Motorsport News Issue 403 - January 2011

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No.403 January 2011 Australia $7.95 NZ $8,50 inc GST

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Incorporating MOTOR RACING AUSTRALIA

Dumbrell: CEO, Triathlete, V8 Winner Barrichello: FI Veteran up for 2011

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No,It's not's Santa's sleigh dashing through the snow, but Lee Holdsworth, making himself athome under the bushes at Homebush.

The Fujitsu Commodore driver had a great weekend In Sydney, culminating In a win in the final V8 Supercar race of2010.

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THIS MONTH’S FEATURES Unusual Suspects

The Grid

Normally, race drivers are busiest over a race weekend. For Paul Dumbrell,a race Weekend is practically a holiday. He managed to find halfan hour in his schedule to have a chat to us for this issue.

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For most ofthe year, Daniel Kalisz hides in Europe, traveling to Formula i races all over the world for Buttons Images. But he was kind enough to pop into Sydney for the Telstra 500, and take some cracking snapsi

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4: Speaking ofFormula 1 races.

Mat Coch gets around to a few ofthem. While in Abu Dhabi for the season finale, he sat down with Rubens Barrichello to talk about the past, and more importantly, the future.

f This year's Xmas Quiz may well stump you. Ifso, blame the guy on the right, David Greenhalgh.

He's a motorsport nut, who knows all there is to know.

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Rubens Barrichello has had a long and somewhatsuccessful career. And as he told MNews,it isn't over yet.

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● the best views of the V8 Supercar actiotf from a reserved seat \ ● Experience new Twilight Racing with Australian GT'Glamour Cars ● Drool over the Lamberghini%|urcielago and Ferrari F458 at Murray Walker's Extreme Machines Meet your mates in the best beer garden in town - The Parking Lot V,

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rilI»10W>ItTil news Editorial Executive Editor Phil Branagan editor@mnews.com.au Assistant Editor Andrew van Leeuwen andrew@mnews.com.au Special Projects Editor Steve Normoyle snormoyle@chevron.com.au National Editor Mitchell Adam mitchell@mnews.com.au

NATIONAL FEATURES

The Grid

Victorian Publisher Chris Lambden publisher@mnews.com.au

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Editorial Enquiries

357 Nepean Highway, Brighton East, VIC,3187 (PO Box 7072, Brighton, Vie;3186) P 03 9596 5555 F 03 9596 5030 admin@mnews.com.au

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Contributing Writers

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Mark Glendenning, Bruce Moxon, Geoff Rounds, David Greenhaigh

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Photography

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Anyone can take a picture, but taking a picture good enough to be chosen as one of our best of 2010 is a heck of a task. Lucky we have good photographers...

Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, John Morris, Andrew Hall, James Smith, Peter Bury, Ash Budd

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Cover Design: Chris Currie

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Russell up a race team The Russell family goes V8 Supercar racing on a budget. They told us how they do it

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Breaking down the Wall David Wall is an Australian GT Champion, and V8 enduro driver, and now, a dad

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The Chris, The Season Taking a break a couple of seasons ago did Chris Allajajian no harm at all

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The name's Bruce ... Aussie Bruce Bruce Garland is ready for another tilt at the Dakar

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Warrna-Brothers Geoff Rounds looks at how Speedway brings Warrnabool together

Advertising

National Sales Manager Oriana Ruffini oriana@mnews.com.au P 03 9596 5555 F 03 9596 5030 Advertising Sales Manager Luke Finn lfinn@chevron.com.au Director, Advertising Sales Jon Van Daal jvandaal@chevron.com.au P02 9901 6100 Chairman, Chevron: Ray Berghouse Circulation Director: Carole Jones Subscriptions: www.mnews.com.au

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All rights reserved, Motorsport News is primted by Webstar, distributed by Network. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, In whole or In part, without the prior permission of the publisher. The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. All material submitted is at the owner's risk and, while every care will bo taken nextmedia does not accept liability for loss or damage, Privacy Policy We value the integrity of your personal information. If you provide personal Information through your participation in any competitions, surveys or offers featured in this issue of Motorsport cNews, this will be used to provide the products or services that you have requested and to improve the content of our magazines.

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REGULARS 08

The Front Row

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Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan

12

On The Limiter with Chris Lambden

14

News and Views

16

Winding Back

18

Box Seat

88

Model Behaviour

94

Trade

96

Classifieds

98

The Final Word with Paul Cruickshank motorsport news J

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THE FRONT ROW since we last met

V8 SUPERCARS

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HE final two races of theV8 Supercar Championship Series couldn't have been more crazy.

Leading into the Sydney Telstra 500 at Homebush Bay,there was 53 points between James Courtney and Jamie Whincup. In other words, with 300 points on offer, there was practically nothing in it on Saturday morning. By Saturday evening, it couldn't have been more different.

In this instance, we'll try and make a confusing situation as easy to understand as possible. Basically, what happened is this; all three title contenders, Mark Winterbottom, Whincup and Courtney, were running 1 -2-3 three-quarters of the way through Saturday's race, only to have a freak rain shower hit the circuit while they were all on slicks. The trio all slid into the same wail atTurn 5 together, causing significant damage to all three cars.

Remarkably,they all got back to the pits.Then,it was a race to see whose crew could repair their car enough to get back on track and finish,thus earning valuable points heading into Sunday's decider.

Winterbottom never got close, ruling himself out of title contention. Whincup and Courtney both got out, but only Courtney did a singe fast lap at the end to be classified as a finisher. As a result, he took a lead of more than 100 points into Sunday's race, and 14th was enough to ensure he won the title.

"I can't speak enough of the guys,"said Courtney at the time.

"This belongs to every one of the guys that works at Dick Johnson Racing.They've put in unbelievable hours, and really spent every penny wisely. It's great to repay Dick and give him a championship after 15 years, and win it for Ford. It's an amazing achievement and I can't thank the guys enough."

Meanwhile,the ST500 welcomed another new race winner to the V8 Supercar family. When the surprise deluge hit on Saturday afternoon, Jonathon Webb was the leading car on wets, and despite immense pressure from the far more experienced Jason Bright late in the race, Webb hung on for his maiden win.

There were almost two new winners in Sydney.

During Sunday's race, Shane van Gisbergen found himself out front late, thanks to a fuel strategy'punt'.

Problem was,the strategy was a little too dicey, and when he ran out of fuel on the final lap, dual polesitter Lee Holdsworth scuttled past for his first win since Oran Park in 2007.

At Sandown a fortnight earlier, Paul Dumbrell also won his first race. Having taken his first podium a week earlier in Tasmania, Dumbrell showed it was no fluke with a stunning win in Saturday's race. He then backed that up with his first pole on Sunday morning, but Courtney won the race, a decisive one leading into the finale in Sydney.

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motorsport news

eNews of the Month 2011. GRID STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE There are now very few holes left in the 2011 V8 Supercar grid.

With the DJR situation now resolved (see separate story)and David Reynolds confirmed at Kelly Racing (see separate story), the teams and driver combinations for the coming season are becoming clearer.

As MNews went to press,there was no confirmed driver for the #18 Jim Beam Racing Falcon. However, we believe that James Moffat will get the seat.

As for Paul Morris Motorsport, Greg Murphy will be replaced

by Steve Owen in '11.The #51 Commodore,should they retain Murphy's famous number, will be sponsored by Tony Quinn's VIP Petfoods.

The biggest question marks remain at Brad Jones Racing, with the Albury-based team still potentially needing a stand-in driver for car #8 until Jason Richards recovers fully from cancer surgery, and a sponsor for Jason Bright's car #14.

RICHO IN ENDURANCE MODE Steven Richards has confirmed that he will not pursue a full-time V8 Supercar seat for 2011.

Richo announced in a statement that he would consider"all the options available to me"in terms of endurance co-drives, but that he may return to a full-time seat after 2011.

"By no means is this an announcement of any sort in relation to retiring from driving full time in the V8 Supercar Championship who knows at this stage what lies beyond 2011."

REYNOLDS JOINS KELLY GANG David Reynolds will return to the V8 Supercar grid full-time this season, driving the #16 Commodore at Kelly Racing.

Stratco will stay on board, with Tony Ricciardello making way for the Albury star.

"I feel that I'm better mentally now that I have had a year off to think about it,"said Reynolds.

"Everything happens so quickly in your first season in the main game.The races are longer than you're used to and as a young driver you can be burnt out by mid-year.

"I have really concentrated on my fitness this year so that I'm stronger for 2011. I'm not racing in New Zealand this summer so that I can concentrate completely on our plans for 2011 with the Stratco Commodore."

RESOLUTION AT DJR Finally, there has been a resolution in the ongoing Dick Johnson Racing ownership saga.

Surprisingly, very little will change. Jim Beam will stay on as the title sponsor and, while former co-owner Charlie Schwerkolt has come out of the split with the Racing Entitlement Contract for car #18, he will lease it back to DJR so they can continue being a two-car team. Gold Coast company Crimsafe, which manufacturers security doors, will take over Schwerkolt's share in the team.

In other DJR news, MNews expects the relationship with Jono Webb's Tekno Autosport to continue this season, with Webb continuing to run his ex-TeamVodafone FG Falcon.

Motorsport eNews available 8pm Mondays. www.mnews.com.au

www.mnews.com.au

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MOTOR MOUTH

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SAW something funny on television this morning.

Like Oprah, I was watching Sunrise and,as Mark Beretta threw to Grant Denyer for the weather, he mentioned that James Courtney was about to be confirmed as a Holden Racing Team driver. Grant said something about being a trueblue Ford man,and hoping that Ford can go back-to-back for titles, next year(meaning,2011).

That was an odd thing to say. Obviously, Denyer follows the sport closer than most weathermen, but it appeared to have slipped his mind that Ford drivers had not just won the 2010 V8 Supercars title, but the last three. TeamVodafone is a Holden team now, but Jamie Whincup won his titles in Falcons, with Ford backing in '08 and without it in '09.Then, Holden swooped and the rest is history.

I am not calling Denyer a goose;far from it. But I am fascinated by the perceptions in play here.

When a driver of Courtney's profile jumps the fence, some might construe it as an act of

treason and brand him a traitor. But that seems to be a particularly V8 Supercar thing; such things seem less important in other arenas of the sport.

In Formula 1, the only loyalty seems to be between Ferrari and the Tifosi, but even that can evolve. When Fernando Alonso won his World titles for Renault, he could have been considered by hardcore Ferrari fans as akin to Satan. Now, having almost pulled the 2010 title out of the fire, he is their hero. But, do they care about Michael Schumacher, in his Mercedes-Benz? Probably not - until he starts being a threat to Alonso.

But V8 Supercars does seem different to other categories.

Why aren't Toyota fans distraught that Marcos Ambrose has deserted them in their hour of need to drive a Ford in NASCAR next season? Maybe they have been soothed by Kasey Kahne exiting a Petty Ford mid-season to join Red Bull - but this is only a stop-gap before he joins (gasp!) Chevrolet and Hendrick in 2012.

But, if this level of brand

loyalty is something specific to V8 Supercars, why have Jason Bright, Will Davison and Steven Richards gone'unpunished?

They have swapped brands, regularly, but they still seem to have their share of fans, with very few negatives.

And, will these upset Ford fans now desert Ford itself? After all, in July 2008,the company made the decision to restrict its backing to Ford Performance Racing and Stone Brothers Racing. In doing so, it'dumped' TeamVodafone and DJR - the teams that won the next three titles to be decided from that point, in Fords. Okay, Ford's largesse has expanded this season, and DJR is back in the fold, but will the fans'passion extend to either punishing Ford for getting it'wrong'two years ago,or by switching camps to follow Courtney to Flolden?

Loyalty is important, but so is context. Amid all the fuss regarding the loyalty shown, or not, by the likes of Gary Ablett, BomberThompson and Israel Folau, I heard a good explanation,from former AFL great, Simon Madden. Flis view was that a team comes together at the start of a season and

pledges loyalty to the team and each other, but only for the duration of that season. When the season ends,so does that commitment. People make other arrangements,the team makes changes and a new era, and new loyalty pledge, takes effect.

If that is a more realistic context,'transient loyalty'makes sense. Perhaps, In sporting terms, loyalty is a seasonal state, not something that should be considered permanent. Like the weather, it changes, and can be difficult to predict.

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hat brings us to the end of 2010.

We have had a great year at Motorsport News and Motorsport eNews,and it is time to thank our contributors and photographers, our advertisers and all of you, our readers,for making that worthwhile.Your loyalty - there's that word again means a lot.

Lambden, AVL, Adam and I, and our loyal team, will be back In 2011, and we wish you all a happy and safe summer. May whatever brand of Iconic deity you follow smile upon you and yours, and we hope you enjoy the festive season.

When a driver ofCourtney's profileJumps the fence,some might construe it as an act oftreason and brand him a traitor. But thatseems to be a particularly V8 Supercar thing;such things seem less importantin other arenas ofthe sport 10

motorsport news

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CHRIS

LAMBDEN ON THE LIMITER

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OMETHINGItrytoget through to my kids, and people who we employ at Motorsport News (and young racing drivers, if any ask), is that if you screw up, if you get something wrong, if you pile it into the barriers, there's no point in making excuses. Just take a deep breath, put your hand up and say,"Yup, it was me, I screwed up..."

In the end, you get more respect that way.

There are still a couple of perfect racing drivers out there who never make a mistake; never put themselves in the wrong spot, or simply screw up.

You get that in all sports.

Well stand by,'cause you're about to get something even rarer - a media person admitting they got something wrong!

I never really thought Paul Dumbreli would make it as a race driver.

There, I said it.

It's a fact of life that a reasonable number of the young guys who get a start in motorsport at the higher leveis do so thanks to family support; fathers with a bit - or a fair bit of disposable cash,through the business. You know what I mean.

There are a few in V8 Supercars. It is, after all, not cheap to go V8 Supercar racing and sponsorship is hard to find if you're not a household name.

It's the same in Formula 1.

And some of them, no matter what, will never'make it'. Sometimes, never having to struggle for a buck can take away that absolute, singleminded, gamble-it-all drive to succeed.

For quite a while, I had Paul Dumbreli in, or at best on the edge of, that category.

V8 Supercars debut at age 16,some good cars, some occasional pace, but a number of shunts - some big ones later on in big races, when the tough really get going. When

concentration and stamina are at a premium.

And with all the young hot shots you get the dads.The ambitious fathers.

This was no different inciuding the day Gary Dumbreli chastised me for aliowing the nick-name'Dummers'to appear in print in a light-hearted piece in this publication (even though i explained there was no'b'in it!).

But things in the Dumbreli world have had a seismic shift in the past two years. Firstly there was the horrendous shunt in iate 2008 that crippled his younger brother Lucas.Then, this year, word that Gary was fighting cancer. From the richkid with the part-time job fitted around his racing, Paui Dumbreli has found himself thrust into the responsibility of running the Autobarn group. And,from all accounts, his management style is doing the biz. But it's been a tough set of circumstances.

While there has been a change in team,and car brand, on-track, I personally think it is all this bigpicture stuff that has matured Paul into a race driver of worth.

Nowhere was the maturity more evident than at Sandown,

where the Bottle-0 Falcon not only kept an aggressive defending Champion at bay, but actually edged clear to rack up Dumbrell's first race win.

I don't think i was alone in waiting for the drama.The oid PD would have made a mistake under that degree of pressure and probably binned it. The mistake never came.

I don't know Paui that weli, other than through the occasional contact this line of business brings. But those who do, including the'young blokes' at MN,reckon he's a genuine good guy to boot.

So there you have it. I, and I suspect a few others, got it wrong.There, i said it again! PD is the driver who has surprised many this year - the background to it ail has been pretty character building, but the young man has obviously matured in every sense and is well-deserving of the accolades(and the feature further on in this issue of MN) that should come his way.

It's a good news story on which to end 2010, and along with it go my best wishes to all our readers for Christmas and a great 2011.

PD is the driver who has surprised many this year - the background to it aii has been pretty character-buiiding, but the young man has obviousiy matured in every sense

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motorsport news

Australian 1/Bth mile Daarslammer Championship Held over 2 huge days on Saturday January 22nd and Sunday January 23rd, 2011 the countries best Doorslammers are conning back to Calder Park! Come and see the 2010 Spring Horse Power Challenge winner, Peter Kapiris, compete against the likes of the great Victor Bray, Ben Bray, Sean Misfud, Phil Glendenning, Maurice Fabietti, Mark Belled and Peter Blake just to name a few!!

With an overwhelming response to the Spring Horse Power Challenge, this event promises to ignite a great year of drag racing here at Calder Park.

Calder Park are also excited to announce that Luke Follachio (aka Lukey Luke), one of Australia’s prominent motorcycle stunt riders, riding with factory support from Triumph Motorcycles, will be back to provide ultimate entertainment to all supporters of off-street drag racing.

Along with the Doorslammers we have the following brackets confirmed to take part in the 2011 True Blue event: - Nostalgia - Top Eliminator - Pro Street - Pro Radial - Modified Bike - Super Street - Super Charged Eliminator - Super Eliminator, - and Modified Street

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BITS & PIECES

Coming Attraction Who’s the next big thing?

Dylan Richter - AUSTRALIAN FORMULA FORD CHAMPIONSHIP

What our readers have been telling us on Twitter this month

Whale998 Still peeved at Red Bull Racing.

Congratulations to James Courtney.

Bring on 2011 for Casey Stoner!

What is he currently doing?

DharmeshNanu

At the moment, Dylan is working through the transition from speedway to circuit racing.

Having spent four years in junior speedway sedans from 2004 to 2008,the South Aussie switched to Formula Vee in '09. He was immediately on the pace,finishing fourth in the South Australian 1200cc series, and second at Island Magic at Phillip Island at the end of the season.

In 2010, he switched to Formula Ford, and finished second in the SA 1600 series - by just a single point, in a title fight that was decided on the last lap of the season. He then moved to a Spectrum 011B Duratec car - ex-Chaz Mostert - for two Victorian state rounds at Phillip Island late in the year.

So stoked for Steve Owen.Greg Murphy Racing have been knocking on the championship door for a while. Kevin Murphy is a smart man.

Where does he want to go?

Dylan is currently putting together a program to run as many Australian Formula Ford Championship rounds as possible in '11, as well as the entire Victorian state series.Then, he is expected to do the full national series the following year.

