Motorsport News Issue 288 - July 21-August 3, 2004

SHANGHAI ALL THE V8 NEWS FROM CHINA THE IMEWi

BBHMIMO THE IXIEWL

HUI Australia $5.95 NZ $7.50 inci GST

No. 288

July 21 - August 3 2004

I Webber’s Williams debut set for Albert Park

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motorsport Issue 288

21 July — 3 August 2004

news and opinien 4

Grab a seat Holden drivers to drive ... different Holdens

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BMW Mark Webber After a long courtship, engagement I like Chinese ... Tracks. All the news from Shanghai

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10 More Pizza Jungle Boy gets the call-up from Williams 12 Dubai Dudes Well, Jordan is in the Middle East 25 Motor Mouth Anarchy in the UK - and Chinese takeaway 26 Box Seat The Silliness of the FI Silly Season 82 Talk Converter Write. The Editor gets lonely, you know

features 28 Five Minutes With Garth Tander GRM’s leader on getting back to form 30 Five Minutes With Greg Ritter SBR’s endurance man chats about life 32 After the Race We look at the questions (and some of the answers) post-Q300 34 Time is on their side Rick and Frosty define what is ‘young’ in V8 Supercars 38 Only Fuels and Horses Ever wonder why FI fuel is so different? Here’s why 42 Dyer ’Ere Chris Dyer has a chat about life with Ferrari and you-know-who 46 Big Brother Looking back 20 years at a classic time in touring car racing

race couerage

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so Ten and Counting McLaren threatens and so does the weather but Michael still takes his 80th GP win at Silverstone 58 PROCAR Few Nations Cup cars at The Creek but the racing was intense ■< I

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Webber's Williams debut set for pi Alberi Parh |i

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Web Gee that PWR VY looks quick: Look for Murf to be piloting a Weel Commodore next season.

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Musical Chairs Murf to PWR, Garth to Kmart and a new team beckons Bright

by PHtL BRANAGAN

HOLDEN'S V8 Supercar line-up could look much different in 2005, depending on some major driver moves in the coming off-season.

While many of the details are yet to be settled, and some way from being announced, MNews believes that the major players in the changes are Kmart Racing's Greg Murphy, Repco Valvoline's Garth Tander and PWR Racing's Jason Bright.

The three Bathurst-winning drivers all appear set to drive for different teams next season, with Tander looking set to join KRT to replace Murphy, who

will join PWR Racing.

All this appears to leave Bright without a seat.

"I am looking at things for 2005," Bright said last week. "I have an offer from PWR for next season and the team has been really good to me. I am hoping to have things worked out soon."

While Bright could not be reached on Monday to discuss his moves in light of the other news, we believe that he has been linked with a new Melbourne-based team, which will race a Commodore VY next season. No other details were available to MNews when we closed for press on Monday.

PWR Racing principal Kees Weel was not available for comment.

We were however able to reach Tander and Murphy,the West Australian stating that "I have nothing to tell anyone at the moment" while Murphy said that "I am not sure what it is you are talking about..."

The moves mean that, apart from taking on new teams for 2005, all three drivers look set to remain in Holden colours in the medium to long-term, quashing rumours that Tander and Bright, in particular, have been sought to join the 'blue' side in V8 Supercar racing.

Out of the Green: Webber will see out the season at Jaguar Racing but is headed to BMW.Williams next season. His

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I have seen you before: Rick Kelly and Tander look set to join up while Bright's seat is going to Murf...

manager and Renault principal Flavio Briatore, right, has been instrumental in getting Webber in at Williams and now expects Giancarlo Fisichella to rejoin the Renault Sport team. motorsport naws

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It for Albert Park debut in blue and white

by CHFIIS LAMBDEN in LONDON

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21 July 2004

MARK Webber will debut for the BMW.Williams Grand Prix team at next March's Australian Grand Prix.

NEWS

Keep your Castrol eyes peeled...

LOOK for a Castrol-coloured Commodore VX to run in the final round of the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series at Mallala on August 21/22. We cannot possibly say who might be preparing the car for the weekend - or who might be driving it - but gee, which Castrol-coloured team might have a young bloke looking to benefit from a few racing miles before the endurance races?

■ An Alex Davo-for-KMV8SS deal means that the lad will not suit up in a Castrol VX at Winton this weekend.

As usual, Tony Longhurst will drive the car at the Benalla track.

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That exciting prospect is expected to be confirmed with an announcement as early as this weekend's German Grand Prix. Although Webber himself is remaining non-committal, MNews understands that the conclusion of simultaneous negotiations will see he and Giancarlo Fisichella sign contracts within days, for Williams and Renault respectively.

Webber's FI contract manager (and Renault team manager) Flavio Briatore has been central to the outcome. In the end agreeing to let Webber go to his preferred team, rather than Renault, Briatore has at the same time had to find a suitable team-mate for Fernando Alonso, after running out of patience with Jarno Trulli's contractual demands.

If Trulli does not now cement a rumoured Toyota offer, he faces the FI wilderness.

the Constructors Championship in order to take up its option on him. Going in to the weekend.

Jaguar needs a 1-2 to pull that off. It is ...unlikely.

As this is written, Jordan's Nick Fleidfeld, above, has moved into favouritism for the second Williams seat in 2005.

Reports suggested that the German was going to race a Williams in his home GP this weekend but attempts to organise a release in order to test him at last week's Jerez test came to nought.

Pizzonia will race in place of Marc Gene but Heidfeld remains the new favourite for the full time seat, according to UK sources.

Webber's expected multi-year deal with Williams will commence in January, scotching recent rumours that Williams would attempt to buy-out the balance of his 2004 Jaguar contract and move him across with immediate effect.

That much has become apparent following the naming of test driver Antonio Pizzonia to drive the second Williams this weekend. That will bring the number of drivers to start a GP in a Williams this year to four the maximum allowed by the FIA. There is also now the possibility that Ralf Schumacher will be fit enough to contest the latter races of the season.

Webber's official availability to Williams will also be confirmed this weekend. The mid-year break, after the German GP, is the point at which the Jaguar team must be in the top six in

The irony of that situation, should it occur, would be that BMW's two race drivers next season would both be graduates of the driver program instigated by arch-rival Mercedes-Benz in the late 1990s. The German was a McLaren test driver from 1997 to '99 while Webber raced Mercedes's Sportscars in 1998/99.

David Coulthard and BAR test driver Anthony Davidson are prime contenders for the now vacant seats at Sauber and Jaguar.

In the meantime, Australian FI fans can look forward to an announcement of Webber's Williams deal imminently - most likely in the days following this weekend's GP - and the prospect that, 22 years after Alan Jones left the same team, Australia will in 2005 have a genuine Grand Prix contender.

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■ Speaking of all things Davison, younger bro Wili had his first taste of a V8 Supercar when he drove a Team Dynamik Commodore at Mallala last week. It was not, however, a full blown test - instead, the open wheeler star did a handful of laps at a team drive day, chauffeuring guests around the circuit. Davison could not be reached for comment, and there is no word on whether another, more serious, speli in the car is scheduled in the near future.

While he is still hopeful of resuming his career in the British F3 Championship, Davison attended the recent V8 round in Queensland, where he confirmed to MNews that he was talking to a few teams about getting some miles in a tin-top.

■ Last issue's Queensland V8 coverage included some remarks from Team Dynamik first-timer Neil McFadyen about his debut race. To alleviate any misunderstanding that may have been caused by the context in which the remarks were reproduced, McFadyen was more than happy with both his equipment and the team, and any disappointment that he felt was directed towards himself.

■ None other than Prime Minister John Howard has joined in the congratulations for AVESCO's signing of the sanction agreement in Shanghai for the V8 Supercar China.

The message to AVESCO Chairman Tony Cochrane read: "On behalf of the Australian Government, I congratulate AVESCO and all those who have helped secure what I understand is the biggest sporting export deal between Australia and China.

"Under a five-year deal, V8 racing will for the first time travel outside Australasia. This is an exciting and historic event and one which will add a further dimension to one of Australia's most important relationships.

"Australians wish you well in the opportunities that will follow today's signing ceremony."

And he never mentioned the election once ...

5

Hie Next Stop Shanghai Could the V8s swap the AGP for Dubai?

THE Aussie V8 circus iooks most iikeiy to expand its overseas reach with a race in Dubai late next year, most iikeiy in November.

AVESCO officials have visited the Middle Eastern capital already and discussions are, we hear, quite well advanced.

With the Shanghai race now concrete, along with all the 'flyaway’ logistics required to achieve it, adding an additional overseas event to the V8 schedule becomes a simpler task.

Addition of a further overseas race will raise the complex issue of additional races versus the loss of existing Australian-based events.

MNews understands that one most likely option will be that the V8s will not renew their AGP support race contract after it expires next year.

- CHRIS LAMBDEN

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THERE is likely to be a change in TEGA's implementation of penalties following the controversial Queensland 300 earlier this month.

Following the penalty applied to Marcos Ambrose,above, and Stone Brothers Racing after the race at Queensland Raceway,TEGA has written to AVESCO to request changes to the interpretation of the penalties applied to technical breaches of the judicial system.

The move comes after several competitors have expressed dissatisfaction in the Q300 matter.

Despite the fact that Ambrose's Pirtek Falcon was found to be technically illegal following post-race inspection, he maintained his status as the winner of the event and,following SBR's appeal to the V8 Supercar Court of 6

Appeal, his points were reinstated.

Along with that, the $10,000 fine levied on the team was reduced to $5000 following the appeal.

"The Board has discussed the process of dealing with technical infringements," TEGA Chairman Kelvin O'Reilly said last week.

"We have written to AVESCO and suggested that changes be made to the system in place. We have suggested that it would be preferable that when technical infringements are detected, the minimum penalty should be applied to the session in which the breach was detected.

"If there's one race on the program, that's what it is. If it is tv\'o races, it's the race in which it was detected."

-PHILBRANAGAN

V8 Supercar teams are set to be stunned by the facilities offered to them at the brand new $550 million Shanghai circuit.

The pit area follows the modern trend, with individually airconditioned meeting rooms at the rear, while the administration and media facilities (which are nine stories high!) are part of a construction which spans the circuit itself.

All 22 team two-car bunkers are equipped with two bathrooms,(one complete with a spa!) whi!e 30,000 spectators can be seated in the grandstand.

Thousands of Chinese construction workers have worked almost around the clock to bring the project to completion before its initial test - September's FI race.

- CHRIS LAMBDEN

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NEWS

It'S On, Big-llme

by CHRIS LAMBDEN in SHANGHAI

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AN elaborate signing ceremony has formally confirmed the inclusion of Shanghai in next year's V8 Supercar Championship series.

Close on 600 people,including 150 Chinese and international media, were on hand on Monday for the official ceremony and banquet at the Shanghai International Circuit, which is now virtually completed in anticipation of FI's arrival there in just over two months.

The formal element of the day was complemented by some laps by a Ford and Holden -Alex Yoong in the WPS Falcon and Garry Rogers' Repco/Valvoline Commodore ride car, driven for the occasion by Garry himself.

Heading the local dignitaries list was Yang Xiaodu, Vice Mayor of the Shanghai Municipal Government and Zhang Yuliang, the president of the promoting company, the Greenland Group. Greenland has engaged sports management group Octagon to manage the event.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie headed the Australian contingent (Brisbane is in the process of extending a sister city relationship with Shanghai), along with Tony Cochrane and Mark Skaife.

"The dream really has come true," an ebullient Cochrane told MNews as the dignitaries began to arrive for the typically formal ceremony, "We had a bit of a false start with our first promoter but it's worked out

for the best," he said.

"I know there's been some discussion about the fact that it's a race that many Aussie fans won't get to attend, but I hope they are proud that our formula stands up on the world stage.

"There will be three hours of live television on the Saturday and five on the Sunday so, for most,it'll be pretty much like a normal V8 show from,say, Perth."

The deal will see Shanghai join the V8 Supercar calendar for at least the next five years. It will serve as round five of the 2005 Championship.

The promoters are planning for a modest 70,000 crowd for the first event (the venue can take up to 200,000), but the commercial success of the venture will depend on corporate supportwhich is imlikely to be lacking and is expected to provide 70 percent of the revenue. Some 400 companies had representatives at the launch. Over 100 companies which applied to be present apparently had to be culled out, to meet the 600-head function limit.

"Fantastic! Unbelievable!" said Mark Skaife, left with Alex Yoong.

"It looks like a terrific combination of fast sweeping corners and some tight stuff. The hairpin at the end of the 1.2km straight is going to be ... interesting! The corner onto that straight is a banked third/fourth gear corner anyway. Without a doubt, it will be Bathurst gearing."

We can do it much better DTM not a hard act to follow ...

IT was perhaps ironic that Europe's finest tin-top category, the DTM, was in town at the same time as the Australian contingent arrived for the official signing of the V8 Supercar contract.

Sadly, the DTM show was a dud. It was rapidly conceived, privately promoted and funded, it seems, by Petronas and the leading DTM manufacturers themselves. The road circuit was uninspiring and, in the end, the racing was curtailed by a debacle involving manhole covers (see separate story).

In that context, what has been achieved by AVESCO to date stands up. Once the difficulties with the initial promoter were overcome, the job has been 21 fuly 2004

done properly.

The presence of senior Chinese government people gives the Australian venture an uncompromising seal of approval.

Greenfield, the promoting company, has strong government links and backing.

That, it appears, is the way to do business in China.

The circuit is, well, brilliant.

The modern malaise of purposebuilt circuits which are both boring and on which passing is a rarity looks to have been quite well addressed. The facilities are first class.

Downsides? Shanghai can be damned hot in June, so it'll be Darwin-plus inside the cockpits.

And of course, it'll be a bit difficult for the average Aussie

fan to get there.

There will no doubt be tours and, frankly, the opportunity to mix the event with a cultural adventure will provide a once-ina-lifetime adventure for those who can manage it.

That aside. Network Ten's Murray Lomax, on hand to sort out the broadcast logistics, assures me it'll be up to Ten's usual standard. Some 60 people will be brought in by the network to operate the hardware.

Whether you like the concept of V8s going abroad or not, Australia looks like it is, once again, going to do the job properly. Which is rather more than the might of the DTM managed ...

OPIIMIOIM by CHRIS LAMBDEN

BigPond’s Grand Rnale THE final round of the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship Series will be known as the BigPond Grand Finale.

The December 3-5 meeting will feature a new race format, with two 150km races on the Sunday and will also showcase a 'Virtual V8 Supercar Championship' for GameArena and Xbox Live, which should prove hugely popular with the on-line gaming community.

The Grand Finale will host the fastest BigPond Broadband 'virtual drivers' from each round and they will 'race-off for BigPond Virtual V8 Driver of the Year title. n Discount any rumours you might hear about PWR Racing acquiring Dick Johnson Racing.

Far from buying out the Ford team and its Queensland base, PWR is set to build a new factory and showroom on the highway at Yatala, not far from the base of Stone Brothers Racing.

The new 4000 sq m complex, which will open in late-2006, will become a base for the line of PWR Performance Products for road cars, to run alongside the company's Dandenong (Melbourne) showroom.

Sounds like the performance roadcar business is a good one to be in. n Glenn Seton will have a new Ford Performance Racing Falcon BA to play with this weekend at Winton.

The former V8 Supercar champ tested his new mount last week at Winton and has proclaimed himself happy with things.

"We have the opportunity to make the most from the data gained at our first test of the season so I am feeling more confident heading into the Winton round compared to any of the other races this season," said

Seto.

n Having signed his deal to drive in the endurance races for Garry Rogers Motorsport, Allan Simonsen was in the UK on the weekend taking part in the latest round of the British GT Championship at Oulton Park. He was due to share a Ferrari 360 Challenge machine with Irishman Hector Lestor, who has raced Ferraris previously at the Australian GP Nations Cup support races. n James Courtney has finished fifth in the latest round of the AllJapan GT Championship at Tokachi Speedway on the weekend. The Aussie flyer set the second fastest lap of the race, though he and TOM's Toyota team-mate Tetsuya Kataoka finished some 41 seconds behind the winning car driven by Michael Krumm. The duo sit eighth in the championship.

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Gurr to Join Morris in Sirromet Holden ALAN Gurr will drive with Paul Morris in the Sirromet Wines VY

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Commodore at the Sanc^wn and Bathurst endurance races.

The deal has been on the cards for most of the year after Gurr started 2004 driving in the Konica Minolta Series sporting Sirromet backing for Smith Trucks Racing.

The deal was verbally confirmed by Morris on Network 10's RPM program on the weekend, speaking in regards to his team's approach to the endurance races.

Gurr was sidelined for two months after the second round of the KMV8s when he endured a massive crash at the Adelaide street circuit.

A faster than expected recovery has seen him keep race fit in the John Faulkner-prepared Holden Young Lions team in the

Konica-Minolta Series.

He will also drive that car at Bathurst in the 25-lap Konica Minolta race for som^extra track mileage.

It'srexpected Kurt WimFner will drive the team's second car in the 25-lapper rather than attempt the 1000-kilometre event in his first year of racing in the V8 category.

Meanwhile, the Smith Trucks team has confirmed that Konica Minoilta improver Lee Holdsworth will make his Bathurst debut this year.

Smiths Trucks team owner Rob Smith confirmed that the rookie V8 driver will steer the team's VY Commodre, The team will keep the Imrie Motorsport Level 2 licence and compete in the remaining rounds of the championship at Symmons Plains and Eastern Creek.

- GRANT ROWLEY

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1

Ritter for Mallala Coufthard sign STONE Brothers Racing signing Greg Ritter will get a chance to step back into a V8 Supercar at Mallala.

The Victorian will replace Brad Tilley in Jim Morton's ex-SBR Falcon AU for the Konica Minolta V8 Series finale at Mallala in late-August as a way of getting back into race mode.

"Greg's successes at Bathurst with limited drives through the year is second to none," Morton said, for 5 Minutes With Greg Ritter, turn to page 30 to see what his thoughts are heading into the endurosfor SBR.

LOOK for Formula 3 to run on the support program at the Fosters Australian FI Grand Prix.

The open-wheelers will take to the Albert Park Grand Prix track for the next two years and the possibility exists that a number of European and Asian-based F3 teams may use the events as a shakedown prior to taking in their domestic seasons.

The move, which is expected to be confirmed in the Spring, means that the category will run on both the FI support program and at the Champ Car race at Surfers Paradise in October.

PHIL BRANAGAN B

NOT surprisingly. Kiwi Fabian Coulthard will join Jason Richards in the Tasman Motorsport outfit's VY Commodore for Sandown and Bathurst.

The Carrera Cup ace, who currently sits third in the series behind Alex Davison and Jim Richards, has signed to join the Sydney team for the enduros but will get his V8 Supercar debut earlier than expected.

The 21-year-old will debut at the Oran Park round of the series in the team's older model VX Commodore, run under the Kees Weel Level 2 franchise as a way of increasing his V8 experience.

The VX is the same car used

by Richards earlier this year prior to the Queensland Raceway round, where the VY debuted.

"I reckon it's a very good opportunity," said the Kiwi, who tested for the team at Oran Park a month back.

"For Tasman to give me the chance to run at Oran Park will be experience that's invaluable.

It's one of those things that you need to get as much time as you can when you can."

Coulthard will be aided by the fact that the Carrera Cup doesn't race at Oran Park and he won't have to worry about driving both cars on the one weekend - something he'll have to do at Sandown and Bathurst.

"At Oran Park, I just want to finish and do a solid job. It's for me to get some good race miles in and progress from what I'm used to in the Porsche so I can step into the level of V8 Supercars without being thrown in the deep end at Sandown. It's an all round benefit I think."

In the meantime, the Greg Murphy Racing Team Braun driver will head to Winton this weekend for the Carrera Cup, keen to win on his team's test track.

"Winton the first track we're

going to that I know and have seen before, so hopefully we can put it into good practice," he added.

- AARON NOONAN motorsport news

ipabs Slmonsen

by AARON NOONAN GARRY Rogers Motorsport will enter this year's endurance races with a very similar driver line-up to its 2003 assault, following the confirmation of Dane Allan Simonsen to the team for Sandown and Bathurst.

While the team isn't naming its direct driving line-up, MNews expects Garth Tander and Cameron McConville to team up in the #34 car, leaving Simonsen to join Nations Cup rival Nathan Pretty in the #33 car.

Simonsen, who has raced spasmodically in the Nations Cup in a Ferrari 550 Maranello for Mark Coffey's team, tested a GRM Commodore at Winton last week

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Championship round at Oulton Park.

"I believe it will be one of the strongest endurance driver line-ups we have had, we have people who have clearly proven their ability to drive," said team owner Garry Rogers.

"Cameron has had some good results in endurance races in the past. Garth has won Bathurst with us, Nathan has finished well with HRT previously and Allan Simonsen drove his Lamborghini in great fashion in the Bathurst 24 hour race."

Simonsen is happy to be back and have a shot at the enduros after running an elderly VX model Holden last year.

"I'm thrilled to be a part of the GRM team once again this year," he said.

"We didn't have the best of luck last year and hopefully 2004 will be a little more kind to us.

"1 really enjoyed myself last time and it gave me some confidence and experience which will no doubt help me out at Sandown and Bathurst."

Pretty, regular pilot of the GRM Holden Monaro in the Nations Cup Championship, arguably knows Simonsen better than most, having competed against him in the category this year.

"He will go really well with us this year," he said.

"He drives the Ferrari pretty hard in the Nations Cup and once he adapts to the V8 Supercar, he will be a real addition to our driver line-up."

21 July 2084

NEWS

Karl to test for Carlin in Brit F3 KARL Reindler has accepted an invitation to test with British F3 team Carlin Motorsport, as we predicted some time ago. The BRM driver, who dominated the fifth round of the Australian F3 championship at Eastern Creek Raceway last weekend, will be a guest at the Silverstone round of the British championship, before having a seat fitting at the Carlin factory. Reindler will then test the team's latest model '04 Dallara at the Pembrey circuit on August 18/19. n Keen for some Formula Ford action? You can win a chance at being strapped into one of the single seater machines for a test drive.

Thanks to U-Drive Performance Cars and the Formula Ford Association, all you have to do is visit www.formulaford.com.au and fill out the online entry form and you could be strapping yourself into a Formula Ford. The prize will include a fivehour introductory Formula Ford driving course, comprising 25 laps over three driving sessions, a full safety briefing, expert tuition throughout the course from real race drivers, all safety equipment, as well as lunch and photos of your day out. n And in even more FFord news, there'll be yet another Davison in the field this weekend. James Davison, the 17 year old cousin of Will and Alex (and son of Sandown promoter Jon), will have his first outing in a national championship meeting. The youngster has been racing a 1995model Van Diemen in the Victorian State Series. n Former Konica Minolta driver Jamie Miller's VX Commodore was destroyed in a warehouse fire last week. The car, which had not run this year, finished 15th at the Bathurst 1000 in 2003 with Miller driving alongside Ron Searle. The car was originally built as a VT by Gibson Motorsport. n Former DJR and SBR employee Rex Keen has been announced as the new team manager of MoPro Australia. Keen will be in charge of the preparation of the MoPro Cup and Kumho Tyres Lotus Trophy as well as the Chance of a Lifetime Falcon in the Konica Minolta Series. n Kiwi Jonny Reid has finished sixth in the latest round of the Superfund Euro 3000 Championship at Spa in Belgium. The John Village Automotive driver qualified fifth, just three-tenths of a second from pole position and picked up a point for his troubles. The next round is at Donington m late August.

9

A Second Chance ANTONIO Pizzonia will race for BMW.Williams at this weekend's German Grand Prix.

The Brazilian replaces fellow test driver Marc Gene, who has underperformed while substituting for the injured Ralf Schumacher in the last two races.

Despite having been seen as a failure in his part-season with Jaguar Racing last year, Pizzonia has shown remarkable speed in testing since he returned to the Grove team.

He topped the timesheets on two days of the three-day test at Jerez last week and the opportunity to show that he can race as well as test gives him the chance to revive his FI career.

The deal is for one race only but, should Pizzonia stay close to team-mate Juan Montoya, he could find himself in an FW26 for the rest of the season and, perhaps, in 2005.

Williams is believed to have looked at a number of alternative drivers, including Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld.

The Aussie, who will be confirmed for 2005 by Williams at Hockenheim (see separate story), is committed to stay in Jaguar green for the rest of the season, while it is thought that Eddie Jordan's financial demands to release Heidfeld were more than Williams was willing to pay.

With Pizzonia already a Williams driver, and with the team wanting to see how he really performs in the heat of battle, it appears that it was not a difficult decision to make.

Complicating matters is the Ralf Schumacher situation. The German, who is recovering from damaged vertebrae and concussion from his Indianapolis crash, requires a medical clearance before

resuming racing and that has legal implications which the FI doctors are not going to take lightly.

However, until a decision is made, Williams cannot replace him and is stuck with the situation of having to use standin drivers, which is not good for the team's World Championship chances.

A further complication is that, if Williams had wanted to look at other drivers before (and if) Schumacher returns, it would have to claim force majeur as teams are limited to the number of changes that they can make to their driving line-ups throughout a season.

Without any hopes of winning a Drivers' Championship this season, Williams will have to work hard to hold out a resurgent McLaren for fourth in the constructors' title.

- JOE SAWARD

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Ralf Gets Camry

TOYOTA has confirmed that it has signed a three-year contract with Ralf Schumacher.

The deal, which is believed to be worth around US$12m ($16.3m) a year, is believed to be for two years, with an option for a third. The move is not a surprise although there are some in the paddock who question whether such an expensive deal makes any sense, given that Ralf has not been very competitive at Williams this year and has since been put out of action with fractured vertebrae after a recent shunt at Indianapolis.

"He has proven himself to be an extremely quick racing driver in his career,” said team boss Tsutomu Tomita, “and I am sure that his vast experience will be extremely beneficial to our team.”

The team says it is still negotiating over who will drive the second car but ail the signs are that the deal is going to go to Jarno Trulli.

The Italian was expected to stay on at Renault for another season but we hear that his financial demands were too high and his recent mistake on the last lap of the French Grand Prix upset the team considerably.

At the moment Toyota is not admitting to talks with Trulli and is saying that Cristiano da Matta and Olivier Panis are still in the running.

- JOE SAWARD 10

TWO weeks after announcing his departure from the FIA, Max Mosley has reversed his decision to retire a year earlier than planned.

Mosley, right, announced just before the French Grand Prix that he was going to quit his position a year ahead of schedule because he had achieved all that he wanted to achieve and that he was bored with dealing with Formula 1 team bosses who were constantly changing their minds.

Asked whether or not he was going to come back he said that: "I am not an FI team principal so I don't change my mind every few minutes."

Two weeks later, he has reversed that decision after a meeting of the FIA Senate on Friday, at which he was asked to rescind his decision and remain in office "at least until the end of his mandate in October next year."

Decisions from the Senate have to be ratified by the World Councils and so, in theory at least, the request to Mosley cannot be confirmed until both World Councils have met again.

The role of the Senate is to

deal with important matters of the moment and the meeting had been called to examine how to find a single candidate for the FIA Presidency in October.

Our sources say that there were several candidates for the role, but that none of them were willing to take on the job without assurances, which were unrealistic.

The official line is that the Senate insisted that Mosley stay on and if one accepts this theory, the only conclusion one can reach is that the Federation could not come up with a suitable replacement which is a complete disaster for the credibility of the organisation.

There is no logic in putting a man back in a job when he has openly said that he has had enough.

The alternative theory is that Mosley's return was planned from the start and all part of a Machiavellian scheme to enhance his political position within the FIA. This is entirely possible, given Mosley's political skills but would not have been necessary if one was to have believed Mosley's molorspon news

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spin doctors, who have argued in recent weeks that there was no major opposition to the FIA President within the ranks of the federation.

The fact that Mosley lost a vote in the FIA World Motor Sport Council over the issue of karting and had to back down on a change to the FIA structure when it became clear that he would not get the support he wanted from the FIA General Assembly, were brushed aside as being minor issues.

- JOE SAWARD 21 July 2004

It’s All New

THE FIA has announced a list of sweeping changes to reduce the speed of Formula One cars.

FIA President Max Mosley made the announcement last Friday, unveiling a list of details that will substantially alter the way FI cars look and behave.

The statement was as follows; "The FIA has today (Friday) provided the Formula One teams with details of a package of measures to reduce the performance of Formula One cars. These measures are likely to be imposed if satisfactory proposals have not been agreed by at least 8 teams and presented to the FIA before 6 September 2004.

1. Aerodynamics (2005) Diffuser height limited, front wing raised, rear wing element moved forward and changes to the bodywork immediately in front of the rear wheels. Together, these changes are estimated to reduce dovvnforce on a current car by at least 25 percent, but reduce drag by less than four percent.

Explanation: lower downforce will reduce speeds, particularly in fast corners, and slightly increase braking distances, while the small reduction in drag will have a minimal effect on straight-line speeds.

2. Tyres(2005) A driver may choose from two types of tyre, as in 2004. Fie will then have two sets of his chosen tyre, one for Friday and Saturday practice, the otlier for qualifying and the race. A damaged t\'re can be replaced during the race (taken from the first set), hut the car cannot be refuelled at the .same time as the damaged tj're is changed.

Explanation: a tyre which must last ,33t)km rather than 80km will

have less grip, reducing cornering speeds, increasing braking distances and possibly producing less tyre debris or 'marbles'.

3. Engine (2005) One engine to last for two race weekends.

Explanation: both peak and average power will be less than for an engine with a shorter life.

