Aussie Trans Am teams call for working group
A working group led by Trans Am teams looks to be the next phase of growth for the category in Australia.
The category has been enjoying a period of rapid growth in popularity in Australia both at state and national level.
The National Trans Am Series, run by the Australian Racing Group, has effectively become the hero category on the SpeedSeries bill with what is effectively a full field of 'pro' drivers.
The comparatively low cost has even seen some drivers either defect from Super2, or look to use Trans Am as a stepping stone to Supercars.
However there hasn't been a complete absence of growing pains with reliability having become an issue.
That looks to be a symptom of the increased talent depth in the field, with the cars being pushed to breaking point in areas such as transmission and driveline.
As such a new working group is now in its infancy, with team representatives having met with ARG at Phillip Island on Saturday over the formalisation of communication on matters such as reliability.
"There's a group that wants to get a committee together, ARG COO Liam Curkpatrick told Motorsport.com. "A working committee that we met with [on Saturday] to have some initial chats with.
"It's something they've been pushing for for a while. I mean, I spend a lot of time talking to the teams, but it's a way for them to summarise any issues they may have or discussion points.
"It's not uncommon in categories and it's a healthy way to keep conversations going. There are no specific agendas, it's more looking are reliability, sporting questions and so on.
"We're satisfied that we talk to the teams a lot, but sometimes it helps to have one voice. We haven't decided who will be on the committee yet, it's just a discussion with some interested teams.
"Essentially how it would work is we'll catch up at each event, have a chinwag, make sure everyone is happy and adjust accordingly."
The most noteworthy reliability so far this season was the failure that took Ben Grice out of the lead in Tasmania, and then prompted a huge rollover when he was collected by another car.
According to Curkpatrick, technical partner PBR is already looking at how to make the cars better suited to being pushed to the fast, furious racing the category is now known for.
"Our technical partner PBR is looking at it and working on it," he said.
"At the end of the day we've got some young kids in there that are pretty quick drivers and they are pushing these cars hard, they push everything to its limit.
"Every time something happens we chat and talk through it. But there are no concerning issues or anything like that. It's just the evolution and movement of everything.
"It's an organic growth and you have to adjust to it. If you look at the field, it's pretty much a pro field, which is great."
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