Motorsport News Issue 384 - June 2009

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AUSTRALIA'S NUMBER 1 MOTORSPORT MONTHLY K1

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'I No.384 JUNE 2009 Australia $7.95 NZ $8.50 inc GST

1

How I won the fight of my life

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THE FIGHT FOR FVS FUTURE

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Issue 384 JUNE 2009 www.mnew5.com.au

NEWS

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4

Battle Lines

Playing for keeps in Formula 1

5

Door is Open

Johnson notgiving up on Ford backing

6 One World

The future ofone-make racing is...

7 JeSuis2ndl

French glory- by Ivan Capelli

mot JOHNSON

OPINION im

7.

14 Motor Mouth

Please Mister Penske... Free Willy

20 Box Seat

Jenson on a High

82 The Back Page

2005,the Internationalyear ofSorry

FEATURES 22 Five Minutes with Mike Gascoyne 24 After the Hard Times Dick Johnson is looking ahead,not backwards 32 Tray Magnifiquel Atspeed,in a Ute. Cattle dog optional 42 Playing for all the Bikkies Makers and Rule Makers face offin FI war

RACE 46 Winton V8s;Craig gives'em a splitting headache 48 Hamilton V8s:JDub + Fuel Range = Wins x 2 50 Winton FV8s:Mister Consistent 54 Barcelona FI:Alas,poor Rubens.Jenson wins 56 Bahrain FI:Button Storms dear 58 Shanghai F1: The Year ofthe Bull

63 64

ToijjringCarMi V8Utes

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Verdict on FI future due THE very future of Grand Prix racing as we now know it is on the line.

As this edition of Motorsport News closed for press, a verdict was due in a Paris court regarding an injunction brought by Ferrari to stop the FIA's proposed two-tier Formula 1 technical regulations for 2010. News of the injunction came during a meeting in London between FIA President Max Mosley and the principals of the teams, which was scheduled to try to resolve the very matter before the French court.

Ferrari's board has stated that it will not enterthe 2010 Formula 1 World Championship if the two-tier proposal sees the light of day, and likewise,Toyota, Renault and Red Bull have either stated their support of FOTA's position, or are thought to be doing so.

On the other hand,the proposal by the FIA to impose a cap - currently set at £40 million ($80m) per season - has caught the attention of a number of potential entrants, among. them USF1, Prodrive, Lola, iSport, ART Grand Prix and a second American team, believed to be Penske Racing.

Another likely entrant is Litespeed, which

is looking to make the step into FI from the British Formula 3 Championship.The team is run by two former Lotus FI engineers, and has engaged the vastly experienced engineer Mike Gascoyne to provide technical services when and if their entry is accepted by the FIA. Entries for 2010 are due to be lodged by May 29, and Mosley has already predicted that he expects a number of the existing teams to miss that deadline. Should that happen,the rest of the season would likely see political manoeuvring on a number of fronts, as teams either prepare to continue in FI, look for an alternative, or both.

Regardless, the summer swing of the championship through Europe will continue, so there will be much to watch on the track as the big teams try to gun down Jenson Button and Brawn GP, and off it, political posturing the likes of which we have never seen before.

For more with Mike Gascoyne see Five Minutes, page 22 For more on FI's power piays see pages 42-45

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Promotion:British F3 squad Litespeed is expected to make the step to FI under the new cost cap.

4

A

FTER 45 years on the Australian motor racing scene,Touring Car legend Dick Johnson has seen his share of highs and lows.

From his days as a backyard battler taking on the might of the factory teams,to hitting rocks and harvesting trees, to Bathurst wins, bankruptcy and back, Johnson has seen it all.

Through the glory days of champagne success to his recent financial failings, the Queenslander has maintained a high level of popularity and respect in the V8 Supercar paddock.

Part of his team's triumphs can be associated with Johnson's loyalty - both to sponsors,the industry and its fans. So when his most recognised sponsor of some 30 years - the Ford Motor Company - withdrew support of his team at the end of 2008, Johnson was understandably gutted.

You'd forgive the three-time Bathurst winner for grinding an axe against the blue oval, but he is not bitter. In fact, he's the total opposite. Johnson is optimistic that the famous blue oval will reappear on his team's cars - not just as the badge on the bonnet, but as a fully-fledged sponsor.

"I never burn bridges,and I still think there's a door open somewhere. One day ..." he told Motorsport News.

"In multi-national companies, people change, ideas change,and it really is sad for me to think that we're no longer connected in anyway,except for the fact that the badge on the front of the car says'Ford'.

"Whether it be Ford or anything I've been involved with, I'm a very loyal person and always have been.

"I've always tried to service our sponsors

motorsport news

Once synonymous with one another, Dick Johnson and Ford no longer have an official association. But as he exclusively told Motorsport News,never say never

so they get the biggest benefit from our relationship. Any sponsor to me is an important part of the team and are very much part of the organisation.This is why our relationship with Shell still exists today, just in a very reduced manner. We've had a relationship with those people since 1969.

That's a fair period of time."

Johnson's team has been on a resurging path in 2009. After three rounds of the V8 Supercar Championship Series, Steven Johnson sits in third place, while the team's new signing James Courtney is 14th.

The introduction of two new Triple Eightbuilt Falcon FGs can be attributed to the Jim Beam squa's strong start to the year, but even though DJ's team does not build its own chassis, Johnson doesn't think that's a good enough reason for him not to receive factory Ford support.

"Not many people probably know that(we don't build our own cars), and I'm sure it probably doesn't worry them," he said.

"Ford was involved with the build of both the FPR and Triple Eight Falcons. Ford was involved in the aerodynamic development of the car for the good of all teams, and that's how they built the FG. "It's been the most united build effort I've ever seen in a Ford race car in Australia, and it's good to see it's turned out to be a very successful package."

- GRANT ROWLEY Motorsport News spoke exclusively to Dick Johnson this month,revealing details on his financial meltdown, his comeback and the desire to take his famous team to the top ofthe sport. Flick to page 24... www.mnews.com.au

/ NEVER BURN BRIDGES, AND I STILL THINK THERE’S A DODR OPEN SOMEWHERE, WHETHER IT BE FORD OR ANYTHING I’VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH, I’M A VERY LOYAL PERSON JOHNSON ON WHY FORO MIGHT RETURN

5

aiews www.mnews.com.au

THE MONTHLV RNRLVSIS

TheGfiGUJsof LhGmcjnLh STS THE S¥DnEV TEL5TRH 500

SmNMV,f^elstra I SYDNEY'S round of the V8 Supercar Championship will be backed by Telstra.

The December 4-6 event will be known as the Sydney Telstra 500.

The event was kicked off in style, with a six-Supercar procession across the Sydney Harbour Bridge,followed by an event launch in Martin Place.

V8 Supercars Australia has predicted a three-day crowd of up to 150,000.

THOHS FOR THE fUEmORIES

V8 SUPERCARS will continue to race this season with 120-litre tanks.

Plans to equip the cars with 80-litre tanks for the remaining sprint races in the series have been put on hold, after concerns were voiced about the costs involved with implementing the change.

The mandatory 50-litre fill during pitstops, which was introduced as an interim measure at Winton, will remain in place until Phillip Island.

CRRSHi BROGi IT has been a tough month for racers on two wheels, with some of the stars of the sport licking their wounds.

MotoGP star Sete Gibernau crashed his Ducati heavily in France, while a four-man Superbike crash at Monza left Troy Corser, Brendan Roberts and Max Neukirchner on the sidelines, the latter two breaking legs. Makoto Tamada is also out with a broken wrist.

But the worst injuries befell Regis Laconi. The Frenchman suffered two broken vertebrae in a heavy fall at Kyalami.

auinn min TONY Quinri has finally won Targa Tasmania - at his 11 th attempt.

The Queensland pet food magnate drove his Nissan GTR to victory after a battle with Kevin Weeks ended when the Lamborghini driver crashed on the final morning of the event.

Quinn and co-driver Naomi Tillett won from two Tasmanians,Jason White (Lamborghini)and Jamie Vandenberg (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX).

Jim Richards crashed out of the event for the first time in 16 starts.

6

Does One-Make racing have a Future?

MUCH has been written and talked about the future of onemake series in Australia.

The demise this season of the Carrera Cup series sent a shock through the sport but the MINI Challenge is carrying on, with what looks to be a bright future.

Over the decades,there have been any number of series come and go, so we asked some of the people who matter what they think the future holds.

Jason Bargwanna V8 Supercar driver and MINI team owner I think that there is definitely a future but the secret is to make the costs low and keep the cars simple. It needs to be entertaining for the fans and the drivers.

One-make series show up the strengths of the driver-team combination and the drivers that are attracted to a series like that are the ones who are not scared of taking on the opposition on a level playing field. It really shows up the skill levels of the team and the driver, and that is what it is supposed to be about.

In a perfect world, we would all have the same thing and that is what determines the drivers' championship.That is the way that it should be.

As a driver, the cars can be

great fun.The Carrera Cups were a buzz, but whether it is the MINIs, the Ford Lasers or the Suzukis, it ■ does not matter about the lap times. It was all about the close competition and testing yourself.

It is more about the competition than the driving experience.

For young drivers, it is a level playing field and that should keep the costs low. All good for the sport.

Warren Luff All-rounder, former one-make racer I think that a one-make series with effective costing always has a future in motorsport It can represent a way for drivers to get into race and to see who their talent lies.

I have done a few of those series by now,and to get me to where I am today, without a huge budget or family money, one-make series have been invaluable.

I think that the best example was the Laser series. Mark Skaife, David Brabham and other drivers all went on to make a fist of motor racing as a career after finding their feet in Lasers. Formula Ford is a bit of a one-make category, probably the most successful of its type in the world.

I think some of the best racing I have had has been in one-make series, with the close racing and

friendships with some of the people involved.They are great memories,and it always comes back to the drivers in the series.

Craig Denyer Category Manager, MINI Challenge and V8 Utes Unquestionably, there is a future for a one-make series but there are a number of factors to consider.

Number one is the support of a manufacturer and their vision to see it through. What we are seeing with MINI Challenge has been interesting; it established in the UK and Germany,and BMW has launched it in Spain this year as well.They are clearly looking at making it successful on a world stage.

We are a fairly small pond and we have a large number of categories, all chasing the same competitors and sponsorship dollars. So that means you need manufacturer support.

I understand that there is about to be an announcement of support for the Australian MINI Challenge through to 2011 and that stability is what is needed to see the series move forward.

In V8 Utes, we are constantly changing and massaging the series to take it forward in the direction in which we think it needs to go.

motorsport news

SPIN'OFF! UITH ...

I'VPIN! CPiPMLLI :: FRENCH!BRRND PRIH.1900

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I THINK that my best race was at the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard in 1990.

1 was racing for the Leyton House March team with Mauricio Gugelmin. We came to France after the Mexican GP, and we had not managed to quaiify either car for that race. Because we made some changes to the centre part of the diffuser after testing in the windtunnei, we got to France with the knowledge that we had a lot more downforce at the rear of the car, and we put on more wing at the front to balance the car.

We started the race with the knowledge that the car was very competitive, because at that time, there were no bumps on the track.

It suited our cars perfectly.

I qualified the car seventh fastest. We came up with an interesting strategy; on Saturday afternoon and in the warm-up, the tyres were wearing really well so we decided not to change the tyres during the race. All the other teams made tyre stops about the middle of the race, but Mauricio and I had adjusted our driving style to keep the tyres fresh.

We took different lines at the Signes Corner and La Bousee,so the left tyres were still working very well. So we were leading the race after 46 laps, it was looking like a 1-2 for the team until Mauricio had a problem with the engine. I was driving the car right on the limit and I led at the start of the second-

last last lap. Unfortunately,the oil light came on and was flashing in the Signes Corner, and I had to back off.

Alain Prost was right behind in the Ferrari and he passed me,and my engine was not completely clean over the last lap. I had less power but I managed to get the car to the chequered flag.

Prost had won the 100th race for Ferrari, and won in France, and I was ahead of Ayrton Senna.

So really, after not qualifying for the race before this one, it was no so bad but this was the first, and probably only, race that I thought that I could win.To be on the podium though with those people, it was a great moment.

- IVAN CAPELLI

When you were a kid, what did you always want to be?

I always wanted to be driver! There was not much else, I never thought aboutajob,I always wanted to race. That was always the goal. .What is the best movie you have seen on .a, ^ flight?

Dodge Ball. It was so entertaining. When I am sitting there, a bit dumbfounded on a plane, that suits a plane trip.

You startlaughing, even when you have seen it. I even look for it on the Classics channel on longer flights!

RNSUERS ON PRBE 11

TRIV OF VOUR TONGUE

Are you a Boxer man or a Briefs man?

GkEENSTB STESIl. TlTSim

Is this for the magazine orjustyou?I wear briefs.

I

Best gift you ever bought your wife?

A wedding ring.

1

How many 1000km races has Johnson won at Bathurst?

2

A member of the Ford family was president of Ford Motor Company of Australia when Dick Johnson hit the rock at Bathurst in 1980.Who is he?

3

True of False:Johnson is the only man to qualify on pole for rounds of the SATCC, NASCAR Winston Cup and European Touring Car Championship.

4

Which John drove in more Bathurst races with Johnson - John French or John Bowe?

5

In his final season of racing,Johnson missed a round of theV8 Championship. Where, why,and who drove the famous #17 Falcon?

www.mnews.com.au

Apart from V8 Supercar racing, what is the one must-see event you have watched?

It was the Ricky Hatton vs Manny Pacquiao fightfrom Las Vegas. Pacquiao won. It was an awesome event,and one of these days,I am going to go to Vegas and watch a big fight!

7

IT was supposed to be a standard, overhead shotfrom a railway bridge but Simon Evans made it something more spectacular than that! ^

For the first shot on the first day of Rally Queensland, I headed to the fabulous

n There railway bridge in the'Kadanga Long'stage. are a variety of interesting wide shots that you can get here from both

on top of and below the bridge. It's quite 'rustic', so keeping bits ofthe bridge in the photo adds to the atmosphere of the shot.

However,the sun was very low and intense early on,so I decided to head to the top of the bridge and shoot down tight onto the watersplash, with the cars backlit.

I used a fast 1/800th sec shutter speed to freeze the water as the cars hit the splash.

a win, with Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capeiio.

It was quite a nice shot- but then along came Simon and Sue Evans.Simon attacked the corner fast and went through the watersplash drifting sideways and sent water everywhere.Just fantastic - and a perfect shot in the bag on my first stage.

Thanks Simon, I couldn't have done it without you!

-JEREMY ROGERS

1988:Silk CutJaguar rules!Andy Wallace, Johnny Dumfries and Jan Lammers won.

and Laurent Aiello for Porsche.

TIMELINE :: SIH DECRDES RT LE MRNS I 1958: Two of 10 Ferraris survive, including j winners Phii Hiii and Oiivier Gendebien. «

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7978: Vive La France! Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jassaud triumph for Renauit.

I 7968:Lucien Bianchi and Pedro Rodriguez 'compiete a glorious Ford GT40 hat-trick.

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TOP 10 THE MDTDRBPDRT NEU5

TOP 10 BHDDT-DUT RRCING DRIVERS NHMES

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PIERS COURRGE Sharing a name with a British brewing dynasty is a chaiienge for anyone but Courage made his own name at the highest levei in Grand Prix racing.

His priviieged upbringing saw him Eton-educated, but he set his sights on a racing career, quickiy making his way through the ranks ofFormuia 3 and Formuia 2. He stepped up to FI in 7967in BRM's factory team, and raced in the Tasman Series at the end ofthat year, winning the finai race at Longford.

He signed for the works-supported Reg Parneil Racing BRM team for 7 968, combining that with F2 outings for his oid friend, Frank Wiiliams. When Wiiiiams decided to step uptoFi in 7969, Courage went with him.

Their private Brabham BT26 was second at both Monaco and Watkins Gien, and Courage looked set for an upset win at Monza until fuel starvation dropped him to fifth.

Williams ran a new De Tomaso for 7970 and atZandvoort, Courage ran offthe road and rolled. He died in the subsequent fire, survived by his wife.

Lady Sarah Curzon,and his two sons. He was 28 years old.

HI UILL POWER

gel LORENZO BRNOINI

gjPETER REVSON

3

It takes both courage and willpower to make it to the top ofthe sport and Will Power has plenty of both. The Aussie IndyCar star now faces a quiet season after competing in three races this season with Team Penske.

H LRKE 5PEEO

One win in 402 NASCAR Cup starts- and claims that the Lord visited him during a race at Talladega, at210mph.Still the only American driver to win the World Kart Championship, atLe Mans,in 1978, beating Ayrton Senna. Really.

STIRLING MOSS

Has there ever been a more British driver? Sixteen GP wins,24podiums, but no championships.So famous is Moss, who turns 80 in September, he has a McLaren-Mercedes model named after him.

10

Ifthere was no Lorenzo Bandini,someone would have invented one. He was actually born in Libya, and took his only GP win for Ferrari in Austria in 7964. He died of burns after crashing at Monaco in 7 967. Bandini's funeral attracted 700,000 mourners.

NRRIO RNORETTI

Okay, we admit it, we love the Fonz. Mario won the 7969 Indy 500, the 7 978 World Drivers'title, a CART title, the Daytona 500, various Sprint Car and Midget races and did it all without putting a hair out ofplace. Heeeeyy-aayyy!

El RIO SHRU

The pun probably doesn't translate that well into any Asian language.Shaw has been racing in proddie cars, tarmac events and so on for years nearly always in a Mazda RX-7.

He was wealthy(heir to the Revlon fortune), dated a former Miss World and raced hard and fast. One GP win, two poles,second in the 7 977 Indy 500. Killed during practice for the South African GPin 1974.

ORN GURNEV

The All-American legend won at all levels ofthe sport-F1,Le Mans,IndyCar, NASCAR - built his own cars and established his own teams. He even invented the Gurney Flap - but ironically, in the USA, that is known as a Wickerbill.

HUUB ROTHENGRTTER

In 25 GP starts in the mid- 7980s, the Dutchman failed to trouble the scorers. Went on to manage a number ofdrivers including Jos Vertsappen. By the way, the name means ‘Rat ofthe Gods'...

motorsportnews

TRIV OF VOUR TONGUE 1.Johnson has won three Bathursts- but technically. only two of those events went the full 1000km.The T981 race was stopped by a blocked track on lap 121.

2. Edsel B Ford was the president of FoMoCo,and famously matched donations for Johnson dollar-for-dollar.

3. False. DJ has 28 SATCC/ V8SCS poles,and qualified pole at Silverstone's ETCC round in 1988,but his best NASCAR Q effort was 11th at Sears Point.

4.John French drove in four Bathurst TOOOs with Johnson, and JB had nine starts.

5. Dick missed the Calder round in 1999, because of sinus problems. Steven Johnson drove #17.

OECEMBER tO—tZ,2009 ® ORLAMOO » F8-ORBOA » 0JSA

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RALLY

MONTE CRRLQ RRLLV 1081 — RRCE REVIEU LATER in this issue, you'll read a story about the World Rally Championship's transition from Group A regulations to World Rally Car regulations back in 1997.

Penning the article got me thinking about the Group B to Group A transition that had occurred 10 years earlier. YouTube is littered with footage of fire-breathing Group B monsters, and we all know the affect they had on the sport (and a few of the drivers).

But how did the world of rallying respond to Group A going from being a sub-class, to the rulebook for the World Championship?

To find out I grabbed Duke's DVD account of the 1987 Monte Carlo Rally, the first event run under strictly Group A regulations.

It was clear from the first day of the fiveday rally that Lancia had done its homework better than everyone else. For starters, the

^HAMPI0 n s h IP

homologation process fell right into the Italia.i carmaker's hands, because the Delta was the perfect size, weight and specification to make a great Group A car. Lancia had also signed 1986 World Champ Juha Kankkunen, who was teamed up with Miki Biasion.

As you'd expect, Lancia dominated the Monte. But it wasn't all smooth sailing. On the eve of the final day, Mazda protested the cars, meaning they spent the night in a car park being poked prodded by stewards, who eventually decided they were legal.

Then there was the puzzling situation where Kankkunen, who had a led the entire final day, lost two minutes on the final stage, for no good reason, handing the win to Biasion. It was later revealed that the cars had so much speed that they had slowed right down on the second day, the team decided that whoever

RACING cars and flying fighter planes are two common ways for adrenaline junkies to get their fix - but not that many people have done both, professionally, and at the highest level each pursuit has to offer.

Tony Gaze has; first he was a Spitfire ace, taking to the skies for the Royal Air Force during the second World War alongside famous pilots like Douglas Bader and Johnnie Johnson.

Along the way Gaze picked up 12.5 confirmed combat victories and another four'probables', was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross three times, was the first Australian to fly jet aircraft operationally, was the first Australian to shoot down an enemy jet aircraft, escaped from occupied France, and was the first allied pilot to land in France after D-Day. Phew!

And that's only half of Gaze's remarkable story. Fie then became the first Australian to compete in motor racing at World Championship level, raced open-wheelers and sportscars all over the world, and was even involved

was fastest on the famous Col deTurin! stage on the final day, would be allowed to win. And that meant a subdued victory for Biasion, and a very unhappy Finn in the other Lancia ...

-ANDREWVAN LEEUWEN

hcross our desk establishing the famous Goodwood circuit in England.

While we don't want to give too much away about the amazing story, there is one famous anecdote about Gaze.

While his fellow fighter pilots spent their'down'time playing cards. Gaze worked out that if he spent the whole - time polishing his Spitfire, it would be become slipperier in the air, and be faster and more fuel efficient. Now that's some Aussie ingenuity ...

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unknown tony CA26 ‘U'toiiuiSDSf.TP

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motorsportnews

RLFRNO TVRECONTROL THE old saying'the only thing between your car and the road is the tyres' might sound boring to many average motorists, but in race car speak, it can be the difference between being first and last.

Recording tyre temperatures, pressures and the like is one of the most important tasks that an engineer performs during a race weekend,and now,there's a toy that can make a professional engineer or even the average club racer's life easier - and faster.

The AlfanoTyrecontrol is a device exclusively designed to control the tyres of your vehicle.

The Alfano brand has traditionally been seen as a supplier to the karting industry, buttheTyrecontrol has quickly found its way into the V8 Supercar paddock. How did it get there? Sprint Gas Racing engineer Adam DeBorre is a keen karter, and as soon as he used it on his Arrow XI, he thought that he'd introduce it to the rest of his Tasman Motorsport co-workers.

Now, almost every V8 Supercar team is using it, and as DeBorre explains, it's the units simplicity and accuracy that makes it so popular.

"It's a good bit of kit. Once you get your head around the system of it, it's easy to work with, and our tyre guys love it," he said.

"The data logging ability of the gauge is tremendous.

After you accumulate all your information, you can download it straight into your computer and you've got an accurate history of your tyre sets and what

THE

pressures and temperatures your tyres were running at.

"That is one of the main things that attracted me to it. Not only could I keep memory on the gauge, but I can use the information later for reports and analysis. That's one of it's big pluses, as well as being a pyro and pressure gauge all in one.

"It's just an easy-to-use, handy tool."

For the techo whiz,the Tyrecontrol is a must, and even if you don't have a mechanical mind, DeBorre says that the Alfano gauge is easy enough for even the dumbest Motorsport News journo to get his head around ...

"If you just use it as just a tyre pressure gauge, it's probably a bit over the top," he said.

"I place a huge importance on tyre pressures, both in V8 Supercars and in karting. You need to maintain a good pressure base to maximise the tyre. In a go kart, the tyre is your damper and spring, effectively. It alters the balance of the kart quite substantially, so to keep a good history and a good record of that is very important.

"It just depends on the individual and how involved you want to get into it. But it is very simple to use and very, very effective."

-GRANT ROWLEY

W.l L L

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mOTOR inOUTH Phil Branagan Executive Editor Busy time, I know, with the month of May just finished, the Global Financial Crisis hogging the headlines, and heaven knows what else is going on inside Camp Penske requiring your attention.

