Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Reynolds’ future + motorsport pet peeves
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credit to the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. I'm Andrew Van Leuren and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomaeus. Stefan, another week almost in the books. How's it been for you, mate? It's not been a bad week, but I'm certainly jealous of those folks up in Darwin for the Speed Series. Feels like forever ago that we were up there. You've ⁓ you've stolen my bit from the end of the pod talking about Speed Series being on in Darwin this week because I would just love to be up there as well instead of ⁓ down here in the cold. It is one of the treats of the year to get to go to Darwin and ⁓ I'm very jealous of everyone that is up there. I also like how I ask how your week's been like we don't talk for ten to twelve hours every day and be in constant ⁓ communication about all manner of things. But anyway, that's all right. Let's ⁓ let's kick the pot off with a bit of silly season news. And that is the future of David Reynolds. Now, for the second year running, Dave is a headline act of the silly season with no real clarity around his future beyond this year right at the moment. ⁓ now with Matt Payne having now committed to Grove Racing for next season, but still expected to move to teammate in in 2028. The logical the logical outcome is that He would score another single year extension alongside Anton D. Pasquale. That kind of makes sense as opposed to bloody a new driver to come in for just one year if teammate NC's Anton and Matt as its longer or at least medium term ⁓ lineup. Is that how you expect it to play out, Stefan? Or is that maybe an oversimplification of the scenario here? Well, it's ⁓ certainly the logical outcome, but At the moment we're sort of in this waiting period where Matt's put out that statement, but Team 18 haven't sort of gone on with the next element of what they're actually doing. So it's still got a bit of an awkward feel around it. And you can't help but think that Team Eighteen has just made David Reynolds look pretty unwanted over the last eighteen months as a whole, considering it dragged out its option process on him so long last year. And now there's No answer on ⁓ what's actually happening. This is a a question slightly without notice, but I I sort of feel like yeah, we've seen teams play the game of, you know, keeping drivers on the contract hook a little bit because they feel that it actually makes them perform better without the security of of a long term deal. We know that's something that, you know, teams will never talk about it, but it that is something that happens. But I do feel like Dave is the sort of ⁓ creature of comfort that actually excels with a little bit of I don't know, if coddling's the right word, but a little bit of security around his future. Certainly, ⁓ job security. If that's what you're after, this is not a good business to be in. And unfortunately he's experienced that more than more than anyone really. Yeah, I'm gonna stick a listener question in here from one of our Discord members, Josh Harris, who says that the silly season seems pretty quiet right now, but do we think there are any left field plot twists coming? I mean, that does happen, Stefan. We talk about it all the time. We sort of go, Well, we don't think much is gonna happen, but you never quite know. What do you reckon? Is there any could there be something come out of left field? Well, we know the top end of town is is pretty sorted. Again, until Team 18 actually say what they're doing, I wouldn't rule anything out of that whole situation. But ⁓ there does look like there's plenty of scope for movement in the second half of the lane, including among the GM camp. Obviously Premier and Declan Fraser is a talking point at the moment. There's obviously potential for something to change there. And then Erebus, Barry Ryan made some comments after Townsville that really put it on their young drivers to to step up. There doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot of patience there for ⁓ for that ongoing. So again, a question mark there. MSR, I mean there's always a sort of budget caveat to what they're doing. Matt said that he wants to stick with who he's got. But ⁓ yeah, we're only only halfway through the year, right? I mean Brad Jones Racing hasn't even announced its co drivers. Yeah, true. That's very true. ⁓ Yeah, it will be interesting to see what does happen. Like you say, there's a few question marks over a few of those those Chevy drivers. There's been a bit of talk about Cooper Murray and and kind of where he sees his future at. But then I guess we've kind of got the the a new factor in the fact that they have joined the Chevy Alliance now. They will have access to a bit more data and and there is the potential to to kind of see some development on that front in terms of having two very young drivers, one in his second year, one in his first year. ⁓ and it does feel like it's it could be a pretty useful thing for that team to have access to that and and might give the drivers a bit more of a shot at at making the impression they need to make to ⁓ to hang on to a seat in supercars. It'll be certainly interesting to see how they go in the next couple of months. There's always this thing with Erebus stepping up sort of around Bathis time. ⁓ and that's what Barry's hoping to to get towards ⁓ this year again. But ⁓ yeah, in terms