Motorsport News Issue 258 - June 4-17, 2003

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news and opinion eliiil BIBI

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features i

race couerage

22 De Ferran drinks de Milk Penske dominates at the 87th Indy bOO 40 Same Old, Same Old This looks familiar - Ambrose thrashes the opposition (again) while the Stewards thrash Murf (again). All the action from Winton 48 Juan, da wall! Montoya’s briiliant Monaco GP ■WTsuBHwiHwni ran Irani 58 Ferrari in the Park Bowe gives them a flogging in nnnfTr Nations Cup

could RN^ONE^ miss n this? ^

SKAIFE^I

BUYSHBTdiita

Photos: Cover; Network 10 and sutton-images.com.

Contents: Dirk Klynsmith, sutton-images.

reguiars 20 Motorcycles

62 Rallying

64 NASCAR

66 Speedway

68 Drag Racing

70 Histories

72 National Scene

76 Marketplace 3

AVESCO

MARK Skaife has been confirmed as the new owner of the Holden Race Team.

Reversing the current trend away from drivers owning teams, the defending V8 Supercar champion has invested in his own post-racing future by agreeing terms with Holden to take over the front running organisation.

While the terms of the deal are being kept confidential, both parties insist that Skaife alone is the new owner and no third parties are involved.

The paperwork was presented to TEGA late on the deadline day, Sunday June 1, and must be ratified by the teams' organisation before becoming final. Holden and Skaife made a joint announcement at a hastily convened media conference on Monday.

While TEGA is likely to take two to three weeks to discuss the move - its next board meeting is after this week's Perth V8 round - officials are suggesting there is little likelihood of any objection, if the paperwork is in order.

"As a former board member and someone with obvious business acumen, Mark would seem to have all the right

credentials to take this on," AVESCO chief Wayne Cattach commented on Monday.

Although insisting that the application would follow normal processes, despite the sale being announced immediately, TEGA boss Kelvin O'Reilly expressed similar sentiments to those of Cattach.

In making the announcement, Holden motor sport chief Ray Borrett confirmed that, in addition to his recently signed five-year driving deal, he and Skaife had now negotiated a 10-year sponsorship support commitment for HRT under Skaife's ownership.

Skaife will acquire the whole HRT package - the TEGA franchises and all the team's current assets.

For his part, Skaife acknowledged the challenge involved in combining team ownership with driving, but insists that, with the help of a commercial manager to take care of non-racing matters, it can be done.

"The big plus is that we already have a great bunch of guys. This isn't starting from scratch," he told MNews (see Five Minutes with Mark Skaife, page 30).

V8 Supercar body calls for judicial review - but it's too iate to fix Winton

by CHRIS LAMBDEN THE drive-through penalty given to Greg Murphy at the Winton V8 round has received widespread condemnation,from media and race fans, while race officials continue to justify it.

Murphy was penalised after crunching into the rear of Craig Lowndes's Falcon at Winton's fast left-hand sweeper during the Winton 300. Most observers believe contact was unavoidable and unintentional, with Lowndes unexpectedly braking to limit damage as the CAT Falcon slid wide across the road.

TV commentator and experienced racer Neil Crompton has led the charge, backed by an unprecedented flood of support for Murphy in the form of emails and messages to MNews,AVESCO, Network 10 and Murphy's website,from race fans.

If nothing else, the incident looks likely to motivate a review of the 'instant justice' judicial process that led to the penalty.

AVESCO Chairman Wayne Cattach confirmed this week that he and TEGA chairman Kelvin O'Reilly would meet with CAMS officials and stewards in Perth, to discuss the issues coming out of the Winton incident.

"There's no doubt the Winton

Murphy incident has created a reaction - thanks mainly to the TV commentary team - and led us to take a look at the processes involved," said Cattach.

Highest on the agenda may well be a to date un-implemented recommendation of O'Reilly's 2002 report into the judicial system, which suggests that 'instant justice' drive through penalties only be used where there is "incontrovertable evidence" of wrongdoing. Any incidents not clear cut would be the subject of post race analysis and discussion, enabling the drivers to be involved.

Such a path would take the pressure off Stewards and AVESCO's Driving Standards Observer, Colin Bond, to mete out instant justice rmder time pressure.

"It's difficult," continued Cattach, "because we also don't want to get to the stage where race results are being changed significantly after races. It's a tricky balance." hi the meantime, both Murphy and Crompton,in separate MNews interviews elsewhere in tills issue, remain adamant that the penalty decision was badly wrong.

"Neither driver has done anything wrong," Crompton surmnarised.

"This is what is loosely referred to as a racing incident"(see Five Minutes with Neil Crompton, page 28),

Cromley speaks his mind ONE of the more interesting sideshows of what happened at- and after - Winton is the amount of finger-pointing that has been levelled at Neil Crompton.

The Network 10 commentator and former V8

Supercar racer has been criticised by many in motorsport(including some prominent officials) for speaking out regarding the decision of the Driving Standards Observer Colin Bond and the Series stewards at Winton.

One official even suggested that the "whole matter was a media beat-up",inferring that it was instigated by Crompton during the broadcast of the race.

Crompton did speak strongly on the matter; after 4

the Murphy/Lowndes contact, he said; Poor old Craig. This is a weird one and everyone involved is going to be hating it.

What happened is that Craig got sideways. He (Murphy) did make contact but it was only after Craig got crossed up. The car stepped wide and Murphy had nowhere to go.

Later, when the commentators foimd out about Murphy's drive-through penalty; Now Murphy's been given a drive-through (penalty).

I actuallyfind that hard tofathom.

Later, during replays; Now, the only thing that I can imagine is that the stewards think that the second part of the incident luas avoidable but, having been around that part of the track

IS trillion times, I can tell yon that there's nothing Murphy could have done about that, 1 really don't.

The brake lights just came on. What else is the bloke supposed to do? Craig can't do much, he's doing his best to control the car. 1 reckon it's a prethj questionable decision.

Then, after Bond's explanation; One hundred and 10 percent wrong, Colin Bond. We will buy you a television, maybe a colour one, so you can see red brake lights coming on the preceding car and Tin telling you that is 110 percent wrong.

This is one ofthe worst, if not THE ivorst, stewards' decisions I have ever seen. Garth Wigston, Peter Svensson, Keith Mackay and Colin Bond, hang your heads in shame. motorsport news

NEWS

Mk I and Mk II? LAST issue, we told you that Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall were in the frame to share a single Stone Brothers Racing Falcon BA in the endurance races. Well, we hear that while it's not yet a done deal, it's getting more and more likely by the day. Who does that leave in the second SBR car? Bank on Mark Winterbottom; but that's not the hard part. We believe that his co-driver will be Mark Noske ... that's what the grapevine is suggesting, although Ross Stone says that nothing is yet confirmed with regard to SBR's two additional drivers.

■ AVESCO versus Calder, Part III. The recent legal squabble between the two over Calder's unpaid V8 race sanction fees and the subsequent placing of Calder's promotions company into liquidation has a sequel. AVESCO's Tony Cochrane has suggested that to retrieve the reputed $250,000 shortfall, sanction fees to other promoters will rise in 2004 and that promoters will also be required to pay in advance, "if they (the promoters) have a problem with that, then they should address it to Bob Jane," Cochrane told MNews.

■ The Winton rumour mill took a turn two weeks ago. Pit lane murmurs suggested that Tony Longhurst will be drafted back into the Holden Racing Team for the endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst. The 46-year-old Queenslander is apparently set to be re-united with 2001 winning co-driver, Mark Skaife. Presumably, now that he owns the team, Skaifey can choose anyone he wants ...

■ Former Bathurst winner Tomas Mezera has been appointed the Driving Standards Observer for the remainder of the Australian Carrera Cup Series.

Kmart Racing Teeming: Even if the vast majority of public outcry indicates that Murfgot it in the soft parts from the stewards, there is nothing TEGA, CAMS or AVESCO can do about redressing the matter after the fact.

Could/should Murph be reinstated?

WHILE there seems to be provision for the post-race docking of time (as applied to Russell Ingall in Adelaide), there seems to be no allowance for the reverse.

There seems little prospect, therefore of Greg Murphy regaining the time lost on-track due to the drive-through penalty handed out to him.

Race data shows it cost Murph some 28 seconds.

4 June 2003

Removing that from his race time would move the Kmart teamster from 14th to fifth.

He remains doubtful that anything wil l be done to redress the injustice - but at least thankful that it appears to have motivated a review: "If things do improve, then it's been ... not completely worthwhile, but it has had its merits," he told MNews (see page 35).

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■ Joint Carrera Cup series leader Marcus Marshall may set into a Formula 4000 car at the next round of the series at Phillip Island on July 6.

■ Add this up: latest from the PROCAR rumour file suggests that the Monaro currently being piloted by Peter Brock in the series will line up for the Bathurst 24 Hours with Brock, Larry Perkins and Jim Richards to drive. Count the Bathurst wins there, punters...

■ Pineapple donuts all around!

Donut King has signed on as seasonlong sponsor of the Nations Cup. After dipping its toe in the water at Symmons Plains everyone's favourite sugar hit will be on board for all remaining rounds. Gee, maybe we will even get to see their stunt riders are their events ... maybe not.

5

Franchise moves Team Brock, Kmart to buy Lis

THERE is about to be a substantial change in the franchises of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.

As part of the shakeup in Holden's ownership of the former TWR Racing, the John Faulkner Racing Level 1 licences, which are currently utilised by the Kmart Racing Team to run the entries of Greg Murphy and Rick Kelly, will be sold to either Team Brock principal Kees Weel to run his team or to John Kelly to run KRT.

The 'losing' bidder is likely to buy the two Level 1 licences currently used by 00 Motorsport, which will downsize to a single car entry using a yetto-be-settled Level 2 licence.

"It's a little up in the air," said Faulkner this week. "We will sell the licences to whoever Holden nominates. My number one

priority now is the Holden Young Lions program, to which I am committed. It's a long-term thing with Holden and I am very comfortable with my situation."

There has been a great deal of interest in licences, particularly Level 1, which give a far greater return to their holders from TEGA. With the recent changes of ownership and expansion in teams, a two-car Level 1 franchise has a market value of around $2 million.

Faulkner also confirmed recent speculation that some other Level 1 team were looking to expand and had inquired about buying his licences. While he would not name names, MNews believes that one twocar Level 1 team was looking for an extra licence and that Level 2 competitor David Thexton is looking to 'upgrade'.

- PHIL BRANAGAIM

Stones/M iiW

In the Main

THE first AVESCO Eventspromoted V8 Supercar round was officially launched in Sydney last week.

Dubbed The VIP Petfoods Main Event', the event scheduled for November 28-30 at Eastern Creek - will feature a 150km race on the Saturday and a 250km final on Sunday.

Interestingly, the grid will be decided by a full-field shootout, with the running order to be based upon a lottery.

Spectators will be catered for with five giant screens and a "spectacular pre-event build up and parade"

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i

Enduro seats filling

Ricciardello, Luffand Leahey head for Sandown, Bathurst

DICK Johnson Racing has unveiled its 2003 endurance line-up for the Sandown 500 and Bob Jane T-Marts 1000 at Bathurst.

Regular drivers Steven Johnson and Max Wilson will be split, with reigning V8 BRutes Champion Warren Luff joining Junior Johnson.

DJR Konica steerer Tony Ricciardello will suit up alongside team newcomer Wilson.

Luff, who finished 15th at Bathurst last year with Cameron McConville in the Lansvale squad,says he is well pleased with his enduro seat.

6

"I've been knocking on the door for a Bathurst drive with a level one team for some time now so to see it come to fruition is awesome," Luff said.

Ricciardello, currently 10th in the Konica points standings, will be a perfect-match for his Brazilian co driver, as both are roughly the same stature.

Filing the vacant seat at Lansvale Smash Repairs Racing is young Porsche star Tim Leahey. The New South Welshmen will test with the team later this month at Eastern

Creek and is happy with his new enduro home.

"It's obviously good news," said the 26-year-old."Cameron is a very good, experienced driver. We've always got along well and I hope we can get a result."

- GRANT ROWLEY

The Rock Dog and Dyno: Warren Luff and DJR's Dave 'Dyno'Johnson get familiar at Winton last month.

'rfv4.

': ^ motorsport news

Wi

tsubishi linked

EXCLUSIVE: Could Ford lose Its top V8 Supercar team?

by PHIL BRANAGAN

JUST when it looks like Ford has turned the tables in V8 Supercar racing, it appears that the very instrument of the Blue Oval's turnaround. Stone Brothers Racing, may not necessarily have a long term future with the manufacturer.

The potential entry of Mitsubishi into the V8 Supercar fray continues to gain momentum behind the scenes, with strong rumours this week that the company has initiated discussions with SBR. The company's timing would seem to be immaculate, coming at a point where,in last issue's MNews interview,SBR driver Russell Ingall confirmed some frustration within the team's ranks at the modest level of support from Ford when compared to its investment in Ford Performance Racing.

It also comes at a time when SBR's contract with Ford is coming up for renewal.

AVESCO's requirements for a new manufacturer's entry include a minimum of two two-car teams in the first year. Mitsubishi is thought to be close to committing to a V8 Supercar program for 2005 and would, in all likelihood, need a full year to set up one team, design and construct at least h\"0 cars and test them, prior to a

Made in Adelaide?

Could we see Marcos Ambrose, left, and Russell Ingall in Mitsubishi Magna V8 Supercars in 2005?

CBR Pbotocrphic

second team coming on stream.

While rumours have linked former team owner Fred Gibson and one or two other current teams with Mitsubishi, the company will need two top teams- and SBR is an obvious target.

One potential sticking point for a Mitsubishi/SBR alliance is the contract status of current drivers Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall.

Both are under contract not only to the team but also to Ford, and both commitments are long-term. A contract buy-out could be an expensive undertaking. A year before they agreed on a deal for 2003 and beyond,SBR and Ingall discussed the chance of racing together in 2002, the sticking point being the cost of buying out Ingall's contract with his then-team, Castrol Perkins Racing.

On the other hand, Mark Winterbottom has a contract only with SBR and the Konica V8 Supercar Series leader is quite likely to be ready to move to the 'big time' in 2005.

While there are no verifiable

figures relating to the amount of sponsorship that SBR gets from Ford, it is well-known in the industry that it is modest in comparison with the amount Ford is spending with Ford Performance Racing. Ford's spend with SBR has been described to MNews by one Ford insider as "in the ones", ie, in the bracket of $lm$2m. It is thought to be slightly less than the level of investment in Dick Johnson's team.

If that is true, SBR may well have little trouble in sourcing significant backing from Mitsubishi, considering the investment required to 'start up' with new hardware. The cost would not be that prohibitive; under Project Blueprint, a wide number of components for the team's Falcon BAs would be almost directly transferable to a Magna V8 Supercar - diffs, suspension, wheels, Holinger gearboxes, electronics, to name a few.

The team would however have to start a new engine program, based around Dodge's T7 NASCAR unit modified for V8 Supercar regulations.

Winton timing SNAFU to stewards THERE will be a stewards' hearing at Barbagallo Raceway this week over the premature end to the first qualifying session at Winton Raceway's V8 Supercar round last month.

The first Saturday session, for the slower 50 percent of the field, was brought to an end 3m16s early due to a malfunction in the timing system. After the group of cars left the track, the 'faster' cars temporarily took their places

out on the pit apron.

But that group of cars had to be pushed back and the slower group resumed qualifying after the timing error was realised.

V8 Supercar Series stewards Garth Wigston and Peter Svensson investigate the matter during the course of the Winton weekend and will consult with V8 Supercar Championship Series Race Director Tim Schenken over the incident in Perth.

- PHIL BRANAGAN

!

I

NEWS

Melbourne on Cleland Alert WE Were Right Dept; As we reported last issue, OzEmail Racing confirmed its endurance lineup at Winton, with Andrew Jones suiting up alongside everyone's favourite bloke in a kilt, John Cleland. While Andy, Brad Jones and John Bowe are all well familiar with Sandown, Cleland has never raced at the Melbourne track and will be making his Victorian debut at the Melbourne 500. n We Were Wrong Dept: A keen eyed reader (smart alec) has alerted us to the fact that the V8 Supercar Championship Series preview we ran in February ran the caption, "Will Murf cop it out of habit? With the new system in place this year, no."

Oooppps. n Jason Bright ran LG on the front of his Team Brock Commodore VX at Winton for the first time this season.

Brighty did have a clashing sponsorship deal with Sony WEGA televisions but the matter has been sorted and everyone is happy. Life is Good. n The two Ford Mustang racecars run two years ago by Prancing Horse Racing will return to the PROCAR series this season.

Long-time Sports Sedan identity Jeff Munday had purchased the cars, which he will run from his New South Wales base. The 5-litre cars are expected to run in the Group 2 class of Nations Cup. n On the horizon for GT Performance are at least three new Ford Falcon BA GTs. Apart from Team Yamaha (now renamed Team GT) running a car, former Prancing Horse team manager Paul Cruickshank is understood to be building two Barras in conjunction with Peter Beehag. No details yet on drivers for the 5.4-litre quad-cam cars. n Greg Murphy has been inducted into the Motorsport New Zealand Hall of Fame. The 30-year-old Kmart Racing pilot joins countrymen Denny Hulme, Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon, Jim Richards and Possum Bourne, among others, in the exclusive group.

"I thought I was too young!" exclaimed Murf at a function in Auckland last month. "I am very honoured. It was a bit of a shock." n Speaking of The Murf, we would not be that surprised to see his Carrera Cup team show up at the 24 Hour. Seems Greg and co-owner and dad Kevin are looking to bring a USAbased Porsche 011 GT3 RS Bathurstside for the twice around the clock race, TBA drivers. Murf versus Garth and Brock for the win in the last hour of the race? We would be happy with that. .

7

Back to

by JOE SAWARD

RENAULT Sport confirmed last week that it is going to build a more conventional VIO engine, moving away for the wide-angled unit which has been used in recent years.

The wide-angled engine created a number of technical problems, notably with crankshaft vibration that meant that the engine could not be revved as high as some of the rival engines. The engine also had problems with airflow into the cylinders and with acoustic issues which deprived the team of torque.

The decision to switch to a more

£

that the chassis team will have to challenge for a World Championship The problem for Renault is that Gascoyne and probably some of his lieutenants have been offered very large sums of money to join Toyota. It is well-known that the Toyota engine is pretty powerful but the team has struggled badly with its chassis design and Toyota wants to solve the problem as quickly as possible and hiring Gascoyne and some of his crew would achieve that goal in time for the 2005 car, It is rumoured tliat the offer to Gascoyne is US$6.5m ($10m)a year.

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conventional engine is very late in the day, given that the new engine is needed in January next year.

In a Renault press release recently, the now-departed Jean-Jacques His indicated that it takes Renault 18 months to design and build a completely new engine. The implication in this is that corners will have to be cut and our sources that this will be achieved by Renault Sport engineers starting out with the 2000 Renault engine, which was raced as a Supertec.

Of course the design of the engine will be similar to the design used on the engines from the 2000 season,' said Renault's veteran engine boss Bernard Dudot,"but they will be completely new," The current trend in FI is for engine manufacturers to use 90degree angled engines in order to lower the centre of gravity without going to too wide an angle.

It looks as though the 2004 season will be rather a difficult one as a result but Renault is already working on tlie 2005 engine as well and it is likely that this could follow the trend towards a 90-degree engine.

"There is a group working on the 2004 engine and another group has started on the RS25 for 2005," said Dudot.

Tlie big question about tlie new engine is whether or not it is going to be an attractive proposition for the Renault Sport design staff, who are already frustrated at having to use under-performing engines. Mike Gascoyne was hired from Jordan in 2000 to build a competitive chassis and the aim was to have a competitive engine as well but the wide-angled concept failed and tlie timing seems to suggest that tlie 2004 engine is not going to be fully competitive. The 2005 season will be the first chance

fM

and maybe a second Ren

THERE has been talk on and off for some time about the possibility of manufacturers running secondary teams in order to keep up the numbers in Formula 1 - and to add to their own political power.

These operations would be used to cut development costs and get rid of small independent F1 organisations that have enormous power, thanks to the clauses that exist within the Concorde Agreement. There has been a trend in recent years to try to insist that the smaller teams sign over their voting rights to engine suppliers.

It was interesting to note in Monaco that when Renault Sport boss Patrick Faure started

talking about customer engine supplies, he made it very clear that the French car company would “probably want to be not only a supplier but a partner of the second team" in order to try out young drivers and engineers.

There have even been hints that Renault may be moving down that path with the old Arrows factory at Leafield. The involvement in the FI business

by Menard Cheever Technologies is a rather mysterious move, given that Cheever's sponsor in the Indy Racing League is Red Bull, a company which wants to own a Formula 1 team with a strong US flavour.

The suggestion is that Renault would be interested in using such a team to make a bigger impact in the US markets via its partner Nissan's offshoot Infiniti, which supplied the engines to Cheever recently in the Indy Racing League. Red Bull has always said that it wants a US manufacturer behind its Ft plans and Infiniti would fit the bill In this respect.

We have heard one interesting suggestion which is that the recent purchase by Menard Cheever of TWR Engines from the receivers of the TWR Group resulted in a very quick turnaround, with the operation being sold almost immediately to Renault, which moiorspon news

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NEWS

Leanne Ferrier, that’s who GARTH Tander is a certainty for the 24 Hour, we hear that long-time partner Leanne Ferrier is going to drive in the upcoming Queensland Raceway round of the PROCAR series. With Rick Bates busy at the Queensland ARC event, Leanne will don the RPMs and pilot his regular Daihatsu Charade in the Production Car events at the Paperclip. n Wakefield Park certainly drew in the spectators for the third round of the PROCAR series last weekend.

The raceday crowd of 12,700 is believed to be the biggest ever for the track.

ALTHOUGH all the indications that there no deals on offer at Ferrari in 2004, as Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello are going to be staying on,there is talk of the team looking to the future with Juan Pablo Montoya and Felipe Massa.

Massa is no surprise as he has been a Ferrari protege from the start and there are suggestions that having spent this year calming down as the Ferrari test driver, it would be logical for the Brazilian to get back to racing next year. The most logical course of action would be for Massa to go back to Sauber to keep up his racing experience while also helping Sauber out with its engine bills, as the Swiss team would inevitably wish for money to run Massa, Sauber is thought likely to replace at least one of its drivers

wanted to set up an English engine shop in Enstone. We have heard that the money raised by Menard in this trartsaction was immediately reinvested in buying the Leafield factory once owned by Arrows.

Having said that, there are also stories of other possible combinations, not least one that has hinted that Menard Cheever Technologies may end up designing a new IRL engine for Chevrolet, as the current unit has not been a success. John Menard is close to General Motors and an associate of GM boss Rick Wagoner Jr. - JOE SAWARD 4 June 2003

next year. It is also thought possible that Neel Jani could get into team if he tests well as Sauber learned a long time ago that the best thing is to have young drivers, as they are both cheap and fast and can be sold on to others.

The other rumours would seem to indicate that Ferrari is sniffing around Juan Pablo Montoya. He has a Williams contract which is due to run until the end of 2004 or 2005 but he would probably jump at the chance of driving for Ferrari.

There have also been rumours suggesting that Toyota might be willing to drop Olivier Panis in order to take on Jacques Villeneuve. Whether these rumours have any credibility or not is the interesting question or whether they are being used to exert pressure on other dealings.

- JOE SAWARD

W ‘ ./

V '1

i Future team-mates? Current Ferrari test driver Felipe Massa, left, and Monaco Grand Prix winner Juan Pablo Montoya are under consideration from the Scuderia outfit. ,

n Jim Richards's seventh Targa Tasmania win recently was the first for Michelin in the event- despite puncturing a tyre on the prologue.

After repairs to the front hoop to avoid a two-minute penalty for replacing a tyre, Richards's Porsche ran on Michelin's latest Pilot Sport Cup rubber in the road rally, which combined dry and wet running.

Richards ran the tyres in the recent Rally Tasmania as well. n Coleman/Dutton Racing team mates Matt Coleman and James Dutton welcomed new sponsors to their Carrera Cup cars at Winton last month. Fubu clothing and Qbar helped the fledging outfit at the rural circuit. n Formula Ford rookie Michael Trimble sported a new sponsor at Winton. King Springs joined the Sonic Motorsport driver, which coincided with Trimble's best performance of the year, fourth overall. n Who will be the new namingrights sponsor of NASCAR? We hear that, following the end of recent talks for McDonalds to take over from Winston for the 'Cup' cars, the favourite to take over the US$60 ($90m) million a year deal is now Visa. Sounds good, especially if the drivers can pay their fines on credit card ... n Backing up earlier reports in MNews comes the announcement that Skea Racing will apparently run David Brabham and Johnny Mowlem in the final three rounds of the FIA NGT Championship this year. Mowlem, however, may be forced to skip the final round due to a clash with Petit Le Mans. The program is thought to be a warm-up for a Bathurst 24 Hour attempt, ahead of either a full FIA GT or ALMS campaign in 2004. n Andy Priaulx warmed up for his annual Bathurst pilgrimage by winning a round of the ETCC in Brno recently. Priauix's BMW squeezed past his team-mate Fabrizio Giovanardi to clinch a first overseas win.

9

ten home of motorsport] 2003 V8 Supercar Championship* June 8 ... .Barbagailo

.Rd5

Jun 29 ....Hidden Valley

.Rd6

Jul 20

.Rd7

QLD Raceway

Aug 17 .. .Oran Park

.Rd8

Sep 14 ...Sandown Oct 12 Bathurst

.Rd 10

.Rd9

Oct 26

Surfers Paradise

.Rd11

Nov 9

Pukekohe

.Rd12

2003 Konica V8 Series’ July 6 ... .Phillip Island

.Rd4

Aug 3

.Rd5

Winton

Aug 30 ...Mallaia Oct 11 Bathurst

Hero for Zeroes?

Brock test drives Pirellis on Nations Cup Monaro

THERE could be a rubber change in the wind for the two-car Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden Monaro team.

While Nathan Pretty's yellow 427 ran on Dunlops all weekend at Wakefield Park, Peter Brock practiced his red car on Pirelli P Zeroes, and raced on them in the second and third races at the Goulburn track.

.Rd6

Brock was pleased with the results

.Non Chamiwonship

though he had one eye, obviously, on long-distance rather than sprint

2003 FIA Formula One

performance.

Championship* Jun 15 ... .Montreal ....

"It took a while to get the .rdS

temperatures up," he said."We chose

Germany ..

,Rd9

a compound that was pretty hard.

,Rd10

They are not a great'green' tyre.

Jul 20

Magny Cours Silverstone .

,Rd 11

"If the track temps came up a bit,

Aug 3

..Hockenheim

.Rd12

they might be the thing to have. At

Aug 24 ...Hungaroring ,

.rd13

Jun 29 Jul 6

2003 CART Championship* .Rd7

Jun 15 Monterey Jun 22 ... .Portland

,Rd8

2003 IRL Championship* RdS Texas Jun 7

Queensland Raceway,they might be good. Nathan was on softer Dunlops and they were the things (to have) here.

"They (the Pirellis) might be a good 24 Hour tyre though ..."

Pretty's cars runs with Dunlop signage on it while Brock has none on his, no doubt because of the fact that

Jun 15 .. .Pikes Peak

RdS

Jun 28

Richmond

Rd7

Jul 6

Kansas

Rd8

he has a promotional contract with

2003 MotoGP Championship* .Rd5 Jun 8 .Italy

Bridgestone, driving for a Dunlop

Bridgestone. In fact, the 'face' of

.Rd6

Jun 15 Jun 28

Catalunya Assen

.Rd7

Jul 13

Donnington Park

.Rd8

2003 World Rally Championship* ..Greece jun 22

Cyprus

July 27 ...Germany :

team, on Pirelli tyres, is one of those things that is just too good to miss ...

-PHIL BRANAGAN

And today, we will go Italian; Peter Brock's Monaro, shod with Pirelli P Zeroes, awaits Race 3 at Wakefield Park. Is this a pointer to the 24 Hour?

a

5S .Rd6

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2003 Australian Rally

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Jul 6

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Jun 13 Jul 11

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home of motorsport All event dales in this calendar were correct at the time of printing. Please consult any individual tracks and/or associations for date changes.

Series or events telecast on Network Ten are I

^

marked with an asterisk. Check your local guides for screening details.

SWM, has Ferrari^ seeks same: Bowe may have some company in the PHR stable at Mount Panorama.

More Prancing. More Horses

LOOK for four entries in the Bathurst 24 Hour race from Scuderia PHR. The Maher Algadri-owned team lodged its entries for the November twice-around-the-clock saga at Wakefield Park last weekend, with the Melbourne-based team expected to run two Ferrari 360 GTs, its Porsche 911 GT3 and another car.

It wi l l be a big commitment for the team, which ran John Bowe to victory and a solid points lead in the Nations Cup races at Goluburn last weekend. Algadri is expected to appear in the team's second 360 GT at Queensland Raceway next week, though the driving squad for the other entries for Bathurst are still to be sorted.

- PHIL BRAIMAGA6M motorsport news

NEWS

Maserati Gp N on hold

MASERATI'S plans to field a car in the Bathurst 24 Hour may come to nought.

The development of the firm's Group N Trofeo has halted, at least temporarily, in Italy. It seems that the company, which is linked to Ferrari, has decided that the Ferrari 360 GT will carry the corporate flag in GT racing, leaving the Maserati brand represented only in its own onemake championship - and, perhaps, the DTM Championship.

Rod Wilson, who is heading the effort to get the car to Australia, said at Wakefield Park last weekend that time was running out for a decision in time to run the car at Bathurst in November.

"Ideally, we would like to know by now," said Wilson. "We would need to have the plans in place soon; hopefully, by the end of the week, we will know one way or the other."

Carroll Smith CARROLL Smith,a racing driver and engineer who became a best selling author with his books about how to go about building a racing career, has died at his home in California.

A Texan by birth. Smith began racing an MG sportscars while at university in New York state. He then joined the US Navy and was posted to Pensacola in Florida where he competed in the late 1950s in local sportscar events.

In 1960 he moved to Europe and raced single-seaters, winning a

Formula 3 race for Cooper in Italy after a startling drive through the field. While in Europe Smith realised that he was not good enough to make it to the top of the sport and so turned his attention more to engineering, working as a tyre engineer with Goodyear.

At the end of 1964 he was hired by Carroll Shelby to be team manager of the GT40 racing program which Shelby had taken over from John Wyer. The team was a great success and in 1966 won the Le Mans 24 Hours with Chris Amon and Bruce

Alejandro de Tomaso ALEJANDRO de Tomaso,a colourful Argentine racer and businessman, who went into business against Ferrari and Lamborghini, has died at the age of 76.

The company remains active although it has been run in recent years by de Tomaso's wife and son. He was aIso briefly the owner of Maserati and kept the firm alive until it was purchased from him by FIAT in 1993.

The son of an Argentine government minister, one of the leading politicians in the 1920s, de Tomaso was only five when his father died but as his mother was the heiress of one of Argentina's oldest agricultural fortunes he grew up in luxury. His father had been a radical politician and de Tomaso followed in his footsteps, and in the early 1950s fell foul of the regime of Juan Peron who had taken power in a military coup in 1943.

While building up a racing career, he was also an outspoken critic of Peron in articles which he wrote for the Clarion newspaper. In 1955 he was involved in an attempt to overthrow Peron and was forced the flee the country, flying his own plane to nearby Uruguay. He then went to Europe to continue his racing career.

Peron was overthrown later that year but the country remained in the hands of the military and so de Tomaso stayed in Europe where he met and married an

4 June 2003

McLaren driving.

He later moved into Formula 5000 and masterminded Tony Adamowicz's championship winning program.

He came to Australia in the late 1970s, masterminding Allan Moffat's 1-2 finish at Bathurst in 1977 with Colin Bond,Jacky Ickx and Alan Hamilton, while continuing to do engineering projects for clients such as the Ferrari FI car.

Smith was recently diagnosed with cancer.

-JOE SAWARD

American heiress Isabelle Haskell. Having raced with some success for Maserati and OSCA,de Tomaso decided to set up his own business in 1959 and built a Formula 2 car. This was follow'ed by an FI car but it was not a success and in the mid-1960s the company concentrated on building road cars.

The breakthrough was made in 1966 with the Mangusta and, after Ford took a stake in the company, the Pantera. While the Pantera was being prepared, de Tomaso decided to return to FI and Giampaolo Dallara designed a Formula 2 which was raced with some success by Jacky Ickx and Piers Courage.

The performance was enough to convince FI team owner Frank Williams to do a deal with De Tomaso for 1970 and the Cosworth-engined car was very promising m the hands of Piers Courage. But at the Dutch GP Courage crashed and was killed and the team lost its way and its motivation.

At the end of the year de Tomaso went back to production cars and after his alliance w'ith Ford broke u p he bought Maserati in 1975. Attempts to revive the famous marque were not very successful but the firm remained in de Tomaso's hands until after he suffered a stroke in 1991.

-JOE SAWARD

Tommy and Bobby and Brno FERRARI'S 550 took a fourth FIA GT win in a row as Thonnas Biagi and Matteo Bobbi won at Brno last month. The opening hour of the race was dominated by the Konrad Motorsport Saleen, but amateur driver Toni Seiler couldn't match the pace of star driver Jean-Marc Gounon and the American car dropped away, promoting Biagi to victory. n Bathurst 24 Hour boss Brian Lawrence had a successful visit to the UK to talk to possible entrants, before jetting off to the Nurburgring 24 Hours. Morgan, TVR and Chevrolet teams were all in the queue to talk to Lawrence who is confident of a bigger entry for this year's epic. n Former British F3 Scholarship Class winner Gary Paffett has signed for the Mercedes DTM team.

Although Paffett still has FI ambitions, he is looking to restart his career through the DTM after his F3000 season collapsed. n Rickard Rydell is to end his 10year association with Volvo at the end of the season. The Swede, currently driving on loan for ART Engineering in the ETCC, has stated that he wants a manufacturer seat next year. "I can't see Volvo returning as a factory," he said, "and so I will be looking for another manufacturer." n Maserati is considering a DTM project The Italian marque has launched the Trofeo Maserati this season in Europe, supporting two Grands Prix, and is eyeing up a programme in the FIA GT Championship next season. Now, Maserati suits are considering entering the DTM, which would be welcomed by DTM bosses who have just three manufacturers. n Michael Schumacher's step brother could be an ETCC driver soon. Sebastian Stahl, son of Rolf Schumacher's second wife, is currently in the Alfa Romeo 147 Cup in Germany and is talking to Nordauto about an ETCC drive. n Martin Short's Mosler team is heading to Spa in July for the 24 Hours. Although not eligible for the FIA GT Championship, Short's car will run in the invitation class, with Martin and Tom Herridge amongst the drivers. n Guy Smith has joined the UK Ferrari team, Maranello Concessionaires for the Spa 24 Hours in July. Smith will switch from his Le Mans Bentley drive to the NGT Ferrari in July.(DAI 11

Itjust never

MobH-VC

by JOE SAWARD

Kimi you can drive my car McLaren ran the new MP4-18 last week at Paul Ricard, deliberately playing down the lap times and revealing that the new car will not be rushed into racing.

The team says that the car will not race until the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring at the end of June.

This may seem surprising, but in the circumstances is not a bad idea given that Monaco is not a good place to run a new car and the logistics of trying to run a trio of new cars in Canada could cause problems.

This decision means that the team will have a full month to test the new car and build up sufficient spares to be ready for the debut.

McLaren says that it has been sufficiently impressed with the performance of the current MP4-17D not to need to hurry with the riew car and managing director Martin Whitmarsh claimed last week that although the new Ferrari F2003 GA is a good car, it “hasn’t moved the game on significantly as far as we can see".

The MP4-18 was built around the Mercedes-Benz FO 110P V10, which was purpose-built for

We've got a new car and a swagger to go with it: McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh and Ron Dennis

the car after lengthy consultation between McLaren designers and Mercedes-llmor and MercedesBenz engineers.

The car follows the trend set

by Ferrari as being a much smaller car than its predecessor with the main thrust being on aerodynamic efficiency but also attention having been paid to the way in which Michelin tyres work with the chassis.

- JOE SAWARD

THERE looked like being a showdown in Monte Carlo between the car manufacturers and the FIA over how Formula 1 is run.

The car manufacturers have been threatening to start a rival championship to Formula 1 in 2008, when the current Concorde Agreement ends.

The FIA argues that the car manufacturers are the wrong people to be nmning the business,and at Monaco issued a chronology of manufacturer involvement in Grand Prix racing, illustrating how the car companies have entered and withdrawn from the sport over the years.