But there is a favour I need to ask.

Y'see, we need Will Power back.

Not for long, mind.Just for a week or so. His country needs him, and 1 am sure that you will understand that sentiment, even if in this case, it is not to fight off commies, invent a life-saving vaccine or even to do anything grand that might divert the attention of the kick-it-or-hit-it mad media.

We need him to do what he does best; to race. I am sure that you are familiar with the indy 300, which is the Gold Coast race that was for IndyCars, and before that Champ Cars, and before that CART cars, and so on.This season, and I am sure that you are across this as well, it will not be a round of any American-based series. It is a round of the A1GP Series, the self-appointed'World Cup of Motorsport', where it is countryagainst-country,for the right to ... urn, I am not quite sure what it is for the right to do.

Anyway,there is a local team in the series;Team Australia.

Again, not absolutely certain who appointed whom in the team (I did not vote for anyone) but it has

'Australia'written on green and gold-ish bodywork,so that is good enough for me.Team Oz has had an encouraging season, which is to say that the car ran around somewhere in the pack without looking out of its depth but, by the same token, it hardly scared the contenders of the title. Best we can say is, we tied for position with New Zealand last time around; in these parts, that counts for something, so that will have to do.

The newly-named SuperGP will be the newest round of the series, but will in a heartbeat become its marquee event. Even the most pessimistic count of the flock is more than 250,000 people over the course of the event,there is TV and real media attention, and that makes winning the race somewhat important.

Trouble is, John Martin has been doing the driving of the Down Under entry, and while he has been holding up his end, it is a bit much to think that he is going to go from being a solid performer to a frontrunner on the Queensland streets,just because the postcode there starts with a '4'. There are

some drivers in the field who are just that little bit better, more experienced,faster. And this is where you come in.

We all know that Will is about as good as anyone gets on a street course (Long Beach,for example) and that he should be an automatic first choice for the team.

He has priors with Team Oz; in fact, the best results in the four seasons that the WCoMS has been going have come with either Power or Ryan Briscoe at the wheel. And this track owes him one;twice he looked to have the race in Champ Car and IndyCar guise shot to pieces, and twice it has all gone pear-shaped.

So, please, loan us some Power?

The date is mid-October onwards, I am sure than Mr and Mrs P would like to have their youngster home for a few days, and whatever you have in the works for him for 2010, you can count on support from

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this end of the world.

Good luck with the NASCAR teams, which look like they are struggling a bit, and I hoped you liked the Team Vegemite thing we did a while back. No, we are not going to ask you to have any on toast!

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This month,it was the variation between light and dark thatcaught our eye. Cari Edwards must have thought that the iights were go/ngi^,,,. j out at Talladega when he finished the race in the fence,above, before he emerged unhurt andjogged across the line.

Jari-Matti Latvala,left,spends far more time crashing his Ford % than Edwards does his, butgotan interesting view ofthesun while heading westin Argentina.

It was artificiallight that caughtour eye when the Sprint Cup circus touched down in Phoenix,below left, while Steven Richardsshowed a little Great Leslie star power ofhis own at Winton's V8Supercar Championship Series round, below

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AtPhillip Island, there was a good look for David Wall, who found his Porsche wassomewhere under the rainbox in the GTraces,left.

Alex Wurz was in a reflective mood before he took Peugeot's 908intoIMS battie atSpa,above,and Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali was thrustinto the spotiight unexpectedly when FOTA met with the FiA in Paris, below.

Meanwhile,Andy Priaulxshowed that his BMWcgn^perate ddwnstairs when he took to the streets ofPau, bottom,in the wfcc.Bet we don'fsWbhy ancientsteps at the Townsviile street race...

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Well, Le Mans. General Motors wanted to win the French endurance classic, and simultaneously show its PHILBRANAGAN performance car credentials. And they wanted to do it behind a Cadillac badge ,*.c,

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ADILLAC.The name evokes images of huge, doughy American sleds, lurching along on suspension units developed by armchair manufacturers and driven by the over-70s crowd in . places like Florida.

Until you hop behind the wheel of a CTS-V.The 2009 version of the four-door sedan corners like a BMW and goes like an F-111, aided by a 6.2-litre engine which is assisted by a supercharger. It's enough to make you run around the front of the car to check the badge.

A sporty Caddy? Has the world gone mad?

No. In fact, Cadillac was revisiting old ground, having shown sporty leanings when it first raced at Le Mans in 1950. Two of the monsters had finished 10th and 11th outright on debut, under the direction of famed racer and bon vivant, Briggs Cunningham.

GM wanted to mark the 50th year of that event, and show its intent to market the brand globally as an alternative to Europe's hotrod sedans, by winning Le Mans. What followed was a master class in 'How Not to Go Racing', featuring a huge car company (at that time, the biggest in the world, remember), bad 18

timing and those champions of organisation, the French.

GM started its project by looking in its own backyard. It found Riley & Scott, the company founded in 1990 that had been involved in American Sportscar racing since its inception, and was already working on GM's Corvette C5-R project. With the R&S Mk III already having won a number of events, including three Daytona 24 Hour wins, it was a sound place to start.

The Mk III became the basis of the NorthstarLMPOI. That would be the first problem; bad timing. To get the inside track on what happened, we spoke to one of the engineers involved in the project who would only talk on the condition of strict anonymity. Let's call him Z ...

"The year before, Audi didn't know which direction to go," he says.

"They brought coupe and open cockpit [cars], they were really taking it seriously and the day after the '99 race, they started designing probably the best Sportscar ever, the R8. So for Cadillac to debut in 2000 was Just bad timing, with the R8 also debuting."

Ironically, the actual engine of the car was based not on a Caddy but the L47 found in the

Oldsmobile Aurora and around which the successful Indy engine had been developed.

"The engine that was used was basically an Oldsmobile Aurora IRL ● engine, turbocharged. We tried it normally aspirated, but it was a dog - and that's what Acura is running now.The engine program was extremely conservative, but you couldn't say anything bad about the engines."

The 4-litre all-aluminium motor got a pair of IHI turbochargers and Bosch ignition, and power was around 615hp with 550 Ibft of torque. Emco supplied the sequential six-speed transmission, which allowed flat shifting. Which was another problem.

"All the Europeans poo-pooed [that], because it wasn't Xtrac or Ricardo or anything exotic and mainly because the shift-withoutlift was still coming into its new realm."

We will get to that...

Riley & Scott ran the Americanbased team and DAMS handled the European program, and both teams ran at the 2000 Daytona 24 Hours, finishing 13th and 14th after qualifying second and third. DAMS went home to race in Europe's LMS and gained some finishes, while the Americans preferred testing before both

squads appeared at Le Mans, it was a disaster; the Euros qualified ninth and the colonials 20th, and all three failed to finish.

"That DAMS [crew] turned off the shift-without-lift, and they didn't tell GM they'd turned it off, as that's what caused the two works cars to have premature clutch wear,"Z explains. "[With] the shift-without-lift, going down the Mulsanne with a cold carbon-carbon clutch and within an hour both work's cars had the clutches burn out. You really can't test anywhere for the Mulsanne, you can go to Monza or Paul Ricard maybe. But we were able to make it with Just one clutch change on each car.

"It would also break dogs in the gearbox.The year before, there was a Toyota that almost won the race and that's because they turned their shift-without-lift off.

All the other GT1 s had gearbox problems, but that Toyota ended up cutting a tyre."

The results for Cadillac's entries were 19-21-22-DNE. A year later, the car was updated to the LMP02, with Garrett turbos replacing the IHIs and X-Trac providing a new transmission.

There were a number of aero updates from designer Nigel Stroud, and the teams headed to

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k Caddy, with Finns:Hiring drivers like JJ Lehto, left, showed that CM was serious about making an impact at Le Mans. The 600-plus horespower twin turbocharged V8 engine looked the business - but it actually came out ofan Oldsmobile[Shhhhh}.

Le Mans with high[er] hopes, with only DAMS running two entries (R&S would run the post-Le Mans effort in the USA).

Now,the problem was tyres.

"Anytime a Pirelli would let go at Le Mans, it would cut the bodywork off just like a chainsaw, which happened to both cars,"Z says.

"The Audi had a couple of tyre failures, but it didn't rip the bodywork off and the suspension, so that killed us. I don't know how they [the Michelins] were designed, but the carcass would stay together.The drivers would describe driving on Pirellis at Le Mans as though there were ball bearings under the tyres."

It was the low point of the three-year effort. The cars finished 15-DNF. To make matters worse, ORECA's Chrysler LMP, which was basically a privateer Dallara fitted with a 6-litre Dodge V8,finished fourth outright. Realising that beating Audi was going to take a mammoth effort, Chrysler pulled out at the end of the year.

The reason for the relatively modest effort to improve the LMP01 was seen a year later.

The LMP02 was almost all-new, designer Nigel Stroud's brief to start from the ground up to design a car that would beat Audi's R8.

The relatively reliable engine from 2001 was carried over but the gearbox was now pneumatically operated (by paddles),the wheelbase was shorter and aero much better.

Furthermore, DAMS was now out of the project. Under the gaze of GM executives, the cars ran better, but ninth and 12th were still not the results the suits were www.mnews.coni.au

looking for.

"When they [Audi] came in [to the pits] and changed their rear suspension in eight minutes, a GM executive came over and asked how long it's going to take us," says Z,"and all we could really say was it's going to take us a little longer than eight minutes! At that point, we weren't really prepared for something like that, it had never been done to that extent."

At the end of the year, there were some better results in the ALMS but no wins, and then that timing bugbear struck again.

"It was right at the point where Riley & Scott was purchased by Reynard,"says Z,"then Reynard started to have some problems and went into receivership.

Prodrive was going to buy them, if it was guaranteed the Cadillac program was going to stay'within the Reynard group."

GM killed the project to focus on its Corvette GT program. But could it have been successful?

"The whole program could have been better,"Z sighs,"but not one thing, we're talking five things would make it 20 percent better; tyres, engines, cars, team, budget.

The drivers were very good - there was no reason to blame anything on the drivers. It was a political nightmare really because GM had never done anything to that extent, and it was so public.

"1 think it was underestimated by them and us, to some extent, but we were ready to learn and go back there the next year with a clean sheet."

And, of course, in light of recent events, the chances of Cadillac ever returning to Le Mans to take on Germany and France are, approximately,zero.

The man behind Cadillac's 1950Le Mans effort was determined to do things the American Way BRIGGS Cunningham had everything;looks, money,cars with his name on the badge, yachts and his face on the cover of Time magazine.

Cunningham was born into a financially-minded Cincinnati family that had backed a start up company called Proctor & Gamble. After a privileged upbringing, he married Lucie Bedford,an heiress to Standard

Oil.

In between sporting pursuits as diverse as bobsleighing in St Moritz and defending the America's Cup skippering Columbia in 1958(USA 4, Britain 0), Cunningham set his sights on winning the Le Mans 24 Hour with an American car, and started his own car company.In 1951, he made his second Le Mans assault

in a Cadillac-powered C-2R,and in 1953, Phil Walters and John Fitch shocked the establishment by finishing third in a C-R5, ruining Jaguar's plans for a 1-23 finish. Cunningham finished seventh in a similar car.

After a disastrous 1955 assault(the year when 80 spectators and officials were killed) Cunningham combined business {car dealerships) with racing (occasional drives in the Sportscar classics; a corner at Sebring is named after him).

He retired to California in 1963, established a successful car museum (he sold his collection in 1986 for US$20m)and continued to sail.

After a remarkable life, Cunningham died in 2003,aged

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moiorsporine'

FDRfTlULR 1

E1©M(M7 HERE was a moment,one lap from the end of the Spanish Grand Prix,that served as the perfect illustration of the new order of Formula 1.Jenson Button, striding to his fourth win of the season,lapped the silver and red car of the reigning World Champion, Lewis Hamilton.

"What can I say?" Hamilton implored after the race to awaiting TV crews.

"I drove my heart out, as I always do,and it's just that this car is just not going to, I don't know - I just had no grip.

"For sure, I don't have a car to win the championship.The car is that bad, I'm driving the socks of it, but there's just no hope. I want to say a big congratulations to Jenson, he's done a great job again and I look forward to racing him at some stage again."

There speaks the voice of a man missing the competitive edge.

Another driver missing that edge is Fernando Alonso. While his car doesn't have the ability to fight for wins, it's having a team-mate who can't put up a fight that's really annoying the Spaniard. He even admitted he missed having Hamilton in a team with him at the Spanish race.

No, really, he did.

He said he'd hated the team management, but that at least at McLaren he got pushed by his team mate. It was about as close to a compliment as we're going to hear from Fernando towards Lewis this side of hell freezing over.

Felipe Massa too, and Kimi Raikkonen are far away from being happy with their situations.

Felipe's admitted the title is not even registering on his radar this season, while Kimi,this season more notorious for his ice cream eating habits than his race results, has managed to confirm he'll still be racing next season.

The question remains as to whether or not Ferrari still want him to be there. Rumour has it that Fernando's got an eye on his seat, and one hand on a contract that all but guarantees it to him, if Kimi doesn't pull his socks up. nterestingly enough,there was a similar rumour doing the rounds last year, and the year before ... and not just about Fernando.

Incredibly, as it turns out,there was a hot rumour that Ferrari was interested in securing the services of Button as far back as 2007. I'd first become aware of it around the time of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, but it seemed to disappear off the charts as quickly as it had emerged from the middle of nowhere.

And why wou/dn'f they have wanted Button? He was keeping Rubens Barrichello honest at Honda, and Ferrari was well aware of how quick the Brazilian could be on his day. Jenson needed a break. He needed a good car. But was he a risk too far?

It was an interesting dilemma.

I remember the first time I interviewed Jenson, back in 2003.

He'd been handed two notices of unemployment in the space of three years. It wasn't exactly what you'd have called confidence-building.

Dumped first by Williams,for a Colombian who'd apparently won a few races in America, and then by Renault/Benetton,for some upstart called Alonso.

As if to make matters worse, his new team-mate said he was more suited to a Boy Band than a racing team.Jenson wasn't exactly making the sort of waves he'd wanted to.

It was the next season, 2004, that would prove to be his big breakthrough. With 10 podiums over the season,Jenson finished the year in third place - his highest championship finish to date.

JB was a man on the rise. A

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/ Will Buxton Ti Formula 1 Correspondent beautiful popstar girlfriend, the Formula 1 world at his feet. And then ... suddenly, it all fell apart.The team crumbled around him and from looking good for championship success seemed to implode with a cacophony of mistakes. Sponsors pulled out, results were hard to comeby and Jenson was yesterday's man.

Sound familiar?

You Barcelona see ... that had penultimate more to it than lapain simple lapping of one car by another.

Formula 1 is an odd business.

It gives us great highs and great lows, but the wonderful thing is we never really know to whom they will happen and when.Some drivers and some teams get their sums right more often than others, while some ride their luck and it all comes good.

For every story of success, there's three stories of the drivers who were never in the right place at the right time. A driver who could have been a multiple world champion if only he'd not left Team A a year too early, and gone to Team B just as they started their descent into oblivion.

For every Lewis Hamilton, there was a Jenson Button.

Luckily for Jenson, however,the often cruel circle of fate has spun around in his favour.

Lady luck is shining on him, and allowing him,for once,to bask in the glorious light of the success his talent deserves.

If the rumours were right, then Ferrari may have been only too aware of that talent a years ago, but it is a talent that has been recognised by those on the inside of FI for coming up to 10 years.

Finally, it's a talent the whole world can enjoy.

21

5 minUTES lUITH l ll

miKE GRSCOVnE The British designer is poised to head back into GP racing with start-up team Litespeed. But before he does, PHILBRANAGAN he took the time to discuss why,the brave new FI world -and The Ashes STANDING ON THE GRID, WITH THE THOUGHT THAT YOU MIGHT JUST GO AND BEAT ONE OF THE BIG BOYS. IT IS STILL A GREAT SPORT. I STILL LOVE IT

MOTORSPORT NEWS: First things first; 1 want to be sure that I am hearing the right things about you and Litespeed.

MIKE GASCOYNE:Yes. Basically, Litespeed has employed my company, which Is MGI,to consult on their entry into the Formula 1 World Championship.The initial agreement if purely to oversee and prepare their entry to the FIA, but obviously, the intention is that there will be an ongoing agreement if they receive an entry, where we would supply consultancy services to them, with the full entry and the building up of their team.

Does that include designing and building the hardware?

Should they receive their entry, we have in place an agreement for myself to come on-board to oversee the design of that car and, obviously,the first season in Formula 1. But that, obviously, is down to them receiving an entry from the FIA. How long is the timeline now,to build on of these cars under the current regulations?

Well, that is, probably, the most pertinent question.

The time to do it is very, very short. Any start-up team faces a very, very difficult job. Actually, I think that that is where my company,the MGI Group,comes in; expertise 1 have, and the people who I can get in touch with, and to bring them to the party, so to speak.

We are one of the few groups that can actually, physically, do it - to get a car built in time that is actually competitive. Because, if you start from scratch and you do not have a windtunnel program,for instance,just getting a windtunnel program up and running is probably six months away. Obviously, in this case, in that time, you need to build a racing car.

I think that people can build a car. But, can they build a competitive car? That is the question, and where the MGI Group is pretty unique.

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EVEN AETER A EEW DIEEERENT GIGS, THE EIRE STILL BURNS BRIGHT WITH GASCOYNE How far along this design and build process can you go before you have a nominated engine?

You can do the initial layout. We are going into that now, but really, by the end of the entry process, we will have a basic car layout, basic geometry, a gearbox layout, all done.

The fine detail will depend on the engine deal and you cannot go much further.The engine deal is going to have to follow on pretty soon after you receive an entry - within the next two or three weeks.To be on the grid, and to be competitive, and have time for testing, you need that in place pretty quickly.

Do you take comfort from the Brawn experience? They changed engines so late in the day and they came out of it so well.

Yes. All I can say about Brawn is that as a team,they were one of the biggest teams in the pitlane.

But they obviously did a good job, doing what they did.

The engines now, with the homologation, are not such rapidly-changing things as they once were. We try to know pickup points and technical details, but I don't think that is such a huge thing, as long as we have the information in place in the next few weeks.

The critical thing is getting key, experienced staff, in place in time.The major teams all have their people tied in at this time of

year, because they are going to be working on next year's car.

One thing that needs to be remembered is that, with the banning on refuelling, all the cars will have to be new.You will not be able to carry a chassis over from this year to next year. You need to double the size of the fuel tank from the current cars, so everyone is going to be very busy.

So, unless you start up now,the good people and the key people you want are not going to be available.

Is this a particular challenge, given the size of some of the teams that you have worked with in the past?

I think that one of the things that excites me about it is doing with a small team.You are going to have to rock and roll, so to speak, rather than working with the big teams, like Tyrrell, with a lot of corporate bureaucracy.

I think one of the ways Formula 1 is going to go,the way Max Mosley sees it, with smaller budget caps, smaller teams,for me, I see that challenge as really exciting. I think that with the the global economic crisis, you cannot be spending £400million a year on Formula 1.That's madness.

So I think that the FIA has got it right and, as an engineer, it will be a fun formula.

Why do this, Mike? You have done it all, and there are lots of other things you can do now.

Why do this?

Standing on the grid, with the thoughtthat you might just go and beat one of the big boys, it is still a great sport. I still love it.

I would not be doing this again if it meant going to a big team - a Toyota or a Honda. I would not do that. I would not even be having this interview!

Maybe it is the British underdog thing. I would love to have a good team,a small bunch of guys, give it a real go, knick the odd podium, rub the odd person's noses in it and enjoy it.

What kind of driver do you want?

Someone old and wily, or a kid on the edge?

I think you need to be realistic.

An older driver can deliver a race finish, and a young guy someone like a Bruno Senna would bring something to the sport.That would be good, but we have to see.

Ideally, you look for a mix.

Having two young guys is one thing but you have to bring the car home as well, and some of the more experienced guys are better than that.

There is a lot on between now and the start of next season.

Before you get busy, give me an Ashes prediction.

[Long pause,longest ofthe interview] My heart tells me that England is going to knick it, 2-1.

But reality tells me, you are going to beat us 2-1!

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QUEENSLAND'S FAVOURttE SDN HAS BEEN TO HELL AND BACK OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS. NOW, THERE IS LHiHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEU AND AS HE TOLD fiRANt ROWLEY. IT IS NOT A TRAIN COMINIi THE OTHER WAY...

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OTORSPORT NEWS; Comparatively speaking, things at the moment are heading towards being as good for Dick Johnson Racing now compared to back in the team's heydey, Would you agree with that?

DICK JOHNSON: I know it's early days yet.

We're certainly showing signs of getting back to where we were in the late 80s, and even in the early 80s. It's not that we want to be dominant, but just being competitive is a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

From an on-track point of view, are you ahead of expectations?

The first two rounds were really trial and error for us. Prior to Clipsal, the cars were literally brand-new, only shaken down in a test at Queensland Raceway. So for us to come out of Clipsal with a reasonable result for one car was great. It was unfortunate what happened with James (Courtney), but from there, we went to Hamilton, and even the Grand Prix, the cars fared very well there. And we are learning more and more about these cars every day.

We'll get to the cars a bit later, let's launch into the hard questions. The past three or four years have probably felt like a roller coaster for you - sponsors withdrawing, sponsors collapsing, your own financial hardships. Did you ever think you'd get back to a point where your weren't just about 24

competing, but competing competitively?

Look, if I didn't think we could compete for wins, I would have given up a long time ago. I know a lot of people say that I'm an optimist, that can be partially true, but I also consider myself a realist.

I know what's required to win races, and I think we're at the stage where we've got a lot of that together. It takes an awful lot to put winning combinations together. There's not a single thing that will win you races, it's a combination of a lot of things, and that includes budget. We've been really strapped, seriously strapped for quite some time. Still today, things aren't easy for us ...

So does the recent success go some way to blocking out some of the off-track battles?

You can never change the past. I always use the saying 'the only thing you get from looking backwards is a sore neck, and the only thing you can do from looking backwards is learn.'

I think we have done a lot of learning and I think a lot of that is knowing who to trust and when to trust them, or to A never trust anyone. That was a huge lesson for me after all these years in motorsport. I'm at the point now where I'm a lot more cautious about decisions that are made and who to get involved with.

Today, you look less

stressed. You look healthier. Do you feel better?

Physically, I feel fine. I don't think I've ever had a problem with my health at all which is, touch wood, a good thing. At the end of the day, there's no amount of money that can buy you health, so that's one of the best things.

We're just focused on ... let's put it this way, I can see some light at the a the other wayl

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From a sponsorship angle your career as a driver/owner was blessed. A famous relationship with Ross Palmer, followed by a lucrative partnership with Shell.

At the time, it was probably hard to know how good you had things, but now that you can relate them to tough times, are the good times easier to appreciate?

It's all pretty relative. When you look at racing today in comparison to what it was a number of years back, the cost of running race teams is significantly more than what is was in the past.

The number of people you have to have is quadruple what we used to use - all for the same amount of cars. And they are different types of people. We didn't have the technology involved with computers and things like that, so that in itself is an expensive exercise - employing the right sort of people to push buttons.

I think that, also, the competition has stepped up, like it has in every other sport, i'm not just singling out motor racing here.

I'm saying that the level of professionalism in every single sport is getting tougher and tougher.

Austraiia only has 20 million people, there's only a certain amount of sponsorship dollars out there, and costs are rising, in every type of sport, because of the competitiveness, and we're all out there fighting for the same money.

26

It was probably a lot easier in that respect years ago, being able to get the dollars.

Motorsport then was one of the simple sports that got really good television viewing.

Obviously,that helped our sponsors over a long period of time, it was good back in the Ross Palmer/PalmerTube Mills days - to introduce new products to the market - Ross made an absolute killing out of that. Not only here, but also in America ...

Good times, bad times. What was the point a few years back where you realised that DJR was in some financial strife?

