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It’s something that has been in the pipe works for some time now, the fall of the almighty V8SC Championship. With the recent changing of hands after Car of the Future (COTF) was introduced, along with TV rights moving to Foxtel in 2015, even the teams are not fielding cars to a smaller field then recently experienced. The future of V8 Supercars is in doubt. Combine all this with the fact that Ford and Holden are moving manufacturing out of the country, and with today’s economy, the gong of the 5L V8 is definitely ringing.

Having Volvo and Nissan field cars, both borrowing engines from their much larger 4WD counterparts in the XC90 and the Patrol respectively, it certainly begs the question as to why Australian motorsport is so hell bent on this format of a big loud powerful V8. I mean, to look at it this way, V8SC is by no means similar to any other motorsport category in the world. Some drivers actually put driving a V8SC on their to-do list as they are known for being such different animals too tame. With the engine configuration, built into a spec chassis, with panels adapted to whichever car manufacturer comes along and drops a couple of dollars on the table it certainly creates a unique form of racing, which in its purest form, is spectacular! Often the qualifying is covered by a mere second and long distance races finishing as close as two tenths of a second from first to second. The Bathurst 1000 is the best example of this, from the green flag to the chequered, there is one speed, Flat out! Its not like old days where you would try and conserve the car to make the distance, because once you slow down, someone will beat you.

I have followed the V8SC’s since I was born, I have many memories of them from a very young age, up at the mountain, camping at Reid Park, taking it all in. But a time is drawing near where things will change and I think some of the blame could go back to the planning for the COTF. The idea was to create a cheaper car to build and maintain which was also safer and to entice more manufacturers into the sport. Looking abroad and seeing what the world was doing is where we should have started, instead of taking our already unique V8SC and making a brand new, arguably irrelevant car just for the sake of change, we should have gone to other categories. This is what DTM (German Touring car masters) did, they got together with the Super GT/GT500 category in Japan and created a chassis which could be built and used for either category, as well as bringing the American’s in for their Grand-Am Class. If V8SC was to adopt this system, we could have still built our own bodies for that chassis to look like they do now, but it would have made it a lot easier and enticing for big manufacturers to get involved, as someone like Mercedes-Benz could run in the DTM, V8SC and GT500, using the same chassis, but unfortunately, we didn’t. Instead we made the COTF, which admittedly has turned out quite well, even if early reports were that it wasn’t saving teams any money as expected prior to the launch.

Looking ahead to the future, there are already rumours getting around that the V8SC will probably drop the “V8SC” name, moving to different models and potentially even body styles. This all just screams costs, something COTF was introduced to reduce. Perhaps the best thing for Australian motorsport would be to drop the category altogether? Replacing it with a tried, tested and proven international formula, the FIA GT3’s. It’s hard to argue that the rise of this category internationally in recent times has been significant, instantly you have a range of GT3 Cars that are already designed and built under the FIA balance of power system to be as similar as possible. Not only that, they are fast! I’m not going to throw a heap of numbers up saying this has that and those do this, but simply make some key points. The 2014 Bathurst 12 hour was completed this year, with a winning margin of a mere four tenths of a second. From an Australian team in Maranello Motorsport, to the world renowned SLS AMG of HTP Motorsport. Recently the Total 24-hours of Spa was won by only 7 seconds after an epic battle lasting over half of the race between the #1 WRT Audi and the #77 Marc VDS BMW Z4.

Having GT3 cars run at all the races that the V8SC currently compete at, would no doubt be a fantastic spectacle! You would still have the Bathurst 12 Hour, which would potentially entice the World Championship teams to compete, making it a great event to test, and fight for a win against the worlds best. But you could even open up the Endurance races to wildcards, having teams from across the world competing. Even switching to a GT4 class as the development series would doubtlessly make this series more relevant. To top it off, when it does come to enduro drives, look at the pool of available talent you could choose from. The worlds finest, waiting and willing to take on Sandown, The Mountain or Gold Coast. It would also open up the opportunity for Australian teams to participate in international races competitively. The best example is something Craig Lowndes recently said in an interview on Radio LeMans during the Total 24-hours of Spa, that everything he has done here in V8SC basically counts for nothing over there. This is Craig Lowndes, one of the best drivers to ever come out of Australia. More race wins in this category then any other driver and potentially the only person to come close to Brock’s magic 9 at the Mountain whilst still kicking harder then ever!

-Ryan

Codemasters have just announced that their next F1 title is set to be released on the 17th October 2014 but only on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Codemasters claims that the game will feature “refined handling on a pad” and a driver evaluation system that will change game settings to suit your individual skill level. Their hope is that the game will become more accessible to people who may not consider themselves to be into racing simulators, as well as those who do not have access to a wheel.
The game will attempt to closely replicate the feel of the actual 2014 Formula 1 cars that are now running with reduced downforce and new turbo charged engines.
If you’re an owner of a Playstation 4 or Xbox One and wondering when you will get a taste of the game, Codemasters say that they will release a Next Gen version at the start of the 2015 season that will receive “… live digital updates. These updates will deliver 2015 content into the game as the season unfolds.”

Read more on the official Codemasters website at http://blog.codemasters.com/f1/07/f1-2014/

-Felden

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