Motorsport News Issue 425 - November 2012

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s LEWIS HAMILTON:SOON TO BE A THREE-POINTED STARMFOSTER

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WHimUP JOINS THE LEGENDS WITH FOURTH BATHURST WIN No.425 November 2012

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DAVID BESNARD: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH BATHURST CO-DRIVER BEZZY

A TOUCH OFE'CLASS

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Editorial Group Editor Steve Normoyle snormoyle@chevron.cow.au At Large Phil Branagan

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THIS MONTH’S FEATURES

The Grid

Chevron Publishing Level 6,207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555,St Leonards, NSW 1590 admin@mnews.coni.au

CLASSIC BATHURST It was no upset result, and co-drivers aside there are still only two teams and four drivers that have stood on a V8 Supercar podium in 2012. Forget all that, though, because the Bathurst 1000 that marked the 50th year of he race at Mount Panorama was an unparalleled classic.

Contributing Writers

Mark Glendenning, Andrew van Leeuwen, Luke West, Edward Krause, Chris Lambden, Geoff Rounds, David Greenhalgh, Bruce Moxon

Art Director Chris Currie

Photography

Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, John Morris, Andrew Hall, James Smith, Geoff Grade, Phil Williams,Peter Bury, Michael Vettas, Ken Ferguson, Daniel Beard Paul Carruthers, Rob Lang Cover Photo:James Smith

Advertising Advertising Director Chris West cwest@chevron.com.au P 02 9901 6376 M 0416125 252 National Sales Manager Luke Finn ifinn@chevron.com.au P02 9901 6368 M 0423 665 384

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■ It takes two drivers at Bathurst,:^ ' and it's not an easy rote for.the ' second driver:Jo'find outjust ; ● how hcird it is, we sent Edward i '‘^Krajuse into the-Brad Jones i Racingfinnefsan&tu^

Chairman, Chevron: Ray Berghouse Circulation Director: Carole Jones

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Lewis leaves home He has been at McLaren for almost all of his time as a racing driver, which is since he was a small boy, but it looks like he will not end his career at McLaren as Lewis Hamilton looks forward to hopefully greener pastures at Mercedes-Benz. }

They wonft be running, > as a factory team, but > there will be three MercedesBenzes in V8 Supercars nextyearrunbyajoint arrangement between the ; Stone Brothers and Erebus , Motorsport. Phil Branagan spoke to the woman behind it all, Betty Klimenko. ■

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Unusual Suspects

A round'Up ofthe action j from the recent Austra'lian I Muscle Car Mastersat l Sydney Motorsport Park. J

Edward Krause was a key contributor to Chevron's The Great Race yearbook for longer than we can remember, and that makes him ideally qualified to go behind the scenes with one of Team BOCs co-drivers, David Bensard, for a unique look at what goes on within a team at Bathurst.

Jj CHASING THE DREAM Brendan Reeves and Rhianon Smyth are not merely chasing the dream, they're making meaningful progress in their goal of becoming the next Australians in the World Rally Championship.

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PREMIER STATE General manager at Premier Speedway David Mills talks about the challenges at Warnambool and the state ofspeedway generally.

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MOPAR MUSCLING BACK After an indifferent run last season, Mopar Pro Stock ace Lee Bektash says he's set for a dramatic change offortunes

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GREAT FOOD,GREAT SERVICE,GREAT CARS The fine-dining restaurant on the NSW Central Coast with a motorsport theme.

As Mike Raymond always used to say, get your backside Trackside...

Lewis Hamilton might be in his late 20s, and might already be a world champion, but at the end of the year he is doing the motorsport equivalent ofleaving home for the first time.

What the future holds no one can tell, but in the meantime we can reflect on what's been a remarkable career so far.

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Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan

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The Scoop with Steve Normoyle

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On The Limiter with Chris Lambden

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Box Seat

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United States of Origin

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Model Behaviour

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Trade

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Classifieds

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Parting Shot

Betty Klimenko mightn't be universally known to motorsport fans but she soon will be. For those unfamiliar with Klimenko, she is the property tycoon owner of Erebus Motorsport who is teaming up with the Stone Brothers to bring the Mercedes-Benz name into V8 Supercars.

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PHIL

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NOTHER Bathurst 1000 has come and gone and, while it was a great weekend, it has left one taste in my mouth that was a little sour.

The taste has only a little to do with the race's anniversary celebrations. It may seem a little pedantic to differentiate between '50th year' and '50th anniversary' but that was necessary, particularly in light of the fact that 2013 marks a 75-year milestone for the track. It was a fine line for journalists and commentators to walk; even on the official broadcast, they did not always get it right.

But whether the choice of year was correct or not, it brought to light something I did not like. Among the many images presented to the viewers by V8 Supercars to the viewers live around at the country - and around the

world, delayed - were some that were deliberately blurred. The Fun Police had dictated that logos of tobacco companies on cars of the past should not be Identifiable to theTV audience.

Unless you have been living in a cave off the coast of Tasmania for some years, you will understand why. Tobacco consumption is frowned upon nowadays; whereas sucking on a ciggie was once considered to be the optimum of cool, it is now an unmentionable evil.The war on the tobacco industry has worked; you cannot see cigarette packets in shops, and far fewer people smoke now that was the case a generation ago.

That's good. But a generation ago, it was perfectly acceptable that racing cars were festooned with tobacco brands. Cars raced, and won, in the colours of all manner of brands. Big Tobacco was the biggest spender in the

world's most expensive sport, the teams flourished and history was made.

Now, history is being edited.

Apologies to anyone who is not aware of this, but Peter Brock did win Bathurst in the colours of Marlboro.The Nissan GT-Rs were backed by Winfield. Emerson Fittipaldi won the World Drivers' Championship in a Lotus not just carrying the colours of John Player Special, but one that was renamed after the brand. Kevin Bartlett and Gregg Hansford raced in Chesterfield colours.

Allan Grice did in Special Mild hues.The list goes on and on.

That does not happen now.

We live in a different world, a global village. There are media sites from which we can source images for this magazine, but some of them permit us to download images from their archive only after we indicate that we will not publish images of tobacco-branded cars in France. I am not sure how many MN readers there are in Le Republique, but Evin's Law, which eradicated all forms of tobacco advertising from the sport there years ago, is

Smoking is bad. We can drink, but are encouraged to do so responsibly. Speeding? Nope; it kills, you know.

Times change.The Mongol Empire was built long before the Geneva Convention was ever dreamt of. Genghis Khan and his army did things that are considered today to be unspeakable - but to my knowledge, no one has suggested that we modify that part of history to protect people's delicate sensibilities from the acts of another era.

What is next? Will someone decide that, because they were selling unleaded petrol at the time the cars they sponsored won Bathurst, Mobil and Shell should be blurred in the future? What about Toohey's sponsorship of the race - or James Hardie's?

Smoking is not good for you.

We should encourage our kids not to do it (attention young Branagans; don't smoke). But editing history, even something as relatively insignificant in the Big Picture as motor racing history, is really dangerous.

Better, in my view,to act like

Apologies to anyone who is not aware ofthiSr but Peter Brock did win Bathurst in the colours of Marlboro.

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STEVE

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T'S not every day that a driver announces his retirement and then comes back the next year to win the biggest race of the season. Actually, that's not quite true, because Mark Skaife did it in 2010,although his sixth (and, we can only assume,final) Bathurst win came not one, but two years after he'd hung up his helmet.

This year it was Paul Dumbrell's turn.Teamed with Jamie Whincup,the'retired' Dumbrell was able to achieve what he never went remotely close to doing as a full timer in any of his previous 13 Great Race starts.

Full marks also to Dean Canto for his second place result and Warren Luff for third - another couple of cases of drivers, if not retired, no longer involved full time in V8 Supercars scoring their best-everV8 Supercar results. Good luck to them all.

But there is something a little bit dysfunctional about all of this. More than that, if you askTeamVodafone boss

Roland Dane,the thing that's led to these unique post-career career-best results is'one of the dumbest things we've done'in V8 Supercars.

Fie is referring to the 2009 change to the rules that forbids teams from pairing their regular aces in one car.

Dane says that those who thought the new rules might make it harder for the top teams, like his, could not have got it more wrong.What's more, the rule change has artificially inflated the co-driver market, and has prompted the better heeled teams to run (expensive) Dunlop Series campaigns especially for their co-drivers, in order to endure they're primed for action come enduro time.

It's become an area in which the top teams have gained a significant advantage over those with lesser budgets.

The reality is that pretty much all teams are having to spend more on co-drivers than they did previously. It's just that those with the most to spend end up buying the best

available talent, and then spend more making sure the talent gets as much pre-event V8 Supercar seat time as possible.

For sure the change has resulted, as predicted, in a more competitive field overall.

But the way it has advantaged one end of the field over the other is something not everyone saw coming.

The argument that it's a bad rule because it's forced teams to spend more money is compelling. But things are not always as simple as they seem.Yes, the price of a good co-driver today is a fair bit more than it was three years ago. But those teams which run differing sponsor liveries on their cars reckon the current rules are just fine - they're spared the problem of split liveries to satisfy the sponsors of two cars crammed onto the one car.

Personally I'm not comfortable with the contrived nature of the current rule. It's a bit artificial; in a perfect world, it should be up to the teams to pair their drivers in which ever way they prefer.

The world would be closer to perfect if Bathurst wasn't part of the championship.

Ifthe enduros are part ofa championship contested by 28individual drivers,it's nonsensical that any ofthe series regulars should at any time share the one car.

But it is, and that alone is justification enough for what we have at the moment.

If the enduros are part of a championship contested by 28 individual drivers,for me it's nonsensical that any of the series regulars should at any time share the one car. It's absurd that two individual combatants in a championship can be guaranteed to score identical points at the Sandown and Bathurst enduros, no matter the outcome.

Spare a thought,too,for the co-drivers. Yes, the current rule has proven an unexpected superannuation bonus for V8 Supercar stars at the end of their careers. But, more importantly, it works the same way for the guys coming up through the ranks.

These rules have presented a tremendous,even unprecedented, opportunity both for aspiring youngsters and established drivers without full time gigs.

It's hard to imagine Nick Percat winning Bathurst as a rookie under the old rules, for example,just as Steve Owen would likely never have secured a drive in 2010 alongside reigning V8 Supercars champion Whincup. Owen finished second that year, a result that was instrumental in him regaining a full time drive in the championship.

For the likes of Chaz Mostert, Scott McLaughlin, Scott Pye and others, the current regs presents a real opportunity to showcase their talents in a competitive V8 Supercar.

Under the old rule, they'd still get a start at Bathurst, but they be paired with another 'outside'driver, more than likely running at the back of the pack in a number two team car that was being run as almost as an afterthought, using worn or older spec parts.

Back in those days, a lot of good young drivers got overlooked after putting in seemingly lacklustre performances in what were lacklustre cars. % It will be cheaper for the s teams to go back to the old rule.

3 But it won't be better. motorsport news

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he sporting world can be one of massive contrasts - with spectacular highs and just-as-dramatic lows competing for media attention - and the past month has seen a stark example of Just that.

The good news first.

While the tense late-race battle of wits and strategy between Jamie Whincup and fresh-face Dave Reynolds provided the climax to one of the best Bathurst 1000 races for some time, it was the verbal interchange between Whincup and engineer Mark Dutton which highlighted the drama of the situation perfectly.

Dutton and Whincup have been a top double-act for nearly six years now and, like all relationships. It has its moments.

One of them came now,as Dutton briefly outlined what he needed Jamie to do; save fuel, look after the tyres... and keep Reynolds at bay.

The terse reply came that two out of three was no problem, but three was a bit of an ask ...

It was a moment worthy of any network mini-series, and capped off a Bathurst which ticked all the boxes - including a record four-day crowd of over 200,000 and TV ratings that stayed up over a million for most of the day.

The 50th anniversary race illustrated that, despite all the 'now'mantras that underpin the world these days, a sense of history does still hit a chord. It was that, and the expectation that there would be elements of that history on show that convinced more fans than normal to make the drive across the Blue Mountains or to lock in to the couch for most of Sunday.

I was fortunate enough to do both - up there until Friday afternoon,then propped in front of the flat-screen on Sunday - and the buzz was definitely under way well before the weekend. One of the things which struck a chord with many fans, was the effort several 70

teams had gone to in terms of fronting up with one-off 'historically-based'liveries to mark the occasion. And while theTriple Eight and FPR cars garnered a lot of the kudos,the effort at DJR to transform James Moffat's carto'Tru-Blu'spec overnight on Saturday night, race eve, was a just fantastic.

The Whincup/Reynolds duel highlighted a day-long TV broadcast which again confirmed the quality we sometimes take for granted. If you've taken In some of the offerings from some of the other so-called 'international' categories on TV screens lately, you can't other than give our guys a big tick.

Call it luck, but where else would you find an under-car camera trained on a left-rear tyre, not only graphically showing the torture that you probably never realised the tyres go through, but in the perfect location to illustrate the tyre drama that emerged early In the race!

The camera-work, atmospheric kerb-cams and, in particular,the increased use of helicopter shots - which are great for over-all perspective all paint a strong picture.

Messrs Crompton,Skaife and Larkham - the real racer element of the on-airteam have matured as a triple-act and they do bounce off each other effectively. It's entertainment, but intelligent (well, mostly!) entertainment as well, and for me that's what makes the difference.

Like most professional sports, motorsport has its challenges things like the current economic downturn doesn't help a sport where you need a bit more than a bat or a ball to compete - but occasionally you get a race that reminds you why you're a fan.

Bathurst 2012 was one of those.

A rivetting'grand final'. A great advertisement for our sport.

On the other hand, if you're into the Tour de France and all that tight-fitting lycra stuff, it has been a tough week or two.The Lance Armstrong expose has provided one of international sport's biggest downers for a long time.

I'm only a casual observer of

cycling but, like many, I didn't want the allegations against the seven-time Tour de France winner to stick; I wanted them to be the jealous whingeing of defeated competitors and team mates. I read the book. I wanted to believe him - his story was, after all, heroic. But the events of this past week or two have destroyed the Armstrong legend, and cycling as a sport faces a fresh crisis.

People, and by that I mean the fans. Invest a lot emotionally in the sport of their choice.They have their heroes, their teams in football. In particular. It can be all-consuming - and they ride the roller-coaster. So the Armstrong demise is particularly discouraging.There are a lot of shattered cycling fans out there.

Imagine if the old FIRT crew came out now and claimed that Brock won all those Bathursts with an oversize engine.That would be the motorsport equivalent of what's going on in cycling.

Like I said, sport can dish up some stark contrasts... and on this occasion, happily, it's motorsport which has come up smelling of roses.

M M The 50th anniversary race illustrated that, despite all the ^^ 'now'mantras that underpin the world these days,a sense ofhistory does still hit a chord.

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'BOX SEAT DON'T know about you, but I'm still getting my head around -the fact that Lewis Hamilton will race something other than a McLaren in 2013.

Finally, both the current Sauber drivers are winners. How the deal While the split and subsequent move to Mercedes are no huge surprise, it's just hard to imagine that yellow helmet sticking out of benefits Perez is obvious; he's going to drive for one of the best teams anything that doesn't have MP4 at the start of its name. For as long as in the business. Yes,this year's Sauber is a nifty little car, but next year we've known Hamilton as a Formula 1 driver, we've known Hamilton he will be driving for multiple title-winning team. Race wins will follow. as a McLaren driver.

It's as simple as that.

Within this whole Hamilton-Mercedes-Perez-McLaren-Schumacher As for Kobayashi, well, Perez leaving might Just save him his drive. circle of madness,there are winners and losers. So, who came out of The podium in Japan aside, Kobayashi has Just fallen short of where *~the deal better off, and who lost out? a driver three seasons into his career should be,and that's surely not lost on the head honchos at Sauber. Now Perez is leaving,the lure of Winners wanting at least some stability heading into 2013 might be the key to Kobayashi staying in a drive.

The first Gold Star goes to McLaren's PR department. In the 24 hours before the Hamilton/Mercedes deal was announced,the Losers rumours started to circulate. Newspapers and websites got word of While there are more winners than losers out of this whole situation, an imminent announcement in Stuttgart,and Jumped to the right conclusion. there are still a few parties that have copped the raw end of the deal.

The first, and most obvious, is Ferrari.The Prancing Horse did So, McLaren decided to burst Mercedes'media bubble.Just to everything right with Perez,such as signing him to their Junior team take the sting out of the whole thing.Simply announcing Hamilton and playing their part in his Sauber drive(much like they did with was leaving would have looked petty,so McLaren,Just hours before the Mercedes announcement,informed the world that they had Felipe Massa many years ago). But then they turfed the ball at the crucial moment.With a huge question mark over Massa's future, signed Sergio Perez for next season. It was a masterstroke. It not only Ferrari failed to make the tough call, tell Massa his services are no confirmed that Hamilton was going to Mercedes(without actually saying as much), but gave the media a brand new piece of information longer required and make Perez the team's second driver for next season. As a result, McLaren swooped,and will now reap the benefits to lead with.That Hamilton was going to Mercedes became second ofFerrari's hard work. paragraph news before it was even made official by the team.

Maybe the folks at Maranello were planning on doing Just that later The team itself is a winner as well. Yes,they are losing Hamilton,a this year and got beaten to it by McLaren. But even if that is the case, driver who,on his day, is the fastest in the world. But in his place they get Perez, a guy who is already supremely fast, and is only going to get they got it totally wrong. Obviously Perez was under the impression that there was no space for him in red next season,and took another faster. With Jenson there to steady the ship, and Perez coming in to learn,improve and,inevitably, win,things aren't all that bad in Woking, offer. FI is all about speed,and in this case; Ferrari was Just too slow.