At the moment, Dylan is undecided about whether his career plans are here in Australia, or down the Formula 3 path in Europe. But at 17 years of age, he still has time - if only a little - to make a decision. Although, once out of his'12 FFord program, he'll be 19 - and that's ancient in motorsport these days!

pelicanbills

Cars on warm up lap! Still parked on the grid on TV!Thanks you Channel 7, not live again. Very poor.

Glenn Batchelor

Lotus/Renault is very tasty, it will be interesting to see if the Team Lotus car IS going to be black and gold too.That will cause some confusion for the casual race watcher.

What do you think about the big issues in motorsport? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

QUICK QUIZ 1

James Courtney is the latest V8 Supercar Champion. How many other V8 Supercar champions has there been?

2

Has Courtney ever finished outside the Top 10 In the standings in a full year of V8 Supercar racing?

3

How old was Paul Dumbrell when he made his Bathurst 1000 debut, back in 1999?

4

For how many V8 teams has Dumbrell raced in a full-time capacity?

5 M

What is Rubens Barrichello’s famous nickname? motorsport news

MOTORSPORTS CALENDAR

mV favourite race

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STEVE OWEN - KARTING NATIONALS,2000

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200038th ANNUAL

I had to Start 13th for the pre-final. I had the shits about that, because I was fastest in qualifying, so I felt like I should have been up the front, and I knew it was going to be hard work from 13th to get through to the final.

Anyway,there was a bit of a pile-up at the first corner, and I just got into the back of the guy in front of me and held it flat -1 though we'd either come outof itokay, orhavea massive crash! We bounced our way down the front straight,there was shit flying everywhere,and we came out of the first corner and the guy I was pushing was in the lead and I was second!! passed him the next corner, and went over the line with a two second lead, and went on to win.

I started the final from pole, and won - and that was my first Australian championship,so it was a special day for me.

I was driving for a factory team,and I'd never been to the track before, so we turned up the week prior and did a lot of testing.That was in Clubman Light, which was the most competitive championship back then,so it was a big thing for me.

It's so different to winning car racing titles, because everyone is so maxed out in karting. In the Fujitsu Series, there is probably only six or eight cars that are

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January

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL SPRINT

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TOURS

January 1

Dakar 2011 Start Buenos Aires, Argentina

January 1

World Series Sprintcars Rd 9 Premier Speedway.

Warrnambool, Vic

January 2-3

ANDRA Pro Series New Year Series Rd 1 Willowbank Raceway, Willowbank, Qld

January 7-8

World Series Sprintcars Rd 10 Brisbane International Speedway, Brisbane. Qld

January 14

World Series Sprintcars Rd 11 Murray Bridge Speedway, Murray Bridge, SA

January 14-15 ANDRA Pro Series New Year Series Rd 2 Willowbank Raceway, Willowbank, Qld January 15

World Series Sprintcars Rd 12 Speedway City, Adelaide, SA

January 16

Dakar 2011 Finish Buenos Aires, Argentina

January 28

ANDRA Pro Series Top Fuel Perth Motorplex, Perth, WA

January 29

V8 Supercar Test Day Eastern Creek, NSW

For travel assistance for these and other future events contact us

Official t

capable of winning, and out of that there are only probably four drivers. But in karting, I remember in that Mount Gambier race, it was so tight that I did about three or four laps that were good enough for pole, but only qualified on pole by half a tenth. It was that close!

In the final I only won by half a second, and people said I did it easy. I remember driving around doing 37.3, 37.3,37.3, and a bad lap was a 37.4. Karting is just the purest form of motorsport...

Steve Owen spoke to Andrew van Leeuwen

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i Mike Gascoyne tweets his thoughts on the double Lotus situation in Formula 1.

www.mnews.com.au

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www.travelaire.com.au 15

WINDING BACK the year that was...

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Tom Walkinshaw is gone buthis racecars iivexfffrinT§86,TWR parked its :mri a iarge British Rover took the iimeiight-and aimost the ETCCA _

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. ....

OM Walkinshaw's name has been associated with some of the world's most famous racers.

We have already looked in this column at the Le Manswinning Jaguar VI2'Tomcats' that took two famous victories at the French endurance classic. Likewise,the TWR XJSs came,saw and conquered at Bathurst.There were also Mazda rotaries. Fords, Volvo's fleet of SuperTouring cars and more than three decades of Flolden Commodores.

But here's one; what about TWR's Rovers?

In the glory days of Group A, the Rover Vitesse was one of the best racers in the business.

TWR built more than 20 of the cars, raced them at the top level that was the European Touring Car Championship - and won practically everything there was to win - except the ETCC title.

Racing was possibly the last thing that people had on their mind wlien the original version 16

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of the car, the SD1 of 1976, was introduced. In the 1970s,the quality of cars built in the UK was right up there with some of the better efforts of the Soviet Bloc, a result of unions fighting with the government and whoever else might have been around that day.The cars companies like Austin Rover built were mostly shoddy and unimaginative, but there were people who raved about the large-car practicality of Rover's big hatchback.

And, it came with a V8. It was 3.5 litres; for a Pommy car, that's huge.The pushrod V8, actually 3532CC, delivered about 190hp.

In Group A trim, it cranked out 340 horses and drove through a five-speed Getrag gearbox.The TWR cars ran on Dunlop tyres and ran with the backing of Belgian cigarette brand Bastos and Texaco oil.

The Rovers raced in both the BTCC and ETCC, and two Rovers even made it to Bathurst in 1984, racing in the Group A class in Mobil colours. But, until '84, the

Jag XJS remained TWR's weapon of choice.

Win Percy explains why: "At the end of 1984,Tom came to my home in Weymouth and told me that Jaguar had decided to pull the plug on Touring Cars," he says.

"We might be doing the odd race, but not a championship. He then told me the bad news; we had a Rover, not a Jaguar.The good news was, whatever races we did, I got to drive with him!"

Which meant,TW's seat,TW's steering wheel position ...

"The Rover was exceptional," Percy continues.

"The Jaguar had been dominant, but in '85,the Rovers were the number one project.

We had three full-time cars and a fourth,for Ron Dickson, Neville Crichton and Denny Hulme.The beauty of the Rover was that it was so well-engineered, you could drive it as hard as you could. If we broke it, they fixed it.

"It was the first Touring Car with an integral rollcage in the

VI

shell. You could tell how worn a car was with a bolted-in cage - it would change in a 500 kay race!

But the Rover didn't go off.

"We did the ETCC in '85, and we won Monza,Vallelunga, Donington,the Osterreichring and Salzburgring, Nogaro and theTT at Silverstone. We won all those races, but we were driving the butt off it. When we finished, we won, but we broke it a fair bit.'

The 1986 ETCC looked like being the series to end all ETCCs (which it was as, the following year, the World Touring Car Championship replaced it). The Rovers were the cars to be dealt with but there was plenty of opposition.The Alfa 75s came in two varieties, the works turbos and the privateer V6s, AMG had Mercedes-Benz 190s, Schnitzer an armada of BMW 635s, Eggenberger its quirky Ford Sierra XR4Ti (a forerunner of the Sierra Cosworth), Allan Grice in a Commodore (and the odd appearance of Peter Brock, Allan Moffat and others in HDT cars) motorsport news

Red means fast: The Bastos-backed TWR Rovers made an impressive sight in the mid-1980s. Win Percy'won' the ETCC for a few weeks, until the FIA advised him that a rule change earlier in the season gave BMW the title.

The Rovers made it to Bathurst in 1984, above,running in the thennew Group A class. The same year,Percy and Tom Walkinshaw won a lot ofraces when the car didn't break,including at Donington, right.

and the ex-works Volvo 240Ts, now run by RAS. Walkinshaw and Percy led a 1-2 at Monza and won again at Donington, were fourth at Hockenheim and third at Misano.

They were fourth at Anderstorp, but that became second when the first and second-placed Volvos were disqualified for using illegal fuel. Volvo struck back at Brno but Walkinshaw/ Percy were second, and then they went to Zeltweg in Austria, where all hell broke loose.

"Tom crashed a brand-new car on the first corner, very unusual for him, and he got hit by quite a few cars," says Percy.

"So, he transferred me to the other car."

The Swedes were again 1 -2 but, again, they were disqualified. www.mnews.com.au

this time for an oversize fuel tank. So the Eggenberger Sierra looked the winner - until it was DQ'd,for illegal fuel! But Walkinshaw's call had paid off; Percy shared the win with Armin Hahne.

The Germans struck back at the Nurburgring, with Schnitzer's lead BMW heading home the lead Sierra. Walkinshaw/

Percy were fourth, a lap down and behind the Gianfranco Brancatelli/Hahne Vitesse.

BMW swept Spa,filling the top five places after 24 Hours, the lead TWR entry breaking an axle. A Rover won Silverstone's Tourist Trophy, but it was the 'wrong'one; Jeff Allam and Denny Hulme won, with the Walkinshaw/Percy car third.

At Nogaro,Volvo scored another 1-2 (this one, legal) with the troubled Rover 16th.The lead Volvq and BMW outran Walkinshaw and Percy at Zolder, Roberto Ravaglia/Emanuele Pirro beat the Brits into second at Jarama,so it all came down to Estoril.The Eggenberger car won, but second was enough to give Percy the title. That swap at Zeltweg had given Win the title, by a single point.

It was a big deal.

'Rover had already advertised it," says Percy,"the FIA invited me to Paris to get the trophy, sent me air tickets - and then, one day,Joe Saward rang me..."

Early in the year, the FIA had issued Bulletin 204, which changed the number of rounds that counted towards the drivers' title from 10 to nine.

Tom summoned me to Kidlington, and told me we had lost it," says Percy glumly.

I had [Schnitzer boss] Charlie Lamm and Rudi Eggenberger on the phone, apologising, and they said they had not seen that bulletin. To this day, the FIA has never told me what happened."

The following year, the WTCC took over, and TWR started to turn its attention to Le Mans. And not long after that, Walkinshaw told his good mate Winny about a funny idea he had, about Australia and Holdens ...

17

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BOX SEAT

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f you caught a Formula 1 journalist during an unguarded moment(sometime shortly before closing time in a bar during a race weekend would be an excellent start), it wouldn't be a huge surprise to hear them admit that they find the Christmas period to be hard work.

The demand for news is the same, but most of the time, nothing is actually happening.

The resolution of one of the greatest Formula 1 title battles in years has left a big hole where,only weeks before, piles of noise about championship permutations, whose car would best suit the remaining tracks and which driver had the more favourable record in title showdowns/coming from behind/night races/ deserts(delete as appropriate) used to be. And despite the fact that the drivers are now on holiday and none of the 2011 cars have turned a wheel yet,that hole still needs to be filled.

This is a big part of the reason why everyone got so excited when Mark Webber revealed that he'd had a bit of a moment on his mountain bike prior to Suzuka. Frankly, as stories go,it was hardly on the scale of Michael Schumacher returning. For any other driver, having to take a shot before hopping into a Formula 1 car for a couple of hours might represent a nice bit of bravado, but considering what Webber had to rebound from in order to be fit for the 2009 season, it seems almost incidental.

That didn't stop the inevitable speculation about the impact it may have had on the final part of his season.You'd expect that if the injury had been a serious physical problem then the race that immediately followed it -Japan - would be where it manifested itself most.Yet the fact that Webber was less than a tenth off pole and finished on the podium at Suzuka seems to have been ignored.

Equally entertaining were the follow-up stories about how the incident could affect Webber's future with Red Bull. Christian Horner was quoted as sounding mildly irritated, but that probably had as much to do with team principals not liking to make a habit of learning something about their drivers from the press as it did with the incident itself. It was hardly on the scale of the'tennis injury'that sidelined Juan Pablo Montoya from two races in 2005.

And even if it was. Red Bull is a prisoner of its own image in a situation like this. A company with a marketing strategy so heavily dependent upon sponsoring stunt riders and skydivers can't

clamp down too heavily on a racing driver for riding a bicycle...

Yet even during a December news drought,there was only so much life that could be squeezed out of a'man falls off bike'story.

That's where Lotus came in and saved the day.

Which Lotus? Well, that's the point. And despite the reams of stuff that has been written about all of this in the last few days, it's a pretty dull one.There's little reason to go through the details of who has the strongest claim to custodianship of the legacy first sparked by the Clark/Chapman era here. If it hasn't been resolved by the time that you read this then you're probably so heartily sick of the word'L S'that you'd rather that both incarnations disappeared and ieft the 2011 grid four cars iighter. And if it has been resolved,then whatever I write now wili be out of date.

None of the speculation about how FI fans could cope with two teams having similar names takes into account that precedent dictates that it would probably never happen. Cast your mind back to 1999,when BAR wanted to run one of its cars in Lucky Strike livery and the other in 555 colours. Why were they prevented from doing so? The FIA thought that it would be too confusing for fans; presumably suggesting that TV viewers are likely to find it far more easy to tell two different drivers apart if their cars are painted identically.

Even if the FIA didn't intervene,the desirability of the 'L S'name for the two teams involved is its brand value and marketability, both of which are diluted as soon as there is more than one example. One of the ironic things about ail this is that if both teams get their way,then neither of them wins. Both teams will know this, but obviously neither will want to be the one to back down.

On the flipside, there's also the matter of the sport's unfortunate knack for occasionally underestimating its fans. Even if we did have two pit garages with some variation of'L S' written above them,the cars will rarely be close enough to each other on the track for it to be an issue most of the time. And, what if they are?

Put it this way. A particular breed of English football fan has a mentality that drives them to sit through a match shirtless in the middle of a northern winter. But even the most frozen football fan knows the difference between Manchester United and Manchester City.

With a marketing strategy so heavily dependent upon sponsoring stunt riders and skydivers, Red Bull can't clamp down too heavily on a racing driver for riding a bicycle ● ●● vVi'»v<

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m

tujentq ten is over,and there hove been some distinct themes. The mneujs teom investigoted uihot's been moking V8 Supercors tick for the lost seoson 20

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N 2010,there were fears two-car teams might become an endangered species.

There were two four-car teams - Kelly Racing and Walkinshaw Racing - though those teams operate under different structures.There were three three-car teams - Dick Johnson Racing, Ford Performance Racing, Brad Jones Racing and Stone Brothers Racing - all operating under a similar blueprint of a'main'two-car team plus one'extra'.

Three two-car teams appeared - TeamVodafone, Garry Rogers Motorsport and Paul Morris Motorsport, as well as three single-car teams Centaur Racing, Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport and Triple F Racing.

The expansion of the bigger teams follows the pattern shown in recent years in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, but with one major and important difference. In NASCAR, 11 of the 12 drivers who made The Chase were from three or four-car squads.The odd man out was Tony Stewart, whose own team has a strong technical alliance with Hendrick Motorsport.

That is not quite the case here.The four-car teams struggled; at least, part of them did.

s

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because the Holden Racing Team comprehensively out-performed the Bundy Red side of the WR garage. Of course,the fact that the championship was fought out between a'three'(DJR)and a 'two'(TeamVodafone) points to the fact that the makeup of the individual teams and driving talent is more important to the overall performance than the structure itself.

The other difference is that the big NASCAR teams have, by and large, capitalised on the financial advantages offered by economies of scale and building a major campus to run many cars, not a few.The two-car V8 Supercar teams have shown that they can attract good sponsors and drivers, and that particular model does not look much like changing in the future. Plus, of course,WR is winding back to three cars for next season.

But like NASCAR,the days of struggle for the small, single-entry team look like continuing.

To date,the multi-entry teams have had an advantage, but there are signs that that process may even out, at least temporarily, with the Car of the Future in 2012. But there is a season of racing to get through before that happens...

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O TWENTY-Ten may well go down as the year of the co-driver.

After years of anticipation, V8 Supercars finally bought in the'stick-with-your-car'rule for 2010. In more technical terms,'primary' drivers (defined as the driver that raced the car at the first round in Abu Dhabi) were required to race their car at Phillip Island, Bathurst, and the Gold Coast.

Suddenly, co-drivers became a valuable commodity.They were'given the chance to shine,the chance to become first-time round winners, and the chance to prove that with the right machinery, they could get the Job done.They also had a ton of additional pressure plopped on their shoulders, as the likes of Warren Luff, Luke Youlden and David Besnard were no longer in some second-rate, balsa wood facsimile of a V8 Supercar, designed to pass as a second entry.

How did the rule stand up? In MNews' opinion, it passed with flying colours.The chance to see first-time round winners is always exciting, although the only one we saw in 2010 was Steve Owen,as Mark Skaife and Cameron McConville, both winners in their own right, were on the winning sides in the other three races. However, it's only

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a matter of time before more people take breakthrough wins under the rule.

As for regular co-drivers proving their worth, that was an unmistakable side-effect from the endurance races. For example, Owen and Luff qualified on the front row at Phillip Island, in a group that included Shane van Gisbergen, Garth Tander and Todd Kelly, among others. Dragging a balls-out qualifying lap out of a car is quite different to rolling around during a middle stint at Bathurst, and so team owners took notice. After the enduros. Luff moved,as Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport's new driver from Symmons Plains onwards, and Steve Owen rocketed to the top of Paul Morris Motorsport's list of Greg Murphy replacements for this season.

"Look,[the enduros have] been really important,"said Luff, right after he signed with LDM. "To be with a strong team like DJR, particularly this year with the FG Falcon and the link with Triple Eight, makes a big difference.They've made some big steps forward, and it's allowed me to make some big steps forward as well, and show what I can do in a competitive car.

"Teaming up with James [Courtney]

was a great opportunity, a great learning opportunity. I've been pretty lucky over the years that I've been with some good drivers in the enduros, like Steven [Johnson], [Marcos] Ambrose,and now James. I've had the benefit of that, and James is truly worldclass, so driving with him is a huge learning opportunity. Hopefully the things I've learned being partnered with James I can put to good use in my own campaign."

The other thing this new rule has done is increase the employment pool for racing drivers. With the rookie sessions and at least two, perhaps three, endurance outings (depending on what happens with the Gold Coast race), enduro drivers can have driving duties at up to five race meetings through the course of a year. Add some sponsor appearances,test days, and ride days to the mix, and you suddenly have a full-time Job. And if you're any good, and sign with a big team,the remuneration can be pretty handy,too. Realistically, the amount of drivers making a living from V8 Supercars can double, as paid drivers are likely to have paid co-drivers, and vise-versa for the drivers who bring money.

