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For the second event running there was a spotlight on the post-qualifying media commitments thanks to the long-standing tension between Boost Mobile boss Peter Adderton and Erebus owners Betty Klimenko and Barry Ryan.
Adderton has been highly critical of the team this year over a number of matters, mostly centred on the rift with Kostecki that saw the champion driver sit out the first two races of the season.
When Kostecki took pole for the Bathurst 1000 he wore the Boost hat as per the rules. On the Gold Coast, however, the entire Erebus team fronted with Boost hats, complete with Adderton high-fiving crew members.
That was due to a single-event change in the rules for the Boost Mobile-backed Gold Coast 500 that required all team members to be wearing the hats during pole celebrations.
The Tickford Racing crew did likewise on the Saturday after Cam Waters took pole.
According to Adderton, he was hoping that an Erebus driver would score the Sunday pole, knowing that whether the team wore the hats or not would capture public attention.
“You know me, right? I love those kind of moments,” he told Speedcafe. “I was hoping they got it, because again, it just keeps the interest going in the hat, the hat controversy.
“I was interested to see whether they were going to wear the hat or they were going to throw it on the ground and stomp on it. So I was just going to see how it went, whether we did the hat dance.
“To their credit, their whole team wore it… because it’s a rule, so they had to wear it.
“But at the end of the day, they played fair for me, and I played fair back to them. I think was good sportsmanship by both sides, to be honest with you.
“I’ve been highly critical of them but in that instance the sportsmanship was there.”
The Boost hat storyline has been a huge marketing win for the telco, particularly as it was able to reduce its spend after Supercars gave three drivers – Broc Feeney, David Reynolds and Chaz Mostert – and exemption from wearing the hat due to sponsor clashes.
The controversy created by the exemptions, as well as the Erebus rivalry, has given the pole award more prominence than ever before.
While that wasn’t a specific plan for Adderton, he reckons it has come as little surprise.
“I tell you why we envisaged it – because of the stupidity of some of the people in the teams in Supercars, who don’t realise that by not wearing the hat they actually gave us more publicity than just wearing the hat,” he said.
“For me, as a promoter and a marketer, you couldn’t have asked for a better dream.
“And it wasn’t because we planned it. It’s just that we knew that there were some teams who wouldn’t wear it. I’m obviously controversial, so we knew that there were some teams who didn’t want to wear it.
“I actually thought Supercars would have enforced it a lot more than they did. I think giving the three drivers the exemption was wrong.
“We’re a sponsor of the series. They took our money – sure they reduced it – but at the end of the day, if they’re just going to let teams decide and drivers decide what sponsors they want to wear and not wear, then as a series sponsor, you’ve got to question yourself.”
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The pole hat wasn’t the only flashpoint of tension between Adderton and Erebus over the Gold Coast weekend.
On Friday the team was slapped with a $5000 fine for not leaving its garage open for a Boost Mobile function on the Thursday night.
“I’d like to see Supercars start to take more of an iron fist on these things,” said Adderton. “You didn’t do what we told you, and if you don’t like it, pack it up.
“I said to [Supercars Chairman] Barclay [Nettlefold] that if I owned Supercars and those garages were closed, I would have texted team and said, ‘please remove your cars from the track. You’re not racing this weekend’.
“But teams just seem to be able to get away with stuff, right? I mean, $5000 is not a lot of money to those guys. I would have liked them to donate $50,000 to a charity of my choice.
“We need harsher rules for the people that just want to break them.”
A one-year extension with Boost Mobile for both the pole award and the Gold Coast naming rights was announced on Sunday.
