Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Kostecki’s recovery, wildcard latest + Bathurst updates
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credits the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. My name is Andrew Van Lewen, and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomeyus. Just days ago we were in the tropics of Darwin, Stefan and now we're back in our respective southern homes. How's the transition back to jumpers and long pants going for you there, mate? I've got to admit I was pretty jealous for a couple of days when you were still up there and I was ⁓ back in the cold, back home. But ⁓ we're back Both having an honest end to our working week. This is Friday evening basically by the time we're recording. So getting all the way to the death here. Absolutely. Let's ⁓ let's kick things off by ⁓ looking back at Darwin and one of the major talking points out of the Darwin Triple Crown, and that was of course Brody Kastecki's absence from the Sunday race. ⁓ now we were told at the time he was suffering a virus coming into the weekend and that's what ruled him out of that ⁓ that Sunday track action. ⁓ there were also some references, I think, on the broadcast at some point and sort of around the paddock about a potential back issue as well. ⁓ Dick Johnson Racing has today issued an update outlining that he's on the mend and has been relieved of some commercial commitments in the lead up to Townsville to ensure he's ready and raring to go when we do get to far north Queensland. Stefan, you've been sort of chasing this whole thing for a few days now. What is the go here and how does it all kind of tie together with this ⁓ illness and this back related issue and all that sort of stuff. Well, there's not a lot of details on it. ⁓ the team's been very reluctant to to share too much. So we still don't even know what the actual virus sort of was that he had, but it yeah it did make a lot more sense once this ⁓ back issue came to light in terms of what the team had said on the race weekend about the fact that he was on the mend and You know, after being on the drip on Saturday night, they thought he was going to be fine. And then to to quote what Tom Moore said on the Sunday morning that he unexpectedly woke up unfit to compete safely. So that was really ⁓ when you look at it back through the lens of the fact that he had a a back complaint at that point, it made so much more sense. But yeah, the the details of what that means for him now in terms of ongoing treatment ⁓ are not really being shared, but I could imagine it would be Pretty concerning for him, anything of that nature. Yeah, I mean obviously, you know, that the finals format does give you the freedom to do exactly what DJR did on Sunday and and make the decision, or or between Brodie and and the team make the decision that, you know, the the risk is just not worth any potential reward for being out there because if you're kind of safely ensconced in that top ten, you can afford to sit out a race. But Obviously, you know, I I guess it makes sense that there is this real focus on ensuring that he's good to go for Townsville because you can only play that card so many times, right? Yeah, exactly. But ⁓ I guess one of the key things here it was good that the parties involved made the decision that was best for his health at the time. Yeah. ⁓ and didn't try to press on with a with a mission that they shouldn't have. ⁓ and it's something that's been a talking point in general ⁓ this week about where the ⁓ sort of the team ⁓ responsibilities are for the welfare of the driver when you look at what happened with Thomas Randall and and the heat stress that he went through. But ⁓ yeah that's the thing here that it wasn't ⁓ it wasn't purely a result of ⁓ of the heat situation for Brody. Very interesting. ⁓ let's move on to some other health related news and that is that Cam Crick will not be On the Townsville Supercars grid as a wildcard with Matt Stone Racing as planned, he has withdrawn on health grounds, the nature of which he is keeping private at this point. He wants to focus on being well enough to take part in the Enduros for MSR alongside Jack LeBrock. And that means that Aaron Seaton will is set to take over the solo wildcard entry in Townsville in a couple of weeks. Yeah, so you feel really sorry for for Cam here in this situation. that ⁓ he put so much effort, so much work goes into the commercial side of building these programs. ⁓ and he had a really good thing planned here with ⁓ with doing this sprint wild card before the injuros, but ⁓ the flip side is that it is ⁓ it's a good opportunity for Aaron Seaton to to really get his teeth into these Gen three cars. He's gonna test on Monday. Only sort of just found out about this situation for for Cricky and and getting the call up for Townsville. So There were ⁓ some exciting things around Aaron's own ⁓ Ipswich wildcard program that they're now dragging forward, which we'll ⁓ we'll see a bit more of on Monday. But ⁓ yeah, for for Aaron pending final sign off from the Supercars Commission, yeah ⁓ for him to do two wildcards and then two in Euros where he'll be with Zach Bates. ⁓ that's a pretty exciting thing for Aaron. Speaking of wild cards, we've now got a bit of a read on who will partner Ben Gomesle in the Tickford Wildcard at the Bend five hundred in September. ⁓ now Tickford is just doing the wild card programme for the Ben, not for the Bathurst one thousand as well this year. ⁓ and it seems like it will be the team's newest Super Two race winner, Campbell Logan, that