“IT has been a massive eye-opener, Super2.”
Cameron Crick makes no secret of how he needed to readjust his racing approach to get up to speed in the Supercars feeder series.
Having flashed his credentials in Toyota 86s and SuperUtes, Crick last year stepped up to Super2 but results proved hard to come by.
His 2023 campaign wasn’t initially shaping up much better – until a major breakthrough last round in Townsville.
Crick capitalised on a disrupted qualifying session to nab fifth on the grid for Race 1, and made a lightning start to launch into second place.
He was unchallenged from there, completing an Eggleston Motorsport one-two behind Kai Allen.
“I’ve been shocking at starts in this Supercar, I haven’t managed to get it off the line really well and it all came together up there,” Crick told V8 Sleuth.
“I was very close to jumping the start but timed it well and it just hooked up and away we went.”
It doesn’t take long chatting with Crick to get a sense of his willingness to be open and honest.
“I probably have always been focused on the business side a little bit more than the racing and when I got to Super2, it definitely made me realise that I need more help in terms of running the logistics side and the sponsorship stuff and all the rest of it,” he said.
“It (the Townsville result) was a big relief. Not that we fully converted the Sunday but to still be fourth for the weekend in points and I had a lot of sponsors up there in a corporate box, it was a really good weekend for them to be there.
“It was definitely a boost to confidence and probably what we needed, just for the sponsors and everything as well.”
It gives Crick a launching pad for the second half of the season, which resumes next weekend at Sandown.
“I always knew it was going to be competitive,” he reflected of the jump to Super2. “But I probably didn’t put the emphasis on the driving that I needed to, in terms of the work you have got to do in studying the footage and the data and the technique.
“I probably didn’t do all of the test days I was able to last year, like in terms of making the most of my rookie year, I probably didn’t do the right amount of laps that I should have.
“The truth is I feel like my development wasn’t as quick as I’d like because I do get caught up in the sponsorship side of it and the business that I’m trying to run behind the scenes – and I still am doing that, but I probably have more processes in place now with a few people working for me and a few things that have made it easier.
“It was real hard at one stage, obviously with so much money in Super2 as it is, like just to try to find the right people and the right fit to give me the breathing space to focus on the driving and just be really tight-knit with the team all weekend and spend a lot of time looking over your footage.
“As much as the 86s and the SuperUtes and all that were tough categories, I feel like I could probably just jump in and get a good result and not have to think too much about it.
“But I guess Super2 you need to eat, sleep and breathe it.
“I did question it all for a while because I was like, ‘if I take my finger off the pulse with all the sponsorship stuff and getting new people involved, I’m not going to have the money to do it – but if I keep doing it the way I’m doing it, I’m never going to go as well as I want to because I’m just not focused enough’.
“It’s bloody tough work and obviously a lot of people are in the same position but I feel like Townsville was a big step in the right direction to show people that I can get the sponsors to do it and run a pretty good business model behind the scenes as well as get the results in the car when things are going well.”
Crick made a successful cameo return to V8 SuperUtes last month, winning two of the three races at The Bend while filling in for Aaron Borg.
The 24-year-old is the son of the late Rodney Crick, won six Australian Super Truck titles and made five starts in the Bathurst 1000.
V8 Sleuth’s ongoing coverage of the Dunlop Series for Super2 and Super3 is proudly presented by Biante – Fuel your passion with winning model cars. Visit Biante here to check out their range of model cars in a range of scales from 1:64 to 1:10.