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when it was because it wasn't as if it happened overnight.

It's something that was a gradual slide.

If I had of been told the truth along the way, we wouldn't have been in that situation, but as I said, you learn to trust people and not others.

I was just pulled along by the nose, and by the time I realised that things weren't as good as they were supposed to be, it was bloody tough getting out of it, I'll tell you ...

On the flip side, when was the point when you realised that things were on the way up?

Everything is always a bit of a punt. You've got to take a bit of a gamble.The only way to be competitive in this game is to make sure you've got the right equipment.

I knew we had some reaily good people, as

good as anyone in the paddock,so I thought that the only way to do this right is to get some really good chassis.

For every team to go down the track of developing their own chassis, design, manufacture etc, and do your own engines, those days are gone. It's time for the whole category to gel together a bit more. Everyone is so similar that we need to try and save costs by doing things in numbers.

We chose Triple Eight chassis over the others and our guys were there with them in January building the chassis, and we still to this point do our own engines, and we'll keep doing that because that's more of our expertise at this point.

Obviously the relationship with Triple Eight can be attributed to your early season success, but with your cars up the front, is there something deep down inside that wishes they were hand-crafted by DJR? No, I'm not that stupid. I realise that we're not capable of doing that job.To achieve what we want to achieve,that was the only option we

had.

It's the best thing we've ever done, i know how good our engines are,Triple Eight has a tried and proven package with its chassis, so why not go that way?

So from an engineering perspective.

motorsport news

LOPE inTEROIEm ^

having DJR engines in the game is enough satisfaction for you.

That's right. But just to buy a chassis doesn't mean that you don't get to do anything with it.

Nobody knows everything,so there's probably little things that we know ... and I'm sureTrlple Eight would be stupid to tell us everything they know,and vice-versa.

So it's all about time for us to understand the chassis better and hopefully, get more out of them than what we currently have.

Your team. It still carries your name, but things have changed. Charlie Schwerkolt is now a part owner. How have things changed?

How are you finding the arrangement?

It's fine. We wouldn't have survived without it.

As I said before, it's all about getting involved with the right people, and I believe that to be the case now.

And it's why the business is going to survive, because of Charlie's business acumen and the people around him, and also, between us, we've got to be able to make every single dollar count. Even now,things are bloody tough.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time, really! The way the economy is, we're not the only people suffering, we're going to survive.

We have to.

You say you "have to survive." Did you ever wm.mnews.com.au

BY THE TIME I REALISED THAT THINGS WEREN’T AS GOOD AS THEY WERE SUPPOSED TD BE, IT WAS BLDDDY TDUGH TD GETTING OUT OF IT, I’LL TELL YOU ... imagine life without coming to racetracks and doing this?

What was I going to do? If you don't enjoy something, you don't do it, but I enjoy the motor racing scene. I've been around it that long ... this is my life, and I'm not about to change that.

I'm not a grey nomad, I haven't got a fourwheel drive with a caravan, nor do I have a desire to have one. 1 love sleeping under the stars, as long as there's five outside the hotel I'm in!

You don't have a caravan but you have a damn big truck...

Yeah, but it's not something that we take away on holidays!

Beside's his business acumen, what are Charlie's other strengths?

His passion. He's got enormous passion for what we do. He's been coming to races since about 2001/2002, and I think that says a lothe's a really motorsport fanatic.

I think he's always wanted to be a part of a V8 team. Now he is, and I think he's enjoying it immensely - even to the point where he's now a Queenslander! Let me tell you, I don't think you'll ever get him out of there!

Initially, or even now, was it tough to get your head around having another owner within your team?

There was no option. It was one of those situations - either do it or die, and there was no way that I was going to do that.

It wasn't the only thing to do, but it was also the smart thing to do - to be able to attune ourselves more to the day and age we're going through, and that's why we brought them in.

Did you have to make sacrifices in the way you ran your life - work and at home?

Absolutely. Charlie virtually runs the day to day tasks at the shops, while I take a bigger role with the sponsors and fans.

I'm a race car driver, not an accountant or guru. I've always had 27

to depend on Other people to do other things. When I was racing, it was difficult to sit down behind a desk, shuffle numbers and play with spreadsheets. It was all rubbish to me! But it's a very necessary part of the business.

Other than the fact that you want results, finances is the most important part of your business because without the tin, there's nothing you can do.

Back to the cars. Do you see your relationship with Triple Eight being a long-term deal?

It's been a very workable situation to this point and I see no reason why that would change.

I think they are very easy people to work with, they have exceptional ability and 1 think they also recognise what we do for them.

For Roland Dane, it's not about selling 100 cars, it's about selling cars to people who will perform and get the most out of them. His name is attached to each of those cars out there and if they get a bad name by selling cars

to the wrong team,there's no benefit.

What about your drivers. James Courtney was a surprise signing, and from what we understand, he was even a surprise to you.

Also, Steven's role wasn't confirmed late in the silly season.There was obviously some unrest in the decision ...

For me,from what I've seen so far, the right decisions were made. I think at the end of the day, results are going to prove that as time goes on as well.

Like everything in this business, it's all built around performance. We can't do anything more. Even with our budget constraints, we went to the Clipsal 500, and I don't believe there's one thing we could have done to make the deal better.

So far, it's worked,and I just want it to keep going.

It's been an enormous boost to the guys in the team,a huge boost for the sponsors so it's up to us to keep them happy.

Clipsal and Hamilton were good rounds for Steve, but they are traditionally good for him anyway - both circuits are street tracks where he can put his head down,grit his teeth and muscle the car around. Kind of reminds me of some other bloke that he's related to ...

Yeah.Things are a lot different now.The cars are a lot different, but if you want to make comparisons, if you brought back Don Bradman and put him up against Andrew Symonds,The Don wouldn't be worth a bumper, would he? It's one of those situations anything is only relevant to the time.

Bradman was an outstanding person for his time, as were a lot of other sporting people, and I don't think that motor racing is any different.

There are plenty of people who have stood out in the past 50 years, and I'm just lucky enough to be one of them.

Do you see much of yourself in the way that Steven conducts himself on or off the track?

YOUR TEAM.OUR INSPIRATION.

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7 ●L*f£'i5' MICHAEL SCHUEMACHER

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AYRTON SENNA

WILLPOWER

WARNING! : The Tecnica Light suit with SOFIDRY" treatment decreases evaporation time by 65% and dramaticaliy improves body breathability. The ultra lightweight suit, along with comfy flat seam undenwear and ergonomic pre-curved gloves with “ultragrip" ● treatment caused one of our drivers to win five FI World Championships.

Results may not be typical, but happiness is not a rare side effect.

Yeah, there's a fair bit of that. He doesn't get involved as much as I got involved with the mechanical side of the car. I used to build the engines, gearboxes, diffs and build the cars at home.That side of the sport's gone now and you don't see it - we just have hired help.

At the end of the day, there are certain things that he does which are fairly relevant to things that I used to do.

As I alluded to before, Steve's spot in the team wasn't guaranteed until late, but his first three rounds almost justify his position. Is he capable of winning a championship?

Absolutely. It's not going to happen in five minutes.There is some really stiff competition out there. We just have to make sure he remains consistent.

In terms of championship finishes, he's been very consistent over the years. He tries to stay out of trouble, he's a really consistent driver on different race tracks, and I think these cars have given him more confidence.

He knows he has equal equipment to the front-running cars out there. That in itself makes a huge difference.

Whether our old cars were no good. I'm not sure. They were definitely old cars but they were still bloody good.

Those chassis had certainly seen www.mnews.coni.au

their share of green lights and chequered flags ...

They are pretty speedy cars. Look at Bathurst 2007.The end result wasn't quite what we wanted, but to get on the podium at Bathurst is still a huge achievement.

Speaking of results, is success better these days, compared to winning back in your day?

From a driver's point of view, I enjoy getting results on this side of the fence as much as when I was in the car driving. It's one of those things. Every single guy in the team feels the same way - the buzz they get out of a win is a buzz.

Nowadays, I get a thrill out of seeing our guys'faces when we do get a good result, and certainly in the evening, watching how they celebrate.

Well, you've got the right sponsor to assist with celebrations! Responsibly, of course ...

You've got that right.

Would you hand back one of your Bathurst wins or one of your championships for James or Steven to win one?

Absolutely. When you get to a point when you get on a roll, success breeds success.

It's the way it goes. It inspires everyone just that little bit extra and you seem to be able to achieve more.

INDUSTlilES

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... WITH DM:K JOHNSdW

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THE tONCEPT WAS SIMPIE. 6RAWT ROWLEY SAYS WORDS AND TRICKY DICKY RESPONDS. THE RESULTS WERE MIXED WITH TRUTH AND EMOTION BROCK VERSUS JOHNSON

^

It was a big part of both our careers. It was something that was real. It was never a showpony at any stage ofthe game It was full-on.Two totally different people,two totally different circumstances - factory team verses a backyarder. All in all, it was healthy for motorsport tans in general.

ROCKS AND TREES Rock,tree, it doesn’t matter what it is, I'm a person who tries to turn a negative into a positive.The rock; it started off as the worst thing in the world and ended up being the best. It gave us the opportunity to get something out of motorsport. It sent us on to bigger and better things.The tree; it shows us how passionate we are about motor racing, or sponsors and what it means to compete in such an important event.

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JOHN BOWE

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n:

He was the pessimist, and I was the optimist. A great relationship, great results, a great team person and to have a team-mate for 11 years in this business is something pretty special. We did a lot of things together and it was a big chunk of both of our careers.

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A?e^?important part of my life, that's for sure. In multi-national companies, people change,ideas change, and it really is sad for me think that we're no longer connected In anyway, except for the fact that the badge on the front of the car says Ford. I never burn bridges, and I still think there's a door open somewhere. One day ...

hfwas^he de^^nt that everyone loved to love. He was such a really good guy that had an answer for everything.

We spent an awful lot oftime together doing the Shell adverts.There are some Shell ads in the archives that nevsi" got used We must have done 40 ads all up. I know everyone thinks that the'sock'ad is the gun thing, but we did so other ones that were amazing. It's a shame the product got canned before they released the ads. Barry was a great guy, down to earth, but he was so miserable! He was as miserable as goat shit!

Ego trip. As an Australian, I felt very disappointed and I felt that we'd let our nation down when in 1987 when they had the World Touring Car Championship round at Bathurst, and all these teams came out for the race, especially the Eggenberger team^ W^struggled to get bits for the UK and I just wiped my hands of it and decided to do my own thing. I think that was the smartest thing I ve

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^'"oncrthe cTs^wem gd^g^r^ghcwith^^^^^ of RosS;Pa!mer who was starting a business in the UK, we went over for the SilverstoneTT Unce carsStill were g g over. and on pole by one a half or two seconds!

-and thethe Poms talkgo about it today. Here's a bunch of colonials or convicts coming. . we were ^ ,we were 300 metres in front of the O ne of the proudest photos I've got is a pic of the first lap, going down the Hanger Straight and dead set next car. It was our car, then Eggenberger, Eggenberger, Rouse and Eggenberger. It was an ego trip, but a really good one.

BATH URST1999

on It was always going to be that in 1999 I was going to finish my career, so to'finish fourth and just miss out a podium was a little disappointing. ^ ^ For me,driving with my son was the highlight.There's not many sports where you see that sort of thing you won't see Gary Ablett Sr and Jr playing at the same time.There's very few peop e who can do that At that point of time, my health wasn't all that flash with some sinus problems. If I had of known that the treatment I had after the 1999 season was so effective, I would have had it done many, many years ago. It madp a huae difference At the time, it was stressful driving under those conditions. It was one of the reasons

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;;Sy1alwa?s use^an “pen-S^ 1 used to have pieces of towel stitched to the back of my gloves so I could wipe my eyes so I could see whLe I was aoinq I used to get affected by the fumes. There's a few bits and pieces like that that not many people know about...

The operation career, but it definitely would have made me a lot sharper. I used to get headaches like you would not believe. Since then, all of that's gone away ...

The best part of your life. Actually, 1 think I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of grandkids now, and it's amazing that you miss with your own kids that you pick up when you are with your grandchildren.

It's like you miss an entire part of your own kid's growing up. To me, that's pretty special.

1 virtually seethe grandchildren every day, and it's pretty special. Jett (Steven's son) is a mind blowing kid. He's pretty switched-on, and I'm sure every grandparent will say that, but its another phase in your life that everyone goes through.

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NCE upon a time, 1 had the opportunity to ride in a V8 Supercar at Calder Park.

It was a truly great experience, probably a once in a lifetime, because my high-speed chauffeur made a little blue, and we ended up hanging out of the wall on the entry to pit-lane. It was a less spectacular (and less expensive) version ofthe time Antonio Pizzonia rolled a Jaguar road car at Jerez with a journo on board, back in 2003 when he drove for the cat's Formula 1 team.

Now I won't mention names, because I promised the team owner I would never out the

young gun that made the error. But I love telling the story, because how many outsiders get the chance to be involved in a V8 Supercar crash?

However, no matter how proud ofthe anecdote I am,on a particularly frosty day back at Calder, I decide to keep it to myself. I figure that, as I sit strapped into Kim Jane's VE Commodore V8 Ute, he doesn't need to know about my Calder visits-to-Calder crashes ratio, particularly given it is the Wednesday before theWinton round ofthe Yokohama V8 Ute Racing Series ...

It's not as if I haven't done my

research.The day before I had called last year's Ute Rookie of the Year, Glenn McNally, an old Formula Ford sparring partner of mine from the West Aussie state series days.

“You'll find compared to the Formula Ford that they don't stop half as well as an open-wheeler does," he says, before laughing in a way that makes me think that I'll find out myself sooner rather than later.

"They are quite hard to pull up. With the VE, we've found you need to go back through the gearbox and use that under race conditions to help slow the car down. Watch Kim's in-car

[footage]from Darwin.

"You need to get the car slow enough so it will turn.You need to stop it, get it turned, and then get on the gas hard. It's classic slow-in, fast-out.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you lock the odd brake.That will be understandable. Just build up to it, because if you go out and torch a tyre straight up, you'll be tentative for the rest ofthe session. And you probably won't even feel yourself doing it, because there isn't a lot of feel through the car that way. My guess is you'll go in a little bit hard a few times and get a bit of understeer trying to turn it in.

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QUADRANT SUSPENSIONS

If McNally ever decides to give up on motor racing,fortune telling might be right up his alley.

It takes me one corner, literally, to find outjust how hard it can be to make a V8 Ute turn in. Having driven out of pit lane, I cruise around the first corner, and approach the first chicane at a speed I believe to be gingerly enough to make the corner. But the cold Yokohamas have another idea, and the yellow Commodore sails over the kerb and onto the grass.Thankfully, I have all of about lOkmh on board,so it is hardly disastrous ... a little embarrassing,though.

As the tyres get some temperature into them,the problem becomes much less noticeable. Also,the off-track incident has taught me that when McNally and co told me,slow-in, fast-out, they really meant slow in. Even with tyre temps up,the Ute doesn't like to be hurried to the apex, and that goes both for wheel speed and steering

inputs. Getting the most out of one of these things clearly requires patience; it's a long way away from the'stab of the brakes and tip it in'world of formula car racing.

Instead,the Ute wants to be slowed down - really slowed down - and then rolled into the apex.When you are there, and its tough to see when you are there because of the precarious positioning of the A-pillar, you can start to think about the throttle.

But the throttle requires patience as well, thanks mostly to its fly-by-wire activation.There is none of the brutal honesty of a cable throttle, and a lift means the tiny computer needing to reset itself. It feels strange, and it's definitely not fast.

The funny thing is, power down isn't as hard as you'd think. Utes in general are famous for being light in the rear, and with a lot of horsepower to deal with in the racing version, the obvious assumption is that oversteer

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would be a problem. But it's not, probably thanks to the lack of grip at the front. It's all about balance, remember.

Through the faster stuff, the car feels pretty good, much better than in the slow corners.

Calder has a perfect third gear right-left in its back straight (probably fourth or fifth gear for a more experience Ute driver) to really give it a shake with some speed on.There's nothing like the responsiveness of a Formula Ford through a fast corner, where you feel every degree of angle

the car is getting, but,from the little bit of feed back that I was getting through the seat, it all felt controlled. It's just a little unnerving to have that little feedback when you're not used to it.

The gearbox is a cinch. It is basically a tighter version of the road'box, complete with synchros, so missing cogs is not a problem.

I was only making a maximum of two shifts downwards in the braking area, mostly out of habit, and there are differing opinions about whether'raiding'the

gearbox helps pull the unruly beast up. Like McNally,Jane told me to use all the gears to pull it up, while Grant Johnson told me he didn't find it necessary at all.

All three guys are pretty handy at driving these things, so I think it's a personal preference sort of thing.

But pulling it up does require a bit of effort. It's not that the brakes are bad - they are actually quite good - it's just that you only need to breath on the pedal to get the best out of them.That means riding bumps and manoeuvring

your feet on the pedal to heeland-toe has to be done with the greatest of care, because it's easy to grab too much brake and lock a Yoko or two. And,just as McNally warned me, when you do lock a brake it's hard to tell, because there is little feedback in the pedal.You only find out when you realise the apex is coming and the Ute hasn't washed off as much speed as it should have.

Flowever, when properly applied,the brakes actually stop the Ute surprisingly iim well, and the nose dips

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beautifully over the front Bilstiens.The challenge of the anchors was probably nny favourite part of the outing.

t might sound like I'm being harsh on the V8 Ute with my appraisal after the drive, but I'm not. Honestly.

Compared to an open-wheeler, then yes, the car is heavy, it wallows in corners and it offers a driver very little feedback. So what? The same goes, on a faster and grander scale, with V8 Supercars. The long braking periods and lazy front end are traits of most Touring and Productions Cars, so dealing with the issues that a Ute has is a valuable skill-set for a young driver wanting to make his way in the big bad world of V8 Supercar racing.

A couple of years ago, while compiling a feature MNews, Ute racer-turned-V8-driver Damien White told me that the Utes "are hard to get around the corner, and they do teach you about race craft and being technical in your approach to driving. They're not a racecar, but they're a fantastic tool to learn how to race."

Having now driven one of the beasts, i couldn't agree with 'ice' more. The Ute isn't easy, or pretty, to drive. But whether you're a Johnny-come-lately looking for something to help the transition from road car to racecar, or a purist looking for the ultimate challenge of turning very little grip into as much speed as possibie, the Ute might well do the job.

Xpcl'mit'all vI

Speaking

THE V8 Utes might not be famous for adjustability, but the series isn't exactly a technical wasteland, either.

Like the other Holden versus Ford racing series in Australia, the Utes is built on parity. A close watch on brakes, tyres, suspension and now engines (a control engine builder has recently been appointed) means that the chances of someone spending a mint and running away with the series because of it are limited.

But there is plenty for the Ute drivers and teams to do before a session or race, as Kim Jane explains.

"You can adjust ride height on all four corners, and the [wheel] alignment can be played with; toe in and toe out," he says.

"Tyre pressures is absolutely critical, in particular what you start them at. If you start them too high, then they are good at the start but terrible at the end, although sometimes you have to have it like that. Bathurst last year we set the lap record on the last lap, but the guys had set the pressures from the race on Saturday, which was in the afternoon, and the Sunday race was in the morning. It was so cold that the tyres didn't come up until right at the end. It's imperative that you get that right.

"On all racecars these days the brakes have to be balanced, as far as pad and disc wear is concerned, and the downshifts are vital."

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Nothing plain about Jane First it was NASCAR,and now it’s Utes. Kim Jane knows how to muscle the most brutish of racecars MOTORSPORT NEWS:So for what you've done before and where you're at in your career,the V8 Utes seems like the perfect category for you ...

KIM JANE: Well, Mark Skaife is, what,42 or 43 years old? And he's retired. I can't imagine retiring from racing cars. It's too much fun, and it's what I've done since I sat on the back straight here at Calder in 1982 for the Australian Grand Prix. It's something I've wanted to do since then. We have a lot offun doing it, and it's one big adventure every time we go off racing.

When NASCAR stopped in 2000, we'd just been over to Japan and raced in the Coca-Cola 500, and we'd come back here and raced at Bathurst and we hoped the class would go somewhere. But unfortunately, it didn't continue on.

I'd not long before got married and had a child. so probably with NASCAR stopping, if I hadn't been in that position I would have gone over to America. Instead I put my head down and knuckled down and just kept an idea on what else was going on out there.

I'd be oval racing for so many years that my skills in circuit racing had probably leaned off, but I looked at the Utes and thought that it looked like a fun category. You could see from the popularity that it wasn't going to go somewhere. I worked with Eddie Albenica, who was running a Fujitsu Series car and I couldn't work out how you'd get the money needed to run one.

So we bought a Ute from Garry Holt and ran two or three races in the first season we owned it. Since then, we've done every race of every season, and we've slowly built up our parts and our inventory and our sponsorship. It's bang for you buck.

You said you could see it was going to go somewhere; are you still surprised at just how far

the series has come?

I suppose Ford and Holden are as much a part of the Australian motorsport scene as you could get, and we've got theV8 Supercars to thank for that. Utes appeal to the same people, but there's enough difference. We're really production-based so we have a lot of different winners, and no one has millions of dollars so we don't have one team dominating purely through money ... yet. And we hope it doesn't get to that.

We've spent a lot of time and brought in a lot of people to help clean up the driving standards.

We had a few people at the start who were really rookies, because they saw this as a good fun place to start their motorsport careers.They've really learnt and cleaned up.

There's rubbing, but that's what all competitive categories have, and it's part of our racing. We've now got rid of the absolute imbeciles that crash into people because they think that's what the category's about, and now the purists of the sport are starting to see the Utes as a bit more of a bangup derby.

Well,the series did have that reputation for a

while...

I used to crack up laughing at what was going on during the races. I once had two high-profile drivers from the same team in front of me one day - one legend of the game and one up-and-comer and they bashed the crap out of each other for two laps.They eventually gave me their spots.

In oval track racing, you learn to respect your competitors, because if you bash into one another it's going to be a big crash, and it's going to hurt, and it's going to get expensive. You soon learn that panel damage is a waste of time and a waste of money. We had to clean up the class. Now it's quite good.

So was NASCAR a good basis for setting yourself up fro driving one of these Utes?

Yes.The Ute is heavy, and a NASCAR is heavy;the Ute brakes are good, but they are production cars so we haven't got balance bars and proportioning valves,so they are challenging,just like the NASCAR was.The Ute hasn't got the power of a NASCAR, but it slides around and they are good fun to drive.

motorsport news

1

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F

ORMULA 1 stands at the edge of an abyss.There is no overstatement or tabloid-esque sensationalism to this statement.The next few weeks, let alone months, will be crucial not only for the future of the sport, but to determine as to whether or not FI even has a future in the first place. It really is that serious.

So is all of this really about budget caps and 'two-tier'systems for FI ? Well, yes and no.The gripes that the teams have over the proposed plans for 2010 are based in simple sporting and financial considerations, but at the heart of this entire debate is the lay of the political land In Formula 1, and in particular who holds the balance of power.

Comparisons have of course been levelled to the FISA/FOCA war of the early 1980s. It was 42

a war that left us with, essentially, the Formula 1 we have today: a Formula 1 governed by the constitution we know as'The Concorde Agreement.'It prescribed the manner of governance in the sport and the method of financial distribution through commercial rights. It gave us, as leaders, Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley. It was, and it is, the single most important document in the recent history of Formula 1.

But times have changed. Formula 1 has changed. And while Concorde, which ran out in 2007, exists today on a type of roll-over arrangement until a new document can be agreed,the sport is being run to antiquated and out of-touch-provisions.

The FIA's recent proposal to impose a budget cap on 2010, and to allow a two-tier Formula

1, is the clearest sign yet that the governing body of global motorsport wants to take the power back.The manufacturers have collected too much power in the eyes of the FiA, and this is the body's most decisive move yet to regain control.The tail has wagged the dog for too long. No more, cries Max, no more.

