Holden boss stays upbeat

RED Bull Holden Racing Team boss Roland Dane is confident the death of the traditional Holden versus Ford rivalry will not spell doom for Supercars as he plots his squad’s future in the series.

After the shock announcement the Holden brand was being killed off, the Triple Eight owner said yesterday he would meet General Motors this week about his team’s future with the company.

Dane would not speculate on what Holden’s demise meant for his team nor what model it would be racing next year, but said Supercars fans needed to brace for change.

The Holden versus Ford rivalry has been at the heart of the series for decades, but Dane said the series would evolve and did not expect support to suffer. “Not if we, collectively as the category, do our homework properly,” Dane said.

“I think we can still provide the excitement and the show that people have come to expect over many years.

“Unfortunately, one of the issues is that people who have been barracking for the Holden brand over the past 10 years or so haven’t actually been buying the product for whatever reason.

“It’s a fact of life that a lot of people have actually been turning up to the races in other brands. It’s something we are all very aware of. Times change and we have got to change with them.”

Holden’s official factorybacked squad since 2017, Triple Eight has a deal in place with Holden until the end of 2021, which Dane would discuss with the parent company.

“The ongoing situation at the moment [is] I’m meeting with GM this week and we’ll discuss what happens,” Dane said at the Supercars test day at Tailem Bend in South Australia. “But until then, there is nothing more to be said, really.

“I’m not going to speculate on what we’re doing next season at the moment.”

GM made the shock announcement on Monday the Holden brand would cease to exist at the end of the year, dropping a bombshell on the eve of the season-opening Supercars race in Adelaide.