There is a showdown brewing over who will run the next Bathurst event

A new motorsport event is coming to Australia’s most iconic racetrack, Mount Panorama, and a battle is brewing over who will host and promote it.

Since Mount Panorama is a public road, racing events are limited and controlled by the Bathurst Regional Council, with just four multi-day full-course closures permitted each year. A fifth slot has been opened up, with the council currently taking submissions from interesting parties.

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Bathurst Regional Council received six expressions of interest when it opened the tender process in March, one of which included an international 24-hour race.

However, just three were shortlisted, with Supercars, Australian Racing Group (ARG), and Mountain Motorsports, being asked by the council to send representatives to meet with the council to provide more details of their plans.

Mountain motorsport then dropped out of contention, leaving just ARG and Supercars in a two-horse race.

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"Council is currently finalising the tender specification and we expect the two companies invited to take part in that process will receive those documents before the end of the month," Bathurst mayor Graeme Hanger said, according to Autosport.

"We anticipate Council will consider these tenders in September."

Supercars CEO Sean Seamer has publically stated that the proposal from Supercars would not be another round of the Supercars championship, rumoured to be the return of sprint racing to The Mountain.

In fact, he stated it wouldn’t even be a ‘traditional’ motorsport event, describing it as “something completely different”.

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It’s understood that this is a Goodwood Festival of Speed style event celebrating significant races and cars from around the world, and could include a hillclimb to the summit of the Mountain.

Supercars currently runs half of the current Bathurst events, and the largest on the four-event calendar – the Bathurst 1000 and Bathurst 12 Hour endurance events held in October and February respectively. The other two annual full-course events at Mount Panorama are the Bathurst 6 Hour production car race held at Easter, and the Challenge Bathurst time attack in November. It is unclear where the fifth event would be placed on the calendar.

Competing against Supercars is ARG, which runs the new-for-2019 national TCR championship.

Along with TCR, ARG is the category manager for the retro-styled S5000 series which will make its debut later in the year. The new group, which is managed by Matt Braid, who was formerly managing director of Volvo Cars Australia and of Supercars, recently took over category management rights for the Touring Car Masters championship. Former Supercars CEO James Warburton joined ARG earlier this year as a non-executive director, adding extra clout to its stance as a powerhouse within the local industry.

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Autosport reports that the ARG proposal includes a 500-kilometre international TCR race, with a vision to be part of the WTCR championship in the future.

ARG’s decision to have a 500-kilometre endurance race avoids a repeat of the Touring Car Wars of the ’90s, when rival Bathurst 1000 races were hosted by promoters for the Super Tourer and ATCC championships. It was the ATCC which eventually won that war, paving the way for what we now know as Supercars to dominate the local motorsport landscape.

The Confederation of Australian Motorsport (CAMS) has thrown its weight behind ARG’s proposal, and is keen to see a round of the World TCR Cup (WTCR) hosted at Mount Panorama.

Motorsport New Zealand has recently acquired the rights to set up a national TCR series, and CAMS has publically stated it is interested in developing a trans-Tasman relationship for the burgeoning touring car championship. Asia also has its own regional TCR championship.

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This opens the door for Australian, New Zealand, and International teams to compete in a showpiece WTCR event at Bathurst.

Ultimately, the decision for which proposal wins the lucrative fifth Mount Panorama slot comes down to the Bathurst Regional Council, which will now spend several months comparing the rival proposals.

The showdown between Supercars and ARG is the latest in a series of slow escalations since TCR entered Australia. It began with behind-the-scenes political manoeuvres such as Supercars putting pressure on star drivers to steer clear of the new championship. It has gone public in recent weeks with TCR being blacklisted as a support category at the Supercars season opener in Adelaide, which is promoted by the South Australian state government.