of Drivers for next year, it's it's pretty early to say. Let's move on to Walkenshaw. And I don't mean Walkenshaw TWG racing, I mean Ryan Walkenshaw, who's going to make his own car racing debut at the Silverstone four-hour fun cut race in September. It was quite interesting to talking to Ryan about this, Stefan, because you'd think racing would have been a logical thing for him to get into, given his dad Tom, was such an accomplished racer, his brother Sean is a professional GT racer. ⁓ but Ryan was saying that ⁓ that Tom never let him do much racing as a kid. He did a little bit of go-karting, ⁓ but Tom really wanted him to focus on his studies, obviously with an eye on him running the family business empire in the future, but he sort of feels like he's reached a point where the business is at a point where he can do some racing. He's been doing some ⁓ testing. He's ⁓ enlisted ⁓ Paul O'Neill, who is a former British touring car racer as a driver coach. He reckons he's pretty much on par with Sean in terms of lap speed at ⁓ in the testing that they've done. This is ⁓ this is something that's gonna be fun to watch. Yeah, really fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how he goes. And I do encourage anyone interested in this to go and read that story that you'd written and enjoy those quotes from Ryan Walkenshaw talking about how ⁓ yeah, dad banned me from racing because I was too smart, but he let Sean race. And then the extra one about I was pretty much as quick as him anyway. ⁓ geez, it would have been ⁓ hard to be ⁓ Ryan's brother growing up, I reckon. Yeah, I think so. I think so. All right, now for some news from our dear friends at Authentic Collectibles. Authentic Collectibles has expanded its popular Imagination project series with five new 118-scale die cast models. The latest range includes tribute liveries inspired by the 1999 Bathus Pole winner, the 1999 Bathus 1000 winner, the 1986 Bathus 1000 winner, and The 2005 Championship winner, plus an all-new C40 Warhawk Camaro designed by authentic collectibles graphic designer Ben and inspired by the iconic P40 Warhawk Aircraft. The Imagination Project explores the question: what if, by reimagining some of Australian Touring Car Racing's most famous liveries on modern supercars, a truly creative and standout series for your collections, each model features exceptional detail and is produced in die-cast with opening parts. The range is available to pre-order now through your local Authentic Collectibles stockers. You can also explore the full Imagination project range at authenticcollectibles.com.au where you can register your interest. Authentic Collectibles driven by passion and made for collectors. Stefan, have you had a look at that lineup? Have you got a ⁓ a favorite from the latest Imagination project, Cas? Well, ⁓ it is ⁓ cool to see ⁓ how some of those old liveries look on the newer model cars. ⁓ it's hard to go past that minor ten. Larco car, his things were always so well presented. ⁓ what about yourself? I can assure you one of those Larco cars will be disappearing out the back of Authentic Collectibles ⁓ HQ here in Perth. ⁓ and I will definitely not be paying for it. And it will be ⁓ ending up on my little shelf of cars, which you can probably see in the background of our call here right now. yeah, that's that's definitely a thing that's how I think Will Hall has accepted his fate on that one the second he announced it. I was like, Yep. One of those is going missing. Wha however many you're selling, there's one less. Well, my jealousy is slightly tempered by the fact that I did get a ⁓ Australia Post authentic collectibles incoming email this morning. So ⁓ we'll ⁓ see what that is. Well there is also a box of authentic collectibles stuff that was left in the ⁓ in the Van Loule Motorsport Garage at Wanneroo on the weekend and I actually looked at it and thought Stefan's gonna raid that, surely. ⁓ so ⁓ So I reckon you might be able score a couple of ⁓ a couple more freebies after the weekend, but we probably shouldn't tell people that. We probably should say that we definitely pay for our models from authentic. They do do wonderful work. Let's move on to some super new, ⁓ super two news, Stefan, as we have a new addition to the grid for Perth next weekend and a returning driver to the grid in Aaron Love. ⁓ what's the story here? Yeah, so an interesting one that ⁓ Aaron's gonna run in a fifth car out of Eggleston's. for Wanneroo and also Sandown later in the year. So he's full time career cup, but these two rounds don't clash. And he's really come out strongly and said that ⁓ Supercars is still where he wants to be, which ⁓ I admire the ambition because it would have been easy for him to keep going around and round in Porsches or try to do a career in GTs and stuff like that. Yeah. But ⁓ obviously that the Blanchard racing team season that he did in twenty twenty four was very difficult and then he was let go after one round last year where it collided with his teammate James Courtney. So that whole piece was a a disaster for him. But ⁓ they're going back in. It's pretty expensive to go super two racing, so they're ⁓ they're committing. Yeah, talk about a silly season twist. That was definitely an early one ⁓ last year. Yeah the the Aaron Aaron Love is really one of those enigmas of recent Supercast history. Isn't he? Like not unlike Richie Stanaway in some ways. Like so much potential, so much talent, so highly rated coming out of Porsche and into supercars, but