4. Engine (2006) 2.4 litre V8(90“) with maximum bore diameter,fixed cylinder spacing, minimum crankshaft centre line height, minimum weight and minimum height of centre of gravity. Direct fuel injection, variable geometry inlet systems, variable geometry exhaust systems, variable valve timing and variable valve lift systems all prohibited.

Only one spark plug, one coil and one injector per cylinder. Exotic materials banned.

Explanation: a 20 percent reduction in capacity will produce a corresponding drop in power.

Constraints on design and the use of materials will significantly slow the rate of power increase and reduce the scope for using engine design to improve chassis characteristics.

Keeping existing cylinder sizes retains many current engine components while keeping engine revs close to current levels.

5. Other engines During 2006 and 2007, teams which cannot obtain a 2.4 litre engine will be able to use a 3 litre VIO with power restricted by means of a rev limit fixed bv the IT.A. Explanation: this w ill ensure that all teams(including new' entrants) have access to a competitive engine, even if supplies of the new 2.4 are initiallv restricted."

ATTEMPTS to change the way Formula 1 cars qualify before the German Grand Prix have failed.

That's really not a surprise as there is a strong body of opinion in FI circles that although no-one is happy with the current format, the new one being proposed is really not much better, because of the controversial idea to aggregate the lap times.

There is a growing body of opinion which is indicating that there was not really very much wrong with the qualifying as it used to be with an hour on Friday and an hour on Saturday and that if the small teams suffer from not getting any TV coverage they can do what they always did before which was to run in the early part of the sessions. n The organisers of the planned A1 Grand Prix series have popped up again with a display at the Farnborough International Air Show. Despite being quiet in recent months the series is moving ahead and chief executive Sheikh Maktoum Flasher Maktoum Al Maktoum says that negotiations are well-advanced for the sale of 24 national licences to competitors.

The series will announce its first 6 franchise holders in September around the same time that the first production models of the Al Grand Prix car will be ready. n The name Mika Hakkinen is still being touted around in FI circles at the moment following comments made by Ron Dennis that the double World Champion wants to get back into FI racing. Fiakkinen retired at the end of 2002 saying that he wanted to spend more time with his family and admitting that he did not want to take as many risks as previously.

There does not appear to much overt interest in Fiakkinen at the moment because at 35, he is seen by many as being too old to be considered by some of the FI teams. n BMW WilliamsFI has confirmed that its principal sponsor, Flewlett- Backward, has renewed its partnership with the team with a new multi-year deal. n British American Racing engineers Jock Clear and Tristan Timmins could not take part in the British GP on race day after their car was involved in a smash as they were driving into Silverstone circuit early that morning. Clear, who works with Takuma Sato, and Timmins, who works with Jenson Button, were shaken up when their car was hit by another which had had a head-on collision with an oncoming car. The team called in its test engineering team led by Mark Ellis to run the race.

- JOE SAWARD 11

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Newey considers a New Future?

THE future of McLaren technical director Adrian Newey appears uncertain.

Newey, who has been the man behind the development of the MP419B, is thought to be unhappy with internal politicking at McLaren. His contract with the team runs out at the end of July next year.

It is hard to imagine that McLaren will be willing to let Newey go but since money is not really an issue as Adrian is a very wealthy man, the team may have to come up with answers he wants to hear about the way things are done in the future.

Three years ago, Newey was approached by Jaguar Racing's then chief executive Bobby Rahal and asked if he would join the team when his original McLaren deal ran out in August 2002.

Newey agreed and signed a deal to work for Jaguar. Two days later (and after considerable lobbying

from McLaren) Newey changed his mind. The two teams went to court and Jaguar Racing won a ruling in its favour but the case was stopped when Newey made it clear that he had no intention of working for Jaguar Racing, despite his earlier decision.

Newey,45, would be a good recruit for a number of other teams although he is unlikely to decide to work with any organisation that does not have the money to do the job properly.

If the Dubai government does go ahead with its planned takeover of the Jordan team, one can imagine a situation in which Newey would be the perfect man for the job although this would have to be seen as a very long-term project as Jordan currently has none of the facilities needed for a competitive FI teams these days.

-JOESAWARD

by JOE SAWARD SHEIKH Ahmed bin Saeed alMaktoum,the chairman of Dubai Civil Aviation and the Emirates airline, issued a statement on the Saturday of the British Grand Prix announcing that he is negotiating to buy control of one of the existing Formula 1 teams.

A company called Grand Prix Investments(GPI) has been established to buy a team and will be headquartered in Dubai, although the team factory will remain in Europe.

The announcement said that when

kybosh on London GP BRDC president Sir Jackie Stewart, who is defending Bernie Ecclestone's annual criticism of the facilities at its Silverstone venue, is now also wriggling in discomfort over the new speculation about a Formula 1 race in London.

He told London's Evening Standard: "I very much doubt it will happen. I don't think the ramifications have been properly looked into - the configuration of the track, the congestion it would bring, the economic problems, taxpayers' money and the environmental issues.

"Most of the people on Tuesday night would never have thought of (those things!. The Government wants to retain the UK motorsport industry and wants to have a centre of excellence at the home of the British Grand Prix.

"You could have a race in London but it would not have an industrial area. This is an industry that employs 40,000 to 50,000 people and has an annual economy of £5 billion ($12.8bn). It would be a flash-in-the-pan in London. It doesn't need it. You have all sorts of big things happening in London.

"You would have to build up (the track! and break it down again, (t takes weeks and months to achieve that. The Australian government gives £30 million and the race in Melbourne still loses money. You couldn't do it for the same price in London. It would cost you twice as much."

-QUENTIN SPURRING

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the negotiations are completed, the team would be rebranded and relaunched in time for the start of the 2005 season.

There has been talk for some time about a deal between Jordan and the Maktoum family but Eddie Jordan is currently denying that any deal has been completed.

Our sources indicate that Jordan's partners in the team,a Dublin-based consortium called Merrion Capital which owns 49 percent of the shares, involves a well-known Irish businessmen called JP McManus. He is a big name in the world of horse racing and has strong links with several members of the Maktoum family, including the crown prince General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid A1 Maktoum and his brother Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid A1 Maktoum.

The brothers have been involved in the horse racing scene in the UK since the 1980s and own a number of stud farms, including one in Ireland. This has brought the pair into contact with McManus.They have done business in the past notably in mid-1990s when the Dubai royals sold the hurdler Istrabraq to McManus. The horse went on to become one of the most successful ever, winning a record three consecutive Champion Hurdles.

The talks to buy an FI team are unrelated to the activities of other members of the Maktoum family, including Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum's plans for an A1 Grand Prix series, and Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's new Dubai Autodrome.

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Now this can get confusing: fordan Grand Prix has nothing to do with the country Jordan (or Michael Jordan) but may soon be bought by a Dubai consortium with interests in horse racing (in Ireland not Jordan) and airlines (not Air Jordan).

Mansell for AllStars? Argh!

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NIGEL Mansell has admitted that he is keen to do the BTCC Masters race at Donington in September. Although never a BTCC race winner, he did make his mark on the series by racing a Ford Mondeo in 1998.

"It depends on the commitment of the team behind the project, whether you could test and whether it would be worthwhile." BTCC boss Alan 6ow said, "1 hope that he will do it. It depends on his other commitments."

Cbiworlh manges ■'r

COSWORTH Racing has had a lot of management changes in the course of the last few years and there was another at the British GP when it was announced that Technical Director Nick Hayes is to hand over to a new generation of engine designers.

Hayes has been with Cosworth for 20 years, having joined the firm as a designer in the FI division in 1984. According to the announcement, Hayes is now planning to "take time out from the stress and pressure of constant competition and development to consider new opportunities."

It is not believed that Hayes has another job sorted out but it is unlikely that he will be out of the business for long given his reputation as a V8 designer. With Formula 1 looking at a future with 2.4-litre V8s, Hayes's experience could be worth a great deal to some of the other engine manufacturers, or perhaps to a company which is thinking of coming into FI when the new regulations are imposed.

As part of the restructuring the Formula 1 department is being split into two divisions: Race Engineering and Future Engines, each will report to the Cosworth board of directors.

The Race Engineering team will be headed by Simon Corbyn, a veteran of the Cosworth Racing graduate program.

Future Engines will be run by Alex Hitzinger, the man responsible for leading the team that developed the successful .

Ford Duratec R World Rally Championship engine.

The shake-up at Cosworth has been overseen by the new managing-director Tim Routsis.

- JOE SAWARD

■ Nelson Piquet could be returning to racing. Yes, really. His son is looking to move into GP2 next year (interesting, given his early season belief that he would be a GP driver in 2005) and the regulations insist a team has to run two cars.

According to Nelson Jnr, "My dad wants to come back to racing. He wants to do single-seaters."

Piquet Snr has often said he would like to race in the same team as his son, although this doesn't fit comfortably with his assertion that he is no longer able to drive competition cars due to his injuries sustained in an accident in America.

At Silverstone last year, for example, his 1978 F3 car was demonstrated by Jnr, as Nelson Snr said that he was unable to drive it.

■ Vauxhall is set to race its newshape Astra in next year's BTCC. Although no official word has been given. Triple Eight is evaluating the car and is thought to favour the new, boxier shape. Alan Gow, the BTCC director, has welcomed the news. "It will be something fresh on the grid," he said.

■ Colin McRae will be back at the wheel of his Le Mans Ferrari next month when the former World Rally Champion takes part in the Silverstone LMES race. A co-driver for him is yet to be confirmed and it is also possible that McRae may even find his way into the car for the Spa 24 Hours at the end of July.

THE Kyalami racing circuit, home of the South African Grand Prix for many years, has been sold for USS7.1m ($9.7m).

The new owner is a consortium which includes the Imperial Group, a listed company which is involved in tourism, transportation, the motor trade, leasing, finance and property. The consortium intends to develop parts of the land included in the deal but the circuit itself will continue to operate. Motorcycle champions Mike Fogg and Jim Redman, and Dave McGregor, a man who has played an important 21 luly 2004

role in motor racing in South Africa for many years, plan to manage the facility. One of the plans appears to be to use the facility to help retail cars although it is not yet clear how this will work.

The Automobile Association of South Africa acquired the Johannesburg in 1993 for USSIOm after its previous owner Tollgate Holdings ran into trouble. There were hopes that the SA GP might be revived but the collapse of the rand against the dollar made this impossible.

-JOE SAWARD

■ After Will Davison's departure from the British F3 Championship, former team-mate Fairuz Fauzy has defected as well. The Malaysian has moved to join Roly Vincicni's PI Motorsport team to partner Adam Carroll, making this his fifth team in his three years of F3I

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■ Heinz-Harald Frentzen has re signed with Opel for the DTM in 2005. The two-time Formula 1 race winner announced his new deal at the non-championship Shanghai race in China on the weekend.

"In the DTM, you don't just get in and win races right away," said the German.

- DAVID ADDISON 13

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SIX past champions of the British Touring Car Championship John Cleland, Robb Gravett, 71m Harvey, Alain Menu, Jason Plato and Gabriele Tarquini, right, - have confirmed they will ^ compete in the first ever BTCC Masters race.

They become the first star names to announce their participation J in the event at Donington Park on September 26 when a total of 18 1 specially-invited drivers will race identical SEAT Cupras.

"I think it's a great idea and also quite brave," said Cleland. ^ "It will raise the profile of the BTCC and remind everyone of the level of international drivers that have taken part in the championship. I've no scores to settle and I don't think anyone should go into it thinking like that."

1992 BTCC champ Tim Harvey obviously thinks the same way ...

"So long as I beat John Cleland then everything will be fine, but that's a foregone conclusion anyway..."

Throw in 2001 BTCC champ Plato and the fact his arch-nemesis Yvan Muller won't be running, and you've got a fun field.

"I've no scores to settle," says Jase.

"There's only one person I've fallen out vvith and that's Yvan Muller, but he's not doing it because Vauxhall won't let him. It will be great to race with the calibre of these drivers. If people don't do it I think they'll regret it, particularly if they are available."

- DAVID ADDISON

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^ Walton was only 47 and his ■ death cast a sombre shadow over the British GP weekend.

'John Boy' started out in Ireland ? where he began working in the H sport while still a teenager, initially in stock car racing and later in Formula Ford. He moved to

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MINARDI'S sporting director John Walton died on the Friday night of British GP week, ' ■ following a heart attack in the early hours of Tuesday morning i when Walton was in London preparing for the FI event on the streets of England's capital.

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employee of Eddie Jordan Racing.

Walton later moved on to work as Ayrton Senna's mechanic at Toleman in 1984 and stayed with the team after the Benetton takeover in 1985, becoming chief mechanic and overseeing the team's first win with Gerhard Berger in Mexico in 1986. He left at the end of 1990 after Benetton was tom apart by a power struggle which resulted in Flavio Briatore becoming the team boss.

Walton then helped to put together the 7Up Jordan FI team which made a huge impact in 1991.

At the start of 1993, he was promoted to team manager and spent three years running the team before taking up the offer to become team manager at Arrows, working with his old Benetton colleague Gordon Message. After a promising 1997 season with Damon Hill, the team ran out of money and at the end of 1998 Walton was

dropped.

He spent a year in legal action with the team before joining Prost Grand Prix in January 2000. Walton played a vital role in keeping the team together when the team's money ran out and his skills at making things happen with very little money were seen again at Minardi, where he became sporting director at the start of 2002.

Walton's relaxed and laconic style, his gentle sense of humour and patience made him a hugely popular figure. To his family and partner, ITV's FI pit reporter Louise Goodman, MNews extends it sympathies.

O'Brien in WPS Porsche

CHARLIE O'Brien will slip back behind the wheel of a Porsche GT3 Cup car for the final four rounds of the 2004 Australian Carrera Cup Championship, including the next round at Winton this weekend.

Businessman Craig Gore's Wright Patton Shakespeare Financial Croup will sponsor O'Brien's Carrera Cup attack.

14

"1 will be carrying the same livery as the WPS Racing V8 Supercars so it's nice to maintain the relationship with the team," said the former Bathurst racer.

"It is always difficult to start half-way through a season but I'm confident that the mileage 1 did in the car over the Christmas break and earlier this year will stand me in good stead."

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DTM Fiasco

by CHRIS LAMBDEN in Shanghai SHANGHAi's first major internationai motor race, a two-race street race for the DTM on Sunday,turned into a fiasco following a bizarre incident on the opening lap of the first race.

In searing heat, glue holding manhole covers on the road circuit in place became ineffective, and one popped up as the field thundered into the opening turn. The AMG-Mercedes of Bernd Maylander hit it, flew in the air, and suffered damage serious enough to put the car out for the weekend.

The race was abandoned while the

second 30-minute race finally getting under way at 6pm (won by Gary Paffett, from Bernd Schneider and the Audi of Mattias Ekstrom).

The mianhole covers had, it seems, been glued rather than welded to avoid the possibility of flooding if there was serious rain (the area was hit hard by a typhoon five days earlier).

The event, privately promoted and '● sponsored by Petronas, drew a disappointingly small crowd, which included some of the Australian contingent present for the following day's V8 Supercar launch (see separate story).

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Aussie Struggle

AUSTRALIAN driver Will Power endured another disappointing outing in the British F3 Championship at Oulton Park last weekend after failing to score points in either of the two races.

Power qualified the ADR Dallara seventh for Race 1 and was running in the points before spinning following contact with Marco Asmer. He rejoined near the back, and had slogged back up to 12th when the race ended.

Race 2 brought little in the way of consolation after he was forced to retire with a mechanical problem on lap seven.

“What can you say after a weekend like that?" Power grimaced.

“It’s a pity to come away with nothing.

There are no excuses though, it is what it is, and you can always do better.”

Fellow Aussie Marcus Marshall finished ninth and 12th in the two races. Nelson Piquet Jr., left, won both outings.

t will go the distance

THE scheduled eight rounds of the PROCAR Champ Series will go ahead.

Oran Park Raceway has been confirmed as the venue for the last round of the championship (on October 30-31), but round seven remains unconfirmed.

Symmons Plains, the original round seven venue, remains most likely to keep its fixture, however Phillip Island and Mallala are still in the picture. The committees from each of PROCAR's categories will decide on which venue makes the most economic sense for their competitors.

The Australian Production Car Championship only runs seven rounds in its series, and the competitors will choose whether they'd like to travel to the seventh round, or support the final round at Oran Park. A decision on that is expected in the near future.

-GRANT ROWLEY

Piquet punts a Porsche NELSON Piquet Jnr made his closed car debut at the British Grand Prix, racing in the Porsche Supercup.

Driving one of the two VIP cars, Piquet qualified ninth, but after tangling with an errant Jason Templeman, the engine gave up the ghost, leaving him on the sidelines. n Formula Renault racer Oliver Tielemans took over the second seat at cash-strapped Astromega in Silverstone's F3000 race. Rather than suffer a penalty for only running one car, the team elected to run the F3000 rookie, but he retired after just a lap complaining of lack of power - or something like that. No-one believed him, but it sounded more plausible than saying, "At least the team didn't get fined."...

■ Formula Fords could be sprouting wings in the UK. An idea has been put to regulation controller Ford Motor Company to introduce wings into the category for 2005.

The suggestion is to add FF2000style wings onto the cars, purely for the sake of appearance, rather than to affect downforce or aerodynamics.

Team bosses have reacted coolly to the idea, fearful that costs will go up and overtaking opportunities will go down, but it seems that karters are being put off Formula Ford due to the appearance of the cars. The new rival Formula BMW concept, for example, looks closer to a Formula 1 car.

■ Renault is launching a new onemake championship next year for its Megane Coupe. The car will be powered by a 3.5-litre engine producing 320bhp, and have a semi automatic gearbox. Renault will also break away from the successful Super Racing Weekends to create its own, wait for it. Super Renault Weekends.

■ Young UK karter Adam Christodolou has been given the personal backing of Renault FI ace Jarno Trulli. The Brit has been awarded a drive in a Trulli kart for the next round of the Super One Rotax series.

■ Italian F3 team Coloni Motorsport is looking at racing in the British F3 Championship race at Spa in September. It pulled out of the F3 Euroseries to evaluate engines, but returned to the Italian series recently, claiming a double win with Finn Toni Vilander at the wheel. The team's Lola-Dome now runs with a Spiess-Opel engine, rather than a Mugen-Honda unit.

- DAVID ADDISON 15

FIA snubs Maserati MASERATI'S elaborate plans to take over the GT racing world have been set back by the refusal by the FIA to grant homologation of the controversial new MC12 as an FIA GT racecar.

The Italian manufacturer, which is on schedule to complete 25 roadgoing versions by the end of this month and has been testing the car extensively, had intended to race it at Imola in September, prior to a full FIA GT campaign in 2005. The FIA's decision means that it has nowhere to race in its current form.

The AGO, the Le Mans 24 Hours organiser whose regulations are also applied to the new Le Mans Endurance Series, has accepted the MCI 2 for its GTS division, but this approval is of no practical use to Maserati because it is subject to reduced front and rear overhangs and overall vehicle width. These dimensions are understood now also to have persuaded the FIA

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not to homologate the car.

In any case, there are positive indications that the FIA GT and ACO GTS regulations will be successfully merged in the near future.

Last year the FIA World Motor Sport Council appeared to encourage Maserati by rejecting a proposal that carbon-chassis FIA GT cars must be closely based on a model manufactured

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in a quantity of at least 100. This cleared the company to produce only 25 of its VI2 'supercars', although it will actually build 49.

No comment was forthcoming from Maserati but it is understood to be preparing an offer to handicap the MCI 2 so that it can be raced in FIA GT as planned before the end of the season.

- QUENTIN SPURRING

Qatar is open for racing!

QATAR'S new motorsport complex, the Losail International Raceway in the suburbs of the nation's capital Doha, opened last week.

The 3.3-mile track was officially opened by Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani with two-wheeled GP ace Randy Mamola riding the first laps of the track on a Ducati.

The track, which cost the government around $102m to build, has all the necessary facilities to host major international motor racing events.

The first event, to take place on October 2, will be the Marlboro Grand Prix of Qatar, the Middle East's first MotoGP race. It will be the first race in a five-year contract with the series promoter Dorna.

For the moment it seems that Qatar is going to be satisfied with motorcycle racing but it is inevitable that the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation will start bidding for automobile events as well in the years ahead, although any ideas of an FI race are likely to meet considerable competition from both Bahrain and Dubai.

- JOE SAWARD 16

Big Apple racing? Going t<

THERE are moves to establish a new racing facility close to New York.

The International Speedway Corporation, which owns several tracks in the USA, is looking to build a new track on a 440-acre vacant industrial site on Staten Island, not far from Goethal’s Bridge, which links Staten Island to New Jersey.

While no plans are yet in place for such a project, we believe that the complex could Include a 2.5-mlle oval, which would allow plenty of room In the infield for a road circuit, as is the case with the speedways at Daytona and Indianapolis.

The city authorities are also keen to bring motorsport to the Big Apple with Ken Podziba, the Sports Commissioner of New York saying that they are looking into “various venues around the city.”

New York has not hosted any major events since 1992, when CART ran its last race on a makeshift circuit laid out in the car parks of the Meadowlands stadium, a venue in use since 1984. Following that, there was an attempt to run a street race in Manhattan.

- JOE SAWARD

THE Champ Car World Series will visit an additional oval in its 2004 schedule following the recent announcement that Las Vegas Motor Speedway will host the open-wheel series on September 24-25.

The race will be held under lights, sharing the bill with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It will be known as the Las Vegas 400.

The announcement makes it only the second oval on the 2004 calendar for the Champ Cars, in addition to the round already held this year at Milwaukee.

Las Vegas has hosted Indycars before, hosting an IRL race in 1996 when the League used turbocharged machines through to 2000.

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out now...

CHAMP Car statistics class 101: If Sebastien Bourdais can take out the Molson Indy Vancouver event this weekend in Canada, the Frenchman will put himself in the record books.

He will go in alongside Al Unser Jr, Alex Zanardi and Paul Tracy as the only drivers in the modern era of Champ Car racing (1979 to present) to win four consecutive races. n Champ Car statistics class 201; Bourdais' win in Toronto was the seventh of his young Champ Car career. Amazingly, that already ties him with greats including Dan Gurney and Gil de Ferran!

THE rivalry between the Indy Racing League and Champ Car appear to be as wide as ever, despite recent discussions about reuniting American open-wheeler racing.

The two organisations issued a joint statement in Toronto last week, stating no agreement was possible.

The attempts to unify the two series had been led by IRL team owner Roger Penske, a man who clearly understands that the current situation is self destructive.

The second meeting between the two parties featured Champ Car principals Gerald Forsythe, Kevin Kalkhoven and Paul Gentilozzi, Penske and Indianapolis Motor Speedway's

general counsel Curt Brighton, one of Tony George’s right-hand men. George himself did not attend the meeting.

This was the second meeting of the parties involved, the first having taken place on June 22.

The first meeting was a discussion about the overall differences between the two organisations and whether or not there was common ground between them.

The meeting in Toronto was intended to look at more specific questions and apparently this quickly resulted in deadlock.

The major bone of contention appears to be the way in which the sport is governed, with Champ Car having adopting a much more collective approach

to decision-making while the Indy Racing League operates in much the same way as NASCAR, with a single voice of authority. Formula 1 has found that collective management is a huge problem and the current political instability has resulted from this situation.

Kalkhoven, Forsythe and Gentilozzi are currently running seven of the cars which are running in Champ Cars, more than a third of the field and it is believed that they are helping to fund some of the other teams.

Champ Car grew out of the now-defunct CART series which went bankrupt at the end of last year, having used up around $136m in cash reserves.

- JOE SAWARD

»Vegas!

The Vegas area is home to four of the Champ Car drivers, including current Champ Paul Tracy, who reckons the superspeedway will suit the Cosworth-powered machines.

"I can't tell you how excited 1 am about racing here," Tracy said.

"All of the local guys have been out to the track and it's a first-class

facility. It's the right type of venue for our cars. The fact that this is right in our backyard will open up a lot of opportunities for us to be able to test and really make this a big event."

Las Vegas held five IRL races from 1996 to 2000. Winners included AL Unser Jr (2000), Sam Schmidt(1999), Arie Luyendyk (1998), Eliseo Salazar (1997) and Richie Hearn (1996).

21 July 2004

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Back at Vegas in an Indycar: Roberto Guerrero and the late Michele Alboreto in action at the first IRL IndyCar race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1996.

The Champ Cars will take to the superspeedway this year.

n Memo Gidley returned to the cockpit of a Champ Car at Toronto.

The American replaced 17-year-old Nelson Phillippe in the second Rocketsports Racing machine after the youngster had a falling out with the team. Gidley, who had one day of practice and qualifying for the weekend after two and a half years out of a Champ Car, moved from 18th to 11th in 12 laps but was a retirement after a spin and contact with the wall. n Dumped by Panther Racing, Brit Mark Taylor is back in a ride in the IRL IndyCar Series. The 26-year-old has signed for Access Motorsports and will drive in place of team owner Greg Ray for the rest of the season in the team's G Force/Honda. n Another driver back in the IRL IndyCar Series is Jaques Lazier. The younger brother of 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy, Lazier Jr will take over the Patrick Racing Dallara/Chevrolet formerly campaigned by Al Unser Jr n Dale Earnhardt Jr's return to Sportscar racing ended in flames on the weekend at Sears Point. The NASCAR star was to race a third works Corvette alongside Boris Said, however he crashed during the warm-up and the car caught fire. He suffered what track officials described as "moderate-sized burns of moderate intensity" and was taken to hospital, but later discharged. The car was withdrawn from the race, which was won by the Champion Audi of JJ Lehto and Marco Werner. n Two-time Indy 500 winner Rodger Ward passed away on July 5 in California. The 1959 and 1962 winner of the 'Greatest Spectacle in Auto Racing', Ward retired in 1966. It was Ward who suggested to John Cooper and Sir Jack Brabham to try a rear-engined Cooper at the Brickyard.

Ward himself tested the Cooper FI car in a feasibility test at Indianapolis to pave the way for Black Jack to compete at Indy the following year.

17

It's summer, it's hot and it's Max: The Roman was the man to beat in Germany, taking his first win of the season.

Creaming Max loves it

CHRIS Vermeulen served notice that the 2004 World Superbike Championship is not going to be another Ducati benefit with a double win at Laguna Seca.

The 22-year-old Aussie dominated the races on his first visit to the California track, overcoming a slow start to Race 1 to take the first double win of his SBK career and the first for an Australian since Troy Bayliss did it three years ago.

Starting third behind Superpole winner Steven Martin and James Toseland, Vermeulen took his time in Race 1 before he pulled away to win from Pierfrancesco Chili and Martin's DFX Ducati. In the second race Vermeulen was beaten away by Toseland and took over after five laps to take a narrow win. The Brit fell back to fourth behind Chili and Martin, in the process banging fairings with team-mate Regis Laconi. Garry McCoy was seventh ahead of the Kawasaki of Mauro Sanchini.

In Race 2 Toseland stayed with the Honda but the

Queenslander had the race under control to win by half a second. Laconi, Haga (who started 16th!) and Chili battled for the podium positions, finishing in that order. Martin dropped to sixth in the race, one spot up on McCoy while Corser parked with engine problems.

Vermeulen became only the third Superbike rider to win first-up at the famed Monterey track, the other two being Americans John Koczinski and Ben Bostrom. Not bad company to be in, particularly considering that as Laguna Seca has no World Supersport race, so the Ten Kate team has never raced a bike at Laguna either...

And Vermeulen's funny hat has now been on the podium six times this season, with his last four rides resulting in 2-11-1 finishes.

The next round of the championship is August 1 at Brands Hatch in England.

Points: Toseland 201, Laconi 198, Vermeulen 187, Haga 162, Chili 160, McCoy 146, Haslam 120, Martin 119, Corser 101, Borciani 94.

when it's hot

MAX Biaggi has made the fight for the 2004 MotoGP crown a three-man battle after a brilliant win at the

Sachsenring in Germany.

The volatile Roman took his first win of the season and, with Valentino Rossi taking fourth and Sete Gibernau falling for the second straight race, Biaggi moves within one point of the points lead.

Biaggi led from the start but was immediately challenged by Rossi and Gibernau. Shock front-row starter Kemiy Roberts hung on in the early laps before fading while the two Italians battled, Rossi taking the lead on lap 17. But the Yamaha was hurting its rubber and Biaggi took over again six laps later, Alex Barros and Nicky Hayden demoting the Champion to fourth.

"When Valentino passed me I gritted my teeth and waited to attack," smiled Biaggi after the race, "and after catching my breath for a couple of laps I returned the favour by waiting for a moment of weakness.

TTien on the last lap I closed all the doors on Barros. I didn't wait to lose it after such a great race."

Gibernau was not alone in tumbling on lap nine. In the hot conditions, fallers included the Ducati's Loris Capirossi and Troy Bayliss, the Yamaha trio of Marco Melandri, Norick Abe and Carlos Checa plus Gibernau and Kurtis Roberts.

"I didn't feel good on the bike in the race and it didn't feel the same as in practice," Bayliss said. "It just let go. I'm not happy."

Points; Rossi 139, Biaggi 138, Gibernau 126, Barros 79, Edwards 75, Hayden 70, Checa 62, Melandri 57.

ITALIAN Roberto Locatelli timed his run to the chequer in the 125cc GP to perfection.

The veteran came from the third row to out-last Hector Barbera (Aprilia) ahead of Spaniard Pablo Nieto Honda's Andrea Dovizioso.

Finland's Mika Kallio gave KTM something to smile about in fifth after Aussie Casey Stoner broke his collarbone with a fall in qualifying.

Points: Dovizioso 138, Locatelli 131, Barbera 129, Stoner 104, Nieto 88, Giansanti 71, Lorenzo 68, Jenkner 63.

