When the cars roll out for practice on Friday it will have been over a month since engines fell silent in Christchurch and 75 days since the last event on Australian soil.
The huge hole punched in the calendar by the sea freight to and from New Zealand has been widely lamented following Supercars’ cost-conscious switch from air freight in 2025.
It’s the starkest example of the ongoing issue of Supercars not holding enough rounds and therefore struggling for momentum and relevance in an otherwise busy sporting landscape.
That has led to a suggestion – could the Super2 Series be the answer to the break in the season, via the introduction of at least one standalone event for the second tier?
When the Super2 Series kicked off under the Konica V8 Lites banner in 2000, its calendar was held entirely away from the main game.
That slowly shifted in the mid-2000s and the class has run exclusively as a Supercars support act since its last standalone at Wakefield Park (now One Raceway) in 2008.
The transition put Super2 in front of bigger crowds and avoids the costs involved with a standalone meeting, including broadcast arrangements.
The concept of returning to a standalone round was informally discussed among Super2 teams last year and is said to have received a lukewarm response.
Crucially, the cost of running the cars – which is Super2’s biggest battle and has teams charging drivers in excess of $100,000 per weekend – is essentially the same regardless of where they race.
Supercars would therefore face a tough task to achieve an acceptable value proposition for the competitors if they are racing in front of smaller audiences.
However, potential benefits of being the stars of the show and having the opportunity to provide Supercars-hungry fans with racing between main game events are not to be ignored.
Super2 is currently in the midst of a mammoth break of its own, with the category not racing between the Sydney 500 in February and the Darwin Triple Crown in June.
Several Super2 drivers have notably spread their wings to other racing classes during that four-month gap in a series schedule that only features six events.
This year’s Super2 calendar notably includes just three rounds before the Bathurst 1000, providing little value for drivers looking to stay sharp or prove themselves ahead of Enduro Cup co-drives.
It’s lost competitors to Trans Am/TA2 and a rethink is arguably required ahead of 2027, which will mark the final year of the series using Gen2 machinery.
Supercars’ skinny schedule of just 12 Australian rounds also leaves it failing to service several markets – such as fans near One Raceway and Winton – that Super2 could potentially fill.
Economic details aside, we want to know what you think. Would you watch or even attend a standalone Super2 round? Let us know in this week’s edition of the Pirtek Poll.
This article first appeared on Speedcafe.com, a sister site to MotorRacing.com.