Motorsport News Issue 289 - August 4-17, 2004

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Issue 289

4 — 17 August 2004

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42 McWinton Cam the Mac came back to where it all started to take his maiden V8 Supercar win - and Rick learns a lesson about the last lap 58 Film at 11 A Hockenhelm Schumi-fest as Michael jumps for the 11th time IllOtOiSPOfI ^ CA nni

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Lowndes to leave Ford Performance Racing andjoin Betta Electrical for V5

by PHIL BRANAGAN

THE biggest move of the V8 Supercar Silly Season has been decided - Craig Lowndes is going to Triple 8.

The 30-year-old three-time cliampion will leave Ford Performance Racing at the end of the season and move to the Betta Electrical-backed Ford team to partner Max Wilson next season. The deal, which was signed late last week,is expected to be confirmed by Ford and the teams involved today (Wednesday).

No details of the deal were available at the time MNews went to press but we believe that Lowndes's deal is for two years at least- the same length of time for which he remains contracted to Ford.

The move will mean that Lowndes will race for his fourth Ford team in

five years, after joining Gibson Motorsport in 2001. The following year, that team transformed into 00 Motorsport under the direction of Bob Forbes, and Lowndes left at the end of the 2002 season to join FPR. MNews also understands that there were discussions between Lowndes and his management and FPR's David Flint and Prodrive managing director Nick Fry following the Winton round of the V8SCS last month. One of Fry's main tasks during his brief visit to Australia was to try and secure Lowmdes's signature on a new contract for 2005-06 (see interview, page 38-41) but his quest was unsuccessful.

The main matter now to be settled wiU be who will replace Lowndes at FPR. While the team has not been commenting on the matter, we believe that Alain Menu is still the most likely contender. The two-time British Touring Car champion, who tested

with FPR at Winton last month, will share the second entry with Adam Macrow at Sandown and Bathurst and, while he had some difficulties adapting to the Falcon,is highlyregarded by the team.

While a double change of driver line-up is not considered ideal, there is no certainty that Glerm Seton will remain with the team. When contacted by MNews,the h\'o-time champion, who is out of contract at the end of the year, was not able to comment on his status vdth the team for next season but his recent

i

performances in the #5 car have shown that Seton is competitive in the series.

In a maiden run in a new car at Winton,Seton went from the back of the grid to 10th in the race and currently stands 12th in the V8SCS points table.

Lowndes's move to Triple 8 is one that is certain to attract attention on both sides of the fence. Few drivers have genuinely feared Lowndes in his two years at FPR. He has only a single (and fortuitous) win at Phillip Island last year and podiums at Eastern Creek ('03 and '04) and Oran Park ('03) to show for more than 18 months

of ton.

But while T8's results this season have not been brilliant-Radisich is 11th in the championship and Wilson 24th - the prospect of Lowmdes teaming with engineer Campbell Little, who joined the team from Stone Brothers Racing at the end of last season,is one that offers enormous potential. Tliat was,in aU probability, one of the enticements to lure Lowndes to the Queensland-based team.

There is also the matter of a retainer from the team,on top of the reported $700,000 retainer Lowndes gets from Ford. While Lowndes seems an expensive proposition,the likely increase in revenue from

At last, a Queensland team: Lowndes will move to the more local Triple 8 team after four years commuting to and from teams based in Melbourne.

4

merchandising sales alone mean that, even if the numbers are high, they are managable in the current climate.

All this is likely to leave Ford fans happy - and be a real test for FPR. Without Lowndes,and potentially without Seton, estabUshing the team as a contender next year looks to be another cliallenge to add to a long list of challenges already faced by Ford's factory team...

Jllmate

STEVEN Richards may lose his points from the Winton round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series two weeks ago.

Following post-race scrutineering of his Castrol Commodore VY, the V8SCS stewards have requested that Team Perkins Motorsport attend an inquiry at the next round of the series at Oran Park on Friday 13 August. The car failed to pass inspection over the forward (chassis) mounts of its rear suspension. oiororsport news

NEWS

its Man

Back in black

The Blue Bl

Lowndes's reetttts with Fo

I 5.

n Brock for the Olympics I As you read this, Peter Brock is packing his bags for a month-long trip to Athens with the Australian Olympic team.

But don't start setting the VCR in the hope of seeing Brocky hurl a few javelins or jump on a horse for some equestrian action.

Brock will reprise the Athlete Liason role that he filled in Sydney in 2000. He will be available to all of Australia's Olympians to draw upon his own experience and offer advice and support in areas such as motivation and dealing with pressure.

1

2001 Gibson Motorsport 3 podiums (Phillip Island, Oran Park, Sandown) 11th overall

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2002 00 Motorsport 0 podiums 7th overall

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2003 Ford Performance Racing 1 win (Phillip Island) 3 podiums (Eastern Creek, Oran Park, Bathurst) 5th overall | 2004 Ford Performance Racing 0 wins, 1 podium (Eastern Creek) 27th overall (to date)

Richo Out?

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mMm go over suspension irregularity

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TEGA's V8 Supercar Category Technical Director reported that the car was not in compliance with V8 Supercar Rules C2.2.2 and C3.1.1 at the conclusion of the race.

The rule relates to the mounting of the rear suspension.

Previously, there has been a 20mm allowance in any direction from the homologated mounting position but this changed at the start of the 2004 season as part of Project Blueprint. Now, the allowance is permitted only in a vertical line, as opposed to 4 August 2004

forward or aft of the homologated point, or laterally.

While Perkins could not be contacted for comment, it is believed this was the case in this example.

The matter places the team in a potentially difficult situation.

Opposition teams have been quick to point out that Larry Perkins has been quite outspoken this season about technical infringements that have seen cars fail scrutineering but their drivers keep their points, like in the recent Marcos

Ambrose example at the Queensland 300.

Should the stewards find the charge proved, Perkins is likely to suggest that a similar punishment be applied in this case, although there is considerable debate as to whether the infringement was 'performance-enhancing'.

Should Richo lose his points from Winton, he would fall from second in the series (five points behind Jason Bright) to fourth, behind Rick Kelly and Ambrose.

- PHIL BRANAGAN

TEGA will announce soon that Dunlop has won the contract to supply control tyres for the V8 Supercar Championship Series and Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series.

We hear that the deal will be for three years and that, initially, the specification for the tyres will be similar to those currently in use.

However, we hear that either size or specification may change during the length of the deal, depending on changes proposed as part of TEGA's cost-containment policy.

n Craig Lowndes's race engineer Des Conway was the first to feel the pinch of Prodrive Managing Director Nick Fry's flying visit to the embattled FPR outfit at Winton two weeks ago.

Conway was relieved of his post early on Saturday morning and immediately returned to Melbourne, where he has been re-deployed in a workshop-based position.

Engineering duties on the #6 Falcon will now be handled by FPR Technical Director John Russell. n Australian Formula 3 team BRM has signed Indonesian driver Ananda Mikola to join the team for the next two rounds of the Asian F3 Championship. : The 24-year-old will drive for the team at the Goldenport circuit in Beijing this month, and then again at Sentul in Indonesia in October.

Mikola has previously driven in Italian F3 and the Dallara Nissan World Series, as well as a stint with top International F3000 team Astromega, and won five rounds of the 2001 Central European F3 championship for the Prost team. n You know how it is. You are in Moscow for Borscht Week and you want to keep up with the latest V8 Supercar round. Weep in the beets no longer, pilgrims; Australia's leading Internet services provider BigPond has announced its broadband website v8supercars.bigpond.com is now accessible to BigPond Broadband customers from anywhere in the world.

All you need is an account, a broadband connection and a username and password. And somewhere to put the borscht.

5

NEWS

Who gets the second seat?

Williams i^ebber partner to be found for Alonso at Renault. With negotiations for Jamo Triilli to retain his spot falling through, attention turned to former Renault(nee Benetton) driver FisicheUa and the possibility of getting him released from Sauber.

His contract allowed for an automatic release if an offer from one of the top three teams- specified as Ferrari, Williams or McLaren at the time - came along. A Renault offer wasn't covered.

In the end,some sensible co-operation between Renault, Williams and Sauber,along with a modest compensation package for Sauber, appears to have achieved the desired outcome and Webber signed the all-important Williams contract before heading to the German Grand Prix.

Although it hasn't yet been confirmed,it is likely that Webber wiU be released by Jaguar to start testing with his new team immediately after the final 2004 Grand Prix,in Brazil, on October 24.

-CHRIS LAMBDEN 4 August 2004

For the latest Webber comment on his move to Williams, see our exclusive interview, page 32.

FRANK Williams has said that his team is now in no rush to confirm its second driver for 2005.

While the more outrageous elements of the media continue to toss around the names of Mika Hakkinen and Jacques Villeneuve, neither is seen as a realistic option.

German Nick Heidfeld remains an insider's favourite, although BAR'S 'Friday Man'Anthony Davidson, McLaren's David Coulthard and current BMW.Williams test driver Antonio Pizzonia are all gaining varying amounts of support in a speculative market.

By doing his job well, BAR'S Davidson may put himself out of a job. If'Friday' drivers are retained in the 2005 format, BAR (certain to finish in the top four in the Constructors' points) won't be able to use him. He is thus considered a high possibility for a drive at either Sauber or Williams.

As for the driver the successful candidate will join?

"I'm losing absolutely zero sleep thinking about it!" Webber told us during his post-announcement interview.

"I'm thinking about the team.

Whoever is in the other car is there and it's Frank and Patrick's decision."

-CHRIS LAMBDEN

Some lead ... others follow... shanomaiauthe

THAT’S the motto at MNews, following the breaking of yet another major motorsport story well ahead of the rest of the field.

MNews first carried the rumours of Williams’ interest in Mark Webber nearly a year ago and, again, MNews was first to let you know that the deal was on, in our last issue.

If you want to know what’s actually going on, first, then there’s no real alternative - it has to be MNews

NEWS mo"CHINA

Webber’s Williams nebut set for Albert Park

behind eebhari

MNews - July 21

French testing...

WAN Muller will get his first taste of Falcon power at Queensland Raceway on August 26.

The Frenchmen will only be in Australia for a few days before the test due to his BTCC commitments in the UK. This will be the reigning British Champ's only test prior to the Sandown 500. n Alan Gurr will not compete in the Holden Young Lions Commodore in the 25 lap Konica Minolta race at Bathurst as reported last issue.

HYL boss John Faulkner and the Smith's Trucks team have agreed to place him in one of Smith’s VXs that Lee Holdsworth has used during this season. Kurt Wimmer will compete in one of the HYL cars, while the other will be run by JFR in the endurance races for two yet-to-beconfirmed drivers. However, Faulkner did have this to say; "If I can’t find the right person. I’ll run myself."

We’ll wait and see ... n Endurance drives are rare these days. With the field limited to just Level 1 and 2 entries, finding a drive at Sandown and Bathurst has never been harder to do. One team that has a vacancy, which has not had one enquiry yet, is Garth Walden’s new team.

Originally slated to compete in the Konica Minolta Series, Walden stepped up to the main game with his ex-FPR Falcon using the Romano licence... and is now waiting by the phone for endurance drivers. n Australian premium car care manufacturer Bowden’s Own is offering one lucky punter the opportunity to ride as passenger aboard one of the 1978 or 1979 Bathurst-winning A9X Toranas at this year’s Bob Jane T-Marts 1000.

Your chuffers will be Peter Brock and Jim Richards and the Toranas will head up a parade of over 100 Holdens at this year's Bathurst classic which will commemorate the 25th anniversary of Brock’s legendary six-lap 1979 victory. n BAR and Honda have agreed to extend their current partnership in Formula 1 for at least three more years.

The two parties have been negotiating for several months over the details of the deal but the decision to stay together was made some time ago. It is not expected that Honda will strengthen the partnership with any equity in the team although BAR was hoping to convince the Japanese to do this.

This means that Honda is in a position to leave the sport or switch teams much more easily if the necessity arises at some point in the future. The philosophy at Honda is rather different in this respect than at some of the other manufacturers involved in FI although the motivation remains to take the combination to the top.

- JOE SAWARD/STAFF 7

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NEWS

Not Naming Names...

got some first-class engine people and it was logical to use the same people who did the British Touring Car engine and the Ferrari Sportscar engine, before they started working on the Aston Martin Sportscar V12 engine.

"If you like, there was a gap where they were available to work on another project."

But the Englishman also commented on his company's lack of familiarity with the engines used in V8 Supercar racing; "I think they know a lot about engines; there are not many people in the world who know a lot about pushrod engines. An engine is an engine; it is about physics, not art.

"They clearly do not know anything about pushrod engines; it is not something that we work on. But they know a lot about engines in general."

- PHIL BRANAGAN

HERE is one of those hypothetical questions where it helps to have a good imagination, a strong stomach or a couple of kids.

Suppose that, 11 years after starting racing in a high-profile touring car category, you break through and take your first win.

Suppose that there is a fair bit of drama after the race and the result is in doubt for a while. Suppose that you finally get the all-clear, relax and celebrate a little.

Then suppose that you have to ... well, let’s just remember that it’s been about three hours since the pre-race visit to the men's room. So you head into the nearest portaloo for a minute. You have your mobile phone in your paw - and it slips,

splashes and disappears around the bend.

What do you do? Do you think,‘There is no way I am putting my autographing arm down there. I’ll get a new phone tomorrow?’ Racing drivers are made of sterner stuff than that.

Our unnamed hero pressed on undeterred, grabbed the mobile, gave it a clean and dried it out in the car on the way home.

The next day, the phone booted up first go and there were 70 messages waiting for our man to acknowledge.

So, if you did not hear from the man in question until later than you thought you would, you have no cause to think the worst.

And would we be as brave with our phones? No way.

J ±

MNews launches Shanghai tour MOTORSPORT News is heading to Shanghai for the V8 race next June and we'd like our readers to come with us!

"Having seen what is waiting for the V8 teams and spectators with my own eyes, it will be an intriguing and special trip for anyone wanting to see V8 Supercars racing in a new and exciting environment," says MNews publisher Chris Lambden.

"We're pleased to be working with Ticket2Ride on this project as they have a great name for organising tremendous sporting tours, and at a reasonable cost.

"We hope that a lot of fans will

take the opportunity to join us for the first ever V8 race in Asia - it'll be a

super trip."

Two tour options are being offered, the first a six-day trip incorporating the three days of the race and plenty of time for shopping and exploring in Shanghai. Prices,including air fares, accommodation,transfers and race entry, start at just $2899.

An additional three-day package tagged on the end,incorporating a visit to the ancient city of Beijing, the Forbidden City and Great Wall of China is also being offered.

Full information is available at the phone and email addresses below.

Join MNews on the trip of a lifetime when V8 Supercars hit China, in June next year - tours start from just $2899 per head.

For details: Ticket2Ride (03)5977 2608 or www.ticket2ride-is.us 4 August 2004

And more French testing SEBASITIEN Bourdais wants to come back to Europe in 2005 and get into FI, His manager David Sears, the boss of Super Nova Racing (for whom Bourdais won the F3000 title in 2002), says that he is now negotiating to try to get the Champ Car series leader an FI drive and that he expects to see Bourdais testing in an FI car this autumn.

Bourdais previously tested for both Arrows and Renault but refused to sign the contracts offered to him

by Renault team boss Flavio Briatore, n France's Didier Defourny, whose promotional company has taken over the promotion of the Belgian Grand Prix, has revealed plans to boost the number of spectators at the event.

The former GT racer has enlisted the help of a variety of companies to fund a programme offering free tickets to the event on Friday and hopes that as many as 60,000 fans will attend the event.

It is hoped that a percentage of these will then take advantage of lower overall prices and buy tickets for the weekend. n Ralf Schumacher told pressmen at Hockenheim that he intends to drive again this year, as soon as the Hungarian Grand Prix.

This is virtually impossible as the final decision rests with the FI doctors and they are worried about concussion, so even if Ralf's back has healed it is by no means certain he will get the go-ahead.

The 29-year-old did not impress the FI medical community when he blamed the US hospital for treatment he received after his crash.

Indianapolis Methodist Hospital is considered to be the best hospital for such injuries in the world, because of the considerable experience which has been gained dealing with accidents at the Indianapolis 500. n A1 Grand Prix has appointed John Wickham to be its Technical Operations Advisor and to oversee the testing programme of the new Lola-built A1 car.

Wickham (54) will bring years of experience to the role, having started out in motor racing 30 years ago as the competitions manager of the British Automobile Racing Club.

Wickham has run F2, FI, sports car and touring cars teams with huge success, although his efforts to own his own FI team, known as Spirit Racing, failed in the early 1980s.

He stayed in FI with Footwork until 1995 and has since masterminded three victories at Le Mans, two for Audi and one for Bentley.

- JOE SAWARD 9

Minardi’s Wilux Runs Out MINARDI has terminated its sponsorship agreement with the Dutch bathroom fittings company Wilux.

The company is understood to have been some way behind on its payments and had fallen out with team boss Paul Stoddart over his decision to take all sponsorship off the cars at Silverstone as a tribute to the team's sporting director John Walton, who died just before the event.

Wilux boss Ruud Wildschut was unhappy with that decision but his behaviour upset team boss Paul Stoddart to such an extent that the Australian gave him a deadline of Monday after the German Grand Prix to bring his payments up to date.

Obviously, the payments were not made in time and Stoddart then cancelled the deal. Wilux's deal was a very cheap one,concluded at the last minute in Australia this year when Paul Stoddart decided that it was better to have the one deal on offer rather than no deal at all.

Under the terms of the agreement Wilux bought right to a large part of the car and sold on its space to other sponsors thus covering costs and perhaps even making a profit.

The money involved for Minardi was not huge, however,and so when the two fell out it was not a major problem for Stoddart who now has space on the cars to sell to other backers.

-JOESAWARD

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oh, no you don't": Cimmi Bruni stops Wilux boss Ruud Wildschut from nicking off with some souvenirs

Meet The New Michael

RUMOURS from inside Maranello , suggest that Ferrari is Idoking very ' seribusly at giving Formula 3000 ^and-out Vitantonio Liuzzi a chance to test one of its cars later

this year.

The move would be aimed at turning Liuzzi into a potential replacement for Michael Schumacher when he stands down at the end of .2006.

Schumacher has hinted that he might go on beyond the end of his current contract but our sources say that this will not happen and that Michael has already decided that he will retire then.

By the end of his current deal Schumacher will be coming up to his 38th birthday and will have a record of success in FI which will take decades to be beaten, if it is beaten at all.

Fie has vast amounts of money and young children and, there is no doubt, pressure from his family to get out of the sport before he hurts himself.

Liuzzi has been quite outstanding in Formula 3000 this year, not simply because of his run of six victories in seven races, but also because of the way in which he has done it.

The Italian has shown extraordinary assurance in the way he uses his tyres in qualifying and has remained completely unflustered when there 10

have been problems.

On the one occasion when he did not win he drove a storming race to come back from an early pit stop.

An interesting sidebar is that on the one occasion when Liuzzi and Schumacher raced one another, it was the youngster who won.

That was in a major kart race at Kerpen in the autumn of 2001. While one might assume that Liuzzi would be faster given that he was racing karts fulltime, it is a little-known fact that Michael went through considerable preparation for that event, doing weeks of testing and losing weight for the race. It also took place on a track that Michael knew intimately.

The event did not attract a huge amount of attention but there is no doubt that Schumacher knows how hard he was trying and thus will have been able to assess Liuzzi’s abilities at that early stage.

It is entirely possible that the team will have asked Michael to assess possible replacements for himself.

Everyone concerned is remaining tight-lipped at the moment, but it would make sense for Ferrari to test Liuzzi and then decide whether to give him a season as a test driver or whether to place him with Sauber in 2005 and 2006.

- JOE SAWARD

I motorspon news

NEWS

Briscoe Eyeing 2005

TOYOTA'S FI test driver, Aussie Ryan Briscoe, is hopeful of a spot on the FI grid in 2005, in either the Jordan or Minardi teams.

After a season in a non-race, testing-oniy role, Briscoe and his supporters are acutely aware that a race seat is, very much needed in 2005 to retain the youngster's career momentum.

While a race seat at Toyota is now unlikely, Briscoe will retain a testing role. The team is prepared to 'loan' him out to another race team if a suitable deal can be structured.

Surprisingly,for an organisation with considerable budget behind it, Toyota has apparently told Briscoe that he will need, with their support, to raise the bulk of the budget necessary to seal such a deal himself.

MNews understands that Ryan may have been partially successful in that endeavour and that some preliminary discussions may have been held.

A Toyota engine deal would be a big plus to either team, although Jordan is committed to its Ford Cosworth deal for 2005. That is, however, no barrier to Briscoe's joining the team, and there is always the prospect of tying in an engine deal for 2006, when FI is likely to go to 2.4 litre V8 engines.

- CHRIS LAMBDEN

-4 ... .:Ji

GIANCARLO Fisichella has signed a two-year contract with Renault.

It is an odd world in which one quick but flawed Italian driver is replaced by another quick but flawed Italian.

But the oddest thing is not that Jarno Trulli is leaving, but rather than the team is taking back Fisichella - who three years ago, was dropped by the team for being quick but flawed.

Renault FI chairman Patrick Faure says that the decision to drop Monaco Grand Prix winner Jarno Trulli was taken after careful analysis of all the performances this year.

"Recently," said Faure, "we have lacked a bit of dynamism and aggression and we think 4 August 2004

Giancarlo can bring that to us and fulfil our ambition to win the Constructors' championship in 2005 or 2006. We were accused when we let Jenson Button go of not going on the results achieved by the drivers but we were proved right and now we will be judged by the ones in 2005."

This is extraordinary logic by any stretch of the imagination as, since leaving Renault, Button has developed into a regular FI frontrunner and is now third in the World Championship, ahead of both current Renault drivers.

Faure, however, has'a tendency to see things as he wishes to see them rather than as they are.

- JOE SAWARD

PrntoNAs CRPOnI

Sauber sets us straight IN last issue's FI fuel and lubricant story, we raised the question of whether there was any relationship between Shell and Petronas in the development of FI engine lubricant, based on the fact that Sauber uses Ferrari engines that are designed to specifically to work with a bespoke Shell oil.

Since then, we have had a response to the question from Osamu Goto, above, the Chief Engine Engineer at Sauber. "(The)engine requirement of the lubricant is the same for both

engines," Goto told us.

"However, there are various ways to fulfill the requirement.

Consequently,Petronas and Shell's solutions are not the same."

-MARKGLENDENNING

Renewing Vows SHELL is still negotiating a new deal with Ferrari but it is anticipated that a sponsorship will be agreed, although it is thought unlikely that the Italians will be able to demand as much money for the space on offer as has been the case in the past. n Dutch driver Christijan Albers will have a Formula 1 test with Jordan in September.

Jordan has sponsorship from the Trust company but, given the complicated links between Trust and Jos Verstappen, it is more likely that the Jordan test, which will take place at Silverstone in September, will be backed by other sponsors, perhaps Mercedes-Benz, which runs Albers in the DTM. Albers was the test driver for Minardi in 2002. n Sauber has confirmed a new long-term deal with Bridgestone for Formula 1 tyres. The news followed rumours that Sauber was talking with rival tyre firm Michelin.

There was never much prospect of a Michelin deal because of Sauber's close relationship with Ferrari. n Eddie Irvine, Johnny Herbert and Marc Gene are to join the Minardi driver line-up for the forthcoming F1x2 Charity Grand Prix at Kyaiami in South Africa.

The event will feature a fleet of Minardi two-seaters being raced against one another. It is expected that as many as 80,000 racingstarved South Africans will turn up for the event, which will see the trio racing with the likes of Nicholas Kiesa, Gianmaria Bruni, Zsolt Baumgartner, Bas Leinders, plus South African rising star Alan Van der Merwe. n Britain's expansively launched new SCV8 Supercar track racing category appears to be dead in the water. Supercar Promotions, which attempted to establish the 'silhouette' touring car class last year before postponing it until 2005, was not among the promoters that this week submitted 116 permit applications for next season to the Motor Sport Association, the national ASN. Conceived by former British Touring Car Champion Andy Rouse, SCV8 was to have featured standard spaceframe chassis and V8 engines, with bodywork options shaped for a variety of UK passenger car models. n One of the latest BTCC rumours is that a diesel-engined Jaguar X-Type will be on the grid next year.

Jaguar denies any works involvement and claim that no private teams have shown interest either...

- QUENTIN SPURRING/ DAVID ADDISON 11

Bobby wants an Aston BOBBY Rahal has opened talks in the UK with Aston Martin Racing and Prodrive, which is building its new DBR9 GT racecar, below, with a view to operating a factory-backed twocar team in the 2006 American Le Mans Series.

Rahal is known to be keen on expanding his Team Rahal IndyCar organisation and has expressed an interest in forming an endurance racing arm.

Aston Martin will operate its own works team in 2005 and will then appoint three teams to operate cars in the ALMS, FIA GT and the Le Mans Endurance Series in 2006. Those cars will also be entered for the Le Mans 24 Hours.

- QUENTIN SPURRING

SaubeiMi has not done so because of a BRITISH youngster Gary lack of funding.

Paffett, currently excelling in It seems that Mercedesthe DTM for Mercedes, is a Benz might be willing to come prime contender for the up with the cash to help vacant Sau^r seat in 2005.

Paffett in order to promote the. .

If funding caFbe'fo'und, it German DTM touring car has been suggested that Sauber may run a third car,^-on . series and to improve the Friday, at the forthcoming image of the Mercedes young Hungarian GP for the driver schemes, youngster to show his wortRl * MeTcTydurfg'driver scheme has become less attractive in Sauber has been eligible to run a third car this season but —reeent«vears.becauseJ:he

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bffolmiJt THIS year's Race of Cham lining up to be a cracker feature three 2004 World Champions.

Michael Schumacher and World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Loeb have been confirmed to take part in the end-of-season head-to-head cornpetition in identically prepared rally-raid cars.

The event will move from the Canary Islands to Paris's Stade de France and the two World Champions could be up against MotoGP's Valentino Rossi, right- if he agrees to join the party.

The Race of Champions has also featured stars from NASCAR in the past and it is quite likely that Jeff Gordon has received an invitation and will be joining in the fun. The event will take place on December 4 and there are likely to be 70,000 people present to watch the show, which will take place on a kilometre figure-of-eight parallel course designed and built especially for the occasion.

- JOE SAWARD 12

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DESIGNER Mark Smith is leaving Renault FI to join Jordan.

The British designer joined Renault in January 2001 on a five year contract and so should be staying until January 2006. However,it seems that the French-based team has tripped itself up on its contracts and will be forced to let Smith go.

The team employed him as the chief designer when it already had a man m that role. By definition there cannot be two chief designers in one team and so we believe Smith will be able to walk to take up the job of Technical Director at Jordan Grand Prix.

The interesting thing is that Renault may now also have to renegotiate its deal with its other chief designer Tim Densham as,in theory at least, he too could leave for the same reason as Smith.

Densham is a man who Mike

Gascoyne would love to see working at Toyota and there may be an offer on the table if he is available, which could force Renault to pay more to keep him.

Under Renault's unique philosophy, which sees two designers moiorsporl news

NEVUS

les up Paffett company has not found its drivers work with the top teams. Both Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber were MercedesBenz dfivefs'But went their

Formula Junior SWISS teenager Sebastien Buemi, a front-runner in Europe's Formula BMW 'junior' single-seater series, has become, surely, the youngest person ever to drive a Formula 1 car.

Fils sponsor, TAG Fleuer, arranged for the 15-year-old to drive a 1999 Arrows A20 at the Luc racing school circuit in France.

there have also been talks with Nick Heidfeld's manager Werner Heinz.

Sauber said that he is "completely open,".on the question of drivers but is not in

n Dallara Automobili's first prototype for the inaugural GP2 series, which will replace the FIA Formula 3000 class next season, has been shaken down by Renault FI test driver Franck Montagny at the Paul Ricard Fligh Technology Test Track in southern France.

The car is powered by a 600bhp, 4-litre V8 built by the Mader company, which is now owned by Mecachrome, the French aerospace group. The definitive GP2 chassis, the only front-line single-seater outside Formula 1 using grooved tyres, will be built to have a lifespan of three seasons as a cost-saving measure.

own way to make it in FI. At Hockenheim Peter Sauber. . any hurry to make_ a_decision and intends to have two we’eks met BAR test driver Anthony Davidson and his manager holiday before the Hungarian David Robertson. Sauber also GP during which he is not going to be discussing the says that he has had meetings - matter.. with Martin Brundle, David - JOE SAWARD Coulthard's manager, and

TROM.

ign team better than none alternating the design on a year-on, year-off basis, Densham is currently at work designing the R25 for next year while Smith is continuing the development of the R24, which he designed.

If Smith were to stay, he would be working on the R26,for the 2006 season, despite the fact that his contract will run out before that car ever races.

If Smith is confirmed at Jordan Grand Prix it would seem to underline the recent rumours that a deal has been done with the A1 Maktoum Family from Dubai and that Eddie Jordan is already begirming to rebuild his team.

Such a move would also appeal to Jordan as it would be sweet revenge for when Renault took Mike Gascoyne from Jordan Grand Prix in similar circumstances back in 2000.

-JOESAWARD

The Mark Smith, Mark 1: Smith, one of Renault Sport's chief designers, is the man responsible for the R24, right.

Now he is off to Jordan.

4 August 2004

s

n James Thompson's link to a full-time Alfa Romeo campaign is getting stronger.

The word in the UK is that he may move to the new WTCC next year for the Italian marque as his Vauxhall BTCC contract is set to run out.

Although Thompson is remaining tight-lipped on the topic, he has admitted that the idea of the new series appeals. Fie has also urged Vauxhall to up its game in the BTCC after a lacklustre time at Croft. n The BTCC SEATs of (HRT hero) Jason Plato and Ron Fluff scored a brace of one-two finishes at Croft and were then accused of sand bagging in earlier rounds in order to get a weight break in the regulations.

The SEAT Toledos run to ETCCspec and hence run 50kgs lighter than the BTCC cars, based on performances to date.

One of the one-two finishes came despite maximum success ballast on board, which prompted an out-of pram experience from one or two team bosses. Triple Eight's Ian Flarrison said: "The result in the third race proves the rules aren't working.

If they can dominate with the weight on board, how are we meant to compete?"

Steve Neal, father of Matt, said: "We are considering whether we will go to Knockhill in the face of this kind of opposition. It makes life impossible for us."

This one is set to rumble on, we reckon I n Former BTCC race winner Paul O'Neill is set to regain his racing licence in the nextfew weeks, after being diagnosed with diabetes last year.

O'Neill is keen to return to the BTCC and is in talks with a number of teams.

- DAVID ADDISON 13

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WILL Davison had an encouraging first V8 Supercar outing with Team Dynamik at Winton two weeks ago, despite his race being curtailed by a clutch problem on the first lap.

"I had a problem with the clutch off the start-line," Davison explained.

"It just got terribly hot for some reason. As soon as I pulled first it started slipping, then I pulled second and it started slipping, and it just got worse.

"But all things considered, the weekend didn't go too badly.

They were pretty tough circumstances, given that I had hardly driven the car before and it was raining, but you just do the best you can.

Despite the difficult conditions, Davison said that it was a valuable experience.

"It was a steep learning curve and I really enjoyed it. The team were fantastic - I massively appreciate all the effort they went to in trying to give me the opportunity to gain some miles, and I hope that we can continue to work together in the future. I think the team has enormous potential."

Davison's efforts have led to some speculation that the Victorian might be a late candidate for an endurance drive with the team. Davison would not be drawn to comment one way or the other, and he was also unable to say whether he would be suiting up for Team Dynamik again at Oran Park next week.

"It would be great to do it, but there's nothing on paper to say that we're going to," he said.

Davison returned to Australia last month after spending most of the year driving for Menu Motorsport in the British Formula 3 Championship.

- MARK GLENDENNING D 0

0

IT appears that 1995 WRC champion Colin McRae has shut the door on a return to WRC with the news that the Scot has renewed his contract with Nissan Europe and will again be a part of the manufacturer's team on the Dakar Rally in January next year.

Nissan confirmed that McRae would be a part of the team once more and that it was pleased that the highly-credentialed rally star would be back with Nissan.

This year however, McRae will be fully involved in the Nissan test an4 development

0

program over the coming months.

He will also participate in the UAE Desert Challenge in October, as a 'warm-up'for the Dakar.

With two stage wins in his debut on the Dakar, McRae showed that he has the ability to master the tough desert event if Nissan can give him a car that is reliable.

McRae was dropped by Citroen at tbe end of last year but is still trying to stitch together a one-off WRC farewell drive in a privateer Ford or Subaru on September's Rdly GB. -JON THOMSON

CAMS

PROCAR'S last ties with production-based racing in Australia were severed last week when the company handed the management rights to Nations Cup, GT Performance, V8 BRutes and Production Car racing over to CAMS. In addition,PROCAR has also transferred to CAMS the ownership of all trademarks and intellectual properties for the relevant categories, as well as the Bathurst 24 Hour event.

"Wliile this decision has been made with regret, it has been done with the aim of ensuring stability and continuing growth for an invaluable part of Australian motorsport," said Palmer Group and PROCAR Australia Pty Ltd CEO Frank Slowiak in a statement last week.

'The company has every

confidence in the ability of CAMS to achieve a positive outcome that will carry on the heritage of the PROCAR categories, the PROCAR Champ Series and the Bathurst 24-Hour."

"Whilst it is unfortunate that the previous arrangements have developed to a point where they are not sustainable, this most recent development is a positive outcome and will enable the categories to move forward under a revised structure," said CAMS President Colin Osborne.

"Repatriation of the Category Management Agreements wUl enable negotiations to commence with prospective management organisations to sustain future activity for the relevant categories.

"In addition, the granting of the intellectual property and trademarks to CAMS by PROCAR will enable the

Brock Packs Heat PETER Brock is heading back to the year’s Australian Safari - and this time, he’s packing heat.

Brock and navigator Ross Runnalls will suit up for the September 12-20 event in one of two V8-powered Holden Rodeos in the Open Class of the NSWbased event. Defending Australian Safari champion John Hederics and navigator John Williams will drive the other V8 Rodeo A third Rodeo will run in the restricted Production Class. The v6-powered car will be crewed

by TV personality Glenn Ridge and navigator Bob Edwards.