Dani’s a MoviStar DANI Pedrosa was in untouchable form in Germany's 250 GP. The brilliant Spaniard followed Roby Rolfo and Sebastian Porto for two laps before blasting past and taking a 4s win. With Porto safe in second, Aprilia's Alex de Angelis claimed the final podium place after getting the better of a three-way battle with Honda's Hiroshi Aoyama and Randy de Puniet (Aprilia).

Points: Pedrosa 155, De Puniet 130, Porto 108, Elias 86, Nieto 83, De Angelis 80, Rolfo 67, Aoyama 64.

18

motorspon news

INDY CARS

Kanaan's golden tune

by PHIL MORRIS

TONY Kanaan continues to pile up the points in the IRL IndyCar Series, taking victory on the weekend in the Firestone Indy 200 at Nashville.

The Andretti Green driver took the lead on a restart with lap 181 and had to fight off a determined charge from Penske driver Sam Homish Jr,/nr right, to clinch his third race win of 2004.

"I was concerned, but I knew we were strong, and I just needed to hold (Homish Jr.) up,and tlrat is what I did," said Kanaan, who now leads team-mate Dan Wheldon by 61 points.

"We did struggle in the begirming, and we were struggling a little bit in the end, too. To capitalise, I had to finish in the top three, and they gave me the win,so I'll take it."

Homish Jr was second and his Marlboro Team Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves finished third.

They were followed to the finish line by Target/Ganassi's Darren Manning and Townsend Bell.

Wheldon was a non-finisher after he clashed with pole sitter Buddy Rice on lap 176.

Obviously, he didn t want me to go to the inside, and he pushed my car onto the apron," said Rice.

We should have had a solid finish tonight, but there are some people who think otherwise. I think there should have been racing room and they didn't want to give any."

Rice's Rahal Letterman Racing teammate Vitor Meira, who started on the front row,led the first 113 laps.

But he stalled during a pit stop and could only manage 12th.

'St.coni

Among those to struggle was Scott Dixon, who finished eighth in the second Target/Ganassi entry. The Kiwi Champ lost his clutch early and continues the tough run of defending his 2003 title.

Retirements included Alex Barron (suspension), Bryan Herta and Tomas

Scheckter (accidents) and Dario Franchitti (gearbox).

The series moves to Milwaukee this weekend for the IRL's first appearance at the historic oval.

Points: Kanaan 328, Wheldon 264, Rice 253, Castroneves 242, Homish Jr. 200, Dixon 188, Manning 187, Herta 177, Franchitti 173.

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Bull brawl In I

Brawl for all Kahne’s crew chiefcops fine for team stoush

TOMMY Baldwin, crew chief for Dodge rookie driver Kasey Kahne, has been fined $13,000 and placed on probation until the end of the year for his actions in Tony Stewart's pit area at the Chicagoland Nextel Cup race following Stewart's spinning of Kahne.

The fine was split in two ways. US$5000 was for being responsible for his crew member's actions during the ensuring brawl and the remaining US$5000 for entering the Joe Gibbs Racing pit and starting the altercation between the two crews, "NASCAR needs to do something about him before somebody gets hurt," said Kahne's team owner Ray Evernham.

"I've got a crew chief and other guys that are ready to fight and it's the same guy, week-in, week-out. He gave Rusty (Wallace) the finger, I'd like 10 minutes with Tony Stewart, I'll handle it myself. That was unnecessary."

The incident apparently

by MARTIN D CLARK TONY Stewart won his first race since Charlotte last October with a victory at Chicagoland, but as usual with Stewart, the win was not without controversy.

He led 160 of the 267 laps, but spun leader Kasey Kahne on the front stretch of a lap 127 restart which sparked a fight between the crew members of the two teams in Stewart's pit(see separate news story on left).

The wreck also collected seven other cars, including points contender Dale Earnhardt Jr. What made Stewart's win even more of an accomplishment was the fact that he wrecked his primary car in practice prior to qualifying and won the race after qualifying 10th in a back-up Joe Gibbs Monte Carlo.

The incident with Kahne started when Stewart had a run past some slower cars on the outside on a restart, but when he go to Kahne he nudged him into the front stretch wall.

"I don't know he was shifting or missed a shift or what happened," said Stewart in Victory Lane, where he was received with a sea of boos

Started when Baldwin visited Stewart's crew chief Greg Zippadeli in their pit.

"I was just telling him his driver is a moron," said Baldwin, "A NASCAR official grabbed me and pulled me on the tyres, there was no fighting or nothing. He keeps getting away with it and nobody's doing anything about it."

- MARTIN D CLARK

Are Labonte rumours just that?

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from the capacity crowd.

"He backed up to us and we ran into the back of him, I don't know what caused him to check up."

Kahne was also baffled by Stewart's move; "We were just going through the gears; if a car in front of you isn't going fast, you can't just turn them into the wall on the restart.

"We had a really great race car. 1 don't know why he didn't wait until he got into the turn where you can pass. Somewhere along the line, somebody's going to get Tony Stewart. Every week something goes on and a fine to Tony Stewart isn't much,they need to suspend him."

TERRY Labonte is unhappy about stories circulating that he's about to hang up his helmet.

Tlie 47-year-old is apparently not happy about the recent rumours regarding his retirement and exit from Hendrick Motorsports.

Some reports had the elder Labonte brother exiting the Kellogg's Chev at the end of this year, with current Busch Series point leader Kyle Busch (younger brother of Kurt) moving from his Hendrick Busch ride to replace Labonte.

Labonte, who is in the first year of a three-year contract extension, has stated he wants to finish his career with Hendrick and doesn't envisage himself driving beyond 50.

But it's possible Busch could move into the ride and Labonte may compete in a limited schedule with Hendrick,similar to the arrangement Bill Elliott has with Evernham Motorsports.

- MARTIN D CLARK

molorsport news

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Jimmie Johnson's runner-up charge, coupled with Earnhardt Jr's missing of the pit road entrance and speeding infraction on pit lane en route to a 20th place finish, has further padded Johnson's points advantage.

Johnson's Hendrick stablemate Jeff Gordon finished fourth after

capturing his fourth consecutive pole, with Ford's Dale Jarrett third.

Final result; Stewart (Chev), Johnson (Chev), Jarrett (Ford), J Gordon (Chevy), Mayfeld (Dodge), T Labonte (Chev), Marlin (Dodge), Nemechek (Chev), Waltrip (Chev), Harvick (Chev).

Point standings; Johnson 2720, Earnhardt Jr. 2615, J Gordon 2478, Stewart 2393, Kenseth 2321, B Labonte 2278, Sadler 2252, Harvick 2229, Busch 2211, Newman 2173.

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RUMOURS regarding the future of Ricky Craven at PPI Motorsports may apparently be more than j'ust that, with his demise apparently imminent according to sources close to the team.

Craven has been with PPI since 2001 and has two wins, which came at Darlington in the spring of 2003 anid Martinsville in 2001.

His replacement will apparently come in the shape of a package deal with Bobby Hamilton Jr and his crew chief Harold Holly from his Busch operation Team Rensi Motorsports.

The pairing are going to continue to run the Busch Series for the remainder of the season as well, our sources claim. Hamilton currently lies eighth in points having been plagued with engine troubles throughout the season.

- MARTIN D CLARK

Waltrip to stay with DEI for ’05 MICHAEL Waltrip has quashed rumours sparked by Dale Earnhardt Jr earlier in the season about his demise from DEI when it was announced on July 12 that he will return to the wheel of the NAPA Chevrolet in 2005 for a fifth season.

■ Justin Labonte, the 23 year-old son of two-time Cup champ Terry, won his first Busch Series race at Chicagoland on July 10 after Mike Wallace ran dry of fuel on the final lap. Labonte is running a limited schedule for his family-owned team, with US Coast Guard sponsorship.

His previous best result was a 14th at the Myrtle Beach short track in 1999.

■ NASCAR will implement the ruling used successfully in the Truck Series to eliminate caution flag finishes to races in the Nextel Cup. The new 'green, white, checker' rule will como into place at New Hampshire on July 25 and guarantees a two-lap shootout for the finish of any race that that would otherwise end under the yellow flag. NASCAR will have the support of fans in the new rule, but crew chiefs will ultimately not be happy as additional laps play havoc with fuel strategies.

- MARTIN D CLARK

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21 iulv 2004

CHAMP CARS

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I A great day to be in red: While Frenchman Bourdais picked up his fourth win of the season, right, Vasser, above, made it to the podium for the first time since the Lexmark Indy 300 on the Gold Coast last year.

World Senes Medii

by PHIL MORRIS AS the Champ Car World Series moved to Toronto in Canada, there was nothing different about the top step of the podium.

Sebastian Bourdais stretched his series lead with a strong win, fighting off a bunch of challengers in the Molson Indy Toronto as his rivals all came to grief in one way, shape or form.

The French ace led 75 of the 84 laps and had to survive a challenge from Jimmy Vasser on the final restart to clinch the win, which moves him to seven career victories.

"You know, 1 just push really hard and try to pit early on the second stop to make sure that we were not going to get stopped by a yellow," said Bourdais.

"1 put a very good lap, 60.3, just pulled away, and after that was a pretty easy race except we had a lot of restarts. I think we did a really good job today."

Vasser chased him home but couldn't catch him, the second-place result the best for the PKV Racing outfit since it fired up last season.

"I am really happy with the energy in the team," said the 1996 series champ.

"It is a great effort, we just need to work on the technical side of the team to really improve our car and get me faster out there on the track."

Patrick Carpentier took third spot for the Forsythe outfit after a laterace scrap with Ryan Hunter-Reay and now sits just a handful of points 22

behind Bntno Junqueira, who was a retirement after a first lap collision with Mario Dominguez.

"We were going into the corner and we crashed," said Bruno.

"I was leading the championship and couldn't afford a risk like that.

First corner crunch: Junqueira dipped out on points in this collision with Dominguez, above, while Allmendinger gave Memo Gidley, below, a welcome back to Champ Car competition.

The kid had nothing to lose because he did not have as many points as I

did.

Carpentier's own team-mate Paul Tracy was in the wars - but he still finished fifth.

The Champ clashed with rookie Justin Wilson as he tried to pass the rookie Brit, spinning the Mi-Jack car in front of Oriol Servia and Alex Tagliani.

Tracy was, well, pissed ...

"I'm a bit perplexed ... Wilson spun in front of me, and I get penalised for tagging him, and then, after I arrive at turn one ahead of Jourdain and have the corner, I get another penalty because he wouldn't give it up?"

Wilson wasn't backward in coming forward either.

"On the restart, he tried to pass me with a very aggressive move, pushing me against the wall," said

the lanky Brit of Tracy.

"There was nowhere for me to go and he kept hitting me until I spun. It is frustrating when you are so competitive and have your race ruined like that."

Tracy and Tagliani copped penalties for their involvement in the incident, the latter going on to finish seventh. Wilson lost two laps as a result of a puncture from the incident and was classified 12th.

It was better news for Mario Haberfeld, who took his Walker Racing Reynard to fourth spot (matching his career-best finish).

clear of Tracy, Gaston Mazzacane (career-best finish), Tagliani, HunterReay, Servia and Alex Sperafico.

Hunter-Reay dropped to eighth after a puncture on the last lap from a touch with Carpentier. It cost the American dearly; he earlier had served a drive-through penalty for passing A.J. Allmendinger under a caution flag.

The Molson Indy Vancouver is the next stop for the Champ Car World Series this weekend.

Points: Bourdais 164, Junqueira 136, Carpentier 129, Tracy 108, Tagliani 103, Vasser 101, Hunter-Reay 100.

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Traffic, London Calling and Sir Jackie Pants

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HETHER by design or circumstance I have, fortunately, on more than one occasion found myself in the Old Dart at the time of Silverstone's British Grand Prix and 2004 was to be one of them.

And, until now,that usually meant one thing - sitting in a car for a long, long time.

The Brit GP used to provide the old airfield track with the distinction of being England's busiest airport for one day of the year. If you were anyone important, like a driver, a team owner of one of the myriad of BGrade VIPs who seem to emerge from the ether every July, flying into the track on a helicopter was mandatory. For the rest of us, it took patience and a full tank of

fuel.

Things are massively better than they used to be. Recent works on the A43(don't you love the way the Poms name their roads?) mean that the interminable waits of bygone years are now a distant memory.

What used to take two or three hours now happens in well under one. Even the celebs dared it by car. ^ Silverstone's mantle as the world's most inaccessible race track has been passed on; indeed, our very own Paperclip is now a

Ill .ir*

more worthy contender for that crown.

The revised traffic system put in place by the BRDC worked well. It worked so well that one of the greatest traditions of the race fell by the wayside; there was no traditional pay-out from Bernie Ecclestone (who arrived via chauffered Maybach) about how much this part of Northamptonshire resembles the Third World and how the place should be put to the bulldozers.

Instead, BE turned his wrath toward BRDC Chairman Sir Jackie Stewart, with whom he is having a very public debate about Silverstone's future as the Brit GP venue, at one point even mocking his dress sense (Jackie insists on wearing tartan pants and cap to races).

Easy target, Bernie, or, as one Aussie motorsport quotable might say, low fruit.

Afew days before theof blast around the sweeps Silverstone, FI visited a completely different venue London's Regent Street.

Parts of The City were closed down for a few hours late in the afternoon so that the teams could descend on the streets of London, crank up their cars and impress the punters. Officials expected that 250,000 would line up to see such as David Coulthard and 'Our Nige' Mansell

in action but their calculations were about 100 percent out. Half a million people found themselves entrapped (the adjacent tube stations were shut, at rush hourl) by the noise, in particular, of FI echoing off some of the world's most famous buildings, below.

Could there be a race there?

Could 'Our Mark' in his Williams (pencil it in, folks - it is going to happen)flash up The Mall to Buck House, flick right into Constitution Hill, whistle around Hyde Park?

Emotionally, possibly. The mayor, Ken Livingstone, says yes - but I suspect they haven't really investigated the massive logistical nightmare of putting a race track together in one of the most congested, traditional and busy few acres in the world. And even if they gave it a go, the cost would be just massive.

So, practically, no. The demo was great PR ... and of course it continued to put pressure on Stewart and his BRDC buddies up at Silverstone, didn't it?

From London, next home FI venue on the the journey was Shanghai.

We were there, of course, to witness the signing of the contract for next year's V8 Supercar race and to have a look at the track from a V8 Supercar point of view (see news pages).

With the V8 race set in stone for next June, we have a while to

Motor Mouth with Chris Lamhden come to terms with the magnitude of the trip to China, but the FI circus will be there in 10 short weeks.

As they were when the FI show hit Bahrain for the first time, the teams will undoubtedly be stunned by the standard of the facility built for them. The track looks as though it will offer some excitement and the facilities are brilliant, quite apart from the engineering challenge of building the whole place on concrete pylons, necessary because the place is on top of a swamp.

It'll reignite the debate about the loss of traditional GP venues and, as a traditionalist, I remain cautious about too many of the 'new world' venues cropping up in countries where there simply is no history of motor sport - or indeed much of a core of motorsport enthusiasts. But money speaks, doesn't it?

Anyway, when the FI circus does lob in September, I'm sure Bernie will have nothing bad to say about the place. With that in mind, Jackie, I would be careful about what you wear to China ...

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tting through the Mists of Rumour T

HIS year's Silly Season is having trouble getting going. There has been a lot of talk but not much in the way of any deals. We have been waiting so long for the announcement that Mark Webber is going to be named as one of the two BMW Williams drivers in 2005 that it all seems like yesterday's news.

There are lots of smokescreen rumours doing the rounds but the important one for the Australians at least is going to happen. The chat is that the other Willy pilot will be either Giancarlo Fisichella or Nick Heidfeld. Either choice represents a pretty decent driver line-up for the team in 2005.

Regardless of Ralf Schumacher's determination to get back into a car, it seems that Webber will not be in blue and white this year.

The most important thing will be for Webber to get the team motivated and moving again as the current drivers have not shown themselves to be very adroit at doing that.

Juan Pablo Montoya's decision to sign for McLaren a year early has been disastrous for the team's morale and cohesion. The team is not very interested in a driver with no commitment to the team.

I

f Ralf Schumacher was ever popular at Williams I forget when that was but because of the Germanic influences in the team he served a purpose.

The problem is that he has not looked like a winner since his testing shunt at Monza last summer and another big shunt is not going to do anything for his self-confidence. Ralf may get rich by going to Toyota but -' I iiliv VIMM

he is not going to be a World Champion.

Fisichella is a good solid performer but the Latin temperament is still something which makes some teams worry about his abilities. He drives great races and is a strong competitor but it seems that he has often been in the wrong car. When he was in a car which should have been winning, he did not win but then his talent took him to an unlikely victory in Brazil in a Jordan. One can say that Fizzy was lucky in Brazil but it does not matter. He was there at the end and that is what winning motor races is all about.

It is funny how things change when one considers that two months ago Jarno Trulli was the name on everyone's lips and Fisichella was being condemned as a man with no big future. Trulli had just won the Monaco Grand Prix in dominant

Trulli made a mistake so basic that it cost the team a podium finish. It was not the sort of thing one expects from a driver earning millions.

At Silverstone, through no fault of his own, Trulli had a huge crash, which added to his slowing momentum. It is a fickle world this Formula 1.

The latest suggestion is that Trulli will soon be off to Toyota.

Flavio Briatore has already tried to convince Webber that he does not need to go to Williams and can join forces with Fernando Alonso but Webber is a man who believes in Williams. Sure, there are problems there, but these things are not insurmountable.

The fundamentals are correct.

At Renault the future of the team is clouded. That means that Renault has suddenly developed the hots for Fisichella but now Fisichella, for so long the bridesmaid, no longer wants to be the bride

Trulli has fallen out of love with Renault, having made the big mistake of asking for too much money and then failing to deliver the goods at the moment when it really matteredrr fashion, his first victory in FI after eight years of frustration and disappointment, and it looked back then that Jarno had learned how to beat Fernando Alonso, the big new star of 2003. It just goes to show that a week is a long time in motor racing.

Trulli has fallen out of love with Renault, having made the big mistake of asking for too much money and then failing to deliver the goods at the moment when it really mattered. At the French GP

and no now we have Renault' scrambling around for a driver to partner Fernando Alonso. I suppose that the moral of the tale is that you get what you have coming to you.

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ne might argue that Flavio Briatore has the card stacked in his favour and yet now it looks like he is the man looking for a star.

The deals are already stacking up behind the BMW Williams drivers and the latest word is that David Coulthard

The With BoxJoeSeat Saward will land on his feet again, probably at Sauber. Anthony Davidson is a man who could be on the move but challenging hard for an FI seat is Vitantonio Liuzzi, a man who is the latest star of Formula 3000. Liuzzi is looking exceptional with a run of five wins in six races in Formula 3000. This is a record that has never before been achieved and the Formula 1 teams are finally sitting up and taking notice of Liuzzi.

Oh, and if you are looking for some reason to support Liuzzi, remember this, he is being looked after by Peter Collins, the Australian who has overseen so many young drivers in recent years, who is arguably the best talent spotter in FI history. Peter has helped a lot of others to get rich but this time it could be his turn to enjoy the fruits of his many labours.

And watch out too for Ryan Briscoe because Toyota needs to get its protege back into racing in 2005 and will be looking for a way to buy him a drive with one of the small teams next year.

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Five minutes with.

Garth Taniler

is GRM on the track back to the ttm? With a poilium hnish last time out at QiwenslantIRaceway, the Valvoluie snuaillooks kke its getting strmger. AARIKV HlomAN spoke to W about how thnigs are heatimg MOTORSPORT NEWS: Firstly, it must be nice to be bouncing back to some form,especially considering the recent podium at Queensland Raceway. Is this a sign of things to come for GRM? GARTH TANDER: Urn,(pause), I'm not sure. To be honest, we weren't expecting to run that well.

We knew we were going to be better in the race than we were in qualifying, but for the amount of teams that test up there and our speed up there last year, we were going to be very happy with a top five result.

Having a good strategy probably helped us a fair bit as well, so we've got a bit of work to do with car speed. But for the last two races we've been getting closer but there's still a lot of work to do.

MN: Any particularly areas you've got work to do in?

GT: It's just a case of continually working on the suspension set-up and the whole car, horsepower, everything. We've got to get the whole package correct.

MN:That package has been helped by having Steve 'Kosmo'Cramer from Ohiins back working with the team for the last two races. Co incidence or common ground that the results have improved in the two races he's been back with GRM? GT: Yeah, it's working well.

Kosmo has had some good ideas all along, we took the cars back to a more standard baseline set up rather than where we were heading earlier in the year, which has been pretty well documented in the media anyway.

We're just trying to do things simply and in a logical process and Kosmo's still got plenty of ideas he wants to put into the cars, but it's a case of trying to creep up on it slowly.

28

We re probably as good a chance as anyone to win Bathurst - Tander on GRM’s chances in the endurance races later in the year MN:The time element of all this is important. The way things are going, do you think you'll hit your peak in time for Sandown and Bathurst?

GT: That's the plan. We have to continue to improve the car as the year goes on, so obviously if we can get the car as good as we can prior to the enduros ...

Our car wasn't particularly strong at Sandown last year so I guess that's going to be another challenging weekend for us, to see where we're at as far as improvements go.

Our car was incredibly good at Bathurst last year, so we probably won't want to be too far away from where we were up there last year. Going on how the car's going at the moment, we should be there with a mix of what we did last year and what we're doing this year.

MN: How much has having Cam (McConville) on board this year and running two VYs been to the development process? Quite a great deal, one would think.

GT: It's been a lot better. It was unfair to be expecting Jamie (Whincup, 2003 GRM driver) to be contributing to the development of the car because he was in the VX and it was his first year in the class.

Having Cam here and someone with his experience in cars that are identical - and that's something the boys worked very hard on, to have two cars exactly the same at the start of the year- means we can do some quite meaningful back-to-back testing during race weekends and at test days.

MN: Big question. Can GRM win a race this year?

GT: Um,I'm not sure. I think winning a race would be great, but we need to be shooting for consistently running in the top five. Podiums, I don't think, are unachievable.

We're probably as good a chance as anyone to win Bathurst, but I'm not going to go on record as saying that we will definitely win races this year. It's a tough game.

MN: A lot of speculation about

your future for 2005 and beyond.

There's talk of offers from both sides of the fence. When do you want to make up your mind about where you'll be going,if indeed you go anywhere?

GT: When I'm ready.

MN: When's that going to be?

GT: When I'm ready!

MN: You're a master politician!

Is it too much to read into a couple of good results that GRM is heading back to the levels we saw in 2000?

GT: I think so, I do. Without a doubt we've had strong results, but we've had a lot of things go our way as well.

Perth was a new surface and it was like pressing the reset button for everyone and our car worked really well there. I guess I still know a few tricks around that place that helped me in the races.

There's no denying the cars are better, but we're not going to put our hand up and say our cars are quicker than a Stone Brothers or PWR car. motorsport news

Fiue minutes with

Greg Ritter

How is it Hist this man is sHH not a tuit-tnne V8 Supencm'itrivep?

AAROliNOWiiAN spoke to the Stone Brothers signiiw thunn his Konica n/Hnoita Series one-oit amiheiphig Sffff hi Mounmin giory MOTORSPOFn" NEWS: First of all,the Mallala Konica Minolta V8 round will be a good chance for you to get back into a V8 Supercar.

GREG RITTER: Yeah, it'll be my first actual race in nearly 12 months since Bathurst last year. I'm looking forward to it and actually getting back in the seat and it's all ready to go.

MN:The link with SBR and that car means you won't be in totally unfamiliar surroundings either. Will there be an SBR army there to back you up?

GR: I'm not quite sure at the moment. There'll be one or two guys from SBR helping out at Mallala, so that's certainly going to be coming in handy. I'm not 100 percent sure of their involvement, but that's obviously going to be a help.

The car should obviously be good because it was Mark Winterbottom's from last year and it hasn't done that many miles.

MN: And you're going to be an interloper with a championship fight going on around you between Owen Kelly, Andy Jones, Luke Youlden and the like. How will you approach it?

GR: I'm going there to win the races for sure rather than cruise around and test. There's no two ways about that. There's three or four other guys out there who are really close in the championship stakes.

I don't think I'll go upsetting the applecart too much, but I'm certainly not going to let them stand in the way of me winning a race.

I'm just going to go about my business as I normally would and if I have to stand on a few other people's toes to achieve that, then so be it.

MN;You've had a day in the SBR cars at Queensland Raceway.

Impressions?

30

GR: The cars were excellent to drive, no real surprises there I They were everything that I expected.

MN:The million dollar question is who will team with who and we reckon you're odds-on to drive with Marcos! Would being in a car in the championship fight add pressure to your shoulders rather than if you were to drive with Russell, who really isn't in the championship hunt?

GR: At the end of the day, both cars are a really good chance of winning, regardless of who's driving them. Russell's done a lot of miles around Bathurst and Marcos is the man to beat at the moment.

It doesn't really matter a great deal. Certainly, I'm not fazed one way or the other. My role, in whatever car I drive, will be to bring the thing home. It's not up to me to win the race, that's more in the lead driver's hands. I just have to keep it off the fence I MN: It'll be a bit strange for you, given the last few years you've been the lead driver in the car you've raced at Sandown and Bathurst...

GR: Yeah, it'll be a bit of a change of pace for me to have to take a bit of a back seat role this year more so than I have in previous years.

In some ways it takes a bit of pressure off me, but in other ways by being in such a strong team and it being my best shot of winning the races so far, that it puts it on in another.

I'll just do the best job I can and leave it at that.

MN; We haven't seen you in a car when you drove for Team Brock at Bathurst last October.

What have you been up to since then?

GR: Back on the plastering toolsl It's not really what I want to be doing at this point in time, but I also do a fair bit of advanced driving training, which keeps my eye in a little bit.

7TLATS

From one manufactuer to the other: Ritter will step into the exWinterbottom Decina Falcon at Mallala, above, having generally out-paced Team Brock regulars Bright and Weel in the enduros in 2003, below.

I'll just do the best Job I can and leave It at that" -Ritter on his approach to the enduros and what it may do for him in 2005 Most of it is all in road cars and a fair way from the race car. But it's certainly better than plastering I

know whether I've run over a Chinaman or something. I'm really not quite sure I

MN: Have you got massive dents in your forehead from where you've undoubtedly been bashing your head against a wall, wondering'why the hell haven't I got a full-time drive'?

Do you wonder what you've done wrong?

GR: Yeah, very much so! I've got used to it over the years. I've had good results at Bathurst and been talked about a lot since I went well up there with Dick's team in 2001.

It's a frustrating industry in terms of securing a full-time gig. I don't

MN: Are you treating the enduros as an audition for 2005?

After all, it's the best chance we've had to see you in a car that is 100 percent capable of winning the race.

GR: Again, it's probably no different from any other year. The way I treat it, the two endurance races are my opportunity to show people my talents and whether it be as a lead driver in a second car, or a back-up driver in a lead car, it's not going to make a hell of a lot of difference. molorsport news

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HERE is a chance - there is a very good chance that a lot of people do not understand fully what happened after the end of the 2004 Queensland 300.

From the number of enquiries that have been made to MNews in the last two weeks about what happened after Marcos Ambrose crossed the line in the Pirtek/Stone Brothers Racing Falcon at The Paperclip, and the conduct and result from the subsequent appeal hearing in Melbourne on July 8, it is clear to see that there is a fair amount of confusion about the whys and wherefores of the whole affair.

So, after conversations with the relevant parties and examination of the facts - and without pointing fingers at who was in the right and who was in the wrong - here are some of the questions that we have been asked about the matter and some that we have asked among ourselves in the MN bunker.

7 Why was Ambrose disqualified?

Ambrose was not disqualified.

Following the race, the #1 Ford was found to have been in contravention of Rules C8.11.8 and C8.11.9, which detail the specification of the wiring loom(s) in V8 Supercars.

SBR admitted the breach of the regulations and the Stewards of the event. Garth Wigston, Steve Chopping and Steve O'Connor, handed down a penalty of loss of points (in this case, 192 for winning the race) and a $10,000 fine.

Within the prescribed time limit of one hour for the handing down of the decision (all stewards' decisions are marked with date and time), SBR lodged an appeal, with the accompanying fee of $10,000.

But at no time was Ambrose not the winner of the race.

2 Why wasn't Ambrose disqualified?

Under V8 Supercar rules.

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disqualification or exclusion from the results apply certain inherent penalties to a team.

For instance, when Russell Ingall was excluded from the Main Event at Eastern Creek last year, SBR received no payment for Ingall's participation in the event.

There is still prizemoney paid in V8 Supercar races but the teams' main source of revenue for competing in events comes from the (far larger) pool of money paid by TEGA. The stewards' decision in Queensland was consistent with the penalties applied earlier this season for technical breaches by GRM (for Cam McConville's car in NZ) and PWR Racing (for Paul Weel's).

4 Wasn't Larry Perkins going to appeal to have the car disqualified?

Perkins advised CAMS that he was intending to lodge an appeal over the matter but the time limit for such an appeal had expired. CAMS advised LP that they were happy to have a submission made to the Court of Appeal but the Court advised CAMS that they would not look at such a submission.

3 Did CAMS hear the appeal?

No,the appeal was heard by the V8 Supercar Court of Appeal in Melbourne. That is standard procedure in matters such as this one.

6 Is this the end of it?

Probably. The only potential avenue for action from here is the FIA Court of Appeal but the guidelines for such an appeal do not apply here. That Court

5 So did the Court of Appeal overturn the Stewards' decision?

No,the decision stands. SBR's appeal was over the severity of the loss of points and the extent of the fine. The Court of Appeal reinstated the points and reduced the fine from $10Kto $5K.

