Motorsport Is Moving Again

Ten renewed rounds of national championship motorsport are confirmed for 2020 as the carsales TCR Australia series and the Australian Rally Championship return from furlough.

TCR contests will headline the six-round calendar for the Australian Racing Group, which also features S5000 single-seaters, while the forest racing series has been trimmed to four rallies Canberra, Adelaide, Tasmania and a new event in NSW.

ARG events will start in August and run until late January to complete the 2020 title races, while the ARC will run from September until late November.

The two fresh calendars follow the revised Supercars program although, just like the touring car headliners, there is no detail yet on how teams will be allowed to move around Australia and the possibility for spectators.

Organisers of the TCR program, which also includes Trans Am and Touring Car Masters, have taken a novel approach to several events, expanding the Bathurst International in November to a four-day event to include the Bathurst 6-Hour production race and taking championship racing back to the Baskerville circuit, on the outskirts of Hobart, for the first time in four decades.

The Tasmanian tour will be a double-header with a meeting at Symmons Plains concluding on Australia Day, as the ARG team promises S5000 and Trans Am will feature on the back-to-back events at the conclusion of its calendar.

“We are really pleased that we are able to confirm a condensed, dynamic racing schedule combining fresh new events along with racing at some of Australia’s best circuits,” says ARG CEO, Matt Braid.

“It’s been an unprecedented crisis and its effect on motorsport all around the world has been huge.”

Rally teams provided input for their championship before Motorsport Australia signed-off on the calendar, which has lost the traditional trek across the Nullarbor to Perth.

It picks up from Canberra, which was ready to run before the COVID-19 lockdown, and will finish in NSW with a fresh event that is more likely to run from Bathurst than the recent home of Rally Australia in Coffs Harbour.

“Rallies may be shorter in time and distance than in previous years to enable competitors, teams, officials, suppliers and organisers to attend,” says Eugene Arocca of Motorsport Australia.

“Most importantly for those volunteering their time as officials to make these events happen, we want to make sure they can get back to work as soon as possible.”

ARG CHAMPIONSHIP

AUSTRALIAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP