Auto Action #1788

EXCLUSIVE ‘BAD BARRY’ SETS RECORD STRAIGHT SINCE 1971

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W E I V E R P L L U F ’S RETURN V8 RACING

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counting down STAR PRIVATEER BACK HOME WITH STEVE

SCOTTY TO STAY INDYCAR MOVE ON HOLD

Issue #1788 June 18 to July 1 2020 $8.95 INC GST

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MAC ACCEPTS INDY NO-GO

SCOTTY’S INDYCAR HOPES FADE Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin’s IndyCar racing debut has almost certainly been derailed by the coronavirus crisis explains MARK FOGARTY ACCORDING TO Team Penske chief Tim Cindric, travel restrictions between the USA and Australia won’t make it possible for Scott McLaughlin to race an Indycar this year.

The tough economic climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is another factor against a fourth IndyCar Series entry for Scott McLaughlin.

Cindric also revealed that McLaughlin was due to take part in an open IndyCar test at the Richmond International Raceway, to prepare him for oval racing.

He was due to make his IndyCar debut at the Indianapolis Grand Prix road race early last month before the season was suspended due to the coronavirus shutdown.

The IndyCar Series will resume this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

While Team Penske still wants to run McLaughlin, Cindric admitted that

scheduling and quarantine issues had all but ruled it out this year, emphasising that the Brisbane-based Kiwi’s priority was defending his Supercars crown. “There’s certainly an appetite,� he said. “Whether that’s reality or not is yet to be seen. Currently with the schedule that he has and the quarantine rules that exist within travel at the moment going to and from Australia, if those stay in place the way that they are relative to the schedule, I just don’t see that it’s feasible. “It’s just not possible to be able to clear quarantine and actually have him continue with the Supercars schedule and the schedule that we have. Until some of that is lifted, I really don’t see him having an opportunity to be here, and obviously, from an economic standpoint, I think everybody is challenged on that front. “I think for sure there’s

a huge appetite, and he understands the reasons why we need patience on both ends, but right now he’s focused on the Supercars series until really things change.�

Cindric divulged that following McLaughlin’s standout tests at Sebring and Circuit Of The America’s, his unscheduled oval trial at Texas was to make him eligible for an official test at Richmond. “He was actually scheduled to try and run the Richmond open test and the reason for the Texas test was that they weren’t going to allow him to run the Richmond open test with the other competitors, unless he had run on an oval,� Cindric said. “So the background to why we actually went to Texas was (that) it was the only oval that we could run that we could actually get him cleared to do the Richmond open test.�

It’s clear that pre-

coronavirus, Team Penske was planning to run McLaughlin in at least one oval race later in the year.

His appearances would have been preparatory to a full-time switch to IndyCar in 2021.

The revised Supercars and IndyCar calendars mean, under the current restrictions, McLaughlin could not travel to the USA to race and return in time to compete here because of the 14-day quarantine.

Longer-term, whether McLaughlin gets another chance to race in IndyCar next year will depend on Team Penske having the budget to run him.

The Penske organisation has laid off staff across its operations in the USA, Europe and Australasia, including DJR Team Penske.

Auto Action understands DJRTP made five employees redundant earlier this week on orders from America.

SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN has philosophically accepted the news that his IndyCar debut is on indefinite hold.

In fact McLaughlin revealed he first had the setback confirmed when he read Team Penske boss Tim Cindric’s views on the matter on the Auto Action website. “I haven’t really spoken to Tim or (team owner) Roger (Penske) about it, they have plenty of stuff on their hands at the moment,� said McLaughlin. “When I read the story, that was exactly what I had figured out anyway.�

After starring in two IndyCar tests early in 2020, McLaughlin was due to make his debut on the Indy road course in May in a fourth Team Penske Dallara-Chev.

But that race was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic until July.

More significantly, flight and quarantine restrictions make it impossible for the defending Supercars champion to head to America, even if a seat was waiting. “It is the harsh reality of the whole pandemic. I would have had my first IndyCar race already, but it is what it is,� the DJR Team Penske Ford Mustang driver told AA. “The main thing is I am still in touch with those guys over there and still driving for Team Penske over here, so not all bad.�

McLaughlin has kept his fitness regime going strong during the lockdown, just in case the call-up came to go to the USA. But he knew it was very unlikely to happen. “I looked at it (the IndyCar drive) as a privilege because my main job is here and that is what I am focussed on,� he said. “I knew if anything put my job here in jeopardy in regards to not being able to get home or whatever, that was never going to be on. “So I have just left it, I’ve gone about my business here.�

Closer to home McLaughlin has had a face-to-face reminder of coronavirus realities with five staff members retrenched from DJRTP recently. “It does hit home and makes us realise how hard it is impacting,� said Mclaughlin. “But for our team to survive and continue to achieve success, changes had to be made. “The people that were let go were an integral part of our success, so it was a very tough decision and I’m glad it wasn’t me having to make it. “It’s happened to us and it’s happened to other teams as well. Hopefully things will be better once we get back to racing.� BN

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By MARK FOGARTY SUPERCARS’ PLAN to extend this season into early next year was vetoed by primary broadcast rights holder Fox Sports.

Auto Action has been reliably informed that the pay TV network opposed running the final two rounds in New Zealand in January and Bathurst in February, without a new deal from 2021.

Supercars has yet to secure a broadcast agreement to replace the existing six-year $241 million contract, which finishes this year.

Fox Sports is the front-runner to renew, but negotiations are stalled on the price and duration of the extension.

Also, a free-to-air TV partner has yet to be finalised, although the Seven Network is in talks to take over from Network 10.

As well as the contractual complication, AA understands that Fox Sports doesn’t want Supercars running deep into the summer sports season.

The revised calendar has the series running at Sandown on December 12-13, then in NZ – at either Pukekohe or Hampton Downs – on January 9-10, with the finale at Mount Panorama on February 5-7.

According to a high-level source, Fox Sports wasn’t consulted on extending the disrupted 2020 season into early ’21.

Fox Sports, a division of subscription TV platform Foxtel, will accept the series running into very late in the year.

The new finale is set to be a return to Sydney Motorsport under lights on December 12-13.

Among the sticking points of the broadcast rights bargaining is Supercars supremo Sean Seamer’s desire to turn the series into a summer sport.

Spilling the championship into early 2021 because of the coronavirus crisis was seen as a first step towards shifting Supercars to an NZ-style September/ October to March/April season across two calendar years.

While the conventional wisdom is that switching to a ‘summer’ season would

WHY SUPERCARS CAN’T SPILL SEASON INTO 2021 remove Supercars from running against the AFL and NRL, sports broadcasting experts point out that viewership in the warmer months drops dramatically.

Only the traditional cricket and tennis seasons draw big TV audiences.

Our informant maintained that Fox Sports wanted Supercars to continue as a predominantly ‘winter’ sport, with marquee events either side of the major football codes’ seasons, to attract maximum viewers.

It was also suggested that a second Supercars event at Bathurst would be confusing to the public, which identifies with the October classic.

Primarily, though, keeping Supercars in its traditional March to November – or thereabouts – season is more financially viable for a broadcaster than a crosscalendar schedule.

When major calendar-year motor sports – Supercars, F1, MotoGP and IndyCars – are combined, racing is Fox Sports’ biggest annual drawcard.

This, the source asserted, is the real reason Supercars has had to back down from extending the disrupted season into early next year.

Fox Sports ruled it out for contractual and viewership concerns.

Driver and sponsor contract problems

were also factors.

But the main resistance was Fox Sports amid contract renewal talks and opposition to Supercars moving to a summer season.

It has been reported that the series will return to Sydney Motorsport Park for a night-time finale on December 12-13, replacing the Sandown round, which would be rescheduled earlier.

Supercars has a contractual obligation to end the championship in NSW. It looked at Bathurst in early February – the slot allocated to the Bathurst 12 Hour, which it also runs – to replace the cancelled Newcastle 500 as the

SUPERCARS TO TEST FOR VIRUS SYMPTOMS DRIVERS, TEAM personnel, officials and race staff will be tested for a key symptom of coronavirus during Supercars’ return at Sydney Motorsport Park at the end of the month.

Around 400 competitors and workers will be allowed to attend the TV-only event, which features three 130 km sprint races.

They will all have to have their body temperatures measured before the June 26-27 Sydney SuperSprint and then daily before entering the track.

Anyone – including drivers

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– whose temperature is well above the normal 37 degrees C reading will be excluded.

There is a medically acceptable range of about one degree plus or minus.

The test is the same as used by the NRL since its return late last month.

Although not definitive, a body temperature of 38 degrees or more is an indicator of COVID-19.

The testing will be among many measures employed at Sydney Motorsport Park to comply with NSW government

health protocols.

Technical and operational restrictions will also be imposed on the teams.

Social distancing will be required and each two-car team will be limited to 13 personnel, including the drivers.

Team principals and each squad’s media communications person will not attend.

Supercars staff will be restricted to 10 – three each from the operations and technical departments, and four events operatives.

Senior executives including

CEO Sean Seamer will not be at the track.

Race control officials will be on-site, but the stewards will operate remotely.

Supercars Media, which produces the broadcast, will have a skeleton crew of commentators, production staff and technical operators at the track, with the rest working from a remote facility.

Everyone at the track will have to practise social distancing in accordance with government requirements.

Teams will also be limited in

THREE SPRINTS FOR SYDNEY RETURN

Image: LAT

Image: LAT season-closer.

SMP will host the heavily restricted resumption of racing in two weeks.

There are doubts as AA goes to press surrounding The Bend 500 in September.

NZ is set to be cancelled until later next year, while the proposed Bathurst sprint racing round in February could become a special event – especially as the 12 hour is threatened by international border controls.

Whether it could become the first round of the 2021 season is debatable as the Adelaide 500, in the final year of its existing deal, has the contractual right to be the opening event.

their time at the circuit each day.

Personnel will not be allowed to enter until two-and-a-half hours before the first session on track and must exit the paddock area three hours after parc fermé conditions conclude.

Supercars also announced that should a driver or team be forced to withdraw from any event on the revised calendar due to COVID-19, the final championship points for both the driver and team championships will be calculated by dropping the worst event points from all drivers’ final point scores.

If there are no coronavirusrelated withdrawals, all points will be counted. MF

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SUPERCARS WILL return with three 130 km sprint races at Sydney Motorsport Park at the end of the month.

Three weeks before the resumption, the format and revised rules for the TV-only event have been announced.

The trio of sprint races – one on Saturday, June 27 and two on Sunday, June 28 – will each include a pit stop for a mandatory change of at least two tyres without refuelling.

The grid for the Saturday race will be decided by knockout qualifying leading to an expanded Top 15 Shootout.

All teams will be subject to staff limits and strict health protocols to comply with NSW government requirements.

The three 130 km races at Sydney Motorsport Park will be held over 33 laps of the usual 3.93 km Gardner (Grand Prix) circuit, with a time certain finish for each.

Supercars’ return to racing at SMP is the only event for which

details have been confirmed.

Formats and restrictions for the following rounds will be announced closer to their dates.

The event at Sydney Motorsport Park will open on Saturday June 27 with a 20-minute rookie-only session, followed by two full-field practice sessions.

The entire field will then enter part one of qualifying, with the four slowest eliminated. The remaining 20 drivers go into the second qualifying session, from which the bottom five will be eliminated.

Those that make the final cut will contest a Top 15 Shootout, the winner of which takes pole for the opening 33-lap sprint on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday’s schedule will begin with back-to-back qualifying sessions, each to determine the respective starting grids for two races in the afternoon.

Drivers will arrive in Sydney on Friday, June 26 to conduct team track walks, which will be carried

out in line with government COVID-19 regulations.

There will be almost 12 hours of practice, qualifying and racing broadcast exclusively live and ad-break free on Fox Sports 506 across the two days.

Only Supercars will be competing, with no support races to keep the overall number of workers at the track to around 400 to comply with NSW government requirements.

A quirk of the regulations means the three sprints are listed as races seven, eight and nine of the championship rather than three, four and five.

This is apparently because as there was Supercars practice and qualifying at the Australian Grand Prix before the event was cancelled, the second round of the series was deemed to have started.

Races 3-6 are officially recorded as Did Not Start results, therefore the championship restarts at race seven. MF

SUPERCAR RULE CHANGES AT SMP AS WELL as race formats and scheduling, Supercars has outlined technical and operational rule changes for the resumption of racing at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28.

The variations are in line with health and safety protocols due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Each team will need to adhere to these new rules for at least the Sydney SuperSprint, which will feature three 130 km races.

Teams will be required to make a compulsory pit stop in all three races to change at least two tyres.

There will be no refuelling as

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the cars will start with full tanks.

A major change due to COVID-19 restrictions is that only six team members per car will be permitted over the line in pit lane, instead of eight.

Also, only two rattle guns – as opposed to the usual four – will be allowed to be used per car during pit stops.

Teams will be limited to 13 personnel at the track for two cars, including drivers.

As well, teams will be restricted on what data they can receive live during each race.

Access to the Supercars data logger will not be permitted until

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the end of the event.

Brake temperature sensors and gyro sensors (g-sensors) have been removed from the cars.

Three sets of control tyres must be returned to Dunlop at the conclusion of practice on the opening day of the event.

It was also confirmed that teams can only conduct one more test day, which must be undertaken between August 30 and October 5.

The rookie test days have been cancelled, replaced by a rookie-only session at events.

MF

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BATHURST CROWD CHANCES GROWING

Image: LAT

By BRUCE NEWTON SUPERCARS HAS commenced initial discussions with NSW Health about having spectators at this year’s Bathurst 1000.

Government moves to allow crowds at sporting events as COVID-19 restrictions ease has encouraged the category’s hopes that the Sydney Motorsport Park event on June 27-28 will be its sole TV-only outing.

Last week Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed all states and territories had agreed to remove the 100 person cap on gatherings once states reach stage three of the ‘3-Step

Framework for a COVIDSafe Australia’. This will see the cap replaced by the overarching ‘one person per four square metre’ rule – with some other specific restrictions in place depending on the event.

Overlaying that, individual states and territories are making specific announcements about their plans for spectating.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian confirmed last Sunday that sporting events at outdoor venues with a maximum capacity of 40,000 will be allowed up to 25 percent of their normal capacity from July 1.

“We have had initial discussions with NSW

Health on crowds at Bathurst,” Supercars events general manager Phil Shaw told Auto Action. “As to what format that will be is determined by social distancing guidelines.

“NSW seems to be easing restrictions so by October it may be that we can have a sizable crowd.”

Supercars hopes to have spectators return as soon as the July 18-19 event at Winton in Victoria. While CEO Sean Seamer has consistently spoken of having camping at the country track, both ‘park and view’ and orthodox spectating are also under consideration.

“Moving forward we will reassess what the guidelines are in each state in regard to crowds being allowed to return to events,” Shaw said.

“Any option for crowds, or camping or corporate guests, will be on the table. We just have to assess what we can do in terms of the state guidelines.

“The other thing we need to consider is whether it is viable in terms of having corporate guests back, or having crowds back. If the restrictions are so tight that it doesn’t allow a viable option, you wouldn’t consider it.”

ANTON’S DILEMMA – STAY OR GO?

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EREBUS OUTSIDER Anton De Pasquale is more likely to stay than move to DJR Team Penske next year.

De Pasquale has been the hot tip to replace Scott McLaughlin, who was bound for IndyCar. However, with McLaughlin’s move to the USA on hold due to the coronavirus disruption, Penrite Racing looks set to retain its fast-rising star despite already signing Will Brown to partner David Reynolds.

According to informed sources, De Pasquale has not inked a deal to join DJRTP – or stay at Erebus.

It is believed the young Victorian’s manager/mentor Paul Morris has put off talks until well into the resumption of racing later this year.

Erebus Motorsport boss Barry Ryan confirmed that running a third car for De Pasquale was possible.

“Three cars is still an option,” Ryan said in an exclusive interview. “Anton, I guess, to his detriment, didn’t sign a long-term deal with us, so didn’t commit to us, so we had to have a back-up plan and that was Will Brown.

“And he’s a pretty strong back-up plan.”

Although Morris is believed to have spoken with Team Penske racing chief Tim Cindric about De Pasquale, AA understands no deal has been done.

In fact, sources say ADP is most likely to stay with Erebus in an expanded three-car squad.

Ryan didn’t rule out running three cars if the economics stand up.

“Hopefully, it’s not unfortunate for Anton, but we didn’t have a commitment from him, so we signed Will.” he said.” It’s as simple as that.

Will’s guaranteed a seat alongside Dave; Anton’s, hopefully, going to be in a seat alongside the two of them.

“But there’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before that happens.”

Ryan revealed that contract talks with ADP weren’t due until September, until when he is strictly not allowed to negotiate with other teams.

However, he made it clear Erebus wants to keep De Pasquale.

“We haven’t put all this effort into him for what will be three years by then to just give him to another team,” he said in the interview. “I think if we have Dave Reynolds and Will Brown, we’ll still have a strong driver line-up.

Fingers crossed, though, that Anton is part of it as well.”

De Pasquale was touted as McLaughlin’s replacement if the back-to-back Supercars champion switched to IndyCar. That is now unlikely, with McLaughlin set to continue with fellow Kiwi Fabian Coulthard in Supercars in 2021.

Ryan admitted he was aware of speculation that ADP was set to join DJRTP. “We’ve all heard those rumours, but Anton hasn’t discussed it with us and I haven’t discussed it with him. If Anton decides that’s where he needs to be and that’s where he wants to be, well, we’ll shake hands and say good luck.

“It would be an awesome opportunity for him and for us to feel that we got him there – because without us, he probably wouldn’t have had a seat (in Supercars) at all. “[But] it wouldn’t be an easy decision for him because I think he’s a very loyal person.” MF See Barry Ryan interview on pages 22 - 25

SHOW YOUR FACE?

Supercars lets teams make key COVID-19 decision on face masks

By BRUCE NEWTON FACE MASKS won’t be mandatory for team members when Supercars action fires back up at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28.

The championship has also revealed that social distancing won’t always be possible at the track, is confident event cancellations are highly unlikely, and revealed that plans to fly teams by charter to Sydney for the resumption of racing have been abandoned.

While teams have been wearing face masks as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic during NASCAR and IndyCar’s return to racing in the USA, they will be optional for Supercars teams.

Supercars event manager Phil Shaw told Auto Action masks would be a team choice.

Shaw has been one of the key players in developing the Supercars response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced a three month halt to action.

“There are differing medical opinions when it comes to the masks. We have elected to make the wearing of masks up and down pitlane optional,” Shaw told Auto Action.

“That becomes a team decision.”

Shaw said Supercars did not expect criticism of the decision: “We’d expect more blowback if we made it mandatory.”

He also confirmed that four-square metre social distancing between team members would not be enforceable during pit stops and mid-race car repairs.

“That’s where some common-sense has just got to come into play and what is most practicable at the time,” Shaw said.

“Yes, we understand in a situation such as a pit stop you can’t maintain one person per four square metre rule.

“But it is very minor (contact) and you also need to consider the mechanics are wearing protective gear. They have gloves, they have helmets on. There will be very minimal chance of transmitting the virus if one of them had it.”

If the worst does happen and a COVID-19 infection is suspected, a team or driver that withdraws will trigger a ‘drop

Image: LAT the worst round’ option for all competitors.

But Shaw almost entirely ruled out the possibility of a COVID-19 infection forcing an event to be called off while in progress.

“That (cancellation) would have to be a very drastic situation for that to occur and that is very unlikely,” Shaw said.

All attendees will be tested before the event and each day before entering SMP. Anyone – including drivers – whose temperature is well above the normal 37 degrees C reading will be excluded.

Supercars has prepared a ‘Return to Racing’ document to outline how it would go about running an event while complying with coronavirus-imposed health restrictions.

The document, which has been distributed to all state government health authorities, lays out strict protocols for travelling to and from events, how team members will be tested for the virus, how they will be expected to behave, how they will be accommodated and the appropriate response if an infection is detected.

The Return to Racing document also recommends how team members should behave when at home between events.

“For the 14 days prior to each event we are asking that the drivers and all the team members just be conscious of their social activities and try and isolate at home with their families as much as possible,” Shaw explained.

To ensure the guidelines are followed, each team has to appoint a COVID-19 compliance officer while an over-arching site safety manager will be in charge of enforcing coronavirus restrictions within the SMP paddock area.

As SMP draws closer some plans are changing. For

instance, teams will not be flying to Sydney by charter flight.

Instead, most of them now plan to drive.

“The chartering didn’t prove a viable option unfortunately,” Shaw explained. “One or two Queensland teams are flying on commercial aircraft and we have given them a set of guidelines they need to comply with in terms of that.”

It will also be specifically defined where team members can be when in the circuit.

“We have very strict guidelines,” confirmed Shaw.

“Teams must stay within the confines of their garage or their transporter. There will be lines on the ground so they understand the zones they must confine themselves to.”

Time allowed within the circuit will also be strictly limited.

Three 130 km races will be staged across two days.

Shaw said the Supercars workplace health and safety committee was primarily responsible for the category’s response to the coronavirus.

Medical advice had been sought from Supercars’ own medico Dr Carl Le, the chief medical officer of the F1 Australian Grand Prix Dr Brent May, and Motorsport Australia’s medical advisers.

Externally, the primary points of contact have been the health departments in each state and the Northern Territory.

“They are the people at the end of the day who make the call on anything COVID-19,” Shaw said.

“There are a whole host of guidelines … they pretty much sit side by side. The main difference between them has been some states have border restrictions and some don’t.

“Every state government has been very helpful. When we have sought guidance they have provided guidance.”

NO EARLY GEN3 MOVE CALLS FOR ACCELERATED major costcutting measures as soon as next year have been rejected.

The Gen3 working group is pressing ahead with plans to slash costs in 2022 with a wholesale review of the technical rules.

Control front uprights and a control V8 engine are part of the plan.

Some teams want the restrictions introduced next year to reduce costs.

They maintain a control V8 could be imposed immediately.

However, an insider privy to Gen3 plans dismisses major reforms for 2021.

“That’s not possible,” the source said.

The Gen3 working group is due to meet again just before or just after next week’s return to racing at Sydney Motorsport Park.

With design and operational help from Triple Eight and DJR Team Penske respectively, Supercars is working to cut the cost of a car

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by more than half to $300,000.

The insider revealed that Gen3 discussions had been lively.

“There’s a rich diversity of views,” our informant said. “It’s a long project. Trust the plan and the process.”

Auto Action understands some teams are resisting change, asserting that they are happy with the cost of the current cars.

However, Erebus Motorsport boss Barry Ryan is in favour of a big change for next year.

“It has to be 2021,” Ryan told AA. “There have to be some big steps made as soon as we can because some of the things we need to do, like a control engine and control front uprights, stuff like that, could happen next year.

“I think that’s something we should be definitely be pushing for. And there are other areas where we can simplify the cars very cheaply or for next to nothing, to ensure the

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labour content is not needed so much.

“We need to have teams outside of Supercars looking to want to join because they can see its viable. The spectators won’t even know. The entertainment value will still be there.”

Ryan maintains a control V8 would save teams “millions”.

Leading driver Shane van Gisbergen hopes

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Gen3 will restore the “rawness” of Supercars.

“I think the target is good,” he said. “Less downforce, cheaper cars, but still keeping the rawness of Supercars while still keeping it open to other manufacturers and types of engines.

“Hopefully, they keep the rawness of the cars, and make them easier to maintain and raceable. I’m all for that.” MF

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LATEST NEWS

Image: LAT TEAM SYDNEY will live up to its name and actually be based at Sydney Motorsport Park before the Supercars event takes place at the track late this month. A two year lease has been signed between the circuit and the team owner Jonathon Webb.

Contractors have been sent in to refurbish the team’s workshop at the circuit ahead of the arrival of its two Holden Commodore ZBs. Driven by Chris Pither and Alex Davison, they have been stored in Melbourne since the championship was put into COVID-19 lockdown in March. BN

NETWORK 10 has confirmed it will cover the Supercars event at Sydney Motorsport Park with a highlights package on Channel 10 and 10 Bold as originally scheduled. Fox Sports will provide live coverage across both days. A reduced commentary team will attend the event with only Mark Larkham in pitlane. BN

RIVAL AUSTRALIAN companies Walkinshaw Automotive Group and Premcar have come together in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having been rivals in performance vehicle development for over 25 years, their combined effort has resulted in the engineering and the manufacturing of a Constant Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine for Australian patients.

MCLAUGHLIN RELISHES CHALLENGE Qualifying star looking forward to quick-fire SMP format

By BRUCE NEWTON DEFENDING SUPERCARS champion Scott McLaughlin is looking forward to the quick-fire challenge the return to racing at Sydney Motorsport Park presents.

McLaughlin, the points leader after the opening Supercar round back in March in Adelaide, is a gun qualifier and is hoping to use that to his advantage at SMP. The truncated two-day schedule at SMP offers non-rookie drivers only two 30 minute practice sessions before diving headlong into qualifying.

That will comprise a staggered elimination and top 15 shootout on Saturday and two back-to-back 15 minutes sessions on Sunday.

Each race will be over 130km and require one compulsory pit stop for at least two tyres. There will be no refuelling.

A significant amount of data has also been stripped from the teams.

“You are going to have to qualify well and you are going to have get your car sorted pretty quickly,” predicted the DJR Team Penske Shell V-Power Ford Mustang driver.

“I like the format, a bit of practice and then straight into qualifying. You’ve got to be prepared and have a car that is good pretty much straight away.

Image: LAT “I am looking forward to, it’s very similar go karting where you have to find the pace in yourself.

And that’s something I’ve always been used to growing up.

“It will be interesting to see how people adapt to it.”

McLaughlin, who has claimed 61 poles in his Supercars career, revealed he and his engineers Ludo Lacroix and Richard Harris “had somewhat of a plan” to deal with the new tyre change rules.

The conundrum is go for only two tyres and the stop is quicker because only two rattle guns are now used. Four tyres takes an extra few seconds but will deliver more pace.

“This two-tyre stop means there is going to be a bit of strategy in what you do … it is probably going

to reward people who can save the tyre better than others.

“It should promote passing which will be good.”

McLaughlin, who quietly celebrated his 27th birthday last week, has a 27 point lead in the driver’s championship over Red Bull Holden Racing Team’s Jamie Whincup.

Chaz Mostert is third 54 points off the pace in the WAUR Mobil 1 Appliances Online Holden Commodore ZB. BP Allstars Eseries winner Shane van Gisbergen is only 13th after suspension failure in race two in Adelaide.

“Shane and Jamie will be fast and you might get Chaz up there as well. I genuinely think it it’s going to be a mixed bag with everything that’s going on,” predicted McLaughlin.

BETTER HEALTH, BETTER RACING New formats should add to the spectacle, predicts Tickford boss

By BRUCE NEWTON

TWELVE-TIME Supercars race winner Fabian Coulthard will mentor fellow New Zealand Louis Sharp after the Bathurst 1000 podium finisher picked him for the Repco Young Driver Scholarship Program. The program was launched last October and Sharp becomes the second member, after Scott McLaughlin’s choice Tom Bewle. At 12 Sharp has already won multiple national NZ kart titles.

SUPER2 IS expected to be joined by two other supports at Winton’s Supercar event. Porsche Carrera Cup and the Toyota 86 Racing Series will join the Supercars at the rural Victorian circuit on July 18-19 were anticipated to be confirmed as this issue went to press.

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COVID-19 has forced a change in formats for the return of the Supercars championship for health reasons, but the end result might also be more unpredictable racing.

That’s the belief of Tickford CEO Tim Edwards, who as a Supercars Commission member helped formulate the 3 x 130km sprint race format Image: LAT that will feature at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28.

“The reality is you are going to have three races and three qualifying sessions so that’s plenty of chances for people to get it right and wrong,” he the way they are focussing on downloading the information,” explained Edwards.

“They get half the information from the driver and what he’s feeling and other half said. comes out of the data.

As first reported in Auto Action 1787 two weeks ago, the new structure bans refuelling and allows the use of only two rattle guns for one mandatory tyre stop “Then they have a lot of math tools they use in the background to do a lot of per race. calculations for them and that’s got to change. Combine that with very small Just 11 crew members plus drivers will be allowed to attend the event for a windows (of time) and you won’t be doing the changes you were before anyway.

“The reality is you are going to be doing springs, bars, cambers, toes, the two-car team. That rule has a direct impact on Edwards, who will be watching on television how Tickford Racing’s four Ford Mustangs driven by Cam Waters, Jack basics. You won’t be making geometry changes.”

That means cars will enter qualifying and the races lacking in set-up refinement.

Le Brocq, Lee Holdsworth and new signing James Courtney perform.

That in turn could affect grid positions and trigger more tyre degradation in races, The on-track schedule has also been compressed and data locked away from the teams, giving them less time and information to make changes to cars. jumbling the results.

“Sydney will be a tyre degradation race for sure,” said Edwards.

And that last combination of circumstances is a key reason Edwards is That in turn will encourage punts on strategy whether to change two tyres or predicting variable results.

“It’s not just what you do during the races, it’s how the engineers deal with the four tyres in the race, especially now that stop times aren’t dictated by fuel flow short gap between practice sessions and also the reduced data they get from the rates.

“I can guarantee there will be people rolling the dice and electing to change cars,” said Edwards.

“They are having to have a complete reset.” two tyres, there will those who elect to make a four or five second longer stop to Teams will be restricted on what data they can receive live during each race. change four tyres,” Edwards said.

“There will be people who change right-side tyres and some who do rear tyres.

Access to the Supercars data logger will not be permitted until the end of the “The combination of us all being able to do something different means you weekend. Brake temperature sensors and gyro sensors (g-sensors) have been removed from the cars. might get a five second jump on someone but by the end of the race…

“They (engineers) will only have a high level summary so they have to change “It all adds to the story.”