1

U8 SUPERCARS

Wire and what happened next After the Queensland 300, it seemed Marcos Ambrose was the winner.

Then he wasn't. Then he was again. PHIL BRANAGAN looks into the questions surrounding the controversial aftermath of the race

would only intervene in the case of a competitor holding a licence from a foreign ASN appealling a decision. All V8 Supercar entrants are required to hold an Australian licence so that avenue is unavailable in this case.

7 What was Ambrose's lap 1 comment "Thanks for the start, Ken"about?

This is the one that got the Holden troops pretty well fired up ...

The explanation from Ambrose and SBR is that Technical Director Ken Douglas coaches Ambrose in his race starts. The two sit down at each race meeting

and analyse the data from the car and go out in a road car and simulate a race start.

According to Ross Stone, "It is no different to a professional golfer getting a lesson in how to set up before a shot."

Apart from his history with MoTeC, Douglas is an experienced driver and, at one time, Ambrose was noted for his lousy starts. And,for what it is worth, last year I stumbled into one of the Ambrose/ Douglas sessions on raceday, so it is not like this is something that the team has just invented ...

8 Holden people were also up in arms about TV vision of a connector being modified in the SBR car. What was that about?

The team has air ducting in the doors of both Falcons and, in order to have the ducts removed, you have to lower then disconnect the power

window. With Ambrose's car in pare ferme after the race, the team asked TEGA's Ray Robins for permission and he observed them tying off the window connector.

9 What will happen now?

A number of competitors are pretty unhappy that Ambrose won the race in what was, technically, an illegal car but kept his points (and start and prizemoney) and was only hit with a $5000 fine.

What is likely to happen now is that TEGA's request to AVESCO to have minimum penalties applied for technical breaches (see news pages) will be considered and, probably, implemented. It will be similar to the NRL's list of mandatory penalties for on-field incidents; in other words, if you do X in future, you will get a minimum penalty of Y. 10 Does all this reflect badly on the stewards?

Maybe, but not necessarily.

One matter that should be considered is that stewards hear evidence immediately after the event and have a relatively small time window to make decisions.

When a decision goes to appeal, there is more time for the appellant to muster what he or she considers to be information relevant to the case. In most cases, there is usually more information available to an appeal court than a stewards' hearing. And appellants usually (always?) win their appeals.

But, as you can see, there is more to this matter than just 'Ambrose disqualified/ Ambrose gets off', which was the impression that many had of the situation last week. The whole thing was a bit of a mess but there are rules and guidelines to be followed and some of those could be modified as a result of this whole thing.

So something like this might not occur in the future.

We hope.

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Move Over, Ma

The only thing tougher than getting into V8 Supercars is staying around long enough to make a name for yourself.

MARK GLENDENNING talks to one guy who has done it, and another that is well on the way

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PRIL 4, 2004, Eastern Creek. The rain is bucketing down, people's umbrellas are being turned inside-out by the wind and out on the track, Rick Kelly is driving with a finesse that completely belies the fact that he only turned 21 a couple of months earlier.

On that day, Kelly became the youngest-ever winner of a V8 Supercar 'solo' round, having already famously taken the gong for being the youngest-ever Bathurst winner courtesy of his efforts alongside Greg Murphy last year.

Getting into V8 Supercars is hard. Staying there is even harder. V8 Supercars are not easy beasts to tame, the series is as a tight as anything you'll find anywhere in the world and new arrivals are on borrowed time to makb their opportunity count befgre they are spat back out again. Second chances are rare.

What made Kelly's performances at Bathurst and Eastern Creek (and more recently Perth, where he earned another spot on the podium) significant was not that he was young, but the fact that he was arguably the first driver since Marcos Ambrose to have come into the series and back his talent up with real results. He may still look like he is just starting to shave, but rest assured that his talent is taken very, very seriously all the way down pitlane.

As Rick points out though, it is experience, not age that makes the difference.

"This year I'm the youngest guy in the category again, but I've got three years under my belt now," said Kelly, "So I've got a little bit of experience, although I've still got a lot to get. I'm probably the only young guy to have hade an impression - if that's what you j;

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reckon - simply because I'm probably the only young guy that has been put into a really good car.

"I definitely wouldn't be anywhere near where I am if I didn't have the car that I am in, and that's what has put me there."

Kelly doesn't really have an opposite number in the Ford camp at the moment, but Mark Winterbottom has his sights set on changing that. The 23-yearold is in his first year with Larkham Motor Sport after slamming the opposition as a Stone Brothers prodigy in the Konica Minolta series last year.

Seven races into his Supercar career, Winterbottom said that he is still finding his feet.

"Yeah, definitely," he admitted.

"You're still learning. You watch the Konica guys and you still expect your name to be on the screen, so it's still sinking in.

"We're seven rounds in and it

still feels like your debut race. So it's all sort of new. You learn every time you go out, so it's starting to get a little bit more natural, but I'm still new at it all.

There is no clear-cut conventional route into Supercars, although the Konica Minolta series is still the easiest way to rack up some lowerprofile V8 mileage before attempting to crack the big time.

Yet despite his success in the feeder series, Winterbottom said that it was a tough trailSition.

rcos Breakthrough: Kelly stood on the top of the podium for the second time in his V8 career at Eastern Creek earlier this year, above, while Winterbottom, left, is busy racking up experience in his debut season in the main game.

Men about town: Kelly waits for the journalists to shut up so that he can change into something dry after his Eastern Creek win, below right. Meanwhile, Winterbottom hits the markets of Darwin, below left.

"It was pretty big, because I changed teams," he explained.

"Changing teams was quite hard, so I have taken this long to probably understand things.

"I’ve lost an engineer mid season, too - Mark Larkham has taken over that job - so I've had a new engineer, a new team, and then mid-season another engineer.

So it's just starting to gel.

"I had a car from a team that had won the last round of the championship at Sandown (in 2002), so I could just jump in, do a couple of laps, and the car was good. You knew it was good.

"Whereas I guess with the BA at Larko's, it's still developing.

I've probably gone from 'jump in and drive' to 'jump in and drive and develop the car'. So the role as a driver has changed.

"And to get the car right is such a big thing now. Last year the car was always good enough to be on the front row; it was just down to how you drove it.

"Now, you have to get the car to where you want it to be to get into the top 10 and get a result.

"Competition-wise, it teaches you that you've got to be on your game every time you go out, whereas in Konicas you could probably get a little bit lazy and still be on the front row. The depth of the competition wasn't as strong.

"So it probably makes you work harder away from the track than the Konica series did."

Kelly, however, took a less conventional route into the main game, and found his way at Kmart Racing last year via a 21 iuiy 200a

factory-assisted Holden Young Lions drive in 2002 after destroying all comers with Birrana in the 2001 Formula Holden championship.

"Konica wasn't a big thing when I stepped through, for one," Kelly pointed out.

"Secondly, I haven't seen any winners from Konica get into the V8 Supercar category and shock everyone.

"Konica is a great thing, because they are the actual car that we drive here and it's so hard to learn how to drive these cars. Formula Holden and Formula Ford don't really give you that insight into a V8 Supercar. So from that point of view, it's good.

"But as far as the level of competitiveness, and also the teams and drivers that are in the category, it doesn't give you any

of that sort of experience.

"You've really got to get into V8s to experience just how tough it is, I think."

Looking back, Kelly's Young Lions season was like a Konica year with an extra cherry on top.

Not only did he have a full season to come to grips with the car, but he was also exposed to the higher level of pressure and competition from the outset. It was a brilliant opportunity.

"Yeah, absolutely," he agreed.

"And the HYL car was a better car than a lot of other people out there had that year - 1 was very lucky to have that car. In some cases I was having a dice with a few 'bigger names', as I saw it back then, and that was outstanding. I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I was in Konicas.

"It was also better for me to

do Young Lions than Konicas because I got to be a sort of third team-mate to Jason Bright and Mark Skaife. You could overlay data and do everything like that, which was just a huge benefit.

"The second thing was that I followed them to all of their appearances, and quickly caught on to what being a V8 Supercar driver is all about - the things that you are obligated to do. And that was just as beneficial as driving in the main category."

While pointing out the benefits of a season in Konica Minoltaland, Winterbottom confirmed that there was still a huge gulf between it and the main series.

"The Konica car was a good thing to drive - we've actually continued on page 34 35

continued from page 33 done quicker times in the Konica car at Eastern Creek than we did this year in qualifying," he said.

"It teaches you to drive the cars and, in reverse grid races, how to pass people. Everything teaches you how to race.

Everything on the car that you need to learn, you learn in Konicas.

"And the competition is still strong in Konicas, but the levels between the cars are a bit different there, too. There are Level 1 teams, there are privateer teams, whereas in the V8 series just about everyone is a Level 1 team. It teaches you how to drive the cars, and how to set the cars up, and how to race the car.

"But obviously when you go to the next step the races are longer, you do a lot more promotional work, and you do a lot more at a race meeting.

"At a Konica meeting, you'd go

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there, race, eat lunch in the truck, go down and have a drink, race again. But now it's merchandising signing at 11 o'clock, then an interview, then a sponsorship commitment, go out and race, debrief, go out to the DeWalt stand to do a function, then a TV interview ... so there are a lot of things in your day that you have to plan for.

"Whereas Konicas was really like a big Formula Ford meeting - you'd just go to there and do the race and that was it.

"So you've got to get to grips with that side of it as well, and how you deal with that," It's easy to forget that the actual driving is only a small part of the equation. Without sponsors and fans there is no racing - and everybody wants some kind of return on their investment, whether it is a store opening, a speech at a sponsor's lunch, or a simple autograph scored by a lucky fan who managed to corner their hero in

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MARK Winterbottom's ticket into the main game came through a Ford development programme called the Ford KartStars series.

The concept was that winners in the KartStars series would progress into a fully-funded Formula Ford drive, and from there help provide a network of contacts that could help open some doors into one of Ford's V8 Supercar families.

The programme has been dismantled since the passing of KartStars architect and long-time Ford Racing spearhead Howard Marsden, leaving Winterbottom as the last - and probably most successful - of its graduates.

"Unfortunately it has all stopped now," said Winterbottom.

"I was lucky with Howard Marsden; I got to meet him, and deal with him. It was a good programme, we wouldn't have been able to get here without Ford's help.

"It was good, they had some good people doing it - we met Mike Borland from Spectrum, and he taught me how notto drive a go-kart and helped move me on to the next level in Formula Ford, and then we met Ross and Jimmy (Stone), and now Larkham. So it has all worked out well.

"Two years ago I raced Formula Ford and I didn't know anyone down pitlane. Now I've raced for two different teams and I'm in the series! So it happens bloody quick. Two years ago we were racing go-karts just down the road here (at Queensland Raceway).

"I go to go-kart meetings now and I still know everybody.

You go to the grid and see your old kart there still. It's just weird to see the people there that I used to race against. It has all happened so fast."

As tempting as it may be though, he is a bit leery about jumping back into a kart and showing the young guys how it's done.

"I'd get blown off, probably! There are a lot of young guys coming through who'd probably blow me off. But it would be interesting to jump back in again and have a go."

- MARK GLENDENNING 36

the paddock.

While neither Kelly nor Winterbottom mind the PR side of their job, both admit that it comes a little less naturally to them than the driving.

"It can be tough at times," said Kelly.

"We are able to race V8 Supercars at the level we do because there is a crowd that comes along.

"Sometimes it gets difficult to do the right thing by the crowd all the time because you've got a job to do out there, and sometimes it's a bit difficult to get them to understand that you can't always do things that they want you to do all the time.

"And that's tough as well.

You've really got to know how to treat the people that make racing possible."

Surprisingly though, Kelly said that his Bathurst success had not led to any real increase in demands for his attention at the track.

"It hasn't really changed things," he said.

"I hope my profile has grown a bit since then, because it is quite a big part of being a driver.

"But everyone certainly comments on it - if they come up to say G'day or get something signed, they certainly comment on it. It's something special, winning Bathurst, and hopefully we can do it again this year," Winterbottom, meanwhile, said that he still finds speaking in front of crowds a little daunting.

"I get pretty nervous.

actually!" he grinned.

"It's been good though, you just be natural and be yourself and if people like you then great and if not, well you don't want to change yourself so people like you.

"And with Orrcon, it's not like Betta Electrical or something where you go into a shop and people come in and buy a TV or something. It's a different sort of atmosphere.

"I went out and did a threeday course at Farmfest in Toowoomba, where they sell cattle rail and cattle yards and all that sort of stuff.

"You meet different sorts of people, not the city people who go in to buy TVs, or fuel from the service station. It's farmers, steel workers, all that sort of thing.

So it's sort of a different industry, but it's good to meet

Under Pressure

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(/living different people as well."

And then there is the mental aspect of the sport. According to Kelly, this was one of the most difficult challenges that he faced while making the step up.

"I probably did more (physical) training last year and the year before than I'm doing this year as far as running and that sort of thing goes," he said.

"But the biggest thing is firstly just getting used to the heat in the car. And I don't believe that any sort of training prepares you for that.

"The second part of it is being really strong mentally. Coping with the heat - in the first year at Adelaide, as you saw, I couldn't cope with it very well physically or mentally.

"And now, you become a lot more stubborn and a lot more able to cope with mentally tough

A day to remember: Kelly and Murphy have a healthy 'we've just won Bathurst'glow, above.

"This is the last time I'm letting you in front of me": Winterbottom and Kelly at Queensland Raceway, right.

Listen up: Winterbottom with team boss Mark Larkham, below right. situations. Like, when you are nearly about to pass out, you are strong enough to keep going.

"Whereas initially, as soon as you feel the heat you’re going, 'oh gee, it's hot', and the next minute you're going, 'I can't do this!'. And as soon as you start thinking that, you're not going to make it.

"But your body can be pushed into things that you'd never believe, I think, and it's mostly about being strong mentally."

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Complete turn - key Full trackside span and technical assis provided for 2005 K RICK has already been around far too long to be intimidated by some superstar sitting on his rear bumper with the lights on full beam.

But what was it like when he was starting out?

"Well, it did make you a little bit nervous," he admitted.

"The only thing is that you just make sure that you don't stuff up, because you can 21 July 2004

guarantee that you're going to burn a bridge with that driver and you can also just about guarantee that there'll be a camera on you too, and you're going to make yourself look stupid I So that's a big part of it.

"But(now) I don't care who comes up behind me. I have as much right to be out there as anybody."

- MARK GLENDENNING

As used by Paul Mo and Craig Baird Limited Opportunitie Call to discuss youi requirements Ryan McLeod Paul Morris Motorsport 07 5546 2922

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Everyone knows that Ferrari ha^the best car and |r/Ver. But what if the secret to their success lies somewhere l^s glamorous? Like their fuel and oil?

MARK GLENDENNING raided Sheiks lab in the Monaco paddock to find out

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T'S the early hours of a Monday morning. You've been up watching a Grand Prix, and once again you're going to bed with the final bars of Deutschland, Deutschland uber alias and Fratelli d'ltalia ringing in your ears.

Michael and Ferrari have notched up another one, and the rest of the world is left wondering how the hell they keep winning.

Achieving and maintaining that level of success is not as easy as Ferrari makes it look if it was, then everyone would be doing it.

So what's the secret? Well, it's hardly a newsflash that a lot of it comes down to boring old attention to detail. Far away from the spotlight of the race circuit, thousands of litres of midnight oil are burned within the factory walls in Maranello, trying to account for any possible eventuality that every component of the car may confront in the heat of battle.

38

By and large, this aspect of the game plan is not that different to any of the other major teams. But behind the duelling CAD systems, windtunnels, engine departments and, of course, drivers, there is a whole separate, private battle going on between the companies that literally keep the cars running smoothly - the fuel suppliers.

It's a battle that Shell, a long time partner of Ferrari, is utterly convinced that it is winning, and when you balance the way they do things against the statistics, it's difficult not to believe them.

Amid the gigantic transporters that make up Ferrari's fortress in the FI paddocks is an engineering truck, one quarter of which has been commandeered by Shell and turned into a laboratory.

This lab goes to every race, and is staffed by three people - a fuel specialist, a lubricant specialist, and Mike Copson, Shell's Formula One Technical Manager, who rules over the tiny domain.

"Our primary role here is to give technical support to the .

Ferrari team trackside that supplements the overall technical partnership that we have with the team," explained Copson.

"And when I say technical partnership, it's more like we've been married to them since the 1930s, it's that sort of depth of the relationship that we have."

Try to think back to the last time that you watched a GP and actually gave the petroleum-based bits of the car more than a passing thought.

The only time most people are aware of fuel is either during a pitstop or when a car is coasting to a halt because a team's consumption calculations were out by half a lap, and oil tends to be rather anonymous until something goes bang in the engine.

Like every other aspect of an FI car though, fuel and oil present an opportunity for the smart teams to find very real, very tangible performance gains. But each is dealt with very differently, largely because of the way they are regulated.

According to Copson, the fuel side of the equation offers

only a tiny window of freedom in which the engineers can work, but still presents enormous potential to find an edge.

The fuels are the most tightly controlled fuels within motorsport, bar none," Copson explains.

"Article 19 of the Formula One Sporting Regulations is all about fuels. There is a load of limits and a load of chemistry that 1 could go into, but the long and the short of it is that 99 percent of what goes in here is effectively the same a$ what you buy at the pumps. So we have 99 percent the same, commercially available refinery streams, plus one percent of freedom.

"That still allows us to tailor a fuel to the Ferrari Formula One engine. For example, a Formula One engine doesn't have to start at minus 30 degrees. A Formula One fuel doesn't have to sit in an underground tank for three months and still remain fresh.

Formula One fuel doesn't have to have the same cleaning characteristics as a normal road car fuel.

"So it's those sorts of things that we can change. We can do an incredible amount within the regulations that we have, but what it means is that we have to be very careful with how we handle the fuel, and also how we prepare it."

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The need for caution stems from the strict FIA fuel approval process. Every fuel that is developed for use in Formula One has to be officially stamped by the FIA before it can be used, and this is done by registering a sample of the fuel to come up with what is called a 'fingerprint'. This is essentially a map of the fuel's precise chemical composition, and is unique to every fuel that is produced.

Once the fingerprint has been lodged with the FIA and approved, the fuel can be used in battle. The trick is making sure that every drop of fuel that goes near the car during a race weekend complies with the fingerprint - no easy task, given that even a minor change in temperature or a drop of grease from the refuelling nozzle can change a fuel's fingerprint just enough to render it illegal. One of Copson's chief responsibilities is to make sure that this doesn't happen.

Throughout the weekend we take samples from the car. from the drums,from the conditioning units, and from the refuelling rigs, and we cross-check that our fuel here is the same as the master fingerprint that the FIA have generated," Copson said.

That's done for two reasons.

One,to make sure it's legal because if it isn't legal then the penalties are severe - like

several hundred thousand euros at a time, or exclusion from the race, which is quite a responsibility to have on my shoulders. So I don't want to know about it.

"And secondly, if the fuel is OK by comparing it to the master fingerprint from the FIA, then it means that the performance of the fuel is tip top as well."

The compliance of the fuel is monitored with the funky gas chromatography machine that shares the truck with the engineers. A sample of fuel is put into the machine, which heats it up and boils off the components, producing a printout of 'spikes' that show what elements are in there, and in what quantities.

If you were only dealing with a couple of different blends of fuel over the course of a season - as many teams are this wouldn't present an enormous headache. But Shell operates on a seemingly unique scale, and herein lies one of the secrets of Ferrari's success.

We may develop anywhere between four and 15 fuels in a year," Copson revealed.

At the beginning of the season, there is a new fuel because normally there is a subtle regulation change. But after that, any fuel that we approve is approved, and then we have a portfolio of fuels that we can choose from.

"Here at Monaco we have four fuels approved for use already, and we could use any one of those four, provided that we give the FIA prior notice and say,'we are going to use this fuel for this race'."

This means, effectively, that Ferrari can tailor its fuel to meet the demands of a particular circuit.

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Our philosohpy has been to go towards a less dense fuel, and that contributes to why Ferrari can stay out a n little longer - Mike Capson

"We can do if we need to," Copson agreed.

"The reality is that logistically, that's almost impossible, because the first three races of the season Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain - the logistic effort in those three is massive. because we supply 2000 litres of fuel to every race, and fuel is not nice to carry around on aeroplanes.

Europe, however, is nice. because it's easy for logistics and you can go bang, bang. bang, bang with fuels. So you would tailor fuels for Monaco, for example, which needs a lot of driveability, Monza, which

needs horsepower, Hungary, which needs driveability and fuel economy."

But a fuel's potential for advantage doesn't end there.

Think back,for a moment, about how many times this year you've seen Michael Schumacher make his first stop three or four laps later than his rivals.

The tactical advantage of being able to do that is reflected in the stats. But is he starting he race heavier than everyone else? Not necessarily. He may have more fuel on board, but that does not necessarily mean that he is at a significant weight disadvantage.

The reason lies in the density of the fuel. One litre of fuel 'x' by no means weighs the same as one litre of fuel 'y'. Think about the repercussions of all that for continued on page 38

continued from page 37 one nanosecond, and you can see why this is an area that Shell work so hard on.

"Our philosophy over the years has been to go towards a lighter, less dense fuel, and that's one of the factors that contributes to why Ferrari can stay out a little longer," Copson admitted.

"It's not the only factor, but it's one of the factors. The other factors are that (Ferrari Engine Director) Paulo Martinelli is a genius when it

comes to designing good engines that are fuel efficient.

We work with him to do that.

"Rory Byrne is a genius in terms of aerodynamics, so in terms of drag, his car is slightly less, maybe,than the others. And Bridgestone does a fantastic job on tyres. It's all little things that come together to give you a good package."

The FIA regulations stipulate that a litre of fuel weighs between 720g and 780g, and while Copson would not be drawn on the exact numbers that Shell had reached, he was

IT'S common knowledge that the one thing that FI cars and road cars share is fuel.

It's there in black and white. In order to comply with current regulations, FT fuel must share the same characteristics with the premium unleaded fuel that will be sold in Europe in 2005.

So that means that you could fill your Daewoo with the stuff that Michael uses and drive merrily on, while he could make a pitstop in his FI car at your local petrol station, right?

Well, it depends who you ask. According to To\'ota FT, a

able to quantify just what the limits represented out on the track.

"That 60g can amount to a density difference of six kilograms, and that is the extra lap or two. So it is a big difference."

It certainly is, especially if you bear in mind that the 'extra lap or two' is normally all the Michael needs to leapfrog someone during the pitstops...

Lubricants, meanwhile, are a whole different story. Unlike the stricter-than-strict

road car could ruTi on FI fuel for a limited time (before, presumably, the engine blew up due to the lack of cleansing agents) while an FI car coiild not nm on pump fuel at all.

BMW,however, tell a different story. According to MNews sources, both sci'narios would work - for a limited time - however the big difference would be in engine power. ( BMW told MNews that they had never tried pump fuel in their engine, but estimated that the power loss would be more than 45 blip.

-MARKGLENDENNING

regulations that govern fuel, oils are about as close as FI gets to a technical clean slate.

"If you ask Paulo Martinelli about oil, he will say that the lubricant is as important to an engine as a piston, a conrod, a crank, a cylinder head," Copson explained.

"This oil is not an off-theshelf product. It is completely bespoke to the Ferrari Formula One engine. We start at first principles with Paulo on bearing design and lubricant requirements, and the oil pumps and scavenger pumps and all of that good stuff.

"And we look at all of those different things, and we generate this lubricant which is completely bespoke to the Ferrari Formula One engine.

"So it's designed to go up to 19,000rpm. It's not designed to do a cold start. It's not designed to have many detergents in it, because it has only got to last about 800km.

And on both the engine and the gearbox side, we do lubricants that are completely bespoke to the application."

While the more open regulations save the teams from having to monitor their oil the same way they do for fuel, lubricant analysis still takes place throughout the weekend for the simple reason that if you know what you're doing, it can be a pretty handy crystal ball.

"Trackside, we don't look at the chemistry of the oil, because we understand that already," Copson confirmed.

"What we do is we x-ray samples, because as the engine runs through the weekend, obviously it wears out, and Formula One engines and gearboxes wear at an incredible rate. So by x-raying a sample, what we can do is we can

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FORMULA ONE determine the metallurgy within the oil.

"We compare that with the ideal wear of the engine, and we can flag up any issues before they happen, and advise the team of the best course of action.

"The last time we had to use the oil x-ray in anger was 1999 with Irvine in Australia" - Copson, above, offers further evidence of Ferrari’s monotonous engine reliabiiity "Now, with one engine per weekend that's incredibly important as well, because it's like an internal inspection of the engine without taking it to bits - which is fantastic.

"However, given the relationship that we have with Ferrari, and how long we've been doing this with them, generating things from first principles, this again becomes an insurance policy because, touch wood, we haven't had engine failures or gearbox failures for some time.

"And always with these we are pushing the limits of what we can do, because it's always a compromise between efficiency and wear protection.

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Efficiency gives you horsepower, but it means that your engine wears out quicker.

But wear protection generates friction, and friction is an enormous part of a Formula One engine.

"As you go up in engine speed, friction goes up to the square of engine speed.

When I was working at Cosworth many moons ago, we had something like 14,000rpm, and the friction was over 150 horsepowerjust by turning the engine over itself.

"So anything you can liberate with oil is horsepower for free which makes Paulo happy!"

While this ability to pre empt a gearbox or engine problem before it happens is obviously an advantage, it is one that Ferrari shares with all of the other top teams.

But the relentless reliability of Ferrari's engines over the past few seasons have made slim pickings for Shell's engineers lately: "The last time we had to use this x-ray machine in anger was in 1999 with Eddie Irvine in Australia, where there was a problem between qualifying and the race," Copson said.

"That was when you could change engines. We put our hand in the air and said, 'there's a problem here'. As a precaution they changed the engine.

"Afterwards they got the engine back to Maranello, stripped it down, and said, 'it definitely would have failed'.

And he won the race. So it's that sort of thing that gives us good kudos."

Indeed it does. But apparently, it also helps to deliver championships in mind-numbing numbers. The proof is in the petrol.

Ways and Means so now ^at you have an idea about Sttbll's role with Ferrari, how do things work elsewhere along pitlane?

In the case of teams with manufacturer links, choice of supplier often governed by who has 'first-fill' rights for the manufacturer's road cars.

Hence Mobil's link with McLar^ (via Mercedes), and Castrol's connection with BMW WilliamsFl, and Shell's Ferrari deal. But at Williams, Castrol is responsible only for the oil - fuel is provided by the Brazilian company Petrobras.

As with other leading teams, Williams and BMW are assisted at the track by technicians who are responsible for monitoring the fuel and oil. The companies are also involved with BMW during the development process.

Castrol has a separate deal with Jaguar, however there is no crossover in development between the teams.

Renault and Toyota share a strong technical presence at the track with Elf and Esso respectively, although Toyota's Esso deal raises some questions. The Esso brand is owned by ExxonMobil, a parent company it shares with Mobil - a McLaren supplier.

While oils would presumably not be compatible between the Mercedes and Toyota engines, fuels possibly would be.

Splitting the fuel development would obviously save some money. So do they do it?

"This is obvoiusly proprietary information," replied an ExxonMobil spokesman.

BAR does things a little differently. The Honda powerplant lives on Elf fuel and Nisseki Oil. The development program is similar, but according to Honda Racing Development

Vice-President Otmar Szafnauer, most of the team's fuel and oil analysis is conducted away from the track.

The team also has access to technicians, but they only attends Grands Prix as needs arise.

All of the teams with customer fuel deals use Elf, which means that the French company supplies a total of nearly half of the field Renault (in a manufacturersupported capacity), BAR, Jordan and Minardi. Elf sends a minimum of two technicians to each race, who juggle the needs of the four teams over the course of the weekend.

Customer teams enjoy fuel updates- but not on a Ferrari scale.

"The fuel is updated at least once throughout the season," said Jordan Team Manager Tim Edwards.

"Elf send regular test samples to Cosworth to try, and when a better product is found based on power, consumption and density it then has to be signed off for reliability."

Which leaves Sauber, and a mystery. Sauber, we all know, buys engines from Ferrari engines that have been designed hand-in-hand with Shell.

Sauber, however, uses Petronas fuel and oil. So how does Petronas come up with an oil that is compatible with the engine?

MNews wondered whether Shell provided a basic blueprint of an oil sample to Petronas, and let the Malaysian company take it from there, but Shell denied that this was the case.

So how do they do it? "We don't know," shrugged a Shell spokesman.

We asked Petronas and were still awaiting a response as this issue went to press.

-MARK GLENDENNING

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Dyer straight Question: Which Austraiian has won 10 Formuia 1 Grands Prix this year? CHRIS LAMBDEIM caught up with Michaei Schumacher's race engineer Chris Dyer at Siiverstone

MOTORSPORT NEWS: Michael and your good self are putting together the most amazing run of wins for a long, long time. Why is your superiority so clear cut?

CHRIS DYER: The car is fantastic, obviously. Michael is in great form; hasn't made too many mistakes: the team has made a lot of good decisions in terms of strategies. We struggled a bit at the start of last year on that side of things, but we're pretty on top of that now.

The tyres have been really good this year. Bridgestone did a fantastic job over the winter and we've really had some great tyres this year - even at the 42

places where we have traditionally struggled with the higher temperatures.

Great car, great driver, great tyres, great strategy ...

MN: Pre-season, the 'experts' were suggesting that the weak link might be the tyres, but Bridgestone clearly made significant progress.

CD: We worked hard over the winter, although it's difficult at

that time because we often test on our own. Even when we do test with other teams, it's difficult to work out exactly what's going on and where we stand in relation to the other teams. It's usually Melbourne before we get a really clear idea.

