Supercars teams set for long haul at Sydney SuperNight

The schedule for Event 7 of the Repco Supercars Championship which broke cover in recent days contains several plusses for teams, drivers and fans.

As previously announced, the weekend’s Sunday encounter will run under lights given it has been pushed back to create a twilight finish.

That development is likely to be well-received by those who last year called for two night races at ‘Eastern Creek’ such as Chaz Mostert.

Unlike last year, there will also be night-time running before qualifying given the weekend’s sole, 90-minute practice session will be held on Friday evening from 17:00 local time/AEST, seven minutes after sunset.

However, despite that relatively late start to on-track proceedings, crews will still need to begin arriving on Thursday for unload.

Transporter Parkup is scheduled to begin on Thursday morning at 08:30 per the Supplementary Regulations and Transporter Unload at 10:00, followed by scrutineering from 12:00 and the Track Walk from 15:30-18:30.

While teams will be able to split into an ‘early crew’ and a ‘late crew’, the majority of the set-up work – such as unload of cars and erection of pit booms – will still have to be completed on Thursday.

That is because Friday daytime is filled by on-track action for support categories, which will thus need access to pit lane, while Supercar teams must keep their transporter tailgates up for reasons of occupational health and safety.

Although shifting practice to Friday evening creates another television spectacle which did not exist at last year’s pseudo ‘two-day meeting’ in Sydney, the problem of lengthy dead time for Supercars crews remains.

Former Triple Eight Race Engineering boss Roland Dane highlighted how quickly NASCAR teams are in and out, in contrast to their Supercars counterparts, in a recent Speedcafe column.

“NASCAR learned a lot from Covid in terms of the potential for streamlining their operations. So did Supercars,” he wrote after attending the Sonoma event.

“But, unlike NASCAR, Supercars have reversed every money-saving initiative in the years since.”

NASCAR, it should be noted, operates in a different manner to Supercars teams in so much that they service cars away from the glare of television cameras in infield garages and need set up little more than a timing stand ‘behind the wall’ for their pit stops.

Furthermore, a plethora of support categories – SMP will see Carrera Cup, Touring Car Masters, V8 SuperUtes, Toyota 86s, and National Sport Sedans – are not part of the business model.

Supercars teams will also inevitably take the opportunity for activations on the Thursday in Sydney, before conducting a ride day on the Monday, their only chance to service the nation’s biggest city in such a fashion.

Depending on how teams manage their crews, some personnel will spend five days in a row at the circuit, including drivers given their Thursday afternoon track walk window.

In another plus for fans and drivers, though, there will be more racing at Sydney Motorsport Park than in recent events.

Whereas Wanneroo and Hidden Valley saw a fairly miserly 266km to 274km across two races under the new-for-2024 SuprSprint format, next month sees a pair of 250km races at the NTI Townsville 500 and twin 200km contests at Eastern Creek.

After the Olympics break, Supercars returns to the unloved SuperSprint format at Symmons Plains, followed by the Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000, Gold Coast 500, and Adelaide 500 to finish off the season.

The NTI Townsville 500 takes place on July 5-7 and the Sydney SuperNight on July 19-21.

2024 Supercars Sydney SuperNight schedule Per Supplementary Regulations

Thursday, July 18

Friday, July 19

Saturday, July 20

Sunday, July 21