Next is Schumacher. I would never call his comeback a failure, and, .

Hamilton isanotherwinneroutofthis whole thing - and not Just I would never say that the three winless seasons tarnished his former because of the impressive bank balance he's likely to have at the end career when he was THE great champion of the sport. But others of it. From a sporting point of view, you can really see why Hamilton would. would go want to make the switch. At the end ofthe day,for all of For me, he never had the car to win with Mercedes,so it's difficult to Hamilton's speed and McLaren's experience,the relationship has Judge. As I've already mentioned, he's also 43 years old, and you Just yielded Just a single World Championship.That's Just not enough for that driver/team combination. can't be as good as you once were when you get to that age. So, he's a loser for essentially being pushed out of a drive by Hamilton, but a There's also 2014 to think about.When the new engine regulations winner for making the right call and bringing what,on the whole, has come into play,the safest bet will be a manufacturer team. As been a stunning career to an end.

Mercedes develops its new powerplant, it's going to prioritise its own Unfortunately, 1 think Nico Rosberg is going to be a loser out of this team. Doing anything else would be foolish, and Hamilton knows that. whole deal. Rosberg seems to be a 100 percent sort of guy; by that Mercedes is a winner as well. Signing Hamilton not only has the I mean that he's good enough to get 100 percent out of a car - but potential to keep the board interested in FI, but also gives the team nothing more.So, when the car's good enough to win, he'll win (such something that they Just haven't had over the last three seasons: a star as in China this year). But he won't go that bit further. He won't take an driver. Yes, I know, Michael Schumacher is a star driver. But, in terms of OK car and do something spectacular with it, like Hamilton,Vettel or raw,outright pace, he's no longer a match for Hamilton,Seb Vettel or Alonso will.These are guys that can out-perform a car. In my opinion, Fernando Alonso. Once upon a time he was, but that was back when Rosberg can't. he wasn't 43 years old.

Roberg's advantage will be that he's German in a German team, but Mercedes has most of the ingredients needed to be a top FI team, I don't think it will make enough of a difference. such as the genius of Ross Brawn and the budget of one of the world's At the end of the day,this is Formula 1. And tenths of a second most powerful carmakers. But, up until now,they Just haven't had the speak louder than Deutsch. star driver. Now they do.The missing piece of the puzzle has arrived.

With a huge question mark over Massa's future, Ferrari failed to make the tough call, tell Massa his services are no longer required,,, Asa result, McLaren swooped,and will now reap the benefits ofFerrari's hard work. www.mnews.com.au

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T

he other day, I received a message on Linkedin from an aspiring motorsport journalist who wanted some advice about how to turn their enthusiasm for writing about racing into a profession.

Such approaches do not happen often - at least, not to me - but they're not completely unknown either, and I suspect that it's the same for pretty much any other holder of a media pass.

The problem Is that virtually everyone I know who makes their living through motorsport journalism achieved it in completely different ways, and about the only thing these paths have in common is that they're impossible to replicate.

For example,someone wanted to mimic my route would have to start by warping themselves back to London in 1998.They'd need to buy a train ticket to York, realise that they had nothing to read, and find a cheap copy of Jane Nottage's Eddie Irvine biography 'Green Races Red'in a nearby bookstore.They'd then have to hate aforementioned book so much that they'd write to an FI fansite (AtlasFI.com; now absorbed into Autosport.com) and ask if they'd like a bitchy review. And the then-editor of AtlasFI would need to have an inclination towards the quirky, and commission a series of fortnightly book reviews that would eventually continue until about 2006.

That column marked the first time I got paid for writing about something racing-related, but it wasn't enough for me to turn it into a full-time deal. For that to happen, I needed now-Flolden man Gerald McDornan to quit/Motorsport Wews in 2001 and create a

vacancy just as I was finishing my degree (in a subject completely unrelated to journalism) and needing something to do. My move to the UK in 2007 was equally made possible by a job opening appearing just at the moment that I needed one to.

Things have changed a lot in the intervening 14 years. People go somewhere like Amazon to find out whether a book is any good rather than wading through a 1000 word review, and the rise of blogging has changed the game both for those on both sides of the professional/amateur divide of motorsport writing. About the only thing that remains unchanged is the nature of the racing books that offered the first foothold towards what I'm currently doing now.

That is, sitting on the floor in a house in Tucson, Arizona with my computer on my lap.This could be you!(Note that there is furniture available, it's just that at this moment. I'm choosing not to use it).

Most racing biographies/autobiographies can be grouped into two pretty distinct categories: saccharine hagiographies painted in varying shades of beige, and those that actually have something to say. Most unfortunately fall into the first category - rare is the 20-something who has done enough to really warrant an autobiography, and most attempts to thrash a biography out of a current driver usually end in something that is paint-by-numbers or barely-disguised hero-worship. When the best thing about the book is the title, as was the case with a Dario Franchitti bio that came out a couple of years ago, you're in trouble. When the title in question is 'Dario Speedwagon', all hope is lost. And if the pun is lost or^you, ask your parents.

m m Segrave expected that racing in the future would be geared around hotted-up ^^ versions ofroad cars. On that basis, the McLaren MP4-27 would blow his mind.

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ilGLENDENNINa The book I'm reading at the moment shares a lot with many others that are currently floating around.The author ruminates on the appeal of speed, reflects upon the influence of manufacturers, bemoans the poor standard of his era of racing compared to those that came before, offers a dissertation on the problems associated with developing home-grown drivers, demands improvements to the materials used in crash fencing, and contemplates the psychological burden of the dangerous nature of his profession.

Where it deviates from similar titles is that it was written in 1928.

The author was Sir Henry Segrave, and this particular edition of his memoirs. The Lure ofSpeed, was released in 1932 and updated to include a tribute to the author after he was killed two years earlier while attempting to set a new water speed record. Segrave, who was the only person ever to simultaneously hold the land and water speed records, hit a log during a run on Lake Windemere in England. His mechanic was killed instantly, but Segrave regained consciousness for just long enough to ascertain that the rest of his crew was OK and that the record had been secured (he was clocked at 101.11 mph) before succumbing to lung haemorrhages.

Segrave was the first person ever to break the 200mph (320km/h) mark on land, and from a distance of roughly nine decades it's intriguing to read of the sort pf barriers that he had to overcome, not the least of which was science"; "There were hundreds of skilled engineers," he wrote,"whose names are household words, who asserted that[200mph] could not be done , - not because the thing was mechanically out of the question, but

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because the control of the vehicle at such a pace was beyond the limit of human capability".

Segrave predicted that his record would eventually be broken, but it's intriguing to ponder what he would have made of the Bloodhound project, which is preparing for a 1 OOOmph attempt, in some regards, Segrave was prescient - he predicted that circuit racing would become the norm although he lamented the glory years of the point-to-point races that came before him. In a roundabout way, he also anticipated faxes and emails.("Who can doubt that some day we will be able to affix our legal signatures to a document that lies in an office 300 miles away?").

In other areas, he missed the mark completely.The arrival of manufacturers, and the increasing need to make race cars more relevant to road cars(sound familiar?) would,Segrave expected, mean that racing in the future would be geared around hotted-up versions of road cars. On that basis, the McLaren MP4-27 would blow his mind.

Segrave wouid not recognise many aspects of the racing world as it is now, but the fundamentals remain the same - even for would-be journalists.There are lots of reasons why something can't happen, and each provides an opportunity to prove otherwise.

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Oi8wctkend thatcdebrated alegendary raee atalegendary place,we weretreated to atruly memorable performancefrom a modem dayli^endsofthesport.Steve Normoyle reflectson the celebration that wasthe50tb year ofthe GreatRaceatBathurst.

HE 50th year ofThe Great Race at Bathurst was some kind of weekend.So many past living legends of the race were there to see it. Some of their famous cars were also there;some of the current cars wore versions of the liveries of past greats www.mnews.Gom.au

in honour of the occasion.

But at the end of it all it took a performance more reminiscent of the greatest Australian motor racing legend of all rather than any'mere'Bathurst legend.

Finding himself under the kind of intense pressure which past legend Dick Johnson

had inexplicably said earlier in the week that he was incapable of handling,Jamie Whincup drove a Jack Brabham-esque final stint to victory: winning at the slowest possible speed,in a contest in which to go even that fraction too fast was to risk running out of fuel or ripping a tyre apart.

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Whincup's fourth Bathurst win was probably as good as any we've seen as the reigning V8 Supercar champ became the youngest four-time winner in the history of the race. Uniquely also, co-driver Paul Dumbrell's first Bathurst win has just been achieved in the first year after his retirement from racing.

Into that dramatic final stint, Whincup headed David Reynolds, Michael Caruso and James Courtney. The latter needed to get 26 laps out of his fuel tank - a big ask, but Whincup, Reynolds and Caruso would need one further lap than that. Garth Tander and Nick Percat had long since dropped out of contention, but suddenly the sister HRT car was well placed to pull off an upset - and indeed that was looking likely when Courtney set what was the fastest lap of the race on lap 138 before passing Caruso and then, two laps later, diving inside Reynolds at Forrest's Elbow to take second place. Then Courtney turned the heat up on the leader.

"James had serious pace with 20 laps to go and was looking dangerous,"Whincup said later. "I had no fuel -1 had to conserve fuel - but the last thing you want to do is lose track position. So I took a bit of a punt, and in those three laps he [Courtney] was behind me, I didn't conserve fuel at all - to the despair of the guys back in the pits.

"But there's always a bit of luck that goes your way in a race win, and James did have a tyre issue - probably due to pushing

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extremely hard - and as soon as I got that gap I used every tenth of a second to conserve as much fuel as I could."

Courtney indeed did have a tyre issue, and that would drop him to an eventual fourth place.

In the end it was a straight Holdenversus-Ford fight as Reynolds did probably everything he could to dislodge Whincup without resorting to physicality.

"What wins this race,"Whincup continued at the media conference, "and what's won it for everyone pretty much over the past decade, is a fast car. We had that today, and I was able to conserve tyres and fuel in that last stint. I can't thank the team enough; can't thank PD [Dumbrell] enough - he got absolutely smashed by you guys before Sandown, that he wasn't going to do a good job, and he handed over the car to me in the lead on both occasions.

"You're just trying to juggle so many things at once.The team was asking a little bit more than what was realistic, so we had a bit of a discussion about what to prioritise. You know, these tyres were blowing out all day so I'm spending all day driving off the kerbs, which is four or five tenths slower; so trying to do that, trying to conserve fuel, and then keep track position -1 could probably do two things, but not all three.

"We prioritised what was needed; no doubt we took a bit of a risk; the fuel numbers are extremely accurate, but we weren't sure

£ § James had serious pace with 20 iaps to go and was ii the iast thing you want to do is iose track position. Si was behind me. I didn't conserve fiiei at ait - to the di motorsport news

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whether we were going to cough conning out of the last or second last corner and give Dave the win.

"We put it all on the line but at the end of the day that's what Bathurst's all about."

The free spirit that is David Reynolds is on record as saying he will strip naked on the podium if and when he scores his first V8 Supercar win. Coming up one short in the biggest race of the year was enough to prompt him to shed his driving shoes, which he duly catapulted into the crowd, along with a Channel Seven microphone...

"My rear tyres were pretty shot at the end," Reynolds said."I pushed hard to get past Courtney. After the last stop we were playing a conservative game, driving to a good fuel number so we'd be able to have a big attack at the end, but by the time we were ready to fire I think I'd used up the car a bit too much.

Things to learn for next time."

For Craig Lowndes,there was an element of deja vu about his third place. As had been the case with his incredible second-placed effort last year, Lowndes found himself back in the pack for the final stint but yet again was able to marshal the kind of pace needed to pull back a substantial deficit - and pass three cars in the process.

But as had been the case in 2012, his chances of victory had hours earlier been fatally compromised by the problem of double stacking In the pits.

Early on It looked IlkeTeamVodafone

might have been on course to prevent its two cars tripping over one another in the pits when Warren Luff pitted the 888 car after only 10 laps with a tyre Issue. But it only took the second appearance of the Safety Car(on lap 39 for the marshals to pick up debris left on the track after Nick Percat's HRT Commodore hit the wall)for everyone to be back on the same fuel schedule.

To illustrate Lowndes'plight, when everyone pitted for the lap 55 Safety Car(due to Steve Owen's VIP Petfoods Commodore crashing into the corner sponsored by rival petfood company Pedigree...), car 888 fell from third place to 14th after queuing up behind car 1 in the pits. Car 1 stayed where it had been - in the lead.

After the race, Lowndes could barely conceal his frustration. When questioned on whether or not he thought there should be one pit boom for each car, he was emphatic: "You've got two ways of doing it: a single boom for everyone like they do at the 12 hour, or shut pitlane when the Safety Car Is out."

It didn't help that for most of the race they didn't quite have the pace to run at the very front.

"We didn't have the pace. At the end we had a good set of tyres, and we'd made a change to the roll centre and as the track gripped up it came to us at the end. But we struggled all day."

For previous year's winner Garth Tander,

loking dangerous. I had no fuel -1 had to conserve fuel - hut I took a hit ofa punt, and in those three laps he ICourtneyl spair ofthe guys hack in the pits.

Whincup on Courtney www.mnews.com.au

Close times

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There was no doubt that qualifying vyas close -1.11s from 1 st to 20th, 1.27s from 1 St to 25th. But the fastest race laps were something else again:0.68s from fastest(van Gisbergen)to 20th (Slade);33 drivers seja fastest lap within one second of van Gisbergen;the 40th fastest driver(Wall) was 1.29s off van Gisbergen and even the 50th fastest driver (Reid) was only 1.77s away from the fastest lap ofthe race.

Quite magnificent.

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IXlumero uno

Cars carrying #1 have met all sorts of misfortune in the history of the race: Chivas running dry in 1973, Brock expiring with an enormous lead in 1974, early engine failure for Goss and Moffat in 1975 and 1980, Richards slipping into the Hell Corner sandtrap in 1985, and Lowndes/Skaife leading for over 100 laps before their tyre trouble in 1998 - to name just six mishaps of varying magnitude. But even so, this year's was the seventh victory for car no. 1, which is more than any other race number has achieved.

l\lew winner guaranteed

There were 11 previous winners in the field, but for the first time since the 1997 super touring race, and for only the second time since 1976, no car contained two previous winners.

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Young four Harry Firth was 49 when he won his fourth Great Race. Jim Richards was 44, Larry Perkins 43, Allan Moffat 37, Mark Skaife 35, Bob Jane, Peter Brock and Craig Lowndes were all 34,and Greg Murphy was 32.So it is quite remarkable for Jamie Whincup to win his fourth Great Race at just 29 years of age.

Knowing ftieir place

Most of the co-drivers set fastest laps that were reasonably close to their lead drivers, but three co-drivers - Matthew Halliday,Jack Perkins and Scott Pye - were actually quicker than their cars'regular occupants. Fastest co-driver lap was set by Luff, narrowly ahead of Dumbrell.

Long stint

Russell Ingall's 80-lap stint from lap 81 to the flag was the fourth-longest stint since the co-driver rules were changed in 1987. Ahead of him are Craig Baird's disastrous 94-lap stint in 1997, Alex Yoong's 82 in 2004,and Mark Gibbs' 81 in 1990. Ingall's 80-lap stint was an impressive effort for a driver who is (at least) 48.

David Greenhaigh 20

this race was a case of deja vu. Sadly it wasn't a repeat of the 2011 fairy tale victory, but rather a recurrence of the nightmare of a decade earlier. Going into the race Tander warned co-driver Nick Percat not to allow himself to be seduced into thinking that winning Bathurst really wasn't all that difficult. Because after winning at almost his first attempt back in 2000,that was one mistake Garth himself made as a young driver in V8 Supercars; he learned the hard way over the following eight years that, actually, no Bathurst win ever comes easily.

Percat got away with the odd moment or two last year but things went awry in 2012.

Having said that, Percat and the HRT left Bathurst still unsure as to whether it was driver error or in fact a problem on the car.

"I turned in over Skyline and it had a big oversteer, which wasn't normal,"Percat explained."! lost control of it instantly and ricocheted off the wall, unfortunately.

"The car was quite good over the top all day, and that's where we had pace.[But] the back of the car didn't feel normal when I went over Skyline that time,so I'm not 110 percent sure what happened there."

Whether or not it was driver error or a problem with the HRT Commodore, Percat did confirm that it wasn't a tyre issue.

It was some turnaround from the good fortunes he'd enjoyed in the Dunlop Series over the previous two days: a pair of dominant wins - including an opening lap squeeze-against-the-wall move on Scott McLaughlin that would have had Michael Schumacher blushing - that has Percat nicely poised in the points race with only the Winton and Homebush rounds left to run.

Sadly for Will Davison and John McIntyre, their weekend was all too reminiscent of Percat's: Just peachy up till Sunday morning, but decidedly pear-shaped a few hours later.

Pole position for Davison and fourth on the grid for team-mate Mark Winterbottom was a handy start - and possibly a good omen for the FPR cars in their retro Moffat Ford Dealers 'll livery, because the two cars would start from the first and second rows of the grid, just like the dominant Moffat cars had 35 years earlier.

