Supercars star Mark Winterbottom ‘felt horrible’ leaving his family to help Supercars avoid another shutdown
Mark Winterbottom doesn’t know when he will see his family again after several Supercars teams evacuated Victoria to keep the season going. He reveals why he made the difficult decision to pack his bags.
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Mark Winterbottom admits it is scary not knowing when he will be seeing his family again after joining the Victorian V8 escape to ensure the 2020 Supercars season continues.
After the five Victorian-based teams were forced to make an emergency dash to New South Wales ahead of the border shutdown, the veteran racer said it had been a “horrible feeling” packing up to flee the state and leaving his wife Renee and three sons behind.
But Winterbottom said all of the Victorian teams were aware the personal sacrifices were necessary with another shutdown having the potential to “kill the sport”.
It’s unknown exactly how long the Victorian teams will be forced to spend on the road, but after the lockdown of metropolitan Melbourne it is likely to be at least six weeks.
“It’s a horrible feeling. You live for your wife and kids, they come before the sport, but at the same time you know that if you don’t come the sport doesn’t survive,” Winterbottom said.
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“Obviously you need their support to do it. Renee was amazing … it’s a horrible feeling, it’s not one that you signed up for with this sport by any means.
“But if you don’t do it, the sport goes back into lockdown and it could kill the sport.
“It’s not just Renee and myself, it’s all the team guys. I feel for them. There is no set date for when you will see your wife and kids, that’s the scary part at the moment.
“It’s horrible, it’s not what you signed up for at all. But we are lucky we’ve got good partners and they know how much you love the sport.
“If you don’t do it, the consequences are big as well.”
All of the Victorian teams are now based at various locations around NSW after their hasty evacuation ahead of next week’s event at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Winterbottom is now isolating at the hotel near the circuit with Team 18 crew, getting meals delivered to their rooms, as they await their latest COVID-19 test results.
The 2015 series champion urged Supercars to make the most of the Victorian teams’ time on the road and schedule more races.
Supercars are set to head to Darwin (August 8-9) and Townsville (August 29-30) after the Sydney race.
“Hopefully they don’t drag it out, hopefully we can go back-to-back-to-back and get quite a few rounds under our belt and get home as soon as possible and make the time away worthwhile,” Winterbottom said.
“While we’re in Sydney, put some more races on now. We’re here, cars are in the garage, what about a midweek race? Queensland teams can come down … a Wednesday night race, we can race midweek, we can work any day of the week.
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“Even if we can go to Queensland, go up, race in Queensland … and then cut across and race in Darwin and then go home.
“We could knock off six rounds in a row here at some really good venues with some crowd and get a long way down the championship.”
Winterbottom said the team was only given notice at lunchtime on Monday they had to get out of Victoria quickly.
“At the moment, it’s still sinking in,” he said.
“Lots of people are in the same situation. While we’re here, I’m going to make sure we make the most of it.
“We’re all going to be homesick, but we’ll all try and make it as painless as possible.”