WHILE Peter Adderton has voiced concern at the cost of entering a Repco Supercars Championship wildcard this year, he may yet have a bigger hurdle to navigate.
Wildcard entries are mandated to be attached to an existing team – and the means of doing so are now less straightforward following an off-season crackdown.
Under the Teams Racing Charter, main game squads are only permitted to field one additional entry in a season, which can run at a maximum of one sprint round and both enduros.
Adderton’s Boost Mobile Camaro naturally would have made sense to be run out of Triple Eight Race Engineering, which is building the car, except for the fact the Banyo juggernaut has already committed to its Supercheap Auto effort for Zane Goddard and Craig Lowndes.
Boost-backed Richie Stanaway is co-driving with Red Bull Ampol star Shane van Gisbergen and has already competed in a Boost/Triple Eight capacity this year at the Bathurst 12 Hour.
However, any such dreams of doing so at Supercars level are not possible in 2023.
MORE: The cost of a Supercars wildcard
Adderton has been vocal about his intentions to field Stanaway at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, and two other drivers at Sandown and Bathurst.
V8 Sleuth can reveal the possibility of running the Boost wildcard out of PremiAir Racing – Triple Eight’s closest customer – was investigated for 2023.
That, however, has been ruled out with PremiAir focusing on its own two Camaros.
That leaves just four other Chevrolet teams for Adderton to consider aligning with: Team 18, Brad Jones Racing, Matt Stone Racing or championship leaders Erebus Motorsport.
Adderton ran his Stanaway/Greg Murphy wildcard out of Erebus last year, but his naming rights relationship with that team has since ended.
Erebus has also shown interest in running a wildcard potentially involving its affiliated Super2 young gun Jay Hanson, but is understood to be wanting to do so on its own rather than in partnership with a third party.
MSR owns a third Gen3 chassis but has ruled out racing it until 2024.
Adderton could not be reached for comment as at the time of publication.