PETER Adderton claims to have forged an advanced plan on how his prospective Supercars squad would operate should his rally for a Teams Racing Charter prove successful.
Having previously committed to pulling out of Supercars altogether at season’s end, Adderton has been re-energised following his Repco Bathurst 1000 wildcard project for Richie Stanaway and Greg Murphy.
However, he only wants in if he can do things his way – meaning his own Boost Mobile team.
Backed by a fan-driven petition, Adderton told the Castrol Motorsport News podcast that official communications would begin this week to secure the necessary TRC.
The last of the 26 TRCs is currently in Supercars’ possession, with the Blanchard Racing Team and Matt Chahda Motorsport among others to have flagged future interest in it.
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While the Supercars Commission, which is largely made up of team representatives, is consulted in the process, the final say on the awarding of any TRC belongs to the Supercars and RACE boards.
As opposed to the REC system of old whereby any additional entries would dilute the income distribution, the new model sees a fixed income associated with each TRC – payable by RACE to the estimated tune of $650,000 a year.
Adderton, who has regularly been seen in discussion with RACE figurehead Barclay Nettlefold in recent times, though has promised to forgo any such income for his team’s first two seasons.
Furthermore, he has already planned various key details.
Stanaway would be his primary driver, with Murphy in some form of managerial role and an undisclosed technical partner already lined up.
“It would be standalone – it would be ours, we buy the car, we do all of that and then we basically set it up over time – but we’d have a technical partner,” Adderton said.
“I’d love to put Richie in the car. I’ve got a really cool person that I’m talking to internationally about doing a co-drive for Bathurst which I think would raise the sport up.”
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When pressed for more details on whether those finer details like the identity of a technical partner have been sorted, Adderton replied: “Yeah, we have.
“I’m not going to say (who) yet until we get the green light from Supercars.
“(But) we know exactly how it is going to work. We’re ready.
“It’s just a matter now of getting Supercars and the teams to say ‘okay, Adderton can come racing’.
“And if they can’t let me come racing, then they better tell us why.”
Adderton believes Car #51’s campaign at Mount Panorama has only legitimised his pursuit of team ownership.
“And people forget, I used to own the Audi racing team with Brad (Jones) so I have been involved in racing teams, so I understand how they operate and how they work,” he continued.
“I’m not thinking that it’s going to be easy for us in Supercars, but I’ve got to tell you, going into Gen3, it’s a lot easier because everyone is kind of starting from scratch so it’s not like we have to inherit an old car.”
Having cleared the air with Nettlefold over the infamous Optus appearance which sparked Adderton’s walkout, the Boost boss now thinks his biggest hurdle is teams seeing him as a threat.
“I won’t take revenue for two years, absolutely. They can lease (the TRC) to me,” Adderton affirmed.
“I honestly think that the teams are afraid.
“I think the teams actually like the rental model, I actually think it’s a business model now for them, right? And it’s a race team and you want to go out there and win.
“I think most of the teams don’t want to race us… I said to someone the other day: I’m obviously very opinionated; if you want to shut me up, give me a race team and then beat me on the track.
“They don’t want to beat us on the track.
“They know what we’re capable of and they know that when we get in there, we’re going to give it everything to race, and again, I don’t think they want the competition – and if they do want the competition, then let us in and let’s settle it on the track.”
Stanaway and Murphy started the 2022 Great Race fourth and finished 11th.
