Motorsport News Issue 428 - February 2013

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No.428 February 2013 Australia $8.50 NZ $9.99 inc GST

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BEFORE I GO HOME

SUPER MARIO; THE ONE, THE ONLY ANDREHI

Marcos Ambrose ponders his future in NASCAR

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THE RRCETHRT ROCKS

liniss fhe atinaziiiig action Wihen.Rally Car driver and Gymlch^ia Master, Ken Block starts drifting around the track exclusively for Clipsal 500 Adelaide.

The first plac^you'll see the new V8 Supercar?

Car ofthe Future take'to the track is the^O’lS Clipsal 10§Ad^ide.It's the first^^ce Nissanl a Altima aWf^^rcedes AMGSars lineaup pn thf grid along old rivals1^9 and!Ifdlden in the

^HiMETORjO ” Nitro burning beasts onjrack

“ Fun tor all footyfans

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NEWS

Editorial Group Editor Steve Normoyle snormoyle§chevron.com.au At Large Phil Branagan

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THIS MONTH’S FEATURES /

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Photography

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Andrew vamkeemwem ; highlights the W hest young FI wannabes as we head into the 2Q13season.

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Unusual Suspects /;

MOVING EVANS AND EARTH It came down to a scrappy final round but Mitch Evans got thejob done last year in the GPS Championship. Mitch Evans caught up with our own Mitch - Adam,that is - as the young Kiwi prepares for the step up to GP2.

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RicoAbreu Motor racing is a sport where in certain circumstances people with disabilities are able to compete on equal terms. But we've never heard ofanyone with the condition of dwarfism competing at any kind of high level in the sport- until now.

■ Meet the incredible Rico Abreu.

A series ofthe best motorsportimages of2012 i from the MotorsportMews i photography team, i

J

DIRT TRACK DYNASTY Tim Kaeding is the most recent in a long line ofspeedway racing Kaedings.

The Californian spoke with Geoff Rounds.

ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN He makes a mockery of the term 'midget speedcar' - Rico Abreu is living proof that size isn't everything.

REGULARS

4

6

Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan

8

The Scoop with Steve Normoyle

10

On The Limiter with Chris Lambden

12

Box Seat

14

United States of Origin

90

Model Behaviour

94

Raceshop

96

Classifieds

98

Parting Shot

Mario Andretti Andretti senior is hardly whatyoujd call an unusual motor racing subject, but the humility and candour the great man displayed when he found time to chat with Mark Glendenning is not something you see every day from a legend of the sport

Mitch Evans He may not be an actual Aussie, but he's from our part of the world, and he's Mark Webber's protege, and he's surely the most promising young antipodean driver that isn't already in Fi. And now that's he's in GP2, Evans is just one step away from joining Daniel Ricciardo and Webber.

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costs)for six years. And the 0 you know the title case part included the expression,'The more things change, media (this writer included) converging on Sydney's Martin the more they stay Place to watch the senior the same'? I wonder management from both Seven whether there is any truth in it.

Take,for instance, V8 and V8 Supercars announce the deal and shower each other Supercars'TV deal. On the with statements of mutual surface, not much has changed. admiration.

The racing is staying on Seven n Since then, similar scenarios for the next two years in a deal that is, so far as viewers are have been repeated with the concerned,similar to what we media rights deals for various football codes. Beaming have seen in recent years - a Chairmen and/or CEOs from mix of delayed and live the AEL, NRL and Soccer joined coverage, shared between their seemingly thrilled opposite Seven's primary channel and its numbers from the networks to 7mate digital channel. Expect the faces, and whiteboards, to tell the press how wonderful life is with their new media right be largely the same. mega-deals. Usually, very high But the sport, and some numbers are semaphored so people's perception of it, does that all their fans can know how appear to have changed. much 'their'sport has grown It was May 2006 when Seven got the nod to broadcast the - while, presumably, network sales teams take a stiff drink and V8s from the 2007 season. It was both a big deal and A Big wonder just how they are going Deal.The lowercase part of it to generate the revenues to was the money,said to be $28m justify their bosses'largesse.

Neither of those events a year (including production

happened this time around.

There was no press conference, just a quiet(but quite positive) Tuesday morning press release.

No dollar numbers were attached, so it is difficult to state with precision what the deal is worth.(Though,as already noted,the nature of these deals is, if the numbers go up,the parties usually like to share them with the world.)

Of course, things have changed in V8 Supercars.

Nowadays,the majority stakeholder is a private equity company. Archer Capital. Such businesses are often more interested in results than in hoopla and hyperbole. Formula One's biggest stakeholder is also a PE firm, CVC Capital; when was the last time you read an outlandish statement about FI by someone from that company - or any statement, for that matter?

But... On the evening that the Seven-V8 deal was announced, I watched all three commercial networks'evening news services.There were bits on the tennis, the cricket and the AFL (this is always AFL news in Melbourne, even at

Christmas) and golf. As a TV sport in Australia, golf is not travelling that well at present; in November,the Australian Masters was broadcast on Pay-TV for the first time after all three commercial networks passed on doing the event. But the same networks'newsrooms all ran well-sized PR pieces on Nike's massive endorsement deal with Irish golfer Rory Mcliroy - who rarely comes here, unless it is to watch the tennis.

And they ran nothing on the V8 Supercars TV deal. At a minimum, I might have expected something on Seven Melbourne's one-hour bulletin.

But I saw nothing.

It is difficult to believe that anyone highly-placed in the general media in this country truly sees V8 Supercars as anything more than a secondtier sport.

As already noted,for the viewers, this is not a bad deal.

For V8 Supercars, there are two seasons (actually, probably 1.5) to build up the profile of the sport before the next round of media negotiations begin.

Thankfully,the racing starts soon ...

It is difficult to believe that anyone highly-placed in the general media in this. country truly sees V8 Supercars as anything more than a second-tier sport

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I i THE SCOOP

T is only late January as I write, but barely have we returned from the Christmas/ New Year break and the road racing season is starting up again.

Things kick off with the LiquiMoly Bathurst 12 Flour on the second week of February, while ' a week later the V8 Supercars will have their first hit out at Sydney Motorsport Park (Eastern Creek) in preparation for the Clipsal 500 at the end of the month.

It has made the first two months of 201S a busy time for Erebus Motorsport. if running a pair of Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GTS cars in the 12 Flour isn't enough,there is also the task of readying a trio of bespoke Mercedes-Benz E6S AMG V8 Supercars - the first example of which didn't turn its first wheel until the middle of January.

The privateer Erebus Mercs and the Kelly Racing works Nissan Altimas will surely add a fresh dimension toV8 Supercars as we head into the Car of the Future era.

All this change makes it an exciting time for V8 Supercars.

There are so many unknowns: what kind of racing will we see from the COTF? How will the newcomer Nissan and Merc fare? Will V8 Supercars

be able to balance parity of performance across not two, but four different makes? It's been that long since we've had a decent V8 Supercars parity bunfight that some younger fans might never have even experienced one before - it could get very interesting.

As for us older folk (and by that I mean anyone old enough to remember the last time Australian touring car racing had manufacturers other than Ford and Elolden), the arrival of COTF is a step into the unknown for other reasons.

The last time we had multi manufacturer involvement,the cars were all quite different - being, as they were,fairly directly derived from the original road car.

Instead, we now have four different models sharing the same chassis.That is, four different cars which are more or less technically identical in very many areas.

The COTF marks the removal of the last vestige of any kind of meaningful link between the road car and the race version.

But the road car heritage and how it translated on the track was for so long always key - it was at the core of our touring car racing the last time we had multi-manufacturer

involvement.This was an important and defining feature of our racing that dated back to the early days of Group C racing, which you might argue was where the whole thing was born.

But,times change,and a Car of the Future present is upon us. And let's face it, you can't criticise V8 Supercars for giving us the COTF - this is a simple case of V8 Supercars following the lead of the world's other great and enduring touring car circus, the DTM. For a whole range of reasons, a silhouette/ control chassis formula is just the way touring car racing is done these days, it is what the market wants and, what's more, it's hard to think of any kind of realistic alternative that embodies the old concept of road cars being developed for racing.

Yet in a strange kind of way, there is an alternative. While the team formerly known as Stone Brothers Racing readies its three E63 V8 Supercar sedans for the upcoming V8 Supercars season, elsewhere Erebus has another set of race cars which use a version of the same Mercedes-Benz V8 engine that will power the V8 Supercars.

Only in this case it's in the same configuration and 6.2-litre capacity as the road car - and the race machine it sits inside is in fact a specially modified version of the road car.

Yes it's true that GTS is, like COTF, a parity formula - and to such an extent that the Audis aren't allowed to run their quattro all-wheel-drive layouts.

But for motorsport fans who prefer to see a bit of mechanical variety, and who like the idea of a tangible link between the road car and the corresponding race machine,there's a lot to like about GTS underneath those sleek sportscar body shapes.

Last issue in these pages I went into bat against the practice of the victory burnout.

A clarification is in order, because it has been pointed out to me that there is a legitimate place for the burnout in motorsport. It's called drag racing, and it's probably not even going too far as to say that in this sport, the practice is not just a necessary part of the competition, but also a safety feature.

The burnout is meant to quickly warm the tyres and in the process lay down two fresh, hot strips of rubber to which the tyres better adhere when they launch. Indeed, most drag racing tyres are designed with the burnout in mind.

So,to clarify, as a celebration of victory in circuit racing, I still say it's unnecessary and a bad look. But in other areas of the sport it plays a genuine role.

parity bunfight thatsome younger fans might never have even experienced one before 8

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CHRIS

LAMBDEN ; ON THE LIMITER

T

ime flies, it is just over 20 years since Kiwi Denny Hulme became the first Formula 1 world champion to die of natural causes (a slightly bizarre fact).

The circumstances were hardy 'natural', though. Well into his second motorsport career, long after he had walked away from FI, Denny was driving a BMW M3 for Frank Gardner's worksassisted team in a rainy 1992 Bathurst 1000, the last of the turbocharged Group A era, when things turned sour.

Denny came on the radio to Gardner as he speared across the top of the Mountain, to say that things were getting very dark and that he couldn't see very well. Down Con-Rod Straight, and the car started to slow, veered slightly off the road, and slid gently along the concrete. Denny Hulme had had a major heart attack and was dead before marshals got to the car.

It was tremendously sad, but

tinged with the consolation that here was someone who had at least, genuinely, died doing what he loved doing. He was,though, only 56.

All this came flooding back over in NZ last month when Denny became the third of NZ's Gang ofThree, McLaren, Amon and Hulme, to be honoured at the annual NZ historic extravaganza at Hampton Downs, near Auckland. In some ways, it kind of summed up Denny that he would, despite being the only Kiwi world champion, be the third to be remembered in this way. Of the three, he was seen as the quieter one, a little shy even, but as his first, FI, career was to illustrate, he was made of stern stuff.

He was probably the last of the generation of mechanic/ drivers to set foot in the UK, after Sir Jack and Bruce McLaren, earning his way in by first working as a mechanic for Jack after early success back in NZ. But when the chance came with Jack, he took it. The two

dominated Formula 2 at one point and, when Dan Gurney left Brabham at the end of 1965 to set up his own team for the all-new 3-litre formula, Denny got his full-time FI chance.The rest is history: loyal lieutenant to Jack in '66, champion in '67; then the move to the other good mate's team, McLaren; the'Bruce and Denny Can Am show; Bruce's death in 1970, holding the team together in the aftermath despite racing with badly burnt hands, the result of a fuel fire while testing a McLaren Indycar...

This was the toughest, harshest era of FI. Denny had driven past the burning wreck of Lorenzo Bandini's Ferrari en route to his first GP win, at Monaco in 1967. Apart from McLaren,there were many other deaths, most due to the track inadequacies, barrier-wise, that would not be tolerated today: Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, Piers Courage, Francois Cevert, to name a few. And then, early in 1974,testing in South Africa, Denny was one of the first on the scene when his'72/'73 team-mate, and good friend, Peter Revson was killed when his Shadow went under the Armco.

It was no surprise when, shortly after, Denny announced that he would leave FI, and motorsport, at the end of the year.

What was a surprise, initially, was his return, some years later.

Truck racing? Surely not? Yup. Then into touring cars with Tom Walkinshaw, Larry Perkins and, finally, Frank Gardner. It was all for fun, as it should have been, but the value of someone of his ability was recognised by some smart operators; Denny looked after a car and never crashed much.

In fact, the only biggie I can remember is one I literally witnessed, as a teenager watching from the Pukekohe hill, in January, 1968, when the collision with local Lawrence Brownlie saw Denny's F2 Brabham cartwheel high into the air. He was thrown out and amazingly lucky not to be seriously hurt. He raced a replacement car two weeks later! All that is another story for another time.

And so to Bathurst 1992, and now Hampton Downs 2013. Will any of the modern athlete/champions of FI be remembered so fondly? I doubt it. Cheers, Denny.

Denny was probably the last ofthe generation of mechanic/dirwers to setfoot in the UK,earning his way in by first working as a mechanic for Brabham.

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;

'II never forget the first time I heard a Formula 1 car in the flesh.

It \was the 2000 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, and, after years of sitting up in the middle of the night watching Grand Prix cars on Nine's post-Sunday Night Movie FI telecast, I finally made the trip east from Perth with my dad to get a first-hand look at what it was all about. I was 15 years old, and it was exciting.

The first FI carl actually heard was McLaren's two-seater, which started its demonstration runs on theThursday, a day before the real FI cars hit the track. I was sitting towards the end of the main straight, quite close to pit exit. I heard the car fire up, and I heard it trundling down pit-lane.

But it was when Olivier Panis got to the end of pit-lane and opened it up that I was properly introduced to the VI0 hiding under the engine cover. I was wearing earplugs, but I still felt the exhaust notes reverberating through my chest. Even now I get goose bumps just thinking about it. It was a moment that my relationship with Grand Prix racing turned from infatuation into full-blown love.

It's because of that moment that I was so relieved to read all of the positive reaction surrounding the recent unveiling of Mercedes' 2014-spec V6 turbo FI engine.

If you're about tojump on YouTube and start searching fora clip of FI's new sound, don't bother.The list of people that have actually heard it is still incredibly short, and those that have heard the audio (which was from a dyno run simulating Monza) were apparently forced to surrender smart phones and voice recorders to avoid any leaks. You would imagine that we'll get to hear the new engines at some point this year, but not just yet.

But that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the initial reaction to what is apparently a deeper, yet equally enjoyable noise is good.

Mercedes was quite clever to partially launch the audio of its new engine. Instead of letting Bernie Ecclestone continue to tell the world how bad the smaller turbo engines are going to sound, Merc jumped

on the front foot and generated some positive press.

"The engines are going to be loud, but I think sweet sounding," Andy Cowell, managing director of Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines was quoted by AUTOSPORT as saying at the launch.

"The frequency will be higher and, with the turbocharger, they will be loud. When you are stood next to it on the dyno it is not quiet and you need ear defenders.

"The engines will also deliver much more torque - especially on the exit of the corners. Cars with more power than grip coming out of the corners - that is something that we all enjoy."

Ear defenders. That's what us non-engineering folk might call earplugs.That's the key out of this whole thing for me.The day that earplugs at FI races become a thing of the past would be a said day for me. It's nice to know that day is a lot longer than 12 months away.

w

hile noise is very important to Formula 1, it's not important for every form of motorsport.

