MOTORSPORT: No thanks to TCR!

Supercar championship team bosses have reacted with limited enthusiasm to the prospect of the TCR touring car series arriving in Australia… And even less enthusiasm for entering it.

The front-wheel drive 2.0-litre racing category will launch here in 2019, managed by a new promoter, the Australian Racing Group, which is led by former Volvo Car Australia and Supercars executive, Matthew Braid, with key financial support provided by Sydney real estate developer Brian Boyd.

Boyd is already a heavy investor in Australian motorsport including Supercars and is closely aligned with another major backer, Wilson Security. Wilson Security’s John McMellan is also understood to be part of the consortium.

Boyd and McMellan are also backers of the reborn Super5000 open-wheeler series, which Braid championed when he was at Supercars. Wilson Security and Boyd’s company Payce Consolidated were major backers of the Volvo Supercars team run by Garry Rogers Motorsport.

Just to add further complexity to a typically arcane Australian motorsport scenario, Boyd and McMellan were rumoured to have been one of few interested parties when Supercars majority shareholder Archer Capital put the business up for sale last year. The sale did not proceed.

Supercars itself is also understood to have looked at TCR as a category it could run in Australia, but ruled it out.

Braid has suggested in media interviews that some Supercars teams are interested in contesting the series, but those contacted by motoring.com.au expressed a contrary view.

“Our focus is on Supercars, it is the premier category in the country,” said Ryan Story, managing director and co-owner DJR Team Penske, which leads the 2018 championship with Scott McLaughlin.

“It is where we want to be, it suits our marketing and business interests and it’s precisely what we serve to do is race in Supercars… We have no reason at this point in time to consider any other categories.”

Story said TCR would complement rather than rival Supercars because of the significant differences in tech spec, the latter long based on a V8 rear-wheel drive formula.

“I think they are very different animals, but whether they ultimately live in the same world only time will tell,” Story stated.

Roland Dane, the majority shareholder and leader of Triple Eight Race Engineering, which runs the Red Bull Holden Racing Team and homologated the ZB Commodore for competition, also dismissed TCR.

“It’s certainly not on our radar at all,” he said.

“I am not saying nobody will … I don’t see it as an opportunity at the moment.”

While the number of manufacturers – or their partners - who build cars is touted by TCR’s proponents, Dane pointed out that direct factory investment in the series is not allowed.

Instead, a structure similar to GT3 and GT4 means teams buy the cars from manufacturers and find the funds to run them. That means more competition for the available funding for Australian motorsport will have to be spread across more cars, potentially damaging categories such as Super2 and the new SuperUtes (both owned by Supercars), Carrera Cup and the Toyota 86 series.

“TCR clearly has a place in the world,” added Dane. “But TCR has only had strength when there hasn’t been anything else that is easily accessible to competitors in the same market.

“In Australia we have tried 2.0-litre cars and they didn’t really get any lasting traction, so I think it would be a brave person to commit to running these cars as a professional motorsport team at the moment.”

At the other end of the pitlane, single-car campaigner Charlie Schwerkolt was emphatic in his lack of interest in TCR, although CS Racing has expanded into the new SuperUtes series this year.

“I am concerned there are too many categories in Australian motorsport,” Schwerkolt said.

“We have to do things right and I am not interested in running anything like that at all.

“I don’t think you will find another Supercars team owner that is interested. We have to focus on what we have invested in in our own sport and category. I am in SuperUtes, but that is our own category, and I’d rather invest in our backyard rather than looking in someone else’s backyard,” Schwerkolt stated.

Even GRM, despite its close connection with Boyd and McMellan and a history of racing various categories, said it was not interested in contesting TCR.

“Is it something we would strongly consider? I would say no,” said team co-owner Barry Rogers.

“As sheer entertainment I can’t see how it’s going to kick off in Australia.

“Look, you never know, things change, but right now I don’t think so.”

Todd Kelly, the co-owner of Kelly racing, the team which loses its factory Nissan status at the end of 2018, also was dismissive of TCR.

“I am not interested in that,” Kelly said. “It’s not really a good fit with what we are. I can’t see how that would be a benefit to us at the moment.

“When you have a look at what Australia is I would be putting my money into the ute series and trying to get that right. A lot of our sponsors have fleets and they are not driving around in 2.0-litre cars, they are driving around in utes,” Kelly added.

“It’s a stepping stone for sponsors to go onto a ute, then a Super2 car and then a Supercar. How does a 2.0-litre car fit? It doesn’t work in my mind,” he said.