IN BACKING up their great Sydney experiment of 2018, Supercars have all but committed to more night racing as part of the categories long-term future.
Nothing is official yet, but the series continued push to move towards a summer-oriented summer can be backed up by the fact that, on balance, lots of people seem to love Supercars under lights.
The Perth SuperNight was a sensational event that, like Sydney last year, helped re-invigorate a market that desperately needed an injection of something new to boost otherwise flagging crowds and interest.
Attendance at the weekend was up 23% on the same round in 2018 – to just over 32,000 people – and the whole weekend had a big event vibe about it.
Perth, once a stronghold for Supercars fans thanks to West Australia’s massive mining industry and their isolation from other key major events, had slipped in recent years and needed something special to return the event to some kind of prominence.
What’s more, TV ratings were significant despite going head to head with two codes of football on both Friday and Saturday night: the latter of the pair the third most-watched race of the season across Channel 10 and Fox Sports.
It wasn’t perfect, of course: the crowd on Friday was slim and noticeably so – indicating that perhaps the format needs to adjust to cater for the different style of event running under lights offers.
While the ‘SuperSprint’ format, 120km on Saturday and 200km on Sunday, works well enough at regular events, making the trip to the track for a sole 50-minute race and support program on Friday night seemed like hard work.
While there’s no doubt that promoters make their money from three days of corporate and ticket sales, the small turnout on Thursday and Friday would indicate that stacking everything into one massive Saturday night show might be the way to go.
Run Friday if you have to, but save the team’s a day of running and put two races in quick succession on Saturday night in and around some key supports, fireworks and a band and you’d be set.
150-kilometers seems like an ideal distance: long enough for strategies and pit stops to play out but short enough to do a couple within a quick window.
Run the first one in twilight and the second under full lights, with one support act in between.
It’d be a hell of a show.
Regardless of options for the future, the reaction from fans, drivers, TV viewers and sponsors alike points to a healthy future for this format to continue to be a staple on the Supercars calendar.
As a tool to revive flagging events like Perth or Sydney, it is the perfect way to add a unique selling point and something different. You wouldn’t use it everywhere – some events just don’t need it and two or three a season would seem to be the perfect number – but it’s a handy weapon for the series to have in the armoury should they need it.
Supercars will be back at Sydney Motorsport Park next year and they’re locked in at Perth for a while yet; as such, it’s not unreasonable to expect both to be prime-time Supercars rounds again in 2019.
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