Just before Christmas, I took a day trip to Rome for the launch of the Italian capital's signing with the FIA Formula E Championship.

The result ofthe deal will be a Roman street race in 2014, which is set to be the all-electric championship's inaugural season.

It was a somewhat bizarre affair, which involved Lucas di Grassi driving the prototype car around the Colosseum, while us media sat on the back of a moving truck so we could get a good look.

I wouldn't blame you if you were a little skeptical about this whole Formula E thing, but while it certainly is ambitious, it's not without it's merits.

There are some significant portions ofthe project that make a lot of sense. Having McLaren on board as a technical partner,for instance, is a big plus.

And the cities seem genuinely interested, because there is no noise, and no pollution.The idea is that the'E-Prix'races will be staged

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Saturday evenings, on street circuits confined to inner cities (Rio and Rome are the only two cities to be announced, but apparently the calendar is almost completely set). Given that there will be a much lower environmental impact compared to, say F maki BEWWl BlEl than Th. tran: the t BBlil wou KKl BBtil the c E BElil HBI noisi IS E I518I Bu E E Biiaa take E E E

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di Grassi:“Maybe for the first time the driver will be able to hear the crowd,like a football player. That would be a new experience.

probably can't appreciate how much 'stuff'you innately know about your local area without having to think about it.

Many of these details are the little bricks that create routine, I recently togarbage a new city.

Unless you've done it, you like whatmoved day the is collected, and where the nearest supermarket is, and where you can get a haircut. Others are more abstract- you'd think that living somewhere new would expand your universe, but when you don't know the name of the next street over from yours, it feels like exactly the opposite.

Another thing that comes with living somewhere new is meeting people, which in turn ieads to questions about what you do for a living. Upon finding out that they're talking to someone who works in motorsport,a lot of people will follow up by asking whether we get to meet the drivers. Receiving an answer in the affirmative, they'll reply,'that must be fun!', it is, a iot of the time. It can also be frustrating, or bizarre. As a journalist, you occupy a weird place in the paddock. Hang around long enough,and you eventually build up a rapport with the drivers and team personnel; relationships that usually remain in the'friendly but professional'realm, although genuine friendships that endure beyond the confines of the racing season do occasionally develop. And yet despite these rapports,you're still just outside that circle of being truly connected to the sport itself. I could;easily sense the drama at Fontana last year when the Penske teaimrwl?trylng;to"repaii!rWi|liPower'SGras:hed«car:inthehopes

of rescuing the championship from Ryan Hunter-Reay's grasp. I'd gone so far as to leave the press room and head out to the garage area so that I could see their frantic scramble first-hand. But I had nothing to do with whether they actually succeeded or not, and nothing to gain or lose from their endeavours. As someone who has covered Power's career since he was racing Formula Fords against Will Davison and Jamie Whincup, I'd have been thrilled to see him with the title - but at the same time, it wouldn't have been my triumph to celebrate. Ron Dennis thought he was firing a broadside at some of the FI media a few years ago when he sneered that'we make history and you just,write about it', but in a sense, he was absolutely right.

Naturally, not all of my colleagues in the media centre would agree with me on this, but then Journalism of all forms can be subject to characters who forget that they are only the conduit for the story, rather than part of the story itself. And besides,this one degree of separation often facilitates some of the weirdest moments of life as a motorsport writer.To this day, I have no idea why I was asked to interview Ari Vaatanen on the London Eye a couple of years ago,although I vaguely recall him trying to use the expansive views from the top as some sort of metaphor for the approach that he'd take if elected to the FIA presidency.

You also occasionally find yourself In uncomfortable situations, although one was so commonplace that it became a rite of passage for some journalists who covered FI a few years ago.

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UNITED STATES OF ORIGIN Ferrari hosted a press conference with Jean Todt every Saturday afternoon during race weekends,and the Frenchman was renowned for having little patience for questions that he considered pointless. Given that he seemed to consider pretty much every declined. Could you please confirm this?". It seemed an innocuous question pointless, many of these encounters ended with him enough question to me, but it lit a firecracker under Todt. laying some verbal smackdown on whatever journalist had "HE SAID NO!" he shouted. "N-OI Do you not know this word? especially irritated him on that particular day. One of my former Perhaps i can find a dictionary for you. Next question." colleagues began treating it as a sport and actually started baiting As we walked out later, another journalist elbowed me. "Welcome him.This culminated in a memorable exchange where my colleague to the club," he said. kept pressing Todt on a matter than he was repeatedly denying -1 This is the stuff that people who imagine the life of a motorsport forget what exactly it was about - until Todt finally shouted,'I have journalist don't think about. Sometimes you get to do the sort of said no! Do you want me to write that down for you?'.To which my things that most people have to win contests to experience, like friend replied,'yes please', and handed him his notepad.The scrap of when I spent a day kicking around at Firebird Raceway near Phoenix paper with'NO![signed], Jean Todt'remained a trophy on the office with Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, and a lot of wall for a long time afterwards.

Camaros.

Sometimes you get a glimpse of a rare moment where My turn came at Monaco in about 2007.Todt had held a briefing someone with a huge profile completely lets their guard down, such with the Italian media earlier in the weekend,and I'd heard that he'd told them that Ferrari had offered Michael Schumacher a team as the time I inadvertently ended up at an intimate, private victory party for the winner of one of the world's biggest races; a party management role, but that he had refused. Working on the basis that consisted entirely of the driver, a dozen of his oldest, closest that it's better to get your own quotes than pinch someone else's friends, and one journalist who struggled to shake the sense that he ●'and runjhen throqgh GoogleTranslate, I simply wanted Todt to say really shouldn't have been there despite the driver's sincere efforts the same thing again in English. When the press conference rolled to make me feel welcome. And sometimes, you get shouted at by around, I stuck my hand in the air, and was given a microphone: 1. It's the fact that such surreal moments short, cranky Fre «Mf Todt,.l understand that you told the Italian press that Michael - come with the territoryfhat makes the job so interesting. was offered a management role within the team, but that he

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After a season in which he won his second Sprint Cup race, Marcos Ambrose is taking stock of his career. He told PHIL BRANAGAN about life with Richard Petty Motorsport, NASCAR’s new 2Q13 cars and why he thinks he is in career-best form HERE do you start an interview with Marcos Ambrose?

On the fact of it,finishing 18th in the 2012 Sprint Cup points, one spot up on his 2011 result, may have been a disappointment. In his second year at Richard Petty Motorsports, a more settled environment might have led to expectations that he was capable of more.

16

But the moment of the season for Ambrose and according to some,one of the greatest finishes in any race during 2012 - came at Watkins Glen. Ambrose came from behind to pass both Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski in a wild,take-no-prisoners war that saw the Tasmanian take his second career Cup win. In doing so, he ties with Juan Pablo Montoya for the most wins by a foreign-born Sprint Cup

driver. One more to either man sets a new record.

So,Watkins Glen sounded like a pretty good place to start...

MOTORSPORT NEWS:The Glen,the final laps, you and Busch and Keselowski. In terms of you career highlights, how far up does that rank?

MARCOS AMBROSE:It is definitely a motorsport news

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highlight! It is something that a lot of people have spoken about.

When you are behind the wheel of the car, it is a different sensation.To be honest with you, up until the last lap, I was pretty mad at myself! I had let Brad get past me and I could not catch Kyle! I thought,'! might have blown this here!'

But to come back over the last couple of laps and snatch the win, it was a real blur.

Behind the wheel, it all seemed simple: I had to push hard to try to get the win. Outside the car, the people had a much different reaction to it.

But; definitely, yes, a highlight. Winning in a Cup race is not easy. I think that I proved that with my losing streak! When

a win comes around, you have to take it and enjoy it.

MN:It was such a good race to watch and by the time you got into Victory Lane, you were still pretty amped. Obviously from the team point of view, any win is great. But this was old-style, knock'em down road racing.

MA:Yeah it was, but there were some special circumstances.There was a lot of oil down on the track,the drivers seemed to be confused, NASCAR was confused and it was just chaos.

They were exceptional circumstances and some of the best drivers in the world were duking it out and I was lucky to come out on top. You had to deal with everything knowing that there was no certainty that I

was going to make it around the next corner!

I was just glad that the chequered flag fell when it did!

MN:That was exactly how it looked on TV everyone had given it everything that they had.

MA:And that is what makes the sport great.

You just have to throw it all down to have any chance of winning.

So much for the win. Now for the Big Picture.

MN:There has been a lot of discussion in the media about the state of NASCAR at the moment. Ratings have been down in recent years and at some of the tracks at least, 17

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spectator numbers are down as well. How is NASCAR looking from the cockpit?

MA:Certainly, all sports in America have been affected by the economy. NASCAR is no different.

I think that the sport went through a bubble around 2005-'06-'07, where sponsorship dollars were at an all-time high, crowd attendance was at an all-time high. When the economy tanked, it made the sport regress. It happened quite quickly and it prompted people to try to get it back to normal.

Ticket prices were getting out of hand.

For a family of four to go to the races it was costing over $1000 in tickets and accommodation. People just cannot afford that any more. We have seen it in all sports; baseball,football, even things like tennis, basketball and the NFL. No one has been immune.

In NASCAR's case, they had brought in a car, the COT(Car of Tomorrow)that was a lot different in its look and its performance.

Sponsorship dollars became hard to find at the same time as the money from the fans.

But I believe that it has turned a corner.

I think that the tracks are getting more aggressive, and they are fighting to make it more affordable for the fans. For TV,the races run for a long time, but it seems that these days, everyone wants everything in 30-second grabs. It is easy now, particularly for kids,to go onto YouTube and watch the last three offour minutes of a race - or, to go online and watch the highlights. But, I believe that the American sports fan is still into NASCAR. I have seen no reason to doubt that. But it is possible that they are now following it in a different way.

NASCAR and V8 Supercars both face 2013 seasons with a new generation of cars.Time to go there.

MN:You mentioned the Car of Tomorrow.

How positive a step is the new car, which is in for 2013, going to be for the future of NASCAR? MA:Well, it certainly looks a lot better!

The reaction for the fans has been really good but there are still a few rules that have not been set yet. I think that we are about 80 percent done.There are still final touches being put together on the platform, but there are still some of the rules by which we run the cars that are still to be set.

So far as final performance goes, we still do not quite know where we will be. But the

basic specification of the car looks to be a lot better. It looks like a better race car; it has more downforce,so we will be going faster in the corners,there is no doubt about that.The early testing of the car proved that we could already run faster and get down to lap record pace and I think that is a trend that is going to continue as we get closer to the season.

MN:It seems from this distance that the most important part of the new cars is that the look of them connects with the fans.

MA: I think that is a fair point.

There are going to be some major points of difference between the manufacturers.

One of the sticking points of the current cars with the fans is that a Ford,a Chevrolet and a Toyota all look the same.They have

some characteristics that look a little different, but I think that the fans have been really looking for some more differences than the current cars.

And there are lots of changes In Ford's NASCAR program,after a tough 12 months.

Why? MN:The 2012 season was not a great one for Ford. We saw a great season in'll, when Carl Edwards pushed Tony Stewart so hard for the Sprint Cup, but the Ford teams fell away last year. What happened in Fordland?

MA:It was a year of change.

Penske coming on board for 2013 is a big thing for Ford Racing.To allow that to happen,they had to make room in their budget and some teams, like RPM,and I am

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sure, other Ford teams,felt the rough end of that. It is a period in which Ford is changing the way that they go racing.

We are a two-car team that is affiliated to Roush [Roush Fenway Racing]. We have been working diligently with Roush and with Ford and we are looking forward to working with Penske to see how we can be immediately n better. It will be a challenge.

Results may have been a little bit light-on this year[2012] with the car count.There are four or five really big Chevrolet teams and, probably,three really big Toyota teams, and I think that Roush and RPM were fighting an uphill battle when you look at those car counts.

point out, there has been the link with Roush for chassis engineering and Roush-Yates for engine supply. Flow will Penske fit into the Ford teams'arrangements?

MA:We will be running their aero platform.

That, obviously, helps a lot. We will be able to get a really good reference point, and it will be a good yardstick to measure performance.

I am looking forward to seeing how that process goes.

Obviously, we are a couple of steps away from the top step. For Ford Racing, all the engineering that goes into these cars from a manufacturer level is obviously valuable. I am looking forward to seeing what comes down the pipe and making the most of it.

MN:Since RPM has been with Ford, as you

MN:When you made the decision to Jump

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out of JTG [Daugherty Racing], there wasn't really anything solid to land on. RPM was still in the process of sorting out its program.

Now two years later, it looks like a solid and stable team.There must be a high degree of satisfaction of a. making the right call at the time and b. having contributed to the situation that the team is now in.

MA: First, I feel like my time at JTG was fantastic.They helped me get to where I was but I needed to make a change. I was running out of time to get the job done,to get where I wanted to go. I needed to shake things up,to see where I was at.

Joining RPM,and to drive for Richard Petty, was by no means a certainty when I asked to be released from my contract. It is probably fate; when I wanted to come here, I took a

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risk. It paid off.That is the way that I have run my life, and run my races. I am not afraid to make a hard decision when I need to because I feel like, within myself,they have been the right choices to make.They have been right for me; whether they make sense to anyone else,the risk/reward, does not really matter to me. It felt right and I felt like I needed to make a change,to get myself up and into a premier team.

MN:When you were racing karts in Launceston driving for a team owned by Richard Petty must have been close to the last think that crossed your mind.

MA:Yeah, it was!

You can, kind of, get lost in all that too.

We are racing all the time. It is go, go, go. and it is not rea lly until you spend some time with Richard, or some time with his family, that you realise what a remarkable opportunity, and an honour, it is to drive for someone like him.

It's the same with having driven for Ross and Jimmy Stone. I look back at those years and I am really proud that I was able to drive for them. I have been lucky to drive for good team owners, and I am looking forward to getting The King where he wants to be in 2013.

MN: What have you learned from Richard Petty?

MA: The biggest thing is, when people ask me that question, is to realise that not much has changed. What it was that he was struggling with in 1960-whatever is the same thing that we are struggling with today. motorsport news

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What we use to define winning,and glory and failure, in racing cars has not changed.

You need to push it as hard as you can, as a group, without going over the edge.The more that I hear him talk about the old days, and what happened and what he did,the more respect that i have for him and the more I realise that it is the same today as what it was 30 or 40 years ago.The difference is, we are going faster!

MN:I guess that is the same the world over NASCAR,V8s, Formula 1 ...

MA:It really is.

Richard has done a lot and seen a lot and I need to listen to him when he talks - as a person, as a race car driver, as anyone else. I love hearing the stories he and [former crew chief] Dale Inman tell.[Having]two Hall-ofFamers under one roof is great.

Now it's time to segue, perhaps, into the future.

MN:If I can go back a little while,to the announcement that you were staying with RPM for 2013. It is a one-year deal. Why is it a one-year deal?

MA: No, it is a two-year deal, but I have an option. If I decide that I have come to the end of my journey here ... [trails off].

It is really about a work/life balance. I have had a-great time here in America, with all that I have got.The team is getting better and I want to take the opportunity to take it as far as I can. If I get to the other side, if I get tired or get too old, or I think that the opportunity is not what I thought it was, or I don't want to be here ... I have the opportunity to keep moving forward.

