Motorsport News Issue 438 - December 2013

Ff“s 1%/mw Jf^rsey: Formula 1 in the Big Apple

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURES Editorial Group Editor Steve Normoyle snormoyle@chevron.com.au At Large Phil Branagan

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HRT Starter After the dark times he's experienced in recent years, James Courtney reckons it'll be a whole new start for the Holden Racing Team in 2014.

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motorsport news

Unusual Suspects

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James Courtney A little over 10 years ago it seemed not a case of if James Courtney would be a Formula 1 star, but when. Likewise when he joined the Hoiden Racing Team in 2011 as the reigning V8 Supercar champion, sustained success seemed assured - but

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simply didn't happen.Just goes to show that in motorsport things don't aiways go according to expectation - something that will make the next chapter in the newiy re-signed HRT driver's career fascinating to watch.

Jim Clark hoaouredi The Goodwood Revival is alI;about honouring the past, and there ■could be few rnpre worthy themes for this year's event than the occasion of the SOth anniversary of the Scottish great's first worild ichampionship win,

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Titles decided One of the most gruelling seasons in the history of drag racing in Austraiia has been completed, with all the new champions crowned.

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Sprintcar spectacular It's all systems go for this season's World Series Sprintcars spectacular.

Leo Hindery Leo Hindery is the man behind the planned New Jersey Formula 1 race, but his day job is chief of a private equity firm. The New York businessman's net worth has been estimated by various business publications at more than US$100 million. He's also a motorsport nut, and an amateur racer - and he has a 15-year agreement in place with Bernie Ecclestone to run the race.

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REGULARS je-t ■

Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan The Scoop with Steve Normoyle On The Limiter with Chris Lambden Box Seat 82 86

United States of Origin Model Behaviour

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My Favourite Race Trade

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Classifieds

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Retro Vision

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Parting Shot

K Jim Scaysbrook Jim Scaysbrook has been racing, selling, restoring and writing about motorcycles for more than 40 years. But he's also no novice when it comes to racing of the four-wheeled variety. He counts himself as a Jim Clark fan, and earlier this year he made the trip to the UK for the annual Goodwood Revival, which played host to a feast of old racing cars and motorcycles, and this year celebrated the occasion of the SOth anniversary of Jim Clark's first ^world championship victory.

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UNNY things, eras. They come, they go and marking their passing is, I reckon, a good thing.

We are about to end an era. It was in 2009 that the current generation of Formula 1 cars came along. With the same 2.4-litre V8s that had been used previously, they featured lower, flatter and wider wings on the front and narrower and higher wings on the back. There were also less add-on flutes and gee-gaws, which was a good thing after a few years of ugly, fiddly cars.

Five years later, the V8 era is over, and the incoming power units will be much different.

The new-for-2014 1.6-litre V6s will feature compound turbocharging and multiple Energy Recovery Systems, and use much less fuel than the current cars. Expect bigger engine bays behind smaller fuel tanks.

One man dominated the previous generation. No, I am not talking about Sebastian Vettel. I refer to Adrian Newey, master engineer and designer and the man behind Red Bull's title-winning cars. And McLaren's. And Williams's. Add Vettel's four titles to Mika Hakkinen's two, singles for Jacques Villeneuve, Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell and Alain Frost’s fourth and you could reasonably describe Newey as a 10-time World Champion.

Brawn GP and Jenson Button won the first Constructors and Drivers titles of the era in 2009 but since then, it has been a Red Bull tide. Vettel may have cantered away with this year's and 2011's crowns but his '10 and '12 crowns only came after dogfights. If that provides some glimmer of hope to the

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Add Vettel's four titles to Mika Hakkinen's two, singles for Jacques Villeneuve, Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost's fourth and you could reasonably describe Newey as a 10-time World Champion. opposition, think of 2009; Jenson Button won six of the first seven races, and Rubens Barrichello added two of his own. But once Newey sorted out the Red Bull, which started the season without a double diffuser, Vettel and Mark Webber went on to win six GPs between them.

Newey is a game-changer. Ask Villeneuve; in Newey-designed cars, he won 11 of his first 31 Grands Prix, and in spite of the fact that by the time the Canadian prevailed in the 1997 title, Newey had left Williams to join McLaren. But after his title year Jacques never again won a CP; Newey's McLarens became, mostly, FI's dominant cars - and look at where Williams is now.

One of my favourite Newey stories relates to the Amon AF101. The 1970s FI car was so evil that even Chris Amon hated it, telling its new owner Ron Maydon it had tried to kill him three times. Once the car was restored and Maydon was behind the wheel himself he quickly found out that Amon had not been exaggerating.

His team diagnosed a problem In the rear suspension but had little idea how to overcome its shortcomings. One day at an FI

Masters event, a passing stranger looked at the car for less than a minute and diagnosed not a rear suspension problem but one with the front suspension. He suggested a brace be inserted in the front wishbones and once that was done, the car was transformed. The stranger was, of course, Newey, who is also a noted histories racing competitor.

Just as the rest of us are recovering from a busy Christmas, Newey will turn 55. He has recently recommitted himself to Red Bull Racing, and there is no reason to assume that his future cars will not be as competitive of those that he has overseen so far. Newey recently mentioned that developing a title winning car for this season has forced him to compromise what effort would normally be allocated to 2014's RB10. But once those 55 candles have been extinguished (surely in a fashion aerodynamically superior to any method that has come before) the new Red Bull will have his full attention.

Even if Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo are not dominant out of the box, you can safely bet that there will be RBR victories long before Newey starts considering the best way to deal with 56 candles. motorsport news

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The Scoop

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t is, as they say, 'the race that stops a nation', so there's a fair chance you probably heard that one of the horses in this year's Melbourne Cup, Verema, had to be put down after breaking a front leg.

Pretty much the entire nation will be aware of this tragedy, I would think - even those who deliberately shut themselves off from the rest of the nation and ignored the Cup will know about the death of this racehorse, because of the torrent of online outrage and 'debate' it generated in the days afterwards.

Against the backdrop of various tweets, posts and comments slamming the sport as 'animal cruelty' and worse, the horse racing people have had to run around trying to explain the fact that yes, it is very sad, but such injuries aren't uncommon in horses generally, and the physicality of the animals is such that it is almost impossible for them to recover from these kinds of injuries.

Verema is not the first injured thoroughbred to be euthanised after a race and it won't be the last. I'm no horse racing expert, but as a casual observer each year of the 'race that stops a nation', I do remember the 1998 Melbourne Cup when the horse Three Crowns had to be destroyed after breaking down. What I don't remember is any accompanying public outcry about it. That's because there wasn't any. That's because this was before there were things such as Twitter and Facebook.

The internet and the social media phenomenon which it spawned have revolutionised our world, and mostly for the better. It's an exciting time; this new ability for any individual to engage in mass public communication means people can have their say and be heard in a way that has never been possible before in the whole of human history.

Ironically, however, this new freedom 8

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of public expression and discourse can unfortunately have the opposite effect.

Too often it is with social media that sober, reasoned debate gets hijacked by ill-informed, emotion-fuelled mob opinion.

That's the downside of this new world: social media has provided the opportunity for anyone to voice their opinion on whatever be the issue of the day, no matter how ill informed or ignorant they may be, and for all to see.

Maybe there's a debate to be had about the treatment of horses in horse racing. Personally I have no idea, because I know very little about horse racing. My knowledge of that sport is limited pretty much to that race which stops the nation each November-which, I suspect, is probably how it is for the majority of the people who tune in to the Cup each year. And that, I also suspect, includes most of those who felt sufficiently outraged by Verema's death to vent their spleens about it on line.

And that's the thing: most of public discourse surrounding the Verema tragedy is, however well intentioned, little more than ignorant, emotional outpourings.

If I were a horse racing person right now.

I'd be mighty concerned that there wasn't another fatality in a major race any time soon.

Such a scenario would likely set off a much larger emotional kneejerk online tirade against the sport - and before long the sport has got a major public relations problem on its hands.

Which brings me to Sebastian Vettel.

Just as the abiding memory of the 2013 Melbourne Cup will for the majority of people be the death of Verema, what most people will have taken from the last two grands prix is the sight on the TV sports wraps of Vettel doing doughnuts and burnouts.

Vettel copped a slapped wrist from the FIA in India, but no action was taken in Abu

What most people will have taken from the last two grands prix is the sight on the TV sports wraps of Vettel doing doughnuts and burnouts Dhabi. It looks to me as though post-race burnouts are about to become acceptable in FI. It's been said how refreshing it was to see such a spontaneous expression of emotion from Vettel with the doughnuts he did in India, where he clinched his fourth world championship.

Maybe. But I think that the post-race burnout is just a bad look for FI. It might be just a bit of harmless fun, but burnouts on the road are neither legal nor socially acceptable.

There is no real tradition of victory burnouts in road racing, and as the world faces issues such as global warming and dwindling fuel reserves, I don't think it is a very good time to start one.

Motorsport is misunderstood enough without the sport itself inviting its enemies to continue to ignorantly portray it as nothing more than a bunch of boons tearing around a track and burning up tyres, and fuel, for no practical purpose.

