Team TRTDORIC POWER RANKINGS: AWC Race Tasmania
ARG’s SPEEDSERIES kicked off on the weekend, with AWC Race Tasmania hitting – literally in many instances – Symmons Plains.
It was a wild weekend in the Apple Isle, with pretty furious stuff on track, and the debut of the brand-new TV package as well.
As with every event of its type, this is very much deserving of the Power Rankings treatment. So, with thanks to our friends at Doric, welcome to the first edition of the good ‘ol Rankings for 2022..
HOT
1. David Slaying Goliath, Part 1
After Jay Hanson won the opening TCR race for the Melbourne Performance Centre, and Jordan Cox the second for Garry Rogers Motorsport, Zac Soutar’s breakthrough win in the finale was the feel-good story of the weekend. The emotion after the race was genuine – it was a stacked field with big-name drivers, and he drove a smart race in the family-run car to take the chocolates. More, please.
2. Goliath Slew Multiple Times
Similarly, the might of the multi-car teams in S5000 were skittled on Sunday. While Team BRM’s Joey Mawson won the opening race, Josh Fife broke through in the reverse grid race two in his first event in the class, while Tim Macrow claimed the main event over Cooper Webster and Fife. Three single-car operations, sticking it to the man, especially in the modern sport where powerhouse teams dominate so many categories.
3. When the Cars were Racing…
When the safety car wasn’t on the circuit, there was some genuinely entertaining racing, proving the quality of the categories and how good Symmons Plains is as a race track.
4. Grid Position Two
What was it about starting on the outside of the front row? It’s not particularly more rubbered-up than the pole position line, but it sure was the place to be in a majority of the races featuring a standing start.
5. The TV of Things
It was a strong opening account for the SpeedSeries on Stan/9Gem. The quality was right there, but you would expect that – it was pieced together by the same people and equipment that cover Supercars events, just without a few of the minor bells and whistles, which were not massively noticeable.
Hat tip to Stan for pushing the barrow hard, as well. They have made a major investment in gaining the SpeedSeries rights, and to show they are not mucking around, they threw a lot of resources at promoting the weekend’s festivities including lots of social content, crossovers with the Today show and more.
Stan’s CEO, Stan Sport’s boss and other key players from the network were all in Tasmania, showing their intent to embrace and grow the produce.
Good commentators, too, but Craill did say he’d sack us if we didn’t include that.
6. Team BRM Rebuild
After contact from teammate Tim Slade plucked the left rear wheel out of Joey Mawson’s car, the stricken machine was dragged away to a safe place on the inside of turns two and three so the race could get going ASAP. Fair play. Unfortunately, between the second S5000 race and the second TCR race, the car remained on the infield, within sight of its pit garage. When the car did arrive back in the paddock, it was all hands on deck to get the car prepped in short order before the final race. Just scraping onto the grid, Mawson rewarded the team with a fourth-place finish.
7. Hot Looks
The level of presentation amongst the SpeedSeries competitors continues to step up a notch in 2022. Some of the best examples include the fleet of Valvoline backed GRM machines across three categories, plus the trio of HMO Hyundais in TCR.
8. The people that didn’t complain on social media
If you bought Stan Sport, or if you chose not to buy Stan Sport but also didn’t feel the need to complain about it on social media, good for you and may nice things happen to you this year.
(Like 25% of at the Doric shop, for instance!)
9. We’ve Seen this Before in a Movie…
10. How Far Tasmania has Come
On all levels, the second tier of motorsport in Australia has come along massively in recent times. TRT analysed how much has changed in the past 14 years for categories who sailed across Bass Strait.
WHAT
Big Photographers, or Little Drivers?
Serve, Returned
Filling the Swear Jar
NOT
1. Tassie recoveries, tight times and dodgy driving
It is very difficult to criticise the efforts of the officials in situations like this, but for a national level event with several key classes, the efficiency of the recoveries in many instances were severely lacking. Tyre bundle repair aside – this takes everyone up to and including the FIA a long time – some of the recoveries were bad. And then leaving cars out on the circuit and not getting them back to their teams quickly almost proved costly – just talk to BRM about that.
