V8 Supercar Series

Sure, the V8 Supercar Series is amazing, but where did it come from? What makes it unique? Tune in to learn more about V8 supercars with Scott and Ben.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the while under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house step works dot com. I walking
the car stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin today I'm Ben Bola
been nice little down under accent. Oh, let's start get

(00:20):
in trouble at the start of the podcast. Uh, I
promise I will not try to do an Australian accent
because I am horrible at it. Fair enough, okay, and
I want to I want to attempt said accent either.
But today's topic is definitely Australian and that is that
step by design, really, because we've got a couple of
listener suggestions for this topic in the past, and one

(00:43):
of them comes from an Aussie who says, you know what,
We'll tell you what. That's the second letter I want
to read. The first one I want to read is
from someone who suggested the same thing right around the
same time. Um. The first one is from Lee Nathan,
and Lee's in the military. He was stationed in Germany
at the time. Now these come from Oh boy, Ben,
this is kind of embarrassing. They come from two thousand eleven,

(01:03):
the end of two thousand eleven. Deep cuts, Yeah, deep Cuts.
They've been on the official car Stuff to do list.
I guess since the end of two thousand eleven. Um, man,
that's a big list. We've we've really got a huge
group of topics coming up that man, hey and defense,
what what this means? Um for everybody listening out there,

(01:25):
if you have written us and we have heard your topic,
we are getting to it. We do address every single
piece of mail we can get our hands on. We're
not able to do it as quickly as we would
like to sometimes. Yeah, I mean these are this is
kind of an extreme case. This is this is like
a year and a half. Uh backlog on this one, right,

(01:46):
I mean it never normally doesn't take that long. It
just kind of sat on the list for a while.
But we're getting around to it. Um so so lean
and says that, um, he wants to hear about a
series that they call what they sometimes called NASCAR down
Under or NASCAR Off Australia, And uh, I guess, well
he's at it. He wanted to kind of and he
has nothing to do with the series, by the way,

(02:07):
but he said he just wants to maybe drum up
a little bit interested in the series in the States
because and worldwide really but um, because it's it's typically
it's called an international series, but up until this year,
up until they hadn't raced in the United States, and
now they have, So we're of course behind the curve
on on promoting that race. But I'll tell you about
that later. Um, and you know, hopefully Lee's hope was

(02:30):
that they'll return in We had a similar request from
another listener and this one kind of in a roundabout
way came about. Uh. The listener's name is Dallas Lee
and Dallas is an Australian listener from Brisbane, Australia, and Um,
Dallas and I had a little back and forth conversation

(02:51):
where Dalls said that, you know, I'd like to hear
more about some Australian market topics, you know, anything about
the Australian car market. We've got three I think it was, um,
three car major car companies that are still producing cars here. Uh.
They've got Ford Australia, Holden which is a subsidiary of GM,
and then Toyota Australia as well. And uh, I just

(03:12):
kind of wanted more Australian topics and we did that
with the road trains, and I think we've had something
else there was another Australian topic. But um, we started
talking a little bit about the Ford Falcon back and forth, right,
because this was about our animal car episode exactly. Yeah,
you mentioned, Hey, I can't believe you guys forgot to
mention the Ford Falcon, and I said, oh, well, actually

(03:33):
have a falcon in my past. My mom had one
in the sixties. And he sent back something with the
world they're still building it and he said, as a
matter of fact, they still use it in the supercar
or the V eight Supercar Series. And that sparked my
interest right there, and I said, well, you know what,
that's a fantastic idea right there. We'll we'll talk about
the V eight Supercar Series, which is by all accounts,

(03:57):
that's a that's an Australian race series, right, I mean, yes,
the V eight Supercars Championship. Uh, it is an Australian
motorsport through and through. Now, as you mentioned, these letters
came from two years ago, right, so, and they were
pretty close in timing, I mean like October and November
of two thousand and eleven. Oh okay, so hey we're

(04:19):
under two years then, my friend. Yeah, it's a little
over a year and a half. Yeah, a little over years.
Look at us. I'm kind of embarrassed about this, but
but again it's a it's a huge list of topics
we've gotten. Yeah, and uh, we wanted to thank Lee
and Dallas. Uh, you guys were taking up the advice
the suggestions here and this is going to be our

(04:40):
podcast on V eight Supercars. Now, what one thing, if
it's okay to say this right off the top um,
technically speaking, the V eight Championship here is international because
I think it was in two thousand thirteen. This year there, um,
there are events in New Zealand and in the United States.

