Although crews will fly home between this weekend’s round in Perth and the Darwin event a fortnight later, all cars and equipment will remain on the road.
The need to bring more spare parts to service and potentially fix damage between events has led to Triple Eight adding a second A-trailer to its Red Bull Ampol Racing transporter.
Decked out with an eye-catching livery featuring drivers Will Brown and Broc Feeney, team manager Mark Dutton says the extra trailer is being utilised for more than just Triple Eight’s own gear.
“You see the type of racing that’s going on this year, there’s a lot of ‘rubbing’s racing’. So therefore, you do need extra splitters, extra rear bars, all that componentry,” he said.
“We’ve taken the opportunity to throw it out to the rest of pit lane to see who needed a hand and so far, we’ve got – including us and Supercars – seven different teams’ equipment in it.
“We’ve even got a Ford engine from a Victorian team, so we’re not discriminating by manufacturer or state. We’re an equal opportunities kind of place!”
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The two engines among the freight are from Melbourne teams Walkinshaw Andretti United and Team 18 that were tested on Supercars’ Brisbane dyno and unable to be returned in time.
Dutton stressed that Brisbane-based Triple Eight is not charging its rivals, or Supercars, for the cross-country service.
“Not everyone sees what T8 does when we offer assistance to other people in pit lane, but you feel good looking after other teams and Supercars,” he said.
“There’s clearly some decent expense for us to do it. We had to get some minor modifications done to allow for it, and minor modifications still cost thousands, as well as the extra fuel.”
Adding the extra trailer creates logistical challenges too, including driver Dave Lewin (known as Pom) having to split the truck before entering Perth itself due to size restrictions.
“He’s got to split 80 kays out of Perth and then do two trips: drop in the normal B-double, then come back and pick up the extra A,” explained Dutton.
“It’s a huge effort especially after driving across to Perth. He’s a legend for doing it. And he loves it as well!”
As Supercars did not grant Triple Eight permission to leave the extra trailer in the carefully controlled Perth paddock, the team will have to keep it stored remotely.
“We’ll unload it on Thursday, do our deliveries to everyone and then get it back out,” he said.
Teams will stay up to two days longer at Wanneroo to service their cars following the event but must be parked up at Hidden Valley by the following Sunday.
The Darwin venue’s garages will then serve as remote workshops for the teams from the Monday of race week onwards.
All of that comes at major cost as teams must keep staff on the road for longer, up to eight days in the case of the Darwin event.
Triple Eight will dispatch crew to Darwin in stages across that event’s race week, starting with the team member charged with applying the Indigenous Round livery to its Camaros.
“We love all the formats, but they don’t come for free. It’s quite expensive,” noted Dutton.
“But [the truck] is something we’re proud of. Things start with ‘let’s do this for the functionality of it’, but we’ve given it a fun livery and made it a bit exciting too.”
The journey from Brisbane to Perth comes in at over 4000km, while the round trip via Darwin will total around 12,000km.
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