Especially now that those enemies have the ability to mobilise and express their views, however kneejerk, ill-informed or emotiondriven, publicly, instantly, and on a scale we've never seen in our lifetimes. motorsport news

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On the Limiter

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ot a lot of professional sportsmen get to stage-manage their departure. Formula 1 is no different. Not many leave when they choose. Even seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher was eventually eased out the door by Ferrari I So, the end of Mark Webber's F1 career, and what looks like a seamless transition to Porsche's world sports car programme, stands out as perhaps the smoothest exit from grand prix racing for some time.

Will Webber have any regrets as he steps out of a Red Bull F1 car for the last time, in Rio? Nope. As he told a recent TV Interviewer, if he'd been offered the past 12 years as he walked into the Minardi garage on that Friday morning of the 2002 Australian Grand Prix, he'd have signed up for it on the spot.

Which is probably true. In retrospect, should he have signed for Williams for 2005 when Renault was an option? Probably not - but at the time the decision was made, in July of 2004, Williams was still winning races and had an immaculate pedigree. The demise of Williams only began with the departure of BMW the following year. And, if he had gone to Renault, he may not have ended up at Red Bull.

I reckon he'd probably like the 2010 Korean Grand Prix over again. That uncharacteristic, crazy spin in the wet cost him the world title, and there hasn't been an opportunity like it since.

Which leads to what I would imagine has been Webber's greatest frustration in FI:

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Sebastian Vettel, or rather having to put up with the less than subtle way that team policy has increasingly, and unnecessarily, favoured the German, thanks to Helmut Marko’s clear influence. And team principal Christian Horner has allowed it to happen.

For his part, Vettel is good enough to have succeeded without it. '/V\ulti-21' will haunt Vettel. Like Schumacher(who took out Damon Hill to win one world title; tried to do the same but failed with Jacques Villeneuve; then parked his car in the middle of the road in the last moments of qualifying at Monaco), he'll be respected, but not loved, by F1 historians.

Do I sound a bit biased? I probably am.

I have known Mark for a long time as the straight-up-and-down, no-nonsense guy most of F1 seems to see him as, and so have an inkling of just how frustrating all that crap must have beeni At times, I've been frustrated just watching on from half-way around the world.

It was good therefore, all else aside, to see Mark out-qualify his team-mate at two of the past three races. Not bad for a pensioner - or should that be "not bad for a number two Mark has nevertheless enjoyed some great days along the way: that Minardi debut in Melbourne, nursing along a car that was literally falling apart around him; the great qualifying runs and poles with the under developed Jaguar; that first win, in Germany, complete with drive-through penalty; the wins at the classic events - Monaco, Silverstone, Brazil.

Yes, I think he would have signed up for that on the spot had it been offered back in 2002. Monaco, twice, especially. As a motorsport fan, it's been fun going along for the ride. As a motorsport fan and motorsport writer, it's been even better fun getting a glimpse inside the F1 bubble (some of which still can't be written abouti).

The rewards of this highly overpaid (in my view) profession have catapulted Mark to a regular podium on Australia's Sporting Rich List, so from here on it's not about money.

Frankly, he could cruise for the rest of his life.

No, the Porsche deal, albeit probably very well paid anyway, is about personal satisfaction; about unfinished business; about chasing a new goal ... and doing it all while never having to deal with Helmut Marko again!

Sounds pretty good to me.

I have known Mark for a long time as the straight-up-and-down, no-nonsense guy most of FI seems to see him as,and so have an inkling ofjust how frustrating all that crap must have been! motorsport news

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'm going to say something right now that might upset a few loyal MN readers Sebastian Vettel is the best driver in the world.

Yes, I know he's the enemy to the majority of Aussie FI fans. I know he's the man that, in the opinion of many, has driven Mark Webber out of the sport. And I know that he does that annoying thing with his finger.

But he's still the best driver in the world. And he is a very, very deserving four-time World Champion.

I will admit that I'm not your typical Aussie FI fan, because I actually really admire Vettel. It's a controversial stand-point, I know, and I was even accused of having German bias on Twitter once - which I found a little strange given that I am an Australian of Dutch descent(although I do currently reside in Germany).

The fact of the matter is that I'm not biased toward German drivers, or even Vettel. I'm an admirer, and that's different from being an apologist.

So, why am I willing to look past some of Vettel's questionable moral antics and happily admit that he's the best in the world? Because he is. It's pretty much that simple.

There are no chinks left in Vettel's armour.

For a while, there was a theory that he couldn't overtake, but he's blasted that to bits in the last couple of seasons with some stunning passing moves. So you're left with a guy that is supremely quick, happy to go wheel-to-wheel, unbelievably on cool tyres, a master of making the rubber last, and has what is usually the best car in the field at his disposal. What a combination.

There is still a strong wave of opinion out there that Fernando Alonso is the best driver in F1. I don't get it. He's bloody good, no doubt about that, and his never-say-die attitude is fantastic.

He doesn't drop his head, and that attitude has led to him pulling off some rather surprising podium results this season (Spa, for example).

But is he really better than Vettel? It's hard to tell in Ferrari's weakened state, but it's a big call to make. Results are everything in this sport, and Vettel has already won twice as many titles as Alonso. And if Alonso was the be all and end all of Grand Prix racing, wouldn't he have turned Ferrari around by now? Why is 'the best driver in the world' still saddled with second-rate cars, four seasons into his stay at the Scuderia.

And what about Lewis Hamilton? Like Alonso, I rate the guy highly, and in my opinion he's the fastest driver in the world over a lap. I also think he's the fastest driver in the world over a race distance when everything goes his way.

But there's a difference between being the fastest, and being the best. Maybe Hamilton can shade Vettel for outright pace at his best, but as soon as things take a turn for the worse Hamilton seems to have a tendency to drop his head. The difference between Hamilton's good days and his bad days is huge, while Vettel is incredibly 12

consistent.

For me, the real proof is the intra-team stats.

In terms of team-mates, Vettel has it as hard as any lead driver in F1. Webber is better than Felipe Massa, and at a very similar level to Nico Rosberg. Christian Horner made a good point when quizzed on how good Vettel is early in October. "We know that Mark is a very talented, very quick racing driver, and matching [Sebastian] against that, he has been hugely impressive," said the Red Bull Racing team boss.

Webber is a proven F1 race winner, and a very good driver. That Vettel has thrashed him so comprehensively says more about the German than it does the Australian.

The Vettel/Webber stats tell a story about the car, as well. In the four years that Vettel has been crowned champion, Webber hasn't finished second once. He was third in 2010, third in 2011, sixth in 2012, and is fifth as I write this column.

I'm not saying that Red Bull hasn't been building very fast cars for the last four seasons, but if Vettel's success was down purely to having all-conquering machinery, then a first class driver like Webber would be comfortably finishing second.

None of the other contenders for the 'best driver in the world' title have been able to assert that kind of dominance over their team mates. With two races left to run, Alonso is only leading the qualifying battle to Massa 9-8, while Hamilton has been pushed hard by Rosberg all season in both qualifying and races.

I'm even an admirer of Vettel on a personal level. I had dinner with him once back In 2008 a few days before his first Australian Grand Prix, and it was hilarious. He gave me a full run-down on how to use those crazy Japanese toilets (long story), and that humour is something he's carried ‘ with him throughout his FI career so far -just type something like 'Vettel Kimi impersonation Autosport' into YouTube to see what I mean.

Even the whole doughnuts debacle was a great sign of Vettel as a person. He took it upon himself to celebrate his fourth title in a manner that was always going to be frowned by the FIA, and then did it again after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - complete with a reprisal of his , famous Kimi impression (also worth a YouTube).

Yes he is uncompromising when he's in the ; car - we know that from Malaysia - but that's ? all part of the game. Why he is often seen as such an ogre still astounds me, especially given he actually has a personality, and isn't just a PR ^ robot.

So there you have it; that's the real reasoning behind why I actually like Sebastian Vettel and it's not because I'm biased towards all things German.

Anyway, that's enough from me for this month.

Thanks for reading Box Seat with Andre von Lowen. I mean Andrew van Leeuwen.

I really have to stop doing that. motorsport news

Andrew

van Leeuwen Box Seat

I few days ago, I came across a Sydney Morning Herald article about the decline of the National Basketball League in Australia.

It scarcely seems believable now, but there was a time when professional basketball in Australia was freaking huge. The Glasshouse would be packed for every Melbourne Tigers home game. There were heroes- most obviously Andrew Gaze - and,(if you were a Tigers fan), villains, like the Spectres' Dean Uthoff and his biker moustache, and Geelong's Shane Heal with his floppy hair, and that American guy from the Giants who we all used to boo. Can't remember his name. He was tall. Scott someone? Anyway.

The article was written by Tommy Greer, who is now the Tigers captain. And as someone who used to drink the NBL kool-aid, it's telling that I didn't know that.

His piece is one of the most honest assessments I've ever seen an insider make of their own sport. In the early 1990s, the NBL had a huge fan following. And then, they disappeared. Some probably drifted away when Gaze left to try his hand overseas.

Popular as the game became, he was only player whose fame transcended the sport, and when you lose a drawcard like that, you're also going to lose a lot of casual fans.

