The Chevrolet Equinox is a regular SUV model from Chevrolet. They’re basically saying it’s a useful everyday car that can also handle fun stuff like tailgates and carrying gear.
“The undercut” is the name of the part of the show where they start the main discussion. In racing, it can also mean a pit-stop strategy, but here it’s mainly setting up the segment.
Topic
motor racing chat
They’re telling you that before anything else, they’ll talk about racing. It’s basically a heads-up that the show is about motorsport.
A doubleheader is basically two races scheduled close together. Teams have to plan for both races in a row, so tires, car setup, and driver energy all matter over the whole weekend.
Term
Jason Richards trophy
The Jason Richards Trophy is an award in Supercars based on points. Instead of just winning one race, you earn it by doing well across multiple rounds.
That phrase means the winner is the driver who scores the most points over two races. It’s not only about winning one race; doing well in both can decide the outcome.
It just means how well someone performs during the actual races. The hosts are saying he’s doing well not only in interviews, but also when the car is on track.
Castrol is a company that makes engine oils and other car fluids. In this show, they’re using the Castrol name for a “performer” award, like a spotlight on a driver’s week. It’s basically a sponsor-backed way to recognize who stood out.
They’re highlighting when someone wins a race for the first time. In racing, that’s a major milestone because it usually means everything finally clicked—driver, team, and car. Fans and teams often celebrate it in a big way.
A “first win” means the driver finally wins a race for the first time. It’s a big moment because it proves they can compete at that level, and everyone celebrates it.
NASCAR’s Cup Series is the biggest, most important stock-car racing league in the U.S. Winning your first race there is a huge deal because it means you can compete with the best drivers.
JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) is a well-known NASCAR racing team. Having a strong team behind you can help a driver practice, learn, and get better results.
Topic
Supercars feuds
They’re discussing rivalries in Supercars racing—basically, how drivers compete against each other and how those battles turn into big career moments. The episode is using race results and personal stories to explain why the rivalry matters.
Race boots are special shoes drivers wear to feel the pedals better and keep their feet steady. They’re designed so you can press the pedals precisely without your foot sliding around.
Erebus is a well-known racing team in Australia. Saying a driver is “with Erebus full time” means they’re driving for that team regularly, not just as a one-off.
“Learning the ropes” means getting used to a new, tougher level of racing. It’s the phase where a driver figures out how everything works—car setup, race strategy, and team communication.
Topic
Super 3
Super 3 is a lower-level racing series that helps drivers build skills before moving up. The host is saying they’ve seen the driver compete there before they reached the bigger stage.
Company
Garth Tannac
Garth Tannac is mentioned as someone who commentated on the racing. Commentators help explain what’s happening on track so viewers can follow the action.
Concept
go-kart awards nights
Go-kart awards nights are part of grassroots motorsport culture where young drivers are recognized for performance and progression. These events often mark early talent development before drivers move into higher categories.
“Closing couple of laps” refers to the final stretch of a race, when positions are decided and drivers are most aggressive. In racing analysis, late-race behavior often indicates strategy, tire management, and how drivers respond to frustration or pressure.
Topic
Red Cross
“Red Cross” appears to be a race venue or event name in the Supercars calendar being referenced as where Chas had a terrible weekend. Venue-specific track characteristics can strongly affect car setup and driver performance.
Concept
rectus scale
This sounds like a description of a driver getting thrown off their line or getting into trouble after an interaction. In racing, even a small contact can ruin your speed and your chances for the rest of the race.
After a race, drivers and teams talk about what happened. If someone thinks another driver acted unfairly, those comments can turn into a bigger argument.
They’re describing an action that happened at a particular corner of the track. Moves at specific turns are often judged more harshly because the conditions there make them easier or harder to pull off safely.
“Final series” here refers to the end-of-season championship phase where results in the last races can decide the title. That changes how drivers approach risk: they may defend harder, time moves more carefully, or accept short-term losses to protect points. The episode frames this as the pressure cooker that turns on-track incidents into bigger rivalries.
Concept
driving standards
“Driving standards” in motorsport usually means the expected level of driving behavior—how aggressively drivers can race while still staying within rules and stewards’ interpretations. When drivers “find the limitations,” they’re testing where the boundary is between acceptable contact/defense and penalties. That’s especially relevant when the goal is to set up for a final championship run.
In racing talk, “bumper” usually refers to the front or rear of a car used during close racing and contact. The transcript suggests using someone’s bumper as a reference for aggressive passing—i.e., contact or pressure that can lead to off-track outcomes and penalties.
Sometimes race officials add extra time to a driver’s result. A “30-second penalty” means the driver effectively loses time, so they can fall behind other cars in the race order.
When you get a penalty, you often fall behind other cars. That’s what they mean by “dumps him down the order”—you’re no longer in the same spot you were running.
In racing championships, you don’t just race for one win—you earn points across many events. Losing points from one race can hurt, but it might still be recoverable later.
They mean something went wrong with the engine. In racing, engine trouble is a big deal because it can slow the car down or even stop it from finishing, which can cost championship points.
They’re talking about a specific race in Adelaide. If a car has a mechanical problem there, it can cost a driver big points and hurt their chances to win the championship.
Concept
bury that hatchet
“Bury that hatchet” is an idiom meaning to end a feud and move on. In the context of the podcast, it’s used to describe how rival drivers/teams may not resolve tensions until a major goal—like winning a championship—is achieved.
An “organic” rivalry is one that grows naturally from on-track events and repeated competitive interactions, rather than being manufactured by media hype. The hosts argue that the finals format and specific incidents (like Adelaide) are what created the rivalry.
They’re saying the way the championship finals are set up affects who ends up racing who. That can lead to more drama because the stakes are higher and the matchups are tighter.
“Engine drama” is shorthand for problems or failures related to the powertrain during a race weekend—things like misfires, overheating, or mechanical issues that affect performance. In motorsport coverage, these moments often become part of the rivalry narrative because they can change outcomes or lead to contact.
They’re talking about a crash or bump right at the start of the race. Those early incidents often lead to arguments because everyone’s still close together and positions are being fought for.
Ford is the car brand involved in this Supercars rivalry. When big brands like Ford and Toyota are competing, it can make rivalries feel bigger and more intense.
Toyota is the other brand in the rivalry they’re talking about. When Toyota and Ford are both involved, it often turns a driver feud into a bigger brand storyline.
Company
Walcons shores
This sounds like a team name, but the transcript may have misheard it. They’re basically saying the rivalry involves specific teams, not just drivers.
They’re talking about whether news coverage makes rivalries worse. The hosts say the people complaining are often the same ones who want rivalries in the first place.
Concept
Rhymewood incident
They mention a specific incident that people in the Supercars world recognize by a nickname. It’s basically shorthand for a notable crash/controversy that affected the driver’s reputation and how the media talked about him.
Concept
villain because you want everything
When someone wins a lot in racing, some fans start to dislike them—not because they’re doing something wrong, but because they’re dominating. The “villain” label is basically about how people talk about them, not just their driving.
Concept
victim of your own success
It means the driver’s success makes life harder for them. The more they win, the more people judge them and look for reasons to criticize them.
“A-grade drivers” is just a way of saying the best, most proven drivers in the series. The hosts argue about what counts as “best,” usually based on wins and top results.
“Chevy” here means Chevrolet, the car brand that competes in Supercars. They’re debating whether Chevrolet has produced as many of the very best, race-winning drivers as other brands.
Triple Eight is a well-known Supercars racing team in Australia. If someone’s “never been out of a Triple 8 car,” it means they’ve mostly raced for that same team.
The hosts are discussing a career strategy in Supercars: staying in the best-performing car/team for as much of your career as possible. In racing, “best car” usually reflects the whole package—car setup, engineering, reliability, and driver support—not just raw power.
They’re ranking drivers into different “levels” based on how good they are and how likely they are to move up. It’s basically a way to talk about who’s expected to become a top star.
They mean which drivers are likely to get the best seats in the future. If a driver leaves a team or a team changes its lineup, other drivers move up to fill those spots.
Company
Groves
Groves is a Supercars team/operation. If key people move on, it can create openings for drivers and shake up who ends up where.
Red Bull is a major motorsport brand that supports drivers. If they stop backing a driver or move them elsewhere, it can change which drivers get seats.
They mention Paul Morris Motorsports as where the speaker works. In racing, the team you’re with can affect how the car is set up and who you work with.
They’re discussing a Bathurst event format where the quickest cars from qualifying get invited into a special top-10 session. The group is making predictions about which drivers/cars will make that cut.
Qualifying is when drivers try to set their fastest lap to earn a better starting spot. At Bathurst, qualifying also decides which cars get into the top-10 shootout.
Term
Jarrod Ruffys
“Jarrod Ruffys” sounds like a fun prediction category the group uses alongside the main top-10 shootout picks. It’s meant to guess who could surprise and make the cut.
The “Bathurst shootout” refers to the final top-10 session where the fastest qualifiers compete again. The hosts describe it as typically featuring the fastest 10 cars from that session, making it a strong snapshot of pace.
A tiebreaker is what you use when two people end up with the same points. It’s the extra rule that decides who gets the win or the trophy when the normal points don’t separate them.
Stewards are the officials who watch the race and make decisions when something is unclear. If there’s a rules dispute or an incident, they decide what the outcome should be.
Enduro Cup is a racing category that’s built around longer races. Because it’s longer, the rules are often more detailed—especially for points and how results are decided.
Sprint Cup is the shorter-race version of the competition. Since it’s a different race length, it usually has its own rules for how points and results are handled.
The JR trophy is an award given at the end of the event. The discussion is about how the rules decide who earns it, and how that can change depending on the tie-break method.
Term
Larry Perkins trophy
The Larry Perkins trophy is another named award given at the end of the event. The hosts are talking about making sure the rules are clear so nobody is confused about how trophies are awarded.
Term
Peter Brock trophy
The Peter Brock trophy is one of the special awards handed out after the season. In this episode, they use Brock’s race results to show how the trophy could go to someone else depending on how the rules are applied.
Term
Barry Sheen medal
The Barry Sheen medal is another named award given out at the end. The hosts are pointing out that there are several different awards, so the criteria need to be clear.
Term
Jim Richards medal
The Jim Richards medal is one of the awards handed out at the end. The episode is about making sure everyone understands the award rules so there’s no confusion.
A deadlock is when the points don’t separate two people. The tie-breaker rules decide who wins by using a priority list like more wins first, then more second places, and so on.
The hosts question “who actually should win the trophy in merit,” highlighting a common motorsport governance issue: whether awards reflect race-by-race finishing merit, cumulative performance, or a specific tie-break hierarchy. They conclude by emphasizing the need for clear rules to prevent the same confusion from happening again.
Tyres are a critical consumable in Supercars because grip and wear directly affect lap times and race strategy. The transcript highlights a “tyres” routine—Jason’s dad doing them—showing how hands-on tyre preparation and timing can influence performance and reliability over a weekend.
The paddock is the busy area near the track where racing teams hang out and do their work. It’s not the race itself—it’s where cars get prepared and team people interact.
Company
FPR
FPR is the name of a racing team/operation. When they mention it in a “deal” context, they mean Jason was considering driving with or for that team.
They’re talking about a specific award called the Mark Porter trophy. It was being presented during the Hamilton event(s), and they mention it to give context to what happened over those weekends.
Concept
Denny Holm
Denny Holm is mentioned as someone worth paying tribute to within New Zealand motorsport. The hosts are discussing how memorial trophies can recognize influential figures in the local racing community.
They’re saying you can make certain races more special by having a trophy that’s only on the line at that event. That helps even smaller races feel like they matter.
They’re referring to a time when touring-car racing was a major part of Australian motorsport. The idea is that trophies should match the history and identity of that era.
