r
Super title
Brad snares
Issue 135
$4.20 (NZ$5.95lncl GST)
NEWS
11-24 September 1998
Control tyre is go, but HRT legal threat HOLDEN Racing team chief John Crennan may be preparing to stop the introduction of control
tyres to V8 Supercar rac ing next season by legally challenging the validity of the Touring Car Entrants' Group, TEGA. Some
%
rival
teams
have
accused the Holden factory team boss of refusing to accept the will of the vast majority and
By PHIL BRANAGAN
hers, Crennan has suggested that there are "glaring and appalling oversights and a lack
Board meeting held in Sydney on September 1 be postponed for 30 days to enable "necessary
the way in which it is proposed to implement a control tyre is ill
believe he will back down on his
of attention to basic issues in
remedial work (to) be undertak
tainly be rendered invalid and
threat. On
relation to the administration of
en to correct the structural defi ciencies of TEGA" and "discus
unenforceable".
Tuesday TEGA announced that it would imple
the company".
ment a control tyre for the category, but last Friday Crennan attended a TEGA board meeting and presented a legal query
regarding the document that several V8 Supercar competitors contacted Motorsport News and offered copies to us.
over the validity of the organi
Crennan proposed in the let
sation.
In a letter to all TEGA mem-
Such is the level of concern
ter headed "TEGA and CON-
TROL TYRE" that the TEGA
5K3
POWERING AHEAD: Holden Racing Team is determined to keep the advantage it has enjoyed in recent season with its Bridgestone tyres, despite the decision to go with a Control tyre next year. (Photo by Graeme Neander - Coventry Studios)
sions with a view to resolving the legal issues in relation to the introduction of a control
tyre". It goes on: "MHRT is absolutely convinced that the
legal advice obtained by the TEGA Board is wrong and that
conceived and will almost cer
When his proposed motion was not accepted by TEGA Chairman Garry Craft, Crennan's legal adviser sug gested that Craft's action consti tuted bias and he (Craft) should
immediately stand down from Continued Page 3
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1lSeplsint}erW98
V8s get Control tyre 'THERE will finally be a con
Senior Vehicle Performance
Analyst for the TWR-Anws Formula 1 team. Before leaving
At its board meeting last Monday, TEGA ratified the vote of its members and adopted the con
Australia Preston had a hand in
designing SATCC cars and also assisted with Michael Borland’s
trol tyre as policy for 1999. Cars will be allocated six tyres for qualifying and racing on most
Spectrum 06 Formula Ford. ■ Former Porsche Cup rivals Ed Aitken and Peter Fitzgerald will bmy the hatchet this week end when they share Fitz/s
circuits, but eight on circuits which are known to be particularly hard on tyres.
It is certain that Dunlop will ten der for the deal, but at the time of going to press there was no confir
Porsche 911RSCS in the OAMPS 1-Hour GTP race at Sandown.
■ Also grabbing a new off-sider
mation from either Yokohama or
is Dom Beninca. The new
Bridgestone. Yokohama is expected to tender
Austoalian GTP Champion has got Gany Waldon in the black
and Bridgestone, despite earlier
Porsche 911.
comments to the contrary, is rumoured to be considering a ten
■ It will not be just a man’s event, either. Apart from the guys, Paula Elstrek will have her first drive in PeiTy Spiridis’ Fen-ari 355 Challenge.
der.
TEGA Chairman Garry Craft pointed out on Monday that, while
“\^en this started out three or
four years ago, that was our aim. Up until now we have had to write the rules to suit the tyre manufac turers, which are only prepared to supply up to 16 or so cars. What does that do when the grids are 50
■ Sam Newman has had a
new manufacturer (ie other that
Dunlop,
Bridgestone
and
Yokohama) tendered.
'The move to a control tyre will do away with the single biggest techni
2 and 3 cars and should, in theory, promote closer racing through the field.
think it wfil msike much difference, ot
Most but not all reactions to the
he did confirm that there would be
a tyre evaluation process only if a
not be looking back any more. It’s a whole new ball game and I’m really looking forward to the racing next year.” Ford Credit Racing’s Glenn Seton: ‘What am I supposed to think? If that’s what everybody wants, that’s what we get. I don’t
cal ifference between the Level 1,
and more cars?”
While Craft was not in a position to outline the tendering procedure,
control tyres have been positive. Castrol Racing’s Larry Perkins: “It’s almost five years since I first put it on the TEGA agenda and I’ll
teU you the truth. I think the order win be pretty well similar.” Holden Racing Team’s Mark Skaife: “Obvjously, there’s no com ment on our behalf. I’m a (TEGA)
board member anyway and we’ll continue to chat about what hap pens to it.” Garry Rogers Motorsport’s Jason Bargwanna: “I think it will be no problem, really. We had a great relationship with Bridgestone and I’d hate to think that would
evaporate. But every category I’ve been in, from Formula Vee to Formula Holden, were all on con trol tyres and it was never a prob lem in those classes.” -PHILBRANAGAN
HRT threatens to Brock bids
take legal action for Round Oz honors Continued from Page 1
board - comprised of
Some tyre represen
tatives have voiced
his position.
Dick Johnson, Mark Larkham, Mark Skaife
Craft
declined to do so.
After TEGA issued a media release on
Tuesday afternoon announcing the con trol tyre, Crennan would only say that he and MHRT “stand by our position last Friday”. “We
wrote
to
all
teams stating our position very clearly and wrote to all key
industry executives on the subject. I see it as being between our selves and the teams, etcetera,” he said, In
letter.
his
Crennan also recog nises that
“MHRT’s
attempt to deal with this matter responsi bly and properly will be construed and pro moted by ill informed people as obstruction and an attempt to delay the decision making process. Let me assure you that such allegations are totally false . n
At the September 1 meeting, the TEGA
■ An aboriginal fimeral halted the Sony Playstation Round Australia last Monday. The event was due to travel along the Eyre Highway but, out of respect ot the Aboiiginal community, event organisers cancelled the stage.
■ Former HSV engineer Mark Preston has been appointed
trol tyre in V8 Supercar rac ing next season - but only after a controversial fight.
the control tyre concept was sup ported by most in the category, TEGA had another priority in implementing the policy. ‘We had a simple goal - to secure a tyre supply for all of our mem bers,” he said on Tuesday.
3
and Garry Rogers voted on the adoption of control tyres. The vote is believed to have come out two
concerns that any fur ther delay in making a decision could jeopar dise the implementa tion of a control tyre for the
start of the
in favour, one against,
season.
with one abstention.
It is generally acknowledged that it
At that time Craft, who as Chairman has
a casting vote, moved to open the voting to the members (ie com
petitors). That vote IS believed to have come
out 33 in favour, nine against, with one
such, the board would go along with the vote.
“The members own
big 4WDs after three days of the tough 18,300km joim-
Peter Lockhart (Jackeroo), Ron and Scott Redder (Holden Ute), Reg Owen’s Nissan Patrol and Warren Ridge’s Mitsubishi Pajero.
Michael (luest saw him lead
numbers
and
sea-
freight
them
to
Australia in time for the first race at Albert Park in the first week
in March. That puts
Craft sees no need to
was not resolved as
from Gold Coast Holden dealer
weeks to produce tyres in sufficient
That is the vote that was returned to the
Prior to the Monday meeting. Craft sug gested that, while the control tyre matter
settled into a battle of the
ney.
abstention (again).
ratification.
Keith Callinan (in the exBrock Commodore) is next
would take 12 to 13
the cut-off date at around December 11.
board on Monday for
THE Sony Playstation Round Australia Rally has
On the other side.
conduct pre-tender tyre testing. “Why?” he said last week.
“There’s
no
need to go and wear out people’s cars when we know that each manufacturer
already makes a suit able tyre.
“The only way we
the company; it would be unwise to go against their wishes,”
would test is if anoth er manufacturer -
he said.
- decided to tender.”
Goodyear, for instance
An early attack by rally ace
boost ot his 1-Hour hopes with the news that Tony Longhm-st will keep the driver’s seat of the Ford Falcon XR6 AU warm while the
gi-eat man is engaged elsewhere dming the race. Sam’s old car-, the XR8 EL, will be driven by Ford dealers Graham Hunt and
Andrew Miedecke,
■ Paul Romano, phone home! The Queensland Commodore dri
ver win be able ot do just that after the news that his
Commodore will be backed by Siemens Mobile for Sandown, Gold Coast and Bathurst. Steve
Ellery will co-drive in the endures. ■ Bathm-st will be spick and span in November following the announcement that Mike Imtie
and Rodney Crick will be backed by Armorall Car Care Products for the FAI1000 Classic. ■ Charmel 7 has armounced its
Bathurst 1000 commentary line up. Regulars Garry Wilkinson, Paddy Welsh, Richard Hay and David Tapp will be joined by Peter Brock, Allan Moffat, TVacey Holmes and, unless Tm very much mistaken, the legendary Murray Walker.
■ Speaking of Bathurst, the AMP race program was due on the newstands yesterday (Wednesday), three weeks before the wheels turn in pitlane. It will
be $7, same price as last year. ■ Formula Holden will be hav
ing by 5m04s at the end of Day 2, hut the Newcastle driver saw his chances of victory dis appear on the rocks of the
Seven of the top 10 places are filled by Holdens and just 48 of the 65 original starters are left in the event.
Macrow and Christian Mirrchison
Nullabor Plain.
From its current (Tuesday) position, the event strikes north along the WA coastline to the mid point in Darwin
and a MHRT Commodore while
His Subaru Impreza suffered three punctures on the longest stage of the event, the 220km section from Eucla to MundrabiUa. Guest and co-driver Jason Walk tried to drive out of the
stage, covering almost 100km on three wheels before the car gave up.
The drama handed the lead
to Sydney driver Ross Nicastri, who heads two more Holden Jackeroos. Bruce Garland’s Jackeroo is less than two minutes behind
ing their armual test day at Calder on September 15. Adam will test both a Reynard FHolden (a 91D and a 94D will be present) Scott Dixon and Todd Kelly will
next week. Garland said he was confi
also test the Commodore. Silver Star winner John de Vries will
dent of winning the event as he paced himself in the Jackeroo. “Guesty was over-driving and paid the price and I think Ross Nicastri is, too, so we’ll just sit hack and wait and keep my car in good condition for
■ Following on from Craig Lowndes’ corrrments in Motorsport News #134, the MHRT leader pairing have determined that Mark Skaife will qualify the #15
the
attack down the east
coast,” he said. Nicastri says it will be a bat
with Peter Brock well-placed a
tle to the end between the three Jackeroos.
further minute back in third. The Holden Ute of Graham Wise is fourth ahead of the
“These things are just so fast and strong, nothing can stay with them in these conditions,”
first of the ‘others’, Mark Griffiths’Toyota RAV4.
he said. -JON THOMSON
also test an MHRT car. Sunwipes will be the sponsor of the day.
Commodore this weekend and that Lowndes will start the race.
■ Ben Walsh gets back into action this weekend in the Asian
Fonnula 2000 series. The Sydney driver, currently second on the points behind Wai Leong, will race his Quick-Hurrrrisett car at Zhuhai in China.
4
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1JSsf)temlieff998
■ For the last few weeks there have been
stories circulating that McLaren is planning to organise a deal with Minardi to supply Mercedes-Benz engines to the little Italian team, while giving McLaren the opportunity to promote its young drivers to FI.
■ Esteban Tuero hopes
McLaren and Ferrari at
war over Spa accident
to be able to retain his
seat at Minardi next year with backing from Argentine business. Last week a trade delegation visited the' Minardi team
to discuss funding for next season. The Italian team
has just completed 10 days of aerodynamic test ing on its 1999 car at the Fondmetal Technologies windtunnel at Casumaro. ■ FIA President Max
Mosley has now signed the new Concorde
Agreement, but only on the understanding that the deal is ratified by the FIA General Assembly, which is due to meet in mid-October.
■ Sauber race engineer GiUes Alegoet is leaving the Swiss team to return to Prost Grand Prix next
season. Alegoet has spent this season race-engineer ing Johnny Herbert but
THERE has been a great deal of noise about the incident between Michael Schumacher and David
Coulthard during the recent Belgian Grand Prix, with the Ferrari management publicly blaming the McLaren dri ver for taking the German
event, terrorism was not
managed to do more dam age with their cars than the average terrorist bomb will achieve.
that plans for a Petronas VIO engine have been cancelled. At the moment
the engines running
ROAD RAGE... Michael Schumacher heads back to the pits in his damaged Ferrari, where he accused David Couithard of intentionaiiy causing the accident. (Photo by cave Mason/Aiisport)
Coulthard later said that Schumacher had acted “like an animal”. The German’s fans - never known for their reserve nor
Schumi maintains rage
for Schumacher and Ferrari.
Belgian
GP
winner
Damon Hill - who has often clashed with Schumacher in said that the past Schumacher’s attitude was
to be expected. “Blaming others is a tactic he often uses when he has
made a mistake,” HiU said. “He targets the innocent party to deflect from his own “To think that David would make Michael run into
the back of him is just too ridiculous for words.” Even Schumacher’s own
under that name are
teammate, Eddie Irvine, says
rebadged Ferrari VlOs but there had been plans for a completely new engine in
that Coulthard would never have tried to take out
2000. The downturn in
the Asian economy is being blamed for the deci sion to axe the project. ■ The FIA Press
Delegate Alistair Watkins is to leave the governing
body to study for a degree in business administra
tion at London University. 'The FIA is looking for a replacement. ■ Tyrrell’s marketing director Rupert Manwaring has left the Ockham team and is
expected to join the planned Honda FI opera tion shortly.
■ Cosworth Racing which is in the process of being bought by Ford - is to have a new chief execu tive as soon as the deal is finahsed. Brian Dickie is
moving on and will be replaced by a high flyer
THE day after crashing out of the Belgian
Schumacher: “Yes, that Is true. I was
Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher main
blinded with rage. An experienced driver like him knows exactly that in these wet condi
tained the rage that sent him storming into the McLaren garage to abuse David Coulthard.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as angry as I am now," Schumacher told German reporter, Enrico Chiara, for the Michael Schumacher Website. “It was so clear that we would lead the
championship after this race. There wasn’t any reason to think differently -1 was the fastest driver yestefday. “Why was David lapping at around 2:1 Os
and when I showed up behind him, he began to lap at around 2:16s? And why did he slow so suddenly?" Chiara; “Are you thinking that David Coulthard tried to....” Schumacher:”... Ithink that this is a
“There is no way that DC is going to do it deliberate ly,” said Irvine. “He is not that kind of person. No dri ver would do that to a col
league. Michael was just unlucky.”
Former Ferrari driver Clay Regazzoni, who now com mentates for Itahan TV, said that Schumacher is the best driver in FI but “he drives
with arrogance and thinks he is a demi-god. He wants to humiliate his irvals, not just beat them. He could have avoided the scene in the
McLaren pit. His behaviour was not worthy of a champi-
tions you cannot slow down so suddenly on a straight, it is very dangerous.” Chiara: “Don’t you think that you over reacted?”
Schumacher: “No. I was trying to pass him for two laps, so 1 asked Jean Todt to go to Ron Dennis and protest. If he wanted to let me pass he could leave me some room in
the corner, not on a dangerous and fast and cloudy straight.
‘This is a big, big, big disappointment. I could have gone to Monza three World Championship points in the lead, and now I’m still seven points behind.” Jean Todt also joined in and told Chiara: “Despite the waved blue flags, McLaren’s dri
ver would not let Michael pass.
strange thing. I was forced to crash against him. Is there any connection with the fact that I’m challenging his teammate for the title?" Chiara: “Did you really shout. ‘You wanted
but what happened here is even more dan
to kill me!’ at Coulthard?”
gerous.”
“In Jerez we were crucified for what
happened between Michael Schumacher
and Jacques Villeneuve. That was okay,
was forced to crash against him ... I was blinded with rage. more conciliatory approach, but refused to apologise. “I think we should discuss
what happened,” he said. “Looking back you see things in a more balanced fashion,
statement about what hap
“At no time leading to the incident did David Coulthard
dent closed”.
apply the brakes or lift from the throttle, he was merely driving in a manner which
relations with him and our hand is held out to him.” After his visit to the
McLaren pit, Schumacher calmed down but still said after the race that “one could think that he did it
deliberately”, which clearly implied that he
The FIA stewards decided that the accident was not deliberate.
McLaren
offered
to
reveal tape-recordings of its pit-cai' radio transmis sions which proved that Coulthard was told to get out of Schumacher’s way
ing incident and that there
Ferrari team bosses, how ever, did not appear to want the controversy to quieten
While the FI circus is
records the radio traffic
down and issued a statement
said.
largely convinced that Ferrari is trying to exploit the situation to put pressure
gave the FIA its tape-
in reply to what they called “misleading interpretations” of the accident. The team said that it had
“It is clear, however, that the incident was accidental
and a consequence of the
was no case to be answered
before the season began - it
conducted another investiga concluded
that
that on several occasions Michael Schumacher moved off line to show Coulthard
actions
of both
“It was understandable
that immediately following the incident, emotions were running high and incorrect
just before the
will be more difficult to con vince the Ferrari fans who
have accepted the team’s ver sion of events.
crash
occurred.
Ferrari
by David Coulthard.”
tions.
Schumacher adopted a
“The situation could
degenerate at Monza and we must avoid that,” Haug said. “A Schu macher apology would calm things down. We want to preserve our good
its subsequent intei'pretation by Ferrari has challenged the integrity of our team and its driver,” the British team
doesn’t merit discussion.”
had
want to preserve our good
gathers again at Monza this weekend.
“The stewards concluded
Coulthard ignored blue flags for an entire lap and never gave way to Schumacher;
relations with him and our hand is held out to him.”
iour to avoid further trou ble when the FI circus
that the accident was a rac
Haug asked Schumacher to apologise to Coulthard for
archy in Europe.
to apologise for his behav
“It is our regret that this
Michael
Mercedes-Benz boss Norbert
must avoid that,” Haug said. “A Schumacher apology would calm things down. We
on
incident occurred and that
allow
Schumacher to pass.
win the World Championship - as it said it was going to do
could
called
has to apologise. What hap pened happened, and it
would
tion into the accident and
degenerate at Monza and we
Haug
and a few hours later issued its own statement.
drivers
his accusations. “The situation
and
Michael - who used to be a Mercedes-Benz di-iver -
but that does not mean one
involved who were competing in appalling weather condi
On the day after the race,
After the race drunken Schumacher fans threw beer cans at Coulthard
ly caused the accident.
on McLaren and create an excuse if the team fails to
on.'
an accusation.
believed that Coidthard had deliberate
pened and considers the inci
But McLaren was clearly upset by Ferrari’s attitude
that the German driver would even consider such
still
yy
Schumacher on purpose.
from within the Ford hier
-JOE SAWARD
Coulthard was furious
pits and then stormed to the McLaren pit and accused David of trying to kiU him.
error.
■ Sauber has confirmed
Coulthard took him out of
the Belgian Grand Prix deliberately.
Michael drove back to the
There has been little sup port inside the FI business
needed as the FI drivers
accusations that David
back of the McLaren, damag ing his car beyond repair.
taken over by British engineer Tom Preston.
the Belgian GP. In the
ought to apologise for
in torrential rain when the Ferrari driver ran into the
charm - behaved badly after the race, showering
MERCEDES-Benz racing boss Norbert Haug says that Michael Schumacher
Schumacher was attempt ing to lap Coulthard at Spa,
his role has now been
eral different terrorist threats in the week before
1
out of the race.
Coulthard with beer cans when he left the circuit.
■ The organisers of the Belgian GP received sev
Mercedes boss calls for calm
By JOE SAWARD
regularly
of the other teams - it
recordings last year at Jerez - so the team must have known that Coulthard had not made a deliberate move before
the post-race comments made by
wei’e
Schumacher and team boss Jean Todt.
Many people in the FI paddock believe that
conclusions were reached. “The stewards of the
his car was there; that
Monza last week, banners
Belgian Grand Prix received
Coulthard slowed down sud
reading “Licensed to Kill by
a detailed account of the inci dent from David Coulthard
Mercedes”
Coulthard” appeared in the
Ferrari went ahead with the criticisms in order to cast doubts on its rival.
and reviewed the car perfor mance data downloaded by
grandstands and Coulthard was jeered every time his car
the FIA.
left the pitlane.
Formula 1, it seems, has developed into “total
denly while on the racing line.
The team added that: ‘Ferrari will make no further
When testing began at and
“Killer
war”...
—
5
September 1998
Adelaide V8 street
race is go for 1999 And you read it here first
By PHIL BRANAGAN
ADELAIDE'S city streets will reverberate with the
FORGET what you may have read elsewhere, Motorsport News was way ahead of the pack when it came to breaking
roar of V8 engines again next April when the Shell senes Championship returns to the City of ●
Churches
on
the
■ ■■
the story about V8s racing on the streets of Adelaide. In fact we ran the story in our 6 December 1996 issue (below) - that’s more than 18 months ago - when most other media outlets were quick off the blocks canning it as a beat-
old
Grand Prix circuit.
up.
The South Australian state
there would he two 250km
We have since done a follow-up story and stand by our reputation as being first with the big motorsport news. That’s why we are called Motorsport News!
races on April 10 and 11 in
- DAVID HASSALL, Editor
government and AVESCO confirmed last week that
the Sensational Adelaide 500. Each race one on C
Saturday, one on Sunday will be staged on a shortened
a
JJ.95
3.2km version of the track which hosted the Australian Formula One Grand Prix from 1985 until 1995.
The only change to the old FI layout wiU be the routing of the cars through Bartels Road instead of Rundle Street. That will mean that the cars
wiQ hit their highest speeds on that 700m straight while the old Dequetteville Terrace Brabham Straight will be only slightly more than 400m. The SA Premier, John
Olsen, was present at the launch last week, stating confi dently that the races would
6-19 Docowber (996
Crompton, Pate, Lowndes, Olsen, Seton and Smerdon at the launch. (Photo by Dirk Klynsmith)
order of the first event.
said. "Now we can build on
Cochrane said that "we are
that expertise with the V8 Supercar race." The race will carry double points for the Shell series.
delighted to support South Australia and congratulate them on their outstanding and very professional approach to the event." At the launch, Darren Pate
All cars will line up for the first 250km race according to their qualifying order and will make two mandatory pitstops during the two hour races, including a refuelling stop, but
and Chris Smerdon drove their Commodores on the track in
finnt of their assembled peers, Dick Johnson, Craig Lowndes,
1^-
II
h
ADEimPE ^
CAR PIAN.
there will be no driver changes. The second Sunday arce will start according to the finishing
proven track record for host ing events similar to this," he
attract up to 6000 visitors to
NEWS
ADiLAIDE TOURING
ON TRACK... Johnson,
Drivers will lose only whole laps, so those who fin ish on the same lap as the Saturday winner will start on relatively equal footing as if a pace car had been brought out mid-race. AVESCO Chairman Tony
the state and inject $13m into the economy in the first year. "Adelaide already has a
‘J
[UV«a KA514J.
Pl.V«ub-Vi.u«nc< «ir ●3d«rkocV w*f* --
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w
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,1m
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1 Bme bounces back
INSIDE Tyre chaos sr.v Mansell back? 1 a r4
«PVM.
one 0/M vughcst ai^Jsed't9t MnBonhd
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—
-t-
tut M««« trmae. me
homr netuh ana laet lore
trsnroeaneiKtnnisiO mretxn kxMrtg aa.
Glenn
Seton
and
Neil
Crompton, as well as digni taries from Shell, CAMS and Network 10.
Mallala gets the chop WHILE the Adelaide race is good news for AVESCO, it leaves Adelaide's perma nent track, Mallala, without a Shell
reply was, 'It doesn't'. 'It's very disappointing. With all due respects to all the other promoters,
round in 1999.
Mallala was not at the bottom of the
Sporting Car Club of SA's Reg Sparkes
heap as far as presenting a race meeting
said this week that AVESCO had not
was concerned."
officially notified the track of any
Mallala is likely to still host roimds of the BOC Gases Super Touring Championship and Super Truck series. AVESCO is expected to announce its
change for 1999.
"No-one contacted (promoter) Clem Smith or myself, so Clem rang Garry Craft after the announcement," he said.
full 1999 schedule at Sandown this weekend.
"He asked where Mallala fits in and the
Herbert to Stewart O o
c/5 c
< >v JH c
o
o
●c CO
o
JOHNNY Herbert will leave the Sauber team at the end of the season and
with its engine program, I have a great chance to help the team to the top of the
join Stewart-Ford. The Motorsport News columnist has signed a twoyear deal with Stewart, describing it as “a fantastic opportunity”.
Formula One tree.”
“I believe that with the
Herbert,
34, won two
Grands Prix with Benetton in 1995 and it was with that team and Ford that he made his GP debut in 1989. The British driver will be
chassis improvements I
partner
know about for 1999 and
Barrichello
with Ford pushing ahead
Stewart’s eponymous team.
by
Rubens in
Jackie
Johnny Herbert
.
I
s
1^®9®I70U)CDII{]
11 September W98
Aussies called to the BAR
FA11000 Classic likely Entiy List Level 1
1 4
Craig Lowndes/Mark Skaife Jason Bright/Steven Richards
5
Glenn Seton/Neil Crompton
7 9 10
Darren Hossack/Darren Pate Alan Jones/Adam Macrow Mark Larkham/Brad Jones
Mobil HRT Commodore Pirtek Falcon Ford Credit Falcon
Wynn's Commodore Komatsu Falcon Mitre 10 Falcon Castrol Commodore Shell Helix Falcon Shell Helix Falcon Castrol Falcon
11 Larry Perkins/Russell Ingall 17 Dick Johnson/Steven Johnson 18 John Bowe/Cameron McConville 25 Tony Longhurst/Geoff Brabham 31 David Parsons/Simon Wills (NZ) 35 Jason Bargwanna/Jim Richards 46 John Faulkner/Todd Keliy 50 Greg Murphy/Mark Noske 95 Steve Cramp/Gary Baxter 96 Wayne Gardner/Paul Stokell 134 GarthTander/Cameron McLean
THERE is said to have
been a major falling-out within the management
Wynn's Commodore Valvoline Commodore Betta/F&P Commodore Mobil HRT Commodore
Racing For Life Falcon
structure
j^lsyStanon :
Coke Commodore Valvoline Commodore
Level 2
3 24 27 32 33 38 49
Sony Commodore
Levels Amorall Commodore
Mike Imrie/Rodney Crick Melinda Price/Kerryn Brewer
20 21
Ian Palmer/TBA Brian Walden/TBA
22
Danny Osb'orne/Brett Peters
23
Ray Hislop/TBA
29
Peter Doulman/John Cotter
36
Neil Schembri/Gary Quartly
37 39 41
Scotty Taylor/Biil Attard/Stephen Bell Chris Smerdon/Charlie Cox (UK) Garry Willmington/Simon Emerzidis
43 44
Paul Weel/Neal Bates Mai Rose/TBA
45 48 51
Wayne Russell/TBA D’arcy Russell/TBA Charles Ryman/Wayne Park
55
Rod Nash/Darren Edwards
64 70
Alan Heath/Ken Douglas John Briggs/(Mark McLaughlin?)
Castrol Cougars Commodore Palmer Commodore Walden Commodore Coloursoan Falcon
Hislop Falcon M3 Commodore Gearbox Commodore
Heath Falcon
Robert Smith/Bruce Williams
Kevin HetfernanA/Vayne Wakefield Anthony T ratt/Bob Jones
77
Richard Mork/Bill Sieders
Mike Conway/Chris Hones Michael Donaher/Dean Lindstrom Geoff KendricIVTBA
IT Services Commodore Simon's Commodore K&J Radiator Falcon Fairfax Commodore Union Steel Commodore Boozeless Commodore Landmark Place Falcon
Supercheap Auto Falcon
72
80 92
Xerox Shop Commodore
Autopro/Budweiser Commodore
74 75 79
forming some sort of asso ciation with long-time friend Alain Prost. The loss of Jakobi is a setback for the new team
Densitron Commodore Pro-Duct Commodore Bosch Commodore Ericsson Commodore
14 16
Smith’s Commodore Price Attack Commodore Toll Falcon Mork Commodore GAMPS Falcon Ultra Tune Commodore PM FM Commodore
but in recent days Pollock BLUE CHIP SPONSORS... Rod Nash and Darren Edwards will share Nash’s Commodore at
has secured the services
Bathurst’s FA11000 Classic with the support of Autopro, Budweiser and Sony Playstation.
of a couple of important engineers, notably Ferrari aerodynamicist
Big entry for FAI THE FAI 1000 Classic is well on target to
attract the predicted 50 plus entries. Apart from the 17 Level 1 entries, interest among the Level 2 and 3 teams is running strongly. The main seats have been filled early but the big question mark is over Tomas Mezera’s co-driver. Despite making a state ment some time ago that he was talking to current BTCC Champ Alain Menu, the Queenslander is no closer to sealing the deal. “Not sure,” was Tomas’ comment on
Tuesday. “I hope to have something worked
then, anything I say would be a a guess.” Queenslander Wayne Wakefield looks like getting a seat in Kevin Heffernan’s Commodore while Tony Scott is a likely starter alongside Mark Poole. Dean Lindstrom will make his move into
sedans, the Formula Ford ace joining Mike Donaher in the Ultra Tune Commodore.
Porsche man Chris Hones is suiting up with Mike Conway and Bruce Williams looks hke hopping into Rob Smith’s Commodore, in which he took Level 3 honours at Sandown
last year. - PHIL BRANAGAN
out after the (Sandown) weekend but, until
Ihe RaK and Eddie show Tom keeps
WHILE there was much after
its
1-2
A
result at Spa, the team is in dispute with Ralf Schumacher as to whether he will drive for
TOM
Jordan next year.
rrows VlOs Walkinshaw
is
understood to be moving away from the idea of run ning with Supertec VIO engines next year, prefer
Schumacher Junior has
embarked on legal action to try to determine if he can join Williams. The writ seeks to prevent Eddie Jordan telling rival
able to guarantee the same
team next season.
was
kind of performance as this
But the team claims that has faxes from
Tom’s underfunded Arrows
We understand that Tom that worried Mecachrome would not be
which is being demanded for the French engines to develop his own promis ing VIO power units.
up Schumacher’s 1999 option earlier in the season as he had not produced any good results in the first part of the year.
year, despite asking for a great deal more money. VIO engines have performed wen on occasion, although it is clear that they have lacked the horsepower of the factorybacked engines. The move would certainly be welcomed by British American Racing as the new operation is trying hard to become the top Supertec
ring to spend the $40m
teams that Schumacher is not available. The team failed to take
it
Wilhem Toet.
The Aussie engineer, who briefly raced Formula
Ford
in
Australia many years ago, worked at Benetton in the late-1980s and was one of the team which moved to
Reynard in 1991 to design the original Reynard FI car.
When that project failed Toet
went
back
Benetton
but
to was
poached by Ferrari at the end of 1994, following Michael
Schumacher’s
World Championship suc cess.
He has worked at Ferrari ever since but his
five-year
contract
is
about to run out and he
rejoicing going on at Jordan
British
Jakohi is believed to be Lansvale Commodore Romano Commodore
Trevor Ashby/Steve Reed Paul Romano/Steve Ellery Terry Finnigan/Peter Gazzard Tomas Mezeray(Alain Menu?) Bob Pearson/(Allan McCarthy?) Mark Poole/Tony Scott Greg Crick/Dean Crosswell
at
American Racing, with rumours of a split between managing direc tor Craig Pollock and his partner Julian Jakobi.
-JOESAWARD
has taken the opportunity to go back to Reynard, where he will work with
fellow
countryman
Malcolm Oastler.
In addition, BAR has managed to convince Jacques Villeneuve’s race engineer at Williams Jock Clear, that he should i
transfer to the new team with the FrenchCanadian driver. Clear worked with Toet at Benetton in 1989 when Jock was head of
Benetton’s composite design department. -JOESAWARD
Victoria’s Premier
Schumacher’s manager Willi Weber which agree to a new deal. Weber denies that these
Touring Road Event
constitute a binding agree ment and that Ralf is at hb-
erty to sign for Williams,
October 30th - November 3rd, 1998.
l^atever the legal impli
cations in the future, it is now fairly clear that Ralf does not want to stay at
5 Days - 3 Mountains
● mm
...a Rally e in the Monte Carlo Style!
Jordan and would therefore not be motivated if forced to
Featured Marque: Austin Healey
stay there. A financial settlement
which will allow Ralf to join
Entries close 1st October 1998.
Williams is therefore much
more likely. Frank Williams is waiting to hear if Ralf can sign for Williams - although he may, believing himself to be free from Jordan, already
Belgium but will they be able to keep smiling? (Michael cooper/Aiisport) case Ralf is forced to stay at Montoya, though Jordan’s
have done so.
Jordan.
former test driver Ricardo
Ph:03 9800 3111
Williams is keeping the door open for test driver Juan-Pablo Montoya just in
Ironically, if Ralf goes to Williams he will probably be replaced at Jordan by
Zonta is also in the picture.
Fax: 03 9800 1600
For all details, contact the Event Managers BEST FRIENDS?... Damon, Eddie and Ralf celebrate in
-JOESAWARD
Harman Autosports P/L
1
U September 1998
And da winners are ●●●
threaten so much by using legal force but, at the end, of the day AVESCO and more
the Grand Prix circuit.
importantly its members who wanted this to go through, finally said enough is enough and want with the majority.
Grand Prix must remember what the
A
IF your name is Greg
G
Bathurst 1000.
Wondering why Isound a bit cheery? The controiled tyre is in!!! Hooray hooray! At last the powers to be have seen the light and pushed this all important and potentially the one single thing that could see V8 Supercar racing turn into a greater spectacle than it already is.
The two Motorsport News readers will be attending the race following the draw ing of our ‘Wave the che quered flag at Bathurst’ competition. Mr McLaren has won the
’day to all you fantastic motorsport followers out there.
prize of a weekend for two at Mount Panorama, where he will be able to get up close and personal to all the stars
Mr Purcel will get even closer. After more than six
hours of racing he will be able to bring things to a fin
Goodyear
Won’t it be great to see stragglers like the Terry Finnigans, the Ashby/ Reeds and many others finish ing consistently in the Top 10. To any sceptics out there, trust me
promised some months ago Goodyear will be pulling out of Formula
on this one, IT WILL WORK! And best
two reasons Iam involved in this are;
son.
for you, no more talk or drivers whinging about tyres - and that’s got to be
number one, being a Holden-contract ed driver, they asked me to drive the car to promote the Holden Vectra; and the second, and most important, is to show all those Pommy drivers (who by the way think they are the best Touring Car drivers in the world) that us Aussie Touring Car drivers are pretty damn good as well. So please be kind to me, Ipromise I won’t do it again.
whinging about tyres and that’s got to be worth
Mind you from what I have heard, it wasn’t plain sailing with much resis tance coming from the hierarchy of certain teams. Isuppose you can only
and all the cars.
from
’spose I should write a couple of lines about this (dare I say it) 2 Litre race I am doing. Now, before you V8 followers start giving me a hard time and saying I wear a skirt, Ihave to say that the only
no more talk or drivers
but you have proved me wrong, but on
racing like this race make it more interesting for the drivers and more importantiy, more interesting for the
race on even terms.
G
this occasion I don’t mind at all.
tastic. New and different formats of
of mind
spectators.
worth it aione. reat news last week about the announcement of the new Adelaide race around the streets of
Weil done to AVESCO, Ireally didn’t think you had the balls to do it
atmosphere was iike, especially those nights down at Hindiey Street was fan
No change
great for everyone in the field, not just the selected few to
McLaren of Greenvale Vic or Jamie Parcel of
Seven Hills NSW you are going to have the time of your life at the 199 AMP
s Ihave written in my pre vious columns, this wili be
What a great event that will be. Anyone that went to an Adelaide
it alone
ish when he waves the che
quered flag at the 36th win
I
will surprise a few as well. The forecast is for good weather, so get off your backsides, grab the
record number of entries. Thanks to all at Bathurst
kids and come and see the race live
Event Management, AMP and, of course, everyone who
and I’m sure you’ll have a top day. See you next time.
sent in entries.
do
not
for the American com
pany to substitute Goodyear with Dunlop, leaving Bridgestone as the only tyre supplier in Grand Prix racing. The
Williams
and
Ferrari team manage
Goodyear will not be changing its mind, despite the recent suc
and I think the Bowe/McConville car
Response to the competi tion was terrific, with a
there
Endurance series. Our Castro! Commodore VT is all
and Ithink Larry has only won it once before, so we are both very keen to put in a result this weekend. As always, probably one of the HRT cars will be our main competition
lane action.
And
appear to be any plans
ments are believed to
nd on to this weekend we have the
Sandown race. Ihave never won it,
able to watch the preceding part of the race from the grandstands, where he will have a prime view of the pit-
1 at the end of this sea
A Sandown 500, first race of the
fired up and 1 reckon this will be one of our best chances of winning the
ner of the race. He and his friends will be
IT is now official. As
have
been
told
cesses
that
over
Bridgestone with the latest Goodyear tyres. The news means that
Bridgestone will have to supply all of the field and will not get anywhere near as much coverage as dur ing the recent tyre war.
- JOE SAWARD
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l^®'u'®I70[p®[7O
11 September 1998
Dario grabs the Greenbacks S/7/y
THE bucks were flowing in victory lane in Vanc ouver last Sunday when
io Franchitti took his second
straight win and Alex 2anarcl ®
Dario Franchitti won the
battle, but Alex Zanardi
took the ’98 PPG Cdt3rPHIt
won the Wai- of ’98.
season
MORRIS was in Vancouver.
The two Reynard-HondaFirestone drivers had the
latest
biggest paydays of their careers, Franchitti finally claiming the ballooning Marlboro Bonus money of US$330,000 ($550,000) by winning the race from pole position to go with his US$100,000 for first place.
WITH three races to go in its 1998 schedule the Fedex
Series silly season hit high gear at Vancouver, with several drivers being linked with prime seats.
Zanardi‘clinched his second
With
straight title (and Ganassi Racing’s third) title with a canny fourth place and that, The race was filled with
Zanardi (despite spiiming at a
took cai-e of themselves. Tony
incident and strategy and,
down, we had the unusual
while Dario took his second
prospect of the out-of-synch
restart and i-opping to 24th)
Kanaan and Paul Tracy were
win in a row after breaking through at Road America last
Hello Castro-Neves and A1
month, it was the race that
18th) running at the point. ’While the Penske had a queue
who fought it out. Andretti, on a tight fuel schedule, fought off the Kool car lap after lap hut with six laps to go Franchitti hraved it out under brakes on the pit straight and squeezed into the lead. Once through he left the field by 1.5s a lap to roll home to an impressive win. Pruett, like Andretti, was light on for fuel and in no position to fight while. behind, Zanardi saw his championship irvals drop by the wayside and team boss Chip (Janassi talked him
locked in a fight with Pruett on lap 68 when yet another boneheaded move by the Canadian sent the Tasman ReynardHonda out of the race, and prompted a diive-thru penalty for his troubles. Afterwards Kanaan was speechless with rage; a podium spot had looked a certainly. Greg Moore and Patrick Carpentier both crashed the Players cars, Moore surfing over PJ Jones’ car and copping a wheel on the helmet for his trouble. Other notable happenings
home to the title.
in the race included a show of
to
speed from the PacWest cars
Green; can Franchitti keep winning - and who or what will Tracy hit next?
sion, his fourth of the season
making him the best-per formed driver of the pre-race
r
sessions in 1998.
The start of the race was
interrupted by constant yel low-flag periods and
Unser Jr (who had started
of cars behind it the Brazilian
rookie dominated the race, pulling a startling 18s lead in 12 laps before running out of fuel, handing Unser the lead. Brilliant pit strategy got Little A1 back in sequence in
third place but, when it came time to go fast it was all too much for the troubled PC27,
problem - a cockpit fire
though he did hold on for fifth at the flag. In the sprint for the finish
behind his dashboard. When the race settled
it was Michael Andretti, Franchitti, Scott Pmett and
Franchitti had his own little
Zanardi
Winfield-Williams’ lead dri ver in Formula One for the
of course, paid US$1 million.
got away for many diivei-s. Qualifying started well on the completely-revised BC Place layout. Franchitti took pole position in the final ses
Alex
expected to be confirmed tomorrow (Friday) as
Others in contention earlier
of
Mark
Blundell
and
Mauricio Gugelmin (Mo fin¬
ished seventh; Blundell was
12th after two spins) and an astonishing effort from Alex Barron. Apart fi-om staying out of trouble for most of the
race the Eagle driver took the lead mid-race while he was
out of sequence and looked entirely confident doing it, until an uncharacteristic
rookie spin broke his suspen sion. Maybe the Eagle IS the car Dan Gurney has been pra3dng for... TTiat Zanardi won the title
three races early was one of the most predictable things of 1998. With the Italian off to
FI now the questions all seem revolve
around
Team
next two years most have already cemented Williams reject Heinz-Harald Frent-
zen into the empty Ganassi Racing seat. He seems almost certain to be joined by Jimmy Vasser, who receives a big pay increase from Ganassi next year. The man being linked most closely to the avail able Patrick Racing seat vacated by the ArcieroWells-bound Scott Pruett -
is PJ Jones. Last week the
Californian told Dan Gurney that he would not be dri
ving for him next season. Gurney’s response was, ‘take the rest of the season
off, PJ; I’m testing drivers’. Expect to see former European F3000 champ and IRL driver Vincenzo
A STAR ARRIVES... Franchitti took his second win in Van
Sospiri drive at Laguna
couver (top) white Rahal said goodbye to his Canadian fans.
