2023 Supercars and Supports.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Well, it's obvious there are some lesser drivers on the grid but I suppose there's no way they can get rid of Jack Smith or Macauley Jones

Rumours in Supercars land.....

It seems the discussion we had regarding Smith Snr putting a bit of a deadline on Jack becoming the next SVG MIGHT be sooner than expected.

We know that every year the Smiths, who own their own entry contract (used to be called REC's) and therefore can in effect turn up in a car leased and run from any source, and seemingly every year are late to confirm they are staying with Brad Jones running their entry.

This year they are still not confirmed to be running out of BJR next year. and the V8 Sleuth are suggesting that Jack Smith might not be running next year.

Word is that BJR want to run Zak Best and may have offered something. Of course Macauley Jones is the other potential casualty.

The RUMOUR at the Gold Coast was it seems that Best and Smith were the potential swaps. That would maybe mean Best driving in the SCT entry. Whether that means tht Jack Smith's family support has waned, and SCT are willing to run another driver (ie Zak Best) is unknown. Not mentioned in the V8Sleuth article is that I believe Zak Best also comes with a fat family wallet .

Anyway the V8 Sleuth article is here: LATE TWIST LOOMING IN SUPERCARS SILLY SEASON

[Everso Biggyballies]

In the meantime other news at BJR.....

Brad Jones Racing has announced a two-year contract extension for Bryce Fullwood, retaining the backing of Fullwood's long term backer, electrical wholesaler Middy’s.

Fullwood is currently having his best season yet in the top tier of Supercars, ninth in the drivers’ championship with one event remaining. His pairing with Heimgartner for BJR in the Teams Championship has them currently sitting (a distant) 3rd behind Erebus and T8.

Pos Num(s) Team Pts
1 9 99 Erebus Motorsport 4897
2 88 97 Triple Eight Race Engineering 4727
3 8 14 Brad Jones Racing 3423
4 11 17 Dick Johnson Racing 3286
5 5 6 Tickford Racing 3238

[Everso Biggyballies]

The rumours and suggestion have been rife (ever since Adrian Burgess was charged with high level drink driving a couple of months ago) that he would either resign or that the position of Head of Motorsport would become untenale given the strong Supercars and Motorsport Australia stance on DUI in general. It has been a tough year for Burgess aside from the DUI 'scandal' given the ongoing parity issues and the at times directionless trajectory of the Gen 3 introduction that was very much Burgess's baby.

Yesterday it was an open secret that Burgess and Supercars were going to part ways and today that situation has been confirmed by Supercars.

Supercars announces Burgess exit

Supercars has formally confirmed that Adrian Burgess will step down from the Head of Motorsport role early next year. It is of his own volition that he has chosen to resign from his role. Burgess will depart the role following the off-season wind tunnel testing programme that has already been put in place in the past month. This will include the transient dyno and wind tunnel work that has long been said needed to happen.... to be fair to Burgess facilities for this type of work is not widely available in Australia and this project will be undertaken in the US with Supercars (and Burgess) co-ordinating the process.

It has without doubt been a tough year for Burgess and the whole Gen 3 introduction.... delays in the intro due to Covid and Supply problems , and once up and running included issues with parity, crashability and, earlier in the year, engine fires for the Ford Mustangs.

At times that has created significant tension between the Supercars technical department and the teams, particularly those running Mustangs.

Oh lets not forget Burgess was a key person in the opening race DSQ of T888 cars from the opening round over the location of the cars driver 'cool box' equipment.... T888 claiming Burgess verbally approved the location, with Burgess claiming T888 misunderstood what he had said.

Burgess of course has a huge background at all levels of Motorsport worldwide.... a career that started back in the 1980 in the UK, included time in F1 initially with McLaren before working for Jordan as their Sporting Director. He left the world of F1, emigrated to Australia and his V8SC career started in 2007 when he took over the Management role at DJR. Similar positions with T8, Holden Dealer Team and Tekno followed. At the end of the 2018 season he jumped the fence to join the regulatory side of V8 Supercars joining as Head of Motorsport for V8SC.

There is no doubting his contribution to V8SC in many wys on all sides of the fence, and his technical knowledge will be difficult to replace. No word as yet as to what his future plans might hold, and no doubt his knowledge of Superars from the side of both Ford, GM and the V8SC side might be enough to overcome the DUI baggage he now carries. He was in the process of expanding the technical department within Supercars, with Category Technical Director and Performance Engineer roles being filled.

Plans for the future of his Head of Motorsport role are obviously up in the air now, but V8SC have said further will be announced in due course.



