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Finally this crazy Supercars calendar, with its Australian Practice Championship Sprint format and its ill-judged event timing, is over the hump of winter and heading for finals season, albeit a race meeting or two short of the ideal cadence for the back part of the year.
The self-harm that has been inflicted on the premier motor racing category in the country in 2024 still defies belief and it was just plain sad to see Tasmanian fans denied both the opportunity to enjoy Supercars in more clement weather, as well as a proper Sprint format with at least two races on the Sunday.
The lack of on-track racing action wasn’t helped by the miserable (with the exception of Aussie Racing Cars) grid sizes for the underwhelming number of four support categories.
Why would a promoter honestly expect many of the discretionary competitors to roll out in the bitterly cold conditions? The result of this timing lunacy saw the normally thriving Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge entry reduced to 14 cars, for instance, as teams/drivers took full advantage of the drop-a-round rule.
And the real shame of it? The Supercars racing was actually pretty good.
The nearest functional tarmac racetrack to an oval that we have in this country does normally produce a good show. And that proved to be the case last weekend. It’s probably pushing it a bit to call Race 1 “thrilling”, as Supercars did on Saturday evening (the AGP support races were thrilling), but both races were great to watch, albeit with the sound turned down.
The meagre crowd, bigger on Sunday than Saturday but still shockingly small, looked better than it was through the use of the hill between Turns 3 and 4 as a carpark. Merchandise sales are a great measure of year-on-year attendance trends, and they were dire.
Supercars should be suitably ashamed of the attendance, especially when one sees how many people turned out for the Leyburn Sprints in country Queensland at the weekend. Good, properly promoted motorsport events held at the right time of year for the locality can still draw big crowds.
It has to be said that the major justifications for the fee that Supercars receives from the Tasmanian government are; 1) economic benefit, and 2) showcasing the state as a tourist destination.
The first point doesn’t stack up if folk from other states stay away in droves, as they did, and the second point is hard to make a case for when everyone on TV is rugged up to the eyeballs and telling the world just how cold it is.
We can only stand back and hope that the issues are now corrected for 2025. But, in the absence of any concrete calendar information it’s hard to have much faith. I pity the commercial people in team land as they try to sell sponsorship for next season without knowing what they’ve got to offer.
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Which brings me on to the telecast. Oh dear, where to start?
Firstly, the direction itself was nowhere near the standard that we used to enjoy. Replays took up too much of the telecast, especially when there was plenty of action happening for the most part.
Then the postage stamp sized screen-in-screen feed, with the live action contained therein during those replays, was too small to see even on a 65-inch television. And what on earth is the point of mid-race recaps in a 50 minute race? They just detract from the show, they add nothing. Maybe at Bathurst they have a role to play, but the rest of the time? Forget them.
Run the replays in a side-by-side format that allows the live feed to be given equal prominence. And if anyone wants to watch highlights halfway through a race, we’ve all got smart TVs these days and can manage that ourselves thanks very much.
But worse than all the above, we have to deal with that old chestnut, the commentary. It wasn’t good, and Saturday, in particular, has to go down as a howler.
It’s really hard to say this, as the people are good people. But it’s like drivers who carry on for too long and you just wish they’d step aside and make way for the next generation. They need to hear the truth.
Unfortunately, in the case of both drivers and commentators, many people in the industry are happy to express a similar opinion in private but lack the balls to say anything openly.
Nick Percat and the Matt Stone Racing crew did an absolute belter of a job to win Race 1 on Saturday. But the value of the win was severely undermined by the absolute lack of awareness in the commentary box as to what was playing out in front of them during the pit stop cycle.
A basic timing screen was telling me the story at home. The commentators were so busy arguing about overcuts and undercuts that they missed the actual show and then took four laps to start to recognise the efforts of Percat & co.
Even then, they tried to call their way out of it by telling the audience that Nick had stopped before Broc Feeney and Cam Waters. He hadn’t. He pitted the lap after Broc.
I really felt for Matt Stone. He and his team deserved better than this.
The guys in the commentary box continue to overcomplicate everything and try to give us outcomes before they happen. We want to watch it play out! We want to feel the jeopardy and the unpredictability. And we need a Russell Ingall to call a spade and spade, instead of telling us how wonderful everyone is.
Commentary apart, the event needed another race on Sunday at least, although, in my world, Sunday is clearly race day (the crowd, such as it was, showed that) and should have had three races.
The expanded race distance, to 55 laps rather than 42, worked well, so, using my previously outlined template for two day race meetings, you’d see three races of 55 laps each on the Sunday in Tassie.
Meet the market in terms of ticket pricing plus calendar placement, and Supercars Sunday at Symmons Plains could be a blinder in 2025.
Hang on, was that a low flying pink animal passing my window?