Seca and Surfers.
MoTeC Australia would like to welcome a new
member to the team, Ian Pollard
Ian brings with him to MoTeC a wealth of Data Acquisition knowledge, having been professionally involved in this field for a number of years. Ian will be providing Track support for MoTeC users at all of the 2 Litre and 5 Litre events and can be contacted at the
following numbers:
K^mamsTiHBY ip dmACOOMMOBAmH Insiide race track with unimpeded view of the back straight & the ocean
Ian Pollard
(I
Saies/Technical
unit, close to Cavill Ave
Support yobiie: 0412 208 022 Fax: 61=2-9759 4049 Email: t
ipoIIIard@oiniaustralia.com.au t
2 bedroom, fully self-contained
f** Building facilities include heated indoor pool, outdoor pool, spa, sauna, tennis courts, bbq
Ph Patsy directly on; 0414 374 156
Bad back halts Paul Morris BACK problems overcame Paul Morris’ Indy Lights effort at Vancouver. On the untried new BC
Place track Morris qualified a strong 12th in his PacWest Lola but, after making ground in the race, was forced to park after severe back problems. Morris is still having prob lems fitting into the Lights chassis which, ironically, would not be a problem if he was racing an Indycar. The race was won by Cristiano da Matta, who led from pole position to the che quered flag. -PHIL MORRIS
i
■■
jW®0®[FS[^[?0_
3
September 1998
43 cars for AMP 1000 Seven BTCC entries but no Renaults By PHIL BRANAGAN A TOTAL of 43 cai-s have
lodged entries for the AMP Bathurst 1000 and there are no Renaults on
AMP Bathurst'
Super Touring 2 Brad Jones (NSW)/TBA {Frank Biela?) Audi Sport Quattro A4 Audi Sport Quattro A4 3 Cameron McConville (VIC)Jean'Francois Hemroulle (BEL?) Volvo Oz/TWR Volvo S40 4 Jan Nilsson (SWE)/Tim Harvey (GB) 8 John Cleland (UK)/Derek Warwick (UK) Team Vectra Racing Vectra 10 Tony Newman (NZ)/Dwayne Bewley (NZ) Fastway Peugeot 406 11 Milton Leslight (NSW)/Dennis Cribbin (NSW) AAP Toyota Carina E Greenfield BMW 320i 12 Cameron McLean (QLD)/Tony Scott (QLD) Nissan Primera 14 TBA (Warren Luff?)/Jim Cornish (NSW) BOC Honda Accord 15 MarkAdderton (NSW)/TBA 16 Justin Matthews (NSW)/Paul NeIson(NSW)/Bob Holden (NSW)Faber-Castell BMW 320i BMW318i 20 Denis Chapman (NZ)/Brian Bradshaw (NZ) 21
After their performance in the 1997 the WilliamsRenault team has decided
against coming back for a second crack at the race and
leading Independent outfit, DC Cook Racing, swapped its Honda Accord for its ex-
TOSHIBA
Paula Cook (UK)/TBA
DC Cook Honda Accord
BBX BMW 320i 22 Carlos Rolfo (QLD)yRod Wilson (VIC) 23 Mike Fitzgerald (NSW)ArBA Peugeot 405 BMW 320i 24 Bruce Miles (NZ)/Murray Cleland (NZ) Rod Jones Vauxhall Cavalier 25 Mike Newton (UK)/Jamie Wall (UK) 29 Lee Brookes (UK)/Robb Gravett (UK) Brookes Motorsport Honda Accord Roadchill BMW 320i 30 Troy Searle (NSW)/Luke Searle (NSW) 34 Steven Richards (VIC)/Matt Neal (UK) Team Dynamics Nissan Primera Volvo OzTTWR Volvo S40 40 Jim Richards (VIC)/RickardRydell (SWE) 45 David Auger (QLD)/Lawrie Kyte (NZ) Olympus Alfa Romeo 155 DCM BMW318i 49 Anthony Robson (NSW)^BA (Craig Bradshaw (NSW?) 77 Malcolm Rea (QLD)/Brad Stratton (QLD) Rea Toyota Carina E 80 Russell Ingall (VIC)/Greg Murphy (NZ) Team Vectra Racing Vectra 88 Mark Zonneveld (NSW)/Kurt Kratzmann (QLD) Knight Ford Mondeo 89 Jenni Thompson (ACT)/Heidi O’Neill (SA) Knight Ford Mondeo 90 Peter Hills (NSW)/Domenic Beninca (VIC) Knight Ford Mondeo
the list.
Tommy Rustad Renault Laguna last Monday. That leaves 7 cars coming down under from the BTCC; two factory Vauxhalls, two
Provisional Entry List
MICHEUN
Schedule S
TWR-run .Volvo S40s and
Independent entries from Robb Gravett/Lee Brookes
(Honda), Cook and Team Dynamics. Howeyer, the last entiy is
SO LONG DEL... Derek Warwick could be having his last touring car drive at Bathurst when he partners John Cleland in the 1998 AMP Bathurst 1000.
one of the most intriguing. Steven Richards and Matthew Neal will not team
question mark was over the driver line-up in the Audi team. As we went to press on Tuesday night team manager Kim Jones was in Germany to discuss the race with Audi Motorsport boss Dr Ulrich. No word had come fi-om Germany as to an outcome but, if the Jones lads get their way, expect
surprises for the October 4 classic. Warren Luff is expected to partner Jim Cornish in the ex-Richards & Kaplan Nissan Primera, while Commodore Cup racer Heidi O’Neill is paired with Jenni Thompson in one of Peter Hills’Ford Mondeos.
The local entries are most
Frank Biela to share with Jones and Jean-Francois
Bathurst local Rod Jones will run the ex-Graham
settled though the biggest
Hemroulle to pair with
Moore Opel Cavalier for
up in the latter’s 1997-spec Nissan Primera but a factoiy 1998 car, imn under the
guidance of Nissan Motorsport and Ray Mallock Limited staff.
Paula Cook, who races in
Formula 3, is expected to line up in her family’s car after an impressive test last month in the team’s Laguna.
Cameron McConville.
Brits Mike Newton and Jamie Wall while 10 cars are confirmed from NZ for
There are some last-minute
the Schedule S class, while 6 cars
are
in
the
GT
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 70
Robbie Ker (NZ)/Bernard Gillan (NZ) Toyota Corona Peter van Breugai (NZ)/lan Spurle (NZ) Prestige Motorsport Nissan Sentra Bill Tunzelmann (NZ)/TBA BT Motorsport Peugeot 406 Jason Richards (NZ)/Barrie Tomlinson (NZ) International Motorsport BMW 320i Rod Hicks (NZ)/Kevin Bell (NZ) International Motorsport BMW 320i Aaron Harris (NZ)/ International Motorsport BMW 320i Grant Aitken (NZ)/Chris Bird (NZ)/ Max Pennington (NZ)Suzuki Finance Suzuki Baleno Ford Telstar GeoH Short (NZ)/Greg Goodie (NZ) Wayne Johnson (NZ)/TBA Honda Integra Ted Jarvis (NZ)/Tony Rutherford (NZ) Toyota Corolla GTi
Production cars 35 Tom Walkinson(NSW)/CalvinGardner(NSW) 37 38 38 71 ?
Mazda 626
Mazda 626 Ken Talbert (NSW)/Kimley Talbert (NSW) David Ratcliff (NSW)/TBA (Paul Cover (VIC?) Phoenix Motorsport Toyota Camry Carol Jackson (WA)/Gary Jackson (WA)/Kevin Helfernan (Q) Pace Racing Honda Civic Mazda 626 Phil Kirkham (VIC)/Malt Lehmann (VIC)Megan Kirkham (VIC) Letcher Honda Civic Allan Letcher (NSW)/Adam Macrow (VIC)
Production category. Full will join David Ratcliff
... Attention all voters
in the Toyota Camry while
BATHURST
current
PM John Howard
Event Management has thought of everything for
may have not had the traditional October date in his
ing booth at the track, situated just
the 1998 - even the election.
mind
inside
Either Ron Searle of Geoff
Formula
Ford
Champion Adam Macrow has hopped into Allan Letcher’s Honda Civic for his ProdCar debut.
when
he
called the Octover 3
election but there will be a mobile vot
the
main
entrance gates.
The best part is the 6 month/20,000 km
No mate,
warranty on all parts.
the best fjart is the price!
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V(o
Doohan wins - and World of Sport
Motor Jtofffig Calendar
Sandown 500 * Sept 13
I
MICK Doohan is within four
Sandown Raceway, Melb
Imola. But after the race the four-time
1000 Classic * Nov 15 .. .Mt. Panorama, Bathurst
AMP Bathurst 1000 ,Mt. Panorama, Bathurst
Australian
o
Doohan’s comments seem to be in Rd 1
Nov 1
Thunderdome .. .Rd 2
Decs
AdelaideInt.RVvay. .Rd 3
Six race series held at Bathurst. Calder Park
Thunderdome and Adelaide International Rway.
4
FedEx Champ Car Series* Sept 13 ..Laguna Seca ..Rd16 Oct 4
Rd 17
Houston
19 race series held in the United Stales.
Australia. Brazil and Japan
4
Pep Boys Indy Racing League Oct 10 .. .Las Vegas ... .Rd 11 11 race series held inthe United States
Formula 1 World C'ship Rd 14
Sept 13 ..Italy
Sept 27 ..Luxembourg .. .Rd 15 Oct 11
.. .Portugal
Rd 16
16 race series held around the world
FiA GT World C'ship Rd8
Sept 20 ..Austria
10 race series held around the world
Winston Cup NASCAR
4
Sept 12 ..Richmond
....Rd 27
Sept 20 . .Dover Downs ..Rd 28 Sept 27 ..Martinsville
Rd 29
33 race series held in Ike United States
NHRA Winston
Drag Racing Series Sept 20 ..Reading
Rd 17
Oct 4 ... .Topeka .
Rd 18
22 race series held in the United States
SOOcc Motorcycle Grand Prix C'ship* Sept 20 ..Spain ..
Rd 12
Oct 10
Rd 13
...Australia
response to pre-race quotes from Biaggi about Doohan’s perceived advantage. “Sometimes I have to laugh ... some people say there’s no difference between our bikes but, if that’s the case, why do they have a separate factory team?” Biaggi said. The Italian went on to say that he and the Australian were “not very good friends”. Doohan may not have qualified on pole position but that had little to do race.
WAR OF WORDS... Doohan gave Biaggi a iicking on the track and then paid out on his fellow Honda rider after the race, calling him a “baby". The battle for the Championship is getting nervy. (Photo by Michael coopermspon)
Qualifying’s second session was washed out so the grid formation was based on Friday’s times. That was only okay for Doohan and Biaggi; they lined up third and
... and Frankie and Foggy
with
the
result
of
the
fourth behind Alex Barros (second),
Sept 20 . .Fort Worth ....Rd 10
4
per Corriere dello Sport that Biaggi was “looking for excuses”. “We’ve got the same bike but he tells lies to try and seem better than he is,” he said.
NASCAR Series* Oct 3/4 .. .Bathurst
World Champion struck out at Italian ace Max Biaggi, saying “he’s a baby and doesn’t deserve my respect”. Doohan told the Italian newspa
'The Great Race'
o
points of the lead in the World 500cc Championship after a fine display of opposition-kicking at
FAI Australian
Qct4
takes a shot at Biag^i
16 round series held around the world
but the man on pole position was a shock to everyone. It was JeanMichel Bayle. To have a Yamaha on pole was surprise enough but for Bayle to do it, in a comeback ride after his seri ous injuries in a pre-season accident was one of the best moments of the season.
Biaggi took the lead at the start and led the first three laps, until Doohan shot past under brakes and sped to an almost seven second win from Alex Criville, who also charged past the Marlboro Honda. Biaggi was third on his Kanemoto Honda to keep his lead in the cham pionship but the writing was on the wall; after his uncharacteristic fall in the Czech Republic, Mick is back. Doohan said after the race that
the win was “straightforward”. My only problem was a little cramp, because here you’re quite often on the clutch and the brake at the same
time to stop the bike from spinning. But that wasn’t going to slow me down.”
Biaggi leads the World Championship on 189 points from Doohan on 185 and Criville (182).
THERE were heroics aplenty in the 250 GP, with Valentino Rossi taking his second 250 win in front of compatriots Loris
4
Sept 18 ..Indonesia
Rd 11
14 rally series held around the world All event dates in this calendar were
correct at the time of printing. Please consult any individual tracks and/or Series or events telecast on Network Ten are marked with an asterix.
Check your local guides for screening details.
WHILE
the
Championship
World
con
tenders in 500cc GP
racing were getting angry in Italy their World Superhike Championship counter parts were going the Full Monty in Holland, with
Pierfrancesco
Chili and Carl Fogarty exchanging punches after two tense races.
The Ducati duo put on two great dices, the Italian winning the first leg but falling in the sec ond. He dropped his 995 at the chicane as Fogarty tried to pass him, but he was more unhappy about an incident on the previ ous lap when the Brit appeared to force him onto the grass at high speed.
MOMENT OF TRUTH... Chiii (7) was looking good for the Assen double until he lost the front end of the Ducati, allowing Fogarty (2) to win race two. Briton off until the che
back and led going into
quered flag. Third went to Corser - a little way behind - with Slight
time. Fogarty dived through on the brakes
The drama reached its
(Castrol Honda) fourth,
and as the two of them
Edwards (Castrol Honda)
leant into the turn. Chili
and Goddard (Suzuki WSB) sixth.
went down.
fifth
punch at Foggy) told his
Capirossi and Stefano Perugini. But the story of the race was fel low Aprilia rider Tetsuya Harada.
adversary in no uncertain terms that revenge would
mates Haga and Russell, and although Russell got
be his in the next race at
ahead on numerous occa
The title leader flew over the bars in
Sugo in Japan.
sions, Haga just sneaked
qualifying, breaking his leg, but he rode in the race with the leg heavily race but remounted the bike, got a push start and went on to finish 10th! He leads the championship on 181 points from Capirossi (168) and Rossi (126). IN the 125s Marco Melandri went down to Tomomi Nakano
hy 0.087s in a thrilling battle. Kazuto Sakata leads the champi onship on 198 points from Melandri’s 158.
the chicane for the last
peak at the post-race press conference when Chili, who appeared in his dressing gown (and hav ing already thrown a
There was also a tremendous battle between Yamaha team
braced. He had another fall in the
World Rally Championhip*
weren’t sweethearts
A further altercation
followed and punches were allegedly thrown by both parties, and the Italian allegedly told a 'TV crew that both of them
would not be heading to Japan. The controversy over shadowed the actual rac
ing. In the first 16-lapper Fogarty led one lap from the end, but Chili dived through and held the
it at the end. The second race was
another Ducati threesome
to start, with Fogarty leading most of the race and Chili the main pro
lost the front end and
Fogarty didn’t see what had happened and took the chequered flag to notch up yet another Assen victory, with Slight second and Corser third. Chili remounted and
pushed the hike across the line, but it was all to no avail - spectators had helped him push the bike and Chili was not classi fied as a finisher.
KRJR for Suzuki? KENNY Roberts Jr may
be on the verge of leav ing his father’s Modenas GP team for a Suzuki ride in 1999. US network ESPN
reported last weekend that ‘KRJR’ and Kenny
Sr had had a falling out,
apparently prompted by a high-speed seizure while Kenny Jr was
testing the Mk.2 version of the team’s 3-cylinder 500.
tagonist after Corser
Edwards took
fourth,
There has been ten
faded.
ahead of Whitham and
On the last lap, Fogarty made a high-speed block ing move on Chili on the fast back straight, annoy ing the Italian in the process. But Chili got him
Yanagawa.
sion between the two for some time and
Points after 11 rounds; Corser
328.5, Slight 328, Fogarty 322.5, Chili 289.5, Edwards 273.5.
-DARRYL FLACK
Roberts Jr has report edly received a lucra tive 2-year deal to switch to Suzuki next season.
11 Seplembsf 1998
II
Besnard clinches US title A
SECOND
place
at
L ",
Atlanta’s ronmd of the
and no
USFF2000 Championship was enough to give David Besnard
the
1998
Championship. The Sydney driver secured
a double championship along the way, also sealing the
time to rest
*1
five-race oval track title
which runs within the main series.
WHILE Besnard has not
Besnard finished second to
yet announced his plans for 1999, he will have a
Robby McGehee at Atlanta but Ryan Hampton, his only serious challenger for the crown, could manage only seventh place. There are two rounds left in the champi onship, both at Pikes Peak in
T.
Colorado ip two weeks. A
I
laiCffiG
Besnard. .“The race came our
way tonight. I will now be able to go for the wins at
'^YOiOHmA
Pikes Peak.
“Our team was absolutely great all season. I’d especial ly like to thank Jon Baytos at Primus Racing for making this year happen, John Hayes - the best engineer in the series and, of course, my father, Jeff Besnard. “I’m glad the title is wrapped-up because now I can really go racing in the last two rounds instead of
being so careful,” he added. “We’re going after the season
/
r'
Franchitti to back-to-back CART victories at Elkhart Lake and Vancouver. (Photo ty smce smith)
Hampton. The next day,
efforts. Besnard would record
Besnard finished second to
another flag-to-flag win at Mid-Ohio on August 8, and coupled with Hampton’s 36th-place after an accident, moved him out to a 51-point advantage heading to Atlanta Motor Speedway. The pivotal point in the Championship was the lap23 restart at Atlanta, in which Hampton went from first to seventh just as the
McGehee, taking a 37-point lead in the Championship going into the May 29-30 Watkins Glen doubleheader.
wins and poles records.” Besnard opened the season January 24 at Walt Disney World Speedway with a run
Besnard built up a com manding 50-point lead with a win and a fourth place fin
from 31st take the lead from
ish in the two Watkins Glen
McGehee on the penultimate lap, scoring his first career
rounds and a dominating flag-to-flag drive at Mid-Ohio
win. Two months later at Phoenix International
June 14. Minnesota was Besnard’s
race’s
Raceway, Besnard took his first career pole and led flagto-flag, again topping
worst outing, although he made the race exciting with a charge through the field to second place after an early spin before an accident put him out, allowing Hampton to cut the points lead back to
ended under caution, dash
McGehee.
The 21-year-old former Australian Formula Ford
Champion became the first driver to open the U.S. F2000 season with three
In the next three races,
was
brought out. The 30-lap race ing Hampton’s title hopes. With two races remaining, Besnard has already set the season earnings mark with
earns a firee test in one of
A.J. Foyt’s Indy Racing
finale.
League cars, a free test
He has a possible ride in the KOOL/Toyota Atlantic Championship
financial assistance for
at
Houston on
October 4; a ride in Le
of US$32,200) and points
third-
and
fourth-place
in an Atlantic car and 1999 in either Atlantics
or Indy Lights. Despite the offer of
Petit Le Mans in a Ford
fi*ee rides with two of the
Riley & Scott at Road Atlanta, October 11; the Euro Cup at Brands Hatch, England, October
leading Atlantic teams, Besnard’s preferred option remains securing a leading Lights seat,
18; and the Formula Ford World Finals at Brands
which he could combine with drives for Rob
Hatch, October 25.
Dyson’s USRRC sports-
The Formula Ford World Finals is one of
car team.
Besnard earns with the U.S. F2000 Career
Options package.
Then, in 2000, he is looking forward to a drive in the PPG CART
series. He’s come a long way in a short time...
● Quicker acceleration
● Easier starting engine ● Precise ignition timing ● Higher top speed
mioc’r
● Increased fuel mileage
● Increased horsepower and torque
ing Steve Knapp’s 1996 total mark with 333 (231 points, Knapp, 1996). He has also set six fastest race laps, including records at Walt Disney World, Homestead, Minneapolis and Charlotte.
mid-race
Besnard
US$50,750 ($84,500, eclips
The July 24-25 Charlotte doubleheader was Hampton’s weekend, as he won both races from the pole - cutting the lead to 19 with Besnard’s
with
caution
37.
wins at Homestead on May 14. Besnard put on a display of car control after having his rear wing knocked off in a accident
final
Diemen
ride,
the Pikes Peak USF2000
several opportunities
A COUPLE OF AUSSIE WINNERS... Besnard has impressed many people with his great US form. That’s Team Kool Green’s Kim Green on the left; he’s just engineered Dario
Van
works
husy October following
finale
the “Winning Championship is a dream come true, but I’ve got a few dreams this year,” said
In addition to the fullyfunded
Bert Flood Imports POBox 61 Lilydale Vic 3140 Ph: 03 9735 5655 or Fax: 03 9735 5699 Email: flood@smart.net.au
David Besnard
♦
$ r *
^ 1998 USF2000 Champion
»
wt
/ Vifould like to thank the folloY/ing people for making ■ my success possible: Peter Dell - St George Kart Centre Peter Moulder - Race & Rally
,
■iH!'
f
I
●ns
a>iL<*:;K
Steve Knott - Van Diemen Australia
Harry Galloway - Galloway Developments Bob Jane T Marts
Valvoline - Garry Rogers And special thanks to Fred Gibson and Greg Siddle for all the help and advice they have given me regarding my career options and management.
My results in American would not have been possible without the help^ sponsorship and personal financial input of Jon^ Brad & Jack BaytoS/ the best engineer in F2000 John Hayes, my mechanics Charlie & Neuby, great engines from Sandy and JJ at Quick Silver and Ralph Firman & Jon Uprichard of Van Diemen. © tAoionpon News
12 USeplmberM
0
Arrows
9X1
Webber guides Me
picking up the pieces ARROWS has been work
ing flat out in order to have three serviceable cars at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend.
The team suffered badly at Spa with Mika Salo crashing on Satiu-day and then both the Finn and
Pedro Diniz becoming involved in the multiple accident on the first lap. With three of the team’s
four cars badly damaged, there was no time to test
at Monza last week with the other teams. The car which Diniz
used to finish fifth at Spa (chassis 06) will be raced
from now on by Mika Salo while Diniz will use a new
chassis (07). The team has rebuilt
chassis 01, which Diniz crashed at the start of the
race in Belgium, and this will be the spare car at Monza.
The team says that the extensively damaged chassis 05 and 02, which were crashed by Salo, can both be repaired.
rr. V
-JOESAWARD
Brack’s IRL triple treat
McCALL COMMUNICATIONS
L
know him, but I knew he had good equipment that you
margin of victory.
three consecutive races, off Davey holding
could win races with. I knew there was a realistic chance
defensively, I just drove the
Hamilton by .944 of a sec ond to win the inaugural
of that happening with A.J. “I like to race, and I have fun racing, but I do it because
win,” Brack said. “I got by Davey, I knew I could maybe
I have a realistic chance of
expect to catch him so quickly.’ Brack led twice for 17 laps, only the fourth-highest total among lap leaders in the
Atlanta 500 Classic. It was Brack’s third victo
ry of the season, which pushed him to the top of the IRL standings for the first time in his career.
“Well, I didn’t think it was
ALL TYPES OF RACING \
KENNY Brack became the first IRL driver to win
going to be three wins in a row in this time of the year,” Brack said. “I’ve always won races in whatever I’ve driven,
* Sales
and that’s the reason I want
ed to go with A.J. I didn’t
av
1
Service
CRAIG Connell’s debut in
'^ Hand Helds
500cc Grand Prix racing will come two weeks ear
lier than expected. Already a wildcard for the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island circuit on October 2-4, Connell will
# Headsets
# General Communication ^ Rental
now have his first 500cc race
at the Catalunya GP in Spain on September 20.
O
Runner-up to Victorian
Martin Craggill in this year’s Australian Superbike Championship, 30-year-old
ICOM MOTOROLA
Connell - of Brisbane - also was offered a start at last weekend’s San Marino GP.
msimoco Radio Communications
eiHG RMBiaS
716 Plenty Road
Brack seized his chance for
victory on Lap 195 of the 208lap race, passing Jeff Ward for the lead in Turn 1 of the 1.54-mile quad-oval. Hamilton stalked Brack over
the last 14 laps, trimming his lead from 1.591 seconds to less than one second. But he came no closer than the final
best I could and I went on to
catch him (Ward). I didn’t
event. That continued a trend
started in Brack’s victory in the Radisson 200, where he
led only 28 of 200 laps but managed to pull out the vic tory despite running out of gas in the final turn.
Connell's 500« break
^ Track Side I
winning.”
“I don’t know how to drive
I
Reservoir VIC 3073
ph03 94713333*fax03 94711010●mobile0418367618
racing later in the month will come with the first-year team run by European-based Australian Jeff Hardwick. Hardwick’s regular
Australian rider, Sydney sider Garry McCoy, has been sidelined after breaking the tibia in his right leg at the Czech Republic GP in late August. McCoy had screws and a plate inserted in the leg and hopes to return to racing at the Phillip Island round of the world championship. Frenchman
Garcia
scored
Bernard
McCoy’s
will race in the Supersport category. “We would have liked to
have had Craig on the bike for both of the upcoming GPs, but he was already committed to race at Phillip Island
this
weekend,”
Hardwick said.
“Craig is our wildcard entry for the GP at Phillip Island on the first weekend
of October, so he might as
well get the feel of the place! “We’re pretty sure Garry will be back for tbe Island
too. The swelling has gone down in his leg and there is no infection, so all the signs are good.
However, he was unable to take up that offer because of
Honda ride for this week end’s San Marino race at the
a commitment to ride at the final round of the Australian
Imola circuit in Italy after
“He will continue to rest in
Connell told Hardwick he
Road Racing Championships at Phillip Island.
could not miss the final round of the Australian
Europe for a while, then fly home to start getting back to
Connell’s entry into 500cc
championships, at which he
race fitness.” -DARRYL FLACK
11 Seplembei 1998
i
1
^rcedes to GT title win and forced all the way back to eighth. Once into stride though Schneider started to gain ground. He was third after eight laps, passing Brabham for the position, and that became sec ond when McNish had to pit to answer a black flag for passing
team leader had no trouble and
the Mercedes at the start before the start line. With clear road Schneider
The result means that Mercedes-Benz has clinched the teams’ title in the FIA
closed the gap to Zonta and when, on lap 23 the Brazilian
Championship and now it is only for the lead pairing to sort
mates Ricardo Zonta and Klaus
touched a GT2 car in traffic,
Ludwig.
Bemd slashed by into the lead.
MARK Webber delivered
wbat was perhaps Ms best s
career drive when he and Bernd Schneider won the seventh ronnd of the FIA GT
f
ChampionsMp at Donington Park in England last Sunday. The Aussie drove through Ught rain in his stint, pulling out
!
a
[
1
f
I
13
16
second
lead
which
Schneider almost tripled in the final session. By the chequered flag he was 45s ahead of team
added almost 30s to the lead by the end of the race. Afterwards Schneider left lit
tle doubt of his thoughts. “I have to say that Mark won the race for us today,” he said. “He drove really well and did a particularly good job when it started to rain.”
However, the win was not a
He built a small lead before
out the Drivers’ title, which Schneider and Webber lead by seven points with three races
walk in the Donington Park for the German/Australian pair.
handing over to Webber on the hour, but then it started to driz
left. The battle was on behind the
For the first time all season Schneider did not qualify on pole position, after losing track time in the all-important final ses sion. Zonta took the prime spot ahead of Schneider, with the
zle on the Midlands circuit.
two CLK LMs however, was
Resuming second behind his sis ter car, the Queanbeyan 22year-old had to drive careftdly in
nothing dull. McNish and Dalmas came through from
the conditions.
and Jorg Mtdler. The Porsches were aided by the demised of the
“But, once we were both up to
Yannick Dalmas making the second row behind the flying
speed, I thought I might be quicker that Klaus in certain places,” said Webber after his
David Brabham/Eric Bernard
stint.
Porsche
of Allan
McNish/
Panoz GTR, which the Australian stuck firmly on third. Then, at the start of the race, McNish went for a gap between the two Silver Arrows, clouting both on the way through. This
“It was difficult to overtake,
but I managed to pass him up the inside at the chickne.”
Once clear Webber turned up the wick, adding a second to his lead every lap and, by the time
their team-mates Uwe Alzen
Brabham/Bernard Panoz after
56 laps of the 125 lap race, the American coupe stopping at the hairpin with a broken diff. The V12-engined Persson Motorsport Mercedes of JeanMarc Gounon and Tiemann took fifth.
Marcel
allowed McNish to steal the lead
he handed the car back to
The next round of the champi onship will be at the Al-Ring in Austria on September 20.
temporarily from Zonta while Schneider was also clouted by one of the Zakspeed Porsches
Schneider, his lead was out to 16
Points
seconds. From there the Mercedes
after
seven
rounds:
Schneider/Webber 54, Ludwig/Zonta 47, McNish/Dalmas 19, Gounon/Tiemann 13.
Baird back to Oi? Arrows for BAR Diniz to quit
By PHIL BRANAGAN
TOM
Walkinshaw
and
British American Racing’s Craig Pollock are said to be negotiating a deal for Brazilian Pedro Diniz to switch from Arrows to as BAR Jacques Villeneuve’s teammate. There have been fanciful
rumours about Nigel Mansell and David Coulthard, but we beheve that the BAR strategy calls for a South American dri
ver to partner Villeneuve. There are several young sters available but the team would benefit from a driver
with experience and Diniz has shovm himself to be quite com petitive in the last couple of years, when measured dongside Damon Hill and Mika Salo. Diniz is under contract to Walkinshaw at Arrows next
it will run from Tyrrell. Tom was
which had been
organised aroimd Diniz. Walkinshaw — annoyed that the BAT sponsorship manager had blocked a deal he had
lined up with Hollywood ciga rettes - had been demanding $7m to allow the team to change the name of the cars. Walkinshaw, however, is a clever businessman and would
prefer to broker a win-win deal for eveiyone. BAR wants to get a South and driver Walkinshaw has one under
American
contract. Tom wants a bigger budget and if this can be arranged to help BATs global marketing plans - perhaps in a different region with a differ ent BAT brand - then he will
be willing to accept a deal. There are a variety of differ
year, but the possibflity of a
ent
switch has come about as a result of Walkinshaw’s refusal to allow BAR to
WaUdnshaw could end up run ning on his cars and much would depend on the driver chosen to replace Diniz.
change the name of the cars
BAT
brands
which
here for the Diet Coke team last season.
CRAIG Baird has driven his last race for Ford’s BTCC team and is
He drove in the fimal two races of the ‘97 BOC Gases Series before
looking for a drive in Australia next
teaming with Paul Morris at Bathurst, where the pair was dis qualified for a driving duration infringement after winning the
season.
The Kiwi has heen told that, after a fraught season with Ford’s Mondeo outfit, he will he stood
race.
down in the final two races of the .t
season.
“We’re down to one car,” said
Baird on Monday. “Reynard huilt four cars at the start of the season; Will Hoy destroyed one at Brands Hatch last week, one has already gone to
“If there’s no drive in British
tourers, I’d like to settle for the long-term in Austraha. “I enjoyed racing at the end of the ’97 series with BMW and, of course,
Prodrive [which takes over the
doing Bathurst, despite the fact that it didn’t quite turn out the way
Ford deal for 1999] for aerodynamic work and the other is being huilt up for [Nigel] Mansell to drive at
we wanted.”
Silverstone.
‘Tve heen left standing”. Despite Baird’s modest results, he felt he has had as good a year as possible under the circum
“My whole career has been one year in one country followed by a another year in another coimtry.
DROPPED... Craig Baird.
Baird is prepared to look at opportunities in either Super Touring or V8 racing. “I don’t really have a preference [for wMch car or series] I’d do.
stances.
20th and runs at the back of the
“I’ve been competitive in both
“It’s disappointing, but it was a case of being in the wrong car in the wrong year. “Even Mansell qualifies the car
field so, in that respect, we are in
front-wheel drive and rear-wheel
the same boat.”
drive cars and I think it would be a
Baird raced for BMW in South Afirica in 1996 and was test driver
pity to waste the FWD experience I’ve had here tMs season.”
Of
%
David Besnar 1998
FF2000 Champion
^
From all
your friends in Australian Forumula Ford
u IIS^temberM ■ In June, when GT cars fin ished 1-2 at Le Mans, the AGO revealed its intentions to increase
the performance of Le Mans pro totypes in 1999 while also intro ducing a new GT racing category. Sportscar racing insiders are pre dicting that the rules, which are expected shortly, will mandate a maximum fuel capacity of 90 litres for both classes, allowing them the same range between fuel stops. If so, that will mean a
oJa
i
Rocky’ Rydell fights off Reid ANTHONY Reid and Rickard
Rydell shared the wins in the Brands Hatch rounds of the
British Touring Car Champion ship, hut only after a hard fight
10 Htre reduction for the GT cars
(finm 100 litres) and a 10 litre
increase for the open cars (from 80 litres).
■ ITV, Britain’s commercial
broadcaster for FI, is hoping that Murray Walker wfil stay on after his two year contract expires at the end of 1998. In a recent phone poll of more than 8000 viewers, keeping Walker, 74. He has been a TV commentator since 1948, when he started with the BBC
public service.
then became the first of the top-
Reid claimed two chequers in front of a record 40,000 spectators but the Swede was most aggrieved after the race, assaulting the Scot and earning himself a reprimand and a £2000 ($5300) fine. Later offi cials ruled that Reid’s overtaking
three
debuts its V12-engine sportscar in
Audi’s car is currently being designed and will be built at the former TOMS GB facility in Norfolk. A new LMP Nissan, designer by freelancer Nigel Stroud, is expected to be buQt in Sussex by G Force Engineering, although Courage (which ran fac tory Nissan engines in ’98) and
The Swede was back in control of
the 50-lap race after 33 laps, defending a half-second advantage
this
afternoon’s
second
deal.
■ When Audi does go public with its GT program, expect to see a cut-back in its Super Touring efforts. Pending a deci
Ingolstadt HQ, Audi is likely to close its BTCC program. While its
Photos by Bolhwell Photographic
4WD A4 quattro swept all before it in winning the 1996 title the recent FWD program (brought about by the banning of 4WD in
Rydell looked home but Reid
made a gap for himself at Druids and muscled his Primera past the Volvo. Rydell was less than impressed by Reid’s move and tem pers flared after the race... “Anthony hit me early on, but that wasn’t a problem,” said Rydell afterwards. “But then at the end he
rammed the rear of my car. I couldn’t do anything about it.
Hard on the Primera’s heels was
“There was lots of adrenaline and
I had to tell him what I thought.” “I was quicker than Rickard early
mood to settle for second and made
sion late this month finm its
over Reid and with Menu third
from Thompson, Plato and Neal.
James Thompson’s Honda, with Rydell and David Leslie’s Nissan disputing third. At the chequered flag, Reid’s winning margin over Thompson was 2.6 seconds, with Rydell close behind in third and Leslie fourth from Menu, Kox,
Rydell made no mistake away from the Featme Race pole, slicing ahead of Reid, Thompson and Menu at the start and settling into an early lead. Reid was, however, in no
efibrt) have both pitched for the
a move on the Volvo exiting Druids on the seventh lap. His manoeuvre was firmly rebuffed by Rydell and, as he fought to recover, Reid was passed by Thompson, Menu and
on but he brake-tested
to me about driver behaviour.”
Along with Reid’s penalty fourth placed Thompson picked up a 30second penalty for overstepping the mark at Paddock Hill Bend on one
too many occasions, dropping him to ninth behind Plato, Neal, Muller, Kox and Harvey. Rydell’s championship lead now stands at 33 points, but the gap will soon be narrowed when the Swede
has to start discarding low scores drivers may count only their 22
MIKE TYSON MOTORSPORT... Rydell (#4) leads the field out of Druids on the first lap. HAVE YOU DRIVEN A FORD LAMELY?... It was a bad weekend for Mansell: Nigel’s not limping, is he?
the class) has been less success
the defection of long-time Audi man Yvan Midler to Vauxhall
British Touring Car Championship
(see below). Australia’s effort with
Brands Hatch 31 August 1998
Brad Jones Racing is not likely to be greatly affected by the deci sion.
Round 21 (25 laps) 1 Anthony Reid GB Nissan Primera 25m 31.825s +2.609S 2 James Thompson GB Honda Accord +3.542S 3 Rickard Rydell SWE Volvo S40
■ Porsche is likely to field a factoiy team for Road Atlanta’s
4 5 6
GB Nissan Primera
Round 22 (50 taps, amended)
1
Rydell 38m 54.295s
2 3 4 6 6 7
Reid Menu Plato Neal Muller Kox
+30.104s Harvey Thompson+35.557S
Tetit Le Mans’ on October 10.
7
Jason Plato
GB Renault Laguna
+4.716S +5.714S +11.421S +11.780s
The 1000 mile race (1666km) is a
8
John Cleland
GB Vauxhall Vectra GB Nissan Primera
+12.318s +12.643s
8 9
NZ Peugeot 406
+21.223s
10 Radisich
precursor to the new US series and a Porsche entry would be a
DFRS
welcome boost. But the race falls in the week before the USA’s back-to-back FIA GT finals at
ted.
■ Halt, which dominated the Formula Three scene in the
1980s, is said to be returning to the class to take on the all-con
+6.593S
+21.883s
+35.684s
FASTESTLAP Reid 44.967s 96.359mph
Vauxhall grabs Muller for '99 vers
Touring Car Championship and current Triple 8 team co
The arrival of Muller is a logi cal move for the 'Triple 8 team. Apart fi-om the fact that he had driven very impressively in
owner Derek Warwick has been
Audi’s difficult FWD A4, he
a Having lost lead driver Alain Menu and gun engineer Mark
dropped. Lining up alongside the seem ingly perpetual John Cleland in
spends his winters racing for Opel factory-backed ice racing team in France. Over the past
for
the
1999
British
the works Vectras next season
two seasons he has been almost
will be Yvan Muller, who has
unbeatable in his 4WD Opel Tigra coupe and he has taken
driver Jason Plato to a deal for 1999. There is still no word on
driven for Audi this season.
who may replace Swiss Menu, the 1997 BTCC Champion. Having
made his BTCC debut this sea son after several seasons in
decided not to send a team to the
Audi’s European squad. His
Bathurst 1000, Menu’s last drive will be on September 20. - QUENTIN SPURRING
9 Matt Neal 10 PaulRadisich
NL Honda Accord
-f3.313s
+16.727s +21.562S
TEAMS Williams Renault 140, Nissan Racing 126. Volvo S40 Racing 120 etc.
VAUXHALL has signed its dri
steps to stop the ‘drain’ by signing
SWI Renault Laguna
+0.600S
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: Rydell 223 points, RckJ 190, Menu 175, Thompson 164. Plato 133, LesKo 126. Cleland 101, Muller 78. Will Hoy (GafFord) & Dorek Warwick (GBA/auxhall) 57 etc.
quering Italian-built DaUaras.
Renault BTCC team has taken
David Leslie Alain Menu Peter Kox
MANUFACTURERS Nissan 246. Renault 231. Volvo 228, Honda 191. Vauxhall 155. Audi 129. Ford 101. Peugeot 90.
The witney UK company is said to be tempted back by the newfor-1999 regulations,
Williams to Ford, WUliams-
me at
Druids which let Thompson and two others past me,” fumed Reid. “He braked early for Druids and I squeezed through. It’s as simple as that. Rydell is hardly one to preach
best scores from the 26 races.
Plato.
ful. One of the results has been
Homestead and Laguna Seca, to which Porsche is already commit-
their
had been unfair and added two sec
Jason Plato’s Renault and John Cleland’s Vauxhall.
'TWR (which ran Nissan’s GT
make
manoeuvre, when the Nissan driver
Reid led the Sprint Race from pole position (his ninth of the year) to chequered flag. It was his fmrrth morning Sprint win.
next June. It is believed that
to
took the lead five laps from the end,
encounter.
the 1998 race, Nissan and Audi are expected to field sports-proto type factory teams at Le Mans
runners
mandatory stops, pulling into the pits a lap before Rydell. As Thompson, Plato, Kox, Robb Gravett (Honda) and Tim Harvey (Peugeot) took their turns in front as the pit stops unwound, Rydell again found his mirrors full of Reid.
in
■ As well as BMW, which
demoted Menu from third. Reid
- on and off the track.
onds to Reid’s race time, dropping him to second place. Nigel Mansell suffered a trou bling time: the former World Champion crashed his Ford Mondeo out of the Sprint Race on the first lap, then repeated the feat after 30 laps, with some assistance,
more than 75% voted in favour of
Reid was soon on his way back up, though. The Primera snatched fourth place back from Plato within four laps and, three laps later,
The 29-year-old Frenchman
best result was in the wet Croft
round, where he finished sec ond behind (ironically enough) Warwick.
two titles in a row. Warwick’s name had been linked to Honda but it seems
unlikely that the veteran will have many offers for 1999. His long driving career, which saw 147 GP starts and a Le Mans
win, may now be over.