(05:03):
That's right, there's uh, okay, I'm gonna take the New
Zealand one, all right, sure, the I t M. I'm
glad to say, I'm glad you said it, not me,
but it actually goes more than to more than just
New Zealand and uh and well the United States as well.
I mean they're in South Australia during Tasmania you mentioned

(05:24):
New Zealand, Western Australia, they're in they're in Texas this year.
In the United States, yeah, the Circuit of the Americas.
Uh yeah, that's right. And they were in the Northern
Territory in Australia again um Queensland, Uh, see South Wales,
New South Wales. Um. So they're kind of all over
the place. They've got they've actually got thirty eight races
in fourteen different venues in Australia, New Zealand and in

(05:46):
the US. And I think they had an event a
while back that was in China. But I believe that
for whatever reason, the series didn't go back to China.
I don't know if it wasn't popular there. I don't
know if it just didn't work out with the promoters
or what. Maybe it was like a one off that's possible. Yeah,
but I mean I think it was a couple of
years ago. And uh, and that's no longer part of
the series, Okay, I see. And also this is a

(06:08):
big deal for everybody just hearing about this in the
right now on this podcast. Uh. The V eight Supercar
Series broadcast into a hundred and thirty seven countries, which
is yeah, which is pretty big. But what I think
we'd like to do is maybe our usual m O,
Mr Benjamin, what do you think talk about what it is,

(06:30):
where it came from. Yeah, let's do that. And if
you don't mind. I'll just read through kind of a
laundry list and you can stop me whenever you want
with questions or whatever you have. Okay, awesome, alright. So
basically it's a it's a the category of racing that
this is. It's a touring car UM series that you know,
a lot of people may be familiar with Touring car
UM in Britain, maybe a little bit here in the
United States, because there was a North American Touring Car

(06:51):
Championship for a short time in the mid nineties, very
similar in designed to that, very similar style cars except
for the engines, which we'll talk about moment. Uh. Now,
the first season for this this event was in nineteen nine, UM,
and i'll talk about how that formulated and that grew
as as as we get along here. UM Again, it's
an Australian series, extremely popular and the the attendance stats

(07:15):
UM attested that because an average event, the attendance is
somewhere over one hundred thousand people, right and for some
of the bigger events it can be uh that can
peak over two hundred and fifty quarter of a million
people for for a couple of these big you know,
like major endurance events or you know the events that
go over several days. UM again based in Australia, and

(07:36):
it's an international series. It's run under f i A
regulations UM and man it's got a again it's got
a long long history. These cars are are loosely based
on four door street legal what they call saloon cars,
right yeah, and uh these they have this some rules
about control components to make sure that these very makes

(07:59):
of cars are still on somewhat of a level playing field.
To go back a little bit before UM this this
started the the idea at least UH started with Fords
and Holden's for the Australia Touring Car Championship UM with
the eight engines and they they this competition grew from

(08:23):
a Group three A designation with you know, Class A
being the five Leader v eight engines Ford and Holden's
UM competing, moving up through some new rules and ultimately
uh oh, I should mention there's also a Class B
which would be two Leader cars and a Class C

(08:45):
and these eventually start working in the Australian Touring Car
Championship UM and they add two classes for some of
the other events that would be just over two thousands
C C and then two thousand cc and below. Um. Anyway,

(09:06):
so let's fast forward to uh, the two Leader cars
had their own series of super touring cars and that
made them ineligible for the Australian Touring Car Championship. Yeah.
Now you mentioned that this was pretty much set up
for Ford and GM with their holding vehicles that the
Falcon and the Commodore I think were the vehicles that

(09:27):
they use and they still do. Um, but the series
was really set up so that it kind of conformed
to what they were already producing in the street cars,
and you know they're producing this big four door. Um.
You know we mentioned saloon cars. I should just say that,
you know, for the rest of the world besides our
UK listeners, you know, the Brits and the Irish English,
that that's what they call um a sedan. So a

(09:49):
lot of us will call a saloon car sedan and
vice versa. Yeah, it's kind of just a difference of language.
And before you get to two down on this saying
that you know it's the four door sedan, I don't
really care to see that race. Um. Listen to some
of the stats that will tell you about these things,
and they're they're pretty remarkable. They're incredibly fast. I've I've

(10:09):
had experience like on track experience with the North American
Touring Cars and there were two leader cars with the
with the Dodge Stratus team when they were running back
in the mid nineties. And incredibly fast, incredibly exciting, it's
really close racing. Um. It's it's really really remarkable. It's
fun to watch. And it's usually run as a support
series too, or it was run as a support series too,

(10:31):
you know, like maybe the cart series back when it
was running, um in the mid nineties. Again, but this this, uh,
this this V eight Supercar Series, this is its own.
This is the big event. And there's a there's a
spin off series called the Dunlop the eight Cars Supercar Series,
and I want to talk about also in a moment.
But um again, I just want to kind of quickly
get through some of these these quick stats on this thing.

(10:52):
Now that the chassis, of course, that's a control uh part.
And we say control that means that parts that are
they're um, I guess formulated by the by the series
that say they say that it has to be identical
for everybody. Um, it's kind of like NASCAR, you know
when they when they say here's our here's our template
for your vehicle, and here's what you have to get
here to similar in that that. Um, you know all

(11:14):
then all the chassis are gonna be the same. They're
gonna have a little bit of variation here and there
just for the different body styles. But UM, the control
parts we talk about, that's what we mean. They're they're
mandated by the series. So there's a control chassis. UM.
Their front engine. They're all front engine, all rear wheel
drive cars. UM. And they're all five liter VA engines

(11:35):
of course, I mean as you would expect in a
vate supercar series. UM, normally aspirated, so there's no turbos
involved at all. And they all use a six speed
sequential transaxle. And the transaxle thing is kind of new too,
because that is uh transaxle. I mean obviously that's a
differential and the gearbox all in one assembly. So that's
that's what makes that different. Um Man. I've got a