"The car industry is a welcome and valuable parhdpant in Formula 1," said Mosley,"but Grand Prix racing is not the industry's core business and no car company can be expected to maintain a constant presence.

"Those who think that Formula 1 has no need for independent teams and can rely entirely on the big car companies should perhaps consider the chronology."

The defence of the small teams has been one of Mosley's themes in recent months and he has been pushing hard for engine deals to be sensibly priced to enable operations like Minardi,Jordan and Sauber to survive. The manufacturers recently agreed to supply teams for US$10m in exchange, although the actual wording of the deal was engines at "a fully affordable cost having regard to the current business climate".

Very quickly car companies began

to say that they would not do it.

BMW was followed by Toyota, Honda,Ford and at Monaco Renault Sport chairman Patrick Faure said that "there will be no second team in 2004". Faure also said that Renault would "not sell an engine for $10 million."

There were rumours in Monaco that Mosley, above ivith Peter Sauber, would be willing to make a stand to keep FTs small teams alive and ban traction-control and other electronic systems with immediate effect unless a deal was struck on engine supplies.

"I would be very smprised if the manufacturers did not stick to their initial undertakings on this," Mosley said,'but I don't want to comment further until I have talked to them in detail. If they are not prepared to supply these engines, tlien the FIA will have to consider its position. If something is not done quickly then it would be very surprising if we have got aU 10 teams at the beginning of next season.

Those flamins seals

INVESTIGATIONS into the refueling fire in Austria have revealed that there was a problem with a seal on the breather hose of the Ferrari refueling machine.

This may have been during the rushed pit stop which the team carried out on Rubens Barrichello two laps before the blaze occurred.

Barrichello's stop was ruined when his refueling machine failed to deliver the fuel needed. The team switched to Schumacher's refueling machine and sent Barrichello on his way. Schumacher's machine was then prepared for his stop. It appears that when he came into the pits there was some fuel in the breather hose which leaked out as the crew was pumping fuel into his car.

All the FI teams are issued with identical refueling equipment and although they are allowed to repair and service the machinery, they are not allowed to modify it in any way.

The fuel can only start to flow into a car when the nozzle is correctly fitted to the filler mechanism and 12

there are eight clamps that engage and stop the hose being pulled otJ by accident. Even then the fuel will only flow into the tank when the vapourremoval system is opened.

Both the fuel and vapour systems are housed in the same coaxial hose with the fuel pipe in the middle and the vapour system around it. In theory it is impossible for there to be any leaks but if a fuel tank is overfilled some fuel will inevitably go into the vapour system.

This should not leak out, but if the seal on the breather system was damaged it would explain how a small quantity of fuel ended up on Schumacher's car.

When the initial fire started the refueller tried to take the nozzle off the car but was unable to do so because of the clamps that lock the nozzle to the car while fuel is flowing. The nozzle was then disengaged at which point there was a slightly larger fire that appears to have been caused by more fuel leaking from the vapour system.

- JOE SAWARD

motorsport news

NEWS

Andy’s back

stops "If they don't help the small teams, the small teams will disappear. If the small teams disappear, the big teams will have to run three cars."

In the course of the Monaco weekend, Mosley had a series of meetings with team bosses and manufacturers and as no announcements were forthcoming it is fair to assume that progress is being made in the talks.

Toyota announced that it will be willing to sell customer engines if called upon to do so in 2005 but cannot do it before then.

Andersson said that Toyota does not believe in the GPWC and will not join the planned series but it is willing to supply engines for the good of FI. At the same time Renault made a big effort to try to give the impression that the company is in the sport in the long term. Renault Sport chairman Patrick Faure said that the FI program was to support Renault's plan to lift sales from 15m to 4m cars by 2010.

Hmm 4 June 2003

AUSTRALIAN NHRA star Andrew Cowin has returned home to Sydney for some R&R while he recovers from injuries sustained in a fall in the USA in April.

Toyota gets more oomph But how far away is Ford's ARC push?

TOYOTA has been granted some freedoms in a bid to make its Corolla prototype Group N car competitive with Mitsubishi and Subaru.

The Australian Rallies Commission has granted Toyota a higher compression ratio, a waste gate actuator to better control boost and a cold air duct to its air cleaner box.

The Corolla will have its compression ratio upped from 8.7to 1 to 9 tol a move that Toyota Team Racing driver Neal Bates says "won't make a huge difference but will help us bridge the gap".

The new freedoms have been granted ahead of Rally Queensland, but Bates is doubtful that all of the new allowances can be engineered into the car in time for the next ARC round.

It is understood that the granting of the allowances to the Toyota team was strongly opposed by both Mitsubishi and Subaru.

"What we have asked for and been granted is nothing that Subaru and Mitsubishi don't have on their cars, so it is really only putting us on an equal footing," said Bates.

"Mitsubishi has a higher compression ration than this so in some ways we are stil l behind the game but we will be trying hard to get ahead."

Bates' team has been doing

extensive tests on suspension and diff settings in a bid to improve the performance of the Corolla, which struggled to match the pace of the Subarus and Mitsubishis in the opening round in WA in March.

The team has a three-day test planned for later this week where Bates hopes to have at least some of the engine mods in place to give the Corolla a final shakedown ahead of the critical Queensland rally.

Meanwhile, word from the Ford bunker is that the company's foray into the ARC has been put on hold, at least for the moment, while its new motorsport manager settles into his new role.

The company is said to have actually commenced a build project on a Focus 4WD turbo suitable for competition in the ARC, but when Floward Marsden was struck down with illness the project was put on hold.

Ford Australia president Geoff Polites has said on several occasions that he wants a Focus rally program in Australia Ford is about to launch a 4WD turbo road-going version of the Focus in the UK. Exactly when the company has a Focus ready to tackle the ARC is unclear, but our sources indicate that it is definitely not a dead project.

- JON THOMSON

n Dodge has pulled their factory support away from Bill Davis Racing and his two car effort for 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton and Kenny Wallace effectively immediately.

The reason behind the move apparently stems from Davis' rumoured involvement in forming a team with Toyota for their 2004 Truck Series program. Also, his Busch Series driver Scott Wimmer tested a Chevrolet at Dover recently.

Both sides of the are keeping tight -lipped about the situation, with Davis saying he'll have no comment for the foreseeable future.

The only real comment came from a Dodge representative: "As a hypothetical question, suffice to say if a Dodge team is working with another manufacturer, we would have concerns."

Davis was one of the original band of teams to switch to the marque from Pontiac along with Ray Evernham Motorsports, Petty Enterprises and Chip Ganassi Racing. n The Tony Stewart Chevy confiscated by NASCAR at Texas in April and the engine from Dale Jarrett's Robert Yates team, neither of which have been returned to the teams, are apparently on loan to Toyota for them to evaluate and help them In development for their planned Truck Series debut in 2004 and pending Winston Cup entry in maybe 2006 or 2007. n NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Shawna Robinson will make her way Into the history books this weekend when she takes an all female pit crew to Texas Motor Speedway.

"We want it to be a gimmick and marketable, and we want It to be a serious sport tor us," said crew member Gina Tomaseki."Our main focus is that we do good pit times." n A stalker has harassed Indianapolis 500 lady driver Lyn St James. A Kentucky man, who claims to have killed thousands of people. Is in police custody following allegations that he had stalked St James via phone and mail. n New Zealand Indy Car star Scott Dixon was honoured by the American Dairy Association of Indiana recently. The Association held a luncheon a fortnight ago for the 29th Fastest Rookie of the Year awards. The awards are presented to the top rookie qualifier. Dixon lined up for the 500 in fourth place.

- MARTIN D CLARK/STAFF 13

Bjom Premature

'1

Wirdheim blows F3000 win with early celebration

THE Monaco Formula 3000 is not a race any will forget in a hurry especially not Bjom Wirdheim.

The Swede dominated the event but as he came up to the finish line he pulled over to wave to his team, apparently believing that he had already crossed the finishing line. As he was waving, it suddenly dawned on him that the finish line was still ahead but as he stamped on the gas the second-placed man Nicholas Kiesa swept through to take a quite bizarre victory, Wirdheim, to his credit, admitted his mistake and said that overall he was still happy as his lead in the championship was consolidated, despite losing two points.

Of rather more significance was an alarming incident in which Enrico Toccacello (Super Nova) was hit from behind by the Red Bull Junior Team car of Vitantonio Liuzzi when Toccacello appeared to slow down for no apparent reason just before the Massenet corner.

Liuzzi is a highly-accomplished racer (and a World Karting champion) but was unable to avoid running into the back of Toccacello and his car was then launched into the air. Fortunately it hit the ground just before it collided with the barriers at Massenet where this year much stronger debris fencing had been erected for the first time. Luizzi was fortunate to escape without injury and the Red Bull team was very unhappy at what had happened, suggesting that Toccacello, who had to come into the pits for a drivethrough penalty for another infringement, had appeared to brake much earlier than normal.

The FIA stewards studied the incident but concluded that it had been 'a racing incident', a decision which caused a great deal of

Sumni

THE Antipodean contingent had an encouraging, if slightly frustrating, outing in round four of the Eurocup Formula Renault V6 Championship at Monaco last weekend.

Kiwi Matt Halliday continued his good form by claiming pole for the 24-lap race, and was leading comfortably until he suffered gearbox problems on I the penultimate lap.

I "As you can image, it's really I frustrating. But what can you 3 do?" said Halliday, above and ^ right in yellow.

Drives like Senna, celebrates like Mansell: Bjorn Wirdheim may be a gun "During the race the alarm behind the wheel but be was took quick to celebrate his 'win'. bells rang once or twice, but criticism. The chairman of the exiting the Fortier bend, nothing to top him winning the World stewards in Monaco was Paul was working.

Championship. Gutjahr and the other "The rest, you know ..." stewards declared this to be 'a racing Gutjahr, who is not new to incident' but that decision was later Hailiday's problems allowed controversy, having been one of the Brazilian Jaime Melo Jr, who had overturned by the FIA World three stewards of the European GP in Council.

1997 when Michael Schumacher been on Hailiday's heels -JOE SAWARD throughout the race, to nip past drove into Jacques Villeneuve to try

QVodafone

Is this Williams’s next t WILLIAMS has recently (and very quietly) tested 18-year-old Estonian racer Marko Asmer, right, at a straight-line aerodynamic test at Vairano in Italy.

Asmer was a successful kart racer but moved into Formula Ford last year.

Asmer is being managed by former racer Harald Huysman, who played an important role in the career of Jenson Button, which brought him into contact with the BMW Williams team.

It is worth noting that Sir Frank Williams went to Silverstone in the 14

s

3

week before Monaco to see the British Formula 3 Championship race and to take a look at Nelson Piquet Jr, the son of his former driver Nelson Piquet, who won the World Championship for Williams back in 1987. Piquet Jr is now winning in the British F3 series which at 17 years of age is very impressive.

Unfortunately for Piquet his hopes of impressing Williams on Monday ended at the start when his car suffered a mechanical failure.

- JOE SAWARD motorsport news

NEWS

Goodyear: We're staying in Cup

GOODYEAR Tire & Rubber Co is staying in NASCAR racing - and that's official.

er Halliday for the win, leaving the New Zealander to settle for second ahead of Jose-Maria Lopez.

Meanwhile, Aussie Christian Murchison continued his move towards the serious end of the field with a solid seventh place. just a few tenths behind Ivan Bellarosa. It was an especially good result given that Murcho had only managed to qualify 11th for the race, which was a support event for the famous Monaco GP. The series continues at Donington on June 28.

ROB Nguyen has lost his Formula 3000 seat.

The Brisbane driver, who finished fifth in the second round of the series at Barcelona, has left his Spanishbased BCN team and is now searching for another seat in the European Championship.

4 June 2003

Nguyen, above, had missed a number of early-season test days, due to the fact that his deal came together only just before the start of the season.

After having moved recently from Switzerland to Austria, Nguyen took his race kit to Monaco because of the fact

Stu Grant, the general manager of the company's racing program,has moved to quash rumours that the US company's financial situation could lead to its withdrawal from NASCAR competition as a cost-cutting measure.

"Some of our competitors have said we're getting out, but tliere's nothing to it," he said."We have a contract through 2007 with NASCAR.' Goodyear has been the sole supplier of tyres for NASCAR's Winston Cup,Busch and Craftsman Truck series since 1997, It's no secret that the company has had some tough times," Grant contmued,"but our top management is very committed to the racing programme and we intend to be involved in racing for a very long time. As the economy gets better, our financial situation will improve.

- QUENTIN SPURRING

that the category's TV deal requires a 16-car grid, but there was no seat open for him.

Nguyen burst onto the F3000 season last year when, with only one season's racing (in Formula Volkswagen) he made his debut in the GP feeder category.

McLaren's Gas THERE were rumours at Monaco that McLaren is about to announce a sponsorship deal with Russian gas company Gazprom, The company had agreed to a deal with Minardi but that relationship broke down this year, apparently because the money did not arrive. Minardi has now replaced the Gazprom decals on the cars. If a deal has been struck by McLaren, it will not go down well with Paul Stoddart, the boss of Minardi. Stoddart and Dennis were at loggerheads over the winter over remarks made by the McLaren boss but it appeared that there was a settlement in Melbourne where the two men met to discuss the various issues involved. n The Malaysian Ministry of Youth and Sport is to open a Petronas Motorsports Museum at the company's Research and Scientific Centre in Bangi, just outside Kuala Lumpur. The museum will house a variety of machinery which mark the early days of serious motorsport in the country, dating back to 1988 and including a number of Sauber FI cars. The museum is part of Petronas's commitment to develop, expand and add value to experiences gained through its involvement in various motorsports activities. The museum includes both racing cars and racing motorcycles. n It seems that Budweiser is not now going to sponsor Ferrari despite a meeting between Jean Todt and August Busch 111, the chairman of the giant American brewing company. It is believed that an agreement in principle was agreed but that the full contract was never signed.

Budweiser has just signed a new three-year deal with Dale Earnhardt Inc. which will pay the team US$60m ($90m) over three years. The company will however take a percentage of the income raised from merchandising relating to Dale Earnhardt Jr which will substantially reduce the investment. n Bahrain was planning to host a GP in October 2004 but the latest word from the Gulf is that the event will now be held on April 4. If this turns out to be true there are a number of interesting ramifications.

The date is traditionally that enjoyed by the Brazilian Grand Prix and while that event might conceivably be pushed back a fortnight to the traditional Imola date, it is unlikely that the plan will be very popular as it will mean four consecutive 'flyaway' races. It may be that Brazil will be pushed back in the calendar and that the season would start with Australia-Malaysia-Bahrain, which makes a great deal of geographic sense.

- JOE SAWARD IS

MICHEL Jourdain Jnr. sealed his first career Champ Car win at a cold Milwaukee night race.

Jourdain now jumps to the top of the CART table, 10 points clear of former championship leader, Paul Tracy.

The 26-year-old fought off strong challengers from Tracy and eventual podium placegetters, Oriol Servia and Patrick Carpentier. However, the Mexican always had the race under control.

"This is just perfect," said a happy Jourdain after the race.

"So many things can go wrong, especially on a short oval. You have to be smart and be careful."

Servia also picked up his best Champ Car result, taking second place after a fraught battle with Tracy. Servia played hard-ball with the Canadian, dicing sideby-side down the main straight on several occasions. He finally made a move stick into turn three on lap 207.

"Paul didn't give me one millimetre when we were in the corners," remarked Servia post race. "It was very clean and fair."

Tracy's good run then came to a sudden halt. Only seven laps after Servia got past Paul's Lola/Ford, his left-rear wheel became loose after a wheel nut had parted company. Tracy dragged the car back to pit lane where, despite being able to continue, he was 16

well out of the top 10.

You can't win championships with things like that happening, said the former series leader.

Carpentier was another driver to have a close encounter with Tracy, but survived the fight with his Player's Forsythe team-mate to record his first rostrum visit for the year. Patrick's team even tried to alternate their pit strategy early in the event in a hope of gaining an advantage over the speedy Jourdain, but it wasn't to be.

Another career milestone went to Briton Darren Manning. The Walker Racing pilot was angered that a podium chance went beckoning, had he not had a half spin at the exit of pit lane. Yet, fourth place was a good result.

Alex Tagliani finished a hardearned fifth ahead of Adrian Fernandez and Mario Haberfield.

Championship contender Bruno Junqueira had a dreadful evening, finishing the race in the wall on the first lap. His Newman/Haas entry was then hit by both the Herdez Competition cars of Roberto Moreno and Mario Dominguez. Moreno was out on the spot while Dominguez salvaged eighth place.

-PHIL MORRIS

suUon-images.com

Ahhhh, nothing like a pleasant night time breeze: Top, Jourdain powers to his first ever CART race win. Above, Carpentier, Jourdain and Servia give the cold MUwaikee crowd the thumbs up.

Below, Darren Manning adjusted well to the evening driving, picking up fourth place.

Points: Jourdain Jnr. 77, Tracy 67, Junqueira 66, Sebastian Bourdais 53, Carpentier 48, Dominguez 45, Servia 40, Fernandez 37, Manning 34, Tagliani 32.

moiorsport news

NEWS

Psst! Wanna buy a Jordan?

BAR’S

JORDAN Grand Prix is busy doing whatever it can to raise money this year and the team is currently auctioning off the remains of the chassis that was written off last year when a spinning Nick Heidfeld ran into Jordan driver Takuma Sato. The teams is asking for bids above US$23,750 and the proceeds of the sale will go to the team's racing program.

\

legal trouble

by JOE SAWARD BAR had busy lawyers in Monaco thanks to the efforts of businessman France Corbeil of Partnership Production Group International (PPGI).

Corbeil ran the company which leased the TV rights to Formula 1 in China, India. Russia and most of Asia from Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Group. This deal ultimately fell apart when BAT had a change of heart and decided to cut back, leaving PPGI looking for money to fund the idea. Ultimately, no money was found and the deals lapsed.

At the same time as this was going on Corbeil claims that he brokered a sponsorship deal between BAR and the telephone

company Teleglobe. Corbeil says that he should be paid a commission on the deal which was to have been for five years.

That deal began in 1999 but ended prematurely at the end of 2000. The original deal was for US $12m ($18m) a year and commissions on such deals are usually around 10 percent, which means that Corbeil is probably claiming around US $6m.

The current BAR management was not involved in all these dealings and say that there is no paperwork to back up Corbeiis’s claims. The team says that the case against them is baseless and was rejected by a Monaco court several weeks ago because

of a lack of evidence. The claim was re-presented on the Wednesday before the Monaco GP. they say before the national holiday weekend began when all the Monaco courts are closed.

As a result, the team was not made aware of the action and did not have any opportunity to respond. Judge Philippe Narmino granted Corbeil a private seizure order and he tried to organise the seizure of the BAR FI cars. This was avoided and BAR says that the seizure order will be overturned when the courts open again on Monday. The team may also take legal action against PPGI for damage to its image.

He'S got our attention!

n CART has issued a press release claiming that it is getting nine million viewers for each race. The racing is being broadcast by 27 TV channels in 152 countries and the best results are coming from Brazil where Rede TV is averaging 2.85m viewers per race while the European networks are reporting 450,000 viewers for the Long Beach race. All this may sound very promising but when one considers that the glob al viewing figures for Formula 1 are something like 300m people per race, CART's figures should be looked at in perspective. n Peter Sauber, whose eponymous Swiss Formula 1 team has used Petronas-badged Ferrari 'customer' engines since 1997, has named July as his deadline for a decision about a possible switch to a less expensive Ilmor/Mercedes VI0 for the 2004 season. "From a technical point of view, we have until the end of July in order not to delay next year's car," Sauber said. n The Dutch-incorporated Grand Prix World Championship company, comprising BMW, DaimierChrysler, Ferrari, Ford and Renault, has filed applications to register trademarks and a website domain name.

According to 'BusinessFI' magazine, however, a doubt could exist over the use of the phrase 'Grand Prix' because the FIA and/or Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management might claim its exclusive use in a motorsport context. n It seems that GPWC would schedule its races for prime-time TV, rather than race day spectators. It would likely run its races later on Sunday afternoons to attract more viewers after its PR agency concluded that the highest Formula 1 TV figures of the 2003 season so far - for the Brazilian GP - resulted from to its prime-time live broadcast in Europe.

NOW this is cool.

Having secured the funding to continue his F3 Euro Series campaign, James Manderson has unveiled the striking new paintjob that will adorn his Swiss Racing Team Opel Spiess-powered Dallara F301.

The reigning Australian F3 Champion spent the 4 June 2003

beginning of this week testing at Magny Gours, ana is confident that things are moving in the right direction.

"The team is really positive about moving up in the field," he said.

Manderson will give his Aussie-themed paint scheme its race debut at Pau in France this weekend.

-MARKGLENDENNING

n Former Formula 1 driver Eddie Irvine has claimed to have a fortune of US$275m ($420m) in an interview in a British newspaper. If so, the Ulsterman has more than quintupled his career earnings through his property investments. World Champion Michael Schumacher is estimated to be worth $229 million.

- QUENTIN SPURRING II

CART? Nah, Formula 3000 BY an odd twist of fate,there are now more American drivers in the European Formula 3000 Championship than there are in the North American-based CART Championship.

As of Monaco there were four American drivers in the F3000 series: Will Langhorne, below, joining Derek Hill, Townsend Bell and Phil Geibler In the series.

Despite the four US drivers in F3000 the only American to get on the podium in Monaco was Patrick Long, now a Porsche factory driver, who finished third in the Porsche Supercup event.

Long is the first American to make it on to a podium at Monaco since the early 1960s!

- JOE SAWARD

OlYMiH FORMER FI racer and Le Mans 24 Hours winner Johnny Bute (previously known as Johnny Dumfries) will miss Le Mans.

The ex-Grand Prix driver was planning to return to the race this year after 11 years in

retirement but the 45-year-old Scottish aristocrat (he is now the Marquis of Bute having previously been the Earl of Dumfries) has decided not to go ahead with the plan.

Bute, who started his FI career as a van driver at

Williams, says that he has too much to do promoting the Mount Stuart Motorsport Classic - a motoring festival that takes place in September at his family home on the Isle of Bute in Scotland.

-JOE SAWARD

Jani tries Sauber RISING star Neel Jani has been given his first proper test for Sauber in Valencia.

The 19-year-old Swiss driver had previously carried out some straight-line running at the Vairano testing facility in Italy, doing aerodynamic mapping work.

Although Sauber is not saymg anything about the future,it is clear that ]nni, left, is being evaluated for a possible job racing

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for Sauber next year.

There have been rumours in recent months that the team will replace one driver next year and we have heard suggestions that Felipe Massa may make a comeback, having spent this year calming down as a Ferrari test driver. Jani is believed to be another option for Sauber.

-JOE SAWARD

Official: Men Stupid

We ali thought that motor racing was dangerous AFTER years of warnings,is appears that motor racing is not dangerous at all.

That is according to Jeff Gordon's estranged wife Brooke - or, more likely, her lawyers - in a recent court motion.

The former Mrs Gordon - that's her on the right, by the way - is arguing that Mr Gordon should not be entitled to a disproportionate share of the couple's assets, which he is claimmg because racing is a "hazardous,life-threatenmg occupation".

Mrs Gordon claims that Jeff's fortune has been derived from a "relatively safe occupation" and argues that commercial fishermen have a dangerous lifestyle and that there have been no cases of a court awarding a commercial fisherman

more than 50 percent of a marital estate.

Hoo Boy. Racing drivers across the world will be watcMng to see the result of the action ...

-JOESAWARD motorsport news

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IT took some rain, and a stoppage, but the French MotoGP was a cracker.

Sete Gibernau and Valentino Rossi put on a thrilling duel over the final lap at Le Mans, the Spaniard passing the World Champion twice to score his second win in three races.

The riders had the Le Mans crowd on their feet as they fought over the last five or six corners of a restarted race, run over 13 laps. Rossi had led the first 'part' of the race until the weather intervened.

With most of the riders

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electing to use full wet tyres at the restart, Alex Barros got the best start from the depleted grid, with Rossi and Gibernau joining in. At the end of the race, Barros was third from Olivier Jacque and Max Biaggi fifth, both riders started from the pit lane after opting for last minute tyre changes under cloudy conditions. Jeremy McWi'liams (Proton) took an impressive sixth in what is most probably the last race by a twostroke machine.

Garry McCoy was sixth early in the wet but his sideways style killed his rear wet tyre, but he hung on to take Kawasaki's best result of the season in ninth.

Ducati has a disaster. Loris

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Capirossi retiring and Troy Bayliss crashing out on lap six of the first leg. Carlos Checa has only scored 13 points from three GPs so far this year and notched another zero this afternoon after high-siding out in the formative stages of the dry race.

Points: Rossi 90, Biaggi 67, Gibernau 63, Barros 46, Bayliss 40, Tohru Ukawa (Honda)32, Jacque 26, Nicky Hayden (Honda) and Shinya Kakano (Yamaha) 22, etc.

TONI Elias took his second straight 250cc win in France to move to within five points of the world championship lead.

Fellow Aprilia rider Randy de Puniet led for 10 laps before he gave best to the Spaniard, with Honda's Roberto Roifo taking third.

Ant West took a swag of points home again after pnishing seventh on his Aprilia.

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Points leader Manuel Poggiali crashed into the rear of Sebastian Porto early in the race, the Italian and Argentine finishing the race unhurt in the gravel.

Points: Poggiali (Aprilia) 63, Elias 58, De Puniet 56, Roifo 56, Ponsi Nieto (Aprilia) 41, Porto (Honda)36, Naoki Matsudo (Yamaha)33, Franco Battaini (Aprilia) 32, West 30, Syivain Guintoii (Apriiia) 23, etc.

THE babies of the 125cc championship starred in France, Dani Pedrosa taking a second straight win and Casey Stoner scoring a career-best fourth place.

Pedrosa's Honda won from Lucio Cecchinello's Aprilia and Andrea Dovizioso Honda, while the Aussie Apriiia just held off the similar bike of Pablo Nieto at the flag. Stoner had qualified ; fourth for the race, his first front-row start.

Points: Pedrosa 71, Cecchinelio 66, Steve Jenkner (Aprilia) 60, Doyjzioso

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BIKE NEWS

On yer Toseland!

BRITON Neil Hodgson equalled Colin Edwards record nine-race winning streak at the fifth round of the World Superbike Championship in Oschersleben, Germany - and that was all he won.

In Race 2, the works Ducati rider had his colours lowered by countryman James Toseland. After coming from last to tliird in Race 1 after being forced onto the grass at the first corner, the privateer took his maiden SBK win in the second race.

With HM Plant Ducati team-mate Chris Walker third, it was an allBritish podium.

"That has to be the race of my life," excalimed Toseland later. "It was

n

soiiieoiie beats Hodgson

V*

incredible! Wlien I was on the grass I thought it would be impossible to get back as it's so hard to pass even slower riders here. So I was surprised at how quickly I got my concentration and focus back and even more surprised to see the lead group coming back to me so quickly."

Toseland won the start of the second race and, despite maximum pressure from the runaway series leader, nevert wavered to take the win.

Frankie Chili took second in Race 1, but the Aussies had a mixed day.

Steve Martin was sixth in both races, six spots up on Troy Corser, who had suspension problems, hr Race 2, Corser was 14th.

Points: Hodgson 245, Toseland 132, R. Xaus 126, R. Laconi 122, G.Lavilla 111, C. Walker 95, Chili 84, Martin 78, M.Borciani 64, L. Pedercini 57,T. Corser 41, J, Borja 37, etc.

FIM says no to WCM THE WCM MotoGP team looks unlikely to compete in this year's series following a decision by the FIM. An appeal by WCM was heard on May 16th and denied on May 22, one day after the FIM press conference in Geneva that made it abundantly clear that only "true" prototypes will be allowed in MotoGP. WCM,which ran Yamaha YZRSOOs backed by Red Bull last season, presented one of its Harris-framed bikes, with a four-cylinder engine based on Yamaha's R1 for scrutineering three times, in South Africa, Spain and France.

But the sport's governing body has ruled that the bike does not meet its regulations, clearly inferring that the Peter Clifford-owned team should have sought more advice from the FIM prior to building what are now very expensive show bikes.

The question also remains as to what will happen to WCM's two-bike franchise if it does not race this year...

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Red and

by PHIL MORRIS

T

HREE in a row. Three of a kind.Just not three for Helio Castroneves.

Spidermen: de Ferran and Castroneves perform the traditional fence climb after a Penske 1-2. The Brazilians dominated the end of the race to take team owner Roger Penske's 13th career win at The Brickyard. ' ^ Il n

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f

7.

-if4^-^' -●i.

22

Three Brazilians filled the podium at the 87th Indianapolis 500 but the man shooting for three straight wins, Castroneves, missed his shot a glory by three-tenths of a second. Instead, team-mate Gil de Ferran tasted the milk for the first time, his Panoz G Force-Toyota outrunning Helio's DaUara by a few metres at the flag.

"Sometlring like this comes as a surprise," de Ferran said."You never know what this is going to feel like.

It's a great sense of accomplishment, coming back from injuries hke that.

You have no idea what went on behind the scenes for this month of May to turn out like it was. I'm overflowing with emotion."

De Ferran was referring to the concussion and back injuries he suffered two months ago,injuries that forced liim to miss tire Japan round of the IRL IndyCar Series. In victory lane, de Ferran had to wait a moment for his aclres to subside and allow him to crawl from the car. Still, he managed to chmb tire fence, a tradition started by Castroneves when he won his first 500 in 2001.

"My shoulders started cramping halfway through the race," de Ferran said. "It was getting more and more pauiful and more and more difficult to block it out. The area behind my shoulders is very painhil."

Despite the pain, de Ferran took the win in the event, was Roger Penske's 13th win at the Brickyard as an owner.

"I've always dreamed of winning tills race," de Ferran said."This is one of the most prestigious prizes in motorsports. I don't allow myself to get carried away. Over the final laps, it was very difficult to maintam focus."

Injured, team-mate or not, Castroneves was not gomg to let his buddy win easily. Tire red-aird-whites stormed the fiiral laps of the race, running 225mph laps but, at the chequer, de Ferran was just too cool to make a mistake.

"It is a httle bit about disappointment,but I guess that's part of the game," Castroneves said.

"The good news is it's my team-mate, so at least it's part of the team. The team is tire one that is winrdirg."

Speaking of drivers hr pahr, thirdplaced Tony Kanaan also ch'ove tluough the hurt barrier. Driving with a cast on Iris left wrist as a result of broken bones sustahred last month hr a crash hr Japan, Kanaan tried driving the car with one hand until he

couldn't take it any more.

"I wore my right shoulder out trying to hold the steering wheel with one hand," Kanaan said. "I just wanted it to look OK on the in-car camera. Toward the end of the race,I started to get a huge pain in my right shoulder,so what could I do? I started driving with my left arm."

De Ferran took the lead on lap 170 of the 200 laps race. Castroneves led the pair into a pitstop and was ahead when tliey returned but de Ferran wasted no time passing his team-mate and held Irim off for the final 30 laps of the race.

"1 was trying to get closer to him all the time," de Ferran said."When I saw traffic on the horizon,I thought, 'OK,time to get closer.' I saw a lot of cars. He bogged down m Turn 2 and came out of tliere really slowly. Once I was in the lead, I was like,'OK,now concentrate.'"

Tire final laps were pockmarked by yellow flags, first for Robby Gordon's stalled car, then crashes involving Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon, the Kiwi waUing his car while weavmg behind the Safety Car. "The yellow flags just kept coming and kept coming," Castroneves said.

"There was nothing I could do. I tried everytlring. I figured,'Well, it must be GU's day.'"

Tomas Sclieckter finished fourth despite, for the second 500 in a row, leading the most laps (63). Rookie Tora Takagi was fifth from Alex Barron, driving as a late replacement for Arie Luyendyk. Tony Renna, Greg Ray,A1 Unser Jr. and Roger Yasukawa rounded out the top 10.

Micliael Andretti drove hard in his final race, twice leading the race until his car stopped with a blown engine.

The laps he led placed him tivice hr the all-time lap leaders at the track, despite never having w'on the race.

(Penske Racing's Rick Mears has led the most laps at hrdy, tlrree more than Michael on 529 laps. Mears w'on tire race four tunes,in 1979,'84,'88 aird '91).

"My legacy is most laps led by a non-w'inner," Andretti said. "That's what I didn't w'ant to retire as, but obviously that's what it's going to be.

Somebody told me Tm only tlrree laps shy of passing Rick Mears for most laps led at Indy. How many times has he won here?"

"What can I say?" Andretti continued. "If it w'as meairt to happen, it was meant to happen. It never did.

For w'hatever reason, it wasn't supposed to happen. Having said that, I have no regrets about anytlrhrg I'm proud of what I was able to do. I know I could have won this race on

molorsport news

INDY 500

The Japan 500 » Toyota, Honda, Takagi nnn

TOYOTA beat Honda in the manufacturers' battle and Panoz GForce beat Dallara in the chassis war - but it was close, Gil de Ferran beat the Hondapowered Dallara of third-placed Tony Kanaan by 1,24s, to take the first win for a Japanese manufacturer in the 87th running of the 500. To add icing to the cake, Toyota scored six of the first seven places.

But the battle for chassis honours was even closer. Penske Racing split its drivers between the two chassis used in the series, Helio Castroneves's Dallara just 0.3s behind at the flag. The American cars took four of the top six positions.

Without wanting to sound like Coulthard... Tomas Scheckter might win next year. The Canassi driver led the most laps for the second year running. Michael Andretti, below, also led in the final race of his career.

2003 Indianapolis 500 Results

supposed to win three in a row. But that is not so sad because de Ferran

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

was supposed to win the race in 2003.

Maybe he can win three in a row, starting from now ...

Lap leaders: Castroneves 1-16, Dixon 17-31, Andretti 32-49, Kanaan 50, Scheckter 51-57, Andretti 58-67, Scheckter 68-94, Castroneves 95-99, Vasser 100, Scheckter 101-128, Castroneves 129-165, Kanaan 166, Scheckter 167, Takagi 168-169.

several occasions, I just wasn't supposed to."

Mario zVndretti's win in 1969 stands as the only win in the race for the Nazareth racing dynasty - unless Michael decides to comeback or, perhaps,liis son Marco wins it. Or, unless Mario decides to give it one more ride ...

And Castroneves was not

6 3 11 10 12 20 32 13 31 55 52 22 18 54 4 15 9 14 26 91 27 24 41 19 7 99 1 5 23 98 21

Gil de Ferran Helio Castroneves Tony Kanaan Tomas Scheckter Tore Takagi Alex Barron Tony Renna Greg Ray AlUnserJr. Roger Yasukawa Buddy Rice Vitor Meier Jimmy Kite Shinji Nakano Sam Hornish Jr. Kenny Brack Scott Dixon A.J.FoytlV DanWheldon Scott Sharp Buddy Lazier Robby Gordon Robbie Buhl Airton Dare Robby McGehee Jimmy Vasser Michael Andretti Richie Hearn Jaques Lazier Shigeaki Hattori Sarah Fisher Billy Boat Felipe Giaffone

Marlboro Team Penske Panoz GForce/Toyota 200 laps 156.291 mph +0.2990 200 Marlboro Team Penske Dallara/Toyota +1.2475 200 7-Eleven/Andretti Green Racing Dallara/Honda +1.6845 Target/Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota 200 +1.9606 200 Pioneer/Mo Nunn Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota +6.0037 200 Meijer/Mo Nunn Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota +7.4882 200 Kelley Racing Dallara/Toyota +11.5666 200 Access Motorsports Panoz GForce/Honda +17.4161 200 Corteco/Kelley Racing Dallara/Toyota Panasonic/Super Aguri Fernandez Dallara/Honda 199 199 Red Bull Cheever Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 199 Johns Manville/Menards Dallara/Chevrolet 197 PDM Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 196 Beck Motorsports Dallara/Honda 195 Pennzoil Panther Dallara/Chevrolet engine 195 Miller Lite/Pioneer Dallara/Honda accident TargeVChip Ganassi Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota 191 189 Conseco/A.J. Foyt Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota 186 accident Archipeligo/Andretti Green Racing Dallara/Honda 181 accident Delphi Automotive/Kelley Racing Dallara/Toyota 171 engine Hemelgarn Racing Dallara/Chevrolet gearbox Archipeligo/Motorola/Andretti Green Dallara/Honda 169 147 engine Team Purex/Oreyer & Reinbold Dallara/Chevrolet 125 accident A.J. Foyt Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota 125 steering Panther/Pedigo Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 102 gearbox Argent Mortgage/Team Rahal Dallara/Honda 106 engine 7-Eleven Dallara/Honda 139 accident Sam Schmidt Motorsports Panoz GForce/Toyota 61 accident Johns Manville/Menards Dallara/Chevrolet 19 fuel system Epson/A.J. Foyt Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota 14 engine/crash Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 7 engine Panther/Pedigo Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 6 electrical Hollywood Mo Nunn Racing Panoz GForce/Toyota

n While Toyota and Honda celebrated, the 2003 500 was some indication of the total capitualtion of Chevrolet in the engine wars. After qualifying a best of 18th, the company issued a press release saying how happy their engineers were with the race engines, perhaps inferring that the Japanese manufacturers were running qualifying motors. But the bestplaced Chev in the race was Buddy Rice's in 11th. Worse, five Bowties retired with engine or engine-related problems, compared to two Toyotas and one Honda - Andretti's. n One consolation for Tony Kanaan is that his third place gives him the lead in the IRL IndyCar Championship. The Brazilian leads on 137 points, 14 ahead of Castroneves.

