THE SUPERCARS Season opener wasn’t a bad race – but beyond that, opening at Sydney Motorsport Park proved one thing: Supercars needs the big-bang season launch that only a street circuit festival can provide.

SUPERCARS didn’t deserve a start to the season like this.

Don’t get me wrong: Race 1 of the brand new Repco Supercars Championship wasn’t a bad one.

Shane van Gisbergen and Triple Eight won a tactical affair with multiple strategies and lots of interest from several key contenders representing different teams.

There appears already to be more competitive teams than last year, some different faces there or thereabouts and lots of potential for fun things to unfold this year.

Plus, race one was one rain shower away from being an absolute belter.

The irony of the rain not turning up this week out of all the weeks..

The atmosphere at Sydney Motorsport Park was very good, the crowd was at least the same size as the night race at the final Sydney event last year and all in all it was pretty good.

Good for a mid-season Supercars race at Sydney Motorsport Park, that is.

Not the season opener. Pretty good isn’t good enough for the season opener.

There’s no doubt, of course, that we have been spoiled – conditioned, even, to expect a season kickoff with pizzaz.

Twenty years of starting (or nearly starting) the season in Adelaide has trained our brains to expect a season opener that is held in front of 90,000 people on a street circuit that demands the most from drivers and teams – with all the associated on and off track drama that goes with it.

Of course, that is exactly what we should be doing in Newcastle this weekend.

Saturday night’s race in Sydney proved that Supercars must under every possible circumstance and come hell, high water or another pandemic, begin their year with as big a bang as possible.

The year must begin at a street circuit festival that the sport is do damn good at putting on year after year.

Lets be clear, this wasn’t what Supercars wanted so don’t try and stick the knife in there.

They had every intention to begin the year in Newcastle which would have ticked every single box that a season opener should have: Epic event, wild circuit, big deal vibe.

Unfortunately the circumstances, the pandemic and a contract that stated the opening round must be held in New South Wales ensured that wasn’t going to be a thing.

Thus, for the sake of looking after the most motorsport-friendly government in the country at the moment, starting Sydney was the only option.

And because Sydney Motorsport Park is the only permanent track in the greater Sydney region, that was it.

And to be even fairer to Supercars, they tried hard to make it a show worthy of season-opener status.

They tried the Super Soft tyre, they tried running under lights and they tried a 300km distance at a circuit known for being brutal on tyres over a long distance.

Unfortunately, the Super Soft tyre perhaps isn’t quite as Super nor as Soft as we would have liked.

The lights are awesome and remain a spectacle – but we only did them last November (on more than one occasion) so it’s still fresh in the minds of both TV and paying audiences alike. Absence there makes the heart grow fonder.  

And perhaps five events in six at the same venue means that these very professional, very good racing car teams have worked out how to minimize the off-the-cliff degradation we all loved at Sydney back in 2020.

The result was not a bad race but not a brilliant one, but more broadly a vibe that this weekend is ‘just another event’.

The season opener shouldn’t be ‘just another event’.

An AFL season opener at the MCG might end up being a 100-point blowout (and with Carlton playing it often is) but it’s in front of 80,000 people, shown on prime-time TV and feels significant even if you don’t follow the Blues and hate the Tigers.

In the same way, a lackluster race at the Adelaide 500 was still a big thing, with the attendance, big-event feeling and TV ratings all reflecting that.

I’m not having a crack at Supercars here and nor should you.

They’ve been placed in this situation by the very nature of the world we’re currently living in.

And there are much worse things going on in the world at the moment than having to go car racing at Sydney Motorsport Park. Just ask our Ukrainian friends.

It’s not like this is life or death or curing cancer here. What we’re doing here is ridiculously good fun, a privilege few people get, in no way going to change the world and there’s no way anyone should think otherwise.

So, save for putting sprintcar tyres on the cars and sending them up to the new Eastern Creek Speedway, there’s not much more Supercars could have done within their current rule package and format options to try and make another race at Sydney Motorsport Park more special than what we got last night.

Like I said, it wasn’t bad.

It’s the nature of the beast and the cards we’ve all been dealt at the moment.

But like me, and I suspect many others, they will have everything crossed to ensure that the racing launch of Gen III in February or March next year comes in front of 80,000 people on the streets of Newcastle, rather than one-tenth of that in the back blocks of Sydney’s West.

The championship needs and quite honestly, deserves it too.