A4 AU REVOIR... Yvan Muller is heading to Vauxhall next season.
15
11Sepleuil)e!W98 ....
Murphy
Judith Griggs in
back in FHolden
the FI fast lane FORMER Australian Grand Prix chief Judith
GREG Murphy will return to open wheelers at the
Griggs
as a possible future chief
Paddy McNally’s powerful Allsport Management in
Christchurch’s Ruapuna circuit on December 6.
Geneva.
Murphy, 25, is looking for ward to racing once again in New Zealand, piloting the Reynard 92D which was dri ven to victory by fellow Kiwi
The Allsport position means that Griggs will be involved
1998
Junior team fever
Formula Holden, so I can’t wait to get back into the cockpit,” said Murf. “Formula Holden racing
Prix
We understand that no
teams are expected to
fewer than 24 teams have
RSM
enter teams in the Formula 3000 series next
said they wish to be involved and that most of the existing operations have paid their deposits. In addition, we- believe that Portman Racing - Tom
being linked with a deal to
Walkinshaw’s Arrows Jimior Team and Richard
teams but have been unable to secure chassis. At the moment McLaren
SEVERAL
win be great preparation for my assault on the Indy Lights Championship next
Grand
year, when it is expected to be renamed as the FI
year.
Junior World Champion ship. The plan is for there to be
“The level of competition during this Formula Holden season has been exceptional, so I know that I will need to
15 two-car teams in the
get back into the open wheel
series, with chassis to be supphed by Lola and engines by Zytek. In the days leading up to the Belgian GP, teams were instructed to put down deposits on 1999 cars if they
er racing groove as quickly as possible.” Murphy was in-form dur ing the 1994 Australian Drivers’ Championship, scor ing five wins on his way to the runner-up spot in that
wished to be considered for entries.
series.
Dutton’s Fortec Motorsport, which has been linked with
junior team projects with both
British
Racing and Benetton, have also put down their money. We hear that three of the
big Formula 3000 teams con
00*
lOlAL
fAustralia's Independent Network of Motorsport
iEquipment Specialists
herving YOU!
ganised more efficiently under her guidance. The Australian lawyer has been involved in the
is
sport since 1986 when she began doing legal work
run a Junior Team for FI
with the Australian Grand Prix Office in Adelaide. In 1989 Ecclestone asked her to work for FOCA in London and she
team Sauber), Bertram
Schafer Racing, KMS Racing and Kid Jensen Racing all want to run
reorganised Ecclestone’s business empire and
and Prost are both overtly involved in F3000, with Williams funding some of the program for championship Juan-Pablo challenger Montoya with the Supernova
founded Formula Promotions
Geneva for one of the most
powerful organisations in world motor sport. became chief executive of
the AGP Corporation in Melbourne, a role she filled with great success until after this year’s race, when she decided to
Administration, the fore
“personal reasons” and to
runner of Formula One
start her own business. Little has been heard of her since. -JOESAWARD
In 1993, with Ecclestone’s blessing, she
-JOESAWARD
TOP JOB... Judith Griggs win be working out ot
One and
Holdings.
team.
trived to miss the deadline.
V.'
La
American
(which
trackside
that these will be reor
In addition we hear that
Marko
in
advertising, merchandis ing and the Paddock Club corporate hospitality businesses and we expect
MIRROR IMAGE... Nick Heidleld has enjoyed great success in Formula 3000 this year with the McLaren-lookalike car sponsored by West cigarettes. (Photo by Michael Cooper/Aiisport)
Australian Drivers’ Champion ship. “It has been three years since I last stepped out of a
BOND ROLL BARS
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Holdings when Bernie Ecclestone decides to retire - is to work for
Zealand Grand Prix at
HARNESSES
many
executive of Formula 1
Invercargill’s Teretonga circuit, along with the New
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who
believe is being groomed
New Zealand Formula Holden races scheduled for at November 29
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9
^s USejJtmkfm ■ Piero Lardi Ferrari,
the son of Enzo Ferrari, is to become the new
President of the sporting commission of the
Automobile Club of Italy. Lardi Ferrari inherited much of his father’s for tune and still owns 10% of
the Ferrari company. He also owns most of the
buildings used by Ferrari although he recently sold the Fiorano test track to
FIAT, which owns the rest of the Ferrari shares.
■ It seems that there
are not one but two pro jects to run a Grand Prix in Beirut in the year 2003. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Al-Hariri has been
asked to adjudicate in the dispute. AI-Hariri owns one of the country’s largest construction com panies, which has the con tract to rebuild Beirut dty centre...
■ Little-known French
racing driver Patrick Lemarie was given a test run last week at
Silverstone by the Tyrrell team. Lemarie is man
aged by Creiig PoUock, the
Classic Porsches in Australia NINE of the most famous
Porsches ever built — mostly rac ing classics - are headed to i
Australia.
The cars are being sent from the Porsche factory museum in Stuttgart for the 50th anniversary celebrations from November 1115.
The collection is valued at
more than $20 million and
●f
m
f
-
/77
I
III
Mans in 1978; ● Three Le Mans winners -
the 917 from 1970, the 1977 model 936 and the 962 from
1987; ● Three classic 356 models,
including the 1951 class-winning Coupe with its aerodynamic wheel-spats; ● And the 1970 Targa Florio 908 Spyder in Gulf colors. The cars will be on free pub lic display as part of the 50 Year
.
.
/
3
.
I
pj.f
Porsche Festival outside Melbourne Town Hall on November 13 and will head a
\
f
)vi
r*
Porsche parade in the Alexandra Gardens the follow-
about a serious test.
I,
i
● ‘Moby Dick’, the long-tailed 750-horsepower 935 built for Le
boss of British American
their friendship than
L..
%
be:
Racing, and it seems that the test is more about
/
includes the company’s first midengined prototype built in 1948. Racing models on display will
ing day. A number of Porsche AG
PORSCHE PARADE... Six of the magnificent cars coming to Australia. FRONT: 356 Coupe and 718 Spyder; MIDDLE: 962, 917 and 908 Spyder; REAR: 935 'Moby Dick’ Coupe.
board members are also visiting Australia for the Festival.
■ Rumours ,in French
circles suggest that Prost team manager Cesare Fiorio will be leaving the team at the end of the
season, when his contract runs out. He is thought likely to go to Minardi,
while Prost is expected to name a French replace ment. The obvious candi date is ORECA boss
Hugues de Chaunac although there have been suggestions that former Winfield Racing chief Gerard Camilli might also be chosen.
■ Yardley, one of the first companies to be involved in Formula 1
sponsorship, has gone into receivership. The cosmet ics company fimded BRM in 1970 and 1971 and then moved to McLaren for the 1972 and 1973 sea sons.
at Arrows FIA President averts Anderson Barnard for Prost A
GP dollar dispute
FIA President Max Mosley has helped to settle a dis pute between Australian Grand Prix boss Ron Walker and CAMS over
how much money the gov erning body should he paid for providing the Grand Prix with person nel and operational exper tise.
CAMS had been pushing for a major increase in pay ments but Walker was refiis-
ing to give way and threat ened to set up an alternative national sporting authority if CAMS refused to back down.
Walker even started negoti¬
ations with alternative ser
vice- providers Bob Jane and the organisers of the Surfers Paradise CART race in case
he had to go it alone. Both
Jane
and
Melbourne
the
GP
chairman, who had basically told CAMS to ‘get stuffed’. A new inflation-linked deal
has now been signed which extends to 2006, but we imderstand that the money
CAMS motor sport manag started the series of planning meetings for the 1999 event. Schenken’s team assem
bles, trains and organises the 1100 ofiBcials - mostly volimteers - needed to run the Grand Prix.
The team has been very successful, too, having twice won the trophy for the bestorganised Grand Prix in the world, as voted by the teams. -JOESAWARDAND DAVID HASSALL
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former technical director
John Barnard is expected to be confirmed in a consultan
cy role with Prost Grand Prix in the next few weeks.
Jordan has already brought in Terrell’s deputy
technical director with the
technical
FI team.
director
Mike
Gascoyne to head the design team of the Jordan-Mugen Honda 199. If the move to Arrows is
confirmed, Anderson will
find himself working with aerodynamicist
yet-to-be-announced Honda
Coughlan joined Arrows at the same time as Barnard,
having previously been employed by Barnard at Ferrari & Design Development.
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Queenslanders have stood up to CAMS in the past and rela tionships have been stormy. Mosley and Walker met about two months ago, when the FIA boss successfully pla cated the
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FORMULA 1
11 September W98
1/
Glitz, The Blitz, big hits and Hollywood casting. tistics.
1 journalists found ourselves swanning about a chateau near
The conver sation turned to
Spa, sipping chilled champagne and nibbling caviar.
the story of an
And then Bernie Ecclestone
turned up to pay for dinner, which was just as well because none of us could afford to even open a menu, let alone order the food. Even the World Bank would have
struggled. Mr E does not seem to care much about food and was heard to mutter that the artistic mouth fuls of creative cuisine which
turned up every half an hour reminded him of his childhood. “We used to have fish with
strawberry jam every Friday night,” he muttered as we devoured the curious mixture set before us. “I think I’d settle for
some chicken nuggets...” It was a very amusing and enjoyable evening, interrupted every now and again by a horde of waiters who descended on the tables like extras in the movie
Zulu, ensuring that the only crumbs visible were those which
came on the plates as the next course.
Bernie was very relaxed, despite the three or four rather silly bomb threats which had been made in the Belgian newspapers by assorted blackmailers, Islamic crazies, European Commissioners and members of the Labour Party. One of these bizarre letters
demanded that 150,000 pounds be sent to the Sudan to help a French organisation called Medecins Sans Frontieres, which
if we did not know better we might confuse for a strange kind of game show involving syringes and girls dressed up in nurses’ uni forms.
“A hundred and fifty grand,” said Bernie, sounding like Britain’s top taxpayer, “it’s not expensive enough to be serious. I would have paid it, but they didn’t tell me where to send the money.” The Belgian police were, how ever, taking everything seriously
Cartoon by Allan Schofield
horsepower sta
Life is a group bitch. ofTheFormula other nightreally a small
old oil chemist at Wintershall -
Danny de Vito was also sug gested as a possible candidate for
the company which supplied
then the name Rowan Atkinson
the role of Ferrari’s Jean Todt, but
BMW fuel at the who time remembered a remarkable fuel which he and
popped up and we knew we had found the right man. It was ironic that Atkinson him
self appeared in the paddock a couple of hours later. He was spotted standing on the pitwall with a certain team manager sorry, no names for this one - and
his colleagues had
created
many years ear lier when he had worked at the German research and
one caustic soul was heard to mutter that Mr Bean had met Mr Has-Been ...
'mi
Moving along swiftly, it was decided that Burt Reynolds was the only man who could pull off
testing facility for rockets and missiles at Peenemunde. The fuel had been used for the VI and V2
flying
the role of Eddie Jordan and the half-shaven Don Johnson was
quickly signed up as Benetton’s David Richards.
bombs
ut what about the drivers?
B Who could possibly play the
which rained down over London, He knew that some where in a safe was the old for mula and it was
difficult role of Mika Hakkinen, to
eventually found and at the end of 1983 the Brabham-BMWs
of Nelson Piquet and
Riccardo
Patrese literally
Ji
did run on “rock et fuel”.
By 1985 and 1986 the 1.5-litre BMW engines were capable of producing around 1500 horsepower and the stress es and strains on the engine were such that the blocks would some times be blown into two or more
pieces when something went wrong. Even after the FIA demanded a
change to the 3.5-litre normallyaspirated engines there still were blow-ups of majestic proportions, which reduced lovely engine
Brosnan was the man.
fearsome corner, Eau Rouge. And yet in both cases the dri vers hopped from the steaming piles of metal which had once been racing cars. Mika Salo and Jacques Villeneuve walked away with only bruised knees and headaches from shunts of mon
strous proportions. During dinner with Bernie, the subject of the need for better race tracks came up and Mr E men tioned that he had seen the most recent CART race
from Road America,
Who would you cast in which roles for a film about Grand Prix racing?” ((
which was reputed to be one of America’s
great road courses. As usual, Bernie mumbled that there was no FI standard race track in the
the important elements in launch ing FI back into America is having the right publicity and the plans for one or more feature films about
FI racing are very important. It seems that every other race we have Sylvester Stallone stomping around the paddock with some Hollywood shark producer in a flowery shirt in tow.
This soon became a rather amus
ing press room game with all man ner of wild and whacky sugges tions.
You might think that Robert de
admit that FI will “probably” be back in America in the year 2000. “Probably probably?” we
suited to the Bernie role, but the
small bomb went off in the back of
their cars as their engines blow up so often that the mechanics would
simply throw away the bits and pieces and stick in a new engine. Mind you, engine blow-ups are not what they used to be in the old days when the FI teams were using really silly fuel. We got to talking about these and, inevitably, the conversation
After the tracks early season narrow twiddly we have now reached the time of year when the FI cars are allowed to perform as they are supposed to do on the famous swoops of Spa. This is a place where driver skiil and brav ery are at a premium. On such a track, every so often
turned to the most remarkable of
a driver makes a mistake or a car fails and the result is a monstrous
all FI engines: the BMW turbos of the mid-1980s, which were capa ble of producing the most amazing
crash. We saw two huge ones during the practice days for the Belgian GP, both at that most
We could have gone on all evening. Well, probably... Bernie is, of course, well-
advanced on a clever program to get FI established in the United States of America. Teams are hir
ing CART champion after CART champion and it may be - if both Alex Zanardi and Jimmy Vasser come to FI next year-that FI will have the CART champions of the last four years all racing in Europe next year: Villeneuve, Vasser and Zanardi.
Getting a race at Indianapolis would be a big bonus, but one of
Giancarlo’s Benetton team
mate, Alexander Wurz, was not so
easy for he has a kind of Jimmy Stewart innocence about him.
ed but
along the road. We have not seen such things since the FIA changed the fuel regulations and the nearest thing we get to explosions these days are when the cars hit solid objects at high speed.
teams would actually notice if a
has the
hair and his obvious awareness of
of Inspector Clouseaus wandering around the paddock looking for ticking bags ...
“Probably probably probably,”
Fisichella
make a film about Grand Prix rac
Niro or Al Pacino would be best
said Bernie.
and
potential to do the same.
ing. Who would you cast in which roles? Who would play Bernie? Who would play Max Mosley?
United States. He did, however,
o
looks
The next about morning to thinking how we one got would
blocks to metallic muesli scattered
asked.
Giancarlo Fisichella was easy. Leonardo di Caprio seems to have the 13 yearrold girls of the world swooning over his boyish good
Tom Hanks would get that role. And what about Jacques Villeneuve, with his ever-changing
and there seemed to be hundreds
ver dinner we wondered if some of the less successful
whom lively expression does not come instantly. Various news readers were suggested, but they somehow seemed to lack the whimsy of Hakkinen in full verbal flight. It was concluded that Mika would simply have to play himself... David Coulthard was pretty easy. The wide jaw and the Scottish drawl might have sug gested Sean Connery, but he was thought to be a little too old for the job. We concluded that Pierce
FI casting department concluded that there is a streak of mischie vousness in Bernie which could
only be done justice by someone of the stature of Danny de Vito. Max Mosley was a little easier. The cinema is full of elegant blond Englishmen like Michael York, but once again the casting depart ment felt they were far too cleancut to play President Mosley. Edward Fox, it was agreed, would do a better job. Ron Dennis posed a problem for a while until someone suggest ed that John Cleese was the man
for the job and after rolling around on the floor of the press room with mirth for some minutes we agreed that no-one else could possibly play Ronzo.
PR stunts. Madonna was suggest it was concluded that
Johnny Depp would probably get a little closer to catching the sensi tive side of Jacques’ character. Damon Hill was easy. The dark and tortured Jeremy Irons. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was a more difficult one for there are few German actors who are as laid-
back as the semi-Spanish Frentzen. Who could play such a role? A young Clint Eastwood? Yes, he had a big future in America as well... The Ferrari team needed a cer tain amount of muscle for the diffi cult roles of Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine. The obvious choice for Schumi was Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who has a habit of flattening everything in his path, with Jean-Claude Van Damm
playing Unsteady Eddie. We concluded it was going to be an expensive cast. The only problem was that we could not find a role for Stallone himself.
Perhaps, someone said, we should write in a sub-plot involving an FI truck driver...
■
IS IISeptmbefM
SUPER TOURING
Nine - the hard way ● Jones takes Super Touring Championship and ninth national title ● Race 1 ends in confusion after red-flag incident ● McConville’s title challenge ends with Race 2 tyre problem ● Richards switches to Dunlop tyres, then suffers two wing failures ● McLean leads race again but loses out in tense battle to Jones ● Largest field of season comes out for final round I
Report by PHIL BRANAGAN
I
T came down to the last race of the
season to do it but Brad Jones
clinched his second Super Touring
title at Oran Park when he took a win
and a second place. The Audi Sport Australia team leader was leading on the road in the first race when it was red-flagged early and, when the results were declared it was Cameron McConville, who had been leading before ceding to Jones, who was the winner. That put him only a point behind Jones going into the final race but a
gripless rear tyre ended any hopes he may have fostered about taking the title. Jones emerged from a spirited race with Independent Champion Cameron McLean with the win and the title.
For the other championship con tender, Jim Richards, it was a week end to forget. After taking a punt and choosing Dunlop tyres for the first time the Volvo S40 struggled to match the speed of the other three cars. After losing a rear wing in Friday
Entry and Qualifying
practice the repaired unit departed again in race two, spearing the Volvo off the track at the high-speed Kink and ending Jim’s faint hopes of a win. But, the reality of the situation what that the Audis, while probably not the form car they would have been had the round been run at the original venue Amaroo Park, had too much in every
department for the Volvo this week end.
For the rest of the field - the biggest of the season - there were the usual
highs and lows. The third Audi man for the weekend, Trevor Sheumack, did well to get fourth in race two after being punted off in the Sprint Race. Tony Newman and Troy Searle clashed three times in race one, the last incident prompting the red flag, while Peter Hills’ three car team was reduced to two when
Warren Luff dropped a valve in his car.
But Mark Zonneveld upheld Mondeo honour with an impressive fifth in the longer race.
cars showed up. Three Audis, three Knight Mondeos and about eveiyone else expected for the final round.
practice
showed that McConville lost the most track time of the Contenders with a harmonic
balancer-related engine prob lem on Friday, while Richards worryingly lost the rear wing at the Kink. 'The S40 speared off and was basically undamaged but, with only one ’98 aero kit on hand, the crew had to fix the problem rather than replace it with their spare, ’97 wing. But the biggest news at Volvo was tyres. Richards tried all
RAISE THE ROOF... Jones and team celebrate after their second title in
was Jones’ turn. He just pipped Cam’s Q1 time with a lm09.7662s, hut he was 0.22
clear of McConville so the Itmotor was perfect weather racing and a lotfor of two emerged with a point
Pre-weekend
!
three available
Michelin tyres and found none of them to be perfect for the car’s set-up. He tried Dunlops and while he felt the tyres (early 1998-spec 507 compounds) were httle if any better over a lap, he hoped they would prove the trick over a race distance.
Being behind in the points forced his hand somewhat.
each. Neither had much to
say regarding the sessions; it hadn’t been exactly easy, but it had been more-or-less
expected. Richo
and
McLean
three years. SHINE, BUT NO PRIZE... Richards had a fast ride
through the bunker - notice the lack of rear wing on the Volvo S40. (Photos by Dirk Klynsmith/Noel Papalera)
swapped third and fourth on the two grids. The Queenslander was hoping for a cooler Sunday; he had picked a softer compound and was a little worried
about tyre wear. With two fifths Sheumack
was pretty happy. His best time came in the first ses
sion, a lml0.96s, just over a second behind the front row.
He had spent most of his time getting used to the car and was not really pushing as hard as he might. Mark Adderton and Peter
Hills swapped positions next.
For the BOC Honda there
was little to report but Hills was in a newer car, having his first run in the ex-Ross
Palmer Motorsport/Jim Richards Mondeo, suitably re-panelled in Hills’ usual
“We figured we needed some thing different to what the Audis have,” Jim shrugged. “If the Audis are good enough to win and we finish
colours. Zonneveld was 10th twice
third or fourth, we’ve lost nothing.” Come the first session, McConville put his lost track
dropped a valve in its V6 on Saturday morning and he
need of a shock dyno session, while his 18 inch wheels had
would be a spectator for the
three different compound of tyres fitted, the softest of which was already showing
but new lad Warren Luff was out of luck. His car
rest of the weekend.
time behind him and snared
With two eighths John
pole - just. Despite having lock-ups on his first two laps
Henderson was back to the scene of his best result in
(when his tyres should have
April’s BOC round but, this
been at their best) Cam’s
time around, he was less confident of an Indy win. The Opel Vectra was bounc
lm09.7755s beat Jones’ time
by 0.0017s. In the second session it
S'S.JT-
.
in the second Knight Ford,
ing on its dampers and in
signs of wear by the time qualifying was finished. Tony Newman was gaining more miles in his nowreliable Peugeot 406 and was
11th and ninth. Of the
rest of the grid, Graham
Dodd had returned but was clearly struggling with his
ex-Crompton Honda, while Rod Wilson was still looking for a better set-up for the
Pirelli-shod Carlos Rolfo/BBX BMW. Things would get better on raceday. Then there were the DNQers. Mai Rea, Adam Kaplan and Ron Searle all had gearbox problems which
stopped them from qualify-
RBCG 1 (16 lapS)
ing, while Troy Searle missed the sessions for the usual religious reasons. The other driver in bother was Mike Fitzgerald; he missed the 115% qualifying cut-off in his rebuilt Peugeot 405 but, in company with the others, would be allowed to start from the rear of the
Qomebody give Peter Hills lOa Pro Stock car.
grid on Sunday.
A front-wheel driver Mondeo is not supposed to be
quick off the line but the Sydney battler transferred his lightning starting technique to the ex-RPM Ford and was fifth - and threaten-
ing for fourth - at the first comer.
ORAN PARK I
September 19S8
19
;
/
GOOD AND BAD FOR AUDI... while Jones
and McConville dominated the podium, third Audi Sport man Trevor Sheumack had a hard race 1 before bouncing back to fourth in the second race. (Photo by NobI Panaleral SAFETY... FIRST? It never crossed Jones’ mind not to try
100% to beat McLean in race 2. Here they crest the flip-flop (Photo by Dirk Klynsmith) and, no, they didn't touch... The other sprinter had been Sheumack. He followed and Jones McConville
through the first comer and led McLean, Hills, Richards (immediately past Hills), Henderson, Robson, Tweedie, Adderton (who had the car
fall onto three cylinders on the formation lap), Newman, Auger, Troy Searle (who had
of getting out of the leaders’ way and inadvertently baulked the third Audi; Hills zoomed by at the sweeper and Henderson tried to fol-
low him through. The Opel hit the door of the A4 and
both ended up bunkered for good. The situation up front stayed the same until lap 14.
touched Newman in the first
McConville
comer), Ron Searle, Kaplan, Wilson, Nelson, Rea (who had fourth and fifth gear
Recaro/Speedline, presumably to allow Jones through
ran
wide
at
only), Fitzgerald and Dodd, who had pitted after the first warm-up lap. Zonneveld had
immediately obliged. Max points looked a formality.
to the lead - which Brad
stopped on the grid. Two things were apparent pretty well immediately; the Audis were in a class of their
own. Cam and Brad spearing away from the field at an impressive rate; and Volvo’s tyre decision wasn’t going to
Until...
While the Safety Car was out the first time Newman
and Troy Searle had a coming together in the last corner which left the BM sitting INDIE WARS...
Newman and Troy Searle had a number of comingstogether; this is race one
be a factor at all. Richards
was stmggling to hold onto the BMW, while the Audis were 2s clear in two laps.
and ended with the Bimmer
stopped sideways on the main straight.
Soon JR would fall into the
12s; the Audis kept going through the green flag laps in the high 10s. Then, there was a change. Kaplan brushed the wall coming onto the straight to complete lap five and banged a tyre. Half a lap later he had the offending item went
NEW PLAYER... Pireili and Rod Wilson
appeared for the first time and the italian rubber and the Melbourne driver looked
pretty promising. (Photos by Dirk Klyrtsmith)
flat at Suttons and the Primera flew into the litter.
sideways on the straight.
The Safety Car was sent out for three laps (which, of comse, don’t count) while he
ing Jones past they got together again at the extension and, again, Troy was left
was moved. The front runners held sta¬ tion at the restart but the man who lost out was
That prompted the officials te red-flag the race. For a while there was confusion;
Sheumack. The lapped Fitzgerald was in the midst
Continued over page
While McConville was allow-
stranded.
nothing \n/ithout ♦ National Race
^
Porsche Cup at
Tyre Sales ♦ Complete, professional
trackside Service at all
GTP and Porsche Cup rounds
Pirelli 'controls'
LLI
Oran Park
Australian Motorsport Distributor
Congratulations to Julian Harburg,
14a Thornton Cres Mitcham Vic 3132
Winner of MUaSKifO
I
Porsche Cup Races 1 &2!
Motorsport Concepts
Ph: 03 9872 4522 Fax: 03 9872 5862
20 11 September 1998
SUPER TOURING
D.d
Continued from page 19
TOCA Australia
Jones had led the last full
lap but, when the rule books were consulted, the results were declared at 12 laps and McConville was the winner. Neither Jones brother was
expands
especially rapt with the result but it stood and the two drivers would enter the
‘staff’
mmm
second race a point apart. Behind McLean and the
Congratulations to TOCA
sliding Richards came Hills,
Australia’s Chief Executive
Adderton and Ron Searle,
Kelvin O’Reilly and his
while Tweedie led Newman
wife Barbara on the arrival of their first son on
(with barely a straight panel after the attentions of Troy
September 2. Junior arriv ed with impressive Super Touring statistics; at 19
Searle and Dodd) and T ● Searle.
inches he was the same
Race 2 (31 laps)
size as a wheel but, at 3.6 kilos, he was well under
In the fin^ race there was
plenty to play for. Jones, McConville and, at a pinch,
the FWD weight mini
Richards were still in the hunt for the title and the
‘manufacturer ftiendiy; not
battle, logically, should have
birthday (and the O’Reilly’s 20th anniversary) Audi should like him - he will go by the name of Bradley Kelvin partly because, according to O’Reilly Senior, “lie didn’t have much
mum. The little tike is
does he share Jim Richards’
been between those three. But McLean still wanted to win his first race.
Jones left the grid as if fired from a cannon with
McConville right behind. But McLean was also away quickly; in the second comer he took the outside line, grit ted his teeth and zoomed around the Audi to take sec
ond place. Behind there was drama,
j
Searle got turned around in the sweeper and was facing the wrong way. Luckily he got going again, but he had another spin at the extension and was a long, long last.
DOWN HILLS... Peter Hills ran his ex-RPM car but he had plenty of stop early on; check out
was missing; on lap 20 the S40 was howling down the straight when the rear wing flew off again, sending Jim and Volvo ploughing through
the locked rears. BUNFIGHT... Ron Searle got turned around In the first corner, forcing Newman (10), Kaplan and cousin Troy to take avoiding action. (Photos by ark Kiynsmim artcuohrt Grote)
the bunker. Richards
had
time
away and they led Adderton, Hills, Henderson, Robson,
whole matter in his usual
Zonneveld, Tweedie, Kaplan, Auger, Wilson, Searle T, Nelson, Dodd, Nevraian and
manner. But, clearly, nei
Searle R.
failure in 48 hours.
Jones pulled an early gap but McLean reeled him in
after two laps. The two were evenly matched until McLean started the pit cycle for the front-runners on lap seven , resuming after 10s. Jones came in two laps later, and resumed about 10 car
lengths
ahead
of
the
Greenfield car.
On lap 10 he was aU over the Audi and stuck the nose underneath at Recaro. The
Germans clanged and McLean was through. McConville was leading until his stop a lap later and resumed in the same rela
tive position, which he held for a few laps. But then it started to go wrong; his right rear tyre was battling for grip and he first lost half a second a lap; then one; then two, then, towards the end of the race, three seconds. By the flag Sheumack was threatening the catch him for third.
After five laps in the lead McLean was struggling to hold out Jones. The A4 had
the speed on the 320i over the back and Jones pulled alongside at the flip-flop, the cars running absolutely together. That gave Jones the inside line into the final
corner and he regained the lead; both drivers had given the other racing room and, with the title on the line, Jones’ faith in McLean’s skill and manners were as notable as both drivers skill
in pulling it off. So, Jones sped home to his second Super Touring title from the dogged McLean and
the closest margin between first and second in the
championship’s histoiy. ■ While Volvo’s race car
was running on Dunlops for the first time, the switch was not across the board. The team’s S40 show car wasn’t on
holdem
ther he nor the team were
Dunlops, or even
much amused by the second That
promoted
McConville and Jones’
tres in real terms. It was
;4-
H
r*
to
■ The first race finnt
row was pretty close. fliers were only 0.0017s apart, about 8.12 centime
M -'5
brake and down-change before the going got too dirty and, after hopping out of the de-winged machine, drove sedately back to the paddock when he down-played the
Sheumack beat Richards
j
hair when he arrived”... McConville. But Richards
Michelins, hut Pirellis.
the
■ Trevor Sheumack is the latest Audi driver to
Sheumack Audi to fourth
ahead of - amazingly enough - Zonneveld. The second Mondeo had run like a train all race after team leader
suffer an identity crisis. A year after McConville final ly pensioned off Greg Murphy’s old racesuit ‘Sheuey was walking
BOC Super Touring Championship
Hills had had several prob lems, broken brake lines leaving him with front stop pers only. Despite pumping the pedal like crazy that
Pos
Driver
Car- Team
Race lime
sent him off the road on a
F/lap
On
Qua!
1
Cameron McConville
21:21.9153
1:10.3226
3
1:09.7758
1
number of occasions, once allowing him to pick up
2
Brad Jones
Audi Sport Australia A4 quattro Audi Sport Australia A4 quattro
21:22.5159
1:10.0464
4
1:09.7775
2
3
Cameron McLean Jim Richards Peter Hills Mark Adderton Ron Searle Bob Tweedie
Greenfield Redex BMW 320 Volvo Australia Volvo S40
21:26.9927
1:10.6904
4
1:10.1241
3
confirmed at Oran Park
21:29.3338
1:11.2745
3
1:10.1799
4
Knight Racing Ford Mondeo
21:43.7155
1:12.5781
3
1:12.2381
6
BOC Gases Honda Accord
21:47.2633
1:13.6879
3
1:12.5371
7
Transtar Express Toyota Camry IBC Motorsport Vauxhall Cavalier Fastway Couriers Peugeot 406 Roadchill/Hartge BMW 320 Olympus Alfa Romeo 155TS
21:48.5743 21:55.3591
1:13.7546
4
1:15.0582
16
4 4 5 10 11
1:13.4926 1:13.0532 No time 1:14.7061 1:16.7117
12 11
that the car leasing compa ny would be taking a stronger role with BJR for Bathurst, as is BOC Gases.
around 20 metres of televi sion cable which he trailed
Race 1 (16 laps scheduled, results declared at 12 laps)
4
5 6
around for a while. Still, in his second outing, it was a
7
good run from Mark Z. The other impressive per
9
former was seventh; Wilson - or, rather, Wilson and his tyres. After an early pitstop the BMW got better and bet ter on its Pirellis, the Melbourne driver setting his fastest time of the whole
weekend on lap 23. It was a neat debut and Pirelli would
appear to offer a genuine alternative tyre for the Independent field. Ron Searle recovered to eighth from Auger and Dodd. So Jones, inevitably, took the title. Volvo had a good season and will threaten
next season; so will McLean, with a two car effort with, maybe, some covert BMW Motorsport assistance. But the series would really bene fit another manufacturer
supported team to move for ward in 1999.
But,
for now,
there’s
Bathurst. The Aussies domi
nated last year but the
Empire could Fight Back in three weeks time ...
aroimd as “Brad Jones’ in one of the bosses Orixemblazoned Stand 21 suits.
Round 8 - Oran Park NSW, August 29^0
8 10 11 12
13 14
Tony Newman Troy Searle David Auger Rod Wilson Paul Nelson Graham Dodd
DNF Anthony Robson DNF Mike Fitzgerald DNF DNF
Trevor Sheumack John Henderson
Grid
BBX/Pirelli BMW 318i
22:03.5598
1:13.8230 1:14.1582 1:13.9494 1:15.5603 1:15.4391
Faber-Castell BMW 318i
22:17.2999
1:16.3068
4
1:18.6019
18
11 laps 11 laps 10 laps 6 laps 6 laps 5 laps 5 laps
1:13.8013
2
1:14.6834
14
1:15.1058
5
1:14.5244
13
1:21.0597
3
1:23.8506
19
21:57.3100 21:57.6313 22:01.3689
Rite Way Honda Accord DCM Motorsport BMW 318i Fitzgerald Peugeot 405 Audi Sport Australia A4 quattro Henderson Opel Vectra
DNF Adam Kaplan
Hunter Holden Nissan Primera
DNF
Malcom Rea
DNS DNS
Mark Zonneveld Warren Luff
Toyota Carina E Knight Racing Ford Mondeo Knight Racing Ford Mondeo
■ Anthony Robson may 15 17
1:12.0227
3
1:10.9620
5
1:13.0078
3
1:12.6527
8
1:14.1761
5
No time
1:22.6024
4
10
Driver
Race time
F/lap
On
Qua!
Jones
2
McLean
1:09.7662 1:10.6171
1 4
McConville Sheumack
1:10.4311 1:10.8306 1:10.9467
2 4
3 4
37:31.6244 37:32.5321 38:07.7598
1:09.9888 1:11.7370
2 5
5
Zonneveld
6 7 8
Hills Wilson R Searle
1:13.6157 1:12.8261 1:15.1892 No time 1:14.1226 1:15.8616 1:13.9228 1:14.6224 No time 1:17.9730 1:10.5408 1:13.0523 No time 1:13.2624 1:12.2562
10 7 14
Dodd
11
Tweedie
12
Robson
13
Kaplan
14
Nelson
DNF DNF DNF DNF DNF
Richards Henderson T Searle Newman Adderton
DNS Fitzgerald
they come to Bathurst Robbo may have to inves service us motor noters...
■ This title is the ninth
1
Auger
treated to donuts courtesy of his sponsor DCM; if
National Championship
Pos
10
sponsor. On Sunday after noon the media were
No time
Race 2 (31 laps)
9
have to find a different
tigate a trouser-altering
No time 1:12.9203
■ Speaking of Orix, team manager Kim Jones
38:17.8328
1:11.7925
3 18
30 laps 30 laps 29 laps 29 laps 29 laps 29 laps 29 laps 29 laps 28 laps 27 laps 19 laps 17 laps 9 laps 6 laps Slaps
1:13.7534 1:13.2414 1:14.3954 1:13.4894 1:15.6968 1:13.7509 1:14.0849 1:15.4107 1:13.8489 1:18.4772 1:11.1051 1:13.5919 1:13.8183 1:15.3999 1:12.2880
5 14 23 6 2 3 3 10 14 4 3 3 6 2 3
1:21.7015
Grid
12 15 11 13
16 3 8 9 6 19
that the Jones brothers
Final pointscore Jones
have won. They break
Independents
Drivers 190
McLean
226
McConville
184
Adderton
146
Richards
163
Hills
134
McLean
142
Tweedie
92
Adderton
79
Holden etc
72
Hills
70
R Searle
60
Tweedie
44
Auger &
Sheumack
39
R Seale Holden/ Matthews/Nelson
31
T Searle
27
Auger/Zonneveld 25 Kaplan & Pickett/ Shaw/McGill/
Pickett etc
59
T Searle
50
Kaplan
43
Robson
37
Newman
16
Henderson
15
Bewley
14
Rolfo/Wilson
13
Kratzmann
19
Robson
13
Henderson
8
Manufacturers
Bewley
5
Audi
234
Newman/Wilson
4
Volvo
186
down as five in AUSCAR, one NASCAR and one in
GT Production, plus the ’98 and ’96 BOC Super Touring crowns. ■ While three cars
seemed a big job for Peter Hills crew it may get big ger at Bathurst. Dallas Chan has bought the fourth Mondeo from the
Knight Racing team and they could be running a fourth car at the mountain at the end of the month.
IXo.
Tears flow as
Beninca goes By DAVID HASSALL DOMENIC Beninca could not
fight back the tears at Oran
Park on August 30 when he clinched the 1998 Century Batteries
Australian
GT
Production Car Championship in grand style. The Melbourne Porsche dri ver finished second in the first race to John Bowe’s Ferrari
before winning the second to secure the national title from fellow Porsche driver Peter
Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald battled brake and tyre problems all day and failed by 14 points to defend the title he won last year in the Falken Tyres 911 RSCS. Beninca
arrived
at
the
Sydney circuit with a very small points lead hut was not overly confident, having been hampered by handling prob lems at the previous round. However, two days of prac tice at Oran park sorted out the black car.
He had enough pace to grab pole for both races and a race distance run during practice convinced him that he had the
package for race day. “It’s been a long hard year but I am just delighted to win the championship - especially to finish with a race victory as well,” Beninca said. “Last year was a learning experience for us, but this sea son we were out here to win.
“It is just a fantastic result and a great reward for all my team for the hours of hard
work they have put in to mak ing this happen. “Hopefully, this champi onship victory will provide us with the foundation to further boost our team.”
Fitzgerald was bewildered
by an intermittent problem with the anti-lock system,
Kirkham’s Mazda 626, which
which saw him run off the road
But at least they got further than Peter Boylan, who was a non-starter after blowing his Subaru Impreza’s gearbox in the morning warm-up.
twice in practice, but never really had the tyre package to challenge at this circuit any way.
Garry Waldon picked up third place in the title, despite missing the last two rounds after destroying the Dodge Viper in practice at Mallala, while Rodney Forbes (Porsche) edged out Bowe for fourth in the final race of the series.
Having won the first race after making a better start than pole man Beninca, Bowe was in a solid second place in race two when “the gremlin reappeared - a regular prob lem with the fuel relay - and stopped the red Ferrari. That finally allowed Forbes into second place and he quickly bridged the gap to leader Beninca over the clos
ing laps. He didn’t quite get there and was lucky to finish at all, coasting over the line with no gears because of trou
caused a re-start.
Dean Canto dominated Class B with two wins aboard his
Subaru Impreza WRX, but it was not enough to prevent Chris Kousparis to provisional¬ ly clinch the class title. However, Murray Carter (Nissan 200SX) has appealed his Lakeside disqualification. which could change the out¬ come.
David Ratcliff wrapped up the Class C title in his Toyota Camry CSi while Ric Shaw (Toyota MR2) took out Class D (despite engine dramas on the day) while Nigel Stones (Suzuki GTi) head already wrapped up Class E before this meeting. VICTORY SALUTE... Beninca
accepts the applause after taking the title. In the first race (below) he was beaten away by Bowe’s
ble with the selectors.
Ferrari, but still held out fellow
Despite losing valuable track time on Thursday and Friday (breaking the gearbox on both days!), Forbes looked like the
Porsche drivers Fitzgerald and Forbes.
(Photos by Dirk Klynsmith)
fastest man on the circuit in both races.' In the fist race he hounded
Bowe and Beninca all the way, but “didn’t want to jeopardise Dorn’s championship position by trying to pull a big move”. Best of the rest in both races
was Paul Stokell, who was hav ing his last race in the tiny Lotus Elise, which is now for
AAbelard^'
sale.
Bob Thorn was an early casualty when he spun at the start of race one and his awe
some twin-turbo Toyota Supra was cleaned up by Phil
Desperate Morgan takes title four GEOFF Morgan might have clinched his fourth successive
15 laps and in the second race the winning margin blew out to 16.8s.
Porsche Cup title with appar
That is dominant.
ent ease at Oran Park, but there was plenty of pressure
Harburg set a new lap record early in the first race before set tling back into a comfortable pace
behind the scenes.
A gearbox failure in qualifying not only left the series stand-out with an all-night rebuild, but also left him on the back of the grid for the second race.
Morgan could not match the pace
(RSR) in the second.
the replacement ratios were not
Bradbury had a slim chance at the title, but was forced to take
narrowly win the title.
over teammate Chris Stannard’s car after his own GT2 blew an
his successful career to date.
engine in practice. Bradbury eventually took third in the series behind Morgan and Julian Harburg.
Julian Harburg (911 C2) was clearly the man to beat all week
Class B in the first race, but was
He was a relieved man at the end
of the day and admitted that it capped off the toughest season of
end, taking pole for both races and running away comfortably to win
Peter Bolton (911 C2) took out
just beaten in the second by the similar car of Peter McRae, who
In the first he beat Colin Ivory’s
had a big off in the first race with out hitting anything.
911 RSR by 13.7 seconds over the
-DAVID HASSALL
both.
CLASS OF HIS OWN... Julian Harburg ran away from Ivory and Morgan by a second a lap in both races, but (Photo by Dirk Klynsmith) it was not enough to prevent Morgan from taking out his fourth successive title.