As an aside I believe the parity of the cars is now pretty good, and to be honest I dont believe that the parity issues have been the making of Burgess or V8SC.

I am sure the problems and differences of the Ford and GM product is purely down to how their respective Homologation Teams have performed and gone about the homologation process. T8, as the GM Homologation Team have done a much better job than the Ford Homologation Team DJR. DJR are no longer the outfit they were when they had the might of Penske and their resources and they have failed to do the job for Ford and the Ford Teams to the standard required. DJR are no longer the team they were when they operated as DJR Penske, and are now a bunch of amateurs operating in a professional arena of which T8 are the benchmark.

End of story. My opinion.

Having said that trying to achieve engine parity between engines of different configuration (v8 2 valve Pushrod v a 4 valve quadcam V8) iand of different capacities was always going to be an impossible challenge and that decision likely was made in the V8SC Technical camp run by Burgess.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Well, it's obvious there are some lesser drivers on the grid but I suppose there's no way they can get rid of Jack Smith or Macauley Jones

Rumours in Supercars land.....

It seems the discussion we had regarding Smith Snr putting a bit of a deadline on Jack becoming the next SVG MIGHT be sooner than expected.

We know that every year the Smiths, who own their own entry contract (used to be called REC's) and therefore can in effect turn up in a car leased and run from any source, and seemingly every year are late to confirm they are staying with Brad Jones running their entry.

This year they are still not confirmed to be running out of BJR next year. and the V8 Sleuth are suggesting that Jack Smith might not be running next year.

Word is that BJR want to run Zak Best and may have offered something. Of course Macauley Jones is the other potential casualty.

Breaking News

*CONFIRMED*.... SMITH OUT OF V8SC

This weekend’s VAILO Adelaide 500 will be the last Supercars race for Jack Smith as a solo driver after announcing he will not be on the full-time grid in 2024.

Smith has been a regular fixture since in the SCT Logistics machine and currently sits 25th in the standings

It opens up a spot within the four-car Brad Jones Racing stable which has been unchanged since 2021.

Smith has grown up around the Albury based team as a 17-year-old before rising through the ranks in Super3 as champion in 2020 and NZ V8 Championship before hitting Supercars.

But after four full-time seasons Smith believes it is the right time to “step back”.

“This isn’t a decision we’ve come to lightly, Supercars have been such a big part of my life,” he said.
“I came into it when I was quite young and have really grown up in the paddock.

“It’s just the right time for us now to take this step back.

“I can’t thank everyone from the SCT Logistics crew and the team at Brad Jones Racing enough for everything over the last seven years.

“We all set out on this ride together and it’s been quite a learning experience for us all and I’d like to thank all the fans who’ve supported me.
“I’ve been with BJR for basically my entire career, and they’ve been an amazing team to work with and guide me on my journey.”

BJR team owner Brad Jones said it brings an end to a long association between Smith and the team.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years with Jack in the team,” Jones said. “We have been fortunate enough to win a championship together, which you don’t get to do every day." (Super 3 in 2017)
https://autoaction.com.au/2023/11/20/ja ... -swan-song

No news yet on what the future line up will be at BJR or what will happen to the Smith family (SCT) owned contract / entry to race. Will the REC be sold, leased back to BJR or AN Other team is unknown. Will SCT continue without Jack driving?

The rumours a couple of weeks ago suggested a potential for Zak Best to run with BJR, and I suspect that might be the outcome. But how it gets put together and with whose backing is up in the air. As mentioned I believe Zak Best's family is strong financially... I doubt they are Smith type wealthy, few are, but there are. a multitude of options at this stage.

As they say, watch this space for further updates and news.

Edit: Speedcafe have also run the story and they imply SCT will continue, albeit without Smith. It could equally be 'the car'

A new driver for the #4 SCT Logistics Camaro us yet to be announced.

All we know at BJR is that confirmed for their 2024 line-up is Bryce Fullwood in the #14 Middy’s Camaro..... with Andre Heimgartner expected to stay on in the #8 R&J Batteries Camaro and also Macauley Jones in the #96 Pizza Hut Camaro.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Supercars announces Burgess exit

Supercars has formally confirmed that Adrian Burgess will step down from the Head of Motorsport role early next year. It is of his own volition that he has chosen to resign from his role. Burgess will depart the role following the off-season wind tunnel testing programme that has already been put in place in the past month.

News on Adrian Burgess's future and his replacement at Supercars

Burgess it seems is heading to Team 18 who lost their Team Principal a few weeks ago. It has yet to be officially confirmed but is a done deal notwithstanding the shitfight that is erupting over the man with so much information on both. Ford and GM sides of the fence and of course knowledge of each teams individual secrets going straight into a Team Management role with no "Gardening leave" period as would be the norm for any move such as this .. There are some very pissed off Owners and TPs along pitlane, and it seems some threats of legal action have been mooted.


