Diesel Fuels 2005 V8 Supercar Championship Series
17/3/2005 15:58 (Press Release) -
The V8 Supercar Championship Series has unveiled a bold new look, 2005 theme song and strategic marketing campaign to take the country’s fastest growing spectator sport to a new level and further implant itself in the Australian sporting market place.
Renowned Aussie rocker Diesel headlines the campaign with his remix of the 1964 Ray Davies hit song “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, on which the 2005 advertising campaign will be based. The marketing and advertising push is being developed and managed by the AVESCO Marketing Department.
The people of Sydney voted with their feet when a crowd of more than 10,000 turned out for a two-hour public open day at Sydney Olympic Park to get a glimpse of the 2005 drivers, teams, transporters and race cars that the Series provided absolutely free of charge.
“The V8 Supercar Championship Series has grown so substantially in the last eight years that it is time to seriously lay down a challenge to sports that might be considered more ‘mainstream’,” AVESCO Chairman Tony Cochrane said at the Sydney launch.
“We know our numbers are the envy of many sports in this country. We put 1.6 million people through the gates in 13 rounds in 2004, our television audience crossed 70 countries and 600 million homes, we are Australia’s only truly national spectator sport and we command live prime time television.
“It is time for us to step up to the plate and get out there. We believe we deserve a lot more recognition, particularly by the media, than we currently receive given the numbers that we are posting year, after year, after year.
“To that end the AVESCO Marketing Department headed by Manager Tracey Benton has been given a substantial increase in funding by our board to take our sport further to the people.”
Mr Cochrane foreshadowed another major announcement that will be made prior to the Clipsal 500 that opens the series in Adelaide next month.
“Suffice to say we have courted some of Australia and the world’s major financial groups to come together and present the series with a product that will service Motorsport fans and all Australians,” Mr Cochrane said.
“This will be one of the most significant announcements in the history of V8 Supercars.”
Bringing the country’s most accessible sport to the people was the theme “You Really Got Me”. The theme supports research that the largest new demographic entering the V8 Supercar audience are families and young females. This is has also prompted companies such as BigPond to support the series.
The theme of bringing the game to the people was supported at the launch when virtually the entire field assembled and threw open the gates to the public of Sydney free of charge. The Telstra Stadium forecourt was full of 17 massive transporters, race cars, Championship drivers and activities.
In 2005 the championship welcomes new sponsors Xbox, Snickers, Sidchrome and Yamaha.
Chrysler has also returned to Australian Motorsport by providing the 250kW HEMI-powered V8 Chrysler 300C as the official vehicle of the Wright Patton Shakespeare Safety Car Program.
The most notable rule changes include the restructuring of the points system that will allow teams and drivers to drop their worst round up until and including Round 10 at Bathurst. The results of the final three rounds will all count towards the Championship.
“This is designed to allow teams who have had a poor round prior to and including Bathurst to still have the chance to be involved in a contest to close the season,” AVESCO Chief Executive Officer Wayne Cattach explained.
“As we saw last year there were numerous instances of teams that may have had their Championship hopes compromised by factors beyond their control and this allows them to at least recover from one of these instances.
“The best teams will not be compromised. If you applied the theory to last year the Championship victors would still have been Stone Brothers Racing and Marcos Ambrose.”
There will be no “roll around” warm-up in 2005, this being replaced by only a single warm-up lap. The cars will enter the track in garage order and proceed directly to the grid for the start of each race.
Similarly there will be only a 15 minute window between qualifying and the Top 10 Shootout meaning teams will not be able to make major modifications to their cars in this time. This is designed to make it fairer and reward all teams that have made the Top 10 Shootout.
Release Date: 19/02/2005
AVESCO
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