Who is excited about the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship finale this weekend? Three races, four finalist – Broc Feeney, Chaz Mostert, Will Brown and Kai Allen. Yet, there is almost an uncomfortable feeling and anti-climax about the Adelaide Grand Final.
What if Kai Allen won? Now that would be ridiculous and quite unfair. You see, without the finals system introduced this season, Broc Feeney would be the rightful champion. He has 13 race wins and stood on the podium six other times. Mostert has four wins and seven other podiums while Will Brown has a 2/10 ratio. Kai Allen has no race victories and stood on the podium just five times. Yes, that is a big zero. In fact, in 31 races, he has finished outside the top ten 17 times, yet he could be the 2025 Supercars champion.
You see, purity is a beautiful thing. It’s very rare, hard to obtain, strived for as many seek perfection. It’s like gold. When you find it, you want to preserve it, not wanting it to be contaminated.
The sports arena is one of those places where perfection is sought after by fans and it is what elite athletes aspire too. Remember Ayrton Senna at Monaco in 1988 in what has been deemed the finest qualifying lap in Formula One history. Was that near-perfection?
While we may never see out-and-out perfection, the years of progression gives us a sense of what is actually at the top of what we value. The height of our striving for that perfection.
The problem is that to stay at these heights, adulteration slips in. That being the action of making something poorer in quality by the addition of another substance. It’s like taking my mother’s apple pie recipe and commercialising it. While it may look and taste similar, however the adding of preservatives coupled with the variables of commercialisation, means it will never quite be exactly the same.
We see this seeping into sport, sometimes successful, sometimes not. Call me old and traditional but nothing beats a classic five-day test cricket match. While the game has been modified, marketed to a new audience, One-Day matches, 20-over, Max this and that; the resulting adulterations leave me wanting a good-old five dayer! Now we have Fan and Pit Boost in Formula E, different ‘Stages’ in a NASCAR race, Push-to-Pass in IndyCar, DRS (Drag Reduction System) in F1, and now a ‘NASCAR-type’ finals system in Supercars.
While I get the Push-to-Pass and DRS in single seater racing (let’s face it, F1 was very pedestrian with little passing before DRS), why have Supercars introduced a finals system?
This is marketing and not motor racing. Pure motorsport is about who is fastest from lights-out to the checkered flag. A real champion is the fastest over a series of races and the driver with the most wins should come out on top. Finals are for team sports, TV ratings, marketing departments and accountants. Purists seek purity.
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