Horse 2717 - The End Of The Road For V8Supercars Approaches Fast

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic crisis was a thing, Supercars management was considering what kind of steps that they should take to future proof the sport. Those of us on the outside who didn't have to worry about the immediate commercial challenges, could see storms brewing which have only been compounded by the pandemic.
Motorsport in Australia for a very long time has been beholden to the whims of the manufacturers and the sometimes complete apathy therein. Ford for instance, had a very strong presence in 1977 and then just three years later completely abandoned Allan Moffat who had given them a famous 1-2 at Bathurst. They would not return with any proper factory support until 1993. Holden on the other hand, maintained a presence from 1969 until 2018. Every other manufacturer has either come and gone depending on the then whims of the day but still subject to the demands of the two elephants in the room. Of late, those elephants of Ford and Holden have both suffered existence failures in Australia; with the latter ceasing to exist entirely as an entity from 1st July.
Given all of that, as one of the howling monkeys of the commentariat, I think that I have the best solution going forward. If I could somehow get a foot in the office of the CEO of Supercars, then this would be my pitch for going forward.

Australian motor racing has one of the strangest pickles that it has ever had to deal with. The top flight of touring car racing in Australia now has the problem that there are no manufacturers in Australia and consequently nobody left who might provide unbuilt shells to go racing with.
In the very olden days, it used to be that you could take a car directly out of the showroom and race it on Sunday. The problem with that is that racing machines in anger is generally more dangerous and so bespoke cars with roll cages and safety equipment like fire extinguishers started to be built.
With every single manufacturer having moved out of the way, you'd think that this might spell disaster for motor racing; when it is quite the contrary. For possibly the first time since 1968 there is now an opportunity for the sport to define its own design requirements, rather than be subject to the fads and fancies of the manufacturers.

In the lower categories of motorsport, the drivers and teams run cars that they either think will give them some kind of advantage according to the rules or perhaps because they actually like running the kinds of car that they will run. There are also categories where there has never been any resemblance to road cars at all, such as formula racing (like Formula Ford) and circle track racing (Sprint Cars) and nobody seems to have a problem at all with this. Likewise in the very top eschelons of motorsport such as Prototype and GT racing where the aim and end of going as fast as possible supercedes all else, there is also no concession to running anything that looks like a road car.
In categories such as NASCAR Cup series, the concession to running anything that looks like a road car extends only as far as the cosmetic differences on the front and rear of the car. Those cars have stickers and shaped mouldings to at best give a passing resemblance to what is on the road but no further.
Time and time again, various motorsports categories prove in principle that the fans don't actually care a whole heap if the cars on track bear only a passing resemblance or no resemblance at all to what is on the road, as long as the sport is fun to watch.


- A car which doesn't actually exist on the road versus another car which doesn't actually exist on the road and which brand won't exist in 21 days either

To that end, the solution is to embrace that complete lack of resemblance to what is on the road and instead embrace the better principle that if the thing in question looks cool, then that's really all that matters.
Basically, we need to remember that sport generally and motorsport in particular is an elaborate and expensive way of playing games with expensive toys. In short, we are all born with a finger up our nose, then we get taller. The only difference between the people who drive Porsches and the people who drive Corollas is the quality and expensiveness of the toys that they are playing with.

Basically the way that I see it, the Supercars Championship can decide to go in two and a half directions.

1. They can admit that as a thing, they are basically finished and adopt GT3 regulations.
This was the route that the Japanese Auto Federation took when they originally conceived of firstly the Japanese Grand Touring Championship and then Super GT. Super GT in their GT300 class runs a mix of pure GT3 cars, so-called 'Mother Chassis' cars, and JAF cars; without getting too deep into the weeds, are equalised for performance with Balance Of Performance which is similar to GT3. They run GT3 and GT3 equivalent cars, which although haven't actually been approved by the FIA, are run as though they had been.

2. They can adopt NASCAR Gen-7 regulations.
NASCAR as discussed in previous posts, is getting ready to adopt its next generation of cars. However instead of having the teams themselves build the chassis, all of those chassis will be built by Dallara. By having a single common fabricator, they can make the cars more close in terms of performance because the individual teams no longer have the ability to chase 1% improvements.
The beauty of having a single fabricator such as this is that Dallara is already building the cars anyway and as they are already going to be building them, then ordering a few more isn't going to be all that difficult.

3. They can adopt some other current common standard.
With no future Commodore to play with, this means that the class is an open book. The most obvious thing would be to adopt the Penske Mustang as the standard and then let other teams/manufacturers put their own noses and tail light clusters on it. Since the Penske Mustang already bears no common components with the road going car, then this is hardly an issue. I could very easily imagine a Chevy crate motor, BMW V8, Toyota V8 or whatever other engine would fit, all being allowed and rated against each other. As it is, the rumours are that the sport is considering adopting the Coyote V8 as a common engine but there really isn't any need to.

What we do know is that the Commodore already is a legacy vehicle since the last ZB Commodore was built back in January. Holden as a brand is almost a legacy item as after 30 June, General Motors officially stops trading in Australia. That leaves Ford all on its own and since they don't actually fabricate the Mustang, then really the whole category doesn't need Ford's blessing either.