But is this a dangerous move?

Unquestionably, yes. But does he care?

Arguably, he does not.The FIA recently commissioned Ricardo to look into the feasibility of a universal engine to be run across 11 different categories.There would be no room for other manufacturers to supply their own units to the specification outlined in the document, unlike the Cosworth concept for Formula 1. No,this is one engine to cover everything from F3 to FI, WRC to DTM and

motorsport news

everything in between. Such a concept, if ratified, would kill motorsport as we know it. By edging the manufacturers out, you are left with just independent teams.

It is a dangerous, and arguably foolhardy route to take.

Vijay Mallya, Force India FI's charismatic Team Principal, told me recently that 'Formula 1 is all about manufacturer teams as well as independent teams. If this was a pure manufacturers championship and the independent teams disappeared, I think Formula 1 would be hurt. I think it's a mix of both that keeps it as exciting as it is now."

The same works in reverse. If it was only a championship made up of independents, would it be as interesting? Surely the thrill of watching a Brawn or a Red Bull win a Grand Prix www.mnews.com.au

lies in the fact that, by doing so, is has beaten Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Renault.

But you can also see the FIA's point. Let us take Jenson Button as a prime example. Do people enjoy watching Jenson win because he is driving a Brawn, or because they like Jenson Button? Is it.not more the fact that for once, we are finally seeing what Jenson has been telling us he could do, if only he had a good enough car? And is that not the point of all this? That by regulating the sport to death, you effectively level the playing field and give everyone a fair crack at the whip?

Ahh, yes. But that's what GP2 is for... isn't it?

It's no shock that a number of GP2 teams have expressed an interest in the 2010-spec FI. The regulations as they stand give the smaller budget-capped teams a real chance to shine.

They'll have more freedom to design quick cars, more powerful KERS units and engines with no rev-cap.The opportunities being handed to the independent teams are at complete odds with those being handed to the manufacturers.

And so it has come to pass that first Toyota, then Red Bull, then Renault and via that interview BMW, before finally Ferrari are all now known to be considering, or to have stated, that they absolutely will not enter the 2010 championship under the current regulations.

Ferrari's statement was bold and utterly forthright in its tone.

"The same rules for all teams,stability of regulations, the continuity of the FOTA's endeavours to methodically and progressively reduce costs, and governance of Formula 1 are the priorities for the 43

future,''it read."If these indispensable principles are not respected and if the regulations adopted for 2010 will not change,then Ferrari does not intend to enter its cars in the next Formula 1 world championship."

This was, however. Round 2 of an ongoing fight between Ferrari and the FIA. Round 1 had gone to Mosley after he had stated that,"the sport could survive without Ferrari. It would be very sad to lose Ferrari. It is the Italian national team. But the cost cap is here to stay.

"I hope, and think, that when a team goes to its board and says,'I want to goto war with the FIA, because I want to be able to spend £100m more than the FIA want me to spend',the board will say'Why can't you spend £40m if the other teams can do it?" ^111

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The Players in the Biggest Game of All; From top, Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo Is also the Chairman of FOTA, and Renault's Flavio Briatore and BMW's Mario Theissen could both leave Formula 1. VijayMallya has no problems putting Force India's position to MN FI editor. Will Buxton. Ross Brawn and Patrick Head represent two of the independent teams.

Brawn CP and Williams FI. Max Mosley has the rulebook and Dietrich Mateschitz has the finance. Who will prevail?

Mosley makes a fine point, but Ferrari's decision to publically threaten to pull out of Formula 1 came following a meeting of its board. With Bernie Ecclestone having declared over the Spanish Grand Prix weekend that 'Ferrari is Formula l"we are ultimately left with the question of whether Formula 1 could exist without the team, as it has obviously now made up its mind that it could certainly exist without Formula 1?

We may not have to wait long for an answer.

As this edition of MNews went to press, a verdict over a legal challenge by Ferrari, to stop the FIA implementing its cap, was due to be known in Paris court, and the deadline for entries to the 2010 championship is May 29.

That's the week this magazine comes out.

Do we really think all of these issues will have been cleared up by then? Not a chance.

So as we have it, this is how things could play out.

May 29's deadline passes and Ferrari, BMW, Toyota, Red Bull,Toro Rosso, Renault and, potentially, McLaren have not entered their names for 2010.

From the existing FI outfits, only Force India, Williams and championship-leading BrawnGP are left. They are joined in Formula 1 in 2010 by Prodrive, Lola, USF1, iSport International, ART Grand Prix, Racing Engineering, Litespeed/MGI and either Penske, Ganassi or Andretti-Green Racing.

FOTA, meanwhile, short of the"three bastards", as Margaret Thatcher referred to three rebel MPs towards the end of her British Premiership, go off and form their own championship under their own regulations. A1GP has already been suggested as the perfect platform for them to utilise, with the teams pooling together to pay

J

off the series owner's debts.They take over its calendar to create a racing championship at the circuits, and most importantly countries, they wanted and needed to keep their sales figures up. It's a perfect fit.

The money would go wherever the manufacturers race. So too the drivers.The business to business opportunities created by a manufacturer-led championship are far and away the better option than those presented by a championship comprising teams that few people have heard of.

Look at IRL. Only three teams in IRL have the money to pay their drivers decent salaries.

You're running a series that has many similarites with the way that the FIA wants to take FI. Mandatory parts, one engine manufacturer, one tyre manufacturer and a championship that was the result of a divisive and painful civil war,the IRL is a shadow of the IndyCar of old. Champ Car failed to work alone,the IRL as it stood under division also failed to shine.

What exists today is a hodge-podge mess and doesn't work from either a sporting or commercial point of view. It's betterthan a split championship, but it's nowhere near perfect, is this the way FI is headed? Spec parts and a championship of teams whose names don't excite the same fervor as Ferrari and Mercedes?

It may be of no concern to Mosley and the FIA, but what about Bernie and CVC, who bought the commercial rights to FI with an almighty bank loan from RBSjust a few short years ago? CVC bosses were at the Spanish Grand Prix. And they looked worried. Very worried.They had every right to be so.

Bernie has promised new teams entering Formula 1 a US$10 million gift aid package to help them in their first years in the sport. He's expecting a maximum of three new teams on the 2010 grid. If the manufacturers stick to their guns, he may yet get seven. And those seven, when added to what he'd have left over from the 10 he's got in 2009, are not going to be the draw to the circuits.

And he's not going to have the drivers. Most of them, most of the good ones in FI anyway, are under contract to the manufacturers.

Bernie would be left with nothing to promote. Max Mosley would be left as the man who killed Formula 1 and would be ousted from office.

But maybe this is the only way for Formula 1 to ever change the manner in which it is governed. And maybe the manufacturers know

- ^

I

I

Lesson Learned? US open-wheeler racing was hurt, possibly forever, by the CART-IndyCar split in the 1990s. More than a decade later, will GP racing be able to survive if the same thing happens ?

motorsportnews

HISTORY may never repeat in some arenas but,in motor radng,it repeats,and repeats;,' and repeats.

Ferrari used to threaten to pull out of Formula 1, not often, but hardly infrequently, either. Take this example, which was one of the be^'(and almost-certainly, Enzo Ferrari's last).

By the mid-1980s, the turbo era was coming to its logicai conclusion, and the FIA was laying down new engine guidelines; to succeed the 1.5-litre rocketships. It chose^ . ' “ to have 3 .5-litre'normally aspiratedrm'.^brs from the start of T9'89;.aijidfropd^fehat all engines would be V8s.

Signore Ferrari did not like'this. He onde told driyef.Pa.ul Frere that “Aerodynamics are for.pepple who can't build engines",and wanted his cars to race with his beloved V12s in the coming formula. SO, he needed a bargaining-chip.

The result was the Ferrari 637.It was an IndyCar, designed by Gustav Brunner.The car featured an aluminium top on a carbon fibre base,like a March,and ■the-'034'V8 engine, which differed from, Gosworth's ubiquitous mbtorby having the exhausts exit from atop the cylinder heads.

But it, never raced.The car was passed on to Alfa Romeo, Which went racing in the CART series some years later as an engine supplier. but the 637 had served its purpose The FIA understood that Ferrari had an alternative to FI, and when the new; formula started in Brazil in 1989, Ferrari was , racing with a V12, again - and it won on debut Sadly, the-Old Man in the sunglasses-did 7^ - not live to seethat victory. Enzb Ferrari died ’ ' iri'AugUst1988.the racing team he founded ►§ did not pull out of Formula 1 - and at the -,3 time of- vvriting, despite all the threats and i,! harsh words, still has not...

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PHILBRANAGAN

N the end, the big controversy of the Winton weekend swirled around and, so far as the racing was concerned, did nothing.

Craig Lowndes won Race 5 on Saturday; he backed it up by winning Race 6 on Sunday, in between, TeamVodafone and the three teams runningTriple Eight Race Engineering customer cars modified their front ends, after it was pointed out that there was an issue with the items attaching the cars'front bars, in terms of controversy, it was a cracking yarn but, in terms of short-term performance, it was not a factor.

In fact, Jamie Whincup scored pole on Sunday - after his car was modified. So you could argue that the car was, in fact, better... i asked Lowndes if he felt any difference post-change.

"Not one thing," he said.

More notable was the introduction of the Dunlop's new SP'Sprint'tyre. In a rarity for any form of racing, it met the expectations of most almost exactly; it was about 2s a lap 46

quicker than the older, harder tyre, hung in there for about as long as the teams thought, then fell away.

More of a surprise was that drivers chose to start Saturday's 100km race on the yellow tyres, and more yet that they managed to last the whole race when they did so, even if they needed nursing over the final laps.

And, there was overtaking - lots of it. Right out of the pits, a yellow-shod Jack Perkins overtook the regular-tyred leaders, much to Lowndes's surprise; he said later that he was unsure whether the pass was for position. (C'mon Craig, when was the last time you raced Jack Perkins for position?)

At one stage in Race 6, Tim Slade was chasing down the leaders - until his grip disappeared and his lap times went out by 2s, then 3s, then 4s, then more. The other driver who moved through the pack late, Marcus Marshall, had a similar fate, but before he slowed, became the first V8 Supercar driver into the 22s, resetting Jason Bright's seven-year-old lap record in the process.

But after all the finger-pointing and hoo-ing and haa-ing, it was mostly the Big Three that were standing up. The Eights won; FPR scored two podiums; and Clayton scored one (with Garth Tander) and got its four VEs into the top eight on Sunday, showing that the team is, at its test track at least, pointing in the right direction, it was a Clayton refugee, Rick Kelly, who would have finished the weekend third overall, had the 2008 one-round system been

in place, and Michael Caruso showed that any assumption that he or GRM are going to be cameo players is probably awry when he solidly led Race 5. So too did Paul Dumbrell, who played the same role on Sunday. It would be fascination to see both 20somethings pick up where they left off next time.

Maybe, just maybe, Winton 2009 will go down as a line in the sand; the race where option tyres became an integral part of

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WINNERS

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CRAIG LOWNDES: The Velvet touch that has served him so well was never more evident than when he was looking after his soft tyres.

PAUL DUMBRELL: A bunch of Holden guys stood up and it was genuinely pleasing to see PD so high up among them.

RICK KELLY: Those black cars are starting to look pretty good. How long before RKorTK bag a podium?

V8SA and DUNLOP: The Sprint tyres did almost exactly what they were supposed to; a shaken-up race, lots of passing and things to watch. Kudos all around.

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MARCUS MARSHALL: Brighty's lap record was always in danger from a car with the Sprint tyre, and MM was the man who walked off with the smile after a high-22. Let's hope the number helps with some sponsors.

Win. Smile. Repeat: Craig Lowndes was the Class Act of the 'Fones at Winton, above.

Rick Kelly, left, showed that the blackmobiles are getting red, red, ready to win.

Garth Tander got clouted left and right, top, but recovered to finish third in Race 6.

Mark Winterbottom, middle, was on the podium in Race 5.

Paul Dumbrell, above, was in sparkling form,leading much of Race 6 until Lowndes recovered from a slowpitstop.

V8 Supercars,just as they have done in many other forms of the sport. Maybe,just maybe,the mists of time will cloud what else happened over the weekend, and we might just struggle to remember which controversy was which.

Motor racing does not suffer from the dramas that surround the sport; it experiences them. But most people tune in to watch the racing - and at Winton,they got value for their viewing dollar. www.mnews>com.au

UB 5UPERCRR51RRCE5 5-6. UJIHTOn. UlCTORIR Pos# 1 888 2 2 3 15 4 22 5 1 6 6 7 10 8 9 9 5 10 39 11 14 12 77 13 24 14 55 15 17 16 67 17 18 18 4 19 34 20 3 21 11 22 8 23 16 24 51 25 25 26111 27333 28 33 29 7 30021

Driver Craig Lowndes Garth Tander Rick Kelly Will Davison Jamie Whincup Steven Richards Paul Dumbrell

Team/Car TeamVodafone Falcon FG Toll HRTCommodore VE Jack Daniel's Commodore VE Toll HRT Commodore VE TeamVodafone Falcon FG FPR Falcon FG n Autobarn Commodore VE

Q1 3 2 11 22 4 10 16 27 1

Shane van Gisbergen Mark Winterbottom

SP Tools Racing Falcon FG FPR Falcon FG

Russell Ingall Cameron McConville Marcus Marshall

Supercheap Auto Commodore VE 14 12 WOW Commodore VE 20 Team Intaracing Falcon BF

David Reynolds Tony D'Alberto Steven Johnson Tim Slade

Bundaberg Red Commodore VE Bottle-0 Commodore VE

James Courtney Alex Davison Michael Caruso Jason Bargwanna Jack Perkins Jason Richards Dale Wood Greg Murphy Jason Bright Fabian Coulthard Michael Patrizi Lee Holdsworth Todd Kelly Dean Fiore

19 21 13

Jim Beam Racing Falcon FG Supercheap Auto Commodore VE 26 7 Jim Beam Racing Falcon FG 23 Irwin Racing Falcon FG 6 GRM Commodore VE

Sprint Gas Racing Commodore VE 29 18 Dodo Racing Commodore VE 15 Team BOC Commodore VE 28 Hi-TecOils Racing VE 24 Sprint Gas Commodore VE 17 Fujitsu Racing Falcon BF Wilson Security Racing Falcon FG Wilson Security Racing Falcon BF GRM Commodore VE Jack Daniel's Commodore VE Triple F Commodore VE

5 25 8 9 30

R5 1 8 4 7 2 3 16 6 25 9 5 17 20 11 12 18 DNF 21 10 26 19 13 24 22 14 15 DNF 23 DNF DNF

Q2 3 4 9 1 14 5 11 2 21 19 23 15 25 18 27 10 24 13 12 25 16 29 20 22 6 28 25 17 30

R6 1 3 7 4 13 16 4 12 2 11 23 9 14 21 17 6 15 27 10 19 26 18 20 DNF DNF 22 DNF 24 25

Championship points: Whincup 804, W Davison 690,Johnson 573, Holdsworth 534, R Kelly 531, Tander 504, Lowndes 501, van Gisbergen 453,J Richards 417, Coulthard 414,S Richards 399, Winterbottom 396, McConville 378, Courtney 374, Dumbrell 372, A Davison 354, Reynolds 342,

LOSERS

^

JAMIEWHINCUP: A marker of how good it has been over the last year, is that this was a bad weekend by his standards. Fifth!

LEE HOLDSWORTH: Showed speed, but no results.

Ouch.

AXLES: At least two went'bang'over the weekend. Not usually a thing that fails - a side effect of the gripper tyre?

SCAR: Engines blowing and engineers being moved about are not good signs.The good news is that Sladey look better, but there is much work to do.

TEAM KIWI FANS: TheTKR program went from promising to embarrassing in not a long period of time. We hope someone else picks up the Silver Fern and runs with it.

Ingall 332, Bright 297, Caruso 291, Murphy 264, D'Alberto 258,T Kelly 252, Wood 243, Patrizi 216,.

47

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But then, his pit window opened, PEED is good. We like speed.Speed wins races.

Whincup pitted and resumed on clear track, and he was racing the But by itself, speed is not clock. enough. It is like the pie without the sauce.To make the And he pitted when he did because he could - because of fuel most of speed, you need strategy consumption. He pitted five laps (speed is no good if you get stuck behind someone slower). You earlier than James Courtney, and seven ahead of Steven Johnson. need durability (if you are the fastest guy on the track for 20 laps, The reason the Beam Team did not and your car blows up on the 21 st, 'cover'Whincup - in other words, pit right after he did to stay ahead you look like a dill). And you need mileage. Leading to the chequered - was because their cars did not have the fuel efficiency required to flag is the ideal; running out of make it possible. fuel within sight of it is just plain So,the pit cycle finished and embarrassing.

JDub romped home, again,to a Jamie Whincup was the fastest man in Hamilton. He took out double. Courtney and Johnson both races and maintained his were second and third, and Stevie unblemished record, but it was not J summed it up best; "We've got to work just a little bit just speed that did the trick. harder on our fuel economy," he It did on Saturday in Race 3, shrugged. allowing him to zoom around, "Jamie's car was fast but it also pretty much as he liked, at the front of the pack. But come Sunday, had good fuel economy. So if that's what beat us at the end of he only got to show the speed because of his fuel consumption. the day, then we are not that far away."

With his final run in Sunday's That was telling, but not quite as new 20 minute gunfight shootout wasted,thanks to a red-flag, he telling as the fact that, with local ace Fabian Couithard fifth, there started on the second row, and were fourTriple Eight-built cars in was stuck in fourth place as the race unfolded - with all the speed the top five positions.

Which is Just as well, as Craig in the world, but no way of using it.

48

Lowndes had a terrible weekend, with car damage in both races.

"I can only blame myself forthe shortcomings and I will be looking to make amends at the next event in two weeks'time," he said, somewhat prophetically.

The new Sunday qualifying session started awkwardly, with the session cut short by the red flag. Whirucup complained the most, which was fairly predictable because, although he was fourth, he lost a definite pole lap with the flag coming out forTim Slade's crash.

It also left his challengers Will Davison and Garth Tander well back, and prompted V8 Supercars to make a rule change to prevent the premature end of the session unlikely to happen again.

Lee Holdsworth was again the best of the General's Army, backing up a third on Saturday with a fourth on Sunday,to be 'runner-up'. As he had done at Hamilton in 2008, Micha'el Caruso showed that there is more talent at GRM than just in car #33 with another solid weekend.

But with 600 points, Whincup left New Zealand in an awfully positive frame of mind ...

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Driver Jamie Whincup Lee Holdsworth Steven Johnson Fabian Coulthard Will Davison James Courtney Alex Davison Garth Tander Rick Kelly Shane Van Gisbergen David Reynolds Steven Richards Michael Patrizi Michael Caruso Jason Richards Mark Winterbottom Todd Kelly Cameron McConville Jack Perkins Greg Murphy Dale Wood Jason Bright Paul Dumbrell Tony D'Alberto Dean Fiore Russell Ingall Craig Lowndes Marcus Marshall Jason Bargwanna Tim Slade

Team/Car Team Vodafone Falcon FG GRM Commodore VE Jim Beam Racing Falcon FG Wilson Security Falcon FG Toll HRT Commodore VE Jim Beam Racing Falcon FG Irwin Racing Falcon FG Toll HRT Commodore VE Jack Daniel's Commodore VE SP Tools Racing Falcon FG Bunderberg Commodore VE FPR Falcon FG Wilson Security Falcon BF GRM Commodore VE Team BOC Commodore VE FPR Falcon FG Jack Daniel's Commodore VE WOW Racing Commodore VE Dodo Commodore VE Sprint Gas Commodore VE Hi-Tec Oils Commodore VE Fujitsu Racing Falcon BF Autobarn Commodore VE Bottle-0 Commodore VE TKR Commodore VE Supercheap AutoVE Team Vodafone Falcon FG Team Intaracing Falcon BF Sprint Gas Commodore VE Supercheap Commodore VE

Q3 R3 1 1 9 3 4 5 6 21 12 4 8 13 16 9 5 11 6 7 11 17 23 12 22 15 26 16 10 25 20 10 2 2 7 8 27 15 19 13 17 DNF 29 22 19 21 14 18 EXC 20 28 DNF 18 23 3 24 15 DNF 24 DNF 25 DNF

Q4 4 6 1 9 20 2 21 19 13 7 22 3 25 5 18 10 17 28 24

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U8 5UPERCRR51 CHRmPIDRSHIP POIHTS Points: Whincup 600, Holdsworth 498,W. Davison 483,Johnson 462, Coulthard 354, J. Richards 324, R. Kelly 315,Tander 285,Van Gisbergen 282, Courtney 272, A. Davison 252, Bright 234, McConville 231,Winterbottom 228,T. Kelly 219, S. Richards 213, Reynolds 207, Lowndes 201, Dumbrell 195,Caruso 189, Murphy 180, Patrizi 177, Ingall 176, Wood 159, Fiore 153, D'Alberto 123.

WINNERS JAMIE WHINCUP: Fast. Slow,slow,fast Win, collect trophy, smile. Repeat.

TRIPLE EIGHT RACE ENGINEERING: They called the right strategy - but only because their fuel consumption aliowed them to do so.

LEE HOLDSWORTH: More'street' points for the General.

GRM: Two rounds in, and the Rogers drivers lead the Stones and the FPRs in the team's race. Anyone see that coming?

JIM BEAM RACING: Honestly,the pole was pretty flukey, considering that Whincup was about to complete a much faster lap. But otherwise,they team looked really racey.

WILL DAVISON: Qualified badly but kept calm to bag a bunch of points.

MICHAEL PATRIZI: Thirteenth may not look that brilliant, but it was a good result for a weekend's toil.

losIrs ^ What did you get? Jamie Whincup got two wins and 300 points:Steven Johnson got a pole position and third overall:Holdsworth got second: and Jason Richards gotsome serious air under the BOC Commodore. ●ri.--

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CRAIG LOWNDES: In the old days,this would have been the worst round to drop from the points. An ordinary outing for the Kilcoy Kid. SPRINT GAS RACING: Bad results from what could have been a good weekend otherwise.

JASON BRIGHT: It's too early to sound alarm bells, and the SBR FG may make a big difference when it arrives at Darwin. But this weekend, Brighty looked light years away from the HRT and FPR days.

TIM SLADE: First year driver, making too many errors, trying to do too much, too soon. Some ingall & Morris mentoring might just work wonders.

49

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ir raci illit ii nav«/ ofFiciallij Damian Ai V8 Superi w^^inner. o what now? ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN spoUe nslancfer to tfli

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FTER a turbulent first couple of seasons in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series, Queensland young gun Damian Assaillit has finally got his ducks in a row - and boy, is it paying off.

After debuting in an AU Falcon at the tender age of 17 in 2007, Assaillit spent the first couple of seasons jumping from struggling team to struggling team. It wasn't until late last year that he joined Matthew White's MW Motorsport squad, immediately scoring his best result to that point; seventh at Bathurst.

In 2009, things are better again. Assaillit has an ex-FPR Falcon at his disposal, and laid his cards well and truly on the table at Winton when he stormed into the Race 1 lead and ran away to his first V8 Supercar win.

"As you say, it's starting to line up as it needs to," he says.

"I can just get in and do the job I know I can do, without having to think about the team and the car, because I know they're all sorted

the way they should be.

"The first two years of my Fujitsu Series campaign were a bit up and down. I swapped teams in both years, so it's good to have some continuity. And this is the best equipment I've had, hands down. Every time I get in the car, it does what I need it to do, so it makes my life easy. I can get out there and drive, and enjoy it a lot more."

While he couldn't go on and win the Winton round, he did finish fifth - another personal best - and in the process learnt a few things about racing, and more importantly, winning.

"It was good experience. When you are in a category and you lead for the first time, it's a bit like 'wow, I'm finally doing it.' But I knew the car was good, so I just got into it. I had good support on the radio; the guys were telling me to keep pushing on, and not to do anything stupid.