“Bathurst in 06” refers to the year 2006 at Mount Panorama (Bathurst), a cornerstone event in Australian motorsport. The hosts connect Mark Porter’s timeline to Bathurst, emphasizing the significance of major Australian race weekends.
They’re saying Hamilton started hosting races in 2008. The trophy makes sense there because it matches the timing and location of the event.
Concept
Garth Hannah
Garth Hannah is referenced in the context of Mark Porter’s trophy presentation, indicating he was the recipient at that moment. This is a human-interest detail that helps listeners understand how these trophies are actually awarded.
Rua Puna is the race track/location they’re talking about for Supercars in New Zealand. They’re arguing whether it works well for racing and for fans watching.
Pit exit placement is where cars come back onto the track after leaving the pits. If it’s awkward, it can make it harder to rejoin safely and smoothly.
Tyre walls are safety barriers made of tyres. They help slow and absorb energy if a car hits the wall, making crashes less severe.
Topic
Super Series
The “Super Series” is mentioned in the context of racing at Rua Puna, suggesting a racing event/category the speaker participated in. It’s used to justify their opinion about whether the venue works, based on personal experience.
A pit stop is when the race car pulls into the pit lane during the race to get help from the team. Usually that means things like tire changes, and it’s done strategically so the car can keep going fast.
Malala is a race track mentioned as part of the speaker’s list of places Australia could race. Tracks affect how the car drives, so teams would adjust their setup for that circuit.
They’re talking about the race track at Winton and why it makes sense to hold an event there. The point is that some tracks get more support than others, which affects where races can happen.
Phillip Island is mentioned as a venue that’s “a stretch too far,” implying travel or logistical cost makes it less feasible for the planned event. It’s a well-known Australian circuit, so the comment is about practicality rather than track quality.
They’re describing how the track is laid out so that the racing and viewing are centered around the infield. Because of that layout, it’s harder to place cameras right in the middle of the track.
Queensland Raceway is a race track in Australia. The hosts mention it to compare how much of the action you can see while standing near the track.
Topic
Townsville
Townsville is used as an example of a race event that started strong and then got harder to keep going. It’s basically about how fan interest can rise and fall.
“Car setup” refers to how the team configures the car for performance—things like suspension settings, aero balance, tire pressures, and brake/traction behavior. If a driver is strong historically but suddenly qualifies worse, it often points to a setup mismatch for that track or conditions.
In many racing series, teammates can indirectly improve performance by sharing data, comparing setups, and pushing each other in testing and race weekends. The discussion suggests the driver may be missing that extra feedback or competitive pressure.
A chassis is basically the car’s main frame. If a driver gets a new one, it can help because the old car may be worn out or not behaving as well anymore.
A wildcard chassis is a race car that’s being used for a particular event, not necessarily the driver’s usual one. It can be different in feel and performance because it may have been set up or prepared for someone else.
Concept
Topol race one
“Race one” is the first race at that event. The host is saying his best finishes have been tied to that particular race, rather than happening consistently every time.
DNF means the driver didn’t finish the race. It’s important because it shows whether the car and driver can reliably complete events, not just go fast.
This is a way to judge drivers that considers where they started on the grid. If you start further back and still do well, you get more credit than if you just start up front and finish where you were expected.
They’re using a simple scale where 100 is the best you could’ve done from your starting spot, and 0 is the worst. That way, you can compare performances fairly even if drivers started in different places.
Concept
performance game in the racing
They’re talking about how well someone drives during the actual race, not just how they do in qualifying. The question is whether good race results can “make up for” a bad starting spot.
The championship is decided by points across many races. So someone might look better in one kind of ranking (like race results) even if another driver is ahead overall in the championship.
A “parody tweak” is a rule or technical adjustment intended to reduce performance gaps between teams/cars. The goal is to keep competition close by changing factors like aerodynamics, power, or other balance parameters.
In racing, “balance” refers to how the car’s handling characteristics are distributed—how it responds to steering, throttle, and braking. Small balance changes can affect grip, rotation, and stability, which drivers feel immediately in corner entry and mid-corner behavior.
Downforce is the “suction” from the air that presses the car onto the road. More downforce usually means more tire grip. If it’s stronger at the front than the rear (or vice versa), the car will feel like it wants to rotate differently in turns.
They’re giving an example of changing how much “pressing force” the car gets at the front versus the rear. If the rear gets more, the car may feel different in corners compared to when the front and rear are equal. It’s a way to explain why setup and aero balance matter.
Concept
cross weight distribution
Cross weight distribution is a way teams check how weight is spread across the car, especially diagonally. It matters because it can change how the car grips and turns. If the setup isn’t consistent, it can be hard to tell whether the aero change is really the cause of the feel you notice.
Fuel levels change how heavy the car is and where the weight is. As the tank empties, the car can handle a little differently. So if you’re comparing runs, you want to know whether the fuel load was the same.
In some racing series, the rules try to make cars more evenly matched. That way, one team or brand can’t just be faster all the time, and the championship stays interesting.
The grid is basically the starting lineup for the race. Saying the cars vary on the grid means different types of cars are competing against each other.
Racing teams collect lots of numbers from each event—like speed, tire behavior, and how the car performs. Those numbers can influence how the series decides who gets what advantage or adjustment.
A rookie driver is someone in their first season or early seasons of that series. They may not yet know all the tricks to be consistent, so results can be different than with experienced drivers.
In some racing series, there are rules meant to keep cars performing similarly. A “parity trigger” is like an alarm that goes off when data suggests one car is getting an unfair advantage. Even then, it still has to be verified before anything changes.
Concept
stopwatch
A stopwatch is the simple way of measuring how fast a car is. But racing officials usually want more than just one timing result—they want proof that the difference is consistent.
Wind tunnels are like giant indoor “airflow tests” for cars. They help measure how the car’s shape affects grip and speed, especially through downforce. That data can be used to make fairer decisions in racing.
Term
100 kilos
The mention of “100 kilos” is an example of how ballast or weight distribution changes can be used to alter a car’s balance. Even relatively small weight shifts can meaningfully change traction and cornering behavior, which is why officials and teams treat these adjustments seriously.
Re-grip is how well the tires get traction again after the car is loaded up in a corner. If the car doesn’t have the right balance, the tires may not grip as well when you need them most. That’s why setup changes matter for driver confidence.
They’re describing a “sweet spot” where the car feels stable and easy to drive. Once you go outside that range, the car can feel scary or unpredictable very quickly.
They’re saying that when you’re pushing hard, tiny changes can make the car feel like it’s about to lose control. It’s a way to explain how “on the edge” racing feels.
They’re talking about the main championship for 2026 in Supercars, and how one team/manufacturer is already looking like a winner. It’s the big-picture context for the race results they’re discussing.
When a new brand joins racing, the big unknown is usually the engine. If the engine isn’t strong and reliable, the car can’t compete no matter how good the rest of the car is.
The host is talking about Nissan’s racing engines not being as strong as others. In racing, if the engine isn’t competitive, the whole car usually struggles.
The host says Volvo’s engine was really good, and it worked well with the car’s shape and aero. That combination is what helps a race car perform.
Concept
Rimewood factor
The host is saying Toyota’s performance might be boosted by something specific—called the “Rimewood factor.” In other words, the car’s success may depend on who’s doing the work, not just the brand name.
Taupo is where the race happened. The speaker is using that event to explain where the car finished, which helps put their performance comments in context.
“Throw a rod” is when the engine’s internal parts fail badly—usually the connecting rod breaks and punches through the engine. It typically means the engine is done for the day.
Term
engine's gone amiss
“Gone amiss” is a general phrase for the engine not behaving correctly—often implying a mechanical fault, misfire, or failure mode that removes the car from contention. In context, it’s tied to losing a trophy due to engine problems.
Concept
engine reliability vs engine performance
Performance is how fast the car can go. Reliability is how likely the engine is to keep running without breaking, especially when it’s pushed hard.
“Mileage” here means how far the engine has to go before it’s expected to fail. Teams use it to plan maintenance and keep the engine running long enough to finish.
They’re talking about how long the engine must last in real race conditions—measured in kilometers. The goal is to avoid breakdowns before the event is over.
Concept
bathers twice
They’re saying the car has to run long enough to cover the event more than once. That means the engine needs to last through repeated hard use.
They’re talking about a major barrier being broken—she was the first woman to win at the highest level of NASCAR. It’s important because it changed what people thought was possible in racing.
Company
Melinda Price
Melinda Price is mentioned as the person who posted about Terry Sawyer online. The host then used that post to find more people talking about her.
Concept
Castro-Cougars program
This sounds like a driver-development program. It’s basically a way for racing teams or sponsors to spot talented people and help them move up to bigger races.
They’re talking about a major Australian racing series for touring cars. The point is that the driver still has a record in that top-level competition.
They’re talking about a Toyota Corolla used in racing. The key idea is that Toyota kept the same car model but swapped in different drivers for different events.
Bathurst is one of the most famous endurance races in Australia. People talk about it like a career-defining event, especially when they mention how many times someone started the race.
The Cortina is a Ford model that was raced in big Australian events. Here, they’re talking about a Cortina that won at Bathurst, which is a big part of racing history.
When they say the engine failed, it means the engine broke or stopped working properly. In a long race, that usually ends your chances even if you were doing well.
An engine builder is the person who builds and sets up the race engine. Their work affects both how fast the engine is and whether it can survive the race.
They’re talking about a big milestone race number—this is the 100th race in the Gen 3 era. “Gen 3” is the current generation of Supercars rules and cars.
They’re saying that in 2023, Supercars started a new set of rules. New rules can change how teams build and tune their cars, so results can look very different afterward.
“Wins by driver” is a stats-driven way to summarize who has been most successful across races. In motorsport, win counts help compare drivers’ performance over a season or era, especially when rules are consistent.
They’re talking about Brock Feeney as the leading driver in their standings. The show is using his race wins as evidence that he’s been the most successful.
Concept
deadlock of eight
They’re describing a situation where the standings are really close, so it’s hard for anyone to jump ahead. A small difference—like points or results—keeps the order stuck.
A sabbatical just means the driver took time off for a while. In racing, skipping events usually hurts your championship position because you can’t score points.
Albert Park is a famous race track in Melbourne. They’re talking about a weird race weekend where one of the races didn’t finish, so the total wins don’t line up normally.
They’re talking about a simple numbers-based summary of results. The idea is: if the win/points totals keep adding up, that’s a sign the team is really performing well.
Concept
by manufacturer
“By manufacturer” indicates the hosts are breaking performance down not just by team, but by brand (e.g., Ford vs others) across the season. This helps listeners see which car brands are winning more often, regardless of team.
A “shootout” is a special, intense session where drivers try to set the best time and lock in a strong starting spot. Doing well there usually means you’re quick when it really matters.
They mean “pole,” which is when a driver qualifies first and starts at the very front of the grid. Starting first can make the race easier because you avoid getting stuck in traffic.
“Gen 2 days” means the Supercars were built under the Gen 2 rules at that time. When the rules change, the cars can drive differently, so results from that era aren’t always directly comparable to newer cars.
Aerodynamics is how the car cuts through the air. In racing, small changes can make the car stick to the track better or go faster. The episode suggests teams can spend a lot of effort to optimize that within the rules.
“Curb costs” means the sport tried to make racing cheaper. The problem is that teams still look for ways to go faster, so spending can move around instead of disappearing. The hosts are saying the plan didn’t reduce costs as much as hoped.
Concept
technical displacement
“Technical displacement” is basically the engine-size category the rules allow. If everyone is equal in that category, teams can’t just win by having a bigger engine. Then the fight moves to other details like tuning and body shape.
Bodywork is the car’s outer shape—its panels and contours. In racing, the shape can change how air flows, which affects grip and speed. The episode suggests teams spend money refining that because it matters.
“Commodore” is shorthand for the Holden Commodore, a popular Australian car used in racing. The hosts are talking about which generation of race cars they moved away from.