Greer also refers to some bad decisions made by those at the wheel. I'm not close enough to the sport to know much about that, although I do recall the backlash when the NBL decided to switch its season from winter to summer to avoid clashing with the various football codes.

But the underlying question of where all the fans went remains, and I feel like I should be able to offer some sort of answer because I was one of those who drifted away. The fact that I can't explain it scares me a little, because we're constantly asking the same question in IndyCar. Is it possible that all we're doing is chasing our tails?

The most recent glory years of open-wheel racing in the US were not that long ago. Indeed, they were recent enough that some of the drivers who were around to enjoy it are still racing now, like Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya. For those who are long-time fixtures in the paddock that probably makes things even worse: hearing about how the grandstand at Turn 3 used to be packed out years ago is one thing; having seen it with your own eyes in the relatively recent past is something else.

Lower track attendances are one thing; slumping TV is an altogether more serious problem, especially when you've just lost your title sponsor, as IndyCar has. The series has tried all sorts of things to reignite interest over the last couple of years, including the huge bonus that Dan Wheldon was racing for in the terrible Las Vegas race in 2011, the reintroduction of the Triple Crown, the introduction of double-header weekends at Toronto, Detroit and Houston, and the experiments with standing starts at some street races. And yet the ratings this year absolutely tanked.

According to Sports Business Daily, IndyCar's US TV audience for the 2013 season was a massive 21 percent down on last year's, and those figures weren't good to begin with. The Indy 500 registered its second-lowest TV ratings since live coverage

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began in 1986, with an average of 5.7 million tuning watch Tony Kanaan's first victory at the Brickyard. IndyClM® management is fond of calling the Indianapolis 500 'raeiiiif^ Superbowl', but the Superbowl's 2013 TV audience of tOli.^ million makes that comparison seem laughable. ^ IndyCar is at pains to point out that it is already moving,t^ address the slide next year. (It made changes to reignIte the^ J ratings in 2011 and 2012 too, but obviously they weren't vei^ effective). And like the NBL with its summer season, it has turned to the schedule as a way to do it.

In terms of the actual races, next year's calendar isrt'it alllth^ different from this year's. Brazil and Baltimore are gone, whi|H is a shame as both were great events, and there’s a new roalH course race at Indianapolis. The latter is a delicate subject'!^ jB the paddock, with some drivers both past(Mario Andrettiifan™ present (Franchitti) expressing concern that it will detract fr®)lB the prestige of the 500.

Another potential change is that at least one of the Housl®* races could be held under lights, which would be a good niisiwM considering that the 2014 dates are in the middle of the Texaijjl summer, and this year's race weekend was swelteringly hot even in early autumn. _ But it's not so much the races themselves that have gotten people talking, but rather they way they are scheduled. For the most part, international motorsport has evolved into a ■ loose 'racing season' between February/March and October/ November. Formula 1 operates within that window. So does V8 Supercars, and NASCAR. IndyCar starts off in alignment with everyone else, with its first race of 2014 kicking off during the final weekend of March> But it finishes extraordinarily early: the season finale is at the end of August.

To look at it another way, the gap between the first FI race of 2014 and the last is 260 days. For V8s, it's 282 days. NASCAR Sprint Cup: 275 days. IndyCar? 154 days. One blog recently described the series as going 'part-time' in 2014, and when you look at it like that, you can see where they were coming from.

Yes, IndyCar squeezes 18 races into those five months, but they are bookended by an awful lot of downtime. What's that saying about out of sight, out of mind?

'■ The calendar also creates a new problem for the teams, many " of which wili struggle to keep crew members employed when there is nothing for them to do for several months.

IndyCar hopes to offset this with a series of international races, although details are still very sketchy, and at time of A writing there are zero races locked in. Any series can attest to^ how hard it is to get even one international race off the ground' (indeed, IndyCar tried and failed with Qingdao just last year), ~ so trying to do several at once seems a massive task. And, if that's the key to making everything else work, it also seems ^ like a massive risk. But unless IndyCar wants to complete ’ its transformation into motorsport's answer to the NBL by becoming a great product without an audience, an awful lot rides on it paying off. IndyCar has been resilient in the face of adversity for a long time, but it can't afford too many more 'transitional years'.

The Indianapolis 500 registered its second-lowest TVra ever, an average of 5.7 million. IndyCar is fond of calling th^ 500 'racing's Superbowl', but the Superbowl's 2013 TV aud! k' of 108.7 million makes that comparison seem laughable.

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ffilfie idtank iiiFiies arifcli ffilniE' turn arfflyndi^^ilfpi|^lpiinl||gfi!|^@i M „ :|rii@ time' wdi thffl' iytuf®^. liniOiyGllP|0'ipp|Mii(®m\m Motorsport News: You've signed a new HRT deal that keeps you in Australia for three more years. The deal was completed after the Townsville 1-2 and what was a really strong run of form for you. When did you make the decision that you were going to re-sign with them and how much of a bearing were those specific results on your decision?

James Courtney: It was probably a little bit earlier than that. Once we had the Winton test before Darwin, i felt we had turned quite a big corner and i could see improvement with the development and all the other things that were coming on board.

Both parties were pretty keen for it to happen. I definitely had unfinished

business so I wanted to stay and finish that, and they wanted it to happen. So I could see what was coming and from then on I was pretty confident that it was the right thing to do, so it was a relatively easy thing to finish up in the end. .*«■

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MN; Talking of things that are coming on board that give you hope for the future - Adrian Burgess joins HRT next year. You won a championship with him at Dick Johnson Racing and yvorked with him before that in Europe. What is it that he brings that makes him so valuable and what might be missing from HRT at the moment?

JC; It comes down to: he is just a hard core racer. He is there because he wants

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to win stuff, not because this is the only thing that he has ever done or he can't do anything else. Adrian's biggest strength is that he started at the bottom.

When he first got in to motorsport he was the tyre cleaner and just rolled along on race weekends and learnt the hard way all the way through the ranks.(So) he immediately gets respect from the all the mechanics and people involved, like the engineers, because he has done every step of the way. He hasn't rolled in at upper management and never really done anything.

He has the ability to work out and understand what the guys are saying and what they want from their side of things and then to put that into place and get it on the car. If there is something that

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Hk . needs to change he can do that pretty quick; he understands what everyone wants. So I think his biggest skill is just to get the most out of everyone.

Like at DJR we didn't have the best financially backed team; we probably didn't have the whole group of best engineers and whatever. He got rid of all the dead wood, got rid of all the people that were wannabes, that were just around there because they liked Dick and thought he was a good guy and wanted to hang out with him, and just had hard core people that wanted to be there and win stuff as much as he did.

MN: You talk of getting the most out of everybody. Is it fair to say that HRT

hasn't got the most out of everybody or has been less than the sum of its parts in the past couple of years?

JC: Yeah, I think that definitely over the time that I have been here it has evolved so much. I think the HRT that I signed on with is massively different from when it was this dominant force and from what it is now. It went through a pretty lean period there while Tom was very, very ill before his passing and there was no one really having to answer to anyone or having to do anything, so it just sort of cruised along and did nothing, really.

There was no pressure to have to do anything. So I think it didn't lose its way, but it probably didn't have the guidance

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that It needed. The biggest turning point was probably Steve Hallam coming on board. He gave it a massive shift in the right direction and with getting Tony Dowe on board, who has been great for us as well and clearing out a bit of the old crap out of there and doing what we have managed to do. A big part of the turnaround and the change and HRT being a front running team again is down to those guys and that point.

MN: How much of a bearing did Adrian's impending arrival have on your decision to re-sign?

JC: Not really. That all happened after I signed my deal. Although Adrian is fantastic at his job, the group of guys that we had there, Steve (Hallam), Tony (Dowe), all the boys on my car, they are all great guys and all the speed that we have got now is due to the hard work from those guys. It has (nothing) to do with Adrian, so it is more of a cherry on the top.

I think he will do a cracking job in the role that he has got. I am massively excited to have ATB back on board. We have known each other since 2000 and worked in Europe together for a long time, so I'm pumped. I think he is going Just like old times: The Tander/Courtney one-two at Townsville was reminident of the HRT's past glory days, left. Next year Courtney will be reunited with engineering whiz Adrian Burgess - an alliance that dates back to Courtney's F3 days, right. This is Courtney in discussion with his Burgess, who was his engineer at Carlin Motorsport in 2002, and manager Alan Cow.

3

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to be a great asset to the team. I think he will work well with the group that we have got and bring some new, fresh ideas in. But on the other hand, 1 am kind of sad to see Steve go, I think he has done a great job for the team and turning it to get it to where it is now. But if there were still those other guys running the show that were around before Tony and Steve were there, we would still be wobbling around in the back and those guys slapping each other on the back thinking they were doing a good job. So I think those guys deserve a lot of credit for what they have done.

MN: It took him a little while, but Ryan Walkinshaw now seems to be growing into the Tom' role. What kind of effect does he have and what has he brought to the team?

JC: I think at first he was probably just coming to grips with the passing of his dad. He was a DJ that lived in Ibiza and just partied pretty much and then all of a sudden he had the keys to the empire and really had no idea what to do with them. His interest in racing was nothing, which I think was just purely to piss Tom off, as kids do to their parents. But with Tom's passing Ryan realised how much his dad did love this side of the business.

