Who's on First?

[bathurst77]

As an on again off again Supercar viewer, one huge problem I have with supercarrs is that now ford/holden is gone, they are saying people will be fan of a driver or team.

But its really hard to be fan of a team, when they keep renaming teams according to the current sponsor and not saying which team it is.
Besides 888 and DJR, I dont know who the other cars belong to. The commentors lazily keep referring to the sponsor only (i guess thats a commercial thing) They just say the Boost Team holden is keeping the Monster ford.... Which team are they?

Boost has appeared on almost every car at one stage. If I dont concentrate, the team that was boost last year is now pirtec, Same with coke, penrite etc. For a long time Penrite was erebus, now is it BJR? And who does David Reynolds drive for, Tim edwards is 888 now? The holden works team was mobile.. now its 888. I just want to relax and watch my favourite team go, not spend half the race on the net trying to work out who is what.

Imagine if football teams stopped being known by names/location or jersey colors, and were just called team sportsbet vs team coke, and every few months they change sponsor name and kit colours, and the star people from one team goes to another. Would toally confuse the casual/beginner fan. The team in red and white last year are now blue green and a totally different mob is team coke.

I want to easily know a car/driver is Erebus/MSR/BJR/FPR etc. Maybe they should have to run a prominent logo or strip on the windscreen, or the Neil and Mark could say "The BJR Penrite car" more often than not.

I cant be fan of BJones, Erebus, FPR or the other teams, when I actually dont know which cars and drivers they are.

[V8 Fireworks]

I can't say I agree. There are only seven or eight teams.

Boost Mobile's move from Garry Rogers Motorsport to Erebus was widely publicised for example.

The ATCC has largely lost my interest but I still know who most of the teams are, apart from wildcards (I think the Caltex wildcard was run by Matt Stone Racing IIRC, it was in the press releases leading up to the race).

Not knowing which Super2 team is which is fair enough.

Do you follow Speedcafe? All the press releases of liveries and sponsors are usually on there.

Originally Posted by bathurst77

"The BJR Penrite car" more often than not.

It was widely publicised that Penrite followed Dave Reynolds from Erebus to Kelly Racing, and that the Groves purchased Kelly Racing, so now it's the Grove Penrite car.

Originally Posted by bathurst77

I cant be fan of BJones, Erebus, FPR or the other teams, when I actually dont know which cars and drivers they are.

Well ex-Glenn Seton Racing hasn't been FPR for a long time, Ford Performance Vehicles doesn't exist anymore.

Then they went to the "Prodrive Racing" name and later acquired the name "Tickford" and hence use the name Tickford Racing with a view to promoting aftermarket performance parts under the name of the famous English tuner which was associated with EB- to AU-era performance Falcons.

Anyhow, Cam Waters has driven a #6 Monster car for a very long time so he shouldn't hard to identify as a Tickford driver. In the other cars we have James Courtney with "rent-a-sponsor" (whose split from Tekno and move to Tickford was again widely publicised), Jake "rent-a-drive" Kostecki with an arbitary sponsor, and Thomas Randle in Castrol sponsorship that was widely publicised as moving from Kelly Racing to Tickford Racing.

At the very least, the first two cars are #5 and #6 as they have been for over 20 years, so that bit should be straight-forward. Some of the other numbers, drivers and sponsors moving around can indeed be a little confusing, but shouldn't take long to learn.

While I am very much not a fan of having two expert commentators and no race callers, I believe Crompton and Skaife mention the team names often enough that it is not a problem.

----

Anyhow, it does show the importance of not changing liveries in order to build continuity. The Formula One teams are good at that (Red Bull Racing now using the same matte blue livery for the 7th season), as is the DJR Shell team.

By all means the initial round or two can be a learning curve to identify new colour schemes and the like, but it should only be the opening round or two.

As to sponsors that change every round? Eh, what can you do. Just go by what team the driver drives for. That shouldn't be that hard to memorise.

[V8 Fireworks]

Are you asking because you had to explain all this to a casual fan? I can't see how this would be any different to a regular cricket or football fan explaining things to a casual cricket or football fan.

"XYZ plays for the Lions now? What? When did that happen?"

"I thought Buckley was the senior coach of the Magpies?"
"Love, that was ten years ago."

"What happened to Mika Hakkinen? He was a jolly quick Finn."

Originally Posted by bathurst77

Boost has appeared on almost every car at one stage. If I dont concentrate, the team that was boost last year is now pirtec, Same with coke, penrite etc. For a long time Penrite was erebus, now is it BJR? And who does David Reynolds drive for, Tim edwards is 888 now? The holden works team was mobile.. now its 888. I just want to relax and watch my favourite team go, not spend half the race on the net trying to work out who is what.

Most of the moves you mention were years ago!

It sounds like it would have been just as confusing watching Alan Jones in a #301 Pack Leader Racing Falcon prepared by the Stone Brothers.

Actually for most of this season, the Boost livery from Erebus looked quite different to the GRM one. However for Bathurst they changed to quite a similar one.

I think in either case, from Peter Jackson's point of view or Boost Mobile's point of view, they want the cars to look the same, even though they were now prepared by a different team. Especially given Peter Jackson were deliberately trying to circumvent a cigarette advertising ban.

The most obvious giveaway between the different Boost cars being that Erebus are #9 and #99, whereas GRM are famously #33 & #34 (sometimes #35).

Anyhow there were a lot of older fans who called the Holden Racing Team, the "Holden Dealer Team" for years, despite the acrimonious nature of the split between the two parties. I guess that Brock & Mobil eventually went to the Holden Racing Team made it all link up, and the fractions between the parties thus becoming long forgotten.

[ford71]

Even the commentary team still mix up the Penrite cars....they were so tied to Erebus (and Reynolds I guess) that they still link the old team to that look.

In one of Larko's Hino hub segments on the Bathurst weekend he had a sectioned Mustang sitting there with him and he referred to it as a Penrite Commodore.

[ratdisappear]

They had a great and very intense match. I still remember the moment the teams reached the finish line.

[Sandgroper]

Originally Im a Die Hard Brock then everything Holden Fan

With the Loss of Brock then Holden and many changing teams like AFL Players I tend to just watch the racing to enjoy it. Gone are the days that I passionately wanted a Holden or now a GM Product to Win, Now I just enjoy the racing and hope for some good honest wins. Watching people who havent won in a long time or a new kid on the block is enjoyable now to me. Maybe its my age and now that we cannot grow up in either a Ford or Holden Family as we did way back then we accept it is what it is.

I love watching Cam Waters at the moment.
Matt Payne is a watcher
Cant wait to see if Richie has matured as a person becuase his driving is exceptional in good equipment
Brodie is fun to watch
Oneday, Maybe one day BJR may win something other than a Pit Crew trophy.
Look forward to seeing how