More drivers, more winners and the odd shock result? Sounds like a winner to us.

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T looked like 2010 was going to treat Will Davison and Fabian Coulthard pretty well.

One had Just finished second in the 2009 standings in his first year with Toll HRT, including enduro wins at Phillip Island and Bathurst. The other was set to'step up'to Walkinshaw Racing after a promising year helping Paul Cruickshank Racing punch above its weight.

But they'll both be glad to see the back of 2010, and probably would've had the end of the season marked in their calendars for quite some time.The fact is, it's been a tough year for the WR troops.

Davison looked a likely title contender again, but a blown engine in the opening race at Abu Dhabi set the tone for his year.

Other mechanical dramas have followed, along with battles to find pace, big shunts, broken ribs and even a clash with team mate Garth Tander at Winton.

Symmons Plains was symbolic. He was down on straight-line speed all weekend, but on a wet Sunday that wasn't a problem and he was fighting for a podium - only to encounter engine problems... It was part of a horror run of four DNFs in the final five races of 2010.

But while his fortunes on track were 22

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frustrating and often perplexing, off track, they were actually rosy. Davison Joined HRT on a two-year deal in 2009 and, if things were tickling along nicely, he probably would've simply re-signed with an incremental salary improvement.

Even with things going badly,though, suitors were in the wings. Briefly, HRT, DJR and FPR all looked like options for 2011, before Davison inked a deal to move on to bluer pastures with FPR.The start of 2011 can't come soon enough.

Perhaps alarmingly for Coulthard, he doesn't have such an obvious light at the end of the tunnel.

On paper,leading Bundy Red Racing

looked like a good gig, like Joining Walkinshaw Racing would deliver his big break. But it never got going.

While Coulthard was a regular inside the Top 10 last year with PCR and nabbed a podium, life with Bundy hasn't looked pleasant. As a whole, Walkinshaw Racing looks far from a productive four-car team, and the output of the third and fourth cars has been a shadow of HRT's best.

Having been 15th in the points last year, 23rd in 2010- with Just three Top 10s represents an unexpectedly disastrous season for Coulthard.The only way from here is up, but,short of a major shake-up at Clayton, it's hard to see things improving next year, motorsport news

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SHIFT TO A NEW LEVEL

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11

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T is really not fair that we single out one person as being key to the successes of anyV8 Supercar team.

Sure, a great driver can turn a less-than-great team into a winner. A team principal can be influential in securing the sponsorship that can fund a team's technical development,from which can flow race wins and championships.

In all this, though,there is a counter-argument; a team's manager is the one who people like us criticise when things go bad, and one who does not have an ownership role in a team can face the chopping block when things go really bad.

So,for that reason, we are impressed with Adrian Burgess.

That is not to say that he has kept Jim Beam Racing on the right path single-handedly. Far from it; Burgess has been backed up by hard-working staff at DJR, who have given their all in what they might not have realised early on was, potentially, a title year. James Courtney returned from the flyaway races in the desert only in fifth place, but it was the changes that the team made to his car then that got him on the road to the title.

So, if we appear to single out Burgess for praise, we really mean to spread it around. It was a slightly surreal moment, with the DJR team scrambling to fix Courtney's crashed car in Sydney while, not far away,TearnVodafone's troops were doing the same with Jamie Whincup's - particularly considering that is where Burgess will be working in 2011.

Motor racing is a hard business; V8 Supercar racing, particulariy so. The margins between the fast cars and the duds are smaller than at any 24

time in the sport's history.The overall standard of drivers is better than ever before; there are plenty of good pros, but even the drivers who race because of the budgets they bring to teams are not baboons.

It's this. JBR had a tough year, with co-owners Dick Johnson and Charlie Schwerkolt on opposite paths, so far as the team's future was concerned.

Burgess has put the team's sporting side front and centre, and allowed his people to do their best, while insulating them from the distractions that might otherwise stop a team from performing.

In this regard, also, we note that Johnson and Schwerkolt have played a positive role, in preventing whatever war was in progress from becoming thermo-nuclear.

The very future of the team may have been under a question mark, but at no time did we get the sense that was interfering with its functionality.

Courtney's four wins on the trot were title changing victories, but his fifth, at Sandown, was one of the most telling and most timely we can recall, and a massive statement by driver and team.

In terms of what JBR managed,the outcome of the championship battle between James and Whincup is almost irrelevant. What mattered was that a team with some internal problems, and less assets, stood up to the defending champions, race after race. That counted more than the fact that it ultimately beat them on the final weekend.

WithTeamV's pedigree, who knows what Burgess will achieve with his new team. But together with his old one, he was absolutely on top of his game in 2010.

Duds. subject, this one .. butTricky it has to be covered, and cover it we will.

First and foremost, Alex Davison. Sorry, but he has underperformed, again. When he failed to impress back in 2005,everyone blamed Larry Perkins for not giving him a chance. A couple of impressive Bathurst outings and a strong career ip'Gentleman Racing' Porsche classes overseas, and we were ready to give him a second chance,full of belief Again, he hasn't delivered.

This time, it can't be blamed on his opportunities.The Stones are a loyal bunch, and even now,two years into a mediocre return to V8 Supercars,they are backing him, as do IRWIN Tools.

Why, we don't really understand.

Okay,the SBR cars haven't been jets this year, but Davison is too often the slowest of the three, and is too often qualifying miles behind Shane van Gisbergen. Both van Gisbergen and Tim Slade have shown signs of speed at some point during the season. Davison has not, and if we were the team or the sponsor, we'd be asking some very serious questions.

The next one is even tougher -Tony D'Alberto. One of the paddock's nicest guys,TD just isn't showing signs the of improvement we'd like to see at this point. It's a tough slog, as he's running an ancient car (literally the first VE ever built in V8 Supercar form), in a small, family-run operation. But apart from that awesome showing at the Clipsal 500, D'Alberto seems to just hover around just outside the Top 20, and not appear to threaten to climb any higher.

Next on the list is Paul Morris Motorsport. Was it the drivers?

Was it the cars? Depends who you ask.The fact is. Triple Eight customer teams generally do very well (look at DJRI), yet PMM have seemingly gone backwards since deserting their own cars and going for the gun gear.

Here's a point; apparently PMM ran their own damper program in theT8-built Commodores.

Now, in a category with a control tyre, the dampers are the motorsport news

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most important part of the race car. Why oh why would a team go against the grain in such a crucial area of componentry?

Wouldn't you copy what TeamVodafone do? A strange practice, which will reportedly cease for this coming season.

Our final under-achiever of 2010 is Bahrain.

The annual jaunt to Bahrain will be missed about as much as an infected wisdom tooth. It was a terrible layout, in a terrible location.

Did it benefit the sport? In a direct financial sense, yes. In a broader, growth-of-the-sport sense, no. Here at MNews HQ, we have a product called Motorsport eNews, which is globally available with ease. We have subscribers all over the world, but despite four visits from V8 Supercars, we have not one subscriber from Bahrain. It is hard to imagine that the place will be missed by anyone who doesn't work at the top of V8SA.

...

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N music,there is a theory that anyone can make a hit album - thinkThe Knack - and that even a second album can be popular.

But,the difficult third album is a widelyrecognised concept.

Maybe that is what Kelly Racing faces this year. In 2009,the team had a solid start, with Rick and Todd Kelly finishing the season eighth and 18th, respectively. In 2010,Year 2, that is exactly where they finished, again.

Status quo.

The problem is, this is Kelly Racing. Rick is a former titleist; Todd is a Bathurst winner, and so is Jason Bargwanna. In past years, all three have won rounds; on occasion,they have dominated.

One of the problems is that, despite its four-car lineup, the team does not have the resources to match the Big Boys.The team can't start over with four, clean-sheet new cars;Todd has a car built in 2010, Rick and Bargs have identical but older cars and Tony Ricciardello has a car that harks back to the Perkins days.The team's human resources are not as mighty as some other teams';for all of last year,for instance, Bargwanna has had to make do with a first-year-to-V8 Supercars race engineer.

It is a bit like a football team; you can have a core group of players, but those players need experience before they can work as a cohesive unit. And that experience only comes after a couple of seasons, which is where the team is now.

It must also be said that the new rule that tied the drivers to their'own'cars in endurance races, rather than allow the fulltimers to pair in one entry, disadvantaged the Kellys more than it did other teams. Even if the cars were a fraction off the pace, a Rick/ Todd entry would have been a probable threat at Bathurst. Not one of the co-drivers that the Kelly team secured to partner their regular drivers were in the same league as TeamVodafone's and HRT's, and that showed.

Everyone in the team is working hard to make KR work,to take on the bigger teams in pit lane. But standing still in V8 Supercar racing means that you are losing ground.

The Kellys need to claw back that ground or customer teams, like GRM and the Joneses, are going to sweep past, and leave them in stuck the midfield.

It's a harsh world, when you are out there, building your own mousetraps, but that is the reality of it.

26

V8 SUPERCARS really hasn't seenyears. a fullon, generational shift in recent Driver turnover has more resembled an AFL or NRL team, pruning the older end of their squad at the end of each season to make way for a handful of youngsters.

John Bowe retired in 2007, Mark Skaife and Paul Morris in 2008 and Cam McConville stood down from full-time duties at the end of 2009.

There were no grand retirements at Homebush,although Steven Richards has subsequently confimed he won't have a full-time drive in 2011, and Greg Murphy's future is currently unclear. , Unlike a ball sport - where it's not uncommon for an 18-year-old to make a major impact in his first, say, AFL season you almost never see a 'kid'come into V8 Supercars and make a difference.That's mostly due to the way motorsport works, but V8 Supercars resembles the Australian cricket team sometimes, in that it can be pretty difficult to lose your spot...

Much has been made of the emergence of Jamie Whincup,James Courtney, Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison as the fresh-faced, upstart leaders of the sport.

Of that group, Courtney is the oldest at 30 and Whincup the youngest,turning 28 in February.

The average age of drivers in the series is 30, but there is some definite 'young'talent on the way up and it's the youngest driver in the series, Shane van Gisbergen, leading the way.

It's hard to believe, given that he made his debut in 2007, butThe Giz is still Just 21.This year will go down as the year where The Giz 'arrived'.The pace of recent years was there, and built on, but coupled with a new-found maturity to be SBR's clear leader.

His dice with Jamie Whincup for a breakthrough win on the streets of Surfers Paradise was the best finish seen in V8 Supercars for quite some time. SVG was all over the two-time champ for the latter part of the race, didn't put a foot wrong and almost - very almost - made a clean pass stick on a tight street circuit. And then there was the Homebush heartbreak, getting within half a lap of victory on Sunday.

He ended the year with nine podium finishes and a new best of sixth in the championship. Next stop is a win, which is surely just around the corner.

The other two standout young performers were Jonathan Webb and Tim Slade. Running third cars at DJR and SBR respectively, the pair were quick, looked

motorsport news

assured when among higher-profile company, and led home many more experienced heads in the standings. In short,they've looked good.

There's no question that the step up from the Fujitsu Series is a big one. But Webb has made further inroads from the progress he made during his title-winning Fujitsu Series campaign in 2009.In Saturday's manic race at Homebush,Webb even splashed his way to . a maiden victory. A less poised driver in the position Webb found himself in late in the race may well have thrown it away, but Jono got the job done. He ended the year in 13th, eclipsing Mark Winterbottom's previous best of 18th in 2004 for a first year Fujitsu Series graduate.

Slade, with a season at PMM under his belt. endured some weekends where SBR as a whole struggled, but had plenty of pace on other occasions, including a few shootout appearances. A pair of DNFs in Sydney cost him a couple of places in the final standings. but Slade - like Webb - should feel satisfied with his output.

They've set a good benchmark for drivers making the step up in the coming years.

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The 2010Racing seasonTeam. has been a terrible one for the Holden Garth Tander and Will Davison finished the year fifth and 22nd in the Drivers'Championship; last year, they were third and second, respectively. In 2009,they won at PI and Bathurst together, and won another six races separately. In 2010,GT won four times and Davison did not trouble the scorers, and the team failed to win any of the'real' endurance races. In theTeams'race, it lurched from number one to number seven.

At the end of what has visibly been an uncomfortable season, Davison is leaving to join FPR and one of the team's most accomplished engineers. Matt Nilsson, is doing likewise. What was looked on as a four-car entry, with the two Bundaberg Red entries running alongside the Reds, is being pared down to three.

While the team's management says the rebuilding job inside the team, which saw the engineering department reorganised, has been a positive,there is not much identifiabie evidence to demonstrate that to the outside world. It might well be that the team is running like a well-oiled machine, and that we just can't see it.

It might also be that James Courtney's arrival at HRT, with his 2010 engineer Scott Sinclair by his side, is nothing less than a ... coincidence.

Then,there are the crashes; into other cars, into walls, into each other. Many - possibly even most- of these are not the team's fault. It would be difficult to apportion blame to either Tander or

Davison over the Sandown crashes,for instance, but Davo's late-race Bathurst bingle, andTander's impetuous Surfers shunt were no less than driver error. Drivers do make errors, and the team's troops have had a car-building nightmareof a yearthat makes Monster Garage look like a kindergarten.

There were reports that the team's damage bill for the year was around $2m; not so, according to Walkinshaw Racing's Craig Wilson.

"We have raced a total of seven chassis across the four drivers this year," he told MN."Chassis from car #22 damaged at Sandown will be repaired this year and we are still to make a final decision on the chassis that Fabian crashed at Bathurst. Don't have a final figure on damage cost but as we manufacture everything pretty much in-house, I estimate the direct cost of all crashes between $150K-$200K." There is a lot that is not going to be said about HRT's annus horribilus until 2011, if ever.That is the way the sport works. Our comment is that the jury is out, and wiil be for a while. Only time will tell whether 2010 was a downward but temporary blip on an otherwise consistently impressive record, or a talisman year in the continuing decline of a oncegreat team.

If we write in 12 months time that the team turned it all around, it will be the former. If the slide continues, it will be the latter - but we would not expect the same people to be reading our endof-2011 review at that time, and thinking that we have got it all as wrong as we can be ...

27

Pl

Qfin

111 HERE do you start in Urdescribing Ford Performance Racing's 2010?

After the Middle Eastern swing to kick off the season, we highlighted Mark Winterbottom as the only man capable of taking the fight to Jamie Whincup in 2010.Then, results leaned off a bit. Then,there were three FPR cars in the Top 5 in Townsville, and Frosty has been racking up wins, poles and podiums ever since. What the...?

Short of being able to solve the mystery ourselves, we let FPR boss Tim Edwards describe FPR's year in his own words: "I suppose it was a bit of a learning year for us," he tells us.

"We came out of the box at the start of the year with a pretty different car, and to get five podiums in a row at the start of the year actually surprised us, because that was with a car we didn't really know a lot about.

"We came undone a little bit at Winton and Queensland, as not knowing the car compromised us

a bit, as we expected it would.

'But we had two test days before Darwin; we really got to know the car, and we haven't looked back since then. Darwin was the turning point.The only times Frosty hasn't been on the podium since Darwin was Bathurst, and that was because of a tyre failure, the Gold Coast,and that was a first-lap accident, and Sydney."

Some good points from Edwards. From Darwin on,the FPR cars looked super-quick, even delivering Paul Dumbrell his first win and first pole on consecutive days at Sandown. Has FPR now got the fastest car in V8 Supercar racing?

I wouldn't say we've had the quickest car, but obviously we have a competitive car," is Edwards'reply.

'We still think we can improve it. but for sure, we understand the car better now than we did at the start of the year. What we've learned this year is what we'll take into the start of next year. We know the car we're taking to Abu Dhabi.'

One area that was significantly improved at FPR in 2010 was mistakes outside the car. A glaring issue in 2009,there were really only two blunders in the pit box from FPR in 2010 - Will Power not having his helmet on for a pit-stop on the Gold Coast, and Steve Richards being dropped on his front axles. which were wheel-less at the time. at Sandown.In fact, especially as the pressure mounted in the latter part of the season, it was TeamVodafone who were making the strange mistakes in the pits.

'Nobody likes to make mistakes. but we seem to be in a position where when we make mistakes. you guys make a big issue out of it,' says Edwards.

This team still carries a little bit of baggage from its early years. particularly'03 and '04 where it was a bit of a basket case. But look, nobody beats us up more than ourselves when we make a mistake. and I like to think we've got better.

We'll be even better next season.

We wouldn't bet against it...

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29

HE battle between the'Jays', TJames Courtney and Jamie Whincup, has been hard-fought,fast and,it should be noted,in cars as similar as a Ford and a Holden can be.

The title contenders have raced theirTriple Eight Race Engineering racers closely all year, and the very small gaps between the two have been remarkable - as has the fact that TeamVodafone has raced what could be described as a'first-generation' Commodore against Jim Beam Racing's tried-and-proven Falcon.

That is not to say that the cars that the Fones raced at the start of the season was how they finished.

There have been all sorts of developments,"said team principal, Roland Dane.

'Running gear; suspension; cooling systems.The usual things you develop. in the course of business."

Both cars have been generally fairly reliable - though Whincup's brake line failure at Townsville in particular was a telling moment- but that does not mean that the team was resting on its laurels.

'We have had a couple of issues," says Dane."They were brought about by having to build so many cars. We try not to do the same thing twice."

Courtney has had a remarkable run of relaibility. A rear trailing arm broke in Hamilton, and there have been a few minor wounds through the course of the year that have compromised his speed, but not stopped him.

For a car that has not had a huge list of updates - certainly nowhere near the tweaks that the opposition Vodafone cars - it has been a very impressive effort by the team.

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motorsport news

o OKAY, weeight admit it; we wrong.

After races in were the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship,Jamie Whincup had six wins.The latest of those, at the time, was an imperious performance on the streets of Hamilton,and in eNews, we called the season, and stated that he was going to take a third title.

The next four races were won by James Courtney.They were on the Sprint tyre and, suddenly,the game was well and truly back on.

It is way too much of an over simplification to state that Courtney was better than Whincup on soft tyres, and vice versa but Courtney did seize the initiative when it counted, and when he felt that he had an advantage.

"The weekends I had at Winton and QR were probably the two easiest weekends that I have had since I came back here," he said at the time.

"When things are working so well, it makes my job so much easier."