I am at that point where I am no spring chicken! I am not old either -1 am in my prime! I Just want to make the most ofit, whatever I am doing.There was a lot of uncertainty at RPM but I feel good about the choices that they have made. I am looking forward to making RPM the best team that they can be.

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MN:The word'motivation'comes to mind, and that word has been talked about in Australian motor racing quite a bit recently because Shane van Gisbergen has stepped away, at least temporarily. Is your motivation still intact?

MA:Yeah, I have no problems with that. I will be racing something, Phil, until I die! I don't have any problems with that, I love what I do. I am very aware that I have my family over here, and we are going to come home when the racing finishes. You just have to be smart about the choices that you make,and I have always raced hard. In NASCAR, you race 36 weekends a year, and it is hard on your family. It Is harder on ours, because we are away from our grandparents and cousins, and things like that.

So I am just keen to make sure that we are here for the right reasons - that I have a motorsport news

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chance to win and keep improving.That is really my mindset. I have no doubt about my confidence or commitment. My motivation is intact; I am living the dream!

But I need to be realistic about the worklife balance. I don't want to get crushed over here. I do not want to stay beyond my time.

MN: In that same media release, Richard Petty commented on the importance of you winning an oval race. Does that statement leave open the door; if you do achieve that goal, does that tick the last box on your list?

MA:Yeah. It Is really frustrating that I have 24

not been able to do it yet.

I will be really disappointed if I leave the US without winning a Sprint Cup race on an oval - and more than one. I have been in a position to win a lot of them but I have just not been able to close the deal. It Is a question, no doubt. It has been a lot tougher than I Imagined. But I want to get the job done.

Richard Petty believes in me.We are one of the smaller two-car teams; we are not a powerhouse. We have got the tools to enable me to get wins on ovals and that is what we will do. I am excited about it but I am not

five laps. It seems that everyone else teams up and you get shuffled back.

MA: At the end? I don't know.We have had a fair share of dramas.

Sometimes it is circumstances.Sometimes the track goes away from you. It can come down to experience too. You can't snag one of these wins; you have to earn them. If you can't run top five, you can't be there at the end and that is what we have just not done..

We have not been able to run up frorit, fast enough,to put ourselves in a position to win. enough.That is the art of it.

The best drivers in NASCAR win two. maybe three, races in 10.That is a 20,30 percent strike rate, and that can win you the . championship. We have Just had enough speed, race-to-race,to be in a position where the races go our way.

MN:You mentioned that you ALWAYS want to race. When you are not a NASCAR driver any more, there are some classic races out there - Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring. Do they take your fancy?

MA:Yeah. Even just the local kart races do too!

It does not really worry me. I have raced in a lot of big races. I have raced under a lot of pressure. I don't need that. I just race for the thrill of It. We will see. Right now, I am In NASCAR and that Is everything. It Is dominant In our lives, and it will be that way until I retire from NASCAR. And then, we will see where it takes us.

MN:Your daughters are seven and five elementary school age. Do you still want them educated in Australia? motorsport news

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MA:Yeah, I guess I want to get them educated in Australia. We have a bit of time left, before that, before they have to go to high school. I have always been honest about that. Nothing has really changed.

And, maybe,a return to V8 Supercars post-NASCAR? MN:In Australia, Marcos, we have a pretty strong domestic series, interest?

MA:[Laughs] Sure. Never say never to anything! Right now, I am fully focused on NASCAR and when I am not, I will look at my options. We had a great time when I was there last time.

MN:Winter in Charlotte. Does it make summer in Australia sound good?

MA:It does.This is the second time we have stayed in North Carolina for Christmas.

I don't feel that great about it right now; I feel a bit flat. I feel like I should be home, with my family, with my dad. But it is a big off-season, with a new car and a lot of testing. It was the right thing to do,to stay here and make our very best effort to start off 2013 the right way.

We will take it as it comes.There will be plenty of time to have Australian summers later on when the NASCAR thing slows down.

MN:Realistically, if you win more than one race, your goal for'13 must be to make The Chase.

MA:Yes, winning races and making The Chase.

MN:A road race win, plus one oval win puts you in Wildcard contention. Or,that would not be far away from making it in on points.

MA:You are right.There are TWO road races!

There are a few ways to make it in, but the best way is to be faster than everyone.else. ' That is what Our goal is; I have a new crew chief, I have a lot of motivation, and I want to come out of the blocks fast and aggressive.

We will see how it goes.

You can only do your best. You put your head down and go for it and hopefully, things will go our way.

MN:ls it still fun?

MA:Oh yeah! It's a lot of work, don't get me wrong,and it is a long, long year.There is a lot of travel and an awful lot of responsibility and risk.There is a lot offocus needed.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.This is the biggest form of racing in the world,in my opinion, with definitely the most fans.

MN:Found any gold lately?[Ambrose took up panning for gold some years ago.]

MA: 1 have slowed down a little bit on that!

Kids and racing have put that in the back seat.

But is it always good to have a Plan B, right? If racing doesn't work out, I will go out as much as I can and try to make some money. motorsport news

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T'S natural that some people still pine for the good old days.

By good old days, I mean the era where reaching Formula 1 was supposedly based more on ability than it was on bank balance. Of course,that was never strictly the case. It has always taken money to reach the pinnacle of our sport, it's just that in a world before tobacco advertising bans and economic crises, that money was a bit easier to come by. If you had the talent, the chances were that the funding would sort itself out.

That might not be the case anymore, but it's not all doom and gloom. Despite the increasing need for youngsters to have family money to get anywhere beyond Formula Ford,there is still a heck of a lot of fresh open-wheeler talent floating around Europe at the moment.To prove it, we had our Euro correspondent Andrew van Leeuwen pick out 10 young guns with FI star potential that are worth watching in 2013.

In no particula''r order, here they are;

There are few drivers outside Formula 1 more exciting thanofAntonio Felix da Costa.

For starters, he's the latest in a reasonably long line of drivers to use Red Bull support to clamber their way up the motor racing ladder. If you go well, that's always a good thing -just ask Daniel Ricciardo.

But what's really impressive about Felix da Costa isn't that he's in Red Bull's good books, but just that he's really, really fast.

Felix da Costa's 2012 season was quite remarkable. His primary objective was to race in GPS with Carlin, and he finished the season third in the points with three wins.

He might have been beaten to the big trophy by Mitch Evans and Daniel Abt, but while those two were focused solely on GPS, Felix da Costa found himself with double the work load after Lewis Williamson was unceremoniously dumped frorh'the Red Bull program three rounds into the Formula Renault S.5 season.The vacant Arden seat was thrown Felix da Costa's way,and he stepped up to the

plate, winning four ,races and finishing fourth in the points despite missing those three rounds at the start of the year.

But his crowning achievement from 2012 was the Macau Grand Prix. Having just dominated the Formula 1 young driver test in Abu Dhabi for Red Bull Racing, Felix da Costa stepped back to Formula 3 for the Macau race, first having to'qualify'for the race in a second-tier F3 Cup race at Snetterton, where he was on pole by more than nine'seconds. It wasn't quite so easy when he got to Macau, but he was still the class of the field, taking an emotional win to cap off a remarkableseason.

Felix da Costa recently re-signed with Arden for this year's FR3.5 season, and will start the season as a clear favourite. If he can live up to the hype and feature heavily on the winner's list, then there every chance he'll be in a Toro Rosso car for 2014.That means that neither Ricciardo nor Jean-Eric Vergne can afford to have a bad season.

tiUDADE

Antonio Felix da Costa Nationality - Portuguese Age-21 2012- Macau Grand Prix winner 2013 - Formula Renault 3.5

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ob Frijns took everyone by surprise when he emerged as a real player in the 2012 FR3.5 season.

Nationality - Dutch Stepping up from two-litre Formula Renaults with Fortec,the young Dutchman was never Age-21 expected to be a title contender. But he went out and won on debut at the first round at 2012- Formula Renault 3.5 Champion Aragon. By the middle of the season he was tied at the top of the points table with the vastly 2013- Reserve driver for Sauber experienced Sam Bird, before wrangling the title from Ferrari Junior Jules Bianchi at the last round.

He may have been a relatively unknown at the start of the 2012 season, but that certainly wasn't the case by year's end. His raw pace put him on the map as a driver, although n his natural confidence and outgoing driving style apparently rubbed a few of his fellow competitors the wrong way.

The most noteworthy example of Frijns clashing (pun intended) with those around him was the season finale in Barcelona, where the title was decided by a now infamous shunt between he and Bianchi. Sparked by a rather ambitious passing move from Frijns, the incident left Bianchi fuming,and a bit of a cloud hanging over Frijns'title.

Despite the crash, Frijns showed that he is a star of the future in 2012, a point proven when Sauber, a team famous as talent spotters, signed him as a development driver for 2013.

"Monitoring Robin's racing career makes it easy to spot his potential,"said Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn upon Frijns'signing.

"This was the reason we gave hirh the chance to drive the Sauber C31 -Ferrari at the Young Driver Days in Abu Dhabi. He managed this very well. We will now carefully guide him to |l^ Formula 1.This is a long way, but Robin has got the skills to do that successfully."

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Vaitteri Sottas Nationality - Finnish Age - 23 2012- Reserve driver for Williams 2013-Formula 1 race driver for Williams

raceVaitteri driver for Williams for the as 2013 That Bottas was named a season was hardly a surprise.

Instead of putting him in a FR3.5 orGP2

seat for last season,the team elected to

F3 winner, a former GP3 Champion, and

focus the young Finn's attention on FI, forcing Bruno Senna to miss a bunch of free practice sessions while Bottas racked up the miles.

As a result, Bottas will face two challenges this season. Not only will he race an FI car for the first time, but he'll

clearly has the full backing of the big guns at Grove.

do so after a year out of the (full-time) saddle. Is he up to it? Only time will tell, although Bottas is a two-time Masters of

"Vaitteri is quite simply one of the most talented young racing drivers i have come across and we expect great things from him in the future,"said Frank Williams late last year. If he's right, and Vaitteri brings some of the consistency to the table that Pastor Maldonado so desperately lacks, then they could be a heck of a duo.

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You don't beChilton's a geniusseat to at work outhave that to Max Marussia would have been conditional on bringing a budget.

But beware simple writing him off as a pay driver. Given his decent CV, which includes two feature wins in GP2 last year, he's not entirely out of place in a team like Marussia. Is he the next Sergio Perez? It's far too early to know that, but if he works hard and can match, or beat,Timo Glock for pace (as Charles Pic did last year), he 30

could well go on to bigger and better things.

Of course, in this age of restricted testing,from the outside it is so difficult to judge if a rookie is ready to step up to Formula 1. But Marussia boss John Booth is talking the talk when it comes to the young Brit.

"We spent a significant amount of time evaluating his performances during 2012,' said Booth when he signed Chilton.

"We felt confident enough in his ability

and potential to appoint him to the role of reserve driver in September and since that time his development has been rapid in all aspects. Most recently, in Abu Dhabi, he was put to the test in a competitive environment which included providing him with an opportunity to demonstrate his outright pace and consistency over a single lap."

Is Booth right? Or is Chilton just a budget with a helmet? Either way, his debut in Melbourne will be worth watching.

motorsport news

Mitch Evans

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KUMHO TYRES

Nationality - New Zealand Age - 18 2012-GPS Champion 2013-GP2

Motorsports End of Year Motorsport Stocktake Sale Pattern ..macrni A

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n lieu of there being any young Australians on the brink of Formula 1 at the moment, Mitch Evans is a very exciting prospect for us Antipodeans. He may not actually be Australian, but if all goes well there could be a Crowded House-spec adoption on the cards.

Evans has a couple of things going for him. Firstly(and most importantly), he's very fast.

Secondly, he has the backing of Mark Webber. For the last two seasons Evans has driven for Webber's GPS team,the partnership resulting in the 2012 title. And the relationship goes beyond the standard driver/team owner thing, with Webber and his cbmmercially savvy partner Ann Neal taking a genuine vested interest in Evans'career. ' "Ann and I have absolutely loved it," Webber told FI Racing in a recent interview."It comes with its challenges and responsibilities, but we wouldn't want it any other way.

"He's absolutely got what it takes to make it to FI. He's got some polishing to do because of his age and because some of the guys have got a bit more experience than him, but I believe he can go ail the way - he has a great personality and a lot of tenacity."

As the reigning GP3 Champion,the logical next step for Evans is GP2. He's sticking with Arden, and like some of the other guys on this list, that consistency could well be a big plus.

Jazemann Jaafar Nationality - Malaysian Age - 20 2012-2nd in British F3 2013- Formula Renault 3.5

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for your nearest Kumho Motorsport Dealer National Enquiries A(

WithInJazemann Jaafar, Malaysia might justanother have a real in the making. other words, Jaafar is not necessarily Alexstar Yoong.

Coming off the back of a stellar season in British F3, where he finished second after taking the fight right up to winner Jack Harvey,there's genuine signs that the 20-year-old from KL is more than Just a cash cow.

Of course, money is important at this stage of a young driver's career, and Jaafar does have the backing to support his ability and ambitions. He's part of the Petronas family, with the Malaysian oil giant fully behind progression through the junior ranks. And they've decided that FR3.5 is the way to go for the new year, eiecting to keep him at Carlin, the same team that gave him his F3 success in 2012.

That consistency could well be key. While the step up from F3 to FR3.5 is a big one, doing it in a familiar environment will ease the transition - something that's not lost on Jaafar himself.

"I'm very excited to be making the move up to Formula Renault 3.5 with Carlin, which is obviously a team I know very well," he said."Making the transition to FR3.5 has been easier because I've done it within Carlin and I already feel comfortable in the car."

In summary,Jaafar is well placed in one of the best team's going in the sub-FI ranks, and has the backing of a company with strong ties to Grand Prix racing. It all bodes well. www.mnews.com.au

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Jack Harvey Nationality - British Age-19 2012- British F3 Champion 2013-GPS here's no reason why Jack Harvey can't be a genuine title contender in Tthis year's GP3 Series.

At the tender age of 19, Harvey proved himseif as a heck of a driver during a tough fought 2012 British F3 season, overcoming his Cariin team-mate Jaafar to win the titie thanks to seven race wins.The titie win put Harvey on the map,and earned him the ongoing support of the Racing Steps Foundation,the British version of the AMSF that has recentiy helped Oliver Turvey find his way to being a McLaren test driver.

For 2013, Harvey will join the ART-run Lotus GPS squad, which has a solid history in the series. And according to team boss Frederic Vasseur, the team sees Harvey as the man that can bring them another title.

"Despite his young age. Jack's achievements and personality convinced us he has all the qualities needed to succeed in the GPS Series, where our aim in 2013 will be to return to the first place we lost in the drivers championship last year after two consecutive titles with Esteban Gutierrez and Vaitteri Bottas,"hesaid.

□aniel Abl;

Nationality - German Age - 20 2012-2nd in GP3 2013-GP2

A

s the GP3 Vice Champion, GP2 was always going to be the next stop for Daniel Abt. it makes sense, and it makes sense that he'll be doing it with Lotus ART, the same team that took him so close to the GP3 title /Wararjort.

in 2012. Like Jafaar, that consistency could prove key as Abt acclimatises himself to faster machinery.

How will he go? That's a good question.

