IN A WORLD of short attention spans, 30-second Instagram videos and an ‘I want it now!’ culture, actually committing to something for the long term is becoming more and more a rare thing.
In fact, when you think about it there are really only a few things in life you commit to for more than, say, 10 years.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average length of a marriage here is a tad over 12 years which, has actually increased since last measured in the early 1990s so it’s nice to know love is still a thing.
Some studies suggest that the average amount of time a person commits to one job is just under five years – though in this day and age it seems like some of my younger mates change theirs every five minutes.
The average time people have remaining on their mortgage is somewhere between 15 and 25 years, depending on who you speak to and who’s trying to do you a better deal on the current interest rate.
Outside of that, long-term commitment is lacking in life these days. Take new car ownership, for example. My parents had their first brand-new car, a 1983 Holden Commodore SL Wagon (With the 202 and M21 four-speed and tacho, thanks) for more than 25 years before it was finally pensioned off.
If you bought a new car today, however, you’ll probably be looking for a new one in around seven years.
And that’s about it. TV’s, computers, cameras and phones are changing so often now that you’re lucky to hold on to one for more than two years in one go.
Much like racing driver contracts, actually.
As the sport feels the pinch of a challenging financial market, driver contracts – and we’re talking about those actually paid to race cars professionally – have shrunk in value and in their duration.
Two-year deals are the norm these days, while quite a few operate on a year-to-year basis; their future dictated to by sponsorship availability which changes quicker than the seasons.
Which makes David Reynolds’ 10-year commitment to Erebus Motorsport, and their equally momentous commitment to a driver, such big news.
Only once in the recent history of Australian Motorsport has any one driver tied themselves to one outfit for so long; Craig Lowndes’ inked a decade-long deal with the Walkinshaw’s in the mid 1990s that was planned to take him through Europe and ideally to Formula One. That didn’t work, however, and by 2001 he was a Ford driver and the contract was as burnt as Holden fans felt.
There will of course be break clauses at both ends of the deal; Reynolds will surely be able to walk if the team doesn’t perform or if there’s an unbelievable (and unlikely) offer to go and drive for Ferrari or something.
Similarly, Erebus are likely to have outs if they find themselves unable to continue to go racing at all.
Yet from both sides it’s a show of faith in each other and that things should be okay in the sport, too.
In Reynolds, Erebus have a driver with personality. Sponsors love him, the media lap up his quotes and after Lowndes, McLaughlin, Whincup and van Gisbergen he’d easily have the biggest supporter base around. It may, possibly, be bigger than some of those names too.
He’s also a fast driver who after a slow and steady start to his career seems to have found his environment and is coming into his own; few in the paddock suggest that we’ve seen a better version of D. Reynolds the racing driver so far and that, if he’s given the tools to do the job, he may be better yet. Certainly, he’s coming into his peak period of results potential.
In Erebus, Reynolds has apparently found kindred spirits in owner Betty and no-nonsense team boss Barry Ryan. Whatever it is, and as weird as it can sometimes seem from the outside, it just works.
It’s also a show of faith in Supercars. As the sport has evolved and grown it has increasingly relied on the drivers’ as the product as much as the cars and the racing and for all the reasons outlined above, Reynolds is one of the series’ best. The knowledge that he’s going to be a staple, as the Lowndes era ends and the likes of McLaughlin start thinking about other challenges, will be a safety net on which the category can rely on when they need someone to promote the show.
Will Dave still be at Erebus in 2028? I honestly don’t know. If he is, he’ll likely be regarded as one of the sport’s greats (probably irrespective of what results come between now and then) if only for his loyalty; as Brock was to Holden and Johnson was to Ford.
But even if he isn’t, it’s nice to know that there’s still the intention to show some long-term thinking left in a world increasingly geared towards only thinking of tomorrow rather than ten years from now.
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