I always get a little bit amused at people making pre-season predictions based on what's happening in testing. We're inside, and we don't have any

u

I can only see from the job he's doing that he's as dedicated today as he's ever been. He's working as hard as he ever has It

- Dyer on ‘his’ driver, Michael Schumacher

idea! How people on the outside can have such a good idea always surprises me ...

MN: For someone with your race engineering background, starting back at HRT,this has to be the almost perfect job, doesn't it?

CD: I'm very, very happy doing what I'm doing here at the moment. When i occasionally think about what else I might do in the future. I've got no ideal I really can't see beyond this. I'm enjoying it and it's going well.

MN: There's a degree of continued on page 42 niotorsport news

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continued from page 40 job he's doing that he's as dedicated today as he's ever been. He's working as hard as he ever has.

From that point of view, there are certainly no obvious signs to me that he's thinking of hanging up his helmet.

MIM: From a design/ engineering point of view, how far down the track is Ferrari with next year's car?

CD: Well, it's a bit tricky at the moment, because we don't yet know exactly what next year's rules are going to be! Normally, around this time of the year, we're starting to make some concrete moves towards next year's car.

Conceptually, I guess, people have been thinking about it for a while, but around now we start doing concrete work towards next year's car.

We're in a lucky position, the way the championship is at the moment, that we don't have to The company car.

Ferrari's F2004, right, is 10 and 1 for the season, thanks in no small part to the man from Kerpen and the bloke from Bendigo, right.

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motorsport news

FORMULA focus too much on this year's car now! So we can devote more energy in to next year's car earlier than we could last year, when the championship was much closer.

MN: From a personal point of view, are the proposed new regulations, with the push for cost-cutting, increasing the 'entertainment' and so on, going in the right direction for Formula 17 CD: The cost thing is a valid argument. Certainly it would be nice if we could encourage more teams to get involved. For sure, that would make the sport healthier.

As to how we achieve that... there's still an awful lot of discussion going on.

There have been an awful lot of changes made to the sport over the past two or three years and you can argue how much those changes have actually helped the sport. For example, we had a situation in qualifying

here which was pretty ridiculous - but that's forced upon people by the rules.

So I think you have to be very careful when you mess with the rules to artificially create entertainment - you run the risk of what happened this weekend.

It was crazy to see people going out for prequalifying to go slowly.

At the end of the day you have to be at the front of the qualifying. If you deem the way to do that is not to go fastest in the first session, then ...

MIM: Looking further forward, to the likely introduction of the 2.4 litre engine,there are teams out there, it seems, already planning, designing.

There are even rumours that one company has a prototype running already. How is Ferrari approaching it - do you have people thinking 2.4 already?

CD: One of the reasons behind the decision for a 2.4 litre V8 is that there is not actually that

I think you have to be very careful when you mess with the rules to artificially create entertainment... It was crazy to see people going out for prequalifying to go slowly" - CD on what happened in Silverstone’s zany qualifying session

EQ

much work involved. By using that capacity and that configuration, all of the work that we've done on the current VI0 is still completely valid.

In a lot of ways, it will just be a case of knocking two cylinders off the VI0! It does entail allnew components, but the fundamental basic design of the engine (which generally you base around one cylinder) won't change that much.

I'm not involved on the development of the engine, so I couldn't comment on exactly what they're up to, but I'm sure we've got people thinking about it already.

MN; Do you retain any interest in what's going on back in Australia, or are things just too busy?

CD: I do keep an eye on the (V8) races and keep in touch with a few guys at the Flolden Racing Team every now and again.

MN: On a personal note, you and your wife live near Maranello, living the Italian lifestyle ... do you enjoy it?

CD: Yeah! It's a nice place to live - I just wish I could spend more time there!

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1 HAT should 1984 be remembered for? The Los

Angeles Olympic boycott?

Apple's unveiling of the Macintosh?

Popstar Prince in his prime? Or the last of the 'Big Bangers' at Bathurst?

The Motorsport News team thought about this, and after careful consideration, we reached the conclusion that we'd take any chance to reminisce on 'big bangs' from 20 years ago...

1984 was the end of a chequered era in Australian Touring Car racing.

The locally-developed Group C concept of flared guards and wide wheels was given its death sentence

by CAMS in mid-1983 when it announced that the Australian Touring Car Championship would run under FISA's international Group A rules in 1985.

It was a move driven by Australia's emergence as an international identity and the homologation nightmare brought on

by the ever-changing and confusing rules in place. Also, the 'Big Bangers' were beginning to be called 'pre historic' and CAMS didn't see the public's interest being retained in a 'by-gone' class.

This effectively forced all teams to start 1985 with a clean sheet of paper.

It also spelled the foreseeable end of the famous Falcon versus Commodore wars.

In Group C, particularly 1984, the variety offered at the front of the field was mouth-watering. The traditional Commodore and Falcon rivals were the popular front-runners, headed by the mighty Holden Dealer Team and Dick Johnson's privately-owned Greens Tuf Ford Falcon. Nipping at their heels was a bunch of Mazda RX7s, Nissan Bluebirds and BMW 635Csi, boasting impressively credentialed drivers and teams.

It was a year the old favourites of touring car racing swept all before them. Johnson claimed his third

ATCC, Allan Moffat took his second Endurance Championship in his Peter Stuyvesant factory RX7 while Brock and Larry Perkins won their third-straight Bathurst 1000.

Group C was truly unique in category.

Noa championship the world had locally-produced V8s racing against Japanese rotaries and turbos or 3.5 litre BMWs. But rulemaking was a frightening prospect and CAMS were continually at loggerheads with competitors who hankered for homologahon freedoms, particularly the Mazda and Nissan entrants.

Queenslander Johnson was at the forefront of the category 20 years ago, and midway through '84, was concerned for his team's future.

"CAMS went out and basically wiped the slate clean," Johnson claimed of the switch to Group A rules.

"Our car became useless so we had to throw it away and start again and

that was the difficult bit at the time.

Being able to find enough funding to be able to continue the business was tough."

Budget shortfalls were a problem for some, but not the tobaccosupported Marlboro/HDT, which built two brand-new VK Commodores with just four races of the era remaining ...

The cars, wild looking on the outside, were forced to remain virtually standard on the inside, complete with door trims, window winders and passenger seats. Johnson laughs at the engineering standard of the time compared to today.

"Those things were pretty agricultural by comparison to what we have today," he said.

"They had an awful lot of standard parts on them which really made them a difficult thing to engineer, not that there was a particularly great amount of engineering going on in that time. There was more hit and

●I

I

■F^.

Brock/05/Factory Holden: The more things that change, the more stay the same. 'Perfect Pete' returns for a final crack at Mountain glory in '04.

46

If you build it, an ATCC will come: lim Richards persevered with an under-performing BMW 635 in '84, but '85 was a different story ... motorsport nows

R ETROSPECTIUE

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Eras come and eras go. Just like winners, losers and 'Big Bangers' GRANT ROWLEy jumped in a time-machine and looked at the final year of Group C racing in 1984 miss than anything else.

"The cars were getting faster, but there weren't exactly hanging on to the ground as good as they should because of the lack of aerodynamics.

"That was also the early stages of power steering as well and finding a pump for the stuff we were doing was difficult. At Lakeside 1 drove two thirds of the race without power steering."

If Johnson thought his power steering problems were bad, then he's probably glad he wasn't running a Bluebird.

difficult venture. With the production of the Bluebird ending in '84, the car and program were parked to prepare for a grand Nissan attack in 1986.

Jim Richards competed in his JPS BMW 635Csi, which was one of the only cars at the front of the Group C field eligible to run in Group A the following year. With some heavy modifications, the BMW's thirst for tyres hampered their efforts ... but there was light at the end of the Group C tunnel.

The Frank Gardner-run BMW

The factory Nissan team never seemed to reach its potential and struggled with unreliable turbos.

Rally maestro Howard Marsden and Fred Gibson were the organisation's brains-trust, but the Datsuns scored little success in the hands of George Fury and Gary Scott.

To prepare for the endurance races that year, the team took a mid-season sabbatical. Fury's pole lap at Bathurst (2ml3.85s) was the highlight of a

squad used the same car in Group Aspec in '85, which took 'Gentlemen Jim' to a record six wins in-a-row that season. The following three ATC Championships saw Richards take two crowns.

Out of the 64 drivers who scored points in the '84 ATCC, three of them will compete at Bathurst in 2004 and only one of them is a regular V8 Supercar steerer.

Glenn Seton made his series debut

in a Ford Capri and finished 14th.

Brock and Richards are the only other driving survivors of the past two decades.

Allan Grice holds the privilege of being the last person to win a Group C race when he claimed victory in a one-off event at Baskerville in Tasmania. Brock won the final 'official' Endurance Series race at Adelaide International Raceway in November.

Johnson, the perennial privateer, says the knowledge and technology that is available today is simply light years, not 20 years, ahead of '84.

"If we knew then what we know now, we'd have at least another 150 horsepower, extremely reliable gearboxes and a completely different suspension design," Johnson said.

"Things have changed so much in 20 years with materials, machinery, it's just amazing how things have come along and the changes that have happened."

fans at the end The feeling of the 'Big amongst Banger' era was mixed. In '84, a Falcon won the ATCC, while a Commodore won Bathurst. In '85, a BMW won the series while Jaguar took the holygrail. It didn't seem fair to the punters on the hill who lived and breathed for Aussie V8s.

CAMS copped a huge amount of flack before and after the introduction of Group A, however, the governing body persevered longer than what they probably should have with Group C. In hindsight, was CAMS on the right track with the formula and what the public wanted? Look at today's V8 Supercars. Aren't they just fancy, rehashed Big Bangers?

After '84, the next eight years saw Australia's premier sedan category run under the international formula, until the country's undying love for V8s prevailed. It's only been up and up for local motorsport since ...

i Fast and fragile: George Fury was Nissan's stalwart in the early '80s. The Bluebird's turbo couldn't handle the strain it was placed under though.

21 July 2004

Moffat's Mazda: Allan Moffat and Gregg Hansford were in charge of Mazda's factory assault. The pair finished third at Bathurst in '84.

m

That old one-two feeling

STATISTICALLY, it would be fair to say that Holden and its factory Dealer Team dominated the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst prior to 1984.

From the previous six attempts at the Great Race, Peter Brock had won five of them, which in today's climate is unlikely to be surpassed.

But one feat that the Holden Dealer Team had not achieved in their 17-year existence was a one-two victory on the mountain.

That was until September 30, 1984, in the last 1000km race under the Group C regime when Brock and Larry Perkins engineered a one-two finish in the 05 dayglocoloured Marlbaro Commodore. Backed up by John Harvey and Tasmanian David Parsons, the Holdens had speed and reliability to match their wild and modern colour scheme.

But compared to the previous two 1000s, HDT didn't quite have things their own way.

George Fury and his Nissan Bluebird did the unthinkable in qualifying. During the 'Hardies Heroes' Top 10 shoot-out, 'Farmer George' posted the first sub-2m14s lap time to claim his maiden mountain pole. Only Greg Murphy's recent 2m06s

lap dropped so many jaws ...

In the race though. Fury fell out with differential problems.

The start of the '84 Classic will be remembered for the pit straight pile up involving Tom Walkinshaw, John Tesoriero and Peter Williamson.

Walkinshaw's Jaguar stalled on grid 10 with a blown clutch and became a sitting duck as the 54 cars behind him tried to dodge the Jag. Tesoriero (driving the ex-Kevin Bartlett Channel Nine Camaro) slammed into the back of Walkinshaw, and slewed sideways into the path of Williamson's Supra.

After the race, Allan Moffat demanded that the rules should change to allow a warm-up lap, not just a parade lap. It became the last Bathurst without an official warm-up lap.

The only challenge to HDT came from Falcon runners Dick Johnson and John French, the 1981 Bathurst victors.

Johnson led the race during his early double stint, but the Greens Tuff effort fizzed with fuel and tailshaft problems.

Allan Grice and Steve Harrington threatened in their Roadways Commodore, until Harrington damaged the car in an altercation with the wall at Hell corner.

With Brock and Perkins two laps in front, the battle for second place between the second HDT Commodore, Moffat and Gregg Hansford's Mazda RX 7 and Warren Cullen and Alan Jones in the Kmart Commodore, above, was the main interest.

'Skippy' Parsons took the reins in the #25 HDT in the final stint and stalked and caught Hansford and Jones.

Hansford secured third, giving Allan Moffat his last Bathurst podium. Cullen and Jones looked a likely podium until late fuel dramas restricted them to fourth.

Where did they retire?

AFTER the 1984 season, the majority of the cars at the front of the field were unusable under the new

- ighg

Group A rules.

This meant that some of the cars turned into Sport Sedans, while others were safe-guarded by their owners or investors.

Dick Johnson's

For the first time, only two classes were contested in the Great Race. While Group C had its final fling, the new-for'85 Group A cars made up a small portion of the field.

Mobil debuted on the Australian racing scene when they backed the two-car team of Rover Vitesses entered by Rover Racing, top. The cars dominated the class, with Jeff Allam and Armin Hahne finishing 12th outright.

Best of all though, Mobil's toe-in-water exercise proved great for Aussie racing. They haven't left since ...

- GRANT ROWLEY

championship-winning car remains in his workshop (complete with sheep-skinned seat covers, of course)and one of Moffat's RX 7 is tucked away in the safe hands of David Bowden.

The ex-HDT Commodores were reunited last year after the Bathurst-winning machine spent some time in England.

The other car is housed in the National Motor Racing

Museum at Bathurst for the public's perusal.

Allan Grice's Roadways VK, left, survived the past 20 years and lives with a Melbourne collector.

The Slick 50 Mazda, campaigned by Peter McLeod, still sits in Sydney and might compete in selected retro Group C events in the near future, which is a logical play ground for these great cars, moiorspon news

i'

RETROSPECTIUE

Podium every race - Beat that!

THE Australian Touring Car Championship - 1984-style - was one of those series where if you were in it, chances were, you had a good chance of winning it. it was a far cry from today's V8 Supercar Championship, where you could never expect to suit up and run in the top 10 immediately. But in 1984, doing just that was common practice.

In the seven rounds of the national

series(where your worst result was dropped),six drivers took round victories but Dick Johnson's Greens

taken his fourth crown in '84 after he

consistency. He finished on the podium in every race.

Peter Brock probably should have

Tuf XE Falcon eventually was a clear winner through perseverance and

Willmington got tangled, which sent Moffat sliding across the outfield.

His Mazda crashed to a halt at tlie

won the opening two rounds at Sandown and Symmons Plains. The VH Commodore was convincingly faster than its Falcon, Bluebird and RX7 rivals, but the lure of a Porsche 956 at Silverstone and Le Mans in

base of a concealed tree stump where the expat-Canadian broke his lefthand knuckles. The car was a write off and 'Aussie Al' did not compete in another ATCC race until April 1988.

endurance events tempted Brock and team-mate Larry Perkins off-shore and out of championship contention.

Brock amazingly still finished second in the series!

Johnson won that race and sealed his third national championship crown in the penultimate round at Lakeside Raceway.

Slick 50 RX7 driver Peter McLeod's

Reigning Champion Allan Moffat creamed the pack at Wanneroo in the third round but the series took its

The final ATCC Group C event: Allan Grice won the race from Brock and

true shape at Surfers Paradise(no kiddies, not the street circuit).

On a wet surface, Moffat, John

Johnson at Adelaide International Raceway.

Harvey and a lapped Garry

championship consistency netted him an unlikely third overall, ahead of the Kmart Commodore of Warren Cullen, Jim Richards and Andrew Harris.

- GRANT ROWLEY

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49

Anyone for The records keep coming for Michael Schumacher in England, the German master used less stops, not more, to out-think the opposition. JOE SAWARD reports from Silverstone

HE result of the British Grand Prix was not really about the cars, but was rather more to do with tyre temperatures.

British summers are famously poor and this year was no exception, with the temperatures at Silverstone surprisingly low. This means that Bridgestone tyres tend to perform better than the Michelins. EarUer in the year, we saw the same pattern repeated several times but in recent months, we have forgotten how important temperature can be.

One might argue that Kimi Raikkonen finished second,only a few seconds behind Schumacher but that was the story on paper. The true picture was very different. Michael would have been 30 seconds clear were it not for the fact that a Safety Car wiped out much of the advantage that he had built up for himself earlier in the race.

In short, this was a massacre...

The tyres in Formula 1 inperformance 2004 is such of a complicated issue that no-one seems to agree on very much.

There are some who think tliat Michelin has better tyres. They have explosive performance over one qualifying lap and then have three or four quick laps before they begin to tail off. They then remain consistent for a decent length of time,depending on whether or not tire car in question uses the tyres efficiently or not.

The Bridgestones, on the other hand,lack tire initial performance but over the longer runs, they lose less performance, which means that towards the end of a ruir, the Bridgestone cars tend to be stronger and if the car had the fuel capacity to go further than the Michelin runners should be able to gain an advantage.

Much depends on the car and great deal on the driver.

The reason tlrat Michael

0

TBI? But the Ferrari was ahead and that

Schumacher keeps on winning is that he has the best car and is the best driver. His racecraft is unmatched. He

was all tliat mattered. In the laps that followed Raikkonen was stuck behind

is not always the fastest driver in qualifying but in a race, he is truly remarkable.

At the start of the British GP, Raikkonen got away well and went away from the others. Rubens Barrichello held back Button and Schumacher but it did not seem like a

Michael. He could not pass and everyone else was further back, messing about with those who were going for U\'o-stop races.

By lap 23,it was becoming clear that Schumacher had a much heavier fuel load than the McLaren and it began to become clear that the Ferrari was not

situation that was going to last for long and sure enough after a few laps Barrichello came back at Raikkonen

going to stop three times. Five laps later, the inevitable happened and into the pits went Raikkonen and Barrichello.

Kimi was still second but Rubens was in traffic, belrind tw'o otlrer cars.

Michael's lead was 23 seconds and it

and by the end of the first stint the two were close together.

The top three all stopped and there were Schumacher going faster and faster and not stopping. By lap 14 Michael's lead over Raikkonen was up to 21 seconds,just about enough to get him in and out of the pits. One lap later he went into pitlane, took on fuel and came out just as Raikkonen was arriving.

was clear that everyone was going to have to stop once again. The race was, to all intents and purposes, a foregone conclusion.

Barrichello was behind Raikkonen continued on page 54

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FORMULA ONE

Hands up if you won: Michael, above, was amazing in England, be and Ferrari out-running the opposition with flawless strategy.

Last chance: The Safety Car gave Barrichello a sniff at second but Raikkonen led him into the pits, below, and out again.

Welcome back: Fisichella, opposite, starred, taking sixth from the back.

lit

/

21 July 2004

QuaHtying

Hie Farcical and Silverstone was Qualifying at downright bizarre.

Uncertain weather on Saturday meant that teams found themselves in the odd position of not wanting to go too quickly in the pre qualifying session because the forecasters spoke about rain that was coming in the closing minutes of the final qualifying.

So the top teams wanted to have their drivers running early (but not too early) in final qualifying, to take advantage of the improvement in the track surface without getting into trouble with the rain.

Ferrari scored a 1-2 in France and so ran first and second in the pre-qualifying session. The team wanted to disguise the fact that it was trying to run in the middle of the qualifying

5CHUCO

session and so dreamed up the dubious plan of having Michael Schumacher spin and Rubens Barrichello run wide at Vale Corner.

Ferrari may have got the crowd stirring but it did not take long before it was clear that the other teams had not fallen for the ruse. They were less subtle about what they were doing and one by one lifted off the gas and cruised across the finish line.

"I don't see anything wrong with what I and many others did," Barrichello said later. "It is the result of the qualifying format. In a situation like this you have to be selfish and think of your strategy. We had a plan to slow down, but what's the point of showing people that you are going slower going up to the line? At

least we did it in a good way."

Down at the other end of the pitlane Toyota technical director Mike Gascoyne had a different view, describing the session as "a disgrace".

"It is unbelievable that the fans are let down in such a way," he said. He had a point.

One of the few men to do the right thing was Olivier Panis and he would run into trouble from the FIA Stewards for getting in Felipe Massa's way as he crawled around after his lap in final qualifying, trying to save fuel. Toyota did not warn him that Massa was coming and Olivier obviously did not look in his mirrors but to see him punished was a little much given that he had been one of the few to do the right thing and try to amuse the spectators.

The actual session proved toqualifying be pretty exciting with the clouds swirling overhead but no actual rain.

Kimi Raikkonen ran in the mid session and it all worked out for him. Jarno Trulli tried to oust him but the Michelins seemed to run out of grip at the end of the lap. The Bridgestones were doing the same.

At the end of the session Jenson Button went for pole in his BAR-Honda and looked to be on course until the final twisty sections where the car was sliding too much.

And so, strangely, pole position went to a McLaren.

The new MP4-19B is obviously a much better car than its blighted predecessor. The car is less sensitive aerodynamically and its rear

the Furious suspension has changed to make it more forgiving. The car has lost some of its nastier vices and so the drivers can do more. But a winning car it is not.

Rubens Barrichello ended up second fastest ahead of Button and Schumacher. Trulli was fifth but Fernando Alonso's sixth best time translated into 16th when 10 places were added because of an engine failure on Friday. This meant that David Coulthard moved into sixth on the grid, despite not having done very well in qualifying.

Williams was in a big mess all weekend and so Juan Pablo Montoya's seventh place was nothing to get excited about, while Marc Gene's 11th was

I

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FORMULA Grand Prix of

Great Britain

Jury 10 200* |6K Raikkonen West McLaren Mercedes 1:18^33 |2RBarrichello,SRA> Scuderla Ferrari Mariboro 1:18.305 *0.072 |9 J Button Lucky Strike BAR Honda 1rl8.S80 * 0.347 1 M Schumacher .L Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro in 8.710 ¤0.477 MRd Seven Renault F1 Team 1:18.715 +0.482 Is F Alonso MiU Seven RenaJt FI Team 1:18.811 ¤ 0.578 so Coulthard West McLaren Mercedes 1:19.148 +0.915

E J P Monto;

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8MWWilliarTBFl Team lri9.378 + 1.145 Lucky Strike BAR Honda Irt9.688 + 1.455 14 M Webber A

A Monty Python session: Rubens(and others) deliberately stuffed up in 'pre-qualifying', above, and Raikkonen took pole when it counted, below.

Sauber, irate because Panis really not good enough for a man in that car. Takuma Sato had got in his way, but still quite happy with the latest was eighth but that was not developments on the Sauber. good enough for a man in a Giancarlo Fisichella could how BAR-Honda. Thus it was that nothing because an engine Felipe Massa ended up failure put him down the back rounding off the top 10 in his and the Swiss team did not even bother with a qualifying run.

But for those who cared to notice the new Sauber rear 'as good.

Jaguar Racing 1:20.004 + 1.771 12 F Massa Sauber Petronas 1:20.202 + 1.969 l70Panls

nr.

K3 )■}

Panasonic Toyota Raong 1:20.335 +2.102 4 MGeno BMWWilliamsFI Team 1:20.335 +2.102

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Panasonic Toyota Racing 1:20.545 + 2.312 Jaguar Racing 1:21.559 + 3.326 19G Pantano ^i Jordan Ford 1:22.458 * 4.225 16NHeidf9ld(D Jordan Ford 132.677 * 4.444

5ft ww

continued from page 50 but closing in and Button had by now lost touch. Schumacher's second stop was on lap 37 and he emerged ahead of Raikkonen (as expected)but we knew that the Firm would stop again.

He was right up with Michael and fighting, but it was a pointless exercise.

But then came lap 40 and Jamo TruUi crashed heavily at Bridge Comer after his Renault suffered a rear suspension failure at 269kmh. The car spun around and went backwards into barriers and then spun like a top down the road, dissipating energy.

When it ran out of road and went into the gravel, the wreck dug in and flipped over but it came to rest the right way up and Trulli was soon able to signal to marshals tliat he was fine.

The accident left wreckage all over the road and a Safety Car was despatched, prompting anyone with a stop to do straight into pitlane. The two-stop men got royally screwed.

But it was not enough to help Raikkonen attack Schumacher. At the restart, Michael took off and there was nothing Kimi could do;indeed, he had to worry about Barrichello, who was closing up all the time.

"1 was not worried by Kimi's pace at tine start because I knew my strategy and,even if he had been ahead after my second stop, I would not have worried as he had to come in again," Michael said.

conclusion is that most of them are not

"I did not want to overdo it and just let the potential of the car do the work.

The car was going so well when I had an open track."

One can put whatever spin one wants on the result- but the conclusion must remain the same.

One should not analyse how weU Ferrari is doing rather than look at the failings of the other teams and the sad

At Williams, one must question the motivation of Juan Pablo Montoya because he just doesn't seem like a man who is desperate for success.

Marc Gene is a solid player but FI is not a sport for solid players.

Renault has good days and bad days and overall the engine is still

doing weU enough. BAR-Honda has a great engine and a good car but there are times when the set-up is not easy and Takuma Sato has been pretty inconsistent.

continued on page 56

Silverstone equals Speed

AS we have already seen this season, having only a week between races does not stop Formula One teams from making changes to their cars.

Silverstone still remains an important venue, due to its traditional fast layout that provides interesting data from an aerodynamic point of view for the teams. Even in the short space of time, there were some big changes, notably from Sauber.

The blue cars ran completely new rear bodywork, including an engine cover, main pic, to compliment the new front wing introduced in France. The main visible differences to the old version are the big hot air vents placed on the top of the sidepods (1) instead of the old position on the outer edge. This was possible due to the great height reduction of these elements.

The low height of the rear end is even more visible due to the big chimneys (2) that resemble the Renault ones, but are better profiled in comparison to the French car.

The rear end is very narrow and features a horizontal fence in front of the rear wheels, not dissimilar to the Renault unit introduced at Monaco, The whole rear now resembles the Renault while the front is Ferrarilike - the best of both worlds?

Another interesting change we spotted is the additional twisty winglet placed on the outer edge of the BAR sidepods. These have a clear function of dividing the airflow directed to the rear into two portions.

One part of the air flows outside the car to reduce the turbulence, while the internal portion is directed right on the rear wing to increase downforce.

54

even by means of the additional profiled flap placed on the top of the rear axle.

McLaren also ran with revised sidepods, above right, on its MP4/19B, an understandable change since the car is aerodynamically much different

to the 19 and Silverstone demands a very different aero package to Magny Cours.

The British track also places different demands on the cars, which burn an average of 2.8kg of fuel per lap. Theoretical top speed is 330kmh and the cars

run a maximum of 1600kg of downforce.

Brembo advises that the heaviest deceleration is from 295 to 125 kmh at Abbey corner, the cars shedding the speed in 124m.

- PAOLO FILISETTI motorsport news

FORMULA

I

NE

An ode to a fallen comrade: The Minardis ran in unsponsored livery in tribute to team manager John Walton, who died from heart failure the day before qualifying.

Is it? It's Jackie Stewart!

No Murray, it's Sir Stirling Moss, below left, catching up with everyone's favourite retired talker.

Umm, where is what's-his-name?

Former fiancee ofJacques Villeneuve, Dannii Minogue, checked in with BAR star Jenson Button, below centre.

I Well, HRT has those ugly wheels ...

Bridgestone produced a red tyre.

If) I below, in a promotion to aid the Relief.

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continued from page 54 lacking power and recently, Trulli seems to have lost the confident edge that gave him victory in Monaco.

McLaren looked good at Silverstone but we have yet to reaUy find out how good the new car really is.

"We have made a significant step forward," said team boss Ron Dennis.

"Our weekend is a great boost for the entire team who have worked so hard to achieve the difficult targets that we had."

But Mercedes racing boss Norbert Haug wanted to make the point that the team still has a way to go.

"We are not there yet," he said."But we are close."

The performance that put everything into perspective was that of Giancarlo Fisichella, who started at the back and would probably have been fifth but for a small problem with the pneumatic system needing to be refilled at the final pit stop.

"It was fantastic," Giancarlo said later "I would easily have beaten Montoya for fifth."

Sixth was good for a Sauber and with Felipe Massa ninth things were looking much better than they have done at other races,indicating that the car is a lot better than it used to be.

Some of that is down to the tyres at Silverstone but a lot of it was due to the new aerodynamics at the rear of the car.

iir

out because of the Safety Car incident which negated the advantages of the fwo-stop strategy.

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Grid 1

KR

2

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3

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July 11 2004

Results 60 laps/308.355km

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1:24:44.830

1:19.554

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1:24:45.814

1:19.296

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1:24^.873 1:24:55.588

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1:25:02.368

1:20.547

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1:25:06.401

1:20.768

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1:25:06.723

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1:20.442

1:25:16.436

1:20.790

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1:25:17.003

1:20.434

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1:20.768

35

Klien

59 laps

1:20.956

10

15

Heidfeld

59 laps

1:21.730

17

16

Bruni

56 laps

1:24.296

33

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39 laps

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Liuzzi has won five of the six races so far this year, the only failure being at the Nurburgring where his car was damaged on the first lap of the race. Even then he charged back up through the field but there was in no way he could challenge at the front.

The way things are going at the moment, Liuzzi will be beating all the records in Formula 3000 history and his future in FI seems to be almost secured. It is not clear yet where he will turn up next year but it would be amazing if he were not in a Sauber, a Jaguar or a Jordan.

Oh,they call him Toni. That will make life a little easier when - not if - he hits the big time.

- JOE SAWARD

Grand Prix of Great Britain

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THE favourite for this year's championship has won all but one of the races this season in his red car. And no, we are not talking about Michael Schumacher.