Yes, he was fast in GPS last year (two race wins), but, curiously, he struggled to shine during a one-off F3 comeback in Macau with Carlin, having gone into the event as one of the favourites.

Despite his mysteriously disappointing pace in Macau, Abt can clearly drive. And Lotus ART boss Vasseur reckons he's ready to make the step.

"His mind, his raw talent and his ability to adapt and grow convinced Lotus GP to help him take the step up into the GP2 Series," said Vasseur.

"He will have a professional environment that he already knows and which has the culture of winning."

32

motorsport news

Carlas Sainz Junior Nationality - Spanish Age-18 2012-6th in British F3 2013-GP3

But he s more than just the son of a two-time World Rally Champion.

Sainz Junior is the real deal,and has shown as much with some fantastic drives in Formula Renault 2.0 and British/Euro F3 over the last couple of seasons.

Now, he's got a big chance in the form of a plum GP3 drive with current champions MW Arden. Fle'll start the season as one of the title favourites. and why not? Fle's got the pace, he knows how to win, and he's well embedded in the Red Bull Junior program.

If that GPS car suits Sainz Junior, and he finds that he adapts to it quickly,then it could be a rookie year to watch.

Kevin Magnussen

Nationality - Danish Age - 20 2012-7th in Formula Renault 3.5 2013 - Formula Renault 3.5

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www.mnews.com.au

J

Frijns has already publicly that he thinks theand 2013 FR3.5 season will come down to a fightstated between Felix da Costa Kevin Magnussen, and it's hard to disagree.

Magnussen hasn't won a major title since Danish Formula Ford back in '08.

But he's been close; second in Formula Renault NEC,third in German F3, and second in British F3.

He's also already won in a FR3.5 car, at Spa-Francorchamps nonetheless.

Combine that with a switch to DAMS,and it's not unreasonable to think that Magnussen could be right up there.

"He's a very gifted, quick driver, as he demonstrated this year,"said Jean-Paul Driot, DAMS CEO. "Our collaboration has begun in the best possible fashion and we have common objectives, namely victories to put us in a position to fight for the title. I hope, and indeed I'm convinced, that we can achieve them together."

Already part of the McLaren system, a good 2013 season could see Magnussen well on his way to becoming a second-generation FI driver.

33

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©^ the pole:Andretti's first FI:start wasfrom pole position dt Watkins Glen in t968,main. With Colin Chapman at Monza in 1968,above.

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T first glance, Hatsfieid, Pennsylvania appears every bit the archetypal Anytown, USA. It's th e sort of place that could have provided the backdrop for countless TV family dramas or itcoms;the type that Matt Groening leaned on for inspiration when he dreamed up the Simpson's home of Springfield.

Its Wikipedia entry describes an average sort of demographic across its 3000-strong population, and notes that it was the hometown offormer Dallas Cowboys offensive tackle Jim Molinaro.The lead stories on Hatsfield's website report the construction of a new bridge, and a dog winning a local fancy dress contest.(The dog was wearing a bikini).

There's no mention that the town's fairgrounds used to house a

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www.mnews.com.au

small speedway, which wavered between half-mile and third-mile in length, and between dirt and paving for its surface, during its four decades of service between 1922 and 1966. But on Monday, September 2,1963 - the Labor Day public holiday - 23-year-old Mario Andretti was sitting on the Hatfield grid in his threequarter midget, having just made one small piece of history, and contemplating an idea that would lead to a much bigger one.

"That was the day I won three feature races in one day," recalls Andretti.[ED: He won one race in Flemington, New Jersey, and then drove 50km to Hatsfieid to win two more]."It was the first time it had ever been done in Midgets. I was on the grid for the last race, and you know what I was thinking? 1 was thinking of Dan Gurney in Formula 1. 1 don't know why, but 1 Just had the thought that I should be in Formula 1.'

Andretti's formative years are well-documented, but for those who missed it, here's a primer. Both Mario and his twin brother Aldo had been car-mad for literally longer than they can remember - their mother spoke of the pair pretending to drive around the kitchen when they were two. A pre-teen Mario's intrigue deepened as he absorbed clips of grand prix racing during intermissions at the movies, and became permanently ingrained when he had the opportunity to watch two-time world champion Alberto Ascari on a stretch of the Mille Miglia in 1954.

A year later, the family moved to the USA, and Andretti was quick to take advantage of the half-mile dirt track in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, running a modified 1948 Hudson Hornet Sportsman.

His career developed over the decade that followed, culminating in his Indianapolis 500 debut in 1965. He'd finish third and take rookie of the year honours, but that Month of May would have even more far-reaching implications. Less than two years earlier, he'd decided that he needed to be in FI. And now, he was sharing the paddock at Indy with the works Lotus team spearheaded by Jim Clark and run by Colin Chapman. Andretti spied an opportunity.

"I really wanted to befriend both of them,"Andretti says."And I was doing well [in Champ Car], so they had noticed me. And we went to a couple of[pre-race] events together - I'd been the quickest rookie through practice and all that, and Jim went to some events because he was rookie ofthe year the year before,so it was like he was passing on the torch.

"Atone point I said to Colin,'My aspiration is to do Formula 1 someday'. And it was typical Colin - he said,'Mario, when you think you're ready, call me. I'll have a car for you'. That was the greatest day of my life."

The fine print in Chapman's invitation was the part about a car being available only when Andretti thought he was ready. As a guy who, at that point, had spent his entire career turning left, it didn't take a great leap to spot what skills he needed to add to his arsenal before getting into an FI car.There was a minor problem in that Champ Car was entirely run on ovals during that period, but Andretti concocted a two-step solution.

"I felt that I really needed road racing experience,so I lobbied for road racing to become part ofthe [IndyCar] series," he says."I was instrumental in getting the first road race in IndyCars in 1965 at RP [Raceway Park, Indianapolis], it was the only race I won that season, but I won the championship in my very first year."

A one-from-one strike rate in Champ Car road races was an encouraging start, but it hardly qualified as requisite preparation for a career in FI.That's when Andretti put the second phase of his plan into action.

"I had a good relationship with Ford, and they were very strongly involved in the Le Mans programme,in developing the MKII and the Mk IV, and I expressed interest in doing that. So they rang me,and I said 'I want to do every test, including the 24 hour simulations. No Italian Stallion:Andretti's Ferrari in 1970 at Kyalami,left. A year later he would score his first grand prix win at the South African venue.

It was Colin Chapman who brought Andretti to FI, top left, and a decade on they would share world championship honours.

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND TRICKERY CHAMP Cars of the couldtobe fairlylessons crude things, Mario Andretti still1960s managed apply that hebut learned in the US to his Formula 1 career.

"You could always learn something, by going to different disciplines ofthe sport," he says."When I started in Formula 1,a lot of people looked at me and said,'oh, an American driver; wait until it's wet'. Yet I had some of my best races in the wet. You know why?

Because I was used to car control in changing conditions from the dirt tracks.

"Experience is experience,and there is a crossover. I brought over some ofthe technical side about staggers to Formula 1.1 was the only one in Formula 1 who understood that -1 didn't explain 36

it to Colin [Chapman], because it was my thing.The car would start square, and say it was a clockwise circuit, it would have more corners to the right than to the left, and I would have a slightly bigger left-rear - say a tenth,two-tenths in circumference. And I would use different air pressure. Just like on an oval, you had more demands on one side than on the other. I brought in my old tyre man from the States - who is still alive today - and he is the only one who could prepare my sets. He marked all my sets, and that's where the marking started."

Andretti's team-mates never cottoned on to what he was doing, but even if they had, he's not convinced that they could have adopted it fully. motorsport news

AT ONE POINT

3 KEYS TO VIDEO CAPTURE

I SAID TO COLIN, ASPIRATION IS TO DO

Formula 1 someday’. And IT WAS TYPICAL COLIN HE SAID, ‘Mario, when YOU THINK YOU’RE READY, CALL ME. driver wanted to do that. And I latched onto Bruce McLaren like he was my long-lost brother. He was a very technical driver, and I really wanted to learn that side of it. We had infinite conversations. I felt that I had the high-speed stuff pretty well handled, but I needed some of that technique."

McLaren and Andretti combined to win Sebring in 1967, and by T midway through the next year, the American felt that the time had come to make a trans-Atlantic phone call.

"I called Colin and said,Td like to do the last two races. I'd like to do Monza and Watkins Glen'," Andretti says.

Chapman was on board immediately, entering a third Lotus 49 to run Andretti alongside Graham Hill and Jackie Oliver. He also scheduled a test at Monza to get his new signing up to speed - a process that Andretti says didn't take long.

"We went to Monza two weeks before the race, and I immediately felt right at home in the car," he says."The single-seaters I had driven up to that point were all the IndyCars, which were, like, double-duty - they were all very clumsy, heavy. When I got to Monza, it was like the Formula 1 car was just made for me."

Andretti's sense of ease was backed up by the stopwatch. Ferrari's Chris Amon had broken Monza's track record while testing a week earlier; Andretti set a new benchmark in his first run with Lotus.

With the Italian Grand Prix just a fortnight away, Andretti's debut could not have seemed more promising. But his plan to dovetail the Monza race with his'day job'in Champ Car left him exposed to a classic piece of FI subterfuge. At the time, the FIA had a rule that drivers could not race in two FIA-sanctioned events within 24 hours; a regulation introduced after Fangio attempted to contest non-championship FI races at Dundrod and Monza on consecutive days in 1952. After missing his flight to Italy, the Argentine drove through the night and arrived at Monza half an hour before the race start, although the consequent fatigue led him to crash heavily and suffer injuries that sidelined him for the rest of the year.

Andretti was already committed to race at the Hoosier Hundred at the Indianapolis State Fairground the day before the Italian GP. At the time, the USAC race was FIA-sanctioned, which meant that he'd fall foul of the 24 hour rule if he attempted to start at Monza.

"They had no idea," he says. "But you couldn't just use the tyres, you had to adjust the chassis. Just putting them on wouldn't make any difference. The car was cross-weighted. You had to do it by feel - you couldn't do it on the scale. I used to do installation laps, come in, and say, 'Colin, two flats up, two flats down on the rear spring'. He'd say, 'why are you doing that?'. I'd say, 'please, just do it'. Then he'd get a kick out of it.

"I also had another trick with the front tie-rods; an Akerman trick that very few people really understood. I used to extend the'Akerman on one side over the other to have one wheel open up more than the other on the most important corners.

I did that right up to my last days in IndyCar. Even at Ferrari, I used to have them change the length of my tie-rods. It would maintain the same toe-in, but it would lengthen the tie-rods enough so that one wheel opened up more than the other."

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"I made a deal with the head of the Automobile Club d'ltalia, which was connected to the FIA, and the organiser of Monza that they would waive the 24 hour rule," he says. "I would qualify Friday, fly back to the States on Saturday, and then come back to Monza to race. I had arranged it all perfectly."

Indeed, the first part of the scheme went off without a hitch.

Practice laps counted toward qualifying, so Andretti put the hammer down at Monza on Friday morning. Fie had to leave the track at 2:30pm to make the flight to Indianapolis, and at that point, he was fastest by 1.1 s thanks to a tow from BRM's Bobby Unser. Fie finished second to AJ Foyt in the Floosier Flundred, and by 8:30 Sunday morning he was back at Milan's Malpensa airport.That's when things started to go sour.

"We get to the track - that's a story in itself- and my car was already on the grid, but they said that they would not allow me to compete," Andretti says."I didn't know, but Ferrari had protested the 24 hour rule. And at that point, I was seventh on the grid.There was a meeting going on as I arrived there, and Colin Chapman was the only one who couldn't speak Italian at the meeting.

"I said,"l should be able to go and defend myself at the meeting. I'll submit myself to a full physical, check my vital signs and everything, and if you don't think I'm fit I'll step aside. But I didn't get to start. I just went straight back to the States. We were so upset, but that's Just the way it was."

Andretti's only consolation came from the fact that he now had a 'home debut'at Watkins Glen to look forward to instead, although he'd never actually seen the circuit before he arrived for the race weekend.

And although the Monza weekend had been a write-off from a racing perspective, Andretti found a way to put his Italian track time to good use.

; ; doing that? It's impossible'. But with the older tyres, you didn't get as much flexing, so the tyre was more consistent."

Andretti beat Jackie Stewart to pole by 0.07s, and although his race ended early due to a broken clutch, the ball had been set rolling.

One world championship and 12 grand prix wins later, the plan that Andretti had hatched in a dusty fairground in Pennsylvania had been executed to perfection. You'd have to think that the 12-yar-old Mario, watching the clips of Ascari and Farina during intermissions at the cinema, would have approved.

Versatile: Through his career Andretti managed to combine F1 ~ with Indycar and other events, below. With the help of Lotus' new ground effects technology, Andretti was crowned world champion in 1978, above.

.T

V

V.. r

One thing I learned in testing at Monza was, we were running grooved tyres, and the more we ran the tyres down, the quicker I got," he says."So at the Glen, in qualifying on the Friday everybody kept putting new tyres on. But I kept running the same set of tyres. On Saturday, for the last part of qualifying, I put on the tyres that had the most wear on them, and put it on pole. Hill said, 'How the fuck is he 38

motorsport news

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50 Years of Bathurst-2012 marks 50 Years since an endurance race for standard production cars was first run at Bathurst in 1003,iaying the toundation for what wouid soon hecome the icon event of the Austraiian motor racing caiendar. Come with us as we take a nostaigic took at the track,the cars,the stars and the charac ters that have made the annuat Bathurst 1000 ....The Great Race. ^

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2 When Murphy docked his lap of the gods 3 When Lowndes fought the tears to win Peter’s first trophy 4 When Dick hit the trees S When Jim called them a pack of a***holes G When Tender beat Lowndes by a bumper 7 When Ford crushed Holden with a 1 -2 8 When Brock won by six laps 9 When Bartlett rolled the Camaro 19 When Channel Seven’s In-Car Camera was born We will remember the drivers who forged the Bathurst legend, We look at the Australian Muscle Cars that took on the Mountain and won. We look at crashes and near misses as we celebrate 50 Years of Bathurst.

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The One-Two Finish . nigniignis- Trom iNGiworK b6v©n oireci when Brack anijthe XU-^ Jorana conquered'Allan Moffat;aha his works Falcon.As a special bonus, witness another 30 minuteSfpf rarely-.seen n vision of the 1973 Hardie Fefbdo 10OQ as Brock came perilously close to baek-to-back wins.

THE ONE - TWO FINISH

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* A massive .eight hours of race day ; coverage'from the'tamous Ford.1.-2 at the 1977 Hatdie^erodo 1000 at Bathurst. For the first time,eight ^ hours of unseen-since-airfed coverage from this momentous day in Bathurst 1000 history - a.must.for Ford fans to have in their collection.'

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If the conditions are right at Mount Panorama on February 9, the outright lap record will probably fall to one of the GT3 cars. On the 75th anniversary of the circuit, David Greenhalgh reflects on the sometimes strange history of the Bathurst outright lap record.

M

otor racing on Mount Panorama started with a flourish 75 years ago.

The Australian Grand Prix

was undoubtedly the premier event in the country at the time,so it was something of a coup for the new track to be allowed to host the AGP for its very first meeting, in Easter 1938.The event attracted some top-line competitors in the form of Englishmen Peter Whitehead (ERA) and Alan Sinclair (Alta) but as it turned out, Sinclair did not start the Grand Prix, leaving Whitehead as the only scratch runner in the event.