But white it is too simple to polarise Courtney and Whincup's relative strengths, a line-in-the-sand moment did come on Sprint tyres - at Sandown. After the two had suffered the odd trip on the way to the title showdown,Courtney made the best of the soft rubber on Sunday to jet away from the field and take a telling 150 points. Whincup was third, and while it would be wrong to put down winning any title to one race, the 21 points edge that went with the win was one of the most important,and timely, performances of the season. Had Courtney finished behind Whincup, it would have been the Vodafone driver who carried to momentum to Homebush.

On the other hand ... the Sprint tyre is, maybe,too sturdy for its own good. It is difficult to imagine any tyre-maker being enthusiastic about making tyres that have their grip drop off drastically at the end of the races, and the ability of some drivers more than others to make a set of Sprints last a whole race - particularly

if they are'crossed'mid-race - has seen some advantages earned that some might consider unfair.

Still, that is not something that is solely confined to V8 Supercars. Similar things were said about Formula 1 last year...

Breaking down thd races into those that had some Sprint tyre use at least, and those with none, it is obvious that the two Js were, by a clear margin,on top of their respective Dunlops,and by a fair margin.

What won the day was that Courtney scored a higher percentage of points on his'non-favoured'Control tyre than Jamie managed to do on Sprints - though to be fair, Courtney had more opportunities to do that, since there were more Control tyre races.

On Sprint tyres, Whincup was fourth in the points; in 2011, with more Sprints in use, he will be looking to turn that trend around.

It is also obvious that the top four drivers were still the top four drivers, no matter how you slice the pie.

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33

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AMES Courtney was a hard man to track down in the But for ail the title frenzy, Courtney has kept his feet on the days following his title-sealing drive at Homebush. ground. My first call finds him on his bike, not because he is training his backside off to prepare for life with Garth Tender, There was the usual celebration that any team. but because some of the Dick Johnson Racing crew regularly in any sport, might have after taking a major title.

There was the V8 Supercars Awards Dinner in Sydney, ride together. a Monday night when he picked up the Champion's I do not want to go too crazy. I was out this morning, with trophy and the Barry Sheene Medal.Then there all the guys who ride here. It was not training, or going crazy. was the media,the TV,sponsors,a team,and the it was more of a social thing. It's good to ride and chat,and slight matter of doing everything that was required, in exactly be cruisy. We are not only workmates, we are really close guys. the right order,to satisfy the needs of his exit from Jim Beam With what you go through in a racing season, you get pretty Racing and his arrival at the Holden Racing Team. tight.They are like brothers to me,and it's good.

I have been home two nights in the last month,"said a tired.

We partied pretty hard the first couple of nights, but we keep but clearly happy, Courtney at the launch of his HRT career. pretty fit and we motivate each other. I am looking forward to It is a part of the business. When you are on your game. getting out there again." people want to be a part of what you do. I was aware of that The next morning, it's the same, but different. Courtney is back at DJR but this time, it is for personal reasons. He wants and knew it was coming,and I have been dealing with that a memento of that weekend,of what his team did for him sort of thing for my whole life. It is just a part and parcel of the business.' last season. He is in the engine shop,arranging for one of the engine parts - maybe a conrod or a piston -from his'last'Ford It has been some ride. After half a life spent as a professional racing driver, Courtney appears to be in his prime.The 2010 V8. Something to put straight in the pool room. championship is not his first - he has won titles in Formula Through all the publicity,the internal tensions in the team.

Ford in Britain and Formula 3 in Japan, not to mention the Courtney stayed within the team environment and put his title in their hands.The result was astonishing; in a season in which cars small matter of a couple of World Karting crowns - but this one were battered and bruised from race to race,the #18 Falcon FG appears to mean a whole bunch to him. had one mechanical failure, a broken trailing arm at Hamilton.

Hence,the end-of-season celebrations in Sydney, which featured a crunched-up Ford Falcon, lots of tyre smoke and The boys in my crew, and right across all three cars at DJR, 7500 revs,for quite some time. have done a great job," he says.

'Santa will not want those tyres," he says. "[Team manager] Adrian [Burgess] worked out that there were 93 starts across the season and there were only two DNFs on all "They are rooted.They are not a part of my tyre bank. I will not be using those tyres next season ...' three cars! The boys here have worked their arses off, especially

I SAID TO the guys. *ip UJE KEEP til

V

motorsport news

the guys on my car, with all the added pressure that they have had.There was a bit of uncertainty there for a while, but they managed to keep their heads and they have given me a flawless car every time we went out there.They are a big part of why we won the title. You need to have a crew that you have a lot of confidence in. I would give my life for these guys.They have done everything."

While this was going on in a relatively small-budgeted 'customer car'team,the Big End of Town was suffering. Jamie Whincup saw his title hopes stumble with some ill-timed mechanical dramas(Townsville was especially cruel) while right from the start of the season,the man who challenged him hard in 2009,Will Davison, was on the back foot, with a litany of engine problems, crashes and other catastrophes.

"We had a good reliable car but we had a fair bit of other stuff going on!,"says Courtney.

"We had some shady penalties and stuff like that - it was not all nice.That was a bit of a blow to us, but I said to the guys,'If we keep doing our job, keep focused, we will be there in the end'. It is good to be that guy. It was a reward for these guys,to win a championship,and they really deserve it."

B

ut the 2010 season was not all smooth sailing for Courtney.

Apart from the well-publicised ownership saga in which the team was involved in the second half of the season,the races did not start that well for Courtney. At Abu Dhabi and Bahrain,there were some new tweaks, but neither of the JBR cars was on the pace, and he had to drive within himself, salvage as many points as he could and return home, where the car could be reset to its pre-season testing specification.

"We realised pretty quickly in the Middle East that it was not what we needed,"says.

"We made do with what we had.We got as many points as we could and didn't do anything silly, because we knew that when we got back, we could arc the thing up a little bit, and find a bit more speed.

"I suppose in the off-season, everybody looks at what they can do, how they can improve. It was a common thing and I was probably trying to make up for the car's flaws in the past, and overdrive it. This year,the big thing was that I finished in the place that the car was capable of finishing. That means growing up? Then, yeah!"

But there was more to the growing up process than driving within your limits. Just prior to the trip away, a new Courtney arrived at home.Carys and James welcomed their first son, Cadel,to Join them and his sister Zara. Many people who have not been through the process of having a family would not believe the difference between having one child and having two.The amount of... everything multiplies, exponentially,and that includes responsibility.

"Yes, it had a big effect," he says.

"Over the last couple of years with Zara there, you have an impact on your life, for sure, but it was not like I was not thinking a lot about racing. I was. Carys was able to control Zara and we still had a lot of'alone time'. But with Cadel,two kids, it seems like when I am at home now, I am really at home!

I am always helping with the kids, taking one of them out, or Cadel for the afternoon.

"My life is very separate now;there is racing, and there rm4. is family life. Previously, it was all sort of entwined.

KEEP paCUSED. tUE lUILL BE THERE IB |HE EBB' www.mnews.com.au

7 - Oiii

■ ■

T some time, you would think that everyone who has raced a V8 Supercar - or wished to race a V8 Supercar - would have though about being a Holden Racing Team driver.

So, when the opportunity came,it was not a hard decision.

"Really It wasn't too much of a hard decision with the history that goes along with the Toll Holden Racing Team,"said Courtney, who confirmed that he has signed for"Three years, hopefully a lot longer."

"They've won more championships than anyone over the last 20 years, more Bathursts. It's an Icon of Australian motorsport and to have the opportunity to partner with Garth is a big opportunity and something Fm really looking forward to.

"It's the Ferrari; it's the top team in V8 Supercars.Triple Eight have had a good run the last couple of years but I think Garth and I can definitely take down Craig [Lowndes]and Jamie[Whincup].

And, he makes it very clear; he has not turned red to cruise and collect a decent

● ■4

salary. He is aiming to win the title, again. in 2011.

Tm employed here to deliver race wins and win championships,"he said.

I don't think it's unrealistic but for sure. it's going to be a tough first part of the year for me getting to know the cars, and things like that.

"But I'm here to win the championship the first year,the same as Garth is. We've got a little bit of work to do but I don't think it's unrealistic at all.

"Anything but a win is a failure to me.

We're not here to make up the numbers."

And,what of Garth Tander's view?

"It's obviously very exciting having Jamesjoin the team," he said.

"He had a great year this year and has really come of age,if you,like in the series, i've been fortunate through all my career to have very, very good team-mates. In 2007 I was a team-mate with Rick Kelly, who was the reigning Champion and we drove each other really, really hard and we had a successful year. .

"I don't see any difference here... I'm looking forward to working with James and making sure that HRT is at the front.

finishing first and second.

You get a sense that a fascinating period is coming up. Courtney is switching teams,taking his race engineer and the #1 with him.The last driver to do that in V8 Supercars wasTander - and rightly or wrongly,some saw the 2010 version of HRT as'Garth's team'.

But it might work for HRT.GT pointed out the successful spell he had with Keliy (though that was as the HSV Dealer Team) and Mark Skaife and Craig Lowndes drove each other, hard, when they were HRT team-mates.

But elsewhere in the motor racing universe, having two title-winning drivers in the same team has rarely been a recipe for a smooth, unruffled future.

Think,Prost/Senna; Mansell/Piquet; Rossi/Lorenzo.

On the other side of the V8 Supercar world> Ford teams - perhaps even JBR will be out to prove that Courtney has just made a gigantic mistake in changing sides.

Will he have the last laugh? Maybe; maybe not. But for now, he is laughing, and that is a pretty good result.

;v\*iCr

i

i

to one track.

Two kids means you are a family.'

That is exactly it. You can still be your own man,and have time for yourself but once you have two, you are very much a family. Your life could be still about yourself if you have one kid, but with two,it's about the family.'

And therein lies one of the factors - perhaps the factor - in how Courtney coped with the stresses of driving for what was,for a time at least, a team in crisis.

He managed to isolate the problems the team was going through,at least in part, because fie had already isolated his'racing life'from his'family life'. When he and Carys made the decision to build a wall between his family and his work,they also builfa defense mechanism.

For sure," he explains.

When all the stuff was going down,it could not help but... help! It gave me the ability to go home,and to take my mind off things. It definitely helped with that.

You come home,from the track or from the workshop, you look in your kids' eyes and the only thing they want you to think about is to play with them! It was that which kept me sane, and with Carys, and that was a big part of what got me through the crazy time,that is for sure."

For all that, and his status as V8 Supercars'Champion driver(and probably, its highest-paid), Courtney remains a racer, and the kind of guy who likes to hang out with his team. He is a big believer in relationships, and that is something that might be tested by the long-distance one that he will have, at least at the start of their courtship, between Courtney and HRT. To spend time down there,to build a relationship with the team is a big part of how I work," he says.

But I don't know about moving down there just yet, we need to work out exactly what is going on, and come to come sort of conclusion. A big part of it is relationships and I will be spending time with wherever I am employed next year.

A few days later, HRT confirmed what we all knew.

James Courtney had a lot to cope with this past year, and passed the tests with flying colours.

Who is going to beat him in 2011?

IJ ®6imS0!*

Evening the numbers:Championship or not,2010 was a big year in the Courtney household, with the arrival ofson Cade!in February, to help James to take on Carys and Zara two on two...

“If Vila ®5J5MKI

Mr

CDURTHEY'S HIGHLIGHT op E011 Easily, it is Saturday at Homebush.Just to see the passion in the guys'eyes. Quite clearly, we had a lot more damage than anyone else, and the guys put in an extraordinary effort, an amazing job to get me out there.

That just showed that they were just as hungry for the championship as I was.

That was definitely the highlight.

It was just like a race, and for Webby to win that race as well, it was definitely the

highlight.'

CDURTnEY'S LOmUGHT op ED11 The low point was the Gold Coast, easily.

It was a shady call, that penalty, and a couple of the boys showed me the footage of Jamie on the weekend,doing exactly the same thing. He didn't get done.

We had been through hell [on the ownership front]- we had just started it, at that point. We were right there. legitimately, on speed,clear of everyone and it was ours.To have it taken away at that point, was bullshit.'

'I

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PAUL DUMBRELL

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THE LONG INTERVIEW What a year 2010 was for Paul Dumbrell. On-track, he switched from Walkinshaw Racing to Rod Nash Racing, racing a Ford Performance Racing-run Ford Falcon. He took his first podium finish, race win, and pole position.OfT-track, he had to take over the CEO role at Automotive Brands, after his father was diagnosed with cancer in April. He also decided to retire, and then decided to give it one more year. In a frank and honest interview, one of the V8 Supercar paddock’s nice guys told ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN all about his extraordinary year

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OTORSPORT NEWS: Let's go right back to the start of this whole FPR/Bottle-0 thing.

You seemed to have a happy home at Walkinshaw Racing,things were going okay, and the there was this almost shock decision to switch sides.

PAUL DUMBRELL: It's quite funny,the process which I've gone through now,the am I staying, am I going, it was even more so in 2009. 1 was 100 percent happy to give it away. I hadn't achieved quite what I wanted to do, but I'd gone better towards the end of the season. I didn't feel like I was getting the job done with the equipment I had; Garth [Tander] was winning races. Will [Davison] was second in the championship, and I thought Tm not doing the job, and I don't know if I can do the job'.

In December, at the end of 2009, Garry (Dumbrell, Paul's father) and I made the decision for him to step back, and for me to take on the role I'm in now at Auotmotive Brands. A few months later, when Garry got sick, we were already well down the path of making these arrangements. We were aiming for July 1, so it just sped that process up.That made me look at what was going on.

Rod [Nash] let me know what he was doing for 2010, and I drove for Rod, under Autopro, when we didn't even own Autopro, back in 2000. He's a good family friend, and he was going to FPR,so I thought it would be a great, laid-back opportunity for me. I signed a three-year deal, but I told Rod I didn't know for how many of those three

www.mnews.com.au

years I could commit. What I did commit to him was that I wouldn't go and drive anywhere else.

So when you put pen to paper for that RNR/FPR deal, did you honestly believe, sitting here 12 months later, you'd be a race winner and a pole winner? (laughs)You think it, but do you believe what you think? Probably not.

FPR were certainly making some inroads at the end of'09, but Clayton were winning races at that time as well - Will only just missed out on the championship. I definitely felt like I could get podiums, because I should have had podiums before, but for reasons including myself, and the team,and whatever.

Sitting here, looking at what we've ticked off in the last three or four weeks, that was well above expectation ... for everyone, I think. It's not only above my expectation, but the expectation from the broader motorsport community,and even from the team.

I remember being at Winton for your first test in the Bottle-0 Falcon, and you were really quick that day, probably the quickest guy not to strap used Sprint tyres on. It looked like you just clicked with the Falcon.

It's funny, I remember chatting to you that day.

I drove the car, and I did 10 laps or whatever, and the lap times on the dash weren't working. I came in, and I said to Dave Paterson, my engineer,'! don't know

what times we're doing, but whatever they were, I reckon we're in for a bloody good year'.The car just suited my natural style. I didn't have to change anything.

Compared to the year prior, the Walkinshaw cars are very quick, but they have to be driven in a style that was foreign to me.Over the two years, I learnt - sometimes - how to drive them, but sometimes I did struggle. With the Falcon, I was able to hit the ground running and drive how I needed to.That has shown, because more often than not, we've been on the right side of theTop 10.

FPR this season; I spoke to Tim Edwards about this in Sydney,and he said that after the good start in the Middle East, the lull period was just through getting used to the cars.Then there was the test days prior to Darwin - and their cars have been the fastest out there since. When you look at the way Clayton has gone, what a smart decision it was you made!

Yeah, it wasn't good planning. Who would have thought Clayton would go the way they have, after the year they had in 2009? I don't know what's happened, but something has gone wrong or something isn't gelling.

As for FPR, I rolled into Abu Dhabi, and it was nearly like a new car for everyone.There was a fundamental shift in the car. Even though they finished the year strong,the car that they rolled out at the start of the season was completely different, so everyone was learning. In Abu Dhabi I think I finished eighth or ninth in the first

nil

race, after starting down the back.

Frosty (MarkWinterbottom) was at the forefront of the direction we were going, and we were a round or two behind, because we were working on the old KISS principle,just keeping it simple. We Just wanted a consistent car, so I could get used to it, because before Abu Dhabi Race 1, 1 hadn't done more than 10 laps in a row! I had no idea what the car would do with tyre life.

So Frosty had a couple of podiums to start with, and we had someTop 10 finishes, which was good,and then we hit a patch of... we were doing the same things, but we weren't delivering the right results. Every track we went to was different, and we were getting it right sometimes, and were off the mark sometimes.

Then we did those two test days, and in the backend of the year we've been able to roll out of the truck and have all three cars generally in theTop 10 in the first session. As soon as you can do that, it's amazing how much more productive you are for the rest of

happen. I even missed by flight down the Tasmania, because I was meeting with Rod and my old man,and then I finally made the decision to commit to one more year. I think I underestimated the impact of making that decision, how much impact it was having on me. As soon as I made that decision, I came from 11 th to fourth, and then 10th to third in two races. Frosty was winning,so the car was strong, and I was driving to the car's ' ability.

When I crossed the line, I thought'how good's this? I want to do this a bit more often'. At the time it came,it was straight into Sandown,and then a week in Mexico, and then straight into Sydney. I said to the guys after the podium that I wished it had happened before the eight-week break, so I could have enjoyed it for more than three days.

That first win at Sandown, watching Jamie Whincup follow you in the latter part of the race, there was almost a moment when I thought you were going to drop it! Jamie

in session, you have to be the fastest driver on the track. Is it a different satisfaction?

Winning the race was great, but what was even greater was backing it up the next day.

It was like saying'we deserved that win, we deserved to qualify second the day before, and that's where our speed is this weekend'.

The elation isn't the same,it's a different feeling, more satisfaction than Saturday.

When you win the race it's elation, the pole was pure satisfaction.

I don't want to be offensive here, but it can be difficult to shake the rich kid tag. Has this rounded you off as a driver?

Yep, I suppose I've been tainted with that for my whole career, but if anyone else was in my position, they would do the same. I've had a great opportunity given to me,and in the latter part of my career, I've taken it with both hands. In the first part of my career, I probably didn't. I didn't treat it as seriousiy as I should have, and it wasn't until I was a bit more experienced and well-rounded as a person that I realised that I was the only

66

Jamie got into the back of me a couple of times to ruffle my feathers, and I started making my same old mistakes.

I realised what was happening.” the weekend, because you're making small changes, not throwing things at the car, which is hit and miss.