A tyre issue put paid to the Winterbottom/ Steven Richards Falcon's hopes late in proceedings, but for the sister car things

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BBrnie’s bays In earlier decades, it was quite common to have drivers with FI experience taking part in the race. More recently, this trend has slowed markedly. Christian Kiien became the 34th driver - and the first since Alex Yoong back in 2004 - to have taken part in both an FI World Championship race and a Bathurst 500 or 1000.

Reliable Russell Russell Ingall finished the race for the 19th time from his 21 attempts. moving him up to equai sixth in the list of drivers with the most Great Race finishes.

Five rookies There were five Great Race rookies in the field: Jesse Dixon,Christian Kiien, ScottMcLaughlin, Alexandre Premat, itiMli and Scott Pye. McLaughlin became rookie of the year with an impressive sixth piace finish, and also set fastest lap of the rookies(23rd overall) ahead

began to fall apart during co-driver John McIntyre's first stint. It started with a clash with the SP Tools Falcon with Davison's 2011 co-driver, Luke Youlden, at the wheel that saw McIntyre spin at the Cutting. McIntyre also had a trip up the Hell Corner escape road, and then copped a drive through for allowing the rear wheels to spin while the car was on jacks. Further ground was lost when he pitted with what he thought was a tyre delaminating, but wasn't.

But all this was just the warmup for the catastrophe to come.

'The anti roll bar had been broken for about 20 laps so the balance of the car wasn't very good,"Will Davison explained after his 200km/h-plus trip through the Chase sandtrap.

'Onto Con-Rod that lap I felt a large bang.

That was the roll bar coming away from the car, and it's obviously taken the brake lines out. Coming into the Chase, pedal on the floor. Really frightening.''

Doubtless Davison wasn't the only driver to endure the odd scare on a weekend when there was a problem with structural failures on the Dunlop control tyre.

n't normal.I lostcontrolofit was quitegood ovcrthctopail idn'tfeel normalwhen I wentover there. Percaton the crash www.mnews.com.au

5pyder bites

The fastest car at Mount Panorama for the 50th year of the Great Race at Bathurst was not a V8 Supercar - and nor was it any of the other cars running in the support category races.

Rather, it was something very different(and very special):the Porsche RS Spyder which won the 2006 American Le Mans Series LMP2 division.The prototype, part of Porsche's'rolling museum'. was driven by Jeroen Bleekemolen,the Dutch ace who shared an Erebus Mercedes-Benz SLS to second place in the Bathurst 12 Hour earlier this year.The Porsche ran each day from Friday, but even though Bleekemolen was restricted to an outlap and then ^ a single flying lap, he had the RS Spyder down into the 2m05s on Saturday - which prompted speculation as to just how quick it might go the following morning. Alas, on Sunday Bleekomelon only completed the out lap - he had to get back to pit lane fast to climb aboard another Porsche,the 911 GT3 Cup car he was guest driving in the Carrera Cup races.

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Maybe, as Dunlop says, the tyre issues were being caused by teams pushing the envelope on suspension settings in the search for more pace (although teams we spoke to flatly deny straying outside Dunlop's recommended camber angles). Maybe it's something to do with the track - a rogue kerb that's doing the damage. Or maybe it is a problem with the tyres themselves.

The most alarming thing about it is that no one knows for sure. Also worrisome is the fact that it's far from the first time this has happened at Bathurst. Hopefully the move to a lower aspect ratio tyre with the switch to 18-inch wheels next year will provide the fix.

What the tyre issue also reminded us of - as indeed did the buildup to the race and entire weekend - is that Mount Panorama really is different from all the other tracks.

This was the 50th year of the race at Bathurst, and the massive crowd that turned but, and sheer sense of occasion told everything - that this race,for everyone: drivers, teams and fans alike, is the absolute highlight of the year.

The about-to-depart Chairman of V8

Safety Car saga When Jonny Reid's Tekno Falcon ground to a halt out of the Cutting,the leaders were on Con-Rod. Most crews opted there and then to pit their drivers,figuring lap 20 was close enough to the end of their fuel windows,and that with the white Ford stranded on the side of the track,the appearance ofthe Safety Car was a fait accompli.

The Safety Car boards came out just as the cars filed into the 22

pits. Apartfrom Warren Luff and Rick Kelly, who'd both stopped on lap 10,only David Reynolds, Andrew Jones,Shane van Gisbergen and Steve Owen stayed out.

It looked like a disastrous decision from the non-stoppers. But it didn't turn out that way. As the Safety Car waited to pick up race leader Will Davison,the aforementioned four completed a full lap of the circuit under Safety Car conditions, and then made their stops - with two ofthe four actually gaining positions when they resumed!

Reynolds'Bottle-0 Falcon vaulted from eighth to fourth place, Jones'BOC Commodore went from ninth to eighth, while Luke Youlden resumed in second place, which was exactly where the SP Tools Falcon had been before van Gisbergen pitted it.

That anyone can maintain or even gain positions so early in a race(when the field is still reasonably tightly bunched)despite spending one extra lap under Safety Car than the rest of the field shows that something is fundamentally wrong with the way the Safety Car is currently operated at Bathurst. motorsport news

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Supercars Australia, Tony Cochrane, once famously said, in reference to Mount Panorama, that there were 'no sacred sites' in Australian motorsport. If need be, he would move the 1000km to another venue.

Years later Cochrane conceded that his views on Bathurst had been wrong.The 50th running ofThe Great Race at Bathurst only confirmed that: in 2012, as it has been for the best part of half a century, the heart of touring car racing in Australia lies on a Mountain 200km west of Sydney.

Pole laniBiilt

Will Davison's 24th was the worst finish (as distinct from a DNF or DSQ) ever recorded by the pole-sitter. Even so - and despite numerous comments in the media to the contrary - pole position has still provided more winners than any other grid position.

In the 48 races since qualifying times first determined the grid positions, the winner has started from pole on 11 occasions. The next most successful starting position (helped by Whincup/ Dumbrell this year) is second, from where nine winners have started.

Rapid Reindler

Just eight drivers did a race lap in less than 2m1 Os - and not many people would have predicted that Karl Reindler would be one of them.

It was a Fair Dinkum achievement.

David Greenhaigh

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motorsport news

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Euro crisis Neither Austria nor France has an extensive history in the Great Race.

Christian Klien became only the fifth Austrian to drive in the race, while Alexandre Premat is the sixth French driver to do so.

The stayers During this year's event, Russell Ingall took his tally of Great Race laps to 1,728, leapfrogging Jones,Johnson,Seton, Skaife and Perkins in the process.Three drivers - Lowndes, Richards and Murphy passed the milestone of 1,500 Great Race laps, while Baird and Tander both drove their 1,000th lap in the race.

David Greenhaigh www.mnews.com.au

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P/cs this spread:It was a nail-biting grandstand finish befitting the occasion ofthe 50th year at Bathurst celebrations.

Jamie Whincup had the perfect balance of fuel and tyre conservation against pace to hold out David Reynolds but the slimmest of margins. The pic below shows how close they went- this is all that was left in the tank of Whincup's car after the race.

T was the 50th year of the Great Race at Bathurst, and the teams didn't let the occasion pass as they delved into the history of the race to come up with their own celebratory retro liveries.

Pole position in a surprisingly large retro-car field went to Dick Johnson Racing.

The Moffat/Davison 17 car looked amazing with a remarkably faithful representation of theTru-Blu XD Falcon, the car in which Dick Johnson began his career as a professional - the car that launched the successful V8 Supercar team known today as Dick Johnson Racing.

Norton was remarkably accommodating in allowing the old (and no longer in existence) Tru-Blu name to take centre stage on the flanks of the blue Ford - although not for practice and qualifying. Pre-race the car was in its regular Norton dark yellow colours but was changed on the Saturday night to reveal the spectacularTru-Blu livery on race day.

Full marks to Norton and the rest of the sponsors for making it happen - it would have been so easy for them to play it safe and kybosh the idea. In the end,though,the car was such a hit that we heard the Jim Beam folk in the DJR garage next door were kicking themselves for having turned down the opportunity for the Jim Beam-stickered cars to get theTru-Blu treatment.

A close second was the Bottle-0 team with its 1967 Harry Firth/Fred Gibson Falcon XR GT inspired scheme, complete with 52D numbering At first glance a less obvious choice, but it fulfilled the sponsor's desire for the car to remain green, and in the flesh it just looked fantastic - so simple, yet so stunning.

Less simple was FPR's recreatic Moffat Ford Dealer Racing Falcor Moffat's cars that year did what F yet been able to do at Bathurst, t colour scheme sadly did not mar in fortunes on the Mountain for t The cars looked OK but FPR's re was a bit blurred by the team's lo sponsor signs.The general verdic the design looked better than th* liveries, but the FPR FGs certainly came up short when placed alongside the original 26

Moffat XC Hardtops. Still; it was always going to be a hard act to match those Moffat coupes.

Possibly the best of the lot was Karl Reindler's Fair Dinkum Sheds Commodore.

With a simple cream livery with green bonnet and side stripes, it looked a treat. We're still to see, however, how it was'reminiscent of the 1969 Holden HT Monaro GTS 350 that Peter Brock drove at his first Bathurst', to quote the team's media release, other than the fact that both cars are Holdens - but that aside it was a very attractive paint scheme...

The HRT stood aloof from the retro craze - after all, it had done this itself two years earlier with the 1990 retro colour scheme in honour of 20th anniversary of the HRT's first Bathurst(and first ever race) win. Instead, fronted by posters displaying the team's enigmatic marketing slogan,'! bleed red and this is my house'(whatever that's supposed to mean),the two cars were adorned with stylish laurel wreath badges running up the b-pillar representing.the HRT's seven Great Race wins. Subtle and classy.

Had the HRT wanted to turn back the clock, however. it actually didn't have a lot of options. It had already done its 1990 winner, and any retro 1996 scheme would only have reminded everyone that the HRT's

different Holden team.

Nor could they step back further in time to the team which the HRT replaced as Holden's racing flagship, Peter Brock's HDT TeamVodafone had already done that, with a version of the 1982 Brock/HDT colours. Full marks to all concerned for negotiating the obstacle of the'82 car's tobacco sponsorship. a task largely taken care of by reversing the direction of the trademark Marlboro chevron on the bonnet. Simple if not exactly

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motorsport news

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27

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It takes two >s#tl;/^ers to get it done at Bathurst, ijM siiice the rules were changed to prevent teams from pairing their lead drivers in one car at Bathurst, i:e spotlight has been on co-drivers like never before.

From the outside, though, we aren’t privy to the sheer challenge the co-drivers face, or the amount of time and effort the teams expend in their choice of CO-drivers. Edward Krause went behind the scenes with David Besnard and Brad Jones Racing at this year’s Great Race.

B

Y the time David Besnard was suiting up for his final stint of the 2011 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, he already knew that he wouldn't be returning with the Jim Beam Racing team in 2012.

The opportunity to drive for the iconic Dick Johnson outfit was a dream come true and he had enjoyed partnering up with his long time mate Steven Johnson. But in Besnard's eyes it hadn't really worked out. He hadn't been given the time in the car to properly familiarise himself, and the team,in his view, was not organised enough.

One example of this was demonstrated on Friday afternoon when James Moffat had to sit out the final 10 minutes of qualifying because they hadn't put enough fuel in

the car. A second was about to occur with massive consequences.

After a tough week trying to find pace in the 17 Falcon, only qualifying 17th, Johnson and Besnard had the car in a strong seventh position with only two stops to go. A top five result was definitely on the cards.

Johnson handed over to Besnard on lap 112. A last-minute decision was made to change brake pads. Ordinarily a driver is instructed over the radio to pump the brake pedal to get brake pressure up. But his engineer's radio failed so as he left the pit lane, Besnard was ensuring his harness was done up right, air hose plugged in, radio plugged in, re-setting brake bias and adjusting the anti-roll bars while pushing on immediately out of the pits and ensuring

he didn't get in anyone's way - all the while during an unusual radio silence.

Team manager Malcolm Sweetnam jumped in to communicate with Besnard.

Right at the point on Mountain Straight where he would normally tap the brake pedal, that silence was broken by Sweetnam, who took over radio duties, distracted Besnard. Sweetnam was unaware that the message to pump the brakes had not been given. So he didn't remind his driver. And Besnard forgot!

The result made the evening news(and doubtless plenty of international sports news broadcasts), with the car plunging into the tyre wall at the end of Mountain Straight before going up in flames.

This was Besnard's first big accident at the Mountain and it denied him a fifth consecutive top 10 finish in the 1000km classic.

After that, he was determined to ensure that whichever team he drove for in 2012 would provide him with a better preparation for the endurance races.

"When you're out of the sport and you're not doing it every few weeks, it certainly gets harder and harder (to stay competitive)," explained Besnard at Bathurst in 2012.

"But a few miles, it's just like riding a bike...

I don't need a lot to stay sharp but I got bugger all with DJR. I didn't go to any of the rounds where they had co-driver sessions, so it(the car) was all foreign to me.

"It's not the driving - you can either drive or you can't - but getting into one of these things you need to be familiar with it; everything needs to be second nature.

When you're concentrating so hard on going fast there's not a lot of brainpower left for anything else. So one of my stipulations was that I'd get more miles (for 2012)."

After Bathurst, Besnard returned to his'day

It’s not

the driving - you can either drive or you can’t - but getting into one of these things you need to be familiar with it; everything needs to be second nature 30

motorsport news

job; self-employed with his ClassicTrailers business on the Gold Coast, started by his parents in Albury many years ago. As 2011 ticked over to 2012, he began thinking about endurance drives.

By this point Brad and Kim Jones were already researching and shortlisting their choice of drivers.They had locked in Fabian Coulthard and the Lockwood sponsorship and needed a competitive co-driver.

At Brad Jones Racing, a group is formed specifically to find the right co-drivers for the two endurance races and with Bathurst being the biggest race on the calendar a lot is riding on these choices.Team co-found Kim Jones explains their process.

"The engineers go through all the data.

They look at the last five years of people's performances and where they go and what they've done. You look at the lap times, you look at their stints, you look at what they're doing currently and you just make an educated guess and away you go. I'd like to hope that we've got all our combinations right."

There's also the V8 Supercars'grapevine'.

With mechanics moving from team to team there's a lot of post-enduro chatter about who worked well and who didn't, there's plenty of anecdotal and unofficial'data'to mine as well.

Prior to 2011, Besnard's Bathurst record was strong. Since finishing up as a full time driver at the end of 2006, he was on the podium with his old karting mate James Courtney in the SBR Falcon,finishing third in 2007 and second in 2008.

In 2009 he drove the second GRM Commodore with Greg Ritter where an ill-timed Safety Car late In the race robbed them of a potential podium, eventually finishing ninth.

In 2010,the first year regular drivers were required to stay in their own car, Besnard

was paired with Lee Floldsworth.This was probably his most impressive co-driver performance.The 33 GRM Commodore was a rocket ship that day and Besnard led a significant portion of the race, set the second-fastest lap of the race and battled wheel-to-wheel with Craig Lowndes. A drive-through penalty and then fitting the wrong set of tyres for the final stint cost them a shot at victory - finishing an unrepresentative seventh.

The aftermath of that(see breakout) was that Besnard would look elsewhere for employment in 2011 and he signed up with DJR. It didn't work out, but he still felt that he would have options for 2012. "(I had)four really good years, two podiums and 2009 and 2010 where things didn't quite go right towards the end, but had good pace and got to show what I could do. I've always said, if I've got a good car I'll be able to compete."

Down in Albury, the'co-driver group'was coming to the same conclusion.

"Up until last year, which I don't blame the driver for the accident because that's a team thing, Bezzy was right on the money,"said Kim Jones.

So in early February Brad Jones made contact with Besnard who made his feelings known about his lack of seat time in 2011.

"I expressed my concerns there with Brad and he answered it (with) exactly what I wanted to hear,"explained Besnard."Fie just shot back at me with'No, we fully plan to do this, we've got the Dev car, you'll be in that as often as we can'."

With that issue sorted, it didn't take long to agree to terms and sign up. But in another way it had been a deal a long time in the making. David's father, Jeff, was a handy racer in his day and had raced with the Jones brothers.They had been family friends since David was young.

"There's always been that connection," said Besnard.

"We've almost done it a couple of times so it was a bit of a no-brainer. It suits me, the way they're more of a family team and, coming off last year, it just seemed to fit and I had a really good feeling about it.

Knowing how Brad and Kim operate, it felt right straight away,so it wasn't a hard decision for me."

Once the deal was done, David was flown down for a seat fitting and a meet and greet

call the experts! rr/TRs D'

RANS

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Drive through blues with the team. A few weeks after that was a test day at Winton where he turned plenty of laps in Andrew Jones'Development Series car.

He then did the co-driver sessions at Darwin,Townsville and Ipswich ahead of the Sandown endurance race.

"It was important, and difficult too," explained Besnard."! hadn't been to Townsville before and I was always on the crappy tyres. Fabs (Fabian Coulthard) had been having good runs and didn't have a lot of DNFs,so I had to get in there and run around on old tyres because we didn't want to use his good tyres up. So it was a bit of a battle because I was usually nowhere in the charts. But we had to keep looking at the bigger picture.

"It was going a hell of a long way for a few laps, but when you add it all up that's all to get us to where we are now (Bathurst) and hopefully on Sunday we'll see the result of that."

By the final co-driver session at Queensland - his former test track at SBR and WPS Racing - he was fourth-fastest, a confidence booster heading into the Sandown 500.

Unfortunately for the team,Sandown yielded a disappointing result.