(11:57):
list of control parts that should we talk about. UM.
I don't know if we should go to the Dunlop
V eight supercar series first, or maybe talk about the
history of the v eights. Yeah, let's uh, let's see,
I've got a couple of stats, and then let's do
history the v H and then go to Dunlop and
the development stuff. All right, So they're also all engines
are limited to uh rpm revolutions per minute compression ratio

(12:20):
tended one. They also have a little bit of variance
in their um horse power because you notice that a
little bit, but you know what, only like it's super high.
While you just said it, Yeah, I man, these things
are powerful, aren't they. Yes, especially considering the way around

(12:43):
three thousand, one hundred pounds or you knows. So this
this kind of power is it's fair to say it's
not what you would expect from a saloon car six
hundred and fifty horsepower cars. It's amazing. And you know that,
you know these things, they're they're lightened in different ways,
so they're not as heavy as a as a typical

(13:04):
like a similar road car would be. With all of
the extra equipment they've got where where they're adding weight,
they're also taking off weight. So he mentioned the weight.
I think he said it was around three thousand pounds,
and that's the accounting driver, I think. Okay, Yeah, I've
got somewhere. I've got a couple of stats about that too,
but um, I don't even know if I'll be able
to find that note in my in my pile here.
But there are also restrictions on certain components, like the
engine has to weigh a certain amount. I think it's

(13:26):
two tigrams um. The driver and his suit and his
seat and the attachment points and everything has to weigh
I think it's one kilograms UM. And that's kind of
a minimum weight. You can weigh more, of course, but
it's to the team's benefit to keep it as close
to that one kilograms as possible. And all cars run
on E eight five fuel uh. And then you can

(13:48):
use a couple of different fuel tank sizes depending on
the competition. So at the sand Down five hundred or something, uh,
there would be a one hundred or twelve liter tank.
But for a longer um, oh, excuse me, I miss
spoke here, Scott, one twelve leader tank is the rule. Uh.
For longer events like the sand Down five hundred, uh,

(14:11):
one hundred and twenty leader tank is used because they're
longer distance. Fair enough. Yeah, they have what's called sprint
car races, which are sprint races, I guess, um, and
then they also have endurance events. Now, the sprint races
are typically like on a week race weekend, they may
have four qualifying races and then four actual races, and
those races are are shorter distances so that there's no

(14:34):
pit stops involved. It's just it's just flat out the
whole way from start to finish. They do a standing
start a lot like um, like you'd see in Formula one,
and then um, you know, it's just from from beginning
to end there on the track the entire time. There's
no there's no need for pit stop unless it's a
mechanical issue like they need to come in for rain
tires or something like that, or if they have low
oil pressure they would come in and check that or

(14:55):
whatever happens. Um. But it's normally just an all out,
flat out race, and which makes it really exciting. Yes,
and we would be remiss if we didn't point out
who else was in this race, um right now before
we get to just the the V eight history. So
we already said, uh Ford, we already said Holden, Mercedes
Benz is in here as well. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's

(15:18):
brand new too. Yeah, and that's a brand new one. Nissa, Ultima,
a Nissan. I don't know what I said. Nissa A
Nissa and Ultima the L thirty three. Uh these anytime
one of these is made, they have to be eligible
to compete in this race as ranked by the organization. Sure,
now these are now what you just mentioned. We said that,

(15:40):
you know, set up early on to be pretty much
catered to the well, it did cater to the Ford
Falcons and the and the GM rather than the Holden Commodorees.
I keep want to say GM, and it's really well,
it's a division of anyways, That's what I mean when
I when I say that anyway, So I'll probably mix
up holding a GM a couple of times. But um,
you know, they were the ones producing these five leader

(16:00):
V eight four door production sedans already, so it was
as a logical jump for them. But other other manufacturers
weren't able to get in on this, and up until
just this year. Um uh. The Nissan. Nissan came through
with a factory team, a factory sponsor team with their
Ultima which they were able to enter in the series,
and a racing team called Arabus Racing. UM entered three

(16:23):
Mercedes Benz E sixty three a m G S which
now also qualified for the series, and in it looks
like Volvo is going to be able to enter with
the with the S sixty model that they have. So
you know, it went from a to two car series
or to two constructor series, to a four constructor series
and now it's going to be up to a five

(16:44):
constructor series as of next year. So the competition just
seems to be getting better and better in this as
we go along, which is important for a series. Yeah,
and I think that speaks to the future of the
series as well as the excitement gathering about it now.
One thing that we should also mention is that some
of these regulations we're talking about when we talk about
control components and stuff like that, Uh, this these new

(17:07):
entries to the race this year, Mercedes Benz and Nissan,
their entries coincide with a change in the overall regulations
for the for the cars. And you know what I'm
talking about, I do. They've added a bunch of these
control units are control units, but control parts rather that
you know, these mandated parts that we talked about because

(17:27):
originally was project Blueprint regulations and now it's moved to
what they called the car of the future exactly. And
you know what, man, we keep getting ahead. But I'm
gonna what I'm gonna do is we're gonna go to
the history of Promise in just a moment, because man,
the history is getting pushed way back to the end
of this podcast. Sorry, I keep no, that's all right.
It's good because I just have a quick listen and
not a whole lot to say about this. But the
control parts that we mentioned, we've already said the chassis, right, yeah, UM,

