Supercars silly season to deliver final surprise

FOR the second straight year, a final pre-Christmas twist looms in the Supercars Championship’s silly season.

The long-awaited confirmation of Tickford Racing’s two-driver line-up leaves just one seat on the 2024 grid yet-to-be-announced.

That is the SCT Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro entry, owned by the Smith family and fielded by Brad Jones Racing.

Jack Smith has opted to step back from driving and his replacement had long been touted to be Super2 young gun Zak Best.

However, V8 Sleuth understands that Best has missed out on the seat and won’t be graduating to the main game after all.

It’s the latest blow for the 22-year-old, who last month lost the Dunlop Super2 Series title by just six points to Kai Allen after a costly penalty in the penultimate race.

Best has now finished second in the Super2 Series for three consecutive years.

Tickford Racing refugee Declan Fraser was previously thought to be the only outside threat to Best for the SCT seat.

However, Kiwi international Porsche racer Jaxon Evans has emerged as a surprise new front-runner and appears poised to snag the drive.

Based in Europe for the last five years, the 27-year-old impressed in co-driver outings alongside Smith in the SCT entry in 2022 and ’23.

It’s likely that an SCT driver announcement will be made before Christmas.

The topic of the vacant seat was brought up on the latest episode of BJR’s podcast, The Brad Jones Racing Run Down, released on Wednesday.

BJR general manager and podcast host Chris Westwood noted, “there’s a few drivers up there, but we’ll wait and see where that falls.”

Podcast co-host Macauley Jones added: “I don’t have much to comment on it, not that I can’t, it’s more that I don’t really know.

“That side of things is a bit unknown for us and when they decide what they’re doing, we’ll go from there.”

The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship will kick-off with the Thrifty Bathurst 500 on February 23-25.

2024 Repco Supercars Championship grid