2014 V8 Supercars - Discussion

[Rare White Ape]

I'm not 100% on 80s ATCC but I am pretty sure that teams at the top suffered in much the same way that they did in other countries with GrA rules. Once a manufacturer found the right combo of 4WD and turbo it was all over. First it was the Ford Sierra Cosworth, then the Nissan GT-R. Nobody else could compete and the usual happened when manufacturers stopped trying. DJR ran the Sierra for a number of years with great success until the Skyline GT-R came along.

One thing that fascinates me is how the various countries' touring car series evolved after the demise of GrA:

Australia went with it's beloved V8 RWD format and that evolved into Supercars, which still exists in a very similar form today.

Japan kept the Skylines and the multi-class structure, but banned the 4WD systems and allowed other manufacturers to build cars that could match the performance, eventually becoming much faster and more high tech. Super GT is probably one of the best examples of early BoP in GT racing.

Germany adopted DTM which was similarly more high tech. Ironically in the mid-2000s DTM needed a reset and based their new performance envelope on being competitive with V8 Supercars, but as they got faster and more expensive ended up unifying their rules with Super GT in Japan.

The UK held onto the 2.0 L touring cars and that became probably the most famous touring car series in the world. It was so popular that it was taken up as a second-tier series in many countries.

But as usual some series found trouble with spiralling costs and ended up dying off before being reborn yet again with tighter restrictions. Nowadays the BTCC is somewhat similar to TCR and GT3 is taking over a lot of series - DTM and GT300 have performance parity with GT3. About the only residual DNA from GrA that still remains is in Supercars, but those are being replaced next year with a new generation of cars, thankfully not GT3s though!

[Blerpa]

I agree with your insight almost completely, but... the main touring car series in Japan was never Super GT (old name JGTC or AJGTC) but JTCC which recently was revamped as TCR Japan.
Otherwise I do not like DTM, Super GT and any non canonical GT series straying from the GT3 standard fare (I've come to loathe IMSA and ACO with their useless GTE too): they all, eventually, exagerate on the aero side, stupid rulings and escalates costs.

Recent and actual Supercars are... Supercars.
To me they are not Touring cars neither GT cars. They are their own thing, same as Stock cars, and that's fine to me.

[Rare White Ape]

Ahh yeah you’re right about JTCC and JGTC being separate entities in the 80s and 90s.

And Supercars evolution has been very minor. They did move away from being heavily production based when they undertook the parity program to equalise the performance between brands. Now each car is built around a tube-frame chassis instead of a production body shell, but at least they are still quite low-tech and difficult to drive compared to other modern categories.

For the Gen3 Supercars, during testing drivers have actually been asking the governing body to make sure they’re still hard to drive!

[Blerpa]

Godzilla!

[Rare White Ape]

The car is revered now and spoken of in hushed terms. I saw many a punter staring slack-jawed when the infamous #1 Winfield car was on display at a historic car meeting a number of years ago.

But in 1990-1992 people HATED them! Absolutely despised by the touring car viewing public

[Blerpa]

5:15 am. Winter weather. Pitch black. Oh, no, wait... deep fog as well!
Goddamn Aussies, you are crazy to race like this LOL

[Rare White Ape]

Somehow I completely missed that Gizzy did this at the Adelaide 500 a few months ago:



But anyway I came to post that the Gen III V8s have hit the track for round 1 and they look goooooooooooood

[G'day Mate]

If anyone has a video of a better motorsports celebration than that SVG one I’d love to see it!

[G'day Mate]

In fact, if I remember I might swing past on my way to work during the week to see if the marks are still there

[Rare White Ape]

Oh yeah they'd still be there. Get a selfie with them!

Surfers Paradise is filthy with tyre marks for months after a race.