MOTORSPORT: Where to now for Supercars? – carsales.com.au

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Shane van Gisbergen has left the Supercars paddock for the final time as one of The Greats, before he heads to NASCAR in the US next year.

To some, he is the greatest talent Australia’s premier motor racing category has ever seen, an argument solidified by his peerless ability to get behind the wheel of anything – from hurling rally cars through forests, to GT and production cars, open-wheelers and even a cheeky win in the Aussie Racing Cars category.

A live demonstration of his mastery was given a global audience with his stunning against-all-odds NASCAR win on debut in July.

There’s simply no stopping a determined van Gisbergen.

Yet the 34-year-old, who was the local fans’ choice as the most popular driver of 2023, has put a stop to his Supercars career for a move to the US and a NASCAR dream to chase down.

“There’s no question that the sport [Supercars] is losing its single biggest star and he’s so much bigger than the next person on the scale,” said Roland Dane, who co-founded the team with which van Gisbergen had his greatest success – Triple Eight Race Engineering.

Speaking with carsales at the 2023 season finale in Adelaide last weekend, Dane suggested the New Zealander’s exit from the sport highlights broader issues for the sport.

“To me, it’s a concern that I don’t believe Supercars has done a good job of bringing up enough youngsters and raising the profile of the whole sport,” he said.

“Brodie [Kostecki] is a very, very worthy champion but he’s unknown. And future stars of the sport like Broc Feeney, Will Brown – their profiles are not high enough,” Dane lamented.

Making this more pressing is newly crowned Supercars champion Kostecki’s NASCAR aspirations. Drivers such as Cam Waters are also likely to be seeking broader horizons long-term. The Supercars star factory must be switched on.

Part of the issue, says Dane, is the relatively low number of Supercars races – only 12 in 2024. With a welcome return to New Zealand, that means just 11 race meetings in Australia.

“The last time there were 11 events in Australia – forget championship or non-championship – you have to go back 30 years,” he said.

The drivers themselves have also stated their desire for more racing, with van Gisbergen, Kostecki and Waters the most prolific in racing in other categories between Supercars weekends. In 2024, Chaz Mostert will run a full GT4 campaign alongside his Supercars program.

“So it’s against that backdrop – and then fewer races at some of the race meetings over the years, they’re not growing – that these guys need to be projected as the stars. Unfortunately, it’s [Supercars] not doing a good job of that.”

“And forget the drivers, the fans want more,” says Dane.

“So to not be going to tracks like Queensland Raceway, which is in our heartland… there’s no reason not to.”

Adelaide saw new champion Kostecki crowned, while rookie Matt Payne scored his first win at the last race of the year.

It was in the post-race press conference that debutant winner Payne’s team boss, Stephen Grove from Grove Racing, revealed similar sentiments to Dane.

“It’s a generational change… We’ve got new young guys coming through and I think the real hurdles for Supercars is to make sure that we start to grow those [personal] brands,” he said.

“All these guys… [it’s important] we start to grow, outside of the sport. I mean it’s really important for our sport, so hopefully Supercars will grab hold of that and really start to market these guys,” Grove stated.

While Supercars has no trouble in attracting talented and fresh young drivers, it does have an issue attracting a youthful audience to watch them.

Mainstream media beyond Adelaide ignored last weekend’s race. A title showdown and the swansong of an all-time great was not enticing enough for editors beyond the locale.

“[But] When’s the last time anyone read a newspaper?” said Tim Edwards, Supercars’ incoming Head of Motorsport.

Edwards is the long-standing team boss of Tickford Racing but moves into Supercars management in 2024, replacing Adrian Burgess.

“I don’t think that’s what’s going to drive the sport, because I’d argue that age demographic that we’ve always been challenged by – the 18- to 24-year-olds – not a single one of them would ever read those [newspaper] titles,” Edwards said.

“They’re not going go to the ABC or newspaper mastheads – that’s not how they access whatever interesting. It is TikTok. It’s social [media].”

Edwards believes that the rusted-on fans will stay, so looking beyond – as Groves suggested – is where Supercars can make gains.

“It’s not that [rusted-on] group at all. It’s actually the other 90-95-percent of light-to-medium consumers [that will grow the sport],” Edwards explained.