There have been three big milestones this season;the podium in Tasmania and then the race win and the pole at Sandown. Let's talk through all three individually.The podium was funny, because it came the day after you'd held a press conference and mentioned how close you were to having the record for starting the most rounds without a round podium!

It's been an ironic couple of weeks. At the international driver test day at Queensland Raceway, I sat down with Tim and Rod, and I told them I wasn't going to continue.They both were shocked.Tim said to Rod 'did you know this was coming?'Dave Richards (Prodrive boss) sat me down on the Sunday night at Indy,just to make sure I was making the right decision.

The following week was constant meetings. I met with Bottle-0, 1 met with Tim, I met with Ford, and everyone was trying to facilitate whatever I wanted to '14

was right behind you, and you seemed a bit flustered and focussed on the mirrors, and then you decided it was you race, put your head down,and gapped him. Fair appraisal?

100 percent right! Jamie got into the back of me a couple of times to ruffle my feathers, and I started making my same old mistakes, i realised what was happening, I knew the only person who could lose the race was me, so for two laps, I didn't look in the mirrors. I just did two qualifying laps. It gave me three car lengths, it wasn't like I had two seconds, but it was enough that on the last lap I could be a little conservative, without the risk of him diving up the insides.

Also, I knew who was behind me. Jamie would do anything to win the race, but he was in championship contention,so he wasn't going to risk a drive-through or a DNF. But I'm good mates with JW,and he's as hungry as anyone out there, so he wasn't going to let me off, either.

The pole a day later; a race can come to you, but with pole position, in a 20 minute all-

person who could make it work.

That's when I got serious with my fitness, and I've become a better person and a better race driver because of it.

The podium, pole and race win, if they had happened mid-year, would they have affected your decision to commit to another year?

Ummm ... more than likely, yes. One of the reasons I wanted to stay on was because we have good form at the moment,as you said,from Townsville on FPR has been really strong. Also, I would have been shattered to reach the end of my career without a podium, or a race win. I would have been always wondering.

So between the speed of the cars, and the rumoursfor what was happening in 2011, i wanted to be involved. In the space of two weeks. I've done all the things I wanted to achieve in my career. Would it have changed my mind? Yeah, I think it might have, but the flipside is that I'm young. I've got another year in me in terms of commitment, so iet's just enjoy it.

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The Support Network:Rod Nash plants a kiss on Dumbrell after that first win at Sandown,left, while Dumbrell's brother Lucas, paralysed in a Formula Ford accident in 2008, was one ofthe first on the scene after the first podium in Launceston, below.

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nil You keep talking about another year. Is it another year and you'll definitely give it away,or another year and you'll go through the review process again?

I will ... never say never, because you can look silly. I can't see why I would continue on after next season. I've always said I want to go out on my terms, and the way the musical chairs works in V8 Supercars, I'd hate to miss out on a seat. I know I've got a contract for two more seasons, but I'd hate to not perform.That's a risk I'm even running for this year, because I'm coming off the back of some good results, and I'd hate not to perform.

At the current time, I've got ambitions to go and do Hawaii Iron Man,and it's Bathurst weekend. Motor racing can throw a few spanners in the works.

Let's talk about your business commitments. How does it affect you on a race weekend?

It doesn't leave my mind. Racing is a passion, it's a dream and it's a responsibility, because there are commercial obligations. But this is real. We have 220 franchisees, more than 200 staff across the group,facilities around Australia, and we're moving to a new 22,000metre distribution facility. Ail of those things make it real. The pressure is high, because there are a lot of people depending on us as a team. Not me as an individual, but us as an entire team.

The team is important here, because I wouldn't be able to do what I do with racing, have that flexibility, without good people.

Any business is about good people. You

need to develop the road, and the rest of the company keeps it between the lines.

Do you enjoy doing this? Do you get up every morning looking forward to your day?

I walk in the door every day with butterflies in my stomach, because I never know what's going to happen. In the role I have, I don't have a lot of day-to-day, individual responsibilities. I’m more involved with planning and strategy, and looking long-term, and working with the marketplace. It's a fun role, because it's diverse; every day is different.

Bringing it back to motor racing,for most of guys on their grid, racing is their Job. Do you consider that maybe you have a bit of a luxury, because you can choose whether or not you go racing? I mean,for some guys, ending up without a seat can mean not knowing how they will feed the family...

Yep,that's a pressure I don't have. While I do have added pressure from the business side of things, I go motor racing because I love It. I don't do It because I have to. I think that's why I've gone well this year, because I've been doing it for fun.

I was just a driver for a number of years, and I'd get up in the morning,train at 9am,go and read three papers, have another coffee...

I thought I was busy, but this is actually like a release. I can step away from motor racing, and it doesn't consume my mind.

But there's a flipside, which is racing against guys like Frosty, who are 100 percent race drivers, and do nothing else. It's hard to beat those guys.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE M OTORSPORT NEWS:Talk me , through an ordinary day in the life of Paul Dumbrell.

PAUL DUMBBELL: I joined an Iron Man triathlon club, called Fluid Movements in South Yarra. We have a coach, called Shaun Foster, and I sat dow/n with him and talked about what I do with motor racing. Fie understands motor racing, because he used to train Cam McConville.

He told me that it's not about how much you train, but the quality of training. So I train as much as I used to, but I train a lot smarter.

So that starts every morning at 5:30am.

It's an hour and a half at training, and then straight to work,so I'll be at work by 7:30am. It's generally a day of meetings, so I'll catch up on emails first thing, and then throughout the day. I'll be working on marketing, or I'll go to a store, or it will be

working on the financial side of things. And a lot of phone calls... I spend a lot of time on the phone.

Later in the afternoon,4pm onwards. I'll try and tie my meetings in with the city. If I can't. I'll walk out of here at 7 or 8pm at night.

Then I train in the evenings three or four nights a week,so it's either at The Tan with the squad, or just training at home.

Far out.That's a serious schedule.

It's what I enjoy. On Saturday mornings in Melbourne I'm out of home at 6:30am on the bike to meet the squad, and then five or six hours on the bike or running. I'm at home about 1 or 2pm,and then I relax. I'll come into work on Sundays, and just touch upon a few things. My theory is that it takes half an hour each way to work, but I'll get more done than if I float around at home and get distracted.

Is there any room for a social or private life?

That's one of the reasons I was looking at giving motor racing away. Iron man takes up a lot of time, because I'm training between 15 and 20 hours a week.Then I'm working ... and do I need to work as long a hours as I do? Probably not, but I love it, so it's not even a consideration.

I'm single,so there isn't a lot of time for that side of things. I had a partner for the first part of last year, but for whatever reason, it didn't work out.That's life. I do want a partner and to settle down one day, but I've still got youth on my side, and that will come.When it does.

I'll have to negotiate with myself what time I have, because it will be pressing.

You'll have to work out what will fall away...

Exactly. Something will have to. You can only live on six hours sleep for so long.

-ANDREWVAN LEEUWEN

CRIMSAFE WOULD LIKE TO COHGRATULATE JIM BEAM RACIHG AND ALL THE GUYS AT DICK JOHHSOH RACING OH AN AMAZING WEEKEND Crimsafe is proud to be expanding its involvement with The Team -ROLL ON2011! www.mnews.com.au

Dick Johnson -“We will go into 2011 confident in the ft future of Dick Johnson Racing.

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T would be accurate to say that 10th in the World Championship is not quite the 2010 that Rubens Barrichello was hoping for.

From winning races in as recently as 2009, and having been runner up in the championship during his days at the Prancing Horse, the 'still fresh-faced Brazilian, who has been racing at the highest level for ^ almost two decades, may have done just about everything there is to .do in the sport. But that doesn't mean he's done just yet. ,. Now 38,the coming season will see Barrichello equal Graham Hill's ^.record of 18 seasons in Formula 1. He's already the most experienced man in the sport's history, he's the first man to reach 300 Grands Prix and y^ somehow, he remains as motivated today as when he burst on the scenerfor Jordan in 1993.

It's just a love of the sport, really; I'm so in love with it," Rubens told us.

It's going to be so damned easy for me to know when it's time to stop because what I tell the team is this; it's the motivation, it's not the experience. the experience comes gratis!

Tve been doing the job with lots of passion, and although I had a much tougher season this year than last season, because I was fighting for known places, I still enjoy it fully,' His passion has served him well.Third in the championship with BrawnGP in 2009, he was in the hunt for the championship with team-mate Jenson Button and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, despite not knowing if he had a drive after the end of that season. When the Brawn team was sold to Mercedes-Benz in late 2009, it seemed that, for the second year in row, he might have come to the

end of the road.

But Barrichello found a new home at Williams and instantly, the partnership worked. Rubens settled in well with the hard nosed team that once dominated the sport but which has slipped down FI's totem pole. GP racing's power team of the 1990s finished sixth in the 2010 championship,just

a point ahead of Force India, and not where the team expected to be. www.mnews.com.au

49

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Technical Director Sam Michael believes many of the team's problems in 2010 came from a late switch from Toyota power to Cosworth [see breakout] but once that development began the car was transformed, according to Barrichello.

"There was a change in the characteristic of the downforce coming to the Car, so we had to change the wind tunnel for that, and it made it better," he explains."After that it was an improvement all the way through; bang, bang, bang!"

Fruits of the team's labour began to be seen from Turkey, and by Germany both Barrichello and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg were consistently in the points. It shows well for 2011 as the team focuses development on the new car without the distraction of accommodating a new engine.

"I feel the team is doing a good job on what they're doing," he told us."It's an aggressive style, the approach for next years car seems to be quite aggressive, which is good.I'm up to it, I like it."

Aggressive the approach may be, but after 18 pre-seasons to his name, Barrichello knows better than anyone that it means nothing until the cars his the track.

"Every team right now would sell you a winning car for next year," he laughs."It's a bit on the fantasy side right now,for some going better,for some even better... Our one in the tunnel seems to be going okay, we just need to keep our feet on the ground and just work with it." hlle the design team is kept busy on the next Williams contender, regulation changes are poised to increase the drivers workload in the cockpit.

Already crowded steering wheels will become Increasingly cluttered with the 50

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reintroductions of KERS,after teams agreed not to use the energy recovery system in 2010.(jiving drivers a short burst of power KERS effectively gives drivers a'push to pass' system.

Another change for 2011 is the introduction of movable rear wings, replacing the movable front wings used throughout 2009 and 2010. With aerodynamics playing such a crucial role in the modern sport giving drivers the ability to reduce the angle of the rear wing will decrease drag, and in turn increase straight line speed. Barrichello however isn't sure the proposed solutions to the overtaking drought Formula 1 has suffered from will work.

One of Barrichello's concerns, as Chariman of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, is that too much is now being asked of the drivers.

"As GPDA chairman, we said already that we were concerned about the number of buttons we would have to press because it's more than that," Barrichello explains.

"You have gears to change, you have KERS, you have rear wings, you have radios, you have diifs, you have plenty of things, and possibly you're going to be pressing KERS and the rear wing at the same time,so getting out of the corner and pressing that...'

While the front wing adjustment will disappear for 2011, to be replaced by adjustability of the rear wing, the finer details ofjust how and when the drivers will be able to use it remain unclear. Drivers will be keen to use it whenever they're allowed, Barrichello believes, and coupled with KERS, it's possible they will be adjusting two different settings on the steering wheel simultaneously, With so much to do in the cockpit another of Barrichello's concerns is how they will

affect racing in wet conditions.

"The front wing you just press it sometimes, the rear wing you're going to press a lot more regularly," Barrichello explains."It depends how many times they allow you to press but at least whenever they allow you to do it you're going to do it at the same time as the KERS. "In a wet race we have some concerns about it. Of course they made a good thing, and I don't know if it's a decision or not, but in the wet we might not be using the rear, so already there's a step forward in that."

With television and commercial interest to cater for, more and more devices and regulations have been introduced in an effort to spice up the action; KERS,tyre regulations and adjustable aerodynamics just a handful of them. A purist, Barrichello isn't a fan of all the changes and would rather rely on his own talent and determination when it comes to overtaking.

Barrichello remains unconvinced."We want more overtaking in Formula 1, but we don't want to make it too easy as well because it loses the feeling," he contends.

Will the changes during the off season have the desired affect and increase the amount of overtaking in Formula 1 ?

"I don't think people are doing [it] just for the sake of saying [it], they're obviously trying to improve the show. I want to see what it's going to be giving us because at top of my mind,there's 10 or 12 kilometres [kmh],so how is that going to happen? I mean is the car going to be more upset in braking, so you do have more speed than you lose on braking. It could be still a hard overtaking maneuver,so let's wait and see."

KERS and movable wings aren't the only changes for 2011. With Bridgestone bowing out of the sport at the end of last season motorsport news

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Rubens 17.0: Barrichello’s 20W saw some great moments,and some not-so-great. He hit the headlines after a battle with former team-mate Michael Schumacher in Hungary, above, and for his 300th GP start, for which Cosworth gave him a new bike, below...

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Pirelli has come on as the new official "I like the challenge, and whenever I feel supplier to the sport. It'll be the fourth 'yep,these guys can beat me fair and square,' different type of rubber the Brazilian veteran and I cannot do it, that will be the day that I will have driven on during his long career, stay at home," he claims. though he admits to being sad to see the Of the current crop Sebastian Vettel is a stand-out, a man Barrichello believes has Japanese company leave.

More than 200 of his race starts were on true star quality.

Bridgestone tyres, though sentiment in "I didn't think it was his chance this year," Formula 1 is short lived. he says,"but at the end of the day I think he deserves it."

"It's been a good relationship, I wish them all the best," he says."I've driven for Goodyear, With a world championship under his Michelin and Bridgestone but I've been the belt, how Vettel approaches races from longest one with Bridgestone, and I'm proud now on will be a key factor in his continued of that, but it's time to move on. development believes Barrichello, who drove "I'm looking forward to the next generation alongside Michael Schumacher for five of his of tyres to see what it does give me. It's an world championships at Ferrari. integral part of the whole car that you come "It's going to be different when he comes and make it work to the car. Aerodynamics from the front. When he's coming from would be nothing without the tyres." the back you have nothing to lose, so his His first taste of that new rubber came mentality was really good in that. But when just a week after the 2010 season ended, you're up ahead the pressure's raised a little bit more." with all the teams remaining in Abu Dhabi to complete their first test on the new Pirelli So, how long will Rubens race on? During the 1950s it was common for drivers to race tyres. The Brazilian completed long runs for the Williams team,despite at that point not in FI well into their mid-40s, while Michael having a contract for 2011.

Schumacher made his return last season at It was only after the test when Barrichello the ripe old age of 40. had headed home to Brazil to spend time "I can do it, I can do anything! No problem with his family that the team announced for me," he jokes when asked if he can he would remain with the team this season. replicate the feat of Juan Manuel Fangio, who Turning 39 in May, he is racing against won the last of his five championships at 46. men nearly half his age;Toro Rosso's Jaime In reality his best years are probably Alguersuari is only 20. behind him.Two second places in the championship behind Schumacher while at hat fact doesn't faze Barrichello, who Ferrari look the closest he seems likely to get. despite being one of the elder statesmen Write him off at your own peril however, of the field remains competitive. He as 2009 proved when Barrichello raced rated Hulkenberg, who was dumped by his way to two race wins and third in the the Williams team after the 2010 season,as championship. A popular man in the the fastest teammate he's ever had. Being paddock Rubinho, as he's affectionately competitive against his younger rival has known,still has plenty more to offer the kept him encouraged. sport he's so passionate about.

51

d'NTERLAGOS,2004 seems a long time ago for those at Grove. since departed Formula 1. If a week is a long time in Formula 1, six years without a win must seem like a lifetime. Williams though bunch that give up easily, and while sixth in last years Iaren't The aman who won that day, Juan-Pablo Montoya, has long ^championship was about as welcome as a kick in the teeth the ■team's resolve is as staunch as ever.

"We had a pretty weak first half of the year," admits the straight talking Patrick Head. "We were a bit stronger in the second but I don't think we've got any reason to be particularly pleased with ourselves."

"I don't think we realised how much ground there was to make up until we started going out racing," he continues. "I think in Malaysia on Friday we were woeful, and it became clear why we were woeful."

Part of the problem in 2010 was the new Cosworth engine. When Toyota pulled the pin on their Formula 1 program, it left Williams in the lurch.The late redesign needed to accommodate the new unit hurt the team.

"We spent the first five or six races try to catch up because we had the engine change over winter," explains Technical Director Sam Michael, "and that put us back a long way on a lot of our programs which we would have been through before, like F-ducts and blown diffuser."

Even still the team only ran on the fringes of the points, pole position in Brazil for Nico Hulkenberg the lone highlight of a disappointing season. One of those factors was the way the FW32 carried a full tank of fuel, the disparity between qualifying and race pace evidence that while the car had the one lap pace it generally fell through the field during races.

Understanding those types of issues has been a crucial part in the development of the 2011 car, which has been in Williams' wind tunnel since last March, development of the 2010 car having essentially ended last August.

"We know what the fundamental weaknesses are of the car," admits Head when asked about the 2010 contender. "We know in the team where we've had a few technical problems with the car that we

Spot the differences: In Brazil in 2004, Barrichello beat Juan Pablo Montoya to pole position but the Colombian had the last laugh, winning the next day. The Ferrari man finished third, in what was Williams' last GP win. haven't really got to grips with."

The off-season resets everything, and with the introduction of Pirelli rubber the pecking order looks set for a reshuffle.

"The biggest unknown will be the Pirelli tyres. I think this will have a massive influence," admits Michael. "From what I can see at the moment, this will be the biggest part. Not so much from a mechanical point view because the weight distribution's fixed, but from an aerodynamic point of view as well they're completely different.

"It doesn't matter if they're better or worse," he continues, "if they're significantly different this means they will change the tyre wake of a car, and if this changes, the whole car changes. This means the front wing end plate, the barge boards, everything."

Both Head and Michael hope the work the team has been feverishly putting in throughout 2010 will launch the team further up the grid. Head drawing on Red Bull for inspiration.

"You go back to 2008 or something, 2007/2008, and Red Bull and ourselves were very close together but they've made the changes that have allowed them to achieve what they've done... We obviously haven't."