Previous leader Scott Sharp falls to third after being classified 20th following a crash, while 500 winner de Ferran is fourth. n De Ferran has a million reasons for smiling after winning the race.

Actually, he has 1,353,265 reasons.

That this the amount of US dollars he earned in just over three hours' work. Total prizemoney for the race was US$10,151,830($15,6m approx.) n After qualifying an impressive seventh for the race, Tora Takagi easily won the Rookie of the Year award with a fifth place finish.

Takagi, the first Japanese driver to win the award, receives US$25,000 for the award, adding to his US$338,515 he took for fifth. There were nine rookies in the race. n De Ferran's winning average

I. .+■ /ttnnor

Gentlemen, start your fans; The famous came out for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing: L to R, former heavyweight champion Muhammad AH, former US president George Bush and TV stars David Letterman and Homer Simpson.

4 June 2003

speed of 156.291 mph was about lOmph down on last year's. The record for the race remains Arie Luyendyk's 1990 mark of 185.981 mph.

-PHILMORRIS 23

Gow back in the game

BRITISH Motorsport Promoters recently announced a revised management structure for the Britsh Touring Car Championship.

Current championship adminstrator Richard West will focus solely on the commericial aspects of the fledging series, while former TOCA share-holder Alan Gow will immediately take up the position of Championship Administrator.

Gow, an ex-pat Aussie has a wealth of experience in the BTCC paddock, and is now in charge of all technical and sporting matters.

One gets the feeling that with Gow’s considerable pulling power, the BTCC could again become the world’s best tin-top championship.

“We should recognise the success of the Championship and make sure that it remains one of the pre-eminent Touring Car Championships in the world,” said Gow. “We need more manufacturers and more Touring Cars on the grid and I intend to use my position as Administrator to the full in order,to achieve this.”

Thruxton and Muller a Love

Deep in thought: Alan Cow, above, rejoins the BTCC fraternity. The Aussie-born lad hopes to transform the current British tin-tops back into the glory days of the early '90s.

VAUXHALL'S Yvan Muller continued his relentless charge towards his first British Touring Car crown by winning both races at Thruxton two weeks ago.

The round win ensured that Muller has won at least one race at Thruxton since 2000.

Pole-sitter Matt Neal, in his : factory Honda Civic took the fight ; up to Muller in the opening race, ; but the Frenchman's pit work ; was far superior to Neal's team. ' Muller held out a last-gasp attempt by Neal to secure the ^ win. ^ Neal's second race was : destroyed when a tyre failure ; dropped him off the road, which

Wave them flags: Christijan Albers crosses the finish line to the elation of the factory Mercedes outfit.

CHRISTIJAN Albers has taken his second-straight win in this season's DTM championship.

The Dutchman round three of the series at the Nurburgring in Germany two weeks ago and moves to the top spot in the points.

Albers, 24, crossed the line nearly 8s in front of fellow Mercedes driver Marcel Fassler, who qualified on pole around the Eifel circuit.

Laurent Aiello steered his Audi to a second consecutive podium finish. His third place was all that more rewarding, given that he diced with (and finished in front of) three-times DTM Champion Bernd Schneider. ,

1*^ ._i-

the way

24

promoted his team-mate Alan Morrison to the second step on the podium.

Yvan cruised to another win, denying reports that he was toying' with his opponents.

The third Vauxhall driver, Paul O'Neill drove a calculated weekend. The Brit finished both races in third place.

Reigning Champion James | Thompson was disappointing at Thruxton, sliding off the circuit in Race 1 and finishing fourth in Race 2.

Muller now has a handy points advantage over his opponents after six races.

Points: Muller 87, Thompson 67, O'lVeill 50, Morrison 42, Neal 38.

again!

Opel driver Peter Dumbreck looked good for a podium finish until he collided with Schneider mid-race. Dumbreck eventually finished fifth ahead of team-mate Alain Menu. Menu also had great track position until he crossed the white line exiting pits. A drive through penalty cost the Frenchman a podium, but regathered a few places to finish sixth.

Former FI ace Jean Alesi had a brief excursion off the track after missing his braking point at the first turn on lap nine. He retired soon after.

Points: Albers 24, Fassler 21, Schneider 19, Aiello 18, Mattias Ekstrom 11.

motorsport news 62

OPINION

It'S Time lor a Change L ET'S get the chat away from V8 Supercars for a moment. Forget the Winton stewarding outcry; don't worry about who owns HRT. I reckon that CAMS is facing a biggish decision sometime this year and it concerns the future of what was once the most prestigious award in Australian motor sport, the Gold Star - the Australian Drivers Championship.

After golden eras attached to Formula 5000, then Formula Pacific, the Australian Drivers' Championship was assigned to the all-new Formula Holden/ Brabham category, back in 1988.

The category thrived for a few years and provided a pathway for a number of current stars Mark Skaife, Jason Bright and Jason Bargwanna to name a handful - before slowly falling into disrepair.

Despite major efforts by leading supporters, including a Trans Tasman contest as recently as two years ago, the category is now at a low ebb.

Costs are high, sponsors are low and gradually, faster now month by month. Formula 3 is taking over as the open-wheeler category of choice of young Aussie racers.

Just how a name change, to 'Formula 4000, Powered by Holden' was meant to revitalise the category is something that hasn't hit home to me yet. Sadly, unfortunately. Formula Holden is grinding to a halt.

The handful of cars - mostly nearly 10 years old - which turned up at Winton recently didn't make for a good show. In contrast, last weekend's F3 round at Wakefield Park produced a top four qualifying within a tenth or so and a couple of cracking races.

The message is clear.

The Australian Drivers' Championship, for the Gold Star,

should now be reclaimed from Formula 4000 (nee Holden) and put the way of the F3 fraternity, which has slowly but positively built its category into something well worth watching.

I know there'll be outcry from the thinning band of Formula Holden competitors, but how many times have we been promised a resurgence in the category? Holden retains the naming rights and the moral obligation to continue to supply powerplant parts but to be honest, the company is totally wrapped up in V8 Supercars and would. I'm guessing, like to see Formula 4000, powered by Holden, quietly go away.

A

market was found a little while back for some of the surplus chassis in the US and, hey, the category isn't too far away from being eligible for Histories. No-one has to lose out completely on their investment.

The interesting thing is that, at the time that Formula Holden

was introduced, the debate raged over the choice between it and ... Formula 3. The involvement of a local manufacturer wooed the decision-makers at CAMS in that direction, while the internationalists lost their argument that a formula the same as that in Europe would be a better bet.

Well, they might just get the last laugh. Formula 3 is growing rapidly in Australia right now and, by default, looks like winning the war. As long as they don't let costs spiral (sticking to year-old cars like several countries do is well worth the debate) the current growth in F3 will see it completely take over as the nation's premier open wheeler formula before much longer.

It'd be appropriate if the governing body acknowledged that by bestowing the premier title to go with it - before the current category simply disappears ...

ihe Dining Club T

HE writer and wit Somerset Maugham once described Monaco as "a sunny place for shady people" and one has to say that there has rarely been a more succinct description of the place although, of course, the Monaco tourist board would no doubt get very upset if one was to suggest such a thing.

This year the paddock in Monte Carlo was full of talk of shady business. We all know that the stakes in Formula 1 these days are very high and that means that people who can make a difference, be they drivers or engineers, become ' hugely valuable to racing teams.

At Monaco we had evidence once again of this with the rumours that Renault's technical director Mike Gascoyne is being offered US$6.5m a year to join Toyota. This astounding figure is justifiable because Gascoyne can make his cars go a few tenths of a second faster than the other cars.

lll

There are not many of espionage going on in FI Gascoynes out there and when circles. It is, alas, impossible to one takes a step back and looks go into details because of the logically at the situation it is legal implications involved. inevitable that those with less __However, I have decided that by talent will employ more dubious \.W. far the best thing to do is to means to reach the same ends. |^create a fictional story about The pressure for success is such rand Prix racing. that it might be argued that that those who will rise to the top are n“The pressure is on. Teams those with modifiable morals u' backed by car manufacturers who are willing to play the game fjneed results. Espionage IS in the most ruthless fashion. y happening all the time.

There are some people who 1 Information flows from team to say no to questionable activities ^team. There is no such thing as !a secret. and some who say yes because the rewards for saying yes are Any similarity to persons living great indeed. There have been or dead is purely coincidental. suggestions in recent days that What would happen if. there has been a certain amount hypothetically, a group of middleranking aerodynamicists who once all worked together in the

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9

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IV

has been a certain amount ol espionage going on in n cipcies It

same team but then went their separate ways, decided to get together and share the information they had to help one another to enhance their careers?

The result of this would be that eventually all of those involved would increase their earning power and, so long as no-one found out what was going on, would do the sport no harm at all as the cars would be more closely-matched and so the racing would be more exciting. Having a better chance of success would help the middle-ranking teams to raise more money and so - in a cynical world - it is really not a bad idea at all.

To add a little theatre to this unlikely tale, one could include the fact that once or twice a year the perpetrators of such a scam could all get together and have dinner. Perhaps it could be called The Dining Club.

There is an argument that says that life is stranger than fiction

and it is so often true in Formula 1. One of the reasons that there is no great literature about Grand Prix racing is because every plot one can think of sounds contrived. Reality is always more bizarre than any story that a writer can come up with.

And if you want evidence of that I suggest you look at the story of Ayrton Senna's one real failure at Monaco. Senna was the master of the place and between 1987 and 1993 he dominated everything. He lost only one event in 1988 and the story of how it happened is one of the most bizarre things you will ever hear. That year Senna was on pole at Monaco by 1.4 seconds. He shocked himself doing it and afterwards talked of experiencing a very worrying phenomenon.

"Suddenly I realised that I was doing things and watching myself doing them, almost as if somebody else was in control of the car."

In the race, he was nearly a minute ahead when, for no apparent reason, he crashed into ,JI

the barriers at Portiers. He went to straight to his apartment and was a very shaken man. A few years later he explained that it had all been because of a religious experience. He had seen a light out at sea and God had told him to crash the car. He knew that it was not a logical thing to do but he saw it as a test of his Christianity and wanted to show God that he was willing to sacrifice a victory at Monaco for his religion.

s

enna did not often talk about his religion as people made fun of him but in one interview I did he opened up in extraordinary fashion.

"I think there is an area where logic applies and another where it does not," he said. "No matter how far down the road you are in understanding and experiencing religion there are certain things which we cannot logically explain. We tend always to understand only what we can see; the colours, the touch and the smell. If it outside that, is it crazy? I had the great opportunity to experience something beyond that. Once

i

The Box Seat you have experienced it, you know it is there and that is why you have to tell people."

Whenever I go to Monaco I think of Senna. Next year it will be 10 years since his death and I am amazed that the time has gone so quickly. If Senna had lived we would not now be looking at some of the records that Michael Schumacher has been able to achieve because, assuredly. Senna would have beaten him on many occasions.

But, of course we will never know. It is all hypothetical - a bit like the story about the aerodynamicists... n

i1

s*

*

Five minutes with

Nett Crompton

The Network 10commentator amtformer V8driver was pretty vocai about the harsh decision handed out to Greg Murphy by the stewards at Wmton Motor Raceway. CHRIS LAMRDBV spoke to him MOTORSPORT NEWS; The role of the TV commentator came starkly into focus last weekend, with some very spontaneous and strong views on the Murphy incident. Are you comfortable with that?

NEIL CROMPTON; Yes I am. I haven't altered my view at all. It was just a reaction to the facts as I saw them. To me it was pretty clear from the very first shot that we saw of the incident.

Having now had the opportunity to digest it for a few days, it's important to make the point that all the remarks have nothing to do with car brand, or driver name, or personality. It's everything to do with the stepby-step sequence that was there for everybody to see.

The facts are that Craig was battling a car that had a lot of oversteer in it and was struggling. He got to the top of the ripple strip at turn five - you see the car rattle across the ripple strip at the apex, then fire into an aggressive oversteer. You can see him bring all the opposite lock on because you see the front left wheel coming out of the guard to catch it.

Then the car begins to slide right across the circuit - all very normal at Winton - onto the dirty side of the circuit. Craig then realises that he has to limit the moment, so he grabs the brakes, which is a normal and appropriate reaction. But the point needs to be made that he was going off the road.

Unfortunately Murphy was so close behind him that he just clouted into the back of him.

That's really it. There's nothing else to analyse. It was all there in living colour.

I was astonished to hear on the race management channel that they were giving car 51 a drive-through penalty. For me it didn't matter whether it was 28

Ronald MacDonald or the Paddle Pop Lion driving the cars - I really felt astonished and frustrated that that decision had been taken, because I just don't know how you could reach that conclusion if you had any understanding of what goes on with a racing car, or in particular a V8 Supercar at that track.

The following car was not attempting to pass. At that point, drivers are coping with limited grip at the front and just starting to pick up the throttle or on zero throttle to trickle the car around the corner.

Neither driver has done anything wrong and this is what is loosely referred to as a 'racing incident'.

Just as astonishing is the fact that as a result, Craig has gone off and rejoined way across on turn eight, in fact gaining ground to the extent that he has been

officials are saying, and I agree, is that it is a good thing to be able to try and deal with these things accurately at that moment, for clarity of results for the public, media etc. But the problem is that we are seeing too many incidents where you could argue successfully afterwards, that an incorrect penalty has been applied. The problem then is that there is no way out.

And there's too much at stake.

With huge amounts of money, massive amounts of pressure and massive amounts of publicity and corporate pride a stake, we just can't have a situation where we can get it so wrong.

I might add that I know all the people involved and I regard them all as good colleagues and friends, but what you saw on the broadcast was just an instinctive

"With huge amounts of money, massive amounts of pressure and massive amounts of publicity and corporate pride a stake, we just can't have a situation where we can get it so wrong. ff

credited with the race's fastest lap on that lap. This was directly and specifically discussed at the Drivers' Briefing - yet Craig's time stil l stands to this day.

MN: The instant justice concept was introduced to deal with blatant, pre determined aggressive acts.

Does this, and other similar errors, suggest a return to the days of post-race penalties as being more reasonable?

NC: There seems to be a groundswell that says we should pause to think about it all post event.

The thing that race director Tim Schenken and other senior

reaction as a competitor. I could actually feel Murphy's pain. I could imagine sitting in the car, the helplessness of it all.

MN: In this case, and other similar ones where a decision may later be seen to be incorrect, is there a case for 'reinstatement' by,for example, giving back the time lost in the drive-through and re-issuing results? Morally even?

NC:I think so. There seems to be no trouble taking time off people, so there should in theory be no trouble giving it back!

We've seen plenty of evidence this year of time

adjustments as a penalty, so perhaps that is a solution.

I guess you have to be careful that you start having 'virtual' adjustments all the time, you give rise to the possibility of ail these 'what-ifs'- what might have happened if certain things were or were not done ... could be an awkward situation.

The judiciary, the stakeholders and the stakeholders are going to have to sit down in a room somewhere, again, and figure out a better way of managing this to everyone's satisfaction.

These decisions have to be taken carefully and with a lot of deliberation. If we have to follow the style of some other sports, and play it out mid-week, then so be it.

MN: Some months into your new double commentary role - with V8s and FI - how are you enjoying it?

NC: It's not as hot in the commentary box. The political heat is higher, but the actual heat is lowerl I'm enjoying the FI. There's so much to tell. It's been a good year; Mark's going so well in the Jaguar and the results over-all have been a bit scattered.

Ten's understanding and coverage of FI will just get better and better and we're just now starting to get a feel for what's available to us. It's a new frontier and, through their performance alone, they are exciting cars to talk about.

I find doing the V8s hard.

Quite frankly, I miss racing and testing cars. Every time I walk into the paddock, there's some pain attached to it...

I still have a great passion for motor sport and, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view, enjoyed discussing it - be it with one person or one million people! molorsport news

INTERVIEW

4 June 2003

29

Fm minutes with

amm

Mark Skaife

On Montiay it was announced that Mark Skaife would(TEOh approvalpending)hecome the sole owner ofHOT. CHRISLAMBOBH spoke to him about tho pros and eons of the owner-driver MOTORSPORT NEWS: This is a serious undertaking - but an obvious one for your personal future. Did it take long to put it all together?

MARK SKAIFE: Yes, it took a while, because it's been a big decision for both parties Holden and me. We wanted to make sure it was the best mutual decision for the race team. If you come from Holden, or you come from Skaifeland, it's important to merge those two things together properly.

And that's what the outcome has been.

MN: You've bought the whole of HRT's assets - not just the franchise?

MS: Yes, the complete package - the franchises, the licences and the assets of the team.

MN: Whether it's a cash transaction or a structured transaction over time, it's still a big project to put together.

Do you have any private investors, silent partners, helping you with it?

MS: No. No-one else is involved.

I'm the sole proprietor.

MN: In an era where ownerdrivers are phasing out, are you convinced you can put the mechanisms in place to ensure your driving role doesn't suffer?

MS; Yeah, I'd like to think so. It's going to be demanding. It's going to be the biggest issue of the whole thing. Those people who do know me, know how committed I am and how focused I am on racing.

They would understand my desire to make sure that is right.

The big plus is that we already have a great crew of guys. This isn't starting from scratch. If you've got good staff and they've got their responsibilities 30

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Given the existing the culture of that place and the dynamics of the place, we want to make the least difference possible to the way it runs and maintain those people's roles and responsibilities.

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and they are all now able to get on with business with the uncertainty of this situation now gone away. I'd like to think that is going to make it easier for them than people perceive.

MN: Harking back to the Gibson Motorsport days, where you were in a similar position, what did that teach you that will help the situation this time?

MS: Number one, it's 10 years on! Number two; I did learn a lot from that. I've also learned since coming along to HRT with my helmet under my arm that there are a lot of reasons why that place (HRT) goes so well.

Given the existing the culture

of that place and the dynamics of the place, we want to make the least difference possible to the way it runs and maintain those people's roles and responsibilities.

So how we go forward from here probably relies on their previous success and keeping that culture in place.

MN: So, is the appointment of a General Manager who can (a) do a good job; and (b) be strong enough to keep you primarily focused on driving a key thing?

MS: It probably is, but the way that the team currently runs, with Jeff (Grech) and Rob Starr, day-to-day, will stay unchanged.

If we're talking commercial matters, then yes, that's a role for somebody who can say 'hey, Skaifey, this isn't your gig.' I don't expect to have to be as involved in that as I was in the Gibson days. So the manager we're looking for is someone to take on the commercial, rather than racing, aspects.

MN: Finally, TEGA has been a fussy about this and rejected some other proposals. Are you confident this deal will pass TEGA's scrutiny?

MS: I would have thought, given I've been on the TEGA Board before, the AVESCO Board, have a good relationship with Wayne Cattach, Tony Cochrane and an understanding about how those things operate. I'd be a bit disappointed if we weren't seen as a suitable candidate.

At the same time, I recognise it's up to their discretion.

I think we've met their requirements. It should be in order. moiorsporl news

Please Den't Let Me It seems that whenever there is a controversial penalty being handed out, Greg Murphy is not far away! Murph felt the wrath of the Stewards at the Winton V8 round and spoke to MARK GLB\IDEI\INING about the incident and about life in the Kmart Team so far in 2003

MOTORSPOFrr NEWS; Interestingly, especially of late, you guys seem to be outperforming your HRT 'sisters' who seem to be struggling a fraction with the new VY race car. How do you see it?

GREG MURPHY: Yeah ... up to Eastern Creek they'd done a very good job.

The Grand Prix was the first event with the VY, and it was surprisingly quick over one lap, but obviously they were struggling to get it to do more than a few laps at stage.

But I think they did a test day after the Grand Prix and, obviously, that paid dividends because the car was very fast at Adelaide.

It is probably a little bit strange that it wasn't so quick at Winton, because you've got similar sorts of characteristics at those two circuits.

But they did a good job at Adelaide, and then the very fast and flowing circuit at Phillip Island. But at Eastern Creek and Winton, I'm not quite sure what happened with both the cars there, because they were both pretty quick in qualifying.

Skaifey's car had a little bit of a struggle in the race - I think Todd's car was very fast in the race at Eastern Creek. But they had those few problems that they had which stopped them from going anywhere.

And then at Winton on the weekend, our cars were pretty good. But Winton is a strange place, and it does change so much compared with the times that we've been testing there.

We have learnt a lot with the VX in the different conditions, and I think we probably used that to our advantage on the weekend.

With the limited testing, which I think is only a day and a half or two days that they've had with the VY at Winton, they needed some more time and I think that probably showed.

They've done a really good job - obviously the best job of anyone in a new VY. If you think the Ford guys have got something up their sleeves, the new VY Commodore has got a hell of a lot to come, without a doubt. motorsport news

INTERVIEW

Be Misunderstood MN: Did you anticipate that they'd struggle this much early on with it? Is the frontend change that significant?

GM: Oh, it's a big change, for sure. They've got a lot to learn.

I don't know if I think they have struggled that much. I think HRT have done very well with the amount of testing time that they've had. Again, it was only two days, and the limited time you get at the circuits to get the car going as well as It has ...

They are a class act and I'm sure they are not happy with their performance. But at the end of the day you've got to look at it in respect to everybody else. And also the Fords - it's a 'new car', but it's not a new car - all the mechanical stuff on it's the same stuff they've had for a long time, whereas the VY has got a whole new front end and everything. I think they've done pretty well to date.

MN: You were struggling a little at Phillip Island with the rear end - oversteer and the like.

Have you made any progress with that, or does it not show up so badly at Winton?

GM: No, it doesn't show up so badly at Winton because it's slow.

We were okay at Eastern Creek, but not great. What saved me there was that I qualified well and was able to drive the car without having to challenge people or try to pass people. So I was always near the front I suppose, which helped.

But again, we definitely lost the rear of the car too early and then had to battle it and try to look after it rather than try to race the car.

We definitely struggled against a few guys who had a lot more pace.

I would say Phillip Island and Eastern Creek would rate similar in the way they use up rear tyres, and it was using its rear tyre too much at those two races to be able to be as competitive as we should be.

Winton is totally different, very slow, and the testing that we've done last year - obviously not this year, because we've only done one day - very much helped us on the weekend, without a doubt.

4lune 2003

1 -i.

i

MN:So are you expecting a tough weekend at Barbagallo?

GM: The track's so abrasive there that it throws a whole new realm into it.

I think we'll go okay there. It's a difficult one to call, but I think a few bits and pieces that we tried at Winton will help ...

We had the hour and a half session on Friday, which was a huge key for us. We made a few really good changes there which was a positive thing for the year, whereas the last few races we haven't made a lot of progress.

But we made some good progress and I think that will help towards Barbagallo.

It's somewhere where I've always gone good. We went well there last year, so we'll see what happens. There are some cars out there that have made some big jumps in the last few months and they are proving, no matter where they go, that they are going fast. We need to actually jump ahead of where we were last year if we want to be competitive at the front of the field.

MN:The Stone Brothers BA Falcons certainly seem to be able to maintain their race pace much better than the old

Retail Therapy? Murphy certainly tried hard at Winton, hauling the Kmart Commodore into the top three early in the race. Following his incident with Lowndes and subsequent penalty, he may have felt like he should be in the colours of Coles Myer's other discount retail chain. Target ...

AUs used to. Are they now the team to beat?

GM: They are a class act too they have really stepped up.

I'm still in a bit of disagreement with people who are claiming this about the AU. I mean, you look at Marcos Ambrose's run at Sandown at the end of last year. There was nothing wrong with the back of that car, or the tyre degeneration of that carl That was just an outright brilliant performance by the team and they've continued with that. So I don't actually see the difference with the AU and the BA so much.

Obviously they would know the small differences and the key things because, you know, we don't run Fords. But there were plenty of times last year I saw the Stone Brothers AU and AUs, at times - performing very well and not showing any deficiencies anywhere.

So I'm still very much prepared to argue against people who say that the AU is not a

good car, because they proved it time in and time out. And they've proving this year, with a new car - not as brand new as the VY - but a new car, that they've got on top of that and they're doing a brilliant job.

I wouldn't be the first Holden driver to admit that. I think Ross and Jim are brilliant in their fields, they're building some fantastic race cars, they've done a great job to now have two very good drivers, and they're getting down and on with the job.

And I think that's a testament to the fact that they stay out of all the rubbish and stay out of all the politics. They just want to go car racing - unlike a lot of people - and I think it shows. They are by far, head and shoulders above the next Ford team.

So congratulations to them.

We're not going to hand it to them on a platter, but certainly they are a hot contender and one that is going to be a tough competitor this year. continued on page 34 33

continued from page 33

MN: Speaking of politics, there's a fair bit of that hovering over the TWR world at the moment. How much of that trickles down to you?

Does it become a distraction?

GM: Not on race weekends. A lot of aspects of our team and HRT have been pushed aside and forgotten about.

But certainly there have been other sides to it, with our team managers and things, and it has been pretty distracting for the drivers occasionally. Just wanting to know what's going on.

Especially when you hear rumours from other people that you haven't heard before, and they've got substance to them because they sort of half make sense.

And then you have a think about it, and then it worries you, so you have to ask someone about it...

And just the lack of information out there. Which has been warranted, because why should we be told what's going on? It's not our business. But it still has an effect and I think the team's done really well at race meetings just to get on with the job.

I certainly don't blame performances on that, by any means. Even if we'd been able to go testing we might have only done one other day anyway, I suppose, because of the VY coming online for us.

But HRT, I'm sure, would have done a few other days of testing, so it's affected them more than it has affected us at the moment, because they would have been out there pounding round Winton a lot more and they might even have been more competitive.

But the teams have got on with it. The guys in the workshop want to know the answers as well, but it hasn't stopped them from preparing the cars and certainly at Winton the performance from our guys showed that we've been hard at it.

MN: Talking of Winton, Mr Unlucky, again involved in ...

GM: You call it luck, do you?

MN: Well, yet to be seen!

Again, you were involved in a major stewarding controversy which, this time, has been roundly condemned by TV commentary,the media, the public, the industry ... did you think the reaction would be as explosive as it has been?

GM: At the minute it happened.

34

the first thing I did was get on the radio straight away, which is an indication of what I feel can happen.

So I was concerned straight away, even though it was so plainly obvious to me that Craig had a problem. That was unfortunate for Craig. But this is nothing about Craig, it's just the fact the he was the:Other car.

He got out of shape, he jumped on the brakes. Hey, I would have done the same thing. But I would have been saying "well, it had nothing to do with the driver behind me. I was in a situation where I was heading off the circuit anyway."

Which is what Craig admitted to after the race.

But I was very concerned straight away that I was going to be wrongly convicted of something I didn't do. I suppose that might have had something to do with previous run-ins.

So I got on the radio straight away and said, "listen, you've got to sort this out. It wasn't me.

Craig had a drama and braked in the middle of a corner and I ran into the back of him."

Unfortunately, in Rob (Crawford's) best efforts to try and sort it out, he was unable to get from FPV the required answer - and I don't even know whether it would have had an effect on it anyway.

It sounds to me like Colin Bond had made up in his mind about what had happened (which is contrary to every other person's idea of what happened) and we got penalised for something we were not a cause of.

I was just flabbergasted by it.

At the time, I thought, "this can not be happening; this can not be real," because it was so blatantly clear in my mind that I thought it had to be clear in everyone else's mind, surely!

I got on with the job and next minute I hear on the radio "you've got to come in, you've been given a drive-through."

And that just completely blew me apart. I was in more shock than what I was at Bathurst and that was some pretty serious shock!

MN: So are you surprised at how wide-spread the response has been?

GM: I've been pleasantly surprised. That is the only thing that has given us any feeling that the world is spinning at the right speed, because the public reaction has been phenomenal.

Even more so than what happened at Bathurst.

We've had a lot of people, a lot of non-Greg Murphy fans, a lot of non-Holden fans, a lot of nonKmart Racing Team fans send in, write in, and be vocal about their thoughts on the whole thing.

Which was brilliant, because it just made me think that the fans are such a part of this, and they are able to put aside their personal preferences to actually say 'listen, that was wrong'.

And this time around it's been even more so. I've had that many emails from people saying, "I don't follow you at all, you're not on my list of most favourite people, but jeez, you were screwed!"

And it's not just one or two it's been hundreds of people saying that. And I just really appreciate their honesty, and I appreciate them saying that, because it just goes to show that the sport has so much more depth than just Ford versus Holden, or someone supporting one driver versus another driver.

They've got the ability to come out and say that, and I think that's impressive.

So in that respect it's been greater. The support has just been phenomenal. Neil Crompton's comments were obviously totally justified and I haven't found one person who disagrees with them - except, obviously, four certain people.

MN: Faced with that, the stewards concerned don't appear to have taken a step back and perhaps considered that they may have got it wrong.

GM: I don't know why they're

;saDCO Stanley

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sticking to it, but I think now, with the furore that this has created, that they never expected it.

This has come at the end of a compilation of bad decisions by the stewards, and this has become the one that has crossed the line, the one that has fallen over the edge. And it has just tipped everybody over.

And it's not just one that's controversial, it's one that is blatantly obvious and it's turned everyone over the edge.

I think they were in shock about it. I really think the officials concerned are surprised and in shock about what has happened.

They just don't have the guts to admit that they were wrong.

MN: What do you think the repercussions could be in Perth? Do you think they'll be less likely to make calls in situations like that?

GM: I would hope that they are a lot more gun shy and take their time.

I mean, there were 37 laps to go after that incident. It's not like they were running out of time.

I think that we haven't seen the end of what's going to happen. I don't think all the repercussions have been shown yet. I don't think it's finished by any means, going by the letters and the conversations that have been had amongst people.

There's going to be some moiorsport news

AH Imafies

serious meetings going on between AVESCO and CAMS, which is fantastic. This means that what happened to me on the weekend is not going to be a waste. We're hopefully going to see some change.

I was promised last year by Rob Nethercote from CAMS that there was going to be some changes. He wrote that in an email to me - that we were going to see things improve. To date, that obviously hasn't happened and we've been let down, but I believe that now there will be some changes. And that's fantastic because it's well overdue.

And It's not just about me. I'm talking about lots of guys being unjustly penalised for things they shouldn't, or guys not being penalised for things that they should have. Now, it just happens to be bloody Greg Murphy who has created it again - you know, created a reason for something to happen.

If things do improve then it's been ... not completely worthwhile, but it has had its merits.

MIM: Do you think this might be the impetus now to swing back from the drive-through penalty more to post-race discussions?

GM: I think it has to, because they obviously can't decipher between right and wrong on the spot.

The whole world can see what was right - but they couldn't.

So how can they be seen to 4 June 2003

make a decision on the simplest of issues, which that was? How can you be seen to make the ones that are really difficult, and get it right?

So if the decisions can't be made rightly, then they have to be discussed and penalties applied afterwards. They've got the provision to give time penalties - let's see the provision to give time back when it's lost!

"I really think the officials concerned are in shock about what has happened. They just don't have the guts to admit n that they were wrong.

The other thing is, which is something that Mr Bond might have forgotten, that I wasn't actually trying to pass Craig Lowndes. There was no passing manoeuvre going on. There wasn't an attempt to pass!

I'd only just caught up to him. I hadn't even decided where I was going to pass him at that stage.

They say that when you're trying to pass, the onus is on the passing driver. Who was the passing driver? I hadn't actually shown my hand at that stage.

So the whole thing was really managed and handled extremely badly, from the viewpoint of what they understood was going on.

It was obvious to Neil Crompton and it was obvious to everybody else that, hey, there was no passing manoeuvre to even be talked about.

There has to be a change, because the decisions obviously aren't being made right during the race. There has to be some more evidence given afterwards.

And if that means someone gets on the podium and then gets moved back later, well that's just too bad.

You can't have the excuse that, "we can't make decisions afterwards because we don't want to have the wrong person on the podium," We've already had that this year and really. I'd prefer that I didn't get on the podium but get my position back later than not get it at all.

MN: The rest of the year? Are you sticking with the VX for a while yet?

GM: Hopefully we're going to know the direction ot the team very soon, and from there the decision has to be made on where we go with chassis and so on.

We need to get into a VY fairly quickly. It's the right thing to do for Holden, to be running the current car, and the longer we leave it, the further we might fall behind.

So we need to make a move fairly quickly and get into a new car and start working on it, and hopefully get over a few stumbling blocks that might be coming our way as early as we can so that we can improve.

We'll know a lot more pretty soon, as wil l everybody.

In the meantime, we'll continue to push hard with the VX. It takes me a few days to get over something like Winton. By the time I get to Barbargallo next week I'll be ready to go again and hopefully there'll be a few things to be happy about with respect to some changes in a few areas. That will be a good thing and we'll charge on.

You know me: I show it the way it is. I say it the way it is and I'm passionate about it. I never won't be.

So I hope there haven't been too many offended out there but that's the way it is I 35

MrWr n early 1997 Giancatlo Fisichella was truly a name to conjure with.

In only his third start for Jordan in Argentina, after just half a season with Minardi,the Italian ran in a stunning second place. Alas, his day ended when team-mate Ralf Schumacher punted him off.

Exactly 100 races later, in BrazU last month, Giancarlo finally scored his first Grand Prix victory. During those six years, the Italian's reputation in the paddock has always been good,and yet never quite good enough to propel him into one of the top three teams. Nothing exemplifies that better than the annual Autocourse Top 10 rankings. In 1997, the first year he was eligible, Giancarlo was placed seventh. In 2002 he was again ranked seventh, behind the Ferrari, Williams and McLaren drivers. The nearly man,in other words.

Having turned 30 in January, Giancarlo is well aware that it's time for him to break into that group in liis own right. To that end he's opted for a fresh start by parting company with long term manager Gianpaolo Matteucci and replacing him with Enrico Zanarini, who had hitherto looked after Eddie Ir\'ine. Zanarini has made it liis mission to find Fisi the seat that many think he richly deserves.

So why has the Roman not yet driven for one of those teams?

Essentially it's because not once but twice he signed long-term contracts that placed severe restrictions on what he could do.

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motorsport news

FEATURE

Dng Place, Wrong lime If everyone in GP racing thinks that Giancarlo Fisichella is a real talentand almost everyone does - why has he never had a seat with FI’s ‘Big 3' teams? ADAM COOPER asked

between Jordan and Benetton, he has become typecast as a second division player. Some might argue that for every race where he pulls off a brilliant points finish, there are several others where he barely registers a blip on the radar. But that's the inevitable outcome of never having a consistently competitive car.

The story started when Fisichella was picked up by Giancarlo Minardi after winning the 1994 Itahan F3 title.

Incredibly, he signed an eight-year deal with the team and had that been followed to the letter, it would only just have run out! Of course Minardi's true intention was to eventually sell him on to a bigger fish and like any young driver, Giancarlo

was willing to do anything to get his initial break. He tested for Minardi in 1995, and drove the first half of the '96 Grand Prix season for the team, until he was 'rested' in favour of a driver with a budget.

It was only after doing this deal that Giancarlo joined forces with Matteucci, who had been a friend for some time. He helped to steer Flsi into a much more promising arrangement with Benetton.

At the time the team had veterans Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger under contract, but Flavio Briatore was desperate to find a youngster who

continued on page 38

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"Giancarlo has to be considered on the level of David Coulthard and Jacques Villeneuve; professional drivers that have reached maturity and have a high degree of professional attitude

could emulate Michael Schumacher.

Initially, the arrangement was to be with Briatore's own management company, but it was very quickly changed to a contract directly with the Benetton team. Thus contrary to popular belief Giancarlo was never 'owned' by Flavio himself, unlike other drivers in the pitlane, such as Mark Webber,Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso.