"Last year in the V6 Rodeo we were running in a restricted class and were never going to catch John (Hederics) so we were always driving for second placing," Brock said. "This time John will still be my main rival,

but we will both be driving these incredibly agile but very powerful Rodeos.

"Most people don't know that I started my career as a rally driver before I hit the bitumen, so doing the Australian Safari is like going back to something I know and love. Ross (Runnalls) is a highly experienced rally and off road navigator, so 1 think we're going to have a bit of fun!"

The cars, which were built in Mildura by Kelly Motorsport, feature a 5.7-litre Gen III engine matched to a six-speed Hollinger sequential gearbox.

The event will cover 2500 competitive kilometres in 31 selective stages and more than 5000km in total, with testing mountain tracks giving way to desert and scrub before returning to the foothills of the Blue Mountains. motorsport news

t

God Help Us THE legend that is John Cleland is set to return to racing in the UK this month when he races the VIP car in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB. Cleland, who last raced a Porsche In 2000 In a British GT race, will race the car that Alain Menu won with at Oulton Park, and will square up against Tim Harvey who beat him to the BTCC crown in 1992.

Now 52, Cleland said, "I may be a bit rusty, but I can't wait to show Harvey that I can still put my foot down.

heritage of the categories to be maintained, and the contribution of PROCAR to be recognised in the future."

According to Osborne, CAMS will seek expressions of interest for the future management rights of the categories and the Bathurst 24 Hour.

"The objective will be to have a new management structure in place for the categories no later than January 2005. CAMS will undertake an immediate assessment of the potential for conduct of the 2004 Bathurst 24 hour race," Osborne said.

The expression of interest process wiU be managed on CAMS'behalf by the Australian Motor Sports Commission. Osborne indicated that the current preference was to identify a single organisation which could manage all four categories; however the process would not preclude bids

being considered on an individual category basis.

The next scheduled round of the PROCAR series will go ahead as planned at Wakefield Park this weekend under the temporary management of Peter Boylan.

Meanwhile,the Bathurst City Council has expressed disappointment at the threat hanging over this year's Bathurst 24 Hour.

"It is unfortunate tliat Procar under the Palmer Group are unable to continue running the event that they created but Council is very hopeful that this is not the end of this wonderful event," said Council Administrator Kath Knowles.

"Council is prepared make a considerable commitment with any serious race promoter to see the event run but at the same time there are limits on the risks we will take with

n The Donington FIA GT result (from June) has changed again.

The stewards of the FIA overturned the decision to award a five-minute penalty to Jaime Melo/Karl Wendlinger's Ferrari that was adjudged to have infringed Parc Ferme regulations.

The team keeps its win, pushing Uwe Alzen/Michael Bartels back down to second.

ratepayers funds.

"However it is in the interest of the Region, given the significant investment taking place at Mount Panorama and the international exposure generated in the first years, that this unique event continue and Council hopes that PROCAR's decision to hand over the event rights leads to a positive outcome for all concerned."

^1

IN other PROCAR news,round seven of the series has been pencilled in for Mallala on September 17-19.

Missing from the bill will be the Production Cars, which run a sevenround championship and will conclude their calendar at the stillto-be-confirmed eighth round of the PROCAR series later this year.

-MARK GLENDENNING

KM '05 Changes More rounds, new formats and sponsor change on the cards for 2005

by GRANT ROWLEY VENUE,format and sponsor changes have been mooted for the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series in 2005.

Although details were neither confirmed or denied, it is believed that the junior V8 series will expand from six to seven rounds in 2005, which may Include the Bathurst 25 lap race as the 'Grand Finale' to the series.

AVESCO is also considering the viability of running more rounds of the KMVSs with the 'main game' V8 Supercars.

"The series will undergo a revamp, but it isn't decided whether there should be more stand-alone events," said AVESCO CEO Wayne Cattach.

"I think Queensland Raceway was great and the feedback was terrific."

"But we still want to have stand alone races. It gives the category its 4 August 2004

n Natasha Firman, sister of ex-FI racer Ralph, has won the British Formula Woman Championship.

With it she wins a test in the Team ^ Dynamics Honda Civic BTCC car and n a funded drive in the Formula Palmer ' Audi Winter Series. Firman took : three wins en route to the crown. n Anthony Reid and Rickard Rydell, former Ford BTCC team mates, will team up again this year in Argentina. They are set to race in the Buenos Aires 200km in October.

They will drive a Honda Accord run

by Victor Rosso who raced in Japanese F3 against the two men in the 1990s. n Bizarre red flag department.

The Volkswagen Racing Cup race at Oulton Park was stopped and a flurry of course vehicles headed out on track, although not a car was missing.

The reason? A helicopter had crashed in the field on the outside of the first corner, the pilot having seen smoke in the cockpit and landed hurriedly.

The chopper fell onto its side but the pilot was uninjured.

- DAVID ADDISON

WIN!

own identity and makes them a category in its own right."

Cattach dismissed claims that the series would abandon the controversial reverse grid format. He stated the racing has been great and the championship decider at Mallala later this month is testament to its current format.

One issue that hasn't been sorted is series-sponsor Konica Minolta. The

company has supported the series since day one, but their contract expires at the end of this year.

"We're still talking to them and haven't got a definite answer yet," Cattach said.

Meanwhile, TEGA held a meeting today (Monday), where the introduction of the VY and BA to the series was on the agenda for discussion.

A hot lap with Allan Moffat or Peter Brock in an exquisite Historic Falcon or Monaro!

See page 77 for details

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Round 8 V8 Supercars Champlanship August 13-14-15 Oran Park 2

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Ambrose Richards Bright and Kelly continue the battle tar tap spat.

Full race program Includes V8 Supercars on the track each day. Formula Ford. Kuhmo Tyres Lotus Challenge, Aussie Racing Cars and Historic Touring Cars.

Limited Corporate hospitaiity suites stiii avaiiabie.

Tickets avaiiabie from Oran Park on 02 46461004 or ticketek 02 9266 4000 or visit JC

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See all the action live at Oran Park Raceway,

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NEWS

Coleman to make ™ Sandown Comeback ; THE Carerra Cup field will be bolstered ; by the appearance of a few familiar faces at Sandown next month. / Matthew Coleman will step back into the ' -^1 driver's saddle, having only contested one round of the series this year. Coleman was involved in a major incident at Adelaide's notorious turn eight with Tony Quinn and the car has been undergoing major repair ! work since.

And it was at Sandown last year that Coleman suffered a horrifying rollover, ! but this doesn't faze the Melbourne battler. .. '●I

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Marshall Cass

Any excuse to run this photo: Coleman returns to Sandown Raceway with renewed confidence.

"I'm very excited at the prospect of getting baci; in the car," said Coleman this week.

I love Sandown and we were very fast there last year so hopefully that puts us in a good position."

His GTS is nearing completion after the entire front of the car was replaced.

Coleman is also still waiting for a few parts to arriving from Germany and hopes to contest the Bathurst and Indy rounds as well.

In other Porsche news, Matthew Halliday, who raced for the first time in tills year's championship at Winton recently, will drive at Sandown and Bathurst to gain extra miles on the V8 endurance cicuits. But at this stage, the car which he will compete in is not confirmed. He used Paul Pedersen's mount at Winton.

Kevin Bell is a likely starter at Sandown in Rodney Jane's second GT3, wliile James and Theo Koundouris have also expressed interest in competing.

-GRANT ROWLEY Psst! Don't forget, you can vote in the Carrera Cup People's Choice Award, presented by MNews. Just log onto www.cupcar.com.au for more info ...

Plato Push

JASON Plato brought his BTCC title hopes alive with two great victories at Croft last weekend.

The Holden Racing Team endurance driver's team-mate Robert Huff followed him home in Races 2 and 3, giving his Seat Sport UK team a well-deserved one-two.

In the first race, Anthony Reid claimed the spoils in front of championship leader Yvan Muller, Matt Neal and James Thompson.

Muller's lead in the championship has been narrowed to three points after team-mate Thompson beat him in the last two races.

I*

GARY Paffett won the sixth round of the DTM championship at the Nurburgring in front of a huge crowd last weekend.

The Brit started from pole and held the lead for the majority of the race. The only time he wasn't at the top of the pile was during the pit stops, but a good strategy sent the AMG-Mercedes driver into victory lane.

"I had an exceptionally fantastic weekend here," said a stoked Paffett.

Championship leader Mattias

Ekstrom finished in second, ahead of reigning DTM Champion Bemd Schneider.

Swiss driver Marcel Fassler just missed out on a podium place after a great duel with Schneider. Tom Kristensen and Trmo Scheider rounded out the top six.

Ekstrom's second place has given him the championship lead back, five points ahead of Christian Albers who

ROUNDS 13 and 14 in the European Touring Car Championship turned into a BMW benefit at Spa last weekend.

BMW Team Deutschland’s Dirk and Jdrg Muller emerged as the dominators. And the result was timely, considering Motorsport director Mario Theissen was on

hand to see the action unfold.

Both Mullers took a win and a second place apiece, which has given them first and second in the outright championship.

BMW Team Great Britain’s Andy Priaulx led the series before Spa, but has now dropped to third after finishing fourth and fifth in the two races.

finished 13th.

Points: Ekstrom 47, Albers 42, Paffett 35, Schneider 22, Kristensen 17.

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4 August 2004

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Championship

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motoring

Points: Muller 177, Thompson 174, Reid 132, Plato 123, Neal 112.

The McColl family wish to extend thanks to the motorsport community for all of the support and friendship over the last 12 months. The kindness, tributes, and many honours offered to our Stew are forever appreciated and greatly cherished.

Thanks John, Janelle and Kate McColl john.mccoll@stelform.com.au w w w w W

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/A, 4"^

17

Crisis Averted Fuel blunder nearly costs Tracy ‘home’ Vancouver victory

REIGNING CART Champion Paul Tracy stopped Sebastian Bourdais from claiming a record-equalling four race wins in a row at Vancouver two weeks ago.

Tracy started on pole and led 81 of the 85 laps, but dodged a racethreatening bullet after his last stop.

"The last stop of the day went according to plan," said Tracy after the race.

"Then they came on the radio and said I needed to start saving fuel.

They said that we weren't going to make it and that I needed to build at least a 25 second lead.

"After running laps like I was qualifying and bumping a few times into the wall, I was able to do that.

We made that stop,filled up,and finished on top."

Tracy's win on home soil elevates him above team-mate Patrick Carpentier into third in the championship. It was the tliird time

Tracy has won this event.

RuSport celebrated its first double podium, with team drivers Michel Jourdain Jr and A.J Allmendinger finishing second and third respectively. The pair were separated by just 0.405s at the end.

Championship leaders and team mates Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira finished fourth and fifth and maintain their stance at the front of the series queue.

One of the biggest surprises of the weekend was Mexican Rodolfo Lavin's front-row start after he topped Saturday's session. He failed to finish the race after mechanical woes.

Podium perfection: Rookie American AJ Allmendinger grabbed bis first podium finish in third place behind team-mate Michel Jourdain Jr.

The Champ Car World Series moves to Elkhart Lake in Wisconsin for round eight this weekend.

-PHIL MORRIS

IRL Road and Street?

Points; Bourdais 186,Junqueira 159, Tracy 142, Carpenlier 134, Tagliani 120, Hunter-Reay 115, Vasserll2.

Hunting for Luck

QUEENSLANDER Josh Hunt was the victim of a first corner clash at the recent round of the Toyota Atlantic Championship at Vancouver, Canada.

Starting from grid nine, Hunt got flung into the air and squashed between another driver and the wall where his car sustained a broken front upright and bent suspension.

The 19-year-old limped his Lynx Racing Swift back to the pits for some repairs before 18

THE 2005 IRL IndyCar Series calender was due to be announced yesterday (Tuesday), and a road course or possibly even a street course could be on the bill.

It is expected that a 16 race calender will be confirmed with two road course venues at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California and Watkins Glen in New York.

Florida's St Petersburg is the likely venue for a street race, but all the pieces of this deal will not be ready before Tuesday's annoucement.

The '05 season will commence at Homestead-Miami, while Nazareth Speedway will lose its round and Texas will drop one of its two events.

n ;

rejoining the race many laps down.

The race was won by Ryan Dalziel, followed by Jon Fogarty and Ronnie Bremer.

Next year's Indy 500 will run on May 29.

The IRL is currently limited to ovalsonly.

- PHIL MORRIS

L**-

k moiorsport news

CART / IRL

Nice and Rice INDY 500 winner Buddy Rice claimed round 10 of the IRL IndyCar Series at Michigan International Speedway.

Rice diced with series leader Tony Kannan over the final 10 laps to take a solid but narrow victory. Kannan had led 184 of the 200 lap race before Rice staked his claim for the win.

It was Rice's third victory for the season and is now 57 points behind Kannan in the standings.

"We knew it was going to be a long race, it was going to be a mental race," said Rice.

"We had worked on a lot of full-

Buddy on the boil in IndyCar Series

tanks (laps). We didn't concentrate nearly as hard on our qualifying set up as we have in the past because we knew how long we were going to be in big packs."

Kanaan's Andretti Green Racing team-mate Dan Wheldon finished third ahead of Team Penske's Sam Homish Jr. and Rice's Rahal Letterman Racing team-mate Vitor Meira.

A week earlier at the Milwaukee MUe,Dario Franchitti claimed his first IRL IndyCar race win,just 12 months after cracking vertebrae in

Kisses and hugs: Dario Franchitti gets a wet one from his actress wife Ashley judd, below, after his maiden IRL victory at Milwaukee.

I

Boiled or fried: In the last two rounds of the IRL IndyCar Series, Buddy Rice, above, has strengthened his championship position.

his lower back after a motorbike accident in Scotland.

Franchitti started seventh and led 111 laps. He took the lead for good on the lap 155 and was shadowed home

by Rice. Sam Homish Jr., Kannan and pole-sitter Meira rounded out the top five.

-PHIL MORRIS Points after round 10: Kannan 400, Rice 343, Wheldon 311, Hello Castroneves 280, Homish Jr. 267, Franchitti 238, Meira 230.

www.revoluiionracegear.com.au FREE CALL

1800 804 778 to reach your nearest store

4 August 2004

Tour de Road America MEMBERS of the public will get a chance to share Road America with their Champ Car heroes in a charity bike ride around the Elkhart Lake circuit this weekend.

The ride is in aid of the Lance Armstrong Foundation which supports cancer research, Paul Tracy, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Bruno Junqueira, Alex Tagliani and current points leader Sebastien Bourdais are some of the drivers participating in the ride. n Installation of the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier got underway recently at Las Vegas Motor,Speedway in preparation for the circuit’s upcoming NASCAR Craftsman Truck and Champ Car double-header on September 25.

Construction will take three weeks and will cover 75 percent of the 1.5 mile track. n President of Michigan International Speedway Brett Shelton has presented the IRL with an idea of spliting his track’s 400-mile race into two 200-mile events to mix up the format in 2005, The concept isn’t entirely new though. In the 1970s, twin races were held at MIS. - PHIL MORRIS

●Adelaide ●Ballarat ●Brisbane ●Cairns ●Canberra ●Central Coast ●Darwin ●Gold Coast ●Hobart ●Mackay ●Melbourne ●Newcastle ●Perth ●Sydney ●Sunshine Coast ●Townsville ●Wollongong ●Auckland. NZ

19

If

THE World Superbike Championship took another turn at Brands Hatch, with Noriyuki Haga putting one over the factory Ducati team with a double victory.

The Japanese veteran battled the closest thing to a British Italian, Pier Francesco Chih, and Re^s Laconi until Chili somersaulted off his Ducati 998 at Surtees Bend, his fuel tank spinning through the air. He was unhurt and could only watch as Haga beat Laconi and a trio of Australians - poleman Steve Martin, Honda's Chris Vermeulen and Troy Corser, who was on-form on the Foggy FP-1.

The second race was red-flagged and decided on aggregate time after a tailender took a bad faU. Again, Haga (#41,above) had to fight with Laconi and Chili, and 'Nitro Nori' was content to sit behind Chih, who took the flag and celebrated like mad on the cool-down lap - only to be advised that Haga had won by a second on corrected time.

With Laconi falling and Martin parking with a blown engine, Vermeulen took third from Chris Walker's FP-1, Corser having fallen at the second comer of the restart. James Ellison showed that he, and Yamaha,could be a force with a full-time

H

program with a fifth to back up his sixth in Race 1.

What the races have done is set up a thrilling climax to the series which,for so long, has resembled a factory Ducati benefit. The top four riders are covered by just eight points and there is a month's break before Assen starts the final three rounds of the season. And,if any of the top four falter, Martin and Garry McCoy looked entirely capable of grabbing their opportunities.

Points; Laconi 218, Venneulen 216, Haga 212,Toseland 210, Chili 180, McCoy 155, Martin 135, Haslam 120, Corser 112, Walker 102.

DRIVER/REMOVALIS

You may wonder why we are advertising for furniture removalists in a car racing magazine. Well it’s simple really ... if you are reading this magazine, you are probably passionate about car racing. We are too, and over the years have been heavily involved in car racing as a means of promoting our business, and having some fun at the same time. (You know what they say, “Work to live, NOT live to work’’.) The problem is, for us to spend money on car racing we need to earn money in the first place, and this has become harder to do because we Just don’t seem to be able to get enough drivers! Every day we have trucks sitting in the yard, we have plenty of work just not enough drivers. Let me say that again ... not enough of the RIGHT sort of drivers. You see we don’t want unreliable people who don’t care about our customers, because that’s not the sort of business we want to run. We want quality peoplel Now, if you are an experienced removalist, I don’t have to remind you that it can be hard work sometimes, but we pay well, the work Is regular and you can get involved if you wish in our motorsport activities as well. A bit different to most furniture removal companies, don’t you think? You need at least a car licence, an MR licence would be better, and if you’ve got a HC licence you could even drive our transporter!

Our depot is in Seven Hills, Sydney. We will assist with relocation from interstate for any applicants who are worthy.

Further info call Paul on 02 9624 7766bh. Thanks for reading this, maybe we can help each other “and get back on track.’’

20

More yawning DONINGTON'S 125cc CP was an uncharacteristic procession for Andrea Dovizioso.

battle with Jorge Lorenzo (Derbi).

The Italian took pole and was ahnost 4s clear of Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia) by the end of a race that saw most of the title rivals crumble.

Hector Barbera and Pablo Nieto

DANI Pedrosa looks to have the 250cc title under control after dominating at Donington.

The Spaniard took his fourth win of the year by 6s over Sebastian Porto (Aprilia) with Randy de Puniet's Aprilia another five seconds behind.

The only thing to escape Pedrosa's grasp in Britain was pole position, Alex de Angelis taking that after starring in qualifymg. But a bad start dropped him to seventli on lap one before he recovered to fourth.

both tumbled on the opening lap of the race at the high speed Craner Curves while Roberto Locatelli crashed out of tlrird place with just three laps remaining. He remounted but finished out of the points.

Casey Stoner missed the race, stiU recovering from a broken collarbone but KTM team-mate Mika Kallio showed what might have been, taking fourth after a dose last lap

Points; Dovizioso 163, Locatelli 131,Barbera 129, Stoner 104, Nieto 88, Lorenzo 84.

Points: Pedrosa 180, De Puniet 146,Porto 128, Nieto 94, de Angelis 93, Elias 86, Aoyama 71, Rolfo 67, West 65.

motorsport news

BIKE NEWS

Medical Procession

A Mug’s Game

Rossi takes back upper hand at Donington

THE pendulum has swung back to Valentino Rossi in the battle for supremacy in MotoGP. The mercurial Italian ruled the British Grand Prix at Donington Park, Rossi's Yamaha leading every lap from pole position on a day when his rivals had no answers. Gearbox problems restricted German GP winner Max Biaggi to 12th while Sete Gibernau was third - oddly, behind his own team-mate Colin Edwards.

"I am happy because I have taken a small advantage in

the championship and at some tracks we will not have the advantage in race conditions so it is good to have these extra points," said Rossi after the race.

"I will sleep much better in the summer break."

Rossi was just under 3s clear of Edwards, who registered his best-ever MotoGP result on a track where he has been successful on Superbikes. Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden ended the race fourth after picking off Troy Bayliss mid-race, the Aussie forced off the track

briefly when Hayden's Honda almost high-sided when they were fighting for position. In the end, Bayliss settled for fifth, his best finish of the year.

Carlos Checa ended up sixth, ahead of Ducati's Loris Capirossi and the Suzuki of John Hopkins.

Points: Rossi 164, Biaggi and Gibernau 142, Edwards 95, Barros 86,

KARL Muggeridge (Ten Kate Honda) pounced on the final lap to snatch a Supersport win that looked certain for Sebastien Charpentier (Klaffi Honda).

In the two-part race, caused when Fabien Foret (Yamaha) crashed out and was run over by two other riders, suffering a broken left ankle, Muggeridge took a narrow In while the battle for the final podium place was just as intense, with Jurgen van den Goorbergh held out Broc Parkes by 0.005s on combined times.

Points: Muggeridge 132, vd Goorbergh 108, Parkes 82, Curtain 69, Charpentier 68, Lanzi 56, Foret 55.

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THE New Hampshire event on July 25 was nothing more than a twohorse race at a track that seems to be troubled with providing competitive racing.

Ryan Newman proved dominant from his pole position, leading the first 170 laps through halfway and a total of 187 circuits,'but when it came down to bagging the money,it was Kurt Busch who forged through from his 32nd starting position and held off Jeff Gordon for his second win of the year.

Busch passed Newman twice for the lead after his Roush crew proved slower than Newman's Penske team during a stop. He whittled past in less than 20 tours and, amazingly, Jimmy Spencer was the only other driver to lead a lap through pit sequencing under caution.

"He's been the guy to beat," said Busch. "If you want to win a race, you've got to beat Jeff Gordon."

Gordon made a few attempts at passing Busch in the late stages but admitted he spun his tyres on the final restart, caused by Rusty Wallace who was tagged into the wall by Dale Jarrett with seven laps remaining.

Wallace called the move "imcharacteristic" of Jarrett, but he lost a top 10 result to finish 30th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran 63 laps before being relieved by Martin Truex Jr., both drivers struggled with an Ulhandling Bud Chevy that eventually saw Truex finishing 31st after a slap against the wall.

Nevertheless, the team held onto second in the points behind Jimmie Johnson, who came home 11th with set-up issues.

- MARTIN D CLARK

Final result; Busch (Ford),J Gordon (Chevy), Newman (Dodge), Kenseth (Ford), Stewart (Chevy), Waltrip (Chevy), McMurray (Dodge), Kahne (Dodge),Jarrell (Ford), Mayfield (Dodge).

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JIMMIE Johnson dominated last Sunday at Pocono, holding off veteran Mark Martin to the flag in a final five-lap shoot-out after Kurt Busch blew a transmission, airing the ninth and final caution flag.

"This week we were on our game," said Johnson, above.

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everybody else longer."

The Joe Gibbs pairing of Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte were both wiped out in separate wrecks. Stewart spun in front of Busch and Kasey Kahne, pounding the wall where Kahne snagged him and causing some front-end damage, but Kahne's Evernham crew made repairs for him to finish an outstanding third.

Labonte, meanwhile, was tagged by Brian Vickers while running outside the top 10 and rear-ended the wall with force.

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motorsport news

STATESIDE

Junior Vows To Wear Underpants DALE Earnhardt Jr. completed just 53 laps at Pocono on Sunday before handing his DEI Chev over to John Andretti.

NASCAR loves NY INTERNATIONAL Speedway Corp. has apparently signed a contract that would have the sister NASCAR company purchasing 600 acres of land on Staten Island, New York.

The deal is set to be finalised in November, but don't expect a race there any time soon as permission would have to granted to hold events In an alreadycongested area of the city.

J

This came after sitting out the majority of the Netv Hampshire event due to pain from burns suffered in an accident at the Sonoma

n Bobby Hamilton Jr. has been officially tabbed to drive the PPI Motorsports Tide-sponsored Chev in 2005, replacing Ricky Craven.

With Hamilton comes his crew chief from his current Busch Series team Rensi Motorsports. The announcement came July 28 after three weeks of rumours and speculation.

circuit on July 18th during the first lap of a practice session for the American LeMans Series.

dropping him to ninth in points ahead of Kevin Harvick who suffered engine woes. Six of the top 10 in points were dogged with mechanical issues.

- MARTIN D CLARK Final result; Johnson (Chevy), Martin (Ford), Kahne (Dodge), Biffle (Ford), J Gordon (Chevy), T Labonte (Chevy), R Gordon (Chevy), Kenseth (Ford), Mayfield (Dodge), Sadler (Ford).

Point standings; Johnson 3040, J Gordon 2808, Earnhardt Jr. 2773, Kenseth 2623, Stewart 2602, Sadler 2504, Busch 2481, Newman 2472, B Labonte 2466, Harvick 2420.

Jr. was driving a factory-entered Corvette C5R prepared by Pratt & Miller Engineering when he went off and slammed a barrier, sparking a huge fire from which he emerged with bums to his neck and legs.

His left leg gave him the most pain at Pocono, where he battled an illhandling car that was later found to have a broken sway bar bolt.

"I have.had to sit on the couch all week," said Earnhardt, right.

"Not getting up and walking around like I want to is a big pain in the butt. Sitting in the car is one of the few things I can do. It's been something new every day witli the pain, the muscles have been aching and carrying on.

n Matt Kenseth hit the pit wall while entering the garage during practice at Pocono, peeling open the side of his Roush Taurus so the team unloaded a back-up.

The damaged car was a brand-new piece hot off the Roush assembly floor and was untested, but was to be run at Indianapolis this weekend. The car was not performing well and the question has to raised: did Kenseth hit the wall on purpose so the tried-and-tested back-up used at Pocono in June could be raced?

- MARTIN D CLARK

"The wreck was firey and hot and the pain was intense, it was an experience 1 don't want to go through again, but if they parked that C5R out the door right there I'd get right back in it."

In future, Jr. says he'U be wearing fireproof underwear and not the Tshirt and boxers he had on under his racing suit. Few NASCAR drivers wear any Nomex undergarments, but maybe this will be the wake-up call they need.

- MARTIN D CLARK

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5T

Bud,Hootie, *94 and The Yellows

Motor Mouth w with Phil Branagan

I

T'S time to make an Editorial confession. I am not that keen on Budweiser.

In November 1999, 1 found myself on a dark night in Japan sharing a bus with about 50 other people commuting from Motegi to the town of Utsonimiya. We were all there for a Winston West NASCAR race at the Hondaowned oval and, after a hard day at the office, we passed the time telling jokes on the bus's PA system.

So I told one about Budweiser, a rowboat and water, the details of which are probably best not read in a family magazine. It went down well with everyone - except for one mechanic who, in a fit of misguided patriotism, starting blurting about Stars, Stripes, Chivas Regal and the notion of relocating my head to another part of my anatomy.

It was all looking ugly until another American mule, known to all as 'Hootie', offered to punch this guy's lights out- on the bus. A grave threat to the ANZUS alliance had been put down.

God Bless America.

And now,thanks to Mark Bloody Webber, 1 am going to have to drink a Budweiser when Williams wins a Grand Prix in 2005.

The bastard. i >ugiisl 2804

ebber is not one to look backwards much but 1 think that the occasion justifies a look at 1994 and how far the lad from Queanbeyan has come.

Ten years ago, MW was a skinny kid (like, that has changed)and was engaged in combining his first year in 'real' racing cars with his final year at school, which his dad Big Al advises was not something in which Mark was

(wet again), he took his first FF win in emphatic fashion, took another win at Symmons Plains and then headed into the rest of the season.

He didn't win the title Brighty did - but the ball was rolling. By the end of the year, Webber had placed third at the Brands Hatch FF Festival, enough to attract the interest of Van Diemen for a British drive in 1996. The rest is history.

AH this time later, Yellow Pages'Judgement has been rr backed up by Frank Williams and Patrick Head

11

particularly interested. In the eighth round of the Formula Ford series at Oran Park, Webber was lucky to walk away from a shunt at Goodyear in Race 1 that damaged his unsponsored Van Diemen badly enough to have it parked for the weekend.

(By the way, Webber's RF93 was originally raced by Craig Lowndes; now there is a car you want to collect!)

By Webber's next FF outing at Sandown, he was starting to get noticed. Against such drivers as Steven Richards, Jason Bright and Jason Bargwanna, Webber qualified second in the wet and, after a bit of a bunfight in the six-lap preliminary race, zoomed from 17th on the grid to sixth in the main race.

After skipping a couple of races due to lack of funds, 1995 beckoned. At Sandown

The part of all thisinteresting is that, probably, Mark's recollections of it are possibly not all that clear.

I am not suggesting that he has a dodgy memory, or anything like that. It's just that Webber is a lot more interested in what he is doing now,and in the coming races, than he is in what happened a decade ago.

Likewise, the general media is sure to be interested in whether our FI man is about to become Australia's highestpaid sportsman, eclipsing such as your Kewells, Vidukas and Thorpedoes. Webber himself probably won't be that fascinated; it is not that he does not care about money but, as long as he has the basics of life (such as they are for an FI driver), he seems pretty content.

And, without knowing the

numbers involved, be assured that Renault and Toyota had a lot more euros on the table to attract his signature than Frank Williams and Patrick Head did.

0

ne more thing; Webber's path to potential FI glory has not been paved with lots of Aussie dollars.

Yes,there has been some assistance on the way and yes, it has all helped. But, while South Americans and others arrived armed to the teeth with budgets to ease their journey through the minor formulae, Aussies have to do it tough.

Ten years later, not much has changed. As good as it was to chat with Will Davison at Winton, I am sure he would much rather be racing in British F3 and planning what happens next year than looking at a V8 Supercar future.

Webber's breakthrough sponsor was Yellow Pages, which found the fresh-faced kid to be someone with whom they wanted to get involved.

All this time later, their judgement has been backed up

by Williams and Head.

But this fact remains; even if they had been wrong, at the time. Yellow Pages was looking, and took a risk. It would be good to think that other companies were following their example now.

Sadly,few appear to be.

So,to the Yellow Pages lot, well done. To Webber and Williams, give'em buggery.

And to Budweiser, no promises but I will do my best.

25

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FORMULII ONE

Mforid Turns USTRALIANS rejoice, you have a real star in Formula 1 again. For the first time in 25 years.

And if that doesn't get newspaper coverage and interest going in open-wheeler racing in Oz, then I am afraid that you will all be condemned to touring cars in perpetuity.

I have nothing against V8 Supercars and indeed I cut my teeth in touring car racing, but that was on the way to 'The Big Time'. It is great to have such a strong domestic racing series, but now Australia has a chance to watch one of its own playing on the world stage.

And the best news is that Mark Webber is in the right place. To my mind, the BMW.Williams team is Mark's natural home in Formula 1 and I am sure that Webber, Patrick Head and Frank Williams will combine to form a very strong unit.

They are all pretty tough individuals and will stand up to one another when they think something needs to be said.

Williams will make Webber, but at the same time I think Webber will help to remake Williams after the team has drifted for too long with drivers who have no idea how to take on Michael Schumacher at Ferrari.

It is a much better choice for Mark than going to Renault. 1 was waiting with interest to see what the various teams would do with the various announcements and I, a somewhat cynical person based on previous experience, was taken aback when I read that Renault FI President Patrick Faure said that "there has been speculation in the paddock that a financial settlement had to be reached in order to free

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TheWithBox Seat Joe Saward

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Giancarlo (Fisichella) from his contract" and added that "Renault did not pay anything to Giancarlo's current employers.

They accepted the Renault option without any difficulties."

Now, you may think that at Sauber they are jolly nice chaps to let their star walk away without asking for anything.

You'd be wrong. Peter Sauber is a Swiss German and he likes to do things by the book. Patrick Faure is the son of a French government minister and attended the Ecole Nationals d'Administration, and that means that he knows how to be economical with the truth.

0

r perhaps it would be better to say that he knows that the truth can be told in 100 different ways.

Fisichella was bound by a contract with Sauber in 2005 but he had get-out clauses in that contract to allow him to leave the Swiss outfit if he got an offer from Williams, McLaren or Ferrari. The word on the street is

%

that in the event of an offer coming along, Fisichella would also have to pay a small fee to leave. We hear that was $1.5m.

So, if I was to hazard a guess as to what happened, I would say that Fisichella signed a Williams contract and Frank and Patrick had to pay $1.5m to get him. They then let him go to Renault because Faure and his sidekick Flavio Briatore absolutely refused to release Webber from his option with Renault until Williams organised Fisichella's release, even when Mark made it clear he did not want to drive for Renault.

Renault probably did pay some money to Williams to help the buy-out take place (Williams would have negotiated on that one) because otherwise Faure would not have said "to Giancarlo's current employers" as it would not have been necessary to make that point.

He would have just said "Renault did not pay anything".

Such sophistry is quite common in some circles in FI and is the reason why some are trusted and others are not.

Funnily enough, this week Renault has run into trouble over wording itself, because its chief

designer Mark Smith has just - * told the Renault FI management: that he's had enough and is walking. He is due to stay until O January 2006 but we hear that he has concluded that the terms ●" of his contract have been brokenby the team and so he's off back to Jordan, where he will be made Technical Director and get ■ some serious recognition after years of good work.

Renault's mistake was to try to be clever and accelerate development by having one engineer design a car for one season and then a different one design the car for the following.

The problem with that is that neither man can be chief designer because by definition a chief designer has to be in charge and there cannot be two men with the same title.

If Smith and his counterpart Tim Densham are both described as 'chief designer' rather than 'joint chief designers' in their contracts, both men are free to leave because neither contract can be valid - which could leave Renault with no chief designer at all!

If you live by the sword, you must be prepared to die by the sword ...

27

I

Five minutes with

mam

l\M KMaayeii

Fonmuia Ford Champ in '03amtFormuta 4000 Champ in '04.

So what's in store tor Neii McFatiyen now?

GRANT ROWLEY caught up with Austnaiia's newest GoU Star wnmer MOTORSPORT NEWS:The Formula 4000 series isn't in its prime at the moment, but it's still a prestigious crown to have attached to your CV. NEIL McFADYEN: Definitely.

