FIGHT FOR TEAM SYDNEY

Tekno and Salmon are now rivals in Supercar bid – Photo: InSyde Media

A TUG of war has broken out for the rights to Team Sydney.

By BRUCE NEWTON

The Webb family and Sydney property developer and racer Rod Salmon are now running rival bids for the deal, when originally they were meant to team up and work together.

A meeting scheduled for Wednesday (November 13) was due to review the plans and make a call on the future of the first Supercars team to be run out of Sydney since 2003.

For the first time since confirming the Team Sydney plan at the Bathurst 1000 – after the news was broken by autoaction.com.au – Supercars is publicly hedging its bets about when the team will be rolled out.

“It (Team Sydney) needs to be done right, that’s the number one priority,” Supercars CEO Sean Seamer told media at the Sandown 500 last weekend.

“It doesn’t have to be done fast, it needs to be done right.”

Right now, the plan is for a two-car team to be based in a temporary facility at Sydney Motorsport Park in 2020 ahead of moving into an all-new headquarters in 2021.

The team is intended to run two Triple Eight Holden Commodore ZBs for James Courtney and an as-yet un-named second driver.

The Webb family was to supply its existing Racing Entitlement Contract (REC) to the deal, while Salmon was to purchase another from among the three Supercars had ‘on the shelf’.

Salmon was never officially named as part of the deal, the official press release issued at Bathurst only referring to Tekno boss Jonathon Webb “finalising agreements with new partners”.

But the Webb and his father – and Tekno REC owner Steve – and Salmon have not pursued their mooted deal.

At Sandown last weekend there were strong rumours the Webbs were going it alone and Salmon was out of the picture.

But sources close to Salmon insist that he remains fully committed to the project, has no interest in aligning with the Webbs and believes he has the legal upper-hand in terms of agreements with parties relevant to the deal.

Those parties include the NSW government – which is tipping in $33 million to develop a motorsport centre of excellence at SMP – the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) – which runs SMP – and the Confederation of Australian Motorsports (CAMS).

Whoever ends up being Team Sydney, Supercars is clear it must race two cars, meaning the Webbs have one REC to secure or Salmon two. RECS are currently quite cheap, valued at about $200,000 each.

Seamer indicated Wednesday’s meeting was a key milestone for the project.

“We will be reviewing the plan for Team Sydney next Wednesday and be looking to be finalising REC transfers or sale of RECs not long after that,” he said.

“So we are pretty much out of time, we have a view on what the different parties want to do so we are about a week away from a decision and confirmation on that.”

Asked if there was a chance Team Sydney may “fall over”, Seamer replied “not at this stage”.

“Our priority is making sure that we get the chance to work through the business plans and making sure everything is planning to be executed at the highest possible level given the importance to Supercars as a category, as a sport and for the NSW government as well,” he said.

Seamer explained there were a number of urgent priorities that had to be resolved.

“There are certain things that need to be done in the next week in terms of REC transfer and driver market. What the building is going to look like etcetera, less important.

“But getting the REC sorted out and getting the drivers sorted out and making sure the NSW government is happy with the plan and making sure the ARDC is happy with the plan, that’s the priority for the next couple of weeks.”

Webb was taciturn when approached about the future of Team Sydney by Auto Action.

“Nothing has changed from my point of view,” he said.

“You (media) can assume what you want to assume, as you have all done to date anyway. I am not making any comment on it.”

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