A significant strategic play was made public today by Racing Australia Consolidated Enterprises (RACE), which owns Supercars, that will see a new CEO come in to lead the business.

That is at the expense of Shane Howard who moves into a newly-created role of director – motorsport which includes a spot on the RACE Board.

The timing of both the decision and the announcement prompt a number of questions regarding the future of Supercars.

The first, and most obvious, is why make the move at all?

Fairly or not, there has been speculation about Howard’s future as CEO for some time. When the expansion of the calendar appeared stalled midway through last year, some of that speculation was brutal.

Then the tide turned. Along came Toyota. And Finals. And the Perth street race. Solid deliverables from senior management that looked to help secure Howard’s future despite the alleged concerns at Board level.

And it seems that is exactly what has happened. Those factors didn’t reverse the Board’s now-undeniable desire for a new CEO, but highlighted Howard’s strengths and dampened whatever enthusiasm there may have been for a clean break.

This new role appears designed to exploit Howard’s strengths with the key objectives being to hold Toyota’s hand during it’s entry to the sport, ensure the other two manufacturers remain happy and committed during that process and work on international expansion (right in Howard’s wheelhouse).

At the same time, that backstop of someone with a wealth of Supercars experience in a top executive role means RACE can cast a wider net for its new CEO. The focus can be on someone highly commercially driven whose sole focus is making money, with the steady hand of Howard to provide the know-how on the motor racing front.

Supercars has dabbled in that space before, most recently with Sean Seamer, who arrived without any proper background in motorsport.

In that case there wasn’t the direct safety net of someone dedicated to the motorsport side of the business, with Howard’s then COO role deeply mired in running events (or keeping afloat during COVID).

The approach wasn’t without its issues, some that are still being felt in the sport to this day. One prime example is the troublesome Gen3 rim design that repeatedly sees cars interlocking during contact.

There was a dish-style design on the table that would have avoided the problem, however the aesthetics didn’t please Seamer and the existing design was pushed through despite interlocking concerns being voiced by others in the business with a deeper knowledge of the sport.

Precisely where the appetite for this latest change to the CEO role is coming from is difficult to pinpoint from outside the Board room, but it’s worth noting that there are two new faces on the Board as of this year.

One is Ryan Whitelegg, who came in as part of RACE investor Henslow, while the other is Brian Learst, who bought 15 percent of RACE early last year through his Walcot LLC company.

Hearst co-founded a ticketing and hospitality company called QuintEvents which was bought out by Formula 1 in 2023.

In other words, he has significant experience in the sports and entertainment industries and is thought to be active and engaged in both his roles as a shareholder and Board member.

Which in this case is critical.

A change to the Board like that could easily prompt a re-think in roles, strategy and result in a push to bring more motorsport experience to the Board and a more dynamic commercial approach to the CEO’s office.

That leads to another worthwhile point – since Mark Skaife’s departure from the Board last year, it has been sorely missing motorsport experience, which is helped enormously by this shift for Howard.

Then there is the question of where the departure of Tim Watsford to NRL club St George Illawarra sits in all of this.

He was long-seen as the obvious replacement for Howard as CEO and would undoubtedly have fit the role perfectly.

There are those in the paddock that see his exit as a smoking gun that points to RACE not moving fast enough, and this move being a delayed outcome of that.

Others are adamant that this change was in the works well before Watsford’s exit and that there was no stopping him from pursing his passion of rugby league.

Either way, there is no way the departure of such a promising executive could go unnoticed at Board level.

The final consideration is the TV deal, which is enormously important to the future of the sport and will now be finalised and then managed by the incoming CEO.

That Howard’s exit from the CEO role has been made public can easily be seen as an indication that at least the framework of the new deal is in place. Or incredibly close to it.

Otherwise, the potential destabilisation of replacing a CEO would be curious.