- MAT COCH

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CHAPTER ONE THE DRIVERS Ql.The Unser brothers Jerry, Bobby and Al have a record of extraordinary feats at Indianapolis, but one of the most remarkable Is that Jerry went right over the top of the banking - and lived to tell the tale.

Is this taleTrue or False?

Q2. Which driver, whose name became very closely associated with the marque, was behind the wheel of a Bentley (with some minor help from a relief driver) when it beat the Blue Train in a famous race across France in 1930?

Q3.Which driver, whose day job and therefore his nickname was derived from the disco industry, won Rookie of the Year honours at the 1981 Bathurst 1000, co-driven by current V8 Supercar team owner Garry Rogers.

4. ONE OF THESE DRIVERS WAS KNOWN AS‘AWESOME BILL FBOM DAWSONVILLE’, AND HE WON THE NASCAR WINSTON CUP IN isee. WHO is he? and who is chasing him?

Q5. Which well-known racing figure, driving a Mercedes, was just behind Mike Flawthorn's Jaguar when the 1958 World Champion was killed in a road crash in January 1959?

Q6. Australia is justifiably proud that two of the Brabham brothers have won Le Mans, but name the brothers who won the race sharing with each other (with rather a lot of help from a very wellcredentialled German).

Q7. Which famous figure in Australian motor sport was the nephew of early racing driver Flope Bartlett?

Q8.'The Tigress from Turin'remains the only woman to score points in the FI World Championship. She also drove with distinction in an Australian Grand Prix. Name her.

Q9. What was the real name of the speed record and inter-city Australian driver of the 1920s and 30s universally known as 'Wizard'Smith? www.mnews.com.au

NICKNAMED THE MONZA GMMLLA’,IE WON ONLY CHE GRAM)PIHX - AND SPUN OFF C»nE VICTORY LAP! WHO WAS HE? 55

CHAPTER TWOl THE RACES Q11. Who won the 2010 Australian Formula 1 GP - was it Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Lewis Flamilton or Jenson Button?

>

Q12. Name the three drivers who won the Bathurst 500 or 1000 in their final start in the race.(The answer does not include 2010 winners Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife, who are unlikely to have finished their Great Race career just yet.)

Q13. In what year was the 1937 Australian Grand Prix conducted?

Q14. Flow many times did the V8 Supercars Championship Series visit Canberra?

Q15. David Pearson won the 1976 Daytona 500 after a sensational last-lap clash with Richard Petty.

Was this Pearson's only Daytona 500 victory?

13. THERE WERE EIGHT ROUNDS IN THE ISeO ATCC. AT HOW MANY OF THEM WAS PETER BROCK ON POLEf

Q16.The2008F1 World Championship was decided on the last lap. Which two drivers fought out the title that day?

I 3

17. LEAVING THE BEST TO LAST; JUAN MANUEL FANGIO’S LAST GP VICTORY IS REGARDED AS ONE OF THE GREATEST DRIVES IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT. WHAT RACE WAS IT? Q18: In which year did Jim and Steven Richards rather inelegantly run into each other at Flell Corner in the closing laps of the Bathurst 1000?

56

JAPANESE GRAND PRK AT SUZUKA, AYRTON SENNA FAMOUSLY AND DELIBERATELY CRASHED INTO ALAIN PROST AT THE FIRST CORNER WHO WON THE RACEf motorsport news

CHAPTER THREE THE VENUES

1. FOR MANY YEARS,THE MONTE CARLO RALLY OFFERED COMPETITORS THE CHOICE OF STARTING FROM SEVERAL DIFFERENT CITIES IN EUROPE,THEN ALL CONVERGING ON MONTE CARLO.THAT SEEMS EXTRAORDINARY - BUT IS IT TRUEf Q22. Which classic Australian track(sometimes called the Rheims of the South Pacific) featured corners called Tannery and Newry?

Q23.The old Warwick Farm circuit had sections called the Western Crossing and the Northern Crossing. What was the track crossing over, to give rise to these names?

Q24. If you found yourself wending through the villages of Campofellce, Collesano and Cerda, In what remarkable race were you driving?

Q25. What was Mr McPhillamy's Christian name,as still commemorated by a large sign on that section of the track at Bathurst which is named after him?

Q26. Which English track, home of many British GPs, featured a section with the unusual name of Dingle

Dell?

Q27. In which years did these circuits close for circuit racing; Warwick Farm, Amaroo Park, Catalina Park, Hume Weir and Oran Park?

Q28. When comparing the fastest laps set on all the tracks used for the ATCCA/8SCS, which one has the highest average speed?

WHICH AMERICAN TRACK POSSIBLY THEIR BEST ROAD RACHG VENUE - INCLUDES A SECTION WITH THE WIAMATIC NAME TIM«ER

Q29. Name the Australian track which hosted four 12hour races in the late 1960s/early 70s. www.mnews.com.au

57

CHAPTER FOURS THE CARS

31. WfflCH HOLDEN GROUP C RACER CAME FIRST - THE TORANA L34 OR THE TORANA M s Q32. When Jack Brabham took the Cooper to Indianapolis in 1961, was he the first driver to race a rear-engined car in the 500?

Q33. Which marque won the first 24-hour race to be held in Australia?

Q34. Probably the most unusual car to win the Australian Drivers'Championship did so in 1977. It was an FI chassis with an engine nobody else but John McCormack ever thought of using. Name the car and engine.

Q35. Name the only marque in the following group which never won a race or round of the ATCC/V8SCS: Porsche, Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW, Chevrolet and Mazda.

58

Q36. While always associated with Holden, Peter Brock certainly drove some unusual marques from time to time. What was his chosen weapon for the 1992 Bathurst 12 Hour?

»

Q37.The famous CanAm series died not with a bang but a whimper, in 1974. What marque was driven by that year's champion?

Q38. Which marques did Walter Rohrl drive to victory in the 1980 and 1982 World Rally Championship?

Q39. John Bowe made his ATCC debut in a marque which turned out to have a short but distinguished career in the category. What was it?

40. WHAT WAS DISTINCnVE ABOUT THE ENGINE IN THE STP PAXTON CAR THAT SO NEARLY CARRB)PAIffmi JONES TO 7 BOY VICTORY Bi TIE

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motorsport news

C

Peter Brock loved living on the edge. From rally driver to nine-times Bathurst winner, Peter loved pushing the boundaries. Many - \ things have been written about Peter and his achievements. Our

PETER BROCK

I

story covers parts of Peter’s life that are little known. We travel back to his childhood, talk to his family and some old friends that helped him in his early days of racing, from the old tractor on his uncle’s farm to the Austin A 30, then interview some of his more famous racing opponents, culminating with his first Bathurst win in the fantastic Torana XU-1 at Bathurst in 1972. Included are interviews with Harry Firth, Colin Bond, Peter Janson, Bob Jane, Bill Tuckey and Ian Tate (Chief Mechanic for HDT).

This is a fascinating journey, with never before seen stills and family home movies, together with classic Bathurst footage from 1969, 70, 71 and 1972.

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THE SECOND ROW national racing since we last met

FUJITSU SERIES Steve Owen wrapped up his second Fujitsu Series title in style, with a pair of wins at Homebush.

Owen had an almost unbeatable lead up his sleeve entering the season finale, and victory in the opening race, along with early trouble for David Russell, saw the Greg Murphy Racing driver put it beyond doubt. He won on Sunday,too, after passing early leader Nick Percat to complete a dominant season.

Percat was afine second for the weekend,ahead of James Moffat, who had his work cut out after ending up 13th in a Red Flag-ridden qualifying session.Tim Blanchard took fourth for the weekend to seal second in the standings, whileTurn 1 contact on Saturday and a penalty on Sunday saw Russell slip from second in the points to fifth.

V8 UTES Grant Johnson didn't have a great weekend at Homebush, but it didn't matter - he still left as the 2010 V8 Utes Champion.

The West Australian missed the first practice session after stewards deemed his Commodore's rollcage didn't meet series regulations. With the required modifications made, he got back on track to finish fourth in Race 1, only to be excluded due to a brake line infringement.

That saw Jack Elsegood close to within 20 points in the title fight, but Johnson fought back on Sunday. He charged through from the rear of grid to fifth in Race 2 and sealed a second Utes crown with 14th in Race 3.

Charlie O'Brien won two of the three races to claim the round honours ahead of Elsegood.

66

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motorsport news

TOURING CAR MASTERS At 63 years of age, Jim Richards is still going strong, adding the 2010Touring Car Masters presented by Autobarn title to his already lengthy list of achievements.

Richards won a pair of races and took fourth in the other to finish second for the weekend in Homebush's season finale and wrap up the title over Gavin Bullas.

With victory in Race 2 and a pair of seconds, Bullas won the round, with John Bowe and Andrew Miedecke third and fourth respectively for the weekend and year.

Bernie Stack was fifth outright in his Porsche to claim the Group 2 title, while Tony Karanfilovski won Group 3.

MINI CHALLENGE Chris Alajajian is the last Hertz MINI Challenge Champion for the forseeable future.

Having led the points all year, Alajajian looked set to take out the title at Homebush's final-ever round of the series, and the Sydneysider strengthened his grip with pole position and victory in Race 1.

In the inverted Top 8 Race 2, he finished fifth, one spot ahead of rival Paul Stokell to wrap it up. Alajajian wrapped up the round honours with victory in Race 3.

Glenn Seton was second for the weekend, ahead of Peter McNiven, who also wrapped up third for the year.

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DRAG RACING Just making theTop Doorslammer field in the Goldenstate titles at Perth Motorplex was tough enough, let alone winning it.

But that's what Mark Belled did. With a bumper 22 cars entered.

Belled safely made the eight-car cut. He took early wins against Gary Phillips and Daniel Gregorini - who earlier eliminated points leader Robin Judd - to book a spot in the final against John Zappia.

After a rain delay, Belleri emerged on top.

In Top Bike, Wayne Barrett's post-qualifying withdrawal meant Troy McLean didn't face reigning Champ Chris Matheson in the first round. Instead, they met in the final, with McLean winning. Also on two wheels, Maurice Allen took out Pro Stock Motorcycle.

Narrabeer

SPEEDWAY Jason Sides leads the standings as the World Series Sprintcars field prepares for the annual Speedweek over the Christmas and New Year period.

The American leaptto the top of the points after a pair of wins in Tasmania, at Hobart and Latrobe. After four of 16 rounds. Sides leads Robbie Farr by 91 points, with Steve Lines a further 29 in arrears in third.

Farr kicked off the season with wins in Brisbane and Toowoomba, but could only manage 13th and 15th in the two Tasmanian legs of the series. Speedweek kicks off at Speedway City, Adelaide on Boxing Day.

www.mnews.com.au

67

AWKViS

motorsport news

It helps, but even with an increase in Level 1 involvement and newer and newer cars entering the Fujitsu Series, there You don't necessarily need mega bucks race a Adrenalin V8 Supercar. is still room for the savvy privateer.

Case to in point?

Motor Racing, whose running costs to put two cars inside the Top 10 of the series standings wouldn't cover the cost to run a single car in 'most other national categories.

The Newcastle outfit's journey in the series started in 2007, when Drew Russell first appeared, racing a Derek van Zelm-builtVX Commodore - barely raced since it was built in 1999 -for about $50,000. Russell raced the car for two years, upgraded to a VZ for the 2008 season, before a brief alliance with Race Image in the first half of 2009.

When that ended, Russell's father and team boss Wayne went shopping, picking up one of Brad Jones Racing's BF Falcons, which had been unused since the end of 2007. Drew's younger brother Aaren stepped up to the Fujitsu Series this year, so Wayne went shopping in Albury again, picking up the rest of BJR's Falcon inventory, including a second full racer and a rolling chassis.

"I bought one BF in September last year, and we got a really good deal from Brad,"Wayne explains.

"We traded the VZ in and bought the BF. We got a pretty good price for it, and didn't have to pay a lot of money to upgrade to the BF. "I got another phone call from Brad, knowing we had Aaren coming through. We didn't know what to do, but Brad came to me and said 'let's have a chat'. The deal that we struck was that good that I couldn't say no; it was that simple.

"I think at that stage, it was all in their way!They wanted to get it out the door. We went down and bought all ofthe gear.The spares were unbelievable, we bought a semi-trailer load worth of spares for the three cars, including the one we'd already bought,so it was pretty cool.

Brad gave us some pretty good terms, we were absolutely blessed.

I ve got to say, he's been a gentleman.Some teams can be a bit awkward once you've bought something,they don't want to know you afterwards, but everything Brad's said he'd do, he's done. I can't speak highly enough of BJR."

THE HEWESJi FA^^T OR FLASHIEST C|p, BUT THE ■D

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THE MOST OF WHAT THEY HAVE IN THE CAUOHT UF WITH THEM .■J www.mnews.com.au

Since then,they've played a blinder in the'bang for your buck' department, spending about $140,000 to field both cars for the entire 2010 season. Most money comes from the family directly, income from their three karting centres, Go Karts Go, while anti-virus company ESET has chipped in with sponsorship.

We ve managed to fund it in such a way that Drew, Aaren and myself don't get paid," Russell said.

"Their wages and my wages go straight into the racecars and my wife's wages pay the mortgage and puts food on the table. That frees up about 100 grand a year. And then ESET with the sponsorship adds another 40-odd thousand. And that's sort of how we've operated."

After a pair of seasons in New South Wales Formula Vee, a move to the Fujitsu Series was always going to be a big one for Aaren. Flowever, economies of scale - and time running the family businesses - made throwing the 19-year-old into the deep end a relatively straight-forward decision.

"We worked out that if Aaren got a Formula Ford or stayed in Formula Vees even, it was going to be about 15 weekends away,they were all on different weekends," Russell said.

"When we run our business with the go-kart centre, we'd need weekend workers and logistically we couldn't afford to do that. It's made more sense to do what we've done and do it together, which has saved us a lot of money.

"Because you're already going to the race meeting, it's not a huge amount dearer to run your extra car. It is as far as preparation goes, spending a little bit more time, but the cost factors aren't as bad because you've already got your semi-trailer, it's already going to the track. And it's worked out that we just need an extra three guys at each round.

"It's just running costs, basically, that you've got to increase - it's not double the costs by any stretch.'

i>«^

69

THERE'S a spirited between theAaren, Russelland brothers.

Honours between car #58,rivalry Drew,and car #59, their crews, are the topic of banter in the Adrenaline pitbay at each round. But beyond that,the Russells work well together,especially with Aaren in his first season driving a V8 Supercar.

"I'm always open to him," Drew says,"any advice he needs or wants, I'll go and help him and he's more than welcome to all of my data and all of that. But in the same sense, he's got to do his own thing. I can't teach him how to drive the cars, I'm still learning myself, sometimes."

"Drew's who I judge myself off," Aaren adds.

"I use his data as my banker, I don't care about anyone else at the moment, because at the moment this is what our car limit is. Why not use him as my banker and figure out where he's braking? Then if I think I can go deeper,or something, I can go deeper. It's a good starting point for me."

While the more experienced of the two. Drew hasn't exactly had a straight-forward four years in the Fujitsu Series.The first was spent in an older-model car and he missed several rounds last year. Stability in 2010 has been a welcome change.

"This is the first proper year we've had so far," he said of 2010.

"Every other year we've been struggling, extremely.Thefirst year with the VX,the second year with the VZ and then with the whole Race Image thing last year it was a bit unsettling.

"We've gone to two cars this year, everything's a bit calmer.You know where you're at and you know you've got that stability that you're going to be there at the next round.That's the biggest thing we've ever had,that stability."

With that has come an increased level of competitiveness. At Homebush he qualified sixth, tagged a wall while running fourth on Saturday, but came from the rear of grid to fifth on Sunday.

"We started off the year quite well pace-wise, in Clipsal, but we had our issues there where we were breaking shocks left, right and centre," Drew said.

"We Just kind of lost our way over the next few rounds. But I think over the last half of the year, we've developed the cars a bit, changed some things on them and I think it all came together for this weekend

72

(Homebush), where we've had reasonably good pace."

Aaren, meanwhile, has had a learning year, since driving a Supercar for the first time around 12 months ago at a test day. He admits to driving it like a Formula Vee that day, but has since made major inroads.

"When you drive these cars, everything else you learn about in motorsport, you have to throw it out and start from scratch. It was a big learning curve, but they're amazing cars to drive," he said.

"What my experience this year is that I can do the one laptime to get close to my brother, but I can't do them every lap like he can yet. My aim has been about trying to get as close to Drew,and be consistent with my laptimes, instead of being up and down like a rollercoaster.

"Throughout the year, my confidence has been building and my attitude has changed. At Sandown,even though we had a bad weekend, it was a big step up for me, because I felt really racy, I felt I could've even passed my brother and kept going and passing people.

"Now, I feel as though I haven't learnt the cars 100 percent, but I can challenge for positions, be right up people's clackers and Just getting used to it all."

Both Russells look at the workload required to go racing as a necessary sacrifice to have the opportunity to do what they're doing.

"Everything in our lives is geared towards going to a racetrack, everything we do it about making more money so we can pay and go race. I'm sure other people don't have to do it, but you do whatever it takes," Drew said.

"I can tell you now. I'd hate to be my girlfriend!" Aaren Jokes,"she sees me at about 10-o-clock every night.

"It's what we have to do to go away racing. If we didn't do that, we wouldn't be here. It's a lot of hard work, but in the end, it's about going racing. I owe the world to my Dad for what he does for us.

"It'd be a lot nicer if we had the big fancy sponsor, but in all honesty, when you look at our team, who wants to sponsor four-year-old cars, when you look over across from us(where PMM and GMR are situated in the Homebush FV8 pits), with current spec cars?

"It's a hard business we're in, but it's what we have to deal with.The 60 to 70 hour weeks, it's all worth coming here, getting out there, having fun, beating guys who have budgets triple us; it's rewarding."

motorsport news

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IT'S 3FEN A PRETT/ 310 2010 FOR DAVID WAIX, WH ANOTI-IER AUSTRALIAN GT TITLE AND A V8 ENDURO GIG THE MILESTONES DIDN'T STOP AT THE END OF THE SEASON,THOUCMH. MITCHELL ADAM SPOKE WITH HIM

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N paper, David Wall claiming backto-back VodkaO Australian GT Championships after leading the 2010 series all the way sounds pretty straight forward.

It's not quite that simple, though.

The flow of new machinery into the series continued in 2010,increasing the level of competition, particularly with more of Porsche's GT3 Cup Ss on the grid.

