IN A YEAR already filled with them – good, bad or otherwise – the events of the last 24 hours in Australian motorsport will be another remarkable ‘I can’t believe it happened’ chapter in the official review of season 2020.

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Mark Horsburgh / Supercars

IF ANYONE ever questions the commitment, agility and ingenuity of the Australian motorsport industry in the future, Monday, 6 July 2020 is the key evidence I’d lodge in its defence.

By now you will know the story: New South Wales confirmed they would close the borders with their Southern relatives at midnight on Monday night thanks to the dramatic increase in Covid-19 cases in the Victorian capital.

A desperate scramble from the five Victorian-based Supercars teams and an as yet unknown number of Super2 and Super3 series squads saw them go from having a Monday morning smoko to having everything packed, loaded and transported North of the Murray before midnight twelve hours later.

That particular logistical exercise rolled out in less than half a day is usually a much more structured, planned process leading up to the point where the trucks depart.

But as 2020 has shown, sometimes all the best laid plans in the world can get thrown out the window in a heartbeat.

What a crazy 24 hours it’s been! This was 5pm last night as the team committed to loading the cars and sending the truck to NSW. I managed to get to Albury around 11pm. Massive effort to all Victorian @supercars and @Super2Series teams/crew and drivers who made it across ? #vasc pic.twitter.com/TljqmE5Gxk

— Thomas Randle (@thomasrandle49) July 7, 2020

Having said that, these are organisations used to thinking on their feet. Motorsport remains different from almost all other professional competitions in that what occurs between the start and finish of any given contest is, broadly speaking, wildly more variable than the stadium-based equivalents.

While a footy coach might have to adapt on the run to a player going down injured or a change in the oppositions structure, a Supercars team has to deal with so much more day in day out: Consistently moving strategies, last-minute Safety Car calls, mechanical issues, crashes, repairs and more. The variables in a car race are more variable than they are in a footy game.

So while they are organised and meticulously planned, there is already built-in agility and adaptability within each organisation – ready to think on their feet at a moment’s notice. I suspect this gave them an advantage when the call came before lunch to bug out of Melbourne.

What occurred on Monday remains remarkable, however, given the complete debacle that the Football Federation of Australia have engineered for themselves.

While Supercars had something like 12 hours’ notice to pack cars in various states of preparation, contact drivers, crews, arranges flights and accommodation and ensure that north of 150 people were across the Murray before midnight, the A-League found themselves in a desperate struggle to get their three Melbourne-based squads into New South Wales.

Well, 2020 just continues to get crazier! ? Never imagined I’d be packing bags and racing to the NSW border within the same day.

Huge shoutout to my @BJRsupercars race engineer, Tony Woodward for providing me with a bed and place to stay for now too! ?? #THR #VASC #covid19 ?? pic.twitter.com/oBlJBbFFAw

— Todd Hazelwood (@Todd_Hazelwood) July 7, 2020

Despite these teams being used to the rigours of regular travel and mobility thanks to a home-and-away schedule, somehow, they failed.

The drama played out on Twitter last night, with media reporting that players were being woken on Monday evening (how early do they go to bed in Soccer land?) and told to rush to AAMI Park in Melbourne.

From there, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, they got to Tullamarine and were sitting on a chartered flight before weather in Canberra put the kybosh on them going anywhere.

As a result, the Melbourne-based squads will need to seek an exemption to get into New South Wales to allow the A-League to continue the remainder of their abbreviated season.

⚽ The FFA has confirmed that they will be applying for exemptions from the NSW government for players and staff at Melbourne's A-League clubs to enter NSW for the rest of the season, after a failed last ditch attempt last night. #ALeague pic.twitter.com/GD4Or66c1q

— ABC Grandstand (@abcgrandstand) July 6, 2020

How did they leave it so late? How did they not get this right? It’s easy to blame Canberra’s weather, but by 11PM last night almost all of Victoria’s Supercars squads were already in Albury with their trucks, their cars, their crews and drivers.

This could have been Supercars. Teams could have been stranded in Victoria, putting not only next week’s return to Sydney Motorsport Park in doubt but subsequent rounds in Darwin and Townsville, too.

While Soccer’s administration failed to move quickly or missed the memo on exactly what the border closure really meant, our boys and girls rushed into action and managed to shift an enormous amount of resources and personnel north in 12 Hours.

The fact is, failure to get these teams across the border would have been a body blow to the entire championship, which is really the case in point here.

Thank you to the Victorian based @supercars teams for your sacrifice to keep us racing! ??#RedBullHolden #VASC pic.twitter.com/QJFYmqcBSF

— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) July 6, 2020

These desperate moves to rush to the border make for a great story but go deeper than just the Victorian teams making sure they could continue to race. The picture is much bigger than that because if they didn’t get there, the whole thing gets shut down.

The Queensland and NSW-based teams do not race either.

The supports do not run.

The media who cover it do not get to work.

Sponsors and TV Partners stop paying bills.

And so on.

The ripple effect flows on from there and would have caused massive damage to an industry already reeling from the last four or five months of drama. They had to go, and they knew they had to go, so they got on with it and went.

In a similar way to how Footy players have deserted Melbourne to hub on the Gold Coast or New South Wales, so too have the Melbourne-based Supercars teams and their staff sacrificed the comforts of home and family to keep the show on the road – quite literally.

If the Melbourne A-League teams fail to get an exemption to cross into New South Wales, they’ll probably have to go anyway and spend two weeks in isolation before playing any games; forcing the league to make more dramatic changes to their schedule and placing them further on the back foot.

To the drivers, team members and families of our Victorian-based teams, we thank you for your commitment to our sport.

Social media is flooded with praise this morning, and deservedly so ? #VASC pic.twitter.com/LIGQYyFCv4

— Supercars (@supercars) July 6, 2020

The agility of our ‘game’ and the ability of our teams to adapt, improvise and overcome has given Supercars an enormous leg up in ensuring their competition remains viable and ongoing during the most challenging conditions it has perhaps ever faced.

Everyone has copped it during the Pandemic in one way or another, but the praise the Melbourne teams have earned in the last 24 hours is deserved: from a grateful industry that is justifiably proud of the way it has responded to another roadblock Covid-19 has thrown us.

The result is that, at least next week, the racing will go on, livelihoods are further secured and everyone can take a deep breath and wait for the next hurdle.

Even if this only gives us one extra round and the wheels fall off over that, this week has been a reminder first and foremost of the incredible people in our industry, a talent pool that runs deep with ingenuity, smarts, adaptability and passion for keeping the wheels turning.

It’s easy to be proud of our sport and those people in it today.

Without them, we’d be buggered.