“Mustang” is the Ford Mustang, a well-known performance car. In this conversation it’s one of the headline race cars from the earlier generation they’re moving on from.
The Toyota Supra is a famous sports car from Toyota. Here it’s mentioned as one of the headline cars in the racing series, with a strong motorsport background.
They’re talking about a big milestone: Gen 3 reaching its 100th race at Simmons Plains. It’s basically the “next big event” they’re looking forward to.
Topic
Super 440
“Super 440” appears to be the event name/format for the race weekend being referenced. The hosts mention it alongside the venue and a sponsor-like phrase, indicating a specific championship round or race meeting.
They’re debating what kind of background the top boss of a Supercars series should have. The core idea is whether racing knowledge helps, or whether business experience is enough.
Holden Racing Team was a well-known racing team in Australia. The discussion here is about the team’s leadership and how they manage the business side of racing, not just the cars.
The host is saying a motorsport CEO can’t just think about the business—they also need to understand the technical side. The job is balancing what makes the racing work with what makes the whole show and company succeed.
DJR (Dick Johnson Racing) is a well-known racing team in Australia. The speaker is saying a key person moved from the team into a top leadership role for the whole sport.
Shell is a big fuel and energy company. In racing, companies like Shell often sponsor teams and provide support, and the transcript is using that career move to explain how people flow between business and motorsport.
They’re saying this sport isn’t run like a typical sports league. Because there are lots of different investors and groups involved, it’s harder to keep everyone aligned.
Race tracks are the specific circuits where races happen. Different tracks can make the cars behave differently, so teams and organizers care a lot about them.
They’re using “steering wheel” as a figure of speech for control and direction. It’s like saying someone should be the one guiding where things go.
Concept
television commentary situation
They’re talking about the TV broadcast commentary—who’s commentating and how that situation played out. In racing, the way it’s covered on TV can shape how fans see what’s happening.
Company
Matt Nolte
They’re talking about Matt Nolte as a person who, in their view, has been treated unfairly. The episode is basically arguing that he and others have worked hard and deserve better.
Company
Richard Crier
They mention Richard Crier as part of the group they feel is being unfairly criticized. The point is that he’s been working hard behind the scenes and deserves respect.
Company
Chad Nailon
They’re talking about Chad Nailon and how people online have been hard on him. The host’s argument is that he’s been doing a great job for years and deserves better.
They mention “Speedway” in the context of calling for help. That usually means race-event logistics—getting the right approvals, access, or support for an event.
A gradual shift means you don’t change everything at once. You introduce changes slowly so fans can get used to them, and new people get time to prove themselves.
The “commentary box” is where the people on TV/radio talk through the race. If someone hasn’t had much practice or testing, they may be learning in real time, which can affect how they call the action.
“Test laps” are practice runs used to learn a circuit, refine car setup, and build confidence before race conditions. Limited test time can make it harder for drivers or new commentators to interpret what’s happening on track, especially when they’re “learning on the fly.”
“Learning on the fly” means figuring things out as you go, not after lots of practice. In racing, that can be tough because you’re dealing with speed, track conditions, and pressure all at once.
They’re talking about events in Tasmania and Darwin. Those are different places with different tracks and conditions, so getting a chance there is a big deal for a driver.
Hidden Valley is a race track in Darwin. If a driver has raced there before, they usually know the layout and what the track is like, which can help them perform better.
Topic
Darwin race fans
They’re talking about the people who follow racing in Darwin. Since Matt has been involved there before, the local crowd already knows who he is.
Bitumen is basically asphalt. When people say “bitumen racing,” they mean racing on paved roads, and the tires and driving feel can be different because the surface grips in a particular way.
The pit line is the lane where race cars pull in to get serviced. How quickly and smoothly the team works there can change where the car ends up on the track.
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Great to have you with us, it's time for the undercut.
There is so much to talk about.
I'm Aaron Noon and the guy across the desk is Jack Perkins.
Hello and welcome to you.
Hello Noon, it's good to be back, mate.
It is great to be back.
But before we get into anything, any motor racing chat, any Rua Puna chat, any Topor
chat, the hair, it has been the biggest topic out of the first episode of the year.
The swoop is back, what has inspired the swoop because I'm intrigued?
Well, Noon's it's like the first time in 20 years I've changed my hairstyle and everyone's
talking about it, it actually started off a bit with myself.
With yourself?
Yeah, I just said it.
So you can't lose?
I won't go into too many details but something needed to happen for me to get a haircut and
it didn't happen.
So I was like at the point where I needed to do something and I was trying to get some
inspiration from the Geelong coach Chris Scott, I wanted his hairstyle.
What about the beard as well?
He's got a bit of salt and pepper going, but he's let it grow out.
My beard looks like a catfish if I try and grow it, mate, but yeah, I've just got this
hairstyle happening at the moment.
There's a bit of, you know, the cost of living with a haircut crisis going on.
So just space it out.
Just doing it, but I'm copying a lot of flak for it.
My daughter this morning told me I looked old and so we might need to reinvigorate,
put some shoe polish back through there and spike it back up or something.
It got a lot of comment after episode one.
We've got heaps to talk about, he's going with a doubleheader in New Zealand for supercars.
As always on this show, we'd like to start with our Castro performer of the week and
may I just change mine a little here?
I don't want to do it of the week because I need to do it of the fortnight, but for
me, Brian Wood, who came like that close to winning the Jason Richards trophy, first
win for Toyota in top or the previous weekend, was on target to have the most points across
the two rounds to win that trophy.
He is for me and the theme and we're going to talk about it is who's a grade.
He proved in those last two rounds, he is a grade, he's on my list, he's going nowhere.
He's an exceptional talent, isn't he?
I'd love the two weeks in a row in New Zealand being able to watch that from home and to
watch Rhyme Wood was excellent and I think that's a very good call their noons.
I think he's got a bright future ahead of him and it's been really good to see him excel
and he's almost the lead driver of Hannah Walker-Shawes at the moment.
It's not just what he's doing in the race car and the results that he's getting, he's
great with the media stuff, he's great with the interview stuff.
He actually gives some content.
It's not just one of those wah-wah interviews and I'm hoping I'm going to race today.
I'm hoping to go well.
There's a personality in there and there's probably a whole heap more in there that
doesn't have to come out that we probably shouldn't have come out sometimes because I
reckon Woody's got that in him, but we ask for personality.
I think we've got it with him and then you couple that with on track success and capability
being perfect.
It kind of reminds me a little bit of Shane Van Gisburg and now he certainly got a bit
more character and a bit different to Shane out of the car.
He lets it out.
Shane never let it out.
Correct.
Shane had it but didn't let it out.
But you put them in the car, they are the most race smart people you will ever come
across.
They're racing IQ that the commentators often refer to.
It's a thing.
It's a thing.
Shane Van Gisburg was the best at it and I'll tell you what, Ryan Wood's not far behind
him in terms of what he does on the racetrack.
It's obviously happening slow enough for him to be able to make more conscious decisions
out there on a track and I think that's a good thing.
I felt for him.
I felt for him in that heart breaking run at Rupert.
Again he's been let down by his car.
He has had how many results disappear at the back end of last year.
Bathurst, Gold Coast, so many more, this one now as well, completely through no fault of
his own.
So I feel he's my Castrol performer of the fortnight.
Have you got a Castrol performer of the week or from our little chat in WhatsApp in the
lead-up to this show, I've got a sense that you've got a bit of a performers of the week
going this week.
Have you themed this?
Have you got a theme?
Well it's a bit the same in the sense of it's a fortnight thing but what I love in motorsport
and obviously all sport as well but particularly motorsport is first time winners.
I remember when I was first exposed to some NASCAR stuff, I saw Brad Keselowski win his
first race and they made D-shirts.
And I thought how cool is that?
Celebrating the first win.
Now you made a T-shirt for your first win didn't you?
I did.
I copied the Brad Keselowski thing and ever since I've just really enjoyed the celebrations
of people getting their first win.
So for me the two performers of the fortnight if you like, first of all was Ty Gibbs picking
up his first win in the NASCAR Cup Series.
He'd done 131 Cup Series starts to date so it was coming and it finished second a lot
of times.
But to get that first win, see the celebrations, it was just so cool to watch from an outsider
looking in.
So he's the grandson of Joe Gibbs, the team owner, the legendary NFL coach, NASCAR team
owner.
That's the team that you drove for when you went to the state.
So you've got a bit of a tie there.
You know, Ty, I didn't even mean to do that but you know what I mean, there's a connection
there that you've sort of seen and smelt around that place.
Yeah, 100% and Ty helped me a lot personally prepare for the two Xfinity Series races I
did last year.
So I've been able to kind of watch with interest and I obviously followed the JGR team with
serious interest and just to see that kid, he works really hard at his racing and to
pick up his first win was awesome.
But then to follow it up was Kai Allen.
So not to get the ties in the cars confused, but Kai Allen, again, first time winner, fantastic
just to see the reaction, having the family there.
You know, this is the combination of a lifetime's dreams for these young blokes and for them
to just see what it means to both of them.
Just to watch their celebrations, both unique and different in their own respects and to
thank the various people that have helped them.
That is what it's all about.
And you'll never forget your first win and I was stoked to say it.
There's a nice irony to the way that it unfolded last Friday in that race.
So Kai wins, Brody Kosteckis on his hammer trying to beat him.
Here's them in 2021 at the Norwell Motorplex in Queensland.
Kai's got those race boots, sneaker things going here.
Bush is a well, he's just main game with Erebus full time by that stage.
Kai's learning the ropes.
How is it that it all turns out that he beats Brody to win his first race?
Yeah, it's crazy.
I found the original sort of article about this, which was about Brody mentoring Kai,
which is interesting because Brody is only a first time in the main game at that point.
So it's interesting to be taking on mentoring roles at that point.
But look how fresh face Kai is.
Looks like he's barely old enough to drive a road car at that point.
He hasn't changed very much, to be honest.
No, and yeah, he's an exceptional talent.
I remember watching him in potentially Super 3 and Garth Tannac commentating
one of the racers saying at one of the go-kart awards nights,
just about war at the carpet going up to the stage to get all these awards.
So fantastic for him and his whole family.
You know, they committed a hell of a lot of time and effort
and no doubt some financial resources have gone in to get into him to where he's got to.
And he picked up his first win.
So it's awesome.
And I've got a feeling that he's going to get another one not too far away
because he just kept finding the podium.
He was literally wearing out the podium like he did the cup at that night for the carding.
So, Kai Gibbs, Kai Allen, your Castrol performers of the week.
So Fortnite, let's call it Fortnite.
I've got the great man, Ryan Wood.
So they are our Castrol performers of the week.
Big thanks to Castrol for their ongoing back in here on the undercut.
It's time on the show, though, for the burning questions.
So time, Jack, for the burning questions.
I've got a few.
Actually, I've got a lot.
Chas Moster, Brody Kostecki, Sunday race.
Was that a statement by Chas what unfolded in those closing couple of laps?
Well, it's hard to say whether it's a statement or just a bit of blowing off some steam
from frustration, to be honest with you.
I think Chas had had a terrible weekend at Red Cross.
He was quite competitive at Taupo, by comparison, but really struggled with his car and getting
the speed and getting the kind of performance of what he was getting his teammate.
And I think by the end of the weekend, when he got himself into a reasonable position,
yeah, I think, you know, one little interaction with Brody just sent him off the rectus scale
and he decided to give him something back and more.
Not sure.
And, you know, you've seen from the post-race conversations.
I don't think he meant for what happened to happen.
But certainly it comes from frustration, mate.
You know, I think he's just wants to be the number.
He's got the number one in his car and he's currently the number two in the team.
So he's frustrated.
You make silly decisions in that situation.
And I think if he had his time over again, he wouldn't do it.
But what it is, is it's good for the sport.
Totally.
And I was going to say that the move from Brody came from the fact that once Ryan
would dropped out, the trophies on the line, the Jason Richards Memorial trophies on the line.