"It was a rr.atter of not getting overwhelmed and keeping my rhythm up, hitting my braking

markers and getting the gear changes right; those sort of things. I didn't feel like I was going to make a mistake, but when the team were counting it down, it was good to see the chequered flag."

Assaillit's path from karting toV8 Supercar win has been fairly focussed on Touring Cars. In fact, since leaving karts, the only single-seater racing he has done was a season of Formula Challenge in New Zealand.

"At the time, the karting nationals were going to be held in Perth, so we were tossing up whether to do that or move on, because the cost aspect of doing that was pretty big," reasons Assaillit.

"The New Zealand option came up, and I was just 15, so I was too young to get a license here in Australia. I went over there and got some good experience at a young age. [Then] I drove an EF Falcon Supercar in Queensland Sports Sedans for a couple of races during my Year 12 school year, and then it was straight into the

I

Get used to this face:Assaimt,right, has already made a mam series debut ofsorts, driving Jason Bright's Falcon in the co-driver session at Winton,above.

Fujitsu Series [in 2007]."

But while it has been almost solely V8 Supercars in Assaillit's career so far, he doesn't discount a stint overseas. Oh,and Bathurst is on the radar too - sooner rather than later.

"Hopefully I can get a Bathurst drive this year; that'll be the next step forward in my career. V8s has always been the goal, but in the current climate, it's hard to know whether that will work out. I might explore other options overseas. I'm still quite young,so there is still that opportunity."

One good reason for Assaillit to concentrate on his career in Australia is an excellent working relationship with Jason Bright.

Assiallit's FV8 entry mimics the green and black hues of Bright's car, and the youngster was invited by his mentor to drive the Britek Falcon in the co-driver session at Winton recently.

"That[relationship] started at the end of 2007.

eamaE

I had a strong run at Oran Park, when I was still 17 and I finished fifth in the wet. i think that made a few people stand up and look at what I was doing.We worked on it from there.

"Jason's been a great help over the last few years. He wants to help me where he can and progress my career, and he's a great guy to work with and really knows what he's talking about. It's a great confidence boost that somebody like that is supporting me.

"The session at Winton was another step, to get out there and have my first official main series session. We never planned for me to do a whole lot of laps, I only did six, but I don't

think I did too bad. Obviously it was a car that I'd never driven before,so i just did some laps to get used to it then I started to push on a bit.

A few more laps and I could have gone a whole lot quicker. But so far, so good."

So far, so good indeed,and two rounds in the season, Assaillit is ninth in the standings.Just a couple of hundred points shy of leader Dave Russell.The question is, can he win the thing? "i'm driving as good as I ever have. I've learnt a lot; I'm in my third year and I've got the team and the car I need to get out and win races. I think there will be a lot more of that happening this year... hopefully."

IT WAS A GOOD EXPERIENCE. ITS A BIT LIKE WOW,I’M FINALLY DOING IT.’

-DAMIAN ASSAILLIT ON LEADING HIS FIRST VS RACE

Firsts,thirds and fourths

There was some odd mathematics at play for the second Fujitsu Series round at Winton,but when you show the working,its clear we have quite a season on our hands. By ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN

T

HE second round of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series at Winton Motor Raceway was a weekend of firsts.

The first, well, first of the weekend was Taz Douglas topping a session in a V8 Supercar.

Sure it was only the second practice session, sure he was on green boots, and sure it didn't translate into a podium weekend, but it was a heart-warming result for a small, privateer team running absolutely no sponsorship.

The next first came in qualifying, where eventual round winner Jonathon Webb took his first pole position in a V8 Supercar.

Shane Price was actually the fastest driver In qualifying, but his Jay Motorsport Commodore was found to have an irregularity in its engine timing, causing Price to be dropped from the results. As a result, Webb was gifted his first pole.

Race 1 provided the third first of the weekend. Damian Assaillit seemingly came from nowhere to barge past Webb,and then early leader James Moffat. Once in front he bolted, taking his maiden V8 Supercar win.

There was another first in that race too; Sam Walter shadowed Assaillit to second place, the first time the likeableTasmanian has finished on the podium in the Fujitsu Series.

First number five came in the final race, when Grant Denyer made the start to end all starts and vaulted into the lead heading into Turn 1. It was a lead he would never relinquish, despite race-long pressure from series leader Dave Russell. And there's no doubt Russell was pushing hard; as the winner of Race 2, had he past Denyer, he would have won the round

52

Instead of Webb.While Denyer has won Fujitsu Series races before, it has always been during a reverse-top 10 grid race, the Winton win being his first in a'conventional'race.

Thanks to all the firsts, there was an anomaly that saw three different race winners, and a separate round winner. Webb actually never even finished second at Winton, using two thirds and a fourth to take rpund honours.

But the real winner, despite not actually getting the big trophy at the end of the weekend, was Russell. He qualified badly (eighth), but didn't drop his bundle, and was

back on top by Race 2. Leading from the front in Adelaide was great, but championships are won on consistency, and that's exactly what Russell proved to be at WInton.

Meanwhile, Russell's Adelaide rival Moffat had a shocker at Winton. He was hardly slow - quite the opposite - but a clutch problem In Race 1 was his undoing.The problem was one that compounded as the race wore on, dropping the Victorian into the pack. He was then struck by an ambitious Daniel Gaunt at Turn 1 late In the race, totally derailing Moffat's weekend.

FUJITSU UB 5UPERCRR SERES I Rd 5 UlinTOn Pos # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

26 27 777 28 29 42 20 60 47 74 92 36 19 999 35 222 38 49 50

Driver

Team/Car

Q

R1

R2

R3

Jonathon Webb David Russell Grant Denyer Brad towe Damian Assaillit Shane Price Bryce Washington Drew Russell Sam Walter Mark McNally Taz Douglas Geoff Emery David Sieders James Moffat Tony Bates LeanneTander Ben Eggleston Ben McCashney Daniel Gaunt

1 Gulf Western Oil Falcon BE 8 Howard Racing Falcon BF 12 Crimsafe Falcon BF 3 Haines Bros Falcon BF 4 Fujitsu Racing Falcon BA EXC Jay Motorsport Commodore VZ 11 Harrop Engineer Falcon BF 14 Race Image Motorsport Falcon BF 5 AWL Motorsport Commodore VZ 9 West Coast Racing Commodore VZ 7 Douglas Trucking Commodore VZ 6 NDD Commodore VZ 13 All Trans Trucks Falcon BF 2 Sonic Motor Racing Falcon BF Alternative Freight Services Commodore VZ 15 16 Wilson Security Falcon BF 18 Eggleston Motorsport Commodore VZ 17 Steel Blue/Playstation Falcon BA 10 The Mad Butcher Falcon BF

4 9 5 3 1 8 10 7 2 14 6 16 11 DNF 12 15 DNF 13 17

3 1 6 9 17 2 4 5 13 7 14 10 15 8 16 18 11 DNF 12

3 2 1 4 5 9 6 12 17 10 11 8 14 7 18 16 13 15 DNF

Points; David Russell 536,Webb 510,Price 421, Denyer 410, Moffat 403,Walter 373, Douglas 344, Lowe 312, Assaillit 300, Gaunt 298,Emery 297, Drew Russell 295, Eggleston 236.

motorsport news

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The opposition was hoping to catch the Brawns in Spain. ButJenson Button and Rubens Barrichello were only racing each other. By WILL BUXTON

T

HE 2009 Spanish GP will go down as a race of errors.

Jenson Button took pole with a scintiliating lap - but he was beaten away from the start

by Rubens Barrichello. Rubens had a bad stint on a set of option tyres - and that allowed Button to take the lead, and the win. Sebastien Vettel should have been third, but got trapped behind Felipe Massa's Ferrari. Red Bull failed to change his strategy, but they did with IVlark Webber, which allowed him tojump past both those drivers. and into third. And Ferrari failed to get enough of Shell's finest brews into Massa's car,forcing him to cruise the final four laps.The team compounded the problem by not getting him to save fuel early enough, prompting Felipe to cede not one but two places.

That tells some, but not all, of the story of the race. On a revised two stop plan. Button drove superbly: on a three-stopper, Barrichello was a bit off. Later, the Brazilian was grumbly about team orders, probably because of nightmare races he had in Ferrari red, but after looking at how the race unfounded,accepted what had happened. Ross Brawn made soothing noises about a driver being hungry,and everyone got on with planning for Monaco.

Webber's long-second-stint strategy was only possible because he had earlier dived down the inside of Fernando Alonso, after the Renault's KERS system had blasted him past the sitting Bull on the interminable straight. Had Webber not been free to race the clock after pulling off one of the overtaking moves of the year - against one of the hardest men in the sport - he doubtless would have suffered the same fate at his team-mate.

Massa did a greatJob, never making a mistake and evoking memories of Gilies Vifleneuve,

keeping a faster car at bay in Spain with a slower, red one. He deserves better but the signs are that Ferrari is gaining ground,the 2008 vicechampion qualifying fourth.

But there were dramas elsewhere.

Kimi Raikkonen did a good but not great lap in qualifying and. keen the save his tyres, passed on making a second run in Ql.The result was that he did not advance from the session, but neither did his countryman Heikki Kovalainen, who was hampered on his fast lap by a wandering Adrian Sutil. So the teams that fought out 2008 had one car each at the slow end of the grid.

But the telling thing was that. if anything,the Brawns and the Bulls cemented their places as the best cars in the field.The promised fightback packages appeared on the other cars, but the new breed had some tweaks of their own.The old days,of the Reds and the Silvers flogging parts to oblivion in multiple test sessions, and putting upstarts in their places after flyaway races. are in the past.

The new world order survived the first assault by the axis powers. Button left Spain with 91 percent strike rate in points;such numbers are unprecedented,and rarely sustainable.The empires wi strike back but by the time they do,the Brawns and the Bulls may ? well have their positions locked j away,and out of reach.

FORmULHI

WINNERS^ JENSON BUTTON: There may have been the odd grumble from his team-mate but the numbers stack up:41 out of 45 points in five races = Number 1 driver.The End. MARK WEBBER: The strategy heiped. But the race wouid have been spoiied had he not got past Aionso in the best move of the season.

Hard Ball; Webber and Alonso were neckand-neck, above, but Webber got down the inside and got his car stopped to take fifth place(and later, third). It was a bad day for the Toros, below, both Sebs out ofthe race on lap 1.

FERNANDO ALONSO: '"Nando, you are not going to believe this; they didn't put enough fuel in Massa's car! Push!

It

NICO ROSBERG: If there \was a'Practice Worid Championship'he wouid be leading it-bymi!es.

LOSERS

^

RUBENS BARRICHELLO: it was not a conspiracy, or favouritism, or kismet that lost the race. Rubens was just not fast enough on one set of tyres.

FERRARI: The car went better but the refueiing system sucked.

FORmULR 11 Round B BRRCELOnR, BPRIH Driver Jenson Button Rubens Barrichello Mark Webber Sebastian Vettel Fernando Alonso Felipe Massa Nick Heidfeld

We are out ofPrance: Massa led Vettel in a battle of two cars on identicalstrategies except that RBR put enough fuel in VetteTs car to let him race it to the flag. Massa dropped two places late in the race to take sixth - his first points ofthe season. www.mnews.com.au

Ret 11 Ret 20

Nico Rosberg Lewis Hamilton Timo Glock Robert Kubica Nelson Piquet Kazuki Nakajima Giancarlo Fisichella Kimi Raikkonen Heikki Kovalainen JarnoTrulli Sebastien Buemi Sebastien Bourdais Adrian Sutil

Team Brawn-Mercedes Brawn-Mercedes RBR-Renault RBR-Renault Renault Ferrari BMWSauber Williams-Toyota McLaren-Mercedes Toyota BMW Sauber Renault Williams-Toyota Force India-Mercedes Ferrari McLaren-Mercedes Toyota STR-Ferrari STR-Ferrari Force India-Mercedes

Time Grid Laps 66 1:37:19.202 1 66 -M3.0S 3 66 +13.9S 5 66 -M8.9s 2 66 -^43.1s 8 66 -^50.8s 4 66 +52.3S 13 66 +65.2S 9 65 +1 Lap 14 6 65 +1 Lap 65 +1 Lap 10 65 +1 Lap 12 65 -1-1 Lap 11 65 -n Lap 20 17 Hydraulics 16 7 Gearbox 18 0 Accident 7 0 Accident 15 0 Accident 17 0 Accident 19

FORmULR 1 UJQRLD CHRUlPIOnSHIP Drivers'Points; Button 41, Barrichello 27, Vettel 23, Webber 15.5,Trulli 14.5, Glock 12, Hamilton 9, Alonso 9, Heidfeld 6, Rosberg 4.5, Kovalainen 4, Raikkonen/Massa/Buemi 3, Bourdais 1.

Manufacturers: Brawn 68, Red Bull 38.5,Toyota 26.5, McLaren 13, Renault 9, BMW Sauber/ Ferrari 6, Williams-Toyota 4.5,Toro Rosso 4.

SCUDERIATORO ROSSO: Life is so much easier when the drivers don't run into each other. On iap 1.

FINNISH FI FANS: Both Scandinavians were out in Q1 on Saturday, and DNFed in the race. Ouch!

MCLAREN MERCEDES: The new bits on the car were supposed to make it better, not worse.

RENAULT: For once, we sympathise with Piquet. He admitted after the race that his R29 did not have the updates that Aionso had on his. In this day and age, why? ...and BRUNDLEANDCO: Generaiiy, the BBC's lads do a pretty good job reading the races. When Button switched strategy, you might have thought that they wouid notice that Webber did too? No...

55

FORmULH1 Rouno H - BRHRRin

A Jenson Button saw his chance,took it and won his third GP ofthe season.And Red Buii and Toyota were,again,the closest challengers. By WILL BUXTON

s

OMETIIViES, motor races come down to one

Glock and Jarno Trulli led the race, but they were not to challenge for winning move. the win.The Toyota suits played The 2009 Bahrain Grand too conservative a strategy, and Prix did. But the move was unusual, Button's soft tyres allowed him to as it was not between two drivers take the advantage in the middle who were in contention to win of the race.

Sebastian Vettel would be the the race. Jenson Button was, assuredly, but World Champion only challenger, and he lost touch Lewis Hamilton needed divine while bottled up behind Hamilton. intervention to have any hope.

The strategies played out and the Brit had his third win in four races.

He knew that. Button knew that, But this one was different.The everyone knew that. consensus was that the Red Bull, But that did not stop the move not the Brawn, was the fastest car being important. Hamiiton had in the field and, while Button made made a lightning start and, aided by his McLaren's KERS, resisted JB light of it by saying that he was until the start of lap 2. Hamilton anxious to get aero updates on his looked to have sufficient space but 'ageing'car. Whatever the case, he rose to the occasion and it is clear Button slid into the gap,somehow LO that if these are the two teams that got his Brawn stopped and scampered away to safety. will determine the championship, I'He is very difficult to overtake, it will be Button and Vettel doing that determination, not Rubens ^ but on the first lap he made a few mistakes I dived down the inside Barrichello and Mark Webber. and on the straight I thought i The Brazilian had a tough race, a could get alongside him," Button three-stop strategy not working said. for him, while Webber's weekend 'I did but he pushed his [KERS] was ruined when he was chopped button and got ahead, but I got up by a careless Adrian Sutil -255 him into first corner.That move in Q1,costing him any chance made the race for us.' of advancing.The German was It sure did.TheToyotas ofTimo penalised for his indiscretion, but

fez,"

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that hardly mattered to someone who is almost always starting with nobody behind him.

With the Brawns,the Bulls and Toyota on top of FI's new order, Hamilton did well to bring his car home fourth, while Kimi Raikkonen ended Ferrari's drought with sixth. Even that was not without its luck that, as Kimi's rear tyre made contact with Felipe Massa's wing on the opening lap, prompting the Brazilian to stop for a new nose. Luckily, Raikkonen escaped undamaged,and while he led briefly during the pit cycle, he was never a podium contender.

Remarkably,the other team friendly-firing into each other at the start was BMW.Sauber. Both Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica made it into Q2,aided by Webber's ill-luck, but after early stops. nothing of note happened.

Likewise, Renault struggled.

Fernando Alonso salvaging a point but showing a second a lap deficit to Button in a Safety Car-free race.

That tends to place team boss Flavio Briatore's pronouncement that the team was the third-best on the grid in the context of 'hopeful'rather than 'realistic'.

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DENSO -OVOTA

WINNERS JENSON BUTTON: There was one chance, and he grabbed it perfectly. Ross on the other end of the phone did.^ the rest. It was Schumi-like, but' without all the controversy.

LEWIS HAMILTON: Made the best of, and scored points in, a still pretty bad car.

iiniiiecs’tiii

TOYOTA: Pole and second proved they have a fast car. Now, they need racey strategy to cash it in.

I

1

Life on Mars? No, it is 2009, and Barrichello and Truili, above, fought for a podium spot for Brawn and Toyota. Meanwhile, Kubica's BMW and Massa's Ferrari fought over last, left, and Alonso salvaged eighth, below.

I

SEBASTIAN VETTEL: Not the emotional win like in China, but a solid performance.

If not for that Albert Park silliness, he would have been right on Button's heels in the points.

LOSERS

^

FERRARI: it might sound harsh to brand breaking a scoring duck as a Losing move. But when was the last time the Tifosi celebrated a sixth place?

MARK WEBBER: The Good News is that the team will, probably, never gamble like that again.

BMW SAUBER: This was supposed to be the year they challenge for the title.

FORmULH 11 Round H BRHRHin Pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Ret

Don't get excited, it's only third: But this pass, left, allowed Button to get past Hamilton and establish a winning strategy. He is getting quite good at celebrating.... www.mnews.com.au

# 22 15 9 1 23 4 10 7 16 8 14 2 11 3 21 20 12 5 6 17

Driver Jenson Button Sebastian Vettel JarnoTrulli Lewis Hamilton Rubens Barrichello Kimi Raikkonen TimoGlock Fernando Alonso

Team Brawn-Mercedes RBR-Renault Toyota McLaren-Mercedes Brawn-Mercedes Ferrari

Nico Rosberg Nelson Piquet Mark Webber Heikki Kovalainen Sebastien Bourdais Felipe Massa Giancarlo Fisichella Adrian Sutil Sebastien Buemi Robert Kubica Nick Heidfeid

Williams-Toyota Renault RBR-Renault McLaren-Mercedes STR-Ferrari Ferrari Force India-Mercedes Force India-Mercedes STR-Ferrari BMWSauber BMWSauber

Kazuki Nakajima

Williams-Toyota

Toyota Renauit

Laps Time Grid 57 1:31:48.182 4 57 +7.1 s 3 57 +9.1 s 1 57 +22.0S 5 57 +37.7S 6 57 +42.0S 10 57 +42.8S 2 57 +52.7S 7 57 +58.1 s 9 57 +l:05.1s 15 57 +1:07.6s 18 57 +l:17.8s 11 57 +1:18.8s 20 56 56 56 56 56 56 48

+1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap Oil pressure

FORmULH 1 UJORLD CHRmPIORSHIP Drivers'Points: Button 31, Barrichello 19, Vettel 18, Truili 14.5, Glock 12, Webber 9.5, Hamilton 9, Alonso 5, Heidfeld/Kovalainen 4, Rosberg 3,5, Raikkonen/Buemi 3, Bourdais 1, Manufacturers: Brawn 50, Red Bull 27.5,Toyota 26,5, McLaren 13, Renault 5, BMWSauber/ Toro Rosso 4, Williams-Toyota 3.5, Ferrari 3,

17 19 16 13 14 12

NELSON PIQUET: Actually, there is good news. At least it will be over soon.

KAZUKI NAKAJIMA: Bad News is coming. And his name is Kamui Kobayashi ...andTHE BAHRAIN INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT: To this point, the concept of conducting a Formula 1 Grand Prix in the Middle East has been defined by the BIC. So any suggestion that the track lacks character and is featureless has been overridden by the fact that this is how it is.

Next time FI visits the BIC, it will be after the Yas Marina track in Abu Dhabi rewrites the rules.

And the BiC will look like a dull, boring, sandy track. Which it is.

57

Chinese Water Torcher Sebastien Vettel scored his second GP win,and Red Bull Its first,and first 1-2 in China. By WILL BUXTON

I

T all came down to the final seconds of qualifying.

Mark Webber slashed across the line to take pole in Q3 but that was not the story of the session. In part, it was about the Chinese Grand Prix being the third race of the season and,as he had done in Melbourne, it was Sebastian Vettel's turn to have the iast word,and the iast lap of the Red Bull drivers. He immediately topped Webber for pole, who shortly thereafter was demoted to third by an almost fuel-less Fernando Alonso, and that would be the telling factor for the race, it was also about Vettel nursing his car through qualifying, a problem with a driveshaft boot making the team wary of doing 58

anything other than the absolute minimum mileage. One lap in each session was all he had (and, it turned out, all he needed), and whether either Bull would have survived a dry race is, and will remain, an unknown.

Because, it rained.Those words do not adequately describe the levei of water that plummeted from the colourless Shanghai sky, in much the same way as saying that Scarlett Johansson is'pretty'is probably not quite sufficient.The field started behind the Safety Car, but when that chugged off the sodden track after eight circuits, Vettel immediately became a blue speck in a ball of spray.

His only drama was that an unsighted Sebastien Buemi ran

into him on the back straight while out-of-sequence. Buemi was forced to pit, but Vettel carried on as if nothing had happened.

Webber, whose Red Bull was carted out of second place and a possible win in Japan in 2007- by Vettel'sToro Rosso - must wonder whether there is such a thing as Karma.

That was that.The Bulls used their tyres well, better than the Brawns used theirs. Webber had a brief fight with Jenson Button, both men falling off the road in a fight that ended when an all-costs Webber move at Turn 7 - around the outside,through a stream convinced JB that the Australian was not to be messed with this day, and that six points for third

was an apt reward..

Rubens Barrichello was fourth, and McLaren made it three pairs of cars in the top six. After completing no laps in the previous two races, Heikki Kovalainen completed all of them here, and topped Lewis Hamilton in a messy race for both drivers.The World Champion was off the road four times, but under the circumstances, and after the fortnight that the team endured, it was at least some reward.

Again, no points for Ferrari.

Felipe Massa looked better than he had done in the rain in the past, duking it out with Hamilton in the KERS-less F60 until stopped by old-fashioned water in the electrics. Kimi Raikkonen was

motorsportnews

FORdlULfl 1 FORmULR 11 Round 3 SHARGHRI Pos # 15 2 14 3 22 4 23 5 2 6 1 7 10 8 12 9 7 10 4 11 11 12 6 13 5 14 21 15 16 16 8 17 20 Ret 17 Ret 3 Ret 9

Driver Sebastian Vettel Mark Webber Jenson Button Rubens Barrichello Heikki Kovalainen Lewis Hamiiton Timo Giock Sebastien Buemi Fernando Aionso Kimi Raikkonen Sebastien Bourdais Nick Heidfeid Robert Kubica Giancario Fisichelia Nico Rosberg Neison Piquet Adrian Sutii Kazuki Nakajima Feiipe Massa JarnoTruiii

Team Laps Time Grid RBR-Renauit 56 1:57:43.485 1 RBR-Renauit 56 +10.9S 3 56 Brawn-Mercedes +44.9S 5 Brawn-Mercedes 56 +1m03.7s 4 McLaren-Mercedes 56 +lm05.1s 12 McLaren-Mercedes 56 -H ml 1.8s 9 56 +lm14.4s 19 Toyota STR-Ferrari 56 -H ml 6.4s 10 Renauit 56 +1 m24.3s 2 Ferrari 56 +lm31.7s 8 STR-Ferrari 56 +lm34.1s 15 BMW Sauber 56 -l-1m35.8s 11 BMW Sauber 56 -i-lm56.8s 17 Force india-Mercedes 55 +1 iap 20 55 Wiiiiams-Toyota +1 iap 7 Renauit 53 +2iaps 16 Force india-Mercedes 50 Accident 18 43 Transmission 14 Wiiiiams-Toyota Ferrari 20 Eiectricai 13 18 Accident 6 Toyota

FORfnULR 1 UJORLD CHRmPIDRSHIP Drivers'Points: Button 21, Barrichello 15, Vettel/Glock 10, Webber 9.5 Trulli 8.5, Heidfeid/ Alonso/Kovaiainen/Hamilton 4.

