I've been a Supercars fan for more than 30 years. Something is changing, and it's for the better

Supercars has always held a strange position in the Australian sporting landscape.

Outside the Bathurst 1000, it's never truly felt mainstream in the same way any of the footy codes do.

Maybe that's just because of the nature of motorsport and the fact that race meetings are generally only held every three or four weeks.

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I've been a fan of Supercars my whole life. Over the past 30 years, I've attended race meetings at six tracks across five states, including the Gold Coast 600, Bathurst 1000, Newcastle 500 and just about all the races in Darwin between 1998 and 2017. I cried when Dick Johnson announced he was retiring in 1999. I was only six.

After spending the weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park for the Supercars series-opener, I sensed a shift. Something felt different. Good, different.

Immediately when cars hit the track on Friday afternoon, there was a genuinely positive vibe around the whole precinct.

Organisers made the bold decision to throw the gates open by offering free entry on Friday night for the first race of the year, a 100km sprint under lights. It seemed to work. The key vantage points on the main straight and into turn one looked well populated, and that momentum seemed to carry through the rest of the weekend.

Even on Sunday, when it was stinking bloody hot, stinking bloody humid, with a forecast for some stinking bloody rain in the afternoon, crowd numbers were healthy, and everyone seemed relaxed.

And even when organisers were forced into an emergency track switch on Saturday - a change which was then carried through the remainder of the weekend - fans seemed to generally be understanding of the situation.

The clientele has certainly changed, too. I remember as a kid, a large percentage of fans were the rough as guts, blokey, stereotypical fellas who would start smashing tins as soon as the bars opened – if they hadn't started on their own, that they had managed to smuggle in.

Don't get me wrong, those chaps are still here, but they're far and away in the minority. On the hill on Sunday, there were young families, older families with adult kids, groups of mates, and everything in between.

And I can pretty confidently say I've never until this weekend heard Mandarin being spoken as I've walked through a Supercars paddock.

Joe O'Hare was one of those dads sitting on the hill with his three young boys. He, too, has been a fan his whole life and has ticked off events including the Bathurst 1000, Summernats, the Bathurst 12-hour and countless Supercars races.

He said the behaviour that would have once made most think twice about taking families to the track is a rarity. That, in itself, can only be a good thing.

"There're heaps of three-year-olds that know a shit ton about cars and a shit ton about motor racing, and they can point them out," he told Wide World of Sports.

"I honestly barely see any of the (bad behaviour). At the 12-hour (mark) last week, there were the usual campers, but they're friendly as all get-out.

"That's kind of the reason I never took them to the 1000, just because we like being at the top of the mountain, and I think that's a bit of the culture there."

Eastern Creek has historically struggled to attract a decent crowd. Part of the added interest this weekend could no doubt be attributed to the arrival of the Toyota Supras on the grid.

Two hardcore Toyota fans travelled all the way from Tokyo just for this weekend to be trackside.

There is also even more F1 merchandise than ever before. There is no doubt some crossover from Drive to Survive fans who have headed down to check out the best of Aussie tin-top racing.

Brad Jones has been driving and running teams in Australian motorsport for more than 30 years. He's raced against the likes of Brock, Lowndes, Skaife and Johnson, and his eponymous team is one of two to switch to the new Supras.

He says the bigger Sydney crowd is representative of a broader boost in fan interest.

"We've got good growth. In Adelaide last year, we had more than 100,000 people there on the Sunday - that's more than the AFL or the NRL grand final," he told Wide World of Sports.

"Sydney can be a bit of a fickle crowd in truth, but we've had a great turnout every single day here.

"I think it just shows you where the sport is. Our drivers are approachable, (and) they're interactive. It's not like when you go to a football match, you can only really see them on the field. Here, you can reach out and touch them.

"Motorsport is in a good spot at the moment."