didn't quite get the results. It will be really interesting to see if he can rebuild his supercar's career and whether this is the first step to doing it. Yeah, it feels like a long way back, but at least we're gonna see a bit more of what he can do in these cars. And then of course over in Perth is it's gonna be a ⁓ another rookie in the field with Lincoln Taylor ⁓ replacing Jordan Sinney at the Machada motorsport team. So a couple of ⁓ a couple of drivers to watch over there. Now I want to have a quick chat about a Facebook post we did this week about people's pet peeves in motorsport. And I thought we could ⁓ we could just talk through a few of the common themes that cropped up ⁓ from ⁓ our readers commenting on that. ⁓ so here's a few of those ⁓ few of the more common things that popped up. A big one was finishing behind the safety car. ⁓ and that's something that I guess is a bit front of mind at the moment after you know we had a a safety car finish in supercars in Darwin, ⁓ F one at Silverstone was it? Am I right in saying that? It was Yeah, that was the one where they told us it was going green. And then it didn't, which was the ultimate doomsday scenario for that sort of finish. Yeah. Now We know a green white checker system has been discussed at supercars level. ⁓ but as we've discussed before, safety guard finishes actually happen so ridiculously infrequently in supercars. And with the fuel usage, TV windows and time certainty, we potentially need to be shortening every race to incorporate green white checker potential. And that'd kind of suck given how infrequently it actually happens. What are your thoughts on it? I think that ⁓ there's too many people giving too many reasons why it shouldn't happen. And this is something that it doesn't come up that often, but when it does, it seems such a shame that there's not the provision to have a green white checker. So they need to ⁓ get on with doing it. ⁓ that's that's a surprising ⁓ opinion, Stefan. I thought you I wrote a whole opinion piece about this actually between Darwin and Silverston. ⁓ that they they need to do it. And it was interesting actually digging back, ⁓ ended up looking at a couple of really old ops manuals that ⁓ in sort of that ninety nine, two thousand period, the first five laps run under safety car in any supercar's sprint round didn't actually count towards the total. Yeah. So that wasn't the exactly the same thing, but like it's not totally unprecedented to to do this type of thing. Yeah, well that's ⁓ well that's the speedway model. Like ⁓ yellow flag laps don't Don't count. They're not part of the race. ⁓ so that's ⁓ that's an interesting one. But then they also have to go, ⁓ they have to have red flags sometimes to refuel the cars because they can beetle around behind, you know, under yellow conditions for ages while they clean up crashes. ⁓ so it does always come with its problems, but ⁓ yeah, that's that's interesting. ⁓ another one of the themes that popped up as a pet peeve was the battery reliance super clipping in F1. Man. Despite what F1 itself may say, support for the current regs is pretty hard to find out there. And it was really in the spotlight after Spa, right? Yeah, I thought this whole thing would sort of settle a bit through the year and not only the viewer but everyone in the game would get a bit more used to how these cars race, but it's actually just getting worse and worse. Like those details that are emerging now about the essentially AI elements of the power units. And the team's not even understanding why the the power's going up and down. It's just extraordinary. Some of that stuff off the back of Spa. Yeah. Yeah, no, Spa was really I mean, if I ⁓ maybe there was around sort of Montreal, Monaco, it felt like it was it had kind of leveled out a little bit. But man, like Spa's just just really brought it back to the back to the forefront of of every conversation. And obviously, you know, it's just It's just the complete wrong circuit to have this generation of car on. But should we be saying, well, we shouldn't have these classic circuits on there 'cause they don't suit the cars, or should we be changing the cars to be more like Formula One 'cause these are the venues we have to go to and we should be going to and you know, think about when we get to Monza and places like that. It's all ⁓ it's all kind of sad to be ⁓ to be perfectly honest. another Well, an old chestnut that came up in the pet peeves was supercars and free to wear television. ⁓ totally understand why that does annoy people, although unfortunately pay TV is a genie that's out of the bottle and it ain't going back in as the supercars funding model is way too reliant on it now. One person did comment about the ads on channel seven coverage being a pet peeve, which ⁓ you kind of can't have both. You've either got free to wear with ads or ⁓ or you've got pay TV, but This is unfortunately just the reality of not just modern motorsport but even if you look at your footy codes and that sort of stuff, this is just how sport works now. Yeah, I think we made it pretty clear a bit earlier on that we love free stuff ⁓ as much as anybody does. But I think we're in what, like the twelfth year now for this pay TV model for supercars. And it's ⁓ it's not going back. Speaking of broadcast, the fake crowd noise at the end of races was another pet peeve that popped up a few times. I gotta say That's a pretty fair pet peeve, I think. I don't love it. It's cringe, but maybe we should add it