V8: Bathurst And V8 Supercars 101

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V8: Bathurst And V8 Supercars 101

Get ready for Saturday's live broadcast of the Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercars race with SPEED's introduction to the event and the popular racing series.

Marshall Pruett | Posted October 03, 2011

After getting the scoop on the series and race below, catch Australia's Great Race live on SPEED this Saturday at 7 p.m. ET. (LAT)

Get ready for this weekend’s Bathurst 1000, airing live on SPEED Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, with an insider's look at the cars, the drivers and the legendary event.

V8 Supercars 101

OK, so what‘s a ‘V8 Supercar’?

In simple terms, it’s a production-based car that’s heavy, powerful and an absolute handful to drive.

Ford and Holden (General Motors’ Australian arm) are the two manufacturers involved in the series, and teams, both factory-backed and privateers, use body shells taken from either the Ford or Holden production line and transform them into V8 Supercars.

The cars weigh 3300 pounds (about 100 pounds less than a Sprint Cup car), make approximately 650 horsepower from 5.0-liter V8 engines that spin to 7500 rpms (the same power as an Indy car and about 200 hp less than a Sprint Cup car), produce roughly 800 pounds of downforce—about a quarter of its weight and about 60 percent more than an ALMS GT2 car--and, here’s the comical part, it holds the road through four of the narrowest tires in GT or sports car racing.

With Dunlop supplying spec tires to the 29-car field, the 3300-pound, 650-horespower beasts are tied to the road through mini-me-sized 11-inch wide slicks. Compared to a Sprint Cup car fitted with 15-inch tires, the V8 Supercars are missing an extra eight inches of rubber front and back. Brakes discs are made from steel, and for the endurance races, a change of brake pads is usually required.

V8 Supercars use six-speed sequential transmissions that offer shift-without-lift, and make use of front and rear anti-roll bars that are adjustable from the cockpit.

Drivers sit on the right (Australia is a right-hand drive country), refueling takes place during the race, onboard airjacks are used for tire changes and the machined 17-inch diameter wheels use a single lug.

Composites are used for the splitter, bumpers and rear wing, but most of the body panels are production-based.

Inside the body shell, some of the most impressive and extensive fabrication in the sport can be found. A maze of tubes forms the roll cage and ties all four corners of the car together to create an incredibly stiff platform.

Put it all together and a single V8 Supercar can cost between $500,000 and $600,000.

PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view V8: Inside a V8 Supercar

What’s the better car to have this year, the Ford Falcon or the Holden Commodore?

Easy—the Holden. Except for two wins by Ford, the Commodore chassis and engine has dominated the 2011 season.

Marcos Ambrose won back-to-back V8 championships then left for NASCAR. Is he their best driver?

With all due respect to Ambrose, no. Ambrose rates amongst the best in the past decade, but the popular Tasmanian would find today’s V8 series a much tougher nut to crack.

Alright, so who are the hotshots in the V8 series these days?

You have three eras of top-tier drivers at play.

Craig Lowndes has been in the series for 15 years and has three championships and five Bathurst wins to his credit. Lowndes is two years older than Ambrose, and is by far the dominant veteran in the series—like a Dario Franchitti in IndyCar or Tony Stewart in Sprint Cup—and currently sits second in the point standings behind his teammate, Jamie Whincup.

With the gorgeous views from atop the mountain, the Mount Panorama name is quite fitting. But if drivers get it wrong, it's a long drop to the bottom... (LAT)

Whincup is the closest thing to a Jimmie Johnson/Kyle Busch hybrid the V8 series has. At 28 years old, Whincup has two titles to his credit, two second-place finishes, three Bathurst wins and looks capable of adding a lot more championships to his record before he retires. He wins approximately 25 percent of the races he enters and stands on the podium about 40 percent of the time. He’s a bit brash at times, and doesn’t mind tapping into the KyBu persona when necessary.

The next-generation V8 driver is New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen, nicknamed ‘The Giz.’ The 22-year-old New Zealander is in the midst of his break-through season, earning two wins for Ambrose’s former team, Stone Brothers Racing, and presently holds third in the championship. At 6’2” and somewhere in the 225-pound range, the kid could easily be mistaken for a Linebacker, drives like every lap is for pole position, but outside the car, The Giz is as polite and reserved as your neighborhood florist.

