Supercars
V8 Supercars: Five Strange Facts You Didn't Know About The Motorsport
V8 Supercars sounds simple on paper, but the history, tracks, drivers, and machines themselves have changed immeasurably over the years, and with it, some strange facts have surfaced!
The first Australian Touring Car Championship was contested over a single race in 1960 and won by David McKay at a track near Orange in New South Wales.
Some 64 years later, the Supercars carries on that legacy as a championship fought around the country with multiple teams, sponsors and personalities.
Red Bull Ampol Racing driver and championship leader Will Brown reacts to some strange facts and lifts the lid on what it takes to cut in the sport and what makes the Supercars tick.
01
Driving A Supercar Is Like Cycling In a Sauna
Fact: Drivers regularly lose around three kilograms through sweat during each race.
You might enjoy a Sunday drive, but you’ve never experienced one like this.
The temperature inside the Supercars cabin is 20°C to 30°C warmer than outside ambient conditions and peaks at around 65°C when the sport swings through the north during the middle of the year.
Kitted out in almost six kilograms of protective gear, including dense fireproof overalls, drivers will regularly lose around three kilograms just through sweat every time they strap in for a race.
“The car’s just so physical inside,” Brown says. “At Bathurst some people were double-stinting home, which is two hours, and some are triple, which is three hours. Broc [Feeney] did three hours home — three hours in 55-degree heat.
“It's a physical thing. It’s like sitting in a sauna, hopping on a spin bike and then doing a little bit of weights. It's a physical challenge, but mainly it’s due to the heat.”
And that’s what it takes just to sit in the car. Then comes the actual effort of driving.
Every shift of the gearstick weighs 20 kilograms. There’s around 30 shifts per lap at Bathurst — that’s approximately 5000 gear changes over the race.
Hitting the brakes can require up to 85 kilograms of force, and while the driver is trying to transfer that weight through their right foot, they’re being subjected to around two times their own bodyweight in g-force.
It all requires drivers to maintain peak physical fitness just to endure.
“When I first started I used to average 400 kilometres a week on my bike, and then I’d do about three to four gym sessions a week on top of that,” Brown says. “I really stepped up my level of fitness then.
“One type of exercise you might do is to squat against the wall and have a five-kilo weight and just sit there for as long as you can and steer, because for us it's all about the same sort of motion.
“Broc Feeney gets strapped around their head do neck resistance exercises to make sure the neck doesn’t get tired towards the end of a race.
“I’m pretty basic with my training. Some people venture out and do some really crazy stuff; I’m sauna, gym and cycling.
“I have actually done training in the sauna — squats, push-ups, all that sort of stuff — but not cycling!”
Will Brown and Broc Feeney race during stop 3 in New Zealand
© Mark Horsburgh
02
Fancy Footwork
Fact: V8 Supercars is one of the only modern top-tier racing classes that still primarily use a clutch.
Supercars isn’t just hot and physical. The sport is also supremely skilful, with drivers in the category regularly practicing one of the long-lost arts of racing: the heel and toe.
With racing categories worldwide increasingly using seamless paddle shifters to change through gears, fervent lobbying from Supercars drivers has ensured the sport has stuck with a clutch pedal and a sequential shifter, keeping that ancient technique of right-foot braking alive.
It’s now the only top-tier racing category for which it’s a key part of the repertoire.
“You use the clutch only for downshifts,” Brown explains. “If you get bad downshift on a bump and let the clutch out, you'll lock the rear wheels, so what you can do is slowly release the clutch or even keep the clutch in for a while over that bump.
“I think Supercars would nearly be the only category now that does that. Most categories have gone to paddle shift, which do auto blip, and you don't use a clutch.
“It’s pretty uncommon these days, especially to the level we do it at.”
Its peculiarity to Supercars came to the fore last year, when Shane van Gisbergen took the technique with him to his first NASCAR cameo in Chicago, where his rivals were wowed by in-car footage of his fancy footwork as he heel-toed his way to a historic debut victory.
“They love the footwork over there, but that's just normal here. If you're not doing it, you'll never be competitive.
“All 25 people on the grid at Bathurst were doing the same as what Shane was doing over in NASCAR.
“Some people struggle to think about that while braking, while blipping and while doing everything else. That's where Shane was so good — his mental capacity to do everything in the car was just so good, and he could manage his rears and rear locking by using the clutch.
“NASCAR is the most similar category to us, but all those guys the left-foot braking due to the ovals, so they left-foot brake on the road courses.”
Will Brown races during the Supercars Championship at Mount Panorama
© Mark Horsburgh
03
Bathurst is a Street Race
Fact: The Bathurst race track is a public road.
Is the Bathurst 1000 the world’s most demanding street race?
Yes, you read that correctly. The world-renowned Mount Panorama Circuit is run on public roads,
Originally designed as a tourist drive, on almost every other week of the year you can tackle the mountain in you road car — at an appropriate speed — park at Brock's Skyline and soak in the views as the original architects of the road intended.