Tim Edwards to SC as Director of Motorsports.

Although not strictly a direct replacement for Burgess, and certainly not as controversial a move as Burgess, but the outgoing Tickford Team Principal Tim Edwards is set to be confirmed as Superars Director of Motorsport. It is a move that has been rumoured for many weeks, indeed since his plans to leave Tickford were confirmed, that Tim would likely join Supercars

Tim Edwards will be confirmed in what is a newly created senior role, as ‘Supercars Director of Motorsport’, after the departure of Adrian Burgess was confirmed last week from his position of Head of Motorsport in the New Year.

Neither Supercars, Team 18, nor Edwards and Burgess would confirm the moves, but it seems common knowledge that all negotiations are well-progressed and will be in place before the season finale at Adelaide this weekend.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Well that didnt take long for things to start getting confirmed.....

Supercars confirms Tim Edwards as General Manager of Motorsport

Basically he will replace Burgess as the Chief of Motorsport within Supercars..... Tim's official start with Supercars will occur in January 2024. His background is fairly similar to Burgess in many ways, having started over in Europe as a mechanic for Alan Docking Racing’s Mazdaspeed team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

He joined the Jordan Formula 1 squad as a mechanic in 1991 and eventually became Team Manager, before returning to Australia and taking up the role initially of Motorsport Director at Campbellfield.

In addition to roles for teams, Edwards has had multiple stints on the Supercars Commission, held a position on the Motorcycling Australia Board, and worked for the organising committee of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. Plus of course he has spent the past 19 seasons at Tickford, during which time it won the Bathurst 1000 in 2013 and 2014, then the drivers’ championship in 2015.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Penrite commit to backing Grove.

There was some speculation that with Reynolds leaving Grove to head to Team 18 that Penrite would follow him out of the door and go with him. (Reynolds is a Penrite Ambassador and has been for many years and they followed him out of Erebus to Grove. Always seen David at the bigger historic meetings doing Penrite appearances etc)

Anyway despite Reynold's departure from Grove Penrite have today confirmed a new 2 year deal with Grove Racing.
https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/11/22/pe ... ve-racing/

I have to say Grove look to be on a better trajectory than Reynolds and if I was Penrite I would have also made a similar choice and dropped Reynolds in favour of Grove. Whether David retains some personal deal with Penrite has not been mentioned

[Everso Biggyballies]

Some end of term liveries for cars at this weekends season finale in Adelaide.

Macauley Jones’ Pizza Hut Camaro will sport a fan-designed, hand-drawn livery at this weekend’s Vailo Adelaide 500. Personally I think it is a bit weak and if I was Marketing Manager at Pizza Hut I would be suggesting the branding is not strong enough. The brand name of th company paying the bills wont be very strong on anything but a close up shot on TV






A much stronger look is that of the BRT car of Todd Hazlewood. BRT has traded its #3 Ford Mustang’s usual CoolDrive blue hues for the red of Redarc Defence & Space for the 2023 Supercars season finale.

Redarc, which works in research, design, development and manufacture of items such as electronic voltage converters, solar panels, inverters, power supplies, battery chargers, brake controllers, and trailer braking products, was also a backer of the Box Hill-based squad at last year’s Adelaide 500.

Its Todd's final drive with BRT as well, with the BRT team next year expanding to a 2 car entry, one each ffor Aaron Love and James Courtney.






Other than that DJR have a little add on to celebrate their 500th round as DJR. When I say its nothing major....



It does also have a map of Queensland on the rear quarter.... I think that might be a throwback to the iconic Tru-Blu XD Falcon. (Queensland Ford Dealers were a Sponsor, and a map of Queensland with "Ford Dealers Qld" written on it was part of the signage on the car)
It seems that DJR are the first team to hit 500 rounds in ATCC (which surprises me). DJR first was used as an entry when thee team debuted at Symmons Plains in 1981

DJR were also first to 1000 races last year ( at last year’s Bathurst 1000.)




I must admit I have fingers crossed for Brodie and Erebus to win both titles this year.
They have been the benchmark for much of the year, and at least it would be nice to have the reigning champ running in V8SC next year.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Supercars announces Burgess exit

Supercars has formally confirmed that Adrian Burgess will step down from the Head of Motorsport role early next year. It is of his own volition that he has chosen to resign from his role. Burgess will depart the role following the off-season wind tunnel testing programme that has already been put in place in the past month.