SVG LOOKING FORWARD TO FAIR FIGHT

By MARK FOGARTY TITLE CONTENDER Shane van Gisbergen is looking forward to a fair fight when Supercars racing resumes at Sydney Motorsport Park.

On the evidence of the Adelaide 500 and practice and qualifying at the cancelled AGP, van Gisbergen thinks off-season adjustments have equalised the ZB Commodore and Ford Mustang.

“It feels like it,” he said. “The lap times on two completely different tracks were much closer. As much as I’m against the aero levels that we’re at, with the gurneys and stuff, I certainly think the cars are very equal.”

SVG bemoaned the fact that reduced downforce levels hadn’t improved the ability of the cars to race closely.

“The gurneys (rear spoiler lips) make it super hard to pass, which we’ll find at Eastern Creek in the fast and flowing stuff,” he said. “I don’t see that changing this year, but certainly from a competition point of view, the cars are very, very close.

“We were given so much aero last year to catch up with the Mustang and we’ve only come back to where we were. We needed to go back to 2013/14 levels – or even further.”

Van Gisbergen thinks the resumed title fight

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will be between Triple Eight and DJR Team Penske.

“I think it’ll be the usual guys, plus Chaz and Reynolds,” he said. “Thankfully, there are a lot of rounds and with the way the calendar is so condensed, if you get a run going, that’ll be key.

“That’s what we’ll be looking to do, try to get that momentum going.”

Van Gisbergen has just finished his 14-day quarantine following his return from New Zealand.

A better internet connection helped him wrap up the Supercars All-Stars Eseries title, which he rates highly – although not as much as real racing.

“It was pretty cool personally after having a shocking start to it,” he said. “It kept people entertained and the racing got better. It’s not the same as actual racing, but I use simulators a lot.

“Obviously, they’re fun, but it also keeps your focus on racing.”

He thinks the Eseries experience will hasten Triple Eight’s plan to install a full simulator system.

SVG also expects drivers to be a bit rusty when they return to racing at SMP. “Speaking for myself, if I don’t drive for two

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Image: LAT or three weeks, certainly when I first get into the car, I’m a bit rusty,” he said. “So I do think people will be rusty.

“Early on in practice, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of mistakes. To get to the limit, you

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have to go over it and some people are going to make some errors. So it will be interesting.

“I‘ll be cool. It’ll go back to normal pretty quickly, but the first round might be shake things up.”

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LATEST NEWS

The 16th running of the Sydney MasterBlast featuring Muscle Car Masters has been postponed until 2021 due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The decision to not run the event was made by the Australian Racing Drivers’ Club (ARDC), operators of Sydney Motorsport Park, along with stakeholders and category managers. The event usually sees 8000 spectators flock through the gates but organisers felt a gathering of this size in September would likely be called off. Travel restrictions, a lack of track time for competitors and financial constrains were other key factors in the decision according to ARDC CEO Glenn Matthews. DM

IT HAS been announced that TCR Australia competitors will switch from the iRacing simulator platform to the Assetto Corsa based WSC TCR SimRacing system, for its new seven-round online based competition which is set to begin later this year.

PORSCHE HAS announced that the 2020 Junior Shootout will take place from December 1-4, at a yet to be confirmed European location. The Shootout annually provides the opportunity for young Porsche series winners globally to progress with the German brand. The driver who wins the Michelin Junior competition in the Australian series will be nominated to attend the Porsche Junior Shootout. Cooper Murray, Cameron Hill, Aaron Love, Max Vidau and Harri Jones are all vying for the elusive spot. DM

THE VICTORIAN Rally Panel (VRP) has announced a provisional draft calendar for the 2020 Victorian Rally Championship. At this stage it contains three rounds, however ideally the aim is to run four events. The opening round, the Western Victoria Crane Trucks Valley Stages, is pencilled in for September 20, to be followed by the Akademos Rally on October 18 and the Bagshot Rallysprint six days later on October 24. It is planned that another event will conclude the series in November or early December. DM

FORMER MOTORSPORT Australia director Ian Gillespie was named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for services to motoring associations, the cooperatives and mutual sector, and to motorsport. Gillespie held CEO and senior executive roles within the corporate sector for more than three decades but it was his time at the RACQ where Gillespie’s leadership qualities really stood out.

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YOUNGSTERS SET TO TEST S5000 MACHINES THE S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship is emerging from hibernation with at least two V8 powered monsters set to hit the track in an evaluation test day.

The test will take place at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on June 19, during which 17-year-old youngs Nathan Herne and Cooper Webster, and state Formula Vee driver Reef McCarthy, will get their first of S5000.

It will be the first time that an S5000 car has turned a lap since the cars qualified on Thursday at the Australian Grand Prix in March, before the event was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Barry Rogers was instrumental in getting the S5000 Championship off the ground, as the Garry Rogers Motorsport crew constructed all of the open-wheel monsters. And GRM is well known for giving breaks to young drivers, among them Jamie Whincup, Garth Tander and Scott McLaughlin.

“Our vision for the category is to make S5000

as affordable as possible, and have a car that can suit both the experienced and young driver,” said Barry Rogers.

“As has been the case with Garry and the team for many, many years, we are keen on bringing young talent through, and although challenging, S5000 is a level playing field and it allows the drivers to show their skills.”

After previously competing successfully in Formula Ford, Herne made the move into Trans Am racing and has been a constant front runner over the past couple of years, proving that he is not afraid to muscle around a high horse-powered machine.

“Garry and I have been watching Nathan since he was in Formula Ford. When he stepped up to the Trans Ams and did so well, we knew that we’d like to see what he felt about the S5000 class,” Rogers explained.

Webster has earned his stripes in the competitive world of karting, both nationally and internationally, and last year he finished second in

the Victorian Excel Championship.

“Cooper is fresh out of karting and some other circuit racing, but again, he is a young kid and with the right guidance, can have a bright future in motorsport. He will probably surprise himself how quickly he’ll adapt to the S5000,” Rogers said.

Regular GRM S5000 driver James Golding will be at the Island circuit to offer his services as a mentor to Herne and Webster for the day.

“It’s a big step for both Nathan and Cooper, but we’ll have James there to help them get a feel for the cars and get the most out of their evaluations,” said Rogers.

Both Herne and Webster took part in the ARG eSport Cup. Herne finished the series in sixth, while Webster won the final event, the two-hour endurance race at Bathurst alongside Josh Files.

The opening round of the S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship will take place at Sydney Motorsport Park on August 15-16, with the drivers vying for the coveted Motorsport Australia Gold Star. Dan McCarthy

NEW PRIVATEER TCR ENTRY CONFIRMED A NEW team will make its debut when the TCR Australia Series gets underway in August, with Tilton Racing confirming its entry.

The team will add to the Hyundai ranks by racing an i30N TCR owned by Tilton Interiors director Kosta Pohorukov. The team sat on the sidelines last year, but the new entry will now be driven by Bathurst-based driver Brad Shiels for a full attack on the six-round TCR Australia Series.

Shiels is an accomplished driver who has competed in a variety of categories both here and abroad.

Most notably he has been a regular codriver to GT driver Andrew MacPherson, a front runner in NSW Sports Sedans, contested the Bathurst 6 Hour, and currently holds the Radical lap record at Mount Panorama.

Most recently Shiels competed in the Suzuka 10 Hour last year and won the open class at World Time Attack.

Shiels tested the Hyundai at Sydney Motorsport Park just prior to the COVID-19 restrictions and is confident of strong results in his upcoming campaign.

“This is going to be a great opportunity.

I love the TCR category, it has competitive racing and some high profile names, so it’s going to be great to be a part of it,” said Shiels.

“The calendar, considering the limited racing that we’re having this year, is awesome.

“I grew up in Bathurst, so that is my home track, but you don’t get to race there very

often, so I’ve done most of my racing at Sydney Motorsport Park. I know my way around that place, so it will be great to start the season there.

“In terms of results, I really don’t know what to expect. I’ve only driven the car once at a test day. I don’t have any expectations.

We’ll just see how we go and try and work our way to the front.”

Tilton Racing have been involved and won World Time Attack with its heavily modified Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. Gauging the results of similar privateer teams aided in Tilton Racing’s decision to join TCR Australia, said team manager Louis Kapitsas.

“I like TCR. It is a good controlled category with a strong price point,” said Kapitsas.

“The different brands of cars appear to be quite similar, so it comes down to a fast driver and good team to put together a strong package.

“We’ve seen some of the other private entries do quite well, so that gives our team a bit of confidence too.

“Brad is an awesome young driver. He can drive, he’s level headed and he is keen, which is what you need from a driver.” HM

HOLDEN REVIVAL ENTRIES ROLL IN AN ECLECTIC mix of The General’s machinery is expected to be represented at the Bathurst International as part of Holden Bathurst Revival.

The first three entries have been lodged cover three eras of Holden’s motor sport heritage.

An ex-Perkins Engineering-built Holden Commodore VR owned

by Darren Freeman and raced back in the day by Auto Action’s Mike Imrie alongside Truck racer Rodney Crick.

“I’ve been to Bathurst before, but not in a V8 Supercar, and this is going to be a bucket list moment for me,” said Freeman.

“I’ve driven around the mountain in my Clubman Birkin, but this will be something completely different.

“Bathurst is an iconic circuit.

I’m one of those guys who’d get up early to watch the Bathurst 1000, sitting there all day with my dad and watch the whole

race. Since I was five years old, I’ve loved the place.

“To drive any car there is awesome, but to drive a Supercar in anger is going to be something again. And to have the chance to do it in a period correct, legitimate V8 Supercar is bucket list stuff for anyone who loves motorsport.”

The next is a VK Group A Commodore driven by privateer Gerald Kay and Geoff Munday at Bathurst where the pairing finished sixth, which is in the possession of Richard Wells.

Going right back to the beginning is the 48-215 owned

by Brian Russell has contested the Targa Tasmania on numerous occasions and won its class.

Eligibility encompasses all of Holden models that have competed in circuit racing, ranging from Supercars to HQs to V8 Utes to Commodore Cup. HM

BROWN GETS HYUNDAI NOD

Image: LAT

TRIPLE EIGHT AND HOLDEN SETTLE ANNOUNCED JUST after Auto Action’s last deadline, Triple Eight Race Engineering and GM Holden have reached a contract settlement after the manufacturer announced its closure earlier this year.

TIn 2020 the team has entered its 10th season as a factory Holden representative and its fourth as the official Holden Racing Team, which was transferred to the Queensland-based squad from Walkinshaw Andretti United at the beginning of the 2017 season.

Although the deal between Triple Eight and GM Holden was to conclude at the end of 2021, it has been brought forward to align with the brand’s withdrawal from the market at the end of the year.

A confidential settlement has been reached between the two parties; meanwhile Triple Eight’s lead naming rights partner Red Bull is in place until at least the end of the 2021 season.

Triple Eight established itself as the leading Holden team almost immediately when its switched from Fords to Holdens, with Jamie Whincup winning on debut in Abu Dhabi.

During its 10 years as a Holden team, it has won eight Team’s Championships, six Drivers’ titles, four Bathurst 1000s and aided Holden in securing eight Manufacturer’s Championships.

In a statment Triple Eight said:

GM Holden and Triple Eight Race Engineering have reached an amicable agreement in the wake of Holden’s announcement that the manufacturer will be closing later this year.

The settlement, the details of which are commercially confidential, will see the Red Bull Holden Racing Team remain on the grid in its present guise until the end of the current Virgin Australia Supercars Championship season. The existing contract had been due to expire at the end of 2021.

The two powerhouses of Australian motor racing joined forces in 2010, winning on debut in Abu Dhabi and going on to claim a one-two finish in the Bathurst 1000 in the same year. In total, Holden and Triple Eight together have claimed eight teams’ championships, six drivers’ titles and four Bathurst 1000 victories.

The future branding of Triple Eight’s Supercars team is yet to be determined, with the current contract between co-title partner Red Bull and Triple Eight in place until at least the end of the 2021 season.

The whole team at Triple Eight extends their heartfelt thanks to Holden, all Holden employees past and present with whom we’ve interacted, and the dealer network for their incredible support and friendship over the past decade. The team is totally

committed to delivering the best possible results, both on and off the track, for the remainder of the season.

Holden also released a statement also: Holden is pleased to have reached an amicable contract settlement with Triple Eight Race Engineering, and we along with everyone else are looking forward to seeing race cars on the track again soon.

Motorsport has made an enormous contribution to the Holden brand and we are very proud of those on track achievements that can never be erased.

Holden and Triple Eight have achieved a lot together since 2010 and that is something that we sincerely hope continues for the rest of this season. We are seriously excited about the opportunity to make some more history.

The Red Bull Holden Racing Team started the year with a win in Adelaide, and we were incredibly grateful to Jamie Whincup and the entire RBHRT for dedicating that victory to the staff of Holden and its dealers.

Holden is thankful to all the Commodore teams for their commitment and support, but particularly Triple Eight who have been fantastic partners.

We all want to see the winning continue and what better way than a victory at Bathurst and a Supercars championship to send the Holden brand off in style. HM y p

TCR AUSTRALIA winner Will Brown is one of four drivers who will participate in Hyundai’s Customer Racing Junior Driver program in 2020.

Last year’s graduate of the program, Luca Engstler, will line-up on the WTCR grid this year as part of Hyundai’s factory supported team, after enjoying a successful season in national and regional TCR series.

Brown dominated last year’s inaugural TCR Australia season driving for HMO Customer Racing, taking seven wins and sealing the title with a round to spare.

The Erebus Motorsport Pirtek Enduro Cup driver will re-join the Sydney-based operation this year to defend his TCR Australia title.

“To be a part of the Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing Junior Driver program is a great honour,” Brown said.

“I’m looking forward to getting back on track for HMO Customer Racing in 2020 to defend my title, and also take advantage of this fantastic program which is designed to create a pathway into WTCR. “I can’t thank Hyundai Motorsport and HMO Customer Racing enough for this opportunity.”

The three other drivers who are in the program are TCR Europe competitors, siblings Andreas and Jessica Backman, and Daniel Nagy, who is in his second season participating in the initiative.

“After only one year the Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing Junior Driver program has already proven to be a valuable part of our strategy to support Hyundai customer teams,” said Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing Operations leader Andrew Johns.

“After a very strong season as part of the initiative, Luca Engstler has been able to move into a full-time ride in WTCR – FIA World Touring Car Cup this year. With the quality of those that have been selected for this season, I believe that all of them have the capability to race at the highest level. With the support of the Customer Racing department’s engineers and the mentoring of the current crop of WTCR drivers, I am confident that we can add to the program’s success story.” HM y

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Image: LAT RALLY NEW Zealand organisers have confirmed the event’s cancelation, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The event was set to take place on September 3-6 and would have marked the first time the FIA World Rally Championship had returned to the country since 2012. Three months out from the event New Zealand’s international borders remained closed, so the decision was made to cancel the event. This is not the only WRC event to be cancelled, with both the legendary Rally Finland and Wales Rally GB also called off.

Image: LAT BENTLEY MOTORSPORT has announced the immediate withdrawal of its factory squad M-Sport from the Intercontinental GT Challenge. The surprising news came after the luxury car brand won the Bathurst 12 Hour, the opening round of the series, back in February. Bentley will now focus on its customer racing program, which provides support for 12 Continental GT3 cars across eight teams.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic with its international travel restrictions and decreased schedule, the brand elected to withdraw from the IGTC category.

REIGNING AUSTRALIAN Porsche Carrera Cup Series winner Jordan Love has been given the all clear to travel to Europe, following hip surgery.

Before returning overseas to compete in the Porsche Supercup series, Love has had to recover at his family home in Perth after injuring his hip in a freak surfing accident. After being taken hospital, surgery was required to reassemble his hip with a plate and two 60mm screws. Love spent four nights in hospital but is now looking forward to the start of the Supercup season in Austria in early July. DM

McLAREN’S BRITISH GT Championship-based development program has been suspended for 2020, impacting Australian driver Harry Hayek. The 22-year-old was set to contest the British GT season with Tolman Motorsport, as part of a two-car team filled with McLaren development drivers. However, it was decided that the drivers would be disadvantaged by the current circumstances and has moved the program into 2021 according to McLaren Customer Racing director of motorsport, Ian Morgan. HM

IT HAS been confirmed that the 2021 Dakar Rally will take place in Saudi Arabia for the second consecutive year, however organisers have said that it will run an entirely new route. This 43rd edition will consist of 11 stages, kicking off on January 3 in Jeddah and concluding in the same city on January 15.

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Image: LAT

PORSCHE TO LEAVE IMSA GERMAN MANUFACTURER Porsche has announced it will cease its factory involvement in the IMSA SportsCar Championship at the end of the 2020 season.

Porsche Motorsport said that the decision to pull out of the GTLM class has been made to counter the economic effects the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to impose on the popular sports car brand globally.

“The decision to halt our factory involvement in the IMSA series was not an easy one for us,” said the vice president of Porsche Motorsport Fritz Enzinger.

“With a view to the current corporate situation in connection with the Coronavirus pandemic, it is only logical for Porsche Motorsport to make a contribution to coping with the economic fallout.

“We’ve openly discussed our exit with all involved. At this point, we’d like to convey

our sincere thanks to Jim France and the colleagues at IMSA for their understanding.

Porsche belongs in endurance racing. We will work hard to ensure that this is only a temporary Auf Wiedersehen.”

Porsche is the reigning GTLM team and drivers’ champions, and the head of operations IMSA Championship at Porsche Motorsport Steffen Hollwarth wants to finish the season on a high.

“We hope that this season’s races will still be contested so that we don’t leave the IMSA stage soundlessly. Of course, such decisions impact the mood but we’re all professionals and we’re now focusing on the remaining races of the current season.”

This decision leaves only two full-time GTLM manufacturers in the class next year, Corvette and BMW. The decision to pull out of the IMSA Championship comes several weeks after

Porsche pulled its North American 911 RSR cars from the Le Mans 24 Hours entry list.

Porsche previously pulled out of the top-tier LMP1 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the end of 2017, but remains an integral part of the GTE Pro class with two entries, as well as competing in the all-electric Formula E Championship.

Despite the factory withdrawal in IMSA GTLM class, support of customer teams in the GTD class, as well as the Michelin Pilot Challenge (GT4) and the GT3 Cup Challenge USA, will continue unchanged in cooperation with Porsche Motorsport North America and Porsche Cars North America.

In the opening race of the IMSA season, the Daytona 24 Hours, the two Porsche entries finished second and third in class.

The IMSA SportsCar Championship will resume on the first weekend of July at Watkins Glen. Dan McCarthy

AUSSIE ENGINEER WINS IN NASCAR AUSTRALIAN JAMES Small achieved a lifelong ambition of winning a NASCAR Cup Series race as a Crew Chief, when he helped Martin Truex Jr. take victory at Martinsville Speedway last week.

The #19 Toyota Camry crew chief was happy but also relieved to get the first race victory under the belt, especially as the win means an automatic spot in the Chase Playoffs for the #19 crew.

“It is a pretty big moment in my life, a big achievement,” James Small admitted to Auto Action.

“After leaving home and moving over here seven years ago and making my way up, to finally accomplish that, I’m super happy.

“Overall it is a massive relief to be perfectly honest, everyone keeps saying the first win is the hardest to get.

“Now that we are in The Chase, we can all relax a little bit and concentrate on more wins and more bonus points.”

This season Small stepped up from the lead engineer into the position of Crew Chief.

Together Truex and Small have started the season off strongly but had been unable to finish a race up front, until at Darlington luck finally fell their way.

“In the final stage the car came to life. We made a couple more adjustments at the penultimate stop and again at the last one, that is when we drove up from fifth through to first. We were driving away from everybody and he got into a really good rhythm,” Small recalled to AA. “Once we got to the lead it felt like if it stayed green the whole way we could win this, because it was clear we had the best car.”

The former Supercars engineer admitted that the victory is yet to sink in, due to the COVID-19 crisis.

“It was such a different experience compared with the wins we’ve had over the last few years with the current climate with COVID-19 and all the restrictions,” he said.

“After the race it was like yeah, okay, we’ve won, but we couldn’t go back to Martin’s coach after the race and have a beer or

anything like that, which was very weird.”

Before moving to the States, Small made a name for himself as a successful engineer in the Supercars Championship. His most notable achievement was winning the Bathurst 1000 as an engineer with Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards in 2013.

However, Small rates his NASCAR win even higher.

“At the time Bathurst was the greatest thing ever because growing up all I ever wanted to do was win Bathurst and accomplish what my Dad (Les Small) had done, but this to me means more,” he told AA. “Martinsville is such an iconic race, it is one of the hardest races to win and coming from Australia, I always dreamed of getting to this position. To actually do it and win a race is just mind blowing to be honest, so I think this is now number one.” Dan McCarthy

SUPERCARS STARS COME OUT TO PLAY MOTOR RACING resumed at Sydney Motorsport Park last weekend with Supercar drivers Anton de Pasquale and Broc Feeney in starring roles, teaming up to win the one-hour Excel race.

The duo was almost 16s ahead of the field when the chequered flag came out.

The event at SMP was a round of the Motor Racing Australia Series that also included Pulsars, Improved Production, Super TT and a mix of Mazda MX5s and RX8 Cup cars.

The one-day meeting was the first in three months of inactivity across Australia, since the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park was aborted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

De Pasquale and Feeney were part of a two car team that had border passes to come from Queensland to participate.

Triple Eight supremo Roland Dane was Crew Chief for the day, while Paul Morris managed the second car driven by his son Nash and

Image: Riccardo Benvenuti Brodie Kostecki.

Feeney qualified fastest while the second car was 10th on the grid of 28.

In his first drive in an Excel, de Pasquale started and slipped to sixth in the opening laps. However, he quickly fought back to second by the time of the mandatory pitstops, which came early due to safety cars.

Feeney took over, resuming in sixth and methodically worked his way to the lead and a comfortable win.

“I have done a lot of races in Excels, so I am pretty comfortable in them,” Broc Feeney said.

Meanwhile, Morris driving the second car picked up a couple of places early before

coming into contact, putting him out.

“I just locked up going into the corner,” he explained. For Kostecki it had been a very short day. “Well at least I got in a qualifying lap,” he commented.

The MRA meeting featured big fields across the board and record numbers on the BlendLine TV streaming service.

The event heralded a return to racing, with a number of meetings coming up this weekend.

A Cheap Car Challenge will take place at Pheasant Wood, the WA Sporting Car Club is hosting a one-dayer at Wanneroo, and there is also the Ross Hanning Memorial meeting at Hidden Valley. Garry O’Brien

RACEFUELS AIDS SUPERCARS TEAMS SUPERCARS FUEL supplier RaceFuels will donate hand sanitiser to each of the teams contesting the country’s premier motor racing series.

The Australian-owned company will provide 20-litres of its ‘workshop sanitiser’ to each team along pit lane, delivering them to the second round of the 2020 Supercars Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28.

Director of RaceFuels, Mark Tierney says he is glad to help protect the Supercars teams and drivers, utilising a product that the company produced during the hiatus from racing.

“The usual operations of RaceFuels was faced with a challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the creation of our ‘Workshop Sanitiser’ is the result of virus,” said Tierney.

“The product is 100 per cent Australian, manufactured by RaceFuels in Melbourne, and includes ethanol, meeting the UN-specs.

“Our recommendation is that the teams put this into a spray pack, allowing them to actively wipe down tools and surfaces, offering personnel protection during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It has been a great shame

VALE: JAMIE DRUMMOND THE AUSTRALIAN rallying community is mourning the loss of noted suspension engineer Jamie Drummond, in a car accident near Wangaratta (Victoria) on June 12.

Drummond was a former mechanic with the Datsun Rally Team during Australian rallying’s golden era of the 1970s and early1980s, before forming his own successful suspension business, Drummond Motor Suspension.

The 64-year-old’s expertise spread globally when he joined Monster Tajima’s Suzuki factory outfit and the legendary Les Walkden Rallysport team.

Auto Action sends its condolences to Jamie’s wife Yvonne, his three children Tracy, Trevor, Emma, and his eight grandchildren. HM

VALE: PETER TURNER that motor sport has been halted during the past few months, but we’re starting to see movement and we’re glad that we can play a part in

protecting those in our game.”

RaceFuels will also provide its own brew of sanitiser to the Super2 teams when it kicks off again at Winton in July. HM

HISTORIC RACER Peter Turner was alongside Jamie Drummond (see above) and also lost his life in the tragic accident.

Turner raced for more than 40 years and was a regular at historic events, competing in his Norax C2 Prototype.

Condolences go to Peter’s family, friends and the Guildford community.

HM

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LATEST NEWS

PENSKE PURGE AS CRISIS LOOMS SUPERCARS SUPER-squad DJR Team Penske has sacked staff as the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis takes hold.

Auto Action learnt that DJRTP laid off at least five employees last week, just over three weeks before the return of Supercars racing at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28.

Among those let go was media manager Ben Nightingale, who confirmed his termination on Facebook.

AA understands that DJRTP is not the only team to shed staff, despite the federal government’s JobKeeper wage subsidies.

A leading Holden team is believed to have stood down at least 10 staff.

Most others have also trimmed their personnel.

Supercars itself has been down to as few as five of more than 80 full-time employees recently, with more to return in the lead-up to the SMP resumption.

However, Supercars and most of the teams are unlikely to reinstate staff their prepandemic levels.

DJRTP’s axings are concerning because, along with Triple Eight, it is the most heavily commercially supported team.

There is speculation that funding from the parent Penske organisation has been pulled amid huge cutbacks.

DJRTP relies on the Penske racing formula of business-to-business sponsorship deals with major partners like Shell.

Those B2B arrangements are under duress

as the world economy declines because of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Apparently ordered from America, the DJRTP sackings were swift.

AA understands the terminations were immediate, with the sacked employees ‘escorted’ from the team’s premises at Stapylton, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, upon notification on Tuesday.

The most high-profile victim was popular media manager Nightingale, who joined DJRTP in 2017.

A former specialist motoring writer, Nightingale previously worked in communications with Supercars, Tekno Autosports and Team 18.

He was particularly effective during DJRTP’s many controversies in 2018 and last year.

MORE ALL STARS Eseries OUTINGS ENVISIONED AFTER THE run of a successful 10 weeks Supercars All Stars Eseries, it is likely that events will continue to be held when racing returns.

Supercars general manager of television and content Nathan Prendergast expressed his desire to continue the program alongside a series for professional Eseries competitors.

“We are definitely doing our traditional Eseries competition with pro gamers, the question lies with what do we do with the All Stars,” Prendergast told Auto Action.

“I would like to think that we would definitely do something again, probably not the duration you’ve seen, it might be a one off event or special events here and there because it’s been really cool and it has really worked.”

In the meantime, Prendergast confirmed his intentions to hold

another celebrity race after the success of the first event last month.

“I do plan on putting another celebrity series together just before Bathurst 1000 as a promotion for the real race, we had such great feedback from the celebrities who all said can we do that again and we have had some inquiries about other people being involved as well.

So I definitely want to do another Eseries race before Bathurst,” he explained.

As the real Supercars action is scheduled to fire back into life next week, Prendergast believes he will leave the All Stars series on hold for the moment until the Supercars Championship gets back into the swing of things.

“As I said we are going to run the normal e-Series and we will work out what to do with an All Star series after that,” he concluded. DM

His exit suggests that DJRTP places little importance on informing fans through the media.

To AA’s knowledge, no other team has sacked its media relations person.

Penske Corporation boss Roger Penske, a racing enthusiast, is having to make hard decisions to secure the survival of his global enterprise.

It is not hard to imagine that Penske’s interests in Australia and New Zealand, including DJRTP, are relatively low priorities.

Also no wonder in the current environment is that there have been persistent rumours that Penske will pull out of Supercars.

That speculation has been denied, but the current crisis makes it plausible.

DJR Team Penske is majority-owned by Team Penske in the USA, with most of the

rest held by independently wealthy team principal Ryan Story. Team figurehead Dick Johnson also has a small stake.

Penske Corporation, of which Roger is chairman, is a privately held company that owns car dealerships across the USA and western Europe, and is a major player in truck leasing and sales in America and Australasia.

Team Penske is a wholly-owned division, running in NASCAR, IndyCar, IMSA and Supercars. Newly established Penske Entertainment now owns and operates the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar Series.

If a team owned by a multi-billion dollar conglomerate is cutting key staff, it makes you wonder about the viability of every other Supercars squad. Mark Fogarty .

PARK ‘N’ VIEW NOT AN OPTION FOR SUPERCARS OPENER

Image: Insyde Media

CONDENSED CHAMPIONSHIPS CALENDAR REVEALED Image: Angryman

STATE OF ORIGIN FOR

BOTH SUPERCARS and the Australian Racing Drivers Club have knocked on the head the possibility of spectators utilising Sydney Motorsport Park’s Park ‘N’ View to watch the Supercars opening round.

Murmurs were a Racing boundGroup’s that the‘Festival spectators THE AUSTRALIAN of would be able to view the action from their in Motorsport’ destined to hit Tasmanian shores cars as part SMP’s Parkwith ‘N’ aView January 2021ofwill conclude Statesections of Origin of the as circuit, this isfinale. not the case event part ofhowever its Baskerville with the next Thefans newpotentially concept willallowed pit sometoofattend Tasmania’s best againstevent their mainland counterparts Supercars scheduled for July. chosen from within ARG’s suite ofbycategories, off A statement provided Supercarscapping is back-to-back weekends’ racing on the Apple Isle. provided below: “Heading to Baskerville, we’re taking the TCR “At this stage the June event at Sydney cars down there, the S5000s will do some Motorsport Park will be a television only event display laps, but the big event apart from being with no fans in attendance. the TCR series finale, (is) we’re going to have “The stringent guidelines we have State of Origin motorsport,” TCR and S5000 developed areBarry based on expert team director Rogers said. medical advice and the advice of our Government Rogers also highlighted the dedication of partners and Motorsport Australia andreason motorsport fans in Tasmania as a major prioritise theback-to-back safety and events, wellbeing of our for running kicking off at people, teams, officials.”