And I think at an angle that hasn't been really explored in all of this,
that occurred to me the other day.
I, Chas obviously is not trying to win the trophy at the time.
Brody's trying to win it.
Brock's trying to win it.
They're the blokes in play at the time.
These guys didn't race against.
They weren't contemporaries of Jason Richards, but they were prepared to go to battle
to the lengths that Brody did with that move at turn two, which were very, very forceful
to win that trophy.
That trophy means something because otherwise he doesn't launch that move
or he doesn't play it as hard.
I couldn't help but feel thrilled.
And I'm not picking Brody or Chas or whatever happened after that.
But the fact that they were prepared or he was prepared to go to that length
to win that trophy, to put that move at that time of the race.
I reckon race and Jason was a racer and he would have launched a move like that for sure
and would have been pretty stoked to see how that all went down.
But I kind of loved that about it.
Now, parked that to the side.
Chas clearly felt aggrieved at the pass that was put on him.
So he stood up for himself and fed one back, but then it sort of had the two
and three hits that fired them off and sent them there.
So is that a statement though that next time that Brody and Chas are on track
that some guys are intimidated by Brody?
Let's face it, they are.
And if they say they aren't, they're lying.
But is that a statement from Chas to say, hey, I will not take anything from this bloke.
So when the finals come around or a bath is wins on the line or anything else
that matters, I'll give as good as I get.
It could be.
And I think we covered a bit of this off in our previous undercut
where we spoke about the drivers finding the limitations of the driving standards,
you know, to set themselves up for that final series.
Because like you say, a move like that could win or lose you the championship
in the last race of the year, you know, and I think I think you're probably
you are right in some respects.
I think Chas is just saying, hey, I'm not here to be stuffed around with.
I'm a hard racer too, Brody.
And just remember, I put you in not in the fence because he ended up in the grass.
Well, in the park.
I put you off the track.
So maybe think about next time you go and pass me or use my bumper.
Maybe you'll do something different.
So I don't mind it.
I think it's good to that at this stage of the championship for Chas.
OK, 30 second penalty, dumps him down the order.
But what it does for the bigger picture, he doesn't lose the championship
because of that race.
I mean, we saw last year, he did not finish at Bathurst and still won the championship.
So coughing up some points at, you know, round four of the championship,
the final race is not going to be the end of the world in terms of the championship.
But I think it sends a bigger sort of statement to the whole situation.
The other thing that I wanted to unpack a little bit from this,
and it's an interesting one that's going to unfold here.
So Brody was very measured when they asked him for his comments after.
And I get it too, because how often does a driver in the heat of a moment
straight after something like that's happened, say something that they go,
probably shouldn't have said that bit too much.
So he was quite reserved.
But I in the in the modern media world that we're in now, I thought,
you know what, I bet you we hear more on the podcast during the week
on Lucky Dogs and and I love that drivers are doing their own content,
more pods, video content, whatever it might be in social land.
But I think that there's an interesting discussion that will follow down the track.
I'm not saying right here and I'm not picking that Brody,
but it's it's an example of you've got D'Zone, Fox, who are paying millions
every year somewhere down the track.
They're going to ask the question of supercars to go, hey,
we appreciate that the drivers have got their voice and their place to put out
their stuff. It's great.
But we're paying all this bunny.
We need a bit of that stuff on our while the broadcast is on
and not have it all be sort of saved up and then and used somewhere else.
Great that it fuels the sport in between the rounds.
Absolutely, I'm all for that.
But I could see that somewhere down the track, if that was to keep going on
potentially, potentially that might become a scenario where there's a bit of a
hey, look, can we move the ledger a little bit the other way?
Yeah, I think you see a little bit of this in NASCAR with Denny Hamlin
and a couple of the other drivers that get involved in podcasts.
But I think, you know, you don't want to be waiting for a podcast
for a driver's reaction.
You know, that's what live live sport, live TV is about what happens there
and then. So I hope that it doesn't become like that where drivers don't say
anything and then wait for their own time to sort of confess or talk about it
or give us something.
Just don't have to give us everything.
Save a bit up for the more considered couple of days after.
Just give us something a bit more in the immediate after.
Because at the time, DJI clamped down.
No one was going to speak in the aftermath of that, which I think is not the right.
No, I get that it's an emotionally sensitive moment.
People could say and do the wrong things.
But in that situation, they need to be able to offer and credit to Brodie
for coming out and having the chat with the guys in the lane,
because it would have been really easy to go now.
We're not doing anything because there's nothing that says that they have to.
But credit to Brodie for coming out and at least saying and having a chat.
But what he gave wasn't a great deal, and I understand why.
But I think it's just something it's not a raging burning topic issue.
OK, so it's this is not really a burning question in the burning questions,
but it's something that it's just something it could be down the track
to keep an eye on and to try to get the right balance.
That's all I'm saying is to try to get that balance between, hey,
the people who are spending millions of dollars who flow this thing through
supercars that pay the teams that pay the drivers going to want a bit more
than what they perhaps got in that aftermath.
So.
Is the Wood and Feeney war over?
I'm going to say no.
I think I think Brock's very hurt by last year still still.
And I don't mind that.
I don't mind that.
So would you call us more a ceasefire?
I mean, possibly, but I think.
And the Brock's every right to to have have the SHIT is about it all
because, you know, he feels robbed of a championship.
Now, we all know there was an engine issue with the car at Adelaide for Brock
Feeney. Ultimately, that's what cost him the championship.
But I think he just he's going to die.
I think he probably not prepared to bury that hatchet maybe until he wins a championship.
But, you know, I did listen to Greg Murphy on on one of the TV programs
he was doing in the lead up to one of the races there where he said
that situation needed to be handled better post Adelaide.
You know, the fact that it's flowed on this by everyone.
Yeah, I think he was sort of suggesting that maybe him representing
Ryan Wood could have addressed it immediately with with the Feeney camp.
But why can't the blokes themselves sort that out?
They're big boys. Yeah, correct.
So I just don't think the war's over.
But and I don't mind that, mate.
We spoke about this again last year because we're all starving for these rivalries.
So have at it.
Every time now we see Brock and Woody on the track together.
We think, hey, hey, loves are off here.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think that those two will forever race
themselves differently to how they would potentially race Matt Payne
or Anthony Pasquale, because there is a bit of rivalry there
on the basis of what happened at Adelaide last year.
And it's real. It's organic.
And it comes because of the finals format at the core.
If you wind it all the way back to where did this thing?
How did it start?
It starts because of the finals.
Hundred percent. Without the finals, it doesn't happen.
The way that Adelaide unfolded, the way that the engine drama,
the contact on the first lap, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It doesn't get there. It doesn't happen.
But we've also got this situation where the whole sport wants rivalries.
Oh, there's not the rivalries. We don't have them like these two.
We have got a great organic one here with two young guys, Ozzy and Kiwi,
Ford and Toyota, Triple Eight and Walcons shores.
It allows really well.
And then you see so many people online say, oh, but the media is fueling all of this.
This is terrible.
These are the same people who want a rivalry.
And the teams are a bit that way, too.
They want the rivalries, but once their blokes are in it, oh, hang on a minute.
We can't have this. This is all too much.
So you can't have your cake and eat it.
But Kudos to Brock Feeney.
He chose to go down the path in the aftermath of that race
when he's got the trophy and the other bloat doesn't have the trophy.
He could have gone on with it.
He could have absolutely sunk the boot in.
He could have kept, you know, he's feeling from last year
and let them flow through what he was feeling at the time.
But he picked the high road.
And I thought it was really classy of the way that he
he empathised with Ryan because he knows that feeling of being that close to having the trophy
and then not having the trophy.
He could identify with it.
He knows how much it stings.
And instead of sinking the boot in, he didn't.
I thought it was classy.
Yeah. And I haven't had a lot to do with Brock personally.
I've been able to interview him from the TV side many times
and spoken to him a little bit more this year
because I'm involved with the same team.
But one thing I'll say about Brock Feeney, he's a professional.
Yeah.
And he always has been before and after the Rhymewood incident at Adelaide last year.
He's always been very good with the media, very well spoken,
very polite and grateful of where he's got to in his professional life.
And he will be a future role model or drivers in the future.
Do you reckon, Jack, that there's a bit of Jamie Wing,
a lot of Jamie Wing cup in Brock Feeney, and that the fan base kind of used Brock as Jamie
because he replaced him and he's very similar traits in a way?
He does.
Yeah.
It's funny because he's kind of morphed into a bit of a Jamie.
Just with a better beard than Jamie could ever grow.
True.
But I guess it's just that single-minded focus on going car racing and being very successful
and kind of not being involved in too much riffraff on the outside of anything.
Not really, not that it's no personality, but just not engaging too much out of the
business of trying to win a car race.
And that becomes an issue for someone like Jamie because you win so many races and then
you become the villain because you want everything.
And then if it was stuff, you're a victim of your own success.
I can kind of see that potentially Brock could end up in a similar situation.
Now, that's not putting those blokes down.
They're very successful.
It's how they've decided to do the job.
Yeah, totally.
So I will reiterate that Brock is a very professional motor racing driver.
And I think he's obviously got a bright future ahead of him.
But I think he's one of the guys that people right now, if you just need to circle a professional,
that's him in every aspect, politely spoken, well-dressed, well-mannered, all that sort of stuff.
He's a pro.
Yep.
100%.
Tuxi shirt in all that sort of jazz.
Savry Penske, the way you said all that.
My next burning question kind of links to this.
There's been a bit of chat.
There's Barry Ryan made the comment about Chevy teams not having any A-grade drivers.
So my question, Jack, who are the A-grade drivers of supercars?
I've got a list and I'm interested to see if you agree.
Shoot, give me yours.
Well, I would first of all start by saying, well, I will say that I agree with what Barry said.
And we touched on this.
We talked about this.
I butchered that stat that we had come up with in the last show, but in effect,
the Chevy side doesn't have a lot of Gen 3 race winning drivers, fact.
Or before Gen 3 either.
Correct.
And before, exactly right.
Sorry, yeah, I'm butchering the stat again.
But ultimately, what Barry said is just 100% factual.
You can't kind of hide behind it, but it does sort of beg to ask the question,
what is an A-grader?
For me, mate, are we listing them?
Is that what we're doing here?
Yeah, yeah, I'll get your list down.
I've got Brock as an A-grader.
Absolutely.
He's never been out of a Triple 8 car.
Correct.
But the aim of the game is to be in the best car for all of your career or as much of it as you can.
He's A, absolutely.
Brody Kastegi.
Yep, 100% BKs in my list as well.
And I must say, this is not in any particular order.
No, no, just, yeah, I just went through the entry list.
Matt Paine.
Absolutely.
Cam Waters.
Absolutely.
Rhyme Wood.
Absolutely.
Kylan.
I've got him as an A-elect.
Okay, an A-elect.
I don't have him A there.
Okay, but yeah, he's an A.
Of anyone else who's not in my A's, he's the next one in the list.
Chas Mostert.
Yep.
Will Brown.
Yep.
I've got two that I would say are A-minus,
which is maybe similar to your elect, although they're more veterans.
One is Anton and David Reynolds.
Okay, David Reynolds off the back of his history.
Yes, and not off the back of current form.
Sure.
What, who have you got?
I agree with all of the A's that you listed, and I had Kai Allen as an A-elect.
He'll be in that group pretty soon if he's not already.
We're on the same page.
Yeah, and that's no disrespect to any other driver.
That's on who are the guys who are going to control the driver market for the next 5, 6, 7, 8 years?
That if one moves, or if Matt Paine's going to leave Groves, or if Cam Waters ever left Tickford,
or if Red Bull dispensed one of their drivers for whatever reason,
who are they looking for to change that up to fill holes?
And it'll be from that group.
And further to Barry's point, mate, they're basically all four drivers.