News on Adrian Burgess's future and his replacement at Supercars

Burgess it seems is heading to Team 18 who lost their Team Principal a few weeks ago. It has yet to be officially confirmed but is a done deal notwithstanding the shitfight that is erupting over the man with the privileged access to all teams’ data which he has enjoyed as Supercars HoM

BURGESS TO TEAM !8 AS TEAM PRINCIPAL..... **CONFIRMED**


Burgess taking over as Team Principal at Team 18 has been officially confirmed by T18 today. I suspect the upset this potential move caused to other teams, given the confidential knowledge info and in depth data of both sides that Burgess has, but his official joining date is not until Feb 1st.

Originally Burgess was going to continue to oversee the US Wind Tunnel and Transient dyno work before departing SC, but it seems now he will be gone from Supercars rather quicker than that...... SC have already yesterday confirmed Burgess will not be attending the end of term Adelaide 500 this weekend. His role there will be taken over by another senior SC person.

Although not confirmed yet by Supercars Burgess himself has indicated he wont be overseeing the US 'Parity trip', saying pretty much that Tim Edwards is more than capable of overseeing that. That will reduce further complications in Teamland over the conflict of interest that having a future Chev Team Principal running such an important and all encompassing Ford / Chev joint wind tunnel and transient dyno parity project would clearly raise.

In reality it looks pretty much Burgess is out the door at SC already, with the period up to the Feb 1st joining Team 18 as in effect gardening leave.
I would imagine that is the compromise reached by concerned teams, Team 18 and Supercars to try and keep all parties as happy as possible.

I expect confirmation very shortly to say Tim Edwards will be replacing Burgess in the role of overseeing the upcoming parity work. I just makes sense and avoids any future bitchin'.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I must admit I got caught out this weekend, not realising that P1 was to be held today. Well , now it has been and gone..... it was a 30 minute session held in varying degrees of damp / wetnes.

Its only P1 so i wont go through in detail, but the two titles contestants had a fairly subdued session although near the end SVG did venture out on slicks. That he ended up 22nd in the session is about all that needs to be said. I suspect it was more a run of a just in case nature in case there is moisture arount at more critical points of the weekend.

Anyway in summary, the top five finished up as Mostert, Heimgartner, Payne, Brown, and Thomas Randle. Percat finished 66th but ende without a rear wing after glancing the barriers at Turn 3, with ADP( seventh from Will Davison , Kostecki, and Courtney tenth.

P2 tomorrow at 12:35 Adelaide local time. (13:05 AEDT, so, yes, Adelaide is half an hour ahead of AEDT)

P1 Highlights




Ken Block Tribute Livery for Cam Waters

On the Livery topic I mentioned a couple of new BJR ones, but when I saw P1 I see Cam Waters Monster car has a VERY different look today.....Tickford Racing has unveiled ta special Ken Block tribute livery for Cam Waters, which will hit the track at this weekend’s VAILO Adelaide 500. Very identifiabl with a Blocklike Zebra look is the best way I can describe it.

Waters will swap out his regular black livery and #6 for a Block-inspired tribute livery, complete with Block’s #43.... .the first time we have seen a #43 in V8SC since the Holden Young Lions used it in 2004.

Allan Moffat famously raced the #43, on his Peter Stuyvesant Mazda to championship success in 1983.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Randle tops Practice 2, dramas for Triple Eight Camaros

Dry and cloudy conditions replaced yesterdays moisture.

Randle topped the timesheets from Waters, Brown, Mostert, Reynolds, Kostecki, De Pasquale, Payne, Hazelwood and van Gisbergen. The fastest times in just P2 were under the old lap recordSVG did not come out for the final flying laps, staying in the garage with a return of steering issues.... the team looked to be under the car in the power steering area. Not the only steering issues... Will Brown I heard aborting a lap and returning to the pits suggesting he had a power steering failure, but he di return to the track, and jumped up to 3rd so problem fixed I would say... Feeney in the other Red Bull missed much of the session with 'an engine issue

Four Mustangs in the top 5, seven in the top 10 will no doubt have those still bitching about parity something to talk about. Half a second cover the top 10, but a quarter of that was between 1st and 2nd with Randle laying down a blistering lap in the dying seconds after the flag had dropped
1.5 seconds covered the field.

We have a qualifying session tonight (at 5:35 local, 6:05 AEDT) to qualify for a top 10 shootout for tomorrows first race. Plus of course it will set positions 11-25 for the race. Will the T8 cars be sorted and fit. SVGs problem was not so much a failure but back to the problem of earlier this year when 'it just didnt feel right'.