After winning last year's Formula Ford title, you obviously look for the next step in your career. A lot of the options that were available to me evaporated.

I was quite keen on doing something overseas but I couldn't get any support to do it and a Konica deal fell over so things were starting to look bleak.

The year after you win the FFord championship isn't a year you want to sit on the sidelines so basically, Graham Watson moved heaven and earth to get me in one of his cars. We lucked in with a few sponsors and I was glad to do the series.

The costs of F4000 compared to a similar series oversees is mind-blowing.

MN: You didn't actually get to race wheel-to-wheel with anyone due to the lack of depth. What can you take out of this series?

NM: If at this stage of my career I need race craft then I should give the game away.

I've been racing wheel-towheel with guys since I was seven so that wasn’t really the area I need to work on.

The area I need to concentrate on is marketing and trying to get a bit of budget behind myself.

For me, 2004 is about racing fast cars, keeping race miles high and keeping my name out there. I guess that keeps us alive in the attempt of making a career out of motorsport.

And it's another feather to my cap. I'm happy certainly about that.

MN: Are you driving in the F4000 series in China early 28

a I s;

'1 don't know if anyone has won the Formula Ford, Formula 4000 and V8 titles in a row, but I'd be willing to give it a shot.

ff

-Any V8 team willing to take McFadyen up on this scenario? next year?

NM: Oh yeah. I'm going to try and pull that off. That is something I definitely want to do.

In the last couple of laps of the race at Eastern Creek, I started to think that this might be my last time in 'wings and slicks' car. Hopefully it's not.

China would be a fantastic' opportunity and you don't know what could come of it.

MN: Besides possibly driving Supercars, what's your options for 2005?

NM: I need support to go overseas and run openwheelers. I need to get some sort of structure in my career so I can be where I want to be in the next few years. If that all fails, then I guess V8 Supercars is a healthy alternative, but the ultimate goal is to work down the open-wheel path.

I had a brief run with Team Dynamik but that's all on hold at the moment. I don't know what

happened there.

My performance in Queensland was reasonable and I've been one of the fastest in testing.

Unless I luck into some sponsorship, I won't be driving.

MN: You've been mentioned as one of Team Dynamik's endurance drivers. Is that still on?

NM: Well, at this stage, I spoke to Qscar (Fiorinotto) and he said I'm running but there's been nothing in writing. There's obviously some doubt over what's happening. I want to run with them for sure, it would be a great opportunity.

At the moment, I'm the quickest guy they've got other than Simon (Wills). Hopefully we can work out these issues because I'm sure whoever I got teamed with, we could have a crack at winning the race.

MN: If you do get to drive the enduros, it would be a great

springboard for a full-time ride in 2005.

NM: Yes. My performance at Queensland Raceway has given me the confidence I need. If I get the right opportunity, I know I can do the job.

We had a few dramas with the rear master cylinder playing up at Queensland. I made a few mistakes at the end where I really shouldn't have been pushing it so hard, I should have nursed it.

We still came away with a top 20 result though.

MN: Being in the right place at the right time is part of the trick in this game. Craig Lowndes is a perfect example.

NM: For sure. If an opportunity came up like he was presented with a team of HRT's calibre, I wouldn't back against myself.

I don't know if anyone has won the FFord, F4000 and V8 titles in a row, but I'd be willing to give it a shot. moiorsport news

I

<- .J

Pans Charles

4 August

Five minutes wiW

Geoff Willis

BAR Hernia has been the reveiaHen ot Ue 2004FI seasen. But accenting to Technicat Otrector Geoff WU's, there is sWi much work to be done. AOAM COOPBt spoke to tarn after the German GP MOTORSPORT NEWS: Was Hockheim a case of'what might have been'?

GEOFF WILLIS: No I don't really think of it like that. The result is more important - there are too many 'ifs' and 'huts'.

MN: When Jenson was forced to change the engine and take the penalty, how did you change your approach to the weekend?

GW: We just looked at the race strategy, starting from somewhere between 10th and 15th, and then work out where we need to be with that trade-off between fuel weight and qualifying position.

We knew the car was quick so we were able to get enough fuel in it and still qualify well.

MN: Looking at when people stopped, you must have been impressed by his qualifying lap ...

GW: The car has been consistently quick, so we knew we had good performance.

MN: How would you describe Jenson's race?

GW:Jenson drove a fantastic race.

Everything worked, the pitstops, the strategy, the whole lot.

Clearly he stayed out four or five laps longer in the first stint, and that's what he needed in clear air to get the lap time.

I have to say once again I'm pretty disappointed with the blue flag situation. I don't know whether marshals got confused between Trulli and Alonso, or the information was not given by the team (to Jarno), but we're seeing too many races at the moment affected by blue flags.

I think we need to find a more effective system. It does seem to be not professional at the moment.

MN: Did you enjoy watching 30

It's very important that we never get to the point where we think we're fast enough. Until we're winning races we're not fast enough, so we'll keep working.

the battle with Alonso?

GW: YesI Certainly we knew where we were quickest. We were struggling getting out of the hairpin against Alonso.

The Renaults have had very good traction for a long time, and maybe they've got slightly better mid-range power than us.

MN: Did you realise what the problem was with Jenson's helmet?

GW: We thought it was a visor problem, but Jenson didn't report any problems. After the race he said that he couldn't breathe very well, so he was holding it down.

MN: Was Taku's weekend compromised by his accident on Saturday?

GW: Going off in the morning certainly lost him all the sensible running on Saturday.

He had to be reasonably cautious in qualifying. He certainly struggled in the race, so we'll have to find out why.

MN: In recent races different teams have been the main challenger to Ferrari; you in the USA, Williams in Canada, Renault in France and McLaren in Britain. Are you any closer to understanding the pattern?

GW: I think we've been generally

quite consistent everywhere.

I think it was McLaren who made a big step forward at Silverstone. In Canada, we got the car set-up wrong - it was one of those lessons that we needed to learn in our first year with Michelin. Since then, I think we've been consistently quick.

And we've been carrying on developing. Here there were more little developments on the car, both engine and chassis, and it's important to keep making those and keep the pressure on those people around us.

"It'S very important that we never get to the point where we think we're fast enough. Untii we're winning races, we're not fast enough II

MN: It's been suggested that you had peaked in the first half of the season. Is this race an answer to the critics?

GW: Certainly, if you start the season with a quick car and you develop it quickly early in the season, you set yourself quite a big target for continuing that development during the year.

MN: Any idea about Hungary?

GW: Like all circuits this year, we'll go there thinking the car will be good - we don't have any obvious reasons why we shouldn't be quick in Hungary.

It's another tough circuit; maximum downforce, very hot, very dusty and low grip conditions. It will be another challenge, but we'll look forward to it.

MN: We've seen a lot of accidents caused by mechanical failures in recent races. Is that just a reflection of the pace of development?

GW: I just think it's an indication of the responsibility of teams to control their design and manufacture processes properly.

We're all in the business of trying to design parts to the limit of our ability, and all of us are aware of the loads involved.

We just have to keep very focussed, and I'm sure everybody takes a very responsible view.

MN: Can you remember a run of problems like this?

GW: We at BAR have very robust 'Class A' systems.

Anything whose function is critical to the driver's control of the car, like suspension, brakes and wings, goes through a very strict process of sign-off and design.

We have regular inspections and we track the kilometres we use. We regularly inspect them, so we're very strict with that.

It is a performance advantage, because the driver has huge confidence that the car will stay with him at all times. moiorsport news

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MARK WEBBER: It's been surprising, actually, A lot more people than I would have thought have been in touch, people who've had an involvement along the way, people who I've known through the categories along the way, both in Europe and back home.

Everyone's happy for me and it's nice to have the response we've had. The work hasn't even started yet, but they're pleased that I'm driving for Williams. It's been a good week for hearing from some of those people who I may not have heard from for a while.

MN:The process has been going on for some time. Are you relieved that now you can just start to get on with it?

MW: Yes. I had dinner with Sam Michael the other night. Now we can talk to each other knowing what the future is. I can deal with whoever I need to at Jaguar, Williams, or BMW, in realities.

"rm thinking about the team. Whoever is in the other car is there and ifs Frank and Patrick's decision" - Webber on his team-mate Up until now it's been 90 percent clear, but that last 10 percent may as well have been 90 - it's the same thing. Now it's totally clear, everyone's more comforatble with each other.

32

With his Williams signing confirmed, Mark Webber is setting his sights high. He spoke with CHRIS LAMBDEN about moving to Grove - and how he and Williams will set about beating Michael Schumacher

MN: It did take some time; you've confirmed that Frank Williams first spoke to you just over a year ago. Apart from the contractual situation with Jaguar, can you explain the options you had - Toyota, Renault etc - and why you've ended up at Williams?

MW: My management did have talks with Toyota, but that's as far as it went. We knew that it is going to be difficult for them to get results over the next year or two ...

I'm very close to many of the people at Renault, including the boys on the floor and, of course.

Flavio [Briatore], but Williams has always been the team that has been attractive to me.

The decision was made a little bit harder because of everything that Renault have done for me, having paid for me through Formula 3000 and given me a huge amount of experience through my time there as a test driver.

But really, for me, it was Williams through and through.

Financially Toyota was phenomenally attractive, but it's not attractive if you can't get the results that you want.

MN: Clearly you believe that, long-term, Williams is the team which can achieve results ...

MW: Yes. They're a very, very consistent team. You know that Frank's name is above the door and they want to go racing. Yeah, they're having a bit of a lean patch at the moment, but they'll learn from it and will benefit from it for the next two or three years when they come out the other side.

MN: Briefly going back to Jaguar, I thought David Pitchforth's comments about your departure were the most positive and magnanimous thing I've heard from a team boss losing a driver he'd rather keep. The last two years have worked for them and they're unhappy to see you go.

MW: It was a difficult day at the factory when I went there to tell them that was my decision. But everyone was 100 percent behind my decision. They could see exactly the reasons behind coming to that conclusion.

It's worked for both of us.

Clearly, Jaguar have done a good job with what they've had. There are some bloody clever people making a sound little car there.

We've scored some good results in two years. We could have done more, but we could also have done a whole lot less if we hadn't worked as hard as we did.

MN: What sort of experiences will you take away from Jaguar to help you in this next step?

MW: I gained a lot of confidence, having raced at the front a few times.

There's also been the pressure to hold the team, in some cases. If you make a mistake, it can be all over for the team for the weekend, noiorspori news

FORMULA ONE

t Sights on the Top so had to learn to live with that very quickly.

Dealing with people; dealing with a bigger team; dealing with engine manufacturers; how to deal with my time off track. Those are the important things that have developed through that time.

MN: There are some Euro media who still say you've never had a serious team-mate...

MW: Yeah. I hope it is someone who is very, very strong. You improve a lot and the team will benefit more. That's what Formula 1 is all about, racing against tough cookies.

But honestly. I'm not worried who it is ...

MIM; Moving on to Williams, Frank and Patrick head are part of Formula 1 history and folklore.

Their team is one of three which have pretty much dominated FI in the modern era. At this early stage, what do make of them as a pair of individuals?

MW: I haven't had a huge amount to do with Patrick, but he's totally straight-to-the-point in terms of talking about whatever there is to discuss. There's a phenomenal amount of experience tucked away there. He's handed some of the responsibility over to Sam (Michael), but he's seen a lot and to be able to draw on that experience will be special for me.

Frank is very similar. Seen a lot, been through a lot, worked with some very good drivers. It'll actually be an honour to drive for him and I hope we can make him feel proud of his team again.

MN: They have a reputation for not suffering fools; telling it like it is. Have you detected that much yet? I guess you prefer it that way anyway...

MW: There are some drivers on the grid who will make excuses and are too proud to admit when they're not performing well, or when they are making mistakes. But I think you've got to be critical of yourself and work out where you can improve.

So far, they've been absolutely fine, but I guess we're yet to work in a pressure situation - which will come! And when we do start to work under pressure, we'll learn even more about each other.

MN: You've spent the last three Grands Prix sandwiched between their two cars, so possibly have a unique view on the FW26. The BMW engine is reputedly pretty strong, which would suggest that, in basic terms,the chassis is the area where they can improve most?

MW: The car itself could be better, and I'm sure they know that. It's not performing to the level they 4 August 2004

want. There's no rewind button in this game, so that's the way it is.

We've made some good decisions on Grand Prix weekends.

We don't go there aiming to beat Williams: we go to get the best result possible. If that happens to be in among the Williamses, then great.

I'd probably be lying if I said we didn't work very hard to beat Antonio [Pizzonia] at the last race.

There was more in that than just beating the Williams ...

MN: Figures that are bandied around suggest that the Williams budget is two to two and a half times that available to Jaguar.

How much does that raise your expectations of what Williams should be able to achieve?

MW: The depth and knowledge and experience and resources there are impressive. But it's just as much about hitting the track, learning as much as you can and making all the correct decisions at the crucial times, which is what Ferrari does.

That's what we're going to have to do in the future. §

There are no 'resources' excuses at Williams, which can genuinely happen sometimes at Jaguar, But we know that's the score at Jaguar and that's why we're doing a bloody good job with what we know. To be racing in the points these days is tough ...

MN: Another issue to be addressed is a team-mate. It's the team's decision, but do you have any preferences?

MW:There are always people you will react with and respond to better than others. Out of a list of five drivers, there might be three I know reasonably; one I know really well. They all have strengths and weaknesses like any of us, whether it's experience but maybe without the motivation, or young and hungry but prone to mistakes. You never want mistakes ...

Frank has told me there's no rush on the second driver and that he'll inform me when they're getting close to it. I'm losing absolutely zero sleep thinking about iti I'm thinking about the team. Whoever is in the other car is there and it's Frank and Patrick's decision.

Patrick is totaiiy straigiiHo-tiie-point in terms of taiking about whatever there is to discuss.

There's a phenomenal amount ot experience n tucked away there

11

- Webber on Patrick Head, left, with TO Sam Michael

MN: Expectations for next year?

The following year?

MW: We've got to be looking to win (races) next year, for sure. We have to aim to win Grands Prix.

Whether we can win enough to 'do the business', time will tell. The first part of next year may be a bit of catch-up, who knows.

But we have to go into 2006 aiming to be the strongest in all areas and have everyone covered.

MN: The revised regs, with 25 percent less downforce,tougher tyre regs etc, still haven't been finalised. Will that put the team under pressure to be ready to go, competitively, in Melbourne, in March?

MW: Every team will be - as long as all the teams find out on the same day and Ferrari don't find out four months ahead of everyone elsel As long as that's the situation, it'll be a fair contest between the teams to react and prepare in time.

MN: Finally a big, direct question, courtesy of an eight year-old fan - my son. "Can you beat Michael next year, and, are you prepared to crash' him out to do it?" Seems he's watched some of Michael's old tapes!

MW: Michael is beatable. But you need to have everything working unbelievably well. And then, if you do it one weekend, then you've got to back up and do it again the weekend after, and the weekend after that. That's the way he operates. The level he and his team set is massively high - that's what everyone is trying to beat.

Whether he will still be the benchmark next year, with Ferrari, we'll see.

What do you say to part two! You have to earn his respect and beat him. Obviously, you don't beat him if you crash into him, so you need to beat him fair and square. That's what it's all about.

33

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LL is right with the world. There is soon to be an Australian driver at BMW.Williams.

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last week, or missedithe last edition of lyiotbrsport News, by now you will^kjjgvfflii that Mark Webber is parkm hd blue for Qyeralls and donni 2005 and b 1#P^ announcement last ler would drive for Williams SSP Wj

ig^RS^fribnths of speculation and secretkeeping and had brought a smile to many ■ who are impatient to see Michael Schumacher and Ferrari knocked from the top of the Formula One pyramid.

If.you turn back the clock 25 years or so, ● yoTJ might just see some similarities. The team is poised for success. They have a no●I bullshit driver in the frame. And Ferrari is ' ■ po top of the hill, ready for a kicking, fn 1-979, the Aussie at Williams was Alan Jones. AJ had won one race, in Austria, in 1977 and he became the man at the epicentre of Williams's transformation from a band of back-of-the-grid triers to the team everyone wanted to drive for - or beat.

The partnership of the tou^ ;s and from Melbourne and Frank4>OTl vr what was to Patrick Head^ frvlln\A/=^HBlS 'o decades of success, [rivers' and constructors' ^ampionships and winning forays into Sportscar and Touring Car racing.

And, according to Jones, not much has changed.

"Frank and Patrick are racers. smiles Jones.

"That is their great strength. Frank gets on with the business side of things and sorts all that out and Patrick works hard on the cars. From that point of view, nothing much has changed in the last 25 years or so.

"There have been changes in the team over the last while, with Sam Michael moving into the new role [as Technical Director, meaning a change in role for Head]. I do not know that much about him [Michael] but I would think that Patrick might have a tough time staying in the background for long. He likes to stay involved and likes to be close to what is

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going on in the team."

Jones is a little modest about his role in the team. It was a perfect fit for team and driver, none of the major players notably tolerant of nonsense (even if that not what Jones calls it) and, even when things went wrong, no-one got down in the mouth.

That has not changed and Jones thinks that the next Aussie in the team will be a good fit.

"One of the great things about Mark is that he has the ability to lift everyone up in the team. It is easy to be a good guy when things are going well, but Mark has the ability to stay positive when things are not going that well. He is a straight talker and does not talk any bullshit. I know that FI is a different kind of world now but he seems to be more like a driver from the other era.

"There are a few drivers I could name no pack drill - who you would like just to lower into the car by crane and then not have to deal with any other time.

"I am not sure that even Michael has that kind of ability to motivate people. Yes, he is extremely fit and so on but Mark has things

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Mark Webber will have a lot to live up to at Williams next season.PHIL BRANAGAN spoke to the first Aussie to set the standard at the team,former world champion Alan Jones that Michael does not have. He is not alone; I think that there are other drivers in the sport who do some of those things. I have a lot of time for David Coulthard, for instance; David is very fit, a good worker and has a lot of experience in FI. I have talked to DC quite a bit and I have a lot of time for him."

Much was expected of the Williams FW26 this season, the now Grove-based team starting the season as one of the favoured teams to end the reign of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari.

But a myriad of things have happened to derail those predictions; a number of unseasonably cool racedays have favoured Schumacher and his Bridgestone tyres; Juan Montoya announcing that he was McLaren-bound for 2005 before the first race; Ralf Schumacher's lacklustre form and Indy crash; and the struggles of Marc Gene and Antonio Pizzonia.

"Williams has, probably, not lived up to the expectations that many had of the team at the start of the season. The team has very high standards and BMW expects a lot in terms of results.

"But I am not sure that the team is at a low ebb. You can never write the team off, never; look at McLaren this season. A few races ago, no-one would have thought that their cars had a chance of getting even a ’ podium this season but they have turned it around very quickly. That is because the . .'. team has a huge amount of experience and r ,.' ,1 j Ron Dennis will not quit. ' ' I "Williams is like that. They will keep ' |- working and working. Mark should slot into r I that environment pretty well; he has shown '■>, I at Jaguar that he can lift a team."

So, does Jones think that the new Seventh Heaven: {ones took his Williams FW07 to partnership between a very British FI team second place in Canada in 1979, main pic, and and a very Australian Aussie can work? won in Austria that same year, sharing the podium "There is a lot to look forward to next with Gilles Villeneuve and/acques Lafitte. season. It will be 25 years since Williams won its first Grand Prix titles. It will also be 10 years since the Grand Prix moved to There are a few drivers I could name Albert Park. There are a lot of signs that it ■ ^ no pack drill - who you would like just will work out well. . ’ "Wrien Mark wins his first GP, I would like ● to lower into the car by crane and then tt to be there to congratulate him. Maybe we not have to deal with any other time will sit down and have a beer -1 quite like - AJ on some former Williams drivers... Budweiser, you know!"

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FORMULA

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The Magnficent Seven (and the Six was pretty handy, too)

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T is always hard to compare eras in motor racing - particularly in Formula One - but looking at the circumstances under which Alan Jones has his success at Williams and the future for Mark Webber is pretty interesting.

Prior to the time AJ joined up with the team,it would not be unfair to compare Williams with a cross between Minardi and Jordan. Frank Williams had established a team at the end of 1966 and competed in Formula 3 and F2 before moving up to FI in 1969. His driver was Piers Courage, heir to the brewing fortune and, while he could be considered a gentleman driver, he was far, far better than some of the steerers who have worn that tag since.

Tragically, Courage was killed in Holland in 1970 and a succession of drivers (including Tim Schenken) eked out the odd result for the battling Williams. A partnership with Walter Wolf was unsuccessful and, for 1977, Williams went out on his own again, recruited Patrick Head as designer and moved into a former warehouse in the town of Didcot.

While struggling with a March for a season. Head and his small team were working on their own car for

1978. The result was a neat, tidy, if conventional car, the Williams FW06.

Now,they just needed someone to drive it.

"The circumstances under which I went to Williams are a lot different to

those under which Mark is going there now," Jones remembers.

"I had been ... I was playing funny buggers,I guess. I was trying to get a drive at Ferrari alongside Mario Andretti and I was holding out for that. Then I heard that GUles Villeneuve had signed a contract and that was the end of that.

"So I got on the phone and called

Frank and Patrick. I went up to see them - not where they are now,at the old,small shop at Didcot- and we talked and I had a look at the 'Six (FW06). It looked pretty good but it was later coming along; it was about the fastest flat-bottom car built but, by the time we got it on the track, Lotus had the 78 going properly and we struggled. Everyone struggled ...

"But we still got some good results out of it. We could have won at Long Beach if things had worked out a little different and I was second at Watkins Glen behind [Carlos] Reutemann in the Ferrari."

With some increased funding for the following season allowing the team to expand to two cars, WiUiams hired veteran Clay Regazzoni to join AJ. The new FW07 was late, arriving in time for the Spanish GP in April and it took some time to debug.

But by July, it was the fastest car on the track; Jones dominated the British GP until stopped by a broken water pump. Regga won the team's first race and,after Jones went on a tear for the rest of the year, the championship beckoned for 1980.

Jones won five races, Carlos Reutemann one and the team took both the Drivers' and Constructors' titles. And Ferrari was nowhere!

If this sounds like an interesting era to you,perhaps the new DVD Formula One 1980 is for you.

Motorsport Videos has the highlights in stock and it makes brilliant

viewing, especially as it underlines just how well AJ and the team worked together.

FreecaU 1800 815 834 or have a peek at www.motorsport.net.au At Sixes and Sevens: Before Jones was a force in the FW07, inset, he took second at Watkins Glen in the FW06, below.

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And into The

There is movement at Ford Performance Racing, with the effects of the visit by Prodrive MD Nick Fry aiready ieading to changes to the beieagured factory V8 Supercar team. PHIL BRANAGAN caught up with Fry before he returned to the UK

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HE last weekend in July was a good one for Prodrive. Jenson Button's efforts to drive from an unrepresentative 13th on the grid to second in Germany,with one hand tied behind his back (well, on his helmet) meant that the BAR-

Honda part of the motor racing empire had performed, and performed well.

Like many of us, the company's managing director Nick Fry got to view Master Jenson's one-armed heroics on Network lO's Sunday night broadcast. Unlike the rest of the Lucky Strikers, Fry had other business; he was at Winton to witness Ford Performance Racing's assault on the seventh roimd of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.

Fry has a tough job. Apart from BAR,Subaru's WRC squad and Prodrive's Sportscar efforts with Ferrari (the past) and Aston Martin (the future) he has to, along with the

rest of the company,look across the world to see what is happening Aussie-side.

And what is happening cannot make a man driven to success happy.

It is actually difficult to make objective comments about the team without it sounding like a sledge but we can try. At best, since the Prodrive-owned and Ford-funded FPR team has marched into the toughest touring car championship on the planet at the start of the 2003 season, its results have been disappointing.

At worst, FPR is an disorganised herd, apparently incapable of getting its cars to consistently finish races and is the butt of unkind jokes in pit lane. For a visibly well-financed and equipped team, with two multiple championship-winning drivers,its 2004 form is nothing less than an utter travesty.

It is not difficult to figure out that

Fry must be well-equipped himself to survive in a tough business like international motor racing and he does not ice what is a pretty hard cake to chew; "I think we always said right from the start when we got into this that we didn't expect it to be easy and with all of our motorsport programs we generally say it's a three-year program before you really make a successful team. I think it is very much turning out that way," he says.

"Having said that, this year has been a disappointment and at the moment we appear to be progressing less quickly than we would like. This is the reason why I am down here, to try and help the team identify what we should be doing to make the team more successful.

"I have an absolutely clear picture of where the team is and I have an absolutely clear action plan for improvements, of which the team is

also fully aware and have bought into."

The history of the FPR team is well-documented; it bought out what was Glenn Seton Racing just before Christmas 2002 and ramped what had been a one-car team into a threecar effort for the following season.

Early results were pretty good; Craig Lowndes took an unexpected, if fortuitous, win at Phillip Island and finished fifth in the championship.

Seton finished 15th overall and David Besnard 21st, though the obvious shortconiing in running three cars in a series where three is an untenable number was dealt with by trimming to two cars for this season, leaving Bezzy free to move to WPS. So, when the team qualified all three cars in the top 10 at Eastern Creek's Grand Final last year and returned to its dazzling new Broadmeadows HQ,expectations for 2004 were high. They just served to

"I have an absolutely clear picture of where the team is and I have an absolutely clear action pian tor improvements" - Nick Fry, right

make what had happened this season look even more stark; bad results, embarrassing unreliability, no car speed.

Why? Does FPR have the wrong people or the wrong structure?

"It is a matter of being a bit of both," admits Fry. "1 do not think that there is any one single thing.

"The team has no shortage of facilities or equipment or numbers of people but we have got to augment some of the skills. There will be some announcements in the next week of additional people who will be brought in,some of whom are fairly well-known names.It is then a matter of instilling some processes and discipline and getting the thing working better together."

Even away from the races, things have looked bad. You may have seen the Ford Falcon TV commercials featuring Lowndes and Marcos Ambrose and their racecars. Well, Ambrose has his racecar; what appears to be Craig's is, in fact, a Brad Jones Racing BA repainted in CAT livery because FPR did not have a car ready when the advert was scheduled to be shot in Sydney.

Then there is the matter of testing or, rather, lack of testing. Endurance driver Alain Menu had his trip to Australia to drive at Winton postponed because the team lacked sufficient working engines to make the trip worthwhile. FPR completed its first test of the season in mid-July, by which time the 2004 season was basically shot to pieces.

Even Lowndes, usually a smiling face through adversity, is not totally amused; "We started the season beliind the eight-ball because we didn't have any testing and we didn't have testing because we were disorganised," he told The Weekend Australinn recently.

So, the litany of engine explosions from its UK-developed motors, which appear not just to be shy of horses but deliver what power they do have all of a sudden, prompt this 4 Rugust 2004

question; why develop five-litre pushrod V8s in England and not Australia - or the USA? "That was done that way because of what I think are logical reasons," explains Fry. "Prodrive as a group have got some first-class engine people and it was logical to use the same people who did the British Touring Car engine and the Ferrari Sportscar engine, before they started working on the Aston Martin Sportscar V12 engine. If you like, there was a gap where they we available to work on another project.

"It was a logical point of view that the resource was there and they are good people,so it was appropriate to give them a go at it. it was never the long-term solution; we have other dungs to work on,specifically the Aston Martin DB9 Sportscar and the work has been slowly, and will be

increasingly, migrated down here.

One of the announcements we will make in the next week will be [about] a high-profile engine person [Ed: former BJR engine man Rob Benson].

"1 think they know a lot about engines; there are not many people in the world who know a lot about Pushrod Engines. An engine is an engine;it is about physics, not art.

"They clearly do not know anything about pushrod engines; it is not something that we work on. But they know a lot about engines in general and I think that, although they might have specific shortcomings in knowing what the specific characteristics of a pushrod engine [are], what they can bring to the party is thinking from other disciplines, which may add value.

"So the combination of,if you like, techniques and general engineering knowledge these people have got.

combined with the local knowledge which we are just about to secure, should give us a decent position."

Fry is commendably positive about the outlook for the team,stating that FPR will succeed; "I think you have to have various stepping stones. Things do not change overnight. I would expect the team to get itself into a position by the beginning of next year, where they are regular contenders for podium positions. That would be a very clear objective. Obviously, the object of the thing is to win the championship and that is not going to happen immediately but there is no point in competing if that is not the aim."

The philosophy of the whole FPR project is unusual,in the sense that until the English company arrived,

continued on page 40 39

continued from page 39 most V8 Supercar teams were owned

by Australian interests, the obvious exception being TWR Racing's ownership of the Holden Racing Team,which ended at the start of 2003. The history of HRT shows that there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea.

But what of FPR? How difficult is it for a foreign company to compete in a local series, and a series that is so competitive?

"All formulae have got their unique points and I don't think that anyone is under any illusions," says Fry. People who have been doing championships for a long time have a huge advantage in terms of stored knowledge. I think that I said at the press conference that it doesn't really matter whether it is V8 Supercar, Formula One or Sportscars; to get a team from pretty much ground zero to get it to work effectively is a threeyear task. We are now 18 months in.

"So,although we are obviously not satisfied with our performance.

5 s-

S;

we also have to be realistic that a lot of people down here have been doing this championship for a long time and they are very good at their job. We absolutely recognise that.

There is a lot of learning for us to do but that is what we are paid to do; accelerate up the curve as quickly as possible."

As far as V8 Supercar racing is concerned. Prodrive is in a tough situation. If it wins, it wiU be said that with the facilities and budget that the team has(not to mention the fact that its other programs are at the cutting edge of international motor racing) it is doing exactly as it should do.

If it continues to lose, it will be criticised as a waste. And if its current malaise continues for any length of time into the future,it will continue to be the butt of cruel jokes.

But Fry gives the impression that he is quite aware of what is going on.

Prodrive has proven in the past that it is not above breaking eggs to make omelettes. Some Australian animals can lay some awfully big eggs.

Let's see what breaks next.

Will number f

THERE has been much recent talk about the future of Craig Lowndes.

The three-time Supercar champ has really struggled this season (and,to be fair, has had a rough time with unreliability) and currently sits 27th in the championship.

"Clearly, Craig is the one that everyone is talking about at the moment," says Fry. "It is too early to say, at this stage, exactly what we will do for next year."

MNews sources suggest that Lowndes and his management had a meeting with Fry and FPR principal David Flint immediately after the Winton race. Keeping him, and keeping other Ford teams off him, is clearly a priority.

But what about Glenn Seton? The two-time ATCC

winner is 12th and had a strong run to 10th (from 31st on the grid) at Winton. At 39, he looks to be driving pretty well; in eight events this season, he is 5-3 up on Craig in qualifying. He is out of contract with the team at the end of the season.

So, any interest from FPR? "Our intent at the moment is to keep what we have got and clearly we have got to a better job to convince them that they want to drive for us and that is what we intend to do," said Fry at Winton.

Then came Sunday night and the post-race media releases.

From FPR Chief Engineer, John Russell; "Great work by Glenn's crew, after where he qualified no-one would have thought that he would recover

I a

i 40c A meeting of minds: The day after the Winton round of the V8SCS Craig Lowndes and Fry discussed their possible future together.

A History of Success

A LOOK at Prodrive's extremely impressive website (www.prodrive.com)shows that the team has very good credentials in motor racing.

Wins at the highest level of the sport, in the World Rally Championship and Le Mans, feature on the list. In the touring car categories, there are wins in the BTCCin 1988,'89,'90,'94 and 2000. Five titles in 12 years on paper, that's some record.

But a first glance does not always tell the whole story. The 1988 win was a case of Frank Sytner racking up enough wins in the 2.5-litre class to take the overall title. Sytner's Group A BMW M3 was good enough to beat a smattering of opposition.

I n '89, John Cleland's Vauxhall Astra took the drivers' crown and Robb Gravett's ex-DJR Ford Sierra won it in '90. Sytner and team-mate James Weaver took Prodrive and BMW to the manufacturer's title in both years by dominating their class again.

The Super Touring era was less kind to Prodrive. Its Ford Mondeos dominated in 2000 but, in the final year of the category in the UK, opposition was thin, to say the least. Only Vauxhall and Honda (and a few privateers) stood in the way of Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell and Anthony Reid steamrolling the series.

The 1990s forces of Audi, BMW and Volvo were well and truly gone and, by 2001, so was

moiorsport news

V8 SUPERCARS

tre stay alive? to finish where he did. It's the old saying, don't give up -the team made great calls with Glenn's pit stops and fuel strategy, managing to unlap Glenn so he could race into the ten."

This from a team that wants its drivers - both its drivers to stay next season?

We must have been listening to a different radio channel at the track. From what we heard, FPR's preferred strategy would have left Seto a lap down; it was only when he argued his case, stayed out, got onto the tail of the queue and then pitted that he stayed on the lead lap.

And he was only in that position because he had a wheel nut stick during his tyre stop. As the media release

bL-IL

kW/Mi

points out, not the team's fault - but it was the third time this season it has happened to Seton.

What does Fry say?

"Glenn is in the same position as the rest of us; he has to prove that he can do the job. As far as the Winton round went, Glenn was very disappointed with himself on Saturday in the wet and clearly did a good job on Sunday in the dry.

"Glenn has to continue to prove to us that he can do the job."

Seton - 17 race wins,9 pole positions, 2 championships.

FPR - 1 race win, no pole positions, no championships.

Just so we are clear - who is it who has to prove they can do the job?

- PHIL BRANAGAN

ELOBAL mACUmiERV COMPAlMy

PresEnts af the month 99

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1

Nicki Promotional work, photographic, television and catwalk

3.

I

or a Triumph for PR? Super Touring. Still, you can only beat whoever shows up.

In 1994, Gabriele Tarquni and Alfa Romeo, left, were the class of the championship. Prodrive was involved, providing its Banbury base and some staff; Aussie engineer Steve Farrell, now technical director of Subaru's World Rally Team, engineered Giampiero Simoni's second car.

But to say that Prodrive won the championship is a bit of a stretch.

The team’s 155TSs (or 'Silverstones') were designed, built and maintained in Turin (and, from mid-season, the old Lancia rally HQ at Chivasso) and made the 1300km truck journey to England and back countless times during the season. Team 4 August 2004

manager was rally legend Ninni Russo and the program was overseen by Giorgio Pianta.

