A Repco Bathurst 1000 Top 10 Shootout was cancelled for the first time in history at this year’s event, and that is the genesis of this week’s Pirtek Poll.
Specifically, we are asking you if Supercars needs to be more flexible with the scheduling of its events in order to maximise track activity in the face of adverse weather forecasts.
After deliberation by Race Control, and attempts to clear standing water as well as dig makeshift drainage, the decision to call off Saturday’s Top 10 Shootout was announced around 10 minutes before it was set to kick off late that afternoon.
Supercars CEO Shane Howard faced media along with his Head of Motorsport, Adrian Burgess, and Motorsport Australia Race Director, James Taylor, when the Shootout would have taken place, and was asked if consideration had been given to altering the Saturday schedule in order to run the session earlier.
He stated that it is “a difficult thing to do”, citing factors including television broadcasts, and reasoned also that there was no time to complete the one-lap dash on race day.
The question was a pertinent one considering heavy rainfall had been predicted, with very high confidence, from days out from the event, and forecasts on the day prior were for thunderstorms around the time of the Shootout.
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In Supercars’ defence, however, the ominous forecasts proved inaccurate at a number of other times during the weekend, a point made by Howard himself, and the 161-lap race itself was largely dry, contrary to expectations earlier in the weekend.
Still, it is worth interrogating the broadcast schedules argument.
The Top 10 Shootout used to be held on the Saturday morning of the event, as recently as 2002, and, for a period of time during Network 10’s original run as a television rights holder, would be broadcast on delay that afternoon.
It became a live, Saturday afternoon television spectacle in 2003, and tends to be the most-watched session of the season (noting that the length of the race itself would dampen average television ratings figures given the propensity for viewers to dip in and out).
That reason alone makes it all the more disappointing for Supercars, as well as broadcast partners including Fox Sports and the Seven Network in Australia, that the session was canned.
However, Seven’s live Saturday telecast started at 10:00 AEDT, in time for Practice 5, the first Supercars Championship session of the day, at 10:20 local time.
One must wonder, therefore, if Seven (and/or Fox Sports) would have been receptive to shuffling the order of Practice 5, Practice 6, and the Shootout, while staying in the free-to-air broadcast window, in order to safeguard the latter session.
It is also worth noting that abrupt schedule and calendar/fixture changes had become the norm in 2020 and 2021 due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Society has arguably grown accustomed to, or at least become more accommodating of, expecting the unexpected and rolling with it.
Indeed, Supercars moved the start time of the Great Race forward by half an hour just two years ago amid forecasts of rain which could have sent the race finish, which is not time-certain, into the late afternoon/early evening when ambient light could have been very low.
Another race later in that quartet of events was cancelled altogether due to rain.
IndyCar, on the other hand, brought forward the start of qualifying for this year’s Indianapolis 500 due to the threat of weather, and the race at Gateway.
The latter change was announced only on the day of the race although, in fairness, IndyCar only had to deal with subscription television then whereas Supercars had a free-to-air network to consider at Bathurst.
Regardless, we ask the question, does Supercars need to be more flexible with its event scheduling? Cast your vote in this week’s Pirtek Poll.
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