For the motorsport which is supposedly the most rapidly growing, V8 Supercars haven’t exactly been roaring into our living rooms too much in recent weeks or months.
Since the Townsville 400 on the second weekend in July, eight weeks ago, there has been only one event — the Ipswich 300 at the controversial Queensland Raceway.
Enough time to watch Collingwood set their premiership ambitions in motion, for Sebastian Vettel to just about wrap up the title and perform the dreaded finger salute (even allowing for Formula One’s own month-long break) and to watch winter turn into autumn bliss.
And still there’s another two weeks to wait before on-track action at the season’s first enduro, at Phillip Island.
Then three more weeks of nothing until the crowning glory, the Bathurst 1000.
It is only following this that the series regains any consistency, with events every fortnight to round out the season, but the question has to be asked, are we still interested?
It is extremely frustrating getting into a series, only to have a six-week break followed by a four-week break.
Removing the stand-alone Queensland event, the enduros and the intriguing Gold Coast 600, there will have been a thirteen-week hiatus between sprint rounds.
That’s a quarter of a year.
You don’t see Formula One going on break at the end of July, resuming at the end of August, then going on another holiday until the start of October.
Fans abroad are hardly going to be endeared to a sport which sticks its ultra-attractive tentacles out, making a case for being the most entertaining motorsport going around, and then disappears for months at a time.
Thankfully, with the impending addition of several international events in coming years, in line with Mark Skaife’s divisive Car of the Future, there will be no room to squeeze in a casual six-week snooze, but for now, it still isn’t good enough.
Enough criticism though. When the V8s actually grace the track, they cannot be faulted, and surely we will not be disappointed when they finally return in two weeks’ time.
Wonder what Skaifey has to say on the Channel 7 intro about this one.
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