V8 SUPERCAR chief executive Wayne Cattach is considering a major shake up to the race formats of marquee events following Garth Tander`s mind-numbing Hamilton 400 win.Cattach said the regular sprint round format, featuring three short races over two days, was not suitable to big, crowd-pulling street race meetings like Hamilton and the Gold Coast.
Ideally, he would like to change the format to two longer races over the two days, like the hugely popular Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, and he was hopeful next year`s Townsville street race debut would also adopt the style.
“When you`ve got an event of this magnitude I think we really do need to consider a different race format - not because of Tander`s success - but generally I think the way the race format unfolds,” Cattach said in Hamilton, where a sell-out crowd of 60,000 took the three-day attendance to about 175,000 in the event`s first year.
“It might be better to go back to a bigger race on Saturday and a bigger race on Sunday.
“It gives a lot more time to bring some ceremony into it, build the moment a lot more - that`s what makes the Clipsal special.”
Reigning series champion Tander made a clean-sweep of the Hamilton 400, taking full advantage of the absence of title rival Jamie Whincup.
The Holden Racing Team driver won all three races comfortably, while Ford hope Whincup watched from the commentary box after smashing the Triple Eight Racing Falcon in Saturday`s qualifying.
Whincup drops from the top of the championship to fifth after three rounds, while Holden driver Rick Kelly takes the early overall lead from Tander and another Holden pilot, Lee Holdsworth.
Tander received the Mark Porter Trophy - a unique piece made from traditional New Zealand materials and named in memory of the Kiwi driver who died in a V8 racing accident during the 2006 Bathurst 1000 meeting. He was 32.
“Mark was a great guy who was taken away from us way too early,” Tander said on accepting the 21kg trophy.
“It`s a fantastic result for us and a fantastic result for Holden to make it eight in a row in New Zealand.”
The racing was largely uneventful towards the front but there was plenty of midfield niggle at the tight 3.4km circuit, where passing was difficult.
A highlight for the locals was the battle between 18-year-old Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen and Holden veterans Mark Skaife and Russell Ingall.
Van Gisbergen, who has been compared to a young Craig Lowndes, got the better of both the former champions with composure beyond his years to finish in tenth with an incredible drive for SBR, having started from 26th.
“It`s pretty cool to be out there with them for one thing but to be passing them and racing hard and clean is awesome,” van Gisbergen said.
AAP