Pitching the handicap at the right level must have been very difficult for the

60

organisers, and as it turned out,they were far too generous to Whitehead. He drove through the field to an easy victory - and set the initial lap record at 3m23s. It was a time in the sport when Mercedes and Auto Union were rendering all other grand prix competition completely redundant in Europe - at the Donington GP six months before the 1938 AGP,Whitehead's ERA had been a mere 23 seconds slower in practice than pole-man Manfred von Brauchitsch in the fearsome Mercedes W125. So it was hardly cuttingr edge stuff for an ERA to snare the Bathurst lap record - but it was a start.

The times soon began to tumble, and become much closer to frontline world

speeds, as Australian openwheeler racing embarked on a trend which was to last for 30 years: the locals began to import- or buy from visiting internationals - high-quality cars from Europe. For Easter '39 Bathurst, this meant ex-grand prix Alfas for Jack Saywell and Alf Barrett. Saywell was rewarded by slicing 14 seconds offWhitehead's lap record, which only served to reinforce the relative shortcomings of the ERA. But Barrett soon settled into a long period of dominance in his ex-Raymond Sommer Alfa 8C2300. He lowered Saywell's lap record at the next meeting, in October 1939,then lopped another second off that mark at the Easter 1940 meeting.

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/ ^laprec^was leffmia^'Q?ihega&Md^\Z m^lSSSAGP. '> When racing resumed after the War, Barrett had to fight hard to retain his lap record.

Somewhat surprisingly, his time survived the 1947 AGP intact, even though Lex Davison had shouted himself for that occasion a modest little 7.6-litre Mercedes SSK 38/250.

Davison soon changed tack, arming himself with another car with immaculate European pedigree; an Alfa Romeo 2900B which had been driven by such luminaries as Louis Chiron and Achille Varzi. At the Easter 1948 meeting, Davison indeed briefly wrenched the record from Barrett, before Barrett promptly responded with a 3m01 s good enough to stand as the best lap time until March 1951.

Practice that year indicated the record could be in for a real belting, with Davison lapping down around 2m48s. But he was rather more circumspect in the race, just nipping half a second off Barrett's record.

Davison in turn lost the record when Doug Whiteford shaved another few tenths off it in October 1951. In keeping with the trends of the era, Whiteford had equipped himself with formidable machinery - he was driving the LagoTalbot which Raymond Sommer had driven to victory in the French Grand Prix at Rheims, as recently as 1949.

The 1952 season saw the second time that the Bathurst lap record was not touched by an AGP field.That year's race, held at Easter, was won by Whiteford, but he was short on

www.mnews.com.au

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Past fast:At the October'54 meeting Stan Jones took seven seconds out ofDoug Whiteford's record set three years earlier. Here Jones' Maybach heads Whiteford's Lago Talbot in the AGP in 1952, main. The addition ofthe Chase in i987 was a significant change so there's case to argue that Andrew Miedecke, top right, was the first outright lap record holder ofthe current layout. FI cars raced at Bathurst for the last time in 1969. Even de-stroked from 3-litres to 2.5, Jack Brabham still lapped in 2m 13s.

tyres, and was under no tactical imperative to push too hard.

These factors had certainly contributed to the lap record remaining static in 1952, and for a variety of reasons, there was no Bathurst racing at all in 1953. Even so, it still looks pretty startling to then see Whiteford's record be slashed by a whopping seven seconds in 1954.

This feat was achieved by Stan Jones in Maybach II - in a three-lap screamer. And perhaps that was the clue to the era: Davison had shown back in 1951 that the track could be lapped, albeit in practice, in 2m48s,so Jones'new lap record of 2m53s in 1954 is not as surprising as it first appears. With only three laps to worry about in the race, Jones didn't have to baby the car as much as was clearly happening in the longer races of the time - and his aggression was rewarded with a sparkling new lap record.

The Maybach could hardly be said to have a thoroughbred racing background, but the same could not be said for the next wave of imported cars: Davison acquired an

ex-Alberto Ascari Ferrari, no less, while Reg Hunt went for an ex-Jean Behra Maserati 250F. Due to some unfortunate timekeeping problems,the true extent of their assault on the lap record at the Easter '56 meeting was obscured. It was officially said that they shared the new record at 2m51s, but the timekeepers later conceded that Hunt had really done a 2m48.25s - which is likely to be correct, because otherwise the time set

by Stan Jones in another 250F six months later took seven seconds off the record set by identical cars.

The epic 1958 AGP left the track's lap record unscathed -just like the 1947 and 1952 versions had done - but nevertheless the lap record had fallen by 17 seconds during the 1950s. In the next 10 years, as the rear-engined revolution took hold,the record was slashed by a further 31 seconds.

Predictably, Coopers led the way at the start of the 1960s. But Bib Stillwell's initial record in the marque of 2m39.3s was demolished by nearly nine seconds in one hit when World Champion Jack Brabham came

^the lap record had fallen by 17 seconds during the 1950s. In the next 10 years, as the rear-engined revolution took hold, the record was slashed by a further 31 seconds.

62

out to play in October 1960.

This time was itself improved by Bill Patterson in another Cooper 18 months later, but Brabham soon began to make his mark on the Bathurst lap record in another way, as his cars rapidly became the weapon of choice in the mid-'60s. First David McKay and then Kiwi Jim Palmer took their Scuderia Veloce Brabhams to new outright records.

Palmer's time was set at Easter 1966 in a mixed racing/sports car clash, in which the main opposition was Frank Matich in the Traco Olds which had won the Australian TouristTrophy at Longford a few weeks earlier. Palmer, who was only narrowly faster than Matich, said in a recent interview on Speedcafe that, coming over the second hump in Con-Rod Straight, he'd be "half lifted out of his seat". He rather drily described the track of that era as being "a bit dodgy".

Palmer's record only lasted 12 months, until Kevin Bartlett remarkably took more than eight seconds off it, in a titanic duel with Spencer Martin to set the first 1 OOmph lap of the track. Bartlett recalls, like Palmer with considerable understatement, that"the cars were pretty much stretched to do that sort of speed, you had to hang it out, as it were, to get a 1 OOmph lap... It was a dangerous course, but when you were as young as Spencer and I were at the time,the amount of concentration we had to put in to doing the effort was so significant that we didn't think of the dangers."

With lots of power,low weight and no aerodynamics, Bartlett and Martin had their hands well and truly full on a very daunting

motorsport news

BATHURST LAP RECORD 6.172km circuit: 1938 Date

Lap

Speed

Driver

Car

18/4/1938

3:23

109.45

Peter Whitehead

ERA

9/4/1939

3:09

117.56

Oct 1939

3:05

120.10

Jack Saywell Alf Barrett

Alfa Romeo B type Alfa Romeo 8C2300

Alf Barrett

Alfa Romeo 8C2300

24/3/1940

3.04

120.76

3/10/1948

3.01

122.76

Alf Barrett

Alfa Romeo 8C2300

25/3/1951

3:00.4

123.17

Lex Davison

Alfa Romeo 2900B

30/9/1951

3:00

123.44

Lago Talbot T26C

3/10/1954

2:53

128.43

Doug Whiteford Stan Jones

1/4/1956

2:51*

129.94

30/9/1956

and agricultural country road - for instance, they had all four wheels in the air coming over the rise at McPhillamy...

It was a truly heroic display,further underlined two years later. With a stronger engine, a more modern chassis, and a highmounted rear wing. Jack Brabham only bettered Bartlett's time by four seconds; it doesn't seem like much,given those substantial mechanical developments.

In fact, another driver had gone faster than Bartlett in the meantime.The big sports cars of the time were prodigiously quick, as witnessed by Frank Matich setting a string of outright records in his SR3 in the 1968 Tasman support races - even though the best drivers in the world, in works Lotuses, Ferraris, BRMs and Brabhams, were driving full FI-spec cars (albeit with 2.5-litre engines rather than 3.0-litre) in the feature races on the same days.

Matich did not attend Easter Bathurst '68, thereby almost certainly leaving Bartlett's record intact. But 12 months later, now armed with the SR4, all looked to be in place for Matich to snatch the record.

Unfortunately, the car wasn't running well, allowing Bevan Gibson, in Bob Jane's Elfin, to chance his aerodynamic arm in a bid to defeat Australia's yardstick. Gibson duly claimed the outright record, but lost his life in an appalling aero-induced accident on Con-Rod Straight.

Brabham's time, set later that day, in turn fell to Niel Allen 12 months on. Allen's 2m09.7s became virtually a protected species for many years by the cessation of

1986

2:44

135.48

{Reg Hunt

Maybach II Maserati 250F

{Lex Davison

Ferrari 500

Stan Jones

Maserati 250F

17/4/1960

2:39.3

139.48

Bib Stillwell

Cooper Climax

2/10/1960

2:30.4

147.73

Jack Brabham

Cooper Climax

22/4/1962

2:28.5

149.62

Bill Patterson

Cooper Climax

14/4/1963

2:25.9

152.29

Repco Brabham Brabham Climax

10/4/1966

2:25.7

152.50

David McKay Jim Palmer

26/3/1967

2:17.4

161.71

Kevin Bartlett

Brabham BT11 Climax

6/4/1969

2:13.2

166.81

Jack Brabham

29/3/1970

2:09.7

171.31

Niel Allen

Repco BT31 Brabham McLaren Ml OB Chevrolet

6.213km circuit: 1987 - 2012 Date

Lap

Speed

Driver

Car

4/10/1987

2:22.50

156.96

Andrew Miedecke

Ford Sierra RS500

2/10/1988

2:19.06

160.84

Ford Sierra RS500

30/9/1990

2:15.46

165.12

Tony Longhurst Mark Skaife

Nissan R32 GT-R

6/10/1991

2:14.50

166.30

Mark Skaife

Nissan R32 GT-R

2/10/1992

2:13.83

167.13

Keith Carling

Nissan 300ZX

6/10/1996

2:13.1636

167.96

Craig Lowndes

Holden Commodore VR

19/10/1997

2:12.3398

169.01

Larry Perkins

Holden Commodore VS

7/10/2001

2:10.2011

171.78

Simon Wills

Ford Falcon AU

13/10/2002

2:09.5705

172.62

Brad Jones

Ford Falcon AU

12/10/2003

2:08.6726

173.83

Garth Tander

Holden Commodore VY

9/10/2005

2:08.6515

173.86

Mark Skaife

Holden Commodore VZ

7/10/2007

2:08.4651

174.11

Jamie Whincup

Ford Falcon FG

13/11/2011

2:04.9560

179.00

Allan Simonsen

Ferrari 458 GT3

8/4/2012

2:04.6187

179.48

Chris Gilmour

Dallara 307 Mercedes

Notes: 1.The lap record is shown as at the end of each meeting in which it was broken. On many occasions, the record has been broken several times in one race or one meeting, but it would be impossible to accurately log each such feat.

2.The official time for Easter 1956 is shown, but the real time was more like 2m48.25s [see text].

63 www.mnews.com.au

What is a lap record?

Despite numerous assertions to the contrary in recent years, a iap record for a circuit can oniy be set in a race. Greg Murphy's iegendary quaiifying iap in 2003, and Craig Lowndes'effort to finally beat it in 2010, may have been marvelious feats, but they were not lap records.

Only at Bathurst The 2011 Supersprint saga was just the latest in a long series of quirks about the lap record at Bathurst. Consider this impressive list: * although a new lap record obviously had to be set in the first AGP,the contemporary record was not broken in any of the other three AGPs to be held on the track. * Bartlett's 100 mph record was probably preserved for two years simply because Frank Matich chose not to race at the Easter 1968 meeting. * Niel Allen was the only driver who ever raced an F5000 on the track - how many circuits in the world have had their record held by the only representative of a leading category ever to race there? * the record on the new, post-1987 track has been held for nearly all of the time by touring cars - again, how many circuits in the world have had their outright records held by touring cars for such a long period? * in seven further attempts, nobody has ever gone faster in a Holden V8 Supercar than Mark Skaife did in 2005. Jamie Whincup's category record,set in a Ford in 2007, has now also defied five attempts to beat it. Clearly, it is far more difficult to obtain conditions which are conducive to record-breaking at Bathurst than on many other circuits. * the outright record held by touring cars was finally broken in the bizarre format of a Supersprint event.

64

the Easter meetings,the addition of Caltex Chase in 1987(which kept the touring cars at bay for much longer than would otherwise have been the case), and the long absence of really quick openwheelers or sports/GT cars from the track.

Indeed, it is somewhat curious that Allen's time was always spoken of as being relevant at all for the next 30 years, because the Chase made a substantial difference (about four seconds) to the track. If it hadn't been there, Allen's outright record probably would have fallen in 1992 when Keith Carling had some fun with his fire-breathing Nissan sports sedan.

So even though the presence of the Chase was an enormous handicap to the touring car stars, the first 15 years of the 6.213km circuit were presented to the public as a long, gradual and valiant attempt by the tintop heroes to reach Allen's mark, like approaching the summit of Mount Everest. Larry Perkins'very good 1997 lap stood firm for several years, but finally it fell to Brad Jones in 2002 to lap the new, longer and slower circuit in less time than it took Allen to negotiate the full-length Con-Rod Straight version.

Indeed, the touring car brigade continued to regularly break the record through the first half of the noughties but then hit a brick wall. Jamie Whincup's category lap record - set in a fierce battle with Steven Richards, who had himself held the record for a few minutes up to that point - has stood since 2007.

But in the meantime,the lap record went off on another little detour in 2011, when for some reason not at all clear, CAMS decided that the Supersprint lap dash format was good enough to allow Allan Simonsen to set a lap record in his GT3 Ferrari, thereby becoming the only sports/

Holden the record: Amazingly,no Holden driver has ever gone faster in a race at Bathurst than Mark Skaife's best from 2005,above.

GT driver apart from poor Bevan Gibson to hold the outright record.

CAMS'strange approach to the Supersprint'lap record'- it contravened not only CAMS'own rules but also the time-honoured motor racing convention that a lap record can ONLY be set in an actual race - in turn caused considerable confusion when the F3 brigade lined up to assault the record in an Australian Drivers'Championship event in April of last year.They eventually succeeded, after it was clarified that the target was indeed Simonsen's time from the lap dash, not Whincup's 2007 effort. Chris Gilmour was understandably thrilled to claim the record.

Flowever, with the current crop of GT3 cars undergoing constant development, it is difficult to see that an F3 car will be able to hold the record for long. It is much more likely that the GT3 chargers will reclaim the mark in the 2013 LiquiMoly Bathurstl 2 Flours, push the average speed past 180km/h for the first time, and continue to hold the outright record for the foreseeable future.

Countless drivers have conceded that it is impossible to string together a really perfect lap at Bathurst.Those who have tried so hard for three-quarters of a century - and by definition, have come closer than their peers to reaching that elusive goal - deserve our unstinting praise and admiration.Theirs has been a remarkable saga of effort, commitment and achievement.

