the ground and whether it’s a good thing or not.
Culling some events
The Supercars championship races a lot. It’s a big financial commitment from teams and while the TV broadcasters probably love it, at the moment the money coming into the sport doesn’t match that being spent in servicing all of the rounds.
So one of the most rumoured talking points about the new calendar is a slight contraction of the calendar to, potentially, 14 events from the 16 currently on the calendar.
Word this week has Winton and Phillip Island both on shaky ground and in line to miss out.
While Phillip Island is one of the world’s best racing tracks and a drivers’ favourite, nether aspect pays the bills. Always a low fan-drawer, the round is promoted by Supercars events’ business and cutting it would help their bottom line.
What’s more, this year it ran back-to-back with the Symmons Plains event which was just not feasible to repeat.
Winton is a slightly different story as circuit owners, the Benalla Auto Club, and Supercars share some of the load in promoting that event. The BAC has worked diligently to build the event as something of a regional festival lately and has bested their own record camping numbers for the last three years.
However, while the event is strong, and it plays to the real ‘heartland’ Supercar fan, the circuit probably doesn’t actually make much out of it so having it drop from their own schedule isn’t going to be a business-killer.
It will be tough to lose those two rounds, especially Winton and especially in a market like Victoria. But logistically it makes sense, and with the showcase Grand Prix event locked in long-term and Sandown’s future seemingly more secure than it has been for a while their removal would add balance to the schedule.
..But what about the move to a summer series.
By all reports, this one is dead and buried, at least for now. Such a complete reinvention of the calendar would require so much work and break so many existing contracts it would take years. What’s more, on account of the wet season you can’t run Darwin or Townsville much outside of their current windows.
Instead, it looks like the sport is going down the path of having a year of two halves, with a break somewhere during the middle of the season.
The Adelaide 500 has already moved back into February for 2020, and if Supercars can negotiate their ‘we must be round one’ clause out of their next contract, expect the Sydney night race to be even earlier the following year.
Enduro time
This year is the first in a very, very long time where there isn’t a traditional 500km pre-Bathurst lead-in event as part of the Pirtek Enduro Cup.
With Sandown moving to November, teams will go straight from New Zealand to the Mountain and two-driver mode this year. The team’s don’t like that very much, so expect things to change next year.
News website, Speedcafe, reported this week that there is a good chance The Bend Motorsport Park could end up hosting the Bathurst warm-up in the near future.
It makes sense: the facilities are quite literally made for endurance racing and the timing (mid-September as opposed to their current late August date) works perfectly for both.
Sandown retains their ‘retro round’ concept and a summer date outside of football season, while The Bend gets a showpiece event rather than just another sprint round. What’s more, The Bend is likely to turn on a better product as a two-driver race.
Some won’t like Sandown losing their enduro status, but it’s happened before (with Queensland Raceway and Phillip Island) and it survived then, so it could do so again.
What else needs to happen?
There’s still a lot of moving pieces in the puzzle.
The government funding for the key Queensland events – Townsville, Ipswich and the Gold Coast – runs out soon with discussions already underway to extend that deal.
While it would not be surprising to see Ipswich disappear from the calendar, Townsville and the Gold Coast 600 are solid events that do good things for the state so unless there’s significant policy change in the Queensland Government, it’d be hard to see their status changing in the long-term.
It’s not surprising that most expect the 2020 calendar to be released, or at the very least, elements of it confirmed, at the Townsville event in three weeks-time.
So is all this change a good thing?
Ultimately, it feels like they’re moving in the right direction. If plans for a summer-based series seemed far-fetched, the current paddock discussion, rumours and innuendo points to a sensible middle-ground of having regular racing but also easing the calendar and cost pressure on teams.
If you’re Brad Jones and running three cars, two less events on your budget would represent a saving of somewhere in the vicinity of $300,000 per year – and that’s being conservative.
In these tight times, that’s a meaningful number. So while it may take some time to adapt to whatever the new calendar may be – and we need to keep in mind that at the moment, all of this is speculation – if it keeps the sport affordable for the teams involved then it can only be a good thing.
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