Edwards cites events such as the Adelaide 500 – where Robbie Williams packed in a massive Sunday night audience that was included in the Sunday ticket price – and the Gold Coast round’s carnival atmosphere with side shows and off-track spectacles.

“I’m all about the show – that is how you grow the sport. And you need to entertain with everything other than the race, because they’ll enjoy the rest of the day. They need all the other fluff and sizzle.”

Part of that growth opportunity is taking the good news (such as a talented new champion in Kostecki or one of your biggest names demolishing the NASCAR establishment, as van Gisbergen did in Chicago last July), with the bad.

When bad news does occur (eg: Supercars’ outgoing Head of Motorsport being caught drink-driving) only specialist motorsport media – and in that case the Gold Coast newspaper that first reported the story – deem it worthy of coverage.

A similar occurrence in any football code would be headline news.

Newsworthiness is simple – people need to care enough to read the news. Cultivating broader interest with good and bad news leads to more fans, sponsors and opportunity.

Supercars’ fear of anything other than collective positivity was made abundantly clear in 2023 as van Gisbergen went from muzzled champion at the Newcastle opening round in March to more vociferous critic, seemingly in tandem with the progress made on his deal to exit the sport and head to NASCAR.

The Kiwi’s dissatisfaction with the new Gen3 cars, which were intended be cheaper (they are not) and level the competitive field became apparent as the season bore on. And this was despite the 2022 champion battling for the championship and taking a third Bathurst win.

Parity issues and other car challenges saw Tickford Racing driver Waters launch an expletive-laden outburst at the Sydney Motorsport Park round in July, suggesting that a number of unhappy drivers were looking to leave the sport due to how it was being run.

van Gisbergen said on live television the following day that he agreed with his Ford rival.

The controversial Gen3 program has been largely brushed aside as a contributing factor to SvG’s NASCAR move as the clampdown on driver and team personnel comments early in the season seemed to stay put. Drivers with a future in the sport have largely toed the party line (on the record at least).

Waters’ frustration was of a different kind as Ford teams – and Ford itself – battled Supercars testing methods that delivered what it saw as a significantly faster Chevrolet Camaro, with parity issues still ongoing after constant fettling of both Mustang and Camaro.

The way it has been handled by Supercars – amid strong indications Ford was close to withdrawing its series support – is not likely to assist in enticing new OEMs into the sport.

“Everybody in the sport would embrace another manufacturer if it came along,” says Edwards.

“But we’ve got to get our house in order. The birth of Gen3 has been quite a painful experience – everybody knows it – but you know what, we’ve navigated through it.

“And the reality is we’re still putting on fantastic races. Even the last two rounds, we’ve managed to silence the critics. There’s been some great battles there.

“So the sport is not the basket case that some journalists will write about because that’s the clickbait they need.”

Yet the trouble with attracting new OEMs is: what’s next for Supercars… And from the category’s perspective, does it even need them post-Holden and Ford local manufacturing?

That debate has been fuelled by General Motors’ announcement of Camaro becoming something other than a two-door sports car – an electric coupe or perhaps even sedan. Yet that may not matter long-term and is an issue also facing NASCAR in the US, where Camaro races Mustang and the Toyota Camry.

Can Supercars look to NASCAR, a la van Gisbergen, for its future?

“As long as you’ve got cars that represent something like a road car, which these cars do very, very well, I don’t think it matters,” says Dane.

Then there’s the eco-factor as yet another long-term issue. While other racing series – such as Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship – incorporate hybridisation via electrification into their technical regulations, Supercars switched from E85 to E75 fuel with the introduction of Gen3.

“I think the fundamentals of Gen3 can last a decade,” says Dane, before cautioning: “[But] I’ve always said that the Monday after Newcastle [Round 1] this year should have been the first meeting about what happens next.”

Dane, Groves and Edwards all agree Supercars has work to do in promoting the next drivers post-SvG – and deifying that once-in-a-generation superstar that the Kiwi proved he was again and again.

“They have to get on top of the marketing; they’ve missed that opportunity,” says Dane.

“That goes hand-in-glove with the calendar and on the product such as how often it rolls out, making the drivers into stars – everything that goes with that.

“I don’t think that category has done a good enough job of that for a decade,” Dane adds.

“When the business was sold to RACE it was on the basis that we desperately needed a marketing business to be in charge. That was the whole aim of it being picked as the new owner and they haven’t performed.”