Strangely enough that was how Brown had described his car when he spoke of steering issues. As for Feeney they said the engine temperaturse were getting too hot and as it was a high mileage engine it wasnt worth risking. It will have a new engine in time for qualy seems to be the suggestion from Mark Dutton Team Manager at T8.


Results: Practice 2

Pos Num Team/Sponsor Driver Car Fastest lap Split
1 55 Castrol Racing Thomas Randle Ford Mustang GT 1:19.2911
2 43 Monster Energy Racing Cameron Waters Ford Mustang GT 1:19.4114 0:00.1203
3 9 Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus William Brown Chev Camaro ZL1 1:19.5677 0:00.2766
4 25 Mobil 1 Optus Racing Chaz Mostert Ford Mustang GT 1:19.5782 0:00.2871
5 26 Penrite Racing David Reynolds Ford Mustang GT 1:19.6213 0:00.3302
6 99 Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus Brodie Kostecki Chev Camaro ZL1 1:19.6468 0:00.3557
7 11 Shell V-Power Racing Team Anton De Pasquale Ford Mustang GT 1:19.6641 0:00.3730
8 19 Penrite Racing Matthew Payne Ford Mustang GT 1:19.7141 0:00.4230
9 3 CoolDrive Racing Todd Hazelwood Ford Mustang GT 1:19.7776 0:00.4865
10 97 Red Bull Ampol Racing Shane van Gisbergen Chev Camaro ZL1 1:19.8083 0:00.5172
11 20 Toyota Forklifts Scott Pye Chev Camaro ZL1 1:19.8213 0:00.5302
12 8 R&J Batteries Racing Andre Heimgartner Chev Camaro ZL1 1:19.8462 0:00.5551
13 23 Nulon Racing Tim Slade Chev Camaro ZL1 1:19.9562 0:00.6651
14 5 Snowy River Racing James Courtney Ford Mustang GT 1:19.9871 0:00.6960
15 96 Pizza Hut Racing Macauley Jones Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.1291 0:00.8380
16 17 Shell V-Power Racing Team Will Davison Ford Mustang GT 1:20.1785 0:00.8874
17 31 Nulon Racing James Golding Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.2577 0:00.9666
18 14 Middy’s Racing Bryce Fullwood Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.2775 0:00.9864
19 34 Truck Assist Racing Jack Le Brocq Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.3013 0:01.0102
20 18 DEWALT Racing Mark Winterbottom Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.3014 0:01.0103
21 35 Truck Assist Racing Cameron Hill Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.3220 0:01.0309
22 88 Red Bull Ampol Racing Broc Feeney Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.4374 0:01.1463
23 2 Mobil 1 NTI Racing Nick Percat Ford Mustang GT 1:20.4404 0:01.1493
24 4 SCT Motorsport Jack Smith Chev Camaro ZL1 1:20.7896 0:01.4985
25 56 Tradie Beer Racing Declan Fraser Ford Mustang GT 1:20.8532

[Everso Biggyballies]

15 minutes until qualifying and its trying to rain. The last hour or so have seen spots of rain on the cameras and rain was forecast for today. It might be a case of timing runs in the very short qualy session (15 minutes I think)

FWIW T8 are hoping for rain on the basis of as many curveballs as possible the better given their 131 point deficit in the drivers chase.

The thought process with Will Brown and his 'steering issues' that seemed to disappear is that it might have been something as oddball as a dodgy set of tyres. Makes sense given his pace when he went back out on a new set of rubber.

It seems tyres is not the problem of SVGs car which he says at full tilt sometimes has a mind of its own. He did have similar issues earlier in the year, een resorting to the spare T8 car for a couple of rounds.

Interesting words re Feeneys car.... I said earlier the engine was a high mileage one and giving problems. Larko just said that the engine actually had 8000 klms on it so for a race engine thats an enormous mileage and shows how good these engine are now. Oh and the engine thatis now in the car is the one that was used for the Sandown 500 and also Bathurst.... but it only has 4000 klms use on it!.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Qualy now ready to go and the sun is shining.

The last few minutes will be interesting as the fight for a place in the shootout gets to its climx.

Green flag and everyone heads out.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Interesting SVG waited until the very end to go out so well out of sequence.... probably hoping to get himself out of traffic and benefitted for any rubber laid down by those ahead of him.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Brodie straight to the top with his fastest time of the weekend! Payne goes faster and a 10.074. SVG 3rd behind Brodie but the quickest times yet to come in the final runs. Reynolds and ADP going well too.

[Everso Biggyballies]

last runs now and its a Grove 1-2 at with SVG 3rd followed by Brown ADP and Brodie.