The team had four cars (two racing and two being rebuilt in Italy) though when Tarquini destroyed his 155 in practice at Snetterton, Prodrive did step in and helped the Italians to build up a new car for qualifying.

The following season, with Tarquini and Alfa Corse back home, Prodrive struggled; the cars were slow and unreliable and eighth in the teams' and makes' titles was all she wrote.

Reading the fine prints shows this; Prodrive's touring car record is good but hardly stellar - and much work is still to be done.

- PHIL BRANAGAN

are all examples of the the sort of modelling jobs I have been involved in for the past 10 years.

Travel has abo been very much a part of my life. I was living in Tokyo, Japan for a year teaching English. I also lived in Pennsylvania, America for a year teaching Computer Mediated Art. I have backpacked around .

America and Canada andjust recently visited Thailand and China and am currently in Vietnam.

I have just completed a four-year course in Computer Mediated Art and abo finished a Diploma in Photography.

I will be going for my black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu soon.

As I have completed a stunt course, I would eventually I would love to secure a job acting.

For more pictures of Nicki visit www.sppromotions.com.au

3Promotions!

i

PO Box 4052 Patterson VIC 3204 Phone/Fax 03 9557 7750 Call the CMC Help Line for the location of your nearest CMC Power Tool stockist, or to order the latest CMC catalogue

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3 41

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ACliolpir drama, suspense and controversjf«, ^jl wasn't a Hollywood film, it was a V8 Sup^^^ji^ PHIL BRANAGAN reports from a I

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OST of the things that can happen in a motor race happened at Winton Motor Raceway to make the seventh round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series one to remember.

It rained. It was cold. There was a surprise polesitter. Some Big Guns ended up bogged in the mud. There was a last-minute overtaking move that prompted post-race controversy.

And there was a first-time wirmer.

Cameron McConvUle looked exhausted, and a little shocked, after taking the lead with about 400 metres of the 280km race remaining. It was the only lap of the race he lead at all but it counted big, the 30-year-old knifing his way under Rick Kelly two corners from home to take an emotional maiden V8 Supercar win after six years racing full-time in the class - and 11 years after he first drove a V8 as a fresh-faced 19-yearold.

The Confusion: Rick Kelly was adamant post-race that McConville had passed him on the last lap under yellow flags.

42

"It hasn't really sunk in yet, to be honest," he said after the victory brouhaha.

"I had things go my way. I just avoided a lot of carnage today. Even to be on the podium, I would have been rapt.

"It was one of the most physical races I have ever done. The last 30 laps ... you don't get a rest around here."

But, as they say on the home shopping network, wait, there's more. After leaving the door open inexplicably at the fateful corner, Kelly told Ws team that McConville had passed imder yellow flags.

Stewards investigated the matter and determined that there been no breach of the rules so the unlikely 1-2 of drivers startmg ninth and 25th respectively stood. This, on a track where qualifying behind the first two rows usually means a long weekend of frustration.

"The weekend was really good from a championship point of view, regardless of what happened on the last lap," said Kelly.

"At the time 1 thought the comer was under the control of yellow flags motorsport news

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4

I thought someone banned those 'We Won'signs? McConville joined 2004 podium-regulars Bright and R.Kelly.

It's green, and you're P2: Kelly failed to block McConville on the second last corner and paid the ultimate price.

me so I didn't see the need to block the line going into the comer."

It cost him a win and six points. In the wash-up of the championship, that may or may not be vital but Rick has probably learned a lesson; on the last lap of a race, never take anything for granted.

Jason Bright looked just as shocked to be on the podium as McConville.

The PWR Commodore was about the fastest thing on the track during the race but, after tangling with Mark Skaife just after half-distance, Brighty found himself outside the top 20, with little or no grip and not much to look forward to. But the team rolled the dice and stopped him for a new set of Dunlops,allowing Jason to surge through the pack and get within half a second of the win.

In that incident,Skaife found himself bogged and he just got out in time to complete the required 75 percent of race distance to be classified, while a similar fate befell Marcos Ambrose after he tangled with John Bowe.

4 August 2004

Greg Murphy and Steven Richards put miserable qualifying sessions behind them with stellar drives though Murf fell short of his fairytale victory when his Kmart Commodore overheated and Richo got caught up with an on-form Russell IngaU before recovering to 13th.

All the drama sets up a fascinating second half of the season, with the top four drivers in the championship covered by a very small amount of points. And if there are any more races like this one ... we might not watch the Olympic Games at all. Too much of a let-down, I reckon.

Race(100 laps) The rain stopped Sunday morningearly and,sometime

by Wintonin-July standards, the Holy Day dawned about as well as you could hope for.

continued on page 48

The Celebration: It's taken five years, but finally. Cam Mac is a V8 Supercar race winner.

BIG

D' Qualitying

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OBODY in any sport actually sets out to be an underdog, even if it is a sure-fire ticket to immense popularity when you manage to get a result.

So when Craig Baird ended what had already been a bizarre start to the weekend by taking both he and TKR's first-ever V8 Supercar pole position, there wasn't a person in the paddock who begrudged it of him (except, perhaps, the other nine guys in the Shootout).

"Obviously it is a special moment," said Baird.

"When 1 got out of bed this morning,1 didn't think I'd be sitting here this afternoon.

"1 know it's a cliche and everyone says it, but our guys work really hard. We're a small team, 1 think we've got four full-time guys, and it's great motivation for them because they keep coming back with us every weekend whether we're 20th on the grid or where we are today."

Second fastest after a long qualifying drought was Garth Tander, who landed his highest grid spot since Indy in 2001.

"The car was quite good," he reflected.

"We were in the top five or thereabouts in both of the wet sessions this morning. Track conditions probably helped us a bit 1 think the rain was probably at its lightest when we did our run."

And completing the line-up of faces that have not been seen in a post-qualifying press conference was Steve Johnson, who posted his best result since Canberra 2001.

"The car is certainly making

inroads compared to the start of the year," he said.

"We still need to make some improvements to be right up there with the Stone Brothers in the dry. At most of the tracks, they tend to be up the front, and we still need to find a bit more to be up with them as the top Fords.

"But it's just good that we were able to do a good job here today."

Elsewhere on the timesheets, there was a story just about anywhere that you cared to look. Racing throws up some strange days sometimes,and the kick-off at Winton was right up there with the strangest of them.

Practice/Qualifying The is full oflike things defyworld explanation, the that stupidity of certain world leaders or the popularity of country music.

But in the opening days of last weekend's round at Winton,the persistence in scheduling the V8 Supercars to visit central Victoria in the dead of winter was at the top of the list for just about everybody in the paddock.

It was really, really cold and really, really wet. Miserable-looking promo girls stood around trying to fight off the onset of hypothermia wliile folk in the paddock tip-toed gingerly around the place trying to find a way to get from Point A to Point B without sinking ankle-deep into mud. Apparently the weather's great there in s^ing.

Out on the track, the conditions were making it hard for anyone to get much of an idea about what kind of car they had imderneath them.

Friday's opening session started dry ish, but after a few minutes a mist of rain had made the surface just greasy enough to stop anyone from improving upon their times.

The usual suspects wound up at the top of the timesheets - Mark Skaife, Marcos Ambrose, Greg Murphy,Russell Ingall and Todd Kelly - and the only hiccup of any real significance was a gearbox change in Paul Weel's car.

One tends not to read much into what happens on Fridays at the best of times, but even so, this was a fairly inconsequential session.

Saturday was different, and not just because the rain that had fallen throughout the night was showing no signs of letting up.

Undaunted, the cars splashed their way through Saturday's two practice sessions. With grip levels hovering somewhere close to zero and qualifying due to start just two hours after the second practice session, car preservation was as much an issue as chasing set-ups for most of the drivers.

Happily (and surprisingly) most of them survived the morning unscathed. Amongst the handful of exceptions were the Castrol Perkins Commodore of Steve Richards, which needed some rear-end repairs after a whack from Garth Tander, and Dale Brede, who tore most of the front panels off the #45 Team Dynamik car when he collected Mark Noske.

The weather showed no signs of improving as the time for qualifying drew near, and the decision was made to scrap the usual system of splitting die field into faster and slower groups in favour of sending the whole lot out

at once, with 30 minutes in which to make something happen.

Tlie resultant session wasn't especially pretty, but it sure was entertaining. Despite having just half an hour to play with, the drivers managed to squeeze four red flags into the session as one car after another was caught out by the slippery surface. But for some of the frontrunners, there were just as many dramas in the garages as there were on the road. A faulty windscreen demister was making life interesting for Steve Richards, while both of the Kmart cars were hampered by battery problems that helped restrict Rick Kelly to eight laps and Murphy to just four. Murph in fact wound up falling short of the 105 percent mark but was allowed to race under AVESCO's special discretionary powers.

Up at the front, there was as much movement in the top 10 as we've seen all year. Ambrose and Paul Morris both enjoyed early stints at the top of the timesheets,and Rick was up amongst the action as well until he slid off the circuit and beached himself. At least he wasn't alone Murphy,Ingall,Johnson,Steve Ellery and Anthony Tratt were also amongst the list of drivers who made brief excursions off the tarmac, and only the most miraculous of saves saved Ambrose from the same fate.

Jason Richards was the next to sail into the mud after contact with Craig Lowndes,just as noted wet weather fan Jason Bargwanna slammed his Orrcon Falcon up to the top of the sheets.

It was an encouraging, if short-lived moment for the Larkham Motor Spon outfit, because just moments after

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44

iDotorsport news

V8 SUPERCARS I

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Underterred, Bargs went quicker again, only for Skaife to pip him once more. Entertaining stuff.

With just tliree minutes remaining, Lowndes went fourth-fastest and from FPR's perspective it was not a moment too soon, because 30 seconds later Skaife went into the back of

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Richo, with Bright spinning by himself another few metres down the road. Out came the red flags again, and with two-and-a-half minutes left on the clock, the session was declared.

This, however, was news to several of the drivers who set their fastest times after the red flag had been waved. The stewards deliberated on it for a while, and then announced that times set on the lap when the red was waved would be disallowed.

While the decision had no major bearing on the top handful of cars, it completely changed the look of the rest of the top 10.

Losing out badly were Paul Dumbrell, who plummeted from seventh to 18th, and Morris, who fell from ninth to 17th.

But it was great news for Cameron McConvUle, who had been gone from being bitterly disappointed at just falling short of a Shootout slot to suddenly wind up ninth, and IngaU, who squeezed into 10th from 13th.

Top 10 Shootout The had let up a little for the weather single-lap flyers, but not that much.

It was still spitting with rain, the track was stiU pretty wet, and there was every opportunity for somebody to get things all wrong.

Ingall was first out and played it safe to set the markers in the low lm41s range, which immediately proved enough to get him ahead of McConville when the GRM driver got a bit taily and lost some time in the second sector of his lap.

Johnson was out next and immediately raised the standard by setting the fastest first sector of the session, and finished his lap tidily enough to take 0.2s out of Ingall.

Bright had no answer and initially it looked like Tander didn't either.

But after a 0.3s deficit to Junior in sector one. Garth strung the rest of the lap together very neatly to shelve Johnson's time by just over 0.6s.

Then came Baird and TKR. The tiny team was not in completely unfamiliar territory, having 4 Jiugusi 2004

ST

previously made the Shootout in Queensland earlier in the montlr.

But on a day where the Gods imposed a fairly brutal parity adjustment upon the whole field in the form of the weather, the all-blacks were well in their element.

Baird put himself into the chase with a tidy first sector, backed it up with a ripper through the second split and put the cherry on top with an equally good final sector to post the first lap under the lm40s barrier.

The team high-fived one another while Baird circled back to the garage and waited to see what everyone else could do.

If there was going to be a threat, it wasn't going to come from FPR. Lowndes was out next in a car that appeared to be delivering its power like a light switch. Lowndes wrestled the car through a scrappy first and second split and although he reeled some time back in over the last sector, the damage was done.

"I just couldn't get any temperature into the tyres," he rued afterwards. "But I guess// it was the same for everyone else.

Ambrose and Bargwanna both took a swing at Baird's lap time and missed, which meant that as Mark Skaife wound himself up for his flyer, TKR knew that they were guaranteed a spot on the front row.

But on this occasion, not even the red cars had an answer - Skaife's lap never looked like a threat and lm41.2289s later the Steinlagers were being shared around in Kiwiland.

If TKR had any sponsors, they would have been delighted with what the team had delivered.

Yet in keeping with the flavour of the afternoon, there was still one more chapter to be written. An inspection of Lowndes's engine after qualifying had found that it had too much ignition advance at 4000rpm a minor thing, but enough to have him relegated to 10th.

- MARK GLENDENNING

Where is the media centre? Neither Craig Baird, Garth Tander nor Steve Johnson have been regular visitors to the post-qualifying press conference in recent years - but it was going to be that kind of weekend ...

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^QUALIFYINBj

VBSCS Rd 7

WINTON

Pds/Nd I

car/team | t i me

Dr i ver |

Holden Racing Team Commodore VY Larkham Orrcon Racing Falcon BA Pirtek Stone Brothers Falcon BA

1:38.1 434 1:38.1709 1:38.4886

CAT Ford Performance Racing Falcon BA Team Kiwi Racing Commodore VY Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore VY PWR Performance Products Commodore VY

2^8.8290 1:38.9495 1:38.9551 1:39.4442 1:39.4800 1:39.4851 1:39.5184 1:39.6115

1

2

Mark Skaife

2 3 4

10 1

Jason Bargwanna Marcos Ambrose

6 021 34

Craig Lowndes Craig Baird Garth Tander

9

50 17 33

Jason Bright Steven Johnson Cameron McConville

10 11 12

9 16 23

Russell Ingall PaulWeel David Besnard

13 14

7 18

Tony Longhurst Warren Luff

15 16 17 16 19

12 20 29 8 48

John Bowe Mark Winterbottom Paul Morris Paul Dumbrell Mark Noske

Shell Helix Dick Johnson Racing Falcon BA OzEmail Brad Jones Racing Team Falcon BA Larkham Orrcon Racing Falcon BA Sirromet Life.Styie.Wine Commodore VY Castrol Perkins Motorsport Commodore VY WPS Falcon BA

20 21

3 11

Jason Richards Steven Richards

Tasman Motorsport Commodore VY Castrol Perkins Motorsport Commodore VY

22 22 23 44 24 888

Todd Kelly Simon Wills Max Wilson

25 26

15 21

Rick Kelly Brad Jones

Holden Racing Team Commodore VY Team Dynamik Commodore VY Team Betta Electrical Triple 6 Falcon BA Kmart Racing Commodore VY

27 28 29 30

31 75 45 14

Steve Ellery Anthony Tratt Dale Brede Will Davison

31 32

5 88

Glenn Seton Paul Radisich

3^_ ^1 34 24 35 43

Greg Murphy Garth Walden David Krause

5 6 7

Shell Helix Dick Johnson Racing Falcon BA Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore VY Caltex Havoline Stone Brothers Racing Falcon BA PWR Performance Products Commodore VY WPS Falcon BA

2:39.7006 1:39.7611 1:39.8008

Castro! Perkins Motorsport Commodore VX

1:39.83_51 "i:39!9148 1:39.9676 1:39.9989 H40.0098 1:40.0486 1:40.1386 1:40.1510 1:40.4858 1:40.5923 1:40.6630 1:40.6965 1:40.74 79 1:40.7974 1:41.1693 1:41.1806

OzEmail Brad Jones Racing Team Falcon BA_ Super Cheap Auto Racing Falcon BA Toll Racing Commodore VY Team Dynamik Commodore VY

_

Team Dynamik Commodore VY Ford Performance Racing Falcon BA

1:41^357 1:41.5136 1:43.1001 1:45.8510 1:50.5941

Team Betta Electrical Triple 8 F^lon BA Kmart Racing Commodore VY Romano Racing Falcon AU PWR Performance Products Commodore VX

TOP TEN SHDDTDUT RESULTS 1

Baird

30.7259 *1:06.0516

1:39.7544

6

Skaife

31.2027

1:07.0544

1:41.2289

2

Tander

30.9350

1:06.3815

1:40.1497

3 4

Johnson Ambrose

*30.6519 30.9038

1:06.6961 1:06.8170

1:40.8093 1:40.9232

7 8

Lowndesff Bright

31.2623 31.1217

1:07.2458 1:07.1422

1:41.26^ 1:41.5280 1:41.5283

5

Ingall

31.3039

1:06.9261

1:41.0724

BIG P%sl D

9 Bargwanna 10 McConville

31.1795 1:06.9345 31.2138 1:07.3586

1:42.0074

a Relegated to tOth due to techrwal infringement

www.bigpond.com.au 45

BIG

D

continued from page 43 Skaife, Garth Tander and Bowe led the warm-up, while Jason Richards was fifth in a bit of an insight of what was to come in the race. Baird, now running without major signage on the black VY, was mid-pack; McConville was three spots behind him.

There were two races going on in the first 50 laps of the race and what was going to emerge was not that clear. Your MN reporter got a phone call after 70 minutes of action and the response to the question,"Who is winning?" was,"I have no idea".

In the final consideration, what happened to decide the race only started on lap 52. By then, every car in tlie race had pitted for tyres and fuel and,amazingly,it was a Kmart 12. KRT team manager Rob Crawford had offered Murphy's engineer Erik Pender a $50 bribe to radio him when the last car was gridded up,as usual.

But in this instance, Murf would have known when his own car came to a rest... From there, Greg pitted early. surged through the pack and into contention and hung in.

Right behind the two VYs were the two Stone cars, which was amazing too. Ambrose had looked lucky to avoid a drive-through penalty after a clang with Jason Bargwanna on lap three, but Marcos'gave' himself one on lap 25 when he hit a puddle and found himself in the pit lane when he recovered. About 10 laps shy of his fuel window, the team had no choice

but to wave him through and on he went.

So they were followed by Bowe (who had let Ambrose and Ingall through), Skaife, Max Wilson(who was putting Saturday's dramas behind him). Bright, Richards S, David Besnard, Brad Jones,Paul Morris, Richards J and Tony Longhurst. McConville was 15th and driving hard to bridge the gap to the leaders after having to wait for fuel behind Tander in the pits. Garth was back in 19th, after having been shuffled back in the pit sequence.

The appearance of Steve Richards

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When two tribes go to war: Stone Brothers Racing and Larkham Motor Sport may only live a few kilometres from each other in Queensland, but in rural Victoria, you take no prisoners. Ambrose and Bargwanna tangled at turn 11, and Bargs came off second-best, inset.

48

fflolorsporl news

Front row debut: Craig Baird, above, couldn't reproduce his qualifying success on race day, but a new standard has been set for small Supercar teams ...

Lap one, turn one: Tander beat Baird off the line, left, and led the first third of the race.

Falcon trouble: Brad Jones and the Betta Electrical cars, below left, had a strong chance for a decent result at Winton, but it wasn't meant to be.

3 near the pointy end was the other notable feature of tire opening laps of the race. The Castrol team simply did . not getrthe car out of pit lane before it closed so it was really something to see the car start last, stay intact and get near the leaders When the green flag flew, the complexion of the race changed almost at once. Skaife got into the side of Bright and both cars turned aroimd,forcing McConville to swerve around the carnage. Skaife was bogged on the infield, where it was deemed not to be a danger,so the SC board stayed put.

In the confusion. Ingall jumped past Ambrose and took off after Rick, who was losing 0.5s a lap to Murf. On lap 59,IngaU made it past Kelly and Bowe,seeing the Champ sliding around on his tyres, tried to do the same to Ambrose.

The result was a bogged #1 on the inside of Kumho Bend. And there he stayed until some bright SBR mind advised that if he let the air out of the rear tyres he might just get enough traction and get out. continued on page 51

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You just can’t beat the raw horsepower of Melbourne’s other great race - the Betta Electrical Sandown 500.

September 10-12. As Melbourne’s only VO Supercar Championship race, it’s your chance to see the nation’s besl fighting it out for vital points. It could also be your last chance to see Brocky chasing a record tenth Sandown win.

And being trackside is the only place to catch all the drama as the Ford and Holden teams warm up for ’the mountain’ in the last lead-up race before Bathurst.

So come along for three full-on days of hardcore racing action. Book your tickets through Ticketmaster7 today.

ELECTRICAL 10-12 SERT 200a

See all the action: l Ford vs Holden l Skaife vs Ambrose l VB Challenge & Carerra Cup l Formula Fords & Donut King Stunt Team l Historic Touring 8. Aussie Racing Cars l Peter Brock chasing his tenth title

IMG

www.bettaelectricalsandown500.com.au

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D'“

U8 SUPERCARS

continued from page 49 "I respect Jolm," said Ambrose later. "I have known him a long time but I am a little confused. Let's just leave it on the track. I am disappointed but let's just move on.‘ Bowe's view was;"I tried to get out of it; I got right over on the kerb.

If he had given me room,I would have got away with it. I let him past and I let Russell past but he (Ambrose)looked to be struggling with his tyres."

Bowe was issued with a drivethrough penalty, resuming 21st, while Ambrose lost 18 laps recovering.

Wilson's strong run ended with a Turn 3 spin, prompting another Safety Car,leaving Murphy in front of Ingall, Rick,Jason R and Steve R. And this Safety Car almost changed the race. PWR gave Bright new rubber and he set off on his charge over the last 20 laps. With everyone else riding on worn tyres, he had 19 cars in front of him.

Murphy looked comfortable when racing resumed but some mud had been thrown onto the track by an errant Paul Dumbrell and Murf and Ingall both found it. Off they went, joined by Steven Richards and Paul Radisich,leaving the order Rick, McConvUle, Murf,Jones, Ingall, Steven Ellery (plugging quietly away), Morris and Todd. Bright was now 10th and 10 laps remained.

Aided by a new lap record on lap 96, Brighty picked off the cars in front and caught the leaders with three laps left. And, when he was forced to slow because of the pace of the two cars in front, Ingall was catching him.

And then it all went pear-shaped for Murphy. After having been off the road, a partially-blocked intake caused the temps to rise and he was losing car speed. He struggled home for fifth, the #51 car stopping immediately after the flag.

"We had the speed to win the race," he said,"but unfortunately due to someone else going off, that put a continued on page 52

AFTER spending a fair part of Saturday flailing around in the rain, many race drivers would take a top-six race result.

Steve Ellery is not much different to most. The Super Cheap Autos driver had a miserable time leading up to the race and lined up with 25 cars ahead of him when the lights turned green for the race.

There were a few fast guys starting at the back so Ellery's sixth place -from 27th on the grid crept up on those that looked at the results sheet.

If they were surprised, Ellery was not.

"It was not that unexpected," he said after the race."We have been working hard for quite some time now. We were expecting a good result at Queensland but we went out on the first corner, so we were fired up for Winton.

"I was in the top 10 for practice but I think I drove my worst-ever qualifying lap on Saturday.

But we knew we had a fast car for the race so it

was just a matter of making sure clean.

"I started 27th and I let Greg Murphy through early on. We stayed careful for the opening laps and it was not a bad place to be in those circumstances. There can be some incidents up at Winton ...

"The crew have stayed focused and positive but we think that there is more to come. We feel even more positive at this stage of the season than we were at the same time last year."

The result of all that effort was 162 points, his best haul of the season in what has been a frustrating year for the Queenslander. And his 'cherry' races at Sandown and Bathurst, where he had two podium finishes in '03, are not that far away.

Don't take your eyes off the red and purple car next time.

- PHIL BRANAGAN

Those darn Motorsport News Esses ... Ellery got a fair shove from Besnard, but continued to finish in sixth.

vmim Better Brede: Former Konica Minolta front-runner Dale Brede finished a main-game career-best 12th.

4 August 2004

IS?.™ /E£

Best of the Blue men; Russell Ingall came home fourth at his former home circuit.

51

VBSCS ROUND 7 WiNTON Race

90 laps

Pas I Driver| Race Time|Fastest | Lap 1

. Q HOC'S BREATH

continued from page 51

It's all in the tyres: A mid-race pit stop tor tyres under the Safety Car gave Jason Bright the edge in the final part of the race.

lot of debris on the circuit and there were no flags being waved to let us know about it.

Ellery was a great sixth after being caught getting fuel while the field was under green but he kept his head and plugged away to an encouraging result for the Super Cheap team.

Next was Todd Kelly, who had been battling a dodgy clutch since half-distance and Morris, whose major problem was vision after getting a windscreen full of mud courtesy of an off-track move from Radisich.

Tander was ninth ahead of Seton, who brought some joy to Prodrive's Nick Fry, visiting from the UK. Seto had found himself in danger of being a lap down but, after some ... negotiation with the team, made his stop and good groimd from there.

Lowndes had found his car lacking power early on after a small airbox fire burnt out the wiring loom, forcing him to pit for repairs. Fie finished 27th, sandwiched by Ambrose and Skaife. Nine titles on the last three classified finishers ... such is the way things are in 2004.

Steve Richards was 13th after his

McC0NviuLe2:34:l B.5237 1 :25.6944 10

2

R. KELLY2:34:ie.74351 :25.5763

9

3

BRIBHT2:34:1 B.99351 :25.1 995

96

4

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1□

5

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62

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41

7

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40

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14

9

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3

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43

1 1

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12

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13

5. RiCMAROB2:34:36.21 26 1 :25.93B657

14

Tratt

1 5

BARBWANNA2:34:3B.94ai 1:25.87619

excursion, salvaging some points but, in the process, setting up one of the closest championships for some time.

From Bright to Ambrose, four drivers are covered by a mere 25 points.

Marcos's Q300 points turnaround has been rendered less important by his attempts at 4WDing and his 2003 form at Oran Park makes the next round of the greatest show on earth even more compelling, if that is possible.

1 6

DumBRELL2:34:39.9DSQ1 :25.81 741 2

1 7

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13

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2:35:29.63571:25.232 1

6

1 9

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99 LAPSl 125.9 1 79

1 1

20

LUFF

99 LAPSl 125.9332

87

21

NOSKE

99 LAPSl :25.B637

46

22

Baird

93 LAPSl 125.66 1 7

3

23

WILLS

97 LAPSl :25.32S0

1 1

24

Jones

97 LAP31 125.6579

43

25

WINTERBOTTDM97 LAPS! 126.1 390

31

26

Ambrose

B2 LAPSl 125.3497

79

27

LOWNDES

79 LAPS! 125,6958

30

2B

skaife

75 LAPSl 124.791 3

75*

DNFJohnbon

95 LAPSl 125.9099

5

DNFWilson

94 LAPS 1 126.4343

1 2

DNFBESNARD

54 LAPS

DNFWEEL

49 LAPS 1 125.81 33 LAP 1 147.5086 1

5

1

R. Kelly i i i 6. Ambrose i 1 06, ingall 982, Murphy 979, Tander 924, T. Kelly 897. SOWE 723. BARGWANNA 652, RADISICH 646, seton 623, BAIRD 6 ID, Dumbrell 605, MORRIS 6D4, Johnson 597, JONES 576, MCCONVILLE 572, SKAIFE 57D, Weel 569, WinterBOTTOM 562, Ldnqhurst 56D, Tratt 51 2, Wilson 5D4, LUFF 436, J. Richards 475, Lowndes 450, Ellery 422, Besnard 393, Wills 364, NOSKE 268, 8REDE 244, McFadyen

understandably took the weekend off and did not impack the winter woollies for the trip south.

You missed a cracker, TC. Be in Sydney. And get there early.

And I'll take the championship lead to boot! While the pre-race grid fight between the Ambrose Devil and the PWR pig got nasty, above right. Bright took the series lead.

52

1

1 125.8731

Points: bright 1 i 3 1. 5. Richards 1 1 26,

And, one more thing. Among the 27,000 people who squeezed into the Benalla track, one Tony Cochrane was absent. After a week that included laimches for the coming events at Shanghai at Eastern Creek, the AVESCO Chairman

B5

1 □

2:34:36.71 B1 1 125.9966

DNFDavison

On the improve; If not for a track-load of dirt, Tasman Motorsport's Jason Richards could have ended up on the podium. It was only its second outing, but the new Orange VY looks the goods.

47

90, Walden 66, porter 58.

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*’3

34

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J. Richards

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23" PRO ALUMINIUM LIGHTNING HEADS 180CC INTAKE PORT - STREET PERFORMANCE, MAX THROTTLE RESPONSE & TORQUE UP TO 350 CIN 3 PR 123200080A 72 ANGIE 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 2 PR 123400080 64 STRAIGHT 2.020" 1.600” CAST . . .$1,400 2 PR 123400080A 64 ANGIE 2.020” 1.600” CAST . . .$1,400 200CC INTAKE PORT - STREET PERFORMANCE & SHORT TRACK, RESTRICTED OVAI, 327-350 CIN UP TO 6500RPM 2 PR 123200000 72 STRAIGHT 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 2 PR 123200000A 72 ANGLE 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 1 PR 123400000 64 STRAIGHT 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 2 PR 123400000A 64 ANGLE 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 220CC INTAKE PORT - MAXIMUM STREET PERFORMANCE, OVAL TRACK & DRAG BRACKET 350400 CIN UP TO 7500RPM 4 PR 123200020A 72 ANGLE 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 1 PR 123400020 64 STRAIGHT 2.020" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,400 1 PR 123400020A 64 ANGLE 2.020" 1.600' CAST . . .$1,400

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2.020"

1.600"

CAST . . .$1,595

PRO CYCIONE AlUMINIUM FOR SB FORD ANGLE

PRO THUHDER IRON a ALUMINIOM BB CHEV HEADS

REACH NEW HEIGHTS IN BB OIEV PERFORMANCE! IRON CYUNDER HEADS - 320CC & 360CC INTAKE PORTS 4 PR 22419000520 119 ANCLE 2.250" 1.880" CAST . . .$1,660 3 PR 22419000360 119 ANGLE 2.300" 1.880" CAST . . .$1,660 ALUMINIUM CYUNDER HEADS 2 PR 12419000320 119 ANCLE 2.250” 1.880" CAST. . .$2,400

2.6 LTRISUZU REPIACEMENT HEAD 1 ONLY CHI57-42E1 1

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SB GHEV 220 CAST IRON MOTOWN CYLINDER HEADS

WITH VALVES, SPRINGS, SCREW IN STUDS & GUIDE PLATES 1 PR 1115A-006 64 ANCLE 2.080" 1.600” CAST . . .$1,400

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215CC INTAKE PORT COMPIHE ASSEMBUES, 1.55' DIAMETER VALVE SPRINGS, SUIT MECHANICAL ROUER CAM, 530-580 HP POTENTIAL OUT OF BOX 1 PR ED7762 70 ANGIE 2.080" 1.600" CAST . . .$1,675 SAME AS ABOVE BUT VALVE SPRINGS SUIT HYD ROUER OR RAT TAPPET CAM 1 PR ED77619 70 ANGIE 2.080" 1.600” CAST . . .$1,675 PERFURMER RPM SB CHEV ALUMIHIUM 23" HEARS COMPLETE ASSEMBUES, 1.45' DIAMETER VALVE SPRINGS, SUIT HYDRAUUC FLAT TAPPET CAM, 420 HP POTENTIAL 70 ANGLE 2.020” 1.600" CAST . . .$1,320 2 PR ED60719

VICTOR JNR SB FORD ALUMIN. HEADS

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23” VALVE ANCLE, 302-350CIN, AS CAST 185CC INTAKE PORT. GOOD HEAD TO PORT & MODIFY, CAN FIT 2.080’ INTAKE VALVE. 1 PR BR-8-PR0 67 STRAIGHT 2.020" 13600” CAST . . .$1,900

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PISTONS PART #

ENGINE

HEAD

BORE

STROKE

CONRODS

ROD DOME 01 C/R .... SET

SRP FORCED PISTONS (INCl PINS & LOCKS) 2 SETS 2 SETS 3 SETS 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 2 SETS 2 SETS 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 3 SETS 2 SETS 1 SET 1 SET 3 SETS 1 SET 1 SET 1 SET 3 SETS 2 SETS 2 SETS 2 SETS

138086 138087 138097 139627 140033 140053 140349 140675 140678 140680 142021 147550 139508 139523 139530 139530 139832 140684 140685 142974 212157 152159 138726 138728 138734 138735 151866 151867 151868 206066 206068 138730 206060 206063 206064 150728 154166 154167 142071

/

SB CHEV 23” OEM 4,040" 3.480” 6.000" F/T $850 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.060' 3.480” 6.000" F/T $850 SB CHEV 23” OEM 4,155' 3.750' 5.700” F/T $850 SB CHVE 23" OEM 4.025” 3.750” 5.700" 9.8:1DISH $500 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.030” 3.832" 5.700” 11.3:1 ... $1,040 SB CHEV 23” OEM 4.030' 3.562" 5.700” 10.5:1 $850 SB CHEV 13:1 23" OEM 4.040” 3.750" 6.000” $990 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.040” 3.480” 5.700” 12.8:1 $930 SB CHEV 23” OEM 4.030” 3.480” 6.000” 12,9:1 $930 SB CHEV 13:1 23” OEM 4.060” 3.480” 6.000” $: 930 SB CHEV 23” OEM 4.155” 3.750" 5.700” 12.9:1 $930 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.165” 3,750” 6.000" 10.3:1 $990 BB CHEV OEM 4.320' 4.250' 6.135” $900 F/T BB CHEV 10:1 OEM 4.280" 4.250” 6.135' $990 BB CHEV OEM 4.280” 4.000" 6.135' 12.8:1 $990 $750 BB CHEV (SPECS yIS ABOVE BUT HAVE BEEN SHOP SOIIED) BB CHEV OEM 4.310' 4.250” 6.385' 12.7:1 ... $1,040 BB CHEV 12.8:1 $990 OEM 4.280” 4.000" 6.385" BB CHEV OEM 4.310' 4,000" 6.385" 12.8:1 $990 BB CHEV OEM 4.320” 4.000" 6.385" $900 F/T BB CHEV OEM 4,310” 4.250” 6.385" 10.2:1 ... $1,040 BB CHEV OEM 4.500” 4.000” 6.535” 12.8:1 ... $1,040 SB FORD 289W OEM 4,030' 2.870' 5.155” DISH $935 SB FORD 302W OEM 4.060' 3.000' 5.155' DISH $935 SB FORD 302W OEM 4.030' 3.000” 5.090" $850 F/T SB FORD 302W OEM 4.040' 3.000” 5.090' F/T $850 SB FORD 302W OEM 4.000' 3.000” 5.090” $850 F/T SB FORD 302W OEM 4.000” 3.400" 5.400” 9.9:1 $990 SB FORD 302W OEM 4.030' 3.400" 5.400" 9.9:1 $990 SB FORD 302W OEM 4.030" 3.250' 5.400” F/T $900 SB FORD 302W OEM 4.030” 3.250” 5.400" 8.7:1 $990 SB FORD 351W OEM 4.030" 3.50” 5.956" $850 F/T SB FORD 351W OEM 4.030' 3.875" 6.200” 11.4:1 $850 SB FORD 351W OEM 4.030' 4.100” 6.125' 9.5:1 $930 SB FORD 351W OEM 4.030' 3.875” 6.200” 8.7:1 $930 BB FORD 412CIN OEM 4.440” 4.140” 6.800” 11.9:1 $900 BB FORD 501CIN OEM 4.390' 4.140' 6.700' 9.5:1 $990 BB FORD 512CIN OEM 4.440' 4.140' 6.700' 9.6:1 $990 SB CHRYSLER OEM 4.060' 3.580” 6.125' 10.6:1 $850