There's two Toyota guys and potentially one Chev driver.
Yep.
So Barry's point is further reiterated by our conversation.
It is.
It really is.
And there's guys who are bees and seas.
Guys who are seas who could become bees.
There's guys who are bees who probably won't become a's because of where they're driving.
And another way of looking at this, mate, not to bore you with some detail, but I'm still in a group
text message with a bunch of people that I work with at Paul Morris Motorsports back in 2010.
That is an old list of people, yeah.
Every year.
A couple of them in America, a couple of different teams now.
But every year we come up with our Bathurst top 10 shootout predictions.
Of who's going to get in?
The top 10 that are going to get in from Qualifying,
and to what we would call Jarrod Ruffys.
Jarrod Ruffys, there's a hook, man, I like that.
So do you have to list in order?
No.
When do you have to choose?
Before Qualifying.
Okay, so you've got a better time.
Thursday of Bathurst, we're all on this group chat, punch and car numbers in.
And I list those there.
They're all in my Bathurst shootout.
All of us, right?
And then my Ruffys are David Reynolds.
Anton's probably going to rise to the occasion and whack it in the shootout at Bathurst,
but it's a great measure because for me, you can kind of eliminate a bit of parody and a bit of form.
And the Bathurst shootout is typically the fastest 10 guys in that session.
So it's a great way to measure it.
And I think, yeah, I mean, Will Brown did miss out on the shootout last year,
and I've probably missed someone that did make it in.
Cooper Murray is a great example.
But if you go with that group of drivers, you'll get more of them than you want.
Exactly right.
And it's a good measure.
Yeah, it's a good measure.
I like it, I like it.
OK, so we've decided who are the A's and the B's and so on.
Something that came out on the weekend was the Jason Richards trophy.
There was kind of this, hang on a minute, we've got an equal point situation going into the last few laps.
Where's the rule?
But there's no rule.
There's no actual Jason Richards trophy.
If this happens, this happens.
So it actually got to the point where the stewards were tapped to go,
hey, what do you think about all this?
And it was kind of revolved that whoever got the best result in the last race
was going to break the tiebreaker, which we didn't need it in the end
because of the Brody and Chas situation.
But something that needs to be just something that caught them on the hop there,
that yes, there's rules in place for Enduro Cup and Sprint Cup.
And what happens if with this and that and that, any trophy or other reward,
just got to sit down at some point soon and go, right, right a rule.
Let's not get in that situation again.
And there's not a lot of the trophies in our game.
There's a handful of them between trophies and medals that get presented
at the end of your Gala.
Obviously, the Peter Brock trophy, the Larry Perkins trophy, the JR trophy.
And then there's the Jim Richards medal, Barry Sheen medal.
So there's not like we've got one for every race.
But we can't be in a situation again where there's confusion
and the teams didn't know and there was clearly stuff going on in the TV commentary
and race control and stewards.
And they got there in the end and it wasn't affected.
But let's not get in that situation again.
Let's just sit down and go, hang on.
Let's just look at all the things we've got coming up
and make sure that there's something in place if we have to.
So the interesting one for me there, Noons, was I didn't realize that potentially
if we look back at the championship, as it used to be before the final series,
it wouldn't be a count back of who was the highest place in the last race.
It was who won the most races, most seconds, most thirds,
before you could break the deadlock.
So it's how the polar wards worked over the years too.
Yeah. So in the example of the JR trophy on the weekend, Brody Kostecki had two wins
and Brock had none, but Brock, by being virtually finishing higher than Brody,
would have got the trophy.
So that's a whole new series of questions over who actually should win the trophy in merit.
Well, let's just make sure there's a rule.
We don't have to have that question ever again.
That's a good point.
In the end, it didn't quite matter, but we managed to get there.
But I think it's a classic case of, let's just tidy all that stuff up.
No one's fault.
Just fell through the cracks.
And the likelihood of those situations happening is small, but there is a likelihood.
And that's the human element of anything we do in life, isn't it?
Yeah, totally.
But what I will say, two things.
Great to see Jason Richards' parents awarding the trophy there again.
Dave, his dad was there.
He went for a ride in the Team Kiwi car, Jason's old car.
Those who remember Jason, his dad always did his tyres for him,
no matter what team he was a popular figure in the paddock.
I think he missed maybe one or two rounds in JRs in tyre supercar career across,
or was it Team Kiwi, Team Dynamic, Tasman and BJR.
So, I mean, plus all the non-champ rounds, the main game rounds, Dave was there.
Yep.
And I remember giving Jason a bit of stick one time because he was essentially going to do a deal.
I think it was with FPR or Tickford, whatever they were called that week.
And the sticking point was his dad's coming to do the tyres,
and I used to stare him up about that.
But great family and great to see them there.
And I guess then the other thing I did want to quickly mention is,
because it was over two weekends, we used to have the Mark Porter trophy in Hamilton.
Is it something that maybe needs to be split across if there's future multiple races in New Zealand?
Do we look at honoring more than just one person?
The JR trophy is for one of the events.
And maybe we could bring back the Mark Porter trophy for another one,
or pay tribute to Denny Holm or other guys that have been notorious with New Zealand motorsport.
I do like the situation that we have where to race for a trophy at a particular round,
it might help make some of those smaller rounds mean a little bit more.
There are so many legends of the sport who have contributed to the championship success.
In its Australian touring car, era, early V8 supercars, I think it's great.
It's got to be apt and appropriate.
So Larry Perkins' trophy at the Grand Prix, the fusion of his V8 racing history in F1.
Makes sense.
Makes total sense.
Brock Trophy, enough said.
There's probably a few other stars that you could sit there and go,
hey, you know what, there should be a trophy in honor of this guy,
and it probably suits to be at this place.
The Mark Porter trophy was awarded in Hamilton because he was from the Waikato region.
And obviously he passed away, Bathurst in 06.
Hamilton came on the calendar in 08.
So it was a logical, nice tie up.
A beautiful, carved, huge trophy.
I remember seeing Mark's wife, 80, present Garth Hannah with that the first time.
And it was like the biggest, huge trophy you've ever seen.
It's a beautiful sculpture, if you haven't seen it, jump online and have a look at it.
But it would be a nice way to see if that could be maybe brought back in some way, shape or form.
And when I think about it, he spent more time in the Super 2 series
than sort of, he was a co-driver in the main game for a couple of years there
and would have been for some years after that.
Maybe it's something that's Super 2 to reintegrate into the Super Cars family.
So next burning question, let's get into it.
New Zealand, is Rua Puna good enough for Super Cars?
Jack, yes or no?
Yes.
Why?
Because they raced there.
That was a quick topic.
So you're okay with the fact that the pit lane wasn't big enough for pit stops.
You're okay with the car ports.
You're okay with it, sort of felt like an 80s or 90s round.
And by the way, I've got a list here that people have sent in and the things that I've seen said.
You're okay with the fact that there's not more rounds in Australia.
You're okay with it, that it's not at Highlands, that the traffic was no good,
that the pit exit placement is ordinary, that the internet was no good.
There was earthfield tyre walls that...
I'll tell you why I'm good with it, Nunes.
Because none of it affected me watching at home.
And the saying have track, we'll race.
And I raced down there in the Super Series.
I'll say you drove there, didn't you?
Yes, so that was back in 2012 with Greg Murphy.
And I'm just a big fan.
If we've got tracks, let's race them.
Now I know...
It didn't really hurt anyone the pit stops.
No, and I think even the fans, it was a sell out from what they were saying on the TV,
which is fantastic.
They've been crying out in the South Island for a race for a long time.
People that were parked up on the side of the track watching,
they didn't know that the garages in Pit Lane weren't good enough.
They didn't know that there was a few issues there.
Look, I'm sure a lot of that could get fixed over time.
A bit of money now, they can see what happens.
But they raced.
If there was something that stopped them racing,
you know, if there was a sinkhole in the middle of the track,
different story, but they had a will and they had a way.
So I have no problem.
They find a way in New Zealand, don't they?
In Australia, we kind of have a why we can't in New Zealand.
They have a why can't we?
But I do, and I've always said this,
we have tracks that we could be racing in Australia.
Winton, Malala, one raceway.
Now, they've all copped a beating over time
that their facilities aren't good enough.
Who cares?
Put the cars on the track and let the drivers race.
Everything else is insignificant.
And I hope that, like you've touched on,
I hope that a New Zealand second event doesn't come at the detriment
of a country Victorian race or a country New South Wales race.
But it will because of the money.
So clearly there's funding from New Zealand to pay for this.
There's not around in Winton
because there's not government money
to help the regional side of the situation.
So I think that that's the next focus.
We've got to get around back at Winton.
Phillip Island is a stretch too far,
but Winton is the logical.
I love that Rua Puna in the fact that it's an old school race track
that they just found a way to make it happen.
I felt a little bit disconnected from the broadcast
just because of the nature of the track
because it's got a very infield focus
that you can't go out and put the cameras in the middle of the track
kind of like you can.
Yeah, you're back a bit.
Yeah, you were sort of back a bit from it.
But as a trackside viewer, great
because you can see pretty much everything that's going on.
They're like Queensland Raceway.
Yeah, yeah, correct, correct.
But it's not as infield as there's not as much going on in the middle,
which as a TV broadcast, and that was just how I sort of felt watching it.
But plus, because I haven't watched many Rua Puna races in the past
to be able to know exactly where that corner goes
and where they are there and what that all means.
So, but I think if you're going to go to New Zealand,
do one round, you've got to do two.
Even if it costs you some more money
to keep everyone over there for a week, there's two islands.
Okay, that the populations aren't as huge
as some of the populations here, but they went.
They voted with their feet.
The big challenge, Jack, is to have them continue to vote with their feet
and not have people after two or three years go
kind of been there and kind of seen it.
We're done.
Well, I think we spoke about this as well.
I think there was concerns that more people were going to go
to the second event at Rua Puna because it was the first time there
and potentially the ticket sales at Taupo for the first one weren't as strong
because if one family had a decision to go to one or the other,
they're like, well, we went to Taupo last year,
so let's go to the new one.
So then you think, well, hopefully next year,
that family or those people have go to both or go to one
or hopefully not choose to not go to any of them
because they've already been there, seen that done,
they've got the t-shirt type deal.
I think the Kiwis are so passionate about their racing.
There's Kiwis who are competitive in running at the front.
Pain, wood, Heimgartens still in there as well.
I think they're going to be good there for some time to come,
but you do get that fatigue at events.
And we've seen it in Townsville,
where the first three, four, five years are booming and great.
And after a while, the casual viewer falls away.
It's left to the hard cause.
Things can be a little bit tricky.
Things can be a bit tricky.
Hey, speaking of tricky,
can you tell me where has qualifying cam orders gone?
Because he's missing at the moment.
We need to find him.
I'm not sure if he's on the table here,
if he's around the corner of the door,
but have a look at these numbers.
He is on, at the moment, this is his worst qualifying year
for both rank in the field
and actual average qualifying grid position since 2018.
Look at his amazing performance in those years between.
He's been ranked second, fourth, and fifth in one of those years.
His quality averages have been so strong, but right now,
but the thing is with all this,
he's still fourth in the championship.
Yeah, it's crazy looking at those stats.
I mean, I knew cam orders was really good at qualifying,
but I didn't realize it was that good in the middle there,
especially when you think about,
he was against McLaughlin and Van Gisburg
and in that period who were supreme, especially McLaughlin.
So for cam, to be 10th at the moment in a qualifying rank
with an average qualifying of 10th,
I don't think it's because he's forgotten how to qualify, mate.
I really don't.
They're missing something with the setup of the car.
Is it that he doesn't have a teammate that's pushing him along
with all due respect to Tom Randall?
He doesn't look like getting pole position either.
It doesn't look like winning races.
At least behind cam.
So do they need a...
He's ranked 12th at last count.