Symmons Plainsdrivers on the and Australian Day long weekend.

“We will continually assess the possibility we raced ourevents Supercars down there of “When admitting fans to based on the at Symmons Plains, the passion and support direction of government restrictions, including

BASKERVILLE

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is strong, you just find the enthusiasm and love of motorsport is a real passion that they have,” Rogers added.

“To bring the S5000s, the TCRs and Trans Ams to Symmons Plains, and having a key marquee event finalised on Australia Day, will be very special for that area.”

Interest in the concept is high from a competitor point of view, according Rogers how we might be able to toGarry accommodate Motorsport team owner Garry Rogers, but he camping and Park & View. stopped short of revealing drivers.

While an official source of the ARDC “We’ve spoken to a whole lot of people and told Auto Action ‘there was no truth to the there’s enormous interest in this,” he said. “We rumours Park’N’View be allowed don’t wantthat to cherry-pick toowould many people. at“In thefairness June event.’ to everyone that has inquired, we Thistocomes announcement want make itafter fair tothe everybody and overmade the

by Prime Morrison next monthMinister or two itScott will become welltoday knownthat as sporting capable of holding no more to who willvenues be coming.”

ARG40,000 CEO Matt Braid confirmed Amper than spectators can bethat filledTrans to 25 cars be utilised, but the format is still being cent will capacity. finalised.

Heathorganised McAlpine events, sporting (or) “For outdoor

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A REVISED four-round Motorsport Australia Championships calendar has been revealed by the sport’s governing body, kicking off in August.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Motorsport Australia Championship was forced to postpone its schedule of events, but has now revealed a four-event calendar that could expand further if interest from categories is high.

Sydney Motorsport Park will maintain its opening round on August 15-16, while Sandown stays on the same weekend it was originally scheduled, September 12-13.

The Bend Motorsport Park then follows on October 17-18, the same weekend as the Australian Rally Championship’s South Australian round. A special stage of the rally will feature on the Saturday night program of the nationals meeting. cultural, willconcludes be moving, part ofonStep Phillipwe Island theasseason an 3,undisclosed for events in stadia or other venues that late-October weekend.

Theof season couldwith then abecapacity extendedofwith additional rounds nature 40,000 or less, to in November and December, if category andare enable attendance at those events, which competitor demand is high. ticketed and interest are seated – and all the social Motorsport Australia Championships Director distancing rules apply – for up to 25 percent Michael Smith revealed the revised calendar, after of the capacity of those venues to take holding discussions with category and circuit patrons,” said the Prime Minister. managers.

“There will be further work done over the “We are really pleased to be able to announce next fortnight. the initial four rounds of the 2020 Shannons “This is notAustralia something that’s happening Motorsport Championships,” Smith said. straight away; this is something that would

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“It’s understandably been a very difficult year for everyone, but with plenty of light at the end of the tunnel, we feel now is the right time to announce our calendar, with four rounds and possibly more to take place in the second half of 2020.

“Together with our various categories, we’ll make sure that all local government restrictions are met and events run according to our detailed Return To Race strategy, and follow any advice regarding social distancing and so on.

“We’d like to thank all the categories and circuit managers for their co-operation and hard work to ensure we could get these events up and running and we can’t wait to get back on track with the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships this year.”

All rounds will initially be non-spectator events beuntil happening as part of Step 3, government restrictions arewhere eased.states andNew territories choose to move to that, and it additions planned for 2020 at Bathurst Morgan Park, plus Winton and thein July, willand require a bit more work, so that’s have all others been cancelled. butundisclosed we have tofifth giveround venues and time to HM prepare for that sort of change, and I think that would be welcome.”

2020 Shannons Motorsport For larger capacity venues, the wait will be a Australia Championships lot later due to the effects of public transport • August 15-16, Sydney Motorsport Park and mass departure.

• September 12-13, Sandown How this affects motor sport events is • October 17-18, The Bend Motorsport Park unknown due TBA, to thePhillip unrestrictive • October Island nature of the tickets, bar the grandstand passes. HM

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LATEST NEWS

REVISED MOTOGP CALENDAR A REVISED MotoGP calendar has been released and will contain a maximum of 17 rounds starting at the Circuito de Jerez in Spain on July 19.

At this stage all 13 European events have been given dates with the four other races at Circuit of the Americas, Termas de Rio Hondo in Argentina, the Chang International Circuit in Thailand and the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia all subject to approval. All four of the fly away events will know their fate by the end of July.

Of the 13 races set so far, seven will take place in Spain with former Formula 1 venue Jerez holding two races on back to back weekends to start the season on July 19 and again just 7 days later. The Red Bull Ring in Austria, Misano World Circuit in Italy, Motorland Aragon and Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia Spain will also host back to back weekends during the year.

Austria and Italy will hold two races while both the Czech Republic and France will host one

race each.

At this stage the 13th round scheduled is the traditional season finale at the Valencian Circuit Ricardo Tormo on November 15, however the venue which has hosted MotoGP since 1999 is unlikely to host the season finale.

The four flyaway races are pencilled in to take place between November 22 and December 13 after the European leg has concluded.

All the dates, events and the eventual attendance of spectators are subject to the evolution of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the approval of the corresponding Governments and authorities. Dan McCarthy

Qatar Spain Spain Czech Republic Austria Austria San Marino San Marino Spain France Spain Spain Spain Spain

Losail Jerez Jerez Brno Red Bull Ring Red Bull Ring Misano Misano Catalunya Le Mans Aragon Aragon Ricardo Tormo Ricardo Tormo

March 8 (Moto2 and Moto3 only) July 19 July 26 August 9 August 16 August 23 September 13 September 20 September 27 October 11 October 18 October 25 November 8 November 15

VIRTUAL LE MANS, WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT? THE LE MANS 24 Hours Virtual was run over the weekend and after an entire day of simulator racing action it was the #1 Rebellion Racing crew that took the win, but what did the race entail?

Last weekend was a significant date, June 13-14 is when the real life Le Mans 24 Hours was scheduled to take place, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent international travel restrictions put in place it was decided to postpone the race until September 19-20.

It was then announced by the FIA World Endurance Championship organisers ACO that during the original scheduled date they would run a virtual Le Mans 24 Hours race.

Rather than running the usual four categories, LMP1, LMP2, GTE Pro and GTE Am only two classes would be run. LMP2 for the Le Mans prototype cars and GTE for the GT

entries, creating a level playing field.

Many of the real life teams and drivers competed in the event, such as Toyota Gazoo Racing, Rebellion, ByKolles, factory Ferrari team AF Corse, Porsche and Signatech Alpine just to name a few. These were joined by a couple of IMSA Series squads Team Penske and United Autosports as well as a number of sim racing teams including Veloce Esports.

In total 50 cars entered the race, 30 LMP2 machines and 20 GTE cars, each crew had to contain four drivers, and consisting of at least two professional real racing drivers.

As a result of professional drivers taking part it created one of the strongest ever grids Esports grid.

As the Canadian Grand Prix was cancelled a number of current F1 drivers took part in the race including Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Antonio Giovinazzi and

Pierre Gasly.

These were joined by names such as Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button, Formula E champions JeanEric Vergne and Sebastien Buemi, World Touring Car champions, multiple Le Mans 24 Hour winners including Fernando Alonso and locals Matt Campbell and Kiwi Jaxon Evans. It was a quality 200 driver grid.

Server technical glitches saw the race red flagged twice, five hours into the race and again with four hours remaining. A number of drivers also suffered technical issues, Verstappen’s sim screen turned off and as a result he crashed at high speed forcing the quartet to retire from the race when leading. Former IndyCar driver Robert Wickens found out the hard way what it is like to compete with full force feedback.

One of the more bizarre moments

happened in the opening hour, two-time F1 champion Alonso was handed a drive-through penalty for contact with Simona de Silvestro.

Low on fuel Alonso made his pit stop, however the game, thinking Alonso came in to serve his penalty did not allow him to take on fuel, as a result half way around the lap the car ran out of juice.

In the end the race was won by factory Mercedes GT driver Raffaele Marciello, Haas reserve driver Louis Deletraz and sim racers Nikodem Wisniewski and Kuba Brzezinski.

Aussie sim racer Josh Rogers won the GTE class in the #93 Porsche alongside former Le Mans 24 Hours winner Nick Tandy Porsche Supercup driver Ayhancan Guven and fellow sim racer Tommy Ostgaard.

Now the motorsport community turns its attention to the real thing in mid-September. Dan McCarthy

LYNK & CO ANNOUNCE CUSTOMER PROGRAM ONE OF the leading TCR manufacturers, Lynk & Co has announced the delivery of its first customer 03 TCR. The Chinese brand entered the World Touring Car Cup amid much controversy as unlike any of the other brands it had pseudo-factory entries

by Cyan racing, the team that has also developed the successful machine.

However, the lack of customer program combined with 03 TCR’s performance led to manufacturers including Hyundai threatening to pull out of the WTCR. Lynk & Co are a sub-brand of Geely and are placed behind Volvo in its range of marques, though the 03 is closely linked to Swedish brands XC40.

But for the 2020 season, the 03 TCR will compete in a variety of Asian TCR series via Teamwork Motorsport. An experienced team based in Hong Kong has previously competed in the Chinese Touring Car Championship and a number of TCR series

representing Volkswagen.

“The all-round performance that Lynk & Co 03 TCR shown to the world last year in the WTCR was incredible and made our choice easy. We are especially glad to start this customer racing programme with a Chinese brand as a Chinese team,” said Teamwork Motorsport Team Principal Paul Hui. “We’re excited to work with Geely Group Motorsport and Lynk & Co not only on the circuits, but also enjoy the huge support from the Chinese fans.

We are looking forward to a really strong season.”

“We are monitoring the coronavirus pandemic closely and our priority is obviously the wellbeing of everyone involved in the project. We have a

close dialogue with organisers of the championships mentioned and we are ready for when the circumstances are there to race again.”

Head of Geely Group Motorsport, Alexander Murdzevski Schedvin is hoping for strong results in this new venture for the marque.

“We are very happy to welcome Teamwork Motorsport into the growing family of our Lynk & Co 03 customer racing programme,” said Murdzevski Schedvin.

Yvan Muller, Andy Priaulx, Thed Bjork and Yann Ehrlacher drove four 03 TCRs to the manufacturers title in WTCR. Although the model isn’t sold in Australia, Auto Action believes there have been a few interested parties to bring the 03 into TCR Australia. HM

until at least the end of 2022. The older Espargaro brother joined the team in 2017 from Suzuki and since then has scored a best race result of sixth.

“I am happy about this confirmation.

The human aspect is extremely important for me, and in four seasons, Aprilia has become my second family, so with this contract, which is certainly the most important of my career, they demonstrated that I am at the centre of this project,” Aleix Espargaro said.

“On a technical level, the growth in recent months convinced me, with the arrival of many reinforcements and the début of the 2020 RS-GP, which did so well in the tests. I feel like we need to

finish the job we started over the winter.

I can’t wait to get back together with my entire team and race with the new bike, to take this project where it deserves to be.”

At this stage it is unknown who will join Espargaro at the team this season as Andrea Iannone’s 18-month drug ban appears unlikely to be overruled and could even be extended to four years.

Aleix’s younger brother Pol Espargaro has been heavily linked to a ride alongside Marc Marquez at the factory Repsol Honda team in 2021, to replace Marc’s younger brother Alex after just one season. Dan McCarthy

MOTOGP MOVES AND SHAKES THE MOTOGP silly season continues as drivers sign deals and rumours spread like wildfire.

In recent days factory Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci confirmed that he would be leaving the Italian squad at the end of the 2020 season, days after Aussie Jack Miller was confirmed at the red team for 2021.

Lead rider Andrea Dovizioso’s contract negotiations with Ducati were reported by European sources to have stalled over financial disagreements, however discussions now appear to be back underway.

Petrucci, the one-time Grand Prix winner joined the factory red team at the start of last year but confirmed that Ducati did not renew his services. It seems unlikely that he would return to Ducati customer squad Pramac, leaving his only viable option a seat with factory team Aprilia alongside Aleix Espargaro.

Espargaro announced a new two-year deal with the Noale factory through

VALE DR JOHN MORAN

DR JOHN Moran who served as Winton Motor Raceway’s chief medical officer for over two decades sadly passed away over the weekend.

Dr Moran was known for his great passion and love of motor racing as well as his work ethic to make continual improvements and innovations to improve the safety at the nation’s action track.

Together with Simon Mass and the RACESAFE team, Dr Moran was instrumental in improving the medical response at the country Victorian venue and fostered connections around Victoria which have remained an asset to Winton to this day.

Dr Moran’s first job at Winton was when he filled in as a medical practitioner for the circuit, this was during a period in which the venue struggled to source doctors for race events in the 90s. Following such uncertainty, Dr Moran was committed to becoming the chief medical officer, and from 1997 was present at almost every major race meeting.

Over the years Dr Moran became a guide for all of the innovative and practical medical response protocols that were introduced to the sport.

During the time that Dr Moran has been associated with the circuit it has enjoyed a period of stability, immense reliability and quality in the chief medical officer services for race meetings. Dr Moran himself was a reliable gentlemen who always arrived on time.

Dr Moran made many strong friendships at Winton and in the wider motorsport community, willingly working with management teams past and present.

Winton Raceway was not his fulltime job, during the week he would work at Wodonga as a GP in health administration, along with accident and emergency roles.

He will be remembered for his kindness and cheery persona and his care for any competitor or member of the public who needed his medical expertise.

Auto Action sends out our condolences to his friends, family and everyone from the Benalla Auto Club. Dan McCarthy

A R T X E S W E N

E V I S U L C EX While Australia has been on COVID-19 shutdown, a crew from Tickford Racing has been working away quietly renovating the Ford squad’s workshop.

BRUCE NEWTON was taken on the tour.

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE ON THE Friday morning of the cancelled Australian Grand Prix as the disconsolate Tickford Racing crew packed up, CEO Tim Edwards called them all together and made an address.

It wasn’t quite the pep talk they might have been expecting.

“I said ‘We are packing the truck up and going home and by the way we have decided to stay in the factory we are in and we are going to give it a birthday’,” Edwards recalled.

More than three months later Edwards can look back on that moment with some satisfaction as he looks at the team’s four Mustangs and the substantial update that has been made to the team’s workshop.

“We’ve got improved efficiency of the way we work, we have improved efficiencies because the guys now have places to store everything, we’ve got a much better working environment and financially we have saved a fortune by getting everything under the one roof,” Edwards told Auto Action.

It’s also a far better space to show during tours: “In the end it was embarrassing going out there,” Edwards admits.

Over the last few years Tickford Racing management has wondered what to do about the team’s quarters.

When its predecessor, Ford Performance Racing, moved in in early 2003 it really was state-of-the-art. Located

14 AutoAction

Tickford team boss Tim Edwards (top) kick started the extensive workshop renovations with a team meeting in the pit bunker at the postponed Australian Grand Prix meeting.

across the road from what was then Ford Australia’s headquarters in Campbellfield, the 3600 metre facility housed everything required to back-up the race team’s two BA Ford Falcons raced by Craig Lowndes and Glenn Seton.

But times move on.

“We have spent about four years deliberating; do we move, do we not.

Do we put an extension on?” explained Edwards.

“We were effectively in four buildings here. There was a factory out the back where the automotive business was, there was a (temporary building) in the rear yard, then we had composites and paint in the building up the road.

“We looked in south-east Melbourne for a factory, we looked in the north, we went all over the place.”

Complicating all this was a stalled 2018 move to expand into an adjoining factory

that is now embroiled in a dispute not involving Tickford.

“In the end we made a decision to keep the race team here and get it all under one roof,” Edwards said.

That decision was made in late February, COVID-19 hit in March and work then began.

Renovating and redesigning the headquarters buildings also kept a group of Tickford staff in employment during the shutdown period that finally finishes in late June, when the Supercars go racing again at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The key changes were moving the composites facility including autoclave from that separate building. The tyre bank has also been shifted on-site from a warehouse three kilometres away.

“The composites department was almost out of sight and out of mind,” explained Edwards. “We hardly interacted with them. They didn’t even come up here for lunch. It’s only 300 metres away, but they were almost their own separate business.

“Already, we are seeing efficiencies.

Wayne (Max – composites technician) is seeing bodywork come off the car and making his own call and dealing with it, and his number two Alex is getting more deeply involved doing things he never would have done based down there.”

For regular visitors peering in from outside, the obvious changes are the

straightening of the vehicle hoists in parallel with a new dividing wall that sits behind them. Now tucked out of sight on the far side are racks to neatly accommodate bodywork.

For all the adjustments and modifications, the paint booth is the one important department that could not be fitted into the revamped workshop. That’s now been completely outsourced to Phil Munday, the former team owner who remains a supplier.

“No matter how many times I scratched on a piece of paper I couldn’t figure out how to make it fit,” said Edwards.

Munday will also continue to supply simple vacuum bagged composites to Tickford, while the team itself makes more complex parts using its relocated autoclave.

The new layout also results in a drop in total hoists from seven to six. That’s not a problem this year as Tickford is running only Broc Feeney’s developments series Falcon FG X, in addition to the four main game Mustangs. But could it be an issue in the future?

“We are comfortable at six hoists,” Edwards said.

The bloke who made all these changes happen is Colin Schwartz. These days Col is a trucky at Tickford and tyre guy for car 5 (Lee Holdsworth). Before that he was at Team 18 and GRM, and before that he drove in the commercial world.

But before all that he was a fully qualified builder in the family business.

Schwartz led the five-man team that performed the required modifications and changes originally drawn up on paper

by Tickford Racing operations manager Clive Sangster.

“We marked it all out, made sure it all worked and then got stuck into it,” explained Schwartz.

It all might sound pretty straight forward, but it took the crew – which also comprised car 5 number two mechanic Ben Wheeler, car 44 number one mechanic Corey Walton, apprentice mechanic Jamie Kuhn and 55 number one Jordan Cummings – the entire lockdown to complete.

None of them were trained builders, so Schwartz had to do some on-the-job teaching along the way.

“These guys could work on a car all

Clean, uncluttered and pristine, the new-look Tickford workshops have consolidated all its activities bar the spray booth on the one site. The renovation project was led by Colin Schwartz (below), a former builder turned truckie and tyre man, who put his skillset to good use.

day, every day and do it with their eyes closed, but we took them out of their comfort zone,” he explained. “Some stuff was simple but some was complex and explaining that was challenging. But it was also fun.”

The five-some did get some help early on for a huge initial clean-up of the building. The race transporters came back from Albert Park and the Mustangs stayed locked inside. The full team of about 50 personnel weighed in on the clean up before the coronavirus stand down.

“We got a massive skip here and we

Tickford has consolidated its hoists from seven to six in the interests of better workflows.

IMAGES: TICKFORD/AA STAFF

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spent the first week filling that, then a second skip and then a third skip. And the fourth skip is out there now,” said Edwards.

“We were getting rid of stuff from (Falcon) AUs and other stuff we hoarded forever.”

Junk disposed of, the place was gutted of equipment including hoists and work got underway.

The dividing wall – made of 75mm refrigerator panelling - was set up first, then the workshop floor was sanded and painted. After that came the recommissioning of air lines and

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an upgrade of electrical switchboards (with the help of team sponsor McQuinn Electrical) to cope with the increased demands of the autoclave.

That’s housed in the only new room created as part of this project, where the development series hoists used to be. But several other rooms were rejuvenated. For instance, engine electrical was moved into old office space upstairs, to make way for the ‘dirty room’ for grinding and sanding composites. An extraction unit had to be moved from the other building along with the ducting that came with it.

In addition to the changes to the workshop itself, the crew also had to renovate the building where the composites department and spray booth were being removed, so it could be handed back to the landlord.

Schwartz said there were plenty of challenges.

“It’s like doing a renovation of a 100year old house. You are going to find little gremlins everywhere.

“I guess the biggest thing was with coronavirus going on was making sure everyone in the building was doing the right thing with social distancing and home life – just making it safe for us.

“So we’d glove up and wear masks if we were working within close proximity of each other. Just trying to do the best you can with the situation at hand.

“We all agreed that we would not do anything silly. We were all conscious this was our livelihoods and there were 40 to 50 people at home while we’d been given the opportunity to have a full-time job getting these works done.

“It was all about getting through it, doing the right thing, getting the job done and not doing anything silly.”

So with the task completed there is one more upside in all this, says Edwards, and that’s the certainty for the Tickford Racing workforce that the renovations represent in a very uncertain time.

“We now know we’re staying here, we’re not going to the south-east, we have invested in this place,” he said.

“It’s much clearer for everybody moving forward knowing what we are doing, rather than a four or five year conversation about what we could be doing.”

AutoAction 15

with Dan Knutson

WHO SHOULD BE WORRIED?

VALTTERI BOTTAS has a contract with Mercedes that expires at the end of this year.

Sebastian Vettel’s contract with Ferrari expires at the end of this year, so could Vettel move to Mercedes in 2021?

Bottas says, however, he is not worried about losing his job.

Speaking on a Sky F1 Vodcast, Bottas said: “It’s the same as every year for me. I find it quite funny that with not even a single race done, there’s been people getting my seat. It made me laugh! So there’s no pressure from that side.

“I have my clear goal for the season in my mind and that’s it. Things will then sort themselves one way or another, whatever’s going to happen. I’ve no stress about that at all.”

Bottas added that he had no concerns even though Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said publicly that Mercedes would have to consider signing Vettel.

But Wolff had a different message for Bottas.

“It doesn’t get to you,” Bottas said “We’ve been very honest about what the situation is all the time about contracts, and I got a pretty straight message that no, they’re not considering Seb. So I said fine, no worries then.”

Image: LAT

There have been rumours that Vettel would make a surprise move to Racing Point, but CEO and team principal Otmar Szafnauer says that the only change in 2021 will be renaming the team Aston Martin, and the driver line-up will remain unchanged with Lance Stroll and Sergio Pérez.

So the driver who has to be worried is Vettel because the doors are closed to him at Red Bull, Mercedes and, of course, Ferrari.

If he decides not to retire, his best option would be a sabbatical and then he can reassess the situation for the 2022 season.

HAAS FUTURE HINGES ON NEW DOLLAR DEAL

Image: LAT

16 AutoAction

THE NEW budget cap of US$145 million, which comes into effect in 2021, will not be a factor in Gene Haas deciding if he will continue to operate his Formula 1 squad.

And there is a simple reason for that: the team does not spend that much, even now.

There will also be further costcutting measures introduced, which will benefit teams like Haas, because Haas will be able to do more aerodynamic development compared with reduced amount by those teams who scored more points in the constructors’ championship.

But these financial controls don’t concern Gene Haas.

What does concern the American team owner is a new commercial agreement with Formula One’s commercial owners Liberty Media for the future, that divides the prize money more equitably between the 10 teams.

That will be the factor for his decision on the Haas team’s F1 future.

“Formula 1 has done a good job in reacting to the situation and coming up with a plan that ought to be good for everyone in the long run,” Haas

team principal Guenther Steiner said.

“Gene (Haas) is happy, but the budget cap that has been agreed doesn’t really impact him, as we are already spending under that limit.

“What he needs to see is the new commercial agreement, which we should have next year, giving a more equitable return for the teams. This is the chance to change the situation we have now, where if we don’t go racing for six months, half the teams are in danger of going bust.

Because, for sure, if anything like this happens again in the next five years and things don’t change, next time they will.

“What we all want and need to do, is to go racing. We opened up the factory at the start of last week.

Because we were among the first teams to shut down straight after Australia, we have been able to open up now. We are bringing people back in phases, both to ensure their safety and social distancing, and because some people have been on furlough.”

Haas and the other nine teams will finally get racing this season with the Austrian Grand Prix on July 5.

VETTEL’S SITUATON DIFFERENT TO SCHUMACHER’S FORMER FERRARI driver Jean Alesi predicts that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will have a good relationship as Ferrari teammates. Sainz will join Ferrari next year when he will replace Sebastian Vettel.

“They (Ferrari) will have something easy to control,” Alesi told Sky TV. “They have two young kids; they have two professional drivers. Carlos, I understand, is a very hard worker and he has the experience with McLaren and Renault. He is coming from very experienced teams.

“So for the management it’s going to be easier to control these two drivers. When you have a world champion (Vettel), when you have a charismatic driver, it’s very tough to make him soft.”

Vettel has hinted that the “perfect harmony” in his relationship with Ferrari had faded, which suggests its done so since the arrival last season on Leclerc.

After winning four championships with Red Bull, Vettel switched to Ferrari in 2015. But he has yet to win a championship with the Scuderia.

“I have massive respect for Sebastian because (he is a) four-time world champion,” Alesi pointed out. “He put his talent and everything into this challenge to be world champion with Ferrari, and he failed. He failed but not because it’s his fault or not because it’s the fault of the team, something didn’t go well. I was actually very surprised of this move (being announced) before the championship had started.

Image: LAT

“But that means a lot I think for someone like him to be brave enough to say ‘it’s enough, I will finish the season with Ferrari, but next year I don’t know what I will do.’ But for sure something didn’t go like it was supposed to.”

Vettel wanted to be like fellow German driver Michael Schumacher, who won five championships with Ferrari.

“When you welcome a world champion like Sebastian, you want to give everything you can,” said Alesi. “The second thing is if you are able to? And when the team is not able to give what

the champion is asking, then the trouble starts.

If I take the Michael Schumacher example, he took my place but he arrived with a full technical team. He worked with the same people he used to work (with at Benetton) to be world champion.

It took him four years to be world champion, but it happened.

“Sebastian’s situation was different. He arrived in a team and he tried to teach and to bring the technical team to work as he wants.

“But he didn’t bring with him Adrian Newey, so that changed a lot.

F1 VIRUS VIGILANCE

THE F1 teams are starting to go back to work at their factories now that the F1 shutdown has finally ended.

But their work environment has changed dramatically.

“While the shutdown has indeed been lifted, we’re by no means taking anything for granted,” said Racing Point’s CEO and team principal Otmar Szafnauer.

“It’s not business as usual – it’s business tailored to the new normal we now find ourselves in. We must continue to be vigilant in our effort to curtail further the spread of the virus – protecting the health and wellbeing of our teammates and those around us in the process. The situation continues to evolve and we’re ready to adapt as required.

“A huge amount of work has been carried out to prepare both our Silverstone factory and Brackley offices for a return to work – we’ve gone above and beyond the government advice in making our factory a safe place to work.

“We obviously need to adapt to a new way of working and we believe the measures we’ve put in place will ensure that everybody can work safely and efficiently.”

The team is taking all necessary steps to reduce any likelihood of exposure to the virus.

“It’s a long list, implementing specific entry and exit routes, testing and temperature checks, provision of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), a staggered

Image: LAT

start, finish and break times, and so on,” Szafnauer explained.

“We’re also continuing to follow government guidelines by only asking those employees who cannot do their jobs remotely, to return to the factory.

By initially limiting the number of staff on site, we can make the environment safer for those who do need to come in.”

There will be changes at the track as well due to the coronavirus still being prevalent around the world.

“I think it’s going to feel strange for all of us to be

getting on an airplane, flying to a different country and heading to a racetrack after such a long time away,” Szafnauer said.

“The setup when we get to the paddock will feel very different too initially, I’m sure – but just as we’ve all adapted to this new normality at home, I’m confident we’ll do so on the road.

“The processes and procedures we’ve implemented to keep everybody safe at the factory will apply just as stringently, if not more so, at the racetrack, so we’re in the best shape we can be.”

AutoAction

17

Publisher Bruce Williams bruce@autoaction.com.au 0418 349 555 Editorial Director

with Dan Knutson

Bruce Williams

Editor-At-Large

Mark Fogarty

Deputy Editor

Heath McAlpine

Production

Jason Crowe

Special Contributor

Bruce Newton

Staff Journalist

Dan McCarthy

National Editor

Garry O’Brien

Online Editor

F1 INSIDER

Rhys Vandersyde

Contributing Writers Australia Garry O’Brien, Mark Fogarty, Bruce Newton, David Hassall, Bob Watson, Bruce Moxon, Garry Hill, Craig O’Brien, Mick Oliver, Martin Agatyn.

Formula 1 Dan Knutson, Photographers Australia Ross Gibb, Rebecca Hind, Mick Oliver, David Batchelor, Randall Kilner, Rhys Vandersyd, Richard Hathaway, MTR Images, Bruce Moxon International LAT Images Advertising Manager Bruce Williams All Advertising inquiries bruce@overdrivemedia.com.au (0418) 349 555 Editorial contributions may be sent to Auto Action. No responsibility will be accepted for their safety. If you require the return of any sent item or items, please attach a separate, stamped and fully addressed envelope

Published by Action Media Partners ABN number 62976094459 Suite 4/156 Drummond Street Oakleigh Victoria 3166 Phone: 03 9563 2107 The trademark Auto Action is the sole property of Action Media Partners The website www.autoaction.com.au and associated social media platforms are wholly owned by Action Media Partners All rights reserved No part of this magazine’s content may be reproduced, retransmitted or rebroadcast without the express written permission of the Publisher and Action Media Partners.

Printed by Fairfax Media Distributed by Ovato Retail Distribution Australia

Images: LAT/Dave Oliver/AN1Dale Rodgers

18 AutoAction

Image: LAT

F1-COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS

LIKE ALL of us, I have been counting the days until racing resumes, or indeed starts up for the first time this season.

And we now have dates.

NASCAR restarted on May 17; the first IndyCar race of the year was on June 6; Supercars will get going again on June 27, followed by Formula 1 on July 5.

I’m also counting the unknown days until the fans can return as well.

I’ve been watching the NASCAR and IndyCar races on TV along with other sporting events that have resumed, and it is just not the same without the fans in the stands.

Over the years, however, I have been to many an F1 event where there were no fans or just a few. But those events were, of course, testing. This year I was at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for preseason testing which totalled a record low six days. The circuit sells tickets to fans, but there were only a few folks scattered around the circuit.

