The Newcastle 500 should have gone down as a Supercars smash hit. The Australian charge last weekend pulled off something that just weeks ago seemed impossible. Its teams delivered 25 reliable, beautiful and actually quite fast Gen3 cars for the first round of the new season. The match was good. The weather was perfect. People flocked through the gates…
But instead, the off-track controversy was dominated by two big stories. The first was the two Triple Eight Chevrolet Camaros that were eliminated after a 1-2 record in the first race. The cars were found to carry a dry ice cooler on the driver’s side of the cockpit to cool air to a helmet fan. The system itself was perfectly legal. But all cooling systems must be mounted on the passenger side of the car.
Triple Eight claimed Supercars head of motorsport Adrian Burgess had verbally approved the system, including its location. Burgess denied it was happening. In the absence of hard proof, Motorsport Australia stewards had no choice but to disqualify the cars. Cooling rules can be found in Section C of the Operations Manual. These are the technical rules. And with technical violations there can be no tolerance.
Sunday’s race was a genuine thriller as Shane van Gisbergen ran down Chaz Mostert to take a win he could hold on to. But he didn’t have many opportunities to enjoy it. When the post-race media engagements began, van Gisbergen began repeating the same line over and over again: “All our talking was done on the track. Thanks.”
After some needle-pointing at the press conference, he added context to his actions.
“I said a lot of things yesterday, I tried to open up a bit more and then maybe he bit me in the yard,” he said. “I just told the truth about the cars I guess, I tried to be honest. And it goes down the wrong way. So I will focus on my driving.”
Van Gisbergen’s protest had nothing to do with Saturday’s ban. He had already twice publicly criticized the Gen3, firstly regarding heat protection and secondly the cars’ raceability. He had clearly been told not to do it again.
Van Gisbergen was unwilling to open after his win on Sunday – but not because of his race a DSQ, as revealed on TV
Photo by: Edge Photographics
If the censor’s conclusion wasn’t clear enough, David Reynolds put it beyond doubt. He had also incurred the wrath of senior officials several weeks earlier after publicly questioning the parity of the two models from Chevrolet and Ford.
“They don’t want us to say anything negative,” he said in defense of van Gisbergen.
Moments later, the video of van Gisbergen refusing to deal with the press was shown on Fox Sports. But only his refusal to answer questions. What was missing was the highly critical context of his explanation.
This sent presenters Mark Skaife, Garth Tander and Jess Yates into a frenzy of criticism leveled at van Gisbergen for not representing the sport as a champion should. All told through the highly manipulated lens that this was a whiff after his disqualification. As a five-time series champion and Supercars board member, the voice that carried the most weight was clearly Skaife’s.
Ironically, if it weren’t for censorship, this column would be about the successful launch of Gen3 after an intense rally over the last few months
“When you’re a champion, you have an ambassadorial role in this sport and while you may not want to make any other comments, you actually have a duty as a custodian of the sport to say what you need to say about the results and what happened today,” he said. Scaife.
“Now if he agrees, he obviously won’t like the ban from yesterday. He’s come into today angry about how he is, but there’s a duty of care, there’s something about being the champion driver and the ambassador for the sport.
“He has a duty under this script as one of the highest paid, the reference operator… There is no one in this industry who in any way, shape or form could ever question his driving talent and ability. He is excellent, maybe one of the best drivers of all time. I would say he’s like Jim Richards, he’s incredible. But off the track you have a duty and that’s not right.”
Now here’s the thing. Earlier in the weekend, Skaife had volunteered to talk on the show about how he had instigated a text message dispute with Reynolds over parity statements as this saga unfolded. Now here he was telling van Gisbergen to talk more.
Reynolds echoed van Gisbergen by making it clear that the series did not want negative comments to be aired
Photo by: Edge Photographics
Van Gisbergen does not like the media. it is not his domain. He doesn’t give much away to the broadcast team, and perhaps that played a part in the willingness to rush the media conference antics to the screen before thinking about criticism for refusing to talk and how the segment should be packaged.
But whatever van Gisbergen has done in the past, leaving out the vital context for a TV segment doesn’t apply. And neither is the sheer act of censorship. Censorship of athletes should be reserved for the most sensitive social and/or political issues, and even then used incredibly sparingly and only when it will stop real harm to society.
Ironically, if it weren’t for censorship, this column would be about the successful launch of Gen3 after an intense build-up over the last few months. That would be the story. regardless of what van Gisbergen may have said at the press conference.
The weekend will go down as a missed opportunity for Supercars
Photo by: Edge Photographics