{"id":487561,"date":"2026-02-18T08:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487561\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T08:49:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:49:19","slug":"supercars-2026-sydney-500-plan-b-roland-dane-weighs-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487561\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars’ 2026 Sydney 500 plan B, Roland Dane weighs in"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUPERCARS could race on Sydney Motorsport Park\u2019s shorter Druitt Circuit if a resurfaced section of track does not withstand tomorrow night\u2019s test.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> of the standard Gardner configuration.<\/p>\n

Half of today\u2019s scheduled full-field test was postponed to Thursday night, with the Wednesday morning segment continuing but on the Druitt layout.<\/p>\n

Without the benefit of weeks if not months for the track surface to \u2018cure\u2019, there are question marks around how it will hold up under the strain of 24 Supercars in anger (not to mention support categories).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

PremiAir Racing team principal Roland Dane noted if plan B was to be activated, a solution must be implemented regarding track limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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,\u201d he told V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

\"\"Roland Dane. Pic: Mark Walker<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an awful lot of gravel put on the track then.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see, I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s perfectly possible to do. It just would probably be better for everyone if we weren\u2019t doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While other teams had pointed to this morning\u2019s running being largely pointless, Dane did not see it that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a waste of a day for us at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hadn\u2019t tested deliberately because we knew we were coming here \u2013 we didn\u2019t know about this (Druitt) compromise \u2013 but even in that scenario you have got so much you want to check, systems check, new stuff, new drivers, ergonomics, everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m not bothered by it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Glenn Seton<\/a> runs ahead of Tony Longhurst through the link road per the ATCC\u2019s use of the shorter Eastern Creek layout in 1996. Pic: an1images.com \/ Dirk Klynsmith<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus, we\u2019ll 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\u2019s worked out okay.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a shame to compromise the race meeting by having to do it on the short circuit but if that\u2019s what has to be done, that\u2019s what has to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite honestly, this place should be better looked after. I mean, it belongs to the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at how the circuits that are well-kept like QR these days or The Bend, this place needs some TLC as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thursday night test will take place across 5:30-9:30pm AEDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUPERCARS could race on Sydney Motorsport Park\u2019s shorter Druitt Circuit if a resurfaced section of track does not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-487561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}