Not only HRT and the race team, but HSV was a massive passion of his and through all the dramas throughout Tom's career, he managed to hang on to it when he let a lot of other things go.

So I think Ryan at first was massively shocked, he probably thought 'Yep it is a race team, these guys have been doing

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it for ages, I will just hang around on the side here and look at the promo girls and enjoy myself. When he realised it was a bit harder than that, I think shock kicked in.

Martine, his mum, is such a beautiful person. She is probably the one driving everything now. They always say behind every good man there is a better lady and that is probably the case with Martine.

She has been around motor racing so long and for sure her and Tom would have discussed every undertaking they had in the past and I think now Martine is sort of passing on what information Tom would have passed on to Ryan. She's been a big force in Ryan's turnaround and the way he is approaching the racing.

The signing of Adrian, the re-signing of myself and Garth and all the other things that we've had on board has probably been the guidance of Martine on Ryan as he is coming to grips with it all. I think they are doing a great job, I think Tom would be happy with the changes that

have been made. For sure he would have been really unhappy for a while with the way things were going, but he would be pretty confident now that it is in good hands and we are heading in the right direction.

MN: Not long before you re-signed with HRT, you were quoted that you were looking at overseas options. How seriously did you look at those options and how far down that road did you go?

JC: It was pretty serious. I haven't been quiet about letting people know that I still wanted to do some things overseas with the endurance side of racing and also other touring car formulas. A benefit of the way I've gone about my career is that I still have a lot of options in Europe.

I had a successful career over there, Alan (Gow - his manager) still lives there, beating my drum and with the way V8 Supercars is shown internationally the name keeps popping up and people

still hear about me, so It was definitely something that I was looking at. Cas (his wife Carys) was pretty keen for it, to give the kiddies a different perspective on life and other cultures and things like that. So we seriously looked at it, but like I said in the end the deal that I wanted to do was to stay here and finish what we started and, you know, it was just good that we could all come to an agreement and keep on with it.

MN: Jason Bright raced at Le Mans this year, and looks like he will go back next year. Craig Lowndes is looking to join him. There is the Bathurst 12 Hour and other races in Asia - is that sort of thing of interest to you outside your V8 commitments, or once you're finished with V8s?

Tough times: Since winning the championship with Dick Johnson Racing in 2010, Courtney has mostly found the going tough at the HRT, right.

A A I SEE a littlE holE that I think I can gEt thE rhajdritg of my car in. then I will get it in thcrE. I am not a drivEC I am a raiCEr. I am thEPE tn racE, I am not thEPE tn driVE around.

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JC: No, for sure, I would be keen to do something. My biggest thing is that I have to keep my major backer happy, which is Holden, so for me to have a viable option it will have to be with the GM family. Jf something comes up that gives me the opportunity, I would for sure do it. I am not interested in going in and racing just to make up the numbers in some shitty car that is going to run mid-pack and wobble around, just so that I can get some European experience. I lived there for a decade or whatever it was and had enough experience then, so I don't really need to go there and experience the circuits and all that sort of stuff. I have done that. If I am going. I'm going to win and to be in a competitive car. Unless something like that comes our way then I am not too interested.

MN: Anyone that follows you on social media knows how much you travel. I remember you once wrote that the lady at the Gold Coast airport cafe knew your coffee order. Is that something you felt needed to be brought back more into balance with your family commitments.

JC: I think it is part of our business. A lot of guys get carried away with their own self-importance, they think they shouldn't be doing the visits not only to

A it ItlEfE □PE not tDD many pEoplE that QEt to Enjoy going to work as much as I do. and I still wakE up EVErg morning and think ‘Holy crap. I am massively lucky the schools, but sponsor gigs, and Tm too busy to do that' and 'I am an athlete, I need this, I need that'. What a lot of these guys don't realise is if you don't do that side of things you can't do the other one. I think coming from a young age living away and not having parents to pay for my racing and having to rely on other people you learn to not take anything for granted and when people are wanting you to go to places, that is a good thing, you should go, because the problem is when people don't want you to go places and sign autographs or go to the local Holden dealer, or they don't want to use for an ad campaign, that is when your value has dropped.

I am away a lot; the other week I counted up I had spent 85 days away from home outside of race weekends. So race weekends you are gone, sometimes four or five days each time, so apart from

that is another 15 weekends, or another 15 group of five days on top of the 85 that I have already been away, so it is a lot of time I spend away from home.

But I can fly in, fly out, and when I do come home, I am home and I take the kids to school, get all the day care, little soccer lessons and swimming training, so when I am home, I am home and I get to spend good, quality time with the little guys.

In the middle of all that try and get a good training regime in and also dropping in to the workshop to see the boys, and all that sort of stuff, so it is a full time gig. I am flat out the majority of the time.

But it is cool, I wouldn't change anything. I still can't believe, like even after the Gold Coast, everyone says 'how can you remain so happy, you are in the lead and the car failed'. I'm

motorsport news

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like, well it’s pretty easy: I get paid to race a car for a living. There are not too many people that get to enjoy going to work as much as i do, and I still wake up every morning and think 'Holy Crap, I am massively lucky'. So, yeah, there are good and bad points to the business, obviously the good bits outweigh the bad bits massively.

of room, then someone is going to jam it down the inside. So you learn to race pretty hard.

MN: How did the V8s compare to that when you first arrived?

MN: Let's go back to when you returned from overseas. Your first season in V8s, you put a few noses out of joint with your aggressive, even ruthless driving.

Was that a pre-emptive 'don't try and initiate me' to the established drivers or was that simply how you had been racing in the years previous?

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JC: I think that is how I race. Nothing has changed, I am still doing the same stuff, but I think the other guys are probably realising now if you are going to squash me I am going to stay in there (and) either one of us is going off or we both are. I think that has probably come from my European side of things. In go-kart racing, guys are trying to pass you on the warm up laps, sneaking through the field; you have got to hold your ground and the moment you let someone push you around, it is a sign of weakness and then that's it. I think having gone through that way of racing, it is just the way I go about stuff now. It probably took a lot of guys by surprise here. I think Russell (Ingall) got a similar sort of thing when he come back with The Enforcer, because of similar sorts of things from when he was in England racing. I don't go out to purposefully push and run in to and ram guys, I go out there to race hard. I see a little hole that I think I can get the majority of my car in, then I will get It in there. I am not a driver, I am a racer. I am there to race, I am not there to drive around.

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JC; I got in trouble a lot when I first got back. I was too aggressive and too hard on them, but I think as ail the cars have come a lot closer, I think our racing now is a lot better than what it was when I first got back.

I think as well, probably initially when I came back, there was a bit of 'yeah, you think you are good, we are better, we are going to run in to you', and all that sort of stuff, so there was a lot of pushing and hitting and I think it looked a lot worse than it was, because I didn't back out of it. All that stuff still goes on now and I think if you talk to Scottie McLaughlin and a couple of those guys, the new

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MN: Like you said, a lot of that came from your European background, but how did the Japanese F3 and the Super GT compare to what you had experienced in Europe?

JC: It was pretty near the same. It was maybe a little bit more banzai, maybe the Japanese weren't quite as calculated as some of the other chaps that I raced with, but the Super GT, the Formula 3 stuff and the (Formula) Nippon stuff that I did in Japan was amazing. The Asian guys that were in the championship were massively quick, and then there were all the good European guys there that were there getting paid to race as well. So it was really strong, good, competitive fields and great racing, and very much the same as in Europe - if you leave a bit 24

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A¥ailable Pioveniber 2013 1/18 Scale iVlodei Diecast Replica A chance meeting with Triple Eight Race Engineering boss Roland Dane saw Casey Stoner become a regular in the Team's garage during 2011. Hinting as far back as 2010 that he wanted to pursue a future in V8 Supercars. Stoner entered the Dunlop Development Series in Craig Lowndes' 2010 Bathurst Winning VE Commodore.

Stoners first attempt at the street circuit showed promise, with both practice sessions concluding with him in the top 10. Qualifying saw Stoner make his fastest lap on his final lap with a time good enough for 12th position, just over 1 second away pole.

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Starting from the sixth row on the grid and making his way into the top-10 within four laps of Fridays race, Stoner's V8 debut had got off to a flying start. But going into pit straight corner Stoner locked his wheels forcing him to go wide. He then attempted to complete the race conserving the tyres, but the flat spot was too severe and eventually the tyre could take no more and burst on turn three of the 12th lap, ending Stoner's first assault on the V8 Supercar Dunlop Series.

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younger guys that have come in this year, they would probably say the same thing. It'd be the same old guys trying to stamp their authority on the young guys coming through, and they are the ones still trying to hang on to their drives, so...

It's just racing, that is how it is. We have all got massive egos and we are out there rubbing against each other.

MN: You won the championship with DJR, but obviously one of the most difficult working situations imaginable with the 'civil war' between Dick Johnson and Charlie Schwerkolt. Had you ever experienced a situation like that before in your racing career and how do you insulate yourself from that to concentrate on your job?