Acknowledgements

This article would not have been possible without the comprehensive detail provided in John Medley's book, Bathurst: Cradle ofAustralian Motor Racing. The Kevin Bartlett quotations come from the tremendous It's Called Motor Racing youtube site, where footage can also be found of Bartlett and Martin aviating over McPhillamy brow in 1967.

motorsport news

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65 www.mnews.com.au

IT WASN'T PRETTY BUT MITCH EINS CLAIMEO THE m ME II 2012 AS HIS STAR CONTINUES TO RISE. MITCHELL ADAi SPUE1 THE KIWI ABOUT LIFE IN EUROPE, MARK WEBBER ANO M

A

LOT has happened since we last spoke to Mitch Evans, back in mid-2010.

Then, a 16-year-old Evans was living in his native New Zealand, juggling school with commitments in the Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship.

He narrowly missed out on the 2010 Gold Star in one of the most dramatic finales on record and has since moved to Europe, where he's raced in and ultimately won the GPS Series. Now, Evans is poised to move up into GP2, Formula One's primary feeder series, in 2013.

And he's still just 18.

From Evans'first appearance in Australia as a 14-year-old in the 2009 Australian Formula Ford Championship, campaigns further afield were always on the cards.

Shortly after the 2010 F3 season

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wrapped up, he was in Europe testing a GPS car for the first time, with MW Arden, co-owned by Mark Webber, who had announced Evans as a protege in early 2010.

That test led to Evans signing with the team for the 2011 season and packing his

bags.

"The last few years have gone really quickly," he tells Motorsport News.

"We knew 2011 was going to be a tough year, it was a new chapter for me. Moving to Europe, racing with a European team at FI tracks and in a whole new environment. it was a big step up for me in general.

"It started off reasonably well. We were quite competitive in pre-season testing, consistently in the top five and everything was looking really good. We didn't have our eyes set on the championship.

Obviously we wanted to win it, but we thought it was unrealistic and out of our reach for the first year; that we'd do a second year and have a crack then."

After scoring points on debut at Istanbul, Evans grabbed pole position and a race win in Round 2 at Barcelona. With Spain a happy hunting ground,third and fourth in Valencia a month later saw him move into the points lead.

"I had a blinder lap in qualifying in Barcelona,the car was sensational, so I was able to pull a lap together and put it on pole, which was unbelievable.Then I was able to convert it into a race win; we

was still there, but a myriad of misfortune resulted in just one points finish across the last 10 races, falling to finish ninth in the final standings.

"I wouldn't say our performance dropped, because we were the top qualifiers throughout the whole season.

"We Just couldn't convert that into wins or good results, due to misfortune.

I had a lot of fuel pump and mechanical failures, a few crashes and it really just started going downhill.That was really unfortunate, because we were battling for the championship,and somehow still in it with two races to go, even though we'd had all of this bad luck...

"So even though we finished ninth, it was a really positive season for me; we were definitely faster than that."

Sticking with the class and MW Arden for a second season, Evans was one of the 2012 title favourites.The plan was simple, turn the promise of 2011 into race results.

Repeating the form he'd shown 12 months earlier, Evans won the opening race of the series at Barcelona, before scoring in each race at Monaco and winning from pole in Valencia to lead the series.

"We knew going into 2012 that we had a really good crack at the championship.

I was hoping with an extra year under my belt that I'd be able to take my own performance to another level.

"We started off with a race win in Barcelona, which was sensational.

couldn't really believe it to be honest," he recalls.

H "We weren't expecting those , kinds of results so early on.Then, I taking the championship lead I in Valencia was crazy. We thought I 'we've got a chance of giving this a | pretty good crack now'."

However,from there, things turned sour.The pace

[\

obviously the best way to start off a year.

That gave us good momentum,although in the second race we got a puncture.

That was really our season, we'd have a really good result in one race, and then something would happen in the second race, or vice versa.

"Even with that, though, after Valencia, we were able to extend our lead per race.

Not by much,just by little bits and pieces, and that really helped us towards the end of the championship."

By the time the series got to Monza in September for the season finale, Evans held a 21.5-point buffer over Antonio Felix da Costa, with Aaro Vainio and Daniel Abt waiting in the wings. Evans was quick out of the box in practice, and extended his margin to 25.5 with pole position.

What followed was a weekend Evans calls'horrible at times'. On the opening lap of Race 1, Evans was forced to straightline theTurn 1 chicane, damaged the floor on a speed hump and was out of the race, opening the door for his rivals. Da Costa, though, would finish 15th after a mid-race gearbox problem, with Vainio 11th after copping a post-race penalty for setting a fastest sector with a yellow flag out. Abt won,to become Evans'sole challenger.

"Everything was smelling like roses after qualifying,"Evans reflects.

"Then in Race 1, the clutch didn't really engage that well and I didn't get the best start. I got swamped into Turn 1 and had to avoid an accident there, which sent me over one the speed humps.

"When you're sitting that low, you can't see it. I actually thought I was going to avoid it, but I got it right in the wrong spot, at the end so half of the car went over it

I

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IS

11 If it wasn't for Mark[Webber],I wouldn't

have been champion for sure, and probably wouldn't have had the opportunity in Europe.

and it tore a hole in the floor. I knew there was something wrong because I could see smoke coming out of the mirrors.

"It was game over, which was heart breaking. Da Costa was looking like he was going to slash my points lead and have it all come down to the final race, with me starting dead last. Fortunately he had his misfortune, along with Vainio, so it was down to Abt and I." After a restless night, Evans lined up for Race 2 with a 14.5-point advantage over Abt, but at the rear of the field, with Abt eighth on the partially inverted grid. If he

could get into one of the eight pointspaying positions, or into the top 10 and set the fastest lap, the title would be Evans', regardless of Abt's efforts.

In the early stages, things looked good.

But it wouldn't last.

"I made the best start of my life, moved up five positions off the line, which was crazy, then a further five over the rest of the lap, to be 15th from 25th," he said, "When I got into the points, I was passing Abt's team-mate for seventh. I got the tow on him, pulled out and when I was going past, he clipped my right-rear

tyre with his wing, I saw it in the mirror, with the smoke,and it gave me an instant puncture. It was game over from there.

'To know that you've busted your arse to get to where you were, then for something,and his team-mate as well. to just nip you when you're passing him. that was one of the worst moments of the weekend.'

With Abt leading the race and Evans pitting for a replacement tyre, things were looking bleak. However,TIo Ellinas saved the day on the final lap, passing Abt for the lead and taking the title from his grasp in the process. While he finished a dramatic 20th, the title was Evans'.

'I was actually watching it on the big screens, I knew instantly, before the team told me," he said of the last lap outcome.

'The team was actually quite quiet, but when I was asking, they were keeping me updated.That was pretty nerve-wracking.

I knewTio was pretty quick during the weekend, and if he could get up there and challenge him for the lead It'd help my cause.

After what he terms an'up and down' year, Evans'final margin was Just two points. While many of the races hadn't gone to plan, Evans points to strong qualifying performances during the campaign. Crucially, at Monza, his four points for pole position came after topping the session by Just 0.02s.

"Our performance was pretty strong, in terms of qualifying, I think we averaged second throughout the whole year, but we did have a lot of bad luck, we had three punctures during the season," he explains.

"We could've easily had a bigger lead going into the final few races, but it was one of those championships that didn't work out like that.

"We Just had to keep pressing on and capitalising when we could, and that's motoFSpoPt

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what really won us the championship. I believe we were probably the quickest car throughout the season, but the likes of da Costa came on quite strong during the year.

"Overall, you can't complain if you win the championship.There were things that could've gone a lot better, but we finished with the most points and that's what matters."

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It's also been a big two years off-track.

Teenagers do plenty of growing up between 16 and 18 as it is, let alone when they move to the other side of the world in such a unique and pressurefilled environment. Naturally, Evans has benefited from the experience.

"It's all happened pretty quickly, I haven't had a lot of time to reflect on it," he says of the first two years."I've obviously grown up a lot, moving to Europe at a young age and leaving family and friends at home.

"The first year, 2011, definitely grew me up a lot, taught me a lot about life in general and also 2012. 1 was on my own basically the whole year in Europe. Even in general life, to learn about life skills and make you become a man. Learning normal everyday things like going to the supermarket,cleaning the house and washing the dishes brings you back to reality..."

Evans readily cites the influence of Webber, and is thrilled to have repaid the involvement the Red Bull Racing driver has had in his career.

"I've basically been living with Mark for the last few years, which has been incredible," he said.

"He's given me everything I've needed

to succeed. If it wasn't for Mark, I wouldn't have been champion for sure, and probably wouldn't have had the opportunity in Europe. It's pretty special to be able to reward that. It's been a

still work to do to finalise funding for the 11 -round series, which kicks off in Malaysia in March.

And then, potentially, subsequent seasons. David Valsecchi won in 2012

pretty good two years with them, and hopefully there are some more good times to come."

having made his debut in 2008, Remain Grosjean's 2011 triumph came with almost three full years of GP2 experience and Pastor Maldonado won it in 2010, his fourth season.

Next stop is the GP2 Series. Evans sampled the series'test car at MagnyCours in October, before tackling the official end-of-season tests with Arden International and title winners DAMS. "The official test at Barcelona with Arden was brilliant," Evans enthused."The car is an absolute animal to drive, it's a massive step up from GP3. 1 really wasn't expecting it to be that much of a step up, but it is.

"It's an absolute gem to drive, one step down from FI and unbelievably quick, the downforce is huge. It's a lot more challenging, technically, to drive than anything I've driven before.To be on the limit is difficult and to be fast is even more difficult.

'On the whole,the tests went reasonably well. It's hard to see where I'm at, but relating to my team-mates, it was looking pretty good.'

In mid-January,the expected came to fruition, with Evans announced as one of Arden's GP2 drivers for the 2013 season, alongside Johnny Cecotto Jr. When MNews spoke to Evans,there was

"One thing we do have to take into account is that we don't have money to throw around,even just doing one year is very difficult," Evans admits.

"Hopefully we can have a good year and not have to worry about a second year.

But the way GP2 works, in a perfect world, it's a two-year program, because the cars are difficult to drive.The Pirelli tyre is very, very difficult to get a hang of I've never really had to focus on the tyres this much before; it's difficult to bring in when it's brand new and get the maximum out of it. And also even on race runs, it's hard to keep the wear and temperatures down; the tyre degradation is huge.

'That's why you're seeing the likes of Valsecchi - the three and four year drivers - dominating, because they've got that experience. And that's what you need, it's why those boys are winning. n "I won't have that, but I Just have to make my own statement and make it count, which will hopefully lead to good things.'

11 The first year, 2011, definitely grew me up a

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This a nice picture and really highlights the contrast you see when you're in India. It's probably one ofthe oldest tractors in existence and there it is trundling past a Red Bull that's probably worth $5 million;the tractor's probably worth $5in scrap metal!It's the fact that you've got people living in poverty right next door to this multi-million dollar circus in this track. I think the reason it was there was because they were doing some repairs to the barriers and this was the only tractor with a welding kit. Maybe it's a classic,I don't know, but it makes great contrast with the FI car in the background.

Here's proofthat Mugello is an old-school circuit In this photo you can see the perimeter wall ofthe circuit, but unlike other tracks the catch-fencing to protect the spectators is further back with the perimeter road in between.So as a photographer you can shootfrom behind the wall butin front of the fence rather than through holes in the fence as we have to do at most circuits. In this shot you can see thatSebastian Vettel has cycled over from the pit lane and has an unobstructed view ofthe car.

'It's difficult to know when you're shooting a photo like this who is to blame.I captured itfrom the start and I followed Romain Grosjean as his car flew into the air and I could also see Fernando in the air, but I didn't really see anything ofLewis.Ifyoulook at the frame sequence and how long it took,it probably took five seconds max and ifyou watch it on TV you don't really see the height that these guys get. unless you watch it in car. It's hard to fully see the ferocity ofthe accidentand the explosion ofcarbon fibre that happens until you see itin a picture. On TV you saw Lewis walking back to the garage with a bit ofhis car and that's because he found it in the pit lane!It came offhis car with such force that it flew into the pit lane exit by the lights, which isjust incredible and actually quite scary.

motorsport

DAN KALITZ

I www.mnews.com.au

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This shot ofFinnish WRC ace Jari-Matti Latvala was taken on a small secret disused airfield someone la Wales, United Kingdom for an Autosportfeature earlier this year.I had a very short five minutes to rig this shot up and to take the necessary frames.It's compiled with 2.5seconds oflight with 6.15 hours ofediting used to create this composite image.I had to layer severalframes to remove the boom pole running through the middle ofthis shot. The result is breathtaking.

"The image ofAntonio Felix da Costa was taken daring the Hockenheim Round ofthis year's GP3 Championship.

I wanted to create a spectacularimage for the series and Antonio as he had beenjustsigned as a Red Bulljunior driver.So I took him to the 'old track'the only part still left and created this very inspiring portrait ofhim using a two lightset up."

LocationiCircuit de la Sarthe Date: 17/06/12 Time:4:29:07 AM Subject:(winning)Audi R18 e-tron quattro Result:the pictorial epitome ofLe Mans 75

MARCEL 5TAWICZNV "As a Ferrari fan I always tend to take more photos of them, and this one of the #17 on the run down do Forrest's Elbow is my favourite.

The rich colours of the sky, bank and car make this one really pop.

'The other highlight was the atmosphere present at the Nurburgring and in particular the masses of people on the grid before the race. It is something to be experienced and to get amongst it. Anyone can make their way onto the grid. It does make it hard to shoot as you literally are shoulder to shoulder at times, and just getting a nice shot of the drivers on the grid is and effort in itself. But I wouldn't want it any other way.

'The Nurburgring 24 Hour was my big event of the year, and Flugplatz (Airfield) was the highlight for me. Hearing the cars as they come up the rise and hit the sweet spot where they literally take flight is exiting yet terrifying as all that separates you and the car is the armco, which in reality wouldn't do much to protect you. Whilst most eased up due to the slightly damp conditions, the Team GT Academy Nissan GTR didn't. Shooting Flugplatz so tightly required quick reflexes as the angle is so low you you have to really anticipate the cars and where they will be in your frame. Blink and you miss the shot.

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CLAV J 'Standing at Turn 1 waiting for the start ofthe FI season aiways has the adrenalin running as you waitfor the lights to go out. At the track you can hear the Australian crowd cheering on Mark Webber every lap. Here he is coming out the last turn with a big crowd behind him.

'Jenson Button driving down pitlane after winning the Australian GP with all the teams'crew members lined up congratulating him, especially father John waving the Union Jack.

'After winning Bathurst on fumes, the Triple Eight team drain the remaining fuel from the No 1 Holden. The team really enjoyed showing off how well they managed the fuel, and this shotshowsjust how little was left in the tank.

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BILL FORVTH //

I have been a motor racing photographer for over 50 years(1961) and stilllove going to events,especially those like Muscle Car Masters, Honda Broadford Classic and the VMX Classic Dirt. //These events mix the old vehicles with the new and old racers and provide entertaining racing along with various Historic Car and Bike meeting and my annual trip to the Bathurst 1000. My main lens is a 500mm Nikon that I alternately use on my Nikon D700 or the small chip Nikon D7000. My new toy is a FX Nikon 28-300mm that covers everything and suits both cameras as well.

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RAV Ofallsports, motorsport must be the most challenging for a photographer. Having started my'career'chasing rally cars on the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon,I've shot45 Bathursts,over 35 AGPs and countless Touring Car and V8Supercars races. Being a professional'shooter'gives you the bestseat in the house,and you can move that seat to almost any position and angle you choose to both watch and capture the action -it's both a fantastic opportunity and a huge responsibility.