(17:50):
there's also control electronics which is UM, the e CU
or the power distribution model UM. The axles are control parts,
the rear the rear suspension UM, but they don't mention
the front as being a control part, which is kind
of odd, but I think it's Yeah, I think that
the rear suspensions in there specifically because the real will
could be also the UM. The clutch, right, The clutch

(18:13):
is another one that's right, and the wheels and tires,
so they have aluminum wheels of a certain size, tires
that have to be provided by the series sponsor, which
has unlop UM. They also have a steering column, which
is another control part, which is I guess collapsible in
the engine compartment areas instead of not it's not collassible
inside the cabin. UM fire extinguisher system UM, so that

(18:36):
you know, if there's something wrong, they flip the switch.
It extinguishes anything, fills the carl foam or whatever it does. UM.
Chassis and roll cage. We mentioned Chassie already, but there's
a roll cage also, and you know these can be
built by different people, the Chassi and roller caage, but
they have to you know, be approved or are scrutineered
by the by the series and say to say that, yeah,
these conformed our standards. These are exactly the way that

(18:58):
they should be. UM. So these regulation parts, these uh,
they're the same for all competitors, you know, these these
control parts. UM, they ensure quality for all the competitors.
You know, because you know they're they're all the same.
It's not like some team's gonna go out there with
a lower budget and you know, risk risk the driver
in some way in some safety way, which they definitely

(19:18):
don't want to do. UM. And they do allow I mean,
just I should mention that they do allow for minor
differences between manufacturers and engine um and body shapes to
retain the look of production cars. So you know, there's
there are slight variations that are allowed here and there,
and we know all about you know, rule bending a
little bit, you know, like through NASCAR specifically finding the
loophole exactly, and that's exactly what these teams do as well.

(19:41):
So you know, it's still very exciting race. And it's
not like every car is exactly identical. It's not like
the Irock series or something like that, you know, where
where you know, it's just really yeah, exactly. I mean
there's a lot of driver's skill involved and they do
try to try to level the playing field in this
series as well. But um, you know, manufacturer are free
to kind of tinker around a little bit, but if

(20:02):
they're found outside of the the the allowed rules or
regulations or sizes or whatever restriction happens to be on
that part or piece, um yeah, they're fine, or they're
or they're exclusive from the rout of the exactly, so
they know better than to do something. You know, I
just horrendous. Scott, Yes, I want to say that without

(20:23):
further ado. We should stop letting me interrupt you and
start doing the history of all right. We haven't even
talked about the Dunlop serious yet either, so I guess
maybe we should do that. But you know what, I think,
maybe if you and I were attending event, you and
I were going to a supercar event, supercar vent, I'd
want to look my best. Yeah, man, I would too,

(20:46):
And I wanted to talk to you about that because
we you know, we're all right, We're not like the
worst dressed people in our part of the United States
or something, I don't think, so we're close to the
bottom of the list. So on Sundays on Sundays, and uh,
that can all change for us because we found out
about a little website called jack Threads. That's right, and

(21:10):
it's it's an online shopping destination and it's it's kind
of a club. It's like a it's like an online
shopping club. And that may not appeal to you at first,
but then when you understand that they're deep, deep discounts
to be had, like up to eight percent off, then
that's when you know your ears might perk up. Right.
And this isn't on some knockoff you know, Rebok with

(21:32):
four ease or something like that. This These are name
brands that would ordinarily be much more expensive. So we're
talking things like Penguin, Kenneth Cole Sure, Busted Teas bands. Uh,
we're talking about quite quite a few things that we
would recognize. They also sell accessories in addition to the

(21:52):
clothing and Scott, going back to your point about it
being kind of a club a bit exclusive. Uh, there
is a waiting list to be part of Jack threads
dot com. Yeah, that's right, but you can skip that
membership wait list if you want, I mean, if you
if you know us, what you do, I mean, just
be listening to this program. Right. All you have to

(22:13):
do to gain instant access to Jack Threads is you
go to Jack threads dot com slash car stuff when
you sign up, and uh, and skip the waiting list.
You're in for free. You're able to peruse the whole
you know, everything that's available, shop, do whatever you want,
look around for stuff, accessories, clothes, shoes, glasses, whatever. Uh,

(22:33):
and no need to thank us. We uh, we just
do this kind of stuff because we're buddies. We're good guys.
We're all right, you know. Yeah, and you know what
I think, you know, if you made a trip to
jack Threads dot com before you went to the the
V eight Supercar event, you'd be looking pretty good. Yeah,
I think that's I think that's pretty good advice. And

(22:54):
now with that being said, we return, Yeah, finally to
our our long delay history. Finally we're getting into the
history of this whole thing, and that's usually the part
that we start with, right But but you know what,
it kind of makes sense that we talked about the
cars themselves because they're so exciting. I mean, it's just
there's so much about the series that is it's just
really cool to watch. I've been watching video clips of