ROSS FORCED PISTONS (INCL PINS & LOCKS)

99824 B0552 80561 80562 80566

SB FORD 302W FORD 351C FORD 351W FORD 351C FORD 351C

92461 95455 95465 96651

SB CHEV SB CHEV SB CHEV SB CHEV

99552 99815

OEM OEM OEM OEM OEM

4.030” 4.030” 4.030' 4.030” 4.030'

3.250” 3.500' 3.500' 3.500” 3.500'

4.315' 5.778' 6.000” 6.000” 6.000'

$840 F/TOP 12.5:1 ... $1,280 12.5:1 $500 12.5:1 ... $1,280 F/TOP ... $1,080

23" OEM 23" OEM 23" OEM 23" OEM

4.020' 4.155' 4.155' 4.165'

3.480' 3.480' 3.480" 3.625"

6.000' 5.700' 6.000” 5.700'

12.5:1 F/TOP F/TOP 12.5:1

$930 $840 $840 $500

BBC OEM 4.350' 4.000" 6.535' BB CHEV MITSUBISHI 4G63 TURBO OEM 3.366” 3.460" INCL RINGS

12.6:1 8.3:1

$500 $710

JE FORCED PISTONS (INCL PINS & LOCKS) SB CHEV 23” OEM 4.155” 3.000” 6.000' 12.5:1 $500 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.155' 3.562” 5.700” 12.8:1 $500 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.155" 3.480” 6.000” F/TOP $625 SB CHEV ALL PRO 13” 4.125” 3.460” 6.000” 13.5:1 NO PINS . $980 MITSUBISHI 4G63 85.50MM STD 5.906" 1.367” 8.5:1 .. $680 (CUSTOa - SUIT.866- PIN - PINS NOT SUPPUED) 1 SET 218114 351C OEM 4 4.030” 3.500" 5.700” MAX DOME... $950 (CUSTOM -1.705'COMP HEIGHT,.927'PIN, CAS PORTED, PLUNGE CUT VALVE REUEFS, G/CAS DRAG ClASS/

QTY

1 SET

SSP93306B

iSLB.i 2 SETS CRS5394A3D 2 SETS CRS5428T3D 5 SETS CRS5900MA3D 2 SETS CRS5900MB3D

2 SETS LHAF

.SET

1 SET

CARRIUjO BB CHEV 6.535” H-BEAM WITH CARR BOLTS

$3,000

CROWER SB CHEV 1/J 6" SPORTSMAN 4340 I-BEAM, RODS BUSHED

.$750

EAGIE HONDA 4340 H-BEAM RODS, 5.394”, SUITACCURAB18A/B EAGLE TOYOTA H-BEAM RODS, 5.428”, SUIT35CTE EAGLE MITSUBISHI H-BEAM RODS, 5.900' SUIT 4ST-4C63 EAGLE MITSUBISHI H-BEAM RODS, 5.900", SUIT 4C631 1995 ON

$485 ,$485 $485 .$485

LUNATl SB CHEV 1/J 5.7' STREET/RACE, .$500 4340 I-BEAM RODS, PRESS FIT LUNATl SB CHEV L/J 6.0” PRO MOD 4340 I-BEAM RODS, BUSHED $1,100 LUNATl FORD 351W 4340 H-BEAM 6.2' RODS, CAN BE USED IN 351C .$750

2 SETS LAD1 LSG1

2 SETS 2ICR6000P 5 SETS 2 SETS 2 SETS 3 SETS 2 SETS

SCAT SB CHEV 4340 6" X L/J I-BEAM RODS, PRESS FIT ,$480 3ICR6000P SCAT SB CHEV 4340 6" X L/J I-BEAM RODS, PRESS FIT, UPGRADED BOLTS ; $480 245465352200 SCAT BB CHEV 4340 H-BEAM RODS, 6.535", BUSHED ,$680 235162002311927 SCAT 351C FORD 4340 H-BEAM RODS, 6.2" ,$680 .927” PIN, FORD BIG END 235161252311912 SCAT 351C FORD 4340 H-BEAM RODS, 6.125” ,$680 .910'PIN, FORD BIG END 235159552311912 SCAT 351C FORD 4340 H-BEAM RODS, 5.955' .910” PIN, FORD BIG END ,$680

LIFTERS PART#

DESCRIPTION

2 SETS 4 SETS

CC807-16 CC828-16

2 SETS 1 SET 1 SET

CC839-16 CC897-16 CC898-16

COMP CHEV V8 UCHT WEIGHT SOUD COMP ROLLER UFTERS - CHRYSLER SB, NO OIL HOLE (OIUNG THROUGH ROCKER SHAFTS) ...

COMP ROLLER UFTERS - FORD BB FE COMP ROLLER UFTERS - BBC V/BAR .842' COMP ROLLER UFTERS - BBC LEFT OFFSET ON INTAKE

1 SET

1271-LO-150 ISKY UFTERS - REDZONE SBC TALL OFFSET, .150'LNTAKE

.$820

4 SETS

70992

LUNATl SOUD UFTERS - CHEV V8

$180

SEALED POWER SOUD UFTERS - CHRYSLER SLANT 6 VAUANT

.$75

OTY

1 SET(12)AT2084

SET ,$299 ,$599 ,$599 $599 ,$599

CAMSHAFTS OTY PART#

ROSS CUSTOM FORGED PISTONS

1

BORE STROKE ROD COMP HT C/R ...SET ENGINE HEAD FORD 1600 NON X/FLOW 3.307" STD 1.691” FAOP..$160 (SUIT.866'PIN - PINS NOT SUPPUED) 1SET 50-32-JB2 SUBARU EJ33 6CTL STD 97.4MM STD STD 1.318" STD... $600 (SUIT.9D5'PIN - PINS NOT SUPPUED) 1 SET 12-20-SQ3 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4.080” 3 9/16" 5.7' 1.515' 12.7:1.. $450 (INCLUDES.927'PINS S, LOCKS 1SET 12-20-KH4 SB CHEV 23" OEM 4,030" 3.48" 6.0” 1.250' 11:1... $750 (INCLUDES.927'PINS & LOCKS) 1SET 12-20-ST2 SB CHEV 18" 4.135" 3.48' 6.0” 1.250” 13:1... $960 (INCLUDES.927'PINS & LOCKS) 2SETS 31-11-WS2 C/DORE BUICK V6 STD 3.895" 3.4” 5.6” 1.190' F/TOP.. $500 (INCLUDES PINS & LOCKS - 5.6'ROD IN ECOTEC V6 OR 6.585'ROD IN EARLY V6) OF (7) 1 SET 35-32-RN L26 NISSAN TURBO STD 83.75MM STD STD 1.498' $750 (INCLUDES.827’PINS, LOCKS & RINGS) $80 1 SET 47-32-JHH TOYOTA STARLH OEM 74MM STD STD 1.180" (SUIT STD PINS - PINS & LOCKS NOT SUPPUED) 1 SET 58-21-AK NISSAN CA18DET OEM 83.5MM STD CUSTOM 1.260' .... $400 (SUIT.827'PIN - PINS & LOCKS NOT SUPPUED) 1 SET 58-21-PJ NISSAN CA18DET OEM 83.5MM STD CUSTOM 1.260" .... $500 (INCLUDES.827'PINS & LOCKS) 1SET 63-32-WR HONDA INTEGRA OEM 81MM STD STD 1.205" TURBO.. $600 (INCLUDES.827’PINS & LOCKS)

1

OTY PART # 1 SET 42-11-PW2

DESCRIPTION

CAR56535CARR

1 SET

130151 130151 190129 10 ONLY 204746 1 SET 208477

i

PART#

CARRILLO

1 4 1 1

WG 1107

1

WG-1164

1

15381

1PR 64413-2 1 1 1

DESCRIPTION

.EACH

CC08-306-8 COMP HYD ROLLER CAM - SB CHEV, .$450 230"/244"@ .050" 5 CC08-422-8 COMP HYD ROLLER CAM - SB CHEV, .$450 218"/224"@).050" CC34-331-4 COMP HYD CAM - FORD BB 429-460 .$230 280H/230"® .050” CC82-2304 COMP HYD FLAT TAPPET CAM - HOLDEN 253-308 .$180 XE250H, 206"/212"@ .050” CC82-2504 COMP HYD FLAT TAPPET CAM-HOLDEN 253-308 ,$180 XE284H, 240"/246"@ .050”

381262 396281 431570

CRANE WOLVERINE HYD CAM - 289-302W 204"/214” @ .050” CRANE WOLVERINE HYD CAM - FORD 351C 214”/224" @ .050'

.$100 ,$100

CROWER SOUD CAM -FORD 351C, .$230 262"/268" @.050” 106 L/C CROWER MITSUBISHI 4G63 TURBO CAMS (2) .. . .PR $850 POPULAR snm/sirap phorie ioooboooiipii rah« ISKY HYD CAM - FORD WINDSOR 208”@.050" $100 ISKY HYD CAM - BB CHEV, 232” @.050” 108 L/C ....$180 ISKY SOUD CAM - FORD 351C, 266”@.050'108 L/C .$230

PARTS ARE NEW AND PRICES INCLUDE GST!

I

CRANKS

RING SETS OTY

●SET

DESCRIPTION

PART#

ACL REPLACEMENT RINGS

1SFT M1588^).50 1SET M1761-STD 1SET M1812-STD 2 SETS M9106^)40 1 SET M9110-035 1SET M9110D45 1 SET M9121-045 1 SET PS1357-030

Aa RING SET, MOLY MITSUBISHI 2.6" + .050MM 0/SIZE . .$50 $50 Att RING SET, SUBARU EA71-EA81 $60 AIRING SET, HOLDEN 3.8 V6 $70 Aa RING SET, MOLY FORD HOLDEN 4" + .040" $70 Aa RING SET, 4.035" MOLY 4" 1.5,1.5, 4MM $70 Aa RING SET, 4.045" MOLY 4”, 1.5,1.5, 4MM m RING SET, MOLY FORD 250,1.5,1.5,4MM, 3.680"+.045" .$60 Aa RING SET, CAST HOLDEN 186-202, 3,625" + .030" ... .$50

2 SETS RS-1780-40

C«A RING SET, MOLY, CHRYSLER 318, 3.910" + .040", 5/16", 5/16", 3/16" C&A RING 5ET, MOLY, SB CHEV 400, 4.125", 5/64”, 5/64", 3/16" C&A RING SET, MOLY, SB CHEV 305, 3.736” + .040", 5/64", 5/64", 3/16" C&A RING SET, MOLY, SB CHEV 305, 3.736", 5/64”, 5/64", 3/16" C&A RING 5ET, CAST, SB CHEV 400, 4.125" + .020", 5/64", 5/64", 3/16"

CHILDS & ALBERT RINGS

1SET RS-2430-STD 2 SETS RS-3840-40 1SET RS-3840-STD 2

RS-4008-20

,$70 ,$70 . . .$70 .$70 .$45

JE PERFORMANCE & RACE RINGS

1 SET J100F8-4155-5 JE RING SET, 1/16", 1/16", 3/16", 4.155" + .005" $190 $ 190 1SET J100F8-4165-5 JE RING SET, 1/16", 1/16", 3/16", 4.165" + .005" . $225 2 SETS J100F8-4310-5 JE RING SET, 1/16", 1/16", 3/16", 4.310" + .005” $295 1 SET J910A8-4125-5 JE RING SET, 1.2,1.5, 3MM V8 SET, 4.125’ + .005” 1 SET J910A8-4140-5 JE RING SET, 1.2,1.5, 3MM, V8 5ET, 4,140" + .005" .. . .$295 1SET J910A84165-5 JE RING SET, 1.2,1.5, 3MM, V8 SET, 4.165” .005" .. . .$295 1 SET J920A84010-3 JE RING SET, 1.2,1.2, 3MM,C0MP NIT, 4.010” + .003” . . .$270 4 SETS J930A8-4000-5 JE RING SET, 1.2,1.2, 3MM, V8 SET, 4.000’ + .005" . . . .$270 $195 1 SET J10008-4070-5 JE RING SET, 1/16", 1/16", 3/16", 4.070" + .005" $190 2 SETS J10008-4155-5 JE RING SET, 1/16", 1/16", 3/16", 4.155” + .005" 1 SET J20008-4040-5 JE RING SET, .043",1/16",3/16",V8 SET,4.04"+.005" .. . .$190 1 SET J20008-4600-5 JE RING SET, .043", 1/16”, 3/16”, V8 SET, 4.6"+.005" . . .$270 1 SET J300084060-5 JE RING SET, 1/16”, 1/16", 3MM, V8 SET, 4.06"+.005" . .$190 1 SET J30008-4135-5 JE RING SET, 1/16", 1/16", 3MM, V8 SEr,4.135”-^.005” . .$190 1 SET J40008-4125-5 JE RING SET, .043",1/16”,3MM,V8 SET, 4.125"+.005" . . . .$190 1 SET J70008-4060-5 JE RING SET, .043", .043", 3MM, V8 SET, 4.060"■^.005■ . .$190 $70 1 SET JEOOF84270D JE RING SET, 5/64", 5/64", 3/16", 4.270" 1SET JXC0F4-3189-3 JE RING SET, 3.189", 1.0MM,1.2MM&2.8MM - 4CYL SET . .$120 $120 PC RING SET, MOLY, 4.030", 1/16", 1/16”, 3/16" PC RING SET, MOLY, 4.310"■^.005", 1/16", 1/16” 3/16” . .$120 PC RING SET, MOLY, 4.030"+.005", 1/16”, 1/16", 3/16" . .$120 PC RING SET, MOLY, 4.280"■^.005", 1/16", 1/16", 3/16". .$120

ISn 5754X-030 1SET 9112X-060 1SET 9118KX-020 2 SETS 9204X-1.00 2 SETS 9260KX-030 2 SETS 9341KX 0.75 2 SETS 9341KX-STD 3 SETS 9341X-STD 1SET 9400KX-020 1SET 9622KXO30

SP RING SET, CAST, HOLDEN 186/202 + .030" $30 SP RING SET, CAST, HOUJEN 253 + .060 $50 SP RING SET, MOLY, CHEV 283/307 + .020” $60 $ 15 SP RING SET, CAST, 1CYL VW 77MM + 1MM SP RING SET, MOLY, PONTIAC 455CIN, 455, 4.15" .030". .$50 $30 SP RING SET, MOLY, FORD 2 LTR + .030" ,$30 SP RING SET, MOLY, FORD 2 LTR STD . . .$30 SP RING SET, CAST, FORD 2 LTR STD . . .

SP RING SET, MOLY, CHRYSLER 440, 4.320" + .020” $60 SP RING SET, MOLY, BUICK 6 - 231CIN + .030" $50

1SET 1SET 1SET 1SET 1SET

SP RING SET, MOLY, 4.250" + .005" 1/16"X1/16"X1/8" . . .$70 SP RING SET, MOLY, 4.280’ + .005",.043”, 1/16”X3/16" .$120 SP RING SET, MOLY, 4.00”, 1/16" X 1/16" X 3/16” SP RING SET, CHROME, 4.125”+.005",1/16"X1/16”X 3/16” .$80 SP RING SET, MOLY, 4.60” + .030”, .043”,.043”,3MM . . . .$250

SEALED POWER REPLACEMENT RINGS

SPEED PRO RACE RINGS

NITROUS OTY PART#

1 1 1

ZEX82014 ZEX82018

DESCRIPTION

ZEX DRY NITROUS SYSTEM - SUIT NISSAN ZEX DRY NITROUS SYSTEM - SUIT LTI CHEV INCLUDES FUEL INJEQION PUMP ZEX82019 ZEX DRY NITROUS SYSTEM - SUIT BMW ALL THESE SYSTEMS CAN BE ADAPTED TO SUIT OTHER VEHIOES.

,KIT

.$920

.$980 .$920

BEIT DRIVE KITS

OTY PART#

1 1

SERIES OTY PART# 4 545442506135 4130 1 545442506135 4130 4 935037505700 9000 2 935037505700L 9000 1 940035006000 9000 3 435035005700 4340 2 435037505700 4340 3 435037506000-2 4340 2 435034805700-2 4340 2 435034805700-3 4340 2 435035005700-2 4340 3 4350350057003 4340 2 430234005421232 4340 1 4302300050902123 4340 2 4302325054002123 4340 3 9302340054002100 9000 5 935138559552311W 9000 2 94604300663500 9000

STROKE MAIN nPE 4.250" 454 BBC HI PERF. 4.250" 454 BBC HI PERF. 3.750" 350 SBC PRO STREET 3.750" 350 SBC 1PCE R/MAIN 3.500" 400 SBC PRO STREET 3.500" 350 SBC RACE 3.750" 350 SBC RACE 3.750" 350 SBC UCHTWEIGHT 3.480" 350 SBC UCHTWEIGHT 3.480" 350 SBC ULTRA UGHT 3.500" 350 SBC UCHTWEIGHT 3.500" 350 SBC ULTRA UGHT SB FORD UCHTWT 3.400" 302W 3.000" 302W 302W RACE 3.250" 302W 302W RACE 302W PRO STREET 3.400" 302W 351W STROKER PRO.S 3.850" 351W 460 FORD PRO ST 4.300" 460

ROD EACH 6.135" $690 6.385" $690 5.7" $390 5.7" $390 6.0" $390 5.7" $860 5.7" $860 6.0" $1,390 5.7" $1,390 5.7" $1,500 5.7" $1,390 5.7" $1,500 5.4" $1,150 5.090" $720 5.4" $720 5.4" $520 5.955" $595 6.635" $720

MOPAR CRANKSHAFTS 5 2 2 2

P5007256 P5007257 P5007258 P5007259

1 1 1

C0LS34803A C0LA40005D CLSA412585

NOD.IRON SB CHRYSLER NOD.IRON SB CHRYSLER NOD.IRON SB CHRYSLER NOD.IRON SB CHRYSLER

4.000" 3.580" 4.000" 3.580”

340 340 360 360

6.123" 6.123" 6.123" 6.123"

350 454 LSI

5.7/6.0"$1,400 6.135" $1,760 6.125" $3,650

351C

6.200" $1,165

$460 $460 $460 $460

COLA CRANKSHAFTS 4340 4340 4340

4LEAGLEvI 1 CRS43523750620

SBC RACE BBC RACE LSI GEN III

3.480" 4.000" 4.125"

EAGLE CRANKSHAFTS 4340

351CSVOFORD

3.750"

PERFECT CIRCLE RACE RINGS

4 SETS 31(H)004-030 1 SET 315-0002-065 18 SETS 315-0005-035 1 SET 315-0002-035

R5943O05 R9788-035 R9902-STD R1013fr065 R20104-030

SCAT CRANKSHAFTS

DESCRIPTION

KIT

KBD-32300 JESEL BB CHEV GEN 6 BLOCK (WITH 1 PCE REAR MAIN SEAL) BELT DRIVE KIT ,$1,0B0 CC6504 COMP CAMS SB CHEV ROCKET BLOCK WITH RAISED CAM BELT DRIVE KIT , $1,090

QTY

PART#

DESCRIPTION

●SET

1 SET CC7632-16 COMP MAGNUM FORD 289-302 1PCE P/RODS 6.8" SUIT GUIDE PLATES $130 1 SET CC7738-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 3/8” X .080” X 8.550" X 210 RAD . . . .$180 2 SETS CC7764-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 5/16" X .080" X 8.550” X 210 RAD . , .$180 .$180 3 SETS CC7912-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 3/8" X .080" X 8.650" .$180 1 SET CC7930-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 5/16" X .080” X 6.850" .$180 1 SET CC7939-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 5/16" X .080” X 7.150" 1 SET CC7947-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 5/16" X .080 X 8.050" X 210 RAD . . . .$180 1 SET CC7951-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 3/8" X BBC TALL DECK 8.680"/9.650" .$180 ,$180 2 SETS CC7977-16 COMP 4130 P/RODS - 5/16" X 8.600" .$180 1 SET CC8758-16 COMP 4130 MOLY P/RODS - 3/8” X .065" X 8.850" .$180 1 SET 13629-16 CRANE 4130 1 PCE P/RODS - BBC, 7.936” & 8.906" 1SET 52621-16 CRANE 4130 1 PCE P/RODS - FORD CLEV, 5/16" X 8.406" . , .$180 1 SET 69705-2 1 SET 69715 .5 SET 69735 1 SET 69735-2 1 SET 69740 1SET 69755 1SET 69760 1 SET 69765 1SET 69770 1 SET 69885-2 1 SET 71770 1 SET 71775 .5 SET 71780 .5 SET 71840-2 1SET 71875-2 1 SET 71915-2

CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS 7.050" X 210 RAD .$180 CROVYER 4130 1PCE P/RODS - 7.150” .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE P/RODS - 7.350" .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE P/R0D5 - 7.350” X 5/16" X 210 RAD . . .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE P/RODS - 7.400" . . . . ,$180 .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE P/RODS-7.55” ,$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE P/RODS - 7.60” $180 (ROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 7.650” ,$180 (ROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 7.700” CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 8.85" X 210 RAD $180 .$180 (ROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 7.70" X 3/8” .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 7.75” X 3/8" .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 7.8" X 3/8" , CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 8.4"X3/8”X 210 RAD . . .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 8.75"X3/8” X 210 RAD . .$180 CROWER 4130 1PCE MOLY P/RODS - 9.15”X3/8” X 210 RAD . .$180

1 SET 203-HG

ISKY 4130 MOLY P/RODS - SBC 7.781" X 5/16" STD LCTH . . . .$180

F»AR.TS AR.E IMEW AND F»R.ICES INCLUDE GST!

MISCELLANEOUS on

PART #

1 SET

DESCRIPTIOH

OTY PART # DESCRIPTION EACH 1 PR M604M3 CHAPMAN CNC PORTED - SB FORD YATES HEADS, 1 PR CHAMN^YATES /221CC INTAKE -AS USED IN V8 SUPERCAR/KONICA .$10,500

JESEL ROCKERS

KPS-15341 SB FORD YATES ROCKER SYSTEM - STEEL 1 PCE STANDS 1.65 RATIO

,$2,300

'helblenai YELLA TERRA COMPETITION ROCKERS

L

3 SETS 1 SET 2 SETS 2 SETS 1 SET

YT5001 YT5017 YT6030 YT6309 YT6313

1 SET YT6317 2 SETS YT6321 2 SETS YT6341 2 SETS YT6356 2 SETS YT6375 1 SET

YT6613

$660 SB CHEV ROLLER ROCKER 1.5 RATIO 7/16” STUD SB CHEV ROLLER ROCKER 1.6 & 1.5 RATIO 7/16“ STUD .. . .$660 HOLDEN V8 ROLLER ROCKER 1.65 RATIO 7/16” STUD .. . .$1,000 HOLDEN V8 PFI ROLLER ROCKERS 1,65 RATIO SHAFT TYPE ..$760 HOLDEN V8 ROLLER ROCKERS 1.65 RATIO SUIT ABH5000-9 HEADS .$1,000 BB CHEV ROLLER ROCKERS 1.7 RATIO PEDISTAL MOUNT ..$1,000 BB FORD ROLLER ROCKERS 1.73 RATIO BOLT ON TYPE ...$1,000 SB CHEV ROLLER ROCKERS 1.6 & 1.5 RATIO SHAFT TYPE SUIT BRODIX HEADS, DART SPORTSMAN II ADDITIONAL .070” OFFSET ON INTAKE ,$1,000 SB CHEV ROLLER ROCKERS 1.6 RATIO SHAFT TYPE SUIT TFS TWISTED WEDGE HEADS 23" ,$1,000 SB CHEV ROLLER ROCKERS 1.6 & 1.5 RATIO SUIT 23" BRODIX Tl & PRO ACTION HEADS .$1,250 SB CHEV ROLLER ROCKERS 1.65 & 1.55 RATIO SUIT 23" BRODIX Tl & PRO ACTION HEADS .$1,000

YELLA TERRA STREET ROCKERS 1 SET ST2003 4 SETS ST2007 1 SET ST2008

$450 $360 $360

BB FORD ROLLER ROCKERS 1.7 RATIO 7/16” STUD HOLDEN 6 ROLLER ROCKERS 1.5 RATIO 3/8” STUD HOLDEN 6 ROUER ROCKERS 1.5 RATIO 7/16" STUD

MISC PARTS DESCRIPTION

1 PR ED3309 1 PR ED3409 2 PR ED33999 1 PR ED34999

FRONT SHOCK ABSORBERS - FORD EXPLORER ...

REAR SHOCK ABSORBERS - FORD EXPLORER FRONT SHOCK ASBSORBERS - 91-97 LANDCRUISER REAR SHOCK ASBSORBERS - 91-97 LANDCRUISER

1 1 1

ED2105 ED2198 ED2915

PERFORMER MANIFOLD - SUIT FORD FE V8 332-428CIN PERFORMER MANIFOLD - SUIT ROVER V8 3500CC VICTOR MANIFOLD - SUIT 340-360 CHRYSLER SB ....

3 6

ED8812 ED8833

WATER PUMP - SUIT SHORT SB CHEV 3/4” SHAFT .

VICTOR RACE WATER PUMP - SUIT FORD 289-302W

1 2

ED7891 ED7893

BB CHEV ACCU-DRIVE GEAR DRIVE 302, 5.0L FORD 1985 & ON ACCU-DRIVE GEAR DRIVE WITH HYDRAUUC ROLLER CAMS

SHOCK ABSORBERS

, .PAIR $70 , .PAIR $70 .PAIR $180 .PAIR $180

HANIFOLDS

WATER PUMPS GEAR DRIVES

$425 $325 .$425 $250 $270 $350 ,$350

VALVE COVERS

1 PR ED4680

1987-1993 CHEV V6 4.3L ALLOY EUTE SERIES WITH CENTRE VALVE COVER BOLTS PAIR $110 BB CHEV SIGNATURE SERIES TALL 3.8” .PAIR $65

1 1 2 1

PERFORMER MANIFOLD BASE ONLY SUIT MUSTANG 5.0L EFI V8 .$250 75MM EFI THROTTLE BODY $310 70MM EFI THROTTLE BODY EGR PLATE $85 70MM EFI THROnLE BODY $300

EFI COMPONENTS

ED3820 ED3826 ED3828 ED3873

ED5533 1 1 PR 5538

1 SC43103 1 PR 68425 1 SBR0206AA 1 SBR0240AA 1 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1

1

HOWARD STEWART SB CHEV RACE WATER PUMP MOROSO BB CHEV POUSHED AliOY VALVE COVERS ...$280 ROMAC SB CHEV 6' ALLOY PRO SERIES BALANCER ....$220 ROMAC SB FORD HO ALLOY NEUTRAL BALANCE PRO SERIES BALANCER .$220 SBR02405A ROMAC SB FORD HO STEEl/ALLOY NEUTRAL BALANCE PRO SERIES BAUNCER .$220 FWT-308-5700027 POWERTECH CONRODS HOLDEN 308 X 5.7" LONG ....$500 W-200 KINSIER WATERMAN FUEL PUMP FLOW TESTED ETC. ..$900 LA15200 lAKEWOOD STEEL BELLHOUSINC 289,302 & 351C FORD$550 15-9014 ,$550 PETERSON/FLUIDYNE HEAT EXCHANGER 395070 QUARTER MASTER 5.5" TRIPLE PLATE C/TRACK CLUTCH ,$930 1 1/16” X 10 SPUNE 396064 QUARTER MASTER 7.25” TRIPLE PLATE CLUTCH rX 24 SPUNE ,$930 SCP-201 STOCK CAR PRODUCTS 3 STAGE OIL PUMP, LH MOUNT 1.2” PRESSURE SECTION .$930 271-1060-1 DONOVAN SB CHEV GEAR DRIVE INCLUDES CNC BILLET COVER SUIT STANDARD WATER PUMP APPUCATIONS ..$900 271-1060-2 DONOVAN SB CHEV GEAR DRIVE INCLUDES CNC BILLET COVER SUIT FUEL INJECTED APPUCATION WHERE FUEL PUMP IS DRIVEN OFF FRONT COVER .$960 QC86486 MOTIVE GEAR 4.86 QUICK CHANCE SPEEDWAY DIFF GEARS .$380

EACH

OTY PART #

1 PR ED4252

}

MUFFLERS

MUFFLER 3.5” IN a OUT REBUILDABLE SPRINTCAR MUFFLERS

EDEIBROCK PRODUCT DISPULY BOARD 10NLY ED0165 $425

INCLUDES -1 X SB CHEV ALUMINIUM HEAD, 1 X SB CHEV WATER PUMP, 3 X SB CHEV MANIFOLDS, 1 X CARBY, 1 X AIR CLEANER, 1 X SB CHEV ROCKER COVER. VERY ATTRACTIVE DISPLAY!

T .EACH PART#QTY DESCRIPTION 3408 4 IGNITION LEAD HEAT SHIELDING COMPLHE KIT .$85 3409 1 TERMINAL BOOT TO LEAD, NO SPUT SHRINK SLEEVE 10PC .... .$20 3412 1 PRO BOOT HEAT GUARD 6 FT .$65 6211 2 DIGITAL DIS2.DISTRIBUTOR LESS 4 CYL CD IGNITION CONTROLLER .$650 6462 1 6BTM 6 SERIES WITH BOOST RETARD $810 6520 2 6PLUS DIGITAL IGNITION CONTROL .$560 PRO MAC 12 UCHT WEIGHT SB CHEV 7908 1 .$2,350 8106 2 PRO MAC POINTS BOX SUIT P/N 7908 .$800 8154 2 CRANK TRIGGER PICKUP & HARNESS, 32" ARMOUR BRAIDED .$285 8223 2 BLASTER 3 COIL MALE TOP .$70 CRANK TRIGGER PICK-UP & HARNESS 72" SHIELDED 8275 1 .$230 DISTRIBUTER CAP HONDA 8292 1 .$40 8409 1 CAP-A-DAPT, FORD ELECT. STYLE .$23 .$75 8420 2 CAP-A-DAPT KIT WITH ADJUSTABLE ROTOR 8421 2 CAP-A-DAPT ROTOR, CHEV STYLE .$50 8434 1 .$35 DIST. CAP SUIT 8485 DIST (VW) 8445 1 CAP-A-DAPT, CHEV STYLE DIST., FIXED ROTOR .$75 .$16 8470 1 ROTOR, CHEV POINTS STYLE ALSO SUIT DIST 8473/8485 ..

8472 1 ,$135 DIST GEAR, 0/S BRONZE, CHEV STYLE 8534 1 BILLET DIST, S/B CHRYSLER 273-360 MUST USE WITH CD IGNITION ....$495 $495 8584 1 BILLET DIST, FORD 351W MUST BE USED WITH CD IGNITION . .$250 8611 1 CRANK TRIGGER WHEEL SUIT SB CHEV & SB FORD ,$160 8737 1 3 STEP RPM MODULE SELECTOR .$45 8750 1 RPM MODULE KIT 10000-10,800 ..$45 8777 1 RETARD MODULE KIT 1 DECREE TO 5 DEGREE 8804 2 SPARK GUARD TUBE, STOPS VOLTAGE LEAKS BETWEEN S/PLUC .$20 TO LEAD & LEAD TO DIST CAP ;...$65 8811 1 TOGGLE SWITCH .$70 8830 1 NOISE FILTER, 26 KUFD .$16 8841 5 PLUG WIRE SEPERATORS-DUAL .$23 8842 1 PLUG WIRE SEPERATORS-SET 16 .$20 8845 2 PLUG WIRE SEPERATOR KIT 8 CTL ,$60 8910 1 TACH ADAPTOR, POINTS .$190 8952 1 SHIFT UGHT 8974 2 IGNITION SUPPLY MONITOR. 4UGHTS INDICATOR ON VOLTAGE SUPPLY ...$80 62111 1 DIGITAL DIS2, DIST.LESS 4 CYL CD IGNITION HIGH OUTPUT, RACE ONLY ..$560

Choose items carefully as there are NO returns on these sale parts.

Direct Deposit & Credit Card Payaaents Accepted RARXS ARE MEVY AMD PRICES IMCLUDE GSX!

MBsterCam

A

ViSA

FORMULA ONE

son To Be The King

Michael won again, but don’t let that put you off- the German Grand Prix was arguably the best Formula One race of the past couple ofseasons.

JOESAWARD was lucky enough to be there

I

N motor racing, one often hears stories about what might have happened;successes that slipped away and failures that might have been avoided.

All that matters in the end are the black and white numbers on a results sheet. Read the results sheet from the 2004 German Grand Prix and you will read the stark news that Michael Schumacher won his 11th victorv in 12 races.

That was the reality, but there were a lot of people in the paddock with stories of what might ha\’e been.

The fact was that even if Michael had done it again, e\ eryonc had been treated to some great racing, sideh)'-side moves at high speed with the drivers racing cleaniv. It was great stuff.

The big thing in every Formula 1 race these days is the start, becau.se it sets the pattern for the rest of the race, particularly in this age when drivers complain that o\ ertaking in \'ery hard. When the lights went out Michael went off as normal.]uan Pablo Montoya sat there as his wheels spun and in a flash Fernando Alonso's Renault had gone from fifth to second while Jarno Trulli's car had gone from sixth to fourth.