Constructors'Points: Brawn 36, Red Bull 19,5,Toyota 18.5, McLaren-Mercedes 8, BMW Sauber/Renauit/Toro Rosso 4,Wiiiiams-Toyota 3.5,

WINNERS/7

/

ADRIAN NEWEY: KERS? Nah. Split diffuser?

Witchcraft! Just a welldesigned,elegant,fast car.

SEBASTIEN VETTEL: We saw something like this, in Portugal, 24 years ago. Only, it was a black Lotus back then ...

MARK WEBBER: Maybe the ball-and-stick loving general media back home may rate him now.

JENSON BUTTON: Sometimes,the races you don't win are the ones that decide championships.

SEBASTIEN BUEMI: The goofy-looking kid with the even goofier address is making some of his more experienced rivals look... goofy.

FELIPE MASSA: Until the electrics went Italian on him, he looked like a man on a mission.

LOSERS ^ Red, Red wine: Sebastien Vettei and Mark Webber celebrated the team's first win, and a 7-2,in style, above.Jenson Button,right, did not have the tyre speed and settled for third, while Lewis Hamilton stopped spinning offthe road long enough to take sixth place, right below.

10th, complaining of an engine problem from the start. In the context of the Reds'worst start to a season in almost two decades, they were probably better served

by Massa's semi-competitive showing and DNF. Special mention needs to go to Robert Kubica, who failed to make it out ofQ3 and looked over his head in the biblical conditions, only two races after he threatened to win at Albert Park, in the other direction, the Battle of the Sebastiens at Toro Rosso went Buemi's way, again,the rookie notching eighth and,the clang with Vettel apart, looking secure and at home on the diabolical surface. On the other hand, Bourdais looked out of his depth.

www.ninews.com.au

FERRARI: Oh, no. More crap, no points.

ROBERT KUBICA: Third in Melbourne would have been a good start. After this, a similar result looks totally out of reach.

NELSON PIQUET: Maybe Flavio Briatore's ongoing bluster will distract the press from noticing an important fact -that he hired PK2.

ONE HD Here's the deal; let's have less house ads interrupting the racing. We will all watch the damn Netball. Promise. ...andTHEFIA: None of the bells and whistles work. KERS was not a factor in the opening three races, the diffuser matter was a mess and the McLaren/Hamilton/Ryan thing an unnecessary side street.The racing is great at the moment,so let's just watch that.

59

One small stepfor manuf; As the World Rally Championship stares down the barrel ofa new era oftechnology,it's worth looking back at where,and why,the current WRC regulations started.ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN reports

T

HE future of the technical regulations for the World Rally Championship are hardly set in stone, but one thing that looks to be sure and certain is that the current WRC specification is on its last legs.

At the end of the day,two manufacturers doesn't look great, even with the current global financial crisis. It is made to look even worse when the series' competitor - the Intercontinental Rally Challenge - has the lion's share of the manufacturer's rally involvement.That's a real sore point for the WRC,and it points to the fact that the cars are just too expensive.

The ironic thing is, back in 1997,the WRC regulations were introduced to save money.

It all harks back to the famous Group B era; big,fast cars with a lot of emphasis on power, lightness and agility, and little on the safety of the crews or the spectators. When star-in-themaking Henri Toivonen was killed in France back in 1986, Group B died with him.The years have formed rose-coloured glasses

for what was an undoubtedly spectacular era of rallying, but the fact of the matter was that the cars were dangerous,and Group A was the sport's only option.

The Group A era, which kicked off at Monte Carlo in 1987, was a good move at the time.The cars were production-based, like Group A Touring Cars, which led to an influx of Japanese involvement in rallying. If you were already building turbocharged,fourwheel-drive sedans, how could you not want to go World Rallying? Enter the likes of Subaru, Mitsubishi,Toyota, Mazda and Nissan.

But there was a problem.The requirement to build at least 5000 road-going versions of whatever you wanted to rally was perfect for the Japanese(and Lancia, which continued with the Delta Intergrale), but it was a dealbreaker for any manufacturer who didn't already have a car even loosely conforming to the specifications. In 1993 the required production for homologation was dropped to 2500, but by the late 1990s it was

clear that in order to get some European interest back,things had to change.

That's where the WRC regulations came in; purpose-built cars that had to be based on a production car, but without the need for the actual production of a turbocharged petrol model. In 1997, cars like to Toyota Corolla WRC,the Ford Escort WRC and the Subaru Impreza WRC started a new era of rallying.

The change didn't only affect rallying at a global level. Right here in Australia,Toyota and Subaru armed themselves with WRC technology. Neal Bates flew the flag for Toyota,scoring the second Corolla that was built in Germany and starting the 1998 Australian Rally Championship in it. It was a shift in philosophy for Neal Bates Motorsport,as the team had been building Group A Celicas, and was no part of developing European-built WRC technology.

"Our[Group A]Celica didn't have active diffs, so the first thing we noticed were the active diffs, and the Joystick [gearshift]," he recalls.

six years after WRC cars were outlawed from ARC competition.

Electronics-wise, they were Just more technologically advanced.

They were Just fantastic cars."

But when Bates first Jumped in a WRC car, he didn't think it was all that fantastic - especially when he Jumped on the anchors for the first time.

"My first impression was that I didn't like it, because it had no brake pressure.The diff was open under brakes,so it locked brakes unbelievably easy. 5o my initial impression was that it didn't braki»''‘«i' anywhere near as well as the Celica did.

"But that got changed over time, when Carlos[Sainz] went to Toyota Team Europe.That was the first thing he changed, because Didier Auriol initially set the car up, and he had a very different style to most people. Over time, my style adapted to the cars, without a dodbt. Initially I drove it the same, which wasn't right, but over time you adapt."

Not everyone Jumped on the WRC bandwagon straight away.

Mitsubishi didn't stray from

t 1

lUORLD RHLLVinG

icturers the tried-and-tested Group A regulations until 2001,Tommi IWlakinen winning three of his four world titles in a Group A car while everyone else was running WRC technology. But over time,the WRC cars got better and better, and even the diamonds were forced to jump on board.

The number 300 has always been a key one for WRC cars.

That's the exact amount of horsepower that cars are supposed to make under the fairly stringent rules. But folklore suggests that the cars have always out-performed the spec sheets, so to speak.

"They have more than that," confirms Bates.

"Not enormously more, but you'd find that a WRC car these days probably has about 340hp.

They have enormous amounts of torque; like, BOONm of torque, or maybe more. Even back in 1997, our WRC cars had 700-plus Nm, and they'd be well ahead of that by now."

And that, in a nutshell, is why the WRC rules are on the way out.The technology is deemed way to expensive, which flies in the face of its initial purpose - to cut costs.

"Initially it worked, but like all forms of motorsport it spiralled out of control," Bates adds.

"Teams take the rules to the Nth degree in every direction, and if you look at a WRC car now they are worth $1.5m, which is just unrealistic."

So what now? The proposed WRC regs for 2011 have gone from an up-specced version of the IRC's Super 2000 regulations, with turbochargers and aero parts fitted, to just straight S2000 with a body kit to tell them apart from the nonWRC cars. Sebastien Loeb has been vocal in his objections, suggesting that Super 2000 cars won't be fast enough to keep him interested in the sport.

But losing a Champion might be necessarily to win back the brands.

"I think it's a fantastic idea,"says Bates, who builds Super 2000 Corollas here in Australia.

"If you have a look at Super 2000 regulations,they have price caps and a whole lot of stuff that restricts the costs. In the economic climate we're in at the moment,we clearly can't afford WRC,and it's not working.

Super 2000 is the answer."

Like Group B and Group A before it, the WRC rules served their purpose (there is certainly more European car makers rallying than in the mid-1990s), and are now out-dated.

And so begins the next era ...

OKAY,now Ford has a big reason to be worried.

With five of the 12 rounds gone in this year's World Rally Championship, Citroen's Sebastien Loeb is unbeaten, and has 50 points to his name. His closest'proper'competitor is Ford's Mikko Hirvonen, who is 20 points behind Loeb,and even trails Loeb's team-mate Dani Sordo in the standings.

The latest round - Rally Argentina - was one of missed opportunities for Ford. During the first day, it actually looked like Ford's second driver JariMatti Latvala was going to be the man to beat. But, with the memories ofthat horror crash in Portugal still fresh, the young Finn backed off and made a play for third place. He would have got there too, had it not been for a lengthy delay on the final leg due to an electrical problem.

Latvala's conservative approach left Sordo and Hirvonen in a thrilling battle for the lead on Day 1, while Loeb seemed to struggle for outright pace.That all changed on Day 2 when Loeb suddenly lifted his game, and Hirvonen's fortunes went the other way, his Focus overheating.

That left Sordo as Loeb's only competition, and with sound bites like "it's a very good result and for the team and Sebastien's championship"after the finish, it was obvious that it was a pretty one-sided fight. However, Loeb did Citroen 1 Sebastien Loeb concede that the 1 -2 wasn't as easy 3:57:40.3s Daniel Elena as it looked.

Citroen 2 Dani Sordo "This year's event was difficult to +1:13.1s Marc Marti begin with, and we had to drive flat out until Saturday lunchtime," Ford 3 Henning Solberg he said. +4:04.1 s Cato Menkerud "The situation then tipped in our Ford 4 Federico Villagra favour when Hirvonen hit trouble, +5:59.7s J Perez Companc and we were able to control from

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in front after that.That said, I tried to keep up a quick pace all the way to the finish because it can be so easy to make a mistake over a jump, or by clouting one of the countless rocks that line the stages here."

The demise of the two factory Fords left Henning Solberg on the podium in the Stobart entry, while the biggest surprise of the rally was fourth for hometown hero Federico Villagra, who held off Matthew Wilson on the final day.

5 Matthew Wilson Scott Martin 6 Jari-Matti Latvala

Ford +6:10.9s Ford

7 Sebastien Ogier

+9:50.0s Citroen

Julien Ingrassia 8 Nasser Al-Attiyah G Bernacchini

Subaru +23:11.6s

Mikka Anttlla

+20:55.1 s

Points: Loeb 50,Sordo 31, Hirvonen 30, H Solberg 20,P Solberg 14,Wilson 12.

67

on TRACK

EDITED BY GRANT ROWLEY

COVERAGE OF AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MOTOR RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS & SERIES

ll ●S'*

Best of the Rest

It's harsh, but Chaz Mostert is playing second fiddle to Nick Percat. ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN reports >:

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FORinULR FORD

OU can only imagine that to everyone except TeamVodafone, the task of winning a V8 Supercar race at the moment is much like standing at the very bottom of the biggest mountain in the universe.

Well, most of the Formula Ford field feels pretty much the same at the moment, except instead of chasing red and silver Falcons, they are chasing a red and silver Mygale, with Nick Percat written on the roll hoop. And beating him is proving to be just as tough as beating the'Fones, with Percat winning all five of the races that have made up the Genuine Ford Parts Australian Formula Ford Championship this year.

So far, only one driver has even remotely given Percat a hard time -Chaz Mostert.The 17-year-old Victorian, now based in Brisbane, was the revelation of the second half of last year, when he moved from Howard Racing to Synergy, 62

the team that took last year's title with Paul Laskazeski. Mostert has stuck with the team this year, and if you were at either the Grand Prix or Winton, you'll know his car; it's the one that looks like a council worker in a safety vest, except it's moving a lot faster.

But while Mostert has been relatively hot on Percat's heels, he concedes that there is plenty to do to actually topple the experienced Sonic driver.

"I need to a go a bit harder, but he's pretty hard to beat,"says Mostert.

"I'm struggling enough to stay with him at the moment; I'm doing my best. The team's really good, and they are pretty happy with me.

"We should be up there in the championship, but Nick's got a lot of experience, so second in the championship would be a pretty good result at the end of the season."

Okay, so even two rounds in Mostert is realistic enough to see that it will take a small miracle to beat Percat to the crown this year.

But surely a race win or two is on the cards ...

"I'd be a little disappointed if that didn't happen," he admits.

"I mean, to be able to run with him and not beat him in a race or a round here and there would be a shame. But it will be a fair bit later in the year when that happens. For now it is good to be running with him and being there with him."

If you've never heard of Mostert, don't feel bad. As recently as 2007, he was still racing in karts, taking out the National Junior Clubman tide that year. Then it was straight into national Formula Ford for a learning year last season, Mostert's best results coming in Tasmania with a pair of fifths.

Now, less than two years after leaving karts, he is a Formula Ford front-runner, with some bold aims for the rest of the season.

"My favourite circuit will be Indy.That'll be great experience.

Everywhere else I've been, and we've got some good tracks. The second part of the year will be my time to shine."

FORMULA FORD, RD 2 WINTON MOTOR RACEWAY UNLESS your name was Nick Percat at Winton, the most you were going to get out of each race was 16 points.

Percat simply dominated proceedings at the rural circuit, winning each race with ease.

After two rounds, the South Australian remains unbeaten in the class.

Chaz Mostert was the best of the rest, taking second place in two of the three races in his Synergy Motorsport's Spectrum.

Percat's team-mate Mitchell Evans took the other second place finish, grabbing third for the round.

Next in line was CAMS Rising Star Scott Pye and the third Sonic driver Geoff Uhrhane who had the best weekend of his short openwheel career.

Points: Percat 204, Mostert 76, Evans 70, Pye 56, Richie Stanaway 38.

motorsportnews

2007 Biante champion Steve Mason says that Gavin Bullas can be beaten.GRANT ROWLEY asked how >:►

BIRHTE TOURin&CRRS

MOTORSPORT NEWS: Can Gavin Bullas be beaten?

STEVE MASON: We were talking about that yesterday.

Can he be beaten?

And what conclusion did you come to?

My take on that is yes, he can, but it's going to take a really big set of balls!

He's got that car really hooked up beautifully.

They do a lot of testing and have put in a lot of commitment to the development of the car. When he came on the scene a few years ago, he was nowhere! i was winning races. Brad Tilley and I were the guys at the front. But Bullas, he's like a bulldog, that bloke!

Good on him, though. He's reaping the rewards. I think he can be beaten, but everyone else is going to have to rise up. He's lifted the bar, along with John Bowe, they have set a whole new level in our category.

Is that a level that you can lift your game to?

We can. Don't write us off. I tell you what, we've been testing, made some improvements.

I've had a little bit of help from a mate of mine, Glenn Seton, and we've been working on it.

What has 'Seto' been able to help you with?

Drive. Rear-end grip. Lots of rear-end grip. The only problem now is that we have to sort the front end out!

We've found a lot in the rear, now we've got to sort the front because we're over powering it with

www.mnews.com.au

too much grip, if that's possible. We've been chasing understeer but we're working on it and we'll get there.

Has Seton had a drive of the Camaro yet?

No, not yet. He will shortly. I'd say after the Darwin round at some stage. We'll probably get him to have some seat time at Queensland Raceway.

What about the Biante category itself. Since you won the title in 2007, it's become even more competitive...

It's just gone from strength to strength. There's plenty of new cars being built.

And it's going to get more and more competitive as time goes on. You'll find that this class is the resting place for all of the Supercar drivers!

Do you mind that?

Nah, we love it. I've only ever been a club racer all my life. I started in go karts, got too old, too heavy and too slow in them so i started racing an XU-1, bought a Mustang, then bought another Mustang and then I got into Camaros.

At one stage of my life, I wanted to be a world champion, every young racer think he's going to conquer the world, but now, I love the fact that I get the chance to race against Jim Richards and John Bowe. It's a dream that every guy in the category has probably always had. Ask any other the class regulars, and they'll tell you that it's wonderful that they are able to race against Bowe, Richards and other guys who have driven in the class like Seton and Steven Richards. It's fantastic to be rubbing shoulders with those guys.

TOURING CAR MASTERS, RD 2 WINTON MOTOR RACEWAY JOHN Bowe went close to beating Gavin Bullas, but in the end, he didn't.

The reigning Biante Touring Car Masters Champion continued his demolition of the class, qualifying on pole and winning the Winton round after taking three-straight second piace finishes.

"It was an unexpected win to score the overall round honours," Bullas said.

"I really thought JB would take the last race too, but it's good for my own championship so I'll take it gladly."

John Bowe won the first two races but a costly error in Race 3 saw the veteran accidentally switch off his fuel pump and drift back down the order.

Drew Marget won the final race, keeping him in title contention.

Points: Bullas 348, Marget 276, Bowe 273, Steve Mason 257, Rod Wilson 225, Steve Makarios 189, Brad Tilley 183, Greg East 168.

63

Going out on a Wimmer Illness sidelined Kurt Wimmer at Winton Motor Raceway.

ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN spoke to the recovering driver

» >:

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ECAUSE motor racing isn't a contact sport, drivers don't often miss race meetings through injury.

But, the physical requirements of a driver are strenuous enough that not being at 100 percent heaith can mean being forced to spend a weekend on the sidelines. Just ask Kurt Wimmer...

The former V8 Supercar driver missed the Winton round of the Yokohama V8 Utes Series, having made three trips to hospitai in the four days leading into the meeting.

The cause was a debilitating, and difficult to detect,form of pneumonia.

"Normal pneumonia shows up in blood tests, but this turned out to be something call mycoplasma pneumonia,"explains Wimmer.

"And to detect it, they have to do a first test, and then wait a certain amount of time and do it all over again, it's a lot of fluid on your lungs, which makes them cramp up.

All you take is a mix between Panadoi and antibiotics to try and stabilise it, but there's no instant cure.

,v

ignore medical advice and fly to Winton to make the meeting.Thankfully, he didn't... "i got out of hospital late Thursday night, and on Friday morning I was going to book a flight,jump straight in for qualifying, and then go out and race. Luckily I didn't, because on Saturday 1 ended up back in hospital again,\with all the same symptoms.

No one would let me go, and lucky they didn't."

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Wimmer will rejoin the series at Tasmania, and in the meantime is working on getting his fitness back up to scratch, "i lost 14kg in the space of two weeks," he says."i've only just started keeping food down now.

"But i'il be right; i've done Bathurst in a Supercar before when i've been throwing up in my heimet, and that's why i was trying to go to Winton. i thought it was the same, but this was different to a normai flu."

"I'd been a bit sick since Adeiaide, but I just thought it was a stomach bug or something like that, so i just kept going about my business. I got to the Tuesday before Winton and I woke up and couidn't breathe; i pretty much couldn't function, i went to the doctor and they threw me straight in hospitai. i felt alright by Wednesday morning, but by the afternoon it hit again.They threw me back in hospital."

At this stage,the story could have got a whole lot worse. Wimmer was preparing to

it

>

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motorsport news

on TRACK

A fair and honest classsystem LACHLAN MANSELL takes a closer look atthe three-tier Australian GT class structure

^ >:

HUSTRRLIflnGT

TFIE Australian GT Championship has produced some great racing throughout the early stages of season 2009,thanks to a variety of different cars and also different formats adding an element of unpredictability to the racing.

Qne of the more intriguing elements of the 2009 Australian GT Championship is the class system, which was introduced last year to increase the number of eligible vehicles.

So far, the move has paid off, with the opening three rounds of the Australian GT Championship ail being attended by much larger fields of cars than the beginning of last season. Just nine cars rolled up at Eastern Creek for the opening round of the 2008 GT Championship, while 28 cars took to the track for qualifying in Round 1 of this year's championship at the Clipsal 500.

So how does the class system actually work? There are three classes, and drivers score points within their class, independent of cars in the other classes.

The most prominent class is the GT Championship class.

Cars eligible for this class are

Production class.This class was set up to cater for cars previously eligible for series that no longer exist. Flence, some of the cars in this class include the FISV GTS Coupes that previously ran in the Australian Performance Car series, along with the ex-MoPro Lotus entries ofTim Poulton and Mark Q'Connor, which have dominated the class so far in 2009.The most notable addition to the class is the new Corvette Z06 being campaigned by Paul Freestone.

Despite a lack of development, the Freestone entry was on the pace from the very beginning, chaiking up a class win on debut in the Melbourne Grand Prix support races.

Qne side-effect of the tiered class structure is a large difference in lap speed between the fastest and slowest cars in a typical GT race. In most races this year, the race leaders have lapped the slower cars by race end, but fortunately there have not been any major incidents involving faster and slower cars.

A more serious issue has been parity. With so many different vehicles competing across the different classes, producing a level playing field between the different machines has caused headaches for the series organisers.The parity dilemma came to a head in Round 3 of the series at Phillip Island, when

any current-model cars that meet the GT Championship reguiations.The vehicles of choice for most competitors include the Ferrari F430(Nick O'Flalloran), Lamborghini Gailardo(Mark Eddy, Dean Grant and AndrewTaplin), Aston Martin DBRS9(Tony Quinn), Dodge Viper (Ross Lilleyand Ian Palmer) and Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S (David Wall).The Championship class is also home to Carrera Cup refugees such as Jim Richards and James and Theo Koundouris, driving their 997 Porsche GT3 Cup Cars.

The next class down is the GT Challenge Class.This class consists of cars that might previously have been eligible for the Championship class, but have since been superseded by newer machinery. Cars in this class include the Porsche 996 GT3 Cup Car, and Ferrari 360 Challenge.

Because the regulations in this ciass are reasonably similar to the Championship class, it is not uncommon to see well-driven Challenge cars mixing it with Championship class cars. Klark Quinn has been the best example of this so far in season 2009, with a number of outright top-five finishes. Quinn is also second in the class standings behind Jordan Qrmsby, despite missing the Phillip Island round of the series.

The final class is the GT

AUSTRALIAN GT,RD 3 PHILLIP ISLAND, VICTORIA DAVID Wall was the man to beat in the third round o fthe Australian GT Championship at Phillip Island.

Wall won both one-hour races,taking advantage of a mechanical failure from Tony Quinn's Aston Martin, before beating home Dean Grant and Jim Richards in Race 2. Wall's twin victories extended his series lead.

Jordan Qrmsby won GT Challenge while Paul Freestone won the GT Production class.

The next round of the series will be held at Eastern Creek.

Points;Wall 295,James Koundouris 243.5,Mark Eddy 237.5,Richards 222, Ross Lilley 221.5,Peter Hill 220.5. entries due to dissatisfaction with the parity process.

Nevertheless, the class structure has generally been successful since its introduction.There is now somewhere for owners of previously ineligible vehicles to race, with the added exposure benefits of being on the support card for some ofthe V8 Supercar rounds. And that also means motorsport enthusiasts now have a wider range of cars to salivate

CongratulationstoIMatt Kingsley and the team from Aotioh Tyres & More Motorsport for their stunning victoryin the Porsche GiTS CUp Challenge at Phillip Island.

Matt races on Project M tl iM;1l6^03 pads to giveihiih;the winning advantage; More proof that if you aren’t racing on Project Mu Brakes, you just don't have the best!

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65

Australia versus England

FORMULA 3,RD 3 PHILLIP ISLAND, VICTORIA

The Ashes is soon,but GRANT ROWLEY looks at another OZ v UK battle >] FQRmULR 3 TIM Macrow is used to battling British drivers in the Australian Formula 3 Championship, but 2009 represents his toughest challenge.

Macrow,the winner of the 2007 Gold Star, is up against Team BRM's Joey Foster this year, and he's proving to be difficult to beat.

Macrow did sneak a race win off Foster at Phillip Island recently and the Victorian says that anything is possible.

"Joey is a really experienced guy and he's fast," Macrow said.

"It's going to be a massive

challenge but not impossible.

Phillip Island was the first place we went to where we had some data - and it showed. We're working pretty hard on the car, the team is pulling out all the stops and improving it all the time."