Is it an engineering thing?
Is it a car setup?
Is it something as simple as needing a new challenge with a teammate?
I don't know, but I know that cam orders is pretty highly rated
and I have a lot of time for him and his ability to drive a race car.
He's going to get a new chassis very soon.
I think for the next round is the plan for Tassie,
but he's been driving the old wildcard chassis
that Austin Sindrich drove in Adelaide last year.
So maybe some fresh metal helps change things there.
We'll see.
He's fourth in the championship.
He's finished third a couple of times,
but outside of Topol race one,
all those finishes he's had inside the 10.
So he's not on the podium regularly,
but he's not finishing 20th and 18th and DNFing
and having a crashed car.
He's staying in the game.
And one of the things that was talked about a lot
in the broadcast on the weekend
was about how he's qualifying averages,
not as good as it has been,
but he's racing well in his race performances
and average as such and the positions that he's making up.
But you know this better than anybody.
You can't make up many positions when you start at the front.
If you start at the back or in the middle,
you can make up more ground.
So we sort of flipped it around
and we got Shane Rogers at V8 Sleuth too.
He's dubbed this the race performance rankings.
And this is more a question of 100 score
is the best you could have done in that race
from where he started.
And a zero means the worst you could have gone in that race.
And when he's averaged it all out off that basis,
Campbell is his number one for the season, 76.6.
Feeney second, Kostecki third, LaBroc fourth.
LaBroc's had a pretty good year,
all things considered with where some of those performances have gone.
But I think that's a better indication
of explaining the Cam Waters situation.
But now which way does the graph go?
And it's a great thing that he's put together here Shane
because it does kind of factor in
more than just your position in qualifying.
Like I said, if you qualify on pole and you win the race,
it doesn't really, it doesn't give you much and equally
if you qualify last and finish last.
But the Waters situation kind of reminds me of Wilbur and last year.
You know, where they haven't qualified well,
but they've been able to get strong race results.
But the difference was he was getting smashed by his teammate.
Cam is still beating Thomas Randall.
Correct.
But if it'd be interesting to apply this to last year
of Wilbur and versus Feeney because,
you know, is that performance game in the racing
from a poor qualifying position kind of matching
or getting close to the winning all the rest?
Because as you can see here, Waters on that data set
is ranked above Feeney who's leading the championship.
So it shows that he is doing a mighty job in the races.
Equally, if you look down the back of this list
in the very bottom is Aaron Cameron.
And that's no surprise because he's been qualifying well
and racing poorly.
Yeah, results haven't followed.
And talking about Wil Brown, he's only five or six off the bottom,
which is a surprise to me.
That's the big one.
He's six off the bottom.
The bottom is Cameron Wall, Stewart Bates, Murray,
Brown, Randall just above him.
Yeah.
So in terms of where he's...
That's not playing into his friends.
No, no, no, definitely not, definitely not.
So that shows he's not having good qualifying,
but equally not having good racing this year
by virtue of last year where he was having
poor qualifying, good race results.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Next one.
Is that parody trigger going to continue to keep going off?
So we saw it go off.
It's a rolling, you know, it goes off every six races,
which I find a little strange, actually,
because that could occur in the middle of a round.
Yeah.
The six race thing.
So supercars retain the right to repeal a parody tweak
or to do more or do less or do nothing.
So I wanted to ask you as a driver though,
we're talking about these little changes in balance.
As a driver, how can you feel these?
What do they do?
How do you get used to them?
Particularly if you haven't had the chance
to go and test what it feels like until
a first practice session and around.
Well, the best way to try and explain it,
and I think I've seen Larco do something similar
is talking about sumo wrestlers sitting on the bonnet
in the boot, right?
So to give you some round numbers,
let's just say that the kind of the downforce,
if you like, is 100 kilos front and rear.
So your balance shifting is just arguably
moving that weight around.
So you might go from having 100 on each axle,
let's say, so front and rear to going 95 on the front
and 105 on the back.
Now, a good driver might feel that,
but there's probably enough variance between
driver's body weights, cross weight distribution,
team preparing cars, fuel levels.
Is it going to make a massive difference?
Look, one, two, three percent, I would say,
there'd be more error in the mechanics and the technicians
setting up the cars wrong sometimes,
by putting the wrong gadget upside down, whatever.
But there certainly is obviously an element of parity
that has to be considered.
What I hope we don't see is, what's the right word here,
Noon, it's not foul play, but you don't want anyone
to be trying to work the parity system to their advantage
for the back end of the season.
I see where you're going, i.e. the enduro's in the final.
Correct.
Now, I'm not suggesting that's happening,
but because there's quite a variation in the cars
on the grid of each manufacturer,
it's going to be challenging because there's more data
for the forwards, more data arguably with the chefs
than the Toyota's.
So if there was a bigger quantity of Toyota's,
what would that do to their parity trigger?
You've got Ryan Wood winning the race,
and with respect to Macaulay Jones and Cameron Hill,
who aren't winning the races, that's a big offset.
And that's the same argument with the chefs though,
in the quality of the teams.
There's some rookie drivers in there learning their way,
just in the championship full stop,
let alone race to race and round to round.
So I guess my point there is I want to make sure
that that parity trigger is kind of accurate to the racing.
It might be accurate to the stopwatch and the letter of the rule,
but how that's applied to who grabs the trophy,
just make sure what's happening there is kind of right,
if you know what I mean.
But the beauty of it is just because a parity trigger
goes off for a certain car,
doesn't mean they will do anything about it,
or have to do anything about it.
So that's an important part.
It's got to be proven and backed up.
It's not just, they've got that lap time calculation,
but as you know now, they've got a hell of a lot of more data
from the wind tunnels and all the testing they've done
and the engine data and everything.
But I guess just quickly to further to your question
about the balance shift, and I heard Barry Ryan speak about it.
They're set up from last year, aren't working.
So if you look at that, me talking about 100 kilos,
if it's a bigger shift and you've got 150 kilos now on the front
and you've only got 50 kilos in the back,
the performance of the car will be different.
It's going to have less re-grip.
Then you've got to mechanically try and adjust that
to get the drivers confident to race these cars into the corners.
And as soon as the drivers then lose their confidence and feel
and you get out of that window,
it's like skipping on a tightrope.
You change shoes, you're going to feel a difference
in what's under your feet.
So it shouldn't be taken lightly,
but it needs to also be understood that 1% is like talking hairs.
Sometimes it might not make a difference.
Yeah.
Did we inspect Toyota to win so quickly?
I mean, they've gone and won in the third round of the championship.
I think I had them penciled in at the start of the year
for two race wins.
They're halfway there and we're not halfway through the championship.
Well, there's a funny story, Nunes.
I think when they launched that Toyota last year
and they had a few of the drivers present,
I think when they pulled the covers off
and got to see the body shape, Brody Kesteki walked up to Chasmos
to shook his hands.
So congratulations on winning the 2026 Supercars Championship Series
by virtue of how it looked.
Now I would back up that it looks like a hell of a race car.
It's, you know, and we liken this again maybe to the Volvo.
When it came out, you could tell it was a smaller car.
It had a massive rear wing on it, big end plates,
but the quarter panels were half the size of a Commodore
or a Ford Falcon at the time.
It looks a lot different to the Camaro and the Mustang.
I'm not saying looks are a difference,
but to me, it looked like a car that was going to be competitive.
The biggest question mark for me and has been
with any of these new manufacturers has been the engine.
How's the engine going to perform?
We've seen over time, Nissan was probably a downfall
in their engine department.
Volvo's engine was fantastic,
and that was coupled with the good body and aero.
So I'm not surprised to see Toyota win straight away
and be competitive.
But the sport needed them to be instantly competitive.
They did.
The sport could not afford to introduce another manufacturer
and leave them to wallow for a year or two,
desperately trying to win a race.
But what I will also say, without Rimewood,
the best Toyota is 11th in the championship.
So there's a Rimewood factor in Toyota's performance.
People say, hang on, Chas did finish second or third.
It was third, sorry, when at Taupo behind Woody in that race
when he won the first race for Toyota.
So there's a wood factor.
But then equally, there's some engine unreliability going on.
We've seen Cameron Hill's car parked up.
We saw Heimgartner's throw a rod out of bed at Sydney.
We saw Rimewood lose the JR trophy because the engine's gone amiss.
So engine performance is one thing.
Engine reliability is another.
So at that moment, they've got performance by the look of it.
Reliability, they need to get on top of that.
And the only way you get on top of that is by racing.
It's called mileage.
And they need to make sure those engines are going to do
1,000 kilometers come October,
because if they're failing components at 950 km an hour, 950 kilometers.
That's a very fast speed for it to fail at.
Sorry, that's a bad typo from my mouth.
But yeah, and that's where the business has always had to have
engines that will do in excess of 2,000 kilometers
because you've got to do bathers twice.
So watch that space.
Watch that space indeed.
We want to pay tribute on the undercut this week to two people
who have departed in recent times.
And I wanted to focus in on Terry Sawyer,
who Jaco was a superstar at Bob Jane's Calder Park Thunderdome.
She passed away recently after a four-year battle with cancer.
She was only 57.
But she won the very first Oscar race held on the Dome in 88.
And then she won in NASCAR a couple of years later
and became the first female driver in the world
to win at that level of NASCAR.
Her story is one that needs to be told one day
because I feel like she doesn't get the flowers that she deserves
for the impact that she had.
Yeah, and it's not until you start to read a few of the tributes
and that and realize that what she did for the sport in a way.
You know, I was a bit young in that early Thunderdome stuff,
but I remember there was a Thunderdome magazine.
It was.
And I remember having many copies of that
and seeing Terry Sawyer in that magazine.
And, you know, there was not many other female drivers
in motorsport at that period of time.
And I first was aware of Terry's passing
as Melinda Price shared something on her Facebook page.
And I decided to have a look through the comments.
And then you've got people like Graham Ritter
and John Davison commenting
because they're familiar with her exploits
and what she was capable of doing in a race car.
I was too young to pass comment,
but the word trailblazer is very true.
And, you know, it made me ask the question.
I wonder why she may or may not have been
considered for the Castro-Cougars program.
Yeah, well, she very much left the sport
and kind of moved on by the mid 90s.
She drove with Murray Carter in a pulse out.
Sand down 501 year.
And that's about the last time
that I really can see her doing it.
Which is 94. 94, 94.
So we pay tribute to her and our condolences to her family.
She also still holds a record
in the Supercars Australian Touring Car Championship Records.
We spoke of Toyota.
They ran a star search program in 1989.
Their second Corolla at every round
had a different driver in it.
And they picked two of them to drive together at Bathurst.
Michael Douse and the Superbike Rider and Neil Bates,
the rally star, the guys who got put together
in the car for Bathurst.
Terry did the round in Tasmania.
And she is still in the record books
as the youngest female driver
to ever compete in the Australian Touring Car
and Supercars Championship.
So that's a record that's been standing since 1989.
So I don't see that one changing anytime soon.
And while we talk about those who've departed O seat
and Barry seat and 65 Armstrong 500 winner at Bathurst,
long time part of the Australian motor racing community,
both as a race driver, car preparer, engine builder,
very quietly spoken, as indeed all the seatants.
But he was 89, made 22 Bathurst Great Race starts.
We've lost and losing the guys that paved the way
for everybody who's followed.
Yeah, we are.
And I personally don't have interactions with Bo,
but obviously no, both Glenn and Aaron
and condolences to the family.
But I guess my memories are on the other side of the fence
from 95 Bathurst when they had a big campaign
for Glenn to win the race and his dad's car.
It was that winning.
The winning Cortina.
Yeah, the winning Cortina.
It was 30 years since Barry had won,
which was 30 years since Glenn was born.
It was car number 30 was the end of the cigarette sponsorship.
And the promoters of the time of the race put up the deal.
If Glenn seat and wins Bathurst finally,
he gets a $30,000 bonus or he gets to choose the Cortina.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember that.