I’ve talked before in these pages about how the number of pre-season and in-season

testing days have been steadily reduced. Pre-season testing has gone from unlimited to 16 to 12 to eight and now six days. And in-season testing, four days last year, was cut to zero days this year.

Like many of us, I have had a lot of time at home in recent months.

Leafing through old notes and publications, I have come across tales of when testing was unfettered. I was at many of those test days, and unlike now when the rules require all the teams to test at the same track on the same days, things used to be scattered all over the place.

Here is an example of what went on between the 2002 and 2003 seasons: November 26-28. Valencia circuit, Spain. Williams, McLaren, Renault, Jaguar, Sauber, Toyota & Minardi.

November 26-28. Barcelona circuit, Spain. Ferrari & BAR. December 2-5. Barcelona circuit, Spain. Toyota.

December 2-5. Paul Ricard circuit, France. Toyota.

December 3-5. Barcelona

WHAT’S IN THE NEXT ISSUE ON SALE July 2

circuit, Spain. Ferrari, Williams, BAR, McLaren, Renault & Jaguar.

December 6-8. Jerez circuit, Spain. Sauber.

December 10-14. Jerez circuit, Spain. McLaren, Renault & Jaguar.

December 11-13. Barcelona circuit, Spain. Sauber.

December 12-14. Jerez circuit, Spain. Williams.

December 12-15. Jerez circuit, Spain. Ferrari.

December 13-15. Jerez circuit, Spain. BAR.

Ferrari, of course, also had its private test track in Fiorano, Italy, where Luca Badoer could pound around on any day of the week testing various parts.

Testing continued on the same wide and varied schedule in January and February prior to the 2003 season opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 9.

There were only 16 races in 2003, and the season ended with the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on October 12.

There were supposed to be a record 22 races this year, with

the first one in Australia on March 15 and the last one in Abu Dhabi on November 29.

When possible, the teams would test at a track in the week leading up to the race at that venue.

For example, all 10 teams showed up at Monza prior to the 2003 Italian Grand Prix. A total of 29 drivers, including test drivers, took part. Ferrari ran three cars. Not to be outdone, McLaren had two cars at Monza and a third car at Spain’s Jerez circuit. During three and a half days at Monza, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams did a combined total of 28.3 race distances.

There was a time when testing started almost as soon as the racing stopped.

For example, the first test during the off-season between 2008 and 2009 was November 17-19 at Barcelona. The first test during the off-season between 2019 and 2020 was February 19-21 at Barcelona.

Little did any of us know that those six days of testing would be the only on-track F1 action in the first six months of this year!

Living Legends-Foges chats to the great Kevin Bartlett - Full Supercars news and coverage from Sydney Motorsport Park - Young Guns - Touring Car Privateer - Holden’s AUSCAR Domination - Alan Jones wins in France - Short Circuit and much much more

THE FOGES FILE

with Mark Fogarty

AA’s proud pundit reflects on an important milestone in this magazine’s storied history THEY SAID we wouldn’t make it. And yet, four years and 100 issues later, we’re still here. What’s more, we’re surviving in the midst of the greatest crisis the modern world has ever faced.

No racing for the past few months hasn’t stopped us. In fact, the coronavirus pause has enabled us to delve into our rich history. As major racing in Australia gets set to resume, we are perhaps more relevant than ever.

But in May 2016, Auto Action was doomed. Bauer Media ceased publication of one of its oldest titles and half-heatedly put it on the market.

A handful of suitors put in bids, but they were mostly low-ball offers – and almost all were heavily conflicted. Some major Supercars team owners were involved, which was encouraging, but it was never going to work.

AA had been independent since its foundation in early 1971 and needed to remain so. Luckily, long-time ad rep Bruce Williams – with the support of entrepreneurial racer Mike Imrie – saved the title.

They resurrected the mag in July 2016 – and, against the odds, have kept it going. Earlier this year, Williams took over sole ownership, and is dedicated to expanding and enhancing the brand.

Of course, Williams is much more than an ad rep turned publisher. He is a competitor, imbued in the sport as an effective driver, team owner and category creator. Since the late 1980s, he has been a force in AUSCAR, Supercars, Touring Car Masters, Formula Holden and the Toyota 86 series – and much more in between.

I admit that when he took the punt to take over Auto Action, I was sceptical.

I had a tentative discussion with revival editor Phil Branagan about continuing my involvement, but nothing came of it.

Oddly, a trip overseas brought

www.autoaction.com.au

Williams and I together. It took a while, but he brought me back into the AA fold in March 2018.

It has not been easy. Bruce is a very strong-mined individual.

We clash often over the mag’s emphasis. But the title is better for it, regaining its strong voice and credibility amid the on-line onslaught.

We’re still here, still breaking the big stories and providing unrivalled in-depth, independent coverage of motor racing at all levels. Now that Williams is fully invested, not just involved, that commitment will only get stronger.

A hundred issues of ownership is indeed a milestone. But AA is on the verge of a truly momentous landmark.

Next February, the title will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Think about that.

Half a century of recording the sport’s moist transformative decades. Racing today is what it is because of what has happened since 1971.

Not all of it good, but mostly it has been a long period of progress. Motor sport faces some serious challenges to remain relevant, however in the main it is vibrant and successful.

Auto Action is the last surviving regular print publication covering racing in Australia. That is no mean feat. When it started, there were multiple motor sport magazines. A very different time, of course, but AA is still here and matching digital-only outlets when and where it counts.

It is also doing better than revered titles in major overseas markets.

Which, of course, is thanks to you, our loyal readers and advertisers. Without your support, we wouldn’t still be here.

Nor would I. Approaching 50 years in journalism

AutoActionMagazine

Auto_Action

Image: Garry O’Brien One of the world’s rarest images....... Phoges in conversation with our Publisher Bruce Williams, caught while visiting the unfamilar territory that is the support paddock. myself, I owe my varied career to this magazine. It’s where I started in 1972 and where, on and off, I have become the mag’s most familiar face.

Since I returned from overseas in 2003, AA has been my main outlet, interrupted only by the post-Bauer 20-month exile. This title is part of me and I am part of it.

Under Bruce Williams’s leadership, Auto Action has not only survived, but prospered. If you value independent, informed and in-depth coverage of your favourite sport, you will continue to support us – and pass along the tactile pleasure of holding and reading a magazine to youngsters.

We offer a different experience to screen time, one that is complimentary to the instant – but shallow – gratification of on-line information.

Here is where you will find either the real story or the deeper story behind the news.

In this increasingly sanitised world, the powers that be don’t like, much less appreciate, our scrutiny. They expect us to toe the line.

No chance. We stand by our commitment to question and investigate, as you expect.

When we mark our 50th anniversary early next year, it will be a celebration of an epochal era in racing.

We are proud to have chronicled that journey and this 100th issue under the saviour management is an important part of that looming golden jubilee.

Rest assured, our 50th anniversary issue early next February will be an extravaganza of memories.

You will enjoy the reminiscences or marvel at from where the sport came.

Either way, it will be well worth hanging around for our 50th anniversary edition, which will be the biggest ever.

It will also be the most indulgent, for which we will make no apology.

AutoAction

19

WE’RE BACK!

CELEBRATING A CENTENARY

www.autoaction.com

.au

Australia’s longest serving motor sport publication returned to the shelves 100 issues ago.

BRUCE WILLIAMS PUBLISHER

WHILE MOTORSPORT has been an incredibly significant part of my life and always a great passion, I also enjoy other pastimes as well.

One of those is the great game of test cricket. I try and go to the ‘G’ (MCG) when a good test is on and love to listen to the ABC broadcast on the radio. I’m also guilty of staying up late to watch the tests when Australia is playing in England against the old foe for the Ashes.

It’s a great game, full of history and some great characters, much like motorsport.

What the hell has test cricket got to do with Auto Action, you ask? Well, that is a fair question, but an easy one to answer. In cricket there are two great achievements for individuals in the game. For the bowler is it to claim five wickets in an innings and for the batsman it is to make a century. I have always loved cricket, but did not really play it enough, so my chances of ever making a ton have been pretty limited.

In motorsport, there is almost no chances of scoring a 100 as a driver, although one of my great mates currently sits on 99 not out. I refer to John Bowe, who is only one race win away from making it 100 TCM race wins. That’s a massive achievement and one that he will no doubt claim soon, and I hope to be there when he achieves it.

Anyway, back to the point, this issue of Auto Action, 1788, is the 100th issue since Mike Imrie and I rescued the old girl from its closure

by Bauer Media, issue 1788 is not really a significant number but it’s important to us so we thought we would acknowledge it.

Back in May 2016 with issue 1688, many people in the motorsport industry and the AA staff were shocked to learn that this was likely to be the end of Australia’s only (at that stage) regular motorsport magazine. Personally, I was disgusted that the publication was just shut down without even a whimper, it was not even offered for sale at that time as Bauer didn’t think it had any value to anyone.

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29

$6.95 NZ $8.50

9 772204 992009 >

www.autoaction.com.au

Aug 24 to Sep 6, 2017

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S, LS, KARTING, HISTORIC FORMULA 1, NATIONA E WRAP, TECH FEATURES STAT RALLY, SPRINTCARS,

20 AutoAction

There is no P lan B

LOWNDES 2016 UNDER THE SKIN We dissect BMW’s GT Racer

HEAVY METAL To Issue #1689 July 21 – August 3 2016 $6.95 NZ $8.50

nnes of tin-tops

ISSN 2204-9924

9 772204 9920 09 >

Well, they were wrong.

Motor sport is a major sport and a big industry in Australia, and the thought that an industry/ sport that employs thousands of people around the country could be without its industry publication was an outrage as far as I was concerned.

I had started working on Auto Action in 1985 and stayed till 1992, and then came back again in 2000 for my second stint.

I had always harboured my own views about what Auto Action should be, and was of the view that it needed to cover more than just Supercars and the elite end of the sport. While it started out covering every aspect, over time it changed and toward the end of the Bauer era was very much focused on the top end of town.

So, with these views in mind I decided to put a plan together and headed off to Bauer to see if they would sell me the title, which left them more than a little surprised.

Anyway, ,they saw an opportunity to make some more money out of the old girl, so it was on the market. I had no money and had to find a partner to help bankroll the deal, and funnily enough at the same time I was approached by a couple of industry heavy hitters about that very idea.

This I thought was going to a good deal … but it didn’t work out that way for different reasons.

So, one night over a few cold beers Mike Imrie and I had a chat and before long we were in the publishing business and on July 21 2016, Auto Action was back on the stands.

To get to that point had been a massive achievement by a small team, headed up then by initial editor Phil Branagan, a young Heath McAlpine assisting him, and Jason Crowe on the design and production.

01

FORMULA 1, NATIONALS, SPEEDWAY, DRAG RACING, KARTING, HISTORICS, ’66 MONACO GP, WORLD ENDURANCE

As has been the norm for almost 50 years, Auto Action can be relied upon to break the big stories. Above was our first issue back and set the tone for what was to come. Our covers demonstrate the variety of coverage that has always been so important to Auto Action readers. Coverage of Supercars is second to none, as you’d expect, but coverage of the rest of the sport, be it circuit racing, rallying, off road, hillclimbing or anything else we can capture, is unrivalled anywhere. Back in July 2016, a proud publisher, Bruce Williams with a fresh off the press reborn Auto Action (above left)

An important person to come back to the AA team was our longest serving senior contributor, Garry O’Brien. His role has been critical to our expansion of national and state level racing of all styles. Stonie put his hand up to come out of retirement and his involvement was fantastic.

Dan Knutson was welcomed back to the fold and has been such an important part of the team, giving his firsthand insight into the world of Formula 1. Young Dan McCarthy then joined the team full time in late 2018 and is doing a great job in hand with Heath.

It was also inevitable that Foges would eventually be re-integrated into the Auto Action team.

Foges is the doyen of the Australian Motor sport journalism scene, and he has been a strong supporter and a guiding hand and has been an important influence for me since he re-joined us, I doubt that the magazine would be the same without him.

A while ago two-time AA editor Bruce Newton also re-joined the title and in combination with Foges, Auto Action has the two most highly credentialed motor sport journalists and news breakers in the country.

Along the way I have also been fortunate to be supported by a significant number of previous Auto Action editors, and their physical and emotional support has been important to me.

Of course, we also have many great contributors and photographers who play an incredible part in the production of this

fortnightly publication that you are reading now. We have also had some fantastic support from our industry advertisers who help pay the bills each month. So, to all of those that have supported the publication and myself along the way, I sincerely thank you all. Without you it wouldn’t have happened. I also want to thank Mike, friends and my family for their support along the journey.

Auto Action is today very different to what it was back in 2016.

We are now a publication with an ‘expanded footprint’, which is tech jargon for “we talk to a lot of people across various mediums” because we do. Our web site is managed by Rhys Vandersyde and sees close to 400,000 pages views per month, and we have a social media reach that talks to hundreds of thousands of motor sport fans and industry people month on month.

So, this is how I see the old girl these days and it’s pretty simple.

Auto Action is your meat and potatoes, your good old solid meal (apologies to vegans and vegetarians). Every day, across our different mediums, we deliver genuine news and major features. In every issue we look behind the scenes to find out who and why things have happened. We support just about all levels of motor sport with race coverage and news, we feature many drivers, cars and technical stories on categories that in the past would not have gotten a look in.

Ironically, even in this age of instant stories disseminated electronically, Auto Action continues to break all the big stories in the sport, and explain not only the what but the why.

So, thanks again to all those who have directly contributed to producing the publication every fortnight and the electronic medium content each and every day.

PED HOLDEN SHOCK - V6TT DROP

MONACO: VETTEL PAINTS THE TOWN RED

20 AutoAction INTERVIEW

.COM.AU

And to you, dear reader, I thank you for continuing to support AA and I hope that you continue to enjoy your fortnightly fix of motorsport news and features.

It’s been a great four years and after 100 issues of producing this iconic publication I am still incredibly proud, it’s a privilege to be responsible for producing this great publication and media brand that in a few short months will celebrate 50 years as Australia’s oldest and most respected motorsport media outlet.

Again thanks to one and all that are part of the Auto Action family and that includes all those of you that read the words we produce.

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DAN KNUTSON – F1 CORRESPONDENT

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HI STORICS, RALLY, GS, SPRINTCARS, STAT , HISTORICS, DRA race weekend.

ES E TUR FORMULA 1, NATIONALS FEA H TEC AP, W RAP, TECH FEATUR STATE WR RALLY, SPRINTCARS, ES On Thursday a group of drivers meets with the media. On Friday You read it here first. Auto Action broke the story of Scott McLaughlin’s Indycar test way ahead of any official the press conference is with team announcement ... we had confirmation of Ford’s factory-backed return with the Mustang in Supercars ... our personnel like team bosses and personal favourite was when we asked: ‘Has Roland been Rogered?’ technical directors. On Saturday we get to talk to the top three qualifiers, I am not just talking circuit racing either. State Bruce’s first question to me was “Can this owners came in and and then on Sunday we meet with kid write?” saved Auto Action, and rallies, hillclimbs and off road rounds have been given greater coverage than ever before. the top three finishers in the race.

Bruce and I have a laugh about it now, but I now here we are 100 The background stories pertaining to these and Protocol requires those of us who was pretty intimidated at the time! issues later. the headline supports have been really well ask questions to identify who we The Auto Action office is a fast-paced Sometime this received. are and who we work for, and thus environment and I learnt that very quickly. I year, when the races Along with a quality mag, the publishers are for many years I’ve had the honour don’t have any official journalism qualifications, are eventually Red Bull: Getting Back On Track of starting my question saying: “Dan neither at the time did I have any magazine reopened to all media abreast of technology with a social presence Knutson, Auto Action…” production experience. So it was swim like hell members, I will attend across all platforms. Auto Action is just not Working for an Australian publication about the drivers and cars, but the associated and hope to not drown. my 600th grand prix MOFFAT’S GREATEST has really been fun given that there industries such as the car and engine builders, The perks of meeting and interviewing (even as an F1 journalist.

GIFT have been two Aussie aces in the field the suppliers and others. occasionally having a beer with) heroes that If it was not for Auto – Mark Webber from 2002 to 2013, Before the rebirth, it wasn’t uncommon to run are normally reserved for the TV screen, is still Action, I would never and Daniel Ricciardo from 2011 to into an old acquaintance within the industry and a surreal moment for me. This reinforces how have achieved that Was the Mustang Australia’s the present. get the question “Do you still work for them? I lucky my job is. number. And when I Ultimate Touring Car? As a journalist, of course, I stopped buying it when they stopped covering We are a compact team at Auto Action so I eventually get back to FOUR A CHARM! remain impartial but it was a thrill to must thank Bruce in particular for continuing the track and the media us!” congratulate both drivers after their That doesn’t happen now. It is more along the the magazine after it was dropped by Bauer. His centre, I will once RIGHT AT HO first and subsequent F1 victories. lines of “We love the way the mag is now, hope passion for the magazine is unparalleled. again be able start my ME And it was absolute agony when you guys keep up the good work!”

Garry O’Brien, Mark Fogarty, Bruce Newton questions during press Webber failed to clinch the world championship Importantly, to keep up the good work and and ‘Barry’ the proof reader continue to be great conferences by saying: cover the broad spectrum of motor sport in mentors. in Abu Dhabi at the end of the 2010 season.

“Dan Knutson, Auto Action…” this country, it needs you the reader to keep Add to this team, our ever reliable Formula 1 It’s not like we go out to dinner together, but I supporting us, whether it buying the magazine, man on the ground Dan Knutson, staff journalist am friends with both of them. There is a mutual GARRY O’BRIEN NATIONAL EDITOR or advertising in it.

Dan McCarthy, online editor Rhys Vandersyde, respect, and they are always willing to talk to Tell your family, your mates and help us designer Jason Crowe and Mike Imrie all play me because they know that they are talking to FROM BEING dropped from the publishing continue to improve Auto Action so we are there an integral part in producing the magazine. their Australian fans. world completely to a century not out ... for the next 100, 200, 300 . . .

It’s been quite a journey, so here’s to the next I started working for Auto Action in 2005 outstanding.

100 issues. when I took over the F1 correspondent duties Four years ago Auto Action was in a form slump, largely brought about by the goals set by HEATH MCALPINE I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far as much as from my mate Mike Doodson.

DEPUTY EDITOR then owners Bauer Media.

I have.

There was a worrying time when the The crunch came in late April of 2016; the THE LAST four years have been a whirlwind. magazine’s future was in jeopardy, so it was COUPE SCOOP: WHY IT’LL BE magazine was being shut down. The last one It’s been frantic and busy, but enjoyable all a giant relief for all of us when the new A STRETCHED ’STANG came out in early May and I was out of the job the same. .COM.AU ARO CHANGE I had covering major support categories to the My memories of joining Auto Action start EXCLUSIVE FORD BACKS CAM headline acts, and state level competitions. at a café in an inner eastern Melbourne SINCE 1971 I wasn’t looking forward to going to Centrelink, suburb where I met former editor Phil let me tell you. Fact was, I had to Google to Branagan in June 2016. This came about find out where the nearest one was. But as I after a friend encouraged me to send an hesitated in the hope that an offer might come email to publisher Bruce Williams, to see from somewhere, Phil Branagan rang out of the if I could nose my way in the door after blue and asked if I wanted to continue my role starting blogs and doing some freelance with a revitalised Auto Action. writing for six months.

FULL GUIDE TO HISTORIC OZ Phil would be the new editor as the magazine With a sample of magazines under my DEBUT OF TURBO HISTORIC DOUBLE IN WORLD’S GREATEST RACES TERRIERS had been brought lock, stock and barrel from arm, I met with Phil and things progressed Bauer Media and moved from its Sydney base to me writing an article that afternoon, as VANT to Melbourne. a test.

RELE TCR’S RACERS – HOT AS AND HERE It was the passion long-time ad-man Bruce I shudder to look back at that article, ’S ALL FOLKS! DAT NISSAN DARED TO BE DIFFERENT FORD STAR Williams displayed, with the backing of Mike however it provided my start and I must SPEAKS OUT ON Will Power goes for TITLE MISSION two-in-a-row Imrie, that had done the deal.

It would go from thank Phil for giving me the opportunity.

OKg theIEnewbSies F1 RORatin weekly to fortnightly but the part that really Next was a meeting with Bruce, fellow INDY 500 hooked my attention was the expansion of the owner Mike Imrie and designer Jason PREVIEW coverage for categories other than the “main Crowe, at a restaurant in what is the www.autoaction.com.au PLUS INTERNATIONAL MAN game” ones. now familiar Eaton Mall in Oakleigh. ’S WAU FAUX OF MYSTERY CARL PLUS Issue #1711

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RACE CENTRAL Coverage from around the world

Rage for

PERFECTION

Hot-headed Erebus team boss Barry Ryan is surprisingly civil as he endures an interrogation about his uncompromising approach to running Supercars’ most colourful squad

BETWEEN THEM, Betty Klimenko, Barry Ryan and David Reynolds make Penrite Racing the most unorthodox operation in Supercars.

Eccentric, super-rich team owner. Hard-nosed, foul-mouthed team boss.

Comical and controversial lead driver.

No wonder the Inside Line – A Season With Erebus Motorsport docuseries has been so popular. The main characters would be at home in a reality TV series.

The fly-on-the-wall show is a revealing insight into a team that succeeds despite odd – almost dysfunctional – relationships. It has been a hit because the drama is so real and raw.

The villain of the series is team principal and minority co-owner Ryan, who is portrayed as a bullying boss. His off-the-cuff, profanity ridden tirades make you cringe and laugh at the same time.

Ryan certainly doesn’t subscribe to modern touchy-feely management practices. If you don’t perform, he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms. He doesn’t hold back on his opinions about the sport, either.

Committed, confrontational, cantankerous and contentious are among the words used to describe him. Many would add another c word.

Fact is, though, in just four years, Ryan has transformed Erebus from an ill-fated indulgence to a credible contender. Penrite Racing won the

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Bathurst 1000 in 2017 with ‘Crazy Dave’ Reynolds and under-valued co-driver Luke Youlden – and nearly did it again in ’18 until Reynolds expired due to extreme fatigue while leading.

Ryan is a mechanic/engineer turned team manager and big boss who learned under old-school hard taskmasters at TWR, Perkins Engineering and Kelly Racing. None was a workplace for the fainthearted.

As Supercars gets set to resume racing, he is plotting Penrite Racing’s assault on the top teams. He is also sitting on the hottest property in the driver market amid widespread speculation Anton De Pasquale has already done a deal to join DJR Team Penske – possibly replacing a USA-bound Scott McLaughlin – next year.

Despite his docuseries-enhanced reputation as a blunt instrument, Ryan is capable of thoughtful and considered comments. He wears his heart on his sleeve – as well as the ever-present team cap on his head – but he also cares deeply about Supercars and his duty to Klimenko, who supports his brutally direct methods.

Some expected this interview to be incendiary. It wasn’t. It was an informative conversation that reveals the more measured side of the intolerant person you see on TV.

No point beating around the bush.

Are you really as tough a boss – some would say tyrannical – as you’re portrayed in the docuseries?

I don’t think so. I just do my job and if my job means I have to be tough on people, I’ll be tough on people. If they need a pat on the back, I give them a pat on the back. I’d probably say a lot of that’s come from, as I said in the doco, from the old man originally and then through John Faulkner, Larry Perkins, all those guys. They’re hard-arse guys.

You can’t beat around the bush with them and I probably learned some traits from them without even meaning to. You hang around with people long enough and you end up learning some traits. I just don’t suffer fools, I guess.

If someone’s doing something wrong, whether it’s not trying to do something properly or actually just keep messing up, you can’t just pat them on the back and say well done. I just let it be known they’re screwing up.

It’s certainly old-school management, isn’t it?

Yes, I think so. It’s definitely not the PC way to do things these days and a lot of people get upset by it and call it bullying, but I think the biggest thing we’ve had in this team is that people stay. So the way I do it must be acceptable to most of our people because if I show the anger that I’ve sometimes shown on that show, you don’t see five minutes later when I might go up and say “Hey, vou f***ed up, didn’t you and you probably shouldn’t have done that and we can do it better next time”. So that’s what you don’t see.

So are you happy that that side of your approach was accentuated?

I’m not proud of some of the things, I’ve looked back on gone “Oh, shit, why did I say that?” But then when you actually put your mind back to that point, you know why you said it. It’s hard to see when it’s in your face on the TV screen, but I honestly don’t regret anything I’ve done or said in it. There are always ways to do things better and everybody’s an expert after the fact, but until they’re in that position, they don’t know what they’d do.

I’m sure you’d maintain that the results speak for themselves. Under

your management, the team has been successful.

Yes. There are not many teams that have actually won Bathurst, so just that one box that we ticked is a big one. Even last year, it didn’t look the most successful year, but we got a pole position and eight podiums, and that’s nothing to sneeze at, and Anton got his first two o podiums as a second-year driver, which hich not many teams have done that. Dave had a lot of good results – we didn’t get a win, but not many people won races last year. So I’d say I can be reasonably happy that we’ve done a pretty good job in the last four-and-a-half years.

You mentioned Larry Perkins. I can hardly imagine anyone tougher to work under. He was renowned for, let’s say, setting a very high standard.

And that’s all it was. There was no bullshit with Larry. From the moment I met him, there were times when I hated him – just couldn’t stand working for him – but when you grow up a bit and you learn the reasons why he was doing things and saying things, you just respect him. And I have huge respect for him to this day. The things he taught me that I even hated at the time, but then when you grow up, you realise that he’s actually taught you something. He taught me heaps about how to be yourself and how to make sure that you get the best out of people – and he was good at that.

What’s the secret to your success here? You’ve managed to get a lot out of a team that is certainly not on the same scale as the top two.

I think it’s just the people we have. The people we picked originally, some of the key people, and the people who’ve joined along the way. Like, picking up Alistair (McVean, Reynold’s race engineer)) from Walkinshaws when he had a bit of a falling out there. He was a key hire. And Mirko (De Rosa, ADP’s engineer). He was a mechanic at LDM when he first approached me about a job and he’s turned into a brilliant engineer. He was already an engineer, but his opportunity came through being a mechanic. Dennis Huijser has turned into a brilliant crew chief. He came over from New Zealand,

ran his own race team and mechanical shop. He just brought another mentality that wasn’t Supercars into the place – this solid, hard-arsed New Zealand work ethic. So did Brad Tremain, another Kiwi. And we have our fabricator James White, who works out of Mt Gambier. He was a key Perkins person back in the early 2000s and then with Kelly Racing. It’s those key guys we’ve got and kept, and that’s given us such a strong foundation.

Many of the people here call themselves misfits and there’s a view that they rejoice in the fact that they’re rejects from other teams. Is that right?

I don’t think they see it that way, although when they look deep down, they probably go “How cool is it that those guys didn’t want me and now I’m here and we’re succeeding?” And I was a bit like that, too. I was at Kmart Racing and got shifted across to Team Brock when it started with PWR, and that wasn’t ideal for me. I didn’t really want to do what they wanted me to do there, even though it was supposed to be a positive. So I left and went to Larry’s, and I called myself a misfit. But Perkins became a long-term thing, so it was probably only being shifted at Kmart Racing that rankled. I’ve never lost a job – I’ve always left a job.

When you came here originally, it was to run the GT team. Betty’s eccentricities weren’t so well known back then, so did you realise that you were walking into such an unconventional operation?

Not really. I didn’t know who Betty was.

I had to Google her to see who she was. I had no idea and I honestly didn’t really care. I didn’t care when I found out that she had money. It didn’t make any difference to me. She wanted to run a race team a certain way and I was asked to come in and manage it.

So I did it the way I knew how to run a race team. It didn’t really faze me. It obviously worked because we won the Bathurst 12 Hour in 2013.

So in 2015 you get shifted across to the Supercars team…

Well, initially, it was more that I was asked to go up and just have a look over the books, see how the operation was going and do a bit of a review. I did Ryan makes no apologies for his brusque style of management, which he learned under the likes of uncompromising team owner Larry Perkins (left). He didn’t pull any punches with socially distanced Foges, either (top).

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that for six or so months before we made some big decisions. I was going into an environment where there were some very credentialled people and it was difficult to step in there and try to tell them what they were doing wrong.

You had Ross Stone, David Stuart and Ben Croke – all guys that are still top-line guys. I just had to stick to my guns and say what I thought. Some people didn’t like it and some people respected it. That was my job, I was asked to go and do it, so I just did my job.

From what happened, you obviously saw that there was a lot wrong.

In my head, yeah. I saw what I saw and I didn’t think it was as good as it could have been. They were spending a helluva lot of money and not getting the results. A lot of excuses and blame games internally, that’s what I saw, to be completely honest. It was going to be a hard thing to fix, being from Melbourne and flying up there (to the Gold Coast) when you could. It got to a point where it was just unsustainable and I could see that it was probably going to hurt Betty’s longevity in the sport. So we came up with some scenarios for Betty – we could do this, this, this or this, or close the doors.

Close the doors was like a red rag to a bull; she never wanted to hear that. It was probably one of the only arguments I’ve had with Betty, when you suggest closing the doors. She doesn’t ever want to do that. So we just had to make the tough decision to move down to Melbourne and start again.

So, essentially, you masterminded the re-location and re-organisation of the Erebus Supercars team, plus dumping the Mercedes AMGs and switching to Commodores?

I had Campbell Little there supporting me for a while. Cam was great, but he doesn’t really like making hard decisions – and it wasn’t his role at the time to make those decisions. But he supported me really well on what could be the best decisions and I just had to make them with Betty. When we walked in at the start of January 2016, I was the only person in the shop apart from the two GT guys that were still there. We had some people starting the next day and a few more people started the next week – and most of them were non-Supercars people.

