Despite the economic crisis that has devastated other motorsport categories, the V8 Supercars appear to be thriving. Here at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, crowds are out in force for one of the states most popular sporting events, but is it a true indicator of where the V8 Supercars lie in the sporting landscape?
Judging the popularity of the V8 Supercars is difficult.
V8 Supercars chairman Tony Cochrane has long said the category is poised to challenge the main football codes within Australia.
Fair or far fetched?
According to V8 Supercars the television ratings are on the rise, but unlike with other sports these ratings cannot be tested in the stark reality of prime time.
Based on attendances alone, V8 Supercars is in the upper echelons of codes, able to pull hundreds of thousands to its showpiece events in Adelaide and the Gold Coast.
But the party atmosphere and sideshows of these events inflate the crowds.
The litmus test for V8 Supercars will be the crowd it can generate to the Homebush precinct for the final round of the season in December, a historic round that will give the sport the chance to finally try and crack the Sydney market.
Despite significant developments for what can still be called a developing sport, the V8 Supercars still struggles for significant attention in the mainstream press.
This is obviously difficult for a category that only pops up every few weeks, a dozen plus times from March to December.
It’s easy to stereotype the typical V8 Supercar supporter, male, petrol head, usually clad in red or blue, swearing undying loyalty to a particular car manufacturer.
And herein lies one of V8 Supercars main stumbling blocks in its battle to get on an equal footing with its ball sport rivals. Unlike in the AFL, A-League or NRL, there is no connection to a heartland, be it a city or state team.
Most non-fans couldn’t care less about the performance of a manufacturer.
The category must move away from this Holden V Ford dualism. It’s outdated. It must instead find new ways to promote its sporting contest, namely the individual driver battles.
It must also get rid of the girls, by that I mean the scantily clad grid girls, dancers etc who cheapen the sports image.
It’s no longer the eighties, times have changed but the sport seems to have accepted that such sideshows appeal to the hardcores and readers of Zoo magazine but this limits its wider appeal.
NASCAR for example did away with the grid girls long ago and they can truly claim to be family friendly.
One step in the right direction is the move to an 85% ethanol blend fuel this year.
Motorpsort, in particular V8 Supercars, has the perception of being a gas guzzler to the wider community and it needs to start changing that to ensure it remains relevant in a world embracing green technologies.
Even the name, V8 Supercars, is hardly appropriate in a green world.
The category must find a way to balance this fire breathing, muscle car image to the demands of an environmental conscience world.
On track the absence of Mark Skaife robs the category of one of its most recognisable, household names as the new generation, led by defending champ Jamie Whincup, further cement their place at the forefront of the category.
Whincup looks hard to beat in defence of his crown.
As for V8 Supercars, it must be careful not to oversell itself and try to reach heights that cannot be reached.
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