"We freed ourselves from Minardi and signed a five-year contract with Benetton," says Matteucci. "Flavio never had an involvement with Giancarlo except on the team side. It was a very clear, very clean situation."

The contract ran from 1997 to the end of 2001. As Alesi and Berger still had Benetton seats for '97, Briatore authorised a one-year deal with Jordan, where Giancarlo could further his education.

After a brilliant single season with Jordan, Giancarlo joined Benetton

It

s

- Fisi’s manager, Enrico Zanarlni, rigbA

m proper for 1998. At times during the subsequent four-year stint there, he did things that marked him as a great talent. But even if the big three teams were watching, they couldn't act. He was arguably Benetton's greatest asset, pulling priceless podium finishes out of unlikely situations.

Selling him to a rival team was not an option,so Giancarlo was not available to pursue vacancies such as those at Ferrari and Williams in 2000.

It's easy to say that Benetton killed his career before it even started, but you have to remember that he signed less than a year after Schumacher

won the team's second consecutive World Championsliip. In 1996 Berger and Alesi were still regularly on the podium, and the team was in better shape than McLaren. To put mto better perspective, consider tliat in 2006 or 2007 we might just wonder why Alonso was foolish enough to commit to Renault for so long, when the world was at his feet.

"It was a good move at the time," recalls Matteucci,"but then the Benetton group decided to sell the company.So for two years they made low investment. Also they lost the official engines from Renault at the end of'97 and they had to buy them.

There was nothing for us to do. It was impossible for us to have discussions with other teams.

"AH the problems had an origin when Giancarlo signed, before my management,that eight-year contract with Minardi. Then Minardi sold him to Benetton. We had a lot of limits in our movement and he always had an owner of his contract. But on the other hand, without Giancarlo,

DEKRA"

A man of many colours: Fisi was one of the men to watch when he was at Benetton but the team was in a downturn during his stay. Fie has also shown his class in saloons: in the DTM, he has driven for both Alfa Romeo and Mercedes Benz, above.

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motorsport news

FEATURE Minardi and then Flavio he would probably never have arrived where he is. So you have to see both sides."

When Giancarlo finally became a free agent again, at the end of 2001, he had endured his worst ever season with the hopeless B201, and his star had waned a little. In any case, Ferrari and Williams were full, and the only clear-cut opening was at McLaren, where Mika Hakkinen was heading into his sabbatical. But there was stiff competition, for the team already had access to the likes of Olivier Panis and Nick Heidfeld.

Matteucci admits that it was hard to develop contacts with McLaren, although team MD Martin Whitmarsh confirms that Giancarlo was on the list of maybes. However, when he and Ron Dennis did their sums, and plotted the potential for upward progress, even known quantities Panis and Heidfeld were overlooked. One man stood out.

Kimi Raikkonen looked so good on paper that it was worth paying a huge transfer fee to prise him out of Peter Sauber's hands. Giancarlo had to look elsewhere.

"Benetton made a proposal, at a reduced fee, to stay only for one year (2002)," says Matteucci."On the other hand Eddie Jordan was pushing very hard with a Honda package, with big sponsors, with more money, and a three-year contract. So we decided to move, with an exit clause in case of not having a works engine. The idea was to be available at the end of 2004, or maybe with the exit clause, in 2003.

"All the top teams prefer to make long-term contracts with drivers, to build them up and improve their capacity. See Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya, Ralf Schumacher, Michael Schumacher. It's very difficult to find a hole to discuss, or to find a top team making a one-year contract with someone, or even two.

Normally they make a three-year deal with options or exit clauses or whatever. So it was a question of waiting until the first top team seat was available. Maybe the next one could be David Coulthard's place, or maybe at the end of 2004, Rubens Barrichello's, Ralf's or Montoya's seats."

Thus in late 2001, Fisichella signed a three-year deal to return to Jordan, with riders that allowed him to leave in certain circumstances. Again, the picture looked different at the time the team had plenty of sponsorship and works Honda engines - and only later did it become apparent that a slump was coming.

Giancarlo is in currently the second year of that Jordan deal, and while he may yet complete the third, he now has the freedom to move on at the end of this year.

New manager Zanarini has to keep reminding interested parties of that fact.

4 June 2D03

"My job is to let all the team principals know what is our contractual position," Enrico explains,"and to learn from them what is their contractual position.

Then I have to formulate a strategy with Giancarlo and just be very aware of what's going on, on a raceby-race basis,just in case any of those positions change.

"I believe there are going to be seats available at the end of this year in many teams, including Jordan, so I'm not thinking about Giancarlo being out of work. I'm thinking of Giancarlo taking a step forward, which may mean,a longer-term strategy rather than just finding a quick seat for next year. We may have to wait for another 12 months, but this is something that at this stage is not completely clear to us."

Zanarini has no doubts about his man's abilities: "Giancarlo has to be considered on the level of David Coulthard and Jacques Villeneuve; professional drivers that have reached maturity and have a high degree of professional attitude. He has to be compared to them, not to Raikkonen or Alonso.

"He has a natural talent that will never disappear in any of the teams in the paddock. He could go to Sauber, Jaguar, Toyota and he will drive ten-tenths. He is capable of exciting team bosses to the extent that they like him very much and they speak highly about him.

Nobody has any reason to speak badly about Giancarlo.

"But I think a driver of his level has to think about the big three teams. He has to. We have to aim at that. Only time will tell if we will be able do it or not, but I am almost sure that if there is an opportunity, we'll be able to take it."

Although they no longer work together, Matteucci remains a great supporter of his former charge. He knows better than most what Fisi can offer a team.

"I hope he will be able to get the drive that I couldn't give to him.I'm out of that business now,but in my opinion he was absolutely ready even two years ago to sign with a top team,and absolutely ready to win.

He's much more competitive than some other drivers in the top teams.

He's really hungry, and he's supported by the best physical and psychological condition.

"Whoever signs Giancarlo will make the best decision of his life.

He's the biggest opportunity for a team. Now he's mature, he's 30 years of age. I don't see anyone in this current group of 20 people faster than him - maybe as fast, but not faster. I would like him to be able to show it."

Rubens Barrichello spent seven years at Jordan and Stewart before Ferrari moved him into the premier league. Will anyone take a punt on Fisi?

The Full Wax

GIANCARLO Fisichella's brilliant opportunistic victory in Brazil reminded people of the man's talent at just the right time. He knows that having a victory on his CV will do no harm.

"It's always good, it's very important," he says. "If you win a race you stay in the press everywhere. It's a magic moment, and it's very important when you have a magic moment to be there."

However, since the series returned to Eurppe, Jordan has struggled to make an impression.

"I felt very well for one week, but now I'm a bit disappointed again after the last few races.

Our pace is no good at all, and we're struggling in qualifying and the race. But I'm more confident for the next few races - Monaco and Canada. They're 'my' circuits.

"But that's life. I didn't expect to win the race in Brazil, so you never know. You have to push, you have to do your best.

I'm looking fprward to the future, it could happen again.

Hopefully next year I can have a good car... it could be Jordan, it could be another team. I

don't know."

Inevitably it's a little galling for Giancarlo to see his former team now doing so well.

"I had a few different proposals, but for me the best choice was to be in Jordan, especially for the future. A three-year contract was much more important for me than just one (more) year in Renault. At that moment Jordan was quite competitive, and the Renault was very... shit. So that was the best choice for me. But now unfortunately it's not!"

Fisi's problem is that while he is no longer one of the youngest drivers in the field, and there are always new hotshoes coming along. So if he had to sell himself, what can he offer a team?

"I think experience, I think I have a very good pace in the. race, and I save the tyres, and that's very important. But I feel young. I feel stronger than last year, and stronger again than two years ago. For me now it's the best moment, I'm sure. For another four or five or six years it's going to be better and better."

- ADAM COOPER 39

Into the Wild Only a few months ago, it seemetl Marcos Ambrose could not win a V8 Supercar round. Now, it seems he can't stop winning, even when everything does not go his way.

MARK GLElMDEninilNG reports on an Ambrose thumping at Winton

c

ONVENTIONAL wisdom

would have it that anyone hoping to win a 3Q0km V8 Supercar race would need a combination of speed, reliability, and a next-to-flawless race strategy.

But at Winton, Marcos Ambrose

proved that excessive doses of tw'o of the vital ingredients can sometimes make up for a shortfall in the third.

Speed and reliability was something that the SBR Pirtek Falcon had in spades, but the pit calls did neither he nor team-mate Russell Ingall any favours. This was almost a case of the team taking victory despite itself, but they were so exceptionally good in virtually every other department that, on this occasion, they got away with it.

Second place after another consistent weekend belonged to Jason Bright, While never quite able to match Ambrose in terms of outright pace. Bright was more than quick enough to plonk the silver and yellow Team Brock machine - the same car that won this very race last year when it was painted red comfortably among the leading pack all weekend.

lohn Morris/Mpi\

40

U8 SUPERGARS

Blue Yonder Also keeping his points tally ticking over was Steven Richards, who parted company with his Castrol Perkins VX Commodore on good terms with a third overall ahead of his switch to the team's newly-built VY in Perth. Richo was quick when it mattered and his road to the podium was smoothed in the later stages of the race when both Mark Skaife and Garth Tander's numbers came up.

The tales of woe did not stop with those two and topping the list was Greg Murphy, who again found himself on the wrong end of a bad call from the stewards. Under normal circumstances, it would take something pretty spectacular to deflect attention from tlie fact that Ford had just scored its first back-to-

back win since ye olden days, but the scale of the error committed by those wielding the big stick on this occasion more than did the job.

Also ending the weekend on a downbeat note was Team Dynamik, who showed all the signs of an outfit moving in the right direction before being brought to their knees by an array of misfortunes.

But on the other side of the coin, there were plenty of people who left the circuit with good reason to feel pleased with themselves, even if the results may not have shown it. GRM rookie Jamie Whincup was outstanding on home turf. Max Wilson wrung a good result out of the DJR Falcon and Jason Bargwarma steered the Orrcon Falcon to its best result in the Championship thus far.

Complete Pirtektion: Ambrose got to wave Ford's inventory of winning banners for the second time after a dominant performance.

Still the leader: Bright, right, was second and maintains his points lead.

For the second year straight, Winton turned on the weather for its biggest event of the year. Critics of the new 300km race format suggested that the prospect of Uttleto-no rain on Sunday was not necessarily a good thing, given that otherwise processional races at Phillip Island and Eastern Creek had owed much of their interest to changing weather conditions. And if the cars were going to drone around in a polite queue for 100km, the lack of passing opportunities offered by the central Victorian circuit would only exacerbate the problem.

But aside from a mild snooze-fest in the early stages of the race, there was plenty going on,and a whole bunch of people sitting on the hill with a beer in one hand and a

sausage in bread in the other to watch it all happen.

Practice and Qualifying

w

INTON is one of those weird places where you look out of the window,see that the stm is shining, walk outside in a T-shirt and nearly keel over with hypothermia. Despite the chilly morning temperatures though,the curtain of fog that shrouded the track invariably lifted to produce a glorious day - provided that you had the long sleeves on.

Out on the track,Paul Weel continued on page 42

Qualifying

continued from page 41 warmed up by firing the opening salvo at what would be his test track

POS NO 1 4 2 50 3 51 4 1 5 9 6 11 7 29 8 15 9 2 10 33 11 34 12 18 13 44 14 6 15 888 16 16 17 31 18 5 19 20 23 21 17 22 45 23 3 24 21 25 65 26 66 27 20 28 24 29 75 30 19 31 021 32 10 33 00 34 7 35 99

DRIVER Marcos A mbrose Jason Bright Greg Murphy Mark Skaife Russell Ingall Steven Richards Paul Morris Rick Kelly Todd Kelly Jamie Whincup Garth Tander Max Wilson Simon Wills Craig Lowndes John Bowe PaulWeel Steve Ellery Glenn Seton Paul Dumbrell Mark Noske Steven Johnson Jason Richards Cameron McConville Brad Jones Paul Radisich Dean Canto Jason Bargwanna Wayne Wakefield Anthony Tratt David Besnard Craig Baird Mark Larkham Greg Ritter Rodney Forbes David Thexton

1 Ambrose 2 Murphy 3 Bright 4 Ingall 5 Skaife

?5.4354s 25.4369s 25.7218s 25.6202s 25.7674s

CAR

TIME

Pirtek Stone Brothers Falcon BA lm23.2604s Team Brock Commodore VX lm23.2779s lm23.2921s Kmart Racing Commodore VX lm23.3300s Holden Racing Team Commodore VY Caltex Havoline Stone Brothers Falcon BA lm23.3563s Castrol Perkins Commodore VX lm23.3976s Sirromet Commodore VY lm23.4757s lm23.4822s Kmart Racing Commodore VX lm23.5049s Holden Racing Team Commodore VY lm23.6052s GRM Repco Valvoline Commdore VX 1m23.6369s GRM Repco Valvoline Commodore VY Shell Helix DJR Falcon BA lm23.7261s lm23.8094s Team Dynamik Commodore VY CAT Ford Performance Racing Falcon BA lm23.8265s DzEmail BJR Falcon BA lm23.8572s Team Brock Commodore VX lm23.9435s lm23.9696s Super Cheap Racing Falcon BA lm24.0128s Ford Credit FPR Falcon BA Castrol Perkins Commodore VX lm24.0360s ICS Team Ford Falcon AU lm24.0391s lm24.0411s Shell Helix DJR Falcon BA lm24.0534s Team Dynamik Commodore VY lm24.0717s Lansvale Commodore VX lm24.0795s DzEmail BJR Falcon BA lm24.1002s Betta Electrical Briggs Falcon BA lm24.1374s Betta Electrical Briggs Falcon BA lm24.1873s Orrcon Racing Falcon AU lm24.2342s Romano Racing Commodore VY lm24.3986s Toll Racing Falcon AU Ford Performance Vehicles FPR Falcon AU lm24.4202s lm24.6298s Team Kiwi Commodore VX lm24.6952s Orrcon Racing Falcon AU lm24.7812s 00 Motorsport Falcon BA lm25.1085s 00 Motorsport Falcon BA lm28.4395s Thexton Motor Racing Falcon AU

Top 15 Shoot-out 55.3052s lm23.7019s 55.5607s lm23.9869s 55.6867s lm24.0895s 55.7133s lm24.2763s 55.7476s lm24.3715s

6 Richards 7 Morris 8 R Kelly 9 Whincup 10 T Kelly

25.8062s 25.7835s 25.7332s 25.7538s 26.0979s

56.0002s lm24.5121s 55.5812s lm24.5940s 55.9135s lm24.6866s 55.9854s lm24.7298s 56.1392s lm24.8847s

V8SCSRound4 lATinton Raceway

if the team ever went testing by going fastest in Friday's opening session ahead of Murphy. The Kiwi went one better on Saturday morning and was itching to get into qualifying later that day, reporting that the car felt "bloody fantastic".

Wilson squeaked in underneath Ambrose for bragging rights in Saturday's last practice session before things finally got serious later that afternoon.

The first train out of Winton left on the Saturday night and David Thexton booked himself a ticket on it by comfortably failing to qualify his ex-Paragon Racing Falcon AU. Otlrer than that, the slower half of the pack's qualifying session went off without a hitch.

Well, almost. An operator error caused the timing system to kick off earlier than the qualifying session did. Thus, the cars returned to the pits after an abbreviated session, only to be sent back out- which created a problem for the faster cars, which were lined up at the pit exit and ready to go. After a mad rush to get the quick guys back into the garage (no mean feat if you were camped down the far end of pitlane), the slower cars went out again for the three-and-a-half minutes that they had lost at the beginning.

The slower group featured a few names that are not often seen on the track at during that part of the afternoon, including that of Tander, who had been struggling to get the

Early Riser

A NUMBER of drivers used Winton to produce their best performance of the season, but most impressive of all was a bloke who,this time last year, was settling into his Australian Formula Ford Championship campaign.

Jumping from small openwheelers into V8 Supercars is a daunting step and it's fair to say that this had been reflected in Jamie Whincup's performances in the opening three rounds.

Winton was another story. The 20-year-old was at the business end of the timesheets in the early sessions on Saturday and then found a huge 0,6s between the second and third practice sessions to vault himself from 12th to fifth.

But could he back it up in qualifying? Hell, yeah! After running around amongst the 42

quicker half of the field (on a day that had seen team-mate Garth Tander circulating with the slow group), Whincup capped his afternoon off by snatching the last spot up for grabs in the Top 10 Shootout.

"Today's results are a lot better than any of my other results so far this year," Whincup said after qualifying, "Everything has come together. We had a really good test here last week and the car is really well-balanced."

The Victorian, who says that there is little exchange of information between himself and Tander (although the fact that GT is running a VY limits the extent to which the pair could share data) was undaunted by the prospect of his first V8 Shootout appearance. And starting from 10th, he figured there was little

Repco Valvoline Cummins VY to behave itself. By qualifying though, things were moving in the right direction - i.e., up to the top of the timesheets - to the point where a lm23.6369s in the 'blink and you'll miss it' second qualifying run suggested that GT may have slowgrouped his way into the Shootout.

Time would tell.

Elsewhere, there was much interest in what was going on in FPR-land.

Glemi Seton's new BA was basically still having the finishing touches put to it as it was being loaded into the transporter for the trip up the Hume Hwy,so not much was expected from it in the early stages of the weekend.

Indeed,in the opening sessions Seton was struggling to keep up with the car that he drove up until Eastern Creek, which was now at the hands of David Besnard. But by qualifying, Seton was starting to get the hang of his new toy and were generally pleased with their final qualifying spot of 18th, while Bezzy was less enthralled to be started from 30th.

"The car felt pretty good," he said.

"It's just that in qualifying all the other guys impror'ed as well and went quicker than us! New tyres tend to mask a lot of problems. We found that at Eastern Creek and we're finding that here."

Tander aside, not many of the first group looked like offering much of a threat to the quicker half of the field.

And so it proved. Richo and Whincup made the first tentative incursions into the top 15, and over the next couple of laps the slower cars were dispatched from the top of the sheets like tin ducks at a carnival

iw- ’

A

"t*

point in mucking around.

"If you hold back, you'll be holding back all your life," he said.

"I'll just go out for a blinder, I reckon."

Whincup wound up ninth after a sgrappy lap from Todd Kelly, but things turned sour in the race when a crunch from Rodney Forbes caused steering

damage that eventually put the Repco Valvoline Cummins VX out of action.

GRM has few faults, but one conception people have about the team - fair or otherwise - is a reputation for struggling to prepare a competitive second car. It seems nobody told Whincup that two weeks ago ...

- MARK GLENDENNING motorsport news

shooting gallery, Murf launched the Kmart Commodore to the top of the sheets before being bettered by Skaife, who was bumped down by Ambrose, only to have Murf go quicker again. With just under nine minutes remaining Bright took his turn at the top, leaving Lowndes, who along with Tander was the only man from the slower half of the field still lurking in the top ten, cUnging onto the bottom rrmg of the Shootout.

Lowndes's Top 10 hopes were dashed by Paul Morris in the everimproving Sirromet Commodore VY, and Tander was bumped just minutes later when Rick Kelly(who was not entirely happy with the handling of the #15 Kmart car) came from nowhere to go seventh-quickest.

Meanwhile, Bright had moved to the top of the sheets and had just about reached the point where he could start rehearsing his provisional pole quotes for the post-qualifying press conference when Ambrose scorched around on his very last lap and pinched PI from under his nose.

The Pirtek car did its last tour of the track in lm23.2604s, a mere 0.0175s quicker than Brighty had managed to do, and that was that.

It was a close thing, and this was pretty much the order of the day. The top five cars were covered by 0.1s, and everybody down to Wayne Wakefield in P28 managed to post a time less than 1.0s slower than Marcos. It was the kind of result that meant if you coughed at the wrong time during your best lap, you'd lose six spots.

Next-quickest after Ambrose and Bright was Murf, ahead of Skaife, and Ingall, who was again going like a jet in the Caltex Havoline Falcon and proving that no matter how far you take an SBR car from its home track it is a force to be reckoned with.

Sixth fastest was Richards ahead of Morris, who was pleased to have 4 June 2003

nailed a spot in the top ten after just missing the cut at Eastern Creek, Rick Kelly, Todd Kelly and, remarkably, Whincup.

The reigning Australian Formula Ford Champion has faced a steep learning curve in his jump into the big leagues, but Wmton gave the first glimpse of what may be in store once the 20-year-old Victorian fully hits his straps.

Team-mate Tander ended up missing out by a wliisker, but was not too concerned.

"We're still struggling a bit," said the tall one,"The car's still not right.

We probably didn't deserve to be m the Shootout anyway."

that he gave away at the start proved to be too much. He wound up falling 0.1549s shy of Whincup's time.

Kelly Jr, Morris, and Richards all followed and each went progressively quicker, with Richo salvaging a difficult start to his lap that saw him 0.4205 short at the second split before a demon final

Sprintcars: Ambrose won the getaway into the Motorsport News Esses, Murphy holding position from second. The two soon opened a gap to the rest, headed by Bright.

continued on page 44

And so to Sunday, and Shootout.

Wedged in the between the morning warm-up and the race, the positioning of the Shootout on the schedule makes participation something of a bittersweet experience for the teams uivolved.

Sure it's nice to be in the top 10but there is a lot of work involved in turning a car around after the warm up to get it ready for a single flying lap, and to then revert it back to 'race mode' afterwards. And nobody even wants to think about the repercussions of hitting the wall durmg the Shootout just 90-odd minutes before the race ...

Whincup, making his first Shootout appearance, could not have cared less. As the first car out on a track known for its habit of changing characteristics virtually by the minute, a blindingly quick lap was going to be a tough ask, and the end result- lm24.7298s - was reasonable, but not likely to create any waves unless someone else made a mistake.

Which,immediately afterwards, someone did. A rough first sector put Todd Kelly onto the back foot, and although he rallied with good second and third splits, the 0,3441s deficit

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continued from page 43 sector saw him pip the Sirromet machme by 0.0819s. Ingall followed and moved to the top with a lm24.2763s, which proved to be just under 0.1s too quick for Skaife, but easy pickings for Murf's lm23.9869s.

An untidy looking lap from Bright proved to be a deceptively quick lm24.0895s, not enough to dislodge Murphy but significantly faster than anyone else had managed,but then came Ambrose, who settled the matter once and for all with a lm23.7019s effort to secure pole by 0.2850s. Job done ... so far.

Race(100 laps) IF you could get all of the V8taken a Supercar drivers who have whack at the first comer at Winton sometime during their career into your house at the same time, you could probably have a pretty decent party.(Provided that you supplied the drinks, nuts, and music).

But this time around,everybody kept their elbows in and most of the field managed to tip-toe through unscatlied. The sole exceptions were Besnard, who scooted off the track and rejoined dead last, and Ellery, who spun on the exit of Turn 2.

Murphy made a good start and momentarily looked like he might have got the better of Ambrose,but Marcos had the line going into turn one and Murf was forced to capitulate. There may have been 300 Winton kilometres ahead but as the blue car and the blue-and-white-withred-bits car started to pull away from third-placed Bright, it was already looking like a two-horse race.

Behind the lead trio higall and Skaife had held their positions,but next came Rick, who had picked up a couple of spots, Richards,Todd and Tander, who had also gained some ground at the expense of Morris and Whincup.

Besnard soon had company at the back of the field when Rick had an excursion and dropped to the tail end on lap two,and Jason Richards joined them two laps later after a clang with Bargs. With that, tlie field seemed to get the early-race jitters out of its system and things settled down for a wliile. Or at least, it did if your name was not Paul Dumbrell, who was forced to drive the #8 Castrol Perkins Commodore into the garage and out of the race on lap six with a dead engme.

The car was the best it had been all weekend," rued the Konica Champ, who arrived at Winton with a new engineer in the form of ex-Team Brock man Barry Ryan.

As the raced approached quarterdistance, Ambrose had opened a 5.0s advantage over Murf, who could console liimself with an almost-ascomfortable 4.5s cushion between 44

himself and Bright, Then Simon Wills ran into problems while trying to avoid Whincup,who was rejoining the track after a minor trip into the dirt. The New Zealander's Commodore swerved off the track and tankslapped the tyrewall. The Safety Car made its first appearance of the afternoon to facilitate the retrieval of Wills's car, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The battered Holden shook itself off, pulled out of the gravel, and,sporting a broken exhaust, made its way noisily back to the pits for a once-over.

Given that it was only lap 29, taking advantage of the Safety Car to make a compulsory stop was a bit of a gamble and Bright was the only one of the leaders to roll the dice. He rejoined 14th with some new rubber, along with fellow stoppers including Lowndes, Wilson, Cameron McConville, and Bargwanna.

Ambrose made a perfect restart when the Safety Car returned to its cave on lap 31 and eight laps later| had pushed his gap over Murf back out to 2.2s. Ingall now sat third courtesy of |, Bright's stop, ahead of Skaife and ^ Richards.

No-one mention 'V8 Superstars': Then,on lap 40, the Pirtek team Russell Ingall had the close showed their hand. Marcos flicked the attention of Mark Skaife for some pitlane speed limiter to on and time, Rusty's journey to fourth two burbled down to make his spots better than Skaifey's sixth. compulsory fuel stop,leaving Murf to make sure that his speed limiter was Coalition of the Wills: well and truly off as he sought to Simon Wills prompted a Safety Car make tlie most of Iris new-found and a fair bit of damage to the status as race leader.

Team Dynamik Commodore VY, For Ambrose,the timing could not right. have been worse.Immediately after his stop, Morris suffered a puncture That looks Betta: and sailed off the track and into Paul Radisich and Dean Canto retirement. Once again, the Safety Car have a beak at a familiar splitter | at was deployed while the unfortunate Morris's car was rescued from the tbe MNews Esses, below. |

.BOSCH Spark Plugs

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V8 SUPERCARS

>5^ kitty litter. Murf,Skaife, and Richo were among the pack who dived in to the pits, as was Todd, who came in behind his team-mate and was left to sit patiently while the #1 HRT car was dealt with ... and Ambrose, who made his stops back-to-back.

By the time the race had restarted on lap 45, Jason Richards was leading from Mark Noske and Whincup, however all three still had appointments to keep in pitlane. Top of the two-stoppers was Bright in fifth, ahead of Wilson, Lowndes and the two OzEmail cars, with John Bowe in front of Brad Jones.

Ambrose? He was back in 11th, while Ingall was right back in 25th. All at once, a lot of hard work would have to be done all over again - and this time, with some very fast guys in the way.

"That first Safety Car really threw our strategy out, because we thought it was too early for tyres, and definitely too early for fuel," Ambrose admitted.

"We stayed out there and we paid the price, because when we finished 4 June 2003

our h\'o stops, we were in the middle of the pack.

"We had good tyres but we had a heavy tank. Trying to pass cars around this place is hard enough as it is, and with a full tank and good tyres ... I was trying to look after the tyres and press on. There was a window of, maybe 20 laps where I had good tyres, and I had to really force the issue and make the passes."

Any way you look at it, Ambrose's recovery was awesome. The Tasmanian needled Iris way though the field (and had a clash with Wilson along the way tliat resulted in tire Brazilian having a spin, luckily with no harm other than that to his lap time)before finally outbraking Bright for the lead at turn three on lap 67.

And tliat was that. By the time the chequered flag dropped, Ambrose was ahead of Bright by just under 5.0s.

"Once I had got past Jason, the tyres had really been given a hard time," said Ambrose."I'm just lucky that there wasn't another Safetv Car.' One the Pirtek car had scampered away over the horizon. Bright was left to take a relatively lonely second place.

"We certainly didn't have the pace that Marcos had," he said.

"I certainly gave him plenty of room - he was probably going to get past at some stage anyw'ay,so it wasn't worth losing time battling for it. We probably stmggled a little bit more that what I expected all weekend for pace, but at the end of the day we still scored good points thanks to, probably, the different strategy that we went for."

While the closing stages of Bright's race was relatively uneventful, the battle for third was anything but. In

IT was a big weekend for the New Zealand contingent at Winton.

All the fair sons of the Land of the Long White Cloud had, no doubt, one eye on the final of Rugby's Super 12s, an annoyingly home derby between Auckland and Canterbury. For those keeping score at home,the Blues defeated the Crusaders, 21-17. Our interest in this ends here ...

It was also a big weekend for Team Kiwi Racing. The squad has ended its technical partnership with Garry Rogers Motorsport and was going it alone, Craig Baird running the team's Perkinsbuilt Commodore VX. It was one of the oldest cars in the pack and,from the outside, nothing much was expected from the team after Baird qualified 31st.

But the times do not tell the entire story. Baird was within 0.02s of the lap time set last August by Jason Richards in the same car, in spite of the fact that the track was much slower than it was last winter,to the tune of around 0.6s In the race,the NZer hauled the car up to 15th position in the race and looked set to stay there. But, like Todd Kelly and Forbes, a late-race splash 'n' go was deemed to be illegal and the result was an exclusion.

There has been background talk that TKR faces financial dramas, which the team denied at Winton. If the most recent performance of the team is any guide, it is way to early not to expect some more giant-killing performances from the men in black and silver.

the final laps, tlie fight had boiled down to a three-way duel between Tander,Skaife and Richards, who had joined the fray from some distance back.

Tander and Skaife had been squabbling for several laps, but when Richards got them in his sights he took precious little time to whittle tlie gap away. Skaife initially responded, but just as Richards prepared to apply the pressure again, something happened on lap 91 that occurs very rarely indeed.

Skaife spun, all by himself. There was no damage to the car, but with the defending Champ rejoining in seventh, there might as well have been. Todd's later exclusion from the race(he,along with Rodney Forbes and Craig Baird, were dropped from the results for refueling after tire pit wmdow had closed) capped off a tough weekend for Team Red. It's neither fair nor accurate to say tliat

HRT is in trouble- yet- but the fact is that the team is heading west with a lot of ground to make up. It is a situation that the Clayton crew have not had much experience with m recent times, and it will be interesting to see how they respond at Barbagallo.

Meanwhile, with Skaife out of the way, Richards turned his attention to Tander. After a taking a couple of looks, Richo had a go at the end of the back straight and moved ahead, but Tander refused to give in and the pair swung through the final turn side-by-side. As soon as they hit the straight however, Richards pulled away and booked himself a spot on the podium. The rate at which he was able to pull away from Tander was astonishing - within three laps, he was 2.6s ahead. Tlien, on the penultimate lap. Garth slowed on the

continued on page 46 45

U8SCS Round 4

Wlnton

v» Hace -100 laps S Pos Driver Race time Fastest lap 2h28m50.5241s *1m24.0433s 52 V3 1 Ambrose 2h28m54.4746s lm24.4343s 6 2 Bright 3 S Richards 2h28m56.0607s lm25.0413s 49 2h29m01.5461s lm24.7465s 62 4 Ingall 5 Weel 2h29m08.6680s lm25.0532s 50 6 Skaife 2h29mll,8472s lm24.8625s 8 7 Radisich 2h29m20.6784s lm25.1404s 49 8 Bowe 2h29m26.7159s lm25.0109s 23 9 Wilson 2h29m27.9896s 1m25.1634s 5 10 Lowndes 2h29m29.6135s #lm23.8298s 63 lm24.9505s 49 11 RKel'v 2h29m30.7090s lm24.8346s 55 2h29m31.0878s 1m24.9937s 71 12 Seton 13 Bargwanna 2h29m35.7411s 1m25.2186s 8 2h29m37.1725s 1m24,6061s 53 14 Murphy 15 J Richards 2h29m57.6391s lm24.7483s 50 2h30m02.1536s 1m25,6828s 9 16 Tratt 17 McConviile 2h30m02.9749s lm25.3267s 14 18 Noske 99 laps lm25.0512s 52 19 Johnson 99 laps 1m25.2256s 6 20 Ritter 99 laps Im24.9527s49 21 Wakefield 99 laps 1m25.1719s62 22 Larkham 99 laps 1m25.1299s50 23 Canto 98 laps lm25.1863s 8 24 Besnard 96 laps 1m25.0466s 49 93 taps 1m25.1385s 23 25 Ellery 26 Jones l 85laps 1m24.8305s 5 DNF Tander 98 laps 1m24.8379s 63 85 laps lm25.0933s 55 DNF Whincup DNF Wills 49 laps Im25.2078s71 DNF Morris 40 laps 1m25.0732s 8 DNF Dumbrell 3 laps 1m26.9353s 2 EXC T Kelly EXC Baird EXC Forbes # Lowndes's fastest lap includes short-cut. His next fastest lap shown * Ambrose set fastest 'legitimate' lap

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continued from page 45 back straight and lost a position to Ingall. He got back up to speed and kept going, but was clearly in trouble. The nature of problem was confirmed when the car finally ground to a halt on the final lap with completely dry fuel tanks. We don't know what Tander was thinking while he was walking back to the pits, but if we did, we'd probably have to censor it.

Tender's retirement ended GRM's interest in the race, as Whincup had already been parked with a broken steering rack courtesy of a incident with Forbes - an unfortunate end to an otherwise excellent weekend for the rookie.

If Ambrose's efforts to recover

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make’s his final result of fourth place all the more superb, even taking into account the fact that he benefited from a few events taking place elsewhere on tire track.

Perhaps significant place onthe lapmost 63, when Murf took was chasing Lowndes for third place.

Defining moments: Lowndes spears off into the infield, soon after having a half-lose at the Sweeper.

He rejoined and Murphy shortly after served a controversial drivethrough penalty. Soon after, Ambrose took the lead from Bright at Honda, below, and the race was a good as decided.

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Points: Bright717, S Richards 666, Ingall 633, Ambrose and Weel 597, Skaife and Murphy 597, Lowndes 594, Radisich 540, R Kelly 507, Tander 486, Seton 426, Wilson 378, Johnson 375, Bargwanna 372, Wills 345, T Kelly 336, Ritter and Morris 315, McConviile 309, Larkham 297, Bowe 273, Baird and Dumbrell 231, Jones 228, J Richards 225, Tratt 210, Ellery 204, Noske 201, Canto and Besnard 198, Whincup 159, Forbes 144, Wakefield 72, Thexton24.

Points after dropping worst round: Bright 546, S Richards and Lowndes 516, Skaife 513, Ambrose 501, Ingall 495, Murphy 483, Weel 465, Tander 450, Radisich 432, R Kelly 408, Seton 384, Wilson 348, Wills 345, . Kelly 336, Bargwanna 330, Morris 315, McConviile 309, Johnson 291, Ritter 285, Bowe 255, Larkham 237, Baird and Dumbrell 231, Jones 222, J Richards 210, Tratt and Besnard 198, Ellery 192, Noske 183, Canto 174, Whincup 159, Forbes 144, Wakefield 72, Thexten 24.

46

motorspoit news

One tail light: Max Wilson, above, showed the the Good Ship Johnson is turning around with a gritty ninth place.

Bye bye VX: Richards, below, bid farewell to the CPR VX with a strong third. Richo is still second in the series.

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The CAT-mobile got slightly out of shape and ran wide through the sweeper. Lowndes braked hard in his efforts to recover the car, leaving the pursuing Murf with nowhere to go but into the back of him. Lowndes was speared off the track but engaged in a little off-road action to skip a few corners and rejoin ahead of Murf.

That, we all supposed, was the end of it. It was a racing incident, and at any rate, Murf had not gained a position. Consequently, the news that Murphy would be called in for a drive-through penalty came as a considerable surprise, not least of all to Murf himself.

It is appreciated that the stewards do not always have an easy job, but on this occasion, they got it very, very, very badly wrong. In our pre season preview at the start of the year, we predicted that the officials would make one stupendously bad call at some stage during 2003, and at Winton they delivered.

Murf served his penalty and rejoined but his race was shot to pieces and he eventually finished a

despondent 14th. Rick, however, gave the team something to cheer about with an admirable drive to 11th after being dead last early in the race.

The incident ruined Lowndes's afternoon too, for the impact had pushed some bodywork onto a rear tyre.

"It didn't hurt me on right handers, but it caused problems whenever I tried to turn left," he said.

Unfortunately, Winton's layout had enough left-handers to send Lowndes marching backwards to eventually finish 10th, Seton finished an encouraging 12th on the new car's debut, and could have done significantly better had it not been for a mix-up during the stops, when a call to pit under the Safety Car was aborted too late and Seton was left to trimdle down the pitlane.

Meanwhile, Besnard had his hands full in the third FPR Falcon when he flew off the track and broke a sway bar on lap 19 while trying to make up lost ground after his lap one trip through the grass. He finished 24th.

