There's quite a lot wrong with the Australian motorsport scene at the moment!
What's so wrong you might ask considering there's currently an Australian running 4th in the F1 world championship and another Australian leading (convincingly) the Moto GP world champion ship.
It seems like quite a good year for Australian motorsport.
And in terms of the current succes of drivers and riders internationally (not just those two) it has been quite a good year!
But what i'm writing about is a lot closer to home.
The two big problems as i see them both revolve around our pre-eminent local motorsport category.
The "V8 "Supercar"" series.
The first problem is the "street" tracks which this series chooses to use for so many of its races throughout the year.
Street circuits it's using in Australia this year=
Albert Park GP Track
Townsville Street Circuit
Surfers Paradise Street Circuit
Adelaide Street Circuit
Homebush Street Circuit
Bathurst
Please correct me if i forgot any.
So what's my problem with them using these tracks.
Well aside from the fact that the townsville,homebush,adelaide, and the now modified surfers paradise tracks
are all very ordinary tracks( atleast from a drivers point of view)
My real problem is the cost these tracks require to run for just 3-4days a year.
first of all i should make it clear that i believe they should continue to race at albert park(so long as F1 races there) and bathurst( as it's the biggest race of the championship).
But as for the other 4 street tracks, they each cost many many millions of dollars(much of which is money from state governments) each year to set up and then tear down, and for what, for a 2-3day event in which only 4-5 racing categories ever get to drive on.
Where does that leave the grass roots,amateur,club level motorsport enthusiasts?
with circuits around the country closing down(oran park) or falling into disrepair(queensland raceway).
For instance what if instead of building a street circuit in townsville each year they build a permanant circuit elsewhere in the region. If designed correctly could be a better track for both drivers and spectators, and would give local motorsport enthusiasts somewhere they could race/drive/ride throught out the other 362days a year. Because as far as i'm aware there is currently no permanent road circuit anywhere in queensland outside of the south east corner.
Perhaps most importly for some, going this route would likely be in the long run much more cost effective.
The same could happen on the gold coast.
While the indy was still coming i think there was an argument to have a track trough the centre of town between all the high rise buildings.
But now that's it's only the V8's and it's a shortened modified track i don't see why that's so important.
What would be wrong with a track perhaps near skilled stadium or somthing similar.
It would still be close enough to the main strip for transport, after parties, and accomidation but would give the same advantages as seen in the townville example.
Homebush?
Why not put some of the money into fixing up eastern creek raceway(which is already a much better track in every way) and maybe even use some of that money to keep oran park open(too late now i know)
The same sort of situation could apply for adelaide.
Street tracks are very inefficient in terms of cost and in terms of inconviniencing locals who can't use those streets around the time of the race. My question is why do we use them so much here in australia.
The second problem with the V8 Supercar series is the cars them selves.
First of all they're are only 2 types of car allowed to enter.
These 2 cars a effectively identical to each other and share almost nothing(only the basic stell body shell is shared )with there road going counterparts.
Where is the interest/relevence in that?
Now next year they're changing this considerably, but in my opinion they're going in the exact wrong direction!
The cars are going to be a tube frame style chassis with panels fitted over the to to resemble the road going car they're "based" on, with not one single part from the road cars being used.
The only good news is they're apparently going to finaly allow companys other then ford and holden to enter.
But that's just not interesting at all, as no matter what body shape/logo the cars have underneath they'll be exactly the same!
Personally i would prefer it to be somthing more like the GT3 regulations they use in europe for sports car racing.
But as the series is based around 4 door sedans and they probably wouldn't want people buying ultra expensive ferraris and alike to compete just make it GT3 spec but only allowing 4 door sedans.
This would mean the cars would actualy be based on the road car, but with enough modifications for people to still look up to them as somthing beyond and more interesting then the road car they drive every day.
This would allow cars to use V8,V6,V10,V12,4cl,2cl or any other kind of engine.
They could be rear,front,or all wheel drive.
They could weigh 600kg or 2000kg!
But the best part is even with all these differences the competition could still be extremely close as with the implementation of inlet restrictors the maximum power level of the car can be limited, allowing a powerfull heavy car to compete very closely with a light car with half the power.
Then we'd be watching races with cars that both look and sound different to each other, have different strenghts and weaknesses( straight line speed,mid corner speed, braking ability ect) while still being very competitive.
All of these things could only make much better, more exciting, and if implemented properly cheaper racing!
So you tell me what you'd rather see?
end rant lol
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