2016 camaro gt3 south island r3
Bruce Newton23 Apr 2018
NEWS

Chevrolet Camaro Supercar “a no-brainer”

Tickford heavy backs a new rival for the Ford Mustang, but Commodore will stay

Expectation is mounting that the Chevrolet Camaro will follow the Ford Mustang into the Supercars championship.

In fact, Rod Nash, the co-owner of Tickford Racing and a key player in the plan to get the Mustang on to the grid in 2019 has described its arrival on the grid as a “no-brainer”.

“If you’re a betting person, someone within the category will pick up the Camaro, I would have thought,” he told media at the Phillip Island Supercar round last weekend.

The Mustang is the first two-door vehicle to be accepted for the Supercars championship. The Camaro is its ‘pony car’ arch rival in the USA. Both cars have a racing history in Australia.

But Ryan Walkinshaw, the team boss most likely to bring the Camaro into Supercars is being far more circumspect than Nash. In fact, he isn’t talking at all.

Walkinshaw, the co-owner of Walkinshaw Andretti United (the old Holden Racing Team), is currently in the US on business. He initially agreed to an interview with motoring.com.au but then added the caveat he would not talk about Camaro.

A subsequent request for a time to call him has yet to be responded to.

WAU is seen as the likely home for a Camaro Supercars bid because Walkinshaw owns Holden Special Vehicles, which will soon begin the sale of road-going locally-converted Camaros through selected Holden dealerships.

Quite how that would fit in with Holden’s own official Supercars campaign with the ZB Commodore is an interesting question. WAU currently campaigns privateer Commodores. Holden's official factory team is WAU's arch-rival, Triple Eight which campaigns under the Red Bull Holden Racing Team banner.

Nash, whether he was being mischievous or sincere, didn’t hold back in his assessment of the Camaro’s chances.

“The Mustang body sets the agenda for the competition factor there,” he said.

“That’ll be up to Holden to make those statements officially, but I think it’s a bit of a no-brainer that the Camaro is on its way now for sure, just as a result of the Mustang body being put out there.

“As we know, there’s quite a few Holden teams. That’s what’s great about Gen2, even within a brand of say Chev and Holden, you’re likely to see two body shapes out there being the Commodore and the Camaro.

“I think that’s great for where the landscape is, but no question the Mustang is going to set the agenda now.”

Asked if he preferred the Mustang to race the Camaro or the Commodore, Ford Australia boss Graeme Whickman took the diplomatic position.

“I think that that’s important; we don’t measure ourselves against one particular manufacturer, whether it be on the race track or on the road, and we’ve I think established ourselves separate to that past history of Holden versus Ford and we look beyond that now, so I’d hope that would extend onto the race track," Whickman told motoring.com.au.

“I would like us to be racing against a multitude of marques because I think that just speaks volumes to the competitiveness of the market,” the Ford Australia boss added when asked if he’d prefer Ford to compete against the Commodore or Camaro.

“So you probably won’t draw me into a choice between the two because I’m less worried about those two; I’m more worried about our offering and our relationship and how well we perform on the track,” he said.

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