to the pod. I wouldn't mind a bit of applause every now and then. That's a very good idea. Very good idea. another one was not enough events on the supercars calendar. That was a big one. And it's a relevant one and it's a very understandable one. And ⁓ yes, take note, supercars and supercars teams. We cannot go backwards on this front as you embark on these TRC negotiations. Yeah, the ⁓ the prospect that it could go back to twelve is certainly making me appreciate fourteen more than ⁓ I ever have. But it is interesting that this is such a huge bugbear and something that comes up so often these days because it hasn't really shifted a hell of a lot over the years. Like even if you I don't know what you consider peak supercars was, but if you go back to two thousand and five ish when there was just heaps of car manufacturer money and all that sort of stuff. It was thirteen points paying rounds plus the AGP. Yeah. So it hasn't really shifted too much, but ⁓ there's just this thirst for content now, right? That ⁓ any weekend where they're ⁓ they're not racing seems like a wasted opportunity. And I guess it's probably a little bit that like you look I remember when I started watching F1 there were fifteen, sixteen Grand Prix a year. But now there's twenty four of them or less this year with with some of the cancellations in the Middle East. But like, yeah, I guess there's just been this ramping up of other motorsport categories. NASCAR races every single week. People have such better access to these international championships that has probably cast a bit harsher light on how little supercars racing there actually is. And like again, they do race two to three times on a weekend in at most events, apart from the Enduros obviously. So it's actually a lot of races. ⁓ but the gaps is it is something that that people these days just don't like. ⁓ so yeah, it probably is that thirst for content thing, ⁓ just being driven by modern consumption of media through social media platforms, through the yeah, the availability of of of your F1s and your NASCARs that do race more often. I do think that fifteen to sixteen is probably about about right. Like we're not that far off where we kind of need to be. Maybe we could work on the on the cadence of it a little bit. We've talked a lot about, you know, the we've we've talked about how the there probably needs to be some changes to how the New Zealand doubleheader model works to make it fit into the kind of rhythm of the season a little bit better, but we're certainly not that far off it. But going backwards would still be still be a bad thing. Yeah, and that sort of sixteen mark was the peak, I think, of where it got to around that sort of twenty eighteen era. but yeah, in terms of how much other motorsport there is, that's good, right? And even like we haven't had this much comprehensive coverage of national level racing ever. Like you can watch the speed series this weekend on T V all weekend. So again, like yeah, there's only fourteen supercars rounds, but there's six speed series rounds. Get into a bit of that. Yeah, no for sure. ⁓ one pet peeve that popped up a few times was less pomp and ceremony to supercars event in the sort of build-up to the supercars races so there can be more support category racing. I don't know about this one. Like having having covered motorsport in Europe for a few years, I do think we are blessed beyond belief with on track action outside of the main category at our motor racing events, even the Grand Prix. ⁓ even pre haven't FIA, F2, and F3 there, there was just always so much support category action compared to a lot of other Grand Prix and having worked in DTM and stuff like what you get at a supercars event in terms of on track action, it's pretty good. ⁓ and I do think you need a bit of build up before the main act, right? Like it's an important part of the show to have a bit of time and a bit of to sort of build the atmosphere for the for the main event. Definitely. And I think too having some different entertainment. on the tracks not necessarily a bad thing, especially for those events like Adelaide, which ⁓ sort of draw a wider array of people from the community rather than just hardcore motorsport fans. Yeah. ⁓ whereas maybe you you wanna roos stuff that's where you want just race after race on the schedule. Yeah. Should be some form of forward racing there, I reckon. That's ⁓ that's what I'd suggest. But ⁓ anyway. The last pet peeve I'll mention here was clickbait headlines. That came up a lot. I guess we probably walked into that one a little bit, Stefan, to be honest. ⁓ we certainly never endeavor to clickbait anybody. We do, of course, try and make stories as appealing as possible to read from the headline, which is something that journalists have been doing since I reckon not that much longer after Gutenberg invented his printing press, ⁓ at some point in the very distant past. Well, this morning I did see From another outlet, Piastri Axed by McLaren in Brutal Move. So I reckon that's probably a new I don't know whether that's a new ⁓ high bar for it or a low bar, but ⁓ because these days, right, you've got the headline that's on the story, and this is not what we do, but this is say the News Limited model. You've got a headline on the story, a headline on the home page, and a social media headline. That are all different and they like progressively get more and more extreme, like more detached from the actual news. So yeah, I'm not surprised that ⁓ this comes up in