TRIPLE Eight Race Engineering’s bid to stay in Super2 next year led it to assess whether it could revive an infamously wrecked Supercar.
The Banyo juggernaut is on track for back-to-back second-tier titles, with Declan Fraser leading the points two-thirds of the way through the season. Broc Feeney won the 2021 series before taking over from Jamie Whincup as the #88 main game pilot.
However, Triple Eight has found itself in a sticky situation given that it actually owns none of its five Car of the Future chassis.
Its three ZB Commodores all belong to PremiAir Racing owner Peter Xiberras, while the VFs it fields in Super2 have both been bought by third parties.
MORE: Team owner fumes over ‘$2 million’ Super2 pile-up
Triple Eight is understood to be one of few teams that were opposed to making the ZB Commodore and Mustang GT the only eligible models for Super2 next year.
Teams are not permitted to build new cars specifically for Super2 or Super3.
“Definitely keen to do Super2 for sure. If we can find some chassis at an acceptable rate, then we’ll commit to it,” team principal Whincup affirmed to V8 Sleuth.
“If we can’t, then we’ll have no choice but to pull out.”
Having been “a couple of days too late” on the Garry Rogers Motorsport chassis snapped up by Tickford Racing, Whincup elaborated on the hunt via this week’s Castrol Motorsport News podcast.
“A great option would have been the crashed Lee Holdsworth car that Team 18 have got,” he told host Andrew van Leeuwen.
WRITTEN OFF: The destroyed Car of the Future Supercars
“We inspected that on Thursday (last week) and it’s too far gone, it’s a write-off.
“So that option is out and there’s not really many options around but we’ll continue to keep hunting.
“But if we can’t find a solution, then we’ll be forced just to focus on main game next year.”
The Team 18 car in question was the one involved in a massive accident at the 2016 Darwin Triple Crown.
An injured Holdsworth missed the subsequent three events, while chassis 888A-030 has never raced again.
Whincup also explained why upgrading its VF Commodores to ZB-specification is not on the cards.
“Those two VFs, they want to be maintained as VFs because they’re an ex-SVG and an ex-Lowndesy car,” he added.
“So a $100,000 upgrade to ZB wouldn’t be feasible because you would have to convert it all back again and I don’t think those owners will want to do that anyway. So no, those cars aren’t available to us.”
V8 Sleuth revealed this morning that the cars Team 18 fields in the 2022 Repco Supercars Championship will be sold to Super2 outfit Eggleston Motorsport.
