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BJR is Supercars’ only squad running more than two full-time cars after Tickford Racing scaled back from four to two this year, stressing the benefits of channelling its focus.
Brad Jones is known to have received interest in selling one or more of his Teams Racing Charters this year but is adamant four cars is the ideal model for his team.
“There’s a lot of people that probably don’t really understand and so they look at the fact we run four cars and think we’d be more successful with two,” said Jones in his latest YouTube video.
“What you’ve got to remember is, each car brings in a certain amount of money and for us, as a group, we’ve been running four cars for a long time.
“We have a great group of people here, we have 55 full-time employees, if I was going to run two cars, I’d have half that amount of staff or less.
“So, this works out fine for us. We wouldn’t go any faster if we just had two cars, we’d just have half the people here. It’s a working model that we’ve perfected over the years.”
BJR has run four cars since 2020, when the Smith family purchased a TRC and slotted it into the previously three-car Albury garage.
The two BJR teams, split into #8/#14 and #12/#96, are currently ninth and 12th in the Supercars teams’ championship respectively amid a tough season for the squad.
“Last year we came third in the teams’ championship,” Jones continued. “We had a pretty rough year this year, but I feel like we’ve turned a corner.
“We’ll see what the year finishes up like but, honestly, two cars, four cars, the working model we have with the amount of people we want to hire here to give us an advantage of sorts to have plenty of depth in the business, a four-car model works best for us.”
BJR has made one key change during the 2024 season, inking a deal back in July to become a Triple Eight data customer.
Jones also addressed the overall business model for a Supercars team, declaring it a “tricky business”.
“You don’t have a lot of income streams,” he said.
“Now we run the Gen3 cars and we all have to run the same parts, we do sell a few bits and pieces off to other teams.
“But most of the income comes from… what we’re paid by Supercars is a smaller portion… and the rest of it comes from sponsorship and the deals we’re able to do to run the cars.
“It’s a really tricky business. Your income is pretty much fixed at the start of the year but your outgoings fluctuates, so the more damage you have to the cars, the more cost you’ve got.
“It’s a really difficult business to manage, but we’ve been here for a long time and we’re still here, which is a positive.”
Although Jones has previously stated he has no plans to change his driver line-up for 2025, the team appears to be a player in the market.
Team 18 outcast Mark Winterbottom continues to be linked to the team following PremiAir Racing’s decision to opt for Richie Stanaway.
