Brian’s article on the state of Supercar racing in Australia paints a dark picture, and that’s no shock: how do you support a home-grown racing series when the home teams were pretty much driven to extinction? Ford and Holden have packed it in and will be, in the Australian market, imports only from here on out. The same can be said for what used to be the V8 Utes category of racing. In V8 Utes, the former class, it was still Ford vs. Holden, with Falcon and Commodore utilities squaring off. Now, the class is SuperUtes, and instead of coupe utilities, it’s going to be four-door crew-cab pickup trucks.

The goal is to use the turbo diesel variant of the Ford Ranger, Mazda BT-50, Nissan Navara, Holden Colorado, Toyota Hilux, and Mitsubishi Triton in an effort to appeal to a broader base of viewers and fans. Instead of being silhouette racers, they will be production vehicles modified to fit into the SuperUtes regulations, to keep the trucks looking like trucks so they don’t suffer the stigma of just being yet another sticker-branded racecar.

We understand the reasoning behind SuperUtes, but we don’t have high hopes. Between four-door trucks that are gussied up to be something they are not, the furor surrounding diesel fuel, and Australia’s anti-automotive sides, SuperUtes comes across less as a genuine move and more as an attempt to keep a pulse going.