MOTORSPORT: V8 Supercar coupe momentum growing

Mutsang versus Camaro versus Challenger coupes... That's what the V8 Supercars Championship could become in just a few years following the end of the traditional big Aussie sedan.

The momentum for legalising two-door coupes in Australia's most important motor racing championship is also increasing because of the push by V8 Supercars to renew its international expansion and the expected arrival into the category of US giant Penske Racing.

The Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore – cornerstones of Australian sedan racing for decades -- will both be dead by the end of 2017, something the management of V8s anticipated years ago with the planning of Car of the Future and the widening of the category to include other brands.

The next step, which is now being actively considered, is the adoption of two-door coupes either alongside or in place of the sedans.

The primary initial driver for that is Ford, which plans to put its performance emphasis on the sixth-generation Mustang. It arrives in Australia in 2015, and as reported earlier this week it could be Penske that is running the car for the Blue Oval.

But Holden will soon find itself in the same situation and the second-generation Chevrolet Camaro, due in 2016, could be the solution -- if it is sold here, of course.

Allowing coupes might also encourage Chrysler Australia to weigh in, especially if its negotiations to secure right-hand drive engineering of the Dodge Challenger bear fruit.

Meantime, Nissan could swap from Altima to a GT-R bodied V8 Supercar and Mercedes-Benz might get enthusiastic about the Erebus Motorsport program if the race car was a C 63 AMG coupe rather than an E 63 sedan.

If Benz comes in formally, then that might attract a BMW effort with a CotF version of the M4, even Audi with an RS5.

Remember, with CotF, most of the mechanicals are set and it’s a body purposely kept close to production look – adapted to a control 2822mm wheelbase – and engine that really distinguish each entry.

One of the primary backers of the coupe as a second-generation CotF evolution is Triple Eight Race Engineering team owner Roland Dane. Apart from major success on the track, Dane’s team is also the primary supplier of many parts to other teams. He also sits on the V8 Supercars board.

If he isn’t the most powerful individual in V8 Supercars then he is in the top three.

“The big car market has moved into SUVs so therefore the medium and large car market has been evaporating,” said Dane.

“So the market is changing, which means the cars we are going to draw on in the future are going to change and that’s one of the reasons we need to be flexible about the two-door car, because the two-door car becomes the hero car.

“In Australia the four-door car has been the hero car for many years but DTM (German touring car championship) went away from the four-door car to the two-door car a couple of years ago.”

Opening up the V8 Supercars grid also internationalises it, and that works for V8 Supercars’ stated aim of heading back overseas.

With a suitable date impossible to find on the Circuit of the Americas calendar, the V8s only travel overseas to New Zealand in 2014. But at the category’s annual awards gala last Monday night new CEO James Warburton made it clear that is only a temporary situation.

“Opportunities abound and we are making bold and innovative plans for this sport,” he said. “We will add events here in Australia and overseas.”

A return to North America in 2015 is definitely high on that agenda. Certainly, Warburton and his right-hand man John Casey took the opportunity to interrogate Penske Racing president Tim Cindric on the subject during the American’s visit to the championship finale in Sydney last weekend.

What emerged from that discussion seems to be support for racing on an Indycar bill – Penske runs one of the top teams – and for North American-based drivers to get into the cars to add local interest. Racing on back-to-back weekends to amortise costs for promoters has already been recognised for some time as a must for a US return.

“It (V8s) complements Indycar in a very good way,” Cindric said. “If you had a race weekend where you ran V8 Supercars and Indycars together I think you would have a very similar fan base. It’s not NASCAR, it’s not Indycar, it’s something different.

“If you could tie in some known names within that event weekend that brings an interest level from the US, I think you could have something that would be very meaningful.”

Not surprisingly, Cindric also agreed that turning up in Mustangs, Camaros and other internationally recognised models would be more helpful in attracting interest than having most of the field in unique Australian models.

“Quite frankly, the Falcon and Commodore aren’t known names in the USA. The Mustang name is I think worldwide, as is the Camaro name… I think anything you can do to make it relevant (helps), but it is popular already.”

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