And at the time he would have picked the money
because the cigarette money was about to end
and he needed the cash.
But the Cortina would have been worth more.
And then as you know, dad went on to win the race
because Glenn's engine failed.
And Bo was the builder of the engines.
And just the highlights of Bo with his hand in his head,
just memories I remember as a kid.
And obviously, like he's touched on a contributor
to Australian Motorsport and sad for the family.
But thank you, Bo, for your contributions
and helping enjoy what we get to enjoy today.
Yeah, absolutely paved the way.
Time around the undercut to dive into the archives now.
Let's go back to the 1970s.
Here's a bit of Colin Bond, Tarana Raleigh car.
This is how TV commercials used to be.
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All right, undercutters.
It's time to do some number crunching.
Jack Simmons Plains, first race.
The next round is the 100th Gen 3 race
since the introduction of the rule era in 2023.
So let's take a look at some numbers
of how it's all unfolded, of who's done what.
Winds by driver has to be kind of where we start.
And no surprise here.
Brock Feeney's the man on top, 28 wins.
Lots of those coming last year,
but he is headed in shoulders above the opposition there.
Brodie Kosteke, Will Brown, Cam Waters.
Who's going to move up that list?
Clearly, Shaman Gisburg and he's not going to move up that list,
but Ryan Woods probably going to emerge from that deadlock of eight
to start to move his way up.
Yeah, it's an interesting start actually,
because obviously, Brock's dominance we knew last year,
predominantly won the portion of the races.
But you look at Brodie Kosteke there,
he missed eight of those races in 2024
when he was off on the sabbatical.
So potentially, if he won four or five of those eight races he missed,
all of a sudden in that 20,
Brock gets him quite a lot closer.
Well, every 16, he's now eight and eight.
Eight with Erebus, eight with DJR after that win
that he had last weekend.
So if we look at how it's gone though by the team,
no surprises, triple eight are on top with 40.
By the way, there's been 99 races,
but there's only 98 wins because Albert Park, remember,
last year, the Sunday race started.
It's a race start, but it obviously didn't have an end.
Erebus off the back of their 2023 season largely still second.
But clearly for me, groves are the ones
who are going to blow through here in a second easily.
Wolken shores are probably then the next
that are going to jump up the table.
And beyond that, it's slim pickings for the rest of them.
It highlights how good triple eight are,
knowing so that no one is going to catch that in any short frame.
Even if they didn't win a race for the rest of the year,
no one's going to get close to them.
So that's a tallying stat that triple eight are definitely
the pick of the teams.
You're right. I think groves in particular
and Wolken shores are the ones that are going to go up and DJR.
So that's a good stat too.
It sort of highlights Erebus of the pick of the shift teams
on that at the moment too.
Well, not at the moment.
Well, in 2023.
Sorry, in 2023.
They've had one win across 24, five and six so far,
but it's going to be a rough road for them to do too much to add.
Let's look by manufacturer though,
unsurprisingly, the volume of wins for Erebus and triple eight,
particularly over the journey at 56.
Ford, if I didn't know the numbers beforehand,
I'm sort of surprised a bit by that
because their first year of Gen 3 was just almost a throwaway, really.
But now that triple eight's on that side,
groves are up and running.
Wolken shores did some winning with Ford in recent years.
Not surprising there.
Ford passed you before the end of the year on that number, I reckon.
Yeah, I would say that that's pretty likely.
Podiums by driver.
So Feeney is, you know, by far and away on top,
and he's quality of performances.
Look, that's 52 Podiums out of what?
98 possibilities is pretty much 50%.
He's got a lot of wins.
Will Brown's got lots of seconds, lots of thirds.
Brodie Castecchi's got a pretty solid balance.
Chaz is more a second and third.
Cam Waters, if he's up there, he's winning.
So Ryan Woods had a lot of thirds before he broke through
and finally got to the winning element.
Tom Randall's still looking for that first win,
but he's had a whole pile of Podiums.
So it's not really surprising there,
but you can see then that it's one thing to look at the wins,
but then you add the quality of those seconds and thirds,
and it's still the same guys at the top.
No one's radically jumping up or down the order.
Yeah, and it's interesting there that only,
yeah, the one driver Randall hasn't won a race on that list.
The rest of them all won multiple races.
So these are all good stats,
and obviously it's not surprising to see the two Triple 8 drivers
at the top of that list.
Not surprising when we look at shootouts as well
by drivers that brocks at the top there,
but Chaz gets in a lot to them,
but doesn't do anything with them.
He hasn't had a poll in a shootout,
I don't think since Bathurst 2021,
which is back in the Gen 2 days,
but Anton Di Pasquale is on a great shootout streak at the moment.
He's unbelievably strong with getting into those shootouts.
You see Will Brown and Brodie Castecchi though,
bit further down the line.
And again, you look at Brodie,
if eight of those races he missed,
if there was four shootouts,
all of a sudden he's up in the 30s there.
So those eight races he's missed out, really could.
Don't forget four of those with the Grand Prix with no shootouts.
That's a good point.
That's a good point.
But nevertheless, I kind of would have thought
he'd be higher up that list.
James Golding and David Reynolds make it at the bottom there,
but remember that Reynolds spent some time with Groves
before he was at Team 18.
So all of these things are interesting to look at
as we get to this Gen 3 sort of anniversary milestone race
and polls by driver unsurprisingly,
Feeney's performance last year has really extended him
in that margin there.
Cam Waters is kind of the next best after he and Brodie,
and then it's a real drop away to the guys after that,
and probably pain in the wood of the guys
who are going to be able to do anything about that.
So we look at all these numbers
and they can all mean whatever you want them to mean,
but I guess as we go to the 100th Gen 3 race,
has Gen 3 been a success is the big question?
Yes and no.
I think yes in the sense that we've got a product
that looks a bit more market relevant.
When they rolled out the Mustang and Camaro,
it was like, wow, these actually look a bit more road car focused
versus that Mustang that we had in Gen 2
that looked like a deformed Aussie racing car.
It just didn't look any good, but that was by virtue
of the technical rules and people taking advantage
of the aerodynamics and whatnot.
So from the looks and the feel of it all, absolutely.
We've now got Toyota in, so great.
But again, and this shouldn't be of a concern to a spectator,
but the cost of it is astronomical.
The main reason for Gen 3 was to curb costs, and it hasn't.
I can't say anything different,
because if I was to say that it was cheaper,
unfortunately, I'd be lying and that's, I can't lie.
So unfortunately, the cars are really heavily priced,
and that means it's more expensive to run them.
And because they're so even in their technical displacement,
the only varying aspects, brand to brand engine and aerodynamics,
which is the bodywork,
it really drives the price up of engineers and drivers.
So not only is the car more expensive now to buy,
but to make it go fast, you need a really good driver,
and then you need a really good engineer.
So it all leads to signing bigger checks, unfortunately.
You can't go and buy yourself a technical advantage
that you perhaps could have in the past that others couldn't have done.
But I think from the point of view of where the sport had to go,
we had to leave Commodore and Falcon and Mustang, Gen 2.
It was time.
Their marquee cars, a Camaro, a Mustang and a Supra,
have racing pedigree, have racing history.
The fact that Gen 3 has been, that's a loud Toyota to come in.
There's no way they were coming under Gen 2, that's for sure.
So yes, there's problems.
Yes, it costs a lot.
Yes, there's things to fix.
Yes, there's ongoing elements, but I think it was the change.
The sport had to make change.
So has it been a success?
Depends who's riding the checks.
It depends which side of the fence on the whole thing.
Well, you and I don't own a team.
So we should be, it's been good racing, and the cars look good.
So for guys like you and I that don't own a team
and don't have to sign those checks,
ah, tick, it's been a great success.
But we need to have people who continue to sign those checks
to keep it all spinning along and doing what they do.
So that is Gen 3, having its 100th race at Simmons Plains
when we kick off down there.
The tire power Tasmania Super 440.
It's a little bit of a mouthful, but I managed to get it all out.
Now it's time for the workbench.
Righto, it's time for the workbench.
Jack got a couple of topics I want to dive into this week.
James Warburton's departure from supercars has opened up a void
for who might become the new CEO there.
Barclay Netifold is kind of interim CEO.
He's the chairman of racing of supercars at the moment.
So my question to you on the workbench that I want to just explore.
Does the next supercar CEO need to be a motorsport person
rather than being someone from outside motorsport?
It's a good question, Ernst.
First of all, I didn't see this coming with Warburton leaving so soon,
given that he'd only been back in the role since,
correct me if I'm wrong, about October last year.
So that was a surprise.
And I've been a pretty big fan of James.
I often thought he was a good operator and followed through.
He wasn't all talk.
He kind of had the best intentions at heart.
So a bit of a shame to see James go.
But yeah, looking forward, it's a tough one.
And this is actually a question that most teams face to noons.
Because I remember chatting with my dad about this years ago,
because a race team needs to be commercial.
It needs to raise sponsorships and funding to pay the bills.
But then someone needs to work out the nuts and bolts.
And that's the motor racing element and the commercial element.
My father was really good at the nuts and bolts.
Lacked, and I mean it respectfully.
And he would agree with me on the commercial side.
And he would speak to John Cranon, who ran the Holden Racing team.
And John Cranon was very good on this side.
But admittedly wasn't good.
He didn't know if the engine builders come to him and said,
let's get gold-plated crankshafts.
He didn't know if we really needed those gold-plated crankshafts or not.
So my point of that is the CEO role is probably a very similar thing.
Because you've got a product of car racing,
which is arguably nuts and bolts.
But then you've got entertainment and a business and everything.
So somewhere you need a bit of both.
Who an example of a motorsport type CEO would be?
I'm not sure whether it was someone from another category,
a worldwide category.
I would have thought if you look at some of the previous people we've had,
there was some international guys.
Martin Whittaker got a run.
Well, here's the graphic of who we've had us.
And there have been a couple of interim ones along the way
in between some of these.
But for the bulk of it, a lot of people forget Gary Craft,
but he was there at the very beginning.
Of course, Tony Cochran was the chairman for that period.
The stability of the late, great Wayne Caddick is solid.
Of course, he moved from Shell to go work for Dick Johnson.
And then he was grabbed out of DJR to become the CEO.
He had a really long tenure.
Cameron Levitt came in and left pretty quickly.
Martin Whittaker had been sort of at proximity to supercars
through Bahrain in the racing in Bahrain in the Middle East.
He was here for a brief period.
David Malone was a bit blink and you miss it.
Then James Wolburn came along.
That's when the Fox tell deal gets done.
That's when the sort of future of the sport in the next part gets determined.
Sean Seamus period was next.
Then of course, Shane Howard, who's been a long timer at supercars over the years.
And then James for the second stint, that's of course finished.
So I think the thing that occurs to me is that this is such a unique business, a unique sport.
It's very different from every other sport in Australia.
It's a very unique business structure, method, model.
You've got a various bunch of investors, lots of people to keep happy, people on boards.
It's a real, it's not a very simple thing.
But I can't help but feel that someone that's got motorsport understanding
that knows where the snakes and ladders are of who's who in the zoo.
They don't have to spend a year or two trying to figure all that out.
Because let's face it, the life cycle of a CEO in any business,
as that graphic shows, is not long generally.
It's not a long term 30 year career at the one place kind of gig.
So I think whoever you get in, I have to be able to be pulling gears straight away from the start.
And that's where it worked with James because he had history in the game before.
But he brought all that media knowledge as well.
But I think someone with a motor racing and who that person is, I don't know.
But if you're in the hot seat or you got to pick someone,
can you think of anyone, question without notice who you put in?
No, I can't.
But I think what does the person that you choose have to have?
I think they've got to know the lay of the land straight away,
not spend a year or two trying to find it and figure it all out.
So and often the sport tends to go and look for someone outside the sport
because they bring other knowledge and other ideas and other experience.