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JC: Team owners going at blows? That is definitely a first to have team owners going at each other, never had that before. But I am not smart enough to think about two things at once. I get in the car and I can only concentrate on that. But outside of the car it became a lot more tricky; you know there is a lot more going on and people asking a lot more questions. I think it was probably in some ways a good distraction from the championship fight, in that there are some questions about something else. I think it is part of any business, if someone isn't agreeing with someone else, then it can get a bit hairy. It was definitely a first.

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MN; That night when you won the championship, how was the atmosphere then, because despite all that had gone on Charlie and Dick as team co-owners had just won a championship with you.

Was there an easing of the tension for a few hours to enjoy it?

JC: No, those two were still hard at it.

I said to the boys on my car and our car crew, we just got to keep our heads down, we do everything we can and we will win this thing and we will have a job no matter what. At that point it wasn't looking like the team was going to survive and everything was imploding, so we just concentrated on doing our jobs.

As soon as we went across the line, it was just crazy adrenalin rush. Those guys worked their asses off and it was such a team victory and a credit to everyone that worked on our car and the whole factory, really, with all the shit going on to still be able to block all that out and concentrate and get our job done. A lot of that was Aide (Adrian Burgess); I think he had a big part of that and also that's why I think he will be good for us next year.

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he first all-in test day under new regulations - especially when the change is as comprehensive as was the case with V8 Supercars' Car of the Future - was red-letter central for the category's fans. Like most of the 17,000 people who turned up at Sydney Motorsport Park in February, it wasn't the usual V8 Supercar suspects I was keen to check out. There was no denying the anticipation as the first roar came around the hill before the esses - no surprises it was a Holden followed by another and another. And then there was a different shape approaching.

And sound - the higher pitch in engine tone (caused by the AMG's different crankshaft) magnetised everyone's attention. Then the shape - something like a taller but boxier Falcon. The clincher, of course, ultimately was seeing the three-pointed star. This was one of the new guys on the block. The AMG E63 V8 prepared by Erebus Motorsport. Which used to be Stone Brothers Racing. It was the car of new signing, V8 Supercar rookie and ex-European openwheeler and DTM driver 28

Maro Engel.

There were three Erebus cars out there that day, of course. The blue one was being driven by Lee Floldsworth, sporting Irwin sponsorship just like his Falcon had in 2012.

Fast forward to Surfers Paradise eight months later and I am asking Floldsworth the question: when did he first know he would be driving a car carrying a three-pointed star, rather than a Ford, in 2013?

Lee smiled a bit cautiously: "About this time last year. No - wait. In September."

And what was your first reaction? "Excited.

It's a class brand - it will be interesting to drive V8 Supercar with them, you know."

When did you first miss your Ford?

Holdsworth: "It was obvious (pretty soon) there would be a lot of development time with the new toy."

For Tim Slade, it was a case of almost starting again after having finished fifth in the 2012 standings.

"Obviously you don't figure... on a change of brand (all of a sudden)," Slade says. "But what can you do? You're under contract to a

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team no matter what car they decide to run.

You have to get on with it."

The hard yards were soon situation normal.

The main hurdle was always going to be the car's engine. It didn't have enough power basically. Though there were also cooling issues, fuel economy (the Mercs and the Nissans being both thirstier than the Ford or Flolden benchmarks) insufficient low down torque to get out of the slower corners.

"It was a mega load of work to increase the durability and reliability of the cars," team manager David Stuart says, "let alone getting within a second or so of the fastest cars in qualifying."

While for Engel, there was no personal benchmark from 2012 - and indeed each event presented the task of another circuit to learn - the frustrations felt by Holdsworth and Slade were marked by the seeming countless hours doing laps alone or in company with other cars and debriefing with mechanics and engineers, working with a crew they'd had much better times with driving Falcons.

Thankfully lights did start appearing in the motorsport news

tunnel. For Slade, it happened at Darwin.

"The motors coming from a different workshop (in Germany) I believe was the key.

Hence we got that good qually at Hidden Valley and sixth in the race."

For Lee Holdsworth, the turning point came a few months later. He'd had a wretched first half of the year, and heading into Sandown was a lowly 27th in the points - effectively second last. But then suddenly things changed.

'It would have to be the test before Sandown when responsiveness and flow really got much better," he says. "I started to feel confident for the first time, really. And the outcome at Sandown (a bare second off the podium in fourth place and only a fuel problem denying Slade fifth place) was so uplifting. Emotional." Lee ended up in tears with Ross Stone.

Momentum is so important for a V8 Supercar driver. Holdsworth had gone to SBR in 2012 to better his chances of winning the championship, but in terms of straight results and points scored, that outcome clearly is yet www.mnews.com.au

to be achieved. "I had to re-assess. I've been beaten up this year!" he laughs. "It's been one step forward for two steps back so many times - but not from a lack of effort.

"I see this year as the tough one but I see a very good platform... I'm very confident we can be very competitive next year."

For Tim Slade, the situation while all the development troubles were ongoing was that he was out of contract to Erebus at the end of this year. Just before Bathurst news came through that he would be driving for Walkinshaw Racing in 2014, upon Russell Ingall's retirement from a full-time drive.

"It was a tough decision to make and no reflection on this team," Slade told me. "I've developed some really good relationships here."

Not only was he leaving Erebus, but Slade was also parting ways with his long time mentor, James Rosenberg.

Were you head-hunted by Walkinshaw, I asked? Your management obviously put you on the market.

"I don't have a manager," he replied. "I

MERCurial effort; The change of ownership and the switch from Ford to Mercedes meant the Erebus Motorsport V8 team probably faced the hardest task of all V8 Supercar teams in 2013, above. But none of it would have happened without the determination of team owner Betty Klimenko, below.

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street fighters: Fifth place for Lee Holdsworth in the Sunday Surfers Paradise race, above, opposite, coupled with fourth in the Sandown 500 were results team manager Dave Stuart, above centre, said he wouldn't have anticipated earlier in the year. Tim Slade, opposite, won't be around to see what progress the team makes in 2014, while the fate next year of Maro Engel, below, remains to be seen. make all those decisions myself so... I can't remember who made the first move. I've been talking to several teams and they've been talking to me."

Slade admitted it felt like unfinished business in a way for himself, but he says he has no doubt the team will go forward in 2014.'

He denied he felt burnt by a year marking time. "You can't really look at It that way.

There's no point. I've had this tough year but I think that's rounded me out as a prospect as a result.

"You have to look out for your future. I've made this decision as the best one to further my career in V8 Supercars. I see the guys younger than me coming up and I have to get on as soon as possible. And the Walkinshaw deal was the best way I believe from here to do that."

David Stuart is bullish about Erebus' future.

"One of the points in our favour," he says, "is that we had a solid, honed crew in place (a legacy of the Stone Brothers' championship days) and did not lose one of them in the

change from Stones to Erebus, "This year we had to do a massive amount of work in a short time-frame. If I'd told the guys and gals at Cllpsal that we'd be competing for the top 10 at Bathurst they'd have thought I was crazy."

Stuart felt the cars now have real race pace, but qualifying - so vital and so close - remains an issue. "We are miles ahead of where we were at the start of the year and it's all been done in public when you are a new make coming in. We've had to lay our performance marker down because next year, of course, everyone will be back here (under COTF regs) with a much better idea of what their cars can do - and the whole ante will be upped.

That's how it works in V8 Supercars. We're

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confident we can go with that momentum, but months ago...

On the way out of the Erebus bunker at Surf( daughter of Westfield co-founder John Saundei pitlane. Her trademark tattoos and streaked hai is surely no team owner in motor racing anywhi She was swigging heartily on a soft drink and the Triple Eight garage. "Our engines are new, they've had theirs for 20 years. Nissan - five ye.

What did she really expect of Erebus motorsp Regular top 10s next year is the first aim. It' originally thought under the new rules - differei I've got other categories racing out there.

"I must admit winning the 12 hours at Bathu But in V8 Supercars, we have a good crew, goo leaned closer with a different twinkle in her eye

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hen a car has a 33G impact with a concrete wall, at almost every event the car would be immediately withdrawn on the grounds that it had been too damaged to repair at the track without compromising safety.

But Bathurst is the exception. The fourday schedule allows more repair time and the endurance format means that missing qualifying isn't necessarily the end of the world. Also, it's BathurstI Just as football players will take whatever measures they can to recover from injury (or beat the judiciary) for their Grand Final, so it is with repairing cars at Bathurst.

There's a long and proud history of rebuilding cars for races at Mount Panorama.

The aluminium-chassis Flonda NSX which crashed in qualifying for the 1993 Bathurst 12 Flour - and which Fionda engineers said couldn't be fixed - made it to the race. Stone Brothers Racing not only repaired the Jason Bright/Steven Richards Falcon after its Friday crash in 1998 - they went on and won their first Bathurst 1000.

And while not quite the same thing, the multi-car swap resulting in a double-rebuild and respray after Dick Johnson's Greens'-Tuf Falcon flew through the trees during the top 10 shootout in 1983 will forever live on in Bathurst folklore.