Morgan in the RS Clubsport took third place in both races, from Peter Bradbury (Carrera RSR) in the first and from Peter Harburg
of the leaders in either race because
right and had to keep out of trouble while making up enough places to
MUffi SIGNS
which was much too hot for the rest of the field.
11 11 September 1938
Hill survives rivers of Jor Report by JOE SAWARD
Ring the church bells across the
land and light fires on the hill tops. Formula 1 has another winning team after years of unhealthy domination by Ferrari, WilUams, Benetton and McLaren. For 11 years, those four teams have won every Grand Prix, broken only by Olivier Panis’s remarkable and unlikely win for Ligier at
foster
wheel of his Ferrari.
He drove around to the pits on three wheels and then stalked angri ly down to the McLaren pit to accuse Coulthard of trying to kill him. In Formula 1 you will find people who will find a conspiracy in every thing, hut to suggest such a thing is
trees dressed in American uni forms.”
He had a point. The Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 in the hills arormd the Spa circuit cannot have been much fun.
More than half a century later, there are still Germans in the woods
but nowadays they are dressed in the uniforms of Michael Schumacher fans.
a mistake. David would never do
This consists of a mucky jacket
Monaco in 1996.
such a thing. Nor would McLaren
with “Schumi” written on it and a
On a normal day it would be hard to find anyone in the FI paddock who would begrudge victory to
boss Ron Dermis.
Eddie Jordan and his crew, but on
ened himself and the adrenaline had
Sunday night there were not many happy faces away from the Jordan
got to him. If anything, Michael should have
red cap with Dekra on the side. So many Dekra hats have been sold in recent years that the FI paddock has taken to referring to Schumacher’s as Army
motorhome...
left Spa a happy man. Didier Pironi had a similar accident 16 years ago and never raced again...
Everyone else seemed to be annoyed or just fed up. There were broken cars everywhere. The longest faces were to be found at Ferrari, where Michael Schumacher had driven a brilliant
BACK ON TOP... A jubilant Damon Hill mounts the podium at Spa.
wrong place in the wall of mist and fog. He smashed into the hack of the McLaren, tearing off the left front
race before making a rare mistake. As David Coulthard pulled over the tiy to keep out of Michael’s way as the Ferrari was lapping the McLaren, the German picked the
One must put Michael’s reaction down to the fact that he had fright
Qualifying ell,” said my colleague as we “W;bounced through the dark
“Dekraheads”.
Spa, of course, is Michael’s race track. He comes from Kerpen, which is just a couple of hours away in a camper van and he has a formidable record at Spa. He made his debut here in 1991;
1944 and there is not six feet of
he scored his first Grand Prix victory here in 1992 and won again in 1994, although the win was taken away for a technical infringement. He has since won the last three Belgian
snow and German snipers in the
GPs.
and misty forest, trying to avoid traffic on a wet and thoroughly mis erable morning, “at least it is not
li BATHURST h
AMP Bathurst MOUNT PANORAMA^^B
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TV. The Great Race
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I only $290 For the best value seat at the 1998
AMP Bathurst 1000, check out the Panorama Club. Prices have been held at 1996 levels
BELGIAN GP
the dan
11 Seplembe; 1998
23
SPEED DAMON... The Jordan had improved speed and Damon used it wiseiy to survive the carnage and score the team’s first Grand Prix victory
McLaren dominated in qualifying, as we knew they would. Mika Hakkinen had blotted his
copybook on Friday with a spin into a barrier at Stavelot and lost some
valuable setting-up time and it looked like Coulthard would snatch
pole until the dying moment of the session.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to beat David’s time,” Mika admitted, “but I just went flat out and I was fortunate.”
David really should have had pole and he knew it.
“I gave it away,” he said. “I know exactly where I lost the time. I tried to sneak a little bit more kerb at the
Bus Stop and I hit it a bit hard, the front wheels got off the ground and that was. that. I lost out. I was quick er up to that point but it did not work out.”
ThethatbigMichael surpriseSchumacher m qualifying was was not third on the grid, although it was a very close run thing between the Ferrari driver and Damon Hill in his
ever-improving Jordan. Damon won the battle in the final moments of the session and there was much excitement down in
Ireland’s favourite pit garage. “This is absolutely briUiant,” said Hill, highlighting the work which has been done by the team, Goodyear and Mugen Honda in recent months. Damon also did a
good job. “I must say,” he said, “I think I am
driving very well and I am really enjoying myself.” Not so Ralf Schumacher, who was
eight-tenths slower than Damon and as a result was down in eighth on the grid. “I did not feel as comfortable in the
car as I have done in recent races,”
he explained. His cause was not helped by serious problems with a gearbox on Friday which kept him out of action for most of the morning session.
Brother Michael was fourth and
much more competitive in race trim, as has proved to be the case on sev eral occasions in recent weeks. But Michael is never far from con
troversy and so it was again with his best time being taken away for a yel low flag infringement.
The rear of the Williams was
demolished, although the chassis was actually not badly damaged, and the driver sustained something like 25G with an impact speed of over
There was a time when the FIA
would have done something about multiple yellow flag infringements. Last year, you may recall, Jacques Villeneuve was thrown out of the
Japanese GP for too many yellow flag infringements... Michael glossed over the problem and talked about the need for a good strategy in the race. Irvine complained that he had been held up badly by Ricardo Rosset. “I could have been one or two
places higher,” he wailed, but added that “the car is still not right; it is sliding aroimd too much.”
B
ehind
Irvine
in
sixth
was
Jacques Villeneuve and this was a pretty good effort given that Jacques had walked away from a monstrous crash at Eau Rouge on Friday. Jacques lost control of the car in mid-comer but kept his boot in, try ing to correct-the mistake; by the
Eddie Irvine was fifth so things were
time he realised he was too late and
not so bad at Ferrari and both dri
jumped on the brakes it was too late. The car flew over a kerb, barely
vers reckoned that they would be
touched the sandtrap and smacked backwards into the tyre barrier.
TRIGGER POINT...
The first attempt at starting the race ended in disaster when Irvine and Couithard dashed at the first turn.
Moments later, the
McLaren ploughed into the fence,
where it was joined by 12 more cars (Photos by Michael Cooper/Allsport)
4
SMILES AT LAST... Jean Alesi finally gave the Sauber team something to cheer about with third place. Here his delighted crew welcomes him back to the pits.
250kmh. It was a very impressive display of FI safety standards. Jacques had a bruised knee but otherwise the only casualty from the shunt was FIA Technical Delegate Jo Bauer, who hurried down to see
the wreck when it was brought into
tbe pitlane but was jostled out of the way and clonked on the head by one of Bemie Ecclestone’s clumsy digital TV crews, who lack the finesse of bulls in china shops. Jacques said that the shunt had been his “best” in FI, which was a
2^
0
here and there, but it was a different story with the cars. There were several write-offs and four unfortunate drivers unable to
re-start the race; Ban-ichello, Panis, Salo and Rosset. Should the race have been started
in the conditions? Some argued that perhaps it would have been wiser to have used the Safety Car, but Mika Salo summed it up neatly. “Things like that happen some times,” he said. “It is not up to me to decide what is right and what is wrong. I leave it up to the guys who know.”
Re-Start
Itrace waswas nearly 50 minutes beforethen the restarted and even there were only 18 cars on the grid for the second start.
Both McLarens were slow away, but this time Hill made a good start and was able to get ahead of Hakkinen at the first corner. Hakkinen and Schumacher went
into the hairpin side-by-side, the two Championship challengers bimshed and Hakkinen’s car slid into a lazy spin. It was hit by Johnny Herbert’s Sauber. Both were out. There was further disaster for
McLaren later in the lap when the slow-starting Coulthard collided with Wurz. David rejoined but the Benetton driver was out.
As Hakkineh’s car was still in the COMEAGAIN... The second start was almost
Some of the more adventurous drivers were on intermediates but most
a repeat of the first, except this time it was a McLaren running into a
were on wets.
Ferrari, which resulted in
When the lights went out Hakkinen got away well but Coulthard made a poor start. Both
championship leader Hakkinen spinning, getting hit by Herbert’s Sauber and retiring from
Ferraris and Villeneuve’s Williams
the race. Schumacher
was able to get ahead. Then, as he began to accelerate down the hill. something happened and David was suddenly headed across the road at an alarming angle.
(on the outside) man¬ aged to continue, but was later involved in his
own race-ending acci-
were right with him. la the first comer Coulthard had a brush with Irvine in the Ferrari but
dent.
TTie McLaren went hard into the waU on the inside of the track and
END OF THE ROAD ...
Hakkinen walks away from his steaming
was punched back across the road into the path of the oncoming cars. Tliere were wheels and tyres eveiy-
McLaren.
where.
Hakkinen, (Photos by Michael Cooper/Allsport)
strange expression to use and made it sound like he had been on a
Disneyland ride rather than in a lifethreatening situation. Later he admitted that he had been a little worried in the nano-seconds before he smacked the wall: “I
thought: Oh, this one is going to hint.”
A lucky boy. It was a shame because Williams seemed to have made a lot of
progress and the team was looking forward to blowing away Ferrari. In the circumstances, sixth was not
kind of improvement. “Initially Eau Rouge was a prob lem,” he said, “but after the changes that switched to Stavelot and that
affected my speed all the way down to the Bus Stop chicane. “I’m beginning to think that I haven’t yet got my car tuned for the
latest t^es. It wallows in hard cor
nering and that doesn’t give you the confidence to push really hard at a circuit like this.”
It did not help that Mika Salo then
went into Eau ^uge and “something happened”. The car spun and went very heavily backwards into the tyres.
Luckily there was a little deflec tion at the angle of impact and so the remains of the car were sent flying across the road, spinning round and round, diffusing the energy of the crash. It had been an even bigger shunt that Villeneuve’s the day before.
■prost seemed to have made some
Salo hopped out of the car but
XT progress in testing in recent
looked a little confused and was later
that bad. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was ninth
weeks and had some new aerody
sent off to a local hospital for a brain
namic mods which enabled Jamo
scan. He was luckier than the car.
and upset that Tora Takagi got in his way on his final quick lap. Benetton did not look veiy compet
TniUi and Olivier PEuiis to qualify
itive and both drivers had mechani cal troubles so Giancarlo FisicheUa’s
seventh was not a big surprise. Alexander Wurz had the added
complication of never having raced at Spa in an FI car and had to switch to the T-car for his final run, when he ended up 11th. Wurz’s misfortune meant that
Jean Alesi did better than normal, sneaking into 10th place when nor
mally the Saubers are locked out of the top 10 by the four top teams and Jordan.
Jean said he was happy with the car but could not get much more out of it.
Johnny Herbert lined up 12th, having changed all kinds of different things on the car looking for some
13th and 15th. Panis said he had done all he could do with the car. “It does not
suit my driving style,” he said. “I feel it is driving me rather than me dri ving it.” The pair were split by Rubens Barrichello’s Stewart-Ford, which
“It’s a dustbin job,” said one of the team.
Ralf Schumacher saw what happening and went wide was and braked. He watched the field pile into each other as he came to a com
plete stop and, when the dust had settled, he drove around the wrecks and rejoined at the back undamaged. The carnage was extraordinary and it has to be said that FI was
veiy lucky not to have sent tyres and wreckage into the grandstand.
and managed to set the 18th fastest time, only two-tenths slower than
Coulthard, Irvine, Wurz, Herbert, Trulli, Barricbello, Panis, Diniz, Verstappen (although he managed to drive the car back to the pits with a rear wheel flailing), Salo, Takagi,
Diniz.
increasingly dull team from Milton
and Tuero on the 11th.
Keynes. Jos Verstappen was a few tenths slower and three places behind with
Race - 44 laps
latest Arrows engines had been a lit tle more reliable. The new engine is clearly a lot better but both blew up on Saturday morning.
Schumacher were all through and gone before the McLaren and its assorted parts arrived in the middle of the road. Hill sneaked through but for the rest there was simply nowhere to go. Irvine piled into the McLaren and everyone else tried to avoid the smash. A few got through, notably Fisichella, Frentzen and Alesi.
In total 13 cars were involved:
was another dull result from the
It would have been better if the
and
Mika was back in the afternoon
The remaining four places on the grid belonged to 'Tyrrell and Minardi as usual with Takagi and Rosset sharing the 10th row and Nakano
out really having any reason why. Pedro Diniz was next up in his Arrows, which was quite a good showing.
Villeneuve
Theribleweather day was that hor and it on wasrace no surprise in the warm-up we suddenly had two very fast Ferraris, Michael and Eddie well ahead of the rest. There was some discussion in the hour before the start as to whether the race would be started behind a
Safety Car — as happened last year — but it did not happen.
Rosset and Nakano.
The only man lower than 11th on the grid to make it unscathed was Esteban Tuero, who drove through the entire accident scene at racing
speed without colliding with any
middle of the road at the exit of La
Source hairpin, a Safety Car was sent out and soon everyone was lined up behind: Hill leading with Schumacher second, Irvine (in the spare Ferrari) third, Alesi fourth (from 10th on the grid) ahead of Villeneuve, Prentzen, Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella. Coulthard was at the back of the field.
The Safety Car lasted for just one lap and then the race was on again with Villeneuve and Frentzen out-
gunning Alesi. And then the weather began to play its little tricks again and the drizzle became rain.
On lap five Villeneuve had a spin and dropped behind Frentzen and Alesi.
Michael Schumacher put more and more pressure on Hill and on lap eight he surprised Damon with a good move at the exit of the high speed Blanchimont Comer and was able to get ahead as they braked for the Bus Stop chicane. Michael then began to build an impressive lead, which grew to 18s in six laps. As the rain intensified so drivers
made mistakes, the first being Irvine, who dropped the ball on lap 10 at Les Combes and ended up without a front wing. He came rush ing into the pits for a new nose and wet tyres. Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher also decided to cut their losses and
go for rain tyres. On lap 14 Frentzen and Alesi both had spins and it was clear from the lap times that everyone needed to get onto wets.
For Ferrari, Jordan and Sauber
this was not a problem as they had only to deal with one driver. But for Williams there was trouble as both Frentzen and Villeneuve need ed to come in. Heinz-Harald made
the quicker decision; Jacques would have to stay out for one more lap. On lap 16 Schumi, Hill, Alesi, Frentzen and Fisichella all pitted. Villeneuve continued but did not get
thing. It was the biggest accident in European motor racing for probably 10 years - the last being the
do the extra lap,” he said. “It was very slippeiy out there but we have
Formula 3000 shunt at Brands Hatch in 1988.
had worse conditions. I aquaplaned.” It was Jacques’ second big shrmt of
Fortimately - probably because of the relatively low speeds involved no-one was hurt beyond a bruise
the weekend. He was out. Schumi was still ahead and con
far.
“I knew it was going to be haiiy to
tinued to pull away. By lap 25 he
1^Septenibefl99S
25
More frustration can summarise my Belgian GP in one word, but it wouldn’t be printable. I tried to make two starts, and each time I got
caught up in somebody else’s incident. Frustrating? You'd better believe it! What made it worse is that I love Spa Francorchamps. I guess all of us do, because it is a real race track. It changes direction and elevation, it's got a high aver age speed and only a couple of really slow corners.
On top of that, there is Eau Rouge. The corner of all corners. The greatest chal lenge. Motor racing's Everest. As you will probably know, it plunges downhill from La Source hairpin and you take it in sixth gear. When you are driving you don’t actually appreciate just how steep it is, but if you stand at the bottom and look up it’s amazing. It really does look like EverestI The entry moves gently to the left and then the road climbs sharply to the right before flicking left again at the top. Eau Rouge is the most critical corner
n
●
»
1993. Or Jacques Villeneuve, who repeated that accident on Friday morning. I finished 10th that day and wasn’t happy about it.
SUCK ON THIS... Johnny contemplates his fortunes during qualifying at Spa.
After I had working He’s with Tim Hungary Preston as my begun race engineer. ex-Williams and has switched temporarily from overseefng our test
/»
»»
team and the research and
‘^Eau Rouge is the corner of all development program We seem to have got corners. The ^greatest challenge, f to a promising start on ^ the personal level as far as Motor racin^\ Everest LVXUlUt A
working very closely together is concerned.
because of the long uphill straight to Les Combes that follows. And on Friday I couldn’t get my car through there at anything
together and by qualifying the car felt a lot better after we had changed a lot of things in the set-up all through the day.
We
put
our
heads
like the speed I needed to. The front end felt
Actually, we changed damn near every-
nervous and that’s just what you don’t need there. What you want is a car that is going to follow its front end and not spring any nasty
thing! Rollbars, springs, bump rubbers; you name it. But where Eau Rouge had been the problem initially, the focus then switched to
surprises.
Stavelot, the other critical corner which pre-
Ask my old Lotus teammate Alex Zanardi what it feels like to go off there, as he did in
cedes the ‘straight’ that runs all the way to the Bus Stop chicane. I was having trouble
getting out of that cleanly and losing speed on that important section. I came to the conclusion that we hadn’t
yet got the car tuned for the latest Goodyear tyres. It wallowed over during hard cornering and on a circuit like Spa that just doesn’t give you the confidence that you need to push really hard. I qualified 12th, but consoled myself that I had what felt like a pretty good race set-up. Not that I would need it, as it transpired.
At the first start I made up a place or two
and going down the hill to Eau Rouge I could sense things moving oddly in the ball of spray ahead of me. In that situation all you can do is head into it and hope, but then suddenly a wheel came flying over my head. Then I found myself spinning after somebody hit me. I ended up having travelled further than any of the other 11 cars that were involved
in FI's biggest firsMap shunts in years, but the rear suspension was damaged. An hour later, in the spare Red Bull Sauber Petronas Cl 7, which was set up for Jean, I didn’t even get that far. Mika (Hakkinen) spun exiting La Source and, like David (Coulthard) with Mika Salo in Austria, he was trying to flick it back the right way and just caught my left rear wheel as I tried to squeeze by through a narrowing gap. Result? Another retirement due to bro ken suspension. It wasn’t just a bad day for me. It was a damn disaster. I’m left wondering just when my luck is going to change. But on the posi tive side I am delighted for the team with Jean’s third place result. It’s absolutely the tonic that we needed after the disappoint ment that has so often been the reward for
all our hard work this season. I just hope that in the very near future it’ll be my turn to administer a dose of the same tonic.
■
Grand Prix of Belgium World Championship, round 13 Spa-Francorchamps, August 30th, 1998 - 44 laps 1 2
Damon Hill, Jordan-Mugen-Honda 198, 1h43m47.407s Ralf Schumacher, Jordan-Mugen-Honda 198, 1 h43m48,339s
3 4 5
Jean Alesi, Sauber-Ferrari Cl7,1 h43m54,647s H.H. Frentzen, Williams-Mecachrome FW20, 1h44m19,650s Pedro Diniz, Arrows A19,1 h44m39,089s
6 7 8
Jarno Trulli, Prost-Peugeot AP01,42 laps David Coulthard, McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13, 39 laps Shinji Nakano, Minardi-Ford Ml 98, 39 laps
Fastest Lap: M.Schumacher, Lap 9, 2m03,766s Lap Leaders: Lap 1-7 Hill; Lap 8-25 Schumacher; Lap 26-44 Hill Retirements:
FISTS SLED... Giancarlo Fisichella was lucky to walk away unharmed after ploughing itnto the back of Nakano's Minardi and then the pit entry barrier. (Photo by cuve Mason/Aiisport)
Lap 0 Lap 0 Lap 0 Lap 8 Lap 10 Lap 16 Lap 17 Lap 25 Lap 26
Mika Hakkinen, McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13, accident Johnny Herbert, Sauber-Petronas Cl 7, accident Alexander Wurz, Benetton-Mecachrome B198, spun off Jos Verstappen, Stewart-Ford SF2, engine Tora Takagi, Tyrrell-Ford 026, crashed Jacques Villeneuve, Williams-Mecachrome FW20, crashed Esteban Tuero, Minardi-Ford Ml 98, electrics Eddie Irvine, Ferrari F300, spun off Giancarlo Fisichella, Benetton-Mecachrome B198, accident
Did not start after first start accident and red flag: Prost-Peugeot AP01 Ricardo Rosset Tyrrell-Ford 026
Olivier Panis had a lead of 37s over Hill and then
drove into the back of the McLaren
he came up to lap the struggling
and tore the right front wheel off the Ferrari. He was angry and went off to the McLaren pit, presumably intending to punch the Scotsman. He was restrained from doing so and David was clearly upset by the sug gestion that he would do such a thing.
Coulthard.
If you follow Ferrari’s post-race logic, Coulthard was then instructed to take out Michael. The Italians
tape record all McLaren radio traffic but failed to come up with incrimi nating evidence. You can say many nasty things about team owner Ron Dennis - but
to suggest that he would orchestrate such a thing is ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about him. And to suggest that David would do such a thing is laughable because, if anything, Coulthard has always been too nice for his own good. Perhaps Jean Todt and Michael Schumacher would profit from a very long holiday to have a think about life and what is really important. Whatever the cause, Michael
The FIA stewards agreed McLaren - Hell, there is a with first time for eveiything... It was a classic racing incident and this fact was compounded a couple of laps later when Fisichella
were a real shame because they moved the spotlight from the fact that Michael had given a great - one might even say a towering - perfor mance. It was ruined by the smallminded and groundless claims. The Fisichella shunt was such a
mess that the Safety Car had to come out again and the six survivors bunched up behind. McLaren and Minardi cobbled
together the remains of Coulthard and Nakano’s cars and sent them out
hoping to get points if anyone else
Arrows A19
Rubens Barrichello
Stewart-Ford SF2
World Drivers' Championship Points: 1 Hakkinen 77; 2 M.Schumacher 70; 3 Coulthard 48; 4 Irvine 32; 5 Villeneuve 20; 6 Wurz 17; 7 Hill 16; 8 Fisichella 15; 9 Frentzen 13; 10 R.Schumacher 10; 11 Alesi 7; 12 Barrichello 4; 13 Salo and Diniz 3; 15 Herbert, Trulli and Magnussen 1
Constructors' Championship standings: 1 McLaren-Mercedes 125; 2 Ferrari 102; 3 Benetton-Mecachrome 32;
4 Williams-Mecachrome 33; 5 Jordan-Mugen-Honda 26; 6 Sauber-Ferrari 8; 7 Arrows-Hart 6; 8 Stewart-Ford 5
retired. No-one did.
very high speed, having failed to see the Minardi in the spray. Presumably, if Jean Todt was run ning Benetton he would have accused Nakano of taking out Fisichella dehberately.
Hill and Ralf Schumacher duly finished 1-2 for Jordan and the par tying began. There were some pretty happy people at Sauber, too, as Alesi came home third, a great result. Fourth place went to Frentzen, who did the sensible thing and went
The theatricals after the incident
for a finish while those around were
drove into the back of Nakano at
Mika Salo
rushing into the barriers. Diniz came home fifth for Arrows, which was the only highpoint in a disastrous weekend for WaUdnshaw.
The team left Spa with only one sur viving chassis... Trulli finished a lap down for
Coulthard and Nakano trailed in miles behind.
The only people not to crash were Tuero, who retired with electrical trouble, and Verstappen, who suf fered a blown Ford engine.
Prost, giving the team a much-need-
It might have been a landmark day for Jordan but it was business as
ed World Championship point, and
usual at Stewart...
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2S 11 September 19%
EDDIE JORDAN
0.
Irish eyes are smiling Jordan Grand Prix ended an eight year drought to win Spa’s Belgian Grand Prix. ADAM COOPER dodged the champagne and Guinness to speak to the team’s key men, Eddie Jordan and Damon Hill. AFTER eight seasons,
two genuine near misses. In
Eddie Jordan’s first win
Argentina the full conse quences of the Ralf Schum-
was a hugely popular vic tory in the paddock. Eddie was barely off the podium when he was handed a
mobile phone - and on the other
end
was
Bernie
Ecclestone, who was already on his way home. Many folk admire the 50year-old Irishman, not least his fellow team bosses. Tom
Walkinshaw was among the first to congratulate him, and Dave Richards stayed to the end despite both his own cars being out of contention. And as millions of TV viewers
saw, Ron Dennis was provid ing a helpful massage even
acher/Giancarlo Fisichella
collision were not apparent until late in the race, for without the shunt, they might have beaten Jacques Villeneuve and scored a one-two.
Later in the year Fisichella battled for the lead with
Gerhard Berger at Hockenheim. And in finishing second at Spa Giancarlo won the ‘human beings’ race; overall winner M Schumacher was in an event all of his own...
“There weren’t many we could have won,” says EJ, “Belgium ’91 was one. Germany was a possibility
before the end of the race...
last year, had Giancarlo been
It wasn’t quite business as usual back in England on Monday, since the phone was ringing constantly with peo ple offering congratulations.
more forceful with Berger,
But at least Eddie had had a chance to catch his breath. So was that first win what he
expected? “Not really, I have to be honest,” he reflected. “I thought it would be a real
high. I thought winning would be the ultimate thing in a way, and then when it happened, I now just want to
be third in the champi onship.” But what does finally hav ing a victoiy on the corporate CV actually mean? “It means I want to do it
again,” he laughs. “I like this, and I’d like it even more if I
could do it again. It’s veiy taU order, as there are some great
Argentina was another. “We’ve lost a few podiums. Coming to the last comer in Hungary two years ago the engine let go, and Barrichello was passed by a load of peo ple when we were clearly in third place. So that’s why I’m always apprehensive about the car coming until it’s actu ally crossed the line.” When the win finally came, it was a good one. “I was so impressed that we did it in style. This was a styhsh way to do it, not just to be first and second, but Ralf was second on a very, very good strategy, and he was very strong at the end of the race. He was a very good team player. “It was not easy, but we had to finish first and second.
I had to tell Ralf to be careful,
about being first and second, especially when you’ve got the
and make sure that Alesi
didn’t come by. It was a tough
McLarens and Ferraris out
decision. I don’t think he’s
there, and with it being Mich
very happy. Damon kept say
ael Schumacher’s weather. “We owe a lot of credit to
ing, ‘Is Ralf OK? Is Ralf OK?’
have scored its first win at
Williams? I’m sure Ralf is even more determined to leave now...
“We had to be very sure that we defended the situa
tion from Alesi, who is a bit of star in the rain. 'That’s what
Ralf was asked to do, and he did it very well. He probably
Spa way back in 1991. The driver in question was none other than Andrea de Cesaris, who was running second and catching leader Ayrton
feels in his heart that he could have had a crack at
Senna. The World Champion was crippled by gearbox prob lems, but with three laps left, the Jordan’s engine blew.
team. It was nice to hear from
Consider too that one Mich
'The closing laps were pret ty unusual for Eddie. He had the luxury of knowing that if
ael Schumacher qualified three places ahead of de Cesa ris, only to retire on lap one... There were few real chances to win in the Rubens Barrich-
ello era; it would have taken a
superhuman effort to turn the Brazilian’s opportunistic ’94 Spa pole into a victory, but perhaps he could have done something from second on the grid in Brazil in 1996. But last year Jordan had
the crew welcomes home its
first 1-2 finish (right).
but that’s a difficult call. And
teams there. I never dreamed
Goodyear, and a lot to Honda. What they’ve done since the start of this year in terms of the improvements in the engine is quite phenomenal.” Those with long memories may recall that Jordan could
CELEBRATION...
Jordan, Schumacher and Hill get wet on the podium while
Damon in front, but the team has to come first, and no one
is bigger or greater than the
reading out a list of instruc¬
tions when there w£is no reply from Ralf when we asked if he’d heard us. We assumed that he didn’t hear what we
were saying. Anyway, he drove sensibly... I think it’s great for FI. It’s another winner. I know
Damon was happy for us, but to be really honest he was probably smiling from ear-toear because people had more or less said he couldn’t win in
This race has cost me a goddamn fortune. Sixteen times the points money for every member of sta,ff plus Half’s bonus money, plus Damon’s money. It would have been cheaper for the company had they both crashed! iC
»
other
than
a
Wilhams.”
Of course, had Ralfs big brother not tangled with David Coulthard, the team would have been looking at a two-three result - still very impressive, but nothing like a win. It was seven years ago that Michael made his debut
with the team, and helped to put both himself - and Jordan - on the map. On Friday EJ was right on his personal rev limiter, cursing about
the
double
World
Champion after reading his critical quotes about the Jordan team in the German
Jordan.”
work here?
there was the possibility of a terrible intra-team mix-up. Mixed feelings? “Absolutely! TTie only thing
For some reason. Belgium has always been kind to the team.
“Look
at the successes
we’ve had in Spa. We won the F3 race and the champi onship here with Johnny Herbert in 1987, we won the F3000 race and title in 1989
duced Michael Schumacher.
with EJ from the start.
We had pole with Rubens Barrichello in 1994, finished
“Probably people may want to read something into it,” says Jordan. “Mike is a great
press. Was there some fate at “I don’t know why, I always felt a win would come as a bit
of a surprise, but not by luck. I’m reasonably psychic, and have been for some time.
When the accident happened with Schumacher, I felt I had
second
points money for eveiy mem ber of staff, plus Ralfs bonus money, plus Damon’s money. It would have been cheaper for the company had they
Fisichella last year, and had a one- two this year. And it’s great because it’s a drivers’
most pleasurable money well ever have to pay out...” Many of the factory staff had gone to the race on holi day. “We did a deal because
they’ve had to work so hard, doing 12-hour shifts around the clock. I said anyone who wants to come to Spa, we’ll take you by bus. Youll go over Friday, stay in a hotel in Brussels, meals, transfer to the circuit, tickets for the race, and you’ve got to wear a hat and a flag and be part of the action. It cost them 20
pen'
because of the size of Spa, and the conditions, the radios are always crap there. There
Eddie must have been pret ty confident before the race,
them this morning. They were
for he made a bet with a
a grim bunch of fellows! 'These
was a time when we were
Swiss journalist that a
things often come back to bite
seen it before. I felt ‘How did I
know that was going to hap-
should have seen the state of
Inevitably many credit Jordan’s current form to new
Andrea de Cesaris, and intro
fortune. Sixteen times the
both crashed! But this is the
harder.”
chief designer Mike Gascoyne. He’s taken some responsibili ty from technical director Gary Anderson, who’s been
with Jean Alesi. We nearly
Jordan would win. 'The poor fellow gave EJ odds of 10-1... “That was great! But this race has cost me a goddamn
pounds, as a token. We got two busloads there - 70 peo ple. I tell you what, you
I could think about was
time to talk about critics. But
very often the critics help to motivate you and find new drive inside yourself We all need to find that. I’m not say ing commitment, I mean drive, pushing yourself even
won the GP in 1991 with
anything
Jean that he actually didn’t have the pace to keep up with
one car broke, the other was still there. On the other hand,
you, but sometimes they give you that little extra buzz.”
with
Giancarlo
circuit, and Damon led from the first comer. You can’t say you’ve inherited something when you do that.” And what about the critics who’ve accused the team of
under-achieving, not making the most of its resources?
“You mean skimming off money on the side! I find that very irritating, to be honest. The problem is we get a dis proportionate amount of cov erage for the results that we’ve had, but that’s the way we operate. Having said that I would safely say there is no team in FI which spends its money as cleverly and as pmdently as we do. At the end of the day we are effectively the fifth team in FI, and getting
asset to the team and has
helped enormously, but the car is effectively Gary’s car, although there have been a lot of modifications since
Monaco. Whatever Gary decides to do in the future, he can justifiably be proud that he won his first race with a Jordan.”
Anderson wasn’t at Spa, but EJ joked that it was prob ably just as well. “He’s still recovering from his operation, and bearing in mind he’s supposed to be tak ing it easy, I think the stress and strains of the race may
not have helped him! Mind you, looking at it on television was probably worse. At least if you’re there, you’re busy. The car is effectively Gary’s car, although there have been a lot of modifications since
closer now to the front bunch
Monaco. Whatever Gary
consistently. And it looks as if we’re going to have a crack at
decides to do in the future, he
third. “The critics? This is not the
he won his first race with a Jordan.'
can justifiably be proud, that
USsplernbsrm
t FOLLOW THE LEADER: Hill leads Schumacher
WIOTORSPORT NEWS: Did
potentially losing my position. Whenever you have a race like that you get out of the car thinking ‘Damn, I’ve gone
through the Bus Stop early in the Belgian GP. Schuey was the fastest
you really believe that you could win a race this year? DAMON HILL: At the start of
man on the track, but Hill
the season I said I’d be disap pointed if I didn’t win a race, so I can’t be disappointed now! After I said that we saw
backwards rather than for
had the last laugh and
wards,’ but because Mika
won the race.
Hakkinen had his problem, we actually still got fourth place.
(Photo by Clive Mason/Allspori)
the pace of the McLarens and how far away it might be, and
MN: Did you think you’d be competitive at Spa? DH: The team expected to be good at Spa. The car has always been good at fast cir
it started to look like a bit of a
forlorn hope. But in recent months things have really turned around.
cuits, but that’s not to take
MN: How do you feel now? DH: I was pleased for every one in the team. It’s tough when you work hard and don’t get any reward, and I’m mind ful of the responsibility. You have to do your very best because everyone else is doing their best for you.
.
I
f.' '
■J
MN: How close did you come to the accident?
DH: It was very close at the first start - about as close as
you could come. I don’t know how I didn’t hit the wheel that bounced across the road. 1
away the fact that it has gen uinely Improved throughout the year. The trouble with that is you have to know why the car is good. I think we found a few things this weekend about set-up and preparation. The team had with a good starting point, and enabled me to build from there, work with my engi neer to get a good set-up, and exploit that advantage. The qualifying session was very exciting. I was starting up my engine just as the other three went past my garage David, Mika and Michael. So
shut my eyes, expecting a thump, but nothing hit me. 1 was very lucky.
we all rolled out at exactly the
MN: How was the erstart? DH; At the second start it was
of me, and I thought I was quicker than him. Icould see
going my way as long as it wasn’t raining. I was quicker on the straight and had the right level of downforce for drying conditions. It just start ed to rain more, and it started
to go back towards Michael’s favour. He had more wing on and he just kept on eating me up in the corners. Ihad to lift because of aquaplaning, and he passed me. MN: What went through your mind when you heard
same time onto the track, and
it was all to play for. I could see Michael ahead
where I was on the track when
he was entering Pouhon, and next time round I seemed to
MN: How was your reJationship with Eddie Jordan in the difficult times?
DH; He’s always been very supportive. When we’ve had bad times he’s always said that he appreciates that both drivers are doing everything they can. And all he could say is the car’s not up to it.
Michael was out?
DH; It started to get better in
It’s very hard to pretend something is very important, that eighth is a good position to be in... there’s nothing like going out on a new set of tyres with three minutes to go andfighting for the top two or three places on the grid. y>
MN: What do you think was DH: I was still thinking of ways the turnaround this year? of trying to catch him, and I DH: The start of the season was praying for it to dry out. He was pulling away, but I was very tough. Things didn’t thought he was still catchable look too good, but there was a lot of hard work, and all the if it dried. My car would have been really good in the dry, effort put in is starting to pay but it didn’t go that way, it off. For a driver that’s the tonic rained the whole bloody time! he needs, and he can start to Obviously I was happy to hear get a bit more excited about it. The main thing was to try to that he had retired. identify the problems, and then be persistent enough to MN: How do you feel now? try to understand them and DH: I was pleased for every one in the team. It’s tough solve them.
when you work hard and don’t get any reward, and I’m mind ful of the responsibility. You have to do your very best because everyone else is doing their best for you.
MN: Have impressed progress? DH:
The
you by
team
has
been the not
stopped trying improvements.
f
There are new bits all the
time, and there have been
something in the order of 80 changes to the car this year. I think that the old belief that if a
car is not quick out of the box it will be never be quick is right - and this car is an exception to that rule! It really has been trans formed, and it’s not really the same car that it was at the start of the season. You can’t
take away the fact that Goodyear have done an amazing job this year. Like us, they also came from behind. They really have brought the fight to Bridgestone, so that’s
part of it. But we’re also performing well relative the others: at Spa I was quickest Goodyear run ner in qualifying, which is quite an achievement for a team that had a nightmare start to the season.
Mugen Honda have been a vital part of the package too. The engine was not terribly powerful, and they’ve closed the gap quite considerably. They’ve also made it more dri veable. MN: Was Montreal the first
sign that things were get ting better?
Canada, and in the races after
that we got a foothold on things, and were able to push ourselves fowvard. That really started to reap rewards when we got to Hockenheim. It was good because we were gen uinely competitive, and scored a genuine fourth place there. But I always had in the back of my mind that the car seemed to go well on those type of cir cuits: Jordan had their best race
ever at Hockenheim the previ ous year. Ifs no good if you've got a car that only good at one type of track, as you have to be good everywhere. The big test was Hungary. And while we’re not as good at those sort of places, the car has a better repertoire now. MN: So you were pleased to do well on a slow circuit?
DH: Hungary was a tough race: I qualified in the best place that I could keep during the race, and I was always under pressure from Jacques Villeneuve, and looking at
i
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have got a bit closer. That spurred me on because Ifig ured I’d gained on him a bit. We were fighting for the same pace on the grid, and dare I say it, the best man won! MN: Do you find an extra something in yourself when you’re battling at the front? DH; What 1 find is my concen tration’s better when it's more
important. It’s very hard to pretend something is very important, that eighth is a good position to be in. You always try what you believe is your best, but for me there’s nothing like going out on a new set of tyres with three minutes to go and fighting for the top two or three places on the grid, it’s one of the most exciting parts of GP racing. MN: What about next year? DH: It’s important for me to have an opportunity to be at the front, in order to make it worthwhile doing. At this
stage of my career I can’t real ly justify doing it just to be there in F1. It’s not enough any more.
ESI
3d 11 September 1398 Report by
Bales/Taylor pic by Paul Mollison
JON THOMSON
Toyota driver Neal Bates fought back in the final round of the
Australian Rally Championship onAugust 29-30 to record his
first victory in a dismal year which had seen Subaru rival Possum Bourne win the four
Gold for Bates
preceding rounds and the 1998 title.
Bates and co-driver Coral Taylor - with a newly-built version of the Corolla WRC underneath them -
had the edge on Bourne, partly because of new engine mapping which allowed them to use Elf rac
ing fuel for the first time and partly because of smart tyre choices. While Bourne had run on Elf
“Jungle Juice” all year, Bates had to run the World Championship control fuel because there was
no
appropriate fuel map available from TTE for the new Corolla
Bates won both heats, but the effort was too little too late for the
Canberra driver and for Taylor, whose chances of snaring the co drivers title were dashed with
Bourne’s second placing, which gave Craig Vincent enough points to win the co-drivers crown.
The short, sharp Rally of Melbourne in the Yarra Valley east of the Victorian capital attracted a field of 77 starters and thousands of
spectators, particularly at the final stage on Sunday around the Domaine Chandon winery. And the battle at the head of the
field was matched by equally fierce struggles in Formula Two and the Corolla Cup. Cody Crocker was able to sew up the Group N title with comprehen sive wins in both heats, the young Subaru draftee going up a level at his home event and cementing his position within the Subaru team heading to Rally Australia in Perth. HEAT ONE
Sparkling sunshine greeted com petitors on Saturday morning as they tackled the first special stage. Mount Slide, known in days past as the Nissan Rally team’s test track. Bates jumped to an immediate lead of four seconds and was con tent in the belief that Bourne had
grabbed that four back on Sylvia Creek, the fast, longer stage that followed.
However, when times were looked at more closely at the service in Myrtleford, Taylor was a little
dejected after realising that Bourne had, in fact, taken eight seconds off them and led by four heading into the critical grouping of four special
Bourne settles for runner-up in hard-fought Rally of Melbourne stages that would culminate with the challenging Ben Cairn stage. Bourne declared the early morn ing dash through the ranges to be “very, very slippery and, particular ly as I was car one, I had to be care ful not to pitch it in too hard, because you find yourself under steering wide.” Tyre choice, as it had been all year, was going to be critical. Bates, who had worked hard all year on a tyre test and development program with Dunlop, had used F66s on the opening two stages but, instead of going for the latest generation Gs, he opted for the older 84s and this proved one of the crucial decisions of the rally. The battle for group N saw Crocker not only heading the show room contenders, but also the PRC
Lancer of the Longs. Crocker got the jump on fellow Melburnian Spencer Lowndes, who had made the wrong tyre choices and dropped time to the Subaru pilot.
“We’re on home ground here, which is good, but you do wonder whether it is going to be an advan tage before you start - but it’s turned out that it is and it’s good that it is the last event, which means we can get the most benefit out of it for the title,” said Crocker, who was also tiying to develop the car for his tilt at RaUy Australia in November.
The Subara driver was complain ing that the rear irde height was too high and causing the car to be a bit taily, but the problem didn’t seem to slow him. But Lowndes was never too far
away and Crocker had no time to rest.
Stewie Reid was third in Group N after the first couple of stages, battling an exhaust leak which was robbing him of power, while Paul Kennedy was in fourth in class, complaining he was “too tentative” while the car was also too heavy and a little down on power.
