The SPEED Energy Stadium Super Trucks could see a return to Australian Supercars Championship rounds as a support event in the future. On Tuesday, Speedcafe reported talks between the series and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport have proven fruitful, with a final decision potentially in the next three weeks.
“We’ve always been clear about our expectations on what we want to achieve in favour of a comeback,” CAMS head Eugene Arocca said in the article. “We didn’t give them a permanent suspension so we’ve been quite frank about saying that we’ve been in discussions with them and I would say they’re fairly positive discussions about our expectations.”
The trucks, who had competed in Australia since the 2015 season, were controversially banned from competing at CAMS-sanctioned race weekends like the Supercars after Matt Nolan‘s wheel came off during his crash at Perth’s Barbagallo Raceway in May 2018, sending it into a vacant pedestrian bridge. In an October court case, SST attorney Stewart Anderson pointed out that although the decision was made to suspend the series’ Australian races shortly after the Perth race, SST officials were not notified until July, which Victorian Supreme Court judge John Digby described as “very naked communication.”
Although the truck wheels were reinforced and various figures approved of the safety changes, SST ultimately lost the case. While they could not compete in CAMS-sanctioned events, the trucks eventually returned to Australia later that month as part of the non-CAMS Australian Auto Sport Alliance‘s Australian Motor Racing Series (AMRS), racing at Sydney Motorsport Park. Eventual series champion Matt Brabham and Gavin Harlien won that weekend’s races.
Series president Robby Gordon and CAMS have clashed over various incidents over the years, including a 2017 visa ban for Gordon after he was filmed hooning in the Darwin streets that was subsequently lifted, but the ongoing discussions mark a step forward in bringing SST back. According to Speedcafe, among the proposals raised by CAMS were to shrink the ramps and raise the catchfencing.
“I think that whatever the outcome, hopefully it will be a positive one, we’ll see the results of those discussions,” Arocca commented. “I’ve got nothing personally against Robby. There’s no animosity, there’s no backchat, we just want to be professional about the outcome and pretty confident that if discussions keep going the way they are then hopefully what we’re achieving.
“It’s still got to go to the board, and we’ve still got to reach a concluded agreement (or) outcome but I’m pretty confident.”
In response to the news, the series’ Twitter account posted:
