THE SUPERCHEAP AUTO Bathurst 1000 has a new sponsor
After 15 years, one auto parts brand will be replaced by another as Repco takes up the reigns as the title backer of Australia’s most famous and important race.
The change is significant on account of the fact that Supercheap brought stability to the title sponsorship position of the Great Race after a decade of turmoil and challenges behind the scenes.
After an eight-year tenue from iconic beer brand Tooheys ended in 1995, AMP bank took the naming rights of the race for the 1996 season onwards – though the sport was in the midst of a nasty split that would have ramifications for the remainder of the decade on the Mountain.
When Supercars was founded in 1997 so too was a nasty war between the V8 series and the two-litre Super Touring Category; and Bathurst, as the holy grail of the sport, was the key battleground.
In a time when separate promoters, rather than the series itself, put on the race, Bathurst promoters the Australian Racing Drivers Club committed to the two-litre cars on the traditional date – the AMP Bathurst 1000 run and won by the Brothers Brabham that year in their BMW.
Two-weeks later, telco Primus backed the Supercars version of the race, won by Larry Perkins and Russell Ingall.
While AMP would continue to back the ‘traditional’ Bathurst event for another year, the Supercars version picked up the title backing of insurer FAI for the next three years.
AMP was gone from the two-litre race at the end of the 1998 event, replaced the following year by Bob Jane T-Marts and a 500km race that would ultimately prove the end of the Super Touring era.
Some form of normality resumed the following year, the FAI 1000 for Supercars the only Bathurst Touring Car enduro on the calendar, though it was still run in November.
While FIA pulled the pin at the end of the 2000 season, what was now known as the V8 Supercar 1000 returned to the traditional early-October date in 2001, spending one year without a major backer.
Bob Jane T-Marts returned in 2002 for a three-year stretch holding the naming rights before Supercheap stepped in for 2005, holding the position ever since.
The Auto Parts retailer certainly made the most of it, too. As well as heavily promoting their involvement in the race throughout the year, their pair of trackside stores set up to service fans and campers at the 1000 each year proved to be wildly successful; for one weekend a year, Supercheap’s most profitable stores in the nation would be the ones set up at Mount Panorama.
2020 marked the final year of Supercheap’s current three-year deal to sponsor the great race and while it seemed like they would be there forever, 2020 offered another curveball with the news that another iconic parts retailer, Repco, would take over.
In most circumstances it would be a neat transition with one deal ending and celebrated, and a new brand coming on board for a new era of the race.
It was disappointing, then, that Supercheap’s head honcho spoke out about the news this week, stating his disappointment that Supercars had chosen an international brand rather than the Aussie alternative, and that they couldn’t compete with the cash on offer.
I think it tarnished the 15 years of outstanding support the brand put into the race and struck of sour grapes.
Being in the retail and commercial world, they, more than anyone, would understand that in these troubled times any company that doesn’t take the best deal on the table would be hauled over the coals by shareholders and fans alike – especially in sport and doubly so in motorsport.
Supercheap’s deal was up, the sponsorship was on the market and Supercars went with a brand who apparently offered more money. They’d have been mad not to take it and would’ve been lynched if they hadn’t.
All Supercheap have done this week is stir up the keyboard warriors who don’t understand how sponsorship works, and the clickbait press who don’t care. It’s a bit of a sad way to say goodbye.
Nostalgia is wonderful and loyalty admirable but the harsh, bottom-line reality of the world is that commercially driven outcomes are the number one consideration.
And yes, it was great that an Australian business supported the race for so long, but parochialism doesn’t pay the bills.
And it must be noted, that Repco – owned by an overseas parent or not – aren’t exactly strangers to the sport in this part of the world.
As a brand they have seven decades of history in local motorsport, with their brand intrinsically linked to one of Australia’s greatest achievements in racing: Sir Jack Brabham’s World Championships in a car of his own construction, powered by a Repco engine.
Lately the brand has been a major sponsor of DJR Team Penske’s Mustangs.
It is not like they’re coming in from nowhere as a big overseas brand splashing their cash about.
They have providence, history and the wherewithal to back it up both financially and as a marketing event.
Supercheap’s tenure as the major backer of the Great Race will go down in history as significant as that of the race’s other long-term backer, James Hardie. And I hope for their sake they double-down on their investment with Tickford Racing to continue to have a major presence in the sport – major race backing, or not.
But in my eyes, there’s nothing wrong with the Bathurst 1000’s new sponsor. I think the Repco 1000 has a nice ring to it, don’t you?
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