'My many Canon-using friends tell me that I'm 'on the dark side' as I've used Nikons from Day One,but it doesn't really matter which brand you choose,it's all about your ability to see the shot in your mind before it actually happens. Having taken many millions offrames over the years, the one thing every professional photographer never shows offare the ones that end up 'on the cutting room floor'- we all make mistakes and lots on them!

'Shooting a moving target(like lap three at Bathurst)from a moving(helicopter)platform from 500 meters above is challenging, noisy and breezy but great fun!

7 hate, hate, hate concrete tunnels like the Homebush V8 racebut they do stretch your creativity to the limit!

'Every now and then you get a really good gig - here chasing an ex-Formula 1 Ferrariaround Albert Park atlast year's AGP while being driven by Paul Gover in a Ferrari California convertible at the head ofa Ferrari parade. A bugger ofajob butsomeone had to do it!"

www.mnews.com.au

JOHN The first is the Rapisarda top fuel team who have been racing both here in Australia over the past season and on the NHRA circuit in the US as well... with Santo Jnr running the team. He along with the crew made the trip back to Australia, and they competed at the Nationals in Sydney which took place between NHRA events In Las Vegas and Pomona. They then flew back to the States immediately after the race to prep their race car for the Pomona race.

View of Daniel Shultz strapped into a nitro funny car waiting to make his first run.

'Ben Bray in his AOOOhp Top Doorslammer powering down track still carrying the front wheels in the air 200 feet out from the start'

80

motorsport nev/s

JAMES SMITH Sometimes an element ofluck is needed to get thatshot(opposite), and her ladyship was certainly smiling on James Smith (but not on Kim Jane...)at Hidden Valley during one ofthe V8 Utes Series Races. Adelaide's Senna Chicane provided day and night time photo opportunities (left, below),and tense Touring Car Masters opening corner at Bathurst.

www.mnevvu.com.au

y

Tim Kaeding is the most recent in a long line of speedway racing Kaedings. The Californian is “ down under at the moment for the Australian summer Sprintcar season, and Geoff Rounds caught up with him.

T

HERE is a long tradition of racing prodigy in the world of speedway, and the Kaeding family is certainly no exception.

Tim Kaeding,34,is a third generation sprintcar driver from San Jose, California, and while he is one hell of a throttle-stomper himself, he is fiercely proud of the Kaeding name in the sport of sprintcars.

His father, Brent, was previously a frequent visitor to these shores, as also has his brother.

Bud. Before them,Tim's grandfather, Howard, was also a racer - years before Tim was born - and was instrumental in establishing the Kaeding name in speedway.

Howard and his brother Herb had a particular interest in working on automobiles and would then test their wares on dusty American roads. What began as a hobby flourished into a full-blown performance shop, where the Kaedings catered to friends' street vehicles, racing cars, buggies and other off-road vehicles.

These days, however, Kaeding Performance is not an auto repair shop, but rather a machine shop and warehouse distributor of racing parts and accessories.

Howard Kaeding officially started racing "hard tops"in 1954 - basically 1937 Ford models modified and cut up.

The cars were some of the first ones ever to race at Daytona Beach and back then drivers were secured to their seats by a single

\

lap belt, compared with the multiplestrap harnesses that most sprint-car drivers use today.

Howard's racing knowledge has seen his son Brent become California's winningest driver, he holds more NARC(Northern Auto Racing Club) and Golden State Challenge series titles, and has won more NARC races, than any other driver in NARC's 40-year history.

"Being from a racing family we were given that opportunity to do what we wanted to as kids,"Tim Kaeding said."Going fast and getting dirty was kids mentality and I don't think I've grown up yet in certain aspects of life.

"Dad has been coming here (to Australia) for years since 1996 and I was just a kid then.

I came back a few years later and drove for Todd Wanless in Brisbane and my last trip to Australia was in 2006 when I raced in the Outlaws DownUnder events in Sydney.'

Tim is a two-time Chico Track Champion and recently competed in the current edition of the World Series Sprintcars and also in the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic while aboard the Toyota Genuine Parts Krikke Motorsports Cool machine. He arrived in Australia in hot form, having grabbed four World of Outlaws victories throughout 2012 to his 100-plus career main event wins.

"Throughout California and the mid-west we had a good season,even with motor problems where bad parts got put in motors.

we never blew one up. Coming off that season I hope it continues into this year's.

"It's an opportunity like I've never really had before to come back and drive in such a great deal.

It's a live and die deal in sprintcar racing.

You never know what's going to happen time in time out.

As a professional racer, this is a full time deal for me, a lot of people aren't fortunate to do what they love and make a little bit of money too, I'm very lucky."

Krikke MotorsportTeam Principal Shane Krikke faced a tough decision for this Australian speedway season when eight time World Series Sprintcars Champion

ivivi/if.floosier.oom.

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BrookeTatnell told him he'd be vacating the seat for 2012-13.

"I wanted someone who would fit in with our guys and be able to race with the best and drive the wheels off the hot-rod," Krikke said.

"Tim is one of the best in the business.

We've had our dramas for sure this season but we're all about being competitive and having a good time on the road while we race.

Kaeding was again looking forward to his fast-approaching and busy 2013 season in the US. "I'll go home and get ready for an 80-race schedule and counting the races I've done

in Australia I'll have over 100 races under my belt inside 12 months.

One issue that does hit the nerves of Kaeding is gun control in his homeland.

"I've never fired a gun and I'm 34 years old and I'm happy to say that, I've held them but I don't trust myself as I'd probably do something stupid and shoot myself.You guys here in Australia are lucky you don't have guns and I find that awesome," Kaeding said.

"With everything that's happened over in the States recently it definitely makes you think twice.

"I can't point the finger at one thing, but I think it's the people who own the guns who are having problems with them.With what

SYD:(02) 9679 1990 MELB:(03) 9338 7477

happened in Connecticut and with my fiance and our five year-old it really makes you think twice about their schooling.

"In the States there's regular schooling and home schooling and a lot of people are going back to the home schooling because there's a lot of violence in the world right now.

"It's definitely difficult to fathom the fact that people can let themselves get to that mental state and can't control what they go and do in iife anymore.

"When I grew up in San Jose In the eighties we had rough neighbourhoods and we stayed out of those neighbourhoods and I think I turned out alright."

TIRE AUSTRALIA

Champion

effort

James McFadden is the newly crowned Australian Sprintcar Champion. The 23 year-old spoke to Geoff Rounds.

MN: How's it feel to now be a dual Australian sprintcar champion?

JM: It's now sunk right in, and for sure it's pretty cool to get two. I hope it gets rid of some of the critics who say the first one was a fluke.

MN: Northern Australia is where you've won both titles, Brisbane and Darwin, what's so special that you do so well up there?

JM: I've done a lot of laps around Brisbane and the same with Darwin, they're both places I love racing at and again all went well.

MN: Did the Championship week all go to plan for you?

JM: We obviously had a great title chase. We won the quicktime, the shootout and the feature so everything went as best as it could go. Really, I couldn't be more happier. It's hard to be the fastest on the night every night, but again we were, which was good.

MN:So how were the celebrations?

JM: Well. Yeah good,just some of my family and friends and we celebrated on the Gold Coast, which was good fun.

MN:You've won two national sprintcar titles (2010 & 2013). Are you aiming to beat Garry Rush's 10?

JM: I don't know and it's a deal where you need a lot of luck as well as good car speed.

Personally, I don't think that record is going to get passed ever. It's no disrespect to Garry but the competition is just so tight now.So it might make it a bit tough to do that.

MN: After your win did defending champ BrookeTatnell say anything to you?

JM: He's been a big supporter of mine and always helped me out. He was one of the first to come over and say good job. When I was younger he gave me a lot of time and advice and some driving tips and I have a lot of respect for him. Not a lot did help me back when I started so he's taken me a little bit under his

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wing which is pretty cool.

MN: How is it you can chase down cars if you are well back and still get the win - you seem to have an uncanny knack of catching them quick and then winning.

JM: I just wait and bide my time. You have to wait for the opportunity to do it. You can't go out and try and win a race in the first 10 laps. If you just wait for the right opportunity you can make it happen.

MN:You had to be patient trying to get the lead from pacesetter and long-time race leader David Murcott in the championship 40-lap final, motorsport news

I

JM:Yes I did, as he had a lot more car speed than I did out on front but in traffic we could move around a little more. I just had to wait until the right opportunity was there in the lapped traffic and get past him as quick as I could.

MN:When you made the pass with just seven laps to go, what were you thinking?

JM: I kind of found another gear once I got in front and had to hustle and not make any mistakes.Things can still happen late in a big race like that one so I was just trying not to make any mistakes and get to the chequered flag first.

MN:Now is the focus to win a consecutive World Series Sprintcars championship?

JM: At this stage we are. We'll see how were looking after we leave Adelaide. We're leading that at the moment and there's no reason why we shouldn't keep going and hopefully get another one of those wins as well.

MN: For you the only big event in Australia to win now seems victory in the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic?

JM:Oh mate, that's the ultimate goal in sprintcar racing in Australia. That's the one i want the most and we've had car speed there but no real luck In the race.

MN: You're no slouch at Warrnambool though as you have just won World Series Speedweek there again?

JM: I love the joint. It suits the way I drive, it's a big, wide-open and flowing track and you can generally pass cars there when you are fast, so it's a lot offun for a driver.

MN:Your parents are now living next to Premier Speedway pretty much,do like the place?

JM: I love Warrnambool. I could live there tomorrow, it's just a cool little town and It's good for my racing with the home base there, it's easy to go backwards and forwards with the racing.

MN:Your crew chief, Glen Beaton how big is his role In your wins?

JM: His good as he doesn't have an ego or anything. We talk about things a real lot. He doesn'tjust go,'this is how it is and this is how

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°l it's going to be'. As long as I'm confident and happy in the car he doesn't care what he has to do - it's perfect. He's a good mate as weil and we get along awesome.We've both just got the right chemistry and I think that's a big factor too.

MN: He has a V8 Supercars background,so who was he with?

JM: Garry Rogers Motorsport.

MN:: Have you thought winning the Grand Slam in Australian sprintcar racing-the title, classic and World Series championships?

JM: It would be unreal to do.The cream always rises to the top and you just have to make sure you're there at the end and that's the hardest part with these deals.

MN:Do you have any other aspirations to race any other form of motorsport?

JM: My heart is with sprintcar racing but if the opportunity came to drive something else I'd love to do NASCAR racing but there's big money needed to do that. Who knows?

Maybe one day.

MN: How much do love racing sprintcars.

JM: It's my life, it's all I've ever known since I was kid. I work on motors for a job here at KRE in engines and I work mainly in the speedway side and we doTriple 888's engines as well as Dumbrell's and Tekno motors here.

MN:Will you go back to race in the United States this year to race.

JM: At this stage I am. We are in talks with

some people over there and it all looks pretty good for the upcoming season and the same car we were with last year which is good.

MN: How much has racing in the USA helped you?

JM: I get a lot of seat-time so every time you get in the car you learn.The more seat time you get the better you get. It's worked out well doing an extra 15 races this season for me.

MN:Do you think the American drivers should be able to compete in the Australian Sprintcar Championship?

JM: No. It's always been the way it is and that's the way it should stay. I really think you should get the number one from winning a series not just a race.

MN:Where do you see yourself in the future in sprintcar racing?

JM: i'm not too sure, i'm just taking it all as it comes and it's one of those sports that things can turnaround pretty quickly. You've just got to take the wins when you can get them and have fun doing it.

MN:You are part of a new younger breed of talent in sprintcar racing. How does that sit with you?

JM:There's a lot of young talent and good young racers out there.They're all good dudes and most of us are friends outside of speedway racing, i think it's very cool to see the young dudes beating up on the old guys.

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86

motorsport news

Californian Rico Abreu is fast making a name for himself in the world of speedway racing. He outshone his fellow Americans who trekked south for a summer Christmas racing at Sydney Speedway. He proved to be a crowd favourite, especially amongst the younger fans. Rico’s results and attitude to life make him difficult to overlook, despite his small stature. Barely taller than the rear wheel of his 800 horsepower Sprintcar, Rico Abreu was born with the genetic disability of dwarfism. By John Morris

T

ALK to any person with a disability and you will find that the one thing that they strive for is acceptance:for others to look beyond the physical difference and see the ability that they possess.

Athletes with disabilities have their own

national sporting bodies and,through the Paralympic Committee,their own Olympic Games,their ultimate desire is to compete on equal terms against able bodied competitors.

Rico Abreu defies the trend that has become the norm of dwarfs in the public eye.

Rather than use his size to gain attention and as the basis for a career in entertainment, he downplays it and seeks to educate how racing proves to be a great leveller for people of all sizes and conditions.

"I look at it (dwarfism) as in racing; you have people of all different shapes and sizes, yet, in the car, we are all the same," Abreu says."This is about racing, day and night, surrounded by great people. It is all about being comfortable in the car. Being comfortable is the first thing."

It is rather ironic that Rico Abreu found that opportunity in speedway racing, where the categories of dwarf racing cars (Aussie Racing Cars and Legends Racing in Australia) and Midget racing, which Rico refers to as USAC cars, exist.

The progression of Rico Abreu from Outlaw Karts in 2009 to Sprintcar racing has been nothing short of phenomenal. It was from is friendship with sprintcar driver, Jeff Griffin, that Rico was introduced to dirt karts. After practising with a 250cc kart on his family property for a year, Rico had his first race on 24 January 2009. Over the following two years, Rico competed in 88 Outlaw races, amassing 47 top five places and 18 feature wins, in the highly competitive 250cc and SOOcc categories. This category had also been the starting point for household names; Brad Sweet(2009 National Midget Champion) and Kyle Larson (2010 Golden State King of California).

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"I wish i could have found Outlaw karts when I was five,"said Rico."It is the best training there is for racing wheel to wheel.

I want to be a professional race driver and this is the perfect place to be at this point in my career."

Jason Sides, a World of Outlaws veteran, was aware of Rico's potential from a very early stage in his sprintcar career.

"My first memory of Rico was at Hamford, some two years ago, I believe it was his first sprintcar feature race.The more laps he had in the car, the better he got."

Sides'words were prophetic. In a sprintcar career barely 12 months old, Abreu won four swing wing feature races and was competing against his childhood heroes in a handful of World of Outlaw Appearances, highlighted by an 11th place finish at Antioch.

In less than three years of midget and sprintcar racing, Rico Abreu had achieved his goal of racing at the Chilli Bowl, where he raced against his childhood hero. In 2012 Rico won four USAC feature races, a B Main at the Chilli Bowl and finished the A main in twenty first place. Not a bad achievement when there were more than 250 entries for the race. He also competed in the entire USAC Midget championship.

Rico first visited Australia in 2011 at the invitation of Archerfield Speedway before accepting a similar offer from Sydney Speedway in 2012. It meantthat in Australia, he be racing against one of his heroes in Joey Saldana.

Asked why he had chosen Joey as his favourite driver, Abreu was quick to answer, "You want to look up to the best and Joey is the best. He has been at the top for a long time and I admire what he has done in the sport. I have been fortunate to have raced against Joey many times and feel that I can call him a friend." A slight grin came across his face as he added,"Now when I race, Joey is the first person I try to beat."

