DOES SUPERCARS CARE ABOUT TASSIE?

With round two of the Supercars Championship at Symmons Plains this weekend, race fans intending to go to the meeting need to be aware of what Supercars will deliver as entertainment.

By arrangement with Motorsport Tasmania, who are the owners of both Symmons Plains and Baskerville, Supercars are the promotors and organisers of this meeting and are therefore responsible for the entire program including the support categories.

For the Supercars there will be two 30-minute practice sessions and qualifying on Saturday followed by one 44-lap (100 kilometre) race with further qualifying sessions on Sunday before two more 44-lap races.

Each race will include one compulsory pit stop to change wheels but there will be no refuelling.

Contrast that total of 300 racing kilometres to 600 kilometres for round one at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The support program includes races for Aussie Race Cars and the first appearance at Symmons Plains of the V8-powered Super Utes.

This will be the third time in a row that Supercars has included the Aussie Race Cars on the program and while they do provide close racing, the category – with all due respect – is hardly one of the most popular with fans.

Similarly, the revamped Utes have hardly set the world on fire since their introduction and the fan appeal would be at the bottom of the entertainment graph.

To fill out the program, once again a local category has been included with four races for Tassie Tin Tops which includes a mix of Sports GT, Sports Sedan and Improved Production cars.

In effect, the Tin Tops are only included to prop-up the meeting when Supercars should be dumping either the Aussie Race Cars or the Utes and providing two additional national categories that have far greater appeal.

The support categories will be on track on the Friday, but no spectators will be permitted so effectively it’s a two-day meeting.

Quite frankly, this is a pathetic and abysmal line up and clearly Supercars are short-changing the Tasmanian fans and the state for the third time in-a-row since 2019. (There was no event in 2020)

Motorsport Tasmania provides the prepared circuit and infrastructure plus local officials and various other services for a contracted fee leaving Supercars to promote and organise the meeting.

Supercars, in effect, takes over the circuit.

From a financial perspective, Supercars is in the box seat as they gain all gate takings, all income from corporate hospitality, the fees paid by on-site vendors providing food, coffee, merchandise, etc, and significant event naming rights sponsorship plus television rights.

And here’s the clincher.

The Tasmanian Government will hand over $1.6 million of taxpayer funds to Supercars for the right to have them race in the state.

Supercars will no doubt trot out the old argument of the high cost to cross the water, conveniently ignoring the freight-equalisation factor and the cost to teams to go to other rounds such as Perth and Darwin.

How much would it cost for the seven Victorian-based teams to haul 17 Supercars in B-Doubles to Darwin or the four Queensland-based teams to haul eight Supercars to Perth?

And, by the way Perth, will get three national categories to support the Supercars plus a large field of the Radical sports cars half of which are coming from the East Coast.

Supercars will also argue that Tasmania gains valuable exposure as a destination but that is almost impossible to quantify.

As for the number of visitors who will set foot in Tasmania for the meeting, or for a holiday at some later stage, again it’s debatable.

Putting aside those last two points, the real issue is the total lack of respect for the Tasmanian fans who have every right to feel they are being treated with contempt.

It also raises the question as to how the State Government and Events Tasmania have allowed this disgraceful situation to continue.

It’s not like it’s the first time it’s happened, but clearly nothing has been done and quite frankly somebody needs a kick up the bum.

To their credit, successive Governments have poured millions of dollars into upgrading the circuit, often to meet the demands of Supercars who are now enjoying substantial financial rewards but snubbing their noses at the fans.

It’s time the new Supercars hierarchy put their feet back on the ground and listened to the fans instead of adopting an attitude that smacks of sheer arrogance.

It’s also time Supercars had a reality check and recognised they are not the only show in town.

Few people love the sport more than me, but enough is enough.

First published in the Launceston Examiner.

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