31 cars over 1000km ?? Lets get back to 50 !

[6.213km]

Mount Panorama Bathurst, Our Great Race.

But is it that great anymore? It's become a series of pace car interupted sprints, and each year it seems, there are less & less cars on the grid.

I fail to understand why, at the biggest race of the year, after lap 1, we had only 29 cars left. Yes I still enjoyed myself, it's Bathurst, it's the best day of my year, however, what I fail to understand is why, V8SC continues down the path of "less competitors is better".

We had 31 cars start the race, and yet we had pace car interuption after pace car interuption. V8SC claim by not including the development series cars, this reduces the amount of stopages and interuptions to the lead cars.

Personally I think its a crock of you know what. A lot of what made Bathurst great, was seeing privateer, or development teams fielding cars. Many of them did wonderful jobs, fullfilling their dreams of running a car at Bathurst.

So why not allow development series cars to run ? If they qualify within the % cutoff in qualifying, then they are not exactly going slow. And besides, the so called professional guys cause enough pace cars, so how is a few development cars going to alter the modern pattern of this race anyway?

You would find the better development teams would do a great job, & I'm certain they'd be prepared to share a pit boom with another development team if it mean't a chance at a top 15 or top 20 spot at the greatest race we have.

Get the numbers up, give us a true spectacle, give development teams, and development teams sponsors something amazing to aim for, bring back some of the magic & tradition that we have lost V8SC. The great race, as good as it is, can be way greater.

[Henry]

The cars are too quick now to allow too many on-track: hell, at just about every green flag restart following a safety car, we saw some sort of incident.

I agree that it was great in the days when the grid went around the corner and up Conrod a-ways, but it's too hard to get 60 guys who aren't having the car take them for a ride on arguably our most intimidating circuit, let alone 100, to fill a 50-car grid.

Change the formula first: change it to give a car that's decidedly less twitchy, without making them too sterile - when the Gp C and Gp A cars got down into the 2:15's for race pace (and 2:13's for qualifying), everybody thought the drivers' eyeballs might explode - and now the Supercars are doing 2:08's... take a bit of wind out of their sails, and you could quite easily accommodate 50 cars at a quickest of 2:16-2:18 I should think...

[Armco Bender]

The more cars you have ,the more crashes,the more safety cars.

[plonkey]

Only have 2 cars race then....

[RotorFan]

When only 17 finish the argument that the event doesn't need 50 cars because they are all professional goes out the window.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of cars finished over the years. 17 out of 31 is 55%. I'm sure thats not too different from years ago.

[GTRMagic]

I can see TC & the Kelvinmonster getting excited by a 50 car idea.

You could sell 19 new franchise licence slots to the new entrants for $1.65m a pop, which is equivalent to a L1 slot.

At $1.65m per slot, the money could be returned to the existing franchise licence slot holders @ $1m per car!! And have a few $$ left over for TC and Kelvinmonster's lifestyle management.

It would also put a floor under the price of existing franchise licence slots at the $1.65m rate....

But the one thing we are all missing... is that its tough out in Supercar land.. there are teams crumbling (DJR) or are resource poor (TKR) plus a number of others where a large scale damage could potentially wipe out their racing squad.....

There is not enough sponsorship in the current pool to support 50 front line V8Supercars. There are very few new sponsors entering the sport, with most teams content to steal sponsors from one another rather than lever open the magic formula to bring new people into motorsport.

Its not at pandemic proportions.. but when you see one team spending $500k on an F1-style trailer when their existing one is perfectly serviceable, and they are amongst the biggest bleaters about cost control... well the world is in a bit of a spin.

[Aarrgh8]

Hmm. 1963, the first 500 mile race at Bathurst (130 laps): 45 cars started, 43 finished. 1972, the last 500 mile race at Bathurst: 35 cars started, 35 cars finished. 1973, the first 1000 km race at Bathurst: 58 cars started, 30 cars finished. Make of that what you will.

[RotorFan]

Here we go:

Year Finishers/Starters Percent
1994 26/45 58%
1995 15/32 47%
1996 22/35 63%
1997 19/40 48%
1998 20/45 44%
1999 22/55 40%
2000 29/54 54%
2001 21/39 54%
2002 24/38 63%
2003 23/39 59%
2004 21/34 62%
2005 21/34 62%
2006 17/31 55%

So in 2006 V8 Supercars is professional enough that 31 cars is enough? Doesn't look like it!

[dsg]

50 Cars? Do we have 100 drivers good enough to pilot these cars or should we get use to a death on the mountain each year?

[Sultan]

Originally Posted by dsg

50 Cars? Do we have 100 drivers good enough to pilot these cars or should we get use to a death on the mountain each year?

100 drivers good enough? Absolutely, go to your local state club meet & you'll find a good handful from every state who are not only talented enough to make it to the top, but would probably surpass a few of the guys already there - usually its the money that's missing to get the chance in the first place...


Settle DSG, it wasn't lack of talent that killed Porter...

[Henry]

Originally Posted by plonkey

Only have 2 cars race then....

Not good... hypothetically, if there were two cars, 1 HRT, 1 JDR, Bathurst could be all over before the second corner!

[Sultan]

Originally Posted by Henry

Not good... hypothetically, if there were two cars, 1 HRT, 1 JDR, Bathurst could be all over before the second corner!

I've got it! Murph & Ambrose - a 1 lap sprint...

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Sultan

100 drivers good enough? Absolutely, go to your local state club meet & you'll find a good handful from every state who are not only talented enough to make it to the top, but would probably surpass a few of the guys already there - usually its the money that's missing to get the chance in the first place...

At this point in time, I doubt there are 100 drivers who shall be familiar enough, and capable enough, and experienced enough to punt a V8Supercar at Bathurst for 33 laps at a time without incident.

