Touring Car Masters teams discuss takeover plans…
Following another small Touring Car Masters (TCM) field at the recent Winton event, plans are being discussed for a potential takeover of the ownership rights to the category…
In response to the development, AUTO ACTION’s Publisher and Editorial director, and TCM car owner, Bruce Williams, looked at some of the issues and spoke to ARG’s John McMellan and leading TCM competitor Andrew Fisher at Winton last weekend.
There was plenty of speculation and discussion around the future of Touring Car Masters at Winton last weekend, including possibly developing plans for a potential take-over of the category by the entrants themselves.
It is considered to be a serious enough proposition for things to get to the point where a meeting took place on Saturday evening in the Winton pits, where some heated discussions developed between interested competitors.
Discussions have been held regarding a category takeover from several of the Touring Car Masters competitors. Image: Daniel Kalisz/ARG
Just a few years ago there were consistently more than 25-30 cars regularly competing in the hugely popular Touring Car Masters series, but over time that figure has continued to decline, and with that, the competitors, category management and fans, are not happy.
Whilst the big names such as Steven Johnson, John Bowe and Ryan Hansford and other category stalwarts are still putting on a great show, a meagre total of 13 cars took part in the latest round at Winton last weekend, which is the most in the entire 2023 season.
The trip to the Victorian circuit was the second TCM trip on the SpeedSeries schedule after the opener at Tasmania, while it has also made an appearance on the Supercars platform on the high-profile event on the streets of Newcastle.
However, neither of those events attracted large numbers either, with just 12 and nine cars racing at Newcastle and Tasmania respectively.
After three underwhelming rounds, conversations have begun about why the decline has continued even with new ownership, with one of the most popular categories in Australian Motorsport having an average of a dozen cars showing up to a race meeting.
TCM Torana driver Andrew Fisher spoke to AUTO ACTION on his thoughts surrounding the current poor-health of the fan-favourite category. Image: Jack Martin Photography/ARG
Leading TCM driver Andrew Fisher, one of the prime movers of the potential move in a change of the ownership structure, says that the owners and the competitors have to take as much responsibility for the health and well-being of the category as the current owners ARG do.
“Well, as car owners we are as much investors in TCM as the owners ARG are, and as such we are looking to the long-term future of TCM…it’s about what’s going to be good for the category,” Fisher said.
“Everybody loves TCM. All the owners, the drivers racing in the category and the fans all love TCM.
“The cars themselves are great, and again the fans love them, and it’s one of the appeals for many of us who are racing in TCM, but we have seen a real drop off in numbers and it’s an issue that has to be dealt with,” he confirmed.
“What we see as one of the major issues from the TCM competitors’ point of view is that it’s just not sitting in the right position in terms of the profile and the way the category is being promoted, even just from an internal ARG marketing perspective.
Small grid sizes have been an unfortunate in the TCM of late. Image: Jack Martin Photography/ARG
“TCM is down the order of priorities within the ARG portfolio, and there is no doubt that TCR, Trans Am, GT and S5000 are ahead of TCM in the pecking order.
“TCM doesn’t even get a mention on their category transporter, and for TCM to thrive it must have a bigger focus.”
Looking ahead for a potential category takeover Fisher explained that despite there being a significant amount of enthusiasm for the competitor buyout it was still a long way away from happening, and that other considerations had to be in place for it to be successful.
“Part of the process is talking to some people that can run the category for the entrants, because the owners can’t run it. We will need a representative that runs it on our behalf, so we are looking for a professional category manager to look after it,” Fisher continued.
“We have Graham Sattler who is a cracking administrator on a race weekend, and we would like him to be part of the plans going forward.”
With fan-favourite racers such as John Bowe retiring from the category, one issue is how more entrants can be enticed back into the TCM ranks. Image: Jack Martin Photography/ARG
Fisher mentioned that many of the TCM owners want to race in more Supercar events and I asked him about two of the more high-profile Supercars rounds being poorly supported.
The Adelaide 500 at the end of last year delivered 13 cars, and then at Newcastle for the start of the Supercars season there were 11 cars, are those events not high profile enough that would encourage people to come back out?
“It could all change, if ARG said, ‘we’ll profile you as our second highest category and we’ll market you, we’ll give you the four high profile events and we’ll back you guys’ as I think they should, then maybe that could work.
“And then how do you bring new people into the series, rather than bring past competitors back to the series?
“And I don’t think that we can bring new talent into the series whilst the majority of the series is run at non-high-profile events.