Just avoid heading up on Friday morning. That’s bin day for the houses dotted along the track, and getting caught behind a rubbish truck won’t do much to add to the vibe.
The track’s foundation as a series of public roads enhances the legacy of one of one of the sport’s most prestigious races, which has long since become synonymous with the Supercars.
Except it’s only been part of the sport since 1999.
For decades the Great Race was too great to be tied into a single championship. Much like Mount Panorama itself, it towered over the Australian motor racing landscape as a singular event, daring drivers to try to conquer the country’s biggest racing stage.
“Maybe it's better off not having Bathurst as a championship result so that people can just go out there and try and win it,” Brown says. “But to be honest, everyone goes out there and tries to win Bathurst anyway.
“I was trying to win and I’m leading the championship!
“It's just everything. It’s the track — it's such a daunting place when you first roll up there. We get used to it now, but it is a crazy track. You know the consequences are so big around there, so when you put a good lap together you think, ‘Far out, that was pretty cool’.
“The history of Bathurst is a big element in it, and then there are the fans too — tens of thousands every day.
“Everyone wants to win Bathurst. It's massive just in general.”
Broc Feeney races during stop 4 of the Supercars Championship
© Mark Horsburgh
04
Close by Design
Fact: V8 Supercars is designed to be competitive with specific race rules.
Unlike some other top racing series, the Supercars championship is designed to be close, with the current Gen3 rules era the most competitive yet.
In the 2023 Formula 1 season Max Verstappen won all but three grands prix and Red Bull Racing won every race bar one.
In the 2023 Supercars season, the first under new rules, the sport delivered 12 different winners from seven different teams.
Numbers are on a similar trajectory this year, with 10 drivers from seven teams having so far mounted the top step.
It’s no wonder they call it the world’s most competitive touring car category.
All the cars are the same underneath the skin, with the Ford and Chevrolet chassis supplied centrally by two teams.
The bodywork is also controlled, with the Mustang and the Camaro generating almost identical levels of performance.
It means it’s up to the team and the drivers to make the most of what they’ve got, knowing that every other team-driver combination is capable of doing the same.
“The thing that I love about Supercars is every weekend you've got a chance because you’ve got parity to win,” Brown says. “I’ve raced TCR and GT. If you win one weekend, it's like a horse, ‘Oh no, you're too fast, let’s put weight on you’. But they get this wrong most of the time.
“They put weight on you, and then you're too weighted up and then you can't win the next weekend.
“I don't think it shows the actual show of going out there and going flat out like we do in Supercars. I think Supercars have the best category in the world for what we do.
“A few years ago you’d only see Triple Eight winning and Penske when they were here and then maybe Chaz Mostert or Cam Waters would win one or two for the year, but there's so many teams that have won this year, so I think Gen3 is showing how good that is.”
The pursuit of parity runs deep in the sport’s veins, with even the points system designed to keep the competition close.
“The drama with an F1 or GT-style points score is it's very hard to catch back up,” Brown says. “It's 25 points for first, but then if one weekend a guy gets spun around and comes 10th, he loses 25 points, but then if you win the next weekend and old mate you're competing with comes second or third, you really can’t claw many points back at all.
“A DNF hurts you so much in those categories that it's near impossible to come back from it, whereas in our category you can because every driver scores points and the gaps are smaller.”
Will Brown and Broc Feeney race during stop 3 in New Zealand
© Mark Horsburgh
05
Frequent Flyer
Fact: Even though it's a domestic series, V8 Supercars has raced 40 times outside of Australia.
Australia’s premier domestic racing series has a surprising number of stamps in its passport.
The series has raced 40 times outside of Australia. New Zealand unsurprisingly dominates the itinerary, having hosted 21 races, but you might be surprised to know the sport has also raced in Bahrain, China, Abu Dhabi and the United States.
Combined with 28 domestic tracks, the championship has raced at 35 different circuits at home and abroad.
Some of them are rolled-gold classic venues.
“Everyone loves Bathurst,” Brown says. “But the thing I look at is making it a good and enjoyable place to race. Can we pass? Can you have a good race with someone? That's probably the most important thing.
“Places like Adelaide Street Circuit — awesome place. You can really pass, you can race, it’s quite exciting.
“My favourite track apart from Bathurst is Gold Coast. It's a bloody hard place to master, but when you get a good lap around there, you tag the wall two or three times, you feel alive, that's for sure.
“One thing we've got to remember is that we're there to put on a show, and if you can't pass, it's very boring for fans, so I think we need to go to all the tracks that produce good racing.”
Unlike some other racing series, Supercars has historically excelled on street tracks.
“Townsville creates awesome racing. Adelaide creates great racing,” Brown says. “I think it’s great Perth’s going to do it.
“I think the more street circuits we can do, the better. If we could do 50 per cent street tracks and 50 per cent normal, that'd be good.
“Throw as many street tracks as you can at us. It’s what makes our category so special.”
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