A crash on Friday by Besnard got them off to a bad start. Coulthard qualified an encouraging eighth, but from then it only went downhill. Besnard finished his race in 24th after a collision with Paul Morris, Coulthard recovering a little to 18th before further improvement in the 500 to 15th, but it wasn't what had been hoped for.

"It (the crash) was pretty bizarre circumstances,"said Besnard later.

"I got to the corner,tried to turn left and the thing didn't turn. Maybe there was a bit of water, but I did two sighting laps.

I probably did make a mistake in there somewhere, but probably anyone in those circumstances would be scratching their head because I didn't do anything different."

Kim Jones, meanwhile, was keen to put 32

the disappointing weekend behind him, even as some from outside the team were suggesting another option might be the way to go.

"I don't know what happened at Sandown,' he admitted.

"I don't know whether it was just indicative of the place, maybe the car wasn't right, I don't know. But we didn't have a good run."

There were a series of debriefs between Sandown and Bathurst, with Bezzy kept up to date via phone calls with engineer Phil Keed.

He and his family flew to Sydney on the Tuesday and then drove the motorhome up that day - after filming a story for Channel 7 news.

The Wednesday was low-key, a few housekeeping items - both in the garage and in the motorhome - before spending the afternoon doing the annual track walk.

"Where the track Walk is a big advantage is for the driver/engineer relationship. You can refer to something later on in the weekend and say'remember that bump coming out of the Cutting'and at least they can see it.

"From a driver's point of view, it gets you in the zone a little bit. Bathurst is different too.

It's got an atmosphere with it so it reinforces how big the event is and gets you excited."

Finally Thursday comes around and while the perception is that the co-driver's role . in the lead-up to the race is limited and insignificant, Besnard believes it's in fact crucial to the success of the weekend.

"The first practice session is as important as any because it can set the trend for the entire weekend.We're a tool that they use to set the car up and it's one of the most important roles of the co-driver.The ability to go out there and get into it safely and then give good feedback is very important and that's what they expect out of you."

It proved to be the case for Besnard and BJR as out of the truck the Lockwood Commodore'wasn't that great'.

Coulthard made some improvements during his session but was only 22nd fastest in his opening session.

The 2010 Great Race was one of Besnard's strongest drives at Bathurst.Driving with Lee Holdsworth in the GRM Commodore, he went toe-to-toe with''c!;faTg Lowndes in art ' impressive duel before handing over to Holdsworth. But when he entered pitlane he had the sequential shifter in second instead of first, breaking the 40km/h speed limit and costing the team a drive-through.

It was a mistake with a serious consequence as the 33 car was the effective race leader with 40 laps to run. But then the, officials laid the blame with Holdsworth. After the race JM,.

Rogers came out and publicly blamed Besnard.

Besnard didn't return to the team in 2011, electing to join Dick Johnson Racing instead - but not for the reasons most assumed.

"I clearly made a mistake," he explains."The aftermath of that, Garry did run around and blame me. (But) what left a little bit of a bitter taste in my mouth was not doing the Indy race (a fortnight later).

"I expressed to him throughout the year that I desperately wanted to do this race. When he rang up and made the decision, he basically said to me, which I found to be a bit of a weak excuse, that because it was my home race I'd be too distracted!

"As far as I'm concerned, Bathurst is a pretty damn big event and I didn't get too distracted there, it Just didn't fit and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

"Garry and I are still pretty close.

He's definitely unique,and it may have been a hard decision for Garry, but it Just didn't fit and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

"He wanted me back for the next year, but at that point I didn't feel I needed to be loyal, so that's what got me talking to Dick."

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Besnard then took up where Coulthard left off, running the same set-up initially and then making improvements of his own, ending the co-driver session 16th.

Some further changes were made for the afternoon and Coulthard, with the help of a decent set of tyres, claimed fifth quickest, an improvement of two seconds from the morning, but neither driver was happy with the feel of the car.

There was an extended debrief with the engineers that afternoon and evening as they tried to find a solution for Friday.

A change in direction on the set-up was decided upon and Besnard was the first to try those changes out on Friday morning.

"The car was brilliant," he enthused afterwards."! ran on old tyres and didn't see the results, but gee it felt good. We threw some better tyres on at the end."

He had improved 1.2 seconds overnight and finished the session seventh fastest.

Coulthard was sixth in his session, no faster than Thursday - albeit on a slightly slower track - but was doing it much easier.

While the car was clearly better, less nervous, easier to drive, it wasn't noticeably faster. That was a concern for them.

But then came qualifying and all was clear.

The Lockwood Commodore was second quickest, behind Jamie Whincup.

The Saturday morning session saw Besnard given 13 laps in two stints to'try something on fuel mileage'.

"We treated it like we were doing a stint in the race. Super consistent, it just felt great.

They(BJR) were more than happy with the pace, we're way ahead of what they thought the co-driver would be competitive at, so ahead of the target time and that was doing it easily. Hopefully the target doesn't move because we're quite comfortably there."

The Top 10 Shootout was uneventful Coulthard unable to repeat his qualifying performance as they dropped three places to fifth - but still a positive result for the team and a great starting point for Sunday.

So eight months after initial contact with Brad Jones,the day he was hired for was finally here. Like all co-drivers he had a big responsibility, but he says the pressure doesn't concern him.

"I don't feel the pressure, because the pressure comes from yourself. Maybe I'm too headstrong for my own good, but I don't let anyone worry me.

"You go to 2010 and I had the best guy around here(Lowndes) up my arse for most of the race, trying to get past, but I think I held it together pretty well until I'd literally 34

driven the tyres off it in that stint. I don't care \A/ho I go up against, to be honest. If I've got a good car, bring it on."

When the lights went green Coulthard made up one place to fourth, which he held onto until the first round of pit stops on lap 20. Besnard then took over in seventh.

He dropped to ninth for a period, crucially dropping behind team mate Andrew Jones in the Team BOC Commodore.

Despite recovering to pit in fourth he had to queue behind Jones in the pits, dropping the Lockwood car back to 21 st on lap 40.

Both Besnard and Coulthard worked hard over the next third of the race, hauling the 14 Commodore back up as high as 11th by lap 90.

At that stage Besnard was back in the car for what would be his final stint. But approaching McPhillamy Park on lap 91, sitting right behind the PepsiMax Commodore,the steering failed, sending Besnard off the track and into the sand trap where he was stuck.

"The steering just went heavy and I couldn't turn,"said a frustrated Besnard afterwards."Turning left it was Just bloody heavy and there was a shudder through the wheel."

From there they dropped a lap while the car was retrieved and Besnard got it back to the pits. After another trip off-road, this time at Murray's, they decided the steering rack needed to be replaced, leaving them 14 laps down. From there they circulated to eventually finish 23rd.

It was a disappointing end after a strong lead-up to race day. Coulthard had been impressive and Besnard had done his job; his only real mistake was letting his team-mate get ahead of him.

By Tuesday he was back at work, catching up on the backlog created from having a week away. In a couple of months he'll be discussing enduro drives again, getting ready for 2013.

To pair or separate?

The current rule around all championship driverskeeping in their own cars has divided the pit lane.

While teams have been reticent to speak on the record, it's considered that two car teams that have a shared title sponsor would prefer the choice of whether to pair their lead drivers. They argue the ruling has inflated not only driver salaries but also the associated costs, such as running them at the to-driver events at Tnclividual rounds of running a development series car for them.

But Kim Jones has a different view.

"The only way we can run our business is to have separate naming rights sponsors. The only way to manage that is to split our main game drivers so they have to stay in their own cars. That's commercial it reality.

"Putting it back together, havingr* r , the two lead drivers in one car, commercially that's not acceptable.

So is the pay of a co-driver increased because of that? Maybe. But you can only pay what you can pay. I don't know what other people are paying.

1 know what we're paying, and it's affordable and we're getting good results."

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EVERY YOUNG PERSON MOST LEAVE HOME A! SOME POINT IN THEIR LIVES, ANO FOR LEWIS HAMILTON THAT TIME IS NOW. AT THE END OF THE SEASON HE WILL WAVE 600DRYE TO THE TEAM WHICH LITERALLY RAISED HIM AS A YOUNG RACING DRIVER, TO PURSUE HOPEFULLY GREENER PASTURES AT MERCEDES-RENZ. ANDREW VAN lEEUWEN LOOKS RACK AT THE UNiqUE 17-YEAR RELATIONSHIP BEIWEBV LEWIS HAMILTON AND MCLAREN.

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HE story will go down in Formula 1 folklore. A 10-year-old Lewis Hamilton approaches Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards in 1995, asks for an autograph and then expresses his wish to one day drive for McLaren.

It was the first in a series of crucial moments between the young Brit and the FI super team that have defined Hamilton's career to date. It was that conversation that paved the way to a junior contract, top drives in Formula 3 and GP2, and, ultimately,

a Formula 1 Word Championship.

In case you somehow missed the biggest news story of the 2012 season, the Hamilton-McLaren era is coming to a close.

Hamilton will move on to a fresh challenge in the form of Mercedes-Benz, saying goodbye to the team that turned him into a Formula 1 superstar.That makes this the perfect time to look back on some of the other crucial moments between man and team that have happened since that famous evening in 1995.

II

2000-Hamilton joins llllBNl.com in Formnia A I' sA

Less than five years after meeting Dennis for the first time, McLaren decided to put Hamilton on its books.The lad from Stevenage was making quite a name for himself in karting, so Dennis and co made an investment into the future of both the young driver and the future of the team.

The result was a karting team managed by guru Dino Chiesa and called MBM.com the MBM part standing for Mercedes-BenzMcLaren. Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were both signed by the team, and raced karts that were stickered up in a very similar way to the McLaren MP4/15s that Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard were racing in that year's World Championship.

Hamilton and Rosberg competed in Formula A, with the Brit dominating the European Championship. Hamilton, at 15 years of age, had won his first championship as a McLaren driver.

2004-Hamilton Wins the Bahrain Snperprix At the end of 2001, McLaren decided it was time for Hamilton to start racing cars.

He graduated to Formula Renault, signing with Manor Motorsport, winning the UK title in 2003.

But it was the step up to Formula 3 that was always going to be the telling moment.

Already touted as a future FI star, it was important that Hamilton was able to perform in a high-downforce racing car.

At the end of 2002, after just a couple of F3 starts, Hamilton delivered an impressive pole position at the season-ending Korea Superprix. However,there was no dream result, a crash with Nelson Piquet Junior leaving the pole-sitter on the sidelines early on.

A year later, he had a chance to make amends in the Superprix. Now being held in Bahrain, Hamilton arrived with a season's worth of Euro Series competition under his belt, and put it to good use. A qualifying motorsport news

Lewis

crash left him 11 th on the grid for the main race, but he was fourth by the end of the first lap, and took advantage of a late re-start to sneak past Rosberg and Jamie Green to take his first big win in F3.

2004-Hamilton's first McLaren test At the start of December in 2004, Hamilton drove a McLaren FI car for the very first time.

When the team went to Silverstone to give the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winners their annual test day,the team decided that Hamilton would tag along for the day. So Green, Alex Lloyd and Hamilton all had their first taste of FI machinery - a low-key run in anMP4-19.

The funny thing is that 2004 was also the year where the Hamilton-McLaren relationship came dangerously close to ending. Having finished fifth in that year's Euro Series with Manor, Anthony Hamilton - Lewis'father and then manager - decided it was time to move on from F3. McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh disagreed, and for six weeks Hamilton was out of contract.

Back in 2010,Whitmarsh relayed the story to a journalist from British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph.

"At this very table I tore up Lewis Hamilton's contract in front of Anthony," Whitmarsh was quoted as saying.

"It was at the end of his first year of Formula 3 and I said we are here to develop and guide Lewis'career. If you're not happy then you can be totally free.

"Anthony was keen to press on. He was an ambitious young man. My view was that we did not want to get to FI before Lewis was 21 and there were only so many steps to go.

I wanted him to do another year in Formula 3 and have the pressure of being favourite to win it.

"For six weeks he wasn't on our books.

What a cock-up that could have been!Then Anthony rang me and said 'can we come back?'[Lewis] did another year of Formula 3, which he won. I think those years were the most important."

Which leads us straight to ... www.mnews.com.au

2005- Hamilton wins Euro Sorles opener While Hamilton did stay in F3 for 2005, there was a change in the off-season. It was decided that instead of another season at Manor Motorsport,the McLaren protege would head to crack Euro Series squad ASM, where he would race alongside Adrian Sutil.

In Hamilton's absence. Manor,signed Lucas di Grassi and Paul di Resta. All four drivers would eventually reach Formula 1.

The season kicked off at Hockenheim, and, like Whitmarsh had predicted, Hamilton went into the season as the firm favourite.

At that first round, he proved beyond doubt that the pressure wasn't about to get to him. Hamilton dominated the first race, setting the tone for his championship winning year. There were plenty more wins, including places like Pau, Spa and Monaco. In fact, Hamilton won at least one race at every circuit on the calendar that year. He ended the season with 172 points to Sutil's 94. And Sutil was second.

2006-Rollercoaster In GP2 While Hamilton's passage through the junior formulae was easier than it is for most, it's never a complete piece of cake, particularly at GP2 level.

With nothing left to win in Formula 3, Hamilton graduated to GP2 with ART Grand Prix. It was the best team in the business, having taken Rosberg to the title a year earlier, so,just like in '05, Hamilton was starting the season as favourite - only this time he was a rookie.

After winning both races at the Nurburgring,the Race 1 victory his first as a GP2 driver, things looked to be going well heading into the Barcelona round.

But there, it all had the potential to turn very ugly. While leading on the last lap of the race, with rear tyres that had seen much better days, Hamilton was spun around by his team-mate, Alex Premat. He was still able to finish second, but a clear error in

judgment from the Frenchman had cost Fiamilton a third consecutive race win.

Everyone waited for the fireworks, but they never came. Fiamilton celebrated with Premat on the podium, gave a level headed response to the media,then got on with the job.

"I gave him some room,"he said.

"I was as far over to the right of the track as I could get. Fie obviously lost the rear and I felt a tap and I spun.There's no use in getting down about this. Second place is still a good result."

Two weeks later, on the streets of Monaco, Fiamilton responded beautifully. He won from pole position, and took a points lead that he would ultimately convert into the 2006 GP2 Championship.

2006-Hamilton’s FI debut confirmed Having been so impressive in GP2, Hamilton was,somewhat predictably, confirmed as a McLaren FI driver for the 2007 season.

He would partner Fernando Alonso, a move that left Pedro de la Rosa a little upset, and sonrie members of the FI community wondering if it was too soon.

"I believe McLaren have given him his break way too soon," David Coulthard told News of the World.

"He could face a very tough time with Alonso as his team-mate. Alonso may be new to McLaren but he is a double World Champion.The first person you are compared to is your teammate and if Lewis struggles alongside Alonso it could destroy his confidence."

But Hamilton shrugged off the criticism.

"I value David's opinion,"said Hamilton.

"He is extremely experienced and I have always looked up to him. In some ways he could be right, but at the end of the day I've done all I need to do coming up to FI. I have got plenty of time to do the testing pre-season and so we will have to wait and see."

39

2007-The Hungarian GP debacle Having won the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix -just his sixth Formuia 1 start - Hamiiton emerged as two things: a genuine titie threat, and a genuine threat to his team mate Aionso.

As a resuit, there was tension at McLaren.

Aionso hadn't expected to be chalienged as top dog, but it was happening. And he wasn't coping. Suddeniy,the team had a probiem to deai with, in Hungary, it aii came to a head.

During quaiifying, Aionso made sure he was unnecessariiy stationary in the McLaren grid box just iong enough to deny Hamiiton the chance for a iast run at the end of the session, giving the Spaniard pole position - until he was demoted five places for his actions.

After the controversial session, Alonso blamed McLaren and then Hamilton, Hamilton blamed Alonso, and then eventually Dennis blamed Hamilton. It was an ugly situation, and a clear indication that the driver line-up was unlikely to survive into 2008.

At the end of the '07 season, Alonso and McLaren parted company.

2008-ThatBrazilian Grand Prix With Alonso gone and the far less threatening Heikki Kovalainen in the second McLaren, Hamilton was free to make an almighty play for the 2008 World Championship.

And that's exactly what he did. Wins came in Australia, Monaco, England, Germany and China, giving him a handy little points lead heading into the season finale in Brazil. All he had to do was finish fifth.

It should have been easy, but mixed weather conditions made it hard work. At the exact moment Felipe Massa took victory, Hamilton was sixth and the Brazilian was World Champion. But Hamilton managed to squeeze pastTimo Clock, who was on slicks in atrocious conditions, right at the flag, taking a famous World Championship win.

"It's pretty much impossible to put into words - I am still speechless," Hamilton said at the time.

2009-little white lies

The euphoria of being World Champion didn't last long. By the end of the first race of the 2009 season in Australia, Hamilton and McLaren were in trouble again.

This time it was about lying to the stewards. Hamilton finished the race fourth, only to be handed third after JarnoTrulli was motorsport news

penalised for passing the McLaren under Safety Car conditions.

However, it was later discovered that Hamilton had letTrulli past-an instruction from McLaren - amid confusion afterTrulli had run off the road. But when the FIA asked if the team had issued that instruction, the answer was no. Unfortunately, a radio transcript quickly surfaced, causing much embarrassment for all concerned,as well as Hamilton exclusion from the race result.

Hamilton later admitted that he almost left FI over the incident.

