Holden is unsurprisingly killing off the Commodore road car and indeed their sedan/hatchback line in general. They recently committed to supporting the series until the end of 2021 which is supposed to be the last year for the current regulations. Beyond that, who knows.
The kelly Racing team have today launched the Mustang in livery of its new backer for Heimgartner ..... the quirkily named brand of Australian whiskey called Ned.
So will it be Ned Kelly Racing!
The 'Ned Kelly Racing' Livery
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
As predicted Super2 graduates Jake Kostecki and Zane Goddard will share the second Supercars drive at Matt Stone Racing.
They will compete in alternate Super400 and SuperStreet events before teaming up for the Pirtek Enduro Cup, a new move allowed by SUpercars to ease the transition of drivers from Super 2 into the main game..
They will run under the ex GRM #34 Racing Entitlements Contract, purchased from GRM by MSR. The car they will be running is the car the Kosteckis ran in this year’s Enduro cup, when Jake partnered with cousin Brodie Kostecki.
So the line up for next year is all but complete now, with just the alleged 2nd entry for Team Sydney and the 2nd seat at WAU to be finalised, with the latter rumoured to be going to Bryce Fullwood,
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
James Golding is unfortunately out of a main game drive. He will be driving with Winterbottom in the enduros.
Tom Randle has surprisingly left Tickford and moved over to Matt White's team in Super2 where he will drive Bryce Fullwood's championship winning car from 2019. I presume that means he will be elsewhere in the enduros. Broc Feeney (the winner of Super3 this year) is going to be replacing Randle in the Tickford Super2 car.
As an aside, and it is not particularly relevant to Supercars other than it refers to a Supercars driver.....
Mostert receives BMW call-up for Daytona 24
Chaz Mostert will join the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing outfit as part of a two car BMW effort at the Rolex 24 of Daytona next month.
No doubt this will further fuel the rumour some quarters are suggesting that WAU (Mostert's new employer) are looking to change their Holden allegiance to 'a new manufacturer' of which BMW has been named a likely possible maybe. Personally I dont see it, mainly on commercial grounds. Building up a new manufacturer operation to coincide with the new Gen 3 Supercrs regsis not cheap, and BMW certainly are not selling enough cars in Aus to warrant the costs involved. (C12,000 BMW vehicles across all types ie SUV's cars etc in the first 7 months of this year.)
Another factor no-one in the media seems to consider is that BMW are firmly on the EV / Hybrid Eco car bandwagon, as their foray as a manufacturer in to Formula Milkfloat shows.... V8 Supercars is hardly the sort of platform they are looking at in the future.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
I'm not sure about that BMW rumour either, it was originally reported by a notoriously unreliable journo as well. Although to be fair it'd be less surprising then Volvo's entry back in the day was. I think there will be some pretty serious changes when the new rules get introduced as well which may push the series in more of a GT direction as well.
In the Utes support series thank God the new format for next year includes a proper V8. The diesel powered ones this year have been a major disappointment and I think the fans had given up on them, so the category suffered from a much reduced grid size making the category even less popular.
So bye bye turbo diesel and hellow V8.... the format decided is a to run with Chevrolet’s 6.2-litre LS3 engine.
Im sure that will lift the category back up the popularity scale with both teams and fans.
So in readiness one of the teams is putting together a test ute.... this is what a Mazda Ute looks like with a Chev V8 in it.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
I think the biggest problem is the ungainly cab on chassis cars. They mainly (even exclusively?) race with the supercars, right? So they have the same people counted as attendance, and people on TV can't really hear them one way or another. They either look dreadful, or they race dreadful. And the looks and racing probably goes hand in hand in this case.
I don't look at a tank and think "Woo! Racey!"
Oscar Piastri in F1! Catch the fever! Vettel Hate Club. Life membership.