Mark Rushbrook, Global Director of Ford Performance Motorsports, raised the idea during a recent trip Down Under.
Ford is involved in both Supercars and NASCAR in a factory capacity, and both categories, broadly speaking, have commonality in so much that both are relatively raw, rear-wheel-drive V8s.
Rushbrook is seemingly less convinced by GT3 – another category in which the Blue Oval is involved – as a replacement some day for Gen3 but suggested NASCAR himself.
“I think it’s too early to tell,” he said.
“I think GT3 is a fantastic category that is working very well in IMSA and WEC and SRO and VLN and everywhere around the world, and it’s great that we can design, build, develop one car and sell it in all those different markets and all those different series.
“There is something very unique about Supercars, right? What these cars are, it’s different than GT3.
“If we can get to true technical parity, why not continue with this?
“If we can’t, maybe GT3 is a good option – or maybe the NASCAR.”
Rushbrook suggested a Cup Series car might be cheaper than a Supercar, in part due to economies of scale.
“If you think about the number, if you were to actually compare – I can’t tell you what the costs are – but if you compare the cost to build a Supercar versus a NASCAR… You should go find out what those numbers are,” he remarked.
“But if you think about it, right, how many Gen3 Supercars have been built? How many NASCARs have been built; Cup cars?
“If you think at any point in time, any car number has seven chassis, and there’s 40 cars…”
Denny Hamlin, a co-owner of 23XI Racing, put the cost of a current spec, ‘Next Gen’ Cup Series car at around USD 350,000 in comments he made in October 2023 on his Actions Detrimental podcast.
Whether or not that includes the engine, he did not specify, although he did say the figure included the “parts, pieces, all the other stuff.”
In any case, even accounting for the exchange rate, the total probably comes in at less than the AUD 1 million figure which is understood to have been the cost of building a Gen3 Supercar in the 2023 pre-season.
Said builds, though, were necessarily completed in a major rush, at a time of strained supply chains, and work has been ongoing since then on making cars more durable – better value – or lower cost.
Brad Jones, whose eponymous operation runs four Supercars at Championship level, believes the current model is better for teams than adopting NASCAR’s.
“We would need to look at the numbers,” Jones told Speedcafe.
“But, after talking to Richard Childress [fellow driver-turned-owner, in NASCAR] at Adelaide, I don’t think their model is right for Australia in terms of having to single-source parts from an external supplier and take all of the manufacturing ability away from the teams.
“It certainly hasn’t been a great thing for the NASCAR teams when I spoke to Richard Childress about it. They’ve gone out with their machine shops and found work for the armed forces or other industries, so I can’t see how that would be better for us.
“I think we have a pretty good model and whenever the teams manufacture something, we get a better price than when it’s externally tendered for and supplied.
“When we get a drawing and we can manufacture the part, between ourselves, we get to a very good price very quickly, as opposed to someone tendering.
“I think, in terms of building cars and going racing, we do as good a job as anyone in the world, and in most cases, better.”
Roland Dane, who was still leading Triple Eight Race Engineering when it expanded into GT racing in a serious way, wrote in his Speedcafe column last October that GT3 is not viable for the Supercars Championship.
He drew upon the metaphor of a kangaroo because a Supercar “has grown into, and adapted to, its environment,” which includes a relatively street circuit-heavy calendar.
NASCAR does have one street circuit nowadays, but the Chicago track which debuted on the calendar last July did not have the big kerbs which characterise the likes of Adelaide, the Gold Coast, and Townsville.
Jim Campbell, the Vice President, Performance and Motorsports For General Motors, was tight-lipped on Camaro’s NASCAR successor when he was queried on the subject at last month’s season-opening Daytona 500.
“We are not making any announcements today, but we did say that Camaro is ending production,” he noted.
“We are selling Camaros all through this year and actually some may remain in next year as well.
“And as Scott Bell, who heads up our Chevrolet dealers said, this is not the end of the Camaro story.
“But we have nothing to announce today.”
The 2024 Supercars Championship resumes tomorrow at Albert Park.
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