Kimi Raikkonen stayed third and David Coulthard .scrambled through to be fifth in the first corner.

Rubens Barrichello went with him and Montoya was left to fend off a fast-starting Mark Webber.

Down at the hairpin Barrichello screwed things up and slid into the back of Coulthard. Tlie front wing fell off the Ferrari and sailed into the path of A Montoya. Webber went for the inside and emerged in ^ sixth place behind Coulthard, who was busy trying to . figfire out whether anything had fallen off his car.

Barrichello headed for the pits and life in traffic for the re.st of the afternoon.

«

It was a long and laborious process but Barrichello worked his way up to ninth after a stop and an altered strategy and would have finished there but for a last lap puncture (probably the result of an off a couple of laps earlier) at the end of the race. He crawled across the finish line having lost another three places.

But if Rubens was in trouble, Schumacher (inevitably) had things going his way. His start was clean and by the end of the lap any fears that he might ha\’e had of being jumped by the Michelin Men had disappeared.. At the end of lap two he was two .seconds ahead. Raikkonen wasted no time in getting ahead of Alonso, with a neat move on the Spaniard down at the hairpin, and then went after the Ferrari.

They traded fastest laps(Kimi ended up with the fastest of the day)and the gap stabilized and both men waiteed for the first stops to reveal the stategies.

Schumacher pitted on lap 10 and Raikkonen went in on lap 11.

After the stop Kimi reckoned he was faster and was just setting himself up for a challenge when the rear wing of the McLaren fell part as he braked for the first corner.

The incident was to have a major effect on the race

because several drivers went through the wreckage field and jammed bits of old McLaren under their cars.

T

he crash was a frightening moment as the car went at high speed across the gravel trap and sideways into the tyre barriers. It was a big thump and the McLaren men had faces to match their shirts..

There would be an investigation, said Ron Dennis, <r . n but added (oddly) that it had been a manufacturinb mistake rather than a design problem. What was not clear was how Dennis knew this before the i investigation had been held!

The shunt ruined the team's day because in addition to wiping out Raikkonen's challenge, it also) n meant that Coulthard picked up bits of Kimi's wing i-, nnX i and damaged his own front wing and that hurt his lap times. He finished the day in fourth place. n -J-' The result was not great but it is fair to say that the McLaren MP4-19B is now officially a very good racing car, which is amazing considering that, according to an oft-quoted dictum of Mr Dennis, miracles do not happen in motor racing.

The pit stops revealed that the only frontrunners with any serious fuel in their cars were the two .( Jaguars,Jenson Button's BAR and the two two; stopping Saubers. Webber led the race on lap 12 and l then scurried into pitlane while Christian Klieri was n n l , W up to fifth before he pitted on lap 13. Button came in '' on 14. ^ l The Raikkonen crash took care of the two Renaults.

Trulli hit some wreckage immediately and straight ,y. away began to fade. His fourth place before;the pit stops became sixth afterwards and then he had wreckage on board and soon fell victim to Takuma Sato's BAR and a neat piece of opportunism from Webber on lap 26.

After that Tailli pitted had a new nose fitted and by the time he had finished that he was down in the traffic in the midfield, dicing with Toyotas and Saubers.

Alonso's problem with wreckage came later in the race while he was jousting wonderfully with Button, who had used his extra running during the first stint to climb up into the lead. He rejoined after his stop in fifth and quickly dealt with Montoya. At the second pit stops he was back in the lead and pulling away from Schumacher, worrying the German for a while.

This enabled him to get ahead of Coulthard, and Jenson then embarked on attacking Alonso.

For a string of laps the two went nose-to-tail, wing-to-wing and side-by-side. It was great racing between two men who clearly trust and respect one another and was not the nasty,choppy style of racing that has existed for some years.

At the third stops Jenson led again but once more found him.self stuck behind Alonso until suddenly on

continued on page 63 59

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He's had some practice at this: Michael celebrates putting the Ferrari on pole. Again.

60

dGui

HE shape of the meeting began to be formed on Friday when BAR-Honda driver Anthony Davidson went quickest on Friday morning.

That suggested that the BARs would be Ferrari's leading rivals but although the Honda-engined cars were quick, things did not go well: on Friday afternoon Jenson Button suffered an engine failure.

The rules, daft and unfair though they may be, meant that Button would have to start 10 places down the grid from where he qualified. Immediately one of Ferrari's rivals was gone.

On Saturday morning things got worse when Takuma Sato spun and crashed his car into a wall. The car had to be rebuilt and that meant there was precious little time available for set-up work. And that meant that Sato did not get the most

from his car. He qualified eighth.

Button did better and was third fastest when it came to the final one-lap dash. That meant 13th on the grid.

"It is disappointing," he admitted, "but we have a very good race pace and so there is a good chance we can score some points tomorrow. The car is definitely stronger than it was."

On Friday afternoon, Michael Schumacher seemed to be under threat not from BARHonda, but rather from McLarenMercedes and Williams-B.MW and one could be forgiven for thinking that sudden revivals by McLaren and Williams might be related to public relations more than to reality.

The pre-qualifying session threw up a most unexpected result with Juan-Pablo Montoya and his new running mate Antonio Pizzonia setting the two inotorsport news

FORMULA %

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I Grand Prix of A

Germany

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{Scu^ria_Ferrari Marlboro : 1:14.278 +0.972 '

Things McLaren don't do, Part 1: When you are as cash-strapped as Minardi^ there's nothing you won't do for a few bucks. The fact that this will probably be the only Zsolt Baumgartner shot that we run all year, however, suggests that the ploy worked...

Guessing issing Again best lap times. The cars were quick with a low fuel load. And 'Pizzaman' had delivered on the team's hopes to have two competitive cars.

Yet when the team put more fuel in the cars a few minutes later, Montoya was able to set the second best time, although his tyres faded towards the end of the lap. Fie was just threetenths down on Michael.

"It is nice to be back at the front," he said. "I think we have done a really good job in the last few races and it is good to see the team back in good shape.

We have a very good race car."

Pizzonia admitted that he was probably a little bit too cautious and he found that his car was not as stable as it had been without fuel.

Fie would start from 10th on the grid as Button had been pushed back to 13th.

4 August 2004

McLaren was also good on Friday and then on Saturday, Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard were able to qualify third and fourth (after Button was gone). There was a suspicion that the team might be running a bit light but on Sunday we would find out.

As it turned out there was not much in it between the big teams and if anything the lightest were the two Renaults.

The McLarens, therefore, were as good as they looked.

"Our package is pretty strong," said Raikkonen.

Team boss Ron Dennis added that there was a temptation to "deviate away from an optimum race strategy with a view to gaining grid positions" which in rough translation means running light, but he indicated that he believed that the team had made the right calculations.

0

Renault also looked strong although Sunday would reveal that they were the lightest cars.

Fifth and sixth on the grid, with the lightning Renault starting system, would get them up at the front and from there it was always going to be possible for the drivers to cling on to position, even if the cars behind were faster.

All this, of course, meant that Schumacher was on pole. The team made such a fuss about how brilliant Michael had been that the cynics in the paddock immediately assumed the opposite and concluded that he must have a low fuel load and was hoping to outrun his rivals on Sunday and avoid falling behind anyone.

The team made a big fuss about the importance of the tyres and what the weather would do.

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But there were signs even then that Ferrari was not as confident as usual. On Friday and Saturday morning, Michael was really having to hustle the car around.

Fie said that he only found a good set-up at the very end of the Saturday morning session and that in the pre-qualifying session the speed of the car was hidden because the track was dirty.

It was all very plausible and the Bridgestones seemed to be holding up better in the last sector than were the Michelins ...

The only thing we knew for certain was that Rubens Barrichello was on a different strategy, which was the only way to explain his seventh place on the grid.

So Michael was going for an extra stop?

- JOE SAWARD 61

Department of Revisions

AS usual, the German GP is the last race of this first part of summer before the three-week break of all Formula One activities, meaning that no testing and no races will take place during this interval.

Hockenheim is no any longer an ultra-fast track that is very demanding for engines and requiring very low downforce levels since last year’s circuit revisions, but it remains a challenging track as speed is still paramount and balance plays a fundamental role.

After the back-to-back races in France and Great Britain, where Williams and McLaren introduced the new versions of their cars, this time it was Toyota which was expected to introduce a deeplyrevised TF104.

This happened as planned but we have to say that at least by the visual point of view, the new version of the Japanese car doesn’t look so different from the previous one, even though the chassis is completely new and had to undergo a further crash test.

In detail, the new car is visibly changed on the nose that is now narrower 3)sporting curved pillars 2)instead of vertical ones, that connect the nose to the front wing.

This is also different, in particular regarding the endplates, as now they sport a revised version of side winglets 1), which has a thick entry edge in comparison to the thin knifeedge used so far. ' Furthermore, going towards the back of the car, the sidepods have been slightly modified, extending the top chimneys to resemble the Renault one.

It is important to note that these changes have made the

car lighter, as the new chassis weighs 15 kilos less than the previous version.

Ferrari also sported something new here, in particular a new aero package featuring a new front wing. in detail the new wing sports a new main profile that features a double curved profile with a deeper spoon 1) in the center.

Also, the flap is deeply different from the previous one, and sports a complete new shape of the wider section that now is clearly higher 2)and more peaky than the previous one.

Still related to the front wing is an interesting change to the Renault front wing, which now features a revised main profile sporting a sort of ply at the extremities.

Basically, this section is now slightly higher than the main profile, while the enplates are bending inwards in their top section.

On the bottom section they sport a sort of cut at the entry edge so to provide a more efficient management of the , airflow that hits the ensplates at this point.

- PAOLO FILISETTI

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FORMULA ONE

Reserving Judgement

continued from page 59

Button had a problem with the visor on his helmet and had to drive half of

lap 52 Fernando's lap times dropped dramaticahy, going from low ImlSs to lml7s and ImlSs. Jenson was away and gone and Coulthard was closing in but then after six laps the problem cured itself and Alonso was back in the lml4s.

"It was not our day," said Pat Symonds.

It wasn't really Jenson's day either because if he had been ahead of Alonso after the second stops, Schumacher would have been in trouble.

each lap with one hand holding the visor down as the slipstream was getting into the helmet and lifting it up, which made it difficult for Jenson to breathe.

"1 think that Jenson's drive today will be remembered by millions around the world as a stunning example of simply brilliant racing," said team boss David Richards.

"After a couple of disappointing races, we have shown today that we certainly have the speed to match our competitors."

While Button was playing his starring role,Sato was paying the price for his crash in qualifying. That meant there were delays on the first lap and little chance to get the car going to its full potential. He finished eighth.

Mth all this going on, Montoya was out of the spotlight for most of the race. After his horrible start he was back in sixth on lap four and he was fourth after the demise of Raikkonen and TruUi's handling trouble.

He could not take the pace of Button, who passed him on lap 21 when Monty went for a little wander in the grass and from then on he was fifth all the way to the flag. The car, he said, was "pointy and unpredictable" but he fought it all the way.

By the end of the race Pizzonia was not far behind but he had had a lot more to do. He also had one off-track

"Jenson was very quick and at one stage I was not sure if he was only planning to stop twice," Michael admitted. "I had to push flat out."

Perhaps Michael might have gone faster if he had needed to do so, but we wiU never know. His fastest lap was still three-tenths faster than Jenson's best but track position would have been all-important.

Did Michael think it would have been a different story if he had not been able to hold on to the lead at the start? "I think so," he said.

Button made no bones about the fact that he felt he had driven he best race of his Formula 1 career.

"It was a fantastic race," he said.

"Probably the best race of my career.

"It is a bit disappointing because if we had started where we qualified we would have had a very good chance of challenging Michael. It is hard to come to terms with that really."

In the closing part of the race

pH I

moment and was penalised for his lowly grid position but when he was in the clear he was quick,liis fastest lap

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THE new Toyota TF104B did not look like much of a challenger but the reality was somewhat hidden by the events at Hockenheim.

The new car, a rewotrked version of the TF104 with input from Mike Gascoyne, is iowerand lighter than the previous machine and more efficient aerodynamicailly.

The problem was that the parts that made up the aero package were so new that they ihad not been tested before the team arrived at Hockenheim, so Friday the drivers found the car rather difficult as they tried to find the correct settings for the machine.

Olivier Fanis, the more experienced of the two, got there first and on Saturday afternoon dragged the recalcitrant machine around to ninth place on the grid. There was, he said, much more to come.

Cristiano da Matts was not as happy and made a mess of his fast lap and ended up back in 15th on the grid, facing the possibility of an afternoon of traffic on Sunday.

Fanis’s hopes were iruined when his car stalled as the grid lined up for the start. Sent to thie back, Fanis could not get the car going at all and so he was pushed into pitlane. After that he had to work his way through the backmarkers all afernoon and ended up 14th despite a late stop for tyres, the result of the Frenchman being called in for new tyres after da Matta went out of the race with a high-speed puncture, which spun him out.

A frustrated Fanis went back out and set the fourth fastest lap of the race, which was probably the only real hint we had that Toyota is beginning to get it all together. Expect better performance in the weeks ahead.

- JOE SAWARD

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was only a tenth slower than Montoya.

He dealt with Sato in the closing laps and was right with Webber at the finish but he had to settle for seventh place, which in the circumstances was good. He had shown that he can race.

Whether it will be enough to get him a drive in 2005 remains to be seen,but we are likely to see him

f

back again at Williams in Hungary, despite Ralf Schumacher showing up at Hockenheim and talking about making a comeback.

But it is not his choice. The doctors will decide whether or not there has been sufficient time for Ralf to get over his concussion and with our sources saying that Ralf needs a minimum of three months.

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Teflon is a trade mark of dupont

mP Jl I 63

THE Jaguars had a new aerodynamic package for the German Grand Prix and the cars looked good in qualifying, although;like most of the WIichelin runners (except the BARS)the cars yvere using up the Michelin '^tyres before^he end of the '^jlifyingilaps. ^™ark Webber arid Christian kiWPi’Stayed out of trouble and s^dild themselves a solid' fo#.^tion on which to build on Su&d'^ afternoon, i^ebber was hoping to go for some'ilojhts but not even expectp/ihings to go as well as , they di&iaitihe start Webber ' went fror^il th to 8th, profiting from the disappearance of Olivier Paftis but also making a rgood rhjrvev . Dowr' i®at the hairpin Mark watchei^as.Barrichello ran into

the back of Coulthard and wreckage flew into the path of Montoya, in a flash he was ahead of the Ferrari and the Williams and on the tail of the McLaren, in sixth position. Montoya would get him back a few laps later but as the race progressed Webber was able to stay with the opposition and overtook Trulli with an opportunist move later when the Italian had been outsmarted by Sato.

“The balance of the car was great,” said Webber.

“I had some good battles with the guys out there and to finish sixth is great for the team.”

Christian Klien did not have such a successful time but he was happy to finish 10th, reporting that the team’s new aerodynamic package is a great deal better.

- JOE SAWARD

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Red nose day: Once again, Rubens, below, was on a different strategy to Michael- Schuey didn't have to pit for a new nose ...

July 25 2004

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Don't adjust your picture: Yep, those are FI cars - Montoya and Trulli, to be precise - above, and they are racing.

Grand Prix of Germany

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MULA ONE

Mark Webber's German GP Diary I

8

t.

T'S been a little while coming, but sixth - along with three points - is the sort of result that I've wanted to put together for the guys at Jaguar for a while.

And,funnily enough, it came at a race where I went into Sunday not all that confident of a good set-up on the R5.

We had tested during the previous week, at Jerez, with a revised front aero package and it turned out to be everything the aero guys had expected. In pure time, it seemed to be worth three-tenths of a second - and that's always worth having!

Practice at Hockenheim was, in contrast, a bit puzzling.

I missed Friday's first session completely when Christian (Klien) and Bjorn (Wirdheim) both experienced a problem with a new front brake duct interior material that we were running. It was something I'd tested fully at Jerez and it had been just fine.

Yet here at Hockenheim, Christian just touched a kerb after five laps and the material exploded! There was no choice other than to convert back to the standard set-up as the result of a failure in that area could be a lot more serious than you might think.

It rained overnight Friday, which, once again, washed the track clean and made life a little more difficult for us Michelin runners. Our tyres definitely come on the more rubber gets put down, so

starting out on Saturday with a green track wasn't the optimum.

Our long runs, to evaluate our tyre choice, were also a bit disappointing although, in hindsight, I think we may have been running a little bit more fuel - and weight - than many of the others.

It made the choice a bit interesting. The first option was inclined to have the early front graining problem that we encounter from time to time. while the second was blistering the rears. Whichever way we went we were either going to be heroes or wallies.

In the end, my engineer made what turned out to be the inspired choice and we went with the first option.

A

s we tend to do, we ended up running more fuel than most in qualifying and so the sixth row was a fair reflection, despite a slight grain problem late in the lap. The start and first lap, though, played right into our hands.

With Olivier Panis stalling and moving to the rear, Takuma Sato running wide and delaying Jenson Button and then the Rubens Barrichello/David Coulthard touch and avoidance

by Juan Pablo Montoya (which enabled me to sneak down the inside), we were sixth at the end of a busy opening lap.

On a heavyish starting fuel load,that's a dream come true, so it was a matter of getting the head down and making the most of it.

I

*34;

'f;

The differing wing levels 1 between the cars produced the varying brake points at the hairpin and thus the action that kept the TV audiences on their toes.

With a piece of McLaren wing stuck under his car, Jarno (Trulli) held me at bay for a while and it allowed Sato to catch us and sneak inside when I had a little lock-up at the hairpin. It worked out well in the end - when Sato shot down the inside of the Renault a couple of laps later, I was able to go with him ...

The rest of the race was less eventful, although during the third stint, the car started oversteering just a bit and giving the left-rear tyre a problem. At the final stop, we took half a degree off the flap (a quarter would have been perfect!), which helped and enabled me to keep Sato and then Antonio Pizzonia's

Williams at bay over the closing stages.

A

s I said, this is the sort of. result I've been hoping to get for the guys and I hope there's more before the end of the season, especially as I will then be moving on,to Williams.

I did tell the guys that, whatever was in the wind for 2005, 1 certainly wasn't going anywhere before then (as had been speculated). I'm here at Jaguar and trying my absolute best for them until the very last lap in Brazil.

My guys here,from the pit garage to the factory, are a great bunch who have never given less than their best and leaving them is the downside to moving on.

Even so, I sense they ^ understand and when we do | part, it will be on the best of ? terms. s 65

First for Everything

Richo’s back, Davo loses and Fabian wins!

IT was a round of Carrera Cup firsts at Winton Raceway recently.

Alex Davison's six round winningstreak finally came to an end,Jim Richards took his first round win for

The awesome foursome: Richards, Coulthard, Halliday and Davison turned on some great racing at Winton.

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the year and Fabian Coulthard snared a brilliant maiden race win.

There was little between pole-sitter Davison and Richards in the very wet Race 1 on Saturday. Davison held Richards at bay and took a narrow win while comeback man Matthew Halliday was third,followed by Couthard and WPS driver Charlie

O'Brien.

It looked like 'Davo's' winning ways were set to continue but Race 2 saw the rain disappear and the action reappear.

'Davo' botched the start, allowing Richards to sneak into a lead he would not surrender.

O'Brien also made a mess at the green light and some of the drivers at the back were lucky to avoid the veteran racer.

Coulthard and Halliday quickly took advantage of Davison's poor start and while Richards skipped away,Halliday and Davison applied maximum pressure to second-placed Coulthard.

On lap seven, Halliday squeezed Coulthard and got through at turn 11.

Davison followed the Kiwi through.

Former V8 trier David Thexton had three off-track adventures in two laps, including one very fast slide at turn one, below.

Race 3 saw Coulthard turn it all

around with a great debut victory.

From grid four, he beat Davison into turn one, gunned past Halliday on lap four and nailed Richards at turn three a lap later.

The Braun machine sailed into the distance from there on.

"The team's done a fantastic job," smiled Couthard.

"We've only tested here in the dry so once the rain went away, we were able to make some progress and it showed in the last race."

Richards picked up second in Race 3 and claimed the round win.

Davison was third but complained of a niggling engine problem on Srmday.

"It struggled out of the corners," the championship leader claimed.

"I was on par with the leaders into and through the comers,but out of the hole from low revs I was never close enough."

Peter Fitzgerald and Jonathan Webb tried in vain to hang onto the back of the leading foursome. The pair got their best results in Race 3 when they were promoted to fourth and fifth respectively after Halhday, running third, came to grief on the last lap and failed to finish after he became bogged in the wet grass.

The next round of the series stays in Victoria but heads south to support the Sandown 500 on September 12.

-GRANT ROWLEY Points: Davison 960,Richards 849, Coulthard 774, Fitzgerald 570,James Cressey 378,Paul Pedersen 345.

Full range of Klippan Harnesses

Hi

66

m

moiorsporl news

FORMULA FORD

Hill Spectrum H

by GRANT ROWLEY

IT'S the series nobody wants to win.

Well, that's not entirely true, but in round five of the Australian Formula Ford Championship at Winton Raceway two weeks ago, the points battle between the leading contenders closed dramatically after the front runners experienced varying degrees of pain.

Steady improver Jason Liefting claimed his career-first round win, beating his rivals with consistency and patience.

The cherry on top of Liefting’s round win was victory in Race 3.

"It's good to finally get a win," said the Project Sports Spectrum 09 driver.

"We've been close to a win before but I didn't expect to win the round here. We improved the car a lot over the weekend because we were miles off the pace on Friday."

Liefting's Spectrum team-mate Steve Owen was the man to beat throughout the weekend. The Kmart Floiden endurance driver took pole and scored victory in a very wet Race 1 before claiming the Race 2 win after a brief challenge from

Sonic stand-out James Small.

Small's team-mate Michael Trimble finished second in front of the improving David Sieders.

Owen was on track in Race 3 for his second clean-sweep in-a-row, but a coll lead failure on the first lap slowed him dramatically. Trimble had nowhere to go and careered right over top of him. Championship contender David Reynolds also got caught in the mess and all three were instant retirements. Liefting took the win from Dean Fiore and the consistent Shannon O'Brien.

Small was the most impressive of the Sonic quartet at Winton, qualifying second and finishing behind Owen in the first race.

On lap four of Race 2, he took the lead, only to find turn four covered in mud.

"I slowed down but didn't slow down enough," quipped Small.

The young Victorian had a chance to score valuable points in Race 3, but a collision with Sieders speared both cars into the wall at the Motorsport News esses, above right. The pair were second and third at the time.

Brett Francis has led the series since round one, but the Queenslander endured a disastrous

Am/AN CI

Touchy, touchy: Liefting leads Small and Sieders, above. The latter two have just touched and are bound for the concrete wall, below...

5 3-

I

round and only scored eight points.

Due to his rivals inconsistencies, he maintained his (shrinking) title lead.

Tim Macrow remains second in the series and looked strong early after qualifying fourth. A collision with Reynolds in Race 1 dropped both of them down the order.

Macrow had a race-ending clash with Mark McNally in Race 2, while Reynolds stormed from the back of the grid to take fifth.

Fiore struggled in qualifying, but snatched second in Race 3, keeping his title aspirations alive.

Rookies James Davison and Shane Price impressed in their first outing in the national league. The pair came home fourth and fifth respectively In the last race after a spirited dice.

The next round of the series heads to Oran Park. A maximum of 180 points is still on offer in the series, so in theory, anyone can still win the title ...

I

4 ^

Points: Francis 164, Macrow 148, Fiore 142, Reynolds 138, Owen 123,Small 109, Liefting 101, Bryce Washington 98, Trimble 82, Andrew Thompson 49.

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G tlte-6Matt Black/

Globalstar Mobile everywhere^

Atkinson Remembop the Name They are barely home long enough to scratch themselves these days, but when they are, the Atkinson brothers still find time to win rallies.

JON THOMSON reports from a chilly South Australia

I

CY winds, muddy roads and driving showers meant it was business as usual as the Globalstar Australian Rally Championship headed to South Australia for the fourth round of the Supersedes last weekend.

It was a case of Juha Kangas winnmg the battle but Chris Atkinson winning the war in a fascmating Coopers Rally of South Australia, with the mid-winter weather again adding to the character of tliis inspiring rally.

Tliousands of rally fans braved the cold and showers to pack into the Mt Crawford Forest for a winter rallying experience pnr excellence and while the weather was bracing, the competition was white-hot.

The Atkinson brotliers took out the round win overall, capturing eight fastest stage times despite Kangas carrying the day in tlie opening heat.

Kangas dominated the first day of competition with a strong performance before Atkinson's storming drive took the Queensland young gun to his second ARC round win of the year.

It was a fascinating battle of tactics, tyre choice and attrition across both days with the advantage of a fast start out of the blocks underlining just how much of a sprint ARC rallies have become.

Kangas claimed victory by 8.7s over team-mate Ed Ordynski on Day 1 with another inspired drive,before a gearbox problem slowed his progress in the second heat.

Atkinson stormed through a wet and muddy second heat to take a dominant 32s win over Cody Crocker after a fourth place in Heat 1.

The battle between the two Mitsubishi team-mates was the most fascinating contest on Day 2, with the pair fighting for second outright. In the end, Ordynski had to settle for tWrd after a torrid race to the finish that was decided on the very last stage by less than a second.

Kangas carried the speed he had shown in Tasmania through to the 68

South Australian event and caught the others napping with a fast start on Day 1.

The roads were very quick and you can't see anything when you are going that fast, you just have to rely on the pace notes," Kangas explained.

Kangas did have one moment that caused him some worry on the way to the heat win.

I hit a big post on one comer. My speed was OK,but the corner was too tight. The steering was bent but I could still drive without too many problems."

Atkinson adopted a conservative approach and paid the price, playing catch-up for much of the opening leg.

Intense rain in the weeks leading up to the rally meant the roads were damp on Day 1, while a downpour on Saturday night made conditions treacherous for Day 2.

Fog and low cloud in the morning added to the rrdx but tlris didn't seem to faze Atkinson who attacked from the word go, winning five of the nine stages to set up an unassailable lead on Sunday.

"We had to take a few more risks in the fog on Simday morning but maybe the others were backing off," said Atkinson.

"When I couldn't see,Ijust drove on the notes. I didn't back off for anything, and that probably made the difference."

Simon Evans surprised everyone by being fit enough to start the South

Australian event after breaking his leg at the previous round in Tasmania,but despite three weeks of intense physio work,the Toyota driver scored no points on the opening heat.

A blown head gasket halted his progress on the very first stage of the rally and he retired from Heat 1, but re-started on Sunday morning in a repaired CoroUa. Evans could only manage eighth on Day 2, one place behind team mate Neal Bates, scoring a handful of points to keep his title hopes alive hopes that appeared well and truly finished in Tassie last month.

Crocker challenged Kangas for the lead early on Day 1 until an imcharacteristic error saw him turn too early on a pace note call and fire up a driveway.

The mistake cost him 20s and some minor panel damage, as well as putting paid to his Heat 1 victory

aspirations.

The reigning Champ brought the Subaru home in fifth ^ter a three-way battle with team-mate Dean Herridge, who finished third, while Atkinson split the difference in fourth.

Day 2 was better for the Subaru lead driver, who claimed fourth outright to extend his lead in the Championship.

"You really need to decide whether its worth taking a calculated risk and in these conditions we weren't prepared to do something silly," Crocker said.

'The competition has become so close. Once upon a time you could get a flat tyre, lose two minutes and perhaps a spot, but here I lost 20s and it dropped me back four spots."

After his strong showing on Day 1, Herridge smacked a log on Day 2 and took a less aggressive approach to ensure a finish and good Championship points. moiorsport news

\

fk'cgBhckh

%* Great guns: Atkinson, above, went nose-to-nose with Kangas, above left, all weekend.

e

Damage limitation: Crocker, left, survived a rare error to come out with his title lead intact Tread carefully: The SA gravel roads caught a few cars out during the weekend, right.

Sixtli place was not as liigh as he would have liked, but the overall result saw him move into third in the championship standings behind Crocker and Kangas.

Scott for1better thanRedder a sixth had placehoped in Heat and a fourth in Heat 2, but after a number of retirements and problems in earlier rounds the Mitsubishi driver was pleased to capture points.

On the positive side of the ledger for the Pedders the team was bringing all three cars home, with Scott claiming sixth for the weekend, brother Mark taking 10th and cousin Will Orders 11th as well as securing the SA state rally title.

Surprisingly the testing conditions produced precious few crashes with all of the key front-runners bringing their machines home in one piece.

Clipping a bank mid-way through Day 1 saw Mark Thompson fire off 4 August 2004

ARC RnUND 4 Rally df SA

WARNING

heat 1

GRAVEL ROADS

Pos I Driver|Race Time [ Fastest|Lap Mitsubishi 59m56.6s M.Kangas/J^Rabbeit 2 E. Ordynski/I. Stev/art 3 D. Herridge/G. Macneall 4 C. Alkinson/B. Atkinson

SURFACE CONDITIONS CHANGE OFTEN .

I L T

5 C Crocker/G. Foletta

A;

6 S. Pedder/P. Humm

>■

● A -J

DRIVE CAREFULLY

The collision jolted her helmet downwards, with the visor slicing into her wrist, resulting in a large loss of blood. Both were transported to Adelaide hospital but were later released.

Young local rising star Jack Monkhouse impressed with some fast stage times on Day 1 only to run off the road early on Day 2 and become stuck fast in his older Galant VR-4.

Bathurst driver Brad Goldsbrough scooped up top privateers points after finishing the weekend equal eighth with Simon Evans 'to go

9 M. Pedder/T. Feaver 10W. Orders/M.McAdam

Subaru lh00m.07.8s Subaru

1h00m16.6s

Mitsubishi Ih00m27.7s Toyota Ih00m45.3s Subaru

Ih01m27.4s

Mitsubishi Jh01rn47,9s Mitsubishi 1h01m58.6s

Heat Z *1 IoqI Strickbnd.

the road into a tree, badly damaging the car but more critically causing some anxious moments for his co driver and mother Rita.

7 N. Bates/C. Taylor 8 B. Goldsbrough/D. Moscatt

Mitsubishi Ih00m05.3s Subaru 1h00m06.8s

further ahead in the battle for the Privateers' Cup, while Ross Dunkerton kept up his winning ways in the Magna VR-X, taking the Australian Cup category for the third time running.

Hours after taking the win, Chris and Ben Atkinson climbed aboard a flight bound for Helsinki where they wOl tackle the Rally of Finland this week in a Tommi Makinen-prepared Subaru as their unrelenting competition schedule continues.

The Championship moves to Sydney for the Premier State Rally in three weeks time, where the battle will rage on as Atkinson and Kangas chase down the reigning Champ Crocker in the forests of the Central Coast.

Subaru Subaru

52m08.7s 52m38.8s

3 E. Ordynski/l, Stewart 4 S. Pedder/P. Humm

Mitsubishi

52m46.5s

Mitsubishi

52m52.1s

5 J. Kangas/J. Rabbett

Mitsubishi

52m54^£

Subaru Toyota Toyota

52m57.3s 53m27.8s 53m28.8s

9 B. Goldsbrough/D. Moscatt Subaru 10 W, Orders/M. McAdam Mitsubishi

53m48.5s 53m57.1s

1 C. Atkinson/B. Atkinson 2 C. Crocker/G, Foletta

6 D. Herridge/G. Macneall 7 S. Evans/S.Evans 8 N. Bates/C. Taylor

Overall Results: Atkinson 33, Ordynski 30. Kangas 30.

Crocker 26, Herridge 22, S. Redder 20. Bates 10, Evans 6.

Goldsbrough 6, M. Redder 2.

Drivers Championship: Crocker 108, Kangas 92. Herridge 86, Atkinson 85, Evans 83. Ordynski 74, Bates 70, S. Redder 64, Goldsbrough 28, Thompson 16 Manufacturers’ Championship: Subanj 304, Mitsubishi 272. Toyota 172

Globalstar Mobile everywhere..

69

RALLYING

Out But Not Down AS predicted in MNews last issue, Mitsubishi has announced its withdrawal from the closing rounds of this year's WRC,declaring that it was making a technical retreat to find competitiveness.

Making the announcement was team boss Sven Quandt, whose position as head of the Japanese maker's worldwide motorsport operations is itself apparently rmder threat.

Quandt declared that manufacturer is determined to continue development of the Lancer WRC04 after its withdrawal at the end of August and that it will return to the Championship in 2005.

"That is the proof that we wiU return,if we weren't coming back

then we would not be continuing the development program," said Quandt.

He said that the three-year development plan was still in place and that the team would contest at least one WRC rally between August and the end of the year.

The company's withdrawal from the WRC leaves it open to an FIA fine of around $400,000 per rally, however Quandt said that pulling out was still the cheaper option.

"I can teU you it makes sense. We still save money at the end,because the events, especially Japan and Australia, are very, very expensive.

Mitsubishi in Japan is still in a serious situation. We all have to bring our costs down."

With the team yet to finish higher than sixth with the Lancer WRC04,

which is also yet to take a fastest stage time, the speculation over Quandt's future has been amplified.

However the German told

journalists that he did not believe his future was in question.

"The only thing I can tell you that is I have got a contract, which is still valid," he said.

"I am a business person and I think I can combine business and motorsports quite well. I am probably one of the few guys in the WRC who comes from a full business background."

Prodrive and World Rally TV supremo Dave Richards said he wasn't surprised that Mitsubishi pulled out.

"It wasn't a surprise, given the circumstances," said Richards.

"Having had a year out, one

would have expected them to be more competitive, "it is disappointing not to see them at home in Japan, as the WRC visits tliere for the first time."

Richards said that he isn't too worried by the fact that the WRC is now back to four works teams and

just eight cars and added that like any motorsport series, fluctuations are to be expected.

"The WRC fluctuates between three and seven manufacturers," Richards said, "it goes up and down between those because it cannot sustain any more than that. If you look at touring cars, FI, anything,then it is no surprise that we fluctuate in that wondow."

- JON THOMSON

Mikko Under The Pump SUBARU young gun Mikko Hirvonen's position with the Prodrive team is under threat following a run of disappointing results from the 23-year-old Finn.