No slight on the drivers at club level.. but main series V8Supercar is a different game. They can probably get there on pace over a few laps.. but doing it for 33 of them, moving from a full tank to an empty one, adjusting roll bars on the fly, enduring a change in brake performance during a stint and having to adjust biases as the fuel burns off, understanding the grip levels of the car, driving a chassis with a lot more softness and suppleness than perhaps they are used to.... while competing against another 49 egomaniacs on the same race track.... its a mega transition....

[Aarrgh8]

Sounds great when you put it like that. Bring it on - and let's see what percentage of starters finish compared to the 54.5% that RF's stats show.

[BlueMax]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

There is not enough sponsorship in the current pool to support 50 front line V8Supercars. There are very few new sponsors entering the sport, with most teams content to steal sponsors from one another rather than lever open the magic formula to bring new people into motorsport.

Its not at pandemic proportions.. but when you see one team spending $500k on an F1-style trailer when their existing one is perfectly serviceable, and they are amongst the biggest bleaters about cost control... well the world is in a bit of a spin.

The Sponsors are there. It's just the sponsors are not there on the level that is required to sustain the cars. In 1977 Allan Moffat dominated the championship. Budget for the year close to $400,000. For 2 cars. In todays terms about $2,200,000. In the last year of Group C 1984 Moffat had 5 full time crew. Today some teams have 35 full time employee's.

Now if you had $2.2mil and 5 employees you would be up the back of the grid.

The catergory financially cannot continue in it's current form.

The cars are too fast and too expensive

[mabs_nsx]

I would like to see alot more international drivers in the series and at Bathurst. I would like to see 35 cars at a normal event and 55 enter Bathurst including some of the cars from the dev series.

[Head Rev]

Originally Posted by mabs_nsx

I would like to see alot more international drivers in the series and at Bathurst. I would like to see 35 cars at a normal event and 55 enter Bathurst including some of the cars from the dev series.

Is there enough space at Bathurst to house that many in pit lane, wouldn't want to be in pit lane when a safety car comes out!!!

Would most likely see more safety cars if we had more international drivers, I think history proves that.

[Matt]

Hmm, 33/38 cars makes quite a good race, from what I've seen in the past couple years, however, I'd like to witness a 50 car fright train down Conrod, would probably look spectacular. Have the V8's as the main class, with a smaller capacity V8 class underneath them, or a 2.0 litre class running at the same time, such as a G2 or something.

[HDTVKSS]

personally i think that NZ is onto a good thing with their series. the cars are seriously cheaper, much better controlled and shock horror, probably provide better racing than the super cars.

somthing to look at for the VESA boys? not that they ever will....

you dont need hella fast cars to have good racing.

[RotorFan]

They're cheaper until someone in the field starts spending more money because the popularity of the category increases. That rings a bell.

[Falcadore]

Originally Posted by Head Rev

Would most likely see more safety cars if we had more international drivers, I think history proves that.

This year I think we had record safety cars, and the smallest number of internationals in years, and I can't recall Simonsen, Lyons, Brabham causing any of them, so I think history has DISproved that.

[bestfit]

Didn't Brabham cause a safety car when he went into the sandtrap at McPhillamy?

[Taz Q2]

The roar of twenty odd RX7's, 3/4 the way down the start grid backing onto conrod is unforgettable, throw in a few falcs & commys & you had all you could want in a race start.

Time moves on, & over the years how many times did you hear one of the front runners whinge intolerably, about how some once a year racer had caused major greif toward him, due to being slightly off the pace after a couple of laps into his stint, or at some point in the race that may have been critical for them to be getting past that racer without incident, only to have them brought unstuck because they just were not up to scratch.

Eventually the powers that be had to do something about it, & have done so, which is why there are only so many starters on the grid, if you look back through the years, & forgive me if i am wrong, but i would think that a lot of those rear end cars that made the field look huge, would be those lads racing just once or twice a year.

[Sultan]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

At this point in time, I doubt there are 100 drivers who shall be familiar enough, and capable enough, and experienced enough to punt a V8Supercar at Bathurst for 33 laps at a time without incident.

No slight on the drivers at club level.. but main series V8Supercar is a different game. They can probably get there on pace over a few laps.. but doing it for 33 of them, moving from a full tank to an empty one, adjusting roll bars on the fly, enduring a change in brake performance during a stint and having to adjust biases as the fuel burns off, understanding the grip levels of the car, driving a chassis with a lot more softness and suppleness than perhaps they are used to.... while competing against another 49 egomaniacs on the same race track.... its a mega transition....

GTR, whilst normally I love your work & always look forward to reading your posts, this time I must vent my opposing thoughts...

Where do you think drivers come from in the first place? Karts, Club meets & then of course National supports.

Being consistent for more around 33 laps? What, & the current field can? That's what the pace car's for!

But seriously, to gain that experience, it's called practice, & practice costs a motsa - who's going to pay for it? There aren't alot of sponsors willing to invest in the future on a 'nobody' these days so he can get up to speed - not without contacts/ family backing, etc. & this is the point I'm trying to make - hey, nothing against those that have, good luck to them! But let's face it, there are others who don't have the $$$ but could run rings around a few of the current 'pros'...

And changing driving style, bars, brake bias etc to suit fuel level, brake/tyre wear & conditions? Sorry GTR, I completely disagree with you - it's only hard if you're not consistant & don't have a good feel for the car, & if you don't have that, it doesn't matter because you'll never be a front runner in anything...

Apologies for venting my spleen,

[dsg]

Originally Posted by Sultan

Settle DSG, it wasn't lack of talent that killed Porter...

Really?

More very fast large heavy cars, plus more inexperienced once a year drivers, will lead to more accidents/incidents. It's common sense that on an unforgiving track the probability of someone getting hurt will increase.