will get the call up to partner Gomasle ⁓ at the bend. Yeah, and Tickford hasn't announced this yet, but we believe this is what is happening and ⁓ it does come off the back of that breakout weekend for Campbell at Hidden Valley where he got his first race win and first round win in Super Two. It was one of the real feel good stories of of that weekend because he'd had two really tough first ⁓ couple of Super Two seasons there with Walkinshaws. Yeah. And he stepped into this this such a well oiled Tickford machine in Super Two and just had a massive uplift in his performance. So There was actually a bit of grumbling sort of in the Super Two paddock in Darwin about parity and the fact that these these Mustangs at the front are so much quicker than than the others, but there was also some ex DJR Mustangs running around towards the back that were showing it's not ⁓ a technical parity discussion. It's it's the fact that that Tickford package, which is also the BRT car that Lockie Dalton's in, which is a Tickford built car, just not run by Tickford. But ⁓ Those cars are just a great package for for that series and and seemingly easier to get in the window setup wise and easier to drive for these young drivers. So Campbell has ⁓ been the latest one to parachute in there and and really lift his career up and now going to the bend as a co driver for this wildcard is a pretty low key, low pressure way to ease into the main series, but get that experience. Absolutely. ⁓ now Bit of news from our dear friends at Authentic Collectibles. ⁓ they are excited to announce a new range of 118-scale V8 Supercar models from the 2013 to 2017 era. The latest release features five iconic models, including two Ford FGX Falcons and three Holden VF Commodores. Leading the range are two Tickford Racing FGX Falcons. Cam Waters number six Pepsi Max Falcon celebrates his first solo Supercars Championship start at the 2015 Auckland Super Sprint, while Chaz Mostett and Steve Owens 55 Super Chief Auto Falcon commemorate their 2017 Pertek Enduro Cup victory. Also included are two Holden Racing Team VF Commodores from the 2015 Castro Gold Coast 600, celebrating Gartanda and Warren Lough's. Pertecro Enduro Cup title and James Courtney and Jack Perkins race 27 victory. The Tickford 55 and both HRT models include replica trophies. 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We might not get a table ⁓ this time. But this is obviously a big issue that ⁓ there's been a lot of communication and meetings with ⁓ supercars and the Bathur Council and New South Wales government. on already, but I believe there was some more today off the back of this this firm news that there won't be a a solution in time for the Bathus 1000. ⁓ so it's obviously an issue for everyone getting to Bathus, but I think actually the way home is even worse in the sense that the trip to Bathur people tend to do on different days. Yeah. It's a bit more of a staged roll-in for everybody. Whereas Everyone's leaving on that on that Monday afterwards. So yeah, I don't know what they're gonna be able to do about that, but ⁓ definitely at the very least communication to everybody out there in the public is gonna be important. Yeah, well I mean we generally take that Bells Line of Road on the way back more so than on the way to Bathurst just to alleviate some of those traffic concerns because you're right, like it can be a real slog getting out of Bathurst and getting over the Blue Mountains on that Monday. Maybe ⁓ there'll have to be something else put on the Monday. ⁓ do do another car race just to ⁓ just ⁓ extend it out of it. Yep. Not I ⁓ always up for more racing. Well hopefully the road is open by the time we get to the new fifth Bathis event, which is expected to debut late in twenty twenty seven. That will be another GT event run by SRO to close out the GT World Challenge Australia and GT four seasons. We don't know heaps about the formats, but I guess This is probably a good opportunity for G D four to get some Bathurst track time now that that class has kind of fizzled out at the twelve hour. At the same time, is this too much GT racing at Bathurst between a standalone SRO round and then the supercars slash SRO run Bathurst twelve hour, Stefan? Well, that part of the the conversation really goes back to what we spoke about a couple of weeks ago, about the fact that previously the Baths City Council had had spoken about wanting any fifth event to have a point of difference to what's there currently. But now they're they're more about let's ⁓ let's make sure we monetize the mountain in any way we can. And if there's a commercial case for a fifth event then we're gonna press the button on it, which they have. So our colleague Simon Chapman did a great job to break this story this morning. We should see the the official confirmation tonight, so just a couple of hours after we record this about ⁓ the the events being on those SRO calendars and therefore you'd expect a format to come with that as well. So yeah, that's the big question for me is whether GT four will be an enduro or just a sprint because we know there's been some pushback from competitors on not wanting the extra cost of doing an enduro. But ⁓ I can't help but as someone not paying the bills, I can't help but ⁓ think it would be a great thing for them to actually have a marquee motor race. I guess it depends what the Enduro looks like, right? Like it's i i do you need to go down the path of, you know, ⁓ gearing up for refueling and all that sort of stuff, or is there an enduro format that can kind of fall into