Despite the spread-out nature of the 12-round schedule, there is somewhat of a mid-season squeeze with Darwin, Townsville and Sydney Motorsport Park all happening within five weeks of each other.
That has led to a number of the Melbourne-based teams assessing different logistical approaches to the trio of events.
Tickford Racing had initially planned to send its transporter straight from Hidden Valley to Townsville, a practice common for the Southern teams in the early days of the ‘Northern swing’.
However a last-minute decision was made for the transporter to return to the team’s Melbourne base before heading to Far North Queensland.
The next consideration for teams has been Townsville and the Sydney SuperNight, which are separated by just a single free weekend.
Multiple Melbourne teams assessed staying on the road between those two events, with Team 18 this week confirming that it will indeed set up a temporary base in Queensland, rather than returning to Melbourne.
In a video posted by the team, team principal Adrian Burgess confirmed the extended stay when addressing why the Indigenous livery used in Darwin won’t run in Townsville as well.
“In this case, no,” said Burgess. “We do love going to Darwin and getting involved in the Indigenous Round, it’s a great initiative by Supercars that we fully support.
“But from here we go to Townsville and Sydney Motorsport Park without returning. So we’ll put the cars back to what we call our standard livery and all the spares will be converted back, because we won’t be coming back to Melbourne in between.
“We’ll be staying up in Queensland and taking advantage of the winter up there because it is much better than it is down here in Melbourne.”
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