Silly Pom wanting to know more about V8 Supercars

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I've only watched a few V8 Supercar races at this point and I always found them entertaining but was never massively compelled to follow the series until today after I watched this race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAFRS5r2g8E

And I thought it was effing fantastic! Also with the addition of Volvo and Merc this year as well as Nissan last year the variety in cars competing spices it up a bit more for me as a European viewer so I think this year I'm gonna have to follow the action.
I noticed at the end of this race people booing Jamie Whincup. This made me realise that I should probably try and brush up on a bit of history about the series to help put things into context. Why were they booing Whincup? Is he a Michael Schumacher type villain to some or was the location of this race a hotspot for Ford fans? I know there is a huge rivalry between Ford and Holden so maybe this was why? Basically any information you can give me about the drivers, the rules and the race format would be helpful because from what I saw today the racing looks absolutely brilliant! I'm probably gonna get a lot of stick for saying this but I'm a big fan of Volvo's road cars so I think my loyalty might have to lie with them

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Weather hasn't been too brutal luckily for me. Ah I see, maybe that's why they were booing. It was a great race though. What's the format of a race weekend? I figured there was varying race lengths but not sure what. From what I've seen of Bathurst and what I've played on GT6 it must be a stunning track.

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I'll have to pay attention to the race calendar because the coverage over here is very limited and I just happened to find it whilst looking for something to watch on TV. There's a lot to like about 600ish horsepower V8 RWD tin tops racing in close proximity. what's the rules with regards to the chassis? Am I right in thinking they're a live axle and generally all have a fairly similar chassis underneath the different bodies?

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cheddar said:

Glad you're enjoying it, arguably the most exciting race series in the world.

Answers to specs here:

http://www.v8supercars.com.au/championship/technic...

And, join us here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Cheers mate, so they're independent rear suspension and not live axle but they do have a spool diff, that explains why they look so lively . I'll have a read through that thread too, cheers for the info. I'm a hardcore F1 fan and I used to love British Touring Cars but it seems like they've slowly got neutered over the years and there's not really any young talent coming in aside from Andrew Jordan. From what I saw this weekend Ozzy V8's are fast enough to be impressive without losing the close racing. The fact that the noise is awesome is just a bonus.

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Cheers mate, that's a good read. When I first watched Scott McLaughlin's post race interview I thought he said "give it some genital" haha. After seeing this picture on the official V8 supercars Twitter I've had to Google it. It's great to see a race series with a sense of humour.