Weel kept his points tally topped up with another strong drive to fifth, and he was followed by a couple of names who have not made many incursions into the top 10 in recent times. One was Paul Radisich, who got everything right to finish seventh after starting 25th, despite not being overjoyed with the Briggs Falcon.

Wilson, too, drove well to a good ninth place just behind Bowe, who was left carrying the OzEmail torch after Jones lost a splitter - and lots and lots of time - in an excursion off the track after a clash with Ellery.

And so Perth beckons. Ambrose has a chance - a very real chance - of winning three in a row. The last time a Ford driver won tw'o in a row, Marcos was racing karts. Last time one of them did a three-peat, MC Hammer was probably considered cutting edge.

But the Brock-mobiles are looking ominously quick, Richo will have a new car, Murf will have the red mist.

Ingall w'ill be champing at the bit, and HRT will have a lot to prove.

Those Westralians don't know how lucky they are.

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T the end of the Monaco Grand Prix, Juan Pablo Montoya,Kimi Raikkonen Michael Schumacher all looked decidedly tired.

All three men had worked hard for their money and the three strategies had produced a race which ended with a Williams, a McLaren and a Ferrari virtually nose to tail.

The race had been one of tyres as had been expected but it was also a race of strategies and traffic. Michael Schumacher was expected to be a force but in the early laps of the race even he was stuck in traffic.

I could say that I might have been able to finish higher if 1 had not been stuck behind Jarno in the early stages," he said,"but our strategy was to go for a long first stint and that meant having more fuel. And that was why 1 was behind liim.

At some points in the race 1 was not able to push as hard as would have liked. There was nothing wrong with the car.

It was clear to Fl-watchers what Michael was saying. The problem had been with the tyres. They were good when they were new but lacked 48

grip when they began to wear down.

The Michelins were more consistent.

Despite tliis, the Ferrari team took the decision to go for a heavier fuel load and as a result Michael went eight laps further than Montoya in the first stint.

Throughout that time he lost time behind Trulli. Jarno did not get out of his way imtil the 37th lap and immediately Michael showed what the Ferrari could do, dropping his times by around 1.5 seconds. And then he had to scuttle into the pits.

Montova went back into the lead. with Raikkonen behind him. When Michael re-emerged with another big fuel load he was not able to match the pace of the two cars ahead and he gradually dropped back until he was 14 seconds behind Raikkonen.

The time he had lost in the early laps was carried with him and he was not going to wm it back. As the strategies unwound the order did not change but in the closing laps Raikkonen and Michael closed right up to Montoya.

Juan Pablo kept it quiet after the race but he had had a problem with the BMW engine and in the final stint

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turned down tlie revs in the hope that it would not blow up.

Over the last couple of laps, as Raikkonen threatened, BMW agreed to let him risk a little extra and it was therefore a great relief when he went across the line to become only the second man ever to win tire Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 (Graham Hill being the other).

It was also Williams's first victory on the streets of Monte Carlo since Keke Rosberg drove a WilliamsCosworth FW08C to victory in 1983.

That was a magnificent win but in the years that followed, the team's Monaco record was simply horrible.

If things could go wrong tliey did go wrong,even when Williams had the best cars.

It was an important win for Williams as well because in recent weeks the team has been under lots of pressure about its performance.

No-one could fault the chassis in Monaco.

If there was one disappointment it was that the two Williams-BMWs did not finish 1-2. It should have

continued on page 52 H lune 2003

I'll take this one: He may have had an engine problem and a mirror-full of a silver-clad Finn, but Montoya still made it onto the top step of the podium for the first time since Monza in 2001.

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Qualifying

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Grand Prix ofi May 31 2003

|4 R Schumacher(0) BMW WIIIIamsFIJeam 1:15.259 1 i

West McLaren Mercedes n 1:15.295 , +0.036 3JPMontova(CO] BMWWilliamsFI Team 1:15.415 +0.156

Miid Seven Renauil FI Team 1:15.500 +0.241 1 M Schumachor(D) Scuderia Ferrari Mariboro 1:15.644 + 0.385 5 D Coulthard (GB) West McLaren Mercedes 1:15.700 +0.441 [2 R Barrichollo(BRA) Scuderia Ferrari Mariboro 1:15.820 +0.561 8 F Alonso(E) MikJ Seven RenauK FI Team 1:15.884 + 0.625 1' 14MWobbor (AUS) I Jaguar Racing I 1:16.237 +0.978

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, [Panasonic Toyota Radng I 1:16.744 +1.485 i16JWIeneu»aSEMi j Lucky Strike BAR Honda ; 1:16.755 + 1.496 111 GFisichella(l) j iJordan Ford 1:16.967 + 1.708 I Jaguar Racing 1:17!i03 +1.844 iQNHaldfeld (Pj Sauber PeUonas 1:17.176 +1.917 10 H H Frenteen (D) j Sauber Petronas 1:17.402 2.143 12 R Firman (IRL) Jordan Ford 1:17.452 +2.193 l!00Panis(F) Panasonic Toyota Racing 1:17.464 + 2.205 19 J Verstappen (N1 Minardi Cosworlh 1:18.706 + 3.447 |18J Wilson(GB) Minardi Cosworlh 1:20.063 +4.804 17 J Button(GB) i Lucky Strike BAR Honda No time

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N Thursday evening in Monte Carlo, as most of the FI circus went off to party the night away before the one day off the World Championship gets at a race each year, it looked as though the Monaco weekend was going to be rather tedious.

Ferrari was 1-2 and the red cars were well clear of the rest.

The team let irte"known that it had made its tyre choice and everything looked hunky-dory.

But out in the paddock there were a few questioning voices.

All was not necessarily as it seemed.

"What we don't know is whether or not Ferrari can qualify and race with the tyre that they used today," said McLaren's Adrian Newey.

"Some runners seem to have prepared for this session in a very specific manner," said Michelin boss Pierre Dupasquier.

"Their performance today is not

an indication of what will happen on Saturday."

And come Saturday afternoon we found out that those voices of caution had been right. The Bridgestone tyres, in 'green' form, were not lasting the whole way around the Monaco lap, most of the Bridgestone runners complaining of waning tyre performance in the final sector as the tyres started to grain.

The Michelins had no such such troubles and by the end of an interesting final qualifying session there were eight Michelin cars in the top 10.

"We didn't expect that!" admitted Dupasquier.

But that was the reality and the question that it raised was whether or not the Bridgestone tyres would clean up in the race and be consistent enough to enable Ferrari to mount a decent challenge on Sunday.

That depended to some extent on the fuel strategies chosen.

There were lots of fascinating possibilities, but no-one really seemed to know who was doing what. It was suggested that the new qualifying format would force most teams to opt for a double rather than single stop strategy, but, as usual, only Sunday would tell.

But what that itFerrari was not was goingclear to have all its own way as the impression had been on Thursday.

Michael Schumacher was fifth on the grid and Barrichello seventh and the pair told a similar story; the tyres had faded at the end of their qualifying laps. Michael was very keen to point out that fifth was not quite the disaster it appeared to be. At the first split he had been ahead; he was quick in the second sector as well but lost a few tenths to the Michelin men.

And the same was true in the final sector as well. A look down

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through the sector times and that pattern was repeated with Nick Heidfeld, Jacques Villeneuve, Ralph Firman and others, The only man who had seemed to have any idea how to make the Bridgestones go quickly on Saturday was Jenson Button. He never got to take part in the qualifying session after having a huge crash in the second niorning session on Saturday when his BAR snapped out of control under brakes at the exit of the tunnel.

The car hit the barrier hard and it was unfortunate for Button that the impact occurred just where there was a solid metal support for the barrier.

This meant that the car was thrown back across the track and into the barriers on the harbourside. Wreckage then cascaded down the hill and the car went sideways into the barrier at the back of the chicane.

For those with any FI memory

it was a shunt reminiscent of that which befell Karl Wendlinger in 1994 which left the Austrian in a coma for nearly two weeks and ultimately ruined his promising F1 career. The difference between the two crashes was that FI safety measures has improved.

The lateral impact was probably about the same but the tyre barriers are better designed and, more importantly, the cockpit surround foam was able to absorb the impact of Button's helmet.

Button was moving about and talking to marshals as the rescue crews went into action and it looked to be largely a question of precautionary measures rather than any desperate medical needs. It later emerged that Jenson was fine, although he was feeling a little dizzy and sick after a hefty thump. He would miss the qualifying session and, ultimately, the race.

The message that emerged from qualifying was that the Michelins were working. And working well.

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ristiano da Matta set the pace early on and five men were unable to beat the Toyota driver but then Fernando Alonso, who had not had a good day on Thursday, took a second off the time.

A few minutes later Kimi Raikkonen (who had also been in trouble on Thursday) sliced a second from Alonso's best. Five more drivers struggled to get close and then the Williams-BMW of Ralf Schumacher came out.

No one expected Ralf to get pole but his lap was (by a fraction) faster than Raikkonen's best. And Montoya was third.

Williams has taken a lot of Nothing a lick of paint won't fix: From pretty much this exact moment, what started as BAR'S most promising weekend of the season turned sour. Button was the first driver in the field to find the

1 4 June 2003

Bridgestone's sweet spot, but when he crunched the wall on Saturday, the team remained relatively anonymous from there on.

criticism recently but there did seem to be much wrong with the car in Monaco.

There were four runners left but David Coulthard and Jarno Trulli could not get close enough and the two Ferraris were also just a fraction too slow although the tension lasted all the way to the end as Michael bid for pole. In the end the top eight cars (from the top four teams) were all covered by sixtenths of a second.

Coulthard was actually the man who had looked strongest before the session. DC is always good at Monaco, has won twice, and reckoned that with the right car he could win again. But in qualifying he did not have the right car.

"I had a bit of oversteer in the warm-up," he said. "I made a small change and that gave me a little understeer and I lost a bit of time."

He ended up in sixth position on the grid.

Much had been expected on the Renault team and in the end Jarno Trulli ended up fourth fastest but that was disappointing given the expectations, Trulli described the handling of the Renault chassis as "magic" but complained about lack of top speed.

Fernando Alonso had spoiled his chances by hitting a wall in the morning and so he could hope for little more than eighth, which was a good effort in the circumstances.

Mark Webber was the best of the rest again and was not surprised by that. He had done another very solid job, staying off the walls and getting the car set-up for the race. The cars were reliable and the performance is there - it simply cannot be long before Webber produces a big result.

Team-mate Pizzonia had to make do with 13th place on the grid. It was a good solid performance by the man who was under such pressure a few weeks ago. A good sign.

If there was onq big surprise other than Ralf's pole it was Da Matta in 10th place on the grid in the Toyota. Da Matta was the

fastest rookie and the result was rather better than he had hoped for because the Toyota is clearly not a great car. There was a suspicion, of course, that da Matta was running with less fuel that others in order to make the Toyota look a bit better than it was ...

Olivier Panis (a previous Monaco winner, remember) was down in 17th and miserable about his car.

"The car needs more grip and more downforce," he said, somewhat obviously.

BAR had looked strong until Saturday morning when Button crashed. It had not helped that later in the same session Jacques Villeneuve walloped a barrier at Tabac and dented his chances but 11th position in the afternoon was a good effort for a Bridgestone runner and Jacques was confident for the race.

Behind him was Giancarlo Fisichella in his Jordan. He had been quicker when the temperatures were lower but in the heat of qualifying the car suddenly became a lot more nervous and Fisichella was 12th, just three places ahead of his team-mate Ralph Firman. The team was well-placed to pick up points on Sunday if incidents could be avoided.

The Saubers did not look very exciting, in part because of the Bridgestone problems but also because the drivers were not happy with the balance of the cars. They ended up 14th and 15th with Heidfeld just ahead of Frentzen.

Down at the back, as usual, were the two Minardis. They had gone for a strategy of hard tyres and a heavy fuel load.

It was the one that many people had chosen for Sunday.

Except there were whispers that the Ferraris had gone for a softer compound ...

The bets had been taken. The chips were on the table and the big question for Sunday was where the roulette wheel that is the weather would stop on s Sunday afternoon. And how many would abandon the traditional one-stop strategy?

It was pure Monaco...

SI

What's going to be, and what might have been?

The ever-quick Kimi, left, pulls away from Nick Heidfeld, the man who had his hopes pinned on the McLaren seat back in 2002.

continued from page 49 happened for the two ran that way through the first stint after Montoya jumped ahead of Raikkonen at the start. Ralf and Juan Pablo then ran together, the pair being unable to shake off Raikkonen but still able to stay ahead without much trouble.

Ralf's strategy was to pit on lap 21 - a full 10 laps before his brother.

This meant that he dropped from the lead to eighth place, at the tail of the big four teams but ahead of the "Yo, Schuey! What's up, knackers? It's the Ed-meister here.

Mi

Maaate, could you swing me a couple of passes to the paddock?

When I asked, it was almost like everyone had forgotten me.

Crazy! It would be great if...

Eddie. It's Eddie Irvine speaking, Michael. Michael?"(click)

chasers. The problem was that the others went faster after Ralf pitted and when the stops were over he was back in fourth place and for 15 laps was stuck behind his brother, never looking likely to overtake.

The second pit stops did notlung to improve his position and he then made a mistake at Rascasse which dropped him away. He finished fourth, which from pole position was obviously not the optimum result.

By taking 15 points, however, Williams has clawed its way back up to third in the Constructors' Championship and although it will be tough to close up on McLaren and Ferrari another result like Monaco would get the team to within striking distance. And that could happen, Raikkonen drove another great race and by the end was sure that he could have beaten Montoya if it had not been for a lap spent trying to get around the struggling Olivier Panis in the first pit stop sequence..

It cost him a second or two but that

would have been enough. But, as he himself admitted, if he had made a better start he would have been ahead anyway.

For most of practice David Coulthard had been the star at McLaren but he ended up sixth on the grid and then in the race found himself being jumped by the fast starting Alonso. David was able to get rid of the Renault at the first pit stop sequence but he then found himself stuck behind Trulli and this caused such a problem that when it came to the second stops, they both ended up behind Alonso!

But if Coulthard had a bad day, BarricheUo's was no better ...

Like Schumacher, he had tyre trouble and cars in his way and he ended the afternoon in eighth place, behind both Renaults. The Renaults may lack horsepower but they handle well and have magnificent launch-control systems. This means that often they get ahead of faster cars at the start of races and tlten get in the way. And this was what happened in Monaco.

Trulli was fourth on the grid but made a fabulous start only to be blocked by Raikkonen. That was his only chance and after that he fell back to hold off Michael Schumacher imtil the first pit stops. After tliat be did the same to Coulthard and all this motorsport news

§

iulton’imMcs.com \

Prince of Darkness: Michael Schumacher negotiates the tunnel on a weekend that saw the new Ferrari somewhat off the pace ... at least, by Prancing Horse standards ...

took its toll, for he fell behind team mate Alonso who had started four places behind him on the grid.

After the race Trulli caused some amusement in the press office by saying that he had had trouble with traffic...

There was never much of a hope for anyone other than the four big teams. With BAR down to one driver because of Button's crash on Saturday, the charge was easily led

by Mark Webber in his Jaguar,but the car did not last long and a pneumatic system failure caused Mark to head for the pits early on.

The system was refilled but a few laps later Webber was back in the pit lane and out of the race.

"Retirement was our only option," said Webber.

For several races now it has been clear that Webber is ready for a pretty good result but niggling problems have meant that this has been delayed.

It will happen before too long.

Jaguar's day was over very quickly for Antonio Pizzonia had an electrical failure after only 11 laps and parked his Jaguar down at the chicane.

Tliis left Cristiano da Matta to take up the chase of the rapidly disappearing top teams. Da Matta had no illlusions and admitted later that he had a rather dull race, without much traffic.

4 June 2003

Take a good look: The rear half of the field negotiates the hairpin on the opening lap, left. Before long, only two of the cars pictured would be left standing. (In fact, Heinz-Harald was out about 30 seconds after this pic was taken).

I was pretty much on my own. he said. It was a good solid rim and Toyota could not really have hoped for more given that the car is clearly beset with some basic problems.

Things have started to come together for me from a driving point of view," he said."We need to work a lot more and improve the performance but we are testing a lot and I am sure it will all come togetlier."

Olivier Panis may not have agreed for Ms race was dreadful. His car had been horrible all weekend and with a full load of fuel it was very nasty.

Olivier decided on a one-stop strategy and Ms lap times were very slow. He finished a pathetic four laps down.

"There must have been sometMng wrong with the car," said Paras,again with some understatement."But at the moment we do not know what.

Villeneuve would have beaten da Matta had Ms Honda engine not failed but with the Bridgestone problems Jacques was in Division Two and did not much enjoy it.

The other Bridgestone runners; Jordan, Sauber and Minardi were all down at the back or retired.

Jordan got both men home but 10th for Fisichella and 12th for

The car has been crap all weekend" Cunningly disguised as Bono from U2, Justin Wilson explains his DNF to ITV's Louise Goodman, above.

The long road: Jacques Villeneuve, right, has had a frustrating 2003 so far, and Monaco kept it rolling when his Honda powerplant ate itself.

Firman is hardly very good.

Sauber lost Frentzen on the first lap when he ran over a kerb at the exit of the Swimming Pool and was launched across the road and into the wall. Heinz admitted that he ought to have done a bit better than tliat.

Heidfeld flogged around all afternoon and finished 11th. It was not a very gripping performance...

And Minardi's afternoon was short-lived because both engines stopped with fuel vaporisation problems just as Verstappen and Wilson were beginning to be lapped by the fast men.

As with more than one race to date, the light fuel/early stop strategy again won the day. Ferrari gambled on the opposite and lost- as

well as struggling with, on this occasion, the second best tyre.

There's no doubt the new-for-2003 format has thrown up some interesting races. And the days of confident pre-race predictions are obviously over. Wliat will Canada throw up?...

53

/

2003 FIA Formula One World Championship

fomiiin.i>i

WORLD

4

,. i'

2003 Monaco Grand Prix - Overall Race aasalflcatlon after 78 laps - 260.520 kms - Provisional No.

.

Driver

Nat

Entrant

Laps

Time

COL BMW'WlllBSBlSPlIiSm FIN West McLaren Mercedes

78

1:42:19.010'

6

Juan^lEteTtontoya^ Kimt Raikk6nen

78

1:42:19.612

00.602

1

Michael Schumacher

GER Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro

78

1:42:20.730

01.720

4

Ralf Schumacher

GER BMW WItliamsFl Team

78

1:42:47.528

Fernando Alonso

ESP

Mild Seven Renault FI Team

78

7

JamoTrulli

ITA

Mild Seven Renault Fl Team

78

5

David Coulthard

GBR West McLaren Mercedes

2

Rubens Barrichello

BRA

21 Cristiano Da Malta

BRA

11

Giancarlo Rsichefla

ITA

9

Nick Heidfeld

3

12 Ralph Rrman 20 Olivier Panis

Kph

Best

Lap

152.772

1:14.902

47

152.757

1:14.545

49

01.118

152.729

1:14.707

30.

28.518

26.798

152.066

1:14.768

77

1:42:55.261

36.251

07.733

151.875

1:15.397

58

1:42:59.982

40.972

04.721

151.759

1:15.679

51

78

1:43:00,237

41.227

00.255

151.753

1:15.439

51

78

1:43:12.276

53.266

12.039

151.458

1:15.307

59

Panasonic Toyota Racing

77

1:43:24.502

1 LAP

1 LAP

149.221

1:16.282

51

Jordan Ford

77

1:43:26.017

1 LAP

01.515

149.185

1:16,647

72

GER Sauber Petronas

76

1:42:42.341

2 LAPS

1 LAP

148.291

1:16.835

75

IRL

Jordan Ford "

76

1:43:07.630

2 LAPS

25.289

147,685

1:17.208

51

FRA

Panasonic Toyota Racing

74

1:43:06.947

4 LAPS

2 LAPS

143nn-lT77ry'70

63

1:24:59.611

DNF

148.543

1:16.292

GBR European Minardi Cosworth

29

0:41:04.619

DNF

141.480

1:19.169

19

NED

28

0:39:38.213

DNF

141.'S65

1:19.146

25

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro

Gap

Not Classified 16 Jacques Vllleneuve 18 Justin Wilson 19 Jos Verstappen 14 Mark Webber

r!

Lucky European Minardi Cosworth

50

AUS

Jaguar Racing

16

0:23:39.983

DNF

1357483'

1:18.004

13

15 Antonio Ptaonla

BRA

Jaguar Racing

10

0:15:32.645

DNF

128.923

1:19.437

8

10

GER Sauber Petronas

_

Heinz Harald Frentzen

0

DNF

Fastest Lap

Drivers' Points: Raikkonen 48, Wl,

illiamsFI

BJVIW

Schumacher 44, Alonso 29, Barrichello 27,

161.298

ltl4.545 on lap 49

) FIN [ West McLaren Mercedes

3

§

p-

Montoya 25, Coulthard 25, R. Schumacher 25,Trulli 13, Fischella 10, Button 8, Frentzen 7, Webber 4, Da Matta 3, Vllleneuve 3, Heidfeld 1, Firman 1 Constructors’ Points: McLaren Mercedes

fl

73, Ferrari 71, BMW.Williams 50, Renault 42, Jordan Ford 11, BAR Honda 11, Sauber 8, Jaguar 4, Toyota 3.

Grand Prix of Monaco June 1 2003 Grid Position/Driver

Accident ® Mechanical failure @ Pit stop || Lapped

Nat Car

i20!

1 : Ralf Schumacher

:GER;Williams iEl

2 Kimi Raikkonen

FIN ! McLaren !

3 ; Juan Pablo Montoya

COL i Williams ;

4 ; Jarno Trulli

ITA ; Renault ; GERj Ferrari

6 ' David Coulthard

GBR I McLaren

7 Rubens Barrichello 8 ' Fernando Alonso

9 , Mark Webber

BRA i Ferrari

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12; Giancarlo Fisichella

ITA I Jordan

13; Antonio Pizzonia

BRA I Jaguar

iL

14 Nick Heidfeld

GER I Sauber

|

15, HeinZ'Harald Frentzen

I GER! Sauber !

16; Ralph Firman

IRL Jordan

171 Olivier Panis

iFRAjToyota

18; Jos Verstappen

NED'Minardi ;

19 Justin Wilson

GBR!Minardi j

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11 : Jacques Vllleneuve

CAN:BAR

54

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WORLD

Positions iap by lap

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motorsport news

FORMULA -I

T

O have a mechanical problem so early in the race, after ali the good work the Jaguar team had done ali weekend,is very, very frustrating.

As the race eventually panned out, with the top eight qualifiers filling the top eight spots,^j: guess we'd have been happy to grab a point, but we had what I believe would have been a strong strategy. We’ll never know.

Our strategy turns out to have been similar to Ferrari, which carried most fuel of the .. contenders,stopping around lap 30. That's when we were scheduled to stop too. The Michelin tyre was definitely superior to the Bridgestone at Monaco and I was planning to do a fair bi} of damage in terms of taking time out of the opposition between laps 20 and 30.

I might have been able to do something about Barrichello, but beyond that, it would have been hard work. || Jly initial concern was I'y i beating da Matta into the first corner. The Toyota was slow, but-they'd run it light in qualifying to get a time and if he’d beaten me away, Td possibly have been stuck ■behind him for up to 20 laps. , . Fortunately, my car launched well and I even had a bit of a look inside Rubens into turirVne, but it was never really on.

The engine problem, an air leak related to the hydraulics, came out of the blue and, after

one stop to re-pressurise it, there was ciearly nothing to be done about it but stop.

I

ncreasing the level of frustration is the fact that we did more laps than anyone during the two days of practice and qualifying, without a single mechanical problem.

Thursday morning,I did a fair bit of work with the softer of our two tyre options. We'd hoped to run it, but I was using up the left rear a bit.

Before Saturday we did a bit more with the rear of the car, suspension and weight distribution, and gained some consistency,so Michelin gave me the okay to stick with the softer tyre. In the end we didn't even do a back-to-back with the harder rubber.

The car was very good in the late stages of both Friday and Saturday practice sessions l indeed it was quickest on Friday morning, so we hoped for a reasonable Friday qualifying run. In the end,though, Frentzen's engine blow-up cruelled it for everyone who followed, and of course I was next out after they'd spread concrete dust everywhere!

Thanks goodness it was only Thursday.

In the end,I dropped something like a good seventenths thanks to the track and my own caution due to the changed, unknown conditions.

I was fairly happy with Saturday's qualifying time. We had elected to go quite heavy

N

m

.f

i

●42

/

r/--. »

on fuel, as I said, and I just wanted a clean lap (on a clean track for once!) and didn't want a repeat of Austria.

So ninth was pretty fair.

There might have been a few tenths more in it, but then again everyone can say that.

G

iven my shortened race, we decided to head home that night rather than stay over as planned. We got to Nice airport only to find a

three hour delay. Just as we were about to bed down in the airport lounge for the night, things felt into place and we got away, landing back in the UK about 1am.

Quite a day...

We have a couple of test days scheduled at the end of the week in Belgium and then it's off to Canada. Yet again, I cant wait for the weekend when everything does finally click.

Maybe this will be the one.

.>u»on-i UfiC^C

I '' ■ ■■ ' i

by GRANT ROWLEY CLOSE racing, damaged cars and a new race winner were the highiights of the third round of Carrera Cup at Winton two weeks ago.

Marcus Marshall became the first person this season to knock Jim Richards off the top spot in the ultra-competitive Porsche championship. The VIP Petfoods driver now sits equal first with Richards at he top of the points table.

Marshall qualified third behind Richards and the ever-improving Tim Leahey. Jim and Tim got funky at the first turn in Race 1, which allowed Marcus through to finish second. A great start in the next two races ensured Marshall would be Carrera Cup’s newest raoe winner, “Once I got the start I didn’t really look back,” said Marshall.

“The start was really important because it’s so hard to pass around here. I concentrated on making a break and at the end of the race conserved my tyres.”

and got mixed up in a Race 3 stoush, coming to blows in the first two corners. Richards spun to the back of the field while Marshall drove on to record his second win for the weekend.

Richards was not impressed with the first lap squeeze.

"I was on the outside into turn one but was given no where to go,” said the reigning Bathurst Champ.‘‘Marcus just turned in.”

Through no fault of his own, Richards was involved in another on-track crash, sparked by an aggressive battle between Kevin Bell and Jonathan Webb.

However, Richards was happy to walk away with his championship chase still on course.

“The weekend’s obviously ended up OK. The cars a bit of a mess but nothing that the team can’t fix.”

Greg Murphy Racing driver Leahey picked up a swag of points at Winton but endured an incident-filled weekend. Race one saw Leahey come in contact with the luckless Peter Fitzgerald. In the third heat, Leahey tapped

Race One, Lap One, Turn One: Richards takes the lead as Leahey tastes the grass.

56

^SBK^TMCAFE

t

Hot Leaheying down: GMR driver Tim Leahey pressed on at Winton.

Matt Coleman into a race-ending spin. Coleman slid through the sand trap and collected the concrete wall at turn four. The Fitzgerald touch up was later deemed to be a racing incident and Fitzy fought back to finish just inside the top 10. But Leahey could not escape the wrath of the officials after the Coleman incident and a hearing will.take place at the next round of the series at Hidden Valley to resolve the matter.

Despite these mishaps though, Leahey was strong in his Porsche, pushing Marshall all the way to the flag in the third heat. At one stage, Marshall and Leahey had worked the gap between themselves and third place to more than seven seconds.

Leahey pressured Marshall all the way to the flag, but found the VIP Petfoods Porsche too hard to pass on the tight circuit.

“This place is hard to pass on, particularly as the cars are very closely matched,” said Leahey.

“We didn’t have good exit speed and that’s probably a bit of

inexperience.

Coleman was enjoying one of his more consistent meetings, finishing the first two races in fourth place. His early exit was a disappointment, but the former Super Tourer steerer still managed to move up to sixth in the title chase.

Bathurst stalwart Andrew Miedeke had a solid and smooth Winton meeting, grabbing a fifth, sixth and fourth, finishing fourth overall. Miedeke was actually in third place in the last race on the last lap, but a brave move around the outside from Fitzgerald dropped him off the podium.

Gtech Bellmor driver Kevin Bell slid up and down the race order like a yo-yo at Winton. After qualifying well inside the top 10, Bell would have to play catch-up thanks to a spin on lap one, race one. The Kiwi recovered to finish the last two races amoungst the top ten.

Points: Richards/Marshall 480, Fitzgerald 384, Leahey 339, Bell 240, Miedecke 219, Coleman 213, Paul Pedersen 177, Cook 168, Tony Quinn 141.

moiorspori news

I

UVINTON SUPPORTS

Hastings takes maiden win RACING on home turf, Glen Hastings was simply superb at round three of the Australian Formula Ford Championship at Winton Raceway a fortnight ago.

Hastings, right, qualified his Sonic Motorsport Van Diemen RFOl on pole and raced away to two wins from two starts at the rural Victorian venue. His dominance of the round moving him to second in the series behind team-mate Tony Pugliese and securing his first-ever Formula Ford round win.

Hastings is now hopeful of continuing this form through the rest of the season.

"We've known we had the speed all year and it's come together this weekend," said the Victorian."But as far as the championship goes, the hard work is still to be done."

With Hastings getting the jump at the start of the two races and eching out an uncatchable lead, the fight for the minors was intense. Pugliese and Team Dynamik development driver Neil McFayden staged a fascinating battle, claiming a second and a third each. Both drivers did not giving an inch to their opponent, yet the driving standards of the pair remained clean from start to finish.

Sonic's third driver, Michael Trimble also had an encouraging weekend, taking a pair of fourths which was a career best for the Queenslander. Trimble later described the racing as "the best I've ever been involved in".

Right in the thick of the action was

iWlJIaMorr'h

Adrad Radiators driver Bryce Washington. The Van Diemen rookie was a stand-out performer, claiming two fifth places, and collecting a handful of championship points.

Fluid left on the circuit in an earlier Carrera Cup race meant the Formula Ford drivers had the honour of dealing with the slippery surface at turn 10 in race one.

Pugliese was the first to run wide, losing a number of spots. However West Aussie Dean Fiore was the most unfortunate, spinning on the messy track.

One of the more controversial incidents over the Winton weekend was a clash between Tim Macrow and James Small. The young guns were having a great weekend,sitting in fifth and sixth in race one until an

altercation on the second last turn dropped both of them down the order. And as one would expect, the pair had different views on the incident.

"I was already halfway through the corner when Small's front wheel hit my back wheel which flew me in the air and bent the rear suspension," claimed Macrow after the incident.

It wasn't a good move on his

behalf.

Small,in his own defence said "I had more speed in the last part of the race and I tried to go down the inside but was given no room."

Inquiries into the clash will continue at.Barbagallo in two weeks.

Queenslander Brett Francis had a miserable weekend,failing to score a

single point at Winton due to a persistent engine drama.

Cade Southall was effective at Winton, picking up valuable championship points in a car that is nearly 10 years old.

Mark Ceveri and Adam Hickey opened their series points accounts with impressive top 10 results.

The championship battle looks to be a three-horse-race after three rounds. Pugliese, McFayden and Hastings have run away at the pointy end of the table, but rest assured, the competition will only get stronger at Barbagallo for round four of the national series.

-GRANT ROWLEY Points: Pugliese 91, Hastings 77, McFayden 69, Francis 42,Justin Cotter 38, Macrow 38, Trimble 38, Washington 21,Ian Dyk 14, Small 14, Southall 14.

Dirk Khnsmilh

Consistency pays for Trengove!

A SMALL field of Formula 4000 cars fronted at Winton two weeks ago for round two of the prestigious Gold Star series.

Paul Trengove, despite not winning a race, sealed the round win on debut with two consistent drives on the day.

The South Australian picked up two second place finishes, enough to outscore race winners 18-year-old Nelson Hartley and Ricky Occhipinti.

Despite not winning a race, Trengove, above, was delighted with the outcome.

"I had a great weekend," said the 24-year-old. " I didn't think we would be up there after the qualifying dramas we had, but I rapt that we were."

Wakefield Park winner and qualifying fast man Jonny Reid

4 June 2003

established a handy lead at the start of the first race, only to collide with Ian Peters three laps from home. The accident bent his steering which spoilt his championship chase. Later in the second event, Reid would be forced out with a broken tooth on the drive gear. The young Kiwi left the meeting with no points to his name.

Occhipinti, below, was the surprise packet of the weekend, winning the opening race after a solid battle with Hartley and Trengove. The Victorian, who has just purchased the car, was looking good for the round win until a clash with Terry Clearihan on lap two of the second race dropped Occhipini's Reynard down the order.

Both races had delayed starts due to cars stalling on the grid.

New Zealand's Daniel Gaunt and Californian Mikel Miller were the offenders, but at least they scored some Gold Star points.

Victorian Rohan Carrig had throttle problems in the first race, while debutant and current Formula 3 championship contender

Michael Caruso pulled out with fuel pump problems. Caruso fought back in the second event to grab third place and his first Gold Star points.

Unfortunately, some of the Formula 4000 cars were rather fragile, which didn't help the small grid numbers.

- GRANT ROWLEY Points: Occhipinti 60, Hartley 58, Reid 32, Gaunt 32, Trengove 30.

57

John Bowe and Ferrari are still unbeaten in Wakefield Park Nations Cup races after another dominant peformance.

PHIL BRANAGAN reports from Goulburn

!

I

F you were going to design a racetrack to suit Ferrari's 360 GT down to the ground, chances are that it would feature short-ish straights,lots of comers that flow one to the other and just enough changes in elevation to make road holding a premium, in short, you would design Wakefield Park.

A year after taking pole position and aU three races at the Goulburn circuit, John Bowe did it again in 2003, the PHR Scuderia Ferrari and the transplanted Taswegian dominating the races. The red missile dominated practice and qualifying, setting a time that was not just a mile inside the category lap record but inside both Simon Wills's V8 Supercar lap record and Paul DumbrelTs qualifying record as well (both times set during Konica V8 Supercar Series events, natch).

Mind you,JB did not look like making it far in the first race. The 360 and Stokell's Lambo leapt away as one at the light and barrelled into the tightening first corner side-by side.

There was a clash and red and black both took to the dirt, Bowe stuck facing the minimal traffic as the red flag flew.

"If it had a B-pillar, I would have been there," said Bowe later."The hole diminished, we made contact and went up in the air. It was pretty straight after that and we got on with it.

As ever in these tilings, Stokell had

a varied view of proceedings; "I think he came from a fair way back. It was hard to see where he was from my thing, but it wasn't too bad; tire car had a broken wheel and we just changed it. Good thing we got a red flag."

There was a sense of'Que Sera, Sera'from Stokell's comments. Most realised that chasing the 360 was going to be the order of the day, especially after JB's sub-59s pole lap put him on pole by 0.6s.

"The points system rewards consistency," Stokell pointed out.

"That is what we had in mind when we came here. Let's see what happens at the other tracks."

In the Lamborghini team's favour was the small field. Tliere were a number of no-shows at Goulburn, most notably Greg Crick, whose Viper had made the carnet trip to NZ and arrived back with insufficient time to be propped for racing.

But Team Lamborghini stepped up for the weekend,running a second Group 1 Diablo for Anthony Tratt, as well as the regular Group 2 entry for Sam Newman.Tratty spent the sessions refamiliarising himself with the Italian VI2,liis last drive coming at the Sandown 500 last year. During the course of the weekend he moved away from the Stokell set-up, softening the car considerably.

"It's a different animal," he reported, comparing the car to his regular Toll Falcon V8 Supercar. "It's more progressive to drive, so you have to be less aggressive with it. You

drive a V8 like you stole it."

Yes, we know,some think that it's politically incorrect to say things like that, so no letters, please ...

So,JB won both races, pretty much as he liked, but only after another scare. The Ferrari missed the formation lap start and had to weave its way through the field and back to pole position. Otherwise, no dramas, as he sped away to a near-14s win.

In Race 2, the addition of 66kg success penalty made little difference to the car and none to the result. JB won the start and tore away to a 5s lead before he backed off (partially through conservatisrn) to win by 1.8s.

Stokell took second in both races, the second time taking nine laps to plot a course past the fast-starting and wide Nathan Pretty Monaro, with which the TLA driver had to get a little forceful.

Nathan had the better run of the two Aussie V8s. He outsped Peter Brock in qualifying to the tune of 0.76s, night and day in Supercars but only two grid spots here. In the races, the yellow coupe was quick at the starts but Nathan was realistic enough to know that he was fighting not just the opposition but the nature of the track, clearly not the best for a front-engined, 7-litre beasty.

