Supercars at the Bend: Do you want the good news or the bad news?
Tailem Bend’s motor sport park has received some mixed news about the Supercars Championship in 2024 and 2025.
The Bend Motorsport Park, as the expression goes, has received some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is that the Bend won’t host a Supercars race in 2024.
The good news is that it will be host a Supercars endurance race in 2025.
Sam Shahin, managing director of the Bend, expressed conflicting feelings about the announcement.
“I am naturally disappointed that a Supercars event will not be held at the best motorsport facility in Australia in 2024; however, we are thrilled to have secured the coveted endurance round for the Bend in 2025,” he said.
South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas also ran the gamut of emotions about the news.
“We’re disappointed that the Bend is not featuring on the 2024 Supercars calendar, but the enduro round for 2025 is a great outcome for the Bend and regional SA,” he said.
Supercars and the Bend have long had a strained relationship, with Mr Shahin saying in 2020 that Supercars owed South Australia a “big apology” for cancelling the Bend 500 that same year after people had bought tickets to the event.
Supercars snubbed the Bend again in 2022 by not including them in the race calendar for that year.
In both years, the venue ended up hosting races anyway: in 2020 when the schedule was re-jigged due to COVID-19, and in 2022 after one race venue was initially listed as “TBD”.
Nevertheless, Supercars CEO Shane Howard’s dominant emotion about inviting the Bend to host the Supercars in 2025 was excitement.
“We’re all excited to see what happens on track when endurance racing debuts at the Bend in 2025,” he said.
- More information: www.supercars.com.
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