Formula Two was shaping as one of the best battles of the year, with the Herridge Hyundai finally hav ing a trouble-free run to take the
challenge to the all-conquering Daihatsus of Rick Bates and Ross McKenzie.
It was a see-sawing battle between Herridge, running a new diff in the Hyundai and champi onship favourite Rick Bates. While Herridge grabbed the lead on special stage two. Bates grabbed back time on the next, before the order changed again on stage four. For outgoing champion Brett Middleton, it was another poor showing on heat one, the Honda stopping with a failed coil on stage four.
There was carnage aplenty in the Corolla Cup, with series contender Roman Watkins rolling, albeit gen tly, but enough to end his run in heat one. Jason Toll had a massive hit in
the rear, slamming a tree with the tail and comprehensively redesign ing the Corolla hatchback. Geoff Full was in command of the Australian Car Class in his
Commodore V8, while Andrew Murdoch was pushing hard in the Falcon only to go off backwards on special stage four, the stricken Middleton on hand to help him
two second gap on Bourne and then moved another seven
seconds
ahead on Ben Cairn to lead by nine seconds heading to the final stage of the day, the short sprint around the Healesville Showground. It was here, in front of thousands
of spectators, that Bourne put the icing on Bate’s cake, the Subaru driver trying just a little too hard, claiming a front diff problem caused the Impreza to understeer into a small bush at a hairpin. The problem cost him a further nine seconds and handed victory to Bates in heat one by 18 seconds. For Bates, it was a decisive breakthrough in a year which had demoralised the Toyota driver and a smile was sitting on his face that night for what seemed like the first time all year. Crocker was never headed in
Group N, coming home ahead of Lowndes, with Reid, Kennedy and John Goasdoue, who had fought hard to rebuild after his nasty Tasmanian accident, trailing behind.
Crocker actually came home third outright, ahead of John Long in the Lancer.
In Formula Two, Herridge had done a “Colin McRae” on Ben
Cairn, identifying it as the critical stage and posting a blinder which would see him head to the final
back on the road.
stage with a lead which Rick Bates
Stages three and four on the edge of Marysville were close for Bates and Bourne, with virtually nothing in the battle. Bourne enjoying a slight edge heading into the Acheron Way stage. It was here the Bates’ tyre choice proved brilliant. With tarmac sections in stage six on Ben Cairn, Bates used the Dunlop 84s, wearing the blocks down on Acheron to get better grip on the sealed parts of the next
could not match.
stage. Bates came out of Acheron with a
It was Herridge’s first F2 win of the year and would fire Rick Bates up for a stronger challenge on day two.
Full sealed another Aussie Car
class win, while Ashlea James grabbed Corolla Cup honours. HEAT TWO
More perfect weather on Sunday and Bates was on the attack, a
scent of a double vrin having firedup the Canberra driver and the new car giving him added confidence.
NEW TITLE... Formula Two stars Rick Bates/Jenny Brittan (left) led a
Daihatsu 1-2 on Day Two and guaranteed the F2 title. (Paul Mollison)
U September 1998 “It feels good; it seems to have more power, but a little less torque, probably as a result of using the Elf
Acheron Way, he opened another five seconds, giving him an 18-second advantage going into Ben
fuel, which means that I have to rev it harder,” said Bates.
Cairn.
The car looked more at ease on
the road and the first two stages of the day were a repeat of Saturday, Bates taking an early advantage on Mount Slide, Bourne coming back
strongly on Sylvia Creek to even the scores heading into the third stage of the day. Bates powered the Corolla around the loop on the edge of Marysville to be five seconds ahead of Bourne heading into 11, but the telling blow was still to come. Crocker was again in command of Group N and, despite the best eSbrts of local rival Lowndes in the
Lancer, the Subaru powered ahead. Lowndes matched his pace on the opening stage of the day, but then suffered fuel pressure prob lems on the second stage of the day, preventing him from challenging
But Bates went for safety and backed off a little on the penulti mate stage, posting a time equal to that of Bourne, with only the spec tator
dash
around
Domaine
Chandon to go. The Toyota driver could sniff the champagne as he flew around the fast winery stage, edging a further
of team-mate MacKenzie and
Herridge in the Hyundai on the fourth stage of the day - Rick Bates
grabbed a massive 11-second advantage over his team-mate, while Herridge was startled by the pace of the little Daihatsus and
deserves one!
RUNNER-UP ... A break in the routine for Possum
Bourne (right), who didn’t win this one - and neither did Subaru driver Stewart
Bates. Bourne had to settle for his first
Reid (below), third-placed in Group N. (Mollison pics)
runner-up position of the year, con gratulating Bates before momen tarily hijacking the Corolla in the post-finish revelry. Crocker’s stocks continued to
Subaru.
That showed as he pulled ahead
still lacks a series sponsor and such a good product
ing to Perth for Rally Australia the car was absolutely great and the team has done a great job,” said
said Bates.
en Subaru.
close with some fantastical
ly close competition. The series now goes into recess and, unfortunately,
secure victory in both heats. “This is the turning point; I need ed this to boost my confidence head
In F2, Rick Bates was fully firedup after his rare defeat on Saturday - “ I hate being beaten, so I am trying a little harder today,”
Miles Sandy blew a head gasket on the third stage, limping out to the service only to retire the strick
while Steve Forsberg took the title after being the fastest in the class all year. After five rounds, the 1998 Australian Rally Championship drew to a
two seconds ahead of Bourne to
rise, his performance in again win ning Group N drawing big praise for the mature and rapid drive he had posted. The young Melburnian had also taken third outright ahead of Long, while Lowndes, despite his fuel problems, was second in Group N in the Lancer, ahead of Reid’s
Crocker.
31
Long took the inaugural Windscreens O’Brien privateer of the year award, his consistent per formance throughout the year pay ing dividends. Rick Bates, known by his brother as Team Sponge, took the F2 victo ry after coming home at the front of
was back in third.
Neal Bates was in hot form,
a Daihatsu 1-2, McKenzie 15 sec onds behind and edging out
blasting through Paradise Plains to put another 11 seconds between
Herridge for second while Bates
himself and the Kiwi and then, on
James again won Corolla Cup,
cemented the F2 title.
lane Kranetin$ New Mimes,, new dri'rem,, new siyiles avmlsiMe In 1999 CMsilogue
I
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S2 U September M
Stumpy Holmes to run Subaru in ^99 ARC Another Kiwi forest fight er
is
headed
for
Australian
the
Rally
Championship next year. Subaru ace Stumpy Holmes was a guest specta tor at the season-closing Rally of Melbourne and is
now drumming up support for a full-on attack on the
Group N showroom title next year.
■
new car, but we haven’t
decided which way to go,
Guest when he crashed his
Subaru,” he said.
WRX on the third day, wants
His decision to contest the Australian series is to move
to relocate to Melbourne with a brand-new Subaru and tackle the entire Aussie
either two or four-door. But
be
a
to full-time pace noted events and the wide variety of conditions in the five
“I was pretty blown away with how well-organised
national championship ral lies - Coffs Harbour, Perth,
everything was in Australia,” the 31 year-old told Motorsport News this week.
Queensland, Tasmania and
“We’re definitely coming besides
Melbourne.
“If you want to get any where in this rally scene, you have to go to pace notes,” he said.
Possum
“That’s what happened in
(Bourne) and Neal (Bates) at the front, the next five were
New Zealand; we made a
tion
really close.” Holmes has been one of
wrong call on the notes because we were inexperi enced.”
New Zealand’s quickest rally drivers in the past few years, finishing second to Reece
Holmes is aiming to run head to head with Cody
Jones in the national title
class title next year.
last year after winning schol arship entries into the Rally of New Zealand in 1995 and 1996.
He moved from driving a Mk II Escort in club events
to the big league in 1994, when he purchased former Australian champ Rob Herridge’s Subaru Liberty
in
ever have thought we’d end up in Victoria and feel like
we
were
in
Queensland, with a week
The car only had 5km on
of sunny 21 degree days? The roads were in perfect condition and the Rally of Melbourne has a couple of the best rally stages in the country - some flowing roads where you can throw the car around and back it
dug deep and produced the goods in an almost impossi
it when it left the workshop - we then did a tyre test, did
into the comers.
ble time frame. Coral came down to the
or came loose!
the Rally of Melbourne the car was just a bodyshell sit ting in the middle of the
I
workshop, it’s a credit to the boys in the team who once again rolled up their sleeves,
the rally and nothing fell off,
with tyres and eventually
like the
Crocker for the showroom “I think there could be
three, or four, of us going for it next year,” he said. “We’re not looking to thrash everyone. Hopefully, by the middle of the year we’ll be running with Cody and by the end of it maybe we can win a few.” -ANDREW MACLEAN
BURNS JOINS SUBARU ... Richard Burns, the hottest property in the next generation of World
Championship rally drivers, has signed a three-year agi'eement with Subai-u. After three years wdth Mitsubishi, Burns’ first full
season in 1998 in the rival marque saw the impres sive 27 year-old score points in six of the ten WRC rounds completed to date.
Burns had pre\fiously competed in a limited progi’am with Subaru in 1994 and 1995, finishing third overall in the 1994 Asia-Pacific series and also taking third in the 1995 RAC Rally.
while it was 20 degrees in Melbourne, our earlier tyre development and testing had been carried out in
Canberra, with the tempera ture reaching 40 degrees
and then Coffs Harbour, where it was also pretty damn hot.
The Melbourne win has
given us confidence going into Rally Austraha and the
scene is set for a great tussle with Possum.
■ We have been asked by Toyota Team Sweden to in compete Rally
workshop, took one look at the shell, another look at all the components sitting on the shelves and thought it looked
of work to do with the new tyres in cooler conditions -
We played around a lot
Australia as their entry to score points for the
FIA Teams Cup. Currently, they lie in fourth place and need an “outside Europe entry.” The FIA Teams Cup is a championship we would love to aim to compete in, so we are delighted to partici
world’s
biggest jigsaw puzzle. She said: “You’ve got to be kidding - we’ve only got two weeks!”
Super Series in 1999.
over there next year. I was impressed with the competi
conditions
Melbourne. Who would
fact that two weeks prior to
Holmes, who led the Group
definitely
dry
Taking into account the
N class in the Rally of New Zealand in July, only to hand victory to Aussie Michael
will
■ We were amazed to see
boost for the whole team.
and then graduated to a Possum Bourne MotorsportbmltGrpNWRXinl996. 'That car is now legs-up in a scrap heap after the crash in the local world champi onship event, but Holmes is currently deciding whether to build a two-door, or fourdoor, Impreza for his Aussie attack next year. “We’re building a brand-
it
■ At last! We finally won a rally - and I have to say, considering the string of second places this year, it was a gi-eat feeling and a hig morale
Yep - and we were on the road as scheduled, Sunday two weeks later, heading for
pate on behalf of Sweden
Melbourne.
and this sets our goal for the event - Toyota Sweden will also be managing
■ The car looked fantas
tic. It was a lot lighter
Toyota Team Saudi Arabia and Toyota Team Turkey in
than the old car. It felt
stiffer and better, ran faultlessly for the entire event and was a pleasure
Perth, who are also compet ing in the FIA Teams Cup.
to drive. Someone commented to me in Melbourne that the
■ I spent a couple of days up at Lakeside last week
rehability of the Corolla this year, given its complexity
and now we’re looking forward to heading off to
testing with Paul Weel
and the fact that it was a
new car, has been a credit to the team.
Sandown this weekend
THE OTHER HALF... Coral Taylor, Neal Bates’ gun co-driver.
Furthermore, to build a
The praise due to the boys
brand-new Corolla and then win on its debut event is an
for their dedication and level
even bigger achievement.
deserved.
of workmanship is well-
went back to the Dunlop 84s that we used last year and it made a big difference. I think we still have a bit
for
the
V8
Supercar
Tickford 500 endurance race. Our aim: To be the
first private team home and a top 10 finish. Cheers, Neal.
Storm over Melbourne
date change for 1999 A storm is brewing over the dates for next year’s Australian
Rally
Championship, particu larly with the Rally of Melbourne objecting to a proposed date move from August to March. Rally of Melbourne organ iser Glenn Cuthbert said the
notion of moving the event back to March, which was its original date before Melbourne gained the Formula One Grand Prix in
across the road from the Albert Park circuit - that
would all go down the drain, as the entire month is a
1996, was an “absolutely
problem because of the GP. “The media coverage
hare-brained” idea.
would be hosed down and the
“To put the Rally of
spectator interest would be
Melbourne in March is luna
less - the entire idea lacks
cy, because it will be absolutely swamped by the Grand Prix,” said Cuthbert.
logic,” said Cuthbert.
“We have built a strong relationship with the hotel which provides our Rally HQ and we are based right
round of the Championship next season.
However, with few alter natives available - particu larly with ARCOM’s prefer ence for ARC events to be
based in capital cities - some sort of compromise will need to be achieved. The draft calendar for the
It is believed that ARCOM
1999 ARC has yet to be pub
threatened that if the Rally
lished and it is believed that
of Melbourne did not like the event would be found to
further work is being done to resolve the problems with scheduling.
replace it as the Victorian
- JON THOMSON
date change then a new
VIC: Stuckey Tyre Service
Bourne advises ARCOM
Ph; (03) 9386 5331 Fax: (03) 9383 2514
SA: The Mag Wheel Centre Ph: (08) 8269 4100 Fax: (08) 8269 7805
)
NSW: Stuckey Tyre Service
^
Ph: (02) 9676 8655 Fax: (02) 9676 5300 OLD: Road & Race Spare Parts 1
1 I
Possum Bourne has been
appointed as a consultant to the Australian Rally
“It is very exciting and there are many things on the horizon that will really
Commission
make this series fire,” said
(ARCOM)
advising the controlling body of rallying on “com petitors issues. Bourne revealed he was now with ARCOM to ensure
.m
£
WINNER - NSW & VICTORIAN RALLY
CHAMPIONSHIPS - OUNLOP SP84-R
that any decisions made by the Commission don’t alter
the good balance currently enjoyed by the Australian Rally Championship. The Euwi triple Australian
Bourne.
“I can’t say too much at the moment, but I am really excited by the whole thing.” Bourne’s appointment hasn’t been welcomed by all competitors, with one - who wished to remain unnamed -
saying it was a slight on Australian rallying. “We have a Kiwi rally dri
Rally Champion is believed to have played a key role in putting together the draft
ver who doesn’t even live
calendar for 1999.
driver.
here telling them how to run the ARC - it stinks,” said the
“I don’t have a problem with Possum competing here, but we should formulate how
the series should run and, if he wants to come and play here, then he can, but he shouldn’t be telling us how it should be done,” he added. The biggest hurdle cur rently facing the ARC as it
goes into a seven month lay off is finding a sponsor. With improved TV cover age this year and record fields, the Championship remains without a big backer to further boost its credibility and profile. -JON THOMSON
SUPER SPEEDWAY
Thomas pulls the pin Am extremely disappointed Ian
Australia, I’ll pack everything into
INlUl!
brought to an end the multi-car
a container and send it to the US for sale.
By Martin D Clar
the Calder Park Thunderdome
Champion Max Dumesny last year.
tion on the market.
“Being based in Cairns, I’m not able to run around in the social cir
“I don’t understand the situa
tion,” Thomas said. “I thought we had a three-year deal, but it turns out it was just for last season.” Thomas’ NASCAR team’s stable
week.
includes four cars, a truck and transporter and all of the back-up equipment neccessary to run a top flight team.
“So, reluctantly, I don’t have the funding to race this year and I’ve
“It’s top quality equipment and should sell quickly to any serious
cles and talk with the irght sort of people who could back our team,” Thomas told Motorsport News last
Hampshire.
Thomas’ announcement also
“I’ve already spoken with Dick Midgley and, with the exchange rate the way it is at the moment, I could turn it all into some real cur
rency fairly quickly.” For Thomas’ loyal fans, the Cairns racer did have one last com ment that woMd be of real interest to them. “If we can sell three cars and
some of the equipment quickly, I might still make the Thunderdome appearances,” he said. - GERALD McDORNAN
Square D Fords for Kenny Wallace, came on board to replace McSwain the week after New
teams or racers - but, if we don’t get much interest in the team from
Valvohne team that he shared with former Australian NASCAR
33
Newt Moore, crew chief for Filmar Racing which fields the
<
decided to sell my entire racing operation.”
Thomas has announced that, due to not being able to find the neccessary sponsor backing, he won’t be contesting the upcom ing super speedway series at
- consequently, the North Queensland-based racer has placed Ms entire racing opera
11 September 1998
■ Mike Hillman was fired as the crew chief to Gale
■ Joe Gibbs has announced
the sponsor for Tony Stewart to run a second Pontiac along side Bobby Labonte in 1999 Home Depot, a large do it yourself chain, will be the sponsor when Stewart switch
es from IRL to Winston Cup full-time.
■ Derrike Cope, Buckshot Jones, Dan Pardus and Kenny Bouchard were the non-quali fiers at New Hampshire, while Sterling Marlin, Johnny Benson, Steve Park, Rich Bickle,
Dave
Marcis
and
Darrell Waltrip took the avail able provisional starting posi tions.
Circuit specialist Ron Fellows wrecked two cars, but managed to keep off the wall in the race in a third Cat Chevrolet - Jimmy Spencer, Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt, Cope, Ernie Irvan and WaUy DaUenbach also wrecked on a slick surface on Friday and Satm-day.
Yarborough Motorsports and driver Rich Bickle on August 24 - he was replaced immedi ately by Skip Eyler, who had been crew chief with Chad
Little at Roush Racing. ■ Mattei Motorsports is look
ing at a possible driver change in 1999, Michael Waltrip apparently topping the list of candidates to replace Geoff Bodine, who part-owner Jim Mattei purchased the team from in 1997.
■ Ford is trying to introduce a new cylinder head for 1999, apparently to match General Motor’s SB2 head used this year.
Cosworth is working on designs sent by Ford engine-builders Robert Yates Racing and Roush Racing. ■ Dale Earnhardt and Dale
Earnhardt Jr will compete against each other for the first time in Japan in November later this year, at the new Twin Ring Motegi circuit -
■ Auto Racing Club of America
father and Son will both he
driver Chad Coleman lost his life in a one-car accident at the
sponsored by Coca-Cola.
super-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway on August 28 Coleman, 30, from South Carolina, was competing in just Ms fourth ARCA Supercar
■ Steve Hmiel, general manag er of Roush Racing for drivers Johnny Benson and Kevin Lepage, was released from Roush Racing on September 1,
race.
in what he described as an
■ Michael ‘Fatback’ McSwain
Jack Roush.
amicable parting with owner DYNAMIC DUO... Bathurst-bound Allan Roark (left) and Graham Viney await a delivery of Viagra eye drops. Allan Roark’s Tasmaman-hased NASCAR team has its Bathurst
preparation well under way and, despite the fact that a cracked piston has been detect ed, Roark intends to test the road course set-up at one of the island’s circuits before heading to the mainland.
“Unfortunately, the dollar has really been against us and the price has nearly doubled in the last 12 months for engine parts, which has put us behind schedule a bit,” said engine-builder Graham Viney, who is confident of extracting some more horsepower from the engine. The car now sports a later model front-end, bringing the body shape up to 1996-model specs - “it’s clean er and more aerodynamic and cer tainly looks a lot different from what we started with, which was the old Pontiac Aero body,” Roark said.
Roark updates for Bathurst “The car is an ex-Rusty WaUace road course car and, with the work we’ve carried out, should be bettersuited to its road course return.”
wages,” he said. “Until support is found, the team will continue to race at a couple of meetings each season as the finances permit.
The team is seriously underfund ed and as yet has been unable to attract any corporate backing, although Roark - who has a Business and Marketing degree - is
“I have been involved with NASCAR in Australia since crew
confident that this situation will
believe that NASCAR has a very
change in the near fixture. “This is a hard sport to compete in when you are just doing it on
strong future in this country - and its something I am proud to have the privilege to be a part of.”
ing for the late Neil Bonnet, who won the inaugural race at the Thunderdome back in 1988 and I
resigned as crew chief from Jasper Motorsports prior to New Hampshire - he did how ever stay on to help the team with driver Robert Pressley to a fine 12th place result at the track.
Hmiel joined Roush in 1988 and became Mark Martin’s crew chief
in 1992, winning 13 races with Martin and two previously with Terry Labonte - Harry McMullen takes Hmiel’s position at the Liberty, North Carolina, facihty.
Calendar revised The 1998/99 Australian NASCAR Championship calendar has undergone a review by the series promotei’s - with sevei’al dates being altei-ed and the inclusion of the Qantas Austx’alian Gi’and Pi’ix event, the number of rounds has expanded to seven. The Thunderdome NASCAR race meeting originally scheduled for November 22 has been moved forward three weeks to November 1 and
the day-time series Grand Final on April 4 (Easter Sunday) will now' be conducted under lights on Saturday evening (April 3) - the latter event clashes with the traditional Easter Sprintcar Trail that takes in Avalon, Mt Gambier and Warrnambool Speedw'ays. The NASCAR event at the Qantas Grand Prix meeting around the 5.3kilometre Albert Park road race cii'cuit will also be included in the over
all series package.
With competitors in the category gaining additional telexision expo sure in tw'o new market segments, their corporate sponsors have gained
Gordon makes it ten Decision soon by NASCAR - GRANT NICHOLAS
a marketing bonus.
Jeff Gordon won his fourth
straight Southern 500 at Darlington on September 6 and with it Ms third one million dol lar bonus and second of the
year from Winston. Gordon was one of five drivers
eligible to win the ‘No Bull Five,’ open to the top five finishers at
Indianapolis last month and at race’s end he was the only one in
fourth and Jeff Gordon fifth.
With just 26 laps remaining, Gordon passed an ailing Jeff
contention for the win. Gordon has now won five of the
Burton with ease to win by 3.631
last six races and ten this season.
seconds.
Dale Jarrett won the pole with a 168.879 mph lap, while Ward Burton ma(ie the front row with
Burton, still sore from a New
Hampshire practice crash and flulike symptoms, held on for second
on Gordon’s tyres As yet, no announcement has been made by NASCAR regard ing the tyres confiscated after the New Hampshire race (see
“Two tyres have never, never, never made it where a car can go out and outrun a car with four new
tyres,” remarked Roush. Last Friday at Darlington,
Rusty WaUace third, John Andretti
over Jarrett, Dale Earnhardt and
report on page 35) from Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin
Evernham
NEW THUNDERDOME RACE DIRECTOR ... Anthony Jenkins
Jeremy Mayfield - and these five are eligible to win the million at
Team-owner Jack Roush says he has a letter from a chemical compa
Roush is ignorant of this sport,”
has just been appointed the new co-race director for the upcom ing Australian NASCAR season. Jenkins’ credentials include 10 years in race control communi-
cations, a safety crew member at Calder Park since 1994, assis tant Clerk of Course at the recent V8 Supercar meeting at Calder Park and a six-year stint on Gene Cook’s race team, four of wMch were as assistant crew cMef.
Jenkins wiU share his rsponsibilities with co-race director -JOHN WINKLER Lloyd Fletcher.
Talladega on October 11. Final result: Gordon (Chevy)
139.031 mph, J Burton (Ford), Jarrett (Ford), Earnhardt (Chevy) ,
Mayfield (Ford) 366 laps, Irvan (Pontiac) 365 laps, R Wallace (Ford), Marlin (Chevy), G Bodine (Ford) 364 laps, K Wallace (Ford). - MARTIN D CLARK
ny saying that it sold a product to Hendricks Motorsport that could be used to sofl;en tyres. Roush has aUeged that Gordon’s crew chief, Ray Evernham, has used the chemical on more than one occasion to benefit the team and
win races after two-tyre pit stops.
commented:
“Jack
further adding that, “15 years ago, if I was back in New Jersey, I would have driven up behind the
truck and slapped him around. But I started to reeJise it doesn’t matter
what people say.” A release from NASCAR about
the results of the tests is expected sometime during this week.
3^
September 199S
Dd
r-
MARTIN D CLARK
NASCAR’s 50th year is turning into a memorable one, with plenty of controversy and excit ing racing. It started at Daytona, with Dale Earnhardt winning his first Daytona 500 in his 20th time of try-
ing - quite a feat and one that has gone down as one of the more mem orable events in American sporting history. Just before mid-way in the sea son, Earnhardt swapped crew chiefs in an attempt to turn his sea son around and, so far, it looks
miere series, taking his first career win at Pocono in June and holding the points lead for four races. A tyre failure at New Hampshire dropped him down to a season low
the Daytona Bud Shoot-Out and then getting planted finnly in the wall by Wallace at Richmond. That fencing while The Kid’ was leading was something for which
of fourth and he recorded his sec-
Wallace did not defend himself and
pronusmg.
winning self, but has had his fair
Jeremy Mayfield has emerged as the newest star in NASCAR’s pre-
share of controversy, accusing Rusty Wallace of a jump start in
ond finish outside the top 20. Jeff Gordon has been his usual
CONTENDERS... #24 Gordon is being hounded by Valvoline’s Mark Martin in the pointscore. (Jones/Ailsport)
was possible retahation for Bristol
last year, when Gordon spun Wallace on the last lap, also while leading.
’
this season and heads the points tally after New Hampshire’s round 23, so expect the Rainbow Waniors to be just as strong in the remain der of the year. Wallace also planted Eaimhardt
in the wall at Michigan, during final practice of all things - this left Earnhardt mad at his friend and he
achieving five straight wins in the
was seen grabbing him by the collar in the garage after the incident. As for Wallace, he has no wins
current series, has won nine races
and two mechanical failures that
Gordon, who came close to
EXTRAORDINARY... Jeff Gordon holds all the aces. (Taylor/Allspor t)
OUT OF CONTENTION... Terry Labonte has only one win to his credit this season. (Taylor/Allsport)
1
35
September 1998
NASCAR impounds Gordon’s tyres after controversial
New Hampshire victoiy Leading just 68 laps and the crucial final 67, Jeff Gordon picked up win number nine of
Steve Park brought out the first caution, slapping the wall and bruising the right side of his
the
Earnhardt-owned Chevrolet. Martin continued to dominate
1998
season
at
New
Hampshire Speedway on August 30 - it was also his tenth top ten in succession, Gordon becoming the first dri ver since Darrell Waltrip in 1982 to achieve such a feat.
Not for the first time this year, a two-tyre stop late in the race pro pelled Gordon from a so-so run to victory lane, the fresher tyres seemingly loosening the car up to make it ultra-competitive. NASCAE then bowed down to
pressure from competitors, impounding the tyres from Gordon’s Hendrick Chevrolet and,
just for good measure, the Roush Taurus of Martin to check for any tyre treatment chemicals NASCAR also inspected the pit
IN WITH A SHOW... Dale Jarrett now likes his Taurus. (Taylor/Allsport) have cost him dearly and dropped the Penske South team from atop the points table at mid-season. A broken valve spring and crank shaft were the culprits and not a fault of the in-house engines that gave trouble last year.
but until the Joe Gibbs team
improves its short track perfor mances, he will not be a champi onship threat. The ‘other’ Bobby, Hamilton, is the ninth different race winner, the
pair of Bobbys the only single car
Wallace was deemed to have
teams to have visited victory lane.
jumped the start in the June Pocono event and, 2ifl;er his trip to pit road for a stop and go pendty,
Jimmy Spencer deserves a men tion for holding his own in the top ten point standings, consistency and six top ten results helping him
the crank broke.
Rusty needs a win badly and a return to victory lane has to be
achieve that status.
imminent - I’m not sure he’ll win
season to be just as controversial and competitive, with many more driver and crew changes as the
the title, but stranger things have happened. Terry Labonte went on to win the controversial Richmond event,
bumping Dale Jarrett aside in tbe process - it remains as Terry’s sole win in this series and it’s possible it could be his only victory of 1998 although he remains consistent, he will not be a title threat.
Jarrett, meanwhile, has notched
up wins at Darlington and Dover and, after dismissing the Taurus
early in the season, has foimd it to be a competitive ride after rule changes. Roush team-mates Jeff Burton and Mark Martin have won sixraces between the two cars that
share the premises, Martin with five and Burion more recently with
stronger performances and the win at New Hampshire. Bobby Labonte won at the fast tracks in Atlanta and Talladega,
through caution two on lap 176, when Schrader, on the outside of Rusty Wallace, appeared to cut a tyre and pounded the wall hard rearwards - luckily he escaped without injury, but he did lose tenth place in the point standings to John Andretti. Gordon followed behind Martin
on the restart, but was soon hung out to dry on the wide outside again, dropping all the way back to 19th.
Martin headed the pack until lap 232, when he dove under the lapped Rich Bickle, who allowed Martin room to pass - but Mark slipped wide and planted Bickle firmly in the wall.
stalls of several teams after the
Dale Jarrett led back to the cau
race for possible rule infractions. “My car came to Ufe again after those two tyres were changed,”
tion flag and came off pit road fourth after taking on four tyres. It was during that final pit stop
said Gordon.
that Gordon, Jeff Burton and Rusty Wallace took on two tyres for the latter pair it did nothing,
“They need to get off my guys’ backs,” remarked crew chief Ray Evemham of the post-race scruti-
but for Gordon it had the opposite
ny,.
effect and he was able to hold back
Gordon led the first lap from his 129.033 mph pole, his seventh, but was forced to the higher groove and slipped back to 19th spot, allowing Mark Martin, Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace to
Andretti, who had four fresher tyres. Even the final caution on lap 256 for Jeff Green, who lost his brakes, was no help to the remain
lead.
der of the pack, as Gordon held on
the challenge of Martin and
for the final 39 green flag laps to win by six tenths of a second over Martin, who scrubbed the wall
more than once in an effort to keep up with Gordon. Leading 193 of 300 laps, Martin finished second to Gordon for the fourth time in six races.
Kenny Wallace posted his best 1998 result in sixth, using Robert Yates power at New Hampshire and again at Darlington this com ing weekend. Burton started 25th and fin
ished fifth. Dale Earnhardt went
from 18th to ninth and a strong run by Ricky Rudd (who started 35th) ultimately saw him come home tenth.
Jarrett was again consistent, posting his fourth straight top five, but has lost 39 points to Gordon over that period. With Martin leading the most laps, he and Gordon earned the same race points, Martin remain ing 67 points in arrears. Final result: Gordon (Chevy), Martin (Ford), Andretti (Pontiac), Jarrett (Ford), J Burton (Ford), K Wallace (Ford), B Labonte (Pontiac), R Wallace (Ford), Earnhardt (Chevy), Rudd (Chevy). Points standings: Gordon 3597, Martin 3530,; Jarrett 3359, R Wallace 3175, B Labonte 3083, Mayfield 3002, J Burton 2933, Earnhardt 2809, T Labonte 2657, Andretti 2575. -MAR-TIND CLARK
F/ffST CAUTION... Dale Earnhardt-owned Chevy Monte Carlo of Steve Parks hit the wall. (Taylor/Allsport)
Look for the remainder of the
‘lesser’ teams look for success.
It seems sponsors pumping in around US$5 million each year are not willing to wait for success and look to the teams to make the nec
essary changes and strive for a visit to victory lane.
Expect the second Talladega race to be calmer, as, with the resched uled Daytona event the following week, teams have to worry about repairing wrecked restrictor plate cars for the next weekend.
With the Daytona switch, the teams now run fltll-bore with a race
every weekend through the finale in Atlanta on November 8.
The points race will pretty much stay as it is and will narrow out between Gordon, Martin, Jarrett and Wallace, with outsiders Burton
and Mayfield along for the ride. Enjoy.
1998 WINSTON CUP SERIES RESULTS
iiiiiimmu
Pepsi 500 - Darlington, NC. September 5th, 1998.
I. Jeff Gordon ....
3082
2.
Mark Martin ...
3000
3. 4. 5.
Dale Jarrett ... Rusty Wallace . Bobby Labonte
2859
I. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Jeff Gordon, #24 DuPont Chev Monte Carlo Jeff Buinn, #99 Exide Batteries Ford Taurus DaleJarrett.^QuaJhyCareFordTaiaus Dale Eamharelt.ffSGMGoodwrendi Chev Monte Carlo Jeremy MayfieM,#! 2 Mobi I Ford Taurus
6.
Ernie Irvan, #36 SldtUes Pontiac Grand Prix
7.
Rusty WaBace,#2PHerLite FordTauus
8. SterfcigMarfci, #12 Coots Li^ Chev Monte Carlo 9. GeoffBodme,#7PhSpsCon5umerFordTaiaus 10. KermyWalace,#81 SquareDFordTaiaus
II.
BlEKott, #94 McDonald’s Ford Taurus
12. Ward Burton, #22 MBNA America Pontiac Grand Prix 13. Ken Schrader, #33 Skoal BancSt Chev Monte Carlo 14. Jdm Andretti, #43 STP Pontiac Grand Prix
IS. Bobby Labonte, #18 Interstate Batteries Pcxrdac Grand Prix 16. Jeff Green, #46 The Money Store Chev Monte Carlo 17. la 19. 20.
Michael Wahrip, #21 Chgo Ford Taixus ChadUttle,#97JohnDeereFordTaurus Rich Bidde, #98 Thom Apple Va8ey Ford Tataus Steve Grissexn, #40 Kodiak ke Chev Monte Carlo
Standings After Rd 24
2769 2664
6. Jeremy Mayfield
2606
7. Jeff Burton .... 8. Terry Labonte .
,2453
9. Dale Earnhardt 10. Ken Schrader ..
.2402
.2422 2291
3S IlSepImberm
“Xt)
Report by DAVID OSTASZEWSKI When the smoke cleared at the 44th
Annual US Nationals at Indianapolis on September 2-7, Gary Scelzi scored his second straight Top Fuel win on the tour, John Force clawed his way back into the Funny Car winners circle for the first time in four months and Mike
Edwards took an upset win over Warren Johnson to take the Pro Stock crown.
Hot weather and a tricky track gave most of the racers difficulty during qualifying, the conditions giving way to cloudy skies and dropping temperatures on Monday. TOP FUEL
Scelzi and team Winston looked impressive while notching up their third win of the year by defeating Mike Dunn in the Top Fuel final, which was a tyre-smoking, back-ped alling fight to the finish. At the green, Dunn took a slight lead, but both cars began to lose traction by 60 feet. Scelzi recovered first and eased his way back into the throttle, hooking the big Goodyear slicks and driving around Dunn, who kept his foot in it with tyre smoke bil lowing behind. But the Winston dragster got there first, 5.961/282.57 to 8.456/100.21.
Scelzi had earlier stopped Kenny Bernstein, Larry Dixon Jr and Doug Kalitta, while Drmn took out Bob Vandergriff Jr, Connie Kalitta, who first raced at the Nationals forty years ago and points leader
Cory McClenathan, on his way to a ruimerup finish.
The win moved Scelzi into second place in the points standings, trailing McClenathan by only 20 points, or just one round of racing. Amato falls back to third, after losing in the opening round to McClenathan. The Top Fuel field was the quickest in NHEA history, ranging from Larry Dixon Jr’s munber one qualifying shot of4.566/315.45 to the bump spot, which was held by Paul Romine and his Car Quest fueller at 4.737/301.81.
Twenty two cars ran in the fours, with all
sixteen qualifiers running speeds over 300 mph - the non-qualifier list included names such as Doug Herbert, Cristen Powell, Jim Head and Shelly Anderson. FUNNY CAR
Funny Car found the one-event only, bright gold, seven-time champion Castrol Mustang of John Force getting a victory for the first time since Enghshtown, back in May. Force struggled a bit during qualifying, ending up seventh at 5.067/286.44, but the team did what the/ve become famous for fighting and coming out on top when their backs were against the wall. Force defeated the resurgent Parts America Pontiac of Randy Anderson in the final round, 4.992/306.43 to 5.041/290.13. Force now moves back in front in the
points race, leaving Indy with the lead for the
ninth straight year with a 25-point lead over Capps. The champion opened eliminations with a win over Freddy Neely, the Castrol Mustang fighting for traction from mid-track to the lights at 5.217/271.90, while Neely smoked the tyres and shut off. Round two had great impact on the points race, when Force gave the knock-out pimch to Ron Capps with a 4.967/312.82. In the semi-final round. Force had his
hands full with Del Worsham- and prevailed once again, 5.044/302.11 to 5.050/293.63. Anderson, with Jim Dunun getting a better handle on the car every time it goes down the track, qualified fifth at 5.061/295.95.
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He then blasted out 5.148/292.30, 4.991/307.69 and 4.961/308.21 wins over
Hines posted a 7.461/175.47 in taking the win, while the losing time for Seeling was
Dean Skuza, Chuck Etchells and Tim
7.443/177.16.
Wilkerson to move into the final round.
Hines had earlier defeated Reggie Cole, Ron Ayers and Antron Brown, before winning
Wilkerson, the low qualifier at 4.961/296.93, had strung three four-second passes together during qualifying and appeared like the car to beat. He opened eliminations with a 5.916/309.58 win over Dale Creasy Jr, then followed with a 4.934/305.70 win over Tom Hoover. In his race with Anderson in the semi
his ninth race of the season. PRO STOCK TRUCK
Larry Kopp became the first racer to win a title at the US Nationals in the new Pro
4.961/308.21, but his slower reaction time
Stock Truck category. Kopp, driving a Chevrolet S-10 powered by a Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins engine, posted a 7.760/173.77 in the final round to stop Bob
cost him the race and a possible Nationals
Panella Jr, who broke in his first final round
crown.
appearance.
finals, Wilkerson ran quicker, 4.929/304.98 to
PRO STOCK Mike Edwards won his second Pro Stock
Kopp was the quickest truck in every round, scoring wins over Mike Mahon, Todd Patterson and John Lingenfelter.
title of the year in an upset final round win over Warren Johnson.
Edwards, who earlier this season won in
FEDERAL MOGUL DRAGSTER Darren Nicholson scored his first-ever win
Dallas, used a slight holeshot and a quicker run to stop the Professor, 7.034/194.46 to
he defeated Rick Henkelman in the final
7.045/196.46.
The loss for Johnson ends a six-year run, where at least one member of the Johnson
family had taken the Nationals title home. Edwards cut good lights throughout the day while taking wins over the lone-qualified Ford of Robert Patrick, defending champ Kurt Johnson and Jim Yates, before taking out the senior member of the Johnson family. Johnson, meanwhile, qualified number one at 6.977/197.62, which stood up for low e.t. and top speed, then took round wins over Bob Benza, John Nobile and Mark Osborne.
in the Federal Mogul Dragster ranks when round, 5.593/251.81 to 5.516/248.00, on a holeshot. His .408 to .501 reaction time was too much for the nitro machine of Henkelman to overcome.
Nicholson had earlier defeated Scott
Hartley, Melanie Troxel and Rick Santos. Henkelman, the low qualifier
at 5.497/245.76, advanced into the final round with wins over Shawn Bowen, John Costanza
and defending event champion Darrell Russell.
FEDERAL MOGUL FUNNY CAR
home a $10,000 bonus by taking the US
Bob Newberry scored his first-ever US Nationals crown when he defeated Tony Bartone in the final round, 5.747/248.13 to
Nationals crown, as well as the Pro Bike
5.820/244.96.
Dash, which he won on Saturday. Hines, as he did on Saturday and so many times this season, met and defeated Angelle Seeling in the final when Seeling red lighted.
Newberry, low qualifier at 5.757/248.07, moved through eliminations with round wins over Camie Fiyfogle, Todd Paton and Frank
PRO BIKE Matt Hines scored the double and took
Manzo.
r"
11SeplewberW98
37
Hot Capps nails Cruz
/f£‘
LA
in Big Bud Shootout
NOT HANGING AROUND... Will ANDRA’s controversial approach to vehicle approval ultimately result in Doorslammer legend Victor Bray departing our shores to race permanently In the USA ? (Bob Potts pic)
■ Firstly, I have to congratu late Scotty Cannon on nmning a 6.20-second pass in his Murray Anderson, Australianhuilt Studebaker Top
broke the finish beam -
they sure won a lot of races, until the lights were lifted to eight inches above the finish line and all car bodies activated
Doorslammer. The next time the world record
the finish lights.
is broken in the class, it will be a 6.1-something run, so don’t be sur prised to see Scotty lower his new record even further in the very
■ The overhang mea surement
near future.
When he made the pass, the air was at 1800 feet, but the Englishtbwn track in New Jersey is probably one of the best drag
racing facilities in the world. He stated that the race track
had been prepared and sprayed properly with VHT and would take everything that he threw at it this
is the track where John
Force’s Castrol Funny Car ran a 323 mph pass.
i
■
;
■
i
:
*
‘ ,
t
mg qmte a while with him and
on our cars down here the
measurement varies according to the type of car that a team
We’re heading straight to Epping, New Hampshire, for an IHRA race meeting, before moving onto Redick, Pennsylvania, for an NHRA show, then to Merrylands International Raceway to see between sixty-five and eighty blown and nitrous Pro Mod cars -
it’s ‘The President’s Cup,’ which really is the Pro Mod (Top Doorslammer) Nationals, with no
Willowbank, I believe he would
Nitro cars at the event.
