V8 Supercars Confirms COTA Contract Termination

SpeedCafe: V8 Supercars Confirms COTA Contract Termination:

V8 Supercars confirms COTA termination - Speedcafe

 

Hairy,

You are very clued into what's up at CoTA. I love the track but the running of CoTA is unique. I suspected management would be CoTA's undoing. CoTA was all the buzz for about a year and now seems to be mentioned with adornment equal to other tracks. In other words, the Rose seems to have lost it's glow. Are my suspicions unfounded? Is CoTA doing well and staying solvent? I hope SCCA goes back to race there in 2015.

 

I don't think SCCA will be back any time soon after the way I heard that deal ended. The SCCA guys here would know better though.

Simply put, the track's management is severely lacking, imho.

BTW, re: V8SC, I've heard some folks say they aren't coming back because of lack of U.S. interest. I don't think anyone can gauge U.S. interest in V8SC based on that race weekend. COTA barely promoted it at all and what they did do was weak at best. It was also a poor date choice...hot as **** out there. That wouldn't be so bad if there was a shred of shade out there other than at the Main GS, but there isn't.

From everything I've been able to read & hear, V8SC feels the market is here and did all they could in an effort to accommodate COTA and come back to Austin. COTA? Not so much.

Some are saying they aren't coming back because they couldn't find a second venue to pair with COTA. What I've heard is they that had multiple venues they liked as second venues to add to COTA, but they weren't gonna do it without COTA being one of the two.

 

I think that if Don Panoz still owned Road Atlanta, that might have been a perfect second venue, but the current ownership would not want anything that might take interest away from NASCAR.

 

Road America, the Glen...both great venues--although North at a time that wouldn't work when the southern location of COTA would work. (Temperature).

Visually I think COTA is stunning. Driving wise? When it was released on iRacing I took a few laps and thought...this place sort of sucks.

Chalk another dud up to Herman Tilke--unfortunately.

 

I was one of the first amateurs to race on CoTA. I think it is a great track with very nice balance of high speed and technical corners. It is pretty easy to hit all the apexes but something else entirely to be fast there. I really want more tracktime at CoTA. Maybe current management with go out of business and new guys will rekindle the vision of what CoTA could be.

 

I guess I need to send over my resume...LOL!

The financial backers are not going to give up, but the way they pulled from horse racing and football is kind of weird.

Mario of course knows what's up but he's just a spokesman.

Kevin Swantz is almost trapped in the same boat.
He needs to get his school going.

Hard to say what the answer is without knowing the real financials.
Recall they lost $5M in an eyeblink throwing Tavo under the bus, and he was going to be the role of promotions.

Odd, that.....

I'll be a fly on the wall again for Lemans, trying to stay out of the way of Commando Man in the black cargo pants

 

that can also be called a "pattern"

 

I love it as an F1 and LMP track. For the V8s, it wasn't great. V8s need tighter confines and more chaos.

 

Re: the bold part, I've told others the same. Spot on.

 

I agree. IMO the v8 supercars wasn't even the highlight of the weekend. I personally preferred PWC. Really wish PWC was going back there. The racing was awesome.

 

V8SC/PWC used the short course last year, no? that's about as tight as you're going to get on a purpose built facility.

If I was V8SC I'd be looking at Long Beach, St Pete or other street circuits for a return to the US. most of their season in Australia is temporary street circuits anyway...

 

PWC was great. Too bad COTA ran them off too. PWC kinda reminds me of FIA GT1.

 

I don't mean the length. I mean a narrower track with less runoff and less margin for error. V8s thrive in that environment.

V8SC is sometimes less entertaining on big FIA grade 1 circuits like COTA & Abu Dhabi (that one amazing battle at Abu Dhabi notwithstanding). I personally think they're much better on the numerous smaller, narrower Aussie road circuits they race (think VIR in the U.S.). They're also the only series I consistently enjoy watching on street courses. They're just unmatched there, imho.

Now, wouldn't it be cool to have the V8s running a double here in the states? Or better yet, we could have our own V8s series. Ah well...a man can dream.

 

We had PWC at Miller Motorsports Park for a few years and then it went away (to COTA) in 2013. They are back to Miller this year for the season ending race which I'm happy about.

 

Tell Johnny O hi for me.

 

Exactly the reason why a monopoly over all of racing in North America can and will never
work.

If each of the manufactures that are involved with V8SC (Ford, Holden, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Volvo)
would work together and kick in for promotion, then there would be something to work with.

BHW