Teams are currently tackling a somewhat unusual double-header in which cars and equipment travelled directly from Perth to Darwin rather than returning to home bases.
That has meant crews stayed up to two days longer in Perth post-event, while some arrived in Darwin as early as Sunday to service cars ahead of this weekend’s race meeting.
There’s also the complication of teams being required to sport indigenous-themed liveries for the Darwin Triple Crown.
Matt Stone Racing elected to run its indigenous colours at both events, while others are flying staff that would otherwise be workshop-based to Darwin to rewrap their machines.
MSR owner Matt Stone told Speecafe that the costs associated with this year’s calendar are “massive” for teams.
“I did a calculation on average days away for a race meeting from two years ago, when it was three or four, and now it’s seven,” he said.
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“Logistics costs for all teams are through the roof because of the way the calendar is structured now. It’s tough.”
Queensland teams were also forced to service their cars remotely in Melbourne following the Australian Grand Prix meeting in March ahead of a boat trip to New Zealand.
The move from air to sea freight for the NZ event this year required four-week breaks either side of Taupo and a tight turnaround for teams ahead of the next event in Tasmania.
Walkinshaw Andretti United CEO Bruce Stewart says the Perth-Darwin and NZ-Tasmania combinations are both issues that will be discussed with Supercars.
“If we looked at this in hindsight, it’s a big exercise to go from Perth to Darwin and have the turnaround for Indigenous Round and what you need to do to bring that to life respectfully and properly in Darwin,” he said.
“So that’s an interesting one, and we will take those conversations up separately.
“Equally, the period of time on the water in the lead-up after the grand prix to New Zealand, and then waiting for [cars] to come back before we went to Tasmania [was an issue].
“We don’t say this with any malice, it’s just constant improvement is the nature of a racing team and the nature of sport. We’ve got to review these things and see if we can do better.”
Team 18 owner Charlie Schwerkolt also lamented the Perth-Darwin double based on the livery requirement.
“This road trip is OK but doing our car liveries for Darwin and the Indigenous Round, which is important, that’s a big thing to do in a garage,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to do it back home.”
Schwerkolt, though, sees the hole in the calendar created by sea freighting cars to NZ this year as the bigger issue.
“It’d be great to air freight again. We had a great model. I know it’s expensive, but we had our cars, we had everything back and we could do more racing,” he said.
Schwerkolt is unlikely to get his wish. The money saved by Supercars’ owner RACE through sea freighting the cars helped it fund an expansion to 13 events.
Supercars is aiming for a 14-event calendar next year following confirmation of an NZ double-header, combining Taupo with an event at Christchurch’s Ruapuna Raceway the following weekend.
Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup, whose team went to the expense of adding an extra A-trailer to its transporter for the Perth-Darwin double, empathised with Supercars over the calendar.
Triple Eight road train helping rivals for Perth-Darwin double
“Trying to organise a calendar to get the right rounds in the right climate, trying to miss Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the AFL Grand Final, whatever, and then you’ve got your governments saying, ‘we want to be here at this time of that time’, it’s a bloody difficult thing,” he said.
“It’s difficult for the teams this year, but it is what it is. We just keep trying to constantly evolve it and improve it over time.”
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