James Courtney is the reigning V8 champion but has endured a tough season after switching to the factory Holden team, Rick Kelly fits between Lowndes and Whincup in experience but is having a heck of comeback season, Garth Tander is always good for a few wins each year, Will Davison won the title in 2009 and now leads Ford’s factory efforts at the Prodrive team, and his brother, SPEED.com columnist Alex Davison, has been far more competitive this season in the second Stone Brothers entry.

Mark Winterbottom is one of the fastest V8 drivers over a single lap, and sits right behind his Prodrive teammate Davison in the points.

It hasn’t happened yet, but a smart Sprint Cup team would put any of the drivers listed above on a plane to drive on a road course, and the same could be said for any of the prototype or GT teams in GRAND-Am or the ALMS.

The top 10 V8 drivers are a match for the best in those three series.

So what’s the racing like?

Intense. Aggressive. Feelings get hurt, but punches are rarely thrown. Most of the cars require body panels to be replaced after every race, and they have two to three races per weekend most of the time...

Crack the door open on entry to a corner and the following driver will barge through it. Try a bump-and-run on a car and, eventually, you can expect to receive a bump-and-in-the-wall as payback.

Despite the tough, hard racing, there’s a common theme of respect that most drivers work from.

What are the drivers like? A bunch of Prima Donnas?

Hardly. Every series has a few prickly types, but as a whole, the V8 drivers are some of the friendliest and most accommodating drivers you’ll come across. In certain racing series in America, it’s hard to pry drivers from their hauler or motorhomes, and when they do come outside, it’s either behind a fence or streaking by on a scooter or golf cart.

V8 drivers aren’t available to their fans at all times, but they do make extraordinary efforts to be present and in touch with those who come to see their races.

V8 fans are incredibly loyal to either the Ford or Holden brand. (LAT)

How does the V8 series rate in Australia? Is it a big thing?

The biggest, in terms of auto racing. It’s a country of 20 million people and V8s happen to be the one and only form of major motorsport on tap. The top drivers are national celebrities--more so than Dale Jr. and Danica experience here. Every race is broadcast live on network television—not even NASCAR or IndyCar have that luxury.

I’ve never watched a V8 Supercars race before—why should I watch Bathurst on Saturday?

If you’re a fan of road racing, read no further. You already have it set to record on your DVR. If you’re a fan of NASCAR, think of the V8 series as old school in the sense that the cars are built from actual production vehicles, but every ounce of modern technology can be found inside and out. If you liked NASCAR before it went to tubeframe cars, you’ll love the V8s. If you like the current Sprint Cup cars for their added technology, the V8s are a perfect blend of the Cup cars that raced at riverside in the 1970s and these days at Watkins Glen.

The Bathurst 1000 101

The Event

The Supercheap Bathurst 1000 is the 10th of 14 rounds in the 2011 V8 Supercars championship. Bathurst is the second of three endurance events on the V8 calendar. The last round, held at Phillip Island and won by Craig Lowndes and Mark Scaife, was the first endurance event, and the Gold Coast 600, comprising two 300-kilometer races across two days at Surfers Paradise, is held the weekend of Oct. 22-23.

The Bathurst 1000 and Gold Coast 600 events will be aired live on SPEED.

180,000 fans are seen across the three-day event with fierce loyalty divided between the Ford and Holden camps. The top of the mountain is renowned for the wild parties that take place—something that rivals the 12 Hours of Sebring.

For some, the classis race is the main attraction. For others, Bathurst is a giant party where a 1000-kilometer race happens to break out each year.

The Schedule

• Thursday 6 October: Practice
Practice is comprised of three practice sessions.

• Friday 7 October: Practice & Qualifying
There will be two practice sessions and one qualifying session. The 10 fastest lap times from Friday’s qualifying session will set the order for the Top Ten Shootout on Saturday.

• Saturday 8 October: Practice and Top Ten Shootout
Saturday has one practice prior to the Top Ten Shootout. They will have one lap against the clock to try and take pole position for the race. Drivers in the Shootout will leave the pits for individual runs, receive a single warmup lap and will take the green flag for a one-lap flyer to vie for pole position.

• Sunday 9 October: Race
1000km (161 laps)

The History

Located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, Mount Panorama is to Australian racing fans what Daytona International Speedway or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is to Americans.

(Cont.)

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