SUPERCARS could race on Sydney Motorsport Park’s shorter Druitt Circuit if a resurfaced section of track does not withstand tomorrow night’s test.

Drivers and teams have been notified of the contingency plan as part of the fallout of a rising water table forcing emergency works at Turn 8 of the standard Gardner configuration.

Half of today’s scheduled full-field test was postponed to Thursday night, with the Wednesday morning segment continuing but on the Druitt layout.

Without the benefit of weeks if not months for the track surface to ‘cure’, there are question marks around how it will hold up under the strain of 24 Supercars in anger (not to mention support categories).

PremiAir Racing team principal Roland Dane noted if plan B was to be activated, a solution must be implemented regarding track limits.

“If there was a situation where we had to compromise and run on the short circuit, there would certainly have to be some proper thought into how you enforce track limits or stop the cars getting exposed to damage,” he told V8 Sleuth.

Roland Dane. Pic: Mark Walker

“There was an awful lot of gravel put on the track then.

“You could see, I’m not going to name names, but there were one or two culprits who were treating the track like they were doing a ride day for fun or something out there in that middle sector where you turn off the main circuit and go slightly up the hill. We have to be careful with that because we could end up costing ourselves a lot of money with car damage.

“But it’s perfectly possible to do. It just would probably be better for everyone if we weren’t doing that.”

While other teams had pointed to this morning’s running being largely pointless, Dane did not see it that way.

“It wasn’t a waste of a day for us at all,” he said.

“We hadn’t tested deliberately because we knew we were coming here – we didn’t know about this (Druitt) compromise – but even in that scenario you have got so much you want to check, systems check, new stuff, new drivers, ergonomics, everything.

“To be honest, I’m not bothered by it.

Glenn Seton runs ahead of Tony Longhurst through the link road per the ATCC’s use of the shorter Eastern Creek layout in 1996. Pic: an1images.com / Dirk Klynsmith

“Plus, we’ll maybe get some more worthwhile running tomorrow by running later on than we would have done if we were just running this afternoon, which would have been stinking hot. So probably from that point of view in isolation, it’s worked out okay.

“It would be a shame to compromise the race meeting by having to do it on the short circuit but if that’s what has to be done, that’s what has to be done.

“Quite honestly, this place should be better looked after. I mean, it belongs to the government.

“You look at how the circuits that are well-kept like QR these days or The Bend, this place needs some TLC as well.”

The Thursday night test will take place across 5:30-9:30pm AEDT.