"1 had to hold him (Stokell) up as long as I could," said the Wodonga driver. "I stuffed up (he had an off early in Race 3) because the tyre were we running was a bit hard. We knew before we came here that a podium would be a good result."

In the other Munro, Brock spent much time being the crowd favourite (as he is) but also put in some useful development work for the team.

After running Race 1 on the team's regular Dunlops, Brocky ran on Pirellis in tire final two races,forcing him to lose a little early speed to pay for some useful information, which may pay dividends sometime later in the season (can you say '24 Hour'?)

D'arcy Russell only made the first race in the Contrabart Viper before the VIO gave up the ghost, while Martin Wagg had some great battles with Brock in the gorgeous JMC

I

Porsche GT3R before dropping back with a Race 3 spin. Uie other G1 Porsche, Rusty French's G1 car, was in the pack in Race 1 until a clash left him with broken front suspension and he was through for the day.

In Group 2,Sam Newman had mixed fortunes. He spent a fair bit of time off the road in practice and qualifying, one Friday off prompted by misunderstanding an instruction to wind three clicks of adjustment onto his brake bias(he added three turns).

He followed James Koundouris's Porsche 911 GT3 for much of Race 1 but could not find a way through, especially after a quick spin.

But Race 2 was different, Koundouris liberally coating Turn 1 with fluid from a fractured coolant line, which prompted Wagg,Brock and VJ Angelo to spin. When the GTS smoked to a halt, Sammy took the Group 2 chequer in seventh.

In the final race, he looked to have second in class in the bag on the final lap when leader Bowe came up to his rear. Always keen to heed the blue flag, Sammy left his braking a little too late and skated off on the final corner.

"Didn't know it was the final lap, did I?" he said. "I was trying to do

5

Playing Hard Ball: Stokell and Bowe started proceedings forcefully, this Turn 1 clash, above, prompting a red flag.

Taking Toll: Anthony Tratt spent the weekend tailoring the Toll/lpec Lamborghini Diablo, below, to his liking.

the right tiring and got it wrong."

Koundouris took G2 honours in the first race, despite having an anti roll bar break in the Turn 1 kerfuffle.

The repaired item went west again in Race 2, while Angelo had the BMW Z3 GT motoring in Race 3, meanmg that the class wins went to three different drivers. Very democratic ...

QR beckons, a completely different kettle of fish. The flat, dragstrip

nature of the place wiU help the bigger cars run down Bowe's points lead. There should be more cars to watch and it will be up to the Queensland public to match the 12,000-and-change crowd who enjoyed the racing at Wakefield Park.

Race Results over page

^Qualifying

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Trying Pretty Hard: Nathan Pretty's Monaro took 'the rest'honours behind Bowe and Stokell's Italian cars.

4 June 2003

j-

DRIVER

John Bowe 2 27 Paul Stokell 3 427 Nathan Pretty 4 75 Anthony Tratt 5 05 Peter Brock 7 D'arcy Russell 6 7 67 Martin Wagg 8 33 James Koundouris 6 Rusty French 9 10 17 Sam Newman 11 4 VJ Angelo

Ft CAR Verve 501/PHR Scuderia Ferrari 360 GT Crazy John's/Lamborghini Diablo SVR Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden Monaro Toll Ipec/Lamborghini Diablo SVR Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden Monaro Team Contrabart Dodge Viper ACR JMC Group Porsche 911 GT3R Supabarn Emporium Porsche 911 GT3 Skye Sands Porsche 911 GTS Crazy John's Lamborghini Diablo GTR Angelo BMW Z3 GT

TIME 58.9149s 59.5970s 60.4577s 61.0187s 61.2211s 61.9939s 62.1009s 63.0173s 64.6194s 64.8784s 64.8987s

Nations Cup Round 3 iflfakeflem Park 39

Nations Cup Round 3

Waketaeld Park

g Race 1 -13 laps Pos Driver Race time 1 Bowe 13ml0.6647s 2 Stokell 13m23.6823s 13m26.0681s 3 Pretty 4 Tratt 13m3l.ll98s 5 Brock 13m31.6433s 13m43.5227s 6 Wagg 7 Koundouris 14m08.3411s 8 Angelo 12 laps 9 Newman 11 laps DNF French 8 laps Race 2-16 laps 1 Bowe 16m25.4075s 2 Stokell 16m27.2605s 16m28.7397s 3 Pretty 4 Tratt 16m48.9106s 5 Brock 16m54,5985s 17m20.3159s 6 Wagg 7 Newman 15 laps 8 Angelo 15 laps DNF Koundouris 12 laps Race 3-22 laps 1 Bowe 22m24.7518s 2 Stokell 22m38.2701s 22m40.9648s 3 Pretty 4 Tratt 22m48.5662s 5 Brock 22m49.4978s 23m25.4928s 6 Wagg 7 Angelo 21 laps 8 Koundouris 21 laps 9 Newman 20 laps

Fastest lap 58.9346s 3 lm00.0609s 3 1m01,0404s 10 lm01.5809s 10 lm01,4604s 10 lm02.2062s 4 lm04,0419s 8 lm05.2897s 7 1m05.1567s 4 lm05.2045s 5 59.9060s 7 lm00.6262s 1m00.7048s 5 ImOI.2847s ImOI.2086s 10 lm02.0422s 5 1m04.7221s 1m04.6350s 1m04.1429s 2 59.7056s 3 1m00.6320s 7 1m01.0594s 5 1m01.2646s 7 ImOI.2640s 9 ImOI.4722s 5 1m05.1783s 10 1m05.7327s 10 1m05.0905s 10

Points: Group One/OutrIght: Bowe 230, Stokell 185, Pretty 146, Crick (Viper)86, Brock 80, Newman 77. Group Two, 1 J. Koundouris 154.

3-

s?

W

The King of Diamonds GOT a Mitsubishi Lancer? Like GT Performance racing?

Well, dust down yer Evo and, next time the PROCAR circus hits Wakefield Park, come and have a race. The four-wheel-drive wonders were the cars to have in Goulburn, not even a reduction in turbocharger boost enough to derail the chances of the drivers aboard Mitsu’s finest.

The first race featured five of the cars filling the first five spots; the second was more of the same and the third was another win, even if another marque of car filled the minors.

As has been the pattern this season, Mark King was the man to run down. The Delphi/King Springs driver won the start of all the races and built a small lead, only to have the similar Evo Vil of Garry Holt run him down in the second half of the Races 1 and 2.

Holt starred in qualifying, a

recent test at the track aiding the Eastern Creek Karting driver to pole position with a 65.0180s, almost a quarter-second clear of King.

The only problem Holt had came in Race 3. He crept at the start and braked, just before the lights came on. Holt felt that he had gained no advantage but the stewards spoke and the Vil headed in for a drivethrough penalty. He recovered to 10th at the end.

"No mistakes," King explained was the key to the weekend."We knew that we would be suited to the track and we had to make the most of the opportunity. We have really appreciated the support of the sponsors, like Delphi, through all the tougher times this season."

Bob Hughes too a pair of third places in the opening two races but, like Holt, had to drive-through in the third race. That opened the door for the 'other' marques to get

on the podium, with Justin Hemmes taking advantage of the situation in his WRX. The tall GT-P rookie was sixth in the first two races and continues to show form upsetting speed.

Through the pack in the pack came Ian Box, who qualified in a lowly 16th position, while Wayne Boatwright salvaged something for the weekend after a hard start on Saturday. Like the Lancers, the Subarus (and the Mazda RX-7 of Bob Pearson) had a reduction in boost as part of the category's parity adjustments. After dominating at Symmons Plains, Boatwright found the 57kgs of success ballast a great burden to carry, the Protechnica WRX only 12th in qualifying. A front-left tyre delaminated in Race 1, leaving him to struggle around in 10th; in Race 2, the result was no better but Race 3 saw him move up to sixth.

While the 4WDs were dominant.

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60

South CItu

HOLDEN motorspori news

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Opposites attract: King heads for another win while (#60) Boatwright's weekend goes from bad to worse. the Commodore Brigade never honours, the Victorian qualifying Steve Knight's Evo VI, The Holden stood a chance. Barrie Nesbitt was third fastest on a track which pitted with a bent LF rim and, already starting at the back after an does little or no justice to a 5-litre, after a lap to investigate the car's axle drama stopped him from pushrod four-door family condition, he parked to save his truckster. qualifying, a jammed gearbox in; tyres.

Race 1 not assisting matters.

But his hopes lasted only as far That would have been a great Peter Floyd was the man most as Race 1/Lap 1/Turn 1, the idea but, in Race 2 and after looked to for upholding pushrod updated-to-VY HSV clashing with zooming through to 11th from the MICHAEL Caruso came,saw and conquered at Wakefield Park's Formula 3 races.

His Dallara 301/Novamotor was the class of the field and, following the problems that accounted for some of the other class contenders, Caruso dominated both races. Despite a lot of pressure, he made no errors worthy of the name and took two narrow, if convincing, wins.

"It looked easier than it was," he said. "I knew after qualifying I needed to have really good starts.

"In Race 1,1 was able to pull a gap but Race 2 was hard. Christian was right there all the way through and he drove really well."

The "Christian" was Jones. The Toll Ipec 301/Mugen arrived without engineer, pre-race changes meaning that CJ was setting the car up himself. In 99 percent of cases, racing driver doing race engineer equals disaster.

This is the exception. CJ qualified second and was second in Race 1; in Race 2, he harried Caruso all the way to the flag. The car looked smooth all weekend and it was a well-deserved result.

Barton Mawer swapped positions with Jones in

the races, his 396 slowing slippery performance on the (short-ish) straights but, once the positions were established on lap 1, there was not much that could be done to change them without carting cars off the road.

Leading the championship coming into the weekend,James Cressey had dramas in qualifying, tipping the rear of his Dallara 301/Speiss into the Turn 1 tyrewall early in the session. It was a big hit; the team estimated the impact speed at over 200kmh but, with a borrowed rear wing, they carried on as well as the car permitted.

The data from Race 1 showed that all was not right with the car but there was not much that that Starion team could do 'on the road' to right the ship and Cressey carried on for 9/7 results to salvage as many points as possible.

After qualifying fourth, Peter Hackett had an unusual problem in Race 1. His Dallara-Renault had fourth and fifth gears in the wrong slots, . forcing him to double-upshift, downshift and double-upshift again through the gearbox. Despite this - and a 'downed' right mirror - he set fastest lap while defending second but, at the final corner

ROG start in Race 3. Finally with a chance to show some speed, the HSV took great gulps through the field to make it up to seventh at the flag.

In light of the dramas that the Aussie sedans faced, the best of the RWD cars was Steve Cramp's BMW Z3 breadvan which ran hard until, inevitably, it ran short of brakes. The warped rotor quota from the last two rounds is three and counting ...

We will still have to carry success ballast at Queensland, mused King after the races. "We know that the V8s will be fast there, and the Subarus as well.

We will have to push pretty hard."

That is what the other drivers were doing at Wakefield Park ...

Championship points: King 190, Boatwright 154, Hemmes 91, Bob Pearson (Mazda RX-7) 87, Alexander 86,6 Barry Morcom (Holden GTS) 72.

- PHIL BRANAGAN

on lap 14, it all got too much and he spun down to fifth.

"Got it right 13 times and screwed up on the 14th," he said through gritted (but still impressive) teeth.

Hollywood was a fading fourth in Race 2, almost hauled in by the 301/Speiss of Karl Reindler.

The wins were split in the Yokohama Trophy class for older cars. Bill Maddocks taking the first race from David Choon, who took the class in the second race despite pressure from a chasing Chris Coombs. Maddocks was third, despite running off on the opening lap.

Caruso now leads the series by 20 points and his form is a telling challenge for the opposition; "The team has worked really hard this week and it has been a good result, I would like to think that we will be a top three contender for the rest of the season."

Points: Caruso 94, Cressey and Mawer 74, Jones 69, Alan Gurr 49, Hackett 40, Darren Palmer 27, Matt Fitzgerald 26.

Trophy class points: Coombs 97, Choon 82, Maddocks 69, David Borg 46, Holmes 38, Rod Anderson 26.

-PHIL BRANAGAN

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61

Tough road ahead

by JON THOMSON

RALLY Australia's new Clerk of Course Adrian Stafford says he has big shoes to fill as he takes on the top job for the first time this year.

Acting as Assistant Clerk of Course to Garry Connelly for the past 15 years, Stafford has been a major contributor to the success of the event long praised as the best round of the WRC. However, the new C of C say he is expecting to have the full glare of scrutiny focussed on him this year and that he will be judged against the success of the event in past years.

It is going to be a tough job," said Stafford."In some ways I will be on a liiding to nothing. I don't expect to get any praise if we deliver a rally that is as good as or better than last year's.

And I am sure any little problem will be targeted by the critics.

Stafford told MNews that the move away from the Langley Park Super Special has not been entirely budget driven and that the fear of wet weather leading up to the rally was a major concern. He added that this, combined with fears that corporate sales would be affected by cold weather, had driven the move to Gloucester Park.

One of the major hurdles would have been trying to sell premium corporate hospitality in elevated marquees on a potentially cold, rainy night which is what we would have to do at Langley," he explained.

At Gloucester Park we have highend facilities already in place not only for corporates, but for the media and for general admission.

I concede September is not a wet month but July and August are, and trying to build the track hi wet conditions at Langley is an absolute nightmare.

And with everyone watching me and my team to see if we make any blues we could not afford to make any mistakes, we are playing it pretty cautiously.

Eventscorp fought hard to resist the move to September but if rumours out of Europe are to be believed, the Perth-based roimd will move back to November in 2004 as the final round in the Championship with the rally of Great Britain set to move to September New Zealand has been

provisionally set for April 1-4, and will again be the fourth round next year after strongly resisting a push by teams to have the event back-to-back with Rally Australia.

\'eil 8fM.Uyr.vn}

ISC goes

The Golden

THE younger up-and-coming crop of rally stars have given the thumbs up to proposed changes to team rules for the WRC. The younger stars have welcomed the new driver nomination proposals for the 2004 WRC that will see manufacturers forced to include a driver who has not won a romid of the WRC and who are not

'recognised' drivers.

The proposed new rules would significantly improve the chances of full works drives for the younger upand-comers.

"It is positive for us younger kids on our way into the World Championship scene and so long as I 62

get full confidence from a team in a third car, I would be taking every opporhmity to impress," Suzuki Jimior Championship runner Daniel Carlsson said.

"It's a very, very good tiling for me. It could give me a chance to get into a top team," said Peugeot's French Championship contender Cedric Robert, nbove.

The drivers argue that forcing manufacturers to hire third drivers with relatively poor track records will lead to the introduction of new blood to the sport at the top level.

Flowever manufacturers are not viewing the new rules favourably.

Peugeot's Sporting Director Jean-

Pierre Nicolas has criticised the plans.

"It is not good. The proposal has a lot of drivers unable to go to the third car; it excludes too much. The current situation is much better, because it is good for everybody," said Nicholas.

"There is freedom for each team and if they want young drivers, it is not a problem. There is no best situation, but the current rules are not so bad."

Nicolas raised the possibility that the regulation might infringe European human rights law. The proposal's legality is expected to be one of the World CoimciTs prime considerations.

-JON THOMSON

CLEARLY teetering under massive costs and lower than projected revenue.

World Rally commercial rights holder ISC has signalled that it is looking to cut more costs.

After a recent spate of sackings and reduction in staff in its TV department, ISC is believed to be seeking to reduce the some of its other activities in the series to concentrate on its core TV operations.

ISC will apparently shed the responsibility of satellite safety tracking on stages and the distribution of live results, which is operated by its ISC Technologies division. These particular series are quite labour-intensive despite the high technology used and will save the organisation many millions of dollars each year.

While the cutbacks are expected, we believe ISC boss Dave Richards is ^ discussing the future provision of these services with the FIA and event organisers. The current level motorsport news

NEWS

Cody for PWRC?

POSSUM Bourne Motor Sport (PBMS)will live on and continue to operate Subaru Australia's rallying program despite the death of its founder according to a report on TV in New Zealand last week.

It was also repo'ted that the Pukekohe-based team will re-ignite its WRC Group N campaign for the last two rounds this year, as well as looking to continue the campaign in the 2004 WRC. PBMS team manager Murray Brown W’as interviewed by NZ TV last week and confirmed that Possum's widow Peggy wanted the company to continue as a lasting memorial to her husband.

If the World Championship program was recommenced later this year, it would have to be after missing the next round in Cyprus.

It is imclear who would take over the driving efforts but given his form and obvious abilities, Cody Crocker, right, would have to be the prime candidate.

The New Zealand report also quoted Subaru Aushalia General Manager Nick Senior, who confirmed tliat the company w'ould retain PBMS as its contractor to run the ARC program.

the chop of activity will continue at least for the next two rallies.

ISC wants to scrap the high flying aircraft it currently uses to relay results back to the rally base, and use the cheaper but potentially less reliable satellite links instead.

It is believed organisers are contemplating a return to the timing and information transmission systems they used before ISC arrived on the scene.

ISC has been criticised by the teams over the systems and equipment it has used for timing and tracking, and the problems experienced with the system in Argentina did not improve its reputation.

A reduction in costs would enable ISC to concentrate on TV production. Richards has told the Rallies Commission that ISC wants to retain TV, commercial licensing and sponsorship but that magazine production and distribution, marketing and other media activities are also under scrutiny.

- JON THOMSON 4 June 2003

The pool of knowledge and expertise at PBMS is extensive and is the logical move for Subaru's ongoing rally program.

Subaru will continue to rim a twocar team for the remainder of this year's Australian Championship with Crocker and Dean Fferridge in the drivers' seats.

New Zealand police are still investigating the crash that killed Bourne and a decision on whether any charges w'ill be laid is three or four weeks away, depending on the results of a crash analysis report.

- JON THOMSON

Nril BUckUourn’

And the winner is...

THE WRC will make its first visit to North America for almost 20 years with Raliy Mexico set to take its piace on the caiendar next year.

The World Rallies Commission debated the provisionai calendar last week and it appears a European raliy will be dropped to accommodate the Mexican event. The Mexican raiiy is staged in the Guanajuato region around the city of Leon, approximateiy 300 kiiometres north of Mexico City.

The Raiiies Commission is also expected to bring about further changes in the caiendar, with Raiiy GB set to finally move out of the cold and wet of November and into the warmer month of September.

It appears almost certain that Rally Australia will move back to November and become the final round of the Championship. n In other moves, the Sanremo Rally is tipped to switch back to dirt to achieve the Commission’s goal of havincgSwWeyr tarmac raiiies.

I THOMSON

Respect my authority: If anyone in the Rally of Mexico is foolhardy enough to speed during a transport stage, they'll have this guy to answer to ...

307 on track literally PEUGEOT has apparently already tested an early prototype version of its 307 WRC that it hopes to campaign in the 2004 World Championsliip.

Despite many denials, the team is understood to have given the early prototype version a shakedown at a secret location in France in the last few weeks.

Reigning World Champion Marcus Gronhohn refused to deny that he had tested a Peugeot 307 World Rally Car when quizzed about it last week.

"No comment. 1 am not allowed to speak," said the Finn.

Peugeot has refused to confirm or deny that the 307 will replace the 206, merely stating that the 206 will be used throughout 2003 and that any replacement will have to prove that it is quicker.

Pundits suggest, however, that it is well advanced on a hard-top version of the 307 CC. With speculation on exactly who will stay and who wiU go at the Peugeot equipe in 2004, the team is apparently being cautious about who it allows to drive the new car.

The one driver who is confirmed and contracted beyond the end of this year is Gronholm,and he has clearly been given the chance to test it at this stage ahead of his colleagues. n Mitsubislii team boss Andrew Cow'an came away from the Japanese manufacturer's big driver assessment test happy that he'd learned a lot about the candidates, but the Scot reiterated that no decisions on driver selection would be made on the back of it.

Five drivers -Jani Paasonen, Dani Sola, Gigi Galli, Kristian Sohlberg and Henning Solberg drove the 2002-specification Lancer WRC in mid-Wales between last Monday and Thursday.

"We have learned a lot from all of the drh'ers," said Cowan."But we were not expecting to come away from here with decisions made on who had a future with the team. It was also an exercise in data acquisition, which worked well."

Cowan admitted the conditions in Wales had made comparison of the drivers difficult, with heavyrain falling on each day.

"The weather was a bit disappointing, but it didn't spoil the test," he said. "Instead, it gave us the opportunit)’ to see how the drivers worked in those ty'pe of conditions."

-JON THOMSON 63

Two in the Busch Ryan scales KYLE Busch - the younger brother of rising Winston Cup star Kurt - is starting to make a name for himseif in the iower divisions.

Kyle originally ran six Truck Series races in 2001 with Roush when he was 16, but NASCAR raised their minimum age limit for the Cup, Busch and Truck Series to 18, keeping Kyle out of NASCAR competition until he turned 18 on May 2nd.

So in 2002 he ran the ASA Series, finishing eighth in points with Roush assistance. When it came time to sign a nine-year contract with Roush, he elected instead to take an offer with Hendrick Motorsports for two years.

Thus far he has run three ARCA races, winning two and finishing 11th in the third after a late spin and pit stop in an exTerry Labonte Cup car.

He entered his first Busch Series race at Charlotte on May

r

I

24th, qualifying fifth and finishing second to Matt Kenseth.

Hendrick has an agreement with Joe Nemechek, who owns a Busch Series team, to run five more races in Nemechek cars, plus four more ARCA events with Hendrick before he enters the Busch Series full time in 2003.

- MARTIN D CLARK

RYAN Newman was the victor from the pole at the one-mile Dover concrete oval on Sunday.

But he didn't have it easy, losing power steering halfway through the event, then muscling by Jeff Gordon for the top spot on lap 327 of 400, holding on through final green flag pit stops and a nudge from Gordon on the 10th and final restart with just five laps remaining.

It didn't take long for trouble to commence. Casey Mears slapped the wall exiting turn four on lap one and all hell broke loose behind him, with Mike Skinner, Jeff Green, Ward Burton, Tony Raines,Jack Sprauge, Joe Nemechek and Dale Earnhardt Jr. all receiving damage of varying degrees.

Third place was not the place to be. Sterling Marlin, running third, was spun into the inside wall by Jeff, Gordon to air caution four. Then Jimmie Johnson spun on oil dumped by Ward Burton while running third to air caution eight on

lap 278 when he slammed the inside wall hard.

During caution five, Tony Stewart was given a one lap penalty after his Joe Gibbs Chev pitted with the right front outside his pit stall. It took Stewart around 80 laps to make up the deficit on a restart over Jimmie Johnson,finally getting back on the lead lap 100 circuits later.

Stewart came home fourth after being passed by Gibbs team-mate Bobby Labonte on the final restart.

The two Robert Yates Fords encountered problems at the same point in the race with around 140 laps to nm.

"We think the camshaft broke," said Dale Jarrett, while Elliott Sadler broke a shock. MattKenseth's Roush Ford was the only blue oval in the top ten, finishing seventh and All the sweeter when you have to work for it: Ryan Newman found his way into Victory Lane, but it didn't come easily.

Martin D Clark

11ieev( 500 + 600= Two hard luck stories AFTER starting third in the Indianapolis 500, Robby Gordon ended the race early with gearbox issues to finish 22nd.

He immediately jetted to Charlotte, where he started at the rear of the field for the Coke 600 as he missed the drivers meeting and rallied back to end his day 17th.

Gordon completed 835 miles (or 76 percent) of what he was hoping, with the rain-shortened 600 adding to his woes.

"The car started off pretty good," he said of his Indy 64

attempt. "I was a little bit conservative right from the get-go "My lesson for next year is to do what the leaders do at all times and stay up front. We were easily as good as anyone else out there."

After the Charlotte race , his fourth attempt at the IndyCharlotte double, Gordon commented, "There at the end we probably should have taken tyres when I was up front. I was on old tyres, but it was a pretty good run for us, we're happy."

- MARTIN D CLARK motorsport news

NASCAR

Dover opening up his advantage over Earnhardt, who came home 11th.

Kudos go out to Robby Gordon who suffered electrical gremlins before the green flag uncoiled and started at the rear of the grid, he fought back to finish a solid ninth and moved into the top 10 in points for the first time in his career behind Richard Childress stable-mate Kevin Harvick.

Final result; Newman (Dodge),J Gordon (Chevy), B Labonte(Chevy), Stewart (Chevy), Benson (Pontiac), R Wallace (Dodge),Kenseth (Ford), Craven (Pontiac), R Gordon(Chevy),T Labonte(Chevy).

Points standings; Kenseth 1945, Earnhardt Jr. 1774,J Gordon 1758, B Labonte 1716, Busch 1698, Waltrip 1631,Johnson 1606, R Wallace 1556, Harvick 1539, R Gordon 1473.

Jasper gets Dodgy ALL signs are that Jasper Motorsports is gearing up to switch to Dodge from Ford with driver Dave Blaney in 2004, The move will come about due to their three-year alliance with Penske Engines, the two Penske teams switching from the blue oval to Dodge over the US winter making it more logical for the powerplants to be identical.

Jimmy's double

AFTER winning The Winston the previous week,Jimmie Johnson was triumphant again at Charlotte on May 25th.

What should have been the longest race on the circuit, the Coca-Cola 600-miler, will probably be one of the shortest as rain ended the day 276 laps into the scheduled 400.

Johnson started at the rear of the 43 car field after his crankshaft broke in qualifying and had to use a back-up Hendrick power plant.

"We started last and drove to the front," quipped Johnson.

"This is very cool," Matt Kenseth finished second, but was not happy with the call to end the race early, while Bobby Labonte collected his fourth-straight top three result ahead of Jimmy Spencer, who put together a deserving top five result with some great pit stops in his short track car.

Ryan Newman lead 49 laps from the pole. A strong-looking Tony Stewart then took up the running and headed 68 circuits before a misfire spoiled his

chances of victory on lap 102.

He eventually finished 40th.

Rain also forced a red flag earlier in the race on lap 104, with two cautions occurring for Jeremy Mayfield and Ricky Rudd, then caution five for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who spun in turn four after the left rear brake locked up and eventually knocked him out the race.

Kevin Harvick blew a tyre on lap 240 to uncoil another yellow flag and Johnson's Hendrick crew had him off pit road and leading for the first time. From there he fended off Kenseth to the eighth caution on lap 264 when Ricky Craven blew his engine.

As the oil slick was being cleaned up the rains came and within thirty minutes, to much annoyance from the crowd, the race was official.

- MARTIN D CLARK

Final Result; Johnson (Chevy), Kenseth (Ford), B Labonte (Chevy), Spencer (Dodge), Newman (Dodge), Waltrip (Chevy), Marlin (Dodge), J Gordon (Chevy), Jarrett (Ford), W Burton, (Dodge).

601y not out - yet RUSTY Wallace started his 601st consecutive Winston Cup race with the Coke 600 at Charlotte on May 25th and looks likely to only compete in two more 600's at the track, as the 1989 Winston Cup champ is talking retirement at the end of 2005.

Wallace, who will be 49 at the end of 2005, has 54 career victories, all with Penske Racing. He last won at Fontana, California in April 2001, It's possible Rusty's younger son Stephen could be a possible replacement, as at age 15 he is embarking on a late model stock career in mid-June.

- MARTIN D CLARK 4lune 2003

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PPI times two ALTHOUGH nothing has been officially announced, inside sources at PPI Motorsports indicate that it has a sponsor in place to operate a two-car effort in 2004 alongside the existing Ricky Craven Tidesponsored Pontiac.

An official announcement can be expected in the coming months from team owner Cal Wells.

- MARTIN D CLARK

H Homestead-Miami Speedway will feature a new corner configuration by the time the Winston Cup tour hits the asphalt for its November 15th season finale.

The speedway turns will have what they are terming a 'variable degree banking system', with banking degrees increasing from its current six to 20 at the outside of the turns.

There will be 18 degrees of banking at the bottom and 19 degrees in the middle of the four corners at the 1.5 mile track.

The changes are the second in Homestead's short history. A layout similar to that of Indianapolis with 'square' corners was altered following some heavy shunts, one claming the life of NASCAR Truck driver John Nemechek.

The flat track has leant itself to non-competitive racing and any change has to be welcomed by fans and drivers alike. n Chad Knaus received his second fine from NASCAR in as many weeks when an unapproved refrigerant was found close to the fuel system on the Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Monte Carlo prior to qualifying for the Coke 600 at (jharlotte. The refrigerant was designed to cool the fuel in the hope of increasing horsepower. Knaus was fined US$2500 for the infraction.

Earlier, Knaus was fined US$1,000 prior to The Winston qualifying for an unapproved air deflection device. n Jerry Nadeau has been transferred from the Richmond Virginia hospital he has been at since his May 2nd accident at the Richmond track that left him with head, lung, rib and shoulder injuries, Nadeau arrived at a Charlotte rehabilitation center on May 27th and will undergo speech, recreational, occupational and physical therapy.

Nadeau, 32, became fully conscious the previous week and also started talking. n Dale Earnhardt Jr. has reportedly signed a contract extension with Dale Earnhardt Inc and Budweiser through the 2006 season.

The contract is apparently worth around US$20 million each year in sponsorship funding for DEI. - MARTIN D CLARK 65

New t

Tomasz Collob, America's Greg Hancock take on Australia's best, above with Jason Crump and Ryan Sullivan.

Early days for Aussies

IT was very much 'deja vu'in the first Speedway GP of the year as 2002 Champion Tony Rickardsson stormed home to win the final after also winning each of his previous four races.

In the final he headed home Nicki Pedersen (Denmark),Lukas Dryml(Czech Republic) and Poland's Tomasz Gollob.

It was a disappointing night for the five Ausralians competing, although Leigh Adams and Jason Crump both reached the semi-finals.

But they both trailed in last, having failed to make the start in either race to surrender a place in the final. It meant 11 Grand Prix points each and a share of seventli place overall.

Todd Wiltshire (Sydney)and Jason Lyons(Mildura) both started in the early heats, Adams,Crump and Ryan Sullivan were seeded through to the main event (last sixteen) following their placings at the end of last year's series.

Lyons was third in his openng

ride and then tumbled out at the first

elimination stage when coming last in heat five. In that race, he was joined by Wiltshire who had retired in his opening race. Wiltshire was also eliminated after a third place behind the Dane Nicki Pedersen and Poland's Krzysztof Cegielski.

Sullivan was racing with a broken collarbone heavily strapped and came last in liis first ride,just behind Crump in a race won by Gollob ahead of the sole American Greg Hancock.

The injury proved too much and a third place behind Rickardsson and Norway's Rune Holta in heat 13 meant the end of the night and just 6 GP points for the Melbourne man..

The flag continued to fly for Adams and Crump,although Adams faced a battle to stay in the meeting after breaking a chain in heat 14.

Crump came second in heat 15 behind Cegielski to take him to within a race of the semi-finals.

Adams kept his hopes alive with a second place behind the Czech Lukas

Lapped ears remain in the game LAPPED cars will remain in position on the race track in all rounds of the 2003/04 World Series Sprintcars Championship.

This is despite the national ruling, where lapped cars are sent to the tai l of the field, even if they are passed by only the leader before the yellow or red lights come on.

This happened several times during the course of the 2002/03 championship.

Dryml in the elimination heat 17.

Crump stormed back to form to beat Protasiewicz, Holta and Gollob to make the semis. Adams'second

place behind Holta in another elimination race, saw him safely into the last eight and a seeded place alongside Crump in Sweden.

The semi-final disappointment for both meant arguably the worst GP for Australia for two years!

Sullivan's injury hardly helped, after the meeting he said: "I was battling but you can't do it with one arm ... I'm feeling bloody sore now."

Adams said: "It was a tough night and the track was weird, the ruts were deep at the starting gate ..."

Crump summed up his feelings, "I never really got going but 1 am still there and will hope to do better in Sweden."

-TONY MILLARD

Points: 1. Rickardson 25,2. Pedersen 20, 3.Dryml 18, Gollob 16, Holta/Protasiewicz 13, Crump(AUSVAdams(AUS)11, Hancock/Cegiels 8.

The old rule not only prevented the lapped car being able to race back to the lead lap and possibly still have a shot at the race win, but also gives away the advantage that the leader had built up over his adversaries when the caution lights come on.

In some instances, in an effort to avoid being lapped, some drivers even voluntarily brought on the yellow lights by stalling the car once the leader had moved past to put them a lap down.

Causing a restart sees the

Prizes and di

THE promoters of the Parramatta City Raceway have just released their summer 2003/4 sprintcar calendar.

The new sprintcar season starts on October 4 with the PCR Sprintcar Series final scheduled for March 27. Between those dates there is a total of 23 sprintcar meetings.

With the opening round of the 2004 World of Outlaws series set to run at the Parramatta track on January 8-10, the management of the PCR have moved the $50,000 Sprintcar International forward with the event being a two-night meeting, commencing on the evening of Boxing Day. According to the PCR Managing Director Steven Green:

offending car put to the rear of the field but not a lap down on the field.

Naturally, this is a risky situation (if they are deemed cause of the stoppage again they will be sent to the infield for two infringements) but the risk is often less scary than the obvious result of going a lap down on the entire field.

World Series Sprintcars will adopt the new rule, allowing lapped cars to remain in position as a sub-regulation for the 2003/04 championship. molorsport news

SPEEDWAY

re rule for WoO PjrlTCharlc^,

AN announcement will be made in the next few weeks as to the new control tyre for the 2003/2004 World Series Sprintcars Championship.

Unlike last year when drivers chose between varying compounds in the Hoosier and American Racer range, only one compound from one manufacturer will be accepted this year.

And the minimum compound will be harder than last years tyre.

Krikke Motorsport’s Shane Krikke says the proposed new rule will be good for the racing and great for the wallet.

“We found it was good last year to have a choice but if anything, the tyres we could use as a minimum were a little too soft and it didn’t prevent teams from

lies for PCR

“We have scheduled the event on this traditional speedway date because we want to provide ample opportunity for drivers around the country and the world who desire to run the richest Sprintcar race in the Southern Hemisphere being able to do exactly that during a holiday period.

He added, “it makes things attractive for those drivers around the country who wish to complete in the Outlaws event to arrive to race at Paramatta even earlier for some of the big money shows up for grabs in the lead up.”

The Christmas New Year period is going to be huge this summer, with the annual New Years Day meeting offering $10,000 to the winner, while the December 29th and January 3rd International meetings both paying $5,000.

There is over $800,000 up for graps this summer at the PCR but the talking point is definitely the $300,000 World of Outlaws ‘Down Under’ in early January.

- GREG BOSCATO

Outlaws- in trouble?

IS the World of Outlaws Sanctioning body about to get a new owner? That is one of the questions that has arisen following the recent impounding of at least three trailers, a souvenir rig and a pace truck belonging to Wolrd of Outlaws Inc, the owners of the World of Outlaws,recently by Cabarrus County sheriff's deputies.

The court-ordered seizure at Lowe's Motor Speedway followed a civil suit filed by Wheeler Television Inc. against World of Outlaws Inc. The Charlotte-based Wheeler Television is run by Patti Wheeler, daughter of Lowe's Motor Speedway president H.A.'Humpy' Wheeler.

The suit seeks money reportedly owed to Wheeler Television.

The Outlaws,tlvough spokesman Richard Day issued a statement wliich quotes founder Ted Johnson as saying:"A business relationship that existed between the World of Outlaws and another entity has resulted in some issues that, at tliis time, remain unresolved. It was oiu hope the situation would be addressed amiably but, imfortimately, a lawsuit has been filed. Due to the

Max Dumesny Motorsport Australian Distributors for

Xoosirr

^^ RACING TIRE

For more infomation on Hoosier Drag and SpeedwayTyres call:

NSW:02 9679 1990 l Fax 02 9679 1187 Via 03 9331 6477 l Fax 03 9331 7444 SA;08 8332 0800 l Fax 08 8364 0296 4 June 2003

constantly buying new tyres on the night and out-spending others to get an advantage.”

“I think this year's idea with a harder minimum compound and only one brand to choose from may well be the way to go.”

Last year, having two brands of choice made it difficult for tyre distributors American Tyre and Racing Services and Max Dumesny Motorsports to forecast what volume of tyres would be needed.

Considering last year’s tyre shortage at some events. World Series Sprintcars is weighing up submissions received from both American Racer and Max Dumesny Motorsports. WSS is currently close to making a decision.

pending legal proceedings,the series is unable to comment on tlie merits of the case except to say there are tw'o sides to every story and oiu-s will be presented in the appropriate venue.

The World of Outlaws is stUl committed to bringing tlie world's best winged sprint car racing to its fans."