(23:16):
this all week now. Yes, to your point, Scott, it
reminds me earlier in the show when we were saying,
all right, sedan cars slash saloon cars. I know it
sounds like you don't want to see it, but trust us,
ladies and gentlemen, when you check out these vehicles, Um,
it's it's not your garden variety sedan. No, definitely not

(23:39):
that's it's anything but that. And uh, and the history
goes back, as you mentioned, you know, in the mid nineties.
Let's say that's when it starts right, right, And uh,
I guess we can start. We can jump right in
with something called the Australian V eight Supercar Company which
was shortened they called themselves a VESCO and they formed
to run the series and without without getting into all

(24:01):
the politics of who owns, what share or whatever, it
was a joint venture between the Touring Car Entrance Group
of Australia which is tag r T e G a UM,
the sports promoters I AMG, which I think everybody probably
knows who I AMG as you see that everywhere in
sports supporting events still UM, and the Australian Motorsports Commission.

(24:23):
So all three of those partners came together to form
this EVESCO, which is the Australian V eight Supercar Company UM.
Now that the series name in was was officially the
V eight Supercars, and that's gonna change as we as
we talk about this, so that's important. It's just called
V eight Supercars initially UM, and that was officially well,

(24:44):
initially it was part of the Australian Touring Car Championship
Series UM, and then the series expanded and then in
UH they ended added endurance races and UM control tires.
That's when the control tires first A minute but it
was a different supplier than it was Bridgestone at the time. UM.
As you know now it's it's Dunlop. UM. And then

(25:06):
again in the series name changed, uh to the Shell
Championship Series. And that's of course due to sponsorship via Shell.
So they changed the entire name of the series to
the Shell Championship Series. UM. And that maintained until about
two thousand two, so what about three years there, UM,
and then the Control tire Control tire supplier changed to

(25:29):
Dunlop and the series was once again renamed to the
V eight Supercar Championship Series, which it remains, um, you know,
the same until today. UM. And that's obviously because Shell
dropped out of sponsorship at that point in two thousand two.
So you know, two thoo, there's some big things happening
with the with the Dunlop, you know, Dunlop taking over
the tires and UM and the renaming to the V

(25:51):
eight Supercar Championship Series. UM. I've got a few more
historical points to add on that, if you're sure, Yeah, yeah,
let's do that, okay, as we lead into dun law
so UM, in we'll see two thousand five to follow
up on some of the international events we talked about.
Oh wait, wait, yes, I see the note you're holding up.

(26:12):
I am talking to to stop before you get to
two thousand and five, because I have a little note
that goes back to two thousand three, and I think
we should just mention it. It's Project Blueprint, right, Project Blueprint. Yeah,
that's uh, And I don't know how much you have
on this, so I'll just go ahead and read what
I've gotten. You can again interrupt if you want, Ben,
But Um, something called Project Blueprint was set about in

(26:32):
two thousand three, and that was basically a new set
of regulations which was again to level the playing field. UM.
Holden had had pretty much dominated the series, and so
much so that that Ford had threatened to withdraw from
the series. Now they didn't withdrawal, but but Holden continued
to dominate UM in two thousand one and two thousand two.

(26:53):
So you can imagine that Ford is saying, like, you know,
what's going on here? I can't we can't compete. UM.
There's there's gotta be a way to kind of level
out what's going on here. Because I think GM was
probably investing a ton of money in this because they
were dominating, right, and they were investing. Um also, Ford
was investing a ton of money. Maybe not by the comparison,
but racing is expensive and they're trying to keep up. Yeah,

(27:14):
and they don't want to invest a bunch of money
to look bad. So these two guys, Wayne Catch and
Paul Taylor are the folks who spent several years designing
a universal formula that would get rid of some of
the I guess discrepancies or or between their designs pulled

(27:34):
in them for exactly to level out the playing field
between the Fords and the Holdings and uh. And part
of this formula was the was the common chassis. Of course,
the same wheel based dimensions were then they were then added.
They had to have the same wheel base, whether that
meant lengthening the cars or shortening the cars. UM. Also
suspensions were kind of evened out as well. Like we
mentioned earlier, UM, the seating positions had to be the same.

(27:57):
You know, they were lowered and had to be exactly
the same in each car so that you know, the
center gravity was the same. UM. Aerodynamic packages they were
added or you know, added too, I should say, to
kind of level things out. As well, UM, and the
engine parting differences were made similar, so you know, the
engines were not exactly identical, but but similar enough that

(28:18):
you know that that they could still play around with them.
But but there's still you know, there's room for for
a little bit of mechanics to to do their magic there. Yeah,
and this UM, this formula, by the way, continued to
undergo an evolution throughout the next few years leading up
to which I think we've already mentioned. That's when the

(28:41):
overall formula changed, probably to allow for more constructors in
the business. But you were going to say something about
two thousand five, Yes, thank you, Scott, I digressed, this
is a big year in two thousand five because the competition,
the series moves out internationally. Now he gave me a

(29:02):
little tinge of recognition when we mentioned the four A
into China, right, I know the story of what happened.
It was supposed to be a five year agreement, but
unfortunately things didn't work out with the promoter of the race,
so the series didn't return after that, however, And I wonder,
I wonder if it was popular among the people there,
if they if they really liked the series, or if