a pet peeves list. And this brutal accent we're talking about is Piastri sitting out F P one in Hungary as part of his obligation to do so at two events in the course of the year. So not really brutal, let's be honest. I don't think we definitely wouldn't run that headline. As much as we do like ⁓ do like to try and get people to click on our stories, we would never go quite that far. So yeah, anyway. All right, let's finish up with another listener question from the Discord. Remember, if you do want to join the ⁓ Discord fun, head to FCTTN.com and sign up as a member and then you can chat with us whenever you want and ask us questions like this or or these, I should say, because this is a two parter from ⁓ Discord member Dave Fent. His first question is about whether drivers should get a set of new tires if they make the top ten shootout at a supercars event. Those tires could then be handed back and and be redistributed to teams for testing or even a co driver practice at Bathis or something like that. Stefan, this is one of those things that kind of makes sense on the surface to me, but I do like the current system and how drivers can roll the dice on using an extra set of greens in qualifying, in the final part of qualifying to to make the shootout and then have to live with those used tires in the shootout itself because I think if you had a new tire rule, you'd see the same drivers making the shootout more often because you wouldn't have faster drivers rolling the dice on trying to get through with a with a green set up their sleeve. So that's that's kind of my take on it. Well what are your thoughts? ⁓ I agree. I think if you look at the shootout completely in isolation, it would be best if everyone had a new set of tires. But it's only the middle part of the story. And it actually makes qualifying more exciting with people gambling and then potentially actually adds to the racing as well with people having a different amount of greens left after the qualifying and the shootout. So I don't think this is a thing that actually needs to be changed. And Dave also asked about how ⁓ we used to see Paul Dumbrell, for example, racing in Super Two to stay fit for his co-driving duties with Triple Eight and Jamie Winkup. Cost of Super Two aside, ⁓ Dave, would it still be useful ⁓ for for ⁓ Enduro drivers to do that, or are the cars too different now? Obviously, we have Gen two cars in Super Two and Gen three in the main game at the moment. I mean, I think there would be plenty of value in it from a speed perspective and and sort of staying sharp and all that sort of stuff, but I think the cost is actually probably a pretty limiting factor, like it's a it's an expensive pastime racing in super two. It is hard to have any conversation about Super Two with cost aside. Yeah, it's such a huge factor in it. But yeah, I mean that the cars are quite different to the Gen three car, but they're still closer than basing a Porsche or a G D three or anything like that. So I mean that the other the cost aside element is actually you've only got three Super Two rounds before you get to the entire's Which is yeah, which is the interesting part of the calendar this year. Yeah, one's in February at SMP, so a long, long way before Enduros. And then you've got Darwin and Perth, which are two super expensive ones to do. So ⁓ that probably doesn't help either. But in general, it is amazing how many of these co drivers go into the enduro so short of race miles. ⁓ yeah. E even if you look at the guys who have just come out of the full time your Frosty or J C or Percat, like yeah, they just stop racing supercars and then there's there's not really much going on from a racing point of view. Yeah. Yep. No, it is ⁓ it is wild. And as you s pointed out, the the Super Two calendar this year wasn't very kind of friendly to that co driver ⁓ experience sort of thing in terms of that co driver preparation is probably a better term to use. ⁓ because of the fact that half the calendar happens after Bathurst, which is ⁓ Which is ⁓ kind of interesting. But yeah, look, I I do think that if it wasn't so incredibly expensive, you would see a bit more of it. But trying to put together the budget to do it, pretty pretty tough. So that's why we see a lot less of it these days, apart from kids that are sort of on their way up as opposed to the co drivers that are established, if that makes sense. ⁓ all right, that would do us for this week. This time next week, Stefan, we'll be podcasting together right here in Perth, Western Australia, which will be a lot of fun. If you are in Perth, our good friends at Coates are hosting a fanfest event next Thursday evening at their branch in Belmont that runs from 5 to 7 p.m. And there'll be a bunch of supercars drivers there for a QA and simulators and well, you'll be on the simulator, Stefan. I can tell right now I won't see you for the two hours that we're there. ⁓ and a pizza truck and so on. We will be there, Stefan. ⁓ so you can come and say good day to us as well. It's free to attend, so head on down and check that out. ⁓ before that, there's plenty going on this weekend too with Speed Series in Darwin making their first appearance in Darwin, as we flagged earlier in the show, and F1 ⁓ in Hungary, which is ⁓ that's usually a pretty hot one as well, to be honest. So stay tuned to Speed Cafe all weekend for all the action from Hidden Valley and the Hungara Ring. And full credit to the noise, we'll be back in this podcast feed next Tuesday morning.