The interesting thing is that Humpy Wlteeler is well known to have a desire to own tlie outlaws and this may be Iris opportunity. In an interview in Open Wheel magazine in MAY 2000 Wlreeler stated:"Oh yeah, we would like to do that! But Ted he's not really in the sellin' mood right now. But I'd love to have it."

An industry insider told MNEWS that when a high profile Oultaws car owner offered to pay the outstanding debt, he was told by Wheeler, it's not for sale.

With Wheelers daughter controlling the company that is allegedly owed the debt,and should the World of Outlaws Inc be unable to pay the debt or settle the case, this could open the door for Humpy to step in and assitme control and ownership, - BRETT SWANSON

Vale: Glen Notley PARRAMATTA Fender Bender racer Glen Notley was fatality injured in a truck accident recently at Beveridge on Melbourne's northern outskirts.

Travelling with Glen was fellow Fender Bender driver Shane Moxon who is in a serious but stable condition in hospital. The Parramatta Fender Bender Club are running an appeal for both drivers and a minute silence was held in honour of Glen Notley at the annual Presentation Night dinner. n Andrew Scheuerle won a controversial final Sprintcar Feature for the Brisbane season at Brisbane International Speedway. Scheuerle made the most of the option given to top qualifier Garry Brazier, who was asked to go for a $1400 bonus if he reversed the top 12 grid positions for the A-Main.

“We won our first race of the year at the Adelaide Masters and we won our last race here tonight," said a satisfied Scheuerle. "We did some different things the last two nights.

It's made us a lot better. It's a shame we found it at end of the season."

Scheuerle had poor progress through the heals after losing a magneto early in the night. When Brazier reversed the grid, Scheuerle found himself on the front row of the grid for the A-Main. He needed little other invitation and roared away from the field.

Meanwhile, fellow front row qualifier now buried on row six and also eligible for the cash bonus, Darrell Hodges was scything through the field at a rate Brazier couldn't match. He was sixth after one lap, third after four. When Hodges finally took second from Ben Wright, Scheuerle had a big lead but Hodges was quickly hacking it away.

A collision between Allan Woods and Craig Stevenson saw Woods inverted.

The red light was shown as Hodges spun in avoidance and the arguments began. Hodges claimed that while he had spun he was still moving but officials disagreed and sent him to the rear of the field for requiring a restart.

Additionally lapped cars maintained their places on the track at the restart instead of restarting in race order.

Over the remaining 11 laps Hodges climbed back to second again but Scheuerle was gone for good. Brock Dean continued his recent good form to finish third ahead of Brazier and Ben Wright.

- BOSCATO/MARK JONES

2003 WORLD OF OUTLAWS CHAMPIONSHIP 2003 STANDINGS

ELDORA SPEEDWAY MAY 31 1. Steve Kinser

8. Tim Shaffer

15. Paul McMahan

2. Tyler Walker

9. Donny Schatz

16. Jason Sides

3. Danny Lasoski

10. Dean Jacobs

17. Craig Keel

4. Jason Meyers

11. Chad Kemenah

18. Greg Wilson

5. Mark Kinser

12. Rob Chaney

19. Kenny Jacobs

6. Johnny Herrera

13. Brian Paulus

20. Ryan Coniam

7. Joey Saldana

14. Daryn Pittman

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Danny Lasoski ..

Steve Kinser Joey Saldana Daryn Pittman ..

Jason Sides Donny Schatz ...

Mark Kinser Craig Dollansky .

Jac Haudenschild.

Brian Paulus

3934 3903 3639 3600 3355 3307 3193 2785 2715 2678

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Kanay nanrIdgcJH Tim Shaffer Johnny Herrera .

Jeff Shepard ...

Jeremy Campbell Paul McMahon .

Shane Stewart .

Sammy Swindell Tyler Walker ...

Bob Bennett...

2401 2109 2054 1982 1964 1906 1862 1724 1645

67

Sweet taste of revenge Dixon squares the ledger with Kalitta, Pedregon keeps the points coming

LARRY Dixon,Tony Pedregon, and Greg Anderson emerged with victories in the 15th annuai O’Reiily Summer Nationais in Topeka two weeks ago.

For the second consecutive weekend, the two best Top Fuel dragsters in the country faced each other, with Dixon avenging his loss to Doug Kalitta one week earlier in Englishtown, N.J. The race was close from one end to the other, with Dixon edging ahead at the lights with a 4.53 at 327 mph to Kalitta’s 4.57 at 324 mph.

This was Dixon’s third finalround appearance in a row and his third consecutive trip to this . event’s final round. The Miller ; Lite rail was steady all day, posting a 4.53/329 against Chris Karamesines, a 4.55/325 against Paul Romine, and a 4.54/329 against Darrell Russell.

After struggling durrng qualifying, Kalitta and the Mac Tools team came to life on race day with three impressive 4.5second wins over John Smith, Cory McClenathan, and six-time champ Kenny Bernstein.

Kalitta’s win over Bernstein ended any chance for a beerbash finale between Dixon and returning icon Bernstein, who is subbing for his injured son, Brandon.

Claiming his fifth victory of the season, low-qualifier Pedregon, right, powered to his 24th career Funny Car win by trailering Dale Creasy, Gary Sceizi, brother Cruz Pedregon and final round opponent, Whit Bazemore.

In the final round, both drivers stayed side-by-side for the first half of the track, but Pedregon

started to pull away from there while Bazemore began to haze . his tyres, winning with a 4.84 at' 320 mph to Bazemore’s 5.12 at 252 mph.

Pedregon now has three wins in a row at Heartland Park, and is a perfect 5-0 in final rounds this year. Pedregon and Bazemore have now squared off in eliminations six times this season with Pedregon holding a 4-2 edge.

Englishtown winner Bazemore and his Mateo Tools team stayed in top form with their fourth finalround showing of the season and eighth consecutive race where they advanced as far as the semifinals. Bazemore defeated Bob Gilbertson, Tim Wilkerson, and Gary Densham before facing Pedregon in the final.

Defending series Champion John Force left too soon in the

second round and drew a redlight disqualification for the second race in a row. It is the first time in his 25-year career that Force has had more than one red-light in a season.

Racing in his third consecutive final round, Anderson backed up his Englishtown victory with a close final round win over Kurt Johnson.

Anderson crossed the finish line in 6.80 seconds at 202 mph, which established the quickest and fastest pass the Heartland Park Topeka’s track history, to defeat Johnson’s 6.84 at 202 mph. K.J. had cut a .009-second reaction time to Anderson’s .029second launch, but Anderson had the horsepower as the POWERade points leader caught and passed Johnson well before the finish line.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

know!

by DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

TONY Schumacher led a team sweep in his hometown,wiiming the Top Fuel title at the Lucas Oil Route 66

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I 68

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NHRA Nationals outside of Chicago, where he was joined in the winner's circle by his Funny Car team-mate, Whit Bazemore.

The Schumacher team scored its first double-victory ever in team owner and former NHRA racer Don

In the wrong place at the wrong time

PRO Stock driver Jim Yates was injured during a freak accident at Route 66 Raceway where he came in contact with an NHRA Safety Safari vehicle.

Yates had completed a qualifying pass in the pair of cars ahead of Bruce Allen. At the end of Allen's pass, the throttle on W:

The Si

the Reher-Morrison Pontiac became stuck open in the shut down area, and remained at full throttle as the car came to a stop at the far end of the track, Yates stopped his SplitFire/Peak Grand Am, exited his vehicle, and rushed over to Allen's car to help him shut the

motor off. A cloud of smoke was forming around the vehicle and Yates became enveloped in the smoke, which obscured the view of the Safety Safari personnel arriving at the scene to assist Allen, The Safety Safari vehicle struck Yates, knocking him to the ground, g, Yates suffered a laceration on I the chin area below his lip and I had a tooth knocked loose, but s was cleared by the hospital and 5; NHRA officials to compete in Sunday's Pro Stock eliminations after being held in the hospital overnight.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

'The Shoe' Schumacher's backyard.

Pro Stock winner Kurt Johnson and Pro Stock Bike victor Angelle Savoie joined the Schumacher team in the winner's circle of Route 66 Raceway last weekend, both moving back into the POWERade points lead in their respective classes.

The addition of new crew chief Alan Johnson payed dividends in his first race with the U.S ARMY team as Schumacher scored for the first time since last year's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indy.

In the Top Fuel final, Schumacher, above, defeated points leader Larry Dixon while stuck in the lessdesirable right-hand lane, having lost lane choice in the previous round, Schumacher motored to a 4.53 at 321 mph to stop Dixon's Miller Lite dragster, whidi trailed the entire quarter mile at 4.61 at 321 mph.

motorspon news

DRAG RACING

So close

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AUSTRALIAN Troy Critchley, below, advanced all the way to the final round of the AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge before being defeated by Fred Hahn’s Summit Racing-backed Corvette.

Critchley qualified his AMS Corvette third, his best start of the season, at 6.18s at over 225 mph.

Critchley repeated his effort in qualifying with a 6.18/224 in round one to defeat Rickie Smith, who had the only nitrous car on the grounds. A second round 6.25 at 223 mph stopped Mike Ashley’s ‘41 Willys.

In the final round, after an even start, Critchley’s Corvette made a move toward the centerline, forcing him to shut off and allow Hahn an uncontested trip to the finish line at 6.32s at 205 mph.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKi

beast

Schumacher top qualified at 4.51/326 and used another 4.51 at 329 mph to defeat Luigi 'The Rodfather' Novelli in the opening round. He improved to a career best at 4.50/327 to stop former Rookie of the Year Darrell Russell in round two, and scored a semi-final round win over

John Smith.

Dixon has advanced into the final round 21 times in the last 33 national events. In Joliet, Dixon posted consistent 4.5s laps opposite Melanie Troxel, Rlionda Hartman-Smith,and Cory McClenathan to make his seven* final roimd of the year.

Whit Bazemore,nbove right, marched to his 14th career win and moved to within 36 points of class leader Tony Pedregon with his final round win over Tommy Jolinson Jr. Bazemore left first and took a huge holeshot win as the Mateo Tools Dodge Stratus recorded a winning 4.87/319 to hold off the much quicker 4.,83/316 of Johnson.

The Lee Beard-tuned Dodge and driver Bazemore made its way into their third straight final with round wins over Bob Gilbertson, Del Worsham,and Joliet's own John Lawson.

Johnson put the Don 'The Snake' Prudhomme blue Skoal Camaro into its first final round of the season with elimination wins over former series

a June 2003

champ Cruz Pedregon,POWERade points leader Tony Pedregon, and Gary Densham.

Kurt Johnson powered to a final round 6.79/203 to defeat defending series champion,Jeg Coughlin. The Jeg's driver had a better reaction time at the start, but that lead evaporated by half-track as Coughlin's Chevrolet Cavalier lacked in the horsepower department and could only produce a 6.83 at 201.

Team 23 rider Savoie captured her third Pro Stock Motorcycle win of the year, defeating finalist, Reggie Showers,7.12/187 to 7.23/184.

Savoie's 31st career victory moves her into third place on the all-time Pro Stock Bike wins list behind legends Dave Schultz(45 wins) and Jolm Myers (33).

POINTS: Top Fuel: Dixon 937, Kalitta 707, B. Bernstein 629, Russeli 552, McClenathan 548.

Funny Can T. Pedregon 912, Bazemore 876, Densham 671, Worsham 636, Capps 586. Pro Stock: K.Johnson 890, Anderson 888, W. Johnson 686, Coughlin Jr 612, Ailen 462. Pro Stock Bike: Savoie 416, Scali 406, Gann 341, Brown 331, Treble 311.

That’s really fast GARY Sceizi, driver of the Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T, recorded the two fastest passes in Funny Car history during the Lucas Oil Nationals.

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Scelzi's first round speed of 328.06 mph established a new NHRA national record for speed.

Sceizi had earlier made a qualifying, run of 327.98mph during Saturdays first qualifying session, which was within the required one percent to set the performance mark. n Hartman Racing has hired tuning veteran Lance Larsen as a team consultant for the next two events on the tour. Larsen had been released by Skuza Racing following the K&N Filters Nationals in Englishtown.

Larsen had served as Crew Chief for over eight seasons with Skuza Motorsports and tuned driver Dean Skuza to two victories and 10 runnerup finishes during his stay with the team. n Six-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Warren Johnson failed to qualify for eliminations.

After holding a 303 race qualifying streak, which was snapped last year in Sonoma, Joliet marked the second time in less than a year that Johnson has missed the out in the ultra-tough class. n Brandon Bernstein has been cleared to leave the hospital in New Jersey where he's been recovering from back injuries suffered in Englishtown. Bernstein has been fitted with a body brace, which goes from the back of the head to the waist.

He will have to wear the brace for eight to 12 weeks, and is expected to be sidelined for at least three months.

JOHN Force recorded the quickest pass in the history of Funny Car racing and established a new national record in the process during

the Lucas Oil NHRA Route 66 Nationals.

Force, above, powered his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang down the quarter-mile in a record time of 4,721 seconds at 325.30 mph.

An earlier pass of 4.750s backed up the new record.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

n Checker Schuck's Kragen has renewed its sponsorship as the 'Official Auto Parts Store' for the NHRA. The official status provides CSK Auto the opportunity to utilize the NHRA logo in advertising and promotional campaigns.

Through the official program, CSK Auto also receives signage at all national events, and is featured in many NHRA-driven marketing initiatives.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI 69

Dail, I neSi

your car

Nelson Piquet Jr goes back 25 years IT'S amazing what you can leam off your father. Especially if Dad is a three-time world champion.

Early last month. Nelson Piquet Jr became the second-youngest driver to win a round of the British Formula 3 Championship when he won at Knocli’ill.

Two weeks later, the 17-year-old set aside his Dallara to take a step back in time, driving tlie Ralt RTl-Toyota that took his father. Nelson Piquet, to the 1978 BP F3 title. During the late 1970s, there were two British championships for the cars. Piquet missing out on the Vandervell title because he skipped two races - he was busy racing in his 'other' series. Formula 1.

The car is a masterpiece of simplicity. Designed by Ron Tauranac, it was the ideal 'production' racecar; an aluminium monocoque, with wishbones made of steel and sturdy (read heavy) fibreglass bodywork. It was easily updatable and was manufactured in tliree versions, for F3, Formula Atlantic and Formula 2 The RTl had its origins in 1975 when Larry Perkins took the original car to the European title, wimiing races at Monza's famed F3 Lotteria and at Croix-en-Ternois in France. Ten customer RTls were built for that season (four in F3 spec); for 1976, there were 30 more;in 1977,41, including chassis 131, which went to Piquet. Eventually, more than 150 RTls rolled out of Ralt's workshops.

Piquet started the 1978 season after having rim in the European F3 series the previous year, taking two wins.

He and manager-mechanic Greg 'Pee Wee'Siddle set their sights on the British series the next year and started the season with the year-old car, a new RTl on order.

Ralt's factory, also developed a number of different nosecones and Gurney flaps, lighter fibreglass bodywork,a choice between Koni and Bilstein dampers and a lighter gearbox.

As a guide, Siddle estimates the team's budget for the season at around £70,000(approx. $180,000); by comparison, Derek Warwick(who beat Piquet to the otlier Vandervell F3 title) ran his RTl on £17,000 for the year. Seems trifling by today's standards; a season in British F3 today with one of the leading teams (ie, Alan Docking Racing or Carlin) will ran you around £300,000.

Warwick and Piquet dominated the season. Tlie Briton won five of the six opening races but, at Mallory Park in May,Piquet broke through for his first win - and started a tear, taking seven wins to secure the BP title. In both series, he won 12 races, added a Euro win at Paul Ricard for good measure and set sail for GP racing and three world titles.

Warwick won eight races for the season in his RTl and moved up to Formula 2 with the Toleman team. which would go into Grand Prix racing at the end of tlie 1981 season.

At Las Vegas, Warwick made his FI debut-and Piquet sealed his first world title.

Just for the record: the ex-Piquet RTl-Toyota/131 is now owned by Frank Gomm,who bought the car (for £1500!) in 1980. He races it in Historic F3 races in the UK and his family business, Gomm Metal, still produces components for many motor racing teams,including McLaren International.

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What, NO carbon fibre?

Nelson Piquet)r must have been shocked to see how 'modern'the Ralt RTl-Toyota Nelson Sr raced in 1978 is not.

Simple design is shown by full-width 'Tyrrell' nose with adjustable Gurney flaps and I outboard suspension all 3 around. Its Toyota engine I pumps out around 3 125kW (approx. 165bp).

Apart from the fact that he had talent. Piquet also had money. The new RTl arrived towards the middle of the season and the Brazilian had not only two cars to test, he had a number of tweaks that would only find there way onto opponents'cars later in the year, For slower tracks, Siddle and Piquet fitter wider.

Formula Atlantic front suspension, giving the car better turn-in; they had different rubber stops in the suspension; and front and rear antirollbar adjusters.

The team, which was run out of 10

motorsDort news

HISTORICS

Targa roundup MELBOURNE'S Mike Wilson has a passion for historic touring cars especially if they're big!

In recent times he has campaigned his thundering Torana SLR 5000 in circuit races and tarmac rallies, but sold the car recently to make way for more projects (he has just finished a magnificent rebuild of the Bathurst-winning Torana driven

by Bob Morris and John Fitzpatrick).

Shortly before Targa Tasmania the new owner of the SLR 5000 contacted Mike to see if he was interested in driving the event.

Naturally, he agreed. "My first sponsored drive - at the age of 59" he said.

by BRIAN REED ONE of Australia's most inviting collection of cars and motorcycles is to be found at the National Automobile Museum of Tasmania in Launceston.

The collection spans more than 80 years of style and technical achievement that traces the development of automotive transport, with a nice sprinkling of racing machinery (bikes and cars) to whet the appetite.

Currently on display is John Bowe's Elfin 600FF and Max Freeland's Ralt RT4- and the space where Sir Jack Brabham's famous BT19 has graced the museum until recent times.

In fact, this is one of the nice things about the museum. The displays are changed regularly according to a particular theme, the present theme being 'Australian.' Coming up for winter, the emphasis will be on 'Coach Builders of Tasmania.'

Some 40 cars and the same number of bikes make up the vehicles on show, and apart from the museum's own exhibits, others are loaned from time to time by ACL,Shell, Honda Australia and the Fox Collection.

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation recently provided a Minardi FI car for display, and George HetreTs 1896 Benz has also been the centre of attention.

The motorcycles are housed on a

mezzanine floor above the cars and have been carefully arranged to provide the best possible viewing.

Wheelchair access to the bikes is the next improvement on the agenda.

The museum has grown from relatively humble beginnings, having been based on a smaller collection at the Waverley Woollen Mills belonging to local Tasmanian restorer Geoff Smedley.

The present museum opened in March 1996, and also houses Tasmania's Hall of Fame - local motor racing identities whose contributions to the sport have been recognised.

The person in charge of this section of the museum is another wellknown local identity very much in

Jack lives here THE Victorian Historic Racing Register is celebrating the news that Sir Jack Brabham has accepted its offer to become patron of the club.

"It is a unique honour to have this great AuWalian, winner of three Formula One World Drivers' Championships, one in a car of his own design, as patron , and to allow his name to be S associated with the club's activities," said a spokesman for the club. "■ Sir Jack's acceptance of patronage will create great interest amongst the international historic racing community and raise the image of the VHRR both here and overseas."

A welcoming function will be; held upon Sir Jack's return from overseas later in the year.

- BRIAN REED 4 June 2003

the news of late, Barry Oliver.

Manager/Curator of the museum Richard Moore heads up a Board of Directors, each of whom is required to provide hands-on assistance every month. The museum also provides work experience for Years 11 and 12 students from local secondary colleges who are training for careers in the tourism indushy.

As many as 18,000 visitors a year attend the National Automobile Museum of Tasmania which is open seven days a week (excluding Christmas Day)and is located just one block from the city centre opposite the City Park at 86 Cimitiere Street, Launceston. For further information phone (03)6334 8888.

VALE - Kevin Neal VETERAN motor racer Kevin Neal,84, passed away recently.

Neal ran a successful transport business from Melbourne and was renowned for the immaculate presentation of his trucks as well as his race cars and trailers.

After finishing fourth in his Cooper Bristol in the 1955 Australian Grand Prix at Port Wakefield, he competed in the 1956 Olympic Games AGP at Albert Park in the ex-Reg Hunt 2.5-litre Maserati A6/250F, a car that was dubbed ‘the Irish Maserati’ by the Italian works mechanics with Stirling Moss and Jean Behra because of its magnificant green livery.

He qualified eighth, but crashed when the heavens opened with six laps remaining, severely injuring himself in the process.

To Kevin’s family and friends we offer our sincere condolences.

- BRIAN REED

n Going for three wins in a row in the Shannons Classic Touring competition for 1947 - 1965 cars was the giant-killing Austin Healey Sprite of Tassie farmers Philip and Justin Nichols.

The little 1958 'Bug-Eye' Sprite has dominated over the past two years and looked set for a repeat performance after its fastest -ever run around the Prologue at George Town.

Unfortunately a broken gearbox ended their chances on Day 2. n Another major entry to suffer gearbox gremlins was the $400,000 Porsche 911 s/c Safari from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart - the car that finished second in the 1978 East Africa Safari Rally. One of only three works cars specially built to withstand the challenges of the African terrain 25 years ago, the 911 was the first car from the museum to register a DNF in the seven years curator Klaus Bisohof has been taking part in Targa.

Another gearbox was flown across from Melbourne but it was found that because of the extent of the modifications to the rally car, the replacement gearbox couldn't be made to fit.

The museum was looking for a much better result, especially as it coincided with the 40th anniversary of the high performance 911.

■ An innovation trialled in the 2003 Targa Tasmania was the Shannons Classic Tour, a non competitive component aimed at giving participants a taste of what Targa is all about. Ground rules were clearly laid out, especially in relation to the mandatory speed limits that apply in Tassie, and the 16 participants in an impressive array of collectable classic cars drove most of the 2000kms transport and Targa stages.

They also took part in the Shannons Show and Shine in the gardens of Government House which included many local veteran, vintage and classic cars as well.

- BRIAN REED II

namnal Carnage central scene

REIGNING V8 BRute Champion Warren Luff emerged from amid carnage and mayhem with a win at the Wakefield Park round on Sunday.

"It would have been nice to

complete the trifecta but it's still good points and the championship's looking a lot healthier now," said Luff.

But it was a sickenmg, high-speed crash involving Nandi Kiss that robbed 'Tire Rock Dog' the chance of a clean sweep.

Race 2 was brought to a halt after just five laps when Kiss backed his Falcon XR8 ute through the Armco at frightening speed. He had just flashed across the stripe, the fastest part of the circuit, when all hell broke loose.

"I was beside the number seven car (Graham Hunt)," said Kiss."I was setting myself to do the brakurg thing at the end of the straight and the next thing I was domg a pirouette and headed backwards for tire wall. I could see the barrier and thought, 'this is not the place to be doing this.'

I'm not sure if I moved over or if the other car did, but there was contact."

As the Marbo Smash Repairs ute slammed the barrier, it appeared for one terrifying moment that the entire car was headed up the embankment towards the crowd.

"I'm just so glad no-one got hurt.

At the end of the day if the car's repairable we'll fix it, that doesn't really mean anything if someone had been hurt."

Series leader Charlie Kovacs was

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leading when the race was stopped.

But Kovacs slipped back through the field in the third race and missed out on a podium position.

Despite a lengthy spell out of racing, Jamie Brock returned with a solid second place overall.

Gary MacDonald struggled with deterioratmg handling throughout the day to record a creditable third.

"The car was not going right. The suspension was moving around a bit at the front, so I was struggling. I'd copped a few big hits through the day and I could feel things moving about at the front end," The first race hinted at what lay ahead. It lasted less than a lap before the red flag was dragged out when Darren McDonald put the wind up the marshals at turn six.

The fortunate and the unfortunate: Warren Luff, above, improved his title defence at Wakefield Park. While below, Nandi Kiss gave tbe near-by spectators a major fright...

"1 think there was a couple of cars tangled up at my right hand rear corner,"McDonald said."They tangled and I went straight into the flag point. I thought it was going to be whole lot worse, but luckily there was a fair bit of give in the tyre wall and I was still able to drive tire car after the stack," -MARTIN VAN REE

Loadsman road-rage

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SCOTT Loadsman overcame the frustration of heavy traffic that delayed his progress in race one to claim an outright win in the second Australian Production Car Championship Series at Wakefield Park.

“It’s annoying when you can drive better (faster) and you get held up by the slower drivers and they don’t give you an opportunity to get through,” said Loadsman. “I suppose it brings out the best in you and I came out all guns blazing in the second race and just turned it on.”

Unable to let his Solace/Wakeling Commodore VX SS have It’s head at the best of times around the tight layout, Loadsman was slowed by a series of intense midfield battles for class points in the earlier race.

“There was a few of those Celicas

having a big duel. I'd come down the straight and they’d be three adrift. How do you get past them?"

The final result though pleased Leadsman. “We’ve come away with a win and raised another few bucks for Campbelltown Hospital.”(Aeharity for which his team has now raised over $320,000.)

While Loadsman and the rest we’re battling for the minor placings, David Russell was making race one his own in his Proton Satria GTi. “This is a circuit that’s always going to suit our car,” Russell said. “We managed to get one outright win and two class D wins. This track rewards consistency and that showed up in our lap times.”

Despite engine mount problems, Steven GrocI managed to snare a win in class B in the VW Beetle.

- MARTIN VAN REE moiorspori news

NATMONAI. SCENE

Blaze of glory BILL Pye was hot again at Oran Park for round three of the NSW State championships.

But while Pye was carving his way to another slice of Production Sports victory in his Porsche GT3,Mike Reedy's Lotus Elise was unceremoniously fricasseeing itself in pitlane,above.

Car owner, Terry Ashman was left to lament: "It was a pretty good barbie, but there wasn't enough time to arrange for the meat and vegies."

The meeting also featured round two of the National Commodore Cup series. The usual suspects were at the head of the field with Geoff Emery faking victory from David Gittus and Marcus Zukanovic.

Round three of the state Formula Ford championship saw the return to form of David Sieders. Sieders had taken round one at Eastern Creek in March. After putting in a shocker at Wakefield Park in round two,he seemed set to dominate. He took the first race but in the second he tangled with Anglo Australian Motorsport team-mate Joel Spychala. Laurence Burford took the win.

Formula Vee produced an unusual three-way tie for round honours.

Michael KinseUa left the field for dead in the wet in race one. Race two was run at a furious pace but Cutts led the field over the line only once, but it was on the lap that mattered most.

The third race saw a spectacular crash coming onto the bridge that took out Ian Chivas,Adam Procter and Glenn Farmer. Mark McHenry avoided the carnage to snatch victory.

Derek Bailey finally got his act together to produce wins in the first two Sports Sedan races.

The 300ZX looked set for a clean sweep when Bailey, looking to put heat into(he rear tyres on the warm up lap for race three,broke the drivetrain. That left Glen Taylor to take the final race win and maintain his lead in the series.

Meanwhile, Learme Ferrier was too slick for Ric Shaw in Improved Production.

-MARTIN VAN REE

INSPIRED driving from Troy Hunt wrapped up the Mitsubishi Mirage round at Wakefield Park on Sunday.

The 22-year-old had qualified on pole for race one, but technical problems forced him to start from the rear. He fought his way into the top six by the

end of the first lap and eventually to second with a daring maneuver on Grant Park.

Peter Leemhuis won that first race, but Hunt, left, stamped his authority with wins in the final two races.

- MARTIN VAN REE

Dirty work in SA

ADELAIDE driver Michael Burford was dominant during the 2003 South Australian Dirt Kart Championships,staged at the Renmark Dirt Kart Club venue at South Australia last month.

Burford, right, was almost untouchable in the 200cc Open Kart class, claiming victory in four of his five heats. Burford took an untroubled victory from Jim Kolizos and Kevin Manuel in the final.

Michael also claimed a second podium finish for the weekend when he finished in third placing behind the newly crowned lOOcc Open South Australian Champion Damien Lewis and Brendon Quinn.

The father and son team of Dennis and Michael Burford produced mixed fortunes, as Dennis unsuccessfully defended his 125cc Heavy class South 4lune 2003

Australian title due to ongoing engine woes. Nathan Colmer and Garry Duff took fuU advantage.

Colmer claimed the class title from Adelaide's David Sutton with Duff in third position.

Adelaide's Caruso brothers, Mark and Steven took a one-two in the KT Twin category from Brett Rowland.

Mark Caruso managed to double up Iris success by capturing the SA 125cc Light class crown. Ben Bull was a dose second from the fast finishing Tony Connor from Alice Springs.

The action packed Outlaw category was a hard fought affair with Port Pirie racer Ray Dobbin taking the win from local duo Daryl Webb and Mark Aston.

Adelaide's Andrew Wundenburg, Renmark local Ken TAnson and Jeff Billing filled the top three positions

in the Statesman class feature race, proving that you don't have to be young to be quick in Dirt Go-Kart racing. .

In the KT classes, Harold Biel, Ben Dillon, Ben Brown and Daniel Pestka were the cream of the crop, aU taking well deserved victories.

- PARIS CHARLES

It’s raining again!

FOR the second round in a row, showers during the finals scattered the fields at round two of the Golden City Power Series at Numurkah on the weekend. Richard Lyon was leading Rotax Heavy when the shower struck, but it was William Nicholson who hung on the best to lead home Brett Tomholt and Chris Miithorpe.

The Junior National Light final was a cracker, with five karts battling for the lead. Local kid Steven Gawne took a popular win ahead of Jamie Schena as round one winner Lucas Boucher DNF'd with a dropped chain with one lap to go.

The Rotax Light class went to Simon Leech with Mark Wicks second while Rhys Archer won Sportsman Light ahead of Ben McLaine. Craig Arnett appeared to have Clubman Heavy under control until Peter Cocoa caught up in the closing laps, getting by for a short time before Arnett regained the lead at the very end.

Bernie Kelly was unchallenged in the Sportsman Over 40s final, the wet track allowing Peter Vogt to come through from grid six for second.

Steven Pugliese and Cameron Jones put on a great race in Junior Sportsman, although results from this class, plus Midgets, had yet to be made official at the time of writing.

Andrew Pugliese opened a comfortable gap to win Sportsman Heavy while other winners were Spencer Walker (Rookies), Brett Arnett (Senior National), Ashley Arora (Junior National Heavy) and Brett McCiaine (Clubman Light). n If you're near Geelong on June 14 or 15, go and check out the second round of the Ford KartStars series at Beckley Park, Corio. Some of the countries best karters are battling for the prized Formula Ford drives and the meeting includes Junior Blitz and a full support program on both days. n Newcastle's Brendan May has been announced as International Karting Distributors' official lead SKM/Intrepid team driver for the rest of the year. May will compete in selected Clubman Light and Rotax events, kicking off at his home circuit with the NSW Senior State Championships at Newcastle on August 2 and 3. Brendan was originally pencilled in to race Ford KartStars in 2003 before older brother and former V8 Konica driver Wes took over the drive, taking third at the opening round. n As a result of CAMS' recent cancellation of the circuit's licence, the Superkart meeting scheduled for Calder Park this Sunday (June 8) has been called off. Superkarts will next race at Phillip island on August 2.

- MARK WICKS

NATIONAL SCENE

n Coupe claims Winton

NEW South Welshmen Doug Gilford dominated round four of the Kumho Tyres MGF Series at Winton Motor Raceway a fortnight ago.

Gilford .above in the lead, blitzed the field in fading light on Saturday evening and backed up his impressive Race 1 effort with another win in front of the large Supercar crowd.

Jamie Cartwright in the Gold Coast MG entry gave Gilford plenty of stick in the second

race, hounding him all the way to the flag.

Chris Oxley and Robert D’Ercole were in good shape during the early part, until race one spins meant that they would play catch up for the remainder of the weekend.

Yanis Derum collected two top five finishes, as did John Bolton and Adam Bressington aboard the Whiskas Racing machine.

- GRANT ROWLEY

ROUND three of the Aussie Racing Car Championship was contested at Winton Raceway last month.

Paul Kernel, in his Angela-Jo's Motorsports Ford Coupe took the honours on the day, giving his rivals a lesson in consistency. Kemal,from New South Wales, won two of the four races, includmg the all important double points race late on Sunday afternoon.

VIP Petfoods young-gun Mark Quinn produced another fine performance but was not able to get a win in any of the heats. However,the Queenslander moves within the top ten in the series for the first time this season.

Kiwi Legend Racing driver Chris Butler improved his title chances,

taking two wins in his Falcon AU, But, it was not enough to knock of the Coupe of KemaL Pole man Travis Edwards was unable to convert speed into race wins. Edwards though enjoyed a health dice with Eastern Creek round winner,Tim Monte.

James Ward suffered a poor weekend, dropping off the top of the series ladder after enduring brake problems in the final race.

The next round of the Aussie Racing Car series heads to Queensland Raceway, supporting their larger ancestors, on July 20.

- GRANT ROWLEY Points: Kemal 60, Mike Russell 51, Brad Ward 50, Butler 46, J.Ward/ Edwards 42,

Close stuff: Mike Kilpatrick (#2) and Chris Clearihan (#52)show how close Aussie Racing Cars can get...

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Superkarfs Superman

THE fourth roimd of the Queensland Motor Racing Championships was held at Morgan Park late last month.

The meeting played host to the Queensland Superkart Championship, whicli was won in a dominant display

by Warren Mdlveen. Mcllveen won five from five races and lapped three seconds faster than the rest of the field.

Carlo Chermaz led a couple of laps but had to settle for second ahead of Rod Pickett. Fourth was Anthony Zulian who also was the top 125cc class with Paul Battle winning the 80cc class.

Michael Dawes took victory in the Gemini Championship race after being pushed all the way by John Eddy.

Series leader Nick Rangeley just beat Matt Picken to third. Dawes and Eddy won the other races with Nick Cresswell taking the reverse grid race.

Gary Marks won a hard fought HQ championship race ahead over Paul McCahon, Brett Cooper and Mike McLeod. Marks, McLeod and Rowan Stanfield won the other races.

Derek Pingel's F4000 car dominated the thin field of racing cars but did reset the outright lap record to 59.4137, the first sub minute times set at the 74

circuit. Chris Gilmore recovered from an early engine failure to finish second in the trophy race from Kent Quinn.

Gavin Sadler and John Lawrence were the class of the Saloon Car field with Sadler taking the championship points from Lawrence and Troy Hoey.

Shane Hart won four out of five fierce duels with Trent Usher to further his title defence. Tristan Hughes was third.

With an engine failure to Jolm Campbell's Hooper-Suzuki and continuing gearbox dramas for Grant Watson, the Sports Car field was left to Stephen Morcombe in Iris Westfield SEi. Nick Leontsinis was second ahead of Paul Redding.

-MARK JONES

Super-effort: Mcllveen creamed his Superkart opponents.

FOLLOWING our story on Lakeside Raceway last issue, there seems to be more than one group trying to save the circuit.

Friends of Lakeside have been established for over a year, and were responsible for securing the heritage listing the land now holds.

Along with the Lakeside Motor Racing Enthusists, Friends of Lakeside are dedicated to ensuring Lakeside Raceway remains a motorsport facility.

Co-founders of Friends of Lakeside, Trevor ‘Shelby’ Beutei and Robert Hardacre, say there is plenty in stall for the 42-yearold circuit.

“We are working on some significant major events,

including a historic international race which may include the likes of Sir Jack Brabham, Sir Jackie Stewart and a whole host of other drivers," said Projects Director Beutei.

“It’s still early days, but what we hope to do is keep Lakeside alive,” Beutei continued. “We are dedicated to making.

Lakeside Raceway the hertiage home of Motorsport in Queensland.

“We hope to create a museum there, host other historic-type events and driver/rider training programs.”

With the amount of support Lakeside is receiving, it’s only a matter of time before the echoes of race vehicles are heard again around the famous Qld track.

- GRANT ROWLEY motorsport news

INDUSTRY NEWS

Boys Toys

Pennzoil are giving aways some toys for the big kids. Simply by purchasing any Pennzoil five or six litre product you can go into the draw to win some great stuff.

First prize is a brand new HSV Maloo 5.7 litre ute, valued at $52,530. If this is not enough the winner will also receive a Yamaha XLT Waverunner with trailer worth $19,470, and a $8,600 Yamaha TT250R trail bike.

There are also 200 cool sunglasses to be won and other consolation prizes on offer.

To enter retain your proof of purchase and log onto www.pennzoil.comsiu or ask in store for details. The promotion , closes at the end of June.

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characteristics.

