{"id":495659,"date":"2026-02-22T00:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T00:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495659\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T00:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T00:03:16","slug":"supercars-stars-desperate-to-dodge-blacktown-bullring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495659\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars stars desperate to dodge \u2018Blacktown bullring\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE trio who graced the Repco Supercars Championship podium last night hope there\u2019ll be no need for a Sunday circuit swap.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency pre-event resurfacing at the Turn 8 hairpin flared up yesterday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/turn-8-dramas-rear-head-in-sydney-sun\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">forcing a sudden shift onto Sydney Motorsport Park\u2019s shorter Druitt configuration for all support categories<\/a> as the affected piece of track began to strain under scorching skies.<\/p>\n<p>The main game field did at least make full use of the persisting opportunity to stay on the Gardner layout, with plenty of hard racing under lights through Turns 5-8 which otherwise would\u2019ve been cut out.<\/p>\n<p>Now, another test of the Turn 8 asphalt awaits with today\u2019s running exclusively in daylight and temperatures forecast to reach the mid-30s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if I want to touch the \u2018Blacktown bullring\u2019,\u201d said Grove Racing\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-2716-Matt-Payne\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Payne<\/a>, with reference to Druitt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to go around that track.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/official-2026-repco-supercars-championship-season-guide?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/season-guide-2026_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-250-Dick-Johnson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dick Johnson<\/a> Racing star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1301-Brodie-Kostecki\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brodie Kostecki<\/a> joked he and his peers are \u201callergic\u201d to the 2.8km alternative but in all seriousness called on officials to play on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the track rips up during our race, well we drive around when it\u2019s torrential rain, so if a little bit of marbles is on the circuit it\u2019s not going to be the end of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe did a whole Adelaide race that one year with the track breaking up in every single corner, so it should be fine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust leave the track how it is and if it\u2019s breaking up, just drive around it. We\u2019re all professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Race 2 winner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1264-Anton-De Pasquale\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anton De Pasquale<\/a> concurred: \u201cI don\u2019t think we should do the ride track.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All support categories are again using the Druitt layout today. Sunday Supercars qualifying will take place from 12:10pm AEDT.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/RGP-2026-Dunlop-Sydney-500-_25A0031-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-248469\"  \/>The Super2 field qualified and raced on Druitt yesterday. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE trio who graced the Repco Supercars Championship podium last night hope there\u2019ll be no need for a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-495659","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\/495659","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=495659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}