2010-Hamilton wins In Canada The Canadian Grand Prix win was an important one for Hamilton and McLaren.

For starters, it was a great win. In the closing stages of the race, when put under some pressure from new team-mate Jenson Button, Hamilton showed his absolute quality to respond and win. It also gave him the World Championship lead, and added to his already impressive record in Montreal.

But he was somewhat lucky to be in a position to fight for victory. During Saturday's qualifying session, Hamilton was told to shut down his McLaren during his in-lap after taking pole position. It turned out the car was very low on fuel.

and had Hamilton have driven the car back, it would have contravened the FIA regulations for the minimum amount of fuel required for a sample.

It was a cheeky move,and it didn't go unpunished.The team picked up a $10,000 fine, while Hamilton himself escaped punishment, and was still allowed to start from pole position the next day.

2012-Hamilton calm atter Singapore Sting Hamilton should have won the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix. After retiring with a gearbox problem, he told assembled media that he was cruising. Had he made the finish, it's unlikely that Vettel would have beaten him.

That's a crushing feeling for a driver, 2011-The Massa magnet particularly one fighting for a World The last two corners of the British Grand Prix in 2011 were breathtakingly close.

Not between the leaders - the gap between winner Alonso and Sebastian Vettel in second place was more than 16 seconds but between Felipe Massa and Hamilton.

The pair raced into Vale side-by-side, with Hamilton locking a wheel and lightly nudging Massa's sidepod.That put them side-by-side on the run through Club, with Hamilton on the inside. It was enough to give him the fourth place they were fighting over by well under a tenth of a second.

The thing is, that wasn't the only time Hamilton and Massa found themselves squabbling over the same bit of race track in 2011.They ran into each other in Monaco, Singapore,Japan and India. It was only for the Indian clash that the race officials put Massa at blame.

Championship. But Hamilton was relaxed, thanked to the team for giving him the fastest car in the field, and left it at that.

Hamilton's surprisingly calm demeanour post-race raised suspicions in the media.

There were suggestions that he looked like a man that had made his decision for 2013, and given there was no childish jabs at the team, he must be staying with McLaren.

That train of thought was half right. By then Hamilton had well and truly made up his mind.

And the winner was Stuttgart.

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There will be a FOURTH BRAND IN

VB Supercars NEXT SEASON

BUT

IT IB NOT A FOURTH MANUFACTURER.

Confused? You ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE. PHIL

BRANAGAN EXPLAINS HOW Stone Brothers Racing AND Erebus Motorsport will COMBINE TO RACE THREE MERCEDESBenzes next SEASON. Just DON’T GO CALLING THIS A MercedesBenz TEAM ...

! looking for Lee Holdsworth s )m January onwards, don't ig for the house with the new the driveway. rorth - and presumably,teamvan Gisbergen and Tim Slade, / some management from rs Racing - will be trading up to nzes at the end of the season. th Erebus Motorsport,the team e cars, based on Mercedess W212 sedan, introduced to the J9. irs has its much-wished-for Facturer and was. bly, making very positive launch in Melbourne five t the other end of the table. nz's Senior Manager, Corporate ions David McCarthy looked nthusiastic. ely and totally a privately McCarthy said.

D official backing from AMG or www.mnews.com.au

Mercedes-Benz Australia."

Erebus Motorsport is a customer, but an accomplished one, as the only team outside Europe running one of 25 SLS AMG GT3s.

Peter Hackett won the 2011 Australian GT Championship in his and the team went on to finish second in the Bathurst 12 Hour in February. As it turns out, not long after that, talks started to step up to V8 Supercars.

"This process with Erebus has been a long one,"said Stone."It started back at the Grand Prix in March, and one thing led to another.

Actually, we only signed an agreement this morning [Ed: September 19]. So many different factors had to come together, about how it was all going to work. I have to look after all of SBR's partners, so you need to bring that through and get the engineering side of it together.Then you need to bring the engine side of it together, and it turns into a long process."

Of course, the news brings to an end a 15-year relationship between Ford and the team, and an even longer one between

the company and Ross and Jimmy Stone.

Remember,long before they set up their own team,they ran Ford Sierras for Andrew Miedecke and Andrew Bagnall as far back as 1989 before they teamed up with Dick Johnson in the early'90s - and they've been running Fords in touring car racing ever since.

"Leaving Ford was not an easy thing to do," admitted Ross Stone, who was clear to thank Ford for its support at the launch,"but as the car market was changing here in Australia, I just felt that the time was right for a change.

I am really looking forward to a new era, with Erebus."

Does Stone think that the team can race its new cars and contend for podiums?

"I don't see why not.That is the whole idea of Car of the Future.The big thing is going to be the timeline pressure that the team will be under, so we will see how we go."

So,the project is set. Everything will be done at SBR's Yatala base on the Gold Coast, except the engines. AMG Customer

,V,

Sports will supply a custom version of the Mercedes-Benz Ml 59 engine, which is raced in modified guise in the GTS category.The motor, which comes as a 6.2-litre behemoth, is an up-specced version of the Ml 56 and is found in the gull-wing SLS coupe and roadster. In road going AMG guise, it fires out 563 horsepower at 6800rpm and 479 Ib-ft of

THE Darkness

T

Hi hard part about writing about Betty Klimenko is avoiding the cliches.

It would be easy to dub her'Betty Blokk Buster'. After all, within weeks of Mercedes-Benz Australia publicly declining in August to become involved in V8 Supercars,there was company spokesman David McCarthy sitting at the table, alongside Klimenko,Stone and CO,at the announcement that Erebus and SBR would race Benzes in the series, starting next March.

Clearly, Ms Klimenko is not a woman to stand still when the going gets tough.

Her hair is white,the approximate shade of that of her new partner in racing, Ross Stone. But the veteran Kiwi team owner is not a man noted for pink highlights in his do.She dresses mainly in black, has a number of tattoos visible, wears a fair bit ofjewellery and laughs a lot. She named her team Erebus after the Greek god of darkness,on the suggestion of her youngest son.

Just don't call her the Princess of Darkness.

"My years of being a Princess are long gone,"she chuckles.

"Maybe,a Queen - or an Empress. I have a dog called Princess,so 'Queen'is fine."

She is also able to walk the walk, when it comes to racing.There are no publicly accessible estimates as to how much Erebus has spent in its less-than-two year history, but it is clearly an amount serious enough to convince AMG's Customer Sports Program to take on a new program,in a category in which it has never competed,for one of its clients, if there is anyone in the pitlane who might wonder about Klimenko's motives, and ability to back them up financially, she blows them all away when she speaks.

Klimenko comes from a well-heeled background. Her father John Saunders is a great Australian success story, having arrived in Australia in the 1950s virtually penniless. With his business partner Frank Lowy, he went into the retail business and established Westfield, which today is a billion-dollar retail empire.

Klimenko has followed in the family business, with involvements in commercial property, and centres such as the Moore Park Supa Centre in Sydney.Perhaps an insight in into the family's philosophy can be seen in the title of her father's biography, published a decade or so ago. It is called'Nothing is Impossible'.

And,even if one might guess from her appearance that she 62

torque at 4750 rpm. Even in reduced 5-litre trim, it is difficult to believe that AMG will have any great trouble getting its numbers into the V8 Supercar ballpark, and our spies in Germany suggest that the local engine doctors have been aware of what is required for a V8 Supercar engine for some time,so it is not like they will be starting from scratch.

was more of a Harley Davidson devotee,she is a Benz aficionado through and through.She drives one,so does her whole family.

"1 love the brand,"she affirms."My three sons all drive them. I knew that with three teenage sons driving, at some stage,one ofthem would wrap themselves around a tree. I wanted them to wrap themselves around a tree and live!That was the difference.

My whole family drives Mercedes-Benzes now."

Generations ago, before someone had the bright idea of charging money to put companies'brands on racing cars,the sport was the province ofthe gentleman driver {who could afford to fund his sporting activities through his income from other sources) or a patron - and enthusiast with a taste for owning a team and the means to pay to run it. Klimenko in the latter category, but is not one to spend her money as others might, in other sports.

Horse racing is full of well-heeled owners,and her own family has links with the Lowys, whose sport of choice is soccer.

So, why not spent her money on the hayburners or football?

"I don't like football,"she says matter-of-factly.

"Ifaliens came down,they would ponder the grown men running around a field, running after a piece of leather and wonder,'why don't we just give them each a piece of leather'?

Motorsport is a sport that stirs the senses; not only do you see it, you hear it, you feel it. It roars at it, you feel it, it has its own entity.

You just become you; you shut off and it is just about YOUR car.

It takes you away,and whatever sort of motorsport you follow, whatever it is, you feel it. It runs through your legs and into the ground, it is an amazing feeling.

"I have three sons,and none of them are into motorsport. My granddaughter is, but she is only two! I have been married 24 years; we got married in Las Vegas, with plastic carnations!

"I will be the only female team owner in V8 Supercars.There should be more women out there.There are a lot of men but we all drive cars; we all use them for transport."

So,V8 Supercars has its first lady owner.You get the feeling that Betty Klimenko is going to do everything she can to make sure this works. But back to that question, what to call her?

"You can call me whatever you want.They all call me Mum; 'Mum,Travis took my screwdriver'. It is a family atmosphere,and that is what we love."

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In any case, these guys do know what they're doing.

The deal makes sense for Mercedes-Benz.

The GT championships around the world are ideal for brand-building, and building and selling the cars to customers, who then bear the expense of racing them,looks to be a sound business.This is different; in theVS Supercar case, AMG will develop and supply, on a customer basis, a racing version of its V8 engine, specifically for the Erebus-SBR team.

In a way, it is in familiar territory;for much of the last decade, Mercedes has been the numerically dominant marque in Formula 3 around the world, with its 2-litre engine that is based on the 1.8-litre version of the M271 four-cylinder unit found in the C-Class (and other models).These are modified for racing duties by H.W.A GmbH (which also plays a role in preparing Mercedes'DTM cars) but you and I could not just wander in and order an F3 motor.Your team needs to meet certain standards before you secure the use of the engines; in effect, you'audition'for an engine supply.The Erebus-SBR-AMG deal is

not unlike that arrangement.

In some ways,this deal is the complete opposite of the tie-in between Nissan and Kelly Racing, on a number of levels. That announcement was made in February, long before the cars hit the track for 2013, leaving KR plenty of time to develop their car(OK, there is never enough time, but you take my drift).The process was not sped along any by the fact that the Altima is not a car on sale here until early 2013, but a version of the car's engine,for instance, was shown to the media in early September.

On the other hand,the ticking of the clock is louder at SBR. Ross Stone confirmed at the Melbourne launch that he did not expect to have a Mercedes-Benz track testing before "the second or third week of January". In the meantime, a number of the components common to all Cars of the Future, a list made longer under the new rules, will be track tested in an SBR Falcon, with a conventional Ford motor. In fact, that process may have begun before this issue of MN goes on sale.

Aero parity testing on the other three cars

DID IT BECAUSE I LOVE THE SPORT. I LOVE THE BRAND AND THE BRAND AND THE SPORT TOGETHER IS A VERY

is due to be conducted around the time this edition goes on sale. Similar, separate testing of the E-Class will have to wait until the first prototype is track-ready.

The other way that it is opposite to what Nissan is doing with KR is in branding.The day after the final race of the 2012 season, all the'Kelly Racing'signage will come down and the team's Braeside base will be rebranded 'Nissan Motorsport'. KR will become a technical supplier, in a manner not unlike that by which Walkinshaw Racing supplies the hardware but the'Holden Racing Team'is the brand that the fans follow.That is not going to be the case at Yatala; whatever the team will be called Stone Brothers Racing, Erebus Motorsport or a hybrid of both - its name will not feature Mercedes-Benz.

It is probably a leap too far to suggest that Mercedes-Benz Australia is not in favour of the project but, so far as the launch is concerned and taking in some of the quotes that have been forthcoming so far, the company's local arm seems to be offering lukewarm acknowledgement, rather than any even vocal support. In fact. reading the official comments from both Nissan Australia and Mercedes-Benz Australia at the time of the launch, one could be forgiven for forming the opinion that the former is more enthusiastic about this news than the latter...

But, that does not mean that the new deal is not a good fit, according to the man who led the COTF program, Mark Skaife; You remember that, when we did the

Superstars WITH the changes deal, beingwhat played out in the Stone Brothers-Erebus happens to the drivers?

It is likely that, in the short-term at least, not much will happen.

SBR has three solid drivers, all signed for the foreseeable future.

First up,Shane van Gisbergen.The Giz is just about the perfect SBR driver; young,fast, brave and talks with what sounds to an Aussie ear to be a funny accent(OK,a NZ accent). Plus, he is signed with the team until the end of the 2015 season, at which time he will be the longest-serving driver in the team's history. Van Gisbergen has the appearance of a man very much wanted by the team.

Ditto for Lee Holdsworth,except for the accent. SBR went to some effort to sign the former GRM driver at the end of last season to a multi-year deal (which, in V8 Supercar speak, usually means three years). While his results might not be up to the expectations of some in the paddock,SBR has been a little down on performance this season,compared to 2011,and Holdsworth is a proven driver, still adapting to the ways of the Blue Side.

In the team's third entry,Tim Slade is very close to James Rosenberg, who holds that Racing Entitlements Contract and, like the other two drivers, there appears to be little reason to move him,or for him to want to move.

But there is a wrinkle in all this; it is quite common for a driver's contract to include a clause that allows him an early exit in the case of a change in a team's ownership structure. It is not inconceivable that a few teams may investigate whether any of the three want to move. It's not really likely, but not impossible.

Then there is the'foreign'angle. In the long-term,look for an international driver to become involved with the team,and a logical starting place for that is the 2013 Gold Coast 600.

Mercedes-Benz fields eight drivers in the 2012 DTM;Germans Ralf Schumacher and Christian Vietoris, Brits Jamie Green, David Coulthard,Susie Wolff and Gary Paffett, Spain's Roberto Merhi and Canadian Robert Wickens.There are also reserve drivers, but the availability of any of those would depend on there not being a date clash between the DTM and the GC600 next year - as there is this year...

On the GT side of the ledger,there are a lot of drivers who might be contenders for a GC seat,including Karl Wendlinger and Bernd Schneider. It is hard to imagine that,aged 43 and 48 respectively,those two ex-Formula 1 drivers would be contenders to become a V8 Supercar full-timer. But Maro Engel might.The weekend after the SBR-Erebus deal was announced, the German raced Erebus's SLS at Phillip Island, and spoke with the team's management- and Craig Lowndes, who was racing an Audi against him at PI -about the V8 Supercars Championship. It's long-shot to say that he will be a V8 racer in the future, but Stone is already on the record as wanting a fourth car. A 27-year-old AMG racer with four years of DTM experience might be the man on pole position (which is where he was at Phillip Island).

One more thing;the immediate future of one particular Mercedes-Benz racer was up in the air. He may have announced his retirement from end of this season as a Grand Prix driver but it is difficult to think that the fire to race, and win,in any type of racing car has been completely extinguished.

It is an extreme longshot to say that Michael Schumacher will race a V8 Supercar on the Gold Coast in 2013. But so it was to get a Mercedes-Benz onto the V8 Supercar grid. If anyone can do it, I reckon that Betty Klimenko can. A good starting point might Just be to mention to Schumi that his old rival Jacques Villeneuve has already done it, and that he didn't look all that impressive...

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Pointed C^UESTiaNS Q;Will Erebus continue in the Australian GT Championship?

A:Yes it will. Erebus has confirmed to MN that it intends to field an entry in the 2013 Championship.

Q;Will Erebus take over Stone Brothers Racing?

A:At this stage, no.There may be long-term plans for Erebus to take over the team, but the structure of the team in the short-term has not been made public.

initial roll-out in March 2010 with the Car of the Future, we said then that there was multiple ways of getting involved in the Car of the Future program for manufacturers, whether it was a dealer group, a special vehicles group, a manufacturer via a customer program, which is essentially how this deal came about.There are lots of different methodologies, and we as V8 Supercars are embracing any of those, as long as we can determine the quality of the entry. Given that it is with one of the key stakeholders in V8 Supercar racing with the Stone brothers, and for Ross and Jimmy to commit their business to this program, we certainly have 100 percent faith in the way that will be rolled out."

So, motors in Germany, cars in Yatala, finance from Sydney.

"It is privately funded,"confirmed Erebus CEO Ryan Maddison.

"I am [paying for it]," said Betty Klimenko, the owner of Erebus Motorsport.

"I did it because I love the sport. I love the brand and the brand and the sport together is a very good match. We have the chance to show the world,through V8s, that we can do something spectacular."

And, it is not the work of a moment.

"This is a project that we have been assessing for some time," said Maddison.

"It[V8 Supercars] fits our brand and fits our expectations, and it certainly has not been made lightly. As you can imagine, an announcement like this, where we are partnering with Stone Brothers Racing, forming an alliance going forward,the details will be revealed on that at a later date.

"I think that it is obvious to say that moving into V8 Supercars has its challenges.

We have worked very closely with Tony [Cochrane] and Mark [Skaife] for around 12 months on this project."

Flaving seen the announcement of a fourth brand - if not an actual fourth manufacturer - in V8 Supercars, Cochrane was, predictably, almost joyous at the announcement.

"The writing is now on the wall," he said, "and I think that the partnership between SBR and, obviously, Erebus,coupled with the customer program with AMG in Germany is going to be very, very strong and a very competitive and exciting package going forward and, certainly, one that I will be n watching with great interest on the grid at the opening round next year which, as you probably have already have guessed, is probably going to be the Clipsal 500.

