More good news to come out of the Supercars camp this week. At the Phillip Island round of the championship it was announced that Ford will be introducing a new car, not model, a new car into the series.
And is an inspired choice — the Ford Mustang. And it's slated to be on the grid for 2019.
With one of the world's largest car manufacturers entering the fray, it just goes to validate that the category has legs and is fast turning into one of the, if not the best, touring car championships in the world.
On top of that the Mustang is largest selling sports car in the world, so would warrant being in the field on buyer numbers alone.
Holden recently announced that it was shelving, and let's hope eventually canning, developing a shopping trundler turbo charged V6 and will be sticking with a V8. Put the V8 back in V8 Supercars I say.
I reckon teams running Holdens will soon reveal that they will be moving to the Camaro. At some point in the near future General Motors will discontinue the Holden badge, but they will also not want to frighten the horses; that is, die hard Holden fans who love the V8s.
Now for you neigh-sayers out there beating your chests at the loss of your favourite big taxis I have a piece of advice for you. The only constant in life is change, and if you don't change you die. The news that the Mustang will be racing in 2019 has been meet with great applause. What did you really think was going to happen to Holden with Walkinshaw racing getting into bed with an iconic race team, Andretti Autosport, who just so happens to have a bit of experience with, wait for it, Chevy engines.
I really hope that Supercars stays true to its V8 roots. There are enough categories out there dumbing down their engine sizes to appease the tree huggers. For a start you've got Formula E, which sounds and smells like one of those electric go kart tracks, followed by the World Endurance Championship LMP1 class with tiny engines and a whole lot of electric motors and then there's F1 with all their electric gizmos and a tiny engine as well.
Not every form of motor racing has to conform to saving the planet. Look at MotoGP. Some of the best racing you'll ever see and not an electric motor in sight. There's room for a bit of everything and it all doesn't have to be dumbed down to the lowest electric common denominator.
Oh, and I almost forgot. There's an F1 race somewhere this weekend. I'll have a bit of a watch as Brendon Hartley is playing, as are all the drivers, follow the leader at Azerbaijan. Where do you say? Good point. It's a small country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia next to Iran.
Christ knows how much Bernie Ecclestone managed to squeeze out these poor buggers to put on a motorsport event in a country that doesn't have an interest in motorsport.
- NZ Herald