They were just people who had applied for a job and I’d seen what they’d done in other categories. I thought let’s put together a team made up of people who didn’t have old-school ideas or

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Despite Erebus’s rebel approach, Betty’s team of misfits and rejects has won the Bathurst double – the 1000 in 2017 and the 12 Hour in 2013 (below).

Ryan masterminded both victories.

job and the car was so fast, there was nothing we could really complain about.

Unfortunately, the one key aspect – the driver – wasn’t as well prepared, or we didn’t help him be as prepared as the car and the team were.

So you share the blame with David?

Oh, yeah. Of course we do. Because we put so much effort into the team and the car, but we neglected him. You just think the driver’s right, he’ll take care of himself.

We just didn’t do a good enough job on shutting him down on some things he shouldn’t have done (a heavy schedule of media and sponsor engagements). That’s just how it is. Nothing we can do about it now.

something that had already been done in Supercars. We wanted new blood, new ideas. So we put a new group together under my direction of how I wanted to do it. We created what we have now and I think the key values are still there. Doing something different to everyone else, not just do it the same way.

Looking back, do you think you should have brought him in earlier?

The way you saw it was that the Mercedes wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t worth the effort?

Mainly because of the engine program.

Even though I think the power was there, the cost of getting that engine to another slight level up wasn’t worth it because it required new cylinder heads and blocks that you had to get out of AMG. You couldn’t just go to America to get cost-effective engine parts like you can for the Chev or the Ford. They were all special bespoke engine parts. It was still going to bleed a lot of money that wasn’t justifiable.

The chassis wasn’t too bad, though, was it?

Oh, yeah, back then, it was all right. The aero package had a lot of money spent on it back in the time and it was pretty good. The weight was fine and all the critical things to make the car fast were there. You could see when they got the car right, it was capable of winning races and getting podiums. But I think to consistently keep it up there was going to cost way more money than we’d budgeted for that first year in Melbourne.

Some of its elements found their way into your Commodores, didn’t they?

Yeah, a couple of things that were really good on the Mercs we definitely used on these cars because there was nothing wrong with them – they were good parts.

Especially the front uprights?

No, not so much. Uprights wasn’t until the end of 2017. It was a variation of the main core upright and we just changed

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some of the (mounting) points. They were fine – (we) used them for two years – and then we made our own, which was just a derivative because all the other ones were worn out.

always be constructive about what he needed out of the car, and we eventually got there. We’re not there yet – we’re not winning every race – but we’re getting there. We’re definitely competitive.

When David Reynolds joined in ’16, that gave you something to work with, didn’t it? He was a known quantity as a front-running driver.

How much of a surprise was it to win Bathurst in 2017?

I knew Dave from the Kelly Racing days and always got on well with him. So when he was considering coming to us, we sat down for a coffee at Chadstone (shopping complex) and talked through it all – and sold him the world, as you do. He wasn’t there asking about how much money he was going to be paid. He wanted to know that he could go into the next season and get some results. The initial chat involved the Mercedes program. I was trying to convince myself that’d be good because it was still way before we decided to switch to the Holden. Honestly, I don’t think he had a lot of options, but he figured that if I was there, he knew it wasn’t going to be done half-heartedly.

He had confidence in what we wanted to do. He was a massive part of the first couple of years because he’s such a patient person. A lot of drivers wouldn’t have allowed us to get to where we’ve got to. He allowed us to get there because he didn’t get out of the car ranting and raving, and saying it’s a shit heap and he couldn’t drive it. He’d just get out and

We finished ’16 pretty strong and most of ’17 was pretty competitive. We went to Bathurst knowing there was no reason why we couldn’t have a good shot at it. I remember thinking with a couple of laps to go that we deserved to win it. It was probably more surprising that the year after we went back there and completely dominated 90 per cent of the weekend.

That was probably more surprising, although we had way more confidence that year. That always brings on speed, when the driver has confidence. So ’17 wasn’t a surprise, but it was obviously a special thing – “Shit, this is pretty good, to win Bathurst in our second year (since the big re-organisation)”.

But you threw it away in ’18…

Don’t remind me.

Probably a good thing the doco wasn’t being made then.

I don’t think it that was bad. I don’t think I yelled much. We gave it such a good shot and everybody did such a good

Not really, no. You’re there to win the race. If we would have brought him in earlier and put Luke (Youlden) in the car, on that day Luke probably could’ve got second or third, but I don’t think he could’ve won it. You don’t go to Bathurst to come second or third. Our best shot at the time – and I still say it now – was to try to keep David in the car. He fully thought in his head that he could get past it, whether it was a safety car where he could stretch his legs a bit or something was going to get him through it. That’s his no-die spirit. He believed he could press on. He was never going to say “Get me out of the car”.

It certainly reinforced that ’17 wasn’t a fluke and that the team was a genuine contender.

It took the underdog title a little bit away.

Earlier you remarked that you didn’t think last year was so bad for the team, but it wasn’t great, was it?

No. It was really hard when there were six cars (Mustangs) that, for the majority of the year, miles ahead of everyone. We were up there for fourth in the drivers’ championship and nearly third in the teams’ championship, but that all fell away in the last couple of rounds with just some bad executions. [Reynolds finished sixth in points and Penrite Racing ended up seventh.]

So how do you fix that and what’s the aim for this year?

I think the aim this year is for the drivers to have way more confidence that the cars are similar to the other cars (Commodore vs Mustang), that helps. Still trying to be the top Holden team. If we’re the top

Holden team and we’re as Ho good goo as we have been, we can win some races, for sure, sur because the Fords aren’t aren as quick now. We say we’re going to win the championship, but that’s hard cham to nail na down. But that’ll be our target, targe for sure. Either driver to win wi the championship, but Anton Anto to be at least a top five regular regul and David to podium as much mu as he can.

Are you y happy that it’s a fair fight now between the Commodores and Mustangs?

Oh, definitely. Our cars are pretty good and it’s definitely going to be more even.

And if we can be the top Holden team, we can win some races.

Let’s talk about drivers. Three into two doesn’t go, so what’s going to happen?

A little bit is going to be around how the financial situation goes. If the category puts some of the cost cutting things in place and it makes three cars more viable, then three cars is still an option.

Anton, I guess, to his detriment, didn’t sign a long-term deal with us, so didn’t commit to us, so we had to have a backup plan and that was Will Brown. And he’s a pretty strong back-up plan. There were a lot of people wanting to sign him as a driver. Hopefully, it’s not unfortunate for Anton, but we didn’t have a commitment from him, so we signed Will.

It’s as simple as that. Will’s guaranteed a seat alongside Dave; Anton’s, hopefully, going to be in a seat alongside the two of them. But there’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before that happens.

Are you still in the race to re-sign Anton?

I think so. His contract doesn’t allow discussion before September, anyway.

Oh, we could, but we don’t have to discuss anything with him before September. And he’s not allowed to negotiate with anyone else before September, technically.

I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours that he already has a deal to move to DJR Team Penske next year.

We’ve all heard those rumours, but Anton hasn’t discussed it with us and I haven’t discussed it with him. We just want to get on with this year. We’ve only done one round, so I don’t like looking too far ahead. He’s driving for us this year – that’s all I can say. Hopefully, he can win some races for us. We want to be third in that teams’ championship as a minimum behind Red Bull and Penske.

Hopefully, knock ’em off, but third in the teams’ championship is our worst-case target. If Anton decides that’s where he needs to be and that’s where he wants to be (DJRTP), well, we’ll shake hands and say good luck. It would be an awesome opportunity for him and for us to feel that we got him there – because without us, he probably wouldn’t have had a seat (in Supercars) at all. It wouldn’t be an easy decision for him because I think

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Ryan junked the costly Mercedes AMG program, which swallowed tens of millions of dollars from 2013-15 for just two race wins. He saw no future in the costly German V8. Images: LAT/Supercars/Mercedes Benz he’s a very loyal person. He has some good guidance from Paul Morris (ADP’s mentor/manager), so he’s going to be making sure Anton makes the right decision for himself primarily.

So to sum it up, if you can make the numbers work, you’d like to keep him?

Yeah, 100 per cent. We haven’t put all this effort into him for what will be three (years) by then to just give him to another team. I feel sorry for Garry Rogers. All those years where he just kept breeding drivers for other teams to take them over. I don’t want to be that team, but if it happens, it happens. I think if we have Dave Reynolds and Will Brown, we’ll still have a strong driver line-up. Fingers crossed, though, that Anton is part of it as well.

Because of the coronavirus, you’ve made some moves to diversify. Is that because you have to financially for the long-term?

I think everybody has to diversify to try to make sure you match your income with what you spend if you want to keep spending what you’re spending.

Otherwise, you just have to make big cuts. Because of the pandemic, there’s going to be a balance of each – you have to make cuts and you have to diversify to get some income. You can’t just ask for the money that you used to be able to get from sponsors. You have to work really hard to keep those sponsors on board and keep making sure that they want to be on board. I think this is what we needed to do and we’ve proved we can do it. If it can contribute 10 per cent of the income to the race team, then it’s a worthwhile project.

The perception is that this team is bankrolled by Betty because she’s a very wealthy person. Is that true or does it have to stand on its own two feet?

There’s always something Betty’s willing to contribute because she does it because she wants to. But we’ve got it very close to a point where we’re cost neutral. Betty has still contributed for the past few years – and she’s happy to and wants to. But I’m big on making sure there’s a cut-off point. We had a certain number of years in which we thought we could achieve it and we got very close, but this shutdown has hurt that. I’d love

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to hand the first dollar coin to Betty to say that you’ve made some money. It’s not her passion to make money out of this, but it’s definitely my aim to turn this into a business that makes money and genuinely stands on our own two feet.

And as you touched on earlier, reducing the cost of racing is critical to the sustainability of the teams. Is it your impression that Gen3 is going to deliver the required cost savings and cost controls in 2022?

I think it has to be before that. It has to be 2021. There have to be some big steps made as soon as we can because some of the things we need to do, like a control engine and control front uprights, stuff like that, could happen next year – particularly the engine. You could spend the capital and still save that expenditure in the first year. So that’s a gimme, that needs to be done. Hopefully, that’s something we can achieve when the 2021 season starts – whether it’s March or June or whenever it’s going to be. I think that’s something we should be definitely be pushing for. And there are other areas where we can simplify the cars very cheaply or for next to nothing to ensure the labour content is not needed so much. The labour cost is one of the killers. The labour on the cars is so intensive. We need to have teams outside of Supercars looking to want to join because they can see its viable. Control shocks this year is a big positive – control engine, control uprights will be next. The more you can control, the more cost you take out. A lot of racers don’t like it because it takes some of the engineering aspect out, but it makes it so the category can survive.

The spectators won’t even know. The entertainment value will still be there because there will still be enough adjustment on the cars that everybody has the same upright in the front – like we have now in the rear – and the same engine, there are still probably 500 and something adjustments you can do on the car. So you can still mess it up or get it right. The best teams will still be the best teams. There’s a reason why they win and that will remain, but the lower teams can be more competitive and have more of a chance to win.

You think that can be done for ’21?

Yeah, I think so.

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Even a control engine?

I think so, yep. It depends on what they look at. There are plenty of control engines around that you can buy off the shelf – almost. There might be a few little things you need to change, but it’s not going to be a complete engine that you need to develop. It’s something you can pretty much buy and only need to make a few little modifications to suit what our category needs, and off you go racing.

It is as simple as that and anybody who argues against that, they’re full of shit.

What about the cost of suddenly making the existing inventory of engines redundant?

Well, we’re lucky, we don’t own any engines, we lease them (from Walkinshaw Andretti United). But even if you own a $100,000 engine, you’re still going to have to spend probably 100-150 grand on that engine during the year. So if your control engine is only $50,000 or $60,000, you’re already $40,000 up and your other engine can be sold for historic touring cars or something. I think the biggest thing with this is that if they’re going to keep Super2 alive, they need to give them the control engine at the same time because you can’t have the junior category costing more than the main category. There’s a possibility to do a huge deal with an engine supplier to get enough for Super2 and main game that brings the cost down even more.

If you don’t, the Super2 guys would be screaming, They spend just as much on engines as we do per kilometre.

There’s plenty of room to move to cut costs out of the business, isn’t there?

Oh, so much. Millions. You could save a million dollars like that [snaps fingers] out of everyone’s budget. We’ve taken ourselves to where we are with everybody trying to keep up with each other and be better than one another, but there’s ways to pull it back to a sensible level without hurting the category’s entertainment value – and I think that’s the key. And if the changes are under the skin, the transition could happen and the fans wouldn’t notice anything different. The public and fans shouldn’t be scared that it’s going to change what they see on track.

Well, that wasn’t very confrontational.

Our respective reputations are now in tatters [Ryan laughs].

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FAREWELL HOLDEN MOTORSPORT

1948-2020 - PART EIGHT

INTO THE

FUTURE

Holden’s one-time star driver may have retired at the end of 2008 but he was to have a continued impact in the sport when the Car of The Future hit the track. Mark Skaife’s vision for the future of Supercars proved controversial as HEATH McALPINE detailed.

IMAGES: LAT/AA Archives

THE NOT long retired Mark Skaife’s plans for the future of V8 Supercar competition were announced in late2009, barely a year after he stepped out of the driver’s seat.

Car of The Future (CoTF) as it was dubbed was created with aim of easing the entry for manufacturers outside of Ford and Holden, whilst also cutting costs significantly.

For the opening round of the 2013 V8 Supercars Championship in Adelaide, CoTF made its debut along with the Nissan Altima and Erebus Motorsport’s non-factory Mercedes E63 AMG. The era, which lasted until 2016, was one of significant change for V8 Supercars.

First, it dropped the V8 moniker from its name, then it gained recognition by the FIA as an International series, and then Swedish brand Volvo entered the championship, becoming the fifth manufacturer represented.

Despite increased manufacturer involvement, Holden continued to build on its previous success as Jamie Whincup added two further titles, while two victories were also added to the Commodore’s already enviable Bathurst tally.

The era also welcomed the VF Commodore, the most successful nameplate in Australian Touring Car Championship/Supercars history.

It witnessed the emergence too of future stars Shane van Gisbergen and Fabian Coulthard, the continuation of Triple Eight’s reign, and the sustained success of veterans Jason Bright, Craig Lowndes, James Courtney and Garth Tander.

“Revolution not evolution” was Skaife’s description of CoTF, when plans where first revealed for the new formula in November 2009.

Changes for CoTF included the use of common components such as the floor pan and roll cage design, which were

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The CoTF chassis (above) was innovative in many ways. Craig Lowndes put it to good use and scored the very first win of the CoTF era, at Adelaide in 2013 (below).

undertaken by Queensland-based PACE Innovations, combined with an engine that featured control componentry aimed at increasing longevity and lower running costs.

But those changes were minimal in terms of appearance and sound, compared to those of the Project Blueprint era.

“What I really want to get across is that in every area of the Car of The Future, we’re looking at improving the show, making the racing better, without taking any of the DNA away from the car,” Skaife told Auto Action at the time.

“Ensuring that we have the authenticity

The CoTF Supercar field charges into trun one at Homebush in 2013, Shane van Gisbergen to the fore (top). The CoTF chassis had levelled the playing field, at least in the first season, enabling the BJR entries (above left) and GRM cars (above right) to race the established front running teams like HRT (above middle) for wins and podiums.

but doing things that are sensible cost reductions.”

The directive from V8 Supercars Australia chairman Tony Cochrane was to cut the cost of a rolling chassis to a max of $150,000, which was less than half the price of building a Project Blueprint equivalent.

Fast forward two years and the architecture was beginning to take shape.

Teams had been briefed about the new formula, which featured a new control transaxle – a combined rear-mounted

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sequential gearbox and differential unit – developed specifically for Supercars competition by Ballarat-based Albins Off Road Gear, a common floor pan and roll cage, and 18-inch Rimstock wheels.

A key improvement on the previous Project Blueprint regulations was in safety, with the fuel tank moved to the centre of the car, the engine 100mm forward and a steering column that collapsed, all added to the extensively tested roll cage design.

The FIA became interested in CoTF’s roll cage design innovations, working

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together with CAMS (now Motorsport Australia) and Supercars to bring a new standard to the industry. The improved design centred around side impact, where a convex anti-intrusion system extended the space between door and the driver for an increased the ‘crush zone’.

The initial cost target for a rolling chassis announced in 2009 had shifted to $250,000-$270,000 two years later, still cheaper than Project Blueprint era cars at the time.

V8 Supercars manager of motorsport

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Adam Perry spoke to Auto Action after briefing the teams about the new regulations during the 2011 Australian Grand Prix.

“I gave the team owners a detailed update on the build prototypes and the final specifications of the chassis, including costings, and that certainly went well and received their endorsements,” he said.

Perry said at the time that the costs remained in the bracket mentioned previously.

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“We’re certainly well within what we’ve said publicly,” Perry said. “They should be able to build a rolling chassis for well below $270,000.

“I think a lot of fear about COTF has gone away now that we’ve proved that it’s on track and on target. The endorsement of the teams allows us to get on with the build of the prototypes.”

However, there were still concerns about cost and from Ford and Holden.

Both manufacturers were worried that the control formula severed whatever link was left between the road-going models and the race cars.

Holden motorsport manager Simon McNamara expressed concerns to Auto Action that the reduction of manufacturer

Garth Tander leads teammate James Courtney (above). Craig Lowndes paired with Ford refugee Steve Richards to win the 2015 Bathurst 1000 (left). BJR celebrate its dominant success at Winton in 2016 (below)

DNA in the CoTF concept could affect the support of The Lion provided in the future.

By then it was clear that the only links between the manufacturers’ product and the race cars representing them on the track was their external appearance.

“At least now we have GM IP in the engine department and we have GM IP in the look and feel of the car, McNamara said.

“If you look at what they’ve [Supercars] designed, we had nothing to do with them [the prototypes]. The panels are ours, but underneath there’s nothing for us.”

Those comments came as V8 Supercars tested its first CoTF prototype – a Falcon-bodied version – at Queensland circuits Morgan Park and Queensland Raceway. Development Series drivers Scott McLaughlin and Jack Perkins completed the tests, and were positive about the new CoTF machine.

A lavish launch in Sydney ahead of the final round of 2011 held on the streets of Homebush saw the new CoTF racer revealed to manufacturer bosses, teams and media.

Holden and Ford versions were both

Fabian Coulthard’s Commodore leads the field at Winton for BJR, ahead of a GRM-run Volvo and Kelly Racing-run Nissan. CoTF did achieve one of its aims, which was to bring additional manufacturers into the competition alongside Holden and Ford.

represented, while fans got a look at the new cars when both completed demonstration laps of Homebush during the weekend.

The next year was tough, though, as the CoTF debut at the start of 2013 loomed closer and speculation arose that the project was falling behind, and that the previous cost estimations were being exceeded.

With eight months until go-time, Skaife moved to quell those concerns.

“I think there was one suggestion it should be delayed, it wasn’t ‘some’ team bosses,” said Skaife. “A team boss suggested it. This has been the plan now for well over 1000 days and a lot of teams have made significant progress.

So, it’s clearly a pretty heavy workload for everybody but it’s being handled pretty well.

“Our costs are significantly cheaper than to build the current car. The goal from the start was to be 25 percent cheaper and the reality of that is we’ll be very, very close to that.”

In August, a milestone was reached when Triple Eight Race Engineering revealed its first self-build CoTF chassis.

Multiple Supercars champion Jamie Whincup provided his first impressions: “This car is a massive, massive change in our world. The handling of the new car is

very different, so drivers are going to have to adapt quite quickly.”

Holden drivers proved the best at adapting when Adelaide came around at the start of March 2013. In fact, it was veteran Lowndes who kicked off the new era with a win, while rising star van Gisbergen completed his controversial off-season switch to Tekno Autosports with a win on Sunday.

CoTF had evened up the competition, with proof of this the emergence of Tekno Autosports, Brad Jones Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport as competitive entities during the infancy of the new regulations.

BJR had been inconsistent since entering Supercars in the early-2000s as a Ford team, before crossing over to Holden in 2008.

However, the team flourished during the early stages of CoTF when it was spearheaded by Bright and Fabian Coulthard, with the Kiwi even leading the title at one stage.

“We went from a period where FPR and

Triple Eight were very dominant,” Jones explained to Auto Action. “It opened up opportunities for other teams again because no one knew about the what little things made a difference to this car, so it made it fairly even for quite a while.

“That was one of the great things about the change in philosophy from Project Blueprint to Car of The Future.”

One of the major milestones achieved by BJR during this period wasn’t on the race track, but rather in the workshop.

“For BJR, that was the time where we started building our own chassis, (whereas) previous to that we’d been dealing with Walkinshaw,” Jones recalled. “It was a huge step up for us to manufacture our own chassis and basically build our own cars. We bought some technology from Triple Eight and pieced the car together.

“It was strong right from the start.”

It was a frantic time for the team ahead of the 2013 season, as BJR had to prepare three new Commodores for that season.

“It was a very busy time I remember,” Jones vividly recalled. “For us, when we arrived at Sydney Motorsport Park [the test day] the cars weren’t finished. From memory I don’t think they had any wipers on them; we were very competitive.

“Everyone was very excited, but it was a race against time for us. We were slow to start because we wanted to make sure we had everything right, then time was against us at the end.

“We went to the test and were pretty successful, started racing and we were pretty fast. It was a very exciting time, but the biggest thing I remember were long hours and struggling against time to get everything finished.”

As a member of the Supercars board since it was inaugurated in 2011, Jones remembers the build up and key goals that needed to be reached in terms of the CoTF design.

“There were a number of things that were different about this car, (and) safety was a very high priority through the

Garth Tander and Warren Luff celebrate success for HRT on the Gold Coast, clinching the 2015 Enduro Cup.

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design procedure,” Jones explained.

“Plus, we went with the transaxle design after a lot of debate and there were a number of innovative things for our touring car class that went into this design.

“I think the safety of the car was a really important milestone,” Jones said.

“I think the fact the category had a reset was an important milestone. The ability to have other manufacturers come into the class; there were quite a number of things that this whole procedure enabled the category to do, and set the stage for where we currently are.”

Although it was a major step forward compared to Project Blueprint in terms of design, there were a couple of issues that were highlighted when racing begun.

“If you had your time again, you would try to do something to get the cabin temperature down. That’s been a real problem for this car, which was something we didn’t foresee,” Jones admitted.

“It’s also an issue fitting a taller driver into this car, that became a problem early on. You’d probably give the driver a bit more room in there. We also talked about more control with engines at that point in time, so if I could wind back time, I think we could have done something a bit more proactive in that area.”

That first season, BJR finished third in the team’s points behind Triple Eight Race Engineering and Ford Performance Racing. This included five victories in the opening half of the season, while Coulthard finished sixth in the championship, one position ahead of his more seasoned teammate Bright.

It was a near clean-sweep for the VF Commodore during its opening season.

Whincup took the title and nearly won the Bathurst 1000 with Paul Dumbrell, while teammate Lowndes finished second in the standings and won the Pirtek Enduro Cup. Jamie Whincup enjoyed huge success in the CoTF era, here celebrating another win in New Zealand (below) and another title victory, at Homebush (above right).

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Shane van Gisbergen wins his 2016 title at Homebush (above) while Will Davison and John Webb (above, middle) celebrate an unexpected and controversial Bathurst 1000 victory in 2016. Earlier in the day, the field pours into the first turn at Bathurst with the winners well back.

Two future title rivals, van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin announced their intentions during that season, too. One finished fifth in the title race, the other had a dream debut season including two victories that further enhanced GRM’s reputation as a developer of driver talent.

The next year, however, GRM switched to Volvo and mounted a challenge for the championship, though it didn’t stop the Triple Eight reign.

Whincup cruised to title number six in 2014 to eclipse the record of five championships equalled by Skaife, Dick Johnson and Ian ‘Pete’ Geoghegan.

But all eyes were on second, with van Gisbergen enhaning talk of a future title. His year included a heartbreaking Bathurst result, where a stall and subsequent starter motor failure cost him an almost certain victory.

Although Bathurst wasn’t favourable to Whincup either, dropping to fifth after running out of fuel on the final lap, he did win the Pirtek Enduro Cup with Dumbrell.

Triple Eight dominated the team’s title with the Holden Racing Team and BJR backing up in third and fourth, respectively.

The opening round of the 2015 season promised another Holden title as Whincup, Coulthard and James Courtney clean-swept the weekend for The Lion. However with FPR now known as Prodrive Racing Australia, the season led to a breakthrough title for Mark Winterbottom.

Tekno Autosports fell away from contention and normal service was resumed with PRA and Triple Eight dominating the season.

Lowndes finished second and sealed another Bathurst victory, this time with Steven Richards, while HRT pairing Garth Tander and Warren Luff continued Holden’s undefeated run in the Pirtek Enduro Cup. A big off-season move and one that has defined his career since was Triple Eight Race Engineering’s recruitment of van Gisbergen, going to three cars to fo so.

The move proved immediately successful, as the Kiwi eclipsed his sixtime championship winning teammate Whincup to clinch the title.

His replacement at Tekno, Will Davison, was victorious at Bathurst with its team owner Jonathan Webb.

A wide variety of winners took the Commodore to victory including Courtney, Nick Percat in a dramatic Adelaide race and a memorable cleansweep for Tim Slade at BJR’s ‘home track’, Winton.

Although a controversial period of time, it was another badge of honour for the Commodore. Although the VF continued into the Gen2 era of Supercars, it made its most profound impact during the initial four-year run of CoTF.

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THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE THAT WASN’T

The 1980 Spanish Grand Prix will go down forever as one of the most controversial and pivotal race weekends in Formula 1 history. Remembered for what happened off-track, it became a blow for Alan Jones’ title hopes, as DAN McCARTHY reports.

IMAGES: LAT IT HAD been two weeks since Alan Jones suffered heartbreak in Monaco, after retiring from the lead when the diff expired in his Williams FW07B. The Spanish Grand Prix at Circuito Permanente del Jarama was scheduled to be the seventh round of the 1980 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, however, despite Jones taking the race win, the event eventually didn’t count for championship points.

The Jarama venue became the scene of the first round of the FISA and FOCA war, that rumbled on for a number of seasons during the early 1980s.

Up to that time there had been a number of small disputes between FISA, an autonomous subcommittee of the FIA, and FOCA (the Formula 1 Constructors’ Association) earlier in the season.

In 1980, 12 of the 15 teams competing in the F1 World Championship were members of FOCA, while the remaining manufacturer teams Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo were not.

The dozen FOCA teams felt that FISA was incorrectly managing the sport by giving preferential treatment and extra revenue to the manufacturer teams.

In the rounds preceding the

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Carlos Reutemann leads them away (above) while FISA (Jean Marie Balestre) and FOCA (Bernie Eccelstone) went head to head behind the scenes (above).

Spanish Grand Prix, FOCA affiliated drivers were advised by their teams to boycott the 45 minute compulsory drivers’ briefings. As a result, FISA issued fines of US$2000 to competitors who failed to attend the meetings.

The drivers elected not to pay the fines, forcing FISA to threaten the suspension of their racing licenses if it continued.

In Spain tensions hit boiling point when FISA stuck to its word and prior to the first practice session suspended the licences of no less than 15 drivers.

In response, the FOCA teams announced that they would withdraw from the race, which naturally greatly concerned the Spanish Grand Prix organisers Real Automovil Club de Espana

(RACE) as it placed doubt on the event taking place.

RACE offered to pay FISA a deposit on the fines but this was refused, as the drivers were required to pay the fines themselves.

Even Spanish royalty got involved, the King of Spain Juan Carlos pleading with RACE to continue with the event, so RACE elected to bypass the Federacion Espanola de Automovilismo (the Spanish motor sport federation) that was aligned with FISA. This meant that the race was no longer run by FISA, therefore there was no requirement to hold a FISA racing licence to take part.

The first practice session contained the Renaults, Ferraris and Alfa Romeos only but after

30 minutes it came to a halt.

A soccer match between the Williams and Brabham teams then broke out on pit straight while all FISA officials were escorted from the circuit.

Practice got back underway two hours later without Renault, Ferrari, or Alfa Romeo, as these squads did not want to be punished by taking part in the race. However, all remained at the circuit hoping a deal could be agreed upon. It wasn’t.

This meant that all teams competing in the Grand Prix ran with the Ford Cosworth DFV engine and due to the decrease in grid numbers, all participants were able to race.

Jacques Laffite qualified on pole in his Ligier ahead of Jones, Didier Pironi and Carlos Reutemann, with championship

leader Nelson Piquet in fifth.

The 80-lap took place in sweltering conditions in the high 30s and was a real test for the F1 machines.

When the race began, Reutemann made a great jump to squeeze around the outside of both front-row men and take the race lead by Turn 1. Polesitter Laffite went the other way and dropped to fourth behind his teammate Pironi.

The two Williams driver quickly established a lead ahead of Pironi, Laffite and Piquet, who fought for third place.

On lap 2 of the race David Kennedy in his Shadow flew of the circuit and out of the race, and was joined in the barriers by the customer Williams of Emilio de Villota, though the Spaniard was able to continue.

1980 Spanish Grand Prix - Jarama (non-championship)

Jean-Pierre Jarier (above) kept it together in his Tyrrell in what was a race of attrition. Despite being involved in a major shunt with John Watson, whose McLaren flew over his Ensign and removed its rear wing, Patrick Gaillard stopped for repairs and scored a point for sixth place, the final finisher (below).

Pironi elected for two different rear tyre compounds and by lap 3 was already fighting a car imbalance. As a result, Laffite swept back by his younger teammate.

Both Keke Rosberg in his Fittipaldi and Derek Daly in the Candy-sponsored Tyrrell suffered brake failures. The Fittipaldi spun into the catch fencing and the Irishman suffered a heavy impact at Turn 1, fortunately both drivers emerging unscathed.

As the race approached quarter distance Jones, who was still hounding his teammate Reutemann, struggled to find a gear and dropped back behind Laffite, Piquet and Pironi in the blink of an eye.

The laps ticked by but positions remained the same up front, however Laffite had caught up to Reutemann and was harassing the Argentine.