In the 20th season of Formula 3000, no-one has ever enjoyed the success that is currently being achieved by Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi.

In his second season of Formula 3000, Liuzzi started the year as the favourite to win the FIA International Formula 3000 Championship but his success this year has been much more stunning than anyone expected it would be.

Even the Arden International team seems to understand that they have a driver who is a bit special.

Mark Webber's eighth place was not a bad effort and it would probably have been seventh if he had not lost

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DNF Panis

29 laps

1:24.317

12

DNF Baumgartner

16 laps

1:23.131

4

15

Drivers’ Championship: M. Schumacher 100,

16 17 18 19 20

Barrichello 74, Button 53, Trulli 46, Alonso 33, Montoya 29. Raikkonen 16. Sato and Coulthard 14, Fisichella 13, R. Schumacher 12. Massa and Panis 5, Webber 4. da Matta and Heidfeld 3. Clock 2, Baumgartner 1.

Constructors’ Championship: Ferrari 174, Renault 79.

BAR-Honda 67. BMW.Williams 41, McLaren-Mercedes 32, Sauber-Pelronas 18, Toyota 8, Jordan 5, jaguar 4, Minardi 1.

moiorspon news

FORMULA

j'7 2JJ 1 y B J’JBs'

British GPU

T

HEY don't give points away in Formula 1 these days.

With reliability in general having taken a major upswing this year, every single point earned by a team like ours is hard-earned, so from that perspective, Silverstone was a great weekend.

Everything went relatively smoothly. We picked the correct strategy - two stops - and our qualifying on that fuel load was as good as we could do.

I guess the only thing that didn't appear to go our way was the Safety Car period after Jarno Trulli's crash. In the case of Michael, up front and also on a two-stop strategy, it allowed his pursuer, Kimi Raikkonen, a second shot at him. Kimi was able to make his third stop under the Safety Car and get back out quite close behind Michael - and on fresh rubber.

In our case, it actually made little difference. Even without the Safety Car, I doubt we would have got ahead of DC during his final stop and Massa was on my tail before the double yellows came out.

My start, on this occasion, was spot-on and I got alongside Juan Montoya as we headed for the first corner, but I was on the outside and with half a wheel on the grass, so I didn't push my luck.

He got past Takuma Sato when the Japanese had a brief 'off', and I too was able to get him when we

came up to lap the Minardis just before our first stop.

From there on I spent most of the race ensuring I would keep Massa (the tyres on the Sauber were working brilliantly) at bay.

He got close, but not close enough.

A

s usual, it was a big weekend for Jaguar, being a very 'British' team, with plenty of visitors of all kinds over the weekend, from the Deputy British PM to World Snooker champ Ronnie Sullivan. It makes for a hectic time. For me, it's almost as flat-out off-track as my busiest race of the year, the Australian GP! Funny place, England. The day before practice was the coldest July day since records have been kept and everyone was sure the weekend would be affected. In the end the lack of rain, which threatened but never came, simplified things and allowed us to complete our tyre choice with two solid long runs on Friday.

In the end, we went for the marginally softer of our two quite closely-grouped options. There was something quite a bit softer which some of the other (threestopping) Michelin teams went for

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but, to be honest, our car seems to work better with the 'stability' the harder compound offers. So we didn't consider picking the soft tyre as one of our two options to test on Friday.

We did have to deal with a new phenomenon, discovering that the fronts were taking that bit longer than normal to warm to the task.

Because of that, our first 'green' lap wasn't the best - indeed it was lap two or three - which had us scratching our heads as we looked ahead to qualifying. The upside was that our times were very consistent, despite random gusts of wind that unsettled the car significantly at times.

By adjusting the tyre blanket temperatures and a couple of other things, we regained our first lap performance on Saturday morning. Knowing we weren't likely to be on the front three rows (with an opportunity to get clear before the first stops), even with reduced fuel load, we opted for the extra fuel and a two-stop strategy before qualifying.

The forecast was looking quite dodgy as pre-qualifying started so we had the sight of several teams, including us, slowing our lap to

'1 spent most of the race ensuring I would keep Massa at bavL He got close, but not close enough ri

NE

Those lips have some downforce: Webber was solid in qualifying and the race in Jaguar's R5, bottom, and found time to discuss tyre compounds with British glam babe Emma B. ensure we were out early when it mattered. It raised a lot of comment, but while the system is what it is, teams will do whatever is required to maximise their qualifying chances. In the end it stayed dry anyway!

0

n a sombre note, the one massive downer over the weekend was the passing, after a major heart-attack three days earlier, of Minardi sporting director John Walton, who was just great during my time with the team.

'John-Boy' was, in Aussie terms, a great bloke and far too young, at 47, to go.

It was nice to get a point for our guys, but I must say that, in my mind, last weekend was for John.

It's hardest for those left behind which, in this case, includes his partner of over 10 years, ITV's pit lane reporter Louise Goodman.

Our thoughts are with her in particular. with CHRIS LAMBDEN

Simply Si The field wasn't huge - but the on-track entertainment was.

GRANT ROWLEY reports from a windy Sydney

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AUL Stokell has cemented his chance of claiming back-toback Nations Cup titles by taking a clean-sweep at a windy and cold Eastern Creek Raceway last weekend.

Mixed fortunes: Top, Stokell and Pretty staged a great weekend-long war. Above, the Koundouris boys went at it all day long.

Below, D'Arcy Russell's Viper led David Steven's and Ian Palmer briefly in the non-championship handicapped Race 3.

Despite the small grid at the western Sydney circuit, the quality of racing betv\'een Stokell and title rival Nathan Pretty made up for the poor entry list of just 10.

It was a tough old day for the Monaros. Nathan Pretty's weekend started on a high when he scorched the pants off Stokell's Lamborghini in qualifying. From there though, it all seemed to go dowirhill...

The Team Brock Monaro was piloted

by James Brock, who stepped into the driver's seat that has been occupied by his famous father Peter. It's the first time he has driven the car that he and the team built from scratch.

A revised format was also trialed at Eastern Creek. Like all meetings so far this year, three races were contested, but only two of them would score points towards the championship. The third race of the day was a non-point scoring affair which included a handicap start.

Stokell proved his worth as a reigning Champion in Race 1 with a a storming drive after an average start.

J Pretty attacked right from the word go and got the best jump off the 3- line. Stokell tried to go with him, but Pretty eventually muscled him out at turn three. Stokell was forced to run wide on the exit, which allowed Brock and Porsche GT2 driver David Stevens through into second and third respectively.

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It didn't take long for Stokell to dispose of Stevens, but he had to work harder to get past Brock.

Stokell's task was made easier when the front splitter began to break on the Monaro and James was forced to back off.

Pretty had created a nice gap for himself up front, but it proved to be not enough. His tyres began to fade with only a handful of laps remaining, and Stokell caught him in the blink of an eye. On the penultimate lap, the Clarion Diablo passed Pretty at the turn nine hairpin, and the rest is history.

"The tyres just went away at the end and I couldn't do anything about

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it," said a disappointed Pretty.

Brock salvaged third, well ahead of Stevens, Ian Palmer in the ex-24 Hour Bathurst winning Monaro and D'Arcy Russell's Chrysler Viper.

James and Theo Koundouris had a fraught dice for Trophy Class honours, which led to some heated words post-race. Brotherly love?

Anthony Skinner finished an untroubled ninth while John Teulan's Ferrari was a non-finisher after spinning at turn one on the second lap.

The first five laps of Race 2 were arguably the best of the series so far.

Stokell used his pole position to great effect, ousting Pretty through

turns one and two. But Pretty fought back, and the ensuing battle between the pair dice was fantastic. Turn one was the where Pretty stalked him. He tried the inside, the outside, but for the first four tours, he was unsuccessful.

On the next lap, he nailed it with the assistance of the tow down the Creek's long main straight. The Just Car Insurance Monaro set tlie fastest lap on lap five and pulled an immediately gap to the pursuing pack.

Pretty's race hopes and championship aspirations were dealt a critical blow on the last lap though when his car ground to a halt at turn five with electrical dramas.

"It's all over now," said Pretty.

"We were coming good at the end there, passing Paul and pulling away, but the car developed some electrical problem and wouldn't fire. It's extremely disappointing."

On the other hand, Stokell was rapt.

It's been good for us," claimed Stokell.

"The Monaro will have a little extra horsepower at the next couple of tracks so this result is handy."

Brock shadowed the lead pair the entire race and took advantage as soon as Pretty pulled into retirement.

Stevens picked up third,from Palmer,James and Theo Koundouris

and Russell.

Stokell took the third non championship race from Brock and J. Koundouris. Even the 34s handicap was not enough for the Trophy cars to get away from their faster rivals.

Pretty was a non-starter.

So Paul had a ball. Pretty wasn't at all and the Koundouris' avoided a brawl. Wakefield Park is the next stop for the Nations Cup series, where (hopefully) the grid quantity will match the racing quality.

Points: Stokell 422, Pretty 334, Stevens 191, P. Brock 158, J. Brock 120, Alan Simonsen 119, Palmer 106.5, Russell 79.5, Mark Eddy 66.

Trophy Class: T. Koundouris 288,J. Koundouris 266, Teulan 192

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GT PERFORMANCE

From Strength to Strength

F

OR the second round in a row, Ric Shaw took his Mazda RX7

to a round victory in GT Performance.

But at Eastern Creek last weekend, unlike the last round at Winton, Shaw scored a clean-sweep with pole position, a sprint race win and victory in the 22-lap pit stop event.

Shaw and Natior\s Cup victor Paul StokeU staged a great early dice in Race 1. At the end of the first lap, Shaw slipstreamed past Stokell, but the VW Golf R32 was straight down the inside of Shaw at turn two. The dice continued the next time around, but Stokell prevailed again.

The battle between the pair was very dose,but on lap four,StokeU codd not withstand the powerfd (and now reUable) RX7 and was passed into turn one. From there,Shaw pdled a big lead to take the win.

Stokell's team-mate Tim Leahey, who started from the front row, botched the start. The versatile

touring car driver made a solid comeback and almost pipped championship-leader Justin Hemmes on the line for third.

Local racer Garry Holt detonated an engine on Friday, but his team built a brand-new donk overnight.

He qualified and finished fifth in the first race. But compared to the leading guys,the Eastern Creek Kajting man was complaining of a

i

A Shaw thing: Ric Shaw has bounced back into series contention with a pair of round wins in his ageing but very fast Mazda RX7. lack of top-end grunt.

Driving the second Protecnica Subaru for his second GT-P start this year. Grant Park again showed maturity beyond his youth. He claimed sixth in Race 1 after being passed by Holt. However,Park held out the close attentions of defending Champion Mark King. The feature Race 2 offered a tactical element, but with no Safety Cars or interruptions, the key would be to get in and out of pits as quickly as possible.

Shaw's team performed a splendid stop and was never threatened throughout the race. The only hiccup in Shaw's perfect race was Stokell's brilliant start, but the red VW's glory lasted just one lap.

The first of the leaders to effect their stop was Holt, and his wheel change was sharp and fast.

Stokell was the first of the Golf's in, but the stop wasn't that flash. He rejoined behind Holt. Stokell fought his way past a number of cars to retake second place in the race and second overall for the round. Can he win two national championships in one year?

Leahey's pit stop was clean and he followed Stokell home for third overall.

The front of the field spread out as the event unfolded. The real dice centered around arch-rivals Hemmes and Holt. Holt tagging Hemmes on the final comer of the race, but the

positions remained unchanged and the pair finished fourth and fifth.

Bob Hughes continued his consistent season,coming home in an impressive sixth place.

At the start of the race. Park probably made the best start of anyone. But the youngster admitted that his Falken tyres were no match for the other Dunlop runners. His tyres faded and finished seventh in front of Bob Pearson and Mitsubishi duo Steven Knight and Gary Young.

-GRANT ROWLEY Points: Hemmes 318, Stokell 304,Shaw 267, Holt 186, Knight 179, Lynton 175, Floyd 173, Hughes 153, Young 148, King 146.

j■

●rr

Otrk Kfynsnuth

FORMULA 3

I

The only noise problems Karl Reindler had at Eastern Creek were the post-race celebrations NOT since Peter Hackett's 2001 Championship-winning season in Australian Formula 3 has anyone scored two poles, two races wins and two fastest laps.

That three-year-old record was re-written at Eastern Creek last weekend when Karl Reindler executed a superb clean-sweep at the windswept Sydney circuit.

And it couldn't have come at a better time. He was on course for a round win at Winton, until the officials intervened due to noise restrictions violations. The Western Australian made amends in the best way possible.

"The car was spot-on," claimed Reindler, but it went without saying. His results spoke for themselves.

By contrast, Ian Dyk made a meal of his home race. His weekend started on a bad note when he was disqualified from the second qualifying session for an air restrictor infringement.

In Race 1, he took the lead on the opening lap, only to have a gust of wind sweep him off line at turns 11 ad 12.

"It literally threw the car off 21 )Uly 2004

the track," said Dyk. Dyk regathered to finish second, but worse was to come.

The Sydneysider made a selfconfessed mistake with just two laps to go in the final race. The spin at the hairpin dropped him to sixth.

Championship leader Chris Gilmour kept his solid points haul ticking over. The Queenslander finished fourth in the first race, and took advantage of Dyk's misfortune to claim second in the final.

"I was looking in my mirror, hoping that as many people as possible would pass Dyk while he was on the grass," explained Gilmour.

Nothing like feeling sorry for a fellow driver!

16-year-old Kiwi Nic Jordan had his best weekend for the year, scoring a genuine podium in Race 2. He battled for the entire event with Aaron Caratti and John Pettit, and finished on top of both of them, despite running a Trophy Class car!

Pettit was strong in the first race and claimed third place, but was pipped by Jordan on the line in Race 2.

Production Car kid Chris Alajajian made his F3 debut on the weekend. He stalled at the start of both races, but pressed on to finish at the back of the front-runners. The speed he showed though in Race 2 proves that if he continues in the series, he will be one to watch.

Bent engine valves thwarted Daniel Pappas's weekend. He did not contest Race 2.

The next round of the series stays in New South Wales but heads south to Wakefield Park on August 7-8.

- GRANT ROWLEY Points: Gilmour 159, Reindler 147, Dyk 138, Pettit 101, Pappas 70.

Trophy Class: Jordan 174, Bevan Carrick 112, Bill Maddocks 104.

Form a line behind Mr Reindler here, please; Karl scored pole, won both heats and set a new lap record at Eastern Creek, top.

Above, Reindler's team-mate Nic Jordan claimed a podium finish.

But it was (unfortunately) one of those weekends for Ian Dyk at his home track.

A

CALCULATING win on the Rally of Argentina has allowed Spaniard Carlos Sainz to prove that like a fine wine, age brings maturity and quality that outshines the exuberance of youth.

King Carlos gave his younger rivals a lesson in rally mastery, chalking up his third win on the Rally of Argentina, 13 years after he recorded his first victory on the demanding South American event.

The win means Sainz again becomes the most successful rally driver in the history of the WRC, claiming his 26th career win and taking back the crown from the Colin McRae, with whom he shared the existing record.

When Sainz claimed his first win in Argentina back in 1991, he was aged 29 and many of his current rivals were still at school. Francois Duval and Mikko Hirvonen were just 11, while Sebastien Loeb was only 17.

Sainz's first win in Argentina came at the wheel of a Toyota in the year he clinched the first of his three world titles.

On this rally, Sainz was clearly more at ease with his Citroen than he has been since joining the French team at the start of last year. With more than a million passionate Latin spectators cheering him on,'El Matador' had all the motivation he needed to take the win.

Argentina is a rally that rewards experience and Sainz used his vast reserves in clinching a dominant win to notch up this record.

Sainz came home lm35s ahead of team-mate Loeb, delivering a Citroen one-two and boosting Loeb's lead in the drivers' championship to 17 points while giving the French manufacturer a 27 points lead in the constructors' title.

Sainz's dominant win masks what was a hard-fought drive by the Spaniard, who battled with Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm for much of the rally until the Finn was forced out near the end of the second leg.

It was Sainz's consistency, along with the failure of many of his key rivals in the first two days, that ultimately gave him victory.

"A win is always nice," said Sainz.

"If on top of that you get a record victory it's more special, and it has been done in a proper way "It's a big honour for me to get this win but it's not so much the number as the way it was won.

Records are nice to have but a good victory is even better. The fact that I'm winning again is more important than the number."

While Loeb lost time sweeping the road on the first leg, which ultimately prevented him from challenging Sainz, the Frenchman could not be too upset at the result, notching up more points to build his drivers championship lead to 17.

"What was important when Fetter 62

and Markko went out was to stay in this position," said Loeb.

"It was a very good rally for Citroen and for me it was very good too. Last year Carlos was faster than me here. He likes this rally very much - he's not too old!"

Francois Duval in the Ford Focus delivered a mature performance to take third place after team leader Markko Martin was eliminated in a horrific high-speed crash.

The Estonian was flat-out on a straight on SS5 when his landing from a jump went badly wrong. The Focus hit the ground nose-first, striking a rock that jutting out of the ground and barrel-rolling.

Both he and co-driver Michael Park miraculously walked away from the wrecked Ford and were taken to hospital for precautionary checks, but were released a short time later.

Martin put much of the blame for the crash at the feet of the FIA and the governing body's ban on gravel note crews. Martin admitted he had not seen the rock during the recce, and that it was not in his pace notes.

"The crash could have been avoided," he said.

"I didn't see the rock in the recce, but if we had a gravel crew checking the stages, they would have noted it and the accident wouldn't have happened."

The Ford was certainly on the pace thanks to a mid-season engine revision that apparently delivered better low-end torque, with further improvements promised ahead of Finland next month.

Fords prevented Fetter Solberg from making it to the end of the first day, but not the blue oval type. The hundreds of creek crossings in Argentina eliminated the Norwegian, thanks to the Impreza's propensity to scoop up water and gravel and suffer engine damage as a result.

Solberg rejoined the rally on Day 2 under the new SupeRally system.

However, he was forced to retire after suffering an oil leak on a road section mid-way through the day.

It was a severe blow for Solberg's Championship defence, but while the Norwegian was forced out his young team-mate Mikko Hirvonen survived the trial of the fords to deliver his best WRC finish so far with a fine fourth.

front wheel off the Peugeot. l "There was a right-hand comer with a rock sticking out of the bank, which we didn't have marked in our notes," said Gronholm.

"That took the wheel off, but we still could have finished the stage with three wheels. Unfortunately,the damage to the suspension also damaged the driveshaft, which broke the timing belt.

So the engine stopped and there was nothing more we could do."

Harri Rovanpera's fifth was a massive nine minutes behind the leader and it is now 14 months since Peugeot recorded a WRC gravel rally win. Ironically, that was in May last year when Gronholm won the Argentine event.

Before Gronholm's departure Sainz had a lead of 12.9s, but the retirement handed the Spaniard a lm37s cushion over his team-mate Loeb. With such a lead, Sainz eased off and let Loeb, Hirvonen and Rovanpera trade stage wins.

However at that point the fate of the rally was sealed and Sainz cruised home, picking his way through the rocks on Argentina's most famous stage, El Condor.

Local Argentine driver Luiz Perez Companc drove a fine rally in the Bozian Racing Peugeot 206 to claim sixth, ahead of Gilles Panizzi's factory Mitsubishi. Panizzi claimed two points despite losing a stack of time on the first leg with gearbox and turbo problems in the troublesome Lancer.

Earlier, Kristian Sohlberg in the other works Lancer, had been as high as fifth before a blown gearbox sidelined him on Day 2.

The WRC moves back to Europe for next round the fast and demanding spiritual home of modern-day rallying, the Rally of Finland,from August 6-8.

V- . f

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Sainz takes Argt

With Martin and Solberg out of the way, it became a two-way fight on the second day between Sainz and Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm while Loeb dropped back, unable to match the pace of the duo in front despite taking three stage wins.

Gronholm notched a string of stage wins early on Day 2, but after lunch Sainz launched a fightback, taking the next three stage wins before Gronholm was eliminated after clipping a rock. What seemed like a small error was actually a rally ending blow that ripped the rightmoiorspori news

Ulf RC

S P ow '■1!.

1 Carlos Sainz 2 Sebastien Loeb ■Daniel.Elena 3 Frangois Duval

E Citroen Xsara EIK-:4li23mn.0s Fra Citroen Xsara

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4 Mikko Hirvonen Fin Subaru Impreza l■UartnolLelit^nenfiflFin ,'CiI4h31 m38.'7si 5 Harri Rovanpera Fin Peugeot 307 ■RistolPJetilaiheh Rn [4h33m10.9si 6 Luis Perez Companc Arg

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7 Gilles Panizzi

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FrT~T>h'40m50.0sl| 8 Gabriel Pozzo Arg Subaru Impreza ■Daniel]Stilldi2f^ArglSS9E4K43m49.6s1 Drivers’ Points: Loeb 61, Solberg 44, Martin/Sainz 34, Gronholm 32, Duval 29, Hirvonen 18, Rovanpera 14, Tuohino 12.

Manufacturers' Points: Citroen 98, Ford 71, Subaru 64, Peugeot 51, Mitsubishi 14.

WRC 8 TURKEY

I the old boy yet

ntina as Citroen have a field day, as JON THOMSON reports

f

A

Conflicting fortunes: (From left clockwise), Martin was lucky to escape, Sainz was back in the winner's circle, Duval flew the flag for Ford, Sobiberg actually flew in a Mitsubishi and Hirvonen was just, well, Finnish ...

Mitsub-withdrawl?

FOLLOWING another poor showing in the WRC,where Gilles Panizzi struggled to seventh and Kristian Sohiberg was sidelined with transmission problems, Mitsubishi might make a strategic withdrawal from the WRC for some of the remaining rounds.

It’s all panic stations, as team manager Sven Quandt, right, is said to be on the verge of quitting the team.

The French press has cast doubt on Mitsubishi’s continued participation in the 2004 WRC with daily sports newspaper L’Equipe suggesting that the Japanese team may withdraw following the Deutschland Rally at the end of August.

Mitsubishi Motor Sports results have not been good since the

sutton-images.com

launch of the Lancer WRC04.

Moreover, the company’s image in Japan has been severely damaged by a number of corporate scandals and its poor financial position.

Quandt’s possible departure from the team has been the

subject of open speculation this season after a string of dismal performance including a couple of retirements on the opening stages of WRC events.

Quandt is no longer being quoted in MMS press releases or on its website, further fuelling speculation that he is set to leave the team he has been in charge of for the past two years.

The German motorsport boss, who is a member of the family that holds the majority shareholding in BMW, was drafted into the Mitsubishi post midway through 2002 and benched the team for 2003 as the operation attempted to come up with a more competitive WRC package. So far that competitive package has proved to be elusive.

Evans

Toyota ace wai

The Regie in WRC?

I either a 1.6 or 1.8 litre engine in road trim.

RENAULT is apparently considering an entry into the WRC from season 2006 onwards.

|.

Renault's possible entry in the WRC would I reverse the recent trend that has seen 3 manufacturers leaving the WRC in the face of rising costs and a climate of uncertainty set up by the raft of rule changes inflicted by the World Rallies Commission.

The French maker could possibly use its new Logan model, a car designed to provide cheap and basic transport for third world markets.

The French maker has not been involved in the WRC in any committed sense since the early 1980s when the potent Renault 5 Turbo, right, was a winner on tarmac events.

Despite having a target price of around $8000 as a road car, the Logan would enable the French maker to be able to showcase its performance credentials across the world using the car's silhouette combined with a turbo two-litre engine and

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a four-wheel-drive layout.

The Logan is a small four-door sedan or five-door hatch which will be powered by

Currently, Renault is the only major French brand not in the WRC, with both Peugeot and Citroen making huge gains in world-wide sales thanks largely to their involvement in rallying.

Should the Regie's rally plans come off, it would join Ford as the only manufacturer to be involved in both the WRC and Formula One. - JON THOMSON

Another regional car hurdle THE FIA has finally made a move to establish a formula for regional rally championships,such as the Asia Pacific title, after sitting on a decision for the past three years.

The latest idea is by no means a desirable fix to the problem of containing cost while improving tlie competition in regional rally titles.

The current plan could see World Rally Cars allowed back into the regional championships, but with performance limits so that they are no quicker than Group N cars.

The idea has not been received

favourably, as it does not address the problems associated with the cost of WR Cars.

Wliile the FIA has had the Australian Group N prototype formula, right, on the table for the last 64

two years, along with a concept for a 2.5 litre normally-aspirated regional rally car, pressure from some of the WR Car manufacturers who want to broaden the market for privateer cars seems to be mounting.

The FIA is proposing tliat the regional WR Cars he fitted with 30mm turbo restrictors, a restriction of 4mm and 2inm less than the Mitsubishi and

Subaru Group N cars.

Subaru boss David Lapworth felt that the proposal has little to recommend it but says that there is a case for a WRC2 class.

"Why would anyone want a WR Car with less performance than a Group N car but which still costs the four times the price of a top level production car?" he said.

-JON THOMSON moiorsport news

aims at return

Its to start in Adelaide despite breken leg!

5T

by JON THOMSON

3-

I INJURED Toyota driver Simon ^ Evans has taken his first faltering steps towards recovery and a possible start in the next round in South Australia in a fortnight's time.

Evans, who broke his femur just below the hip in a high speed crash in Tasmania last month,is already up walking with the aid of crutches and in fact drove himself home from hospital a fortnight ago.

How Evans fares when he gets back behind the wheel of a rally car in fast and bumpy stages is yet to be seen but he is super-confident that he will be ready.

"My surgeon said that I really just have to see how it feels when 1 get back behind the wheel. 1 expect there

will be some pain but it's really up to me to assess it," said Evans.

After a tough Tasmanian rally where two of the three Toyotas were badly damaged, Neal Bates' team is working overtime to have all the machinery ship shape for Adelaide and as a result Evans won't be able to test his fitness in the car until the week of the rally.

"We test the week before the rally and until then, I won't know what it will be like to be in the car on gravel.

A lot of decisions rest on how I feel once we get into testing," Evans said.

Evans is using a sports physiotherapist to hasten his recovery and fitness as he bids to retain a chance at winning he championship he led before the last round.

Lion ready to re-roar

PEUGEOT believes it has unlocked the key to a more competitive package for its 307 after a test in Finland last week.

Peugeot boss Corrado Provera is brimming with enthusiasm following the improvements to the cars, which have come as a major boost to the team's prospects in Finland next month and in the 21 July 2004

remaining rounds of the WRC, New diff settings and a new five-speed gearbox will debut in Finland after Marcus Gronholm and Hard Rovanpera had to make do with the much-criticised fourspeed box on the weekend.

"The drivers say that the car is now almost as easy to drive as the 206 was. So we are in a good way. I would like to think

the championship for us begins from now," said Provera.

"We have so many champagne bottles waiting that we need to open! The car has enough potential to make us believe that we can dream of winning," he said.

So why didn't they win on the weekend then?

-JON THOMSON

RALLYING

Line up for your shot at stardom WHILE there have been many talent quests in the world of circuit racing, rally enthusiasts have rarely if ever been given a chance to win a shot at the big time.

However, a new program launched by former Ralliart mechanic and rally driver Frank Barker could be the opportunity rally hopefuls need.

Search for a Rally Champion promises $125,000 in prizes, with the overall winner walking away with either a rally-ready Subaru Impreza WRX of Lancer Evo and $25,000 toward their competition budget for an overall winning package of $75,000.

Second and third prizes consist of lower-grade rally car packages while Barker promises a total of 21 prizes for contestants who sign up for the competition, including rally driving courses and trips to rounds of the WRC. "It is very expensive to go rallying these days and this competition is designed to discover talented drivers and enable them to go rallying for a fraction of the cost," said Barker.

"There is a lot of untapped talent out there and we want to give some of those undiscovered stars a head start."

Entry to the quest is $2390, with competitors tackling a variety of heats on gravel roads in the Oran Park complex near Sydney with the top-10 percent going through to a three-day final to determine he major winners.

Potential rally stars can contact 'Search For A Rally Star’ on (02)9999 3093 or visit the website at www.sfars.com n Malaysian driver Karamjit Singh was the victor in round three of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship based around Rotorua in NZ last week.

Singh is now just one point behind reigning Asia Pacific champ Armin Kremer after beating the German by 1 min 50 seconds in freezing conditions on roads that were made famous as stages on WRC events in the past.

"We lost nearly 30 seconds on the first stage as the lead car on day two, it was very slippery and frosty but it was worthwhile taking a consen/ative approach to ensure we made it the finish, his was a very important win for our team," said Singh.

Kremer's second place overall, plus SupeRally points for second on the opening leg and a heat win on the second leg delivered him 13 points to Singh's 14 and enabled him to maintain a one point lead.

Kiwi driver Mark Tapper, who was not registered for APR(3 points was third ahead of Japan's Katsu Taguchi while Italian Nico Caldarola in a Subaru, finished fourth ahead of Geof Argyle in a Lancer.

The APRC heads to Japan for a round that will run alongside the World Championship event in September.

- JON THOMSON 6S

Blockbuster Victorian oz woo n Speedway Season DESPITE the announcement last week that World of Outlaws founder Ted Johnson has regained control of the WoO,the Outlaws Downunder

^ event is not affected and will S definitely run next January in

I Sydney.

I Parramatta City Raceway I Managing Director Steven Green said last Friday that it is all systems go for the second running of the event. Problems with the ownership of the prestigious Sprintcar series will not affect the event, which is set

IT may be only July, but the anticipation is already building towards what promises to be a huge season of speedway racing as tracks and clubs try to lock down their calendar early.

The Sprintcar Racing Association (SRA)of Victoria has released some preliminary race dates for both its Eureka Garages and Sheds Open Championship and its 360ci Championship.

