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Support has emerged for the much-maligned ‘two-day events’ which Supercars has held of late.
May’s stop at Symmons Plains and the two most recent events of the season, at Sydney Motorsport Park and The Bend, both featured just two days of on-track activity for the Repco Supercars Championship field, with Fridays filled exclusively by the support categories.
However, teams still began to arrive on Thursday, as happens for a three-day event, because the paddock is treated as a construction site when tailgates are down for unload and hence that cannot occur while track activity is underway.
However, Tickford Racing Team Principal Tim Edwards cited the value to fans of extra action on the Saturday as a plus of ‘two-day events’.
“It’s a tricky one because you end up being here – well, a percentage of the team – on Thursday anyway, so there’s the argument that we should run on Friday,” he noted.
“But, then the counter argument is that we end up with most of our fans coming on Saturday and Sunday, so when you compress it all into two days, for those that are coming on Saturday and Sunday, they actually get better bang for their buck.
“They’ve largely come to see Supercars, and the more they see of us, the happier they are.
“I think there’s arguments for and against, and we’ve got a bit of a mix of both.”
Two days of track activity makes a packed Saturday schedule, including two practice sessions, but Edwards leans towards the format as the superior one.
“It’s hard on the teams when you’ve got two practice sessions, quali, and a race on a Saturday – it’s pretty full-on – but you’ve got to look at it both ways,” he added.
“For the people that come on a Saturday, if we did those two practice sessions on Friday, not much for them to see on Saturday; just a quali and a race.
“So, I think probably the two-day would be my preference, because that is when the bulk of our fans come.”
Erebus Motorsport Managing Director Shannen Kiely holds a similar view.
“[My opinion is] probably very much the same,” she said.
“We’re the same; we’ve sent about six people on Thursday, which makes Friday relatively easy, and you feel like you’re set up by about two o’clock in the afternoon, waiting to do something.
“But then Saturday and Sunday for the crew, particularly the car crew, is very busy, but it’s just a balancing act, because sometime you’ll be there on a Friday practice day and you don’t feel like much is going on either.
“I get exactly what Tim said, that the fans are here to see us race and that’s what they want to do.
“I know [Saturday at The Bend] was that jam-packed, I couldn’t even put in a five-minute signing session with the boys, but that meant we were on-track more, so it’s just a fine line of where the balance is.”
With the SuperSprints done for 2023, the remainder of the season will be comprised of genuine three- and four-day events so far as Supercars Championship track activity is concerned.
They are the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 on September 15-17, followed by the Repco Bathurst 1000, Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, and Vailo Adelaide 500.
CLICK HERE for the recently released Bathurst 1000 schedule