BIG MONEY... Capps copped US$100,000 for his win. (Ostaszewski) Capps then started his march to Ron Capps, currently the
what he ran on that record-break
■ Another interesting thing that happened late last month was the decision by the IHRA to allow Hemi engines to be
ing pass.
run in Pro Mod cars from
hottest driver in the Pimny Car ranks, drove his Copenhagen Camaro to victory in the 17th Annual Budweiser Big Bud Shootout on September 6 at Indianapolis. In the final round, Capps defeat-
prior, he ran some real quick times, so he just stepped things up and ran the time with a 225 mph terminal speed. He could have run a faster speed if he hadn’t lifted his finger off the lean-out button, as he thought he may have hurt the engine - as it turned out, he only needed to keep his finger on it for another thou
ed the Interstate Batteries Pontiac
of Cruz Pedregon in a close race, 5.005/304.56 to 5.092/300.00.
The victory was Capps’ first Shootout win in his first appearance, while Pedregon beceune a run ner-up for the fourth time in six years - Capps’ tuner Roland Leong
victory with a 5.033/306.43 to 5.496/238.47 victory over Whit Bazemore, who lost traction at the 800 foot mark. Four-time Shootout winner and number one seed John Force was
up next in his gold, seven-time champion car to face A1 Hofmann Force took a 5.174/293.44 win when Hofmann lost traction. The round ended with Dean Skuza
and the Mateo Tools Dodge taking a tyre-hazing 5.508/214.84 win over
At a half-mile track the weekend
sandth of a second and he would have received a 6.199-second time card.
Chuck Etchells and his Kendall
Camaro, which lost traction early,
January 1 next year. There has been a large negative Australian Top towards Doorslammer racing over the years, as we have been allowed to nm the Hemi powerplants where their rules only permitted them to run Oldsmobile and Chevrolet
■
the world scene in 1996 and took the title off him.
amount of interest in Murray Anderson’s cars in the US,
The win earned Capps and the
weekend, when he clocked a
The record was in my hands for
which means that I won’t be
a couple of years, before Jim Oddy
getting a new one for the forth
took it for several months and now
coming season, as Murray wiU not be returning from the US until December - I’ll probably debut a new unit in early ’99.
the
ing Castrol Syntec Mustang of ’97
Cruz and Force were up next and, at the green, it was Force los ing traction and the race, as Pedregon moved into the final at 5.207/278.81, which set up the great final round match between Pedregon and Capps.
shootout runner-up Tony Pedregon.
- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI
The first round of the Shootout,
which features the top eight pointsearning cars from a year of qualify ing efforts, got started with Cruz Pedregon taking a 5.020/309.49 to 5.270/249.10 win over the tyre-haz
Hines stops Seeling for third Dash win Matt Hines scored another win in the Pro Bike Dash on
Saturday, September 5, during the running of the US Nationals. The dominant irder in the motorcycle class for the past few seasons, Hines defeated Angelle Seeling in the final round, 7.370/182.55 to 7.433/175.98.
Hines has now been rdetorious in the Dash for three consecutive years.
Hines, aboard the Vance and Hines Suzuki, had earlier defeated Ran
Ayers and Greg Underdahl, enroute to the final round. Seeling, riding for George Bryce and the Winston team, made her way to the final by taking out Gary Tonglet and John Smith. Hines pocketed the winners share purse of $15,000. while arnner-up - DAVID OSTASZEWSKI Seeling received $5,000 for her efforts.
its back with Scotty. He only has to stage his car in the first round of racing at the next IHRA Championship meet and he has won the championship
There
is
a
tremendous
All I want to sort out in the near
grand performance for a car that only made it’s debut in Australia
future is the front body overhang measurements for the Top Doorslammer cars, as it makes it difficult to run competitively if someone has a major advantage
last summer.
over the rest of the field.
with something like three more rounds to be run - that truly is a
much each one is allowed and that
is terribly unfair for everyone - it should be noted that there are some
legal avenues that can be pursued by competitors in this matter. The rule book actually states you can have 43 inches, or the same as specified for the vehicle by its manufacturer and what that
means is, if I was to build a Dodge, I should be, able to run with a 54-
inch overhang, which is ridiculous, really - but I applaud anyone that builds a Dodge, as they are run ning to the rules as they stand. My Chevy runs with a 31-inch overhang, Scotty’s Studebaker ran here with 38-inches and the Willys of Shane Elcoate is in the 21-inch
region, so we give between 23 and 33 inches to the Dodge competitor.
class. We should all be able to run to the 43-ich rule - if someone can
■ This'puts Scotty back on top,
where he was un^ I came onto
4.988/305.29 to erase 5.148/284.72 of Skuza.
The Australian rulebook states
that you can have a 43-inch over hang, but ANDRA, the sanctioning body, says we can’t. They decide from car to car how
track nearly two to three feet shorter than their opposition’s, unless of course we all race Dodges
getting close to the centre-line. Capps then became the second car to dip into the fours on the
Don Prudhomme-owned team a
runs.
engines. They are now doing a deal with Mopar to have the engines in for 1999 - after all the ribbing we copped for running Funny Car engines in our cars, who was right and who was wrong?
tuned his own car to the title in 1991 with Jim White at the con trols.
whopping $100,000 payday.
taken
the others on the Pro Mod trail.
If he had the three to four himdred feet air that we had at the recent Konica Wintemationals at
have certainly run the world’s first 6.1-second pass. He has already run five-hun dredths of a second quicker than
is
from the leading edge of the car’s body panel to the front tyre and
This makes their side of the
in the future - and that would
promptly kill the spectacle of the
find a loophole in the system and it allows them to run a Dodge with 54-inches, that’s okay - but let me move from my 31-inch setting, as its hampering our competitiveness. When two racers leave the line
together and run identical times all the way through the quarter-mile, the competitor with the greater overhang will always win the race - at something like 220 mph, they will be several thousandths of a second ahead and have in the
Normally, their championships are decided on the last day; so, to win it so convincingly against such formidable competition is a credit to everyone involved with Scotty’s
body overhang on the front of the cars, so over the years the visiting US teams have raced against us
team.
with their cars like that, which
region of a two foot advantage. Here we have forty cars in the country, with something like thirty of them going to be on the tracks throughout the country next sea son and here is the potential for a great big spaimer to be thrown in
This now puts the pressure on myself, Peter Kapiris, and young Cameron Brooks to get the record
was fine.
the works.
back from the Yanks - we all have
the equipment and the desire to get a world record under our belts during the next season.
■ I just hope that I’m at the
In the US, the rule book says that all cars can have a 43-inch
When a drag racing vehicle lines
up at the start light, it is the front tyre that breaks the light beam when we start racing and it is the body that breaks the finish beam at the end of the quarter-mile. In the early days, it was the front tyre that broke the beam at
It would take only a few minutes to exercise the rules to allow all of
the guys to run with the 43-inch overhang and to permit those com petitors that find a car that was manufactured with a greater over
hang to also race legally. Remember, this is an exciting,
track when he next lowers the
both ends of the track, imtil some
growth class and, when it’s all said
time, as I’m off to the States for three weeks and I’ll be spend-
racers constructed cars with soft
and done, we all just want to get out there and beat each other fairly.
chassis and their car’s body always
3S USeptemierM
D®
I
I
tkUl
sr^
World Number 1 Scotty Cannon & his Pro Mod battlefor supremacy
America’s Pro Mod King,
Scotty Cannon, is back to his old form, winning races and dominating the IHKA
nicer and more helpful than the people over here. They’re a lot more friendly. Their culture is a little bit
tomer he had.
blower and stuff like that.
The building is still being built. I’m just now getting the siding on
milder.
my building, so I really haven’t accepted any deposits for cars imtil a week ago and I already have two, so it should be good. But we have plans for him to
He helped me out on the three disc clutch. He didn’t shy anything away from me, but he didn’t hand me anything, either. He did everything a real racer would have done and probably a lit tle bit more. My hat’s off to him and I’d do the same thing for him.
his
Was it your decision to go with the ’53 Studebaker body style? No, I was asked by the car’s builder, Murray Anderson. I’ve always hked them. My spon sor’s dad, the guy who owns On Sat now, well his dad owned a Studebaker dealership in Kings Mountain, North Carolina - so, when I told him about it, he said it
Australian tour, the “Stude”
would be cool. He came over there
and the new rules.
for two weeks, so it worked out good.
Pro Mod scene - but recent con
troversial rule changes have the Doorslammer legend fired up and talking. DAVID OSTASZEWSKI, Motorsport News’ Stateside cor respondent, caught up with Cannon at Stanton, Michigan, where
the
Chanpion
five-time
discussed
World
Immediately prior to the interview. Cannon had complet ed the third qualifying session at the event, where he posted a 6.473/216.10 to put him in the second position.
come over here in November.
self?
How easy is this car to adjust to different tracks, constantly changing weather and track
Yeah, this is going to be a business.
conditions?
more racers, other than your
There was also some talk of
Victor Bray coming over to run a few of the IHRA events that
the car back to the States with
were scheduled close together. Is that a good possibility? Oh, yeah, but the problem he has is getting the car over here and his car wouldn’t be legal to run in our
Victor’s - but I still had to be com-
It was a once in a lifetime chance to
go there and race. I hked it and I intend on going back over later, if they invite me back. It’s not something I’d want to do all the time. It’s a long drawn out deal to go over there and you don’t really have any itme off. We’re here racing aU smnmer, then over there most of the winter.
When we do get back, it’s time to get ready for the racing season here again, so there is not a lot of extra time.
There was a car there waiting for you, hut would you have stUl gone through with the tour if you had to ship one of your own cars overseas?
Oh, yeah! I would have still done it. 'The problem with taking a car there was the time frame of getting
It takes one area of variables
Rick Jones build me a new car for
have
raced.
Has
this
’53
nothing. I believed in this car from day one, when I made the first pass
Would you ever go back to a car with a four link suspen-
in it.
After running a nitrous combi nation during the ’97 season in the black Willys, would you ever go back to a nitrous set-up again? I’m not one to say never, but I sure hope I don’t have to. Who knows what they’ll do with the rules. They made a little “Whoopty Doo” in the rules here and I seem to have come out and run OK. I had to
change a ton of stuff to do it, though. If they keep whittlin’ at us, they’re gonna finally get us to where we tear everything up and
class.
sion?
can’t run.
What was your reaction to see ing the car for the first time when you arrived there?
I was speaking to him before I came here - he always calls and wishes me good luck.
I kind of knew what it would basi
He told me that he wants to come over here and do that deal. He’s
I don’t see how. I put a lot of time, effort and money into building this new facility. It’s gonna take up most of my time off just to make this deal happen. I got my heart set on making this chassis go.
I think I can get it to run as good as we were, but it’s going to be real hard on parts. It’s gonna be rough. It just depends on how much the rest of the crybabies cry. It seems like ever3dime they cry. Bill Bader jumps sky high.
cally look like. I had seen some drawings of it. We’ve huilt some cars ourself here over the years. I knew what it would be like, but I was surprised it worked as well as it did.
The racing went well. Did the tour exceed your expectations? I was surprised to do as well as I did with the car and combination I would have there.
build cars for them. He could build the chassis here
But I had some good help. Victor Bray helped me a bunch. The peo ple there just seem hke they’re a lot
and then finish the cars up in my shop. So far, I think I sold two cars myself and neither one was a cus-
and then getting it back before a new season began.
Corvette you were running at the time was the best car you
fortable with it.
There was some talk of Murray Anderson coming to the States to build cars with you in your shop. Is this a done deal? When we first started talking about the deal, Murray had two, or three people here that wanted him to
it over there after the season ended
In 1996, you told me that the ’63
completely out of the picture.
This is an excuse for them. They're not up there in the points and the sun isn't shining on their asses right now, so rather than tough it out and be a man and a professional, they just bail out
return to the US?
messed up. It’s the same as in
Australia - something either broke,
Studebaker surpassed that? This is by far, the best car I’ve ever owned... by far. I could have had
((
was quite sucessful. What are you feelings about it, upon ymu-
every place I’ve been to. We’ve only lost twice, because of breakage, or I
You don’t have to do anything with the chassis. You don’t change it nothing. It’s all done with the motor and the clutch... and driving.
The tour in Australia this past winter went rather well and
on the match race scene?
The same; I’ve set track records at
or come off.
So his cars will be available to
Were you planning on bringing you, regardless of it’s success? No, it had to prove itself. I knew Murray built great cars - look at
In IHRA competition, the car has been virtually unstoppable. Have the results been as good
approached Castrol over there and they may be able to fund his tour here.
He also may want to do the same thing that I did. He wants a new car, anyway, so he would just have the car built here while Murray’s over and in that year run the car here, campaign it, then ship it back.
Would you be assisting him in getting the car set up in IHRA trim, sort of how he helped you on your Australia tour? Absolutely - he leased me a short block, a set of heads and a mani
fold. I had my own fuel system.
Have you heard of any other chassis builders trying to duplicate this design? They haven’t had time. I don’t think it has sunk in good yet. There’s talk, that Tommy Mauney is gonna to tiy and build a car, but there’s a lot more involved with my car than just the ladder bars. I think if we can keep the cars in
the right hands, whoever we sell them to, for a year or two, we can keep them kind of “hush, hush”. There will be a day, though, when somebody sells one and it’ll be copied.
The names Quain & Mitch Stott, Shannon Jenkins, Tommy
Mauney and Steve Cossis, to name a few, appear on your tow vehicle under the banner of “Fulton’s Powder Puff Pro Mod Team” - are these racers some
of the people doing the com plaining?
They’re the main ones, the biggest culprits. Yesterday, someone taped some towels on the Stott’s trailers,
labelled “Crying Towel” and said it was me who had done it.
They should have known it
i
'
11SeplembefW98 wasn’t me, as I blasphemed them on the PA yesterday. I’m not scared
to see that Scotty Cannon and his Studebaker run.”
I have a lot of following - but
to tell them how I feel.
When I got here this morning, the towels were taped to my trailer. Mitch and Quain Stott signed them and one read, “If you’re gonna leave these, have the bMls to sign them.”
they come by and see the car in the trailer and they don’t understand why. You can’t sway them.
Was the rule change too much
I have the balls - that’s when I
and could there have been a
said to one of my guys to go get the lettering made up, so we put their names on the golf cart. If that’s no balls, that’s my cart and my letter ing. I don’t have to be putting any
better solution to levelling the
towels on their trailers.
Would you say that most of the Pro Mod racing contested this season has seen a fairly level of performance between nitrous and Mown cars?
The only one that was lopsided was Cordova, but here’s where I don’t feel things are right. Here at Stanton, where we’re at 2000 foot air, I ran a 6.47 and thats
OK, because there’s other cars run ning .40s. At Cordova, you have 800 feet of air at night and I go a 6.39. That’s not OK, because the other guys can’t run but .50s and .60s. If they would have been able to run a .40, that would have been OK. That makes the rule change unfair to my car. Most of the events have had
complete qualifying sessions either washed out, or cancelledHow has that affected you? This is the first event all year where all of the sessions are going
This is an excuse for them.
They’re not up there in the points and the sun isn’t shining on their asses right now, so rather than tough it out and be a man and a professional, they just bail out. This is just an escape route for them. That’s all it is. They’ve done it before - you beat ’em up and they quit.
two dliflferent combinations?
Yeah, I figure it’s way too much. It was almost 12% of what we had
been running. The quickest I’ve been is a 6.39.1 had a picture-perfect run on what they call a “bad” track, but at the same track, the fuel and alcohol cars made their best ever runs, just like me.
Let’s just say that the nitrous cars are at a disadvantage, but it’s not a power disadvantage. It’s because they can’t get down the track, because of the way they apply the power. Give them a three disc clutch!!
All of them httle dicks go aroimd and run those l/8th-mile tracks
close to home. Every one of ’em runs low .20s and high teens and they brag, “oh, we run teens, we do this” - but all they do is bolt on a three disc clutch. Rather than ask IHRA for a
three disc, get it and go out there and run me knowing they gotta run low .40s and high .30s, when they know they can do the same, they want to get me pulled back to where they are. Thats all they know how to do. It’s too much work for them to
to get in. This car goes down the track right off the trailer - we don’t need to change it to go to a different track. We get the power to it right
figure out how to make something work. Those guys have been stuck in the high .40s and mid .50s for
away. All we change is the tune-up.
years.
We ran this past Wednesday night at Atco, New Jersey. We ran a .57 and a .62 and on the third run we
kicked two rods out. So, when we
got here, we had to put another motor together. Any reason you skipped the run on Friday evening? The bottom line is that if you go
out there on a night session and do a hero run, which you can’t repeat on race day, why make the run?
We race in the daytime, so the way I feel is, if a guy goes out there and runs .12 faster than
somebody else and he can’t do it in the da3dime when it’s hot, why be penalized? If I can quahfy hke I did in the da3rtime, I won’t be out at night. I’m having a hard time justify ing whether to do it, or not, because I have a lot of fans here to
see me run. That’s the only thing holding me back. If it weren’t for those guys, I would not have even got my car out of the trailer today. If it weren’t for the fans, that’s it. I felt bad about it. It’s the first
time I’ve missed a qualifying ses sion in seven years.
I thought of how I would feel if some guy brought his wife and two, or three, kids and said, “I can’t wait
going to be a boycott of this event, unless something was done. Would that have hap pened? Well, they did boycott, even after the change. Shannon Jenkins, Tommy Mauney and Steve Cossis all stayed home this weekend. They must have thought that the change wasn’t enough. Here’s the deal - every year that I won the championship, Tommy or Shannon took off chasing me. Within the first three races of
every year, except for two, they dropped out and didn’t come back.
Do you have any closing com ments on the rules, or changes in your racing future? The verdict’s still out on how long I can make the motor live; we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m just doing what I have to do to win and tiy to hold onto this points title. My racing goal would be to have a sponsor step up to help me, keep On Sat and go Top Fuel, or Funny Car racing.
with his Snap-On Tools dragster, defeating new points leader Paul
IHRAorNHRA?
I would like to do it here (IHRA) for
a year or so, just to get my feet wet. I’d really like to run a nitro Funny Car. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been doing this for seven years and sometimes I’m burnt out on it.
beat him. I’d love to challenge him.
In the final evening qualifying session, following the inter view, Cannon went out and grabbed the number one spot at a fantastic 6.405/218.09. Elimination
runs
of
6.481/216.69 and 6.501/215.62 saw Cannon score wins over
Mitch Stott and Carl Moyer. Cannon was then defeated in
the semi-final round by eventu al winner Tim McAmis, after his Cable 'TV Magazine Studebaker got out of shape, forcing him to abort the run.
Mopar and IHRA Mopar Parts and the IHRA have announced that Mopar Parts will be the official title
rights
sponsor
for
two
National events in the 1999 season.
The two events will become the
Mopar
Parts
IHRA
World
A record ammount of entries and record attendance made
the Prolong Super Lubricants
John Force is my hero, I guess,
It was rumored that there was
Records tumble at IHRA World Nats
Do you think the whining and crying will ever stop? It hasn’t ever stopped. They’re not going to stop now. If they cried and got their way this time, it will happen some more. They’ll say it wasn’t enough, because I’U work and find a way’to stiU go quicker than them. They made a professional move, because they knew what they were doing - now it put us all equal, right?
but Td love to race against him and How much testing under the new rules were you ahle to do before coming here?
and wedge powerplants utilizing niti’ous injection, as well as new rules for wedge and Hemis utiliz ing superchargers. The allowable supercharger over drive wall be adjusted separately to maintain a level plajdng field with the nitrous-equipped cai’s.
IHRA
World
Nationals
at
Norwalk, Ohio, on August 2730 the biggest event in IHRA history - and the racing was also record-setting, as the IHRA racers provided stellar performance and the 30,000plus crowd on Saturday wit nessed some of the best quali fying rounds that the sanction ing body has ever seen. In Top Fuel, Doug Herbert returned to the winners circle
Romine in the final
with
an
engine-blowing 4.895/266.19. Romine had qualified his Car Quest dragster number one, set ting a new track record at 4.720 seconds, but smoked the tyres right off the starting fine. Herbert quahfied number six at 4.932/276.24 in the quickest field in IHRA history and made his path to the final with 4.754/305.18
blown alcohol final round that
included a staging battle, the number one and two qualifiers were set to square off. Jenkins left on the five-time
Champion, posting a 6.455/216.45 to 6.540/218.76 win.
Smith advanced into the final round with wins over Mark
debut at Norwalk, knocked off
defending World Champion Jimmy Rector in the opening round and followed up with wins over Rich Krohn and Herb Rodgers. Scott Weis was once again the centre of controversy and the num ber one qualifier at 5.741/241.80 in his nitro-buming A/FC. Only one other car entered the 5s all weekend and Weis ripped off several passes in the 5.7s, setting both ends of the record books at
5.771 seconds and 244.03 mph. But tyre shake in round two dealt the Weis camp an early exit in ehminations. The IHRA did anounce that before the next event a rules
change would be made in regards to the final gear drive, which will the rear spoiler vertical height ●wUl be limited to eight inches. Gary Retell was also on hand in
of 6.493/219.24, 6.493/215.62 and 6.470/215.87 in taking wins over Butch Lee, Dale Brinsfield and Landon Jordan. The win moved Jenkins from
seventh to fourth place in the quest for the championship. Cannon put his Cable TV Magazine ’53 Studebaker on the pole, running the quickest and fastest Pro Mod pass in IHRA his tory with a record-shattering
the Retell Brothers nitro burner,
but the team suffered a violent pit explosion. It seems the team spun the motor in the pits to clear the cylinders of fuel and had not removed the spark plugs on one side of the motor. Steve Retell was hit in the chest
by debris, while Gary suffered a hearing loss — the explosion shook
the grounds and could be heard
6.374/220.75.
It marked only the second time
ver exceeded 220 mph. Cannon, though, fell off a bit in eliminations, but defeated Wally Stroupe, Tommy Gray and Carl Moyer after posting nms of 6.450,
and for the IHRA.” - DAVID OSTASZEWSKI
ed Fred Tigges in the Alcohol Funny Car class, 6.098/229.94 to a tyre-shaking 6.733/169.68.
be limited to a 2.90 ratio, while
River
Modified Shootout. The class will now include Hemi
five. Points leader Von Smith defeat
Jenkins had quahfied second at
Cannon did it in Cordova and it was the first time a Pro Mod dri
making this a winning alliance for all IHRA competitors, for Mopar
The speed for Holbrook in the fimal was good enough to set a new speed record for thq class, as he bettered his existing record on three consecutive passes. Low qualifier Ron Miller leads the standings, with Tony Gillig, Jerry Yeoman, Holbrook and John Montecalvo rounding out the top
6.439/217.60 and clicked off runs
Parts IHRA World Finals at Red
Mopar will also provide the prize money for a new Pro
6.774/207.51.
Tigges, who made his IHRA
Romine, meanwhile, had stopped Jack Ostrander and Don Lampus in the previous rounds. Romine now sits atop the stand ings for the first time this season, with Tommy Johnson Jr falling to second - Herbert, Beineman and Danny Dunn round out the top five. Pro Modified found defending World Champion Shannon Jenkins taking his ’41 WUlys to the win by defeating current points leader Scotty Cannon. In a classic nitrous injection vs
that a car ran in the 6.30s, as
Bill Bader. “We look forward to
quarter mile in 6.798 seconds at 204.40 mph to take the win over Holbrook, who redlighted at
Butler.
car) and David Beineman.
“This new association with the
the IHRA,” stated IHRA President
over final round opponent Chris Holbrook and his Ford Probe. Alesci travelled the Norwalk
Poyser, Jim Lape and Wayne
Mopar Parts Dirision of Chrysler Corporation marks a giant step for
Shreveport,
Monte Carlo to the Pro Stock win
Bailey (in Herbert’s number two
Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio, on
Louisiana on October 15-17,1999.
Cannon still holds a sizable lead
in the points picture, followed by Fred Hahn, Ed Hoover, Jenkins and Moyer. Angelo Alesci took his Chevrolet
and 4.850/291.73 wins over Jim
August 26-29,1999 and the Mopar Raceway,
39
throughout the pit area. Johnny Mancuso defeated an engine-blowing Jim McClure in the final round of Top Fuel Harley with a 6.804/200.49.
Mancuso qualified nuber one and earlier set low e.t. at 6.714
seconds - Jay Turner set top
speed at a blistering 208.38 mph. - DAVID OSTASZEWSKI
6.471 and 6.514.
1998 NHRA CHAMPIONSHIP DRAG RACING SERIES - POINTS TO SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1998.
penniQIL Tar
1998 NHRA Top Fuel Championship Cory McClenathan, McDonald’s 1197 Gary Sceizi, Team Winston-No Bull .1177 Joe Amato, Tenneco Automotive ... 1151 Mike Dunn, Mopar Performance 979 Kenny Bernstein, Budweiser/Prolong .943 Doug Kalitta, Kalitta International ...814 ,789 7. Jim Head, Jim Head Racing ... .763 8. Urry Dixon, Miller Lite/MBNA 9. Bob Vandergriff, Jerzees America 761
I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
10. Bruce Sarver, ATSCO Power Steer . .741
1998 NHRA Funny Car Championship 1187 I. John Force, Castrol/Mac Tools 2. Ron Capps, Copenhagen/MBNA ... 1162 3.
Chuck Etchells, Kendall/MaMa Rosa . 1044
4. Cruz Pedr^on, Interstate Bat/Hot Rod . .982
1998 NHRA Pro Stock Championship
I. Warren Johnson, GoodwrencWPontiac .1391 2. Jeg Coughlin jnr., Jegs Mail Order ... 1009 3. Kurt Johnson, ACDelco/Chevrolet .1005 4. Jim Yates, Peak /'jiti-Freeze/Splitiire .. .960
.911
5. 6.
Mark Osborne, Dick Sherman Racing 833 .747 Mike Edwards, JK Racing Pontiac
7.
WhitBazemore,TeamWinston-NoBull ..891
7.
Mike Thomas, Pennzoil/Finish Line .. .741
8.
Dean Skuza, Mateo Tools/Mopar
762
8. Tom Martino, Six Flags Thrill Parks . .671
9.
Del Worsham, CSK Parts
.695
9. Richie Stevens, Collins Racing 10. Mark Pawuk, Summit Racing
5.
Tim Wilkerson, JCIT International ...921
6. Tony Pedregon, Castrol Syntec
10. Al Hofmann, CM Performance Parts .. .688
,570 .557
40 11Septmbefl998 ■ Hello, again, to everyone in Australia. I really enjoy writing tliis column, because when you are away from home as long as I am, it is nice to talk with people from home every couple of weeks. Thanks for all your responses and sup
ond
consecutive
Knoxville
Track
Championship.
We all felt really pleased with our win, because the engine was running super and we had a pretty good lead on
ii
Don near the end.
I can only do this with the help of the Jensen Construction Team - they are
port.
the ones that made this win look so
■ Well, the last couple of weekends have been totaEy on opposite sides of the pendulum. Last week at Knoxville (August 29), we blew two engines. Because the engine wasn’t running right in qualifying, I didn’t have a real great time (seventh) - so they changed the engine. We transferred through our heat,
easy. We have had a great year at Knoxville.
■
r
the situation, which is a characteristic
This Championship year goes to the team and everyone who supports this
that this team always reflects.
marvellous team.
for their favourite driver.
of the earlier weekend.
I was very honoured and surprised when they told me that I had received the most votes. When the people vote for you, that really counts. With the field inverted, based on votes,
We nearly had a clean sweep, which means to get quick time, win the heat and
Well, it really didn’t make a big differ ence because, after a couple of laps, our second and final engine we had with us
seven features at
Knoxville, one at Husets and come sec ond seven times.
where the fans chose the line-up by voting
we started last.
Team has won
have to make sure that we are on top of
■ After having Ron Shaver from Shaver Specialties in California fix one of the engines, last Saturday (September 5) was totally the opposite
putting us in the feature. Before the feature, there was a race
Overall, the Jensen Construction
■ I am looking forward to returning home, but before that we will be rac ing out of town a lot.
Knoxville has one non-point race, which is the Danny Young Memorial Race next weekend.
feature.
We are also going to be racing at
We timed in third, a little off the pace, but only by a tenth of a second. We won our heat and the guys had the car working great!
Husets in South Dakota and some races
in Missouri (Outlaws) and Illinios - so we
have a fair bit of racing left over here.
I felt like I could go anywhere bn the track - it was alot more fun than the pre
■ For everyone who has been asking me what kind of accent oin- son, A.J.,
blew and we were unable to start the fea
vious weekend.
will have and what his first word will
ture.
be, I have to say that his first word wasn’t race car, as mine was - his
but it also reminds us that we have to be
I started eighth in the feature. I knew that Don Droud Jr was going to be really tough, because he was fast all night. I remember once during the race noticing on the scoreboard that Don was second, but I didn’t realise at the time that there were lapped cars between us, so I just drove like he was right on my
100%, not 99%.
tad.
The night didn’t end as we wanted it, but that is racing and as a team we just
We captured the 25-lap point ’98 grand finale race at KnoxviUe, winning our sec-
This marks the first time that the #55
Jensen Construction Team and myself have missed a feature in two years, which is such a credit to the strength of this team.
It was unfortunate that this happened,
■ Just nine days after a fourthplace finish at the Amoco Knoxville Nationals got his up and
down
season hack
first word was “duck.”
Lori, being a teacher by trade, says that wherever he goes to school will be the accent he will most likely pick up. She says if he goes to school in America, instead of “G’day, mate,” he will just have to say, “Goooood daaaaay, maaate!” Speak to you soon, Skip.
winning his second Channellock Dash of the year. Andy Hillenburg steered his #2 J&J around Swindell high in the
on
Aussies Stateside ■ Both Brooke Tatnell and Peter Murphy have been putting in some time with the All Star Circuit of Champions and have achieved some good results.
At Tulsa Speedway on August 22, Brooke fin ished fourth in his heat, then followed that up with a disappointing 20th place finish in the feature event, which was won by Donnie Crawford. ■ The previous night, the All Stars were at 81 Speedway, where Danny Smith set fastest time - Tatnell was 19th fastest, less than a sec ond off Smith’s pace and recorded a stout eighth place finish in the feature.
■ Tatnell had one of his better showings at Wakeney on August 19, quickly charging to fifth position within three laps and main tained that place till the end in the Kele & Associates Sprinter. ■ At Belleville on August 18, Tatnell held on for third.
■ The night prior at Eagle on August 17, there was another Aussie sharing the front row this time, though it was Peter Murphy, who started the 30-lap race on the outside of Joey Saldana.
Jeff Shepard led the final five laps to take the chequer by three car-lengths over Saldana - Gaiy Wright finished third, with Randy Hannagan set tling for fourth and Dean Jacobs rounding out the top five - Brian Paulus, Murphy, Tatnell, Neighbors and Kenny Jacobs followed. Murphy had by far the easier run, after winning his heat in which Tatnell had finished seventh.
Tatnell then joined Hannagan, Saldana and Tim Crawley in transfering from the B-Main to the fea-BRETT SWANSON
tui’e.
San Jose, he closed to within 27
points of Kinser by completing his sweep of the $77,000 event. This time last year, Sammy
Swindell took control of the Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series champi
Mark for sixth the next time around.
Swindell
was
challenging
Hauclenschild for the lead when
track, Donny Schatz scored his
first corner within seconds after
maiden World of Outlaws fea
the green flag fell in the main event and was eight car-lengths
onship race with seven straight fea
broken suspension components on the #83T forced Randy Tiner to stop in the third corner late in lap
ahead of Jeff when he entered
ture victories - he looked like he
23.
lapped traffic during the fifth lap. Swindell caught Hillenburg four laps later and they raced wheel to wheel through turn 4, but Hillenburg maintained the lead. Hillenburg’s comfortable advan tage disintegrated two laps later when Randy Tiner’s backstretch flip brought out the red flag. Hillenburg raced away from the
was about to do it again.
The leaders were racing in dense lapped traffic in turn 4 as they headed for the chequered flag. Brent Kaeding and Vivarin Fast-
ture event after having passed Sammy Swindell for the lead twice at Riverside Speedway before putting the #15 Blue Beacon Gamhler in victory lane on August 24. Schatz, the fourth-fastest qualifi
By Brett Swanson Schatz and B Feature winner
Jac Haudenschild passed Kinser, while Swindell maintained the lead.
er in the 39-car field, earned the right to start the A Feature from
Schatz caught Swindell again two laps later and took over first place with a low move through
position four by following Steve Kinser, Swindell and Danny
turns 1-2. He built a comfortable advan
Lasoskd across the finish line in the Channellock Dash. Kinser burst into the lead from
tage as Haudenschild battled Swindell and took the chequered flag with a straightaway to spare.
the pole as the green flag fell, only to have Swindell pass him in turns 3-4.
Schatz, who passed Lasoski for third during the opening lap, immediately started challenging “The King of the Outlaws” for sec ond place. Swindell had his #1 Channellock
Stealth eight car-lengths ahead of Kinser when he caught the backmarkers for the third time during lap 18.
Schatz caught “The King” the next time around and battled him
for six laps, before passing him in the low groove between turns 1-2. Schatz caught Swindell in dense lapped traffic two laps later, then lined up behind the defending
Haudenschild drove the #22
Pennzoil Maxim into the high groove between turns 3-4 to pass Swindell for the runner-up spot late in the final lap - Kinser fin ished fourth, ahead of Tim Shaffer, Lasoski, Second Heat winner Stevie Smith, Mark Kinser, Lance Blevins and 19th-starting Andy HiUenburg. Dale Blaney received his second Vivarin Fast-Time Award of the
season, after pacing the qualifying session with a 10.595-second lap around the semi-banked 1/4-mile oval.
field as the race resumed and
entered lapped traffic with a straightaway advantage within three laps. Swindell steadily gained on Andy during the next five laps and took the lead with a high move in dense lapped traffic between turns
fourth comer.
Swindell was only half a carlength ahead of Andy when the chequered flag fell. Tyler Walker finished third, ahead of Sammy Swindell,
#104+ Octane Boost J&J has
Walker received his fifth Vivarin
Schatz took the lead in dense
Swindell to race with the lead
Fast-Time Award of the year, after pacing the qualifying session with a 12.054-second lap around the high-banked 1/3-mile oval.
ers.
Swindell won his second Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series
Haudenschild, Lasoski, Schatz, B Feature winner Johnny Herrera, Joe Gaerte and 15th-starting Steve Kinser.
Mopar Stealth for a spin in turn 4, nullifying the pass.
A Feature of the season on August
■ Winning his first Preliminary
Kinser used a low move between
26 at Southern Oregon Speedway,
Feature of the season at San
turns 1-2 to pass Schatz as the race
the
resumed.
Jose Speedway on August 28 pushed Sammy Swindell to within 35 points of Steve
$7,000
victory
pushing
wheel to wheel with Swindell when
Swindell past Dale Blaney into ninth place in the points race. Swindell, the fifth-fastest qualifi
he allowed the #11 Quaker State
er in the 36-car field, started the
Maxim to hit the berm in turn 1.
30-lap main event on the pole by
Two laps later, he was racing
Swindell’s seventh in a Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series main event this season.
Sammy earned the pole position
Time Award winner Robertson collided
Blake and
in the 53rd A Feature of the Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series’
Haudenschild tangled with Todd Bammer, giving Swindell the lead.
20th Anniversary Season by win ning his ninth Channellock Dash.
Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series rules don’t allow races to
Swindell drove his #1 Channellock Stealth ahead of the
end under caution, so two more laps were run after the green flag replaced the yellow.
25-car field as the green flag fell, but he was closely pursued by out side polesitter Haudenschild. Haudenschild tried to take the
bumper to bumper when they entered lapped traffic seven laps
been strong, enabling Jeff
traffic late in the 33rd lap, only to
was
He passed Swindell as they headed into turn 3, only to have Jeff race past him high in the
With the white flag flying, Hillenburg took the low line into
forced Jeff Swindell to stop in turn 2 early in lap 28. have Paul McMahan take the #75
victory
the first comer.
3-4.
on the #104+ Octane Boost J&J
champion after a flat left-rear tyre
$12,000
lead with high moves through turns 3-4 during the third and fourth laps. He veered into the low groove between 1-2 during lap 5, but was unable to surge ahead.
■ The engine problems Two Winners Racing has suffered the last couple of years have been well chronicled - but, recently, with Earl Gaerte’s help, the Ford engine in the
Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series
The
Swindell and Haudenschild were
into the race. Haudenschild steered the #22
Pennzoil Maxim to the lowest point between turns 1-2 early in the eighth lap, but was unable to com plete the pass. After withstanding Schatz’ chal lenge early in lap 9, Haudenschild returned his attention to the leader
and passed Sammy with an inside move through turns 3-4 late in the 10th lap. Haudenschild opened a ten carlength lead within five laps. But Haudenschild lost his com
fortable advantage when Fourth Heat winner Tyler Walker stopped the #35 Air Sep Eagle in turn 2 early in the 17th lap. Steve Kinser, who started out side the fifth row, passed cousin
Swindell controlled the ensuing restart, while Schatz and Danny Lasoski exchanged the runner-up spot.
Schatz was ten car-lengths behind when Sammy took the che quered flag in the third A Feature victory of his career at San Jose Speedway. “When those guys (Kaeding and Robertson) got together there in turn 4, the #18 car (Bammer) moved up and Hand didn’t have anywhere to go,” Swindell later explained. Lasoski finished in third place, ahead of Steve Kinser, Smith, Mark Kinser, Dale Blaney, Jeff Swindell, 18th-starting Andy Hillenburg and Johnny Herrera.
Joe Gaerte, the only provisional starter in the field, passed five sprinters to finish 20th. Robertson received the first Vivarin Fast-Time Award of his
career, after pacing the qualifying session with a 14.078-second lap around the semi-banked 1/3-mile oval.
Aussie Peter Murphy improved his qualifying position by two spots, but just missed a transfer with a fifth place in the heat.
Kinser in their battle for first
Mark Kinser for fifth place with a
He then just missed a transfer to
place in the point standings and, the following evening at
low move into turn 2 as the race
the A feature when he finished fith
resumed and Stevie Smith passed
in the B main, earning $200.
SREEDWAV
Twker lime
thing for VICF5 The Victorian Formula 500
and then two weeks later (Nov 28)
Association has again secured the backing of Perth-based pet food company Tucker Time as the major sponsor of it’s eight round championship series. The progressive association and
they will feature at Warmambool’s Premier Speedway. Willsher himself has been busy building some new Kenser Chassis for his customers, but will continue with his existing moimt. “My car’s going the best it ever
son as the Tucker Time King of Wings Series. “We are extremely glad to have Trevor Harding’s support once
again, both as a series sponsor and as a racer,” stated Association Secretary and dual and current champion Ken Willsher. “Trevor will once again be mak
ing the trip over from Perth for a few of the series rounds and bring ing a couple of other competitors with him. While the general inter est in the series has been exception al, there has been a lot of interest from interstate.” The series starts on December 26
at Adelaide’s Speedway City, before moving to Riverview Speedway Murray Bridge the foUowing night (Dec 27).
A fortnight later sees another double-header, when the 500s do the support act to David Tapp’s Series 500 Speedway Masters debut at Premier Speedway Warmambool on January 15 and Mt GambieFs Borderhne Speedway
the
Australian Speedcar racer, is step ping down from the midgets for rea sons of cost and not enough events, or exposure and will concentrate on his Kenser F500.
Former Aussie Champ Phillip Woodberry, the Tasmanian who now lives in Goulbum, is expecting the birth of his first child emd will
not be racing this season. Another former Aussie Champ, Tony Pryor, has bought a new Murphy chassis and Danny Jury has a new Racetec chassis powered by an ex-Stephen Bell Rotax.
stiU circulating. The day was punctuated by spectacular spills involving Jay Schaffer, Barry Morgan, Brent Collyer and Dave Watt. The Sidecar final went to Bill
Sewell Jnr, after a very physical duel with Dave Oliver put the lat ter on the infield alongside Ross Brown, leaving Wayne Munck as the only other finisher in second spot.
Bruce Cooke outpaced Kym French and Bill Sewell Snr to t^e out the Consolation final.
The complex is promoted by tbe North Brisbane Junior Motorcycle Club and they have further meet ings scheduled for October and November, although nobody from the club has been forthcoming with any further information at this stage.’
the Assistant Secretary.
where there is a strong contingent
Treasurer Mack Sinclair and Chief Machine Examiner Trevor Anderson are also back for another
Barry Burke is Anderson’s news
Speedway and Horsham will host a two-night affair. The Blue Ribbon
assistant and Chief Steward Tich Jordan and Series co-ordinator
Classic, on March 6-7 - this event
Cheryl Willsher continue in their
will have $5,000 in prizemoney and
positions for another season.
will include time trials.
Opening night for the local brigade will be as a support divi
Goulbum’s John Dean and Paul Stevenson will assist and Brett McKane is the Newsletter Editor.
sion at Hamilton on November 14
-BRETT SWANSON
Max Dumesny Motorsport
Todd Groves, whose 7 point tally competition across the state and
included a heat win, was the best
will offer tow money and accommo
of the rest.
dation for interstate and northern
The supporting Solo final was a trifecta for NSW riders, with Chris Szauter leading home Dean Wiseman and Shane Haggerty. Improvements to the Gold Coast venue are continuing at a steady pace, with new lighting, grand stand seating and a v.iewing
competitors.
mound in turns one and two
expected to be in place for the next
The format for each series event will feature fastest from the rear
meeting.
qualifying heats and a six-lap tro
■ The Downs Speedway Club, promoters of Toowoomba’s Charlton Speedway, has
phy dash to determine the starting order in the feature.
