With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the sports world into silence, the Supercars Championship and Boost Mobile Super Trucks have made some changes to their 2020 schedule. On Wednesday, Supercars announced the Tasmania Super400, Auckland Super400, and Perth SuperNight weekends would be postponed until beyond June.
“We have been working diligently to assess all available options to ensure continuity of the series,” Supercars CEO Sean Seamer stated. “Obviously, the situation is evolving, but we acknowledge the need to act decisively with the information we have at hand.”
New to 2020, the Boost Mobile Super Trucks championship is the Australian counterpart to the American SPEED Energy Stadium Super Trucks, and both trucks raced together to kick off 2020 at the Adelaide 500 in February. However, like their Australian brethren, the SPEED Energy trucks have also been sidelined as their upcoming date at the Grand Prix of Long Beach, where they were scheduled to support the IndyCar Series, was postponed. Long Beach has hosted the trucks since their inaugural season in 2013, and is the lone circuit from that year’s schedule to still have SST races.
The SST Twitter described the announcement as “crushing news”, but added the “good news is they will reschedule and we’ll be there when they do”.
The Tasmania weekend at Symmons Plains Raceway (4–5 April) and Auckland at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park (25–26 April) are new additions for the trucks, with the latter also being their maiden trip to New Zealand. Wanneroo Raceway, which was to host the Perth SuperNight on 16–17 May, was on the SST schedule in 2017 and 2018. Like Adelaide, Perth was to be a combination race between the American and Australian championships, with a third taking place at the Gold Coast 600 in October to end the 2020 season.
Assuming no further developments, the next Boost Mobile Super Trucks race weekend is the Townsville 400 at Townsville Street Circuit on 27–28 June, while the SPEED Energy Stadium Super Trucks will return at Honda Indy Toronto on 10–12 July. SST’s lone trip to Townsville was in 2016, while Toronto has been on the schedule since 2019 after last appearing from 2013 to 2016.
SST has raced in Australia since 2015 and expanded their operations in Oceania in 2019 after Motorsport Australia lifted a year-long ban on the series for safety reasons.
