MOTORSPORT: Super Trucks are coming back

Stadium Super Trucks (SST) are set to return to Australian racetracks after American organiser Robby Gordon and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) settled their long-running dispute.

The spectacular highly-sprung trucks are likely to race again at the Gold Coast 600 on October 25-27 and the Adelaide 500 early next year.

CAMS suspended SST’s competition licence in Australia in the middle of last year over safety concerns – especially the danger created by a flying wheel at Perth’s Barbagallo Raceway – and the parties ended up in the Victorian Supreme Court.

They have now agreed a three-year commercial rights deal that will enable a resumption of racing with redesigned wheels and smaller jumps.

CAMS chief executive Eugene Arocca said his organisation “always wanted to see the Stadium Super Trucks in Australia” and that “all safety concerns and related issues have been fully addressed and resolved”.

Nathan Cayzer, who was instrumental in the SSTs first racing in Australia at the 2015 Adelaide 500 and has remained Gordon’s representative, said “an enormous amount of work has gone on behind the scenes” to settle the dispute and the outcome was a big win for motorsport fans.

The 2020 World Rally Championship calendar that will clarify Rally Australia’s future may now not come before September.

A representative of the Red Bull-associated company that organises the championship, WRC Promoter, told RallySport Magazine’s veteran correspondent Martin Holmes that the calendar was still “one or two weeks away”.

The dates for next year originally were to have been announced in June but have been delayed several times and Holmes said there had been assurances of an announcement before this weekend’s Rally Germany that now haven’t been met.

WRC Promoter denied to Holmes that it was in disagreement with the world governing body of motorsport, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).

The future of the Australian round of the WRC has been in doubt beyond this year’s event at Coffs Harbour in November because of concerns that it is too remote from a major city and potentially bigger crowds.

New Zealand has lobbied to replace Coffs Harbour, even if only for next year until a new Australian location is found.

Canberra and the Gold Coast have been mooted as the potential new base for the Australian round, which originally was held in and around Perth for two decades.

A report last weekend in Finland – a heartland of rallying – said Australia would be dropped from next year’s calendar and NZ take its place.

Japan is seen as a certain addition as part of moves to entice other Japanese manufacturers into the series to compete against Toyota, Hyundai (this year’s top make), M-Sport Ford and Citroen (if it continues after six-time world champion Sebastien Ogier’s retirement next year).

WRC Promoter also wants to include Kenya’s Safari Rally after an absence of almost 20 years but the FIA is thought to have safety concerns.

Meanwhile, Toyota’s Estonian ace Ott Tanak is 22 points clear in this season’s driver standings after winning three of the past four rounds, Ogier is second – but winless since March – and Hyundai’s Belgian Thierry Neuville is three points behind the Frenchman.

Tanak has won three of the past four rounds – and would have won in Italy but for a damaged steering close to the finish – and has won on the asphalt and concrete roads in Germany the past two years.

Rally Australia on November 15-17 will double as the final round of this year’s Australian Rally Championship, with this weekend’s Eureka Rush at Ballarat in Victoria the fourth round and the Adelaide Hills Rally on September 20-22 the fifth.

Canberra’s Lewis Bates, elder son of multiple national champion Neal, is on track to win his first title, driving a Toyota Yaris AP4, and has his sights on competing overseas next year – perhaps in the Junior WRC or WRC2 – as well as continuing in the ARC.

Bates and co-driver John McCarthy face stiffer competition that usual this weekend as New Zealander Hayden Paddon, a Hyundai WRC driver until the end of last season and still with high international ambitions, is entered at Ballarat in the Hyundai i20 R5 of Tasmanian’s Walkem family.

A super special stage will be held in Ballarat on Saturday night, with about 120km of competition in the Pyrenees region on Sunday.

A planned revamp of rules for the Bathurst 12-Hour has been postponed for a year after opposition from GT entrants internationally and within Australia.

There had been a move to change the pitstop rules and limit driver stints to 65 minutes.

Event director Kurt Sakzewski said there now would not be “any significant changes” until after next year’s 12-Hour on February 2.

Meanwhile, former Australian GT manager Ken Collier has joined the burgeoning Australian Racing Group, which runs the carsales TCR Australia Series for 2.0-litre touring car series and will do the same in NZ.

ARG also handles the Touring Car Masters now, the S5000 open-wheeler category to debut at Melbourne’s Sandown circuit in September and recently acquired the Bathurst Six-Hour production car race.