I’ll admit, as an American, I don’t match the same old profile of a V8 Supercars fan.
My introduction to the collection was via a mixture of Jawad Yaqub’s wonderful work right here at The Roar and my very own beat of IndyCar, the place it principally served as Scott McLaughlin’s backstory.
My introduction to touring vehicles extra typically got here from watching IMSA’s secondary Michelin Pilot Problem as a prelude to no matter Saturday motion I used to be primarily ready for.
I may need had a Holden man buried in my soul, ready to be unleashed out of sheer dislike for Ford, however GM killed off the Commodore earlier than I might discover out, so my pink staff of alternative should contain the incoming Toyota Supra.
Nevertheless, on a fateful October evening, once I was amped up from a fully wild ending to a baseball sport and wanted one thing else to do afterward, I stumbled upon a reside broadcast of the Gold Coast 500. With simply sufficient familiarity to be curious, I put it on, and what I noticed blew me away.
The way in which the Supercars flew round Surfers’ Paradise was the primary time I’d ever seen a touring automobile—or actually any closed-cockpit race automobile—really really feel quick in the best way that IndyCar and F1 do.
The season finale in Adelaide solely cemented that feeling by hitting most of the similar highs, whereas Chaz Mostert’s craftiness and absolute refusal to again all the way down to anybody regardless of his automobile’s harm cemented him as my driver of alternative on this collection. Even in my temporary style of the motion, I felt like I’d lastly discovered one thing I’d been looking for my complete life.
Chaz Mostert received Race 9 within the #25 Mobil1 Optus Racing Ford Mustang GT through the Perth Supersprint. (Photograph by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Pictures)
However the place I ought to be gleefully gobbling up all the information and replays I can discover so I can totally embrace this sport subsequent season, I’m as a substitute trying with apprehension, hoping I haven’t walked into the get together proper when it begins to go unsuitable.
That’s as a result of, beginning in 2025, the official Australian Touring Automotive Champion shall be decided not by who scored probably the most factors over the course of the season, however by a ten-man, three-round finals collection modelled on NASCAR’s authentic playoff format, the Chase for the Cup.
And once I instantly felt a pit in my abdomen at that information, I knew that wasn’t simply my choice for IndyCar speaking.
Right here’s the factor: as a bit of boy within the early 2000s, I had a passing curiosity in NASCAR, as I’m certain each different boy round my age did. The collection was at its peak recognition and cultural energy, awash with superstars like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, and the Gen 4 vehicles are, to this present day, nonetheless hailed as the perfect in collection historical past.
After all, I wasn’t eager about any of that once I was in kindergarten—I simply preferred to look at Pontiacs go quick and make noise till they crashed.
However each time I attempt to reconnect with that a part of me by watching NASCAR now, I simply discover myself bored by a sport stuffed to the gills with gimmicks in service of synthetic hype.
First, there’s the stage racing system, the place the officers hand out factors at set intervals after which name a pre-planned warning, forcibly bunching everybody again up as a substitute of letting the race play out naturally.
Nevertheless, as a result of NASCAR is allergic to ending races underneath yellow, a late sufficient crash will as a substitute activate the much-hated additional time guidelines, which imply vehicles run previous the meant size and get caught in a cycle of failed finishes and unyielding insanity.
(Photograph by Sean Gardner/Getty Pictures)
However the worst of all these gimmicks is the playoff system, which debuted in 2004 because the Chase and has solely grown extra convoluted and divorced from truly honouring the perfect driver within the subject.
There’s no higher illustration of this than the best way this yr’s finale performed out. If the pre-Chase factors system had been nonetheless in impact, Christopher Bell can be the NASCAR Cup champion.
If we calculated factors alongside different traces, however saved it on a season-based mannequin, we might think about considered one of a number of different drivers deservedly popping out on prime via consistency and/or domination, like Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, or official common season champion Tyler Reddick.
Nevertheless, as a result of Joey Logano’s wins got here on the proper occasions all year long, which is what the playoffs finally reward, he’s the one who will get to raise the Cup regardless of the statistical worst championship-winning yr in NASCAR historical past, and it instantly soured a season that, on a week-to-week foundation, had truly been among the best in current reminiscence.