Looking left and right, inside and outside, trying to find a gap.

On lap 36 the pair approached the wounded Williams of de Villota who moved to the middle of the circuit to allow race leader Reutemann through. But as he did so Laffite jinxed to the inside to try and take the lead.

The Ligier crashed into the back of de Villota, with Laffite then careering into the inside barrier before wiping out the innocent Reutemann.

Laffite and Reutemann were out on the spot, while de Villota limped back to the pits to retire.

Brazilian Piquet now found himself at the head of the field, 2s ahead of Pironi and 3s ahead of Jones, but this was short lived. On lap 42 he slowed before coming to a halt with a gearbox failure.

This now meant that Pironi and Jones, in line astern, were in the lead with a 50s margin back to an angry pack led by American Eddie Cheever. Veteran Jochen Mass in his Arrows sat just ahead of a fierce battle for fifth between John Watson and Elio de Angelis.

The race long battle between the Northern Irishman and Italian came to an end when lapping the sole Ensign of Patrick Gaillard.

The Frenchman braked a lot earlier than Watson had anticipated and his McLaren launched over the back of Gaillard’s car. Watson retired, while Gaillard returned to the

p for repairs. pits It was later discovered th that Gaillard had tyre m marks on the top of his he helmet, demonstrating th it was a lucky escape that fo all involved. for J Jones, still in second, ha to back away from had Pir as his water Pironi tem temperature began to sky skyrocket, leaving the onetime Grand Prix winner well out front and in a comfortable lead.

With just 15-laps remaining and for the second time in two races, Pironi was forced to retire from the lead when his front-right wheel unexpectedly dropped off the Ligier.

This left Jones out front to take a surprise race victory, 50.9s ahead of Mass. De Angelis earned his second podium of the season by defeating the Tyrrell of Jean-Pierre Jarier, Emerson Fittipaldi and Gaillard, who was the final finisher scoring a point in sixth, albeit five laps down.

The FIA held a meeting the following day and decided that the race should be declared a non-championship event.

Two months after the race was held it was officially confirmed that no points were to be awarded. On top of this, all drivers and teams were handed a suspended fine of 3000 Franc.

The war between FISA and FOCA continued….

Pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret WD WD WD WD WD WD DNA DNA

Driver Alan Jones Jochen Mass Elio de Angelis Jean-Pierre Jarier Emerson Fittipaldi Patrick Gaillard Eddie Cheever Didier Pironi John Watson Nelson Piquet Geoff Lees Carlos Reutemann Jacques Laffite Ricardo Zunino Emilio de Villota Riccardo Patrese Mario Andretti Jan Lammers Derek Daly Keke Rosberg Alain Prost David Kennedy Jody Scheckter Gilles Villeneuve Jean-Pierre Jabouille Rene Arnoux Patrick Depailler Bruno Giacomelli Brian Henton Eliseo Salazar

Constructor Williams Arrows Lotus Tyrrell Fittipaldi Ensign Osella Ligier McLaren Brabham Shadow Williams Ligier Brabham Williams Arrows Lotus ATS Tyrrell Fittipaldi McLaren Shadow Ferrari Ferrari Renault Renault Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo Ensign Williams

Drivers’ Standings 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10. =

Nelson Piquet Rene Arnoux Alan Jones Didier Pironi Carlos Reutemann Jacques Laffite Riccardo Patrese Elio De Angelis Emerson Fittipaldi Jochen Mass Keke Rosberg

Laps 80 80 80 79 79 75 67 65 49 42 42 36 36 34 34 30 29 26 13 11 5 2

Result 1h 43m 14.076s +50.940s +1:12.271s +1 lap +1 lap +5 laps Gearbox Lost wheel Accident Gearbox Suspension Accident Accident Gearbox Accident Gearbox Engine Electrical Accident Accident Engine Accident

Grid 2 14 13 15 19 21 10 3 12 5 20 4 1 7 17 11 8 9 16 18 6 22

Constructors’ Standings 22 21 19 17 15 12 7 6 5 4 4

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. = 9. =

Williams Ligier Brabham Renault Arrows Fittipaldi McLaren Lotus Ferrari Tyrrell

34 29 22 21 11 9 6 6 5 5

Waiting for a resolution to the dispute, the Williams and Brabham teams had an impromtu football match on the pit straight (above).

Ferrari and Alfa Romeo ultimately didn’t race (left).

2020 RETURN TO RACE PREVIEW

AND WE’RE BACK RA Supercars makes its return at last having not raced since Adelaide in February. HEATH McALPINE previews the resumption of the championship at Sydney Motorsport Park and the changes that come with it.

FINALLY AFTER four months Supercars racing returns!

The 2020 season will resume after just one championship weekend has been completed so far, with the return at Sydney Motorsport Park on June 27-28, using the 3.93km Gardner layout.

Supercars recommences es with an all-new format and a new-look season whose shape is still to be determined.

Over the past four-months ths the Supercars All Stars virtual al Eseries has kept appetites whetted ed until the real stuff returns,, and saw Shane van Gisbergen en win the inaugural series ahead of real-life rival Scott McLaughlin.

Before the 10week virtual season, Supercars did partake in a pair of practice and qualifying sessions at the Australian Grand Prix meeting, though the event was ultimately cancelled without ever racing.

The two pole positions at d in Albert Park were decided n favour of Red Bull Holden Racing Team drivers van e Gisbergen and teammate

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Jamie Whincup.

Three weeks prior, in Adelaide, the victories were split between DJR Team Penske’s McLaughlin and RBHRT’s Whincup, while Chaz Mostert provided a strong start to his career at Walkinshaw Andretti United by finishing second on the Sunday.

Reigning champion McLaughlin left Adelaide with 288-points, 27 ahead of Whincup, who in turn

holds the same margin back to Mostert in third.

RBHRT title contender van Gisbergen had a Sunday to forget when a front suspension failure dropped him out of the race, after the team under-filled his Commodore forcing the Kiwi to make an e extra stop. This has left van Gisbergen languishing 13th in the points. ha been a reshuffle of the There has durin the enforced break due grid during with to the withdrawal of 23Red Racing, W Davison on the sidelines. leaving Will James Co Courtney now takes his spot Tick in the Tickford Racing-run Ford c Mustang courtesy of Boost Mobile sponsorsh sponsorship.

Davison will join many other crew members at home on the sidelines as well, due du to the adhesion to State and Federal Feder Government COVID-19 restrictions, restriction which will prevent any support categories, fan fans, media or even team p principals from attending S Sydney Motorsport Park.

Just J 400 Supercars and team staff will be admitted to the circuit on the weekend, including person 13 personnel (including drivers) tw for each two-car squad, 10 from Supercars’ all-time winning driver Jamie Whincup demonstrated he is now spent force, winning the season’s first race in Adelaide.

Supercars’ own departments, a skeleton TV crew, plus race control and marshals.

COVID-19 testing will take place prior to the weekend as well as temperature testing each morning of the event, a similar system to that used by the NRL. If anyone’s reading is above the normal 37 degrees C, they will be barred from entering the venue.

Social distancing is required by all personnel, in accordance with New South Wales regulations.

The Supercars TV crew will be limited to a minimum of commentators, production staff and technical operators, while the remaining crew will work remotely.

Supercars CEO Sean Seamer will not attend along with other senior executives and stewards, who will also operate away from the circuit.

Crews will be unable to enter the circuit two-and-a-half-hours before the day’s opening practice session and must exit three-hours after parc ferme conditions conclude.

These limits have filtered through to the race format, which will comprise three 130km races split across the two-day meet.

Originally scheduled to be a SuperNight event, SMP will instead race during the daylight hours with each contest requiring a sole

SYDNEY MOTORSPORT PARK JUNE 28 - 29

A ACING

compulsory pit stop to replace at least two tyres.

Fuel stops will not be allowed.

Team personnel allowed to participate in a pit stop has been reduced from eight to six, as have the number of rattle guns utilised to two.

A further restriction is the data each team will be able to receive with access to the Supercars data logger not permitted until after an event.

Also, brake temperature sensors and g-sensors have been removed.

In terms of tyres, two sets of control tyres must be returned to Dunlop at the conclusion of practice on the opening day.

Five sets of Dunlops will then be allocated for Qualifying and the three races, meaning tyre strategy will be critical to success.

A 20-minute rookie session opens the recommencement of Supercars action at SMP, before full-time drivers return to the seat for two 30-minute practice sessions ahead of two-part qualifying.

Part one will eliminate the four slowest competitors, before the second removes a further five, leaving the Top 15 to contest a Shootout ahead of the opening 33-lap sprint race on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday’s schedule begins with back-to-back qualifying sessions to decide the grids for the two races in the afternoon.

Drivers will arrive on June 26 to conduct track walks in preparation,

EVENT SCHEDULE Saturday, June 27 10:20am-10:40am 11:00am-11:30am 12:00pm-12:30pm 1:15pm-1:40pm 1:50pm-2:30pm 3:30pm-4:30pm Sunday, June 28 10:35am-10:50am 10:55am-11:10am 12:15pm-1:25pm 2:35pm-3:35pm In the virtual world or real life, title protagonists Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin shape up as 2020 title contenders again (above). Cam Waters (top) leads the Tickford team this season. Images: LAT

adhering to COVID-19 restrictions.

Although the four races scheduled to occur at the Australian Grand Prix failed to take place, as practice and qualifying did, it is still classified as race weekend. That leaves SMP’s three-events as Races Seven, Eight and Nine of the series, with the AGP races now marked down as Did Not Starts.

More than 12 hours of coverage of SMP will be provided by Fox Sports live and ad-break free across the two-days.

SMP kicks off a revised Supercars calendar that next heads to Winton in rural Victoria on July 18-19, then Hidden Valley and Townsville at the end of August.

The Bathurst 1000 is its regular spot but from there it’s conjecture,

with some uncertainty where and how the 2020 season will end.

Formats for the next Supercars events are yet to be disclosed and could change based on the limitations of the restrictions in each state or territory.

Allowing fans to attend too will also be based on each government’s stipulations.

Rookie practice Practice 1 Practice 2 Qualifying Race 7 Top 15 Shootout Race 7 (33 laps) Qualifying Race 8 Qualifying Race 9 Race 8 (33 laps) Race 9 (33 laps)

SUPERCARS POINTSCORE Scott McLaughlin 288 Jamie Whincup 261 Chaz Mostert 234 Cameron Waters 231 Will Davison 231 David Reynolds 210 Lee Holdsworth 171 Mark Winterbottom 162 Fabian Coulthard 162

Spectators and on-grid entertainment will be absent for the first few Supercar events ... but everyone is anxious to get back trackside as soon as possible.

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i Giovanno c Brac

In the return of Auto Action’s Great Drives, BOB WATSON looks at Italian Giovanni Bracco and his exploits racing the Lancia B20.

Images: LAT

I

T IS remarkable that Italy is the home of many famous makes in Formula 1 including the most successful of all, Ferrari. And yet, it has produced just two World Driver’s Champions thus far, inaugural winner Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina in 1950, and two-time victor Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953.

Since then, nothing! That’s a long time between Spumante sprays.

However, despite the lack of success the Italians continue to be fanatical about their motor sport.

Classic events such as the Targa Florio (established in 1906) and the Mille Miglia (dating back to 1927), the Italian Grand Prix, many regional events including Rome Coppa D’Oro (Gold Cup) and many city-to-city races.

The early heroes of the day for the parochial Italians were the immortal Tazio Nuvolari, Achille Varzi, Carlo Felice Trossi, Luigi Fagioli, Piero Taruffi and Luigi Villorese, all regularly risking their lives for the glory of Italy in an array of machinery.

They drove the best of the best from Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and Lancia, backed up by smaller

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manufacturers like Stanguellini and Bandini, all battling the might of the Silver Arrows of Mercedes and Porsche, and Jaguar British Racing Green machines to name but a few.

One Italian driver proved particularly spectacular and successful during this period, his name was Giovanni Bracco.

Born in 1908 in the town of Biella, situated near Turin, Bracco earned his stripes well before the first world title was ever run. He often linked up with another young Biellese driver, Umberto Maglioli, who became a regular co-driver.

Bracco was a contemporary of one of Enzo Ferrari’s favourite drivers, ers, Algerian Guy Moll, whose brave, brash driving style greatly impressed the Commendatore.

Moll won the Monaco Grand Prix for the Ferrari marque in 1933 and finished second in the Tripoli Grand Prix, but then died in a huge crash in the Coppa Acerbo race at Pescara.

Ferrari was heartbroken.

Bracco raced for Italy’s most famous marques, Ferrari in the Brescia- Roma-Brescia event (top), Lancia in the Mille Miglia in Pescara (above) and Maserati.

In 1947, Bracco finished ninth in the Mille Miglia driving a Fiat 1100 S Berlinetta, however in September that year Bracco was competing in Modena when he lost control, with dire consequences.

Due to an error from a rival, Bracco

lost control of his Delage and crashed into the crowd, killing five spectators and injuring several others. This incident haunted Bracco for the rest of his career and in the short term forced him out of racing until 1948.

On return, Bracco secured the two-litre class in the Italian Grand Prix driving a Maserati A6 GCS. With memories still fresh in his mind from the incident at Modena, he stopped

Bracco was synonomous wi with success in the Lancia B20 all over the world, h C such iin the Carrera P Panamericana in Mexico (above).

after two laps at Pescara due to the packed stands of spectators surrounding the circuit.

Another break ensued for Bracco as he fought his mental demons.

Moving into a coupe rather than an openwheeler appeared to ease his mind. He won his class on the way to fourth overall in the 1950 Mille Miglia alongside Magioli, driving a Ferrari 166 M.M Barchetta

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Touring.

A move to Lancia the following year delivered many class wins including at Le Mans with Count Johnny Lurani, and a remarkable second place outright at the Mille Miglia partnering Magioli again driving Lancia’s Aurelia B20 two-litre. In fact, the entry that beat it to the victory was the four-litre Ferrari 340 America of Gigi Villoresi

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After a long break from driving, Bracco found himself more at ease in coupĂŠbodied cars, winning his class (4th overall) in the 1950 Mille Miglia with young Maglioli in a Ferrari 166 M.M. Barchetta Touring.

In 1951 he drove a Lancia to many class wins, amongst them Le Mans with Count Johnny Lurani, and achieved a miraculous second overall and first in class at the Mille Miglia with Umberto Maglioli driving a

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After his tragic accident in Modena in 1947, Bracco (here with ever present cigarette) took a break from racing. When he returned he preferred coupes to open sports racers.

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i Gioovanno Bracc

Lancia Aurelia B20 two litre.

Lancia L They were beaten only by Luigi Villor Villoresi and Pasqu Pasquale l C Cassani in a four-litre Ferrari 340 America.

Thanks to his magnificent display the previous year, Bracco was given a three-litre Ferrari 250 S Vignale saloon for the Mille Miglia in 1952. However, he was not considered an official member of the Ferrari team and therefore did not enjoy works support. Due to his financial position, his budget didn’t even stretch to spare tyres!

Despite Taruffi or Caracciola being favoured to win Bracco was second at Siena, 12 minutes behind Kling’s Mercedes 300SL. Then while the officials were stamping his road card in Florence, Bracco asked for a flask of

Cognac.

Suitable fortified, Bracco then drove magificently through the challenging and fogbound Futa and Raticosa passes.

At Bologna he had taken the lead by one minute from Kling, followed by an inspired drive through the treacherous Apennines.

Only then, with the Ferrari works drivers having retired, did Enzo Ferrari order any help for Bracco, whose car badly needed tyres allowing him to hold his advantage over Kling until the end of the event, winning by four minutes.

It was a brave victory in extremely treacherous conditions and as the last surviving entry from Maranello.

In an underdog

Bracco’s protege Umberto Maglioli (above) also enjoyed great success. At far left is Bracco’s winning Ferrari in the 1952 Mille Miglia winner.

For the 1956 event Bracco switched to a Porsche but retired with brake issues.

victory, vi Bracco brushed the challenge of the legendary Silver Arrows away putting to rest the demons of his accident some years before.

Bracco’s next assignment was the Carrera Panamerica in 1952 where he was joined by Ascari in a pair of 12-cylinder ‘Mexicana Model’ Ferraris.

Leading into the event, the Ferrari duo were the favourites to take the win, however Ascari’s example failed to see out the opening stage, leaving the nimble French Gordini of Jean Behra driving solo as the leader.

The Gordini handled the treacherous mountain roads best and won the first stage to Oaxaca ahead of Bracco and Kling in a Mercedes 300SLR third.

On the second day Behra was the first away on the stage to Puebla, however he crashed the Gordini and Bracco now had a lead of one minute over the Germans.

Bracco continued to fight hard against

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the Mercedes and at the start of the last but one stage on the fourth day, held a lead of almost four minutes.

Then the Ferrari’s driveline failed and Bracco had to watch as his rivals passed by him, first Kling, then Lang, followed by the American John Fitch all driving Mercedes.

A certain victory had slipped through his fingers.

Bracco raced a Maserati 200S in 1955, but after a series of crashes and compounding health problems, he retired. He drove his personal Ferraris for a few more seasons before passing away in 1968.

Umberto Maglioli, Bracco’s young protégé obviously learnt well from his mentor to become one of the world’s leading sports car drivers of the era.

He competed for manufacturers Lancia, Ferrari and Porsche as well as piloting Ford GT40s and Corvettes in sports car races.

Magioli went on to win the Targa Florio in 1953, was third in the Mille Miglia in 1955 behind the dominant Mercedes 300 SLRs of Stirling Moss and Juan ManuelFangio.

But, Maglioli’s story is for another day.

Some of the information for this article has been taken from the book Piloti Biellese by Massimo Fila.

THE ELEGANT B20 RELEASED IN 1951, the Lancia Aurelia B20 coupe was an elegant but rather plain looking car, even though it had been styled

by Ghia with bodywork by Pininfarina.

But it was a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The Lancia was superbly engineered, coming from the same stable as the magnificent D50 Lancia Formula 1 cars that were taken over by Ferrari and helped that marque win the 1956 Formula 1 championship.

The Lancia Aurelia even used the first ever series-production V6 engine.

Several body styles were offered: 4-door saloon, 2-door GT coupé (B20), 2-door spider/ convertible (B24), and a chassis that could be custom bodied by external coachbuilders.

The car had been named after a Roman road: the Via Aurelia, leading from Rome to Pisa.

The Aurelia was designed under the direction of the brilliant engineer Vittorio Jano, famous for his design work for Alfa Romeo and Ferrari.

Its V6 engine was an all-alloy pushrod 60° design with a single camshaft between the cylinder banks. A hemispherical combustion chamber and in-line valves were used.

At the rear was an innovative combination transaxle with the gearbox, clutch, differential, and inboard-mounted drum brakes.

The front suspension was a sliding pillar design, with rear semi-trailing arms replaced by a de Dion tube in the Fourth series. The Aurelia was also the first Italian car to be fitted with radial tyres, initially 165SR400 Michelin

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X and later on the sports models, 165HR400 Pirelli Cinturatos.

In the 1951 Mille Miglia a 2-litre Aurelia B20 driven by Giovanni Bracco and Umberto Maglioli finished second outright, beaten only by a Ferrari 340 America. The same year it took first in class and 12th overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Modified Aurelias took the first three places in the 1952 Targa Florio with Felice Bonetto as the winner and another won the Liège-RomeLiège event of 1953.

The fifth running of the Coppa della Toscana netted a 1-2-3 victory for the Lancia Aurelia GT 2500 of Scuderia Lancia.

Lancia B20s have also been owned by such notables as Prince Rainier of Monaco, actress Brigitte Bardot and Grand Prix drivers Mike Hawthorn and Juan Manuel Fangio, and notably by the Australian engineer Charlie Dean who was responsible for the famous Maybach and later worked on the Repco Brabham V8 grand prix engine.

Lancia B20s in good condition now fetch upwards of $200,000 in Australia.

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SUPERCARS e-Series REVIEW

A VIRTUAL REALITY Report: Dan McCarthy Images: Supercars THE SUPERCARS All Stars Eseries has been run and won. After 31 races Shane van Gisbergen did just enough to clinch the title.

The Eseries was quickly created by Supercars in response to the hiatus in global sport caused by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was designed to ensure that the teams, their sponsors and the Supercars’ series sponsors continued to receive some sort of coverage while racing was in abayence.

Renowned sim driver and now All Stars Eseries winner van Gisbergen believes that that the series was a great idea and was chuffed to win the competition after a slow start.

“I think it was a good thing for Supercars to do, the racing was really good and kept us occupied for 10 weeks,” van Gisbergen told Auto Action.

“I had to learn to keep out of trouble and once we did that, we were on the comeback.

“Stoked to win it!”

The battles between Triple Eight driver van Gisbergen and Erebus Motorsport’s Anton De Pasquale was one of the major talking points throughout the series. The pair collided on multiple occasions including in the season ending race at Bathurst, when the championship was on the line.

“At Bathurst it was a bit touch and go, he was half spinning and saving a slide when I hit him. I was locking a brake as well. With those 50/50 things

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Demonstrating the variety of venues that could be used in the virtual world, the series visited the now defunct Oran Park at the final round (top), the Michigan super speedway in America (above) and Spa Francorchamps in Belgium (below).

it was better to not take the chance, so I redressed the position,” van Gisbergen explained of his late-race clash with De Pasquale.

De Pasquale feels that under the time constraints Craig Baird, the

Supercars driving standers observer come Eseries steward, dealt with the incidents well.

“Mine and Shane’s incident at SpaFrancorchamps needed to be looked at, but by the time they had worked

out what happened, the night was done,” De Pasquale told AA. “It is one of those things. If it is as clear as day it is easy to do, but if it is in that grey area it’s hard for those guys, time is not in their favour.”

Throughout the 10 events a large variety of qualifying and race formats were trialled including qualifying Duels and Top 10 Shootouts, reverse grid races and events on banked American Ovals.

All drivers were in favour of the evening schedule shakeups, but De Pasquale was not a fan of the ovals.

An experienced gamer, Lee Holdsworth feels that not everyone was taking the series seriously early on but by the end, everyone was putting some serious time into it.

“Our nature is not oval racing,” he said. “I think that the Michigan track probably suited a Supercar a bit better than Charlotte, you could run a lot wider and you could bump draft a bit better.

Michigan wasn’t too bad, a whole night of it was pretty intense.”

In the reverse grid races Van Gisbergen feels that a number of drivers didn’t mind the odd crash or two and this certainly spiced up the action when coming through the field.

“In the reverse grids, I think some guys were either very inexperienced or not taking it seriously, they were always at the front of the reverse grids and were just happy ppy to be crashing, so that certainly y made it interesting,” he said.

“The reverse grids at the end when everyone was a bit smoother and a bit smarter, were quite enjoyable.”

Tickford Racing driver Lee Holdsworth both agreed that at the start of the campaign only fifty per cent of the drivers were taking it seriously, while the rest thought that the Eseries would be a fun game.

“It was probably a couple of rounds in, drivers realised that this was the only platform on which we were going to be able to use to give our sponsors something back and pat our egos,” Holdsworth joked.

“Everyone upgraded their equipment and after a while started putting in some big hours.”

As a result, the driving quality improved immensely and the racing became a more realistic

Turn one accidents were common everywhere, especially early in the series. Here Chaz Mostert and Scott McLaughlin tangle at the Circuit of the Americas.

simulation of a real Supercars race.

De Pasquale explained that this is all down to the competitive nature of racing drivers.

“Once you get 30 people that are competitive professional racers and put them on a grid, naturally that competitive nature will come out and they will want to get better because we all want to win,” said de Pasquale.

In the early rounds of the Eseries current F1, IndyCar and NASCAR stars regularly joined the field and the TV and viewer numbers were strong and consistent.

However, the figures dropped substantially in the closing weeks, and Holdsworth feels this is due to a number of reasons.

“It was possibly too long, (and) I think the fact real sport started to come back onto the radar has probably taken the focus a little

bit away from it,” he explained to AA. “After a while I think the vibe and the whole excitement of it all wore off, maybe it was a couple of rounds too long.”

It is probable that occasional All Stars races will take place going forward, something that Holdsworth and De Pasquale are not fazed by.

“I wouldn’t want to be doing it as much as we were, but the occasional race here and there would be pretty cool,” Holdsworth said.

De Pasquale concluded by saying everyone is now ready for a race anytime.

“Everyone has got the equipment now and they are familiar with the platform, if there was something, I’d for sure get involved because it is something fun,” he said.

The e-Series action was remarkably real, except when it came to the accidents. They were often spectacular but not realistic.

Here Nick Percat takes a wild ride as the field scatters underneath him.

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THE INSIDE VIEW SUPERCARS GENERAL manager of television and content Nathan Prendergast has been the driving force behind the Supercars All Stars Eseries, so Auto Action spoke to him to get his views on its success.

“It has exceeded expectations,” an elated Prendergast said. “It has been solid entertainment, I’m very pleased with the outcome.”

With the series shown live on Fox Sports as well as being streamed on Ten Play and various Supercars Championship social media channels, Prendergast explained that the series appealed to a whole new audience. And he attributes that partly to the inclusion of international stars such as Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Joey Logano and Alexander Rossi.

“There is no doubt that having some big names involved in the sport drew in extra eyeballs,” he said.

“But you’ll find this has touched a new type of viewer. I don’t think you have to have been a Supercars fan to enjoy the e-Series, it is a modern form of sport and we attracted younger viewers.”

One oddity that attracted a number of viewers was the inclusion of oval racing, which became an instant success and caught even Prendergast by surprise.

“When we first decided to do an oval I only put one race on at Charlotte because I figured it would be the boring one,” he said. “Charlotte was probably the star attraction of the series and it was immediately obvious that we had to go back to an oval.”

One of the key elements of the Supercars e-Series compared to many others around the world was that all of its full-time championship drivers took part.

“Having every Supercars Championship driver compete in our series made ours different, in my opinion. We saw internationally a bunch of other series pop up but they didn’t have everyone,” he recalled.

“Having everyone gave it immediate credibility and gave it immediate synergy that you are watching as close as you can to the real thing, because the real guys are doing it.” DM

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MASTER BUILDER Although his time at the top lasted a mere four seasons, the mark Steve Masterton left was profound with his Pat Purcell-built Ford Falcon XE leading the way in race car design. Here he recalls candidly to HEATH McALPINE the journey ney from builder to race car driver.

IMAGES: autopics.com.au/AN1 ImagesDale Rodgers/AA Archive IN THE early 1980s, Dick Johnson was the driver Ford fans flocked too, but a previously little-known former builder ran a close second.

Sydneysider Steve Masterton earned the tag of a hard charger, who battled the nation’s best Touring Car talent and especially the likes of Allan Grice and Terry Finnigan at Amaroo Park, where packed crowds enjoyed the action in the facility’s natural amphitheatre.

After catching the motor sport bug while

watching Allan Moffat race his famous Coca-Cola Ford Mustang at Warwick Farm during the late’60s, Masterton decided to have a go himself, while working as an apprentice for his family’s building company, Masterton Homes.

Much like his future Ford combatant Johnson, Masterton initially raced Holdens with a Toranaa XU-1 sports sedan built by former Bathurst winner Barry Seton, who played a mentoring role to the young driver.

“I ended up going and seeing

Things get serious ... after learning the ropes in a Torana sports sedan, Masterton took over the Barry Seton Capri.

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Barry Seton because he only lived down B the th road from where I used to live,” said Masterton.

M “He was fantastic, took me under his wing w and taught me the ropes. Barry built me m the engines for my first car, which was an a XU-1 Torana. I built all the bodywork, spray painting and panel beating on it, s when I wasn’t building houses!” w Money was a problem for Masterton, though it didn’t stop him from having early success as Seton’s reliable package and set-up enabled him to defeat the V8 Morris Marina driven by Neil Byers to win his first race at Oran Park.

“I didn’t have any money, I had to build this XU-1 out of my weekly wage,” Masterton remembered.

“It took me a long time, in fact a year and a half to build the car, but I got it pretty right from the start because I had a Barry helping me. I had no trouble with the engine because it was built properly and Barry guided me through the suspension process, as did Don Selby from Selby Suspensions, who sponsored me and did my suspension work as well as gave me components for free. That helped a bit because I was just a young bloke working on a wage the same as anybody else.

“The car started to go alright. Barry used to come to the track with me whether that be Oran Park or Amaroo. He watched what the car was doing, oversteer, understeer and that type of thing, he’d watch the car and make adjustments.”

But the next career move beckoned, Touring Cars.

At Seton’s encouragement Masterton ditched the XU-1 and entered the Touring Car scene in a class capacity, buying his mentor’s Under 3-Litre Ford Capri ahead of the 1978 Bathurst 1000.

“Barry said ‘If you want to become a good driver, you’ve got to get into Touring Cars,’” Masterton recalled.

“Sports sedans weren’t the way to go, Division 2 wasn’t really going to take me anywhere and you’re only running on limited tracks compared to the Touring Cars, which run at circuits across Australia.

“Barry’s advice was to get into the 3-litre class because it wasn’t going to cost a million quid. He prepared the cars for me and my dad bought the first car off Barry and the next one as well.”

Success greeted Masterton at Bathurst immediately by taking the class win with Phil Lucas on debut, as well as taking out the Rookie of the Year, and he still holds vivid memories of his first encounter with Conrod Straight.

“I can remember like it was yesterday.

I got onto Conrod Straight and I bloody shit myself!” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t believe how fast it was. I was terrified.”

Masterton again paired with Lucas the next year, but the duo struck trouble and was unable to emulate their class winning result.

The next season provided a step up

Masterton’s magnificent Pat Purcell built Falcon Touring Car ... arguably the most sophisticated of its era (above). The Sydneysider fielded a pair of Capris in the Australian Touring Car Championship with teammate Colin Bond. Masterton is pictured here at Symmons Plains (left).

in professionalism for the team, as it expanded to a pair of Ford Capris with Masterton joined by none other than former Australian Touring Car Champion and Bathurst winner Colin Bond.