This all conspired led to lengthy delays in the program, some time certainty and long periods where the racing cars were not racing.
And what was with some of the driving standards? Was it first round-itis? A long off season? The nature of the track? Either way, after a sedate and solid Saturday, Sunday was gloves off and not in a good way.
Finally, the back-to-back-to-back nature of the program between the SpeedSeries categories made things tough for the teams. When we get to Shannons rounds and add in some other classes, it should make things a bit easier.
2. TCR’s Mixed Bag of Nots
Cody Garland fenced himself on his second lap of Friday practice halfway along the straight to the hairpin.
Jordan Cox dropped it on the way to the grid for the start of the opening race.
A real talking point this week will no doubt be the clash between race one winner Jay Hanson and James Moffat, which resulted in a pair of DNFs, one very shortened GRM Renault, plus words and finger-pointing back in the pits.
Will Brown struck trouble on the run through the first corner of the last race.
Also, it was unfortunate that Josh Buccan cost himself a race win by swerving behind the safety car late in the third race.
3. Trans Am’s Troubles
Jon McCorkindale smote Nash Morris in race one, while Owen Kelly’s seat belts came undone mid-race, necessitating a stop.
While Morris was cleared of contact with Tim Shaw, who ended the weekend in the turn two fence, it still resulted in some quality post-crash finger-wagging.
Morris then wound up in the bunker in race two with brake issues, with two other cars piling into each other on preceding straight, with Chris Sutton copping the worst of it,
The third race, first corner fracas claimed multiple competitors, including Ben Grice, Cody Burcher, Elliot Barber and Shaun Richardson.
Finally, Michael Rowell wound up in the wall halfway down the straight to the hairpin.
4. S5000s Talking Points
It’s always uncomfortable when teammates take each other out, especially when it was Tim Slade clattering into his championship chasing Team BRM stablemate, Joey Mawson. Awkward.
James Golding also sent it down the escape road on the opening lap of the final race, which robbed that race of an extra storyline.
Also, everyone would dearly love to see more than nine cars at events in future. It must be tough being a promoter for open-wheel racing in this part of the world…
5. Sooking About Stan
We get that some people can’t afford to spend an extra $20 a month for a streaming service.
And we get that some people don’t want to send an extra $20 a month for a streaming service.
These are things that happen. Not everyone will sign up. Not everyone can sign up.
Some people will miss out, and that’s a shame.
However.. posting the same thing on social media over and over again is not going to change it.
Nor is being hateful or making abusive comments because a business made a business decision for its future.
Like it or not, they’re not going to change their mind no matter how furious your post is.
So why bother? All you’re doing is making the internet a worse place than it already is and TRT is all about making the motorsport community a nicer place to be and for the most part, you dear readers, are with us.
Whether you like it or not, or think it’s the right decision or not (only time will tell that), it’s how things are.
Just don’t be that guy or girl on the socials, seriously.
6. Grass Fires
7. The Tassie of things
Tassie is a great place, but the internet at Symmons Plains for most users, it seemed, is truly horrific. How can it be so bad 20 minutes from what is a reasonably large city?
And to the person that clogged the main pit lane/paddock bathrooms on Sunday morning – leaving very few options for a very busy paddock for most of the day – you need to go and have a good hard look at yourself. And your diet.
8. This
9. Minor TV Things
Even on big TVs, the multi-coloured numbers on the totem are impossible to read – fix that, and we’re sweet. Thank you.
10. The People Have Spoken…
The Power Rankings continue to be the voice of the people in 2022, and multiple folk have scored Michael Caruso’s hair as a NOT nomination. Being follicly challenged here at TRT, we aren’t in a position to throw stones, but we have to let the fans have their say…
Craill’s beard excepted, of course.
(And yes, Craill wrote that last line)
TWEET
Yep
Tut-tut, PR people?
Whiteboard Corner