And that's valuable to a degree.
But I would say that it's kind of like looking after the fans in the sport that you have
and chasing all these other ones out there that may be fans or it's a bit similar.
I think you need someone who comes in just knowing who's who in the zoo,
knowing who that team is, knowing what that team owner is like,
knowing what that driver's like, knowing what the media do,
just knowing and rather than coming in and knowing business and knowing corporate world,
but not knowing the particulars.
I think someone needs to know the particulars to just get in and get going.
It's interesting because I think from what I've had to do with Barclay,
he seems like a pretty good operator.
And I think when you look at the list of the CEOs that we had up there before,
you know, Shane Howard's still heavily involved.
And he's a very good operator in the sense that if you look at the history of the business
and everything in a Bible, he knows the Bible.
He's everywhere.
Yeah.
So he's got connections with all of the governments and the organizations,
the race tracks, the teams.
So he's kind of the guy there that knows what's going on.
I'll tell you who I'd love to see in there.
And it goes against your motor sport theory, Eddie McGuire.
I would love to see him as the CEO or even he'd be an instant frontman.
Oh, mate, even Gil McLaughlin, I remember at one stage when he finished up at the AFL
and there was chat about someone from Supercars having spoke to Gil.
And I thought, yeah, this would be really cool, just even if it didn't last that long,
just to see what they thought coming from the biggest sport in Australia being the AFL.
I think I don't know Eddie personally, but I would love to see someone like him given a crack
just to see what they could do with our beloved sport.
And then you've got someone like Shane Howard there to steer him.
Yeah, just grab the steering wheel if we're heading a bit off course here,
like trying to put a race on the moon or something that's not going to happen.
But just see how that rolls out because I think that could be a good thing,
but it might not be as well.
Yeah, it's an interesting question.
It's an interesting question.
And it'll be who they pick and where they picked them from.
Let's see.
Let's see.
That's the play at the moment.
We didn't talk on the first episode of the undercut this year about the television commentary
situation and there's been so much written and so much said.
And I wanted to cover it off a little bit because we've had four rounds now.
So we're into the year.
We're nearly a third of the way through the actual rounds to be held, four of 14.
I felt like that there's a word that sprung and I've read and seen a lot and I've spoken
a lot of people behind the scenes and I'm in and around the world.
And I just feel that the word that just keeps coming up into my head is unfair.
It's been really unfair how it all rolled out.
And I'm not talking about particular people.
I'm talking about the groups of people.
So I felt it was unfair the way it all went down with Neil and Mark.
But I agree that change is inevitable and you need to change and it was time for change.
But I think it was unfair on the people going and the people arriving,
the way that it all unfolded in a nutshell.
Yeah, and I commend Supercars for making the changes.
I thought it was good to see it had been spoken about for a while.
But yeah, changes sort of need to be made.
It doesn't matter who.
That's not a personal thing.
It's not a particular people, but change for the sake of change is not right.
I don't think the changes were communicated well.
The optics to the fan base wasn't well.
From what I can understand to the particular people involved wasn't conveyed well.
But I think it's been so unfair and I want to focus on these guys,
on Matt Nolte, on Richard Crier, on Chad Nailon.
These guys have done nothing wrong here.
They have been toiling away for years, calling supports, calling Speedway,
calling Speedway, calling all the stuff that there can be to call.
And they're damn good at what they do.
They're really good at what they do.
They have deserved the opportunity for this.
And I just hate seeing online.
I think it's great that there's so much love for Nail and for Mark in different ways.
But on the flip side, it's been bad that these guys have just copped a hard time.
Yeah.
But they've done nothing wrong.
They've done nothing wrong at all here.
And they've done a good, solid job.
And that's why the word unfair just keeps on coming up to me.
Not unfair that anyone got roles changed.
No one's got a God given right to anything.
But I just felt it was just unfair the way it all rolled out for everybody.
And I reiterate that I have nothing but respect and admiration for both Nail,
Crompton and Mark Scaife.
I think that they're legends of the game.
They've done so much for the sport.
And continue to do so.
Yeah, absolutely.
So from that side, yeah, it seems like it was a bit unfair or could have been handled better
just just to make it all a nicer transition.
Yeah.
And I think that there was the opportunity.
And if look, I wasn't running the show, I don't have any power or control.
But I would have thought with the view that you're changing something for viewers
who are very used to something.
So a more gradual shift would have been the appropriate way.
So maybe it would have been, okay, for the next couple of years,
Crompo's our man to still lead the ship.
He's still calling the finals, Bathurst, the big marquee, free to air rounds.
But we're going to use those smaller rounds of tassies and stuff like that to
blood these other guys and give them a bit of opportunity and expose them to the audience a
bit more and start to integrate them a bit.
And as you gradually over two or three years shift the weight that then you can
and do it in the right way that you give your flowers to the people who've paved the way
and done so much for so many years and for so many people.
And I'm one of those people that has benefited from Neil and from Mark.
And I've worked with them for a long time on camera and off camera.
And I feel that that would have been a better way for the whole thing to evolve,
better for the fan base, better for the people involved.
It is change, but to make such a big huge change at once was always going to go down
like it went down with the fan base is probably what I'm trying to say.
Yeah. And look, I will take this opportunity to congratulate Richard Crowe.
I thought he did a phenomenal job in his first crack in the commentary box for the New Zealand.
He's officially a key lean now.
Yeah.
Well, he spent so much time there lately.
Oh, I thought he was great.
And so hats off to him.
And I'm enjoying the new faces in the lane when the broadcaster should say like obviously
James Courtney's bringing a different perspective.
Mark Winterbottom as well for the few races we see him.
And I feel that the word unfair is a little bit there too that these guys have been throwing in.
They haven't had many test laps here.
They have been put in the race car in a high level of the role, particularly James,
without much run up.
And he's learning on the fly.
You can see it.
He's he's pedaling pretty hard here.
But the word that that's come out of the whole way that the situation unfolded too.
In that, you know, it's worked for Garth Tanner because Garth has done the miles for the last what?
Or five years in the broadcast.
It's called Super 2.
He's done the pit lane.
He's done a bit of host.
He's done a little bit of everything to get ready.
Whereas kind of James and Mark have, you know, had a little bit of a run,
but not much in there.
They've been thrown in.
So I feel for everybody is what I'm trying to say in this whole thing.
But I'm not against change.
I'm not against evolution.
But the way it was done, and I just think for so many of the people involved,
it was just unfair as the word.
It's just how I feel.
It's just what I sort of see on the whole situation.
I am looking forward to Matt Nolt to get in his crack.
We should point out too.
So Nolt's gets his go for Tassie and Darwin.
Yes.
Now, for many, many years, if you're a Northern Territorian and you've been to the round there for years,
you've already heard Matt because he did the on track for many years
up on the Hidden Valley racetrack at Darwin.
So he's not completely unfamiliar to the Darwin race fans,
but he's done plenty of speedway up there as well.
There's a speedway right next to Hidden Valley.
So he gets his crack at the next couple in the big chair alongside GT.
So go well, Knuckles.
Go well, Knuckles.
And a shout out to Molly Taylor.
I think she's doing a good job as well.
Oh, we're going to lose her though.
I know.
But her discipline of rallying has, you know, it comes with some element of learning
bitumen racing.
And I think she's she adds a great dimension to it and has been improving her knowledge and doing a
great job.
And and yes, congratulations to her and her partner, Dan, because there's a baby coming.
There is a baby coming August.
I think that's when that's all happening.
Well, that's Leo.
I'm a Leo August 22.
So there you go.
By the way, Chad now has done a great job in the pit line the last couple of rounds too.
So I'm not trying to individualize anybody or whatever, but it's it's a change period.
And it won't be for much longer because it'll become the norm.
The change has become the norm.
So that's how it is.
Go well to everybody in the broadcast for the upcoming rounds.
One thing, though, if you're listening to because TV, I've just got a little thing that
I would like you to change just for me.
Just for me.
That's all I ask.
One little thing.
Jack, I would like to ditch the canned applause, the audio applause that supplied at the end of
races.
There was a great crowd at Cross Church at Rua Puna.
They were cheering hard for their drivers, the Kiwis.
I don't reckon we need that that audio track with the applause.
Let's get rid of that.
I don't like it.
I don't want it.
I want to hear proper audio effects of proper reaction and proper crowds, not the the canned
laughter or not canned laughter in the sitcom TV shows.
It's effectively the same thing.
My question to you, Noons, is is that pre-recorded audio of someone actually
applauding or is it computer generated?
I don't know.
I really would like to know because now that you would ever erase this topic,
I'm going to have to go and make a call and actually ask a few more details.
I know that you want to get that reaction of a cheer and a crowd in the aftermath of
something fantastic.
But I've heard it before.
I don't need to hear it again.
Let's see some real stuff.
You've got finely tuned ears for that, Noons.
It's just the sleuthies have been on to go.
Oh, come on, guys.
Enough of it.
Enough of it.
Let's I'll I'll record a new track if you like, but I'll do 10 different versions.
You know, someone in the background, you know, Job Chessy or Job Woody, you know,
just add a little bit of currency to it for anybody.
Anyway, there's so many things for us to discuss about the sport.
That's what we love about it.
We love talking about all of the elements here on the undercut.
Have you had a good time?
I have, mate.
It's been great to catch up with you.
I love the doubleheader.
Plenty to talk about.
Good for the sport.
Looking forward to the next few races.
Is the hair going to be swooped next time we see you on the show?
Well, we'll see if I cop a bit more flack after this episode.
But I don't have TV requirements this year.
Every other day of the week, I wear a hat Noons in the workshop.
So it's just for the undercut that I pull the hairbrush out and give it a bit of a whisk.
We appreciate the whisking.
Well, before we leave the episode, a big thank you to the team at Castrol who bring you the undercut.
And as we leave the show this week, we thought we'd dig into the vault.
We love a bit of old stuff.
Let's go around the Calder Park Thunderdome on board a supercar.
Your pilot is Rick Kelly.
And this is proof of why I never want to come back in another life
as a supercar under tray around the Thunderdome.
Bye for now.
See you next time.
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About this episode
A wide-ranging Supercars-focused chat mixes personality, rivalry, and race analysis. Aaron Noon and Jack Perkins kick off with the “swoop” haircut debate, then celebrate Ryan Wood as a standout performer (plus NASCAR first-win stories for Ty Gibbs and Kai Allen). The big on-track talking point is the Chaz Mostert vs Brodie Kostecki incident and what it says about championship pressure, media timing, and driver accountability. They also debate “a-grade” driver depth (Chev vs Toyota), Rua Puna’s suitability for Supercars, parity-trigger concerns, Gen3’s cost vs success, and even commentary production choices—ending with tributes to Terry Sawyer and Barry Sheene.
The Undercut returns in a massive week of sport, with Aaron Noonan once again joined by Jack Perkins, breaking down the inaugural New Zealand double header!
Of course, there is Brodie Kostecki versus Chaz Mostert, and is the war between Broc Feeney and Ryan Wood truly over?
Who really are the A-Grade drivers? Is Ruapuna up to spec for Supercars? What has happened to Cam Waters the qualifier? There’s parity, Toyota’s first win, and much, much more.
In our fresh segment, Number Crunching, we delve into the first 100 races of the Gen3 era and who the big winners truly are.
This week on The Workbench, the lads look at the revolving door of Supercars CEOs, plus what is going on in TV commentator land.
There’s some incredibly cool footage of a V8 Supercar cutting hot laps on the Calder Park Thunderdome, our Castrol Performers of the Week, and we dip into the archive for a sensational Colin Bond Castrol ad.
This is V8 Sleuth’s look at the world of Supercars, with the angles you don’t and won’t get anywhere else, with the analysis and numbers to back them up!
Agree/disagree with our takes? Let us know in the comments!
Like some of the stuff in our studio?
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