Supercars back on track

The Supercars season swung back into action at Sydney Motorsport Park in June, bringing to an end a Covid19 pandemicinduced hiatus of some four months.

Like all professional sports getting back under way amid the pandemic, the Supercars raced at the Eastern Creek circuit in front of empty grandstands, with a reduced number of crew members and no media (other than TV) in attendance in order to satisfy government Covid19 restrictions.

The lack of crowd no doubt did little to dampen the elation at Brad Jones Racing, however, with Nick Percat making the most of a clearly excellent setup on the BJR cars (Todd Hazelwood was also very strong in the sister BJR Commodore) to deliver a masterful display to win the second of three 130km sprint races. Scott McLaughlin’s DJR Team Penske Mustang had headed home Shane van Gisbergen’s Red Bull Holden Racing Team Commodore in Saturday’s race before backing up in the nal race on Sunday to stay ahead of the fast nishing Lee Holdsworth.

The rejigged (for the second time) calendar saw the Supercars scheduled for Winton on July 18-19. Then it’s off to Darwin on August 8-9, Townsville two weeks later, and then a return to Sandown’s traditional pre-Bathurst timeslot (although whether it also means a return for the Sandown 500 isn’t known).

Bathurst is set for October 8-11 (and will be the rst three-day Great Race meeting since the ‘70s), then Perth and Symmons Plains over consecutive fortnights, with the season ending under lights at Eastern Creek on December 12-13.

Of course, all of this is dependent on what happens with the pandemic…