Grove wants more races

The three-weekend break between the first and second Supercars rounds is almost over as the cars arrive at Albert Park, but Stephen Grove believes it has been too long.

Since the Bathurst 500, Supercars has fallen off the sporting radar with AFL and NRL kicking into gear and the NBA finals also grabbing attention.

Penrite Racing owner Stephen Grove says it hard for Supercars to stay front-of-mind when you disappear after the season opener, which he feels needs to change.

“We compete for sponsorship dollars and for viewers with the NRL and AFL, and they have 24 rounds and they’re on television all the time. They’re out in the marketplace, and we are not,” he said.

“For me, and there’s different views in the pitlane of how many rounds we should have, but I am in the 16-round camp. I’m not advocating at all that we should be doing 24 like in Formula One – they’ve got huge budgets, and they have a lot more people and it’s a lot easier, but 24 is a lot.

“Twelve rounds is not enough, but 12 rounds is what everything’s currently based on so, if we went to 16, or four extra rounds, you would hope the Supercars had commercial relationships in place where they would be able to generate more income and that income would then flow down to the teams.

“I’ve been very vocal on this because I think that’s where we need to go as a sport. If we don’t, we just keep losing momentum. And we won’t get a lot of momentum this weekend either, which is not great. We’re number four – there are three other categories in front of us.

“So then we have to start building momentum again. New Zealand will be big, but then we have to go building again. In my view, and this is not so much from a team owner – it’s a fan just wanting to grow the sport – we need more events.”

Read the full story in the latest issue of AUTO ACTION out this Thursday previewing this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.

Image by Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography

There’s lots more loaded into a bumper edition of AUTO ACTION magazine, on sale at newsagents and available digitally here.

For more of the latest motorsport news, subscribe to AUTO ACTION magazine.