"This is, truly, a real red-letter day for our sport. We are in for an exciting couple of years in the next two years."

Which makes the news that came 48 hours later - that Cochrane will retire as V8 Supercars Chairman - all the more poignant.

QrWith such unequal numbers of cars of different brands, what happens to the Manufacturers'Championship?

A"We asked Cochrane:"We will find a way. Luckily for me,there are some really smart people who work in the^ business who will find out a way."

Q;Will SBR eventually move to four Benzes?

A:Look for that in 2014. Ross Stone: "I think the ideal model in the longer term is four cars,for economies of scale.You need to bring people in, and work out how it all works. But our head space is riot there for next year."

Q;Given that FPR is going to four cars in 2013,and three is an awkward number to work with, how will SBR arrange its pitlane assignments next year?

A:It is likely that SBR will enter another'shared crew'arrangement that has featured this season with FPR. Look for a link with a single car team.

Q;How does Erebus's Mercedes-Benz SBS GT car compare with an SBR V8 Supercar for speed? /I;The fastest Stone Brothers driver in this year's Bathurst 1000 was van Gisbergen, with a 2m09.59s lap in the race. In the Bathurst 12 Hour last February,the SLS lapped in 2m09.35s.

AMG Customer Sports will SUPPLY A CUSTOM VERSION OF THE

Mercedes-Benz M 1 59 engine, WHICH IS RACED IN MODIFIED GUISE IN THE GTS CATEGORY 66

motorsport news

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA’S MOST COMPREHENSIVE MOTORSPORTSSHOW THE BIGGEST ISSUES EXCLUSIVE GUESTS LATEST HIGHLIGHTS WEDNESDAYS? PM

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BHtHUaN iS MMINa MU OF THF tUGHT MOWFS TO MCH!F¥F HIS GOMl OF BFCGMIHG AUSTHMUM^S NFHT WOHia HMUY ISHMMPIOHSHIP HHHFFH The young Victorian is now nearing the end of his second season in the WRC Academy, a spec-formula series that uses R2 Ford Fiestas, and competes at six European rounds of the WRC. As this story went to press only the Spanish round remained, with Reeves sitting second in the points heading into the final.

While not even victory in Spain will help Reeves win the title - that honour has already gone to Welshman Elfyn Evans - that he and his sister/co-driver Rhianon Smyth have been so competitive in Just their second season abroad is hugely impressive.

And it's not just because Reeves and Smyth have become genuine contenders in European rallying, it's impressive because it was just three years ago that the pair were recovering from a massive crash at Rally SA, which left Smyth with two broken legs and a fractured pelvis. It could have so easily spelled the end of their career as a rally crew.

But now,thanks to a lot of determination and some very clever social media-based fundraising ideas. Reeves and Smyth are chasing the dream and are making things happen overseas.

Reeves spoke exclusively to Andrew van 68

Leeuwen about his new life in Europe.

MOTORSPORT NEWS:Let's kick things off with 2012. On the whole, how would you sum up your season?

BRENDAN REEVES: We're second in the championship,so I'm happy with that, although there are still lots of areas where we could have improved and done better. If we went back to the start of the season, and you asked me if I'd be happy with second, I woufd have said yes. But the gap to Elfyn Evans in first is a big one,so we need to look at why that is.

MN:Obviously there is a learning curve when you arrive in Europe from Australia, but what are the areas where you still feel like you're not there? And in what areas do you now feel you're very strong?

BR: Learning the car is still one of the biggest things. I'm still working my way through setting up the car, and I'm still learning to attack EVERY stage. It's easy to go out and drive eight-tenths every stage and be comfortable, but you have to find that extra edge, in Finland, by the end of the rally we were right on the pace, but we weren't on it right

at the start. Here, it's all about being on it right out of the box.

It's all about spending time in the car. A lot of the guys own their own cars, so they're doing rallies all of the time. We can't do that,so we've been trying to raise the funds to do a short test before each event, and it's been really good when we've been able to do that. But when we haven't, you can see the difference.

MN:Have you had to re-learn things a bit, stepping back from a four-wheel-drive car to a two-wheel-drive car?

B/?:Yeah, i guess I have. When I started rallying, I was in a rear-wheel-drive 240Z, then I went to an RS Subaru,then a turbo Subaru.The only thing I hadn't driven before was a normally-aspirated front-wheel-drive car. I've driven the Mazda 3 MRS in tarmac rallies, but that's got a turbo as well.

It's a lot different in this car. You have to wring its neck. I think we're changing gears at about 8,300 rpm,so it's revving very hard.

That's where it makes its grip and power.

Then there's the sequential gearbox,so you're flat-shifting, and the car is just so light; the R2 regulations have the cars at 1030kg, motorsport news

I

I _I

with 175 horsepower.The power-to-weight isn't great, but the cars are light, so you can brake so late, especially on tarmac. Although that gets difficult when you're on the dirty line after all the World Rally Cars, because we're always behind them on the road!

stages than we did last year. I even won a stage in Germany, which was my first tarmac stage win.

The competition has been even stronger this year, but I've improved,so I don't think the win is too far away.

MAf:The Fiesta may not be as quick as your old Subaru, but it is a proper rally car built

by M-Sport. Do you feel that it's a better grounding when it comes to preparing to compete in a World Rally Car? SR;Yeah, it's incredible for that. And it's all about the competition; it doesn't matter what car you're in, if the competition is better, it's always going to improve your driving.

We're all in the same cars, all built by M-Sport, and we're on the same tyres.

Sometimes you go out and feel like you've given it your all, and you'll be beaten by a second per kilometre. You think,'how is that possible?'You have to go back and work out how to keep improving. /MW;You've been there or thereabouts all year, but haven't been able to chalk up that win. Are you frustrated by that?

SR;The win is coming. Last year, we didn't even get on the podium,and this year, if it hadn't been for an off in the last stage in Germany, we would have had four podiums from the first four rallies. We've improved a lot this season, and we've won a lot more

/MW;Throughout the couple of seasons you've spent in Europe, which rally has thrown up the roads that best suit your driving style?

BR; I really enjoy fast, flowing roads, so Finland has been great. Actually, last year I had some really good speed in Sardinia, which is quite a rough rally. I really enjoyed that, so it was a shame we didn't go there this year.

But Finland just had such a big supporter base behind it, which is a buzz.The people live and breath rallying, and it's sunny from 4am to 11 pm,so you're out there all day attacking the stages.

The only thing is the jumps. We just don't have jumps like that back at home,so there was a lot to learn there. I think 1 had to take the most steps forward to improve in Finland out of any of the rallies. When we went there last year, I was further off the pace than I expected to be, but everyone says that it takes five years to really be on the pace there.

www.mnews.com.au

/MW; Are you finding that you're acclimatising to the rallying culture here in Europe? Is it much different from Australia?

BR: It's different because I'm rallying against people my own age. I grew up rallying against people in their 30s and 40s, and now I'm in a class full of tough competitors in my age group.That's really good.

At home, you think the local scene is everything, because you're nowhere near the World Championship. Now, I can see that extra step up,a step I never thought I'd get a chance to take. It makes you want to stay here and build a future. /MW;You've had some tarmac experience in Australia with Mazda; how handy has that been in Europe where there are quite a few tarmac events?

BR;That's been a big bonus. In the past I've seen guys like Atko (ED:Chris Atkinson) have to come here and try and get up to speed on tarmac, because there are no tarmac events in the ARC. But doing those targa rallies has helped.

In saying that, it's still a lot different. For instance, we use an R-Spec tyre in Australia, whereas here we're using a WRC tyre, which is two seconds per kay quicker. So the corner speed is up a lot. Also here we use about 18 tyres per rally, which is about 300km.

In Targa, we were allowed eight tyres for 600km,so here you are pushing so much tyre. If I was able to push the RX-8 at Targa like I can push the Fiesta in Europe, I think we'd be a lot higher up the table!

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my in-car, and just trying to keep improving.

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It's just another league here. When you go places like Germany, you're driving through vineyards that are only just wider than the car.

MN: It's quite amazing that you're competing in Europe given what happened in Adelaide in 2009. Were there times after the crash that you considered giving all of this away?

6/?; There were times that I thought I'd missed my opportunity to get to Europe, because I was trying to qualify for the Pirelli Star Driver back then, just like I did in 2010.

But it probably ended up being lucky for us. Hayden Paddon won it in '09, and he got a drive in an Evo X, whereas when I won it the Academy had been formed, and the Academy has a much stronger field than what Hayden got to drive in.

So, yeah, it's incredible that we've been able to get back, but some times things just go your way. We were lucky to bounce back, win the Pirelli Star Driver and get the opportunity to drive in the Academy. We would never have been able to afford the P-WRC or the J-WRC, but the Academy is half that price.

MN: Going back to the crash, did that change you as a driver? And did it change you and Rhianon as a team?

BR: It certainly made us closer. It made us think a lot more about the sport, and why we're here, and why we want to be here. You have to know and believe that's what you want to do, because it puts a lot of pressure

MN:OK, you've had two seasons in the Academy,the year is coming to an end - you must be starting to think about next season.

What's the plan?

BR:Yeah, we're thinking about that. This year we've had Ken Rees, who used to work with Petter Solberg and Subaru, as our team manager. We took him to Australia just before Finland so he could meet our sponsors.

We obviously want to stay in the WRC and make a step up, but whether we can pull that off or not we don't know yet.

8:' MN:Have you set a timeline for driving a full£7 blown WRC car for the first time?

BR: I had a passenger ride with Ken Block in Finland, and it just made me want to on your family. Luckily for us, our family drive one even more!They are incredible, supports us 100 percent. especially somewhere like Finland; I think Straight after the crash, Rhianon was asking the stage had 12jumps in four kilometres. for someone to get her a new helmet, I'd love to be in a WRC car as soon as because she was meant to be going straight possible, but in the end it comes down to to China to drive with Emma Gilmour either having extreme talent, like Jari-Matti (laughs). But we all knew she wasn't going Latvala did, or the money. I don't have that there. And I wanted to get straight back in extreme talent, but I'm working on it. And at the car because Rally Australia was coming the moment I don't have the money either. up, but we all knew that wasn't going to I'll just keep working and hopefully the happen either. opportunities come along.

We don't remember anything from the actual /WA/;You guys have been quite clever this accident, which has been a huge blessing to year by using auctions and fundraisers to us. We don't have flashbacks or anything like keep the program going. Whose idea was that. We went back to the scene a year later that? and drove the Zero Car, just to thank all of BR: Rhianon is in charge of our sponsorship. the officials who helped us out, and we drove She basically runs Brendan Reeves through that stage. Nothing came back to us Motosport full-time, so she's looking after at all.That's where we've been very lucky. We our Supporters Club. We have Facebook still want to be World Champions, and we'll pages,so we run the auctions to pay for our do anything to get there. tests before each event. /MW; You've spent a lot of time in Europe this year; has it been difficult for you and Rhianon to be so far away from home?

BR: I haven't found it difficult at all. I've just been enjoying the opportunity, and enjoying how big-rallying is over here. I'm just thriving on it. Opportunities don't come along very often, so if you make the most of them, they will pay off for you.

While I'm here I'm staying right near M-Sport, so I can use their personal trainer and get as fit as possible. I spend a lot of time studying

We do other things like selling names on the bonnet of the car for $200, or names on the roof. We've found that lots of people want to support us, but can only support us in little ways. But it all adds up,and it's raised usmorethanSl 00,000 this year, which is basically half of the costs to do the Academy.

And then our family business and our bigger sponsors have made it affordable.

Rhianon works hard at that, and she spends a lot of time back in Australia making it all happen.

DRIVER TRAINING

By Doc Pearson DKK - Docs Kart Kraft rel D4 0956 5483, Fax 03 9844 2894 uvww.dkk.com.au

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I'HE 2012 MUSCLE CAR MASTERS AT THE RENAMED SY1IXE¥ MOT FEATURED A DOURLE DOSE OF KIWI BORSlilPOWER FOR TDl^RET ElOflTB YEAR,WITH BOTH THE NZ FaOOO AND CENn’RAL MUSCIJ<: USUAL,THERE WAS ALSO PIJSN'fY HAPPENIN6 OFl^lHE TRA^K l S'

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»R1ES BBUCE MOXOA'. CON'miBIJTIIVG: LUKE B EST

VERYTHING old is new again.The 2012 Muscle Car Masters was the first major event to be held on the renamed Sydney Motorsport Park's 4.5km extended circuit.

But a revised layout wasn't the only new attraction at this year's Masters, with the ground-pounding, all grunt-and-notmuch-finesse historic Formula 5000 openwheelers adding greatly to the occasion.

Sure enough, a big crowd fronted to take in the sights and sounds both on and off the track. It's the latter that makes this event special: yes, it's a race meeting, but the sheer array of different historic sedans competing combined with the static displays of famous old cars makes a tour of the pits no less compelling than the action on the track.

Indeed, once again the paddock was packed, while the new viewing areas around the back of the circuit soaked up a big slab of the crowd - which rivaled (some say topped) the turnout for the V8 Supercars Champion Series event at the venue seven days earlier.

That the V8s didn't draw an overwhelmingly larger attendance might be due to the late scheduling of that event. It might also be an interesting reflection on the current state of contemporary motor racing: it's hard to think of any other occasion, ever, when a meeting for historic cars has rivaled or beaten the crowd for a contemporary race meeting for the top-level professional category in the sport. And it was a fairly direct comparison - same venue,seven days apart. Looking at it another way, too.

Gl^OGIIEGAXJU We lost Big Pete a few years ago, but it was great to see a Geoghegan in the most famous of Ian Geoghegan's cars,the GTA Mustang.

This ATCC winning car has raced in Group N at recent Masters. However,this year owner Des Wall decided to enter it in Master Blasts demos.The driver? Pete's son Michael.

Michael Geoghegan raced Formula Ford two decades ago,in the only mauvecoloured racecar we can recall. He had to borrow Wall's helmet,as his own was past its use-by date. mnevvG.com.au

it's possible the unexpected addition of a V8 Supercars event the week prior might actually have taken patrons away from the Masters.

As in years past, the festival atmosphere of the Masters was very much in evidence.

Punters were there for a good time;to enjoy great cars being driven hard.

The sports'legends were there in force, too: Allan Moffat, Colin Bond, Allan Grice, Kevin Bartlett and John Goss,to name a few. We could end up sounding like Bruce McAvaney by just reciting a list of great names. Others were there too - people who rarely or never drove sedans, such as Spencer Martin, Jon Davison and the greatest we've ever produced. Jack Brabham.

Sir Jack was honoured with the naming of the main straight and the new long circuit for him, announced at the Saturday evening Legends Dinner. At 86, his body might be letting him down, but his mind is as sharp as ever - and now with a cochlear implant, he can hear again!

Reunions were everywhere, many of them outlined on the following pages. Ditto historically significant racecars, including, interestingly, a brace of early V8 Supercars in the Masters Blasts demonstrations.

Meantime,the growing numbers of race replicas circulated in the Heritage Hotlaps.

Road going muscle cars were not forgotten, as the event celebrated the 30th birthday of the VH Commodore Group 3 and the 40th anniversary of the LJTorana XU-1, the R/T E49 Charger and the XA GT Falcon.

All four models participated in the featured muscle marques parade.

US muscle seemed more prevalent in the Car Club Corral - an indication of the current favourable exchange rate? - while a group of Sierra Cosworth RS 500 enthusiasts turned out in force to mark the vehicle's 25th anniversary. Seeing that many Sierras in one place was a surprise - there cannot have been many of these English turbo fours to have made it to our shores, surely?

There were some notable absent friends. Bob Morris couldn't get to Sydney Motorsport Park,for instance due to a date clash. And this was the first MCM without our friend Jason Richards. Jason was the star of the very first Masters, powersliding Paul Stubber's Camaro andTorana in terrible, wet conditions,smiling and giving a great show while having a ball.

Year after year he came back, his natural charm winning him more friends and fans every year. And every time he came back, he handed out driving lessons in whatever cars Stubberhadforhim.

This year, and forever more,the major trophy for Group C and ATouring Cars is named for Jason. It's a fitting tribute. As was Stubber's lap ahead of the field in the aforementioned HDT A9X before the'Racing for Jason'trophy race.

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FOllMlJM 5000 STARS For younger folk, it's hard to explain just what Formula 5000 in the 1970s was. In essence,they were big,fast openwheelers, a bit like FI - and sometimes just about as quick - but powered by V8 engines which, while significantly larger in capacity terms than Formula 1, were production based 'stock block'that lacked the sophistication and the white-hot state of tune of the bespoke racing engines in FI. Whatever their shortcomings,sheer excitement wasn't one of them.They sounded awesome, looked a million bucks, and boast pehnomenal acceleration and top speed.They were, like FI at that time, not what you'd call the safest of racing cars, being fairly simple aluminum monocoque designs that had an unhappy tendency to fold up in a crash.

Thankfully the circuits are far safer than in the late 1960s/'70s, which is a key reason the class is starting to boom on these shores.

Although over half the field came from New Zealand, where historic F5000 is inexplicably huge, it was an Aussie, Bryan Sala, who set the pace in qualifying and won Saturday's five-lapper.

If that name rings a bell for Bathurst devotees, it's because he's still officially the youngest driver to have finished the Great Race. Sala was 17 when he drove a Sierra to 10th place in the 1991 Tooheys 1000 with Graham Lusty. At one stage, the Sierra wore a windscreen strip bearing the catchphrase: 'Bryan Sala - a kid in a hurry'-clearly the work of his father.