(29:23):
it just you know, it was just a conflict with
with the promoter himself and herself didn't work out. I
should dig deeper on that, see what's going on there.
But also um in two thousand and six, the very
next year there at Bahrain in the Bahrain International Circuit,
we've mentioned New Zealand. We've mentioned also the United States

(29:45):
uh Abu Dhabi in two thousand and ten. So the
Middle East is being a returning point right there. So
these have been all around the world, right, These have
been all around the world. So f i A gave
the international status what's the international status in two thousand eleven,
and this means that the series can present itself to

(30:06):
race up to six international venues annually. So that's not
bad at all. And uh, then we go to let's
see we're moving up to two thousand thirteen. Let's see
which threat did pick up. Oh, well, that's the that's
this is interesting because around two thousand thirteen, Uh, when

(30:26):
kind of another dream came to fruition, I guess is
maybe the best way to say it. And you know,
these these groups have one you know, when things are
kind of going along the same for a long time,
they say well we're gonna do kind of mix things up. Well,
they developed what they called the Car of the Future,
and the Car of the Future, which was kind of
it was revealed and I think two thousand eleven as
a matter of fact, but but um, it wasn't put

(30:47):
into practice until two thousand and thirteen. So this year
is really the first year of the uh the Car
of the Future to be on the track. Um. But
the Car of the Future project was it's got a
couple of of objectives and I went to the main
sight here via supercars dot com dot au to find out,
you know, what exactly the project is designed to do,
and well later lay out for me right there in front.

(31:10):
I mean it with like four or five bullet points.
So I guess I'll just read a couple of these. Um,
to ensure the long term viability and growth of the sport,
open up via supercars to new manufacturers to compete, which
it did with the Nissan and the Mercedes teams. UH,
make cars cheaper to build and repair, which I've got
some stats on that as a matter of fact, how
much should cost to build one of these things? Um?

(31:30):
And to make cars safer, lighter, and stronger, always good
for racing, right, UM increased the motory market relevance of
the supercars. So that's to be able to sell the
cars on the street, maintain the DNA of the supercars,
which you know they already had in place, and they
wanted to maintain that that for their their series, you know,
Via Engines, Reworld drive things like that. UM also to

(31:51):
increase the number of VIA Supercar events UM and a condensed,
condensed calendar across them across multiple countries. Tough to say
on that one, but uh, they finally they want to
they want to really expand where they're race in the world.
I want to really make it a worldwide event. And
the last thing that they said is they want to
ensure higher quality racing. So you know it's designed it's

(32:12):
not intended to slow things down or anything like that.
It's intended to make the series a better series to watch,
a better series to drive in, a better series, for teams,
to to be able to build cars in UM. It's
a it's a long term play. Yeah, and I mentioned
the cost and I'll just quickly tell you here that
you know the car of the future that the the
regulations are reducing the cost of building a car for

(32:33):
the team's very I mean really dramatically. If you if
you UM look at the differences here now, I'll give
you the price now and the price that it used
to be. UM the costs right now with the Car
of the future, the cost to build a car without
an engine is around two hundred and fifty dollars. That's
the chassis. That's like a rolling chassis, so no engine

(32:53):
at all in that, and that's just the that's just
the shell pretty pretty much. Yeah, I mean that's it's
really it's everything you need, all the electronics, everything else
except for the engine. And the engine itself is going
to cost you about fifty thou dollars. So we're talking
about three grand total, correct, And that's with the new
car the future design as now now. Prior to this UM,

(33:13):
it used to cost about four hundred and fifty thousand
dollars to build a car without an engine, and the
engine itself was down it cost about one hundred and
twenty dollars. So so it was it went from five
hundred and seventy thousand dollars for an average car, you know,
that's that's just one car UM down to about three
hundred thousand as you mentioned, So that's a huge savings

(33:35):
for teams, especially for starting off team. Yeah, right, you
could have two cars for the price of one, you know,
with this with this new car the future. So so
a lot of a lot of teams are able to
jump on that and and you know, definitely make make
the team bigger, better, stronger, you know, whatever it takes. Yeah,
and speaking of teams, so what some of the ways

(33:56):
that the teams work. The teams can consist of one
to four cars, um, and most of the teams have
one car having alliance with a two car team of
some sort. And UM. These these racers are gauged on
a point system. So you hear about the driver's championship.
That title is given to the individual driver who gets

(34:20):
the most points over the season. So this can be
in multiple events and UM usually when it comes to
scoring points for team championships, UM, you know, that's where
the champion team gets the most points over the season.
Manufacturers are the teams. Yeah, teams have four cars are

(34:40):
separated into pairs of double car teams. Uh. So with
this UM, with this point system, we can see that
there is a huge interest in running the whole series,
not just one event. Well we can't. We can't get
into you know, how many points for each thing each
happen all that, because it gets really complex, especially when

(35:02):
you talk about these teams are are sometimes they're racing
in four events every weekend. Um. You know, so the
points swing in this swings dramatically. UM. You know between
who's ahead, who's in the lead. I mean you can
you could easily climb up the climb up the scale
just by doing well in one weekend. So you know,
and consistency is always important in these types of things,

