Touring Car Masters to fight for cash at The Bend

With the penultimate round of the 2024 Touring Car Masters season run and won at Sandown, some serious prize money will go on the line at The Bend finale.

The finale was originally planned for SMP as part of the Motorsport Australia SpeedSeries, but the cancellation of the TCR International round earlier in the year forced a change of venue to The Bend in South Australia over the weekend of November 22-24.

Russell Hancock, car owner and a spokesman for the Touring Car Masters Owners group confirmed the initiative.

“Yes, we’re looking ahead now to the final round at The Bend. It is a new event for the category, and between the TCM Owners Group members, we’ve decided to put up $10,000 in prize money up for round six at The Bend. 

“This Sandown round has been really excellent and, to be honest, it’s been an excellent year for Touring Car Masters, so as a bit of a reward for the competitors, we thought we would put up some prize money for the final round.”

“The prize money will be split amongst the class winners, with $3,000 for each of the of the category winners. Pro Masters, Pro Am and Pro Sport winners will all receive $3,000 and we will put up $1,000 for Pole Position.”

“The initiative has been well received by the competitors and they are looking forward to trying to take the cash away.”

“We’ve seen the category really return to some positivity this year. The on-track action has been great with many different race winners” Hancock concluded.

With a proposal on the table at Supercars for 2025, the wish list includes an increase of rounds for Touring Car Masters on the Supercars Series, and Russell confirmed that the category is working towards having a prize money sponsor for each round in the 2025 series. 

Long-time Touring Car Masters car owner and fellow member of the TCM investor group, Brett Peters, is very positive about the rebuild and the future for TCM going forward.

“This year TCM has shown very positive regrowth and the category’s put on the best racing that I can remember. 

“The category is in a good place, we have had lots of different winners, so it shows we’re doing all the right things on the track. It’s all positive.” Peters confirmed.

Looking to the future, the category wants to continue to build on the success of the 2024 season and looks to stability with regards rules and regulations as an important part of the long term rebuild of the category.

Peters confirmed the future direction of Touring Car Masters. 

“Despite all the rubbish we hear from outside the category, we have complete stability with the rules and regulations with no plans to change anything into the future. 

“Sure, there has been some tightening up on compliance with the rules. 

“We have a great relationship with our Motorsport Australia technical team who are working with the group and it’s just a matter of tiding things up a bit and removing some grey areas.

“I’m hearing some really positive stuff from lots of people, both inside the category, and people looking to get involved in the future. There are some cars that have been parked for a while being prepared to race again and some new cars that should be ready to race next year.

“To be on the Supercar program and getting the television that we get, it’s got to be one best bang for buck categories in the country. 

“We’ve just finished the Sandown round and it’s been another successful show. Lots of interesting racing and some new winners for the category, which is exciting. 

“This year’s been great because we haven’t seen that domination we have seen in the past. At every round, we have seen different types of cars and drivers who have been competitive.

“And I think that’s the beauty of the category that because there’s so much variation in the brands and models of cars, some cars work better at some tracks than others. And that’s what makes TCM racing exciting! That’ll never change.

“And as far as the cost to run in TCM goes, I’ll challenge anyone who’s interested to ring me, and I’ll tell them exactly what it costs.” Peters said. 

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