a more cost effective kind of bracket in terms of not needing to do that? And we don't know that. That's this is all the stuff that we absolutely don't know at this point. But ⁓ yeah, it's one of those things that you're right, it was quite interesting. Is it is it Ben Fry who was the counsellor or there that that that Simon was talking to. It's quite interesting that he ⁓ that he had said that, you know, if if we have a if we have an allocation for an event and we're not using it, then that's then we're wasting that allocation. Where I think, you know, when previous conversations we've had, including with the with ⁓ Stumpy Taylor, the mayor there, was more about the fact that, you know, you don't want to be overusing Mount Panorama. It is the sacred site of Australian motorsport. So there's clearly just a little shift in philosophy there. Yeah, but I guess from a from an overall perspective, I feel it's good for supercars to go there only once because you do have that overfishing concern if they try to use it multiple times. But at the end of the day, more car racing at Bathurst means more competitors get to enjoy the greatest racetrack we've got. So regardless of how big the event is from a spectator or T V point of view, ⁓ race cars on track at Bathur should mean some people are having some fun. Good point. ⁓ let's finish up with some listener questions from the FCTTN Discord. Remember to get access to the Discord and be able to ask questions like this or just chat to us about all manner of nonsense and motor racing is part of it and there's all sorts of other stuff that goes on in there. Just head to FCTTN.com and sign up. It is a whole bunch of fun. ⁓ anyway, the first question is from Dave Fent, who I actually caught up with in Darwin for a beer a couple of days ago, which was ⁓ which was a very pleasant experience as well. ⁓ Anyway, he asks why Supercars doesn't use an F one or Moto GP style point system and instead instead pays points to the bottom of the finishes. We end up with these points tallies into the one thousands. It is it is kind of ridiculous sometimes when you do look at the at the supercar's point system. But from my memory, Stefan, and this did kind of all change reasonably early in my career, but I think it was about giving every team the ability to effectively take something back to commercial partners or whatever on the Monday after a race weekend and say, hey, we scored X amount of points ⁓ regardless of what the on track performance actually kinda was. Yeah, and it was interesting they actually went away from this everyone gets a prize mentality for one season back in two thousand and seven. They culled it back to the top fifteen, which was probably about half the field at that point, 'cause the field was bigger than it is now. And they did have that exact issue where team owners were having to tell their sponsors on a Monday that they got zero points for the weekend and they've got zero points for the season so far, but it'll all be better next time. And that ⁓ resulted in it in it changing back for the for the very next year. So yeah, it's it's a shame that it's not a little bit more easily digestible for ⁓ for all of us to be ⁓ counting the points through the year. But I think it's just something that we've got to live with. Another question comes from Craig B, who asks that given Will Brown hasn't had a race win this season, should he be focused on that rather than jetting off to Austria for the demo run in the Gen 3 Mustang this weekend? to answer that, Craig, in fairness to Will, it was triple eight that that tipped him into the Austrian demo. ⁓ instead of Brock because unlike Brock, Will hadn't had a chance to go to Austria and visit Red Bull's sporting HQ and all the facilities that they do have there and and make use of all of that, which if you've been following Will's socials, you'll see that he's been doing. So I think this was something that the team actually felt was a benefit to Will rather than a distraction. Yeah, and it's actually a good sign of Red Bull and Triple H's commitment to Will actually. Because you know, there was we do know that they gave him a bit of a rev up at the end of last year about his ⁓ his sort of general busyness and maybe lack of focus on what he was doing with the race team. ⁓ but yeah, this is ⁓ this is them taking him overseas and doing something cool. ⁓ it is interesting that Brock Feeney's not part of this whole world tour where they've got four stops on this ⁓ this schedule here with this Gen three Mustang. And so Jamie Wincup's going to drive at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. And then they've got Scott Pye at the Red Bull show run, they're calling it, in Latvia. And ⁓ that's actually a week before Ipswich. So we believe that ⁓ Brock could have done that, but the team didn't actually want any risk on travel to to get back ⁓ for the supercars round. The Goodwood thing really just sounds like Jada pulling ⁓ pulling rank as the boss for sure. I think the same thing happened with the Miami trip. That he had his hand up for as well a month or so back that he drove that car at ⁓ Miami Speedway as part of a bit of filming and then did some other other meetings and things with Ford or that's what he told us anyway. Yeah. All right, that will do us for the pod this week. It is, of course, the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend, so make sure you stay tuned to Speed Cafe for all of the action. We'll have all of it covered, and full credit to the noise will be back in this podcast feed on Tuesday morning.