AUSTRALIAN PRODUCTION CARS ANNOUNCES 2019 DRAFT CALENDAR

Australian Production Car Series announces draft 2019 calendar – Photo: InSyde Media

The Australian Production Car Series has released a draft calendar for the 2019 season.

As reported in Auto Action 1744, the series will hold three stand-alone events as part of their proposed five race calendar.

“Setting a calendar is one of the hardest things to do, as no category can lock-in dates until F1 and Supercars have each locked in their dates which can in-turn vary everyone else’s calendar depending on what those series’ select. That being said, in most cases we have seen that if an event has a history then generally it is carried over each year, give or take a week or two,” Iain explained.

“In 2019 and into the future, the APC will strive to establish a consistent calendar ‘year-in, year-out’. We are looking to create ‘must do’ events and cement them in the yearly Australian motorsport calendar. We believe this will give our teams the comfort of knowing that these are the events that the APC run at each year and give or take a week or two as discussed above, these are the dates those events are run on each and every year.”

“To do this and secure our own destiny, we need to take the big jump into more stand-alone events.

“At this stage, we will continue to run some Shannons Nationals events, however, the Shannons Nationals now has a very condensed calendar running between April and September and therefore cannot cater for us at certain tracks we want to visit, at the times of the year we need to go there.”

“We are very aware of team budgets and time constraints and it is important to us that we make sure teams can spread the load over most of the year while having adequate time to recover after each round, while also knowing when and where we will run as mentioned above.”

“To achieve this, moving forward we will start the APC calendar running from the first weekend in March through to the Phillip Island 6 Hour in November. The three stand-alone APC events we are working on for 2019 will be SMSP in March, Tailem Bend in September and Phillip Island in November, while we will continue with the Shannons Nationals at Sandown in May and Queensland Raceway in July.”

“It is safe to say we are very excited by this calendar and we believe it is our best yet. We look forward to communicating with all of our stakeholders further re the draft dates (listed below) once these are locked in following the confirmation of the Supercars calendar later this year.”

Australian Production Cars Series Draft 2019 Calendar
Please note: these are draft dates only and could change prior to calendar confirmation in late October.

• Sydney Motorsport Park – March 1 – 3 TBC – 4 x 1 Hour Races
• Sandown Raceway – May 10 – 12 TBC – 4 x 1 Hour Races
• Queensland Raceway – July 26 – 28 TBC – 2 x 300km Races
• The Bend – September 20 – 22 TBC – 1 x 300km race and 1 x 350km race
• Phillip Island – November 1 – 3 TBC – 1 x 6 Hour Race

Australian Production Car Series also released a revised class structure – Photo: InSyde Media

As part of the announcement, Australian Production Cars also announced a revised class structure for the 2019 season.

“As the APC has evolved quickly over the last three years, we now need to look to the future and how we can create the opportunity for all production cars to be competitive in their given class,” Iain said.

“A growth from 9 classes to 11 (including invitational) in part to allow for the new cars coming in at the top end of the category while removing F Class (diesel cars) of which no cars have competed in the series over the last 3 years and placing those cars into other relevant existing classes based on their performance.”

“In addition, we have also introduced 2 new exciting classes – AM1 and AM2 (Aussie Muscle 1 and 2). These classes are for Aussie Muscle cars, typically Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores.”

“You will notice also that classes are now not split by forced induction or naturally aspirated. Instead, cars have now been classed based on performance with the base foundation being power to weight and torque to weight ratios. The actual track performance and history will then also be taken into account to finalise the car class.”

“This is a throwback to how the national series classes were before 2017, which is when we changed to enable the APC to be a part of the Bathurst 6 Hour. As that is now no longer a possibility, there is no need to stay with an outdated classing structure and the APC can evolve for the future.”

“The APC series will continue to champion the full inclusion of all cars eligible under the CAMS 3E technical regulations, along with this new classing structure. As we develop into the future, we will introduce the necessary sporting regulations in consultation with teams and CAMS to make sure that all existing and future cars can be competitive in their given class.

“The draft classing structure document will be submitted to CAMS for sign-off at the end of October.”

For more of the latest national motorsport news, pick up the latest issue of Auto Action, on sale now. Also make sure you follow us on social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or our weekly email newsletter for all the latest updates between issues.