THE V8 SUPERCAR CHAMPIONSHIP is set for an overhaul, with series boss Tony Cochrane calling upon car manufacturers to join an expanded series in 2012.
Cochrane has formed a new ‘Car of the Future’ committee, headed up by five-time Bathurst champion Mark Skaife, which will seek to secure involvement from additional manufacturers, breaking the current Ford and Holden duopoly.
All manufacturers are welcome to submit proposals to join the ever-growing Supercar circus, although the cars must meet certain conditions, including the mandatory use of a V8 engine and a top-end cost of $250,000.
Cochrane told the Northern Territory News: “We want to be really inclusive in this process. We are happy to talk to all manufacturers.
“It’s Mark’s primary responsibility. I know Mark has already spoken to some manufacturers and I know that he intends to have follow-up meetings with some. I know he intends to speak to additional ones on top of that.
“We have a very open mind about this. We would talk with Rolls Royce if they want to get involved.”
With series participants beginning to feel the effects of the global financial crisis, Cochrane’s plan seeks to ensure the championship’s long term security; a scenario being replayed in a number of racing series around the world, including Formula 1.
In addition to plans to incorporate new manufacturers, Cochrane plans to impose 14 cost-cutting measures and expand the championship to 16 rounds.
Cochrane said his proposal has received the blessing of Ford and Holden, who will each provide one representative to the ‘Car of the Future’ committee.
“(Ford and Holden) are saying to us that they would encourage and would like to see other manufactures involved,” he said.
“We very much want to maintain a very healthy, a good relationship, going forward with both Holden and with the Ford Motor Company of Australia and we want to maintain them in what will be the car of the future new-look championship from 2012.”
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I can see Lexus and Hyundai taking part but who else?
Does it have to be based on a production car and does that car have to be sold and marketed in Australia?
All manufacturers have been able to compete in the Championship ever since the V8s started 10 years ago - the only restriction being that the cars had to be made in Australia..
which will probably be removed.
However; which ever manufacturers decide to join won’t be able to go all out and build an ultimat supercar - they will still have to meet the requirements of Project Blueprint.. inorder to ensure the level of close competition that the V8s have ATM
That is they will still be Large RWD Sedans with a [Pushrod] V8 capable of producing 620-700BHP
The other alternative of course is to have something like the Australian Touring Car Championship Series of yesteryear wheere you had a number of sub-categories within the overall category.. which would then include RWD FWD and AWD Sedans Hatches Utes Coupes etc and maybe even Wagons Cross-Overs
One thing to consider - is that AVESCO are also looking at reducing the number of cars on the grid from the current 30 to about 20-24 by 2015.
This means that whilst they are inviting more manufacturers to compete it won’t necessarily mean more teams or cars..
infact its more likely that the new manufacturers will have to do deals with the existing teams to switch from Holden or Ford to their cars.
Which would involve paying substantial compensation etc to Holden and Ford - thereby increasing the new manufacturers set up and development costs which could mean they decide not to enter at all
I was gonna ask the same thing Steve. I think Wheelnut is the expert in this field. The current regulations must differ significantly from before, as homologation is no longer as strict as it used to be in the era of the Sierras, GT-Rs, M3s and Walkinshaws? For starters, the engines in the comp-spec race cars seem to bear no resemblance to the offerings in production trim (XR8, SS etc). I was thinking that this would be the perfect opportunity for Lexus to enter with a RWD GS430 based car, or Toyota to do some sort of equivalent as that would give the brand the real shot in the arm that it needs, and it would be great to see. However I think that TMC is more or less dedicated to reviving its core operations (as well as sticking it out with F1), after all it has deemed WRC too futile, so why go down the V8 route? It’s a shame…
The current series is well past its use by date! Bringing in more manufacturers is not enough.
Currently it is pretty much a sillhouette formula.
Anyone here remember the sillhouette sportscar formula in the 70s?
Probably not.