While talking with Rico Abreu,the first thing you notice is his humility and downto-earth nature, with a steely focus on 87

IS. 5-,

R

ico Abreu may well be the most successful sportsperson with dwarfism in recorded history. Whilst there are many well known dwarfs in the area of entertainment, there is just one recorded example of another athlete competing in a national sporting competition alongside regular athletes, and that was Eddie Gaedel who played one game of Major League Baseball in 1951.

There are just two other records of athletes with dwarfism who have competed in national sporting competitions for able bodied athletes,They are Eddie Gaedel, who played one game of Major League Baseball in 1951,and Dylan PostI, who won a world championship wrestling title in 2007.

Gaedel(who died in 1961,aged 37) played in just one major league baseball game for the St Louis Browns on August 19,1951. He made one appearance for the plate and was walked to first base after the pitcher failed to throw one ball in the correct zone. He was then replaced for the remainder of the game.Such was the significance of the moment that his uniform was later placed on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Dylan Post!, was a professional wrestler, better known by the stage name 'HornswogglefAppearing with World Wrestling Entertainment, he won the World of Smashdown Cruiserweight Championship in 2007.

»ar-fism:0ceijrs.w,he|j!;atmamnieH' Is^B^stafSre resulting'.fr01iia. imedicaLgoiifditjonieaused'by slow or delayed'growth.:]!,can'be’attpibuitedi to over two hundred distinct medical conditions.

The symptoms and'characteristics of dwai^sm vary greatly.

Disproportionate dwarfism is characterised :by oneor more body parts ibeing:ireiatively large or small in comparisonitoanaMeragesizediadult. In proiportionate'dwarfism> the ibody appears ; ;i#ibe'ino:rinaiilyptO;p©rJo:nidehi i i unusu Msmall'. lit is a categorized!disaibil% acknowledged by the International!

Paralympic Committee is 2003.¥40 toT46 refers to athletes inithe areas of dwarf class, with a maximum height of 1!4'5cm (male) and 140cm (female).The category also sets maximum parameters for arm length and combined height/arm length.

. -T

88

learning more about the sport and in self improvement.The mere fact that he spent 12 months learning to drive an Outlaw Kart before his first race, is a testament to his desire to carve out a professional motorsport career.

I asked Rico to explain the changes that had to be made to his Sprintcar and how is smaller size would affect the car's balance and dynamics.Though Rico remained calm and politely answered each question, you could sense a change in his demeanor,a sense that the conversation was had centred on an aspect of Rico's life that he had been fighting all his life.

"The differences in my car aren't major.There is an elevated false floor above the yoke; repositioned pedals and a different steering wheel.The car is very easily converted for any driver. We are leaving the car here and hope that either Sydney Speedway will buy and have me back next year, or we can sell it with no problems."

As for the differences to the handling of the car, Rico found it difficult to elaborate.

"Apart from adding ballast to the car to compensate for the weight,the car is just normal," Rico responded quizzically.

Joey Saldana later put the issue into perspective.

"I wear glasses,"Joey explained,"Always have. People often ask me how can I drive wearing glasses? I have no idea what it would be like to drive without glasses so I know no better.To me, wearing glasses is normal,just as driving a sprintcar with that set up is for Rico."

Saldana was full of praise for the young Abreu. When told of Rico's admiration and determination to beat him, Joey smiled before answering: "Rico is an excellent driver. I look at him as I do any other racer and I don't see him as having any disability in a race car. He

puts his heart and soul into his racing and it shows. He has a strong respect for the sport and for the USA, which he represents when competing overseas. Rico comes from a family with some wealth behind him,though he doesn't let that, or his condition, dictate who he is as a person - he just doesn't see himself as having a disability."

Jason Sides agreed.

"Rico is a great kid who loves to hang out and is quite a funny guy. He runs hard on the racetrack, yet is a very clean driver - which is a bit unusual for drivers out of California."

The sheer magnitude of Rico Abreu's achievements to date was not lost on Garry Brazier, Australia's multi national champion and former Outlaw competitor.

"Rico must have a great mindset and a lot of courage to go and do something that some people think that he shouldn't be doing."

Rico is also aware that he is fast becoming a role model for people with disabilities, and he has a simple message for them.

"You can do whatever you want if you have the heart. Not many people set out to do what I do."

As for his future plans for motorsport, given that he had already achieved his goal of competing at the Chilli Bowl, Rico was typically humble:"!just want to keep racing and be competitive."

When asked if he wanted to follow the likes of Kasey Kahne into NASCAR, Rico simply replied:"! am not at that level to move into oval racing, but I would take it as it comes, if the opportunity arose."

With that Rico is called away once again by a group of fans eager to have their picture taken with a new hero or to get an autograph on the posters Rico has brought with him. One gets the feeling that we will be hearing a lot more of this young man in the years ahead. In the words of another young racer, Jordyn Brazier,'He's cool!' motorsport news

The Great Race: Bathurst 50 years SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION I ~

Pre-Order your copy now Australia’s Greatest Motor Race 50 Years at Bathurst. This book is the fourth

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50 years of the Australian Touring Car Championship 50 years of the Australian Touring Car Championship is a detailed history of the Australian Touring Car Championship and the V8 Supercar Championship Series. This huge 500-plus page book is the definitive history of our touring car racing, tracking the development of the championship from its humble amateur beginnings to today s miulti-miiion dollar industry that is V8 Supercars. A must-have reference book for fans of Australian touring car racing.

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The Great Race: 2011 Supercheap Auto 1000 The Great Race 31 tells the Ml story of the 2011 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. Last year’s race will go down as one of the classics, with a determined Garth Tander holding out a hard charging Craig Lowndes in possibly the most exciting finishes in the history of the race. This is the original Bathurst annual hard-cover book, the definitive publication on Australia’s Great Race.

This fabulous annual hard-cover book is a collector’s prized possession, and a great gift idea.

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MODEL BEHAVIOUR

Mustang Silly o ^wfomoc/e/// has gone positively Mustang Silly with its new range ofhandcrafted Australian Touring Car Championship ponycars, while Blante, Classic Carlectables and Trax are bringing us a bunch offamous old Holdens,some road,some race. By Bruce Moxon

F late, I've been supplementing my meagre income by driving some vyedding cars. A carclub mate of mine, Steve Kennedy, runs a fleet of classic English cars under the name of Classic Bridal Cars. If you're in Sydney, getting married and looking for cars with some class that will look great in the album,look them up on the web.

Anyway,to the cars. I've so far driven a couple each of different types of Jaguars and Daimlers. And that got me to thinking about models of these cars.The fleet has cars dating from about five minutes after WW2 finished up to the late sixties. While I'm on record as liking the design of American cars from the'40s to the'60s, 1 also like some of the English cars too - from a design point of view, anyway. England wasn't known for making very exciting cars at this time - other than some of their smaller sports cars, anyway. Let's face it, in the prevailing atmosphere of post-war austerity, most English cars were brutally utilitarian.These cars were the 90

opposite and meant for the landed gentry, titled and very rich folk.

The Jags range from the Mk 4, made from 1947, up to the'60s.The Mk 4 is a great-looking car - the body is flanked by running boards that are faired into mudguards and the front features a pair of massive headlights.

These cars are very popular with the Brides - they look good and the suicide doors (hinged at the back) make them easy to get in and out of My Dad even had one, way back when. It wasn't a collectible then,just an old car that ended up on the tip.

We also drive a rangeof newer Jags-so far I've had a go in a 1956 Mk 8 and a mid-60s 3.8S (that's the longer-wheelbased version of the ATCC winner). I've also done some work in a pair of Daimler Limousines - a 1961 V8and a 1968 six-cylinder.The V8 used to belong to the Governor of Victoria and the later car Is the same as that used in Patriot Games, where it got blown up by Irish terrorists(not a bad use for it, actually).

So this got me to thinking about models of these cars. Of course.

I found a few versions of the Mk 8 and 3.8S Jaguars and of the later Daimler, but not of the early V8 Daimler, and Mk4s are very thin on the ground, it seems.There are quite a few of the later Daimler - including one from James Bond.

Franklin Mint did a Mk 4 some years ago, but they're pretty rare now.

motorsport news

Olden Holdens:Biante hasjust released a nice new range ofEH Holdens in 1/43 scale, below.

I

\

www.mnews.com.au

and up near $200 for what's not a great model anyway.

An email to Dave Fames, he of Automodelli Studio(www. automodilistudio.com.au) and the source of aii knowiedge of obscure modei cars reveals that there was also another 1/43 Mk 4 Jaguar model, but it's even more expensive than the Franklin Mint example. Seeing as I need to get one for my old man's collection, hopefully someone will make an affordable one;the Mk4 was the car that really kicked off Jaguar's post-war expansion and success.

Dave has some great new models coming out of interest to Australian collectors; three important early-model Mustangs.They're 1/43 scale models of the Norm Beechey, Bob Jane and Pete Geoghegan (both Total and Castrol cars).They're not cheap - hand-assembled and painted cars won't be, but you can get the set, mounted on plaques and have your own version of history.

While digging around in unfamiliar territory for this column, I did find some interesting new releases from Scalextric. As we've said before, while they're slot cars, they are becoming increasingly detailed and collectible and these three new cars are interesting to us in Australia. For starters, there's the Jim McKeown Lotus-Cortina from 1965 in Neptune Racing Team colours.Two other Scalextric cars are from 1976 - the Brock Bill Patterson Torana and Allan Moffat's Falcon,from that year's Bathurst and ATCC. Again, as they're slot cars there will be compromises, but I think their 1/32 scale makes them a good size to display, and of course you can still race them on the right sort of track.

Classic Carlectables'1976 Brock Torana in 1/18 would go nicely with the slot car. See last month's issue for a bit more detail on the LH Torana models - they look great and show just how'standard'our racing cars used to be. And to show that today's competition is much harder, the Brock car made several extra pit stops after a fuel pickup drama (included a road-side stop), then broke an axle and still finished in third place!

After last month's Classic Carlectables EH mention, Biante is not being left behind; a pair (a wagon and a sedan) of EHs in 1/43. With opening doors, boots and bonnets showing the Red Six engine. With luck there will be racing versions soon.'

I motorsport news

Oh-5: They wouldn't let Peter Brock run the number 05 at first at Bathurst. He ran 5in 1976, as seen here on Classic Carlectables' excellent new 1/18 Bill Patterson/Team Brock Torana L34 model,left, below.

I

zi-awi

Historic Humpy

Older readers probably remember it, and younger readers of our sister mag Australian MUSCLE CAR will have seen it featured in AMC53. It is Des West's Holden 48-215 that raced in the inaugural Australian Touring Car Championship at Gnoo Bias in 1960, beautifully recreated in 1/43 scale byTrax. For more details go to www.topgear.com.au

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A seven-day off-road motorspoil: marathon is the Australasian Safari, Australia’s toughest motorsport event.Every competitor who crossedi the finish line was a winner for completing a gruelling seven days of competition covering approximately 2,500 competitive kilometers off-road on beaches,through sand dunes, over creeks, rocky riverbeds, claypans, and cattle and sheep stations. And here’s your chance to relive all the action on this action packed DVD. Running Time 50 minutes

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RACESHOP Autopics posters

Gnoo Bias book

Autopics.com.au have just released two new posters celebrating the 50th Bathurst 500/1000 - Ford's Bathurst Winners & Holden's Bathurst Winners.

In the early 1950s Gnoo Bias was Orange's answer to the Mount Panorama. Sadly the fearsome 6km public road circuit only lasted nine years, with the final race meeting being held in 1961.To celebrate the

Both are 300mm x 700mm printed on 200gsm gloss art paper and show an image of each winning car from Bathurst 500/1000 - 1963 to 2012, with details of the year, drivers and car below each image. Retail price is only $12 each or 2 for $20 or 5 for $40 or 10 for $50. Why not get together with a few mates and save not only on the poster but on the freight as well. Wholesale price available.

CHEQUERED TIMES

60th anniversary of the track, local historian and motorsport enthusiast Denis Gregory has catalogued the history of the circuit in a new book:

race the great 1963 ro 2012 :

of Gnoo Bias Orange T9531961. It's available on

FoS .●'"""ir-rsSi

go YEARS

line through the Orange City Council website or by emailing ARussell@ orange.nsw.gov.au.

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For more details go to Autopics.com.au or ring 0407869680

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Ex Minardi FI. Selling due to upgrade, 2-4 car transporter, large office with ac/heating, hydraulic tail lift, benches, roller draw cabinets, awning, flooring.

Some small cosmetic wear & tear.

Finance available @) $30k deposit with payments of $1,300/month. To approved purchaser. All prices + ....

0438 426 529

www.myi0S.com/7S69 Custom Enclosed Double Trailer

One of a kind Holden Calibra I have owned this car for close to 10

2009 Nissan GTR35 Championship & Targa winning car driven by Steve Jones. Built & prepared

by Kim Ledger's If performance products in Perth. Never been damaged & highly competitive car. Recent full gearbox upgrade. 2 Sets of wheels.

08 9350 6881

years and in that time have slowly built up the car to where it is today. I started with a very mechanically sound base.

A lot of money has been invested into this car with many rare and sought after parts.Too many items to list contact me for full details. 0418 480 334

www.myios.com/89SO

www.mYi0S.com/8867

2005 Chev Silverado 3500HD Forced sale - probably the best tow vehicle in Australia. I purchased this ute in 2010 and have more than $50,000

Holds 2 formula fords with removable rack. Trailer was made to hold V8 supercar without racks.

Load rated wheels and truck tires,

invested in engine, driveline and chassis improvements (receipts for everything), call for full details, 0404 006 444

electric brakes and fully fiberglass enclosed with tilting style setup.

Has electric door winch and fridge.

Tows like a gem and has never been used.

www.myio5.com/908o

www.mYi0S.com/8683

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While he waits to sample the new Mercedes-Benz W04,Lewis Hamilton gets himselfacquainted with the W196 model as well as a few other ofhis new employer's former old race machines.

The great 2012/13 DRIVERS A1 John Harvey.

A2 Al Unser.

A3 Karl Reindler.

A4 Michel Delcourt.

AS Muir.

A6Vern Schuppan.

A7 Second (in both 1992 and 1993).

A8 1993 Production Car Championship.

A9 Canadian.

A10 Clark.

RACES A11 Kevin Bartlett and David Brabham.

A121963.

A13 1986 Spanish GP. A14 Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Phil Hill.

A1511.

A16 Jacques Laffite.

A17 Hornish.

A18 2009 German GP, Nurburgring.

A19NO. A20True.

VENUES A21 Enna.

A22 Ricardo and Pedro Rodriguez.

A23 Rheims.

A24 Bathurst.

A25 Road Atlanta.

A26 Mt Druitt.

A27 At Sandown.

A28 Surfers Paradise.

A29 Lakeside.

A30 Nurburgring Nordschleife.

CARS A31 Cooperand Brabham.

A32 CN7.

A33 Holman Moody.

A34They carried 722, because their car was scheduled to start the race at 7.22 am.

A35True.

A36 2007 Adelaide.

A37 Minardi.

A38 Armstrong 500, Phillip Island, 1961.

A39 It never did.

A40 Holden.

Next Issue of Motorsport News on sale February 27

HART HOIVDA The Power of Dreams

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Since 1926

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