Wall,one of those drivers, was seeded in GT's regulations, and therefore also had to work with parity measures throughout the year. In the end,though, he got the job done, wrapping up the title at Sandown's season finale.

"We thought we could improve a bit for this year," Wail explains, "and it worked out that we could and we went back-to-back.That was sort of what we hoped we'd be able to do, but we definitely didn't expect it.

"The competition this year

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really stepped up. Last year, we got the Cup S a little bit earlier than the others but this year, everyone sort of had a Cup S, and obviously there was Peter Hackett in a Lamborghini and everyone else.

"The parity is such a massive thing. I was the only seeded guy there and, basically, every careven the little Lotus running in the Production Class - can pull out and pass me in a straight line with the weight and air restrictors.

"You go to Bathurst, you've got an uphill run allthe way toTurn 2.

We showed there that we could still manage a reasonable result, but if we had a little bit less parity, I think we would've had a better result again.

"It's frustrating from a driver's point of view, but it's also helped me in other areas in my driving.

I felt like i drove the car better than I did last year."

Round wins in the season opener at Clipsal and Eastern Creek set up Wall's year, while

consistency also played a role, with just one non-points finish to his name.

"The Clipsal round,it was probably one ofthe best round for us in the last two years,"Wall recalled.

"I hadn't driven the ear since Homebush the year previous, we hadn't done any testing because budget didn't allow for it. So we basically turned up with our new livery and sponsor, Wilson Security, and hoped that we'd be able to get up to pace as quickly as we did the year before and it worked out really well for us.

"We had three wins and, really, that put us in a good position for the whole year. At the rounds like that one,and Eastern Creek, which went really well for us, were sort of the backbone to the campaign.

"When we had some issues, like we had at Phillip Island with a rear hub failure, we managed to still finish that race and get some points. Making sure we finished

every race was the reason why we came out as number one."

Eastern Creek was one of two events to feature a pair of one-hour races, as the category emulates European sportscar formats, but it wasn't the extent of Wall's endurance racing in 2010. For the second time, he had a V8 Supercar endurance drive, partnering Karl Reindler in a Brad Jones Racing Commodore.

The pair finished 17th at Phillip Island and were quiet achievers at Bathurst, running well inside the Top 10 until the final pitstop.

From seventh,though,the car lost pace in the final stint and Reindler was defenseless,falling to eventually finish 15th.

"The BJR drive was really, really good,"Wall says."The guys were very accommodating,they made me feel really welcome all year, they were very good in giving me a lot of laps in the car, and Karl was really good to work with.

"We were running respectably all day on pace inside the Top 10 and had we not had a problem

■4

K M h J

in that last stint, I'm 100 percent sure we would've finished inside the Top 10 somewhere.

'We just got caught out there a bit, something wasn't quite right there for Karl in that last stint. If you look at [Garth] Tander and [Cameron] McConville, for instance, a lot of the day we were one or two spots in front of them or just behind them, and they finished on the podium.

I think, realistically, we would've been seventh or eighth if Karl had something to battle with at the end.'

Still, Wall was a far more comfortable man this time around, having shared Paul Cruickshank Racing's BF Falcon with the significantly shorter Leanne Tander in 2009.

Last year, sitting in the wrong position, I got back spasms for

probably half the race at both events," he said.

It wasn't too comfortablewas good to stand up when you got out of the car. It was a compromised seating position for me and Leanne, whereas Karl and I were very evenly matched. height-wise. It was obviously a lot easier in that regard.'

Including the V8 enduros, it's been a busy end to the year.

When MNews spoke to Wall, he was at a hospital, following the birth of Wall and his wife Amy's first son, Ryan. As such, planning for 2011 was temporarily on the back burner. With the direction of Wilson Security's motorsport sponsorship to play a role in the decision. Wall was yet to finalise his program as we went to print.

One thing is locked in, however. a three-car effort for Wall Racing

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Services at the Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour, with Wall's Cup S, Paul Tressider's 997 CupCar and a Mitsubishi Evo IX GSR. 'We're always working on it, Wall said of 2011.

'Dad especially is always pushing the envelope and seeing what we can try to do the following year. Obviously with Wilson Security, we're waiting to see which way [MD] John [McMellan] would like to go with everything, and we'll make our mind up with what we are going to be able to do next year.

'Whatever we do, I'li be happy to do it. As you say, i've had a lot going on personally, and whether it's a step forward or to stay stationary where I am, whatever, ■ ^i.

I'd be more than happy to do it; just to have another season of something under my belt."

|i: BSMSpbrt are proud to support David Wail in winning the 2010 lam ionshi

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HEN Chris Alajajian joined the MINI Challenge at the start of its second season in 2009,it ended an unwanted spell on the sidelines.Two years later, he leaves as the Champion, but with more uncertainty ahead.

Having been a race winner in Production Cars, Formula 3 and the Fujitsu Series, Alajajian landed a gig in the now-defunct A1GP for the 2007-2008 season with Team Lebanon,through his family's lineage.

When that association ended early in 2008, Alajajian was without a drive for the year. Enter the MINI Challenge and a return to the track.

"I was thinking about it after winning the championship at Homebush, recapping the last couple of years,"Alajajian said after the 2010 season finale, also the last-ever round of the category.

"After A1, it was a quiet year for me as a driver. I realised how quickly you can get out of the spotlight. It's very important to stay within motor racing in some way,shape or form to keep your name alive.

"That year, I did two races in F3,1 didn't do much racing but they were strong performances. My father and I sat down and said'what are we going to do next year?'My dad was keen with the MINIs, and Rafael [Toda]and Ted [Toleman,category managers]approached us.

"We saw the racing coming out of the series in its first year and I went and commentated at Oran Park for the last round of that first year, and I saw it was a pretty exciting category."

Looking back, Alajajian is pleased with the decision to join the category, beyond the silverware.

"Because it was a regulated category, as a one-make series, it all comes down to the driver, and it enabled me,once I started MINI,to show my true potential," he said.

"I wouldn't say I started off great, but to come second in the first year and winning this season, it was a real important moment for me. I worked hard for it and I believe I've improved dramatically over the last two years as a driver."

After finishing second to Paul Stokell in the 2009 standings, Alajajian burst out of the blocks to win the opening two rounds. By the end of the year, he'd won five of the seven rounds, with a qualifying infringement at Queensland Raceway and suspension damage at Surfers Paradise accounting for the other two weekends.

"It has been a pretty good year for me," Alajajian enthused.

"I never really thought too much about the championship,to be honest, I just wanted to go out there and win races and rounds.

Obviously I knew I wanted to go one better than last year, and every time I was in the car, that was in my mind.

"I knew we had the speed and I knew thatjust going fast isn't going to win you anything, you need to be consistent as well. So we stuck to being consistent within race weekends, running clean races and avoiding DNFs and in the end, it's paid off."

Before Homebush's season finale, BMW Australia announced it would no longer back the MINI Challenge,ending its. three-year run.

Alajajian has enjoyed his time in the series and will miss the category.

"It's a shame that the MINI Challenge won't be running any more, it has provided such a great two years to me," Alajajian said.

"It's been the best two years of my motor racing from a competition point of view. It's been such a close category and I've had a lot fun. It's a community where all of the drivers we get along quite well, all of the teams get along quite well, and Ted and Rafael, who ran the series, did a sensational job.

"Racing the MINIs has been fantastic, I really can't talk the category up enough."

With the demise of the series, Alajajian is on the lookout for a possible racing home in 2011. His tight-knit outfit is exploring a number of options, including another one-make series, the reborn Carrera Cup Australia.

"We've tried to lay out the options on the table," he said.

"Carrera Cup is one of the categories we're looking at. We're looking at funds and what sort of sponsorship we can bring, and whether or not it's going to be enough to run us for a competitive season in the Porsche.

"Back in the day, Carrera Cup was a great category; it was good to watch and it was very competitive. Everything's very well regulated, there's not much you have to do unless you get into trouble with damage.

"Realistically, you probably need two mechanics and a software engineer, along with myself and my Dad, which is pretty much the same as we had with the MINI. In saying that, it's not a cheap category to look at.The funds are very high - whether or not it's going to happen will come down to my corporate backing." if a deal comes together, Alajajian knows he'll have plenty of learning to do, but is optimistic of putting together a good season.

"I'm going to go into whatever I do with the intention of being very competitive and I'd love to go for another title next year," he said.

"If we're in Carrera Cup, it's not going to be easy, because there's going to be some competitive guys in there as well.

"It's going to be all new to us again,just like the MINIs were in the first year, so there's going to be a big learning curve. We know we can be a competitive team, we achieved that in the MINIs; it's a one-make series and happens shares a lot of similarities with Carrera Cup. "We're hoping can make something happen."

Congratulations Chris Alajajian! STREEIS Winner of the 2010 Mini Challenge Championship

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'It's different to 2008.In 2008,it was a relief, because we drove the last race on seven cylinders. It wasjust relief to get over t^he line.

"This one,I enjoyed all year.The only pressure I felt was for the team, because I really wanted to get a result for the team.They gave me a go and put me in the car. ,. . , .

"The other thing that's different about this year is that it's led to a full-time drive, which is the aim of the Fujitsu Series. In 08,it all happened,we won,and I was looking good for a drive - and then I ended up watching in Adelaide.It was devastating, because I'd put so much effort in the year before. We felt like we did all we could,and the ended up watching, which was a let down for me and all the people that were helping me out.

"This year, it's all gone to plan. For me.I'll be at Abu Dhabi in the first race,and GMR will have a full quota of drivers next year,and people knocking down their door wanting a drive, because people have worked out how good the cars are. It's been a perfect year."

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Initially, I just put the car on the track to try and sell it and help the category out a bit.

Les[Morall,V8TC boss] asked me to come down to Tassie and - it was typical - as the race goes on, you get hooked again and I ended up doing all the rounds!

[Homebush] was a huge emotional rollercoaster.

I'm elated to win this for Hi Tech Motorsport. With Jack [Elsegood] in second it's a 1-2 for HiTech and a great result for all our team.' motorsport news

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The car has just been brilliant all year and it's suited me so well that we've hardly had to change anything all season.To get this result for the team is a great reward,just to see how happy the guys are is the best part of it."

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This is our second full season with the car. We don't do any testing, we just try different things at the race meetings.

Bruce Tyson and I are responsible for building the car and Mick Webb built the engine.

I feel chuffed that we've won the series, but I don't go out there planning that.I'm more excited for the guys; Bruce, Mick,Russell[Woollard]who does all the spannering at the track,and Brian [Gelding] who has been with me for over 40 years.

I am absolutely stoked to win the title in my first full season in Commodore Cup. "At the start of the season, I probably didn't expect i to be as competitive as I was, but Kenton Ferg uson prepared a car that was fast and reliable,and I managed to finish on the podium in every round ofthe series so

'We set a goal probably this time last year to win it this year.

"We did a lot more development, not on the engine, but we spent a lot more time on chassis development and the car's handling.

"During the year, we had a few ups and downs, but we're pretty happy to get the win in the end." www.mnews.com.au

championship rounds, because I've got other commitments.

"We go there not as well-prepared as the guys we're racing against who focus on Superkarts all year round, but Scott who does the Kart from SAFE Evolutions prepares a good kart. So I've certainly got the equipment there; it's been about me extracting the most of out of it and me when I do drive it."

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There is Le Mans and there is Indy, There is the Daytona 500,and even ourown Bathurst 1000,Butas major motorsportevents go,there is nothing bigger than the Dakar Rally,Bruce Garland gives us a taste ofwhatit's like on the Dakar as he prepares for the 2011 event.BySTEVE NORMOYLE here's a place we go through in the desert where it hasn't rained for 300 years.There's nothing that lives there. When you're there, it's scary.

You know you're only there temporarily."

The Atacama Desert, of which Australian off-road rally ace Bruce Garland speaks, is one ofthe stages on the Dakar Rally.The Atacama is 1000km of badlands on the Pacific coast of South America. It is 100 times drier than California's Death Valley, and widely accepted as the driest place on the planet.

To the east ofthe Atacama are the Andes Mountains. While the relentless sun scorches the desert sand, up on the peaks ofthe Andes there is snow...

"We've got a dash that logs outside temperature/'Garland explains,"and atone point in the Atacama in the middle ofthe day, it showed 58 degrees for an hour and a half.The day before we had been over the Andes, and there's snow...

"When you're in the desert, you can see the snow on the peaks - actually, the first year we were there it did snow on us a bit, and the crews behind us got a real covering of snow. So, yeah, it's got pretty much every condition possible."

This will be Garland's third assault on the Dakar since the event migrated from Africa to South America.(The Continental shift was made on account of a terrorist threat; the 2008 event was cancelled on the eve of the start after four French tourists

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were murdered.Their killers were linked to Al-Qaeda).

In 2009 Garland and co-driver Harry Suzuki finished 11th outright - an incredible result for a low budget operation running a standard-chassis Isuzu against the might ofthe factory teams and their lightweight spaceframe machines.The 2010 event didn't go so well, however,the pair retiring while leading their class. One ofthe Isuzu's spare tyres became loose and damaged the rearmounted radiator. That left them with a leaking radiator as they travelled through the driest place on earth ...

The Dakar, which kicks off on New Year's Day, is 9000km of competitive stages across 16 days in remote areas of Chile and Argentina. In terms of sheer scale, there is nothing comparable in world motorsport.

But then, on all levels, this thing is a monster.

It is said that the Buenos Aires start is witnessed by more than a million people.

That's live, in person. Such is the crush of humanity at the start that it can take three hours just to complete the opening 6km leg out of the city.

Out ofthe town,for hundreds of kilometres, the event is lined with masses of spectators. If any of the competitors or even the service crews - stop,they get mobbed by the locals in their frenzy to get a picture of themselves with the car.

The early stages ofthe event are also the most dangerous,says Garland.

"They start the cars at 30-second intervals.

and you can find yourself in blinding dust and not know there's someone stuck in the middle of the track in front out you. When that happens, we've found the best thing is to just drive off into the bush.

"What they've got now is an electronic device in each vehicle that sends out a signal that can be received by any other vehicle over a couple of hundred metres. So you know when someone's coming up behind you, and what's ahead. Because with the trucks, the dust cloud is about three storeys high.You can't see anything; it just becomes one massive tornado of dust.

"The first part is dangerous because that's where everyone thinks they're going to win it. Then reality sets in after about the first five hours ofthe first day,and half of them have gone by then,the ones that aren't prepared properly.Then it settles down into a grind."

Preparation for the 2011 event began as soon as Garland returned from last year's Dakar.

Diesel and dust:Bruce Garland gave his new Isuzu D-MAX a pre-Dakarshakedown in the Australian Safari, main. Bruce at play, testing the limits ofthe new specification Toyo tyres he'll use on the Dakar, top centre.

Bruce and long-time co-driver,Japaneseborn Harry Suzuki. Harry became an Australian citizen just before they left for South America;Garland's crew reckons he should now change his name to Harry Isuzu, top right.

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At one point in the Atacama in the middle ol the day it was 58 degrees ior an honr and a halt. The day helore we had been over the Andes, and there’s snow nil

'You can't just say in December, 'I'm going to do Dakar'. It takes a full year of preparation. It's on a scale that you can't compare with anything else. The closest thing we've got here is the Australian Safari, but that's like comparing regional rugby league with the State of Origin."

It's also a fairly costly exercise.

"The entry fees alone are unbelievable. It's $130,000 in entries fees for us. There's a fee for the vehicles, but there is also a fee of 10,000 Euros per person - and that includes the service crew. So for us that's €20,000 for myself and Harry, plus another €40,000 for the four guys we're taking with us.

"You might get someone wanting to volunteer to come and crew for you, but then someone's got to come up with the $15,000...

(Bruce's crew comprises three Aussies and one local mechanic, who can be handy when it comes to translation and local customs.)

"VW's got all its cars plus 100 people their entry fee is about two or three million dollars! I think they spend more on clothing than we spend on the whole event...

"But those entry fees cover a lot of logistical 82

things: food on the event, and the event has got its own hospital; a MASH-type unit that goes with the event. Just everything about it is on a massive scale.

"We're renting half a service truck off a Spanish-based company (sharing with another team). They'll have about five service trucks and their own bivouac. You can either do it like that, or use a service truck that follows the event, but that's telephone numbers to do it that way - a couple of hundred thousand dollars."

This year Garland has a new model Isuzu D-MAX. With its 3.0-litre turbo diesel producing 192kW and a stump-pulling 630Nm of torque, the new machine is about 60 percent more potent than the standard ute. The biggest change is the fitment of a Holinger gearbox.That aside, it is in essence a hotted up standard D-Max, and probably comparable to a Group N rally car in terms of modifications.

Costs dictate that it has to be this way but, on the flip side, the fact that the D-Max isn't that far removed from the road ute gives the manufacturer something on which to hang its hat. When VW wins the Dakar, it does so with a Touareg that resembles the

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Fun in the sun: Garland and Suzuki on last year's Dakar, left, right. The new car is an evolution of the 20 7 0 Dakar car, just a little bit better in all areas. Garland reckons, centre. road version only in name and (vaguely) body shape, but if Garland gets a result it is a tangible outcome for main sponsor, Isuzu Thailand.

"We know we can't compete with the factory teams. They've got new everything every night, and with proper spaceframe chassis and everything they've got, they're lighter, they've got more power - they're just faster.

"I've got to drive mine a lot more conservatively anyway because we haven't got the resources to change much stuff. VW will do a new gearbox on their cars every second night, which is about €70,000 each for the four cars, whereas we might do a preventative clutch change, but that's it.

"Every time you do an event like this, you learn things. I think the big thing this year is that what we've learned over the past two events we've been able to evolve some things into the new car. For example, that wheel will never hit the radiator again; we've motorsport news J

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moved it around. That sort of thing. It's just everything you do gets better and a little easier for the experience you've had before."

It is an event of massive contrasts. Coping with 50 degree-plus heat in a desert where nothing lives is one thing. But then there is the 4km elevation in the Andes.

"A lot of planes don't fly that high!" Garland laughs. "The air up there is thin and you feel it hurting you. You can't do anything. One of

the crew ran once round the car, to see what the effect was, but then he sat down for half an hour just heaving, trying to get his breath back. You don't function too well at 4000 metres!