The biggest talking point already is the double-header State titles, scheduled for Premier Speedway (Warrnambool) on February 19. This will be a huge night of racing as the smaller-engined cars get to perform on arguably Australia's most feared and famous racetrack.

As a further incentive, this meeting also makes up part of a collaborative three-race series which encompasses the ANZ $10,000 Shootout on

February 26 at Warrnambool and the $10,000 Australian Sprintcar Stampede in Adelaide on March 5.

Premier Speedway General Manager Rob Harris and Speedway City Promoter Wendy Turner have joined forces to promote the threerace format with an overall bonus based on points won at all three meetings.

As an additional incentive, there will be a 'round the world' airline ticket to be drawn for any driver that competes at all three events.

The SRA also confirmed recently that the Eureka series is hkely to head back across the Bass Strait for another double header, possibly in March or April.

The Eureka Series is likely to be run over eight rounds with shows confirmed already at Avalon, Warrnambool and Simpson.

The stand-alone 360 series is penciled in for roimds at Horsham,

Outsider claims King's Royal JASON Sides claimed biggest win of his career last Saturday night when he took out the $ 50,000 21st annual King's Royal at Eldora Speedway, Rossburg, Ohio,in an event that saw many suffer deflated tyres.

The first major casualty was defending King's Royal Champion Steve Kinser, who was placed in second, had his right-rear tyre let go which saw the him hit the wall.

Only three laps after the restart, Chad Kemenah had his hopes deflate when he lost his right-rear tyre. He 66

was able to change a tyre and restart.

For the remaining five laps, drivers were pulling off left, right and centre, with Danny Lasoski, who was in the lead at the time, lost his right-rear tyre.

While all the hot favourites were falling by the wayside. Sides greeted the chequered flag to claim the win ahead of Rob Chaney and a recovering Chad Kemenah in second and third respectively, while further behind was Brian Paulus, Dean Jacobs and Tim Shaffer in sixth.

- DANIEL POWELL

Mildura, Avalon, Warrnambool and Wangaratta.

Following on from the success of the inaugural 360 National championship held earlier this year, the club and promoters have inked a two-night show for the 360s on January 7-8 which they hope will become a significant annual event.

Throw in other major races like the Presidents Cup, the Grand Annual Classic, above Inst season, the Kings Challenge, the Easter Trail and four rounds of World Series Sprintcars at both Avalon and Warrnambool and you've got an action-packed season that's scheduled to commence midNovember and will run through until late-April.

The SRA AGM will be held on Sunday 25 June at The Victoria Inn, 65/67 Douglas Parade, Williamstown at 10:00am.

- BRETT SWANSON

SYDNEY drivers Skip Jackson and Lynton Jeffrey tasted success recently for their first wins of 2004.

Jackson claimed the honours at Knoxville Raceway after he took command on the eighth lap after moving by early pacesetter Jeff Mitrisin and was never headed for the remaining distance, despite a gallant charge from second-placed Wayne Johnson. Third went the way of American-based Australian Jaymie Moyle third.

For Jackson, this was his 22nd win at the famed venue which has now elevated him to ninth overall in the all-time winners list at the venue.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey scored victory recently at Fluset’s

Tatnel t

A

NT Atkinson BEN Atkinson returned to Northern Territorian Sprintcar duties to score a feature race win at Darwin's Northline Speedway.

Atkinson did not have it all his own way as former National Speedcar Champion Warrenne Ekins showed class to claim all three heat race victories.

Mark Grosvenor led the feature race in the early stages, followed

by Ekins, Atkinson and Brooke David.

- PARIS CHARLES

T X V

motorsport news

lot affected by Ownership to run on January 13-15, The meeting next year is shaping up bigger and better.

"Over 30 American drivers have expressed interest in competing in the 2005 Outlaws Downunder event," said PCR co owner Brain Healey.

"I can't go to a racetrack in the USA without more drivers adding their name to the list."

The Parramatta promotion is committed to bringing out

15 American teams, some will miss out unless they make their own plans to compete at PCR. The inaugural Downunder event was sensational, producing the best Sprintcar racing seen in Australia and next season's event should be no different.

So despite the current problems will the WoO, the Outlaws Downunder is still on and tickets are now available.

- GREG BOSCATO

Speedway, Brendon, SD, when he led the entire 25-lap Interstate Auto Centre 410 outlaw Sprints event which was riddled with cautions.

After starting from position four Jeffrey quickly moved into command and was never seriously challenged on his way to victory ahead of Gregg Bakker and Mark Dobmeier in third.

Other Australian’s competing in the show were Kerry Madsen sixth after winning the B-main, while Jackson finished the feature further down the order in 12th.

Jeffrey's win was the third feature race victory of his career at Husets.

- DANIEL POWELL

Genuine Threats Paris Charles

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I's Upward Spiral AS reported in the last issue of MNews,Brooke Tatnell has been enjoying a welcome form reversal and has continued that on into the month July.

Back in his TropArtic #66, Tatnell had a good weekend when the O'Reilly/NCRA Outlaw Sprint Series hit Hollywood Hills Speedway on the July 2-3.

Tahiell made a good start to the weekend, taking the lead from veteran Texan Gary Wright on the

last lap of the feature race only to rim wide and have Wright take back the lead and the win.

Dakotas swing.

Next, Tatnell ran third in the dash and seventh in the feature but on the

The following night however, Tatnell made amends coming from fifth to take the win.

With the Outlaws at Husets, Tatnell claimed a solid a top five finish after starting ninth.

Two days later, he went one step better, taking fourth place in the Red River Valley feature as the Outlaws opened their Duel in the

final night rain, hail and lightning called the event after just 11 laps with Tatnell again seventh.

Probably one of his more gratifying results came just a few days later. Still with the Outlaws, Tatnell charged from 22nd starting position to a fifth place finish at Cedar Lake speedway.

- BRETT SWANSON

CALIFORNIAN-BASED Sydneysider Peter Murphy captured his first feature race victory of 2004 when he took out the Bandit non-winged '360' Sprintcar event at Santa Maria Speedway, Santa Maria on July 10.

Murphy claimed the 30-lap feature, hampered by a number of red light periods, ahead of Davey Pombo and,Jimmy Thompson in third. n Queensland Speedcar ace Barrie Valentino has been forced to return back to Australia due to his visa running out recently.

After having a number of dramas trying to get his car out of customs, Valentino, who planned an ambitious assault on the US scene last month, was forced to miss his first scheduled show.

Valentino finally had his first hitout of 2004 on July 10 at Placerville Speedway, Placerville in a Bay City Racing Association-sanctioned event.

In the 30-lap feature, he started from outside the front row and after a messed up start was shuffled back to fourth place. Moments later, the yellows were brought out for a complete restart. As the cars slowed, Valentino was still hard on the throttle and rode the right-rear of Peter Davis, sending the Queenslander into a wild series of flips.

Fortunately he was uninjured but took no further part in proceedings.

Hoosier Tire Australia 2004 WORLD OF OUTLAWS CHAMPIONSHIP Australian Distributors for

Xoo$irr ^ RACING TIRE

For more information on Hoosier Drag and Speedway Tyres call:

NSW:02 9679 1990 l Fax 02 9679 /187 VIC 03 9331 6417 l Fax 03 9331 7444 SA- 08 8332 0800 l Fax 08 8364 0296

21 July 2004

HARTFORD SPEEDWAY PARK

1.

2.

3.

4, 5, 6.

7.

9.

10.

. . Jason Meyers .. Donny Schalz . .. Steve Kinser . Danny Lasoski .. joey Saldana . Daryn Pittman . Paul McMahan ... Tim Shaffer . .. Kraig Kinser Craig Dollansky

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Jason Sides Brandon Wimmer . Dustin Dagggett Ken Mackey .. Mike Kertscher ... Erin Crocker Bob Bennett . ... Steve Meyer Norm Carpenter ... Brian Paulus

2004 STANDINGS TO 19/07/04 1. Steve Kinser ..

2. Danny Lasoski .

3. Donny Schatz .

4. Jason Meyers .

5. Craig Dollansky 6. Paul McMahan 7, Joey Saldana ..

8. Daryn Pittman .

9. Tim Shaffer ...

10.Kraig Kinser ..

.4900 .4834 .4698 .4681 .4668 .4506 .4498 .4475 .4468 .4415

11.Jason Sides 12. Brian Paulus ...

13. Erin Crocker . ..

14. Jonathan Allard .

15.Brandon Wimmer 16. Brian Brown . .. , 17. Brooke Tatnelll 18. Bob Bennett. ..

19.Mark Kinser .. ..

20. Brian Carlson ..

.4325 .4136 .3853 .3260 .3053

.mi .2490 .2213 .2036 1998

67

LOUIE Allison earned his first career IHRA Top Fuel victory. defeating John 'Doc' Sipple in the final round of the second Annual Motor City Nationals at Milan Dragway last weekend.

Allison, below, of Denver, Colorado, covered the quartermile in 4.924s at 286.32mph to defeat Sipple.

Al Billes took the win in Pro Modified while Rob Atchison and Rick Jones posted victories in their respective Alcohol Funny Car and Sunoco Race Fuels Pro Stock categories.

Reigning Champ Clay Millican, unbeaten this season, lost for the first time since August of 2003, as Sipple defeated him in the first round when Millican lost traction and could not get the potent Werner Enterprises dragster to hook up.

Millican did establish new track records of 4.586s and 313.07mph to lead qualifying.

Allison, driving for Michigan's Jack Ostrander, defeated Tm Cullinan in round one then scored a semi-final round win over Doug Foley.

"I really don't know what to say because I haven't won before," said Allison.

"This is absolutely incredible.

Ever since I saw my first AA/Fuel Dragster with a Hemi run, I knew I wanted to drive one. Today is the culmination of that dream. Jack Ostrander gave me the opportunity of a

Kalit

TWO-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Scott Kalitta scored his first win in more than seven years, defeating current points leader Tony Schumacher in the final round of

David Ostaszeuski

lifetime and now I have the Iron Man to prove it."

Sipple, after his shock first round win over Millican, defeated the number two man in points Bruce Litton in round two.

In Pro Modified, Al Billes, above, knocked off three former series champions en route to his first victory of the year. In the final, Billes defeated Mike Janis, 6.46/225 to a tyre shaking 7.21/164. With the victory, Billes moved into second place in the IHRA Hooters Drag Racing Series.

Earlier, Billes had defeated Fred Hahn, Mike Castellana, and defending series Champion Mitch Stott.

Janis, the low qualifier at 6.219s, advanced into his second final round of the year by defeating Wayne Torkelson, Pat Moore, and current points leader Harold Martin.

Jones recorded his first Sunoco Race Fuels Pro Stock victory of the season, defeating Elijah Morton's Ford Mustang in the final round on a 6.57/211 to 6.54/213 holeshot.

Jones, driving his QuarterMax Dodge Stratus, defeated Robert Patrick, Steve Speiss, and Frank Gugliotta to advance into the money round.

Morton, coming off a win earlier this season in Grand Bend, stopped Tony Gillig in the opening frame. He then knocked off two of the IHRA's Mountain Motor Pro Stock heavyweights when he stopped point leader John Montecalvo, and two-year defending series Champion Brian Gahm.

Atchison grabbed his first event win of the year when he five-time series Champion Mark Thomas in the Alcohol Funny Car final. Atchison held a slight edge at the start and maintained the lead to post a close 5.95/237 to 5.95/241 victory.

The next event on the 2004 Hooters IHRA Drag Racing Series is the third Annual ACDelco Nationals at Toronto Motorsports Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 30 August 1.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

the 25th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Denver last weekend.

Phil Burkart took his second Funny Car win of'04, while Pro Stock leader Greg Anderson and Pro Stock Bike rider Shawn Gann joined them in the Winners' Circle, Kalitta piloted the Jesse James/Mac Tools dragster to a final round 4.74/313 to drive around Schumacher, who carded a 4.81/305 in the U.S. Army dragster. Earlier, Kalitta stopped Bob Vandergriff, Doug Herbert, and Brandon Bernstein.

"1 had a friend riding with me today," Kalitta said, pulling a photo of Darrell Russell out of his pocket.

"For what we went through together, running against him in his last race, and for the way I was getting to know Darrell and become his friend this year, 1 can't explain in words how 1 feel about this, hut it does mean a lot to me.

"Consistency was key today and it's something we've been missing all season. 1 knew this crew was capable

I

Signing Off

Oj\ hi Osta-ii

TEAM Mopar has announced that three-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Darrell Alderman will sit out the rest of the season due to back problems.

Mike Corvo took Alderman's place at Bandimere Speedway during the Mopar Mile-High Nationals this past weekend, but failed to make the 7.224 cut.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI moiorsport news

RAG RACING

ta Flies High

I

I

of getting it done, we just needed it to all fall into place. I'm glad we broke out the new tyre here because you don't have much downforce coming into play at altitude. This was probably the best place we could have made the switch."

Schumacher was a bit off-pace the entire day, but was able to advance past John Smith, Larry Dixon, and Rhonda Hartman-Smith. The runner-

up finish helped Schumacher regain the points lead for the second time this year. He currently leads Doug Kalitta by 28 points.

Burkart, driving the Checker, Schuck's Kragen Chevrolet Monte Carlo recorded his third career win, defeating Cruz Pedregon in the final round 5.33/289 to a smokey, backpedaling,5.71/225. Burkart had earlier defeated Tim Wilkerson, reigning series Champ Tony Pedregon and Tommy Johnson Jr. Pedregon's first final-round appearance of the season for his Advance Auto Parts team came at the expense of Tony Bartone, Bob Gilbertson, and surprise semifinalist Robert Schwab, who was competing at his first NHRA event.

Schwab, an Australian native who is now calling Utah home,advanced

into the semi-final round by taking out low qualifier Whit Bazemore, who lost traction at the start and Eric Medlen, who also lost traction, allowing Schwab to drive past for the win and a trip into the semis.

Anderson continued his pounding of the Pro Stock crowd, this time defeating the Dodge of Larry Morgan in the final, 7.194/191 to 7.199/192.

Anderson left first and never looked back, as he put the new-look Summit Racing Pontiac Grand Am into the winners circle for the 10th

time in 11 final round appearances.

Anderson,low qualified for the event at 7.15s, and defeated Mark Whisnant, Ron Krisher, and team mate,Jason Line to head into the final.

Morgan looked good in front of his Mopar sponsors, defeating J.R. Carr, six-time champion Warren Johnson, and Kurt Johnson with a string of low 7.2s passes.

Gann defeated Craig Treble in the Pro Stock Bike final, taking a 7.65/174 to 7.71/172 victory.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

Safety Measures lightened ? NHRA officials notified Top I Fuel and Funny Car teams I of a new minimum tyre I pressure for rear tyres ^ beginning at the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver and the formation of a task force to evaluate and recommend short-term and long-term performance parameters.

In addition, NHRA announced a reduction on the percentage of nitromethane to 85 percent starting at the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals in Seattle this weekend.

Last week, a new Goodyear tyre was introduced for Top Fuel and Funny Car competitors and NHRA required roll cage shielding for all Top Fuel dragsters. As of last weekend’s Denver round, the minimum rear tire ' pressure, as recommended

by Goodyear, will be 7psi for 74^, > * '●* a Top Fuel and 6.5psi for Extra measures: Clay Millican's Top Fueller sported the new roll-cage Funny Car. - DAVID OSTASZEWSKI shielding last weekend 21 July 2004

ANDRA Schedule Released ANDRA has released the calendar for the 2004/2005 ANDRA Championship Drag Racing season.

These are the dates that you want to block out in your diary: WSID (Sep 24-27), Willowbank (Nov 5-7), Quit Motorplex (Dec 3-4), Willowbank (Jani), WSID (Jan 8-9), Quit Motorplex (Jan 29 *TBC), WSID (Feb 11-13), Quit Motorplex (Mar 5-6), Willowbank (Apr 23), WSID (May 1415) and Willowbank (10-12). n ANDRA Technical Qfficer Morrie Huckel left the Association on June 30 to concentrate on a newlyestablished performance parts business.

During his time with ANDRA, Huckel developed the ANDRA Fuel Homologation programme and the ANDRA Substance Abuse Policy. n Larry Kopp, who won the NHRA Modified Eliminator Championship in 1976 and the Pro Stock Truck title in 1998, passed away Monday July 12 after a long battle with cancer. He was 56.

Kppp had won 13 NHRA national events in both Modified and Comp eliminator, and five truck events during his championship season of 1998. n Joe Amato has announced that his Top Fuel team will return to the PQWERade Drag Racing Series at the 23rd annual Lucas Qil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minnesota.

Amato has not selected a driver to replace former pilot Darrell Russell, who was tragically killed on June 27 during the St. Louis race.

■ Jim Dunn Racing has signed CMKM Diamonds, Inc, as its primary marketing partner beginning in 2005.

The multi-year agreement will keep Dunn and the new CMKM/Lucas Qil Funny Car on the entire NHRA PQWERade series for the next several seasons.

No word yet on how this will effect the Jeff Arend Team, which has been backed by CMKM this season.

■ Following on from his recent return performance in Edmonton, Canadian drag racing icon Terry Capp has confirmed that he will make his NHRA in Seattle this weekend.

Capp will race in the newest incarnation of the 'Royal Canadian' dragster, which will be a car leased from Bob Vandergriff Jr, Ron Hodgson, a major shareholder in NHL team the Edmonton Qilers, will serve as Team Manager, while Rob Flynn will take on the role of crew chief. No less than 31 associate sponsors are helping to foot the bill.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI/STAFF 69

■anonal

scene

TEAM Brock's Damien White

Channel 7's weatherman Grant

grabbed another big haul of championship points after three podium finishes at round five of the V8 BRutes Series at Eastern Creek last weekend.

Denyer in Race 1, as polesitter Luke May was sent to the rear of the field with a weight irregularity. Denyer made a good start, holding the lead for the first three laps while Elsegood and Kim Jane diced behind him.

Elsegood was victorious, ducking down the inside of Denyer at the hairpin to take the lead. Star rookie Benn Wilson's weekend was finished after a scrap with Griffin ended up in tears - Wilson smacked a wall, and then his Holden caught fire.

Elsegood went on to take the win, followed by Denyer, White and Baxter.

Ford's Jack Elsegood is now second in the series after a great weekend, scoring a win and two second places.

After a couple of disappointing rounds, Holden's Gary Baxter was back on the podium in third overall for the weekend.

White showed his speed early in the weekend, qualifying 0.3s faster than anyone else. After drawing 10th on the grid, he managed to convert the Holden's speed into a third position and two race wins.

It was a lonely front row start for

The reverse grid second race promised plenty, and did not fail to deliver.

Pole was meant to be Wilson's, but

edtedby

Grant Rowley

in his absence. Coopers driver Chris Smerdon took full advantage from the second row. White slotted his Holden into second at the first turn, as the rest of the field followed

Elsegood back to fourth.

Ryal Harris and Griffin were caught up in an incident further back in the field, causing Griffin's Pedigree Petfoods Holden to beach itself in the

cleanly through. Marcus Zukanovic was the hard charger, battling with Baxter in the first few laps and then attacking Smerdon and turning him around. His prize was a drivethrough penalty.

White and Elsegood set the fastest laps of the race as Elsegood tried to hunt the 'Ice' man down, but in the end it was White's red Holden that

gravel.

The Safety Car slowed the field for h\'o laps, and restarted with White in the lead. Second placed Baxter held out Elsegood for two laps, but the Ford showed better speed and passed him on lap 7.

Charlie Kovacs and Adam

took the chequered flag.

Polesitter Elsegood made a dynamite start for the final 10-lapper, swapping the lead with White for the entire first lap. White lost half his rear bumper, but emerged in front on the second lap after their skirmish sent

Bressington had a great dice near the end of the race, but Kovacs' efforts were in vain as he and May were awarded each a post-race 30-second time penalty for passing under yellow flags.

- ERIN McCOWATT Points: While 367, Elsegood 310, Griffin 228, Baxter 207, Kovacs 188, Jane 182, Smerdon 177.

I 3

5.

2:

Eorward Power: Zukanovic continues to improve in the BRutes category.

70

A Touch and a Tiff: White gave Elesgood a hard time at Eastern Creek. molorsport news

N

NZ fema e n Formu a 16-YEAR-OLD New Zealand school girl Christina Orr will compete in the next round of the Formula 4000, Powered by Holden Championship at Eastern Creek on August 1.

The young Kiwi, right, will drive for pure.power motorsport, the team which Daniel Gaunt drove for briefly in his F4000 championship-winning season last year. She will compete in the rest of the championship, as well as the scheduled events in China later this year. The Sydney-based team is also keen to see her drive for them in 2005.

Orr got her first taste of F4000 power at Wakefield Park recently. She will test again shortly to prepare for her daunting debut at the Western Sydney circuit.

Orr holds the world record for being the youngest female

driver to compete in an openwheel category. She was just 12 when she saddled up in a Formula Vee. It will be the first time a

female has competed in the high-powered wings-and-slicks class in Australia.

New Zealand entries in the fledging F4000 series have

been common over the past two years.

In 2003, no less than three ran competitiviy up the front of the field.

Ford back BRutes Giugni takes lead

DAVID Giugni has taken the outright series points iead after round four of the Australian Porsche Drivers Chaiienge at Eastern Creek iast weekend.

Giugni finished second in both races to local GT3 pilot Anthony Skinner, but maintains the lead in Class A and outright championships.

Andrew Luxton is still leading the bid for Class B honors, and Greg Doyle has streaked ahead in his chase of the Class C trophy.

A noticeable absentee on Sunday was Bill Pye, who

Seymor! Skinner was too good at the 'Creek sustained minor injuries in an incident on Saturday. Victorian GT3 driver Matthew Turnbull, was a strong challenger, but did not finish either race.

- ERIN McCOWATT

THE Ford Falcon V8 BRutes sported new windscreen decals at Eastern Creek.

Now the familiar blue and white Ford strips adorn the front of the Falcon XR8 BRutes, matching the red Holden ones on their competitors.

It appears that both manufacturers are putting some weight behind the series, recognising it as an evolutionary feeder category to V8 Supercars.

Last year's V8 BRute Champion Warren Luff is now is the 'main game'and Dick Johnson Racing's junior development driver, Ryal Harris, drives a Ford, above, in the popular PROCAR category.

- ERIN McCOWATT

HSV back Karts Midgets and Rookies receive Australasian incentive

Tomorrow's stars today: Tony Fredricksen from HSV and a young karter.

21 luly 2004

The Australiasian Kart Titles has received a major sponsorship boost.

Holden Special Vehicles will back the Midgets and Rookies classes at the titles, which are to be held at Numurkah Raceway, 25km norh of Shepparton on September 18-19.

With the announcemnet of HSV as the first major supporter of the titles, entries are believed to swell up to around 300 with $7000 worth of prizes up for grabs.

For entry details, contact race secutary Julie Sibraa on (03) 58 832 297.

- GRANT ROWLEY 71

Mills I

by MARK WICKS

GOULBURIM'S Wakefield Park Raceway will have new pit garages built in time for the PROCAR Series round at the venue

time that Wakefield Park

on August 7-8.

Track promoter Garry Willmington felt that it was

have secure pit garages and be able to view the racing from the garages," he said.

updated its pit facilities to be on par with the majority of tracks around Australia.

"Now teams will be able to

Out of the 30 garages being built there will be a range of double and single pit bays, with the double being six metres deep and 10.8 metres in width, while the singles will be six metres deep and 5.4 metres wide.

BLAKE Mills cashed in at the recent City of Sydney Titles.

The West Australian pocketed a cool $1000 for winning the Rotax Light feature class at Oran Park recently.

Mills(CRG)was just one of the pace setters in a class field. Jace Lindstrom (Arrow), Geoff Grant (CRG)and Mills won the heats before Mills took the pre-final. Jason Hryniuk (CRG)and Ashley Arora (Arrow) were also quick. Lindstrom's chances evaporated when he suffered a flat tyre in the pre-final.

Mills opened a gap at the start of the final before Hryniuk closed up and took the lead. Mills kept the

Bright and Early Type D hopes fade New Formula Historic Association ready and willing to compete

Dj/o Rodgers

If we get big fields of these ... Alfredo Costanzo, a four-times Australian Drivers Champion, ivas a front-runner in Formula 2.

NEW historic group, the Historic Formula Atlantic and European Formula Two Association, already have plans underway to hold races programmed exclusively for these not-so-old open wheelers at historic meetings.

Driving the move are three keen historic racers from NSW,Bryan Miller, Andrew Fellowes and Colin Haste, who believe they can assemble a field of at least 34 carsand there are another 10 under restoration.

The trio, who formed the association recently, plan to run races exclusively for the Groups Q and R cars at a minimum of four historic race meetings in 2005 and are also working towards securing a support race at one,if not more, premier non-historic meetings each year.

According to Haste, an association is running successfully in Europe known as the Derek Bell Series. A similar 'big name' was sought in Australia and John 72

Bowe agreed to add his support to the local series (first reported in MNeivs #286).

Bowe was the CAMS Gold Star champion in 1984 and '85 driving a Ralt RT4 Formula Atlantic and the competition will be known as'The John Bowe Trophy Series.'

Details on how the points will be allocated are unconfirmed, but the organisers are proposing a points system that will favour all competitors, and not just the frontruiuiers.

The news is timely for the VHRR as it seems the booming Formula 5000s will not take centre stage at this year's Sandown meeting in November due to problems in shipping the New Zealand cars across the Tasman.

The VHRR is willing to offer stand-alone races for the new association, provided it can assemble a grid of 25 cars. The Sandown historic meeting is scheduled for November 5-7.

- BRIAN REED

IT was hoped that a 1930s Type D Auto Union would be seen in action at next February's Classic Phillip Island meeting.

The particular car being negotiated was unearthed in Czechoslovakia and has been totally rebuilt.

Apparently, the plans have fallen through due to problems in arranging insurance - the Auto Union is valued at over US$26 million ($36 million)!

- BRIAN REED

Mopar Fop Queensland THE July 24/25 weekend will play host to Queensland’s biggest historic racing weekend,the HRCC Annual All Historic at Queensland Raceway.

This year’s featured marque is ail things Mopar; Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth. Leo Geoghegan will be present with a replica of one of the Valiants from his days as Chrysler’s lead driver in the early 70s.

Group C, which has very quickly become a firm fan favourite, has a 16 car grid with a couple of new cars appearing. In addition to his 79 Bob Morris A9X, the Hintons will debut their recently restored ex-Barry Jones Mazda RX7. Also present will be pair of Celicas, one driven by Group C Celica driver, Doug Clark.

But Ford dominates the entry, with both the ex-Masterton Homes Capris joined by a pair of Bob Holden Escorts. Six Falcons will be there, including the recently-completed Dick Johnson

Bryan Byrt Ford Hardtop XC, one of six Fords to be fielded by former Bryan Byrt dealer principal of the era, John Harris. There is also a huge field of 53 Group N Historic Touring Cars.

Rob Sherrard has entered his mount-watering collection of Sports Cars, Ford GT40, Lola T70, and his Ford Escort RS200 Group B rally car. The meeting will also see some demonstration laps from around half a dozen historic Sports Sedans, a move signalled by burgeoning interest in the class and will be led by an old Queensland favourite, Mark Trenowth’s Jaguar XJS. Openwheel fans aren’t forgotten with Formula Atlantic out in force as no less than seven Ralt RT4s are entered while Lionel Ayers has resurrected the Mildren Waggott 'yellow submarine’.

The meeting is a 43-event race program along with a Show and Shine, a Swap Meet and a new event, rocker-cover racing.

-MARK JONES moiorsporl news

NATIONAL SCENE

ights up Sydney r AC/”.

Pjrtrtdjff

pressure on and the tactic paid off, as Hryniuk made an uncharacteristic mistake,spinning out of the lead with two laps to go, Nick Simmons and Hayden McBride ran solid races for second and third respectively.

Clubman Light was another spectacular class, with any of five drivers in with a chance of winning the final, Corey Lean(Arrow)led into the final lap but was shuffled back to

fourth at the flag. Pre-final wirmer Paul Laskazeski crashed out on the last lap. Kyle Clews(Monaco) overcame a heat one DNF to win the final ahead of the CRG duo of Sam Walsh and Hryniuk.

The other titles went to Damien Meyer (Rotax Heavy), Daniel Erickson (Formula Australia), Anthony Lantouris(Clubman Super Heavy), Brad Cady (Junior

Clubman), Ricky Capo (Midgets), Mitchell Parkinson (Rookies), Daniel Baker (Junior National Light), Thomas Phillips (Junior National Heavy), Logan Green (Senior National Light) and Paul Hodges (Senior National Heavy).

Jason Bums,above, picked up the 125 Gearbox class after Daniel Erickson fell back with an overheating engine.

Wall joins Estasy

MELBOURNE'S Mathew Wall will join Adrian Estasy in the Arrow team at the third round of the European Rotax Championships this weekend.

Wall's entry is his prize, sponsored by Sniper Alignment Systems, for winning last year's Super-8 Series final.

Wall and Estasy, left, have both represented Australia at Rotax World Finals, but this will be their first time on the Bruck circuit \ in Austria. Despite some bad luck in the opening rounds, \ Estasy sits fourth in the championship. The only other \\ Arrow driver in the field, Japan's Takao Matsura, is first. ^ - MARK WICKS

L.

Mud Wrestling v Motorsport THE Australian Off Reading Championship ventured to a rain-soaked course through the Tantanooia pine forests South Austraiia for round three of the nationai Series.

21 iHly 2004

In conditions better suited to mud wrestling, only 30 of the 79 teams managed to complete the full distance.