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WARWICK mmN RISTURIS Warwick Brown was one of the very best F5000 drivers of the T970s - notjust in Australia, but the world over. He won the 1977 and 1978 Rothmans Series and the 1977 , Australian Grand Prix. Brown was smooth,fast, smart and was a favourite of Count Rudi van d:er Straaten,the Belgian who brought us two of our favourite things:Team VDS and ; Stella Artois beer.

AttheMasters,Warwickturnedlaps lni theLolaT333 he drove In both the 1978 , Rothmans Series and Can-Am in North America.The car is no'MfdWrre'd'mdTaGed by Stan Redmond. ''It's wonderful to be back aboard this car," he enthused.*'! got to the end ofthe pit lane and it was like being with an old girlfriend. I'd love to have an afternoon just drivingi the car. It's very hard to get that last little bit out ofthese cars.

"I won all four rounds ofthe 1978 Rothmans Series in this car,then took second in the 1978 Can-Am with it.Then it won the last round ofthe'79 Rothmans Series as well.

"It's a sweet, nice car, it felt very familiar."

Old racing drivers never can learn,though,as Warwick discussed the car's setup with his mechanic, Gary Simkin.

"I:think the car's too soft in the front It needs the stiffer springs,i^ What it didn't need was anything to make It sound any better, as the flat-plane crank .

- gave the car a marvelous yowling exhaust note, much like a Formula 1 car,

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Now 38, Bryan is considerably younger than the pair he joined on the Masters podium, Kiwis Steve Ross and evergreen Ken Smith - who raced Formula 5000 Lolas back when they were contemporary cars in the 1970s. Ross won both of Sundays races to lead the MSC New Zealand F5000Tasman Cup Revival Series after the first round. Sala leads the Australian F5000 Cup after two rounds.

It was great to see openwheelers featuring at an event otherwise devoted to our sedan and muscle car motorsport heritage. It was a reminder that domestic motor racing was not always about touring cars; that there was a time when openwheeler racing at the top level really did matter. As they always used to say, real racing cars do not have a roofs or doors

MUSTANG STING Victories for Dick Johnson's Group A Mustangs were few and far between back in the day. In fact, there was only the one win. and that was the 1985 Australian Grand Prix support race in Adelaide - the car didn't win a single championship round. It wasn't that the Mustang wasn't competitive - Dick drove it to second place in the '85 ATCC - but the BMW 635CSi had its measure in 1985 and the following year it couldn't live with the turbos the Volvo 240T(dubbed the'Swedish Valiant'

by Dick) and the Skyine DR30.

Contrast that with Bill Pye's performance with his ex-Johnson Mustang in the Group C/A races at the Masters. Pye rocked up to

The Creek in the car Dick and Larry Perkins ran at Bathurst '85.

Pye debuted the green machine in style. winning the Group C/A feature race and one of the earlier sprints, having topped the 34-carfield in qualifying.The size of the entry was a pleasant surprise given that the class raced at Winton and Sandown just a fortnight either side of the Masters.

The Mustang looked and sounded better than we remembered it as it took out the 'Racing for Jason'trophy ahead of Rod Markland's Skyline HR31 and the BMW M3s of Richard Espray and Bill Cutler. Best of the Group C cars was Elvis - the ex-Grice STP Commodore of Ed Singleton in fifth.

The other race winners were Rod Markland (Skyline FIR31) and Starion driver Craig Neilson, while Jake Williams won the race for the category's tidders, in a Ford Escort.

ATTACK OF THF KILLFR KIM IS

Our Kiwi cousins were back with their version of theTouring Car Masters.These cars are about as subtle as a brick to the face; they're loud, brash and brightly-coloured.

In short, they look and sound great, put on fantastic racing and we're all thankful for them all for taking the time and spending a fortune getting over here. But where do you get one of those'Best Damn Panel Shop in Town'shirts? Definitely a homage to NASCAR legend Smoky Yunick, whose Daytona Beach workshop was called 'The Best Damn Garage

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RlimmilSltm MAX SfEWAUT The AMC Masters arranged;for the family of the late Max Stewa rt, winner ofthe Austnalia n Grand Prix in 1:974,,to pay a I visit to that ear, now in the hands of Victorian Darcy RussellMargaret, Max's widow,was there With her two daughters, I Cheryi and Jhnelile.There were smiles and reminiscences and 1 Darcy seemed delighted to'be allowed to be part of a family ! moment.We even asked Margaret to sign his copy of the , bnilfiant new book onithese cars.

Motor racing,is stni in the family,too. Glenn Murphy, grandson of Max, has worked with race teams,including that of David Holland^ son of veteran Bathurst driver Don.

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in Town'.That was actually the trading name, unlike Moselle's Panel Beating.

The level of presentation of the CMC cars was superb,too, and there was always a crowd around their cars in the pits.

West Australian Paul Stubber, back from racing his Veskanda sportscar in Historic racing in Europe, entered his former Biante Series Camaro under the Kiwi Killers banner for the weekend,complete with a sheep and farmer cartoon...

The category's token Aussie qualified a full two seconds faster than the next best car and ran away with the first sprint from pole. Stubber started off the rear of the grid for the three subsequent CMC races, run as handicaps, but suffered from excessive tyre-wear.The format tossed up a variety of winners, namely Colin Sargison's 350ci HQ Holden, Bruce Delhi's 400ci Torana SS hatchback (with its Bob Morris-style livery) and Bruce Anderson's 6.5-litre Pinepac Mustang.

MASTi^ii mmii

Ome of the great th ings about the Muscle car Masters is some ofthe rnore unusual ears i|i attracts,This il(969' model Ford Talladega was one of hundreds of nicely restored muscle ca rs of va rious persuasions parked in the car elub section in the spectator areas aiong the main straight.

The Talladega was a homologation special developed specifically for NASCAR racing in l!9@9.This was back in the days when-even'NASCARran’reaT production based cars,and it was Ford's response to the ouitlandishi'aerodynamic'Dodge Charger 500.

Named i n honour ofthe Alabama superspeedway then under construction, the Taiiadega project was overseen by Ford Special'vehicles engineer Bili Holbrook and Ralph Moody (lof Holman and Moody).The big Ford was powered by the 428CJ (7-litre) V8.

On the track it proved the eq ual ofthe Charger, with David‘Pearson winning that year's championship in a Talladega.They ran the cars up till the end of 1970 before these wildTaee specials were legislated off the track.

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Round five of the Touring Car Masters was a John Bowe benefit!The reigning champ took pole-position and all three races over the September 1 -2 weekend to extend his already handsome championship lead.

Even when the top 10 grid positions were reversed for race two, Bowe was back in front within three laps.

Fellow former top touring car aces Andrew Miedecke (Camaro) and Jim Richards (Javelin) scrapped over second place most of the weekend, with the Chev coming out. on top. Eddie Abelnica's red XB Hardtop was the only other car to crack the top three all weekend.

The final race of the weekend was a spectacular Trans-Tasman match-race featuring 22TCM and 22 Central Muscle Cars. Bowe's crew must have found some demon tweak as he went out to an early lead. smashing theTCM lap record in the process.

However, with just a lap remaining the yellow #18 Mustang broke a wheel and he coasted into the pits.

This left Shane Wigston in front and unchallenged on the final tour for the win from the best of theTCM boys, Richards and Miedecke.The Aussie contingent won the Trans-Tasman Trophy on the basis of having more top finishers.

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motorsport news

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MOPAR MAGU: One car making a welcome return to the track at SMP was the black VJ Charger, now owned and driven by the versatile Greg Crick.

The car was debuted last year by youngster Elliott Barbour, whose family team parked the Charger in favour of a V8 Supercar Dunlop Series campaign before it had ironed out all the new car bugs.

Crick's team wasn't able to offer a magic silver bullet solutions in its first outing in the troublesome car. Indeed Crick, when interviewed over by PA reporter John Smailes, admitted his squad would have to significantly re-engineer the car over the off-season to make it competitive Interestingly, Crick has backing from Chrysler Australia for the campaign,the VJ Charger displaying signage highlighting the 75th anniversary of the Mopar brand's birth.

There's no doubt that Crick - successful in every category he's tried his hand at- will be a force to be reckoned with in 2013 in the 5.5-litre machine.

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As general manager at Premier Speedway, David Mills is charged with the task of steering the famous Warnambool venue through what is a fairly tough period in the sport's history. He spoke with Geoff Rounds about the challenges at Premier and the state of speedway generally Motorsport News: How long have you been manager of Premier Speedway?

David Mills: I commenced in the role of General Manager on August 20,2007,so I am setto embark on my sixth season here at Premier Speedway.

obsession,to be honest.We as promoters are no different to the drivers, car owners and race fans - we want to see great racing, we don't want tyre wear or bad weather,so we work overtime to ensure everything that we can control is controlled to benefit the sport.

M/V; What did you do before this position?

DM:Before accepting the role of Premier Speedway General Manager I was employed by the ACE Radio Network working at 1134 3CS and 106.3 MIXX FM in Colac,Victoria as an account manager. Prior to that, I was a fully qualified real estate agent with James H Monk Real Estate in Camperdown.

M/V;When/how did you get interested in the, sport of speedway?

DM:I was introduced to the sport of speedway by my wife, Fiona. In short, I am a sports fan full stop - Aussie Rules, Cricket, Basketball, Golf, motorsport whatever is going,so it wasn't going to take iong to get hooked on speedway. From there i washed some sprintcar wings (I was on a crew but I am mechanically illiterate) and eventually got into the commentary side of things mostly at Simpson Speedway and then later at Premier Speedway.

MN:Do you enjoy your role?

DM:I do. it is, however,like any other form of employment in that it has some days that are better than others. At the end of the day some of the political issues that plague our sport wear you down, but the good people involved in the sport, whether they be race fans, drivers, sponsors or car owners tend to make it ail worthwhile. We provide an entertainment industry and if we can send a majority of the people home happy with the show we have put on,then we have done our job.

MN:What's the toughest part ofjob?

DM:Dealing with the political crap that tends to come across your desk seemingly on a weekly basis. Give me the challenge of orchestrating the Classic any day ahead of some of the petty,time -consuming issues I am confronted with.

MN:Do you cop much criticism?

DM:Not directly, but I am realistic enough to know that I am not immune to it (criticism) either. I am fortunate that I have a good network offamily and friends that are speedway people and they either provide perfect sounding boards or keep my feet on the ground if I get too far ahead of myself.

MN:So how much do you love speedway?

DM:I do love it, especially when you can get away and see some events, whether they be here in Australia or the USA,and just to be a race fan again. It becomes a bit of an 80

M/V;What's been your most satisfying moment(s)as manager?

DM;That's an easy one:the week in January 2011 when we hosted the Classic,the Preiude to the Championship and then the Aussie Sprintcar Title that was pretty cool to be involved in.

MN:Does the Warrnambool city/ region get behind the venue and events as much as it could?

DM;The region does and the local businesses are second to none in their support of what we do or at least a majority are.The Warrnambool City Council well, perhaps they could help a little more.

M/V; Do you believe you are in charge of Australia's best speedway?

DM;I believe I work for one of Australia's leading Speedways. Each major venue in the country has its strengths and weaknesses and we are no different. Yes, I am proud of Premier Speedway as a whole,the people, the facility, our capacity to host big events, but I am also aware that it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and five seconds to destroy it. So we have to be on our game and aim to continually improve.We are largely a volunteer-based club and able to pull off

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events such as the Classic or an Australian Sprintcar Championship and to generally present a facility that is clean, comfortable, and neat and tidy are the main reasons. Our ability to conjure the support of so many to continually improve our venue is impressive as well, M/V; Are you ever a bit hamstrung with things/ideas because of committee?

DM: Not at all.They give me enough rope that I could probably hang myself at times, but we currently have a great mix of people who come from varying walks of life and all of whom contribute in some way. I am lucky I get to be the boss and get supported by the club 100 percent.

M/V; Are you a bit disappointed with the way World Series Sprintcars has become?

DM: Not yet, we just have to see what happens this coming season. As a club I am confident our January 1 (2013) race meeting will still have a majority of the'household names' on show. VVe have orchestrated some discussions with Speedway Australia recently with regards to WSS and feel that it will be OK. However, we (the sport) needs to continually work on the product or it may struggle going forward and that would be bad for the sport, because some tracks would definitely suffer.

MN: Do you think speedway can ever get motorsport news

bigger?

DM:I think until we can attract more corporate support it may stagnate for a bit.The economy and the ability of those competitors to keep dedicating their lives to the cause will be an ongoing concern as is the impact of the lack of disposable income for the fans.

MN:Personally, do you believe the Classic is the best race in the country?

D/M;Yep I do and it was before I started. /M/V;Why? DM:In the last six seasons we have endeavoured to improve the race meeting and create an event.The ground swell of competitor support with the amount of entries we receive has been amazing and we now continue to strive to maintain this support.Things like the Fan Appreciation Day and the Classic Breakfast along with a new big event that may be added to the 2013 Classic all add to the weekend.

MN:What can fans really look forward to this coming season at Premier Speedway?

DM:As far as our calendar is concerned we are running a similar schedule to last season with the Classic again being the mainstay on January 26 and 27. We are however also playing host to the Australian Wingless Sprint Title over three nights on February 22,23 and 24 and we are hopeful of 120 cars for this event which will also be exciting. www.mnews.com.au

MN:Is the rumour true that Premier is trying to lure Steve and Kraig Kinserto the 2013 Classic?

DM:Yes it's true,that we have spoken to both drivers about possibly coming and running the Classic. Will it happen? Who knows, but I am confident that it will happen one day.The potential list of Americans for the Classic will certainly have the Aussie boys and girls on their toes put it that way.

MN:On Classic weekend can you give readers a bit of a snapshot of your days, even the week?

D/M;The Classic week is like no other in my role. I wouldn't be lying if I said that preparations begin months before but the work load really increases from December onwards, The Classic week is really busy. I usually try and get away for the President's Cup at Avalon on the Wednesday which gives me a chance to catch up with some ofthe visiting drivers.

The weekend itself usually sees me leaving the track at around 10pm on Friday night so that I can be back for the Fan Appreciation Day by 8.00am, which considering I live 75km is early enough. After the race on night one I usually try and be gone from the track by 2.30-3am and then I return in time for the Brunch at the Flying Horse Bar and Brewery

by 8.00am. Following the races on night two it can get a little late before I get home so it's best not to think about it too much.

I hasten to add that it is not just me doing these hours - our volunteers, or some of them,are always already at the track or at the Fan Appreciation Day before I get there they do an awesome Job and all for nothing!

MN:Do you reckon you'll keep doing the Job for a while?

DM:I hope so. I have always said that I rate my Job as a bit like being a footy coach; my time will come, I will lose the drive,lose the respect of the majority or something similar and when that happens the club will let me know. For the immediate future I have some irons in the fire and a couple of projects that I want to see out. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon as far as I know.

MN:How do you think speedway will fare into the future?

D/M;We Just have to as a collective push the bickering and the minor issues aside and forge our way forward to gain the respect of those that can assist in taking the sport forward or at least securing its future - it is as simple as that. If we don't we will plod along and make ends meet but eventually without the support of governments and peak bodies issues such as noise and the like will begin to take a dramatic effect and heaven help us when it does.

81

LAST SEASON WAS NOT EXACTLY STELLAR FOR LEE BEKTASH. BUT WITH SOME MOPAR MUSCLE AND A FULL TIME NHRA CREW CHIEF ON BOARD. THE PRO STOCK ACE IS SAYS HE'S SET FOR A DRAMATIC CHANGE OF FORTUNES

T

HE factory-backed Mopar Pro Stock team is getting ready for a massive assault on the ANDRA Drag Racing Series with no expense being spared to return the team to the top ofthe standings.

Lee Bektash finished an uncharacteristic 10th in last season's points but is now steeling himself to bring the team back into the winner's circle with a full time American crew chief and an arsenal of engines to take into combat.

Tommy Laine, who has worked on a part time basis with the team in recent years, has been brought in full time to act as a managing director for the team and as a conduit to the massive amounts of drag racing knowledge in the USA. "He came and went over the whole car and found a lot of little issues

that were costing us three to four hundredths of a second and maybe one or two miles per hour, Bektash said."Some niggly stuff that we looked over or didn't realise was so important.

"In testing we tried new clutches, gear ratios, tyres and struts and we were very happy,every run we got down the track. We still changed something everything run.The biggest thing was breaking 196mph (315km/h),the first Pro Stock car to do so.

"The speed is a good thing to base yourself on but time is what will make you win races,so we need to concentrate on front half set up now.What we did in Queensland testing was not try and run personal bests but to get down the track. I have no doubt the car can run seven flat at 195mph every pass. We are still chasing consistency and we are aiming at being the best."

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/1 mention results. With team sponsor VP Racing Fuels also developing a new fuel specifically for Australian Pro Stock that the team used for the first time in testing,there is plenty of potential.

"We've got our brand new billet engine that arrived at the Fuchs Winternationals," Bektash said."The last time we had an engine failure was a year ago now,an issue with the block causing lifters to lock up.

"We are in a real good position; we will end up with three engines and we are teamed up with (fellow Mopar driver) Wayne Daley. Our shock program and engine program is really a good step from where we've been.

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"I can honestly say that this year is probably the best position we have been in with inventory.We've got three or four sets of shocks and we've always had the latest in suspension. It all has to come together for us and hopefully on race day it works."