(35:23):
you know, when it's a long series, long event, long events, Um,
I guess long schedules, what I mean, Um that you know,
if you're consistently in the top three, five, whatever, you're
definitely gonna be high in the points. So that's always
a good thing. And there's there's a lot of information
about out there about who's leading right now because we're
you know later in the series. Um, you know, they've
already had their their Texas event here in the United

(35:45):
States that we were um we mentioned early on in
this thing, and apparently Ben that was a that was
a big success. Um at the circuit of America's I
guess that they said that, you know, there's the plan
is to return for another season for so try out
real well, I think that the crowd attendants is something
like sixty eight thousand for a three day event, which
is actually really really good for them. Um again, they're

(36:09):
they're talking about multi year deals that they're kind of
thrown around. The president and CEO of the Texas Track
is saying, you know, we're definitely considering multi year deals.
Um so, I mean again, the question was will to
be a supercar's return in I think the answer is
gonna be yes. And that's the name of that as
the Austin four hundred. Yeah, that was the specific race.

(36:30):
And you know, they have just a ton of good
races and one one thing I want to mention is
they raised they raced a track, uh the the the
event is rather called the the bad Hearst one thousand
UM in New South Wales and there have been some
requests for us to do a podcast just on that
right strictly on that on that track, that event on

(36:50):
the bad Hearst track, because there's a lot of history
with that one as well. So it's it's uh, it's
one of those longer races in comparison to the other races.
That's one of the endurance events, I believe, just my
schedule real quick here, but I think it is. Yeah,
yes it is. And so there there's, uh, there's a
wealth of races here. I'm glad that you brought this up.
There's also a another supercar series that we have been

(37:14):
put it off talking about, and that is the Dunlop
V eight Supercar. Yeah, and this is this is I
guess the best way to look at this. And I've
been trying to figure out how to how to word this,
but um, it's really like the second tier series to
the V eight Supercars. Um. And again it's just adding
the word Dunlop at the beginning, but the Dunlop the
eight Supercar series, and it's it's run kind of as

(37:37):
a support race to the VI Supercars like um, and
I kind of see the similar to like the Firestone
Indie Light Series to the Indiecar series. Yeah. I think
that's a good comparison. It's almost a feeder series when
it comes to the drivers. Yeah, yeah, that's right, because, um,
you know a lot of these are what they call
gentleman racers, you know, the guys that they come out
and you know, they've got a lot of money and

(37:57):
they feel this race team and they just race in
the weekend. They've got other jobs, you know, they're they're bankers,
their investors, the privateers. That's right. I mean. But but um,
a lot of a lot of teams will specifically target
or specifically, um, I don't know, recruit young drivers that
they see with a lot of talent and they'll use
this as a training series because you know, it's it's

(38:18):
really the same thing. I mean, and this series has
been around since two thousand. Um. The difference is that
they run in slightly older cars. Uh, they're the same
cars really, but they're older cars. There there's um smaller teams,
lower budgets. Um. And it's really now it's only two
cars because you know, it's it's the Fords and the
Holdings that we mentioned before, because because they run older

(38:41):
cars and you know, it's the smaller series. The Nissans
and the Mercedes haven't yet made it into the Dumblop
series yea, and that'll probably be a year a few
years from I think, so, I mean, but but but
the main focus behind this is that a lot of
up and coming talent in the in the Dumblop series. Uh,
they kind of get noticed for potential, you know, driver
spots in the in the bigger V eight Supercar series.

(39:02):
So this can be the springboard that launches a lot
of a lot of young drivers up into the big time,
into the pros. So this is a I mean, it
has a real purpose other than being entertaining for everybody.
And you know that. Uh you know, it's really exciting
to watch as well, because it's really the same thing.
It's just older cars slightly less horsepower. I believe they
don't have the sixty horsepower. I don't think as the

(39:24):
as the bigger cars. I've gotta I've gotta double check
that for sure. But they're thirty one drivers, seventeen teams,
you know, two different types of cars I guess are competing.
But but still the the the racing action is very exciting.
It's very fast. Yes, and uh think about it, if
you get a chance to check out one of those
races that you might be watching the next champion of

(39:49):
the the eight Supercar series very possible. I mean when
I mentioned the Indie Lights series, I mean a lot
of drivers who come up from indie lights up into
the Indie car series and then become champions. And the
same with uh, let's say that you're taking NASCAR because
that's more of a I guess, a direct comparison here
between these cars. Really, Um you think about like the
Nationwide series and that they run, which is like the smaller,

(40:10):
uh less than the the Sprint Cup series that they have.
For my mixed up the terms, I think that's right.
The NASCAR, the big the big series. Um, they they
graduate up to that level and then of course they
become champions. So um yeah, watch watch what's going on
in the Dunlop the eight Supercar series as well, because
those drivers are ones you'll see highlighted later. And that's
relatively um well, I guess it's the thing is, it's

(40:34):
not that much younger than the V eight series proper, right,
because B eight proper comes out. It's not fair to
call the eight proper, I guess, but supercar series in
general out by two thousand, just three years later, that's
when we see Dunlop on the scene. Sure they noticed
a need for you know, some type of other support
series to run along with this and a chance for