"Physically, if your body's not hurting, you're not in the race any more. Everyone's hurting.These things ride really well; it's like sitting in a lounge chair, but it's the relentless shaking and twisting - it's quite violent in

there. And you're having to keep the mental concentration up for about 12 hours straight without a break. You've got the fuel range, and you've got food and water in the car.

You don't stop. It is exhausting, probably more mentally than physically."

Hopefully the hurting will be accompanied by the satisfaction of having achieved a result in the biggest, baddest motorsport event in the world.

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OTsince James Courtney or Ryan Briscoe has Australia had a kart racer banging wheels with the best in the world.

15-year-old Sydneysider Pierce Lehane has just returned from a successful trip to Europe, where he finished third in a blanket finish in the Rotax World Finals, and then just a week later was a factory member of Team CRG for the W5K Nations Cup - a team-mate to arguably the bestjunior karter in the world right now. Max Verstappen.

The good news for theAussies is he held his own and pressured his more experienced team-mates in the cut and thrust of European competition - which ultimately cost him a top finish in the Final. When MNews called Pierce, he was cruising the streets of Monaco.. .just visiting, of course.

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Over the last few weeks you've finished third in the Rotax World Finals, and been on racing terms with the best juniors in the world. Are you pinching yourself wondering if it's all still real, or did Italy meet your expectations?

Yes it did meet my expectation, and I did believe in myself that I was fast enough. But after the race Just thinking I finished third against the best juniors in the world, I kind of had to pinch myself.

You were quoted as saying Team CRG was like a 'mini Formula 1 team'. In Australia, you're used to a mechanic and maybe one other. What did your team consist of in Italy?

In Australia, my Dad (PJ) is my mechanic, he had raced karts for 25 years. He and my Pop had a kart shop where they designed and manufactured karts. Dad has lots of experience as he used to race CIK Formula A. Also in Australia, Brian Lindsay comes to all the race meets with us and we test with him every weekend. He is one of the best. Over the years he has helped James Courtney, Ryan Briscoe, David Besnard and Tim Slade, and many others in their quests for success. In Europe, in the CRG transporter, the team consisted of my mechanic Euan Jeffry - who normally works with Arnaud Kozlinski (Super KF World Champion). We also had Marco from AIM/Mycron as a data analyst, the Maxter engine builder and my motorsport news

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Looking at your times, you were around a second off the pace of MaxVerstappen at the start of the weekend and closed to within two-tenths at the completion of the weekend. Where do you feel you made the biggest gains and what contributed to that?

The biggest gains were made in me learning the engine and carburettor tune, learning the kart on the narrow back tyre, which I had never driven on before, and the data analyst being able to see where I was slower than my team-mates. We were able to look at my lines through the GPS system and make adjustments to the lines I was taking.

Some of the practice sessions and qualifying were in the rain, so I also had to learn how to drive on the Dunlop wet weather tyres, as I have never driven on them before.

European racing is notorious for its ruthlessness - and you were a victim of that in the Pre-Final and Final of the Nations Cup. How much more intense is it than racing in Australia? Could you put a percentage on it?

The racing in Europe I believe is about 75 percent more ruthless. In Australia, most of

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the drivers are pretty good friends, but over in Europe the only people you are friends with are your team-mates. You get no respect from the other drivers so you cannot give them any respect back.

One would imagine that after your performance CRG and other teams will be taking notice. How likely is it that you will be racing more regularly in Europe next year?

It all comes down to money and sponsorship.

I had a lot of team managers coming up and talking to me, so we will just have to wait and see. But I would love to be able to race again next year in Europe.

Australia-wise, what are your plans for 2011?

My plans are to race the Rotax Pro Tour, Rotax Nationals, CIK Stars Of Karting Series and the New South Wales, Queensland and Victorian state titles.

Back to the Rotax World Finals, it was an intense race, with about seven of you crossing the line together. How was that race - your second World Final - and what does it mean to represent Australia at such an event?

Yes, the race was the most intense and the

most fun I have ever had in a kart. With about 10 laps to go I was up in fifth, catching the leaders and I got punted off the track to 12th so to come back through with only 10 laps to go was a great feeling. Representing Australia at the World Finals and to be the first junior Australian to ever make the podium makes me proud to be an Australian.

You shot to prominence on the national karting scene only two years ago. How long have you been karting for and what got you into the sport?

I started racing karts when I was 12 years old. I never raced Midgets or Rookies, I just did 12 months in Junior National Light and then went straight in Rotax Junior MAX. My Dad and Pop got me into karting obviously through their business and interest in the sport.

The WSK Nations Cup performance is arguably the best by an Australian at the highest level of karting since Courtney and Briscoe - a couple of big shoes to fill! What is your ultimate aim in motorsport?

My ultimate aim is to make it to FI, but the first step to achieving that is to go and race in Europe to show team owners, team managers and sponsors you have got what it takes to make it all the way there.

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jif j VERY January, the Speedway world gathers in Warrnambool.

The relaxed seaside city, with an annual population of 31,000 swells to nearly triple that number.Why? A good healthy mix of holidaymakers and fast,furious Sprintcar action.

So big is this business of motorsport for Warrnambool during the month of January it injects around $10 million to the region annualiy and attracts invaluable national and international exposure.

Premier Speedway is seven kilometres out of the city and every January hosts the most prestigious event in Australia, the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic. Later this month will be the 39th running of the Classic, on January 22-23, and just three days after the action hits the Premier clay again for the 49th running of the Australian Sprintcar Championship.

During the five nights of action in just eights days, 100 Sprintcars will assemble for each night of racing around the south-west region of Victoria.

Deakin University's Warrnambool Campus and Premier Speedway conducted a study during 2005 into the impact of the Speedway's worth to the region's economy.

It revealed 17,500 bed nights were booked during the racing period and at the time injected $6 million into the Western Victoria, a region with a 100km radius from Warrnambool.

Warrnambool has evolved to become recognised as a hub of Speedway and gathered something of a'cult following' from motorsport enthusiasts, who have aligned themselves to the Classic and events around it over the years.

David Milis is the full-time man appointed to manage Premier Speedway throughout its busy year - perhaps one of the most challenging eras in Premier's history.

"The mystique of the place draws them all, particularly in search of winning the Ciassic and this year the title on the back of that," Mills told Motorsport News.

"I also think it's a place drivers want to race at.The combination of the history of drivers to have won events

there, and to many it's like having Knoxville in Australia, "it's the ability the venue has and the town to attract the best fieids and make them weicome.To me,it's like the paddock that grew."

Down Warrnambool way, one driver became so big during the January action over a 30-year period they called him'God'.

Garry Rush made the Premier circuit his own and competed in every Classic between 1976 and 1998, winning the race on seven occasions and finishing in the top three 10 times.

So popular was Rush in '98, he packed 1000 T-shirts and caps hoping that amount would last five weeks. Not a chance. He sold them all at Warrnambool during his final Classic that year.

"I always said if you want to meet real Australians then come to Victoria, but drive to Warrnambool after that," Rush said.

"For me, winning the Classic at Warrnambool in January was about as good as it got.

It's built momentum over the years and it's a good place to

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be at that time of year.

"I actually compare having Sprintcar racing at Warrnambool to like having the Indy 500 at Indianapolis every year. It's just something you sit up and take notice of and want to be a part of it."

The Sports Editor of the city's newspaper, The Standard, Greg Best has covered the event for nearly two decades and says the mix of holidaymakers and Sprintcars is a notable combination.

"The holiday period at that time of year is big in Warrnambool. I think the mix of people on holidays and the big name drivers help build the legend ofthe place," Best said.

"There's a real racing spirit about Sprintcars at Warrnambool in January. We don't get a lot of racing and see some of the big names that often,so when they do come here it makes it extra special."

Former V8 Supercar owner and Premier Speedway member Kees Weel says he has to be in Warrnambool each January for the action and 2011 will be no different.

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Weel, was born and raised in the region and the roots to his successful KJ Thermal and PWR radiator company began there. Weel raced at Premier in the 1970s and even threw his hard-earned behind the club to sponsor the 2003 Australian SprintcarTitles there.

"For me, I can't beat the atmosphere,"Weel said.

"I've been lucky to see a lot of racing all over the world. In January I have to be in Warrnambool for the Sprintcars, it's just that good, you want to be there.

"The quality of the racing and the professionalism of the way the place is run by a club is excellent.

"The annual Classic in January I think is the best race in Australia. It's where the Americans are allowed to race and they should be,so that makes it like a world title."

To his south-west fans, Max Dumesny is revered as the champion Sprintcar driver, whose Speedway passion was nurtured on farmland near Warrnambool in the 1970s.

Dumesny grew up on the family dairy farm at Nullawarre, not far from Premier

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Speedway. He has gathered a swag of national and state titles during his nearly three decades at on the circuit. He doesn't hesitate stating he loves the place when asked.

"1 really do, it's my home track. It's an awesome racetrack," Dumesny enthused.

"Over the years I have had some of my major success there. It's very special being in Warrnambool in January when Sprintcars are there."

For a Sydneysider, Kerry Madsen is nearly a local down I there now, having won titles.

Classics and any other major I Sprintcar event on offer at Premier. Madsen has at times been very controversial I and also a favourite, to the I thousands that flock to the I venue each January.

I "1 love it there. I just do.

If I could choose to live somewhere it would be Warrnambool," Madsen said.

"The whole place has always welcomed me, well nearly, and I've had really good success there. Anyone will tell you [the Classic] is the hardest race in Australia to win and at the best place in Australia to race at."

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MODEL BEHAVIOUR

The Jack Daniel's Racing black colourscheme looks magic on the Kelly Racing Commodores^ and Classic Carlectables has done itjustice with its new 1/18 models.ButBlante's V8Supercar range is also out there now.Including a model ofFabian Coulthard's Bathurstcar-as It was before it wentthrough the Chase on the opening lap... By BRUCE MOXON

T

HE Tasman Revival meeting late last year at Eastern Creek inspired me to go on a search for what Tasman-era cars might be out there.

Tasman cars of the 1960s were generally 2.5-litre versions of Formula 1 or F2 cars, of course, and finding an actual Tasman car might be almost impossible. But there are plenty of great 1960s

88

single sealers (that aren't a Lotus 49) out there. Surely.

Well,for starters there are several versions of the car that preceded the 49, the Lotus 25.

Credited with being the first monocoque racing car, the 25 was a slender, elegant creation that won lots of races with its 1.5-litre Coventry Climax V8, and picked up a World

Championship for Jim Clark along the way.

I found quite a few by Spark models on Biante's website (www.biante.com.au), in various liveries because, remember, in these days manufacturers could sell cars to privateers, who could then race them and even, maybe, beat the factory.

The other great British racing

car maker of the sixties was BRM. Graham Hill was World Champion in 1962 for BRM with its attractive P57 model. Spark make a few versions of this too, including the Hill and Richie Ginther'works'cars and various privateers.

If Ferraris are your thing, then 1x0 is a great place to start.

The 1x0 model range includes motorsport news

Back in Black: Ifyou like a little Jack Daniel's with your V8 Supercars, keep an eye outfor Classics' superb examples ofthe Kelly Commodores- available in Todd and Rick flavours.

the 1963 156(not the'Sharknose'car of 1962, but the development of it.) There's also a 1964 158,the car that John Surtees drove to the World Championship that year.There are also early versions of the 312 (the best-sounding car I've ever heard).

You'll find Ixo's Australian distributor at www.apexreplicas. com.au Of course,the most Important name to Australians in terms of Tasman Cup days is Brabham.

You might still find examples of Trax's great Brabham BT19s at www.topgear.com.au - they've been selling very well.

They never came here, but www.mnews.com.au

Dan Gurney's Eagle Formula 1 cars are widely reckoned to be among the most attractive of all time (and I'm not going to argue with that) and so a pair of Spark versions under development is good news.They're to be the 1967 cars as driven by Bob Bondurant and Richie Ginther (interestingly, not the car Gurney himself drove to win at Spa that year) and I'll have one of those thanks!

There were other manufacturers, of course: McLaren, Honda, Cooper,to name but three and there are models out there - either diecast like those we've mentioned above or slot I 89

Time Machine The glorious Torana L34 lives on, through Classic Carlectables' Holden Dealer Team's models. Add authentic decals and you are almost ready to race at Bathurst!

90

Ill cars or even kits in some cases {especially Tamiya they did great kits and, of course, still do).

Onto more modern matters.

Biante has just released a 1/18 scale James Moffat Fujitsu Series car. James looks to have all the speed of his famous Dad (and looks a lot like him too). Yet another very successful secondgeneration driver on the way perhaps?

In their popular 1/64 scale, there is a pair of 2010 Bundy Red Commodores,the Fabian Coulthard and Andrew Thompson cars looked great on the track and the models look really good too.

There's also a 1/18 BOC Commodore from this year.

While on the subject, Jason Richards remains in everyone's thoughts as his treatment continues. Jason's one of the nicest blokes in V8 Supercar racing and for a healthy young guy like him to get sick like this is just massively unfair. So get well soon Jase, and we hope to see you back on track soon.

The Bundy cars will be joined by their Bathurst entries soon 1/81 1/43 and 1/64 versions of the Coulthard/Baird car are on the way. They'll be the'before' versions - if you want an 'after' I'd suggest you get a lot of practice first!

Is Biante doing aTrax? motorsport news

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The Racing History of the Austraiian Font

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Car and Bear Collectables 2/72 Old Cleveland Rd Stones Corner 4120 OLD Ph 07 3397 0077 ●I

Their Reserve Collection in 1/43 is soon to include a pair of EH Holdens in 1/43 scale; a Wagon (or'Station Sedan' as they were called back in the day) and a Sedan.

Models 56 tells me its Chev Corvairs are due at any time. I can't wait. For you young folk, in the late 1970s Frank Gardner came back to his native Australia and debuted a Sports Sedan that was so close to the limit of the rules it came to change the class forever.The Corvair was mid-engined, making use of the original car's rear-engined layout and the rules that at the time said the engine could be moved as far as the mid-point of the car.

Essentially a Formula 5000 car with a'sedan' body, the Corvair dominated Sports Sedan racing first in Gardner's hands, then those of Allan Grice, until it was outlawed at the end of 1979.

At this time the car was broken up and the now-useless body went to the local tip.

There's nothing so worthless as

It's 2010,all over again: Some ofthe best designed liveries of this season can be seen in both Bundy Red Commodores, top, and James Moffat's Fujitsu Series Norton 360 Falcon.

an obsolete racing car, right?

For me the biggest news out of Classic Carlectables will be the 1974Torana SL/R 5000 Bathurst car. Not a success this time around, but the start of a good run for the LH Torana L34, winning the big one in 1975 and 76. As you can see by the pics, the HDT L34 model is certainly up to Classics' usual standards.

Same goes for Classics' upcoming V8 Supercars; this month it's all the Kelly Racing/ Jack Daniels cars - Rick and Todd's own cars and the Jason Bargwanna and Tony Ricciardello examples too.Take a look at the Jack Daniel's cars in these pages - they're simply superb. motorsport news

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THE FINAL WORD

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NOTHER V8 Supercar championship has been run and won, and not by a TeamVodafone driver - close but just short of the line for Jamie Whincup. it would have an amazing achievement to switch manufacturers and win the title consecutively. Regardless, Roland Dane and the guys should still be able to sit back at their Christmas party with a lot of satisfaction. Second and fourth in the drivers' championship, first in the team championship, a T8 designed and built car won the championship and 'The Team' finished second in the team championship ladder. Oh yeah, there was a 1 -2 at Bathurst as well. That is a good year and any team in pitlane would take those results. Well done.

James Courtney finally won the championship, and he will be a great champion for

the category. He has a great main-stream profile, he has a personality, and doesn't back down from saying what he thinks - it is important for the series champion to have an opinion on industry topics.

To say he was working in a difficult working environment for the last five or six rounds would be an understatement.

The DJR ownership saga was probably the hottest topic of the year. It certainly dragged out much longer than anyone anticipated and, as always, where there is civil war, there are normally major casualties associated with it.

Dick Johnson is a survivor. His race team has been through turmoil several times in its 30year history, but every time it looks like it's doomed, they bounce back, quite often with a vengeance. I am sure that there will be more interesting times ahead for Dick and his team, but for now it seems that things

have settled down, in the short term at least.

The casualty of'The War' is Charlie Schwerkolt. Charlie came along in 2008 and mopped up the mess left by the previous management team, and provided vital funding and business skills needed at the time. In three years, the team was turned around, from mid pack runners to winning the Drivers'title. It must have been a shallow victory for Charlie, as he had basically walked away from the organisation he has played a major role in rebuilding.

To make matters worse, in his exit and revised business plan, he lost his trump card Courtney to the Holden Racing Team.

There is an old saying: "motor racing isn't fair", and I am sure Charlie is thinking that at this time. His contribution to the category has been enormous, and it would be a shame if he is lost to the series. Let's hope Charlie has a good break and comes back on the scene in some capacity.

It was great to see Jono Webb on the top step of the podium at Homebush. I have never seen

Dick Johnson is a survivor. Every time his team looks like it's doomed, they bounce back, quite often with a vengeance

Webby show much emotion, and he is normally a pretty cool character and takes everything in his stride. Call it good strategy, good luck, call it what you want, a win is a win, and anyone who wins in this category is worthy.

Jono has put in some good performances throughout the year - not race-winning drives, but it shows how close the drivers and teams are. When there is a small opportunity there, you have to take it, and he and his crew did just that. To keep Brighty at bay for those last few laps shows the young guys can handle the pressure.

When you are leading a race in those conditions you are a 'pioneer'with the available grip level and it's very easy to make a small mistake. Jono held his nerve and got the trophy, it's great to see first time winners, and we almost saw another one on Sunday with Shane van Gisbergen running within a few corners of his maiden win. Surely now, his first win must literally be just around the corner - you can't be that fast and not win. Shane has had nine podiums this year, so with the benefit of a well-deserved break and another year's experience, you would have to say thatTheGiz should be the next guy to step up to the plate and make the final move into championship contention.

QUICK QUIZ

Answers 1 - James Courtney is the seventh V8 Supercar Champion; there are six others. fvlAN

2 - Yes. Courtney was 11th in his debut season back in 2006.

3 - Dumbreli was just 16 when debuted at Bathurst.

4 - Technically, the answer is five, because the HSVDeaier Team became Walkinshaw Racing in 2009.

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5 - Rubens Barricheilo is aiso known as Rubinho. motorsport news

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