Sep
8
Jason Bright: Racing withdrawal is over!
Racing withdrawal is over! We’re about to return from the longest- ever mid-season break and I’m itching to get back in the car after we qualified fourth and fifth at the last round.
There’s been some criticism of having an eight-week break in the middle of the racing calendar, because we lose momentum in the media, but that happens whenever you do it and the guys need a rest at some point!
We’ll be right back on the pace from this weekend anyway because we’re going straight into a different format of racing with the three endurance races, probably the highest-profile rounds of our championship.
It may be hard to follow overseas, but not all V8 race meetings are the same. We have a standard format which runs for most of the year: qualifying and either a 100 or 200km race each day, like at Winton, Tasmania, Darwin etc… Then we have endurance races, which require two drivers and are longer distances. They are our iconic races, particularly Bathurst, which is our highest-profile race by far and attracts a lot of fans who don’t normally watch.
There’s always been a 500km race held as a warm-up to Bathurst and, for the last few years, it’s been at Phillip Island, which is where we’re racing this weekend.
Strategy’s quite a lot harder over a 500km race compared to 1000km because you have fewer options in the way you can play the race out. The difficulty comes from a rule that says no driver can do more than a certain amount of laps, which doesn’t allow much leeway for strategy over 500km and two pit stops.
Phillip Island has a lot of its own challenges as well; it’s a track that’s extremely hard on tyres, which is another reason it’s more difficult in terms of pit stops and race strategy. It’s also affected by the wind like no other track I’ve been to because it’s totally open to the elements blowing in off the Bass Strait.
This year the rule makers have thrown another element into the mix with a new regulation that says the regular driver of each car must stay as the lead driver in that car for the enduros.
In the past you could team-up two regular drivers in the series and throw all of your eggs in one basket with a very competitive driver pairing. That meant you could pretty much rule out one car from every main team because it’d have two part-time drivers in it, whereas now every team is going in there with a two-pronged attack.
I think it’s a great new initiative; it will mean we go into the last stint of the race with a lot more cars in contention than ever before. It’s going to be an awesome sprint to the finish.
It also means there’s been a lot more focus on co-driver selection. Generally they’re a mixture of retired drivers or a development series driver, because most teams are looking for someone that’s got experience in V8s and particularly at Bathurst. In the past they’d be racing for, at-best, a top-ten position but with this new rule there’s no doubt that this year’s podium has the potential to see some new faces, so that’s a great opportunity for these guys.
I think the benchmark co-drivers will be guys like Mark Skaife and Cameron McConville, who have only recently stepped out of the series fulltime, as well as guys like Steve Owen, who are front-runners in the Fujitsu Series. I’ll be driving with Matt Halliday, who has quite a bit of V8 Supercar experience now; he’s competed at Bathurst five times and he’s racing on a regular basis in the Porsche Supercup. After guys like Skaife, I think Matt will be as good as anyone else out there.
This year we’ve got a third enduro: The Gold Coast 600. It will feature 16 international co-drivers, who only get one test day to get a feel for a v8 supercar; it’s going to be a very challenging event!
In my mind there’s a big difference between tracks like Bathurst and Phillip Island and the Gold Coast, which has challenges and situations that we don’t normally put co-drivers into. The high temperatures and tough braking mean you get massive brake fade there, which will be a huge test, and just the general cockpit temperature on the Gold Coast makes it a much more difficult race than Phillip Island.
It will be between 50 to 60 degrees celsius and it’s unlikely that a lot of the cars will have cool suits fitted up for these drivers; it’s just out of the question with the driver change. The temperature is something that you get used to but, especially if you’re coming from an open wheeler, it will be pretty hot.
To be honest it would be much easier to do the entire 300km myself with a cool suit than half the distance without one; it’s going to be tough even for the regular drivers. Knowing most racing drivers though, when given a really difficult situation they drive within their limits and it’ll be just a tough race for the co-drivers; I don’t expect to see carnage because all these guys are good.