For 2013's Great Race, the V8 Supercars teams arrived with their new Car of the Future machines. Supposedly quicker, cheaper 34

and, importantly, easier to repair substantial damage. That latter aspect had yet to be put to the test at a race meeting - until Tim Slade made a mistake at the Cutting on Thursday afternoon. The resulting 33G impact destroyed the front end of his E63 AMG and left Erebus with the biggest on-track rebuild to be attempted so far with the new COTF machine.

“It bent all the right hand side of the car, all the right front comer of the car back to the firewall," explained Erebus Motorsport Team Manager Dave Stuart.

"We ended up cutting the chassis wall away and the tinware on the right hand side of the firewall and all bar three of the tubes in the front of the car. It was pretty extensive."

The first step was stripping the car down and assessing whether it could be repaired for the race.

V8 Supercars Technical Manager Frank Adamson reviewed the car and the team's senior group - Stuart, CEO Ryan Maddison, General Manager Ross Stone and owner Betty Klimenko - spent over two hours discussing whether they would be able to put a safe and competitive (in that order) car on the grid for Sunday.

With the backing of the team members who would have to bear the brunt of the work, the answer was a resounding yes. To complete the around-the-clock work required to get the car ready, a roster of shifts was created and some specialist personnel shifted from the sister 4 and 9 cars to help rebuild 47.

"Once we established that the driveline was straight and we were able to put a driveshaft in there and the laser alignment was perfect, it was all guns blazing," Dave Stuart said.

At midday on Friday, Erebus held a press conference to give an update and assure their fans that the Tim Slade/Andrew Thompson Merc would be on the grid. But by this time, there was another car that was facing a similar scale rebuild.

In a cruelly ironic twist, the 17 Dick Johnson Racing Falcon, painted in the retro Greens'Tuf livery to commemorate Dick's Falcon as it appeared 30 years ago, was looking in little better condition than its namesake had 30 years ago. A mistake at Sulman Park in Friday morning practice by Chaz Mostert resulted in a heavy side impact that saw the car bounce off the wall and leap two feet in the air. The impact and scale of repairs for DJR was similar to that faced by Erebus - but the bulk of the damage was at the opposite end of the car, home to the transaxle and independent rear suspension. And with one less day to get the job done...

The car was completely stripped, with only the engine still remaining in an almost bare shell. Running gear, suspension, fuel cell, crash box and transaxle were all removed for repairs.

Ouch: Friday wipeout for the Chaz Mostert/ Date Wood DJR Falcon at Bathurst, above, and Thursday shunt for the Tim Slade/Andrew Thompson Mercedes, above right, put the new COTF V8 Supercar package to the test. motorsport news

1

i Both teams were aiming to have their cars ready for the Saturday morning practice session. While Erebus had an extra day, the extent and nature of the impact and the subsequent damage meant that they had to make an SOS call to their workshop to get jig work and parts.

"We had to cut the shock tower out of the right-hand front", explained Stuart.

"So we needed some jig work to position that shock tower in 3D space. We rang Queensland on the Thursday night and through Pace Innovation, who supply the roll cage kits, we were able to load up a van which had some basic jig work to be able to position everything and one of our guys and his mate drove down overnight.

"With the way the cars are built, with all the tinware being CNC cut and bent, or laser cut and bent, and all the tube work being laser notched, it is sort of like a big jigsaw puzzle. We pieced it together and got the basic measurements for the shock tower and the jig for that, plus measurements for the chassis rail. It all came together really well."

At DJR they had all the necessary spares in the truck, which meant they could get started immediately on what was less a repair job and more a rebuild. DJR Team Manager Richard Swan estimated that the work involved to get the Greens'-Tuf car rebuilt, including all the painting and sign-writing of spare panels, was 'about 85%' of building a brand new car from the ground-up.

"We had to straighten all the sub-frame in www.mnews.com.au

I hink the car did everything it was supposed to.

At the end of the day the main structure from rear of the irewall is fine,so for the impact that it endured, you wou d lave to say yes,the car did its job.

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19

the back, which is critical on these new cars because you have to maintain the prop shaft alignment. The transmission alignment is the biggest single critical thing now," explained Swan.

In the previous Project Blueprint cars, the energy of the impact in a hit like would be absorbed mostly by the Watts linkage, which would deform. Then it was a case of removing the whole rear end assembly, put a new Watts linkage in and away you go. Now, with the transaxle solid-mounted and at the rear, the tunnel, prop shafts and tail shafts all need to align perfectly or it simply won't work. This, Swan says, is the most time-consuming part of the repair.

Amazingly the engines in both cars were undamaged and would be used on Sunday, although they were stripped of their ancillaries (pulleys, alternator, water pump) and given a thorough inspection during the rebuild.

Both Erebus and DJR got their cars out on track during the Saturday practice session.

The Greens'-Tuf Falcon was ready at the start of the session, while the HHA Mercedes appeared about 15 minutes in.

Other than a power steering issue on the DJR Falcon, which was quickly fixed, both cars ran trouble-free. Slade was down to mid-2m10s, ultimately 23rd quickest. Chaz meantime was slowest with a low 2m13, but DJR was more concerned with running a systems check.

Set-up wise, the HFIA Erebus car would take its cues from its two stablemates, while car 17 would revert to its Friday set-up, which would be fine tuned in the warm-up for a final race set-up.

Although there have been several heavy shunts throughout the year, there have been no on-track rebuilds, so these were the first real tests for the Car of the Future in this scenario.

The most important thing was that in both instances the safety features did their jobs.

Neither Slade nor Mostert were injured in 35

f

what were significant impacts. These, coupled with Scott Pye's massive frontal-impact crash at Tasmania and Greg Murphy's almost carbon-copy of Mostert's accident during the race are a validation of the strength and safety of the new machines.

"I think the car did everything it was supposed to," said Stuart. "Tubes have collapsed - whether they are supposed to or not. At the end of the day the main structure of the car from rear of the firewall is fine, so

for the impact that it endured, you would have to say yes (the car did its job)."

But some of the features of the new build make the repairs a more time-consuming process.

"Last year I think if we had a shunt like that, we would have made qualifying (that afternoon)," said Swan. "It wouldn't have been pretty, but we would have made it.

"There is a lot more work involved. I wouldn't say it is harder, but just more work.

They were just a simpler car, the old cars.

It was 20 years of development to make it quicker, faster, easier to work on, whereas everyone is just learning this new car."

At Erebus, Dave Stuart was a little more circumspect, citing the fact that this was the biggest impact he had ever tried to repair, so any comparison was going to be guesswork.

"Having not repaired a Project Blueprint

We had to straighten all the sub-frame in the back, which is critical on these new cars because you have to maintain the prop shaft alignment. The ''^DIGREE

car that was damaged to that extent, it is an unfair comparison. I think the way we build cars now, whether they be Car of the Future or a Blueprint car, with laser notching of tube work and CNC bending of the sheet metal, I think it is easier to build the car that way. In terms of repairing the COTF chassis, it was not that bad. It was relatively easy."

While both cars had troubles on Sunday the Erebus machine losing several laps with a steering rack issue and the Greens'-Tuf Falcon suffering assorted ailments - they both made the finish of the Great Race, a reward of sorts for the massive effort from both teams and adding another chapter to the folklore of Bathurst crash repairs.

Going to pieces; Work begins on the crashed DJR car, above. Slade/Thompson Merc back on track, below.

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to his race: "Today was our first experience of a flag-to-flag race and suffice to say it wasn't a good one," Marquez said. "My team and I had set out a strategy and we thought that we could come in after lap 10, but in reality this counts as an extra lap.

We hadn't had that in mind and this was a huge mistake. We had everything well planned and I followed the instructions on my pit board. You learn from these things, though, so now we have to move on.

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3D-TRACK LAYOUT (2x supereievated) F1 GRAND PRIX OF AMERICA AT PORT IMPERIAL

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f you have followed motor racing for any length of time - particularly if you have followed Formula 1 for any length of time - you have probably heard the story before.

Someone is going to run a race in a new part of the world to the sport. All the backing is in place, all it needs is a spot on the calendar and a date. Then, just as it looks like many of the pieces required for a race are in place, it all turns to you-know-what.

The money required is three times what was initially mooted and, surprise, surprise, the local government and authorities do not want to throw good money after bad. It turns out that the [insert name of country here] Grand Prix was all hope, bluster and illusion.

Some people might be thinking the same thing about the Grand Prix of America. They might look at the fact that the race was originally fixtured on the 2013 Formula 1 calendar, only to be postponed for a year and that when the draft calendar for 2014 was unveiled in September the race, set for the western shore of the Hudson River opposite New York's famed skyline, was absent. Then the definitive calendar came out and there it was, set for June 1.

That may come as a surprise to some people but I bet they have not met Leo Hindery Jr. The man who stands behind the New Jersey race is a formidable businessman and not one to mince words, so I asked him straight out; will the race go ahead in 2014?

62

"It is 100 percent," he says, with a gun barrel stare. "It is a jigsaw puzzle sitting in a box that has to be put together. But all the pieces are in the box."

Hindery should know. He built a cable TV network called YES from the ground up.

Nowadays, he runs a private equity firm.

Various business publications have estimated his net worth at more than US$100 million.

