AVESCO ERA
ABOVE: Two Bathurst
1000s took place in 99 99 for two-litre Super Touring on the Seven Network and the other for V8-powered Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores. As evidenced by the above images from the 1998 events, fans voted with their feet and the V8-powered Bathurst won out. BELOW: Scan below to watch the 1998 FAI Bathurst 1000 coverage.
The series needed a leader and Cochrane broke through the uncertainty and went public with the relationship at the Sandown 500 in September 1996. “A TV deal was the very first job as I knew there was absolutely no interest from Seven to cover the championship.” Network Ten signed up to showcase the championship series from 1997, but the Bathurst 1000 remained a sticking point. The Mount Panorama Consortium ran the endurance classic, including the Seven Network. “The first barney was with [the] Bathurst [promoters], because the deal the teams got at Bathurst was ludicrous; it really was terrible financially,” says Cochrane. “At Bathurst, for example, every team paid entry fees. And it was a similar deal at every Shell [championship] round, too. “And they didn’t get paid anything to go to a Shell round, except for some prize money that trickled down from Shell sponsorship through CAMS, after CAMS took out their requirements. “So we made a real stance on Bathurst and I convinced the teams we had to lock this approach in and run with it.”
The consortium would, therefore, elect to run the Bathurst 1000 with the two-litre Super Touring entrants, while Cochrane and TEGA ran their V8-powered 1000 a matter of weeks later on Ten. “They believed that the future of the Bathurst event lay with the two-litres,” reflects Cochrane. “And so we very quickly discovered that we were going to be put out on well and truly the outer. “Hindsight’s a 20-20 vision but I suspect what they really had as a plan back then was that they thought they could bring on the two-litres for the Sunday and I think they thought they had us in such a position that we would reluctantly agree to do a race on the Saturday. “Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for ourselves, we dug in by running our own Bathurst two weeks later – and the rest, I guess you could now say, is history. “Somebody asked me what happens if you don’t get that deal renewed with the Bathurst 1000 consortium and I said, well, what they’ve got to understand is that Bathurst is not a sacred site. “What I meant by that answer was that everything was up for grabs. What some people took at the time to mean – and some have lived off that ever since – was that I was saying we were not interested in going to Bathurst; that Bathurst didn’t matter to us. “But the intention of my response was that I was actually using it to put the consortium on notice that we were open to other ideas. “It wasn’t meant to be intended that we were going to drop Bathurst, which was the great cornerstone of touring cars at the time. “The intention of that statement was to ruffle the feathers and hopefully get the consortium to reach a new agreement with us to run the Bathurst 1000 as it was then; it wasn’t a catch cry that we would leave Bathurst completely – as we subsequently proved the by running our own Bathurst.” The V8s won the battle for Mount Panorama. Television and crowd figures significantly favoured the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore’s Bathurst 1000 event. In November 1996, the Australian Vee Eight Super Car Company (AVESCO) was born, a joint venture between involving TEGA, IMG and the Australian Motor Sports Commission to run the series. Cochrane and James Erskine would leave IMG to form Sports & Entertainment Limited (SEL) and buy a significant stake in the series in February 1997. While TEGA retained majority ownership and was responsible for the rules and technical management of the series, SEL focused on broadcasting rights, sponsorship, license and sanction agreements. V8 Supercars was born, a catchy title to go with the new television deal and increased exposure for the championship. “It was a very big challenge to get them all moving in the same direction and understand just how big the whole organisation could become,” reflects Cochrane.
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