Macrow says that the probability

of a Winton test session soon will be the key to improving further.

"We need the mechanical side of the car sorted out," he said.

"It's just miles. I hadn't driven much either, I was a bit rusty, so doing a test day would be a huge benefit to us."

While Kyle's on a beach

>:► RU55IE RRCIRG CRR5

SOME people plan holidays around their motor racing endeavours. Take Hidden Valley for example. A week before the event, racers and punters alike will go up to Northern Territory, lay in the sun, fish and enjoy the dry season.

Winton doesn't quite have the same appeal as the Top End, but still, racing is racing, so it's just gotta be done, even if you did wish you were in Fiji ...

Kyle Clews is going to Fiji on a Winton race weekend, but when he booked his flights, there was no race date clash.

Unfortunately for Kyle, the Aussies calendar has changed a number of times this year and now, his getaway clashes with the category's third round.

For most drivers, this would spell the end of one of two things - either their championship aspirations will be over, or their week working

JOEY Foster dominated Race 1, but in the second event,the F3 title got blow/n back open.

British driver Foster qualified on pole for both races, cruised the first race but was involved in a clash with Mat Sofi in Race 2. It opened the door for Tim Macrow to take the win and decrease Foster's series lead to 18 points.

Leanne Tander made a one-off comeback, winning both National class races.Tom Tweedie continues to lead that class, despite a DNF. Gold Star: Foster 101,Macrow 83,Sofi 78,Ben Crighton 65,Ray Chamberlain 30.

National:Tweedie 102,Jesse Wakeman 76,Chris Gilmour 58.

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on their sun tan is crushed.

Clews, though, is going to enjoy the best of both worlds. Kyle is maintaining his holiday commitments, while taking advantage of a very clever Aussie Racing Car supplementary regulation which says that a driver can be replaced and, together, accumulate championship points.

Stepping into the breach is Kyle's dad Jim who will try and uphold family honour and Kyle's championship aspirations.

Jim competed in the formative years of the Aussie Racing Car Series, but in recent times has concentrated his efforts on Kyle's career.

While disappointed, Kyle is confident his dad will keep him within a shot at the title.

"When we found out that the calendar had changed and there was a clash, I wasn't sure what to think at the time!" he said.

"There's always a chance that we'll still be able to win, so hopefully he does well and finishes in the top 10.

"He's got to renew his licence before doing a couple of test days. He'll need to get a bit faster, and hopefully he gets up there and mixes it up with the front guys."

Clews has been a regular in the Aussie Racing Cars Series for the past few years and credits his early 2009 form to the new car that they purchased late last year.

"We've been doing some engine development work and a lot of testing at the start of this year," he said.

"We've put a good package together. With the new Commodore body, it's all paying off."

- GRANT ROWLEY

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motorsportnews

□n TRRCHi

A chance he didn't expect

ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN spoke to Brendan Reeves about getting his career back on the dusty track

>:

HUSTRHLIRn RHLLV

YOU have to iove it when a plan comes together.

Having spent too much of 2008 on the sidelines, Victoria's brightest young rally star Brendan Reeves was keen to get his career back on track this year. And just when it looked like he wasn't going to have the budget to keep things moving forward, Rally School came on board as a major backer, and the Asia-Pacific rounds of the Pirelli Star Driver program were moved to Australia.

That gave Reeves a chance he wasn't expecting to have, and in Queensland he grabbed it with both hands, finishing best of the under-27 year olds and automatically setting himself up for a shot at the grand prize - six fully funded rounds of the Production Car World Rally Championship in 2010, to be decided at the Australian round oftheWRC in September.

"When this Pirelli Star Driver thing came along we realised we needed to give it a red hot go, and we're half-way there," says a clearly chuffed Reeves.

"This year the final was going to be in Indonesia, and then they changed it to China, and then at the last minute, they changed it to Queensland for the qualifying round. There was no way we could have gone to China because the cost of sending a car there is so high. So all of a sudden we had the qualifying round in Queensland, and the final in northern New South Wales, so it became an achievable goal, just like that."

It was some good luck for Reeves, but comes on the back of some bad luck. He should have been third in the 2007 Australian Rally Championship, but a massive shunt in the final round in Melbourne left him sixth overall. And then Les Waikden Rallying, the team to which Reeves was contracted, decided to limit its gravel rallying involvement in 2008, leaving Reeves a little high and dry.

But he made the best of a bad situation, and kept his name in the game with two overseas outings in the Ford Fiesta Cup, one in New Zealand and one in the UK. "It was zero degrees and the roads were frozen in England," he recalls.

"It was crazy. I've never sat on the start line of a stage before and thought'I wonder if I'll make it to the end.' It opened my eyes to what the world of rallying can be like. We went to a test with World Rally Cars and went for a ride with Matthew Wilson, and it was amazing to see how those cars work."

The trip to the UK rekindled Reeves's ambition, and he has since bought a Subaru WRX from Waikden and is running his own program here in Australia, complete with his co-driving sister - Rhainon Smyth - by his side.

"Rhianon used to play state league netball, and I used to do autocross in Victoria," he said.

"We had a plan that as soon as I turned 18 she would co-drive for me, because she didn't want to be a driver, but she wanted to be involved.

"She's a school teacher, so she knows how to organise me, and she does a great job of organising flights and schedules for the crew.

It's great for me not to have to think about that side of things."

So, after an up-and-down 2008, Reeves is now looking to the future; and he likes what he sees.

"We got set back a bit last year not getting to drive four-wheel-drive cars much, but now we're back doing rallies in a faster car, and doing the Pirelli thing, we're back on track.

"I just want to win at Rally Australia in September, so 1 can do the six rounds of the PCWRC. That would open heaps of doors, and hopefully it would all happen from there."

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67

Primmer and Proper >]zSRLOOn CRR5

TURNING up at a racetrack, running a two-car team in a super competitive Holden versus Ford clas, and producing respectable results is challenging enough for most people.

But it's not challenging enough for Mark Primmer, whose meticulous preparation efforts go beyond the norm for most racing operations.

Primmer'stwo Dial Before You Dig Racing Falcon Saloon Cars always look like they have just come back from the detailer rather than the biff-and-barge of today's Saloon Car competition.

Primmer might be a name unfamiliarto some, but the steel fabricator from NSW's north coast was a regular in hillclimb events during the late 1990s, driving a Toyota-powered Formula Libre.

"The hillclimbs were where I picked up Dial Before You Dig as a sponsor," Primmer recalled.

"Dial Before You Dig decided they wanted television coverage, and the Saloon Car Series was a good option. It was cheaper than other series but still had TV, and everyone knows Australia's a Ford or Flolden country."

Primmer may not be the fastest driver in the Saloon Car Series, but he enjoys the preparation and presentation aspects of running the team. Both his AU Falcon Saloon

Cars were built from scratch, and are carried to racing events in a transporter that would not look out of place in the V8 Supercar paddock.

"The reason I put so much effort into presenting the cars is so they look good for Dial Before You Dig," he said.

"We take their people for rides in our race cars, and entertain them at all the racing events.

"There's no pressure on me to win races, because the sponsor just appreciate the entertainment and exposure. But eventually I want to step back from racing and focus on running the team, hopefully with a couple of young guys driving."

- LACHLAN MANSELL

Why is Terry hooning in Touring Cars?

>]V TOURIRGCRRi

TERRY Wyhoon has been a regular of the V8 Supercar Development Series scene, in its particular guises,for quite a few years now.

In 2009 though, he's running three cars in the Shannons V8 Touring Car series. So why has he chosen the Touring Car Series route?

"The main reason is that the V8 68

Touring Car Series is a lot cheaper than the Fujitsu Series,"Wyhoon said.

"The initial investment to run competitively these days in the Fujitsu Series is out of reach for a lot of people this year, because you really have to have an association with a Level 1 V8 Supercar team to be competitive," he said.

"That's why they've gone from having grids of 40 cars down to grids of 19 cars.

"In the V8 Touring Car Series,

you can run competitively for 50 percent of the budget to run in the Fujitsu Series, and you get more television exposure by running at the front of the field intheVS Touring Cars than running mid pack in the Fujitsu Series."

Wyhoon won one of the V8 touring Car races in the opening round of the series at Wakefield Park, and finished third for the round behind Adam Wallis and Jonathan Beikoff. He was on target for a better overall result until a

tyre gamble in the final race failed to pay off.

As well as his own car, Wyhoon is also running an ex-DJR EL Falcon for Leigh Moran,and an ex-SBR AU (Marcos Ambrose's first V8 Supercar)for Mark Sheppard.

"I can't see the series not getting a lot stronger over the next couple ofyears/'hesaid.

"There are so many old V8 Supercars out there, and now they have somewhere to race."

-LACHLAN MANSELL

motorsport news

on TRACK

One door closes,another opens Matt Kingsley's life has travelled more than a full circle in 12 months.LACHLAN MANSELL reports

> >:

GT3CUP

THIS time last year, Matt Kingsley was lying in a hospital bed wondering if he would ever be able to race again.

Right now, Kingsley leads the Porsche GTS Cup Challenge after a dominant performance in Round 2 of the series at Phillip Island.

It has been a huge turnaround, but the name'Kingsley'was unfamiliar to many people before his shocking crash in the V8 Ute Series at Adelaide last year. So who is Matt Kingsley?

Kingsley first came to prominence on the Australian motorsport scene in 2005, when he won Class B of the Lotus Trophy. He stepped up to the outright Lotus class in 2006 and was running,second in the series before it collapsed mid-year, and then raced in the V8 Utes in 2007 before his big crash.

"After the crash, I had to learn to walk again, and I had no control over my nervous system," he said.

"It was a very long rehabilitation, but I always wanted to get back into a race car. CAMS actually suspended

my racing licence because they were worried about how enthusiastic I was and they didn't want me to get back into racing too quickly!"

Now, Kingsley's focus is on enjoying his motor racing.

"I wanted more fun out of my racing," he said.

"The Porsche GTS Cup cars are more rewarding to drive, and because they're noton the V8 Supercar support program,they are actually a cheaper class than the utes."

At Phillip Island,

Kingsley's team also ran an entry for International driver Greg Ross, and Kingsley is hoping this will open doors for him to contest some overseas racing events in the future.

"I would love to race at some of the big international events like Le Mans," he said.

SI??'

Break down the Wall Des Wall told GRANT ROWLEY that the Ricciardello/Hossack Sports Sedan monopoly could end soon >:yiPORfiiiipi IN recent years, only two names have made headlines in the Sports Sedan columns - Darren Hossack and Tony Ricciardello.

The constant battle between the two has kept observers interested - as you know, it only takes two to have a race - but according to Sports Sedan stalwart Des Wall, the gap between the leading pair and his popular.yellow Corvette is narrowing rapidly.

"Yes, they are beatable," he said.

"We haven't got the horsepower that they've got, but our car is very good. We've been running a new Michelin tyre and that is going to help our cause.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we're knocking on the door at some tracks soon. At the fast tracks, we won't be able to, but at in the next round at Mallala, I think we'll be really close."

Wall has been involved in the Sports Sedan category for a number of years now and says the appeal of the class is to do with the driving challenges that the cars present.

"I've been in it for a long time and I think it's the cars themselves that make it so exciting," he said.

"They are very powerful, very exciting cars to drive.That's what www.mnews.com.au

Jsi

has always had me.

"To me.Sports Sedans is more a driver's series.They are purposebuilt cars. A lot of the other classes like V8 Supercars are close and all vehicles are the same. Sports Sedan is the total opposite.There is quite a bit of difference in the cars.

"There has been a lot of interest in the class over the years because a lot of the cars are either purpose built or home-built cars.That gives

you a wide spread.There are some very different cars out there."

Wall's right; there are many cars out there -just getting them out of owner's garages is proving the next great challenge.

"There are a lot of cars around and available, but because of economic circumstances and a lot of other things, people can't afford to do the whole championship and there are a lot of cars that don't get used.

"When you count them up, there's probably 30 good cars out there that could be raced."

In the meantime. Wall will simply continue to race his beloved Corvette.

"I'm in love with my Corvette," he said."I think it's a fabulous car to race. Unfortunately we haven't really done enough with it over the last few years, but hopefully we can have some good races with it soon."

- GRANT ROWLEY 69

Giant Killer raises eyebrows

Jake Camilleri is dominating his class and threating the outright contenders. MAT COCH spoke to him >]^ mRn cHRfnps NICKNAMED the Giant Killer, Jake Camilleri's Mazda 3 has raised more than a few eyebrows since its debut in 2008.

Claiming the Class C pole position at the Bathurst 12 Hour event in February,the team is hopeful that they have finally ironed out the handling problems which held the car back last season.

Much of the car's new-found speed can be traced to development work on the front end of the front-wheel drive Mazda. Having spent countless hours testing and improving the car at Lakeside, Camilleri is happy with the gains.

"We spent a lot of time making sure that we get the set-up of the car right," he said.

"We've done a heap of set-up work on it to just make the front end bite. Trying to get that power down to only those front wheels was what we always had a problem with last year."

Encouraged by the development by Mazda Motorsport on its cars for theTarga Tasmania, Camilleri chose to develop the Mazda 3 for the Australian Manufacturers Championship. But the Grand Prix Mazda entry could just have easily been a failure.

"On paper it doesn't look like the thing should be up there," concedes the Queenslander."We

didn't know how it was going to go."

Racing against the Bathurst-winning Mitsubishi Evo X of Rod Salmon and Garry Holt's BMW 335i, Camilleri proved his efforts at Mount Panorama were no flash in the pan. At Wakefield Park's opening round, he qualified on the second row and raced to an outright second place, giving his the team high hopes for the rest of the season.

After finishing third in the overall honours last year (as well as the Class C win),the Grand

Prix Mazda squad is determined to make 2009 even better.

But just how the little Mazda is able to race with the fastest production cars in the country is a mystery. Camilleri himself is at a loss to explain how a front-wheel-drive Mazda is able to match it with four-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Evos.

"I don't understand how we are so quick," he smiles."Everyone scratches their head; we do too!"

■t

commoDORi CUP

" the wheei:o^fa^ Hoiden. G.^inuj^ car prepared and raced ^^-'hls,, ’. school as part of a unique schooH - against-'schook competition.'^,:^; I Ul ip many young racers, "A'iffhe meehanicalwotk/dii^Ke' : CommodoreiCupLyorun'ggun , manChilkaspifes^tiiaicarieer as preparation and' mairitOnance was done at SGhodrr#xp'iained‘‘ ; laHtaciripkdiniyir., ehi'ck. fhe l9>yearr©l:dLo:nginaiiyirom' "Wfe prepared'the cars at school I 'DarkWin>,ifll.d't ihlsiCommodOre on the Wednesdays and'then iCup)ilSiai:onali'S):d!ebut at the-e:n# raced on the weekend'. Most [ df 2®@8,i/andlfe>l:oOk'ilniiforward of the schools 'in Darwin were it04‘ifdiistslafiohiiteniSi^^ iiniojBii idoing'lt."

Bitten by/the'iracingiibug. Chick ■irowIngiiUp'iinithe'iNif'Shi.fk imoved onto; Commodore Cup, began^teiS imotor tasTni! career at 70

Realistic abqutJhis future, freely chaiinpiohsliiiii).tvMieeatthe..wheelL- adiihifcih^lfeSis^illatgre^^ offeyi%CoMn!i®dSre;.daii^^^ ■^dfe]al|^].eahna race andTroufS^i'victories alenq'j--- ■ _ #§fth&tinme':beipl,1his? -

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the way.'Hi'stsuecess at stateievi^ _futufeire^^^"p0njiimidffe^'^ encouraged'h'ifnrto progress- - to the- National' series, where - ’^f'Ath'ejjlrospect of ahy/ifo;rfh''©f 'henow'hQpes,to;emul'ateJlnis« ' cbiinpetitive nhotpc.5p.orjt., -4 previoussuGeess. _ . "Jiihe'HsJteSiWpuTd'be gOOdj, 1 Nsw iiying In Melbourne tFujitsulwouldilbe great,"!he and working as an apprentice ' explains when asked about fabricator with'Garry Rogers where he plans to head'next.

Motorsport, Chick hopes to "ihat alfdepends.on who; . progress through the ranks and notiGes usf turn driving into a career. But he*s

.mrnM&m

motorsport news

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Respecting the numbers

At49 years of age and after 49 state titles, Remo Luciani has seen the karting industry evolve.

GRANT ROWLEY spoke to Remo about change,set-ups and his final career goal >: KRRTinG REMO Luciani picked up his 49th state karting title at the recent Victorian State Championships - and he's not about to stop yet.

The 49-year-old karting stalwart is currently racing in his 24th season of Australian karting. Besides his 49 state successes, Luciani has won six national crowns and operates his respected business Remo Racing.

When it comes to karting, Luciani has'been there and done that'in all aspects of the sport and the industry. In reflection, he's noticed some pretty major changes to sprint karting along the way.

"Probably the biggest thing that I've noticed changed is instead of people pulling up with a kart, trailer and no spares,"he said.

"We just used to drop the kart off the back of trailer and race, we didn't know any better.

"I've seen the technology come into it, as far as all the technicalities - long hubs, short hubs,soft axles, hard axles, different stubs, different wheels.There's such more variety now than we've ever had.That's the biggest change that I've noticed."

Has this change been for the betterment of the class, though? For the general observer, karting is viewed as a development class for future Formula 1 and V8 Supercar stars. Does the cost of hard or soft axles really make a difference, other than to the bank account?

"Everyone says that it was better in the old days," he said.

"It was simpler then, and they complain now that it's too difficult. Yes there's elements of that, but why I disagree with that is the value of set-up experience.

"Jamie Whincup drove for us in his years of karting, and those guys now need to feel when they have a spring change or something like that in their race cars. www.mnews.com.au

"Changing a hub on a kart makes the kart slide, makes it grip, pushes in the front, slippery in the back whatever it does,the drivers have got to feel. I think all the set-up options is a positive thing if they want to go on with their motor racing careers. It gives them feel for what the kart does."

Whincup is one of the high-profile drivers to take advantage of Remo's expertise, and Remo says that Whincup is a prime example of raw talent making the most of set-up knowledge.

"Many times,Jamie and I shared my kart at a race meeting," he said.

"It sounds unprofessional today, but 10 years ago, we would share the same kart at a race meeting - he'd drive Clubman Lights and I'd drive Heavies.

"He was clearly outstanding, much better than me at the time, and I was on top of my game then as well.

Today, if someone drives my kart, they are usually a few tenths better than what I am because of my age, but Jamie was just outstandingly better than what I was. He blew me into the weeds. He had something special way back in 1997 when he started with us and he had a great understanding of the karts."

Whincup is now a V8 Supercar Championship winner and multiple Bathurst champ.You won't see those accolades on Luciani's CV, but with 49 state titles, he probably doesn't have any room for more trophies!

Regardless, Remo wants to add one more win to his list.

"I've won six national titles, and it would be good to win another to reward me for all the hard work and effort I've put in over the years and finish it off that way," he said.

"I think that would possibly pull me off if I could do it. I'd like to retire as a champion, but never the less, everyone pats me on the back, because they think I'm doing pretty well for my age!

"I have respect out there, and I think that's important."

mrot

St.

Remo's way:Lucianai, above has won 49state titles and sixth national karting crowns.

77

STRTESCETIE

THIS MONTHS WRAP UP OF STATE MOTOR RACING IN AUSTRALIA

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uiESTiRn RPimyi IN Western Australia, seeing the surname Howlett on top of the time sheets after a HQ Holden race is nothing new - Grant Howlett's been doing that for years.

But at the recent AutotraderTrophy at Barbagallo Raceway, there were two Howletts on top of the time sheets. And, quite remarkably, it was Grant second, and his son Michael first.

Why is that so remarkable? Because before the AutotraderTrophy meeting, Howlett Jr had never raced a car in his life.

"It was excellent," he says. "It was a great experience, and considering I'd never done anything before that... it surprised everyone.

"I didn't expect to win it, or even go dose. I was hoping maybe to run in the top half of the field, but not run right at the front. I'd only done two tuning days before that - that was it."

To make matters even more surprising, Howlett never raced karts either.The 18-yearold was a genuine winner-on-motorsport debut, "i used to work at a go kart place, but I never got to drive them at all!

"I hadn't done any motorsport at all, but I'd always been in to racing and always watched it. My Dad did give me the opportunity about two years ago to race a HQ, but I was a bit too nervous and a bit too young, and I didn't think I could do it. About two months ago I did aTrackskill course, and 1 did realiy well, so I decided now was the time to take it up."

But while top half of the field was his expectation for his first round, the boy from Joondalup has refocussed his sights, "i should be right up there now," he says, "i want to try and have a go at the championship, even though I missed the first two rounds. For the rest of the year I'll definitely be aiming higher."

In other categories, Todd Fiore continued his utter domination in the Formula Ford 1600 series, winning all three races to make it nine from nine in 2009. Garry Hills and Grant Johnson won the Saloon Car classes, Kerry Wade and Kevin Ledger won Streets Cars and Improved Production, Ron Moller won HistoricTouring Cars and Nathan Vince won Sports Sedans.

-ANDREWVAN LEEUWEN

Still value in HQ f HEUI SOUTH UJRLE5

OVER the last couple of years, HQ Holdens have run a national series as part of the Shannons Nationals motor-racing championships.

However, the national series has been largely abandoned in 2009, with the current global economic situation making it difficult for drivers to find the funding to travel interstate for racing events.

That doesn't mean HQ racing has disappeared altogether though, because there are still some very healthy grids of cars in various state championships around the country. In particular, the NSW State HQ Championship has grown in recent years, and it continues to cater for drivers on shoestring budgets who still want to experience the thrill of 72

motor racing.

While the cars may not be the fastest, the tightly controlled technical regulations produce close racing and put the emphasis on driver skill rather than who has the biggest chequebook.

One driver who is very familiar with HQ Holden racing is ian Kegg, who raced in the series for many seasons before progressing to other one-make classes.

"HQ Holdens teach you to be smooth," Kegg said.

"You can't make mistakes, run off the road or drift out of corners, or you lose momentum and because they don't have much power, you lose a lot of time. It's certainly a great category to learn race craft and its affordability makes it very attractive compared to other categories."

Other drivers to step out of HQ Holdens include reigning V8 Ute

Champion Layton Crambrook and also Kieren Pilkington, who steps up to the Commodore Cup national series this year.

Greg King, Ian McLean and the Green family (Peter Sr, Peter Jr and Troy) have been the main contenders so far in the 2009 NSW State HQ Championship, with King and McLean sharing the race wins in Round 2 of the series at Wakefield Park.

Winners in the other NSW State Championship categories were Chris Jackson (Sports Sedans), Kyle Wood (Formula Ford), Shane Otten (Racing and Sports Cars), Ryan Brown (Improved Production), Adam Proctor (Formula Vee), Tim Mackie (Production Sports) and Matthew Holt and Brett Howard, who took out the Combined Touring Carenduro.

-LACHLAN MANSELL

motorsport news

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NATIONAL Formula Ford drivers took adwantage of the recent round of the Wietoriani State Circuit Raelrigi Championships, entering; cars in the iPhill jp;;l!Slin#roundliiri! late April', Withthe'Vi:ciFonmuil:a:F0:rd state' cha mpo nship raw open to the ©uratee eng ines, Tl< cars entered the roundi armed'with: the new engines. While they won't be competing for outright

state lehampionship honours, there are some serious rewards.

It is well dbeurnented that there are nb testing resfrictiohs on nationalformula'Ford racing> so anyone can go out and do lap after lap at any Australian clficujitJbgjit getting the chance’ to rffce whlle not competing for nationalipoints is a rare thing: The Vic State Fotimula.Ford' scene now'fiwes national drivers this'benefit, as entrantlen Walter explains; "We're not intending to do the vvhoie championship, we'll just

CUEinSLRnO THERE are a few things necessary to be able to race a car, until recently it was thought vision had to be one of them.