If there are any doubts that he has the nous to get this road on The Show, they are swept aside when you visit his headquarters on the 48th Floor of the building at 405 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. It is one of the city's most iconic structures and is better known as The Chrysler Building. When it was completed in 1930, it was the tallest building in the world - a title it held for 49 weeks until the Empire State Building opened. You can hardly have an address more New York than that.

From his waiting room, it is difficult to not notice a motor racing theme - a poster of Michael Schumacher here, a crumpled NASCAR bonnet (sorry,,'hood') there. I ask him from whose car it came.

"Minel" he grins.

Hindery has racing in his blood. He is a life-long participant in the sport; as recently as 2005, he raced at Le Mans. His wife is Patti Wheeler, daughter of NASCAR track owning legend 'Humpy' Wheeler. Behind him is a consortium of investors who are backing the event. You could be safe to assume that among them are some highly recognised

track and team owners and there is even a suggestion that one of them has the initials B.C.E ...

The new racetrack may be in New Jersey, but which side of the Hudson River hosts the race is not what it is all about. It has been well known for years that Bernie Ecclestone coveted the New York Skyline as a backdrop for Formula 1. There have been several suggested sites for such a race, including the Meadowlands sports complex in Rutherford, NJ - which includes MetLife Stadium, home to both of New York's NFL football franchises the Jets and the Giants, as well as horse racing and trotting tracks.

But none of those sites sit right on the Hudson, the middle of which is the state

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border between New Jersey and New York.

While locals may play up on the fact that NJ is not NY, this part of it largely is. In fact, one of the towns in which the track sits is called West New York, New Jersey. The other is Weehawken.

So, Mr Hindery; why have a race in New York? "if you talk to Bernie - and he is more of an authority on these things than I am - you want to be in the United States, for obvious reasons," he says.

"Racing at this level, you have some kind of support from your local constituents and everyone wants the racing to be perfect. The cars need to be perfect; the drivers want to be perfect; the engineers want to be perfect. The fans, the sponsors, the broadcasters, they all have these objectives and not all of them are going to be met. In that way, it is terrible, that these expectations are not being met.

"So, when they say, ‘I want to be in New York', you say, 'OK, what does that mean?'

It means that you are not going to get a race in Delaware. But you have to have planning, and you have to have enough real estate to get developed. You really need to give a lot of credit to Hermann Tilke and his team, who started to take street racing and elevated it to New York, New York; Leo Hindrey, above left, has a 15-year agreement with Bernie Ecclestone to host an FI grand prix in New Jersey. The site of the street circuit, above right, on the banks of the Hudson River. www.mnews.com.au

a level no one had seen before."

Easy, then. Except, during the planning phase of this event, there were some fairly major obstacles thrown down. One was the Global Financial Crisis, which hit the United States economy very hard. And, just when it looked like the effects of that were becoming mitigated and there was a light at the end of the financial tunnel, America's north-east was hit by Hurricane Sandy. The once-in-a-century storm, which struck in October 2012, claimed more than 100 lives and caused damages in the USA estimated at US$62 billion. In that context, establishing a new GP proved impossible - workmen who would otherwise be working on the GP site were needed to re-establish basic infrastructure, for one thing - so the postponement was actually a blessing in disguise.

"So when we announced it, everyone was happy - everyone," says Hindery.

"Bernie was happy because he got a race in New York, in the perfect setting. [FIA President Jean] Todt and [Formula 1 Race Director Charlie] Whiting were thrilled.

They will be in a town where there are more corporate headquarters than in any other city in the world. The fans said, gosh, this is going to be a fun town to visit. They will come down on Monday or Tuesday and tens of thousands of people will come from outside the United States.

"I just didn't get [the] finance. We were in the middle of the economic crisis. I have been

funding it myself, personally. We got through some personal struggles and Bernie was a lot of help. We have a 15-year executed sanctioning agreement. Not one year or two or three years, 15 years. Every June for the next 15 years there will be a race over here.

That allowed me to finance it. I could not do that into the long-term future of the contract was about to expire. The capital was private capital. It was mine, and friends - colleagues, allies, whatever. And they said, 'What happens if it gets jerked and Hungary gets a race, or whatever?' I have no idea who might get a race, but I know we are. In general, we will tend to follow Canada."

There is an expansion in interest, led in part by the race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas ("We pre-dated Austin, in many ways and in terms of the announcement" he says) and the new TV deal that sees some of the races broadcast on NBC's main channel and the rest broadcast on its cable channel, NBCSports).

Having raced around the world himself, Hindery knows the competition side of the sport as well as the business side. But he is not an automatic fan of street circuits.

"Engineers will tell you that street circuits do not always have great racing," he says.

"Even when you throw in a hill, like they have in Monaco, that does not always mean that the best car will win. It means that the best QUALIFIER wins!

"We looked around for a decade. We 63

a joked,and it is not much of a joke that we found this site with Google Earth. As an aside, unlike other nature courses around the world, nobody lives

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could never find a captive, several-hundred acres site - you need 500 to 600 acres, to be frank - where you could put a race down and conduct it. Everyone has always said, ‘Wouldn't it be fun to have a race in Manhattan?' HAVE THEY EVER BEEN IN MANHATTAN? The turns are really sharp!

There is just no feel for a racetrack.

"Then this property just showed up, very serendipitously. It is immediately opposite where we are. I am sure that you saw on TV in Australia the remarkable efforts of Captain Sullenberger (Ed: Who landed a US Air Airbus on the Hudson River in January 2009). The exact point where he put his airliner down is where our race is. It was down to his amazing flying skills, but the other reason that nobody was killed was that he landed at the point where the ferry boats go in and out, and they were there waiting for the evening commute.

If they had not been so close, people may have died. If you draw a straight line at 42nd Street and another straight line at 58th Street, and take that line across the river... that is where the start/finish line is.

"I joked, and it is not much of a joke, that we found this site with Google Earth. As an aside, unlike other natural courses around the world, nobody lives in the middle of the circumference. When you go to the Shanghai race or the Singapore race, there is a lot of challenge to getting the people who live in the middle of it in and out of the precinct. We have that licked; nobody lives in the middle.

That made, politically, everything easier, because there is not a single resident who cannot get to their home, even when the race is ON. They are all living on the outside of the course, so to speak.

"What is delightful about the course is that it has all the turns, all the passing zones and elevation changes that the engineers would like to put into a Grand Prix track [are] a seven-minute ferry ride from Manhattan.

That is what the sponsors want to see; from a fan point of view, you can have the luxury of this great race in Canada, on a great course, a short train or plane ride down [to New York]. If we can match up with Montreal, that would be marvellous.

"What made it difficult wasn't finding the site. We didn't create the site, as such. It was created by happenstance. The area that runs along the river was called a Superfund site.

It was very dirty ground and has been used for industrial purposes. It was cleaned up by some remarkable guys from the business side and it has residents that, probably, have some of the best views in the eastern United States - if not, the best in the world. The view of Manhattan, all the way from the Washington Bridge all the way down to the World Trade [Center] is, no question, recognised all over the world. You will be able to find homes here in the several million-dollar range. But in cleaning up the site, they completed a circumference that only to that point in time, including the top of the hill, and without motorsport news

moving one foot of asphalt, resulted in a 3.2-mile, 19-turn, highly elevated and wide [racecourse], with great passing zones."

It sounds almost too good to be true. A look at the plans for the circuit show that, right on the edge of a bustling city, there is an almost perfect site for a track that has been sitting idle and nearly unnoticed for decades.

If that sounds unlikely, turn your mind back 25 years and substitute 'Albert Park' for ‘Port Imperial' ... In fact, when you look at the plans, there is a distinct Albert Park feel to the site.

"It is interesting, the dynamic of putting on one of these races," Hindery says.

"The guys who commit to a fixed facility almost invariably have more cost overruns than the guy who tries to do it in a street course. I don't know what it is; a combination of moving dirt or erecting permanent facilities, but when you have a street race, your pit complex is permanent. The course itself is a bunch of Jersey barriers and catch fencing.

The stands that are not permanent, we know what those are. They are physical sites and you rent them and put stands on them. We haven't been a lot surprised. I am not going to sit here and tell you the first number was the last number. But at the end, it hadn't budged a nickel. The course hasn't changed a foot.

"There are three other guys; the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who is an amazing man. When we had that terrible storm a year ago he proved himself to be, probably, the greatest municipal leader since Fiorello LaGuardia [Ed: the former Mayor of New York City, after whom the airport in Queens is named]. Christie is a tremendous supporter of the event - but it helped that I said to him, 'We are not going to ask for a nickel' ! When some sports opportunities comes into some communities, they say, ‘We are thrilled to be in your town, how much are you going to pay us?'

"That said, when you do a municipal race, particularly in the biggest city in the United States. . . the first meeting that we had, there were 45 people there, from every agency - Police, Homeland Security, Water, River, Environment, they were all there. When we said that we were going to have this car race, the amazing part was that the two mayors from Weehawken and West New York were perfect. Every agreement is signed off, for 15 years. The towns. Formula One, the developer and some of their contractors, paving, electrical . .."

Quite apart from the business side of the event, Hindery also brings his personal views to the table. He has been quite active in Democratic politics in the USA, but even so, some Republicans would approve of his motives.