Reigning Australian Champions Mark Burrows and

Colin Hodge, below left, showed skill through the sludge to take victory in the Teagle Excavations Pines 400 Enduro.

Second was Shannon and Ian Rentsch, ahead of Trevor Copeland, who used his experience to bring his class 9 vehicle home for a great third place.

The family pairing of Eric and Andrea Schlifelner were fourt, ahead of Keith Owers and Peter Stevenson.

Class 2 victory and sixth outright was Matthew Owen and Matthew Ryan.

- PARIS CHARLES

Yes and No to SA Superkarts MALLALA will not be hosting this year's Australian Superkart Championship but the SA track will be the scene for the annual Australian Superkart GP. Due to excessive costs, the NSW Superkart Club relinquished the opportunity to host this year's National Championship, The Adelaide Superkart Club subsequently looked into the feasibility of running the event at Mallala but couldn't get the requested regulation changes made to ensure the event's viability.

The club has therefore decided to promote a special 40th Anniversary Grand Prix on September 26, The ASC said their GP is the second oldest perpetual trophy event in world karting. n Great weather greeted those who travelled all the way to Townsville for the Queensland State Karting Championships on July 9-11, Adam Graham (Arrow) picked up the Clubman Light title while Scott Auld (Arrow) and Ashley Walsh (Monaco)filled the podium having continually traded positions with Graham for the entire final.

Closest finish at the Championships was in Junior Clubman, Josh Scott almost pinched the win from Kristian Lindbom, with ' just 0,02s separating them, Scott had been in fine form all meeting, qualifying pole and winning all the preliminary races, James Greenwood was third, Aussie Racing Car pilot John Grother returned to Js for the weekend and narrowly beat Michael Henderson in Senior National Light, PCR's Matthew Muller took a convincing win in Rotax Light, John Martin and Bradley Tyrrell were next, Rotax Heavy was again William Yarwood's domain, beating Lawrence Kranen and Todd Stanford, Jason Pringle and Kel Treseder had a spirited dice for the lead in Clubman Heavy, Pringle made a move on the national champion on the last lap. The result? Pringle: DNF, Treseder: Champion, John Martin ended up second, less than 0,1s behind, Treseder also took second in Senior National Heavy, Tim Sweeney won with Paul Vuichoud third, Chaz Mostert (Light) and Terry Cobb (Heavy) won the respective Junior National Championships, Trent James narrowly beat Tim Baskerville for victory in a small Formula Australia field, James Kovacic steered the Credex machine to a 2,3s win over Ryan Deckert in Rookies, Matthews Hart and Brabham went one-two in Midgets ahead of Warren White Jnr, At the other end of the age scale, Peter Muller beat Russell Vellacott to the Over 40s title with Rod Green third, - MARK WICKS 73

m IPM Photographies

YOUNG Sydneysider Chris Alajajian extended his points lead in both the a A championships after Round 5 of the Australian I Car Championship at Eastern Creek last weekend. ! David Russell (Class D) was the star of the day, scoring a win and a ^ the championships's first race at Eastern Creek since 2001. ill maintains his firm grip on the Class D title, while Leanne Perrier ed her Class C lead and David Ratcliff is narrowly holding onto the ly-contested Class B trophy.

Experienced Holden pilot Scott Loadsman, left, won the first race by cleanly slicing his way through the field after the handicap start.

The real battle was between the Honda Integras of Ian Luff and im Beechey as they raced as if for sheep stations for the entire eight . Both Perrier and Ford novice Lynne Champion served driveugh penalties after they were judged to have jumped the start, jssell's mighty Satria GTl led from the green flag in the second race, not even the V8 of Loadsman could catch him over the 10 lapper.

HE ijian pushed his Subaru Liberty GT hard through the field, dicing Luff and Ford XR6 Turbo driver David Ryan, but he couldn't make up nal two seconds that separated him from Russell, unfortunate retirement was the Honda S2000 of Drew Russell, me engine let go,in'jff great cloud of smoke on the second last lap. Luff Iter excluded for a technical irregularity.

- ERIN McCOWATT

Citroen debut - Walsh heads Stateside CITROEN made its first appearance on the Australian Touring Car racing scene in more than 10 years with the Brendon Cook entered, Ben Walsh driven Xsara in the APCC at Eastern Creek last weekend.

The car is brand-new, but is a three year old model. The team plans to upgrade the spec of the car to the latest model soon.

Walsh has been recruited to drive the car after a number of years on the sidelines. The New South Welshman competed successfully In Aslan openwheelers before a heavy accident put his career on hold.

The Xsara drive is a chance for Walsh to get back in the swing of racing before heading to the United Staes to compete in the popular NASCAR Elite series, a feeder category to Craftsman Truck and Nextel NASCAR Cup. "I’m going over next month to tie some loose ends up and speak to a few teams,” said Walsh "My focus will be on Craftsman and then NASCAR. No Australian that I know of has given it a good crack in the past couple of years.”

- GRANT ROWLEY

Uir

I

I

ia

\niim

Ben's French girl: Walsh will head to the US soon to finalise a NASCAR Elite drive.

Gaining Miles

ROUND 2 of the Team Dynamik SA Champions Series was held at Mallala Motorsport Park over the weekend, where great racing was abundant, and a notable visitor raised a few eyebrows.

Lee IToldsworth, keen to gain extra miles for the upcoming Konica Minolta V8 Supercar grand final, was in attendance in an ex-Perkins VS Commodore for the Smiths Trucks

Cobra of local Lyn Punshon, right.

The two came to blows in Race 2, as Holdsworth dove up the inside of Punshon under brakes into Turn 7, the ensuing collision putting both out, and handing victory to local Bob Middleton in his Camaro Sports Sedan.

Graham Knuckey debuted his new RFOl Van Diemen to good effect to win four of the five races in Formula Ford. Samantha Reid continues to

outfit. Running the car as a Sports Sedan, the 21-year-old took full advantage of the car's 720hp engine to take four out of five victories in

improve,showing a great turn of speed to take the remaining victory.

Mark Foster and CAMS

Marque Sports.

While seen as merely a practice weekend, Holdsworth was by no means conservative, having to pump out some competitive lap times to stay ahead of the awe.some Robnell

Scholarship driver Asher Johnson were inseparable in Formula Vee. Foster had the upper hand, using his wily racecraft to come out on top.

Ian Eldridge was unstoppable in Improved Production, his beefy 5.8

14

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litre Torana streaking away from the smaller Escort of Scott Clements, and Mazda RX3s of Tim Playford and Anthony Wallis.

A classic battle was waged between a group of local Saloon Car stalwarts. David Lines earnt pole and a win, and Peter Holmes and Shawn Jamieson claimed two wins apiece, the three continually swapping positions lap after lap.

Peter Hall was able to withstand

the pressure dealt his way by John Bryant's lumbering Falcon Rallye Sprint to take a clean sweep in Historic Touring Cars, while Wayne King was the pick of a solid and closely matched field in HQ Holden.

Peter Turner (Grantinni IllB), Michael Shearer (Bulant Clubman) and Robbie Nicholls (Lola Formula Junior) all had wins in Historic Racing Cars.

-CHRIS JORDAN moiorsaon news

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moiorsport news

CLASSIFIEDS

Classifieds online classifieds 7

- -

52ZZ7

||0inS Find hundreds more race vehicles and parts for sale at www.my105.com

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from lust $25

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 3 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!

Mitsubishi Evo 6

i 550hp engine, 8 pot brembo's, cusco diffs, new HKS/Garret Turbo, Improved ^1 Production National Championship winning t' car (late model class). Heaps of spares 3 including engine. $45,000. Aaron 0409 298 291 108,

1

jjj www.my105.com/6O367

Current Marque Sports Champion Robnell 302SCR

Mazda RX3 13BT, 13 year project- Built as club/Street car, 4 wheel discs, 5 stud commodore, aluminium flywheel, aluminium tallshaft, 28 spline LSD, power assisted rack, microtech computer, surge tank, 3" s/s mandrel bent exhaust, more..., $8,000.

Brendan 02 4389 6855 / 02 4332 5302. 289 www.my105.com/93526

historic lotus 23 replica, Renault running gear ready to race historic, sprints, hillclimb, top unit. $15,000 ONO. justin 07 38482614 289 a/h. www.myl05.eom/76340

m Vic Champion '99 & '03. 2nd '00. Current Injection. Stack dash. Dyno sheets and other info available. New Tex Racing Jerico box. Tilton 7 1/4" Triple Plate Carbon clutch & spare. Ford 9" Rearend. Two sets wheels.

Maintained by K&A. More development left. $150,000 Or Best Offer. Lyn 08 82179100 / 826284.

1 7 leader. 540bhp Ford 302. ^1 04 Champ Motec 291

www.my105.com/9742O

V8 Supercar. Ex-Kmart Greg Murphy.The last Gibson-built car.Only 6 races from new.Complete less engine.Includes spares package with 4 sets of wheels. $110,000.

289 Eddie Abelnica 0418 360 058. www.my105.com/41985

Sports Sedan Celica 2lfr Twin Cam, complete ready to race, new fully adjustable suspension, new harness, adj brake bias, spares inc wheels, tyres, moulds, and spare race heads. Well presented quick and very reliable. Please call for photos and laptimes. $10,000. Brad (02) 4577 8111 - 0415 975 269 7 13. www.myl05.eom/60856

Sedans/Sports Cars

RX3 Coupe Improved Production 3J, new Broadhurst 13B engine, 4 throttle body injection. Microtec ECU, Needham 5sp, cambered castored rear, LSD, willwood brakes F/R, Adj Bias, 8 wheels. Highly developed, strong history, top 5 National, Top 3 State, faster than most RX7's half the price, includes all setup data. $14000 Neg. 291 Graeme 0418255557. www.myl05.com/25955

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Renault Clio Sport, unbelievably quick car, unfinished project, only done one track day, full comprehensive bond weld in roll cage, eibach springs, cotton green intake system, ideal targa or track car I Finance available nil. $40000 Neg. Darren 0413 727 886.

291 www.myl05.eom/54540

21 iuly 2004

Porsche 3.8 RSR Replica, RHD, full spec 3.8 litre high torque race engine, Autronic engine management, throttle bodies, dual ignition, est. 380 bhp, Modena 5 speed dogbox with LSD, coil overs, air jacks, awesome Harrop brakes, full steel cage through to suspension, front mounted oil tank and cooler, safety fuel cell, heated windscreen. Velo race seat with head restraint, Sparco suede steering wheel, window net, harness, elec kill switches, fitting for Dorian, Odyssey battery, two sets Simmons wheels with slicks and wets, CAMS log book. Unregistered. Light weight - only 1040 kgs with fuel and oil. Successful race record in NSW, including outright win AROCA Six Hours. Recent repaint and mech overhaul. Richard (03) 9822 5034 or 0417 370671 mobile. For info pack/photos email womble@mira.net. $59,900 ONO. 289 Richard 03 9822 5034. www.my105.com/38245

RX7 Improved Prod Club Car, Fresh 13B, RX7 Turbo 5 spd, series 5 brakes, new envy wheels, 51mm Webber, Hilux diff, Aaj Watts, Cams log book, Ohiins and Koni shocks. $14,700 ONO. Matthew (07) 3846 6560. www.my105.com/53136

Porsche GT3 Cup, 3,600km. Maintained by Porsche trained race crew. Includes 10 spare wheels, Motec logger & dash, spare bumper and valuable track data. This car is ready to race and we can also set you up completely with transporter (ex Jim Richards) and extensive array of equipment to join Carrera Cup. $230,000 Or Best Offer.

0418 835300 / 81320541.

291 www.myl05.eom/80397

Mazda RX-7 Race Car/Parfs, Mazda RX-7 roller with new Roll Cage, paint, flairs, rear spoiler, lightweight doors. 13B stripped, new Racing Beat Carbon apex seals, springs and Pulley, Volvo disc brake rear-end, 2 sets of alloy wheels, new Sparco race seat, 4 pot callipers, hubs, discs, turbo gearbox, 48mm Webber and Manifold. $5800.

0732694134 / 0754967848.

289 www.myl O5.com/12923

Gemini Roller (unfinished project), Ext. 12pt cage, Billit Axles.full float 5 link Hilux diff.Fuel cell.dba rotors, Koni adj.lots more good gear.ring for details. 3,600 depending 288 on opt. REG 0407112701. www.my105.com/38133

79

Open Wheelers

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Sports Sedan, Sports Sedan U2h Toyota Corolla KE30 Log Book Roller. Suit club car. $2,900 ONO. Leigh 0402 570 617/03 9745 2125.

286 www.mylO5.com/19312

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For Sale, Commodore cup car for sale as raced by Daniel Richert front running car.

Fresh engine. Long shifter, two Exhaust systems,,logger&dash, ten wheels,plenty of spares. $40,000. Daniel 0404 096 598 /(03) 52 755988.

288

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VAN DIEMEN "93/5 FF, NSW state champion '03. Immaculate- updated '95 wide-track and body. '04 freshen up many new parts. Penske adjustables. Brook engine and suspension. +10 gear ratios.

Extensive spares list. $27,500. Also rebuilt ZERO km's Darryl Ritchie engine (new liners) $6,000. Consistently quicker than most late models in '03 Nationals. John

www.myl05.com/97777

Pettit (02)9653 2369 0411062369. www.myl05.com/65527 HQ Holden, Probably the best presented HQ in the country, no expense spared. New motor, gearbox, diff and suspension. Ready to race with heaps of spares. $8,500 Neg. 288 Diego 0402 114 593. www.my105.com/17317

1

i

290

Hillclimb, Hillclimb special based on superkart chassis, coil overs,wings,100hp methonol 600cc,roll bar,fully set up ready to race,logbooks,. $6,800 Neg. Luke 0425792156 / 0248771507.

269 www.myl O5.com/19525

Porsche 911 RSR Replica, log book, timer 3.4c 330hp 1/wt 975kg big brakes c.r. box autronic etc. May trade standard 911.

268 $55,000. Peter 0402 029 100. www.myl05.com/29146

Mazda RX7 Sports Sedan, mid mount 20B peripheral port, engineered from ground up, supra 5 speed Willwood discs, all round Tilton clutch, new 16inch slicks, bargain. $19,000 Not Neg. Darrell 0413 383 102. 288 www.myl05.com/78353

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MonosKate Historic Racing Car, Famous George Reed car raced successfully at Bathurst, AGP Narrogin 1951, etc. Side valve Ford V8, Offenhauser heads, twin Stromberg 97, Scintilla magneto, Needham c/r gearbox, aluminium hand formed body with all the paUna of decades of racing. This car is probably the fastest most original pre war "Ka" car in Australia CAMS logbook, COD ready to race and win, nothing to spend. . $60,000 with all the spares. Barry 03 9670 8299 (BH) / (03) 9663 7131 (AH) 0418 396 281.

289 www.myl O5.com/19021

Formula Ford Spectrum 06- for sale or lease. Great 1st car, competitive in all state and National events, great history with many poles, fastest laps and wins, finished 4th Bathurst 02, 5th AGP 04, Penske MYGALE SJ95 FORMULA FORD, Our Factory SJ95 Mygaie is available for immediate sale. Join the G-Force Junior

'

Development Program. No expense spared on the full factory rebuild of this car. Mygaie factory assistance. Optional spare parts package. Full spec Ritter Race’Engine - at $26,995 plus GST. Call Greg on 03 9580 289 7047. $26,995 plus GST. WWW.myl05.com/38457

Race Winning Saloon Car, 4 years development, many race wins, pole positions and lap records, all offers considered, also available, brand new gearbox $2500, 2 sets of rims with tyres $800 per set, car trailer with tyre rack $3500. $18,000 Or Best Offer. Kurt 07 3368 1188 / 0419 705531.

288 www.myl05.com/62825

SALOON CAR, Complete ready to race, log book, stinger computer, dyno sheets, lap timer, lap top, spare gearbox, doors, rotors, tyres,etc. includes trailer with tyre rack-Dec Rego. 17,500 Neg. John 0412069534. 288 www.myl OS.com/54480

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3J VC Commodore Roller, Big 4 spot calipers on front, V8 fronts on rear, balance bar. Bias valve, hydraulic h/brake. approved roll cage, adjustable front suspension, 5 good A032s on rims, Velo race seats, Simpson harness, Cams log book, locked diff. $6,000. Glenn (02) 4353 7888 / 0414 522 576.

288

1983 Rail RT4 Roller, Ex American Pro Atlantic History. Suspension 06/box rebuilt in '03', Penske shocks and spares. Phone John or Tony. $28,000. Tony 0418 736 869 / 07 3359 4222.

290

www.myl05.com/59255

www.my105.com/2673

shockers all round, dash and logger, set up equip, full set ratios, 3 sets wheels and tyres, ready to race. $29,000. Daniel (03) 9725 5366 / 0411 029 561.

289 www.my105.com/18142

□allara F396 Mugen/Honda, Aircon Racing offers for sale this immaculately presented F396 Dallara complete with fresh Neil Brown MF204B Honda engine. Also includes spare wisbones, set of wheels .spare nose, wings, etc. Also spare MF204B Honda available at extra cost. 55000 Neg. Patrick Cahill 03-9786-6600.

289 www.myl05.com/86727

TiMiFway to sell your gear! From just $25* just log on

(*$25 applies to ads entered directly onto my105.com) Advertising can also be supplied using this form ($10/S15 surchage to text only/text -+ pic advertisements) Advertisements will appear in next possible issue of i .lotorsport News PLUS the 105.com website for three months.

Please read & cross the desired services and calculate the total.

S2ZZ7

classifieds

Category: □ Sedans □ Open Wheelers □ Parts □ Engines □ Trailers

□ Speedway

□ Wanted □ Photographs

□ Drag

□ Other

□ Jobs

llvVtfo Description: Please keep ads to no more than 50 words, plus up to 6 photos if desired.

X standard ad and one inlusion into Motorsport News □ Plus Photo Processing fee $5 ADDITIONAL OPTiONS;□ Extra issues X $25 per issue □ Feature ad on Motorsport News and my105.com homepage for $75 per issue

= $35

TOTAL = $

I enclose a cheque/money order/credit card details lor the payment ol the total amount above.

□ Bankcard □ Visa or □ Mastercard Card no Name _ Address

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Signature _ Card Name

Exp_/_

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NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS Please use the form provided and print clearly. Please note we are unable to return photographs supplied for use in classified ads. Ads will appear as soon as possible after receipt. MN/my106.cofn classifieds are for the sale of private goods and vehicles only, not business advertising Photos marked 'proof will not bo used.

moioriDon news

CLASSIFIEDS Speedway

Torana L34 Bancro Diff, Detroit Locker new 3.08, crown wheel and pinion, new Titicker axles to suit, David (03) 5428 3916 269 ww v.my105.eom/41130 (BH).

1

2003 MIDGET CAR FOR SALE, Alach/Gaerte, complete roller with best available gear, only 4 meeUngs old. Dash 12 Gaerte, weldtech cylinder head, rodeck block, new rods, pistons, cam, valve train, new Joe Hunt magneto, will possibly split.

NZ$40,000 Neg. Ray 025-908-335. 289 www.myl05.com/6278

Race ready Super Sedan, Super Sedan Pontiac Firbird REDUCED for Quick Sale complete car, race ready, engine very strong, Q-Change wide fives, all spare will go with this car new spare chassis to go with car,easy to set-up REDUCED $13,500.00 ono MUST BE SOLD Ph 0413 771.

203 226 www.myl05.com/27300

Jobs Live and Work on the Sunshine Coast, Motor Mechanic Wanted. Applicant must have experience in tuning and maintaining high performance vehicles. Fabrication and Chassis dyno experience prefered. Must be reliable, a team player and able to work 289 unsupervised. Jeff 07 54417700. www.myl O5.com/13292

Competitive Experienced Drivers, Positions are available in a first-class team for national/state series in F/Ford. Highly competitive vehicles with excellent infrastructure. Compete at all Australian tracks. Professional attitude and budget to achieve objectives essential. Please contact cated@clockwork.com.au or Tony on 0419 777 977.

285 www.myl05.com/99385

Engines CHEV 340 18DEGREE RACE ENGINE, NEW RACE ENGINE JUST BUILT.DRY SUMP ETC, NEW PETERSON PUMP, PERKINS OR HRT INJECTION,AUTRONIC ECU,CRANE CDI,NEW BOWTIE BLOCK,18 DEGREE HEADS NEW TITANIUM VALVES,RETAINERS AND RODS ETC,LUNATI P I STONS , GROWER MUCH ROLLERS,JESELS,PLUS MORE.COMPLETE,BARGIN. 25000.00 ONO. BRAD SEARLE 0418928953. 288 www.myl05.com/33278

www.sponsorseek.com.au

Competition tyres, 205x60x15 Yoke A32R ex Targa. Call Bradley or Steve 03 9583 287 4493. $80 each. 0419 381 270, www.myl05.eom/30425

Wanted - a job with a Top Racing Team, I am a European bom Australian stuntman, car designer, rally driver, manager, seeking a job for a top racing team (pits) plus RCPO Randwick 2031, Contact Roy Cooper on 286 0413 130 448 www.myl05.com/65949

ti.t.im'.tllT SIGSS^

Sponsor Seek

Transporters/Trailers

1 X KENWORTH TRANSPORTER, REG 8 SEATER NEW FRIDGE,TV VIDEO,DEISEL GEN,COMPRESSOR FULL A/C HUGE SLEEP AREA UP TOP.CAN CARRY 700 LTR OF DEISEL,WINCH,2 BOXES INSIDE & 2 BIG TOOL BOXES UNDERNEATH.NO EXPENSE SPARED MUST SEE TO BELEIVE.CUMMINS 320 HP ,10 SPEED R/RANGER .BOGIE DRIVE BODY BU1LT9 MTHS AGO.TRUCK HAD FULL OVERHAUL LAST 9 MTHS. $75,000. Allan 289 0412 731 608. www.myl05.com/78534 Transporter, Mazda T3500 dual cab 85 model,5 speed with split shift.Powered by 350 chev on gas.New paint,upholstery,gearbox,clutch+tyres.Cd player+cb radio,12 month reg (vic).Very tidy+quick truck.ldeal tow vehicle. Ph 0394609588 or 0407336785. 14,000 Neg. Adrian.

288 www.myl O5.com/19585

Wanted, Terratrip 303 plus, intercom with headsets, smart level Caster Camber guage, turn plate, suspension spring tester, scale system. Gerry 02 9653 2208 or 0418 289 255 739. www.myl05.com/31672

VIsH wiim.myl05.com

Z:

Parts

FOR SALE, Leftovers from projects and excess spares Tilton 71/4 inch clutch near new $850 Tilton pedal with balance bar new $200 Tilton brake bias remote adjuster new $120 SBC wide style Drysump pan $250 .

287 Mark 0418241992. www.my105.com/69888

21 July 2004

Race Car Transporter, 92 Mitsubishi FK417 2 car transporter, 12mths Reg, CD player. Tyre Racks, Bench's and shelving.

Tow Bar, Hydraulic Tail Gate. $35,000.00.

289 Peter 03 9761 4510. www.my105.com/55658

/ am very happy with the service I received. All three of the enquiries you forwarded were firm buyers and it was sold on a first come first served basis.

Again thanks.

I. Hills Enclosed Trailer, suit open wheeler. clubman, single axle, alloy ramps, 12 mths rego, light to tow. $2,500. Gerry 02 9653 269 2208 or 0418 255 739. www.myl O5.com/12352

$60

national exposure for 3 months

www.sponsorseek.com.au

Seeking Sponsors

Daniel Natoli Lotus Championship, Racing currently seek support to compete in the Kumho Tyre Lotus Champisonship, supporting the V8's around Australia.

Exposure will be offered direct to specters, at various events, with crowds ranging from 45-100,000. Sponsors would also receive exposure through various print and television media. DANIEL NATOLI 0755 746 777 / 0419 257 921.

289 www.sponsorseek.com.au/40

I would like to DUCATI SUPERBIKE, present your organisation with a highly viable sponsorship opportunity one that will not only provide a substantial return on your investment, but in addition, will be most beneficial to you from a total marketing perspective. Stuart Fripp 0242958120 / 289 0438951622. www.sponsorseek.com.au/30

.1

Porsche 3.4 Litre Boxster Engine Complete NEW, Built by Chellingworth Porsche Perth. Includes flowed heads, Porsche Sport cams and Pfitzner flywheel.

285 $25,000 ONO. Kim 0417 917 189. www.my105.com/8e381

Post your proposal today

Wanted

Wanted Formula Ford or Formula V, suitable for restoration project, consider any condition. Warren 0439 777 627.

289 www.my105.com/91851

v8 Trader & Gooseneck trailer, TRUCK 351 Windsor 5 speed + splitter 180lt fuel .3 bunks, stove .water tank .sink, storage, stainless esky. 12v lights, insulated walls.TRAILER eleo tail gate, warn winch for car.water & hose, generator, wired, fit sprinter/super/saloon or 2 x small cars, elec brakes, tyre rack, need car licence only. $38,000.00 ONO. Jamie 0409017684. 289 www.my105.com/74031

Where Sponsors find you!

.f seen iold!

Toymax Racing Seeks Financial Support, It is in the general mentality of motor sport fans, that the support of sponsors is crucial, and that this support should be returned by people buying and using the products and services provided by sponsors. Andrew McKellar 0439 753 033 / 0439 753 033.

289 www.sponsorseek.com.au/38

81

i

■OMRMIt EDITORIAl STAFF

Editor: Phil Branagan ● editor@mnews.com.aj Deputy Editor: Mark Glendenning ● mark@mnews.com.au News Editor: Aaron Noonan ● noonz@mnews.com.au National Editor: Grant Rowley ● grant@mnews.com.au

PRODUCTION

Adv & Graphics Co-ordinator: Vlv Brumby ● viv@mnews.com.au

ADVERTISINO

Brendon Sheridan - PR Driven Tel: 03 9550 0870 Fax: 03 9550 0816 mobile: 0407 007 286 ● ads@mnews.com.au

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SBR appeal

Stewards Error?

Although I find it hard to believe that Stone Brothers

I don't agree with the Stone Brothers getting their points back.

Racing could 'accidentally' have an extra wire on their ECU,I am pleased that the penalty was reduced. After all, the legal world is based heavily on the laws of precedent.

As such, given the revelations on the RPM this week,SBR were more than harshly penalised, especially when previous anomalies to electronics have resulted in nothing more than a stern warning and/or a small fine. In light of these, it was only fair that their appeal was successfully upheld.

As for the Perkins/ Richards/Skaife comments,I don't think they have really got anything to complain about.

Wasn't it Perkins who successfully appealed the penalty imposed on Paul Dumbrell in Adelaide, when it was painfully obvious to everyone in the free world (other than Larry and Paul) that the pile-up near the end of the Sunday race was mostly the fault of Dumbrell? If Larry had the right to appeal that decision, then SBR surely had the right to appeal in Queensland. Steve Richards, it seems, is just being Larry's mouthpiece given that Larry has been in a bit of trouble lately for his comments. Richo did win Bathurst for SBR and is usually not the type of person that has a whinge.

While I don't condone cheating, everyone is entitled to a fair go. 1 can't help but feel that this has been blown out of proportion due to SBR's high profile in the media. I am also sure that there would have been nothing but silence from the abovementioned people had it been another Holden team that had pushed the boundaries, accidentally or not.

Dean and Vicki Turner datvjt@ozemaiI.com.au

Why can't the Stewarts/officials make the correct decisions at the time of

converter ^end us your thoughts: mail: PO Box 7072, Gardenvale, VIC 3186 fax: 03 9596 5030 email: mnews@mnews.com.au 35 at the mount stinks Where's the logic in only having 35 cars compete in Australia's Greatest Race?

Who makes these damn rules? I have been to the mountain for the last 20-odd years without failure and one of the best parts of the event (besides the beer-swilling) is watching the slower cars get in amongst the fast guys.

I remember watching Brocky, arm out the window, politely asking the slower driver in front to please move out of the way. We need more of this, but tradition obviously means little to AVESCO. Even the cars that do qualify at the tail of the field may only get lapped once ot twice, assuming they have a reliable run. Yes, the cars are very reliable these days, so the unpredictability of the race will be lost forever.

One other thing that bugs me as well. The cars that competed at Queensland Raceway are gong to be the same that race for 1000km at Bathurst. That's crap!

Eddie Cook, Lithgow NSW

scrutineering? It can't be that hard, can it? There are rules in place and if you break them, you should get punished. Simple.

Wlnat sort of precedent does this set for the sport? It's not a good image that is presented to the people who might want to get interested in Supercars, but couldn't be bothered with the politics.

Mark Sibbler via email

Give up Brocky!

A question to Peter Brock.

When is enough, enough? I can't believe you're making another comeback to V8 Supercar.

If you ask me, I think you are being nothing but selfish. There are plenty of young drivers out there that deserve a drive before you.

All this crap about winning number 10 on the Mountain, I thought you won your 10th Bathurst last year in those Sport Sedans (1 mean. Nations Cup Monaros ...) Or doesn't that count now? /md as for HRT, how bad do they need the publicity. Do they really think you can keep up with the likes of Ambrose, Ingall and Richards -1 don't think so.

But one thing is for sure, the way Skaife's going this year, you'll probably bring it home before him!

So please Brocky, make this the last comeback we ever see. You were once the King of the Mountain - but not anymore.

Anyway, a Ford team will win this year, its been five years in the making but it will be worth it.

Name Withheld Roxburgh Park Vic

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82

Oirk Klynsmitb

Please make this the last, Peter: An MNews reader (who we can only guess is a Ford supporter) doesn't fancy another 1000km of Brock and the number 05 in October. moiorsport news

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