The most recent (April 25-26) Morgan Park state championship round was held as a day/night meeting, with the five headlightequipped classes to run nine races between them in the evening under spotlights around the rural Queensland racetrack.

It did mean that the five non-headlight classes had to get a race In after qualifying was finished and before the sun set. With a half/half field of headlight cars, Sportscars went out last.

With light virtually absent, Stephen Morcombe, above, set a lap time (60.9888s) within two seconds of the outright lap record (58.4035s Superkart record).

Morcombe, who raced F3 last season, has been racing his Chiron LMP3-05 for a few seasons now and has established it as one of www.mnews.com.au

do the odd round here or thereI. It will be a hugebonus when | .he said. ' . l we go'taP-hiHip Island,forthe ^ "It's a Ghance to driweour OAWC ^'fn’aliiMhme^etihgnn Sept^ : experience, it's notjust a test sessidn, yourvvarit't6’'^l‘d5we1l- ’ l -if'thgwihn'irs.W0!O^

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while-youteoutjyn^e."We stiiTgetiGiliitt^ few test daysin,ibutnoth'ing'beats," 'hawing; experienceinraeiiSg) ^. w/ith traffic aiiouhd yourlt'sT-

-^pSiirh uiaiF&r3^liifiS?l^^s^’'^ 5^B^ts’Sedah)„Gary'.ffdwaircls_. n .■^i|ffli«oniGtounirfg;Gars)','iJoliini, J 'Woo'd '(i€!‘':H0Td'en^:i|an^r4isg Atkinson (ilmproweefc'proaiigtiOhi)! ^

an extra chance to get more , experience and it gives you another way of getting in the groove before there are national championship points on the line.

ivan Klasan.(l^rsche f Robin Bailey iPfes), Ted:Hug1iin (Sportscars) and Andrew McFarland (Formula Veej.

- GRANT ROWLEY

the three fastest racing cars at state level in Qld, regardless of category (only a pair of twin cylinder Superkarts have set faster lap times).

The Chiron was developed to European entry level sports prototype racing, and is powered by a 1.6 litre Toyota engine. At that engine capacity, it just slips into the Supersport regulations which superseded Sports 1300 five years ago. It's lower, wider and longer than its Minetti/Prosport/Radical classmates and was comprehensively faster than the defunct Thundersport class cars. Morcombe and the Chiron have done at state level what John Bowe and the Veskanda did at National level - lap faster than the best open wheelers of the time.

Sports prototype cars are undergoing a revival in Queensland and interstate, the huge field of such cars at Phillip Island historic, but also the recent appearance of Whitaker-Honda and Linespeed-Honda cars in Queensland and the recent arrival of a Saker-Subaru in the state, also the sequel car to the magnificent Hooper SNH9901 the John Campbell dominated

Supersports with in the early part of the decade is nearing completion.

Morcombe dominated the Sportscars at Round 2 of the Qld Championship. Paul Mantiet (Formula Vee), Ben Tomlin (Gemini), Bob Sudall (HistoricTouring Car), Gary Bonwick (HQ Holden), Steve Draheim (Improved Production), Barclay Holden (Racing Car), James Mann (Formula Ford), Kris Walton (Saloon), Phil Crompton (Sports Sedan) and Steve Murray (Superkart) also won at Morgan Park.

At a more recent (May 16-17) QRDC event at Queensland Raceway, trouble struck the Whitaker-Honda and Linespeed-Honda Sportscars, allowing the racing car class to be won by Geoffrey Uhrhane (Van Diemen Formula Ford). The other classes were won

by David Barram (QR Sedan & Sports), Tony Isarasena (Improved Production), Chris Hinton (Geminis), Paul Kellaway (Formula Vee), Matt Shanks (Saloon Car) and John Samios (Trans-Am).

-MARK JONES 73

Kiwi Athol Williams is the first non-Australian to win an ANORA Group 1 championship^^nd he^ also one ofthe fastest Top Bikers in the world.GRANT ROWLEY spoke to the rapid Neyv Zeaiaftder MOTORSPORT NEWS: Fastest Australian Top Bike pass, the fourth fastest everTop Bike pass and you wrapped up the title. You'd probably agree that you had an amazing weekend in Sydney.

ATHOL WILLIAMS: Ecstatic, especially for the crew, because we were counting how many good runs we were going to have on tracks before they came back to New Zealand and (the bike) gets parked.

You mean, parked for good?

After the Winternationals, we do the TransTasman Challenge in Darwin and Alice Springs, and then at this point, the bike will come home, unless there's a large amount of corporate interest.

If we can get funding for next year, we'll come back. But we've wrapped up the championship, which is the first time that someone outside of Australia has won an ANDRA title, let along a Group 1 title. So the team is on top of the world at the moment.

74

You set four new ANDRA records atWSID. The one that stands out is the fourth fastest Top Bike in the world. For a small New Zealand team,that's a fantastic result. Have you ever thought about heading over to America to take on the worid's best?

The offer has been made to be based in the States with Larry McBride, a motorcycle specialist over there. But the cost for transporting the crew across and the amount of time required over there per meeting, it would add another $200K on top of what it costs to run the bike in Australia.

You need to pay the guys wages because they lose 16 weeks-plus a year off work, commuting, doing the meetings - not to mention the jet lag.

It would be a serious deal, but would you agree that it would be quite an achievement is you could go over there and do it?

Yeah definitely, it would.There's one Funny Car driver based in the USA.That's Grant Downing.

He's run a bit of the NHRA and IHRA. He's run a 315mph pass.

I was actually doing some figures before and New Zealander's in drag racing have a pretty good record.

What's the drag racing scene like in New Zealand?

It's not very good at the moment. Because the country's so small, there's a bit of squabbling amongst the tracks.

The only stand-alone track is Meremere, which is just down the road from where I live, but its built on swamp lands, so it's constantly sinking. Vehicles virtually disappear into holes as they head down the straight!There are humps and hollows.

And the Armco, not concrete barriers, ends at the finish line. After that, you have a ditch and a bank on one side and a sloop off and a wire fence on the other.

On YouTube,there's a race that you're in

motorsportnews

DRRG RRORG

fftl^i^Tfi}

where you have a massive crash at the end of the straight there at Meremere. How did you feel walking away from that?

That actually put me into New Zealand's gymnastics team for the Olympics!

We'd just fitted a new parachute and when it deployed, a tetherline from the right-hand side hooked around our over flow oil can on the left of the bike, and the parachute pulled us left and off the track.

If there'd been a concrete barrier there, it would have pulled us into that and we would have slid along the side of the barrier and no damage would have been done.

Unfortunately, it pulled us off, down a 1 in 5 slope down to a wire fence. But fortunately, the parachute pulled the bike up and it slid under the fence and did very little damage to it.

Meanwhile, I was somersaulting and rotating down the fence and ended up with a bruise the size of a large dinner plate on my rear end!

I guess you can appreciate the size of Jay Upton's crash at WSID - the fastest-everTop Bike shunt of all time ...

I can't imagine the pain that he's going through. I feel extremely sad for the thousands of hours that got put into the bike and have it totalled. It's so demoralising.

No one likes seeing anyone, whether how well you do or don't get along with the person, no one likes to see a crash destroy a bike. The www.mnews.com.au

'

I HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT WE’RE ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR TEAMS IN AUSTRALIA ATHOL WILLIAMS amount of engineering and labourthat goes into these bikes is huge,and it's mostly for love. You don't want to see that.

I believe Jay has a fractured pelvis and some pretty bad abrasions - fingertips and around his body, and he's black and blue all over. It's very harsh.

We were concerned with the coldness and the dew coming in. We'd been monitoring it the prior week. We were a bit concerned, but we went out and put down a pretty good number.

So besides the hunt for cash, what's you're future going to hold from here?

Well, as I said, aftertheTransTasman, the bike will come back to NZ and sit here. Our economy leads an awful lot to be desired.

I've had to lay half of my workforce off and Stud Welding (ED: William's own company), pays probably 98 percent of our racing costs.

Yes, we do have sponsors on the bike which we couldn't have done it without them, but the majority is paid by ourselves.

The only reason we're completing theTrans Tasman Challenge is because of the friendship that I have with the people organising it. It's

a long-term relationship that I wouldn't bow out of.

It's obviously a disappointing position to be in, considering the numbers you've been able to run and the success you've had.

Yes. I sent an email to ANDRA and all three track managers to advise them of my position.

I had some very nice letters back from Steve Bettes and the like. That is encouraging.

They've all said that they feel I've paid my dues, we're one of the most popular teams in Australia, surely someone will open their wallets.

I honestly believe that we're one of the most popular teams in Australia - and that's difficult to comprehend - Australians supporting a New Zealand team!

With our bike in Australia, you've got the Holden/Ford scenario in Top Bike. There's the Harleys, two cylinder bikes versus fourcylinder bikes. You've got big cubic capacity two cylinders verses the smaller four-cylinder supercharged bikes.They you throw into the equation Australia v NZ and,from a promoter's point of view, you've got the best of both worlds.

75

T

HE annual pilgrimage to the United States of America is set to commence for many Australian Sprintcar drivers.

Robbie Farr, Matthew Reed and Garry Brazier look set to join US regulars Brooke Tatnell, Skip Jackson, Kerry Madsen and Lynton Jeffrey.

Farr's plan is to go to the United States in June for three weeks, a trip that will mark his sixth trek to the country, and his Aussie crew chief Nick Speed has lined up a car for his visit to Ohio.

"The population is 10 times the size [in America],"says Farr."So the racing is the same, but there's just a lot more people."

Farr hopes his stint in Ohio during the Australian off-season will be better than the one he had three years ago, which he still only needs one word to describe ...

"Terrible. I just jumped in a car that wasn't quite right, and we went over there for the week so by the time we got it sorted, it was time to leave."

Current Australian Sprintcar Champion Brazier is expecting to stamp his passport with US entry sometime during the busy June/ August period of American racing.

"At this stage my dad and I have a couple of minor things to work out, but I think i'd like to go back there at the moment," he says.

"Particularly with Australia Number 1 on the tail-tank. We finished off well [here in Australia], and I believe we could put a good package together to challenge the best in America if and when we do go later this year."

Tatnell will help form an all-Aussie assault on the World of Outlaws series driving for the Titan Racing team,owned by Queenslander Reeve Kruck.

Tatnell, who was red-hot during the Australian season winning the World Series Sprintcars championship and the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic, replaces regular US driver Daryn Pittman at the team,and can think realistically about finishing Top 10 in the 76

WoO after already grabbing a top five and a top 10 resuit.

Reigning Victorian SRA Champ Reed admitted prior to leaving that more experience in the US was something that he hoped would put him in a great position to defend his local title next season.

'For sure, it's all about getting laps over there as it is with any type of racing," Reed says.

I enjoy the US-style of racing. It's full-on and I really believe that the off-season benefits me when I race in Australia, particularly in Victoria in the SRA.' Based in America for the past 10 years, Jackson has already begun his chase for the Knoxville track championship.

Jackson, a former Australian Sprintcar champion and WSS winner, has already grabbed the overall honours in the 1997 and 1998 running of the Knoxville track title. This season Skip has had to wait to get some serious laps in with wet weather hindering races at the famed Knoxville venue.

Similar to Jackson is Sydney's'Lynton Jeffrey, who will also spend most of his racing in and around Knoxville, although he has spent limited time on this year's Outlaws circuit.

During the past five seasons, Jeffrey has been a regular at Knoxville, and his very successful Vortex Wings business should see this talented Aussie a contender for many years in the USA. California's Golden State Challenge Series will be what Peter Murphy is again likely to chase.The former crew member for Steve Kinser can grab podium placings on any given night.

Super-talented Madsen is now competing on this year's World of Outlaws tour.The multiple Australian Sprintcar champion had a lean tour Down Under by his standards, but is currently sitting in the top 10 of the tough Outlaws championship.

Madsen has already grabbed one top five finish and six top 10 placings, and lies only 138 points behind the leader Kinser.

S»o

us ofA(ustralia):Kerry Madsen, top, is already looking in good touch in America, as is Stateside regular Brooke Tatnell, above. Robbie Farr will be looking for a better'working holiday'this time around, below.

motorsport news

SPEEDIliflV

I know what you did last Summer

s

The summer of2008/09 was Mitch Dumesny's time to shine.GREG BOSCATO spoke to the new track Champ ON of a gun'Mitchell Dumesny scored the biggest prize of his short career over the summer,joining names like Garry Rush,Trevor Green, Adam Clarke, Robbie Farr and BobTunks on the winner's list of the prestigious Parramatta Sprintcar track championship.

The 21 -year-old was the star performer of the summer at the Tyrepower Paramatta City Raceway,taking his Eagle One CR&D Maxim into the final Sprintcar show of the season atop the points tally. Fie just had to start a heat to win the title, but he was determined to end the year with a victory. Dumesny set quick time in qualifying with a 12.405s lap, before effortlessly winning the dash. Fie looked like he was going to win the A-Main,too, however a couple of late stoppages saw him shuffled back to fourth, his father Max taking the win instead.

Still, it was an epic end to an epic season.

"Well it would have been better if I was number one on the podium [at the last round], but you can't win them all,"says Dumesny.

"I have to be thankful I didn't end the season like Ian Loudoun did last year - upside down!

"We have to see if I can get a few more sponsors but I really don't know where I'll be next season. It all depends on sponsorship. I'll still race here and there but probably I wouldn't do the track championship at Parramatta again.

But I'll still be racing,that's for sure."

When quizzed further on the future, Dumesny admits he is a little unsure as to

/

www.mnews.com.au

where he wants his career to go.

"Well I'm at University, because I can; 1 got great marks so I might as well have something behind me. But while I'm racing okay I just might as well see how well I can go.

"It would be great to have a career like Dad. I'd love to go to America and race full time.[But] I wouldn't like to do it like Brooke [Tatnell] and Kerry[Madsen];they do it so hard that you can get sick of racing because they do it so much, "if I could do it and keep my love of the sport, it would be great. I am interested in NASCAR and Touring Cars, but you need to get the offers first!"

One thing is certain; Dumesny was the find of the summer.From his sensational victory in the World Series Sprintcar round at Parramatta - upside down - to his domination of the Sydney Sprintcar scene, we can expect to see a lot more of the'son of a gun'in the future,

w

hile it's been Dumesny's summer at the Parramatta track,the NSW Sprintcars had another series to contend - the Thunder thru the Plains Country Series.

With rounds at Dubbo,Gilgandra and Gunnedah,a mixture of experienced and not so experienced drivers ran the six-round series.

With top line racers like Adrian Maher, Loudoun, Mark Blyton, Andrew Wright committed to the series, and with appearances by Ian Madsen, Kelly Linigen and other'cast of the fast', the inaugural series was certainly a success.

Going into the final round the series, it could

have been won by young Stuart Williams, who was very impressive this season. But while Loudoun claimed the final feature race of the' series, the crown was taken out by Dubbo's Jeremy Cross.

After moving from the Super Sedan ranks a few years ago. Cross has been posting some impressive results. But consistency pays, and that was what won him the Thunder thru the Plains NSW Country Series title.

-"S

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Dallara F304 Race car trailer Fabricator

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Has 2 roller cabinets,fluorescent lights, compressor, work light ,tie lugs & Jack holder. 4 wheel brakes and elect break away. $15000 Not. Neg. Darren Silcock 0421 512190.

Melbourne Motorsport manufacturer seeks an experienced fabricator for immediate start. Successful applicant will be self-motivated and capable of working unsupervised, or as part of a team supervising others. Excellent wages negotiated on experience.

Contact Rai on 03 95877772

www.myl05.eom/60414

www.myl05.eom/80184

r

1

Enclosed Trailer

■[and®i |o9 for sale their race winning Dallas F304. Car a^nt^Bed E^^less of cost duiJnggrtiaiiffl^ Igttory Opel car in Europe). Long VO^el Base frontsuspSwao-Oarcorr^carDpI^e wfth QpBlffligine,APCQlipers,SACHS dampers, SACHS egrbon duah, spare campfeje front «ose/«Bng ®sembly, one set of wheels. SSQK rfig. Many other spares ava^ale separaQ^ inclodiRg

complete 5pa«er;gin®^aplete’§ti«f wishbones, drBgshBfi,spaofibiaglass (turning tahes,reBjji^^ Slock,(S'winoBfements etetend too n®iy more to IIM! $80,0^ hlJiltew -i-61 g9720 7S91.

www.myl05.com/3963

www.my 105.com/81085

y

Rebuilt, Set up Sprintcar with Wings, New allumimum panel sheeting, bogie, internal 240 volt lighting. Internal lining 1200 high, Allumimum tread plate flooring, 7.7m including draw bar, floor tie down points, tyre rack, electric brakes, large side door, LED lights, Reg 01/2010. $17,500.00. Contact Jim 0409 427132(Day)& 02 62262177 (Evening)

Speedway

Open Wheelers

r7-

1

-A

Merlyn MklO Ralt RT4 tSiler, ^It RT4 plus wmacolateennStron, just finished full restoration, engine just run in. tiew gejir bcac, mapy many spargg to many w jiaceEtaKflwith ogw build, wonB owner 1^^ WFP. inted RT4 by Jar.. $82,500 Or-®K)ff®-. GA®if 0413S79ffi^. ‘ www.my 105.eom/50716

/ am very tiappy with the sente I received All three of the enquiries you forwarded were firm buyers and it was sold on a first come first served basis.

Again thanks.

I. Hills

Meriyn 1967 MarklO, historic race car, chassis number 91R. This car has had a chassis up restoration, a fresh high horsepower all steel Lotus twin cam engine. Twin webbers, hewland box, new tyres, all log books and historic documentation. $75,000 ONO. John Holdsworth 6421 936750 / 649 5775 246. www.myl05.com/85132

397

Megakart 2005 Megakart 2005 )-750cc Formula Libre Hillclimb Car. Alcohol injected GSXR750 engine with all the good stuff. Hold record at a number of tracks. Comes with enclosed trailer and many spares.

Owner going oversears. Everything foes with car! $8,500 ono Phone Tom 0407 167 397. $8,500 ONO. M 0407 167 397 www.myl05.com/85498

it sold!

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87

THE ®R' TEHm

TRLh COnUERTQR HERE IS A COLLECTION OF THE BEST SNIPPETS PUBLISHED IN ENEWS OVER THE PAST MONTH

n Editorial

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M Contributors f7; Will Buxton, Mark Glendenning, Paolo Filisetti Europe: David Addison US: Martin D. Clark, Phil Morris, Mary Bignotti Mendez Speedway:Greg Boscato, Geoff Rounds, Darren Sutton,Tony Millard (UK), Geoff Grade Rally:loe\ Strickland Drag Racing: Dave Ostaszewski(USA), Ken Ferguson,John Bosher Natianal: Lachlan Mansell, Mark Wicks, Mark Jones, Daniel Powell Photographers:Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, Marshall Cass, John Morris/ Mpix, AF1 Images,James Smith, Peter Bury, Neil Blackbourn, Chris Carter, Coopers Photography, CBR Photographic, Paris Charles, Bob Potts, Neil Hammond, Mike Patrick(UK) Motorsport News is published by Australasian Motorsport News ABN 55 125 120 702 Publisher: C Lambden Printed by: Webstar Printing 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.

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Tyred and Emotional VVould it be practical to completely remove tyre bundles from all racetracks then implement a different approach?

Officials could determine a 'safe' zone on the kerbs in question, and paint them green. On the 'unsafe'zone, the kerb could be painted red. An intermediate strip between the two could be painted yellow.

Matt Treacey sheds some colours on Hamilton's tyre bundle problems Hotel in ... California?

I just wanted to offer some advice to your readers before Winton'sVS Supercar round in 2010. Book your

accommodation now!

I have spent the past two weeks calling every hotel and motel from Benalla to Bourke, and it took me a long time to secure something.

Brett O'Bree found it hard to get a bunk for the Winton V8 round Back to the ... Past While reading the story of Murphy redesigning [well, inspecting] the track in New Zealand for safety reasons, I couldn't help but be taken back to Bathurst where a clash between him and Ambrose finished lots of hopes and dreams.

Hopefully the drivers since then can race side by side without robbing race fans of the most

4years ago Issue 309 - 18-31 May 2005

WHY is Kevin Rudd like Marcos Ambrose?

No, it is not because K-Rudd drives at 300kmh in circles. And Ambrose lives in Charlotte, not Canberra.

It is because both men said 'Sorry'.

Ambrose had his Mea Culpa moment four years ago, apologising for his outburst after clashing with Mark Skaife in Perth.

The two men clashed at the first corner at Barbagallo, and Ambrose said afterwards that"we won't lose this championship, it'll be taken away from us".

He made good by apologising, unreservedly, to his team, sponsors,fans,just about everyone in the sport - even Skaife. Which is more than John

Howard could ever managed to do.

It must have been Sorry Week.

In Formula 1, BAR was sorry too, after being outed over a dodgy fuel tank system at Imola.The drama was that the team was to miss the Monaco GP as a result.

Elswehere in MN #309, Paul Cruickshank was looking to move into the Main Game,Wellington withdrew its bid for a V8 race, and Castrol confirmed that it was parting ways with Larry Perkins's V8 team.

V8 Supercars Operations Manager Tony Manson left, BMW was proposing to buy the Sauber FI team and Valentino Rossi was rumoured to be looking at testing ■a Formula 1 car.

Steven Richards spoke about

exciting race.

K. Welsh revisits the past Green with Envy I can't believe what I have just read in MNews about the ban on fireworks. For the past six nights we have been bombarded with fireworks at 9pm each night at the close of the Easter Show each day.

I also bike ride through out the whole Homebush and Olympic Park area two to three times per week (about 200kms), which I have been doing now for some years, and I have never seen a frog of any kind in the district...

Peter Doulman has never heard of the Sydney Stealth Frog W-niRLPOmUCAN namrA WIN THEINmS^

news y

e«fs<

\/8 Chjimp’s extraordinary hack-down H

STEVE RICHARDS MJM fMCROW I GEOff BUABI

his WA round win, Adam Macrow was cleaning them up in the HPDC-backed Development Series (remember that?) and McLaren thrashed Renault in Barcelona.

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MANLEY^,

Manley offers no less than six different models of stainless valves to assure you're getting what's best for the application and budget. New Hollow Stem stainless valves reduce weight without the expense of titanium. Manley's onepiece forged titanium valves have proven to be the leader in performance and durability.

Manley's highly acclaimed NexTek® valve -—^ springs are the choice of many top racers because they simply maintain their rated loads more consistently and have a longer service life than the competition. A new generation of lightweight NexTek® springs provides increased RPM potential and excellent valve train life.

COMIMECTIIMG RODS These rugged 4130 chrome moly steel pushrods feature meticulously formed radii to assure correct seating in the lifter and rocker arm and lengths are tightly controlled. Available in 5/1B" X .OaO" wall, 3/B" x .DBO" and .120 wall, and 7/IB" x .125" wall in all popular lengths.

Manley has the optimum connecting rod for the majority of engine combinations. For applications that require the strongest possible rod at the lightest possible weight we offer 300M alloy forgings in our / Tour Lite and Dirt Series rods. f| Manley also manufactures ' n connecting rods forged from ' 4340 aircraft quality vacuum degassed material. These include the Pro Series and NHRA-accepted S/S Stock replacement rods.

PLATirJUM PISTOIMS Manley's Platinum Series pistons are fast becoming a big favourite among engine builders in a variety of markets. These premium grade pistons are forged out of high strength 2B18 alloy and available for applications ranging from 4-cylinder Sport Compacts to 4.500" bore big block U Chevys. A number of applications are also offered with coated skirts, which provide the added benefits of reducing friction, for allowing the use of tighter piston-to-bore clearances improved stability and optimum ring seal, plus reducing skirt and bore wear. All Manley pistons come with Tool Steel wrist pins at no

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And when it comes to H-beam rods, nobody gives you a better rod for the money than Manley. They are made from aircraft quality forgings and meticulously finished to exacting specifications using the same manufacturing technology as our Pro Series rods.

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