“I think the real thing is, is looking at what the future of TCM looks like?
The high performance #33 Brut Mustang driven by Steve Johnson has dominated the category of late. Image: Daniel Kalisz/ARG
“So, we need to find a way to get new people interested and excited and to make it an attractive category to be part of and refresh what TCM is all about and being on more Supercars events is one way to get more competitors interested.” Fisher concluded.
In response, ARG’s John McMellan put the case for ARG’s position and confirmed discussions had taken place…
“We have always regarded Touring Car Masters as one of the cornerstone categories of Australian motorsport and its huge popularity with fans is well documented,” he said.
“We continue to be committed to TCM and ensure that it has opportunities befitting its value; however, it’s clear that there needs to be more engagement from competitors in support of these opportunities.
“The initial key messaging was that they wanted the profile of big events, however providing both Adelaide and Newcastle made little if any difference.”
McMellan acknowledged that there is talk about possible approaches-but nothing has actually eventuated as yet, and I spoke to him for his feedback on a potential sale of the category.
Many TCM competitors feel that the category needs to be re-established as a more frequent Supercars support act. Image: Jack Martin/ARG Photography
Captured at 2022 Supercars R13 – Adelaide 500 on 20221201 by Jack Martin Photography.
“We have merely discussed with competitors that we are happy to look at any option to assist in achieving the best outcomes for TCM and are open to discussing options, some of which may even include a potential JV, sale or lease if there is a party or parties that can demonstrate how they will genuinely contribute to assisting in re-building the core into a bigger base.”
It is common knowledge that some competitors have upped the ante when it comes to chasing performance, which is partly the reason for the increased expenses associated with the category, and there is no doubt that this has an effect on racers who don’t have the funds to bring their own cars back to a level of competitiveness.
“It’s no secret that TCM has also had its challenges in recent times with increased costs due to the investment some have made in chasing performance which is not unusual in any motorsport,” he said.
The Auto Action sponsored Porsche IROC made up one of the invitational class cars at the Adelaide 500. Image:Jack Martin Photography
Captured at 2022 Supercars R13 – Adelaide 500 on 20221201 by Jack Martin Photography/ARG
McMellan further explained that there is a perception among many in the sport that there has been an explosion in running costs for TCM competitors.
“These issues were well entrenched and existed at the time of our purchasing of TCM. At the time this was the key factor and some competitors stated it was impacting their ability and desire to race – the cost to be competitive.”
“We have a lot of great TCM racers with cars that have been dormant for a few years, many who were quite competitive when they last raced, but the owners of these cars see that they would need to spend a significant amount of money to bring them back up to speed and that keeps many away.
ARG have worked on a series of initiatives to encourage competitors of older generation TCM cars to return to the category, some of which include racing for their own series points and awards, and have even offered discounted entry fees etc and other incentives to get more cars onto the grid.
McMellan also acknowledged that many TCM competitors have pushed hard for the category to run more regularly on high -profile Supercars events, however despite some competitors believing this was the “fix”, frustratingly the numbers have remained low despite organisers providing “some very high profile” events for competitors.
Popular TCM competitor Cameron Tilley chases the Whiteline Camaro at the Supercars Townsville 500 event in 2022.
“We understand that TCM has often been seen at high-profile events such as the Adelaide 500, Newcastle and the Townsville Supercars events and we have worked hard to deliver these programs for the competitors, but again we haven’t seen any real support from a lot of the competitors who regularly state this as a reason for themselves not racing.
“Despite us providing some very high-profile events, entry numbers have remained below where we would like to see them.
“When we [ARG] purchased Touring Car Masters we had hoped to achieve an alignment with Supercars to deliver an expanded motorsport event calendar, and we saw TCM as a key product in supporting any aligned expanded calendar,” McMellan said.
“That did not transpire, and we have now had to focus our limited resources on building additional events and event broadcasts of our own.
“This has meant that we have limited capacity to provide in-depth support to address the underlying issues from a technical viewpoint and we also have to respect the significant investment that has already been made by some car owners.
“Motorsport is about ‘entertainment’ and ‘the show’ and enviably TCM can provide both on track entertainment and the heritage, and uniqueness of the cars certainly adds to the show element.
“We are committed to the category and its importance and are always open to ways to address the current challenges and move it forward.”
The Touring Car Masters returns to the Supercars stage at The Bend on August 18-20.
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Andrew Clarke and Auto Action’s Bruce Williams and ARG’s Barry Rogers sat down for a candid chat ahead of the SpeedSeries trip to Winton.
