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A second New Zealand round has been a hot topic since the successful debut of Taupo on the Supercars calendar late last month.
The enthusiasm from the Kiwi crowd prompted speculation that a second appearance could be imminent, with Hampton Down and Highlands both floated as options.
Like Taupo both of those circuits are owned by Quinn.
While on the surface a second NZ round makes sense, it’s not necessarily a straightforward proposition.
Running a second event a week later at Hampton Downs has logistical difficulties such as moving the temporary grandstands from Taupo.
It would also run the risk of eating into the Taupo crowd given the circuits are relatively close to each other.
In that regard Highlands makes more sense, however the cost of transporting cars to the South Island is significant.
Beyond that, Quinn has another condition on Supercars coming to Highlands – that it can’t be just another sprint round. Instead, it has to be something special.
“My mission now is, ‘what do we do now?’,” he said on the first episode of Polarizer with Roland Dane and Paul Morris.
“And I had discussions with the V8 group at the [race] weekend… Taupo is done, that will be fine. We’ll improve it and make it better. But what are we going to do now?
“There was a lot of talk around a second round. And if you look at it economically, doing another round at Hampton Downs would make economic sense, from a cost point of view, and I don’t think you would lose too much ground at Taupo and I think you’d pick up more at Hampton Downs.
“But the overwhelming push was to go to Highlands. I said to them that Highlands is a special place and I would like to think that you could have a special event there.
“That’s as far as it went. But the message is that it’s such a good place, we can’t just go and do another sprint round there.”
Quinn also confirmed plans to swap air freight for sea freight next year.
“That’s definitely happening,” he said when the idea was floated by Dane.
For more watch the full episode of Polarizer above or listen via the podcast links below.
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