That relationship with Daley Is expected to provide a number of benefits for the partnership, mainly In regards to data from testing and qualifying sessions.

"In testing we did 24 runs combined through 12 runs each, we put a Pro Stock car at $1000 a pass,so what we achieved there was cutting our testing costs in half," Bektash explained."The chassis are a little different but the engines are identical. In qualifying from doing three sessions we will have six runs to get data from."

With the advantages of a long factory partnership, Bektash is certain the team is heading to the right place.

"Mopar didn't come on board for a short time,they are going to be in it for the next few years.They are happy wjth what we are planning,"hesaid."They understand a few things went wrong last season. We didn't really have someone in control and we suffered.

The competition has made it harder now for us to do what we are doing. Now you need to go to the next level.

"We are probably the first Australia Pro Stock team to hire a full time NFIRA crew chief who is all about Pro Stock. It's a big investment but we are hoping we can reward Mopar with results."

■5'

Laine's last job was as Jeg Coughlin's crew chief in the NFIRA and Bektash estimates he has 3000 Pro Stock runs under his belt as a crew chief.

"I look at my racing like I am a boxer and I need the right guy in my corner to win the fight," he said."George Haddad gave me the confidence to become a champion in Super Gas. I have the same feeling with Tommy. I haven't had that feeling for 10 years and I am hoping he can get my driving, mind and crew where they need to be to get us to the level of Aaron Tremayne or Shane Tucker."

Laine is based in Indianapolis and is working alongside Rick Watters who develops Bektash's engines in order to ensure the team has the very best in horsepower.

"All Pro Stock cars are developed in America," Bektash said. "Having someone there, you need that to get up to date with whatever is happening. Our car is based on one of the top running NHRA Pro Stock cars. I've got exactly what they have.

"Having Tommy there is like having a good accountant for your business. With Mopar's investment, he tells us where to spend to get results. What he says happens."

The extra horsepower provided by a new engine package has proved a boon for the team and has seen them finally kick away a recurring issue with previous blocks that was costing the team a lot of money, not to

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HEN you buy a collection of historic racing cars,one of the first things you must consider is just how you are going to store the things.

This is especially important when the collection is on the sizeable side, as was the case with the fleet of Gibson Motorsport factory Nissan Group C and A race cars (and also the Mark Skaife Spa-003 Formula Holden) which restaurant ownerTerry Ashwood acquired in 2001.

For Ashwood, however,this was simply an opportunity to mix business with pleasure.

"People said'why are you buying a collection of old racing cars?"'Ashwood explains,"and at the time I couldn't properly answer that - except to say,'well. I'm going to put them in a restaurant'.

"I've been in the restaurant industry most of my commercial life. Mostly McDonald's 84

i've had five McDonald's franchises over the years. But at the time I was winding down from McDonald's and I thought it would be nice to try something different."

Something different was a stylish Stonegrill eatery with a modern Italian-flavoured influence and a distinctly motorsport themed decor,including an array of Nissan touring cars from the 1980s and early'90s.

Next year will mark the first decade of the Trackside Restaurant in Gosford on the NSW Central Coast. It's still growing,says Terry, and it's always busy, which suggests that it's not just the race cars that are attracting diners.

How Terry ended up with the Gibson Motorsport cars is an interesting journey in itself. It began in the 1990s when he was racing a Porsche in the original version of the Porsche Cup.This was amateur level motorsport, but when the old Porsche Cup evolved Into the new

Carrera Cup,Terry decided it was time to get out of racing Porsches.

"1 decided to buy something with which I could compete with the other guys in the Porsche club.'

A Datsun 1600 mightn't sound like the obvious tool for such a task, but by the time Ashwood had finished with it, this was no ordinary Datsun.

"I designed the mechanicals around this Bluebird here," he says, pointing to the 1984 Nissan Motorsport Bluebird Turbo sitting in the restaurant."It had the same gearbox,the same SI8 turbo;the thing was a weapon! I used to run it against the Porsche guys and it would beat them.

"Out of that, my respect for the car and Nissan really grew.Then when I saw a Gibson Motorsport Nissan HR31 on the market, I decided to buy it.

"So from that point my whole focus motorsport news

Get our backside trackside -that’s what commentator Mike Raymond always used to say,and certainly we can offer the same recommendation to take a seat at the Trackside restaurant on the NSW Central Coast. Notjust for the excellent food,hut also the decor -because this is an eatery that proudly shows offthe restaurateur’s other passion. By Steve Normoyle

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changed from Porsches to Nissan, and it hasn't stopped.

"The car was owned by Chris Lamden and he had been racing it in Beaurepairs livery.

Chris continued to use Gibson's for all the cars servicing and race needs which kept the car very original. I contacted Fred Gibson soon after acquiring the car to obtain technical advice and from there my relationship with Fred grew."

When Nissan made its exit from the sport in 1992, Gibson shifted to Flolden before going Ford in 2001 with Craig Lowndes as driver with the new 00 Motorsport. Fred had plans to move the team into a larger facility, next to which would be a separate museum/ cafe to house his collection of race cars.

However, a series of factors, including Ford's understandable reluctance to associate itself with a museum full of Nissans, forced a change of plan and the cars were put up for sale. www.mnews.com.au

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one ofthe last evolution ofeach car

WFred kept he raced:the 1984 Bluebird right through to the 1992 GT-R.That was the collection. bought the whole collection,"Terry says.

Unlike most teams these days, Fred kept the last chassis of each car they raced.This included the 1984 Bluebird right through to the 1992 Nissan Winfield GT-R. In all there were seven cars.

They normally made four to five chassis of each model raced, but obviously the last chassis build of each make was always the best and most evolutionary,and that's what Fred kept. He sold the rest off.'

They didn't all go straight into the restaurant,though. In fact,the 1992 Nissan Winfield GT-R has never been in the restaurant.That's mainly because Terry has been racing the car in Group A historic events.

'I have my own technician, Ivan Taylor, who used to work for Fred. He also used to work for McLaren and is meticulous in what he does;and what he doesn't know about GT-Rs, no one does. "[But]they are expensive cars to maintain.

I went through a full mechanical rebuild of the GT-R last year, and Ivan related it to what Gibson's would have done to prepare the car for Bathurst -fresh motor, gearbox, brakes, suspension, everything. It cost a lot."

Anyone who has seen Ashwood running the car in historic events would have noticed Ivan Taylor and the rest of Ashwood's crew immaculately presented in red Winfield Racing Nissan overalls.

They're not faithful reproductions -they are in fact the original overalls the Gibson Motorsport team wore in 1992!

The team clothing was all part of the sale - along with quite a few of the trophies the cars won,and assorted paraphernalia:team jackets, woollen Nissan jumpers etc.

Terry's GT-R is the last ofthe line, and in fact is the car in which Jim Richards and Mark 86

Skaife won the controversial rain-shortened 1992 Bathurst 1000.That was the last race as a contemporary touring car for what is undoubtedly the most technically advanced and fastest Group A touring car in the world.

Terry now has the Bluebird and the Formula Holden up for sale. He has already sold the rest of the collection.

'One of the reasons for selling the collection is that they are now all eligible to race in historic motorsport events. I believe that they should be out there in the public arena racing in their former glory in the hands of Nissan enthusiasts who will both pamper and enjoy them.

'They're being maintained properly because they're being raced, and the thing is that it's difficult to maintain a car properly if you're not using it. I was speaking to Chris Bowden [Bowden Collection] recently and he can relate to my concerns having firsthand experience with the maintenance programme of their 60 car collection."

But if Ashwood sells them,won't the restaurant run out of cars?

"I have enough racing friends and contacts to keep the restaurant stocked with cars even if I don't own any.There are plenty of other guys who are happy to put their cars in on exhibition - and it means I am storing them for them as well. I do a bit of an exchange with the Bathurst museum in that way - I've had a few of their cars here and they've had some of mine.So it works quite well like that, and ultimately it doesn't matter so much what the cars are - they don't have to be Nissans.

"I've been offered a replica FI car. If I had something like that I'd mount it upside down on the ceiling, or sideways on the wall, because I'm running out of seating capacity."

Terry's aim for the immediate future is to

try to boost awareness ofTrackside among the motorsport community.

"Some people in motorsport know me;they certainly know the GT-R,and making motorsport people aware of us is something we're really concentrating on doing. I think every weekend we should have a car club up here doing a drive, and dropping in for lunch."

Of course,the restaurant Is no secret to Nissan enthusiasts,for whom Trackside must be something akin to a place of worship.

They're regular patrons.

"I get invited to a lot of Nissan functions.

The president of the Classic Skylines Club that run the Nissan Skyline Nationals, Carolyn Kruger, bought my Skyline DR30,the fourcylinder Skyline they ran in 1986 and '87. She races that; it's a fabulous little car and she just loves it and does extremely well.

"Most years, around about November, we motorsport news

j

close the restaurant on a Sunday night and the Skyline Australia Club totally books it out,the entire restaurant.

Last year I had Fred Gibson and Jim Richards up as our guest speakers.The year before I had Jim Richards and Alan Heaphy.

It's a terrific night.They're all there about 4.30 in the afternoon with all their cars and they start with a show and shine in the car park- it's one of their highlights of the year.

It's their Christmas party,they tell me. I'd really like to get this sort of thing going with other clubs."

Certainly this place is a must-see for anyone interested in motorsport visiting the Central Coast.

But the best thing aboutTrackside is the thing that keeps the locals coming back and it's not the cars, but rather what comes out of the kitchen. Great food,great service, and great cars... www.mnev;D.com.au

Terry Ashwood tells ofhis visit to the secret warehouse n In Japan thathides a'treasure trove of Nissans.

I "I always lusedito hear about this warehouse Nissan had called the Red Door. It was ; just a warehouse,closed to the public. But last November I was in Japan with (fellow ; Group A Nissan racer) Rod Markland and he had some contacts with some advertising ; people up there who'had an in to this warehouse down in Yokohama. ; "It was on a large block of land owned by Nissan, at least 20 acres. It's the facility where theyYe flanningito make the batteries for hybrids.Sure enough,there's a ; warehouse with a bigMroiler door painted red, with a sign'Nissan DNA warehouse'.

"You go in this place,and not only is there an example of every one ofthe cars they've ever made,but also all the race cars.The old Palsonic Group A Skyline they i ran was there, all thf®!cars,a VtO production GT car that I'd never heard of. Chassis J nurnber one oftheiiSi^WR was there;a whole bunch of experimental cars.There were : about80 race cars and'4S0 road cars,including an electric car from 1933.We spent all I afternoon there just ailaiing."

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87

MODEL BEHAVIOUR Class of'74:Biante's excellent Peter Brock HDT Torana SL/R 5000 from the 1974 Australian Touring Car Championship, below.

Last month we looked at the HDT Torana CTR XU-1 In Group Ctrim. This month we're focusing on the car thatreplaced the mighty little XU-h the LH model SL/R 5000,By Bruce Moxon

A

S this year's V8 Supercar Championship draws to a close, it's time we looked at models of other winners of what was to become this series.

Peter Brock won the first of his three AustralianTouring Car Championships in 1974.To get it done, he used two distinctiy different cars (as would Jim Richards 16 years iater with the Nissan HR31 Skyiine and the ali-wheei-drive Nissan GT-R): the aging six-cyiinder Torana XU-1 and its replacement, the 1974 5-litre V8Torana SL/R 5000.

Brock(and Holden Dealer Team team mate Colin Bond) had started the 1974 season in their XU-1 s, but late in the season the new V8 cars were ready to race. Brock finished off his ATCC win in the SL/R 5000 before the L34 homologation upgrade was 88

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Brock Bimmer:Biante's new Peter Brock Mobil BMW M3from 1988, above. If bikes are your thing, Apex Replicas has these Casey Stoner and Barry Sheene bikes, below,among others.

done for Bathurst.

Again,the road car origins are obvious; Group C was, in lots of ways, closer to standard than Group A, especially in regards to the body and interior. You had to have the standard interior and could only change the seats from the same manufacturer,for instance. And you had to have the back seat, door trims, the full dashboard and even a passenger's seat.

And being the'standard'SL/R 5000, there are no flared guards,the main external difference, nor are the wheels anywhere near as wide as they'd become. Indeed,the race car had the factory alloys fitted! The model is presented as Brock's Adelaide car, where he got pole, led every lap and set the fastest lap, admittedly against thin opposition - Moffat and Grice stayed away and Bob Morris (XU-1) was second.

This is an interesting model because it's the L34-spec race cars, not the SL/R 5000, for which the original V8 Torana is most remembered.The HDT ran an SL/R 5000 for Brock in the Surfers Paradise and Adelaide championship rounds, while Allan Grice raced his Craven Mild backed SL/R 5000 at Oran Park and Surfers Paradise. A total of four starts from two separate cars - that's the entire competition history of the Holden Torana LH SL/R 5000.

You can find out more about the Brock model or order your own at www.biante. com.au.

Speaking of Brock, we mentioned a while back about Biante's model of the Mobilbacked BMW M3 he ran in 1988. It's a cracker of a model, and you can see it here in these pages. Stay tuned for a Biante version of the little Bimmer in the JPS trim it ran in the previous year - when Jim Richards won the championship. We'll look at the 1987 championship winning giant killer next month.

We don't often cover bikes here - I'm just not that into them, but there are a couple of important bikes modeled that got my attention. First is Barry Sheene's 1976 Suzuki RG500. 1 must say that the pictures look

BarrySheene wasa character-one ofthe old breed thatraced hard and lived hard.Ifyou were a Sheenefan,this modelis a must.From a time when sponsorlogos didn'tdominate the appearance, the clean-looking Yamaha willfitin with many themes.

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Motorsport News magazine is the complete source ofmotorsport knowledge in Australia, The monthly magazine is a greatread,covering everything from V8Supercars to\ Formula 1 andallltMngswdd'fddhg, *^to Speedway to Drag Racing'and even scale modelracing cars,Each mohtt Motorsport Newsisjam packed wltfii^v^ ^ andinsightfulfeatures onyourfavomitei w sportto digestin yourleisure time, ^ /

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91

fantastic and I'm told they don't do the model justice. Barry Sheene was a character - one of the old breed that raced hard and lived hard. His body was anything but a temple and I guess all that partying (and injuries) caught up with him in the end.

If you were a Barry Sheene fan, this model is a must. From a time when sponsor logos didn't dominate the appearance of racing cars as well as racing bikes, the clean-looking Yamaha will fit in with many themes. And that iconic number 7 - well, it says it all. And if you miss out-there's a 1977 bike coming soon.

The other bike is much newer. It's Casey Stoner's 2009 Phillip Island winning Ducati.

Finished in white with red signage and featuring Casey's famous number 27, this will also look good on the shelf. Casey's bike career might be coming to an end, but there's plenty of reason still to celebrate his brilliant career of an Australian rider who is one ofthe all-time greats of the sport.

And who knows, he really might be in a V8 Supercar before very long.

Both bikes are available from Apex Replicas (www.apexreplicas.com.au) or your favourite model shop.

A couple of road cars now - one Holden, one Ford. If you've seen Shannons ads, you'll know the one with the bloke who says he's been a car nut all his life and shows a kid ogling an HQ Monaro. Well, this is that car.

It's gunmetal with orange stripes (sorry 'Lone O'Ranger') and is one ofthe iconic 350 four-door GTS models. These were a true muscle car - but with room for the whole family, if you had to Justify buying it.

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The other road car is Ford's XT GT Falcon, this one in a very nice Springtime Yellow with red stripes. I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to forget the XT - beaten by the Monaro GTS 327 at Bathurst in 1968 in what was the first proper battle on the Mountain between Holden and Ford, the XT falls into the cracks between the legends that were the XR (the first of the GT Falcons) and the XW (the first of the GT-HOs). But it was a great car in its own right and quite a good-looking one, I think.

This one has the nice chrome hubcaps (remember the front ones had the bigger bit in the middle, to clear the wheel bearing).

Lastly, thefolkatTrax don't often gift us with racing cars, so when they do it's a bonus. So the 48/215 Holden as raced by Des West in the very first Australian Touring Car Championship is a model worth having. It looks Just as it did when it was on the cover of our sister publication, Australian Muscle Car - grab one from www.topgear.com.au.

motorsport news

A 192 page book that celebrates the proud history of Australian made Ford, Holden and Chrysler muscle car heritage.

Wild legendary stories of 100 famous and infamous events and stunts that have amazed and entertained muscle car fanatics over the years. Taken from Australian Muscle Mania magazine, this superb book recalls every aspect of Australian motoring, dating back to early last century,from beach sprints to the formation of Speedway hot rods, the Summernats and Around Australia rallies.

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Above: Until when you become a champion... you are not free...

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1.

Lewis Hamilton leaves McLaren this year after an association that dates back many years before Hamilton made his FI debut. But when did Lewis first meet McLaren chief Ron Dennis?

2.

In 2006, the year before he made his FI debut, Lewis Hamilton won the GP2 Championship with the ART Grand Prix team. Who was Hamilton’s team-mate that year?

3. The majority of Warwick Brown’s Formula 5000 career was spent in the USA but he did achieve plenty of success in Australia. In what year did he win the Australian Grand Prix?

4.

Warwick Brown enjoys the distinction of being the only Australian driver to win the Tasman Cup. In which year did he win it?

5.

The 1974 Australian Grand Prix looked to be Warwick Brown’s for the taking until mechanical problems forced him to surrender a massive lead.

Who did win the ’74 AGP?

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