BDG Pumps are suitable for race, street, strip, dirt track and marine applications. A range of accessories such as hose adaptors and pullies are also available. BDG offer support with advice and assistance on custom applications or unique solutions.

For more information on this range of pumps and accessories, call BDG Custom Parts direct on 08 9258 7700 or visit www.bdg.com.au

'9m Latist Gear .

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Dry Sump Pump

BDG Custom Parts is an Australian design and manufacturing company that now offers its own range of premium quality dry sump oil pumps.

The extensive range offers standard pumps from one to five stages, with either left or right bracket mounts; a choice of either three or four-bolt flange mounts are also available, An accessory drive end is included, as is a reversible pressure relief valve which lets the pump to run in any direction, allowing flexibility for custom mount applications.

The pumps are manufactured from high quality aerospace grade materials, such as the 6061-T6 aluminium alloy used in the body and 4140 alloy steel used for the shafts. The gears are steel/aluminium-bronze for enhanced performance and wear

ii

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The Ford Performance Racing catalogue is available now at your nearest Ford retailer or get one by emailing sales@fprmerchandise. com.au.

The catalogue features the latest official gear from Ford

Performance Racing, with everything you need to show your support, This year's range has been very popular with all new designs and styles featuring the three drivers and their cars.

m In The Workshop Back To I

h

The modern automotive workshop needs to be a clean and well organised environment for many reasons.

Occupational Health and Safety is a important part of business today, along with environmental concerns and presenting a professional image to customers.

The Driving Force offer a full range of oil and fluid storage and management solutions which meet EPA and OH and S guidelines.

A range of polyethelene trays are designed to safely store oils and coolants capturing any spills or leaks with the capability of accommodating two 205 litre drums. Other products available include brake washdown trays, engine stand with tray, magnetic trays and much more.

An innovative concept for the automotive industry, the Tip and Run Tray is a convenient and easy to use 4 June 2003

Stfiti

tray to catch and carry fluids as they are being drained from the car in the repair and service work.

The simplicity of the unit is that after the coolant is drained into the catchment area of

the tray, you simply tip it up. As you do the fluid runs into the rear of the holding tank enabling you to walk away with it. The tray can be used to store the coolant for re-use, or allows for easy disposal.

For further information on the full range of workshop products contact Brett Youlden at the Driving Force on 03 9432 5454 or fax 03 9435 7308.

KHiTiTil

Racing identtty Leo Geoghegan recently , moved to the Gold Coast and has established a ; performance driving school at Morgan Raceway, Warwick, Queensland.

The Geoghegan racing team won over 200 races and a record 13 Australian Championships. Leo's racing experience spans five countries in 72 different cars which includes victory in the 1969 Japanese Grand Prix and a record breaking run in the Tasman Series. Leo was responsible for the Chiy'sler Charger racing program and is now in his 50th year of motorsport.

Leo is the sole instructor and will advise on improving driving technique and correct vehicle setup.

Classes are available for six people at $200 each including track hire.

I Courses at Wakefield Park are also a vailable by prior arrangement. Contact Leo on 07 5578 6656 or mobile 0438172134 for more details on his course and availability.

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RUCESHOP gives you the opportunity to promote your products and services to the widest possible range of motorsport competitors and enthusiasts. Advertising in RACESHOP costs as little as $60 per issue! Call Brendon Sheridan on 03 9550 0870 now!

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: Formula fords@ Calder Park \ Open Practtce 30 laps ($795) Fun Drtve Days (from $495)

-DRIVE

l Available in twin shaft and unique single shaft designs for all parallel and cant valve engines l Strongest race rocker available with unique lifetime warranty for road and race applications

Formula Fords@ Queensland Raceway Droam it DriveIL Days (Ifom $495) ' Gill Vouchers Available Formula Ford Race School www.udrive.com.au

Ph 03 9S55 5522 Fax 03 9555 4152

Furttier Information and Bookings: 03 9217 8866 or 07 3396 3666

machines for unrivalled accuracy ( l Matching race valve train components' a huge range of one piece super duty pushrods

Visit our website: myw.crowcam!; r.nm an

li

^^^The True Performance Alternative

itnmaesTOtte

Cnr Mountain Hwy & Stud Rd Bayswater vie 3153 Tel 03 9720 saaa Fax 03 9720 8278

MANSONS

a WMRacing Tyres

,1

^bbDFLOW

PERFORMANCE GASKETS

[|

\ Premium Motorsport Hose & Fittings!

. PERFORMANCJI^

'

,

Phone 07 3808 1986

or visit our website for your nearest aistributor.

www.performancewhofesale.com.au

I

; j

Contact your state distributor...

Hardiman Auto Supplies (02) 9771 5877 Motorspon Connections (02) 9838 7272 Victorian Speed Pro (03) 9794 5177 Performance Wholesale (07) 3808 1986 Crane Technologie.s (08) 8363 5566 Cogear Racing Services (08) 9443 4400

M■ M.

„The ultimate „ in strength flVWHHlS & safety HIPERFORMANCE ENQ[NE parts

●

II . Available in economical cast iron Street,

m

r

FEkPRO

l Extremely durable bonded dampening Ik * material A\). * Easy to read computer etched timing marks

all steel SFi approved Race and new Serpentine for Chev, LSI, LTl etc Ph 02 6937 8S88 Fax 02 6921 7536 Visit out website www.precisionparts.com.au

I

Your choice of standard weight or lightweight steel ● Available for all popular applications including Fdrd 6 cyl, Cleveland and Windsor V8.

Holden 6 & V8, Chev SB & BB V8

Ph 03 9555 5522 Fax 03 9555 4152 www.yellaterra.com.au

ONE PIECE RACE PUSHRODS ^used by top touring car, speedway & drag racing teams.I ● .080" wall chrome moiy

● available in

5

from 6.00" to 10.00"

machining cantn Hl ghost quality platona In th Induatry

/

also available

p:03 9357 0469 f:03 9357 0001 visit our website: www.crowcFimf^.nnm

mat laboon

0 ■:

[II

Trrv

MOrORSPORT

[G»RYtfSI

10 Carnegie Place Blacktown NSW 2148 p02 9676 8655 f 02 96765300 ● e qarvdunlop@ozemail.com.au

www.garysmotor5porttyres.com.au ■■

h^OPUNE A WINNING COMBINATION

a PERFORMANCE mfA’SmONiafALUMINIUM,

eEkmUiimMEMEM

Phone 07 3808 1986

or visit our website for your nearest aistributor.

WWW. peiformancewlwlesale. com. au 4 June 2003

ff

a

Vehicle & engine development & machining service

For your engine tuning and development needs

Eastern Raceparts ● n/locaB

, TJW®"

^^^yPhone 07 3808 1986 fW or visit our website for your nearest distributor.

www.performancewliolesale.com.au

€

(I1VS5Ls2 111

Postal Address PD Box ei Gisborne VIC 3437 Tel/Fax D3 542B 1123 Mobile D4DB B34 2B5 Email KDDLKAR5i8bigpond.iiom.au

● Aircraft Bolts

HEWLAND

Aluminiuin Competilion Wheel Nuls D-GO Tyre Pressure Gauyes

I

^livnLaAi, PISTON RINGS

MOTOnSPORT TYRES

dvsioaaak

Engine building

For more info ph 02 9873 1773, fax 02 9871 1018 or email peter@finlays.com.au www.ffnlays.cam.au

CAMSl

NEW street race version .J

cars. No pre-requisites. 40 laps at Oran Park. tr International Racing Drivers School

/ (/

● .080" wall hardened steel

Formula Ford Test Drives - $654.50 in our Platons Tor any ●ngina comblnatloi VS, G and 4 cyllndor Quickaat dalivary In th« Induatry All now CNC

& )4" diamet

● .050" length steps

CAMS racing and rally licence courses m-paitcn otHign Pcr/ormonco Porta

0

● one piece construction

i

@ Oran Park monthly $605 in your car.

Includes lecture and OLT.

MClflOlflOUmuilmiTD

S

Ph 03 93570469 or Fax 039357 0001

I I ’Ji lancers

f '●3'

aow

CAMS

including PSi(USA) valve springs and

www.yenaterra.com.au

—

a

l Fast profile design service to your requirements

● Girling ● Goldine ● Silverline

Ph/Fax 02 9526 6666

Ph Byran Miller - Mob 0417 274 507 ● Ph 02 9524 3369 ● 1 Tamba Place Lilli Pilli NSW 2229 ● Email easternraceparis@hotmail.com

^fiiTr^hianYTpitiffiTFi

Sonerck Coolers w

iMinS!

!31'«sedssB tsijrsiSansB AUSTRAL I A eO eH^ffingjtBSsOmaDarfjsc^mSb Ph. 02 9756 1966 Fax. 02 9758 1155

^ PERFORMANCE £r .

MCEmroNS. MPINSl fAUytR'A0lAMPISTRlBUT.ORlOEi.9RI

A

Phone 07 3808 1986

or visit our website for your neare.st distributor.

Hiww.performancewholesale.com.au 77

Irace shop 1MANLEYI

i

UMiDaMisi?

^Demana the best/ High performance engine components for over 30 years.

Race, strip or street.

SMIEI AUSTRA

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Ph.02 9758 1966

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COUflPJ?

PERFORMANCE CAMS £r VALVE TRAIN COMPONENTS

Specialists in l Turbochargers ball bearing and non ball bearings« Kits & overhauls available ® High flow intercoolers and kits l Link engine management systems ® Oil coolers and oil coolers kits® Silicon hoses and bends ® Tein suspension kits

Phone 073808 1986 10®

Trade enquiries welcome

57 Taunton Dr Cheltenham VIC 3192 i Ph 03 9584 4439 Fax 03 9584 4008 i Email avo@bigpond.com ?

or visit oar website far your nearest aistributor.

A

Fax. 02 9756 1155

www.performancewholesale.com.au

Remssrkinbie Wlni&ws ©pportuBiIfy f®r ingme Experts

5W SHADE SPECTRUM I SHABE Now available in 3 sizes 2.4m X 2.4m 3m X 3m 4.5m X 3m to cover all situations.

Maintenance free.

The 60 second shade structure.

l Accurate, Repealoble, Versatile l Take manuol control or hands-free l Local design, support, oevelopmenf, installation and on-site training l Top homes demond lop equipment (users Inc NIZPRO, HSV, HRT & John Sidney Racing) l Engine, chossis, go-kart or motorbike For mort informstlDn and a dtmonstratioR (ontaih

DynoLog Dynamometer

AREX Computing POBoxISl Montrose Vic3765 Pti03W5ni42 Fox0397512173 M04D805554I

:?7T

a COMPONENTS ]I

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1800 083 089

Email aeldit.Snalbpc.ato,DU

FUEL INJECTION SYSTEMS, FUEL PUMPS, .« AIR DENSITY GAUGES

9 z £ = E E ?

wivw.spBctPQmstiatte.GDCD.au

Steel Main Caps to suit most V8 applications

f^RAIME m^ams

Manufactured in USA by Pro-Gram Engineering

State Distributors

Qimimm

NSW:(02) 9678 9977 QLD:(07) 3808 1986 VIC:(03) 9794 5177 WA:(08) 9353 1155 Australlart importer and distributor:

Phone 07 3808 1986

or visit our website for your nearest aistributor.

www.performahcewholesale.com.au

CRANE

Ph: 08 8363 5566 Fax: 08 8363 5633 TECHNOLOGIES ^XpTY. LTD. www.cranecaiTis.coni.au

Iv.

race;

Now based at Morgan Raceway Warwick Leo will personally instruct small classes(6) on technique and vehicle set up

Competition disc pads l Race brakes l Pagid l Hawk l Endless l Performance Friction

cost only $200 per day

Over 10 years experience of brake modifications and upgrades for road and race. Caliper conversion 1, 2,4 & 6 piston. Custom made disc rotors.

Manufacturers & distributors of

races High performa

King disc brakes

Books, Videos, DVD's Motorsport from FI to Drive Days

.

'●is'^ieveadAr

Workshop Manuals for cars and bikes How To’s for just about eveiything

Phone 07 3808 1986

or visit our website for your nearest aistributor.

WWW.performancewholesale.com.au NEWa^

Pk 02 9909 1(44 Fax 02 9909 I566|

StmubM Carmectars The world’s leading dry brake connector, available for every wet line on a racer. As used by ^

Cantact HusseSI at EBC Brakes far a brachiere an 03 34ES 3BSO 78

"to

ing" the ultiinate predm component iiisliiing

Engineered isotropic finishes for carbon 8t alloy steels, stainless steels & titanium components.

Increase component efficiency and life span, reduce vibration, friction, noise & operating temperature, This is not polishing, but refining machined surfeces to a polished condition, removing machining peaks ● the cause of mlcropitting which leads to component failure.

Guru Racing - 8

, Wakefield j

fe. 111‘W (OrsmaS'm

Race logistics LocisTCs interstate transport

f special * rates for j

h^Park^ Enjoy your Toy* I

DRY SUMP OIL PUMPS V Australian Made

CUSTOM PARTS

V Best Quality ●r Lower Price ●r Local Spares & Support V From I to 5 Stages ●r Bracket Mount or ●r Flange Mount ●r Complete Systems ./Call for a FREE , brochure

P (0 8) 9258 7700^

OIL amAm tray 5.

ALL ROUNDS ALL CLASSES Fully enclosed custom built race car transporters Professional race car logistic and event specialists Security for car and equipment Contact Neil Griffiths on 04I8 474 8I6

race@tnt.com.au

I

p 07 5578 6656 m 0438 172 134 f 07 5578 6657

t

v.v/.gufumotorE potlB.com

^

iPININFARIIMi

F1,WRCand Touring Cars.

b;

Leo Geoghegan Performance Driving School

Queensland 07 3341 991 1 Sydney 02 9609 1101 Melbourne 03 9326 6088

TUfMfPh 03 5339 5159 MMLJb Fax 03 5339 2144

Sold in Ai

«One man operation ● Cosy to use ● 16 litre capacity * Quick 8 clean Ph Brett Youlden 0402 456 281 or email byoulden@ozenwtl.com.au

THB aaiM/inim fimimtcje

I

KiSffi

m^2ZZ^S^_ news online classifieds

SEIl

Find hundreds more race vehicles and parts for sale at www.my105.com

your motorsport vehicle, parts, memorabilia with our all-new combined magazine/internet classified service.

Courtesy of an agreement between Motorsport News and internet classified service my105.com, your advertising will appear in both for as little as $25.

Yes 6 months on my105.com AND one insertion in Motorsport News for just $25! HOW?

Just log on to www.my105.com and follow the prompts!

Alternately, you can still use the classified form on these pages (surcharge applies for the service of entering the ad onto my105.com)

LOG ON NOW — IT’S THE SMART WAY TO SELL YOUR EQUIPMENT!

Ford Escort Mark 1

I

Ex Pedders Suspension Jamie Miller Mk1 Escort, No expense spared, Full space frame, fresh 13B PP, fresh Needham straight cut box, AP Brakes,

amnm

wets, spare rims, weighs approx 700kg, proven performer and reliability.

PRICE REDUCED.

www.myl05.com/377

$15,000 URGENT SALEAUD Matt(02)6684 0409 or 0414 611 687

Sedans/Spofts Cars

Mazda RX2 Coupe, Improved production Sedan, RX2 Coupe, 13B bridgeport, 51mm Webber, air box, RevLimter, race dutch, 5 speed g-box, steel cage, foamfilled race tank, Volvo brakes, brake bias, watts-link rearend, adjustable Koni suspension, Wiilians harness, current CAMS Log Book, lots of spares, spare 13B Bridgeport race engine, two sets globe mags. $10,000.

Benjamin (or John) (03) 9888 8298. 259 www.myt05.com/28856

1^- -

cr

r ^ '1^1

4

Porsche 930, Genuine turbo, all steel, LHD, FAI app full roll cage and harnesses, fresh and standard 3.3, K29 turbo, Kokein intercooler. New 17” Simmons, good Bridgestone 540s, alum, oil cooler, Padig pads, Pyro, MSD ign, adj boost (330 400hp), RSR 3.8 wing, make an ideal Targa or club car. Why knock the good one around? . $45,000 ONO. Kerry 0417 518 660/03 6331 0466.280 www.my105.com/99536

Toyota Supra Sports Sedan, Toyota Supra 2001 Old State Sports Sedan Championship Winner, midmount 6Ltr Chev, ford toploader. Independant nine inch diff, too much to list, comes complete with spares and fully enclosed trailer, POA - call either 0418 729 732 or 0417 607 084. POA.

4 June 2003

Porsche GTS FACTORY Cup CAR, Series 2 car with all 2001 upgrades plus carbon bonnet/ guards and boot lid and transmission cooler. 5hrs on fresh bottom end. PCA dyno sheet. Lots of spares and special goodies. Will be a front running car in prod/marque sports or group 2 nations cup. Very lightly raced and never crashed. $185,000 Neg. Wayne (02) 9524 1199. 258 www.myt05.com/98267

\.

Python SR 302, Championship winning car, 1998, 2000 3rd 2001, 302 Windsor 500 and hp John Sidney built engine, 4 speed to loader and more, ready to race with 2B log book, eligible for Prod Sport NSW and Sport Car Class VIC. $65,000. George (03) 9696 0646/0402 053 116.259 www.my105.com/86492

Wayne 0418 729 732. 26i www.myl05.com/33119

1 *N

1986 Mazda RX7 Series 4, 13B, high HP motor, ceramic seals. Wolf 3D computer, Recaro seats, steel roll cage, large radiator, oil cooler, intercooler, FIA fuel tank, Koni shocks, Urethene suspension, FIA 5 point harness, spare wheels (5), spare gearbox, many more spares, road reg. $22,000 Neg. Danny 0418 353 681. 259 www.myl05.com/20609

BMW E30 Series Production Car, 325i 6 cyl to full class specs. Double adjustable Koni dampeners, LSD, Rebuilt engine only 7 races old, Sparco Pro 2000 seat, huge 2nd in 2002 spares package.

Check us out at championship. puremotorsport.com.au. $18,000. Paul 0411 034 231.259www.my105.com/60323

Future Tourer, Future Tourer #53 Commodore come 2nd in 2002 series well sorted car has new engine, reconditioned T10 gearbox, detroit locker diff, and is ready to race in Master series this year in June may trade Siverado Extra Cab. $38,500 Neg. Mark 0409 846 71 7.

260 www.my105.eom/60608

Honda Prelude Sports Sedan, Australia's Fastest 2Lt Sports Sedan, Full Space Frame Construction - 770Kg, Nissan SR20 Super Touring Engine, Hilux Rear LSD, Wiliwood Brakes, Motec, All Lap Records At Willowbank and Morgan Park, Willowbank National CCT 1-15-2, Spares Include Engine, G/Box's, Diffs, Moulds. $40,000 Includes Trailer. $35,000 may except trade ONO. David Waldon 0408 720 560. 259 www.myl05.eom/40279

Westfield Sierra Cosworth, Specialist high performance vehicle. 245 BHP, Flat Slide Injection, Dry Sump, Button Clutch, Motec M4, 4 Vented Disks, 5 Link Rear 2.5" AVO Shocks, 3” 6pt Harness, Quaife Sierra 5 speed, LSD, Rose jointed, 13" Wheels with Yokohama 032 Tyres. Professional engine rebuild just completed. This is an excellent track car but don't have time to use. $36,500 Or Best Offer. Brett 02 6285 3644.

261 www.myl05.com/91004

Commodore Cup, Commodore Cup #426 Ex Baxter/Papendell car, good competitive car, ready to race, reconditioned motor and gearbox, 313 horsepower has not been raced in two years, commited to other category. $19,500 Neg. Mark 0409 846 717.

268 www.myl05.com/67764

' ^

El

RX2 club car, Ex-SelectMaz club car, 13B race bridgeport, engine almost new, 51mm Webbers, cold air box, race clutch, turbo 5 speed g-box, steel cage, racing tank, Volvo brakes, front-to-rear brake bias, race seat, harness, too much to mention. Great for Club or Sprints. $8,500 ONO. Rodney 9767 5604 / 0409 776 671. 258 www.myl05.eom/69202

Mirage RS, This immaculate example won best presented tor the majority of 2002 season also winning the last round it raced at Phillip Island, including various podiam finnishes throughout 2002. The car is fully equiped with fire bomb, sparco seat belts, pedals etc. With Full Log Book and only two owners. $20,000.00 Best Offer. James Dutton (03) 9428 4144 / 0438 777 776. 258 www.myl O5.com/12729

BMW E46 320i Super Prodution, Potential Bathurst 24hr winner all the best factory parts used to build supplied fay BMW only competited for half a NZ series like new inside and out. Complete spares package incuding wheels, shocks and diffs must be seen, contact us for more photos and details, dont delay. POA. Kevin Bell +64-21- 845-102. 258www.my105.com/978

?9

I

r--r

I MGB, Excellent condition, chrome wires, new English Imported soft top, registered until 5/2/04 A very good car. $15200 Neg. Ben 0417 220 285 / 02 4572 1471. 257 www.myl05.com/44437

Commodore Cup Race Car, new engine, gearbox and front rotor's, professionally built, ready to race. $23,000. Cameron 0418 318 866.257 www.my105.com/75696

PORSCHE GT3, Perfectly maintained.

Mechanically perfect. Many spares available. . $178,000 must sell. 0418 507 403. 257www.my105.com/53327

(Sil

■

’A

<1-

Production Sports Porsche 911/964, 3.6 litre 964 Engine Fully Blue printed / Balanced with Kevlar race Clutch /

lightweight Flywheel / 5 Speed 915 close ratio gear box/ New s/s exhaust system / 300 BHP / Motronic Eng Mgt. with UNICHIP Module. 930 Turbo Brakes / Coil Over / Bilstein Shocks. Ready to race and road registered (Eastern Creek - 1:44.49 - 2002).

Extremely reliable. Sale b/c of upgrade. $65000. William (02) 9144 6747. 257 www.myl O5.com/16680

ALFA ROMEO 1750 GTV, Re-built motor.

Tilton clutch, c/r gears. 4.56 LSD. Highly developed suspension with Bilsteins. Group Sb logbook . Spares: light weight panels, 4.1 LSD axle, three sets wheels with A032Rs. Springs, roll bars for either track or road. Registered VJW 423. Ready to race.

Histories Sb or Nc, Targa or/\lfa events. .

Doug Matley 0409 981 270. 257 www.myl05.eom/92750 DATSUN 120Y, 2 dr with boot. Fully adj/rose jointed susp, adj bars fr & rear, 5 link rear end, big brakes, SR20, 124kw @ wheels, morris cams, vernier cam wheels, forged pist, tur rods, haltec injection, slide throttle, alum fly wheel, Dat/Holl gear box.

Rebuilt motor & gearbox. 1:52 at PI on old R-rated tyres. $12,500 ONO. Alan 0408 581 689 / (03) 9763 2960. 257 www.myl05.com/87776 rrri

-0*»

m

t Mazda Rx3 Sports Sedan, Mazda Rx3 SportsSedan, has done minimum racing, is in verygood condition,has potential 2B fast car with some work,13B PP and exhaust by T.A.S performance, SSpeed Supra box, SolidCentre 4PaddleClutch, 4,41 lockedDIff, Full Fibreglass lift-off Front, NewVS superca,' style frontspoiler.setof Wet tyres,will sell less engine/box, $15,000, $7000 less- eng/box Neg. Simon 0409 875 381. 257www.my105.com/52973

(■k gc76

,

Datsun 240Z, 1973 Datsun 240Z. Total rebuild, 2000. Front running Group S car-Sc Log book. 2400CC, fully developed engine, Tilton twin disc clutch, Nismo limited slip diff with 4.375:1 ratio, high flow oil pump, Nismo extractors, virtually new HitachiSU carbies etc etc. Ready to race. Spares to allow road registration again. . $17,500 ONO. Peter Lang 0412 283 292 / (02) 9975 1 590. 257 www.myl05.com/94549

r3 HOOPER 1300 SUPERSPORTS, Multiple National and State Title winner. Ultra reliable - lasts 50 starts gave 41 poles, 33 firsts, 12 seconds. Brilliant chassis & aero package Expertly engineered with a generous budget.

Just updated to 2C Supersports. Currently fitted with mild 1300 Suzuki - or will easily accept 1600 4AGE - Konis, Brembos, Pi Logger,gear ratios & diffs, spare wheels.

Technical support for purchaser. $59,000 buys a very complete package inc, trailer, at a fraction of its development costs. $59,000 complete package. John Campbell 0412 699 986 / (07) 5445 2694. 257 www.my105.com/19027

Datsun 1000, Datsun 1000 sports sedan injected CA18 engine 5 speed sunny hydraulic gearbox HI65 diff 5 link rear suspension 10” brakes record holder King Edward Park and Ringwood hiilclimbs. Very reliable and competitive club level car. $6500. Also avaiable at extra cost .Trailer and almost enough parts to build another car. Darrell Peattie 0410 263 380 /

m

S3

3^-

■''i

Mk 6 Cheetah F2, Fully restored. 1600 cc Celica engine dyno time only. Webber 45 carburettors. Hewland gearbox. Brand new chrome exhaust system. Fire system fitted.

Eligible AF2 or Histories. Spares including head and mounted wheels. Also included purpose built, fully enclosed refurbished trailer with 12 months registration and full length side and rear annex. Excellent car. $39,500 ONO. Alan 02 6367 3030 / 02 6367 3222. 261 www.my105.com/69423

NSW #55 Spectre - Formula Vee, Ex-State Championship winning chassis. Has raced only four times since complete rebuild & won mutiple races in 2002. Complete with fully blueprinted engine. Dynamic Flow Carb and Manifold. Too many spares available to list! The best value 1200 on the market. On display @ Revolution Racegear Sydney, a bargain at only $7,500 Neg. Aaron (02) 9648 4044 BH. 261 www.my105.com/9214

(02)4946 9310. 257 www.myl05.eom/28024

GWG 1967 Group 0, Log book and Cams certificate of description, motor fully rebuilt, four speed Hollinger Box. $24,000. Bob (03) 5428 2583. 259www.my105.com/97101

Torana, Fresh motor, webbers, reco gear box, various diff ratio's, 8 point cage, big brakes, mounted wets, indate harness, log book heaps of spares, registered trailer. $6,850 Neg. barren 0417 665 238 / (02) 4272 1164. 257www.my105.com/54450

Relax 125cc, kart is as new hardly driven, never raced only lOhrs on engine, chassis is spotless (monaco gp3). Includes trolley, tools, spark plugs, spockets, chains, jets and more.

Suit and helmet available at additinal cost.

This is cheap racing in one of the fastest classes in karting!. $4500 ONO. Adam 0414 182 222. 259www.my105.com/86952

TiMFway to sell your gear! From just $25* lust log on

(*$25 applies to ads entered directly onto my105.com) Advertising can also be supplied usingthis form ($10/$15 surchage fotextonly/text -f pic ad.vertisements) i Advertisements will appear In next possible issue of' Ir. jrspDrt News PLUS the nr -': lomwebsiteforsIxmGnths. , Please read & cross the desired services and calculate the total in the space provided. = S25 58 standard ad and one inlusion into Motorsport News Cstcyorv: □ sedans □ Open Wheelers □ Speedway GDrag GJobs □ Additional issues x $25 per issue □ Feature ad on My105.com homepage □ Parts n Engines G Trailers □ Wanted □ Photographs G Other and MNews for X $75 per issue □ Words only $10 Please keep adsto no more than 50 words, plus upto 6 photos if desired. □ Words and images $15 TOTAL = $ =—

7

^ZZZ7

online classifieds llvinia Description:

I enclose a cheque/money order/credit card details for the payment of the total amount above, □ Amex □ Bankcard □ Visa or □ Mastercard for the amount of $35 (words only) / $40 (words and pic), Card no Name _ Address

Email Ph( 80

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Please use the form provided and print dearly. Please note NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS

we are unable to return photographs supplied for use in classified ads. Ads wilt appear as soon as possible after receipi. MN/my105.com classifieds are for the safe of private goods and vehicles only, not business advertising Photos marked “proor will not be used.

motorsport news

CLASSIFIEDS Bikes

Speedway SPRINTCAR CHASSIS, Stealth Sprintcar Chassis 1998 Highbar complete with; All body panels, Front, Rear Side Nerfs, Floor Pan, Engine Plates, M/Cyclinder, Brake Lines, Torque Tube Hoop, Radiator Box, Brake Pedal. $2750.00. Peter 0412 738 604 / 0412 738 604. 259www.my105.com/22965

2002 AU Super Sedan, John Brown Chassis, all the best equipment used, open axle diff, Burt Box, 363 Cleveland engine 700HP, no expense spared on building of this car, only raced one meeting. Plus all spares. $35,000 or will separate, 0419 989 010 / (02) 4730 3440.

259 www.myl05.com/4465

Transporters/Trailers

m Predator Dirt Drag Bike, GS 750 Wisco'd to 850CC, too many extras & spares to list, professionally built motor Si frame running nitro's with imported rear tyres, only 4 passes since top end rebuilid, looks Si goes great, spent over $15,000. Refer to www.my105.com/63226 for other Predator, both bikes for $7,000 GS75020160, (JB0422617). Darren 0427 839 691. 259 www.my105.com/17841

Predator Dirt Drag Bike Kid's, Kid's Deltex drag bike, comes with original frame very good goer & promo bike. Refer to www.my105.cm/17841, 150 Deltex (JB0422616). $1,500 ONO. Darren 0427 839 691. 259www.my105.com/63226

Vintage Sprintcar, 1984 model Nance Sprintcar fully restored, full spec race engine 366ci, the ultimate toy, will separate car and engine. $24,000 Neg. Ian 0416 291 306. 258 www.my105.com/54238

Parts Super Sedan Parts, Bert transmission $2100, MSD Ign (billet dist, 6T Box, 2 x lead sets, 3 X Coils) $900, Vertex Mag (ext coil, new cap, leads, rotor) $900, Willwood W5 hubs (inci rotors, bearings, drive flanges) $300ea, 3 x Willwood Dynalite Calipers (pads and 2 diff clamps) $360, Willwood Drive flanges $50ea, 73/4 Top Arms $60ea, 81/4 top Arms $60ea.81/4 to Arms $60ea, 165/8 Lower Arms $60ea, 175/8 Lower Arms $60ea, Afeo 1079-1 Diff Shock $90, Afeo threaded Body 9700 shock $200, Sweet Power Steer pump $375. Bradley (03) 6424 4544. 259 www.my105.com/17952 Super Sedan Parts, Afeo RH Spindle $195, Afeo 400 & 350 psd Springs $60ea, 7 x American Racer Tyres 60% - 90% from $75, coilover kits $60ea, 8 x alloy Pro Shocks $110ea. New Alloy Fuel Filter housing #10 ends and stainless filter $140ea. New 7 pc AN Alloy Spanners #3 #20 $165. New 9500 Carrera Shock $145, New Steel Afeo 1 x 96 & 2 X 75 shocks $145ea. Bradley (03) 6424 4544. 259www.my105.com/52951 * * * PHONE NUMBER CORRECTION * * * Cosworth 16 Valve Head, Fully rebuilt, custom valves, dual springs, titanium retainers, ported, with cams, adjustable Cam gears and Cam cover off n/a engine.

Urgent sale. Please ring this number 0410 681 562. $3,000 no offers. Grant 0410 681 562, 260www.my105.com/95627 MOTEC DASH, Full Motec dash, 2 MB log memory, 50 Inputs/Outputs, Pro-Logging, Lambda Upgrade, All sensors IncI Diff/Gears, . Dean 0418 507 4 03 , 257 www.my105.com/92948

4 June 2003

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What an absolute aock of **** regarding the Murphy/Lowndes incident.

Does Colin Bond need an

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82

My word is my Bond

The Greg Murphy/Craig Lowndes incident at Winton prompted a lot of email. Here are some of your thoughts

eyesight test?? Or maybe a colour TV as the commentators suggest?? Lowndes clearly was out of control and standing on the brakes. Its about time they (AVESCO) pull their heads iir and start playing fair with penalties.

Or is it they don't like Murphy? .... maybe favouritism?

Daniel Jones sales@racecars.co.nz I couldn't even wait until the race was over for this.

I always thought that Colin Bond was an idiot after playing second fiddle to Moffat all those years ago, but what he said and did tops that by a long shot.

If you can't judge a race mcident like that then you should get out. You should atleast apologise for the poor judgement. Murphy should be given back all the time lost.

Again Mr Bond, you are an idiot.

John Stringer JONRONSTRlNGER@aol.com What must Murph do to get a fair decision thanks to a driver who gets it wrong and goes wide?

Thanks to a few dim witted officials who can't see what the rest of us V8 fans can see on a television replay, Murph, who was in for a decent weekends points haul gets dropped back to 15th thanks to copping a drive tlirough penalty.

Isn't it interesting that Skaife can punt Murph off at Philip Island and notliing happens, it's classified an 'racing incident' and yet Murph on a weekly basis cops the penalties that you won't dish out to other drivers.

Colin Bond and associates - get some new glasses and get this vendetta you have against this Mighty Kiwi out of your system.

You disgust me.

Peta Dalzell sweoda@hotmail.com Talk about terrorism. Once again Greg Murphy has been hijacked!

The biased decisions of tlie past couple of years against Murphy have turned into nothing less than blatant dishonesty and incompetence by the race stewards. They have lost all credibility.

Tm 50 years old and have been around motor racing all my life. As a teenager I looked up to and admired Colin Bond. Now I feel pity for liim, as he obviously has dementia. If a seagull flew into a 747 engine on take off, Mr Bond would no doubt blame

another manufacturer into the

Talk converter Send us your thoughts: mail: PO Box 7072, Gardenvale, VIC 3186 fax: 03 9596 5030 email: mnews@mnews.com.au the pilot for not avoiding it. Greg Murphy had as much cliance of avoiding the rear of Craig Lowndes' car as this poor pilot had of avoiding the bird. It is time for him to step aside and let someone with aU their faculties take over.

I have been critical in the past of the Channel Ten commentary team making hasty opinions of incidents, but this time I must applaud Mr Neil Crompton on his unbiased and thoroughly knowledgeable conmients concerning tlie incident, I was just as dismayed and emotional.

The Barnes Family tiffntel@bigpond.com Firstly, let me say that I am a Ford fanatic) but the decision to give Greg Murphy a drive through penalty was wrong. He clearly had nowhere to go when Lowndes had a slight lose.

I can only gather after listening to Colin Bond's comments that he did not have the in-car shot from Murph's car that we were shown on Channel 10. If Bond did, and still pinged Murph, well all I can say is that Bondy needs to pay a visit to his optometrist.

Dean Turner datvjt@ozemail.com.au

Keep them out!

Having a Magna in V8 Supercars? Is that their idea of a joke. I mean seriously, the battle of V8 Supercars is between Holden and Ford, the arch rivals of each other. You can't just add

equation.

What makes the V8s so interesting is the constant battle that is always happening between the fans. On one side of the track you have the Holden fans then on the other side you have the blue oval fans. There's only two sides to a track so the Magna just won't fit in. I honestly think tliat if they decide to add the Magna into the championship they will loose half of tlie fans.

Having the races expand to Asia wUl only provoke the Japanese manufacturers to buy into the Austi-alian sport. Don't you think it should be just that?

Australian ...

AVESCO should Listen more to the people who buy tire tickets to watch the races, and who buy the merchandise.

Ashleij Lloyd roxybnbe01_66@hotinail.com ED: I see your point -but I am having dijficulty seeing why Holden and Ford two American-owned companies that make cars here - are more 'Australian' than the two Japanese-owned companies that make cars here. And you'd better not read our SBR/Mitsubishi story, Lloyd...

Winston Supercar Cup?

I have just watched the NASCAR Winston Race, and what a great format for races.

I wonder if the powers that be in AVESCO would ever think of running such a race event. They could have all V8 Supercars including Konica cars as well, and have qualifying for the grid and anyone that didn't make it, no matter who they are, didn't race. Tm sure people would love to see a different format other than just long distance and sprint races. This would be as they say in the states "The Survival of the Fastest".

If AVESCO wasn't interested, maybe Mr Bob Jane could organise something to bring NASCtVR back (seeing CTkMS has had a dummy spit) and get some of the Speedway people involved in great racing again at the Thimderdome. Wlio knows we might one day see 'Sprintcars' at the Thunderdome.

Blimj Koala blueykoala@hotmail.com ED: I would suggest that the chances of an AVESCO/Jnne deal are not very high. \YirL- Hlvncmilh

Murph was left in the dark after Winton, but at least the punters are on his side...

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