Former Triple Eight Race Engineering team principal, Roland Dane, knows what he is talking about when it comes to the Repco Supercars Championship. His latest column on speedcafe.com (Roland’s View: Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it) is right on the money. In the article he questions the wisdom of the current Supercars owners, RACE, to take the category outside Australasia.
Dane writes….’RACE chairman, Barclay Nettlefold, is on the record as saying that the Board of Supercars consists largely of non-motorsport people and, with all due respect, he’s not a motorsport person himself. Therefore, it occurs to me that, for him and, presumably, his fellow directors to be engaged in seeking overseas expansion (as per his recent Auto Action interview), there must be a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes occurring within Supercars HQ.‘
Dane should know what he is talking about having owned and run a Supercars team between 2004 and 2021, which included forays to Shanghai in China, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Austin Texas and a five-car demonstration trip to a Kuala Lumpar street circuit in Malaysia. None of these events were ever sustainable and as he points out, will ever be!
He also recounts other touring car series which have failed to do just that, including the World Touring Car Championship and DTM (ITC).
We have said this before on Talkmotorsport, that without a round in New Zealand, the Supercars Championship is purely a highly successful domestic series. It is New Zealand that ‘adds’ the international flavour. As Dane says, any other destination will take away the focus of building the success story behind the championship and building on the new Gen3 product.
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