Two more events look set to be added to the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships, expanding its revised calendar to six rounds.
Starting in Sydney Motorsport Park (August 15-16), the Championships will then visit Sandown (September 12-13), The Bend (October 17-18), and Phillip Island.
Motorsport Australia acknowledged additional events are possible when releasing the calendar, with Championships Director Michael Smith revealing there would likely be two events added.
“As it stands at the moment with a calendar of four events, we’ve actually got more categories than we can cater for,” Smith told Speedcafe.com.
“So in all likelihood, don’t be surprised if we announce another two rounds in the not too distant future.”
According to Smith, those events are likely to be squeezed into the end of the year, with categories preferring their competitions don’t cross over into 2021.
“Most of the categories have come to us and said they want to finish this year in December and then start 2021 fresh,” he explained.
“We’re not entirely against the season leaking into 2021, and there might be some stuff happening around that that’ll come out and not too distant future, but for the most part we’ve been trying to achieve (is) getting everyone to finish by sort of early- to mid-December.”
Though yet to be announced, Smith also admitted a date for the Phillip Island event has been secured, though another was also being considered.
The revised calendar listed the event with a ‘TBA’ date in October.
With The Bend occupying the October 17-18 weekend, and Phillip Island following it on the schedule, that leaves only two possible weekends.
The first is the date previously held by the Australian MotoGP, while the second would see it clash with Supercars’ Pirtek Perth event.
“We’ve had a number of discussions with Phillip Island, and we have got a number of possible dates, I won’t go into details of what they are,” Smith said.
“We have got one date locked in, but we are looking at potentially another date.
“All of the categories have been really supportive,” Smith added when asked how complex juggling the demand for track time in a truncated calendar will be.
“I think what this situation has done is it has given everyone a bit of perspective.
“Everyone seems to understand that we’re all trying to make the best of what is probably a really difficult circumstance, so everyone’s been really accommodating.
“We’ve tried to be really open and transparent with all of our categories, to say, ‘Well you know, if we go down this path that might have an impact here or there’.
“I guess for the most part, people are just keen to get some track time, so if it means that their ordinary race formats might be in some ways compromised or changed or a little bit different to what they’re used to, people are generally accepting of that.”
The carsales TCR Australia Series and VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship are high profile categories which run on the Motorsport Australia Championships platform.
Both will run selected rounds of the already-released 2020 calendar, with the remainder of their events to be made up of Australian Racing Group-promoted events.
That includes the Tasmania double-header in January with events at Symmons Plains and Baskerville on successive weekends.
Other national categories which frequent the Championships platform include Porsche Michelin Sprint Cup Australia, Australian GT and Australian Endurance Championships, MRF Tyres Australian Production Car Series, Kumho V8 Touring Car Series, Radical Australia Cup, and Australian Prototype Series.
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