Drop the V8 criteria, and just set a cc limit.
Normally aspirated for petrol, work something out for turbo diesel.
Gotta be a winner.
This had to happen. The Commodore V8 will go the same way as the DoDo in the not too distant future. The Taurus or Mondeo will replace the Falcon in 2011, if not before.
If they had asked Chrysler, im sure they would have entered a factory backed 5.7 hemi 300c….years and years ago. No good to ask now because no bugger has any money. How good would the racing 300c look too! Oh well.
I would welcome more manufacturers into the sport the problem is with it being so controlled and getting more controlled it’s fast becoming too much like nascar.. Project blue crap pretty soon the only differences between the cars will be the bodies on top it’s a joke.. The rules should be updated hell the holdens racing in it now are not even the same size as regular VE’s because the VE didnt fit inside project blue crap the VE body namely the back doors have had a few mm cut out of them..
Should be anyone with a 4 door rwd V8 sedan, make them use factory body kits, and the same engines as the factory puts in their road cars.. Get rid of compulsary pit stops, it’s a huge joke now that the races are won and lost in the pits and not on the race track. The races are getting two predictable, I would also love to see them get rid of the overseas races except for New Zealand and reduce the number of street circuit races as well..
V8 supercars say they are the premier motorsport catergory in this country but are putting less and less back into the sport because they bringing in more street races at the expense of permanent race tracks.. They should also reduce the cost to get into races as well tickets prices are a joke, food prices at tracks are a joke. The fact that some places now are placing restrictions on what you can bring in that makes it even more of a joke..
They really starting to price families out of going these days who can afford to drop a couple hundred dollars on going to a race..
Despite what the cockroach and friends say the sport are lossing more of the traditional fans, becuase it’s boring and too expensive to go.. They have no chance at knocking rugby league off and are dreaming if they think they can…
V8’s are my fav sport and has been for years I used to live and breathe V8’s and anything to do with it, but over the last couple of years I find my interest wanning..
I am starting to get bored with it and dont even bother watching every race now, because they are boring and predictable..
I use to be a regular visitor to oran park and eastern creek a number of yrs ago and use go with a group of 10 mates, but the increasing ticket prices means none of think it’s worth throwing away a couple hundred dollars going there when we can sit at home and see it..
A 300C touring car would look awesome!
Audi RS4, M3, Lexus IS-F……plenty of great cars out there that could compete.
Folks, a few off topic comments have been removed from this article as they did not add to the discussion.
Please keep your comments ‘on topic’, respect your fellow car enthusiasts and keep in mind that we are a family friendly site.
Cheers - Steane
So George, it’s your favourite sport, but you think it’s a joke ? Just wanted to clarify.
Dave I doubt you will see the likes of Audi RS4, M3, Lexus IS-F ,not with a budget of $250,000.
Another thing that makes me think it will be unlikely that we will ever see a Nissan GT-R on our tracks again is the fact that the Nissan GT-R is no longer the Pacecar for the V8s.. why? because Renault didn’t want to have certain series sponsorship logos [including alcohol] on the car.
Therefore; if they did enter a GT-R in the competition and they didn’t want alcohol sponsorship where else would they get a major part of their sponsorship funding from?
I think it’s joke because it’s becoming, more and more controlled, races are not being won because of drivers skill but because of a pitstop.. Street races are dull and boring and the only reason alot of people watch them is the guaranteed crashes there will be..
George - there hasn’t been a major crash since the Clipsal 500 where JC severly damaged hsi new FG Jim Beam Falcon
On Topic: I personally don;t see the point in having a Pace Car; except for TC [Our Bernie Ecclestone} wanting to get more corporate sponsorship.
I mean Legends like Brock Richards Perkins Moffatt Johnson and the Geogheans raced for years without a Pace Car didn’t they?.
back then the crash scene was covered by a Yellow Flag at the preceding flag point and a Green Flag at the following flag point - with the emergency vehicles being covered with a progressive White flag as they made their way around the track.