(40:56):
you know, like we said, you know, the smaller teams,
the lower budgets to get involved in this type of
racing and it's it's fantastic to watch, it's really fun.
So um man, I think I don't know how much
more I have. I mean, there's a lot of television coverage,
um that that we don't We just don't get it
here in the States. We don't get um any kind
of of supercar coverage here. Where they do get coverage

(41:17):
is in Australia of course, Africa, Asia, Brazil, Europe, Latin America,
the Middle East, UM, just a little. And you know what, actually,
I'm gonna say that we do get something here, but
you have to pay for it. It's a it's a
pay channel, UM, pay per view type situation. UM. And
I think you only we were only able to get
the uh the Texas race, So that means, you know,

(41:39):
we are only able to watch the race that's happening
here in America. But um, you know in New Zealand
of course their their pay event as well. Some of
these are free. You know that they're normal broadcasts, you know,
like live events. Um. But man, and I tell you
this whole series. I mean, it's so cool that you know,
they run on road courses only, so there's no oval
tracks like in NASCAR. But it's similar in too Nascar
in a way that there's a lot of a lot

(42:00):
of bumping, a lot of nudging, you know, a little
bit of pushing is involved. Um and allowed you know
that they kind of know that they can do that.
It's closed wheel so there's no superspeedway races or anything
like that. It's it's road courses which are just really exciting. Um.
They can be on tracks that run through cities which
are really really tight, and that makes for intense, intense racing. UM.

(42:21):
Great V eight sounds, which you know, you and I
love that a lot. We both love the sound of racing. UM.
I don't know, just there's, like I said, a lot
of contact between the cars, so you know, there's a
lot of bumping and nudging and that's all got kind
of fun. Um. And with these the shorter sprint style
races that we mentioned, UM, the ones that are just
flat out racing from beginning to end and then they

(42:43):
know that they've got a pit stop between races. UM,
it makes for extremely exciting event because you know, that
they just go all out. There's there's no holding back.
And uh, almost one point nine million people saw this
over two thousand twelve, So I assume that number is
going to rise when we see the close of and

(43:06):
uh in the future they're adding some more international Wait,
you're saying at one point nine million people attended the events, right, Yeah,
they actually drove to an event and attended this live.
That's a that's a huge audience. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and
the the global potential reach for television on the website
is quoted as up to five hundred million. Whoa. So

(43:31):
this is this is a big deal and and it's
going to keep expanding, including some races in Korea, Hong Kong,
Singapore apparently. You know, when I think of Singapore, my
first guest is did they have room? Yeah, you wouldn't.
You wouldn't think so, pretty crowded place, but I guess
so is Hong Kong, uh and uh, South Africa. So

(43:54):
there that's just among a few. So what we can
see in the future for this series is I think growth,
I think and I think enormous growth, pretty robust at
least because people love racing. Um, it's going to all
the right places. I hope as a fan, I hope

(44:15):
that it will come to more American I do too.
I mean, touring car has always been big overseas and uh,
and it tried it here and in the mid nineties
that we mentioned with the North American its briefly and
it just didn't didn't hang around long enough. You know,
it's a couple of years, a couple of seasons, and
it didn't catch on. I'm really hoping that people kind

(44:36):
of gravitate towards this V eight Supercar series because it's
it's exciting, exciting racing to watch. And if you haven't,
you know, go online check out some clips. I think
there's even one that's called like the V eight Supercar's
Best Best Last Lap Ever or something. Yeah. Yeah that
if you do. If you watch that clip and you're
not hooked on the series, I don't know what to
tell you, because it's it's exciting. Yeah. And I'm glad

(44:57):
you mentioned you too, because realistically, that probably one of
the best ways for US race fans to get a
look at this kind of action. Yeah. Or you know,
there's one other source that that's pretty good and they
do kind of a race wrap up on if you
go to their their main website, which is v if
you go to the eight Supercars dot com dot au, um,

(45:17):
you can look at you know, the news section or
you know, I forget exactly where it is, but you
can get kind of a highlight of the weekend's events
and you can go through the entire season and watch,
you know, here's race one and here's what happened. It's
just to recap. It doesn't have the excitement of watching
just a single last lap clip with the announcers. You know,
with you and I have talked about last lap excitement
and how much the announcers play into that. When you're

(45:39):
watching a summary, it's kind of it's a little more bland,
but it gives you a good idea of what happened
in the event and and also shows you all the
different tracks that they attend and um, exactly what's going
on in this series. And we have to do one
last thing, Scott before we wrap up. What's that? That
is to thank Lee and Dallas for their excellent suggestion.
Thanks a lot. I'm hooked. Yeah, and I guess we'll

(46:02):
be in Austin, so um, we're gonna go ahead and
get out of here and try to plan our trip.
And I think we've got enough time to figure this out.
I think so if it's a year away st all right? Yeah, man,
we get our busses to pay for it quite all right.
So while Scott and I are trying to lay on
our charm for a trip to the Austin four hundred, uh,
why don't you let us know what you think V

(46:25):
eight Supercar Racing, especially if you attended one of the
events live. You can drop us a line on Facebook,
which Twitter you can suggest new upcoming topic. Hey, if
you have a gently used Holden commodore that you're trying
to get off your hands. You can also email us
directly at car stuff at Discovery dot com for more

(46:50):
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