Hirvonen, right, was selected by the team ahead of 1995 world champion and Subaru old boy Colin McRae, but is yet to finish higher than fourth.

Hirvonen's lack of pace has led many to suggest that the Finn has disappointed Subaru management and that he has "Results aren't the failed to live up to expectations.

Subaru boss David Lapworth overriding priority, even in has declared that more is n Finland," said Lapworth.

"It's all part of the plan. It's expected of Hirvonen in the second half of this season. like developing an athlete: in certain circumstances, he's as Lapworth did, however, fast as Petter (Solberg) and in dismiss suggestions that the second half of the season, Hirvonen would lose his job in we're bringing speed into the the short-term, pointing out agenda, so that will make a that the youngster had set difference." encouraging stage times in - JOIM THOMSON Argentina.

70

© PEUGEOT will bring French tarmac specialist Cedric Robert into the factory team as back-up to Marcus Gronholm when the WRC hits the hard stuff in Germany later this month.

Robert, above, will have his first fully-fledged works dnve sta.ding at the Deutschland Rally where he will be nominated to score Manufacturers points for Peugeot ahead of Belgian Freddy Loix.

The 31-year-old has been the lynchpin of Peugeot's French Championship assault and beat Colin McRae on the 2002 Sanremo Rally at the wheel of a semi-works 206 Peugeot.

Loix, who was sacked from the team earlier this year after a lack of results, will come back into the French team driving the third 307 but will not score manufacturers points.

- JON THOMSON motorsport news

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GLO 0105

Snoxville: K ,Jhe Unofficial Sprintcar World litle boasts blockbuster field r-

n

THROUGHOUT this year's World of Outlaws championship,the names Steve Kinser and Danny Lasoski have been frequently , popping up at the top of the charts.

Heading into this years 44th annual Knoxville Nationals on August 11 to 14, those two are easily the short-priced favourites.

Between them, Kinser and Lasoski have claimed 15 Knoxville National crowns, with Lasoski being this year's defending Champion after he took the third Nationals win of his career.

Kinser, whose last Nationals victory was in 2002, will be keen to get hold of the trophy for the 13th time in his career and there is no reason why he can't. This year he has snared 10 WoO main events. Lasoski has managed to claim four.

Other than Kinser and Lasoski being bleeding obvious favourites, you can not discount other likely contenders from the WoO trail, guys and girls like Craig Dollansky, Donny Schatz, Joey Saldana,

Mega Rookie Incentive

PERFORMANCE Wholesale,in conjuntion with Comp Cams and the Richard Petty Driving Experience have announced the World Series Sprintcar's Rookie of the Year prize for 2004/05.

The winner of this year's rookie prize will receive two return airfares to the USA,reserved grandstand seats for the Knoxville Nationals (if they aren't competing!), a drive in a RPDE NASCAR and enough accomadation, flights and spending money to sink a battleship!

Last year's winner Mark Reuter, right, agrees that the prize is simply awesome.

"My girlfriend and I had an absolute ball at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte where we even met the President of the Lowes Motor Speedway,Humpy Wheeler," said Reuter.

"The drive in the NASCAR was unbelievable."

KwiKsntw

This prize tops the scales at over $9000 and at least five Australian rookies are planning on taking home Bill Mann's grand incentive.

Classic Speedway Sunday

Stock Cars here and now: Murray Parker (SA23)and John Scorgie (SABS) run side-by-side down the back straight.

72

THE South Australian Classic Speedway Association made a welcomed return to Adelaide's Speedway City after an absence of almost five seasons.

The venue resembled the glory days of yesteryear as the track come alive for the 'Classic and Family Fun day'.

Persistent rainfall in the days leading up to the event threatened to prematurely curtail proceedings as the track had suffered from a severe pounding. Luckily, on cue, the skies cleared and the venue was bathed in warm sunlight.

A wide range of machinery and drivers of all ages, including rugged veterans like Murray Parker (at 81 years young) took to the track for spirited demonstrations aboard the thumping Super Modifieds, Speedcars and Stock Cars to the nimble TQ's, Sidecars and Solos.

"We're delighted to help the Classic Association and we hope to host the Classics on a more regular basis in the future," said Speedway City Promoter Wendy Turner.

- PARIS CHARLES iDoiorspprt news

iser vs. Lasoski Daniel Heard

Jason Sides, Daryn Pittman, Paul McMahan and last years Knoxville Nationals rookie of the year Erin Crocker. She became the first female to qualifying for a Nationals final, where the youngster finished 21st.

Outside chances will be headed by Terry McCarl, who knows the Knoxville track well and races there week after week. Others who could cause a stir are Sammy Swindell, Mark Kinser, Chad Kemenah, Jason Johnson, Wayne Johnson, Shane Stewart, and that is just scratching the surface in terms of contenders in the 93-car field.

The Australian posse will be well represented. Kerry Madsen and Brooke Tatnell head the likely list and both made the

Nationals final last year,finishing in 16th and 23rd respectively. Madsen and Tatnell have been in solid form and will be looking for nothing less than a top 10 finish.

Fellow countrymen Skip Jackson (now based in Knoxville) and Jaymie Moyle are the only other Australians with a realistic chance of making the final. Both have been running well in the Knoxville track championship and will have to be at their very best to make the final.

Out of the remaining Aussie drivers on show, Lynton Jeffrey is well known for his qualifying speed and that will either make or break his Nationals campaign. Troy Little and Marty Perovich should be chances of a berth in the C-main.

- DANIEL POWELL

Clarke oh so close

AUSTRALIAN Adam Clarke came only inches away from claiming his first feature race on American soil during the running of the Gateway Open Wheel Racing Series recently (July 28) at Junction Motor Speedway, McCool Junction, Nebraska.

From the start of the 25-lap event, Clarke made his intentions clear by disposing of pole-sitter Davey Ray in the opening laps and built up a lead of 10 car-lengths.

All of Clarke's work turned to nothing on lap 16 when the cautions were brought out. At the restart, Ray moved back into command, with Jerry Coons Jnr following through, which put Clarke back to third.

After falling a few more positions down the order, a rejuvenated Clarke charged his way back into second with only two laps remaining. On the final lap, Clarke caught Ray and on the last corner managed to stick his nose under Ray. The Aussie missed out by half a metre.

Jay Drake claimed third ahead of Jerry Hammock, Don Droud Jnr and Bob Harr.

Also in the field was current Australian Champion Tony Elliott, along with USAC chargers Mike Hess and Scott Hatton, who all finished down the order in the feature race.

Earlier in the night, Clarke claimed a heat race win.

- DANIEL POWELL

KERRY Madsen created history recently when he became the first driver to win a feature race in America aboard an Australianmade car.

The Cool chassis constructed by Warmambool's John Cooley, above, took out a feature race win at Knoxville Raceway during the running of the fourth annual Knoxville Summer Classic, It was also Madsen's first win at Knoxville in 2004 for the # 55 Vermeer Motorsport team.

The 20-lap feature race went non stop, and once Madsen hit the lead on lap seven after disposing of the early pace setter Clint Garner, he was never seriously challenged.

Hard-charging Wayne Johnson was second while Aussie boys Skip Jackson and Jaymie Moyle were third and fifth respectively.

This win earned Madsen US$3000 ($4250). The 'Summer Classic' is an event which saw a total Of 80-cars entered, representing sanctioned groups such as All Stars, IRA, NCRA, NMRA and Knoxville, Madsen joins fellow Australians Skip Jackson, Lynton Jeffrey, Trevor Green and Peter Murphy as the only other Aussies that have tasted success so far this year stateside.

- DANIEL POWELL

Hoosier Tire Australia 2004 WORLD OF OUTLAWS CHAMPIONSHIP Australian Distributors for

^^ RACING TIRE For more infomnation on Hoosier Drag and SpeedwayTyres call:

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SHARON SPEEDWAY 28/7/04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

...Steve Kinser . -Donny Schatz ...Kraig Kinser .Chad Kemenah ..Joey Saldana ....Tim Shaffer . .Jason Meyers .Danny Lasoski ..Greg Hodnett . . .Mark Kinser

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

... .Ed Lynch, Jr. Erin Crocker Jason Sides Dale Blaney ....Danny Wood Brian Paulus Rob Chaney Tim Hunter .Brandon Wimmer Mike Kekich

2004 STANDINGS TO 1/8/04 1. Steve Kinser . .

2. Danny Lasoski , 3. Jason Meyers ., 4. Donny Schatz . , 5. Craig Dollansky 6. Joey Saldana . .

7. Paul McMahan .

8. Tim Shaffer ...

9. Kraig Kinser ..

10. Daryn Pittman

5963 5883 5696 5685 5607 5505 5443 5409 .5384 5275

11. Jason Sides ....

12. Brian Paulus ....

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14. Brandon Wimmer 15. Jonathan Allard .

16. Mark Kinser ....

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5244 4988 .4688 3864 3260 3021 .2722 .2698 .2680 2490

73

One Fop The Underdogs WHkerson ^A/ins,

DOUG Kalitta, Tim Wilkerson, Greg Anderson, and Angelle Savoie finished the Western Swing with victories as the third race in three weekends concluded at Infineon Raceway for the 17th annual Fram-Autolite Nationals.

The team-Kalitta Top Fuel final was over at half track when team-mate David Grubnic lost traction just past 330 feet. Kalitta motored away to a 4.67s, 315mph win, while Grubnic coasted to a 9.75 at 86mph.

"I love this place," said Kalitta.

"I got my first win here in 1998, then we had those three in a row in 1998,'99, and 2000. I wouldn't mind if we ran all the races here."

Kalitta's Mac Tools dragster qualified on top at 4.574s and recorded 4.60/324, 4.63/321, and 4.84/278 wins over Steve Chrisman, Doug Herbert, and Tony Schumacher.

Grubnic put the new-look Red Line Oil/Kalitta Air dragster second at 4.57/279 and wasted no time in 4.56/323, and 4.57/322 wins over Mitch King and David Baca in the opening two rounds.

In the semis, a 5.18/209 was enough to get past Brandon Bernstein, who aiso lost traction and send Grubnic into his third

final round in the last four events.

Grubnic's recent success has enabled him to move from eighth place to fourth in five races.

Wilkerson took a skating 5.08/282 win in the Funny Car final when John Force redlighted. It was just the second time in Force's career that the 12time champ fouled at the start in a final round.

Along the way, Wilkerson had defeated Jerry Toliver, Whit Bazemore, and defending series Champion Tony Pedregon.

Force, low qualifier at 4.823s, had defeated Bob Bode, Gary Densham, and Gary Scelzi.

In a repeat of the Seattle final, Anderson cruised to his fourth consecutive event, 12th of the year and 28th of his career as he drove his Summit Racing Pontiac to a 6.72/205 in the final to hold off Dave Connolly's game 6.75/204.

Anderson top qualified at 6.69/206 and strung together 6.69/205, 6.71/205, and 6.72/205 wins over Jim Yates, Kenny Koretsky, and Steve Johns.

Connolly, driving the Bullet Motorsports Chevy Cavalier, had earlier defeated Vieri Gaines, Larry Morgan, and Jason Line to earn the right to face Anderson

in the final.

Angelle Savoie defeated U.S. Army team-mate, Antron Brown, 7.06^84 to a red lighting 7.05/186. After stopping Connie Cohen and G.T. Tonglet, Savoie set an Infineon Raceway track record for elapsed time with a career-best 7.048 in the semis to stop Craig Treble. The 7.048 is the quickest run ever for a Suzuki.

The next event on the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series is the 23rd annual Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minnesota, August 12-15.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKl

¥-

fiiH

TONY Schumacher,John Force and Greg Anderson scored wins at the 17th annual CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals two weeks ago.

It marked the first event for fuel teams under the new 85 percent nitro rule.

Schumacher defeated David Grubnic in the Top Fuel final with a 4.64s run at 320mph to beat Grubnic’s 4.69s at 300mph.

Funny Car low-qualifier Force earned his third win of the season 74

with a 4.89s pass at 309mph in his Castrol GTX Start Up Ford Mustang to defeat Cruz Pedregon’s 5.63.194.

Anderson continued his assault on the Pro Stock category with a final round victory over Dave Connolly after taking his Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac Grand Am to a 6.74s run at 205mph to best Connolly's 6.80s at 203raph in his Bullet Motorsports Chevy Cavalier.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKl

DOUG Foley earned his first career Top Fuel win at the Third Annual ACDelco IHRA Canadian Nationals at Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario Canada last weekend.

Foley, above, used a 4.85s pass at 305mph to defeat Allison, who carded a slowing 6.12/148 when he lost traction, pedaled, then tossed the blower belt.

The opening round of Top Fuel was full of upsets as Todd Paton took out low-qualifier and.current point leader Clay Miilican. After winning the last nine events on the IHRA Hooters series.

Miilican has now lost in the first round at the last two events.

Mike Janis racked up the Pro Mod win, stopping Billy Harper in the final round, 6.25/227 to 6.49/216.

Pro Stock winner Robert Patrick won for the first time since Nowalk of 1996, defeating John Montecalvo in the final on a 6.55/213 to 6.53/215 holeshot.

Jim Sickles was an upset winner in Alcohol Funny Car, as his final round 5.95/238 stopped the quicker and faster 5.94/240 of point leader Mark Thomas.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKl molorsport news

DRAG RACING

IHRA goes nitro THE IHRA Competition Department announced the approval of nitrous oxide usage on Top Fuel vehicles that currently utilise the nonsupercharged combination.

This past January, the IHRA announced the inclusion of injected nitro dragsters, into Top Fuel competition at IHRA national events.

The combination is allowed to run lOOpercent nitromethane in a 500 cubic inch powerplant.

The cars can use clutch management, with no limit on rearend gearing, and the cars must have a minimum weight of 1950 lbs.

During the recently contested event in Milan, Michigan, Keith Stark recorded a 5.42/267 test lap for officials in his A/Fuel dragster, equipped with nitrous oxide. n NHRA POWERade Pro Stock driver Troy Coughlin has decided to sit out the rest of the season to spend more time with his family.

"My oldest daughter Meghan turned 16 this year and Troy Jr is 13 years old", said Coughlin, below.

"They both want to race and that's a decision they've made, I want to devote more time and energy to help them. :4 "

Russell replacement named AMATO Racing has hired Top Alcohol Dragster driver Morgan Lucas to pilot the team's Top Fuel dragster.

Lucas will begin his professional career on August 12-15 at the NHRA round in Brainerd, a race sponsored by his father Forrest Lucas's company. Lucas won the Division 7 Alcohol Dragster title in 2003 and already has seven national event wins, including the U.S. Nationals, to his credit.

Frank’s Back NEWLY- developed Underdog Racing has announced the signing of Funny Car driver Frank Pedregon to a three-year contract, beginning with the 2005 season.

Pro Stock Bike racer Karen Staffer, who is currently ninth in the point standings, will also join the team in 2005.

Pedregon will make his return at the 50th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in his World Vision Marketing/Red Line Oil Firebird.

The current plan is for Pedregon to complete the remainder of the 2004 season after the Indy debut. The team also has plans to add a second Funny Car in the future.

A major sponsor announcement is forthcoming.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI 4 August 2004

The team plans to test extensively in the coming days, and Lucas must upgrade his license.

Chassis builder Brad Hadman is at the Amato Racing shop in Pennsylvania helping the crew prepare Darrell Russell's back-up car while also measuring Morgan for a new chassis.

Russell was killed in an accident during qualifying at Gateway early last month.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

Dave'is New Look ym..

AUSTRALIAN NHRA Top Fuel driver Dave Grubnic carried a special livery at last week’s Sonoma round in recognition of California-based oil company Red Line Oil’s 25th anniversary.

"This is such a great partnership,” Grubnic said.

“Red Line Oil has been involved with Kalitta Motorsports for several years now and it’s really fantastic that we are able to run these two races under their banner. Their support for our team and our sport is tremendous. This is just another step in the right direction for both of us.”

Grubic will also run the Red Line Oil colours at the upcoming Chicago event before reverting to his regular livery.

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"I want to race with my kids and obviously a 23-race professional schedule, helping to run our family business and having a family doesn't leave a lot of time to actively help my kids the way I want to."

Coughlin started racing in Pro Stock in 1994. He has been competing in the NHRA since 1987.

The 40-year-old, secondgeneration driver has scored three NHRA national event wins and was the 1999 winner of the \A/inston No Bull Showdown.

He is also among a members of both the Holley 6-secortd Club and Speed Pro 200-mph Club. n NHRA officials notified Top Fuel Dragster teams July 30 of a new maximum wing angle before qualifying began at Infineon Raceway.

Apparently, the NHRA has been studying wing angles for quite some time. NHRA officials gathered additional ’ data on wing angles, as well as performances, at the last two national events and, after consulting with the manufacturer, decided to implement the maximum wing angle for Sonoma.

This action is part of the ongoing performance parameters being implemented by NHRA, with ' additional modifications possible in the future.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI 75

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Grant Rowley

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McFadyen seals Australian Drivers Championship at Eastern Creek

I

by DANIEL POWELL

NEIL McFadyen again scored a clean sweep in the Formula 4000 championship at Eastern Creek.

McFadyen's win came at the expense of his arch rival, Rob Nguyen. Nguyen was in top form, comfortably leading both races only to be struck down by mechanical gremlins which has plagued the team for tlie majority of tliis year.

But as the saying goes in motorsport, to finish first you must first finish and McFadyen has proven

that throughout the series and he has been rewarded with the prestigious Gold Star crown for 2004.

In Saturday's qualifying McFadyen topped the sheets, setting a best lap of 1:24.2372, over 0.4s ahead of

Nguyen In Race 1,Nguyen bolted to the lead,leaving McFadyen and the rest of the field in his wake.The Queenslander managed to build up a solid lead over McFadyen and he looked the good odds to claim the win.

On lap seven though,his Reynard 97D started to make a worrying noises By lap 10,McFadyen screamed past a

Reliability the Key

AFTER missing Saturday's Sport Sedan qualifying due to an engine problem, Tony Ricciardello finished his weekend at Eastern Creek on a strong note when he took out Race 3 in fine fashion.

To help Ricciardello's cause, Darren Hossack, who dominated qualifying and the opening two races, failed to finish the third encounter.

Race 1 saw Hossack score the win which finished under the safety

struggling Nguyen down the main straight and from there he cleared out as Rob battled to stay on the track.

At the completion of the 15-lap journey, McFadyen scored a comfortable win ahead of a fast

again. McFadyen took back the lead on lap 10 and cruised to victory, with Hanger getting through for second and Nguyen holding onto third, ahead of Peters and a fast-starting Mark West.

finishing Ty Hanger,followed by Nguyen,Terry Clearihan and Stephen Bomess.

Race 2saw McFadyen leave the field behind as Hanger all but stalled which sent the cars behind taking drastic measure to avoid a collision.

Impressive debutant Christian Orr was sitting comfortable in sixth up until the final lap when her car stopped.

This victory was McFadyen's fourth win in succession,and his sixth of the series. Hanger claimed second overall from a frustrated Nguyen. Peters wrapped up his third Silver Star in six years.

It took Nguyen five laps to snatch the lead,but tluree tours later, his Race 1 dramas began to creep in

car after a turn one crash which sidelined returnee Kerry Baily for the remainder of the weekend. Behind Hossack came Des Wall, Gillon, an impressive Derek Bailey, Dean Randle and Ricciardello in seventh.

Race 2 was dominated by Hossack. He defeated Wall, Ricciardello, a fast finishing Jeff Barnes, Bailey and Randle.

In Race 3, Ricciardello kept-his faint series hopes alive by taking the win. Hossack pulled off the track on the last lap and failed to finish.

Rounding out the pack was overall winner Wall, Barnes, Gillon, Randle and Bailey.

- DANIEL POWELL

Wall third in Austria! Correction W

MATTHEW Wall finished third at round three of the CIK-FIA European Rotax Championship in Austria on the weekend.

Wall(Sniper/Arrow) was the revelation of the meeting. Making a one-off appearance in the series, the Melbourne driver blitzed the championship regulars in qualifying, taking pole position.

After winning all his heat races. Wall started the pre-final from pole. He traded the lead with Swiss driver Ken Allemarm(CRG)but had to settle for second. It was a similar story in the final, Allemarm took a narrow win over championship leader Takao Matsuya, with Wall third,just 0.75s off the lead.

Having qualified 11th, a DNF in the heats pushed Adrian Estasy (Xtreme/Arrow) deep into the field. Estasy moved up to 17th in the pre-final and made further progress in the final for a top 10 finish.

-MARK WICKS 76

IAN Luff was the victor of Class B in the last round of the Australian Production Car Championship.

In contrary to our race report last issue, Ian was not disqualified. To all concerned, we apologise for the error.

And to prove that we were wrong, we've run this nice picture of Ian holding his trophy with some bloke you may have heard of...

^

motorspon news

't

NATIONAL SCENE

fBIANTEl V.M0DEL CARS^

Chev you later

Stubber downs Tilley at Winton

THE Biante Historic Touring Car Championship at Winton Raceway recently produced some of the best motor racing of the day.

Battles were fought right up and down the field, but it was the fight at the front which had everyone's attention.

Paul Stubber claimed the win in an extremely wet opening fight from Torana driver and Bathurst legend Peter Brock. The Valiant duo of Robert Bums and Robert Braune finished third and fourth respectively.

Falcon power took control in Race 2. Jason Tilley, above,snatched the win on a drying track in front of Stubber's Camaro. Local driver Braune scored his best finish for the weekend in third aboard his immaculate Charger RT E. The final race saw Stubber reassert his place at the top of the Winton tree, ahead of fellow Chev runner Steve Mason.

Torana driver Trevor Talbot scored his best finish for the weekend with third place in the shortened Race 3,followed by TiUey and Mustang men Drew Marget and Rian Nott.

-GRANT ROWLEY -2

WhitesBustecI

fflotirsmrt Australia’s number 1 fortnightly motorsport magazine

*l~uja ludcij enthusiast going to haue a pnettg Pantastic end to thi an! aCD*H motor-spoilt How’s this for a prize: a high-speed ride around the Eastern Creek circuit in a 1971 racing Falcon XY GTHO, driven by Allan Moffat, or a 1972 Holden Torana XU1 with Peter Brock at the wheel at the final BIANTE Model Cars Touring Car Series round of the season (at the December 4/5 V8 Supercar finale).

Overnight accommodation is included, plus air travel for non-NSW winners.

Enter NOW, and as many times as you like, because there is a valuable interim prize after each round of the series - a full set of 2004 BIANTE Model Cars Touring Car Series apparel (value $250). All entries in hand at the interim closing dates are eligible and all entries go back into the draw for the two final, magnificent prizes.

There are two ways to enter this great competition: 1. Mail the BIANTE Model Cars logo in this entry form (below), along with your details (name, address, phone, email) to: Motorsport News BIANTE Competition PO Box 7072 Gardenvale VIC 3186; OR 2. Mail us one of the promotional leaflets distributed at any one of the BIANTE Models Touring Car Series rounds (listed below).

April 2A Eastern Creek, NSW June 11-13 Barbagallo, WA July 23-25 Winton, VIC August 13-15 Oran Park, NSW September 10-12 Sandown, VIC October 7-10 Bathurst, NSW

mi^imrs^p emliided TARGA Tasmania runners-up John and Jason VWhite have been excluded from this year's event and handed a heavy penalty after months of deliberation.

The pair have also been ' banned from all CAMS; sanctioned meetings for the next three months.

The Nissan GT-R was pinged on three counts, which were two intercooler infringments and a non-standard strut brace.

The Whites, above right, will 11 February 2004

Thursday June 3 Thursday July 15 Thursday August 12 Thursday September 2 Thursday September 30 Thursday November 4

‘

Closing date for main prize draw: Thursday 4 November 2004 Second draw winner: Wayne Dyson, Maddington WA - a Holden fan!

Name: Address: Phone: I

Email: C3F3

l/lHIZIl-

(Circle your favourite brand!}

appeal the decision.

The harsh disqualification promotes Tony Quinn and Keith Wenn to second, while Targa stalwarts Jim Richards and Barry Oliver get third place.

IM fartl

MODEL CARS For more information about Historic Touring Car Racing, check out the website:

uuuuuj.l-iistai'ictaur'ingcar's.cam.

(Full competition terms & conditions available by email at mnews@mnews.com.au. Winners will be notified by phone/mall/emall)

77

Junii

Three's a Crowd Winners everywhere in Lotus Championship THREE different winners highlighted round four of the Kumho Tyres Lotus Trophy at Winton Raceway two weeks ago.

James Moffat scored pole position in very wet conditions and marched to a commading win in Race 1 from Queensland round winner Damien French.

Malaysian Tengku Djan Ley belted the pack in Race 2, followed again by French and Moffat.

Colin Flarper, who showed impressive speed in qualifying, turner his speed into results with a win in the final heat. Lucio

Cesario trailed closely, followed

by French again, who picked up the round win.

In other Lotus news. Proton Cars Australia announced that it has signed a major six-figure sponsorship deal to support the series for the remainder of this year and all of 2005.

The deal will ensure the series remains on Network 10’s Trackside program and enhance the marketing of the category.

- GRANT ROWLEY Points: French 811, Moffat 790, Djan Ley 775, Chris Tempier 640, Andrew Fisher

594.

lohn Moms/Mpix

Proton get on board: Djan Ley won a race at Winton, and welcomed Proton's extra involvement in the series.

by MARK WICKS

NEAR freezing conditions at Griffith made for a chilly NSW Junior Championships on July 1718.

FI x24 FORMER FI drivers featured in the 10th edition of an annual 24hour kart race in Portugal recently.

Thirty-two teams contested the race including entries of four ex-FI drivers; Clay Regazzoni, above, Stefano Modena, Jan hammers and Pedro Lamy.

A team of local amateurs won the race ahead of the Modena/ Lammers/Lamy combo while a team of journos filled third. A remarkable statistic was that after 24 hours of racing, the top three were ail on the lead lap and separated by just 52 seconds.

Reggazoni's, team used hand controls and finished 22nd.

-MARK WICKS

Jake Williams cemented a growing reputation as one of the countries top juniors while 10-year-old Matthew Brabham (Geoff's son) had the biggest win of his career so far.

Victorians took the top four spots in qualifying in a quality field of Junior Clubman, with Robert Munnerley going fastest. Jordie Lindstrom and Jake Williams won the heats, Lindstrom also taking the pre-final. Kristian Lindbom (Top Kart) made a storming start to lead the opening lap and spent the rest of the race in a great dice before Williams (Trulli) made a small break on the last lap. Lindbom held second ahead of Munnerley.

Murmerley did even better in Junior National Light(which was oversubscribed), qualifying on pole and winning all the races. Despite being swamped at the start, Murmerley (Arrow) won by over five seconds. Ryan Reynolds and Chaz Mostert filled the podium.

Tills VIP Catjust 'w

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4

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1 TRAVIS Edwards survived eight horrifiying roll-overs at Winton Raceway recently in an action-packed round of the Aussie Racing Cars.

The VIP Petfoods driver collected the side of Bill Sieders and the car launched over his front right tyre (see pic no. 1) and began a series of near cardestroying flips.

Edwards emerged from the wreck with slight neck pain and was taken to a local hospital.

However, despite being a little sore around the 78

2 shoulders, the most painful injury he sustained was the one to his big toe which got caught under the pedals!

The incident started when Sieders was getting back on the track after suffering a big understeer at the dirty sweeper where the pair unfortunately crossed paths. The car is going to be repaired in time for the next round at Oran Park.

To add salt to Edwards' wound, it was the second time he has flipped a car this year. At ■●(orsiisn BBws

NATIONAL SCENE

IP Freeze I ^^

The son of a gun: Matty Brabham, son of racing father Geoff, had star written all over him at the NSW Junior State Titles at Griffith.

National champ Leigh Nicolaou retired with a broken exhaust.

Brabham (Arrow)and Warren White Jnr(Redspeed)spUt the wins in the preliminary Midget races, but the final was aU Brabham. White spent much of the race embroiled in a battle with Jordan Ford, who went on to take second.

Ben Lincoln(Monaco)dominated the Rookies class and was never

headed. James Kovacic picked up second after Luigi Cantanese and Brad Hallet made contact.

Daniel Stein (Arrow)sat back in third during the opening laps of Junior National Heavy before making his move with five laps to go. Stein retained his state title as a fast moving Thomas Phillips slotted into second with Paul Thatcher third.

Creme Cathcait Holiday Camp CLINT Cathcart reaped big rewards from the Guardian Insurance City of Adelaide Titles over the weekend.

The former KartStars champ, below, made Bolivar Raceway his own, taking out Clubman Heavy as well as the prestigious Pro Clubman class, and the $2000 first prize that came with it.

Cathcart held out James Sera in the closely fought final, with West Australian Jayme Light third.

Paul Pittam and Andrew Cash made their recent switch to Arrow chassis a successful one with Pittam claiming the Junior National Pro title from Cash, who won in Junior National Light.

Other winners were Nick Percat (J Clubman), Scott Morrish (Midgets), Ben Lincoln (Rookies), Shannon Pearce (JN Heavy), Glen Beaton (SN), Matthew Panella (Clubman L), Jason Holding (Clubman SH), Jeff Boyd (Clubman O40s), Alex Schultz(Leopard) and Troy Woodger (Rotax).

-CHRIS JORDAN

THE Victorian Karting Association's annuai Junior Development Camp will be held at the Puckapunyal circuit in the September school holidays.

The two-day camp is designed to assist junior karters with their racing skills. Interested participants should contact the VKA. n A 22-year-old karter lost his life in America after striking a deer that had wandered onto the circuit. The unfortunate incident happened in the early laps of a 125cc road race at Summit Point Raceway, West Virginia. It is the fourth death in American road race karting in the past three years. n The 2004 Monaco Kart Cup has been cancelled. Reconstruction work on parts of the FI circuit will prevent the October race from taking place.

The ninth annual running of the event, which features Formula A and ICAJunior, is now scheduled take place on a much modified layout in 2005. n The Australasian C-Grade Titles are on this weekend at the Morwell circuit in Victoria.

The event offers drivers who are new to the sport, or those who are less experienced or competitive, a chance to compete in a 'title' event.

Previous winners are not allowed to re-enter their title class.

-MARK WICKS

used Eight Lives I

I

Eastern Creek two rounds ago, he rolled six times at 200km/h at turn one.

Meanwhile, there was plenty of racing going on at Winton in ARC-land, David Sieders won the round in his Chance of a Lifetime entry after he took two race wins, Sieders just edged out Shell Helix driver Tim Monte, who picked up the Race 4 victory.

James Ward was set for glory after picking up a trio of second place finishes, but the City Ford man lucked out in Race 4 after an off on the last

turn. He maintains his championship lead though after four rounds.

Former series leader Colin Sieders and James Harrigan were the best of the rest, picking up a solid bunch of top five finishes.

Paul Kemal gave the VIP Pet Foods team something to smile about with a third place in the last race.

- GRANT ROWLEY Points: Ward 199, Monte 188, Colin Sieders 174, Jeff Davy 170,Shane Wolki 168, Brad Ward 166,James Harrigan 164.

79

We've been hunting it down for about five or six years. We found it in a paddock in the back of Laidley with grass growing up Former Konica Series . through the bonnet, the trim competitor Craig Harris took was all rotted and eaten out. It victory in the spectators was in a fairly bad state when favourite race, the John French we found it. It was the original HE Historic Racing Car Trophy for Group C touring cars. car and it still had some of the Club of Queensland Harris (1980 Morris/O'Brien roll cage in it with the Byran Byrt hosted the Shannons XD Falcon) got the best jump at Ford stamp on the towers.

Historic Racing and Classic Car the start and held off team-mate "It's going very well for a car Vic Cameron (1982 Joe Moore Festival over the July 24/25 that didn't turn a wheel until weekend in front of the XE Falcon). With only a few laps Thursday." second largest crowd (second to go, Cameron spun at turn six Later, after receiving the John only to V8 Supercar) seen at and Lloyd Bax grabbed second French trophy, Harris said; "The (1978 Bill O'Brien XC Falcon) Queensland Raceway this first time I drove a Falcon was season. with Cameron third. Finishing with Alf Grant and John French fourth in the hands of Steve A huge field of cars put on a showed me how to drive around Emson was the latest completed Surfers. Its a bit ironic to win his show for the spectators with Chrysler as the featured marque. restoration from Harris Racing, trophy after all these years." an ex-Dick Johnson XC Falcon A large display of Mopar Former Group C Toyota racer products was centre stage in the that finished fifth at Bathurst in Doug Clark debuted his 1976 1978 and was Johnson's car for paddock including half a dozen Toyota Celica while the Hinton Dodge Challengers and Chargers 1979 season. The mechanicals family had their collection out, from this car were donated by and Plymouth Barracudas. A the Bob Morris A9X, the Dick John Harris to Johnson and super-rare Plymouth Road Johnson Sierra RS500 (which went into the now famous 1980 Runner Superbird wingcar was ran in regularities) and the newly 'rock' XD Falcon. one of the more interesting restored ex-BF Goodrich Gerry attractions.

"This car was originally built Burges Mazda RX7.

by Bryan Byrt Ford when Also present was Steve Another new car was John Johnson used to drive for Elliott's ex-Doug Chivas Bathurst Abbott's ex-Ken Harrison Ford them," said Craig Harris.

E49 Charger.

Escort.

Open wheelers fans were well catered for with a bumper field in Groups 0 and R. The feature was claimed by Chris Farrell ahead of Richard Carter and Michael Henderson (all Ralt RT4s). Tasman-era fans were able to see the ex-Frank Gardner/Kevin Bartlett Mildren Wagott 'Yellow Submarine' return to action. Ray Kenny (Thompson Sports) won the J K L M Group from Don Thallons Cooper-BMC. Hey Chart>cr! Geoghog.vi's former Charger pounded around the Paperclip. ’

T

80

1- 1.

I he always hard-tought Jack Lacey Trophy race for Group N Historic Touring Cars saw Bruce Dummett (Torana XU1)leap through a chaotic start. Simon Phillips drove back into second ahead of Grant Wilson (Camaro).

A shattered pole sitter, John English (Valiant Charger) was unable to start after the car sheared an oil pump.

