Australian Racing Group co-owner Barry Rogers has reported technical changes aimed at repositioning the S5000 in the domestic motorsport landscape.

V8-powered single-seaters have struggled to find the kind of momentum hoped for, with grid sizes sometimes dropping into the single digits this year.

Rogers has previously touted selling the category as an undesirable but possible outcome, but hopes a new plan will avoid such a need.

At the heart of this, there will have to be more emphasis on the fact that S5000 is an option for up-and-coming talent.

“What we found, to be honest, was that we thought it was probably an option for guys who maybe did a bit of Super2 and things and thought ‘I’m going to do something different. “,” Rogers told Speedcafe.com.

“The problem that we’re getting into is you’re rolling guys back in these – and it’s nothing against them – but if they don’t win and they get beat up by some of these young guns like Cooper Webster and Blake Purdie, they feel like it hurts what people think of them, so they don’t stick with it.

“So maybe it’s more about bringing younger people on board and we’re planning some changes to the car that will potentially make them a little less intimidating for younger people.”

“We’re just going to work on that now and come up with a plan to try to really build momentum behind it.

“I’ve said it before, we don’t want to lose those Australian cars. These cars are an awesome car. If they leave, we’ll never get powerful minivans back here again.

Improving handling, or reducing the intimidation factor, should be achieved by modifying areas such as the tires and suspension.

“There are all kinds of options,” Rogers said.

“The tire we’re racing on is a very, very exciting tire – it gets faster and faster as you go through qualifying and the race, and it’s one set a weekend, which is good.

“But I think we have to potentially look at a change there and give the car more grip from the start, if that’s the right term, not having to wait so long for the tire to settle. , looking at things there.

“Stephen [Millard, Garry Rogers Motorsport team manager] takes care of all of this for us at work, he spoke to Hoosier, this has been an ongoing thing for the past few weeks and we think they are onto something we are going to do.

“There are also technical changes to the suspension of the car which we think will be beneficial so we will just work on all of that and hopefully in September we will ratify all those things that we need to do and be ready. starting in October on the Gold Coast.”

After shortening the 2022 Australian S5000 Drivers Championship to end last month at Darwin rather than September at Sandown, there is now a window of opportunity for such changes to be made ahead of the year-end Tasman Series. .

At this point the Tasman Series will involve stops at Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 and Supercheap Auto Bathurst International, with the revival of Adelaide 500 as a possible third and final stop.