Which meant that once the drivers had passed the crash scene they could resume racing and passing until they came upon the yellow flag again.
Like it or Loathe it but ‘Control’ in Motorsport is very much a part of modern Motorsport today!
All of the upper levels of Motorsport irrelevant of discipline run extreme cases of ‘control’ whereas here in this Country it was only a little while ago that control Tyres were causing uproar. Take the Super 2000 class of Rally car; they share a common gearbox & drive train. NASCAR is super controlled although it was only around 14 years ago that they put a ban to the drivers smoking in the cars! Seriously, in some of the older in-car footage you can see a lighter and a few smokes sticky-taped to the console, and in some footage you’d see the drivers light up a smoke while ripping around Darlington Raceway at 300km/h!
The point I’m making is that Motorsport is a thing of change and control tyres or any other type of control isn’t a bad thing, it’s just different. And while the romantic nature in me would love to see the old format of the ATCC brought back, I know it’s not going to happen as those days are over ( just like tobacco advertising on racecars) and that’s what you need to do. Understand that nothing is forever, the V8’s in their current form are all but about dead and new life needs to be given to the sport if it’s going to go on into the next decade. If control is the way to do it, then so be it. Just embrace what we have now, and learn to appreciate what will come. After all, ALL motorsport is interesting.
I remember hearing Peter Brock talk about a big crash at Bathurst think it was 69 or 70 the was only a small gap but he said every lap they just kept going quicker and quicker through that gap..
Some form of control in motorsport is good but too much control has to opposite effect..
I haven’t been watching Bathurst for a number of years… but this year the commentary really made the race…
I believe there are too many rules… if the driver and the pit crew get it wrong… there IS something drastically wrong after the money spent on getting the car.to the track….
there was a Magna with a Chrysler V8 in it racing in QLD in sports sedans [??] a few years ago, and then there was talk that it may start something in the supercars…. but nothing happened.
I cannot see any other makes wanting to enter apart from maybe Toyota - Lexus - BMW - AUDI… but the rules on what can actually race could stop them too… What would happen if a Lexus starts winning EVERY race???? apart from the $250k limit
LEE
v8’s are crap to begin with. blueprint crap ruined the ingenuity of the sport, and the way its marketed to bogans drove it into the ground. to be honest, the sport was ruined when they changed the format from group A to v8s. such a shame that other categories have to take a back seat to this garbage category (thinking of nations cup, carrera cup etc). I want to see real race cars fight it out, not these hotted up taxi’s. I’ll stick to F1, WRC and DTM. if only Japanese touring car series were televised in aus…
i am getting really sick, tired and bored of seeing the same two manufacturers go around the racetracks. we need cars like the 370z etc just dont give me anymore holden or ford
LONG LIVE GODZILLA!!!
the racing is never going to be equal..
unless the cars are the same… with basically a different engine..
the sports sedans can be interesting to watch with Lancers etc overtaking late model Fords and holdens… lol
unless they have an engine size limit like the 2 litre world championship..
back in the 60s there were engine size classes and at one stage there were cost of the car classes…
Both classes were cars off the showroom floor..
and many cars were actually driven to the race track… lol
I used to follow group N rally cars a few years ago…
was very interesting… seeing standard cars rally..
Lancers did very well.. and were reliable.. so I bought Mitsubishi Lancers… lol
LEE
what i would like to see is a move back to classes, we could have 3 different classes 4cyl, 6cyl and V8 classes..
Cars can be FWD and RWD just no 4wd and no turbo’s and they run factory engines not these motorsport engines they run in the V8’s now.. Reducing the field anymore I think is just going to have more people walking away..
My kids took me to the muscle car masters this year at eastern creek and it was bloody unreal part of the reason was the old muscle cars racing around another part was the fact there were more then 2 types of cars running. It was great to see a mix of 4,6 and 8cyl cars mixing it up in the same race..