Whereas any sport with an end-season playoff system tends to reward getting scorching on the proper time, it’s value remembering that America’s main staff sports activities didn’t all converge in direction of this mannequin purely for the joy issue.
In circumstances like baseball’s World Collection or American soccer’s Tremendous Bowl, the occasion began as a solution to pit champions from warring leagues in opposition to one another, and even after the 2 turned one, it wasn’t like all groups confronted off an equal variety of occasions annually.
LA rejoice their World Collection victory (Photograph by Elsa/Getty Pictures)
Championship video games and the playoffs that led as much as them had been a sensible solution to settle who the perfect staff was when the common season alone genuinely wasn’t sufficient to find out the cream of the crop.
Most motorsports, in the meantime, run immediately counter to what playoffs are helpful for. The factors system of a given collection is likely to be weighted in direction of who received probably the most races, who received particular marquee races, or simply who was typically probably the most constant, however it doesn’t matter what, it’s a lot simpler to evaluate who the perfect is as a result of everybody competes immediately with everybody else at each race.
This can be a main cause why NASCAR’s makes an attempt at a postseason maintain backfiring, regardless of how a lot it doubles and triples down on the idea. A 16-seed busting everybody’s March Insanity brackets is spectacular in a approach that racing can’t replicate, and when somebody does have a Logano-type run on the expense of drivers who outperformed them most weeks, it feels low cost and unearned.
The inherent chaos of dozens of high-end racing machines on observe directly solely compounds the issue. Logano himself infamously obtained knocked out of 2015 competition as a result of he’d punted Matt Kenseth out of the combo earlier within the playoffs and Kenseth responded in type through the subsequent spherical.
Positive, it was humorous, but it surely’s additionally one thing that has extra in frequent with the end to a WWE match than something that might occur within the NFL playoffs NASCAR—and now Supercars, by proxy—so desperately desires to emulate.
Plus, let’s face it, an indignant rival is likely one of the simpler issues to plan for. The true backbreakers are the unbelievable ones that drop in like cartoon anvils and outline your season.
Will Energy had a possibility to grab this yr’s IndyCar championship in an upset on the ultimate race, however needed to forsake it as a result of his seat belt saved coming undone. Jim Richards and Mark Skaife infamously received the 1992 Bathurst 1000 through pink flag after they’d already crashed within the undriveable wet situations.
A driver’s day and all of the championship ambitions hinging on it may well finish in catastrophe as a result of a key half catches fireplace, or the automobile’s aerodynamics persuade it to do a flip, or a chook flies in and will get caught within the grille.
Arbitrary dumb luck is already plentiful and painful sufficient in motorsport with a wise whole-season championship format just like the one Supercars is about to desert.
A playoffs system will solely amplify that, and the second anyone wins the title on considered one of these fluke happenings regardless of a weaker total yr than a key rival, I can simply see them getting greeted with a response that makes Bathurst ‘92’s “pack of a***holes” look completely pleasant—particularly if that driver additionally commits the cardinal sin of successful in a Japanese automobile.
Credit score the place it’s due, there are some issues packaged in Supercars’ 2025 schedule that is likely to be value retaining. The Bend lastly getting its endurance race ought to be intriguing, and if the Dash and Enduro Cups prove something like IMSA’s class Endurance Cups, then they’ll make worthwhile secondary prizes to battle for and assist emphasise the number of methods the Supercars schedule assessments groups and drivers.
It’s not even like NASCAR is completely bereft of worthwhile classes—at the very least so far as I do know, their concussion protocol is stronger and better-outlined than what Supercars presently has.
Nevertheless, I do hope Supercars organisers are prepared to chop and run from the finals idea ASAP if it sours a season. If the collection is in search of sources of hype, they’ve already obtained the baddest touring vehicles on the planet, a 3rd producer about to enter the combo, and a taking part in subject broad open for somebody to emerge because the collection’ subsequent massive famous person.
That every one deserves to play out and not using a dodgy format holding it again.