Bond had left the Moffat team after the 1978 season and had been in the wilderness since.

Masterton’s father Jim wanted to expand the team to grow the coverage it received and believed Bond was the perfect fit.

“We wanted to run a two-car team at Amaroo because our building company mainly did business in Western Sydney, so we needed to build on the exposure we were getting already,” Masterton said.

“Colin wasn’t driving for anyone at that time and my dad asked if he would drive a season with us and he agreed. I couldn’t believe it!”

The duo enjoyed great success in the ATCC, highlighted by finishing third and fourth in the 1981 title. Along the way Masterton received an education that set up his future success in outright machinery, but there was still the Better Brakes Series at Amaroo Park to contest for first Under 3-Litre then 3.5-Litre entries.

Bond’s tuition greatly improved Masterton’s driving and he went on to win the Better Brakes Series by a solitary point from Grice in the new JPS BMW 635.

During this time, plans were hatched to run an outright Touring Car contender but the budget wasn’t enough to cover both drivers, leaving Bond to drive with Kevin Bartlett in the Channel 9 Chevrolet Camaro for Bathurst 1982.

“He drove with us for a couple of years and won a lot of races, but when we moved into the Falcons, the building

company was starting to go through a tough time then and we couldn’t afford to run two outright cars,” Masterton recalled.

A class runner up and 13th outright in 1980 at Bathurst was the duo’s best result.

The growing professionalism of Masterton’s racing extended further than the two-car entry, and included an expanded crew with the experienced Reg Varley, Nick Pirozzi and Steven Branch from Peter Williamson’s class winning Toyota team. The workshop was also moved closer to the Masterton Homes head office in Moorebank.

“We started off with a big shed on the block of land where I lived, that’s where I started with the 1979 car, as Barry had prepared the previous car at his workshop,” Masterton reflected.

“Then in 1980, my dad rented a factory across the road from our main office in Moorebank and that became the race division right up until I retired from it.”

The seriousness of the venture was highlighted when Masterton left his post as supervisor within Masterton Homes to drive full-time, a rarity during that era.

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“It was hard to start with because I had my job to do for the company,” Masterton said about the challenge of splitting his time between working and racing.

“I wanted to be involved in the race team even more.

“I ended up quitting the building game and going full-time motor racing, so I was working with mechanics every day, going to the gym. I was just a full-time driver.”

For 1981 Masterton teamed with Bruce Stewart, kicking off a partnership that lasted until the first year of Group A in 1985. It was Seton that suggested Stewart as the perfect co-driver.

“He was a very good driver, very underrated, he didn’t really get the coverage he deserved,” Masterton lauded.

“He was very, very quick and kind on the car, he didn’t kill the bloody thing!”

The pair just missed the class podium in that first year, and that was followed by a disappointing debut in the outright class with an ill-handling Ford Falcon.

In fact, the team removed the front air dam and replaced it with a standard item in a desperate move to sharpen the handling.

“The geometry in the rear-end, it had a long bottom arm and a short top arm, but when you worked it through the arc, it started to fight each other and twist up in the rubber bushes,” Masterton explained.

“Consequently, the car started to rear-wheel steer so what you had to do was reduce the suspension travel to try and keep it all rock solid with not much movement. The bloody thing was diabolical, it was so hard and dangerous to drive, particularly at high speed. It walked across the road in a straight line.”

That wasn’t the only problem with that first Falcon the team built, engine cooling was also a major issue so that the team

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took the decision to bring out American Carroll Smith to oversee its development.

“When we only had 400hp-420hp there was no problem in keeping the oil cool because we had maximum oil cooler capacity of 1-litre,” said Masterton.

“Now when you get up to 500hp, that’s not enough, you can’t cool the engine with a wet sump. So we had to use a dry sump which we didn’t want to do because we wanted to run the car 20kg lighter.

“We were forced to go to the dry sump because we couldn’t cool the oil and once we did that, we had to put restrictors in the thermostat housing to get the engine temperature up.”

This led to the team’s infamous solution of cutting a flap in the front bumper to provide extra cooling, which became a notorious issue after an AMSCAR round.

“All we wanted to do was finish the race so we could get some coverage for the company and put on a good race for the crowd,” recalled Masterton.

“We got a $1000 fine, but we got the

front page of Auto Action, so it was pretty cheap advertising!”

At this stage ex-Bob Jane man Pat Purcell was in charge of the team, backed up by talented engineering brothers John and Dave Skola. This trio began building the team’s second Falcon, which proved to be a gamechanger.

“I crashed the first Falcon in qualifying at Amaroo Park and then we built the new car,” Masterton said.

“The new Falcon was built with a steel roll cage, cross-sectioned as they’re built today in Supercars, welded in everywhere.

“My god you could feel the difference.

“Our car was ahead of its time, we were the first ones to have a roll cage like that, we were the first to have a race car where you opened the bonnet and think ‘shit!

Where is everything? It’s just the engine in there’. It was just the simplest looking engine bay you’d ever seen.

“That Falcon was something different compared to everyone else’s because of

Pat. He built that car like he would have a sports sedan for Bob Jane. Everything was highly refined, like you could wheel align the car from under the bonnet – there was no need to jack it up.

“We had 532hp in 1984!”

Although fast, the Falcon was fragile as the team pushed the limits in pursuit of chasing minimum weight.

“We working on that and it was because we wanted to run the car right on the minimum weight and we had to take the weight out of somewhere,” said Masterton.

“We had to build the car fragile to make it light to comply with the minimum weight, but in hindsight we took the strength out of the wrong areas to save the weight.”

Despite this, the partnership won the 1984 AMSCAR Series against Grice and Terry Finnigan.

The coverage Masterton Homes received from the AMSCAR rounds was incredible, in fact Masterton senior even aided with upgrading the facilities at Amaroo Park.

“I think it helped us a lot,” Masterton remarked. “Dad put a lot of money into Amaroo Park as well, he built the Channel 7 commentary booth there, he sponsored one of the corners, he bought furniture and various other items for the club.”

At the peak of the Masterton Homes racing program, testing was a regular occurrence, while the workshop set-up was first class.

“We could go to the track anytime we wanted to and really build on the development of the car,” Masterton enthused. “We bought our own Superflow dyno, we built a soundproof room in the factory. I was pretty lucky as a young bloke that I had a good dad that supported me.”

Masterton heads a quality field at Oran Park (left) and ends his day at Bathurst (right).

Notoriously, the team’s attempt tto get extra air into the car at Amaroo Park via a flap in the A bumper (right) ended with a b $1000 fine! $

Bathurst failed to provide further success with 1984 a memorable campaign for all the wrong reasons.

It started off well when Masterton made Hardies Heroes, but he tangled with Moffat’s Mazda RX-7 at the start, then later a Capri clipped him approaching Forrest’s Elbow, ending his campaign.

A quick trip to Baskerville ended Group A era and forced a change to Holden for 1985.

“The reason we did that was because we couldn’t get a Mustang in time for Amaroo,” said Masterton.

“We had to be there for the company and the only way we could was to build a local product, so we got a Commodore shell from Melbourne with both Pat and John constructing it.

“It was heavy, it was on small wheels, we had Dunlop tyres but the best was Pirelli, which we couldn’t get.”

It was a forgettable year and combined with a downturn in the building industry, the Masterton’s pulled

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out of motor sport. ou “Nowhere near it, it was a disaster “ looking back on it,” Masterton loo reflected. ref “We had to because the building “ company was going down the co drain, dra we were in a very bad time in business. bus “We “W had aircraft at Bankstown Airport, we had two hangars, we had Airp to sell s those, property and the race car, to save the business. It was quite a

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serious time and we only just saved it.”

There were three further Bathurst starts culminating in 1993 with a second in class alongside Peter Hills in a Under 2-Litre Ford Sierra.

A season in Production Cars occurred in between the Bathurst starts, while taking a break from the building industry he ran his own performance workshop after qualifying as a mechanic.

Masterton returned to the family company later on, but is retired today

and remains busy machining parts for his motorcycles and is still on the Masterton Homes board.

Nonetheless, the Masterton name is set to return to Australian race tracks as the eldest of Steve’s three children James is set to join the V8 Touring Car ranks this year.

And Masterton still holds close ties with Stewart, Bond and Seton to this day, concluding, “I met some great people through motor sport.”

Masterton describes the team’s Group A campaign with a Holden Commodore as “a disaster”. He retired from racing full time shortly after.

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EYE ON THE PRIZE This season marks a big step up for Jayden Ojeda and he has relished it, as he reveals to DAN McCARTHY. FORMER FORMULA 4 champion Jayden Ojeda now has the eyes of the Supercars fraternity upon him, after signalling himself as one of the sport’s rising stars.

A strong junior formula career and debut season in Super3 meant little when pursuing a drive in Supercars’ second tier for this season.

However, a late deal completed prior to Adelaide with title winning MW Motorsport in one of its three Nissan Altimas has enabled him to make this important next career step.

“Jumping off the back of the Super3 season, the obvious progression was to go to Super2, it was just a matter of making it happen,” Ojeda told Auto Action.

“After the final Super3 round, we put our heads down to figure out the best way to make it happen.

“We reached out to all the contacts we could, to try and muster up a bit of backing. It was tough but ultimately we

kept our heads down, put the work in and definitely got what we wanted, it was definitely a rollercoaster of emotions.”

That challenging off season made his impressive results in Adelaide even more fulfilling for the Sydneysider.

“To start your Super2 campaign in Adelaide, where I’d never raced and then get some really strong results against a strong field of drivers, I was ecstatic, we were so over the moon” Ojeda said.

“Leading up to the round it was probably not the best preparation in terms of getting your head into the right gear.

“The week earlier I didn’t think I was going to be driving, so to get yourself going and get yourself in the right headspace and perform at that 100 per cent level, is a credit to everyone at Matt Jayden Ojeda really made his mark in Formula 4 in 2018 (right) and had a similar impact on his Super2 debut in Adelaide (below).

White and everyone in my camp who has supported me.”

From an early age, Ojeda was fascinated by vehicles with wheels, which was further enhanced when his parents gave him a kart as a seventh birthday present.

Starting at local club practice days, Ojeda quickly became a real contender, winning multiple state championships and the KF3 Australian Kart Championship in 2014.

At the age of 15, Ojeda left the familiar

world of karting and recalled the first time he drove a Formula Ford machine.

“It was different, very, very different,” Ojeda told AA. “I remember when I did my first test day I was driving around the pits trying to figure out how to drive a manual in the Formula Ford, so I was definitely thrown into the deep end.”

“It was unique to say the least, but I loved it. The moment I jumped into a Formula Ford I knew that was what I wanted to move into.”

Ojeda was a front runner in Super3 last season, battling for the crown in Michael Andreson’s single car entry (above & below left).

It was a big step from Karting to Formula Ford (right) at just 15 years old but, driving for Michael Borland, Ojeda was a consistent front runner. It confirmed to the young Sydneysider that he wanted to be a professional driver.

Through a friendship with Adam Macrow, Ojeda secured a drive with the Borland Racing Developments squad, competing in the Victorian State Championship in 2015 before stepping up into the national series for 2016 and 2017.

In the Australian Formula Ford series Ojeda competed against the likes of Will Brown, Nathan Herne, Cooper Murray, and now American open-wheel racers Cameron Shields and Hunter McElrea.

Ojeda took two wins alongside multiple podium finishes in both seasons, culminating in fourth on debut in 2016 and third the next year.

“They were a really good couple of years, a few times things didn’t go our way, but that’s racing. It was a really enjoyable time in my career,” he reflected.

At the end of that season Ojeda knew he needed to make the next career move, but the step up proved too steep.

“I knew I needed to move onto something else so we didn’t stagnate too much, (but) coming from my background there isn’t a lot of dollars,” he explained.

“Making the step up in categories is very tough, we knew that.

“We looked at Formula 4 as a bridging year to bridge the gap in budget and get some more runs on the board and a bit more experience in a different car.

“Ultimately we went to Formula 4 with

AGI Sport and Adam Gotch. They are a really good bunch of guys and you saw that in the results. They gelled well both the engineering and the mechanical side of things, in the end we got good results and I believe I got the best out of myself that year.”

His Formula 4 campaign proved a breakout year for Ojeda.

He dominated the series, taking victory in 14 out of the 21 races that season. By winning the title Ojeda earned his first run in a Supercar, taking part in a test driving a Brad Jones Racing Super2 car.

However, Ojeda was yet to find a drive in anything for 2019, until a phone call from Super3 competitor Michael Anderson changed everything.

“We were scratching our heads a little bit and luckily Michael was a lifeline for us,” Ojeda explained to AA. “He gave my mum a call and said he was looking at taking a step back from the driving role and that there was an opportunity. We went and had a meeting with him.

“We managed to jump on board and sign up for the season, next thing you know we are on our way down to Winton before the first round at Phillip Island.

“The competition was really intense throughout the whole year, super close racing between Broc Feeney and the Matt

White boys (Zak Best, Hamish Ribarits and Nic Carroll) as well, overall it was a really, really good year.”

Despite competing as a single-car privateer entry, Ojeda punched above his weight.

After a slow start, he clawed his way back into championship contention with four race victories, including three on the trot.

He briefly led the series but came up just short against now-Tickford Racing Super2 driver Feeney.

The performances that Ojeda produced last year turned heads in the Supercars paddock, and it was no surprise that he was signed up to compete for MW Motorsport in Super2 this season.

Adelaide proved a challenge for Ojeda, but he improved dramatically across the weekend with results of ninth, fourth and fifth, leaving him in that position and leading the rookie standings heading to Round 2 at Winton.

“The goal is the rookie championship.

I think that is achievable, we are leading that one at the moment, then beyond that it would be nice to rack up a few race wins,” he said.

“It has been a big break, so you have to take everything with a bit of a grain of salt and see where it all plateaus out after the next round.”

AutoAction 47

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH Collie Motorplex is Western Australia’s best kept secret, as GARRY O’BRIEN discovered.

Images: Mick Oliver UNLESS YOU are a West Australian and involved in the state level motor sport, there is little likelihood that you will have heard of the Collie Motorplex.

However, that could all be about to change with this little gem of a race track in the south-west of the state, with its very proactive committee steering it towards a busy and bright future.

Multiple V8 Utes, national and state Saloon Car title holder Grant Johnson says it is a great track, particularly with the extension.

“It has undulations, off camber, fast and slow corners, and really benefits clean and hard driving.

“One of the really cool things is that you can camp there at the track. There is nothing better than having family and friends around a camp fire at a race track. It is that ‘old style’ aspect that adds to its appeal,” he said.

Camping isn’t for everyone and the close proximity of the Collie township, which boasts a population of over 7000, offers numerous options in accommodation and dining. Also within a short drive are Stockton Lake, Lake Kepwari and Black Diamond Lake, which are some of area’s biggest tourist attractions.

The 349 hectare site in the Jarrah Forest originally occupied by Western Collieries and used for coal extraction, preparation and stock piling.

When decommissioned in 1998, the lease was taken over by Motoring South West Inc and with the support of the South

West Development Commission was developed into a playground for motor sport enthusiasts.

The project, which had been a vision of the locals for 10 years, involved the development of a high-quality driver training and motor sport complex, to create jobs and enhance business growth in the area by diversifying the economic base from coal mining and power generation.

It immediately attracted club level motor sport as well as four wheel drive, youth, corporate, police and ambulance driver training.

By the early 2000s, the Collie Motorplex project had created a very positive impact on the Collie economy, drawing competitors and spectators to the town spending money on food, drinks, fuel and accommodation.

Amendments to the lease agreement

in 2003 enabled Motoring South West to receive a State Government grant of $1.3million, to undertake track and surrounding improvements. Extensive work to improve safety and facilities were undertaken, enabling the Motorplex the ability to host licensed car and motorcycle racing.

Then in September 2006 the Vintage Sports Car Club of Western Australia joined forces with the Historic Motorcycle Club of Western Australia, to run the inaugural Historic Race and Regularity event, billed as the Coalfield 500 over two days.

South-West Minister Norm Marlborough fired the starter’s gun on the first official motor race to mark the opening of the Collie Motorplex State championship track.

The project took around 12 months to reach fruition and involved track realignment,

A former coal mining site, the Collie Motorplex complex now boasts two road racing circuits, a hillclimb layout and burn-out pad along with ever-improving support facilities.

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widening, kerbing and resurfacing, an under-track entrance tunnel, an upgrade of power and water, new fencing, car parking, better drainage and landscaping. Safety tyre barriers, as well as covered competitor bays were also included.

Spectators were also well catered for with a central hill offering a nearly 80 per cent view of the entire track, coupled with the more traditional track side vantage points.

The complex now featured a 1.6km sealed race circuit, drag strip, burn-out pad, training rooms, a medical centre, kitchen, ablutions block, clubrooms and camping facilities.

The driving force was John Smith, then president of the Collie Motorplex Committee and chairman of voluntary steering committee, who was instrumental in getting CAMS’ endorsement.

Then followed a proposal to further extend the race circuit to make it the longest in the state and the home of state motorcycle racing, as Wanneroo wasn’t available due to insurance concerns.

The upgrade came at a cost of $2.6m together with the donation of 70,000 cubic metres of sand from mining giant Premier Coal.

It added five new corners and enabled it to hold more two-day events.

Other improvements undertaken were the resurfacing of the existing track, improved pedestrian access for enhanced spectator safety, a new footbridge, further spectator and competitor amenities, and the pit area, all completed by the end of 2017.

A CAMS (now Motorsport Australia) and Motorcycling Australia track inspection in 2018 didn’t unearth anything the track principles weren’t already aware of.

Minor works continued to address drainage issues, install flag points, repair rain water damage, install brake makers, tyre buffers and ensure armco railing was compliant.

This certification of the long track paved the way to host the Australian Historic Motorcycle event in September last year.

That came after the Ernie Hastie Memorial Race Meeting for cars in May, which included a couple of the state championship categories.

Primarily home to WA’s state and club racing categories, Collie Motorplex has aspirations of potentially hosting national level events in the future.

FAST FACTS

Grant Johnson explained that since the extension and the resurface of the older track, it has made for a really smooth circuit.

“There used to be quite a bump at Turn 2 which really didn’t bother us (in touring type cars) too much, but you wouldn’t want to be off-line there in something low to the ground.

“I think the bump came about due to the mines that it was originally built over. But the bump is gone now with the resurface.

“If there is one drawback at the moment it is the lack of a proper pit lane, which I believe is the next major project that will be undertaken.

“As it is now, you can’t really pit for repairs as once you leave the track, you are back in the paddock area.

“Other than that, it has some great chicanes where you can attack the kerbs aggressively and good elevation after Turn 5. It crests along the back straight before Turns 6 and 7, which then leads via a fast downhill off-camber run for Turns 8, 9, and

10,” Johnson added.

Runoffs have been well planned with ample areas to arrest speed, regather and return to the circuit.

“Being of hard dirt, they (the runoffs) are very dusty in dry conditions and muddy when it is wet.”

Currently Dr Michael Henderson has the lap record on both tracks with 44.799s (short) and 1min 7.900s (long) in his historic Ralt RT4. A quick Saloon Car is capable of a sub 1m 20s on the new layout, while HQ Holdens are around 10s slower and Excels in the 1m 26s and 27s region.

The Motorplex hillclimb starts at the pit exit after Turn 2 and runs onto the short circuit, before a sharp right onto the long circuit and then continues in the reverse direction through Turns 10 and 9 before it finishes between Turns 8 and 7.

Further applications for funds have been lodged to complete all outstanding track inspection non-compliances, construct a new pit lane to allow higher level events,

refurbish the pits area, and lay bitumen on the remainder of the central area and dummy grid.

Late last year a tender went out to steer the Motorplex in the development of a Marketing Plan. R6 Digital in Brisbane, which has a long history in motor sport and lists Rally Australia as one of its previous clients, was successful, and branding was the first task undertaken.

A new website is currently being built along with marketing and brochures, to be followed by a social media campaign.

One of the new business opportunities identified is to attract corporate use of the facilities during the quieter midweek periods.

Motorplex would like to see high-speed categories such as Superkarts and Superbikes, along with endurance events take place in the future.

It might even lead staging rounds of national motor racing championships, usually limited to the eastern states.

Track length: 1.6 (short circuit) and 2.55 kilometres (long circuit) Track width: 10 metres (minimum) Track corners: 8 (short circuit), 13 (long circuit) Direction: Anti-clockwise Track density: 30 bikes (long) 27 bikes (short), 19 sidecars (long), 17 sidecars (short), 30-54 cars (long), 22-42 cars (short), depending on group/formula Track licence: National and State Level Motorcycle events, Motorsport Australia Category B for both, AASA Category B for both Nearest major town: Collie, 14 kilometres away, 200 kilometres south of Perth Minimum licence requirements: Motorsport Australia: Introductory Licence for Come & Try days/Test’n’Tune, Speed licence for sprint/hillclimb/autocross/ drifting and regularity, and Non-Speed licence motorkhana/khanacross and Clubman/National licence for racing Biggest event held: Australian Historic Motorcycle Racing National Championships Track Operators: Southwest Collie Motorplex Circuit Hours: 6.00am – 6.00pm Manager: Anna Farrell Email: admin@motoringsouthwest.org.au Address: Lot 643 Powerhouse Road, Collie WA 6225 Website: www. motoringsouthwest.org.au Postal Address: Collie Motorplex, PO Box 866 Collie WA 6225

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LATEST e-Series RACE COVERAGE

GIZZY EARNS HARDFOUGHT e-SERIES TITTLE Report: Dan McCarthy Images: Supercars THE 10 round Supercars All Stars Eseries wrapped up with a dramatic final race, and despite a late incident saw Shane van Gisbergen take the crown.

Three races were held on the Michigan International Speedway for the penultimate round of the series, before a race at Oran Park and at Bathurst concluded the e-Series.

The Michigan oval produced lots of action and threw up a few curveballs.

Series leader van Gisbergen had a rollercoaster of a night while his major title rival Scott McLaughlin performed solidly.

In Race 1 van Gisbergen led early but dropped behind McLaughlin and Anton de Pasquale in the opening laps, but the Kiwi then tangled with Macauley Jones and as a result fell to 13th.

After the compulsory pit stop phase McLaughlin and de Pasquale held a comfortable lead over the chasing pack, while van Gisbergen used the stops to get himself back into contention.

He had successfully caught the leading pair by the beginning of the final lap, and with a double tow van Gisbergen was able to slingshot himself into the lead and snatch the win from McLaughlin and de Pasquale.

Race 2 was the final reverse grid of the season, with a mid-race safety car that would bunch up the field and cost a number of the usual midfield contenders a shot at victory.

Van Gisbergen had scythed his way to the front of the pack and held off a last lap attack from Bryce Fullwood, who finished second ahead of McLaughlin and David Reynolds.

The final race of the night caused confusion for a number of drivers, with only one compulsory stop to be served, however, many misread the rules and made two stops.

Van Gisbergen was one of those. He

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The moment of truth, van Gisbergen nails de Pasquale in the last race of the season (above), ending their chances of the race win. Below the e-Series Champ heads the field at Michigan.

led early but did not take on enough fuel in the first stop, and after the second the Kiwi finished 13th.

Up front McLaughlin romped home to victory ahead of Tickford Racing’s Jack Le Brocq and Super2 Wildcard Jordan Boys.

De Pasquale and Chaz Mostert sat second and third but made contact late in the race. Mostert was given a penalty while de Pasquale would finish sixth and as a result dropped out of series title contention.

The final round, a New South Wales double header, was a gripping conclusion to the series.

The opening race saw a return to the now defunct Oran Park Raceway, 10

years after the venue closed.

Van Gisbergen held off a late race charge from de Pasquale, the New Zealander taking the win by 0.45s from the Penrite racer, while Wildcard returnee Brodie Kostecki rounded out the podium places. McLaughlin kept his title hopes alive by finishing a distant fourth ahead of Mostert.

The 31st and final race of the e-Series was held at the famous Mount Panorama Circuit over 14 laps and required two compulsory pit stops.

It was the Wildcards of Kostecki and Harley Haber who started on the front row ahead of de Pasquale and van Gisbergen, with McLaughlin down in seventh.

V8 Touring Car Series driver Haber made a great start from second and led into Hell Corner as the top four quickly broke away from the chasing pack.

In the opening set of stops Kostecki used the undercut strategy to take the lead from Haber. However, the Matt Stone Racing Wildcard retook the lead with an aggressive move at Turn 2 on lap 6. As a result Kostecki ran wide and dropped behind de Pasquale and van Gisbergen when the Kiwi completed his first stop.

During the second pit stop cycle van Gisbergen pitted later than the two drivers ahead of him and with much fresher tyres honed onto the rear of de Pasquale.

At Forests’ Elbow on the penultimate lap van Gisbergen made a move up the inside, tapping the Erebus driver into a spin. To escape a more severe penalty van Gisbergen elected to redress the position, in doing so both drivers fell behind Kostecki and Mostert.

The incident let Haber off the hook and allowed him to romp to a 5.7s win ahead of Kostecki, Mostert and de Pasquale. Van Gisbergen rounded out the top five and this was enough for the Kiwi to win the series.

His rival McLaughlin was running just behind van Gisbergen but crashed and failed to greet the chequered flag.

As a result of the tangle between SVG and de Pasquale, Kostecki inherited the round victory.

SUPERCARS STANDINGS 1 van Gisbergen 2426 2 McLaughlin 2246 3 de Pasquale 2091 4 Waters 2016 5 Mostert 1918 6 Heimgartner 1567 7 Le Brocq 1514 8 Will Davison 1472 9 Coulthard 1461 10 Holdsworth 1407

DRAMA APLENTY IN ARG FINALE Report: Dan McCarthy Images: ARG THE ARG eSport Cup went right down to the wire with a thrilling two-hour long endurance race around the iconic Mount Panorama circuit in Bathurst.

Reigning TCR Europe driver Josh Files and Cooper Webster took the win, while Jaden Ransley took the title.

After nine weeks of competitive sim racing action, the regular Australian Racing Group competitors were required to enlist the services of a codriver for the TCR endurance race that concluded the season.

Supercars Championship stars such as Scott McLaughlin, Shane van Gisbergen and Fabian Coulthard among others thus all competed in the race.

Mathematically five drivers were still in with a shout of winning the title.

V8 Touring Car driver Harley Haber led the series from Ransley and British Touring car driver Ash Sutton, while Dylan O’Keeffe and Jordan Cox remained outside chances.

In identical Audi RS3 LMS TCR

machines, it was sim racer Jackson Souslin-Harlow, co-driver to O’Keeffe, who took pole position, just 0.091s faster than Files. It would be these two duos who would fight for the victory in the thrilling closing laps of the race.

The first hour of the race contained a fierce battle between three title contenders Haber, Ransley and O’Keeffe, and ended in tears as the trio all made contact coming out of The Chase.

Haber was given a drive-through penalty which was the beginning of the end for his title hopes.

Haber served the penalty just before the safety car was called with 64 minutes to go. During this caution a majority of the teams elected to change drivers, Haber hopped out and allowed sim racer Fawzen El-Nabi to take over.

Shortly after the restart, El-Nabi was innocently caught up in an incident at McPhillamy Park which forced him to make an unscheduled stop for repairs.

With 18 minutes to go Webster led Souslin-Harlow, van Gisbergen and Andre Heimgartner, who was driving

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alongside fellow Kiwi Ransley, now champion elect.

In the closing laps the leading pair held a big margin over the chasing pack, the Audis swapping places multiple times in an enthralling battle for the race win.

On the final lap into Hell Corner Webster made an aggressive move stick to take the lead. With slightly older tyres Souslin Harlow tried to keep with the leader over the top of the mountain, however he ran slightly wide and bounced off the wall just after the Dipper, and this was enough to let Webster off the hook down Conrod Straight.

Webster and Files took the win by 0.8s from Souslin-Harlow and O’Keeffe, while 7s further back reigning Supercars champ McLaughlin earnt he and Ben McMellan the final spot on the podium.

The current Bathurst 1000 winner had overtaken fellow Kiwi Heimgartner for third position at the Chase on the final lap.

This was because Heimgartner wanted to safely bring his Audi home

SUPERIOR ENGINE ENAMELS

Josh Files and Cooper Webster took the final race of the ARG eSeries Cup, the two-hour endurance race at Mt Panorama.

so that co-driver Ransley could claim the inaugural ARG eSport Cup crown.

Despite not winning a race all season Ransley was always up the front and this consistency in the end is what earnt him the title.

Aaron Seton and Ed Williams finished fifth ahead of Tom Randle and Lochie Hughes. Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander held off fellow Supercars championship duo Fabian Coulthard and Tony D’Alberto for seventh.

Nathan Herne and teammate Cody Burcher recovered from an early race incident to finish ninth ahead of James Golding and Brad Newman.

ARG eSeries Cup –Series Standings 1 – Jaden Ransley – 589 2 – Harley Haber – 584 3 – Dylan O’Keeffe – 546 4 – Jordan Cox – 494 5 – Ash Sutton – 487 6 – Nathan Herne – 455 7 – James Golding – 450 8 – Garth Tander – 427 9 – Aaron Seton – 355 10 – Tim Brook – 352

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New Zealander Scott Dixon celebrates his win with team owner Chip Ganassi.

USA NEWS

DOMINANT DIXON Report: Dan McCarthy Images: LAT Images THE INDYCAR Series is back and New Zealander Scott Dixon dominated the opening round of the season at the Texas Motor Speedway oval.

Practice, Qualifying and the race all took place on the one day with no support categories, no fans and all team members sticking to strict social distancing measures.

Five-time IndyCar Series champion Dixon could not be stopped as he powered to his 47th career victory, ahead of two Team Penske Chevrolets.

Reigning Indy 500 race winner Simon Pagenaud finished second ahead of polesitter and reigning series champion Josef Newgarden, who suffered a race long vibration issue.