The winner of each trophy dash will start from pole position and will also collect a unique victory jacket. The low budget and inexperi enced teams will contest their own
Consolation Cup event at each round, a six-lap fastest from the rear scrap that is comparable to
released its season calendar for the 1998/99 season. The season kicks off on
September 19 with the traditional Carnival of Flowers meeting, fea turing Litre SprintCars and AMCA Nationals. The club will
host
Xoo$irrl i
for more information on Hoosier Drag and Speedway Tyres call:
NSW: 02 9679 1990 Fax 02 9679 1187 03 9331 6477 Fax 03 9331 7444 Via 08 8332 0800 Fax 08 8364 0296 SA:
the Privateers Dash seen in the
this season, the first of which is
Australian Touring Car Championship. In conjunction with the series, a
the Speedcar title over two nights on April 3-4.
50/50 raffle will be conducted at each round.
also be decided over two nights on April 24-25. The Speedcar Super Series will make its inaugural appearance at the venue, with a stopover on February 20. The remaining dates in the 15 meeting season are: October 10 Speedcars, October 24 - Modified
As the name suggests, the pro ceeds from this will be split between two parties - a lucky tick et holder will keep half of the pro
The Modified Rod crown will
November 21 - Modified Rods,
Meehan downed Don Birt and
Video coverage of each round will be available for purchase and negotiations are underway to secure substantial television expo
December 5 - Litre Sprintcars and AMCA Nationals, December 26 -
Shane Paulger to take out the Heat Pointscore and also took out
the Feature Pointscore, finishing ahead of Birt and lady racer Kyle Albert. Modified Production honours
were
shared
between
Greg
Raymont (Heats) and Queensland champion Gary Pagel (Features), with Mark Pagel finishing third in
added to the series prize pool for distribution among the drivers. Former Speedcar star Gus McCliu-e has been appointed Chief
sure.
Confirmation of race dates,
prizemoney for each round, pointscore details and nominated competitors are expected soon. ■ Clinton Leitch took out the
In Street Sedans, Lester Wilcox
inaugural Queensland Under 21 Solo Championship at Mike
defeated Dustin Home in his first
Hatcher Park Speedway last
season out of the junior ranks and Dave Tutton in both categories. The Super Street sedan results were a similar story, with Ewen Johnston taking both awards, ahead of Frank Packer and Greg
month.
both tallies.
Waters.
Tony Hehir was a worthy recipi ent of the Most Improved trophy and Jamie Chapman was present ed with the Encouragement
At the venue that will host the
Australian title later this year, Leitch collected 14 points on his way to an upset win. Scott Smith executed a spectacu
lar last lap pass in a run-off to snare second spot ahead of Dave Watt and Steve Viner, after the trio finished with 13 points apiece. After three rounds of heats,
Award.
Leitch sat alone atop the scoreboard with a 12 point maximum
■ Following in the footsteps of
and only needed to finish second in
their Victorian counterparts.
his final ride to secure the crown.
Queensland Sprintcar competi
With Smith needing a win to grab a run-off berth, Leitch sensi bly settled for the runner-up spot to wrap up the championship. Outside the top four, the quality
tors will contest a $100,000 series next season.
The inaugural BXI Sprintcar Series will comprise 10 rounds of
Productions, November 7 - Litre
Sprintcars and AMCA Nationals,
Super Sedans, January 23 — and Modified Speedcars Productions, February 6 - Super Sedans, March 6 - Modified Rods and Modified Productions, March
20 Sprintcars, May 8 - Karts. ■ Round 3 of the Cairns Modified Production series
was decided on Saturday,
August 1, after being washed out the previous weekend. The meeting was dominated by Shane Mitchell, who clocked the quickest lap of the season on his way to victoiy in the 20-lap feature event.
David Benyman finished in sec ond spot, ahead of Chris Jensen, Max
Bennett
and
Graham
Jorgensen. The 22-car field contested four
qualifying heats, with wins falling to Berryman (2), Mitchell and Steve Ryan. Allan Blackman had a lucky
escape when he inverted his little Datsun in spectacular fashion. Bennett still sits atop the series
pointscore with 345, followed by Mitchell (264), Jensen (260),
Benyman (207) and Ryan (203).
CAUSTOGA SPEEDWAY-SEPTEMBER 5TH
POINT STANDINGS TO SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1998 7,969 7,941
II. Tyler Walker 12. Donny Schatz 13. Joe Gaerte 14. Lance Blevins
.4,435
Danny Lasoski . Andy Hillenburg Johnny Herrera
7,874 7,855 7,729 7,600 7,507
,7,173 .7,044 .7,006
Jac Haudenschild
7,454
17. Dion Hindi 18. Brooke Tatnell
7,337 7,309
19. Larry Neighbors 20. Daryn Pittman
I.
Steve Kinser
2.
Sammy Swindell
3. 4.
Mark Kinser Stevie Smith ...
5. 6. 7.
8.
9. Jeff Swindell 10. Dale Blaney
two
Queensland Championship events
1998 WORLD OF OUTLAWS/SKOAL OUTLAW SERIES
Australian Distributors for
^ ^ RACING TIRE
haul.
Steward for the series.
stint.
Victorian Championship at Premier
heat wins on his way to an 8 point
ceeds and the other half will be
President Chris Olsson, VicePresident Ron Cook and Secretary Ken Willsher were all returned,
one of which will be in Tasmania,
points each. Ricky Nicol recovered from an
throughout the 1997/98 season. Super Sedan steerer Cameron Meehan was the big winner on the night, collecting three awards, including the overall Club Championship.
committee was returned.
while Maria Cousins was added as
Darren Groves and Gladstone’s Glen Roost next best with 10
early fall to snare 9 points, while Christian Henry bounced back
By Chris Metcalf
efforts of members at the Mothar Mountain circuit
ranks include Paul McDonough in a Racetec/Yamaha and Terang’s Debbie Emeny, who previously raced Standard Sportsman.
In between, there will be two other rounds still to be confirmed,
dropped a little, with local lad
from two exhibitions to score two
■ The Gympie Saloon Car Club held its annual Trophy Night last month to recognise the
New drivers to the Victorian
Association recently held its Annual General Meeting, at which the majority of the prior
of the pocket rockets headed by the Redpath brothers. February 20 is the running of the
Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway will host seven rounds of the trail, with Yandina and Rockhampton securing one round apiece. The final event has yet to be allocated, but is likely to be at Toowoomba’s Charlton Raceway, or Bundaberg’s Carina Speedway.
South
Hamilton’s Western Speedway hosts the Banshee Brigade on
end of Jime 5.
The Consolation was abandoned when a series of collisions left
of a new Kenser chassis.
Dillon,
r/
fri'
Mack Sinclair will have a new
Luke
Northern
urbs, held it’s third meeting last month which attracted a strong line-up of Solos and Sidecars. Talented teenager Scott Viner outpaced his vastly more experi enced rivals, including Queensland Championship runner-up Wayne Kennedy, to take out the Solo final. Kennedy finished in second spot, ahead of the ageless Alan Rivett and fellow veteran Peter Byrne.
Rotax-powered Kenser and Leon Caccaviello will also take delivery
■ The Victorian Formula 500
once again be held at Swan Hill’s Sonic Speedway on the long week
Brisbane’s inner northern sub-
has, so I’ll run it for another, sea son,” he stated.
on Jan 16.
March 13 and the final round will
motorcycle venue situated in
Christian Henry as the only rider
King of Wings Series attracts strong interstate competitor interest
it’s series is to be known this sea
The new Northgate Speedway, a multi-purpose
41
n September W98
15. Craig Dollansky .... .4,269 .4,146 16. Greg Hodnett .3,029 .2,855 .2,584 .2,105
A-FEATURE (20 LAPS) 2.
Steve Kinser Mark Kinser
3.
Danny Lasoski
4.
Stevie Smith
5. 6. 7. 8.
Sammy Swindell Jac Haudenschild Dale Blaney Donny Schatz
9. Tim Shaffer 10. Calvin Landis
11. Johnny Herrera 12. Jeff Swindell 13. Tyler Walker 14. Randy Tiner 15. Joe Gaerte 16. Lance Blevins
17. Brent Kaeding
18. Andy Hillenburg 19. Paul McMahan
20. Craig Dollansky
^2 11 September 199S The Queensland Super Sedan Association held its annual tro
phy presentation dinner on August 22 at the Coopers Colonial Motor Tinini in Brisbane.
Murwillumbah’s John Leslight added to his already extensive tro phy collection, taking out the Club Championship and the Coastline Vehicle Transport Super Series crown.
Kenilworth’s Shane Paulger fin ished runner-up in the Super Series, ahead of Rockhampton’s Rod Gough. Blair Granger, who also collected the Best Presented Car award, took
out the B Grade pointscore over Kelvin Hamilton and Corey Brough. Teenage, tyro Craig McGeorge was voted Rookie of the Year and
Most Improved. AI Starling’s overwhelming com mitment and dedication to his rac
ing endeavours were deservedly acknowledged with a special Enthusiasm Award.
Archerfield track annmmcer Kev
Richards and wife Fay, the best lapscorer in the business, were wor thy recipients of an Appreciation Award.
Also recognised for their efforts with Appreciation Awards were Paul Geary, Murray Gegg, Denyse Butcher and Super Series commen tator Jim Shone.
■ MeanwMle, the Super Series trail continues to grow in stature and next season’s com
petition looks certain to be big ger and better than ever. The 1998/99 series will comprise more rounds - including several special events that will feature appearances by American drivers in open competition - and a fantas tic new promotional activity that will enable fans to experience the thrill of Super Sedan racing. Each round will give spectators an opportunity to win a ride along side their favourite driver in a spe cially modified car that wiU travel with the series.
The lucky winner at each event wiU be strapped into the passenger seat of a thundering V8 and enjoy
Series 500
schedule expands to 11 rounds and includes Mildura The upcoming Series 500 International Speedway Masters 1998/99 tournament will now be
staged over 11 rounds, instead of the previously announced ten rounds.
MMura’s OljTnpic Park Speedway has been allocated the penultimate round of Australia’s most prestigious international speedway event, which will be staged on Friday night, Januaiy 29.
The addition of Olympic Pai’k to the calendar provides fans in Victoria with the opportunity of see ing two rounds, as Premier Speedway in Warmambool will also hosting a round on January 15 Olympic Park has successfully host ed rounds in 1995, ’96, ’97 and ’98.
Following the Mildura event, the tour travels to Adelaide in South
Australia the following day for the Series Grand Final at Wayville Showgi-ound on January 30. The annual Masters Series Gala
Dinner will be held the next evening (January 31) in Adelaide and, for the first time, a limited number of tick ets to attend the function will be made available to members of the
public.
SPEEDWAY the ride of a hfetime. This car will also be used as a
Super Sedans
publicity tool by series organisers, travelling to each host city several days before an event for displays and promotional activities. Following an overwhelmingly successful campaign last season that featured increased fields -
set to shine
including the addition of several new drivers, along with excellent spectator and promoter support — this year’s series has been expand ed to a staggering 27 roimds. Included for the first time will be a three roimd series within a series
to decide the Queensland Super Sedan Association champion. These shows, to be held at Toowoomba,
Archerfield
and
Rockhampton, will provide increased prizemoney and will also carry points for the overall Super Series crown. The 1998/99 season kicks off at
Gympie’s Mothar Mountain Speedway on October 10, followed by two outings at Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway on October 17 and October 31. The first northern
trek
to
Rockhampton is next on November 7, ahead of two more appearances at Archerfield on November 14 and November 28.
Drivers then enjoy a lengthy break through December, in prepa ration for a hectic period of compe tition that comprises 16 consecutive weekends of racing. Toowoomba’s Charlton Raceway plays host on December 26, fol lowed by a show the next night at Yandina Speedway on the Sunshine Coast,
The troupe return to Archerfield on January 2 and again the follow ing weekend on January 8-9 for a two night special event that will see
HUGE SUMMER... The Super Sedan schedule in Queensland will embrace 27 rounds. (David Lamont pic) Archerfield (February 13) and Rockhampton (February 20). An interesting inclusion to the calendar is a scheduled outing at Archerfield on February 27, the
a John Soares-led American trio
mixing it with the locals. January 16 will see another appearance by the Americans at Archerfield, before they follow the series north to Rockhampton for a two-nighter on January 23-24. The intense program continues unabated, with meetings at Archerfield Toowoomba
(January (February
30), 6),
Australian Litre Sprintcar
Championship meeting in Mount
After a week off, it’s back to Archerfield once more on April 24 before a three week respite. Another visit to Yandina on May 22 is the next stopover, before two consecutive outings at Arcberfield on May 29 and June 6 bring the
Gambier.
season to a close.
Toowoomba’s David O’Keeffe.
same weekend as the Australian
Maryborough Speedway, a new addition to the schedule, will host the tin top brigade on March 6. A second appearance in Gympie on March 13 precedes two consecu tive weekends at Archerfield on March 20 and March 27.
Rockhampton’s traditional Easter show is the next stop on April 3, before yet another outing at Archerfield on April 10.
Premier Speedway has scheduled its higgest season of racing in five years with the release of its official cal endar for the 1998/99 season. The club - which has suffered of
late with the hangover of a $174,000 theft after this year’s Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic is hoping for good crowds and weather to rectify its recent mis fortunes. President Graeme Hose said the
deliberate scheduling of classes at certain times of the year will attract and keep certain drivers and classes in the area, ensuring
the best racing available to speed way supporters.
“It’s going to be a feast of racing this year and, basically, every night of the year is a hot time for us,” said Hose. “There’s a real assortment of
racing for the speedway fratemify this season and I believe as a club
we’ve catered for spectators and competitors alike - it’s shaping as the biggest season in years.” Hose said while there were recent new leads in the the search
for the stolen money, he said that it’s time for the club to refocus and
begin again. “It was very unfortunate to the club as a whole with the robbery
thing occurring and I just hope the whole matter dies a natural death
and we can get on with building the club back to the level it should
champion IVCchael Gee, piloting the Falcon campaigned with great success by Jamie McHugh. Other newcomers to the division
will
be
Chris
Stacey
and
It is also likely that a further
Les Pascoe, John Sheehan, Scott
round will be allocated to Mackey’s Speedlink Park circuit. The continued growth of this series has resulted in a steady increase in competitors and this trend looks set to continue through out the coming siunmer.
Hutchison and Lismore’s Tania
■ Making a move into the Super Sedan ranks this year is former
months.
Smith, who was forced to miss last season through injury, are expected to rejoin the fray this summer. All in all, it seems that Super Sedan fans throughout the sun shine state could be set for an over
dose of excitement in the coming - CHRIS METCALF
Premier Speedway
Classic and the national Sprintcar Title in six big nights of racing,”
releases calendar
ing and should feature the best drivers in the country, as they’ll all be here for the Challenge,
Warmambool Club pins its hopes on big crowds
Classic and the Title - it should be tremendous.”
be in Australia,” said Hose. Hose said the right climate and the stmcturing of certain events to coincide with school holidays and
make a welcome return to Premier
the Christmas and New Years
will
periods may just rival the epic
January 15. Sprintcar fans will have to wait imtil 1999 before the winged won ders grace the Premier clay, when
1994 season.
During that year, the club host ed the Annual Sprintcar Classic, the national Sprintcar Championship, rounds of the World Series Sprintcars and the final night of the prestigious Easter Sprintcar Trail. “It was a massive year for Premier Speedway in ’94 and this season is already shaping up as one that will rival if not better
that. We’ve already put the order in for the right weather, fingers crossed,” said Hose.
number of cars at the track if all
goes according to plan.
International Speedway Masters
uled it right to coincide with weather, people staying after the Classic and being able to help keep
be
at
Warmambool
on
“Again, we’ve hopefully sched
drivers and crews here all inside
that racing week.” The club will also host two
round nine of the World Series
Victorian Championships on the
Sprintcars rolls into the south west on New Years Day. Again, the month of January is the blue ribbon time of the year for the club, with Sprintcars heading the bill with the 27th miming of the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic on January 30 and 31. The Classic will form part of a
one night, with the running of the Super Sedan and the Formula 500 titles during February 20. The racing season will conclude
six night feast for speedway fans, which is already being billed by
The club’s season will begin ear
the Premier and Mount Gambier
speedway clubs as the “Australian
with Super Sedans, Limited Sportsman, Super Rods, Formula 500s and the constantly-growing
Sprintcar Festival.”
International Solo bikes will
The Australian Sprintcar title is pencilled in for February 5 and 6 and Hose is predicting a record
after an absence of two decades when round six of the Series 500
lier than usual on November 28,
Jimior class.
said Hose. “This will be a who’s who of rac
“Us
(Premier)
and
Mount
with round three of the Easter
Sprintcar Trail on April 4 and Hose is hoping that the torrential rain which has halted the meeting
for the past four years will abate and the weather will finally shine upon the club. “All I can say is that Easter is on,” said Hose. “It’s on the calendar and, if
Gambier have again purposely scheduled the Kings Challenge,
those weather gods are kind, we might be actually be able to run the meeting this year,” he said.
the Grand Annual Sprintcar
- GEOFF ROUNDS
43
SPEEDWAY
World title looms for Ridcardsson Swedish win guarantees virtually unbeatable GP points lead Tony Rickardsson of Sweden only has to race in the final round of this year’s Grand Prix AMCA MODIFIEDS FOR SA ... An AMCA Modified information
day, held on August 22 at the Speedway Drivers Association of South Australia, saw AMCA founder Dale Matthews (above, left) from Victoria and SA AMCA representative Brett Chadwick
(above, right) greet a large and enthusiastic gathering. There is growing interest in AMCA Modifieds, a tightly con trolled class designed to keep expenses down - with control
tyres, a minimmn weight limit, sealed engines and a $300 engine claimer rule, the concept brings racing back to set-up knowledge and driver ability, not the size of the wallet.
Speedway City has scheduled nine display/race meetings for the class next season and six to eight local cars will run against a Victorian contingent in a SA vs VIC Showdown. -PARIS CHARLES
Horsham joins 15-round series schedule Sprintcars will feature a 15round championship over a two month spread, with Horsham’s Blue Ribbon Raceway the latest
Nov 28
Perth, WA Bunbury City Raceway Bunbury, WA
Dec 4
Speedway City,
addition to the schedule to com
Dec 12
Adelaide, SA Avalon Int Raceway
The 12th season of World Series
Geelong, VIC
plement all the usual partici pant tracks.
Dec 27
New to the series also will be
Blue Ribbon Raceway Horsham, VIC
in
Poland
and
he
will
he
crowned World Champion. His third Grand Prix win of the
season at Linkoping in Sweden on August 28 ensured a seeding to the main event in Bydgoszcz and, with its guarantee of at least five points, the 1994 World Champion cannot he overtaken.
The experienced Swedish rider was immaculate in his home event
and was not headed all night on a track where he recently established a new track record.
His opponents were hardly helped by the cancellation of prac tice due to heavy rain, which meant everyone had to come out not know
ing the vagaries of the circuit on the night. England’s Chris Louis finished as runner-up, after a scare in his first ride in the main event when he was
excluded for touching the tapes. Swedish wild card Peter Karlsson
clinched third place on the rostrum, ahead of current world champion Greg Hancock from the USA. The best of the Australians was
Leigh Adams, who finished third in the consolation final to take sev
enth place overall, just in front of the improving Ryan Sullivan. The Adelaide rider now lies ninth
overall and has a great chance of gaining automatic qualification for next year, a privilege enjoyed by the top eight this season. Jason Crump, winner of the
Dec 28
Speedway City
Rookie of the year and the 1994
Dec 30
Adelaide, SA Nyora Raceway
British GP three weeks earlier, had an in and out night.
Knoxville Nationals Rookie of the Year will contest the whole series
Jan 1
Nyora, VIC Premier Speedway
in a two-car Oztrac-sponsored Maxim team with Kalgoorlie’s Scott
Jan 2
After finishing last in his first race, he stormed back to win heat 16 to stay in the meeting, but then fell in heat 20 when battling to secure a semi-final place.
Randy “Hurricane” Hannagan. The
1995 World of Outlaws
Warmambool, VIC
Borderline Speedway Mt Gambier, SA
Milhng.
Jan 6
car in the Northern Auto Racing
Jan 8-9
Championship (NARC) series up against our own Pete Murphy.
Sydney, NSW Archerfield Speedway Brisbane, QLD Jan 15-16 Archerfield Speedway
final meeting and has a great chance of an automatic place next
Brisbane, QLD
was not out of the first two until his
Parramatta City Raceway Sydney, NSW
semi-final, but he has work to do if he’s to avoid having to qualify
World Series Sprintcars
Nov 27
Kalgoorlie Int Speedway Kalgoorlie, WA Claremont Speedway
Newcastle, NSW Parramatta City Raceway
Jan 13
1998/99 Schedule
Nov 25
Newcastle Speedway
The Bristol-born Aussie son of
Hannagan, a California native, has been driving brother Terry’s
Jan 23
-BRETT SWANSON
the legendary Phil from Mildura lies seventh overall going into the
year.
Adams had a good meeting and
again via the Grand Prix Challenge, a feat he’s achieved three years running. For Craig Boyce, the GP season has been a nightmare.
NO WORRIES... Tony Rickardsson looks the goods. (Mike Patrick pic) Hamill and Hancock, both from the USA, still have work to do and a favourable meeting in Poland could see two Aussies, Crump and Sullivan, definitely in the Grand Prix shake-up. SWEDISH GRAND PRIX Points Won
He trailed in last in heat four and
faced a battle to stay in the meet
ing, but the Sydney rider did well to head home Smith, Jensen and
Tony Rickardsson, Sweden 25 Chris Louis, England 20
3
Peter Karlsson, Sweden
18 16
But he could not make better
Greg Hancock, USA Jimmy Nilsen, Sweden
than third in heat nine, which
6
Tomasz Gollob, Poland
14
meant he had to pack his equip ment into his van for the journey
7 8
Leigh Adams, Australia Ryan Sullivan, Australia
12 10
back to his UK base at Poole in
9= 9=
Hans Nielsen, Denmark Mark Loram, England
8
the next race.
England. The battle for places among the
elite qualifiers looks tight, with the two Swedes, Rickardsson and Nilsen, along with Polish ace Gollob and England’s Louis, looking the only certainties. The last two World Champions,
4 3
19= Piotr Protasiewicz, Poland 3 21= Henrik Gustafsson, Sweden 2
21= Jesper Jensen, Denmark
2
23= Lars Gunnestad, Norway
1
23= Zoltan Adoijan, Hungary
1
Grand Prix Pointscore
1 2
4 5
Adoijan to keep his hopes alive in
17= Craig Boyce, Australia 19= Toni Kasper, Czech Rep
15
8
11= Jason Crump, Australia
7
11= Brian Andersen, Denmark 13= Armando Castagna, Italy 13= Andy Smith, England
7 6 6
15= Billy Hamill, USA
5
15= Stefan Danno, Sweden 17= Sebastian Ulamek, Poland
5 4
(after five roxmds)
1. Rickardsson 101, 2. Nilsen 81, 3.
Gollob 72, 4. Louis 69, 5. Hancock 61, 6. Hamill 61, 7. Nielsen 60, 8. Crump 54, 9. Sullivan 48, 10. Kasper 43, 11. Danno 42, 12. Loram 38, 13. Gustafsson 37, 14. Adams 36, 15. Smith 31, 16. Andersen 27, 17. Karlsson 27, 18. Adorjan 18, 19. Castagna 18, 20. Boyce 13, 21.Protasiewiczl3, 22. Jensen 12, 23. Karger 12, 24. Ulamek 8, 25. Riss 6, 26. Gunnestad 5, 27. Brhel 5, 28. Screen 5, 29. Kryzaniak 3, 30. Barth 2, 31. Dugard 2. -TONY MILLARD
44
KARTING
September 1998
IT DOESN’T GET MUCH CLOSER... lOOcc racing sees #87 David Williams (above) heading a desperately pressing pack comprising #51 Ben Castles, #93 Stephen Castles, #66 Rod Prickett, #43 Colin McIntyre and #2 Darren Formosa. Williams was the overall winner on the day. (Graeme Burns pic) 80cc RESTRICTED ... Second-
placed #7 David Bellenger (left) with #25 Menno Luneman and
eventual winner #26 Wayne Gould. (Graeme Burns pic) NOT FOR THE FAINTHEARTED ... The lOOcc duel continues, with #87 Williams (below, left) narrowly
heading #43 McIntyre, #91 Jason Desailly and, bringing up the rear, #66 Prickett. (Graeme Burns pic)
CALDER PARK SUPERKARTS... The photographs.from the fifth round of the Victorian Superkart Series on August 16 arrived after the deadline for the last issue of Motorsport News -r: but, rather than consign them to the files, we’ve elected to respond to numerous competitor requests and run them in this issue.
250CC ... #20 Shane Perry (below) holds out Paul Stubbing In his quick 125CC. Lack of numbers saw Perry race with the 250cc Inters. Itff ft
Wynn's team
1
●'
4mm
Darrell Smith and DPE
names Elliott in unique partnership for Junior ICA Two of Australia’s most famous
names have recently joined forces in a partnership that will
only be of benefit to Australian karting.
Drew Price Engineering and Darrell Smith (whose accolades
Door opens for WA performer include the 1990 Hong Kong Talented
West young Australian Daniel Elliott has been named as the newest
member of the Wynn’s Racing Team.
Fourteen year-old Elliott, who is undoubtedly one of this countries rising talents, will be competing in
Jamie Carter and James Small. In the third round of the
Championships held recently at Melbourne’s Todd Road circuit, Elliott again ran strongly among the leaders, but was hampered by too much grip and mechanical
International Kart Prix, the 1991 World Cup at Suzuka and also the 1995
Australian
Formula
A
Championship) have come together to provide purchasers of new Arrow chassis access to Darrell Smith’s
Karting Schools, which include dri ver assessment and tuition.
the elite Bob Jane T-Marts Junior
The West Australian Junior
Intercontinental A Championship within the Wynn’s Australian Karting Championships for the
National Light Champion is looking to consolidate his points position at
The aiTangement is of benefit to not only new barters, but to those who may have been karting for a while and wish to improve their
the final round at Eastern Creek
skills.
International Karting Raceway on October 11, before mounting a major campaign for the 1999 Oceania event and the 1999 Wynn’s Championships.
DPEs General Manager George Turton was more than happy with
remainder of 1998 and 1999. Elliott’s debut in the series came
at the second round of the champi onship in Queensland, where he ran strongly behind the current tal ent in the class, Neil McFadyen,
woes.
- SEAN HENSHELWOOD
new arrangement.
“It is all a part of our new philos ophy to make karting more accessi ble to beginners and what better
way to provide assistance than through a driver who is recognised universally as one of Australia’s most qualified,” Turton said.
“He is also currently the only AKA-accredited driving instructor in Australia.” - SEAN HENSHELWOOD
AX6 hits the mark Hot on the heels of the announcement of the evolution of the all-
conquering Arrow AX6 chassis comes the news intemationaUy of Arrow victories around the glohe. During mid-1997, the first shipment of Aitow chassis was delivered to the United States for evaluation by American dealers. With the large number of Yamaha-based classes which the Americans race, the Arrow chassis was ideally suited. Most recently, the Arrow has dominated competition in the Hawaiian
Championships and the American II^ Grand Nationals, where an Arrow was driven to victory from pole in the coveted ‘Superbox’ class and finished third from pole in Formula Y. ' On the other side of the Atlantic, the Arrow has been taking'victories in English County Championships, as well as in National Championship International Class events, such as Intercontinental A. With recent exports to our ‘local’ area, the AX6 should start to see
results coming from within Japan by the end of 1998. - SEAN HENSHELWOOD
KARTING
Wriaht f tons FMK3
45
11 September 1998
-
'
It %
V
■
-4
I
rts
rXI
f f*nr
Ron ●;
- V
A
Convincing Clubman victory by Bart Price
ij/ C
'
PCR RESA Cup Series points leader Brett Hasenkam was expecting strong opposition when
Melbourne International
At the front, Stray and Wright battled for the lead for the majority of the race, before Wright was left clear when Stray was forced out with only two laps to go. Wright lead Hasenkam to the flag, with Adelaide’s
Kart Raceway at Todd Road, Port Melbourne, on
Brenton Deckert third. Timm Weitzel drove
August 22-23 and proba
great race to finish fourth
bly didn’t expect as good a run as he received against a strong local contingent. In the end, though, it was a local that beat him, Ashley Wright taking outright hon ours, but Hasenkam extend ed his lead in the series by soundly defeating his major opposition for the title. As it has been throughout the series, the class was well supported, with 27 drivers entered for this, the penulti
from the rear of the field,
Unlike either the interna tional FMK classes in the
mate round. TibiKart driver Darren Steeden indicated that he
Wynn’s Championship, or the PCR RESA Cup field, the usually popular
was going to be a major threat, showing even the locals the fast way around the circuit and circulating
Clubman class was let
he came down to Melbourne for the third
round
of
the
Australian
Wynn’s Karting
Championships at the
four tenths faster than the rest of the field.
Nick Stray qualified on two, ahead of Hasenkam, Wright and Cain Mouat. The heats were won by Stray and Oven, who man aged to break well clear of the rest of the field. Stray taking heat one, Oven the
a
with Stephen Kerwood fifth and Mouat sixth. After three rounds of the
four-round PCR RESA Cup, Brett Hasenkam leads on
139 points from Ashley Wright (105), Dean Oven (92), Steven Pettaras (86), Dean Nicolo (78) and Timm Weitzel (59). oooOooo
down by poor entry lev els, although what the field lacked in numbers it
certainly had in driver quality. National Champions Jason Varley and Bart Price were
up against the likes of Kevin Stray, Lee Uhlhorn, Craig
1 ■'/
The Thomas Horey Trophy event for Midgets was nm by the Gold Coast Kart Club (GCKC) on August 23 in memory of club member Thomas Horey, the eight year-old who sadly passed away with cancer last
finish at nearly all race meetings he attended - such
larly - the battle was on
Shield, while the encourage
between Jake Beattie and
ment award went to Stuart
was his sheer determination,
Victor Zavadil for the lead,
the youngster still competed while undergoing treatment and managed third place on his last outing in August, 1997, despite the serious
with Jake taking the hon
November.
decline in hds health.
Ross French - V8 Supercar driver Paul Romano, a great mate of Tom’s, presented the trophies. The GCKC then sportingly donated the Midget competi tors entry fees to
Tom’s kart racing career was short, but memorable and he achieved a podium
The Thomas Horey Trophy event was hotly contested, with the lead changing regu-
The second heat was rain-
affected,
notorious
wet
weather expert Uhlhorn tak ing an intelligent win from eighth on the grid. In heat 3, multiple nation al champion Varley took the
of fellow
Anderson and Varley, with Stray (Monaco) fourth and
Arrow
drivers
Curtis (Birel) fifth.
The three leading Arrow dri
and Hasenkam. Steeden’s bad luck contin
vers battled to the hne in heat
ued in the final, the TibiKart
1, with Price taking the win.
Price led from the start of
Revived this year after a
private funding to continue
long break, the highly
to finance research pro
its vital work.
successful Wollongong
grams, improve disease detection methods, develop
Anyone wishing to become involved in sponsorship of the event should contact
Backed by the Wollongong Council and the Wollongong
new treatments, improve available therapies and pro vide life saving equipment and financial support for dis advantaged families. Among childhood illnesses,
Police, the 1999 event, sched
cancer remains the number
inclusion of the three FMK
uled for February 6-7, has
one killer and, although cure rates have gone from 2% to 70% in the last thirty years,
classes which compete within the Wynn’s Australian Karting Championships -
the fact remains that three
Junior Intercontinental A,
out of ten children diagnosed
Intercontinental Formula A.
has been
granted
an
extension to continue well into the new millen nium.
the complete support of the local community. It will also be run for a
very worthy cause, with all profits from the event donat ed to the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia for research into childhood leukemia and cancer. Funds channelled into the
with cancer will die. The aim of the Children’s Institute is to achieve an
unequivocal 100% cure rate. To do this, though, it is
dependent on corporate and
Oct 4
and Jason Loft. - SEAN HENSHELWOOD
Children’s Institute are used
Lighthouse Grand Prix
Sept19/20
Varley. Stray took fourth, ahead of Anderson, Anthony Mirigaya, Paul Burgess, Domaschenz, Dion Gretgrix
Wollongong street race
after
Victor
was
involved in a coming togeth er with a lapped kart. Victor took the flag in sec ond spot, with Ben Singleton third. Jake
Neuroblastoma Research at also
claimed
the
Thomas Horey Perpetual
the Royal Childrens’ Hospital, Brisbane.
in KARTING
Price took the 19-lap pre final win from Stray, Uhlhorn and Varley to line up on pole for the final.
Uhlhorn (Gold Kart) and
ours
^i^ING EVENTS
win from Uhlhorn and All Kart driver Matthew Adams.
Price claimed pole, ahead
In the pre-final, Tecno dri ver Wright showed his form to take the win from Stray
V.-
Thomas Horey Trophy
the 23-lap final and was never headed, scoring anoth er victory for Arrow ahead of
second and third heats.
●/
WINNERS... The inaugural Thomas Horey Trophy event saw second place go to Victor Zavidil (left), standing with thirdplaced Ben Singleton, Encouragement award winner Stuart Ross French and race winner Jake Beattie. The big guy, who presented the Midget trophies, is Touring Car driver Paul Romano, one of the late Tom Morey's best buddies.
Grant Anderson and Canberra’s Blake Curtis.
Domaschenz,
' * . *^
/
driver forced off in a hectic start and out of the race.
0ct10/11 /.
Annual Kart Titles^
Gouiburn Valiev Kart Ciab
Enquiries 03 ^a21 4950 BH The Western District TitlS9 ^Hamilton Kart Club
Enquiries 03 5572 4831
Bendigo Country Titles Bendigo Kart Club Enquiries 03 5443 6065 Star Round 5
Ballarat Kart Club
Enquiries 03 5335 7313 §
Gonny Burns on: (02) 4283
Z
1855.
t:
The event itself will follow a standard street race for
mat, with one exception, the
A
and
For further event details, contact the Wollongong Kart Racing Club’s Wayne Jolliffe on: 02 4272 6767. - SEAN HENSHELWOOD
'TCantcttf ^ ^
VVC\OR\^n KMaVHG ^SSOCV^■\\OU Ph 03 5449 6362 or 03 9362 1144
Our Web site is: www.kartguide.com.au/vka/vka.htm Our Email address is: vka@bl40.aone.net.au Victorian Karting Association Inc Registered No: A13837D
46 USspteinter&8
Briefly Historic
Rare Carrera for Porsche-fest
of the 1998 Mt.
By BRIAN REED AS part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of Porsche, a special 2-day Rally is being organised
Tarrengower Hillclimb to be held on Sunday October
in Victoria and will start on November 11.
11. This will be the 18th
Already the event has cre ated plenty of interest among Porsche owners, with Sydney-Hobart yachtsman
Supplementry regulations and entry forms are now available for the running
running of the annual Vintage and Historic Hillclimb at Maldon, an event that originally dates back to 1928. It is organ ised jointly by the Vintage Sports Car Club of Victoria and the Bendigo Car Club, and other invited clubs are
the Austin 7 Club, MG Car Club, the S-.p.C. of SA and the MG Car Club
(Geelong). Entries close on September 24, and wiU be limited to the first 120 received. For further itrformation contact the
Secretary of the Meeting, Roger Boehme on (03) 5443 7008 (phone/fax). ■ Another interesting Australian ‘Special’ - the M.M. Holden - is slowly but surely being recreated in Geelong by Roy WiUiams. Originally the
Which only leaves the Gulf Blue 906 for Miller to drive in the event! This car is one
of only 65 examples built by the Porsche factory for the 1966 racing season, and was acquired by Miller in late 1995. He contested the 1998
Tour de France classic rally in the 906 and will have it
air-freighted to Australia especially for the 50 Years Porsche Rally. Actually, he has another
Warwick Miller well to the
fore with a three-car entry. Heading the table is his rare 1965 road-registered 906, but his other entries are equally mouth-watering. He will also have
on
hand
his
car on hand for the festivities.
It’s his magnificent ex-Briggs Cunningham 1958 RSK Spyder which drew the acco
1958
Carrera 356 Speedster pow ered by a potent quad-cam racing engine as well as his
lades of the crowd at this
year’s Qantas Australian Grand Prix. It will join the rally cars for an impressive
1973 2.8-litre 911 RSR. His
911 is one of only 55 similar racecars built by the factory. Miller acquired his 911 RSR 2.8 late last year and has since had it repainted in its original Gulf Blue factory livery. It remains one of the world’s most desirable racing 911s, having covered just 20,000kms since new. Past
Porsche Parade in Melb ourne’s Alexandra Gardens
on Saturday November 14, which is expected to attract Joe
more than 500 Porsches. For further information on the 50 Years Porsche
Cavaglieri - the man who painstakingly restored Miller’s RSK over a two-year- period.
Ward at Porsche Cars Australia on 1800 062 911.
GULF WAR?... Warwick Miller with his 73 2.8 RSR, one of just 55 examples in the world.
owner Jeff Dutton will drive it in the Rally. Miller’s
‘hot
rod’
356
Carrera Speedster is just that
-it’s fitted with a 160hp quadcam engine from a 904 sporis car- and will possibly be driven by well known American Brier Thomas photo courtesy Graham Howard, ‘Australian Grand Prix 50 years"
handiwork of Lou Molina
and Sylvio Massola (hence
Porsche
restorer
Festival
contact
Pamela
New look Historic
Races for Sandown
the name “M.M.’), this car first appeared at Fisherman’s Bend on
By BRIAN REED
October 3,1953, and two
have been especially popu
THE annual Sandown
months later finished a
Historic meeting sched
creditable fifth outright in
lar, and the fields will resemble the Bathurst gi-ids
uled for October 24-25 has taken on a new look
Minis, Lotus Cortinas and
the Australian Grand Prix held at Albert Park in the hands Molina. The late
for 1998, and all indica tions are that race fans
Bill Leech purchased the car hr 1955 and race it reg ularly over the next few years before it was sold to
are in for an even bigger treat than before.
For starters, the entry lists have been expanded to
Mick Crawford in Tasmania. Cra-wford won the 1963 Tasmanian
include a broader cross-sec
Sports Car- Championship
tion of cars ranging fi-om the 1920s to the ’70s, and the organising committee from
in the M.M. Holden, and
the
sometime after that it was
Racing Register is expecting more than 300 competitors to contest the 31-event progi-am over the two days. A special treat is in store as part of the 50th anniver sary celebrations of Porsche and an impressive line-up of cars representing the mar que’s racing heritage will
apparently destroyed in a fire. It’s an interesting pari of Australian motor racing history, and Roy
Vale - Alec Mildren
would like to hear ft-om
ONE of Australia’s most famous motor
international star Frank Gardner and a
anyone who has informa tion or photographs of what was originally a very attractive looking ‘special.’ His phone mrmber is (03)
racing drivers and sponsors, Alec Mildren passed away on Friday August 28, only a short time after he had
promising (and very quick!) young Sydney driver, Kevin Bai-tlett. Gardner di'ove the yellow Cooper Maserati (now sporting a 2.9-litre engine) in the 1963
5229 3375.
sport in this country following World War 2, and rarely missed competing in the
reached his 83rd birthday. Mildi-en was one of the stalwarts of motor
AGP at Warwick Fam, and after a series of Brabhams, took the Mildren Brabham Maserati to a brilliant second behind Graham Hill’s BRM V8 in the 1966 AGP at Lakeside.
Victorian
Historic
take to the 3.1km track on
of the 1960s and ’70s with Toranas well to the fore. A Porsche demonstration
to be held during the lunch break on Sunday October 25 will be a higblight of the meeting, and will feature such drivers as Jim McKeown in a 911 similar to
the car he drove so capably in
the
1970
Australian
Touring Car Championship. There has been strong support, especially from Sydney, for the Group Q cat egory spearheaded by Richard Carter’s potent March BDA. The Sydney siders are keen to take on the best of the Formula
5000s led by top gun from Victoria, Andrew Robson, are confident of upsetting
Sunday, October 25. Another change this year
the bigger engined open-
has been the involvement of the MG Car Club of Victoria
It’s a big challenge but, if past performances are any thing to go by, some tight racing amongst the quickest Historic openwheelers will be a highlight of the meeting. Some of the great mar ques of sports car racing are scheduled to appear includ ing Jaguar, Lotus and Porsche. Evergreen Brian Sampson will be competing
wheelers at Sandown.
■ One of the most desir
Australian Grands Prix from 1947 onwards.
able small front-engined Australia is now on the market. It’s the ex-Peter
In those early years he met with only limited success, due in part to his own lack of experi ence, but mainly because of the rather primi
the international Grand Prix drivers was a
tive and outclassed cars he drove.
major achievement.