Brisbane-based collector Rob Sherrard also had a diverse display of vehicles on display with a genuine Ford Escort RS200 enlivening the Category 2 sports car field. The Group B rally car did not finish the feature race, which was claimed by Guy Beddington's Westfield, main pic above, from Jon McKeon's Datsun 240Z. Sherrard had an expensive weekend. His Ford GT40 again proved unreliable and his Lola T70 crashed out of the last Sports Car race of the weekend after a clash with another car.

Earlier though, the Lola and Sherrard won the Queensland Tourist Trophy ahead of Ian Ross (MRC Mk2 Repco) and Scott Whitaker (Milano GT2).

HISTORICS

Olde School BP

1500km BP Rally Revival reborn

KiAnha l Tjm

Marshall Gats

Classic affair: From top, the Minis fought a fair war, Dick's Sierra fought its own war,; while the 'Yellow Submarine' was the star of the openwheelers. Below, more of Johnson's toys came out to play.

REVIVAL events are all the go these days, and now the rally chaps are restless.

The BP Rally was the premier event on Australia's rally calendar from 1958 to 1973 and attracted the country's best drivers and navigators and the best rally machinery available at the time.

"The BP Rally was the one event of the year we didn't want to miss," said former winner and 1970 Australian rally champion Bob Watson.

"It was a very demanding event and presented crews with a real challenge."

Watson will be part of the rerun of the event, to be known as the Olde BP Rally, held this weekend on August 6-8. Watson will be the assistant director of the event.

Back in the late 1950s, the original organising team consisted of CAMS co-founder and national secretary Donald Thomson,president of the Victoria State Council and head of BPs motor racing division John Pryce and Graham Hoinville, chairman of tlie CAMS National Technical Committee and a former Australian championship-winning rally navigator.

Hoinville, the last remaining survivor of the trio, returns this year as chief steward.

Around 40 competitors will set off on the 1500km event through western Victoria and eastern South Australia, leaving from the Ballarat Light Car Club rooms at Ballarat airport on Friday evening.

The Touring Road Event will involve several night stages before arriving at Naracoorte for breakfast at the Historic Vehicle Association's clubrooms on Saturday morning.

After several more stages, the field will arrive in Horsham during Saturday afternoon where a number of cars will be on public display.

The field will set off from the Horsham Golf Club the next day for the return trip and more competitive stages to the BLCC for a barbeque and the announcement of results.

"While the Olde BP Rally won't be quite as fast and furious as the original event,it will still require

skillful navigation and competent driving," said Watson.

Many great names in Australian motorsport grace the honour boards of the BP Rally, including Harry Firth, Frank Kilfoyle, Ian Vaughan,Stewart McLeod,Bob Watson,Tony Roberts, Reg Lunn and Mai McPherson.

Eligible veMcles will be ones built prior to 1980 tliat comply with tire various HRA classifications. Official

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Finding their feet: A Holden, above negotiates a rock-edged creek.

Herbie goes to Vic (and SA): Keith Gamble and Geoff Sproat, below, steer their VW along the rally.

maps will be "the delightfully vague Broadbents varities as in the real BP days," and "... the accent will be on endurance and concentration rather than crystal ball-gazing."

Directors of the Olde BP Rally are Rob and Pam Knight, and the event is organised by the Historic Rally Association.

-BRIAN REED 81

r NATIONAL SCENE

Winter Wonderiand Barbagallo brings some Winter warmth to Club racers

WESTERN Australian's brightened up their winter recently with the annual Winter Classic meeting at Barbagallo Raceway.

Grant Johnson and Clint Harvey dominated the Saloon Cars in their respective Commodore VNs, however Johnson claimed the overall win.

Torana driver Peter McLean cleaned up in the Historic Touring and Production Sports class, while Kerry Wade in his Mazda RX-7 scored the spoils in the Street Car events. Graham Stones's RX-7 was also a heat winner in that class.

In Formula Ford, Paul Fiore picked up the main win while Nathan Caratti also scored a heat victory.

HQ Holden went the way of Craig James after a fierce dice with Nathan Callaghan.

James Straker was too good in the final Formula Vee race aboard his Elfin Crusader. Straker overcame Cameron Edwards who led the majority of the weekend.

L Account!

City_Qi Wanner

They'll be coming down the mountain ... Simon Tabinor leads David Turner, Alan Bell (13)and eventual HQ winner Craig James.

Aussies to challenge World Superkart TWO Australian Superkart drivers have confirmed their entry in the World Superkart Challenge to be held at Laguna Seca Raceway on October 14-17.

Reigning Australian 250cc International Champion Warren McDveen and Sam ZavagUa, right, will fight it out against tlae best drivers in tlie UK,Europe, New Zealand,Canada and the United States, including

former World Motorcycle Champions Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey.

-JOHN MORRIS

Another Storey

ORAN Park played host to an action-packed round four of the NSW State Road Racing Championships on July 24 and 25.

Joel Spychala didn't have things his own way as he extended his Formula Ford championship lead with another perfect haul of points.

Robert Storey, above, son of V8 Supercar guru Wally, stole Spychala's thunder, topping the sheets in both rain soaked Saturday qualifying sessions.

But Michael Patrizi took it up to Spychala when it came time to race on Sunday. The boy from WA finished second in Race 1, but was taken out in an incident-packed second race.

Patrizi claimed the series leader overtook him under yellow flags.

"Spychala passed myself under caution and later he took me out," Patrizi said.

"I'm pretty angry but I'm not here to protest and sit around in the steward's room, I'm here to learn and get the national series next year.

Greg Woodrow's series suffered a devastating setback when stewards deemed a Race 2 collision with Storey a racing incident, leaving Storey with a pair of third places on debut.

Michael Kinsella dominated Formula-Vee taking out all three races.

Barry Sternbeck's EA Falcon crossed the line just ahead of the Ford of Harry Bargwanna in the Combined Touring trophy race, while Andrew Towndrow led home Warwick Moore and Ian Burns in the Clubman class.

Derek Bailey continued his Sport Sedan dominance, claiming the trophy race in devastating fashion. Anthony Axisa took Race 2 when Bailey DNF'd.

Anthony Skinner took out Production Sports, Peter Rushton Improved Production Over 2-Litre, Bob Jowett Under 2-Litre and Peter Saunderson AF2.

Mick Kerslake came up trumps after being embroiled in an early battle with Matthew Haly in the HQ final.

The NSW championships continue at Goulburn's Wakefield Park on August 21 and 22.

- MARTIN VAN REE

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50

RX 7 Mazda Dick Ward Specials. These cars are tamous with lully sorted racing history done oy tne oest in we ousiness. inese are oow wrn-Key , reaoy lo race as iney are. l Campaigned in Victoria and Nationai Championship since 2000 l Campaigned in WA, Victoria since 2001 l Winner 2000 Victorian Motor Racing Championship l Capable of beating all V8 State Sports Sedans l Runner-up 2001/2002 Victorian Motor Racing Championship l Holder of Lap record, Phillip Island 1:39.85!

Features; l Space Frame l Torque Tube l Transaxle Hewland FGB(reconditioned) l Brand New 13B P/P Kim Ledger motor l dry sump l Single Weber 51 IDA (reconditioned) l Koni Fully adjustable shocks l 4 sets Wheels l FGB Series Gears sets for ail tracks l Full set slicks, brand new, wets used l Integrated Fire Extinguisher l Left Hand Drive l Full History.

Features: l Space Frame l Torque Tube l Transaxle Hewland FGB(reconditioned), l Brand New 20B P/P Kim Ledger motor l dry sump l Twin Weber 51 IDA (recondi tioned) l Koni Fully adjustable shocks l 4 sets Wheels l FGB Series Gears sets tor ail tracks l Full set of Slicks, wets both brand new l Integrated Fire Extinguisher l Left Hand Drive l Full History.

For inspection and purchase, contact Richard Catchiove 0412 320 940. Piease, genuine inquiries oniy. These are not toys.

82

moiorsport news

INDUSTRY NEWS

Brock joins Legends

CERAMIC INNOVATIONS has released the third installment of its Legends of Bathurst Signature Series.

Peter Brock dominated Australian sport and Bathurst in a career, which spannned five decades. With nine gre, race victories and one 24-hour victory Peter Brock became known as'The

coom MALTECH Ultimate Brake Hoses are the cheapest and easiest form of brake upgrade that can be performed on a vehicle with amazing results.

King of The Mountain'and is an undisputed legend of Bathurst.

The Ceramic Innovations

Maltech Stainless Braided ho.ses don't expand under any braking pressure or heat, impro\ ing safety and enhancing performance.

The dri\ er will immediately notice the reduction of pedal sponginess. The immediate brake pedal response decreases braking distances.

The stainless brake hoses do not absorb moisture, halting brake fluid contamination.

Maltech guarantee their brake hcises are UK) per cent street legal, Australia wide .

Compatible with all approved brake fluids, and with over 200 variations of end fittings Ultimate Brake Hoses can be manufactured to suit almost all vehicles.

For more information contact Maltech on 0418 378 939 or email maltechl@bigpond.com

I

Series 4000

sales@vpw.com.au

1300 ^5S 9jy4

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Ceramic Innovations for only $175 inc GST plus $15 postage and handling within Australia,Phone 03 9555 9011 or visit www.ceramicinnovations.com.au

light The Way Drivers who travel country roads frequently will appreciate the power and reliability of the Aunger long-range performance lights series.

Designed to suit light commercial and 4WD

AUNGER has a complete range of driving lights for looks or function.

For the inner city cruiser Aunger produce a range of sports-styled driving lights, which feature super bright Quartz Halogen 12 v,55watt H3 globes. The metal housing ensures long life and the glass lens provides excellent light transmission. A variety of sizes,shapes and mounting options are available to suit most applications. Whether mounted into front spoiler

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gold decaling. A minted medallion featuring the driver's image also adorns the bottle. The Peter Brock

Larry Perkins and Allan Moffat are also currently available with Dick Johnson and Jim Richards to follow.

Each commemorative port is presented in a

Eveiy hose produced is pressure-tested to 3000psi and stamped to identify Maltech as the manufacturer.

number on the spine, which forms an integral t of the display. Inside, along with the port er is an individually numbered tificate of authenticity personally signed by the driver and a 16-page booklet \ covering the driver's career and Bathurst history.

Each decanter holds 500ml of Bullocks Tawny Port. The driver's details and Bathurst results are featured on the bottle with 24 carat

Legends of Bathurst- Signature Series pays tribute to those who have set their places in Australian motor racing history with outstanding results on the mountain.

Maltech produce ADR7/U0 -approved Broke Hoses, in both stainless braided hose and rubber hose. Clutch hoses are also available.

unique embossed and 24 carat gold stamped book cover with the drivers name and volume

sales@vpw.com.au

1300 6bS^04

application, these serious driving lights offer long- range performance and feature super bright Quartz Halogen 12 v, 55-watt H3 globes.

All Aunger Driving lights come with a quick and easy universal mounting system. The installation kit includes a switch, relay and complete wiring makes DIY fitting simple.

Aunger driving lights are available from all good automotive accessory retailers.

For the location of your nearest stockist call 07 3260 2400 or visit www.aunger.com.au

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The ultimate power fix for your Holden ● Available for early and VN Style V8 ● Super flow potential compared to ported iron heads ● Greater thermal efficiency and half the weight of Iron

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Capri Components Race car preparation & storage MG V8 Racecar preparation Spares for Capri, Datsun/Nissan 240Z, 260Z, 280ZX, 300ZX, 231,32 p03 9710 1091 f 9710 1887 e caprizedspares 1 @optusnet.com.au

Available from: NSW: Uotorapot Connection 02 9838 7272 VIC; Revolution Recegear 03 9873 8700 WA:Go Gear Racing Servicea 08 9443 1457 Manulaetum appoknwd cHtnlbutw fix Atonai. At tnd* enqukimhoUcI be dkKted 1 ph.07 97581966 Fax.02 97501155 CmaftkdoWaixccoRidu

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GOODSON Phil

Gary's Motorsport Tyres Unit 3/13 Penny PI. Arndell Ffark NSW 21 p 02 9676 8655 f 02 9676 5300 l e

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To FIA/CAMS specifications ^CDW/CDS350MpaTube Chrome Moly 4130,650 Mpa Tube 4Weld*ln or Bolt-In ->A]I cages TIG Welded to highest standards ^ Design, certification and cage Spaceframe design and fabrication homologation available Car construction and assembly FACTORY 7/1-7 FRIARS ROAD, MOORABBIN ViC 3189 l PHONE 03 9553 4200 l FAX 039553 4270 l MOBILE 0412 988 824 l EMAIL sales©m-msport.com.au l WEBSITE: www.m-msportcom.au

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Dry brake connector Available in all sizes -3 thru to -12 i-Flow

Manufactured in USA by Pro-Gram Engineering

Contact your state distributor.., Hardiman Auto Supplies (02) 9771 5877 Motorsport Connections (02) 9838 7272 (03) 9794 5177 Victorian Speed Pro Performance Wholesale (07) 3808 1986 (08) 8363 5566 Crane Technologies Gogear Racing Services (08) 9443 4400

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3

●World’s #! range of race car seats ● Ergonomic design for ultimate driver comfort ● Largest range of colours and styles . ● Latest materials for driver safety ● HANS Compatible models available

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iciAL Australian Distributor Quantun Racing Industries p 07 3290 5911 f07 3290 5933 www.qrl.blz

85

MARKET PLACE

Eastern Raceparts l Mocal l Aircraft Bolts l Girling l Goidine l Silveriine

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HEWLAND

Full range of racing fuels and lubricants: National Office. Hi-Tec Fuels Pty Ltd 02 4659 6396 VIC: Race Fuels Ply Ltd 0419 511 517 SA- Performance Fuels SA 0414 540 886 OLD: Elf Racing OLD 07 3269 6823 TAS: Devonport Performance 03 6427 0700

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RACE PRODUCTS World's leaders in Motorsport Safety Technology Helmets l Suits l Boots l Gloves l Harnesses l Crew Gear l and all accessories for all motorsports Quality l Price l Service Simpson Safety Equipment Australia 11/62 Newton Road Wetherili Park NSW 2164 Ph 02 9756 0202 Fax 02 9756 0203 AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTORS

FIA HARNESSES 2008 expiry, lightweight buckle, 3" webbing, clip in ends Black, Red, Blue 5 point - $539 l 6 point - $579 FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY Aust 5tandard 4 point belts fr $145

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5/45 SinclairTrulli RoadDealer: Dandenpng VIC www.mkcracing.com.au iMolboiime MelbournB Kart Centre 0397692543

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Dynamometer

For re inlormation end o demonstration fontod: AREX Computing PO Box 151 Monlrose Vic 3765 Ph 0397511142 Fox 03 9751 2173 Mob 0408 055 541 Email oelder@molbpc.org.ou

CHROMOLY

CAMS racing and rally licence courses @ Oran Park monthly $650 in your car.

Includes lecture and OLT.

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and Advice Whnrmnn Melbourne Kart Centre Ph 03 9769 2543 5/45 Sinclair Rd Dandenong 3175 www.mHraelng.eom.au

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Formula Ford Test Drives - $695 in our cars.

No pre-requisites. 40 laps at Oran Park.

stockist of 4130N M1L-T-673-6B1 SEAMLESS AVIATION GRADE TUBING

International Racing Drivers School For more info ph 02 9873 1773,fax 02 9871 1018 or email peter@finlays.com.au w w w.f i n I s s.c a m .a u

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CLASSIFIEDS

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Find hundreds more race vehicles and parts for sale at www.my105.com

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from lust $25

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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)

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Lotus Elise

Fresh engine, close ratio gearbox, adjustable front and rear shock absorbers, full roll cage, sport 190 engine spec, just rebuilt, 1 set of spare wheels, terratrip, ready for Targa, excellent buy. Priced to sell. $55,000. Mark 9838 8374 (bh) / 0408 976 958.

www.mylO5.com/55980 Sedans/Sports Cars

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. 29o www.myl05.com/78353

I

KB Laser S, 3J Logbook, extensively modified, quad throttle bodies. Wolf management (94rwkws @8000rpm), Koni's, Kings, adjustable camber, cage, A032r's{50%), spares. Ideal club/hillclimb car. 1st in class 2xVCH rounds, Winton s/t 1.14s & l/t 1.45s, Calder 73s, Sandown 96s, Geelong S/triais 14.71s, Mt Leura 36.79s Consistant front runner. $4000 ONO. Warren 0409 9f www.myl05.com/63295

i

Lotus Cortina Mk-ll, Log book for historic touring car racing. Group NC, ready to race.

Raced last two years Barfaagello Raceway, lap time tong circuit 1.12,5000, 150BHP rear wheels, close ratio bullet box, watts linkage, 45.DCOE Carburettors, only two meetings on fresh engine. $25,000 ONO. Greg call Greg 0416 235 353 / (08) 9342 4400, 290 www.my105.com/97713 Bathurst 24hrs, Drives available for Bathurst 24hours on arrive and drive basis with experienced team in our super production alfa 156 contao Gary for more info. enq. gary 03 9378 9422. 290 www.my105.com/2193 1977 Gemini Sedan (Auto), 1 Owner 94287 km. Blue slip if required, $3,000 including GST Not Neg. Ray P 026331 290 599 1 . www.myl05.eom/40224

4 August 2004

R32 Skyline race car potential, imported as "Race Car Only" Cannot be registered.

Goes very well - no bugs and rust free. 3" exhaust and s'steel muffler. Pod. Body has few small dents and paint patchy in places.

A good strong straight car, ideal basis for all types of motorsport. $6,900 ONO. Kerry 290 0417518660. www.myl05.com/62959

Current Marque Sports Champion Robnell 302SCR, Vic Champion '99 & '03.

2nd '00. Current Champ leader. 540bhp Ford 302. Motec 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 / 0417 826284.

291 www.myl05.eom/97420

Peugeot 405 Super tourer, Peugeot 405 2L Super tourer body shell. Ex works car with hang on panels, crossmembers and carbonfibre interior. Make great sports sedan or 2L sports sedan. $4000 ONO. Ben 290 0418385107. www.my105.com/17101

VW Beetle, mild 1641cc motor, close ratio type 3 gearbox with superdiff, 1973 body fitted to 1969 floor pan, alloy half cage, bucket racing seats, street harnesses, 15 x 7 performance minilites. Ex Stan Pobjoy 1992/93 Aust Hillclimb Champinship winning car, $2250 Neg. Ian 0413033757. 290 www.myl05.com/97109

Mazda Familar 1987 Turbo 4WD, Almost ready for Rally rego. Cams Log Book, Cage, Bilsteins, Helia 1000 light pod, terratrip, veto seat, tots of spares, needs finishing touches, must sell going overseas, $6000 ONO. David 0438563419 / 03 93322550.

290 www.my105.com/22191

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 mi. $40000 Neg. Darren 0413 727 886. 291 www.my105.com/54540 ,

Mitsubishi Evo 6, 550hp engine, 8 pot brembo's, cusco diffs, new HKS/Garret Turbo, Improved Production National Championship winning car (late model class). Heaps of spares including engine.

291 $45,000. Aaron 0409 298 108. www.myl05.eom/60367

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.

293 www.myl05.eom/80397

V8 Supercar, Ex-Kmart Greg Murphy.The last Gibson-built car.Only 6 races from new.Complete less engine.lnoludes spares package with 4 sets of wheels. $110,000.

289 Eddie Abelnica 0418 360 058. www.myl05.com/41985

87

I

Sports Sedan Celica 2ltr 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 7 13. www.myl05.eom/60856

Mazda RX-7 Race Car/Parts, 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.my105.com/12923

Open Wheelers historic lotus 23 replica, Renault ainning gear ready to race historic, sprints, hillclimb, top unit. $15,000 ONO. justin 07 38482614 26 9 a/ h. www.myl05.eom/76340

Mazda RX3 13BT, 13 year project- Built as club/Street car, 4 wheel discs, 5 stud commodore, aluminium flywheel, aluminium tailshaft, 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.myl05.com/93526

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.

289 www.myl05.com/53136

Ralt RT4, Ralt RT4 Atlantic 87/88,fresh Jennings,all right bits.One of 7 built.Factory IDTags and #'sGroup R ,COD,Spare wheels,suspension,gears,absolute front runner.Race ready.inventory and pic's available. $70000 Neg. peter 0418 556934 / 290 03 9890 6586. www.myl05.com/37763

Gazelle 86F, car complete, with spares far to numerous to mention. Not raced since 89,.then just three mettings since rebuild,Cheap way to go motor racing.

12,000 ONO, Jeffrey 0429451599 / 290 0266451599. www.myl05.com/26741

Nissan Clubman 2002, RWC, 12m reg.

S/Charged SR 20 IRS all adjustable LSD polished alloy over spaceframe ultra reliable multiple hillclimb trophy winner 46 sec at Mt Cotton on road tyresl. $28,000 ONO. Bill 02 6677 7230 or 0438 543 349. 290 www.myl05.com/52299

1983 Ralt 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.my105.com/2673

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 shockers all round, dash and logger, set up equip, full set ratios, 3 sets wheels and tyres, ready to race. $29,000. Daniel (03) 288 9725 5366 / 0411 029 561. www.my105.com/18142

1981 Cheetah Mk 7, 1981 Cheetah Mk7, spares & log books come with car. Running in AF2. Pole at Oran Park Nov'02 with Dallara 395 Mugen in field. Brian Shead built car. Very good history. Urgent sale due to class change. Willing to talk on price. $23,000 Or Best Offer. Brendon 0409 952 905. 287 www.my105.eom/57004

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 Pettit (02)9653 2369 0411062369. 290 www.my105.com/65527

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 patina 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) 289 0418 396 281. www.my105.com/19021

MYGALE SJ95 FORMULA FORD, Our Factory SJ95 Mygale is available for immediate sale. Join the G-Force Junior Development Program. No expense spared on the full factory rebuild of this car. Mygale factory assistance. Optional spare parts package. Full spec Ritter Race Engine - at $26,995 plus GST, Call Greg on 03 9580 289 7047. www.myl05.com/38457

T^MFwav to sell your gear! From lust$25* lust log on

{*$25 applies to ads entered directly onto my1 OB.cotn) Advertising can also be supplied using this form ($10/S15 surchage to text only/text -f pic advertisements) Advertisements will appear in next possible issue of ic rsp; fJev.s PLUS the my!Op. m website forthree months.

Please read & cross the desired services and calculate the total.

K Standard ad and one iniusion into Motorsport News = $35 □ Plus Photo Processing fee $5 CatOOOiy: □ Sedans □ Open Wheelers □ Speedway □ Drag DJobs ADDITIONAL OPTIONS:□ Parts □ Engines □ Trailers □ Wanted □ Photographs □ Other □ Extra issues X $25 per issue Please keep ads to no more than 50 words, plus up to 6 photos if desired. □ Feature ad on Motorsport News and my105.com homepage for $75 per issue

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NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS Please use the foim provided and print clearly. Please note W0 are unable to return photographs supplied for use in classified ads. Ads will appear as soon as possible after receipt. MN/myl05.com classifieds are lor the sale of private goods and vehicles only, not business advertising Photos marked 'proor will not be used.

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CLASSIFIEDS TOW TRUCK 1988 Isuzu Tilt Tray & Cradle. Rego 12th July 2005. $30,000 including GST Not Neg. Ray P 026331 5991. 290 www.myl05.com/27060

Speedway

2003 MIDGET CAR FOR SALE. Alach/Gaerte, complete roller with best available gear, only 4 meetings 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 Sprintcar, complete roller, 96 j-t-j.chassis only 6 races old.winters diff with new franklin housing.Lee p/steering,max/weld wheels(3)fronts,(1 )R/rear,(1)L/rear,top+front wings.new nerfs.seat,belts,guages.Spares include,complete front end, arms, stops, bars, panels+more. Ph 0407336785. $12,500 ONO. adrian 0394609588 / 0407336785.

290 www.myl O5.com/18259

Engines Lotus TWincam, Set of Lotus 125 Rods, 85mm High comp pistons and long stroke crank-makes cap 1761cc- out of race motor.

All exl cond. $1000 Or Best Offer. Malcolm 0418835206.

290 www.myl05.com/91956 COSWORTH YBB ENGINE & GEARBOX, Cosworth Sierra YBB DOHC 2L complete turbocharged engine and T5 gearbox, engine professionally rebuilt, balanced etc. turbo also rebuilt with HPC coated manifold.

A reliable high performance engine, complete with clutch and gearbox, ready to bolt in. $15,000 AUD. 0401 473643 / 07 290 3425 1269 www.myl05.eom/57607

Parts

SPORTS SEDAN BODY SHELL, 2002 4LT CHAMPIONSHIP WINNING CAR. COMPLETE BODY SHELL INCLUDING FLARES & SPOILER WITH 14 POINT CHROME MOLLY ROLL CAGE WITH CAMS R.O.P.S CERTIFICATE, FIBREGLASS BONNET & LIGHTENED PANELS INCLUDES LEXAN WINDOWS. $5000,00 Neg. Paul 0414898761.

290 www.myl05.com/49587

Toploader C/R Bull Nose, Close Ratio 'Bull Nose" Toploader, 1 3/8" big input shaft.

27" long. Originally from big block Mustang, just rebuilt, had new DKTT input shaft installed, can now be used for big or small block applications. Hurst shifter on custom centre mount. Inc's brass button clutch plate and new tail shaft. $2700.00 ONO. Delian 290 0418 221 353. www.myl05.eom/22409

Driver/Crew Apparel <

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 $99 SBC wide style Drysump pan $250 .

287 Mark 0418241992. www.myl05.com/69888

4 August 2004

Race Suit Package, Race Suit - RPM Mondial, White blue stripe, Small. Boots RPM RPM, Blue, 8 1/2. Gloves BlueA/Vhite. Balaclava and Socks - Nomex, Helmet - THH Full Face, Medium, White blue/green/silver splashes. $900. Paul 0418 290 269 798. www.myl05.eom/96081

Torana L34 Bancro Diff, Detroit Locker new 3.08, crown wheel and pinion, new Titicker axles to suit. David (03) 5428 3916 289 www.my105.com/41130 (BH).

Competition tyres, 205x60x15 Yoko A32R ex Targa. Call Bradley or Steve 03 9583 287 4493. $80 each. 0419 381 270. www.myl05.eom/30425

Wanted Formula Ford or Formula V, suitable for restoration project, consider any condition. Warren 0439 777 627.

289 www.my105.com/91851

Jobs Live and Work on the Sunshine Coast, Motor Mechanic Wanted. Applicant must have experience in tuning and maintaining high perfonnance vehicles. Fabrication and Chassis dyno experience prefered. Must be reliable, a team player and able to work 289 unsupervised. Jeff 07 54417700. www.myl05.eom/13292

Visit

Chev C30 & Enclosed Trailer, Chevrolet C30 duel cab with fully enclosed trailer.

Long range LP gas tanks means cheap running. Fast towing unit, $29,000. Dennis 0408 844 841.

290 www.my105.com/40166

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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 0413 130 448 286 www.myl05.com/65949 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 0419 777 977.

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Wanted 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

Transporters/Trailers

Sprintcar Parts, 2 3/16 Hilborn fuel injection & pump with knife edged butterflys & shafts $2500, KSE Power Steering Box $1500, Neilds Power Steering Box $1700, Halibrand Diff $1200, Franklin Diff $1500, Complete front axle$ , Magneto & Coll $850 plus other sprintcar parts. $2500. Dennis 290 841.

844 0408 www.myl05.com/94331

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 elec 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.myl05.eom/74031

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DUCATI SUPERBIKE, 1 would like to 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 / 0438951622.

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289 www.sponsorseek.com.au/38

89

OPINION

Miorsaon EDITORIAL STAFF Editor: Phil Branagan l editor@mnews.com.au Deputy Editor: Mark Glendenning l mark@mnews.com.au National Editor: Grant Rowley l grant@mnews.com.au

PRODUCTION Adv & Graphics Co-ordinator: Viv Brumby l viv@mnews.com.au

ADVERTISING Brendon Sheridan - PR Driven Tel: 03 9550 0870 Fax: 03 9550 0816 mobile: 0407 007 286 l ads@mnews.com.au

ADMINISTRATION Managing Director/Publisher: Chris Lambden l publisher@mnews.com.au

CONTACTS 357 Nepean Highway, Brighton East Vic 3187 (PO Box 7072, Gardenvale, VIC 3186) Ph: 03 9596 5555 Fax: 03 9596 5030 Email: mnews@mnews.com.au

King of his Hill To the nameless person who wrote in the last issue of MNews (No.288)regarding Peter Brock racing at Bathurst again. What a sad person you are!

Typical bloody Ford supporter, just because the blue-oval have ignored their great drivers such as Moffat and Johnson over the years (which has been disgusting).

Holden want their greatestever driver to race at the mountain to end his V8 career and are hoping that he wins his 10th,so what's your problem?

Sounds to me that you're scared! As for Brock keeping up with the so-called superstars of V8 racing today, they are all excellent drivers, but none of them will ever come close to Brocky in ability or reputation.

I can tell you this, they will aU be looking over their shoulders in this year's endurance races. He is and always will be King of the Mountain.

Wes White

CONTRIRUTORS FI: Joe Saward, Adam Cooper, Paolo Fillsetti Europe: Quentin Spurring, Gary Watkins, David Addison US: Phil Morris, Martin D. Clark Speedway: Brett Swanson, Julie Pearce, Geoff Rounds, Tony Millard (UK), Greg Boscato, Daniel Powell Rally: Jon Thomson Histories: Brian Reed Drag Racing: Greg Ward, Jon Asher (USA), Dave Ostaszewski (USA), Nick Nicholas, Steven White, Ken Ferguson National: Mark Wicks, Sean Henshelwood, Mark Jones, Dave Conole, Chris Jordan Photographers: Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, Bothwell Photographic, Marshall Cass, Nigel Snowdon & Diana Burnett, AFl Images, Neil Hammond, Slipstream Photographic, Ailsport, John Morris/Mpix, Frank Midgley, Peter Bury, Mike Patrick (UK), Chris Carter, James Smith, Paris Charles, Bob Potts Motorsport News is published by Australasian Motorsport News - ABN 55 125 120 702 Publisher: C Lambden Printed by: Offset Alpine Printing Pty Ltd, Lidcombe, NSW. Distributed by: NDD Ltd Material published by MOTORSPORT NEWS is copyright and may not be reproduced in full or in part without the written permission of the publisher. Freelance contributions are welcome, and while all care will be taken, Australasian Motorsport News does not accept responsibility for damage or loss of material submitted.

‘Opinions expressed in Motorsport News are not necessarily those of Australasian Motorsport News or its staff.

Ashcroft NSW

Webber is in (finally) What we all knew has finally been confirmed. Webber will drive a Williams. Yeah baby!

This surely has to be one of the most exciting prospects of this decade in Grand Prix racing.

Congrates Mark. You'U do Australia proud without even

blinking.

Johnson Family Bradbury NSW

Conspiracy Theory I'm not sure if it was a Joe Saward story a couple of weeks ago, or the meandering of an under-employed mind,but how's this for a conspiracy theory to go with the upcoming V8Supercar silly season, and the numerous mumblings about Craig Lowndes's future at FPR. What about this ... Triple 888 racing has a very close and successful relationship with GM in Europe.

Graig Lowndes has about 12-18 months on his contract with Ford.

Lowdnes was formerly very successful driving a GM product and Triple 888 have shown they can get

converter Send us your thoughts: mail: PO Box 7072, Gardenvale, VIC 3186 fax: 03 9596 5030 email: mnews@mnews.com.au an Aussie V8 going with reasonable effect.

The outcome. Triple 888 secures Craig Lowndes,and then GM secures both Lowndes and Triple 888 in Australia, and attempt to repeat their success in the UK. The relationships already exist...

But its just a theory.

Andrexv McK AndreiuJ‘_McKinna®acipackaging.com

Bathurst Grid Gripe I wanted to add my voice to the comments from Eddie Cook in MNews #288 regarding the limit of 35 cars at Mount Panorama.

I am quite disturbed at this extremely low figure being the new standard grid size for our most important race. What happens if (when) we have the normal retirements added to by a few serious collisions, to take the field down to the low 20s within the first two hours?

What a 'Great Race' that will be. By early afternoon there will be more interest in the car park than on the track! I'm surprised that the broadcaster would allow one of their major sports events to be crippled like this. What happens to all the sponsors we need to make this event and sport a continued success. They need returns on investment and for

that you need plenty of action and interest.

1 love to see the smaller teams and slower cars get their opportunity to race at the mountain - and not just in the newer 'junior' Konica race.

I would hope that at some stage sanity returns and we get to see traditional grid sizes return. I live in hope.

Michael Reilly niike@katron.com.au

Queensland Wired Obviously none of you Holden supporters realise the simple things in life.

The extra wire in Marcos's car at Queensland Raceway was where his DVD plugged in. After all, he has plenty of time to watch it!

Kim Dhu Casino NSW

Calder Concern They should use Calder Park for a round of the V8 Supercar Series.

If they don't Calder wiU become a white elephant.

There is hardly any racing there nowadays.

It's all very well to have the track extended and alterations made a Winton, but why can't the racing stiU go to Calder. The thing I like about the track is that you can see everything from the grandstand.

Philip Jones Ballarat Vic

Pull your finger out Dear AVESCO and Winton, Why should we keep heading back to Winton when the facilities are way below average?

1 like to walk to-and-from my possie at turn three to the pits to see the cars and drivers, but 1 had to walk through miles of mud.

My missus wasn't very happy when I jumped in the car to go home and filled the front seat with sludge!

Concrete doesn't cost that much, but ticket prices do. Give Winton a hand so we can enjoy our rural race track experience a little more.

Steivart Crest AlburyNSW

SUBSCRIPTIONS Australia (ind GST) Overseas (Air Mail): New Zealand, PNG, Malaysia, Indonesia, Phillippines, Hong Kong,Japan US, Canada, Europe

1 year 2 years $148.50 $285

A$210 A$270

$390 $495

Post your cheque/money order to the address above, fax your credit card details (Bankcard, VISA, Mastercard, or Annex) to 03 9596 5030 or email to mnews@mnews.com.au

in

90

Cold and muddy: You could rug up and stay warm, but the chances of dodging the mud at Winton were remote. motorsport nows

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