{"id":746828,"date":"2026-06-19T14:23:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/746828\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T14:23:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:23:18","slug":"skaife-opens-up-on-life-after-supercars-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/746828\/","title":{"rendered":"Skaife opens up on life after Supercars commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARK Skaife<\/a> admits it has been a difficult adjustment to be absent from Supercars race meetings, but says his weekends have actually gotten busier.<\/p>\n

Skaife and Neil Crompton<\/a> were both replaced as commentators in James Warburton\u2019s divisive TV shake-up for 2026.<\/p>\n

That opened the door for a raft of internal promotions, with Garth Tander<\/a> now the full-time expert voice alongside a rotating cast of play-by-play callers (Chad Neylon, Richard Craill and Matt Naulty).<\/p>\n

The opening six rounds of the season have been split up two apiece between Neylon, Craill and Naulty, with a permanent pick to be decided upon post-Darwin.<\/p>\n

Skaife has maintained a broadcast presence via the new MotorRacing 360 show, and may yet make a cameo return for the enduros, but the general revamp has certainly been a major change for the five-time champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to say, it\u2019s been quite difficult to adjust to, because I\u2019ve spent my whole life at the racetrack,\u201d he said via the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Parramatta Toyota.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe captain\u2019s call that James Warburton made, I made the comment earlier this year that it helped me with my golf handicap and my boxing regime, which was nice of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I suppose in a similar way there\u2019s a bit of form there given he did the same thing with Leigh Matthews and Bruce McAveney out of the AFL coverage. So for Neil and I, it was quite difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think generational change is completely fine and I think all of us would be big enough and measured enough and sophisticated enough to come up with a plan around however that was going to work if it was done the right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd based on doing it the right way, you bring people along on the journey and you seek to make the product better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you lose someone like a Neil Crompton for instance, I would argue that he is the best motorsport commentator in the world, so you lose a massive amount of IP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that life after Supercars is all bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just so much good stuff because motor racing, under that scenario, you cover all the things Fox have got \u2013 and other stuff,\u201d Skaife said of MotorRacing 360.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually I find my weekends now are busier in some ways because I have got to watch everything!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe culmination of all those things has actually turned out to be quite good and I\u2019m enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n

Skaife made clear what he misses most of all not being trackside, though.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Neil) and I, we\u2019re great mates and we take the piss out of ourselves pretty regularly, and we like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s half the thing, the rapport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s probably what I miss the most, to be honest, it\u2019s really the rapport with Neil in the box and then back into Larko (Mark Larkham) in the lane; three blokes that have lived their life loving car racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou like the personalities, you like the different views, you like the way you\u2019re trying to tell a different story every weekend. That narrative is really important for the quality of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARK Skaife admits it has been a difficult adjustment to be absent from Supercars race meetings, but says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-746828","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\/746828","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=746828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}