.^hdown 1960 works Lola which performed cred
TTiings began to change when he moved into a Cooper Bristol in 1956 and later to a Cooper
The following year, Gardner finished tim’d and Bartlett sixth in the 32nd Australian
itably in open company in
Climax. But it was in 1960 that Alec Mildren
Grand Pi-ix at Warwick Fai-m, and over the
England including a third outright at Silverstone against the big cars. It also held an amazing lap record for its class of just under lOOmph (160kmyh). David McKay acquired
seized his chance with a very competitive car a Cooper T51 fitted with a specially ordered 2.5-litre Maserati 250S engine (he was the Maserati dealer in Sydney at the time) and, with an excellent mechanic in Glenn Abbey,
next few years the familiar yellow openwheelers of Mildi’en were usually well to the fore at the pointy end of competition against the likes of Brabham, Hill, Clark, Stewart, Sm-tees, Amon, Hulme, Rindt and others.
best on the calendar. There are also two well
Kevin Bartlett’s successful racing career
Shannon’s Vintage and
Elva, while Ian McDonald
Classic Insurance to bring
will debut his Australianbuilt Ausca at Sandown. It
sports cars ever to come to
the Lola at the end of 1960 and scored a number of
class and outright wins before it was taken over by Greg Cusack and later by John Martin. The Lola is fitted with a 1220cc
Coventry Climax engine, it has an impressive race his tory, and according to its owner, Ian McDonald, is “expensive.” To find out how expensive, phone Ian on (03) 9589 1217. -BRIAN REED
Mildi’en dominated the scene in 1960.
At Longford earlier the same year, Mildren was clocked at 272km/h through the timed quarter-mile in his chase of Jack Brabham he now had the irght car, as well as the skill and experience to match it with the best. He won virtually everything he entered that year, and after nine attempts over a 13yeai’ period the dour Sydneysider finally won
It was the heady era of the Tasman Series, and any success by a local’ against the best of
as the organising club. Its years of motor sport experi ence
and
that
of
the
Victorian Historic Racing
Register will combine to make the meeting one of the known sponsors of the event. Penrite Lubricants have combined forces with
was lai’gely shaped by Alec Mildren, and Bartlett has paid Wbute to his foi’mer men tor. “Alec Mildren was the catalyst of my
together a feast of Historic
career,” he said. “From 1964 to 1970 we spent
section of racing interest.
so much time together, especially in SouthEast Asia and the Tasman Series - they were
cars to cater for a wide crossEven before entries had
officially opened, the VHRR
the Mildren years.
had
the AGP on June 12, 1960 ahead of Lex
“I had gi’eat respect for him. Alec was fairly strict in his expectations, and if he told me I
Davison’s Aston-Martin DBR4/300 and the
was doing something wrong I’d take notice of
T51 Cooper Climax of Bib Stillwell. Mildren was also declared the winner of the presti gious CAMS Gold Star award for 1960. When he retired from active competition, Mildren turned his hand to running cars for two of the best Australian drivers of the day -
him, because he knew,” Bartlett said.
expressions of interest, including a strong interstate representation. Bill Morris will be making the long trip
Alec Mildren will be sadly missed in Australian motor racing circles, and to his wife Maijorie, and to his family and friends we extend our deepest sympathies. -BRIAN REED
received
100
firm
across the Nullabor to race
in his attractive and rare
is somewhat sui-prising that this car, built by Melbourne
engineer and racing driver Paul England, has never previously raced at the Sandown circuit. The 1998 Penrite
& Shannons Historic Sandown
on October 24-25 will bring together a fabulous cross-
his Ford Falcon GT HO,
section of racing, sports and
along with two ‘hot’ Minis from WA. Not surprising, the touring car categories
touring cars from yesteryear - for Historic race buffs it’s a “must.”
47
/^®{}®n^si^[F9
Sedans/
8341 6036 or 0418 857 682. 135
Cars
V'f:
Sports Sedan VL Commodore Group A shell, rebuilt 308 engine, modified Aussie 4 speed, Ford 9‘ diff, excellent condi
Alfa Romeo 155TS, Super Tourer. Virtually bullet-proof, comes with huge amount of spares. Race in Super Touring for app. $3500 per race and Bathurst for $6000. Impossible? Ring me and HI tell you how. David Auger (07) 3252 5511 or (0418)
3
y;
»
t»2
AUSCAR Sportsman Ford XF Falcon, fresh engine, excellent condition, regretful sale ^moving os. $10,000. Ph 03 9844
794 240.136
Porsche turbo 924. Ex Targa car, great Club/road car. $25,000 spent on engine, gearbox, suspension, turbo, steering. Straight body, great interior. Pagid pads, half cage, spare alloys.
HQ Holden, Thunderdome car. All log books, new sealed as
Onlv $13,000. Ph: 0418 569 477
3657 135
new motor, sealed box. Can be test driven before sale. (03) 9563 7072. $7200ONO. 13s
tion. $12900 ono. Ph 02 4942 6233 bh or 02 4945 3613 ah ise
HQ Race Car Great condition, Sparco evo seal, Sabelt 6 point harness, good HP engine, extensive spares. Ready to race. $4000 ono. Ph 0419 263 458 136
$11,500 ono, or roller $5,500. Ph: 019 331 845. ,35
Nissan GTiR Ideal GTP &/or Targa. 2 meetings only, undevel oped - enormous potential. Welded cage, Koni fully adjustables, blueprinted engine, Recaro, boost monitor (required for GTP), spare wheels and slightly used slicks. Must sell, $24,000. Ph: Geoff 0418 995 581. .35
Calais VL 1988 update. 135,000kms, with books, 16‘ ROH "25" rims. No rust, key-less entry (no door lovks) tint, immaculate, lowered3 inches. $11,200ono.Ph: 0417 833 399, 135 NASCAR Commodore, roller, new paint, panels. Will trade
NASCAR, Pontiac Grand Prix. 18 deg heads, front steer, extended nose and tail, slab sides. Top 10 car, including all pit and flat track equip. Race day support if required. $39,000. (03) 9434 1831 or (0412) 132 068. ise Sports Sedan, Falcon XE, ready to race Cleveland 351,
road car, ultralight, boat or $7,000. Ph: 07 5578 7870 135
Masco block, 4-bolt main, roller cam, 4 downdraft Webers. 2
sets Simmons wheels (16-10) complete or will separate. Must sell POA. Heaps of spares (02) 9905 5814 Or (0418) 481 122.136 Escort race car. Fresh Craig Morris 2L. Big cam, Bg valve engine, comp clutch C/R gearbox, adjust suspension. Konis, big brakes, full cage. Very quick. Exc condition. Ready to race. $5400 ono. Ph 03 9306 5227 135
Suzuki Swift GTi, 93 model, twin cam, 2nd owner, 73,000kms. Air con, pwr windows & mirrors, mag wheels, good
tyres, 3/99 rego. Sell with RWC. Car in vgc. $11,500ono. Ph: 07 4155 2360. 135
05
Suzuki swift GTi 89. Twincam, 15" wheels, Pirelli tyres, Koni
suspension, computer chip, tidy interior, sway bars, lowered, never raced. 4/99 reg (OVQ-881). Sounds tough. Real head-
Ford Motorsport Rally Team offers for sale its last EL XR Falcon, an XR8 (230kW) but can be sold in XR6 (180kW) form. Excellent Super Series “Aussie” car (quickest out there this year). Ideal entry lor Round O2 Trial, both other team cars already sold for this purpose. Professionally built with six years and live class titles experience with Safety, Strength, Reliability &
turner. $7500 ono. Ph 03 5248 3044135
Vauxhall Cavaliers (2). Ex Cleland/Thompson 1995 BTCC Mallock Super Tourer cars (Cleland won 95 championship), as subsequently raqed by Jim Richards, Russell Ingall, Bob Tweedie. Extensive spares inventory, one spare engine, 3 years set-up info. Still front-running proposition for good young drivers. Priced to sell at $65,000 each (spares neg.). Will consider sensi ble offer for whole team. Ph: Bob Tweedie 018 162 762
(Sydney). 137
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III Group A. Low kms, red inside and out. Big hp bench dynoed nxitor. Altronic rotating idle. Auto lag. Twin plate clutch, 5 speed, Proflex. Chrome moly & carbon fibre everywhere. $52,000. Ph: Graham Vaughan 0412 584 859. ra Commodore Cup car no. 8. Professionally built turn-key car. Platt engine, no expense spared. Immaculate condition. Opportunity to enter competitive national class. $21,000. Ph: Ian
Competitiveness in mind. Easy to maintain and cost-effective. Built from a stitch welded bodyshell fitted with CAMS app. 12 point chrome moly cage. Informatiop, knowledge and support given to future owner. XR8 $34,000ono, in XR6 form $28,000ono. Ph:SteveWinwood0883220804,0417445 920. 135
039556 5444,0418 395 566. 135
Commodore VK Group A road car. UCK 493.
Immaculate, original owner from new. 70,000kms, $10,000
Datsun 260Z olubsport coupe. VG30. 4 cam turbo, extensive development, shattering performance, beautiful condition.
worth of improvements $25,000ono. Ph: Ken 08 8583 7373 after 7pm or 08 8582 2853 (BH). 135 KE35 Corolla coupe, rolling chassis. Steel cage. Suit rally,
Wakefield Park 1min13.7secs. Road and cams registered. $17,950. Ph 02 4423 1811 bh or 02 4464 1667 ah. 135
Club Car, Sports Sedan etc. Straight and rust-free. $850ono. Ph: 07 3888 0081,0419 029 626 (AH). 135
Siena Cosworth, ex Selon Grp A, Ellery Super Tourer. All the best bits fitted - 2-litre dry sumped Cosworth, Autronics, 5 speed c/r Getrag 1:1 top, Harrop alloy 9' oil-cooled diff, Harrop brakes/suspension etc. Ready to race with heaps of spares.
VL 308. Excellent Club Car. 9 inch Detroit, roll cage. Group A exhaust. 50s Oran Park, Heaps spares. Owner retired. Capable
high 48s Oran. Ready to race. Never smashed. $12,000. Ph: 0418 642 612 after 10am. is
$25,000neg. Ph: 0418 358 197 (BH), 03 5971 4338 (AH). 13s
Nissan 300ZX Targa 1985. Well above average condition, full electrics, velour interior, immobiliser, cruise control, air con.
Nissan March quick and reliable. New A008's, multipoint cage, Kevlar seat, etc. Spare eng. G/box. Must sell, going over seas Sept 20. $4900 ono. Ph 03 5827 1256 is
■99. $8,900. Ph: 08 9361 9906 (Perth), is Porsche Cup cars, Race winners at bargain prices. Harburg 911C2and ex-Park911RSR.Both can win, low cost to run and maintain. Don’t waste your money on high-dollar fragile cars that cost thousands to repair. Must sell to go open wheeler racing. 911C2 $75,000, 911RSR $115,000. Possible lease for Indy. Julian Harburg (0411) 66 77 99. is
HQ Holden, new rebuilt engine, gearbox sealed. New sus pension package and tyres. Car in top condition, finished no lower than 7th. $5000 (02) 6355 5995. is
AUSCAR Falcon last season rookie winning car. With a
spare set of wheels, fuel chum, jact etc. $25,500 ono. Will lease if required at a reasonable rate. Ph Jason 0414 779 999 ise
Open Wheelers
No money to spend. Ready to drive, RAC checked 2/97. Lie.
HQ Holden, heaps of spares, panels, rims and mechanical. With reg'd 4-wheel trailer. (02) 9606 6600. is Commodore Cup car 39. Rolling car, less engine and gear box. Bargain at $11,500. Engine & gearbox available. Ph: 08
HT Monaro Club Car, less engine. C/r Muncie, 9" diff,
triple plate clutch, Willwood brakes, aluminium radiator. Exhaust mounts to suit Chev heads, roller rockers. $10,000ono. Ph: 08 8388 9110. 135
Superkart Peter Worrall's 125cc Australian Championship winning kart. 1997 stockman chassis with lull bodywork. 'B' kit '94 RS125 engine, just rebuilt with new crank, mains, etc. $6,500. Ph 02 9824 7350 is
Swift SC93FF top slate series oar + Nat. Fresh Hamer
KE20 Corolla Club Car. Fresh EFI motor, roll cage, SAAS seat and s/wheel, 14" mags, extensive spares, very reliable. Class winner. Ready to race, must sell. $5,000. Ph: 015 261 105.
engine. Blueprinted gearbox, updated b/w spares, whishbones, uprights, pushrods, cleveses, nose cones, nose box, radiators, engine covers, discs, rims, trackrods, rollbars, springs, roller. $20,000 c package $26,000. Ph tony Jory 03
Vic.
6326 5555 or 0418 130 133 is
IS
AUSCAR Sportsman VL Commodore, complete rolling shell: s/wheel, seat, new diff, 5 rims, new paintwork. Many more extras. $1,800. Ph: 03 9743 6259. 135
Alfa Sports Sedan. Fully rebuilt 350 Chev, mid-mounted. Full roller. Brodix heads, fuel injected. New tyres, 9‘ diff. Must sell.
Kestrel Fonnula Vee. Reluctant sale of immaculate car. No
expense spared. Raced only 3 times, ready to race. Comes vJlh trailer and spares. $11,500. Ph: Steve 08 8337 2592. is
continued over page
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CATEGORY: Cars:
□ Speedway □ Drag □ Sedans □ Open Wheelers □ Engines □ Trailers □ Wanted □ Photographs □ Other
General: □ Parts
28 August 1998 Parts Small block Chew street tunnel ram, brand new. $300 Ph 03 9844 3657 m
NASCAR pit gear, ino alloy jack, hot rod guns and regs, T10 box, road racerear end, 9" centre, ride oar complete (will dis mantle), heaps of parts. Ph (03) 9800 3111. ise Super sedan ready to race. Spare wheels and panels. $5,000. Ph Mark 014 617 716 or 02 9627 1143 ah.
Formula Vee Kingfischer. Won every Vic series in 97. Comes with all spared, 2 gearboxes, consistent front runner. Car at Calder Sept 27. All data and assistance to new owner. Trailer available. $10,500 ono. Ph 03 9792 5881 bh or 03 5482 1073 ah
Etfin 600E F2, Historic Group Q. Log book. 1600 Ford twin cam. The best 600 available, with spares, moulds, jigs and fully enclosed tandem trailer. $45,000. Ph: Ivan Clenoie 03 9726 7166 (BH), 03 9762 1732 (AH). 135
135
Super sedan components secondhand shocks, coils,
starters, steering rack, Charlynn power steering, Wilwood brake, calipers, seat belts, fibre W5 wheels, 18‘ roller cam and shaft rockers. Ph 08 9452 2808 136
6424 2988 bh i3c
Ford Cortina TE "A‘ modified production multiple aggregate winner and feature plaoings. New engine (not rebuild), rated Bilstein suspension, Power steering, fabricated front upper con
Chew 350 race parts. Brand new Ameroian Calais 3.5 stoke crank and bearings to suit. Also new 6" Oliver rods and JE pis tons with gapless rings to suit this combination. Also second
trol arms, new paint, race ready, a complete assortment of spares. Bargain at $7000 ono. Must sell. Ph Gavin 03 5593
Titaniym inlet valves. Crane roller rockers, rollwer followers etc.
2845 ah or 0417 563 233 or Gordon 03 5593 2321. Email:
Bowtie inlet manifold and 750 anular discharge holley needs block and cam to be complete motor. Bargain at $10,000. Ph 07
Sprintcar 1989 JSR highbar complete less engine with spares
5497 6733 i36
including splined wheels. $12,000 ono. Ph 03 9460 9588 bh or
2-ways, 2 crew sets. Scanner, car set, open face helmet mike and relay. Cable antenna, Dorian timer, battery chargers. As new, in own case, $5000. (02) 9636 4447 and (0418) 637 454 . 136 Geaibox V8 M21 4 speed Commodore box and shifter. Fully
Vintage Midget speedcar. Restoration started 95% com
0419 588 884,02 6362 9888 bh or 02 6362 8263 ah.
IX
hand but with little use, Brownfield aluminium heads with
judd@netcam.com.au 136
03 97151515 136
Van Diemen RF98. Rolling chassis engineered and main tained by Faslane Racing. Proven race winner and 3rd in AFFC. Immaculate car. Available with Motec data logging system (brand new). Ohiins 2 way shock absorbers. Ph Tim Leahey
Gearbox, Brand new Doug Nash, never used. 5-sp, straight cut gears^ long H-pattern. Must sell, PDA (02) 9905 5814, (0418)481122.136 Chew 010 4 bolt block, 5.7' Carrillo rods, 11.5 to 1 forged pis tons to suit, Accell twin point distributor. $1500 the lot. Ph 03
plete. Fresh hi compression grey engine, new fuel injection, Beagley chassis cross spring front 3 piece wheels. $10,000 firm. Ph 03 5821 0341 or 0418 538 588 IX
Clubman Sports 1300, Farrell FA83, rolling chassis, brand new 4 wheel discs, Armstrong adjustable coil-overs. Escort rear end. ,000 w/o 4AGE engine & gearbox, Ph: Ferg 03 9706 3979 (BH), 03 9770 9779 (AH), 0419108 128. 135
reco. $1000 ono.Ph 03 9769 9936 ise
AVS 17 inch polished rims, made by Yokohama with 245x45x8 P7 new series tyres. Good for road or racing. Suit Porsche or VW Porsche stud pattern. $2,500. Ph: 02 6655 5715, 019 125965. 135
Escort parts: worked 2.01, ready for assembly, $900ono; 8 inch LSD $800ono: Mags, rollcage, body panels. Crane ignition, assorted other mechanical parts. Ph: 07 3888 0081, 0419 029 626 (AH). IX
Speedway 1985 Ford Telstar FWD Sedan, ASCF Modified Production
rego. Hoosiers, locked diff, 2 litre twin cam race engine, alumini um fuel tank. Selling due to work commitments. $4,500ono. Ph: 02 6889 4110 (BH). ix
Throttle body, 63mm throttle bodies with throttle position switch. Brand new. $150. Ph: 0418 572 810. 135
350 Chew, +.030 freshly bored, 4 bolt, al rods, Manley pistons, new cam, Clevite bearings. Brownfield al heads, Victor Junior manifold, ASCF sealed, $7,000. Knife-edged Commodore 6 cyl crank, .010, $350. Ph: Bruce 03 5422 1942 (BH), 03 5422 7037 (AH).
Superkart ex Chris' Staff's Aust Championship Kart 97 Stockman MR3 int. Yamaha TZ250 twin. Immac cond. Trailer,
tent, eng spares, rims, wets. Ready to win. $15,000. Ph 0411
Super Sedan EA Falcon. 350 Chev, TRW pistons, ported fuellie heads, 750 methanol Holley, quickohange diff, single leaf coilover suspension, Wilwood brakes, spare rims and tyres. Ready to go racing. $8000. Ph 07 5447 1904 ix Torana modified sedan. New fibreglass panels, 186ci motor, old car being updated - unfinished. All major parts there. Just needs to be put back together. $2000. Ph 08 8556 3944
IX
Centura modified sedan. 265ci, MB72. Ex-Cory Reid, fabri cated front and rear ends, Volvo diff. Commodore rims, quicksteer with power, fibreglass panels with rnoulds. $5000
6655 5715,019 125965. 135
March F3 uprights, rear Cheetah Mk6 copy rotors, brakes, wheels, circle track BBS type 3 piece centre lock 8x13, 11x13.
Super Sedan Commodore. Dave Best chassis, quick change diff. 4 aluminium deadlock rims. Ready to race, less nnotor & gearbox. Plenty of spares. $13,500. Ph: Peter Nicola 03 51761352,018513998. ix
Drag Racing
Suit hillclimb car or similar. $2,000 the lot. Ph: 02 6646 2321
(BH), 02 6646 8100 (AH). IX Brand new 2-litre Kombi heads, 48x38 titanium stainless valves, Chev double springs. These are the best heads. $1,800. Ph: 02 6655 5715,019 125965.
IX
dition. Fresh engine. Ready to race with spares. Many new
Phil Irving alloy head. Fully reconditioned Crane rollers, studs, guide plates, triple 48mm Webers. Big bore cutom made extractors. $4,000 the lot. Ph: Barry 07 4936 1556, 0414 979
parts. Priced for quick sale. $23,000, Ph 02 4990 7895 or
700. 136
0414 427 450 ix
Racing tyres: Avon wets, new, 9.5/23,5 x 16', $200 pair; Dunlop used lO' SIT" suit 10"-12". Plenty of rubber, from $25 each. Ph: 02 9873 4091 (BH), 02 9873 3793 (AH). 135 Cheetah Mk8 side pods and flat bottoms complete. Oilers Also, Rover V8 piston & irng set, new, +60, $500. Ph: 02 6646 2321 (BH), 02 6646 8100 (AH). 135
ono. Ph 08 8556 3944. ix
Sprintcar NSW 22 1990 Drake chassis, USA excellent con
March 732A, Historic F5000, Group P log book. Certificate of description. Fully restored, fuel-injected Chev, Hewland DG300.
IX
Cylinder heads: 302 W complete heads. Hot bench tested, brand new. $750 pair. Ph: 03 9345 1666. IX 3 BBS 19 inch Snake Tongue touring car rims, centreloc nut style, with Michelin slicks. Worth $6,000. Sell lor $2,500. Ph: 02
Super Sedan Mazda RX7 13PP injectionpower head, dejersy rack, quick change, diff, 6 pin wheels, 4 bar rear coil overs 12 aluminium wheels, heaps of spares. Will separate. Ph 03 54241804 ah or 03 5422 3098 bh ix
Purpose-built trailer. $80,000ono. Ph: 02 4456 4519, fax 02 4456 4619. IX
Capri, proven 10 sec Super Sedan, less engine/trans. Disc brake 9’, ladder bars, coil overs, spooled 4.56, 31-spline axles, pipes for Cleveland, fuel system, MSD, gauges, cage + more. $6,000. Ph: 07 4773 5111.
Transporters/Trailers
IX
HG Monaro drag car, 750hp big block Chev. Turbo 400 box, 8" Dominator converter, full chassis, Ford 9’ rear, strut front end.
Uiirxs-
Weld wheels, lift off f'glass front, lexan windows. Deist chutes. Ran 9.1s/148mph last time out. Complete, turn key $22500 ono. Ph 07 4126 8991 ix
Modified Production Commodore, Fresh High Van Diemen RF95, One of the best in Aust., ex-
Webber/Bargwanna, maintained regardless of cost. Top 10 fin ished in 98, Lamer engine (one race meeting old). Spares include wheels, tyres, shockers, body parts, stands. $29,500. Ph Roger (0417) 335 965. ix
Horsepower motor, roller cam, runs Methanol. Best of every thing, spare wheels and tyres, full adj susp. Ready to race, $9000. (0417) 106 711 or (03) 54 47 1232. ix
Engines Drag racing big block Chev. methanol injected, 480ci, bird catcher on tunnel ram, late model Bowtie aluminium heads,
tion pump, 4-bolt block and much more. $10000. Ph 07 4126
Warpac Custom tandem trailer, 10'x5'x5'6‘. 4-wheel elec tric brakes, rear and side doors. 2-tonne capacity, 12 months rego. Cost $6000 to build, sell $4800. (0414) 829 435 (07) 3372
8991 IX
4384. IX
flow 800hp, roller lifters, roller rockers, forged pistons, roller cam, steel crank, new alloy rods, alloy timing cover, inspec
Golf F2 engine, new valves, guides, seats, springs, forged pistons, crack tested, balanced, ground, new bearings, rings. Never run. $4,500. Ph: 03 5881 1506 (AH), 03 5881 4411 (BH). IX
Commodore VN modified production adjustable suspension, quick steering, 9" diff, very fast, proven race winner with many spares incluidng engine computers, suspention, wheels etc. Elfin 622 Historic Group Q. Total restoration completed 5 years ago, now running F3 configuration. Quick, relaible car holds Group Q Under 1300 lap records at Amaroo and E. Creek. Full Cosworth Ford engine ex UK, specifically built for F3 with BDA crank and rods, gear driven camshaft etc, twin plate clutch and Mk8 Hewland. Hawless in finish and presentation. Documentation available, spares incl. Ph: Richard Harward 02 9789 8470 (BH), 02 9568 4147 (AH). 137 Clubman Sports 1300, Farrell FA83, rolling chassis, brand new 4 wheel discs, Armstrong adjustable coil-overs. Escort rear end. $6,000 w/o 4AGE engine & gearbox. Ph: Ferg 03 9706 3979 (BH), 03 9770 9779 (AJH), 0419 108 128. ix
$8000 ono. Ph Keith 0417 267 069 ix
Formula 500 chassis, jib tuit Tig welded, includes bonnet, tail and nerf bars, Stallard specs. Brand new. $2000 Ph 03 6424 2988 bh IX
Sprintcar 91 JSR aluminiym Rodec engine heaps of spares, fully enclosed trailer, electric brakes, mag wheels, rego. Complete package $35,000 ono. Ph 02 6297 2818 or 0418 630 408 IX
Sprintcar 1992 Toggnotti HI bar less engine, KSW steering. Winters diff, Splined wheels, new paint, complete roller. $7,000. Ph 02 6297 2818 or 0418 630 408 ix
Sprintcar Avenger 1998. Brand new. Deluxe kit power coat ed, black. Selling well below replacement at $8,500. Ph 0418 884 756. Delivery can be arranged, ix
351 Cleveland, Nasco 4 bolt main, steel rods, internal bal ance. Roller cam, 4V heads. Manly stainless 1-pce valves. Titanium retainers. Grower roller rockers, Edelbrock manifold. All can be inspected, POA. (02) 9905 5814, (0418) 48 1122. ix B/B Chev, 480ci, 4.5 inch Bow Tie block JE, 12.5:1. Grower
roads, 427 steel hi-perf crank, large port heads. Compete Crane rockers and girdle, Edelbrock Victor Ram cam, lifters, rollmaster H/bal flywheel. $9000 03 9469 4550. ix Corolla 4AGE twin cam motor. Fully reconditioned, bal anced. blueprinted. Alloy sump. 115kW+. Suit road car or Clubman. Includes wiring and computer. $5,500ono. 5 speed gearbox $450. Ph: John 0412 445 737.
IX
Chev 366 methanol motor. 655hp, 548 ft/lbs, with dyno sheets. 18 degree heads, Jessel rocker gear, JE pistons, LA billet rods. Cola crank, bow tie block, dry sump. Barnes pump, Chuck Collugh oarby. All parts & block are brand new, only done 6 races. Built by Race Engine Developments. Spent $29,000. Will sell for $22,000. Ph: Peter Nicola 03 5176 1352,018513 998. 135
Crower fuel injection, suit SB Chev, complete, ex-con, $1,500. Ph: Kevin 03 5722 2893
IX
Transporter converted Millard caravan, 30'x8', 4 axles, 4
wheel electric brakes, new 27'x15' annexe, GE fridge, hws, shower, kitchen with stove, wired 12/240 volt, sleeps 4, Reg Feb 99. $10,000onoPh 02 49426233bh or 02 49453613ah ix Transporter, Ford D series Pantec, 351, allow ramps, long range tanks, new tyres, brakes, shocks, RWC. Suitable open wheeler, small sedan, can fit NASCAR. $5800. (03) 9800 3111. ix Transporter Converted Starcraft caravan, 30', 4 axles, elect brakes, Stanfast annex. Sleeps 3, HWS, shower, stove, fridge. $10,500ono. Ph: 02 4942 6233. IX
Trailer & Annex. Dual wheel with hydraulic brakes. Suit F/Ford, go karls or FA/ee. Fully fitted with bench, shelving, air
Over $1^500^000 worth of race cars^ trucks^ race
car trailers^ engines^ parts and 'others' in Motorsport News Classifieds each fortnight!
28AU0W9S Glenn Seton, Russell Ingall V8 fans to correspond with. Females preferred, but guys welcome. Write to: Rosemary Sutcliffe, 56 Grose St, Leura, NSW 2780. .35 Minilite wheels, 15', any width, Ford stud pattern. Also 15" ROH Pro Sprints, single or set. Ph: 07 4779 5009. .35 Model cars - Bbrum, Model Box. Onyx, Tamiya kits.
line beam, power points, lighting. $4,500. Ph: Peter 03 9563 8283 (BH), 03 9578 6172 (AH). 135 40ft arce pantech. Equipped with six bunks, workbench, tyre racks, winch, storage spaoe, registered. Fits two oars. $10,000. Ph: 02 4257 8060,0414 660 879. .35
Wanted
Ph: Andrew 02 4948 4472.
Escort Mk 1 rally car or club car. Ph 08 8344 3113 .36
.35
5462 2415,
with. Male or feamle. Write to Lynn-Maree, 1A Halbrooks Rd, Flinders Park SA 5025 .se
Motor mechanic Name your own wage. Licenced, experi enced professional required. Secure, long-term, well paid job available for the irght person. No travel involved. Ph Jim 02
135
complete, in VG condition. Also 'Automobile Year', Vols 16-32.
All serious offers considered. Greg (02) 42 377 503 Mob (0411) 244175. .36
Autosport mags 1973 to 1995. Complete 7 boxes taking up Magazines for sale. Old Wheels, Modern Motor, Racing Car News etc. Too numerous to mention. All must go! Best offer. Ph
Hot Wires 15x10, 14x9.5 or 9 HQ stud pattern. Ph:
Geoff 03 5593 1709. .35
08 8271 4055.
Speedcar rims and tyres s/h or new. Also, used
VR GpA Supercar front spoiler $400. Ph: 02 9545 0887 .35 Adelaide GP official posters, 1985 to 1992, solid block
part steering, shocks etc. Ph: 02 6242 6638, 02 6296
mounted, 70x90cm $600 the set. Also framed Bathurst poster
.34
1774, 0412 273 113.
4731 4457 .36
‘Motorsport’ magazines, (English) 1970-1996. Essentially
space. Ineed offers. Can deliver. Ph 0418 459 218 .36
Mags for Mazda - two 13x8, two 13x10. Ph: 07
Dick Johnson John Bowe and NASCAR fans to correspond
Other
.34
1987, $50. Ph: 0247334702.
.35
49
HRT race suit, $450 neg; Marlboro HOT directorsa chair, 84 Bathurst, $150; Mobil HDT jacket signed by Brock, $90; Dinkum Classic Brock road cars, 3 x VC, 1 x VK, 1 x VL, mint. Ph: 02 4822 4124 after 7pm. .35 Photographic equipment: Tamron 300mm f2.8 lens, Tokina
70-210 lens, Canon A1 body. Canon T-70 body, plus some acces sories. $2,300ono. May separate. Ph: John 02 9626 8954. 135 Imported VHS PAL motoring videos; 1. Worlds Fastest
Cars; 2. America's Fastest Cars; 3. 200mph Jaguar XJ220; 4. Lamborghini; 5. 1996 Sports Car World Review; 6. 1997 BTCC review; 7. 1997 Brit Rally Review. All original cond. $180 the lot. Ph: Anthony 0416116577. .35 Formula 1 races on video for sale or swap. Most races from 1987 to present. For details write to: F. Gordan, P.O. Box 751, Echuca, Vic 3564. .35
13
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50 VSeptsuibsrM
COIVIIVIENT On the ball
0) no_
—
them in Talk Converter.
Dear Sir,
NEWS
This is just a quick note of appre
Editorial
Sensational Superswede
ciation on behalf of Roman, om- ser vice crew of Brent and Liam and
Editor
myself to the Rally of Melbourne control officials, spectator mar shals, FIV and recovery crews on SS 2 - Sylvia Creek road. Everybody involved did a great job of looking after us at a difficult
D.avid HassaSI
Technical Editor
Tony Glynn Assistant Editor
Phil Branagan
time. They managed the situation effectively and got the car back on it’s wheels without any additional
Graphics Co-ordinator VIV Brumby
damage. Special thanks from me to Dr. Rose Shakirly (sic?) for doing a 760m sprint through the bush to help fix my neck (and completing
Advertising Advertising 7'lanager iGerald McDornan
Administration
numerous forms and administrivia
Managing Director
As positive as the experience was, we all hope that we’d don’t need to use your services next year - and thanks again for the big cheer when we went past on the Sunday.
Dear Sir,
Over the past few months Joe Send letters to Talk Conx-ener to PO Box 1010 North
Contacts S9 Onong Crescent
^Cauineld North VIC 3! 6 i
:
:'IPO Box 1010 Nonh Caulfield 3161)
:
Phone: 03 9527 7744-
Caujfiffl^^^
Vic 3161, our E-mail address, or fax to 03 9527 7766.
purchase of an historic car. I would also like to thank Jeremy Braithwaite, Reynard owner and HRSCA registrar, who became
my all-time favourite driver. To any readers unfortunate enough not to know of “Superswede,” do yourself a favour and get hold of some old Autocourse, Motorsport, or
Peterson. He remains, to this day, year, you had a story on Gerhard Berger’s retirement and in it was mentioned a new book that he has written.
aware of the situation before me
Is this available anywhere yet?
and warned the vendor (unfortu
No-one in Australia can seem to
Automobile Years and check out
nately too late) of their error.
find out anything about it - an author, or ISBN, would be great!! I don’t mean the Christopher Hilton book that was published a
the pictures of him at work - traly
Mike Meaney Woden, ACT
General: Mike Kable, Jon Thomson,
.Brian Reed. Darryl Flack FI: Joe Saward, Adam Cooper Europe: Quentin Spurring,
US: Bruce Smith, Phil Morris
j
NZ: John Flawkins
Paul Flintoft (Co-driver, Car 45) pflintoft@bankmelb. com. an
Dear Sir, That sensational Sports Sedan of Daryl Seidel that you featured in your last issue almost made me
Cut to the chase
weep.
More than 20 years ago. Sports Sedans were as up to the mark spec-wise as any other leading race cars in the world - but those days are gone and it breaks my heart to
-
Rounds, David lament, Chris Metcalf. Sue Hobson, Michael Attwell,
' ;
Tony Millard (UK), Darren O'Dea Rally: F’eter Wfiitlen, Jon Thomson Drag Racing: Gerald McDornan, Greg Ward, Jon Asher jUS/S),
;Dave Ostaszewski (U.SA), ;Nick Nicholas, Steven White, Ken Ferguson, Scott Jug Super Speedway: Martin Clark (USA),
as Historic race machines, a fact
Heathcote, NSW
ner, where the #05 Commodore, the
Dear Sir, I’m the proud owner of the Reynard Formula Ford used by
UBERACED... Maybe DCs mirrors weren't really the issue. (Tony Glynn)
Get it right
;
.Phil Williams, Mike Patrick (UK)
^ i
Wora'sport NlW P!>< lid ACN No 060 I79 928 | C Umb.'Jen (.MdnsigiriQ). D HasMIl. A Glynn ' Publisher:
:
Printed by:
Wilke CtTlor 3 7 A9 Browns Rd Ci,7yton .3168 Distributed by: NDD Lid
ifailihc-.-i by MOrOSSPOKT NEWS is j ●rooyr>g'n{ and rrkiy nor De reproduced :n full or in | Mater iai
oan v/iihout me v,TiUen permission of rhe ;
pulj!:<:ne'‘ r.'celance conicbuiions .?<ie welcome. | tt.rc while all care ‘will be faken, Australasian j :Mororspon News ?ry Ltd does nor accept : responsibility for damage or lc;ss of mareria! i
one!
sale in Adelaide.
On investigation, I found the Adelaide car to have been a reposses sion arising from a business failui-e. At this time, the car had already
Also, it was mentioned that at
Dear Sir,
Regarding your response to Jim Thorn
about
FI Cars do not.
$105
Oversc-Eis (Air Mail) New Zealand, PNG
ASi60
Malaysia, Indonesia
A$I70 AS 180
Europe
Perfect V8 support class
FI just isn’t the same without him. Congrats on a gi-eat magazine -1
Dear Sir, Two years ago, your paper made
would be lost without it.
quite a fuss about the relevance and affordability of the V8 Junior Tourer concept advanced by Brace
Keep up the bike news - would there be any chance of a poster of Blighty, or Marty Craggill? With or
that the advertising details provid ed to you were, in turn, offered to them by another party with an
Justin McGowan
Also, would you have an address
ASST ED: True, McCowan.
where I could write to Aaron and/or
There’s another difference too -
Marty Craggill?
interest in the sale.
CART cars pass each other.
I appreciate that your magazine acted in good faith and thank you for offering to print this letter. The situation certainly suggests that any of your readers should carefully research any claims made by vendors for any race car and very particularly those considering
Cate Cord-Udy clyde2828@hotmail.com
Gerhard the Great Dear Sir,
I am writing in the hope that you can help me, although most people tell me I am beyond help! Earlier this year, or late last
Lyall Leggett Fyansford, VIC
I adored Gerhard from when the Grand Prix first came to Adelaide -
without helmets, I don’t mind!!
been sold and the vendor claimed
Williams, an idea which he has relaunched through your pages recently. I hope you will continue to pro mote this excellent Williams-spec
V8 Supercar feeder class, as it would provide the ideal step up from Formula Ford before Touring
ASST ED: We don’t know of the
Cars - and also be most attractive
Gerhard Berger book you men tion, but the Technical Bookshop (03 9663 3951) should be able to help. And, as with all of Gerhard’s books, crayons are
to competitors not interested in ever arnning Tourers. L. Ti-ewenick
Mudgee, NSW
*
a
Subscriptions
US. Canada
differences
the book launch a video was played that highlighted Gerhard’s career is this available anywhere and, if so, what is it called? Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Elfin MS7 and March 73B are pic tured - and they were contempo raries of some of the old Sports Sedans that we see today. Come on you tight-fisted old farts, wake up and, at the very least, get some new panels on your battle wagons and look as good as Seidel.
'
. 'Recommended unci rnaximu/n price cniy.
Pdillipines, KK, Japan
the
between FI and Champ cars, I noticed something wasn’t quite right. It struck me that FI cars actually have a 3 litre engine and not 3.5 litre, which they were using up until a few years ago. Another major difference that you didn’t mention is the fact that Champ Cars arn on methanol and
Opinions expmsscKl m Woiorsport News are not j ,necesrarqyi.no.se o' /susrraiasianMotu'-spoftn«avs ● :i-ry l.rrt cr irs ]
j I yeiii' - 26 issui?i|
few years ago - I already have that
Tomas Mezera to win the 1985
Frank Midgley, John Bosher,
isubm.Uc'd
borne out on your Historic pages immediately prior to Seidel’s stun
R Green
Australian Championship. Bren Swanson, Grant Nicholas : 1 bought the car some time ago ■Karts: Ian Salvestrin, TMIan Roark, , ; and have nearly completed its Graeme Burns, Edward Krause restoration for use in Group R his Photographers. lAT, Dirk Klynsmith, toric competition. -Zoom Photographies.. Neil Hammond, ; You can imagine my surprise Nigel Snow'don & Diana Burnett, Brad Steele, Tony Glynn, . when I recently saw a Reynard, claimed to have been Tomas’ car, Thunder-Pics, Marshall Cass, ; Mike Harding, Brisbane Motorsport, ; advertised in your classifieds for
C ijmDclen
running around as ancient clubbies these days. Unfortunately, they now all rate
requested R Dennis to tell DC to
The real thing | ;
'HOTORSPORT NEWS X published by AustraUisisn
see those wonderful machines now
derkind and advise him that he had
slow down?
Speedway: Dennis Newlyn, David McNatab, Wracle Aunger, Geoff
Stephen Morris
Get real, you guys
Dear Sir, I have always agi'eed with Joe S ; - Michael is a spoilt bi'at. ; If he and his team are so good, why didn’t J Todt radio to the wun;
fantastic.
swmorris@c033.aone.net.au
-Conif5usefve: 100237.116S
Contributors
detractors, but I would like to pass on my thanks to Joe for taking the time to remember the late Ronnie
Fax: 03 9527 7766
Email: msnews@corpllnk.com.au
Saward has had his fair share of
The staff of Motorsport News does not necessarily agree with opinions express by readers.
afterwards).
Chris Lambden
AuStTEllM
extra. We’ll chase up those addresses for you and print
AS200 ASJiO
Fosi or fax lo address aPuve.
Bankcard, VIS7\ Masrercard. Ainex accepted
ADVERTISING WORKS. IT’S THAT SIMPLE!
Call Gerald McDornan on
03 9l»27 7744
I
0
By Barry Foley
Sidchrome Proto.
A powerful new partnership that makes our tools hard to beat.
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A grand partnership has been forged between two of the world's leading tool brands - Sidchrome of Australia and Proto of the U.S.A. The result is a sleek and comprehensive tool range which combines the legendary quality and durability of Sidchrome, with the cutting edge technology of Proto. Each Sidchrome Proto tool is so strong and advanced, it carries a lifetime replacement guarantee. Whatever the
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machine, Sidchrome Proto has the power and precision you need. Call 1800 338 002, or Melbourne callers 03 9450 9260.
You canna hand a man a grander spanner The Edge/SID018/MN/P Rev
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