“It was such a team effort,” Dixon said.

“Honda, the power – it was huge. I don’t know what was with this PNC Bank car, but it was just so fast.

“Any situation we were in, we could just go for it. Huge thanks to everybody involved, (I’m) bummed the fans aren’t here, (I) wish everybody was here to celebrate.”

Zach Veach finished an impressive fourth, his joint career best finish. Ed Carpenter, who is only competing in the five oval races this season, rounded out the top five.

Conor Daly finished sixth ahead of Colton Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Arrow McLaren SP rookie Oliver Askew and veteran Brazilian Tony Kanaan.

Australian Will Power was running comfortably inside the top 10 when a pit stop problem put him a lap down. He recovered to finish in 13th position.

The Chip Ganassi Racing squad appeared set for a 1-2 finish in the opening race of the season, as second-

54 AutoAction

In front of empty grandstands at Texas Motor Speedway, Dixon started the 2020 season perfectly, with a dominant win for the Hondapowered team (above), while McLaren SP rookie Oliver Askew finished solidly in the top 10 (below).

year driver Felix Rosenqvist attempted to hunt down his illustrious teammate in his quest for a maiden victory.

With the Kiwi stuck in traffic, the Swede cut the margin down from 6s to just 0.4s and remained line astern for 16 laps, until the final pitstops commenced.

Rosenvist was the first to blink but emerged in traffic, while his teammate pitted a lap later and re-joined with a sizeable margin.

With nine laps remaining and in a bid to stay in touch with Dixon, Rosenvist attempted to lap James Hinchcliffe on the outside.

The Swede lost the rear of his car and spun backwards into the wall on

the outside of Turn 2, triggering the deployment of a safety car.

“I can’t blame others for whatever situation I had, we came out on new tyres,” Rosenqvist explained.

“I don’t know if James was on really old tyres, it’s my judgment, but I went for the outside, probably shouldn’t have done it.

“It’s one of those things where you sit there, and you’re going 40 mph slower than you want to go behind another car.

It’s kind of tempting to just move up one lane. But it was just so slippery, and I just feel very sorry for my guys.

“The NTT Data car was really unbelievable tonight. It was my

breakthrough on ovals, I think. I had a really good shot there and threw it away, I’m really disappointed.”

The restart occurred with just three laps remaining, but Dixon was comfortable as he had a number of back markers between himself and Pagenaud, and as a result was able to cruise to a 4.4s win.

As he crossed the line a caution was thrown for Charlie Kimball, who looked set for a top 10 finish until he crashed at Turn 2.

A noticeable absentee from the top 10 was Alexander Rossi, who missed the opening laps of the race due to a software glitch on his Andretti Autosport Honda. He instantly went two laps down, but finished in 15th.

Rossi faired a lot better than fellow former Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato, whose car could not be repaired in time after a heavy qualifying crash.

The second round of the IndyCar Series takes place on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on July 5.

Points: Dixon 53, Pagenaud 40, Newgarden 37, Veach 33, Carpenter 30, Daly 28, Herta 26, Hunter-Reay 24, Askew 22, Kanaan 20.

NASCAR series leader Kevin Harvick won at Atlanta Motor Speedway to retain his points lead.

TRIO OF WINNERS IN A WEEK Report: Dan McCarthy Images: LAT Images NASCAR CUP Series races are being completed with vigorous regularity, with races 10, 11 and 12 all run within a week and victories split between Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr and Denny Hamlin.

The first race of the three events was held at Atlanta Motor Speedway, a 325 lap encounter won by series leader Harvick, who beat home a pair of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas.

Kyle Busch finished the race in second position ahead of Truex, who won two stages. Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney finished the race in fourth ahead of Hamlin, Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson, who continued his strong start to his last NASCAR season.

Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano rounded out a quality top 10.

The mid-week 500 lap race at Martinsville Speedway was won by Truex. The 2017 Cup Series champion struggled for luck in the opening rounds of the season, but his fortunes turned around at Martinsville.

Truex overcame an early race penalty to take the

Chase Elliot leads (above) and is a strong second in the points, just eight points behind. Martin Truex Jr (above right) won at Martinsville.

first race win of his campaign and the first with Aussie James Small as his Crew Chief (see News page 12).

Truex took the victory by beating home a trio of Team Penske Ford Mustangs, Blaney from Keselowski and Logano, with Chevrolet driver Elliott rounding out the top five.

A trip to the Homestead-Miami Speedway saw Denny Hamlin take the win after leading 138 of the 267 laps, though his victory proved to be anything but easy.

The Daytona 500 winner was put under pressure in the closing laps by a group of cars but kept his cool to take his third win of the season and 40th of his career, despite the race

being delayed due to lightning strikes for nearly three hours.

Shortly after the final green flag stops, Hamlin caught and passed Elliott as they lapped early race leader Logano.

“Our car was just really good,” Hamlin said.

“This is the car kinda based off what we had here in the fall last year, going for the (2019) championship.

“We had a strong car all day, obviously, with the laps led and were able to get around Chase there at the end. This whole FedEx team has just done a phenomenal job and this Camry, this one is real special.”

“I didn’t know. It seemed like the end of these

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races seem to be Chase’s best suit, but I knew that if I was just patient and ran the pace I wanted and the pace I was comfortable with, we were going to be hard to beat in the long run.”

Rookie Tyler Reddick finished a career high fourth place ahead of Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, rookie Christopher Bell, William Byron and Brad Keselowski, who rounded out the top 10.

Series contenders Harvick and Logano collided in the pit lane and as a result finished in 26th and 27th respectively.

Despite the incident Harvick remains on top the Cup Series standings by eight points from Elliott with Logano in third.

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‘What’s In The Workshop’ showcases just that, what’s going on in race workshops around the country. If you have a new racing project you’d like to share, drop us a line at editor@autoaction.com.au Please attach images, contact details and a short explanation of the project.

MTECH

A DEVELOPMENT program centred around providing a pathway for young drivers to got to Europe fully prepared for a career there and, in contrast, a 200mph record breaker motorbike are the basis of Toyota Racing Series team MTECH’s activity during the enforced break.

Speaking with Auto Action during a test session at Winton, MTEC’s Bruin Beasley detailed his development program, which hopes to find a future Australian Formula 1 driver.

“We’ve got some Formula 4 cars that we’ve been using for testing with karting kids, to get them ready to move onto the next stage in Europe,” Beasley told Auto Action.

“The two kids that we’re working with at the moment were going to go to Europe this year and do some testing with teams to get them ready for 2021. Obviously, we haven’t been able to do that due to COVID-19, so we’ve put our heads down and completed some testing (here). We’ve been hiring race tracks and doing one-on-one days, which has been really good.”

The aim of this program is to prepare drivers by introducing them to the same cars that they will encounter in Europe, while also trying to in-

MTECH utilises a fleet of Formula 4s as part of its driver development program. crease networks at the same time.

“The aim is, once things open up, to take them to Europe,” Beasley said. “Discussion have been had with teams with the expectation that kids stay and do some Formula 4 racing next year.

“We’re facilitating the deals over there and doing all the ground work here, before we take them over. We can test, teach, then introduce them to the right people to hopefully make them into Formula 1 drivers.”

Meanwhile, another long-time project of Beasley’s is a 200mph record breaker motor bike, which features a rear-mounted R1 engine and plenty of custom components. Beasley planned to take it to the legendary Bonneville salt flats in the US, but has now devised a program that will kick off at Lake Gairdner in South Australia next year.

“With it being so busy over the past 18 months, I haven’t had a chance to do anything (with the bike) so

while things have been down, I put it all pretty much back together and hopefully later next week it will be finished,” Beasley said.

“We are hoping to do some test runs at an airport before going to Lake Gairdner next year and see what happens.”

The aim is to hit 200mph, which is believed to be an Australian record for its class. And if all goes well, the bike could be headed to Bonneville after that. HM

have one in the workshop, but the rest of the parts are ready available from BMW or we get a lot of components from America.

“It’s not easy, but there are lots of people around that have components in their shed, as they ran those cars. Driveshafts are among the bits and bobs that I need to make the thing nice again, so the search is going to be vast to find it.”

The team is also full steam ahead with its TCR programs.

Track Tec was set to participate in the Asia Pacific Cup at the Australian Grand

Prix, and TCR Australia’s opening round at Sydney Motorsport Park earlier this year with its pair of Audi RS3s.

Although the team went back to New Zealand, the cars and tools remained in Australia in preparation for racing to resume.

Track Tec are now on the search for drivers, as Dutchman Stan van Oord now can’t travel and Jack Milligan has budget constraints.

In the meantime, a third Audi RS3 LMS TCR is still at Track Tec’s base at Highlands Motorsport Park, where testing of potential drivers and rising stars is on the cards.

“We have three TCRs and two of them are in the container in Melbourne at the moment, due to the Grand Prix cancellation,” Waters explained.

“We are still waiting for the bubble to expand so we can travel to Australia and do the TCR Series with those two cars.

The third TCR we have over here, we plan to do some testing with some potential TCR Australia drivers and Kiwi kids.

“We’ve held back on bringing the cars back for as long as we can, because we want to do the series.”

Track Tec also has some minor projects happening in the background including preparing the last competing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo for the upcoming endurance championship, as well as restoring a few French hatchbacks, a personal passion of Waters’. HM

TRACK TEC

NEW ZEALAND-BASED TCR Australia team Track Tec Racing has entered something of a ‘time warp’ during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Owner Matt Waters explained that the team had focused its efforts on restoring two BMW super tourers during the period, one of which carries with it a bit of infamy.

“We have two BMWs that were both Bigazzi run cars. One is being stripped at the moment and basically having a complete recondition,” Waters told Auto Action.

“It will receive a brand new engine, which is on the dyno. We are bringing the car back to its former glory.

“One is an ex-Paul Morris BMW 318is that is a 1993 model and (which) he drove in 1994.

“We believe it’s the car that tangled with teammate Tony Longhurst at Winton, resulting in the famous incident where Longhurst punched Morris through the window.”

Parts delays have meant that the focus is on preparing the BMWs for the New Zealand Historic Touring Car Championship, which sees many other Super Tourers competing, including the rare Mazda Xedos.

56 AutoAction

“With COVID-19 parts are an issue so we’ll get them on track as soon as we can,” said Waters.

“Ideally, we were going to Bathurst this year because they were going to do a historic touring car event up there, but we’ve decided to restore them before we do that.

“At the moment, the engine is easy, we have had a guy in Auckland sourcing the parts for us. We’re not going to use a genuine BMW Motorsport block because they are too expensive. You can buy them, we

p ra w S L NATIONA

RACING RETURNS AT SMP

BIG FIELDS and close competition heralded the return of racing at last, at Sydney Motorsport Park where Motor Racing Australia produced a well thought out program on June 13.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, the organisers managed five categories in a one-day format, shuffling them in and out of the complex in blocks of qualifying and races, some of which were run back-to-back.

Images: Riccardo Benvenuti Supercar driver Anton De Pasquale and Super2 driver Broc Feeney teammed up to win the Excel enduro (above), while Honda duo Drew Hall and Jimmy Tran head the Super TTs.

SUPER TTs

EXCELS

THE SUPERCAR pairing of Anton De Pasquale and Broc Feeney were clear-cut winners in the one-hour enduro, some 16s in front of the single driver efforts of Jeremy Hodges and Michael Clemente who filled the minor placings. Preston Breust and Wil Longmore battled for many laps to decide fourth and fifth.

From pole positon De Pasquale dropped to sixth on the opening lap behind Hodges, Wil Longmore, Breust and Ben Crosslands, before he recovered to second by the sixth lap.

Crossland speared off into the Turn 1 into the Turn 1 tyres on lap two, with Mat Woodward and Michael Hodge off as well.

It brought about an early safety car, followed by a second when Nash Morris (sharing with Brodie Kostecki) and Brian Sciberras clashed at Turn 2. That incident triggered most to take the mandatory pitstop, from which Feeney was able to resume in sixth and work his way through to victory.

PULSARS

OVER THE two half-hour races, the honours were split between Josh Craig and Tim Colombrita, with the first coming far easier than race two – the race of the day – where a tight three-way tussle that raged all the way.

Craig was qualifying’s fastest and led from the outset ahead of Harri Inwood, Colombrita, Matt Boylan, Michael Osmond and Brianna Wilson. However the safety car was out as the second lap started with Michael Ricketts and Ryan Gilroy stranded at separate points on the circuit.

Once racing resumed, Craig maintained his lead as Colombrita secured second ahead of Osmond who took third ahead of Boylan,

dominated d i d the h results l in i both b h while hil the h best b off RX8s was Ryan Gorton with a ninth and fifth.

Verne Johnson (MX5) was the early pacesetter in race one ahead of Herring before Harris scooted past. Fourth went to Rob Hay ahead of Todd Herring, a tight finish between Stuart McFadyen and David Johnson, and Andrew Boydell as Will Harris (RX8) took 10th.

The grid was jumbled for race two where Johnson led early before retiring with a clutch issue, Andy Harris was on a charge until a tyre let go, and Todd Herring went out with a turbo issue.

Behind Tim Herring, Roby Hay (MX5) was second ahead of Boydell and McFadyen. Again it was Will Harris second of the RX8s in sixth ahead of Ben Oldfield and Steven Head, both in MX5s.

Inwood and Wilson with a gap to Ben Sheedy and William Foot.

Colombrita jumped ahead of Craig at the second race start and survived every challenge Craig and Boylan tossed at him. Craig gained the lead a couple of times but couldn’t sustain it, with Boylan likewise second on occasions.

At the finish it was Colombrita just in front of Craig with Boylan behind them. Fourth was a five-way tussle and was also up in the air until the 12th tour, when Osmond went off at Turn 2 recovering behind Foot and Josh Haynes.

Wilson was next before she received a 5s penalty and relegated to eighth behind Gavan Reynolds.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION

AFTER THEY qualified separately, under and over two litre cars raced together through three races.

It was Kurt Macready in his U2L Nissan Silvia who starred. He was the fastest qualifier overall and won two of the three races outright.

Quickest of the O2Ls was Victorian Nathan Robinson in his first NSW visit, who showed the way until the gearbox blew in his BMW E46 M3. Running strongly in the battle for third early, Steve Engel (Mitsubishi EVO 7) retired after copping a hit.

Later Stig Richards (Mazda RX7) surrendered

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fourth outright with a blown turbo hose. In the meantime Michael King (EVO) who started out of 18th, charged through to second ahead of Scott Tutton (EVO) and the BMWs driven

by Peter Hennessy and Lachlan McBrien, Ryan Jagger (Holden Barina) and Matt O’Brien (Holden Commodore).

A crash at the start stopped race two. Matt Dwyer was stranded on the grid when slammed into by Peter McCallum (Ford Capri). From the restart it was King all the way. Tutton held second initially before Macready slipped past.

Hennessy and McBrien followed ahead of a three-way duel involving Andrew McMaster (BMW), Bob Jowett (Hondaa Civic) and Jagger.

King didn’t contest the last and early leader Tutton went out with a tyre delamination. That left Macready to take an easy win over Jowett, Hennesy, McBrien and McMaster.

Graham Bohm (Civic) picked up sixth,, helped by the retirement of Jagger with overheating.

QUALIFYING DRAMAS, a team one-two result and a big comeback were the highlights.

Steven Lacey (Holden Commodore) crashed heavily before posting a time. Ashley Slavkovic (Nissan S13/LS) set the fastest time but a blown diff put him out of race one, whereas Barry Sternbeck (HSV Clubsport) was out with a broken block after posting the seventh best time.

That paved the way for BYP Racing to show the way. Jimmy Tran (Honda Civic) led early before team mate Drew Hall (Honda Integra) passed him for the win. John Ford (Nissan Skyline/LS) was third ahead of Joe Krinelos (HSV GTS), Julian Burke (BMW Z3), Dennis Pana and Corrine Virag, both in Commodores.

Slavkovic had affected repairs in time for race two, came off the back to forge through for the win. Todd Herring (MX5) was second and Ford crossed the line third, which became fourth behind Hall after a 5s penalty was applied. Tran and Tony Virag (in the Kinelos GTS) were next two ahead of Geoff Kite (Clubsport). GOB

MX5s & MX8s

HERRING RACING was victorious in both all Mazda races with Andy Harris winning the first and Tim Herring the second. MX5s

Pulsars saw some tight racing, here with Tim Colombrita ahead of Josh Craig. Image: Bruce Moxon.

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AutoAction

57

We take a look back at who or what was making news in the pages of Auto Action 10, 20, 30 & 40 years ago

Testing your motor sport knowledge

1980: THE FRENCH Grand Prix was the halfway mark of the Formula 1 World Championship and proved a critical point of the season, when Alan Jones took the title lead. It was a psychological boost for the Australian after the non-points affair in Spain. Back on local shores, Allan Grice took a pair of wins in the BMW 318i Turbo as he rebounded back into Australian Sports Sedan Championship title contention at Lakeside.

1990: THE BATTLE for the Australian Touring Car Championship was heating up after Peter Brock won the penultimate round at Barbagallo.

Dick Johnson’s retirement due to brake failure dropped him out of the lead with Jim Richards taking it over by three-points. Having already won two rounds, Colin Bond was also in with a sniff. Meanwhile, CAMS was waiting on the FIA to confirm its regulation set for 1992.

2000: MARK LARKHAM looked to overseas for his co-driver, recruiting British Touring Car Champion Alain Menu for his endurance campaign.

Foges chatted with BTCC boss Alan Gow about the title’s growth and his highlights during the past 10 years of Super Touring. Michael Schumacher was winning in Montreal and Helio Castroneves took his maiden victory in Detroit.

ACROSS

3. In the inaugural S5000 Championship round at Sandown last year who won the first heat? (full name) 5. Mark Winterbottom won the first Bathurst 1000 in the Car of the Future era, who was his co-driver? (full name) 7. Only one driver has won multiple Australian Carrera Cup Series titles, who is it? (full name) 11. At the age of 22 who became the youngest FIA World Rally Championship event winner in history? (surname) 13. Who currently leads the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship? (surname) 14. How many race wins has John Bowe taken in Touring Car Masters?

17. What is the name of David Reynolds’ race engineer at Erebus Motorsport?

20. The 1989 F1 season was dominated by McLaren but who won the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide?

22. Which Queensland track has been dropped from the Australian Racing Group calendar?

24. Who caused the first ever safety car to be called in the Bathurst 1000 in 1987? (surname) 26. Who won the 2019 Australian Superbike Championship? (surname)

58 AutoAction

28 Who won the final Australian Drivers’ 28.

Championship in a Formula Holden in 2002? (full name) 29. Who is the reigning IndyCar Champion? (surname) 30. Giancarlo Fisichella won the Australian Grand Prix in 2005, but for what team was he driving?

DOWN

1. Who won the first race of the 2020 Supercars Championship? (full name) 2. Two Australian Carrera Cup Series winners will compete in Porsche Supercup this season, Jaxon Evans and who? (full name) 4. Six-time FIA World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier is what nationality?

6. With what team did the late Roland Ratzenberger compete for in the 1987 Bathurst 1000?

8. Who won the Bathurst 1000 with Greg Murphy in 2003? (full name) 9. In the 2013 Supercars Championship Lee

2010: GARTH TANDER was not in panic mode after a disappointing round at Darwin. The 2007 championn sat 456-points behind title leader James Courtney, and was looking forward to Townsville after debuting a new chassis at Hidden Valley.

There was a horrifying ride for Mark Webber in the European Grand Prix, earning praise for his reaction during the aftermath.

Holdsworth, Tim Slade and who drove for Erebus full-time? (full name) 10. Charles Leclerc made his Formula 1 practice debut with which team?

12. In what brand of car did Darren Hossack win the 2008 National Sports Sedan series?

15. At what venue did Charles Leclerc make his Formula 1 race weekend debut in 2016?

16. At which circuit will the 2020/21 TCR Australia season conclude?

18. The 1991 Australian Grand Prix remains the shortest race in F1 history, how many minutes was it before the race was red flagged?

19. In 1957 the first Australian Drivers’ Championship was held, who was the inaugural season winner? (full name) 21. Who is the only F1 driver to win in the V10, V8 and V6 turbo hybrid era? (surname) 23. It which Grand Prix did Michael Schumacher claim his last F1 podium in 2012?

25. Who recorded more MotoGP race wins, Mick Doohan or Casey Stoner? (surname) 27. How many MotoGP titles has Marc Marquez taken?

#1787 Crossword Answers 1 down – Phillip Island 2 down – Skaife 3 across – Jim Richards 4 down – fourteen 5 across – four 6 across – Dumbrell 7 across – third 8 down – two 9 down – fourth 10 across – Will Davison 11 across – twenty two 11 down – Todd Kelly 12 down – Nick Percat 13 across – Winfield

14 across – zero 15 down – Rene Arnoux 16 across – Shane van Gisbergen 17 down – Skelton 18 down – XB Falcon 19 across – Gibbs 20 down – WA 21 down – Sierra 22 across – Mallala 23 down – Lowndes 24 across – Alfa Romeo 25 across – Pironi 26 down – VY 27 across – Whincup 28 across – Daly 29 across - Kate

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Relive the golden era of Australian motor sport with these fantastic ’Bathurst Photographic History’ books These A4 landscape books are full of rare action images taken by some of Australia’s best motorsport photographers, which you won’t see published anywhere else. Start your own library or give as a gift.

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HARDIE FERODO 500 - 1970 A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY 160 page book features imagery of every car that started in the 1970 event.

PHILLIP ISLAND TO BATHURST - THE TRADITIONAL YEARS RESULTS 160 page book features detailed information on every car that started in the original/traditional Phillip Island and Bathurst 500/1000 races from 1960 to 1999.

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This 176-page book features imagery of every XU-1 Torana that started in the 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973 Hardie Ferodo Bathurst 500’s. Foreword by Colin Bond and a good mix of colour and black and white images.

BATHURST ROTARY MAZDAS A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY This 176 page book features imagery of every Rotary Mazda that started in the Bathurst Hardie Ferodo and James Hardie races from 1969 to 1985. The book is foreworded by Don Holland.

BATHURST HARDTOP FALCONS A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY This 192 page book features imagery of every Hardtop Falcon that started in the 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979 Bathurst Hardie Ferodo 1000 races.

The book is foreworded by Kevin Bartlett.

A mix of colour and black and white images.

BATHURST XD AND XE FALCONS This 160-page book features imagery of every XD and XE Falcon that started the 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984 Bathurst 1000 races. Bob Morris and Garry Willmington have written the Forward to this colourful book with a great mix of colour and black and white images.

BATHURST A9X TORANAS BATHURST GT-HO FALCONS A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY This 176-page book features imagery of every This 160 page book features imagery of A9X Torana that started in the 1977, 1978 and every GT-HO Falcon that started in the 1979 Hardie Ferodo Bathurst 1000 races.

1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972 Hardie Ferodo With a Foreword by Bob Morris, it features an 500 races at Bathurst – with a good mix of colour and black and white. The foreword interview withJim Richards who won Bathurst three years in a row with Peter Brock in the is by John Goss. mighty A9X Torana.

BATHURST GTS MONAROS This 144-page book features imagery of every Monaro that started in the 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973 and 1974 Bathurst Hardie Ferodo races.

The book has co-Forewords by Bruce McPhee and Colin Bond and has a good mix of colour and black and white images.

BATHURST CHARGERS AND PACERS This 160-page book features imagery of every Charger and Pacer that started in the 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973 Hardie Ferodo Bathurst races. The book’s Forwarded is by Leo Geoghegan and has a good mix of colour and black and white images.

To place an order via email send to: bruce@autoaction.com.au or give us call at Auto Action HQ on 03 9563 2107

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SB-375 Sandblasting Cabinet

339

Order Code: A380

SAVE $46

ARMM800QL Professional Hydraulic Trolley Jack

$1 2000kg capacity $8675$/, '6 Steel construction 67$1'$5 Quick lift dual pump 7(67(' No load 6 pumps maximum height • 130~470mm lift height • • • •

Order Code: J021

253

$

429

995

Includes: 2T Trolley Jack (J021) 3T Axle Stands (A3435) Pick Up Tool (M0010)

ARMSTRONG Better by design

Order Code: K105

301

$

SAVE $89.50 off RRP

1,397

$

SAVE $209

SAVE $33

ARMARJ2000 Professional Hydraulic Trolley Jack 21/<

$1 2500kg capacity $8675$/, '6 Steel construction 67$1'$5 Fast lift, two piston pump 7(67(' Universal joint release 102~520mm lift height

• • • • •

Order Code: J022

ALP-1 - Automotive Lifting Garage Package Deal

Hydraulic Engine Crane (A350) 450kg Engine Stand (A341) 2T Trolley Jack (J021) 3T Axle Stands (A3435) Creeper Trolley (A005)

2000kg capacity 6 :(,*+ Alloy construction .* Fast lift, two piston pump 97~490mm lift height Australian Standards Tested

Order Code: J024

341

Order Code: K096

495

$

715

$

SAVE $22

$

SAVE $55

TJA-25S Hydraulic Steel Trolley Jack & Axle Stands Package Deal

Includes: 2.5T Trolley Jack (J022) 3T Axle Stands (A3435) Pick Up Tool (M0010)

ARMSTRONG

453l/min. W-triple pump 125 litre tank 120psi pressure 3hp, 240V

Order Code: C345

1,980

SAVE $160

SAVE $22

TJA-2S Hydraulic Steel Trolley Jack & Axle Stands Package Deal

Order Code: S305

$

ARMM901QL Professional Quick Lift Hydraulic Trolley Jack • • • • •

• • • •

)227 ' 7( 23(5$

$

SAVE $66

SUPER 16 Air Compressor

• Heavy-duty steel cabinet • 1175 x 885 x 625-845mm blast area • Includes. vacuum system, LED light, tempered glass screen, gloves, gun & ceramic nozzle

Order Code: S300

$

GREAT VALUE

SBC-990 Sandblasting Cabinet

vacuum system, LED light, tempered glass screen, gloves, gun & ceramic nozzle

$

$

GREAT VALUE

• Heavy-duty steel cabinet • 2000 x 640 x 870mm +($9< • 940 x 600 • 3 Lockable drawers '87<

• Huge shelf compartment 67((/ ,21 x 340-580mm 7 blast area & 58 • Bearing slide drawers &2167 • Includes

Order Code: A385

473

$

SAVE $66

0,187( $,5 )/2:

Order Code: V508

TJA-2A Hydraulic Alloy Trolley Jack & Axle Stands Package Deal

Includes: 2T Alloy Trolley Jack (J024) 3T Axle Stands (A3435) Pick Up Tool (M0010)

SAVE $154 off RRP

ALP-2 - Automotive Lifting Workshop Package Deal

Pneumatic & Hydraulic Engine Crane (A351) 907kg Engine Stand (A340) 2T Trolley Jack (J021) 3T Axle Stands (A3435) 2 in 1 Mechanics Creeper & Seat (A006) Mobile Cabinet Seat (A001) 907kg Engine Tilter (A3425)

ARMSTRONG

Better by design

Better by design

Order Code: K106

396

$

SAVE $82.50 off RRP

Order Code: K107

550

$

SAVE $115.50 off RRP

Order Code: K097

1,045

$

SAVE $198 off RRP

BUY & INSTALL BEFORE JUNE 30TH

TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE $150,000 INSTANT ASSET WRITE-OFF! NOW! FOR BUSINESS UP TO $500 MILLION TURNOVER! UNIQUE PROMO CODE

EOFY20

ONLINE OR INSTORE!

FFOR OR SPECIAL SPECIAL DEALS DEALS VISIT VISIT

MACHINERYHOUSE.COM.AU SYDNEY

BRISBANE

MELBOURNE

PERTH

(02) 9890 9111 (07) 3715 2200 (03) 9212 4422 (08) 9373 9999 Specifications & Prices are subject to change without notification. All prices include GST and valid until 30-06-20

06_AA_180620

• • • •

• 2 x 1200W = 2400W 240V motors • Portable on wheels • 80L stainless steel tank • Include: brush,

crevice tool, wet & dry /,75(6 floor nozzle 3(5

(6 3(5 /,75,5 )/2: 0,187( $

396

WBS-3D Steel Work Bench

WDV-8 Industrial Wet & Dry Vacuum Cleaner

1200W 240V motor Portable on wheels 30L stainless steel tank Auto-switch power tool socket Include: brush, crevice tool, wet & dry floor nozzle

$

SAVE $22

ETT-1D Steel Gearbox & Engine Tear Down Table

• • • • •

Order Code: P011

$

SAVE $22

WDV-3P Workshop Wet & Dry Vacuum Cleaner

1( 7218/,& +<'5$ 5$0

Order Code: N001

132

$

SAVE $27

22 piece set Internal & external 2 or 3 leg design 10 tonne ram

$/ 237,21/ 67(( 76 8 5,9(7 1

Order Code: G063

149

HGP-22 Hydraulic Gear Puller Kit

One-hand operation <($5 7< 230mm flexible hose $1 :$55 Super-grip coupler Bulk or cartridge filled Made in Australia

$

SAVE $35

• • • •

• • • • •

Order Code: M697

$

RNB40- Nut & Blind Riveter Set • Aluminium rivet nut inserts: M5, M6, M8, M10 - (10ea) • Blind aluminium rivets: Ø3.2, Ø4.0, Ø4.8, Ø6.4mm (20 of each size) • Mandrel spanner & case

140 litre tank 180 litre/hr 240V pump Safety link on lid 1060 x 520 x 270mm

Order Code: A374

77

K29 FLEXIGUN Grease Gun

• 12mm IP67 camera with 1M cable • LED lighting • Includes cable, magnetic pick up & mirror tool

APW-140 Auto Parts Washer

$

SAVE $6.60

VS-1000 Portable Video Inspection Camera

/( )/(;,%==/( 2 1 )/8,'

• • • •

Order Code: A370

$

SAT. 13TH, 20TH & 27TH OF JUNE! TH