"Unlike Singapore or Abu Dhabi, we are not a sovereign government," he states.

"I do not believe, on a political level, in the government support of sport. I don't believe www.mnews.com.au

that, even though you bring enormous benefit to a community, that taxpayers are supposed to pay for sport. We said early on that we had to have an economic model that allowed it to be a private endeavour, be profitable and, by the way, we will get not one dollar from any public entity. Not one dollar. In fact, we pay; we pay every year and have been since we announced the race. We will contribute to the rates of these two towns and reimburse them for every expense they incur."

The elephant in the room is that a look across the Grand Prix calendar shows that all is not well with the current environment.

Some Grands Prix are under threat (India is off the '14 calendar) and some are running under reduced race fees like Korea and Singapore, and the Victoria government has stated publically that it will seek a more affordable deal for the post-2015 events in Melbourne.

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Hindery acknowledges the changes, but is now wavered by them.

"Every one of the races, so far as I can tell, has a different agreement. Monaco, they don't pay anything. Sochi in Russia, I am sure, pays quite a bit. I have no idea of the number but my guess is, a LOT! Every one of these things is unique. What we are not is a municipality, a federal government or a sovereign nation. We are just a bunch of guys who want to run a race.

"What was nice about how we pulled it together was that we knew its economics and its structure, pretty much, definitively. That was in part because the site is so perfect. We Location, location: The proposed site happens to be exactly adjacent to the spot where Captain Sullenberger famously (and successfully) landed a US Air Airbus on the Hudson River, below.

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weren't surprised that we got to the fourth turn and it didn't work right. Charlie was an integral part of the early site investigations, and he said yes, it really does work from a car point of view.

"A lot of credit has to go to Peter Wahl, who works with Tilke. This is not really a Tilke project, it is a Wahl project. You can find cheaper racetrack engineers than the Tilke organisation. You just can't find a better one. My bet is 'better' is better than 'cheap'!

So we were able to hone right in with a lot of precision, fairly early on, on what it was going to cost. So, when we negotiated the deal with Formula One, we never had the Sword of Damocles hanging over our head that it was going to cost twice as much, or three times as much."

The scale is different but there is fair bit of Melbourne in New York. Just as the cars and team equipment fly in and out of the regional Avalon airport for the Aussie race, Newark is a convenient 25km down the New Jersey Turnpike, so the cars could be in Montreal for the next race by Monday morning. The spectator facilities appear to be similar and, clearly, the target audience for the race will be a similar demographic to those who attend Albert Park.

On the way out of Hindery's office he gives me a couple of books to read, both of them detailing the events in Grand Prix racing in the 1960s. Once I hit the ground floor of The Chrysler Building, it is easy to get back to my temporary New York 'home'; there is a Subway entrance to the 42nd Street station inside the lobby. I jump onto a 4/5/6 Line train and I am back in Greenwich Village in 15 minutes. As big as it is. New York City is a snack to get around, one of the safest big cities in the world, and there is always something to see and do.

The city that never sleeps is hosting a Formula 1 GP in 2014. Leo Hindery says so and I believe him. If the idea of going to New York ever crossed your mind, even for a second, surely June 2014 is the time to go ... motorsport news

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Drift king: The classic four-wheel drift, as demonstrated by the master, Jim Clark, main. John Surtees, Tony Brooks, Sir Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart and Dario Franchitti helped celebrate the Clark milestone, right Franchitti at the wheel of Clark's Lotus 38 Indycar, far right 70

motorsport news

honoured at Goodwood It’s halfa century now since Jim Clark won his first World Drivers’Championship,and the occasion did not pass unnoticed at the^' annual Goodwood Festival ofSpeed. t was tough being a Jim Clark fan in the sixties. Tough because the bloke he often had to beat was our own Jack Brabham, but there was no denying that in Clark, Brabham, and everyone else in the race, faced a rival of consummate skill, a natural talent the likes of which came along very rarely.

Clark's ascendency to the top level of international motor sport coincided with the premature end to the career of Stirling Moss, and there are many who relished the prospect of the two fastest drivers in the WO'rid going head to head in the 1962 season.

This year marks the half-century since

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Prix, such was his dominance in his eight years of GP competition, but there was much more to the Clark legend than Formula One. His 1965 Indianapolis 500 victory would have been his second at The Brickyard, had it not been for some skulduggery on the part of race officials in his debut there in 1963, but Clark was equally at home in touring cars, sports cars, lower formula open wheelers, and even rallies.

The news of his death in an F2 race at Hockenheim in April 1968 was greeted with stunned disbelief around the world.

As several of his rivals stated at the time, if Jim could die at the wheel, what hope did they have? The precise cause of the fatal crash has never been established - there was even improbable speculation that he had swerved to avoid children running across the circuit - but it was almost certainly the failure of the right rear tyre that sent his Lotus spearing off the track on a flat-out right hander, collecting a tree broadside at the cockpit and killing the driver instantly.

Comprehensive examination of the wreckage showed no evidence of mechanical failure, and Chapman stated that he believed the tyre had been ruptured by debris from a blown engine on the previous lap.

Clark still holds the all-time lap record for the Goodwood circuit (1 m20.4s, at an average of 172.9km/h, which was equalled 72

by Jackie Stewart in the same ●International Trophy Race on 19th April, 1965 - the circuit's final FI race), so it was fitting that to honour the achievements of one of Britain's favourite racing drivers, the organisers of the 2013 Goodwood Revival assembled a truly fabulous collection of 37 of Clark's cars as a highlight of the 15th running of the world's greatest historic motor sport event.

In chronological order, the list began with the DKW 3-6 Sonderklasse, owned by his friend Ian Scott-Watson, in which the shy farmer had his first race at the bleak and windswept Crimond airfield circuit in 1956. It took Scott-Watson little time to realise that Clark's abilities behind the wheel far outclassed his own, and he went on to provide numerous cars and opportunities for his mate. In ScottWatson's Porsche 356A, Clark scored his first notable victory, at Chaterhall in 1957, and he was soon at the wheel of the well-used D-Type Jaguar run by the resurrected Border

Reivers team for 1958. The little squad arch-rivals to the famed Ecurie Ecosse, soon acquired a much more competitive Lister Jaguar, and Clark really began to go places, winning 14 of 26 starts in 1959.

The Goodwood tribute naturally featured a plethora of open wheelers, starting with the Gemini-Ford Formula Junior in which Clark made his single-seater debut at Brands Hatch. There were three different versions of Lotus 18s from 1959-1960, including the FI model in which he scored his first such victory in a non-championship event, at Pau. The Lotus 21 in which Clark was innocently involved in Wolfgang von Trips' fatal accident at Monza in 1961 was there, as was the Lotus 25 in which he scored seven GP wins on his way to the 1963 championship. He lost the 1964 FI title on the final lap when an oil line came adrift on the featured Lotus 33, but Clark made up for it most emphatically the following year in a similar car. The Lotus 43 motorsport news

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that Clark dirowe to victory at Watkins Glen in 1966 provided the only win for the complex BRM H16 engine, and the ground breaking 49 with its Cosworth DFV engine provided four more GP victories in 1967.

tested this car prior to the tragic day at Hockenheim, it was sent to Indy to be driven

by Mike Spence, who crashed it in practice and died when he was hit by one of the front wheels.

As well as the open wheelers, Lotus sports cars displayed on track included the unloved 30 from 1965 and the even less successful

It was a nostalgic, colourful and moving tribute to the man from Kilmany in Fife, attended by many of Clark's former rivals Including Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart and Tony Brooks, and fittingly performed at the circuit where many of his greatest victories were achieved. Judging by the thunderous and sustained applause at the end of each of the three sessions, every one of the 70,000 strong crowd thought so.

40. Elans, Elites and Lotus Cortinas provided countless wins, and there were seven of these being enthusiastically demonstrated, along with bigger stuff like the Aston Martin DB4 Zagato and the Ford Galaxie 500 in which Clark won first time out in 1963, thrashing the established touring car stars. In complete contrast was the snorting, sliding 1936 ERA R5B 'Remus' that Clark borrowed for some demonstration laps during an F2 meeting at Rouen. Poignantly, what was to have been Clark's 1968 Indianapolis mount, the bright scarlet Pratt & Whitney gas turbine powered Lotus 56, circulated silently. Although he www.mnews.com.au

Legend: Clark in the Lotus Climax 25b at Aintree in 1964, main. (Clockwise from bottom right) Lotus 25; gas turbine Lotus 56 Indycar which Clark was to have raced in 1968; Lotus 38 and Lotus 40 sports car, and DKW in which Clark started his career; the HI6 BRM powered Lotus 43; Lotus Cortina.

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One of the most gruelling seasons in the history of drag racing in Australia has been completed with the 12 month marathon concluding early in November at the Australian Nationals.

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hampions were crowned across all 17 categories in the ANDRA Drag Racing Series and the Aeroflow Sportsman Drag Racing Championship.

The longer season was by virtue of the next season shifting to a calendar year format, making this one extra brutal on competitors.

No less brutal were the conditions at the Australian Nationals. Hot and windy weather created a difficult situation for racers with horsepower down and dust and debris

74

sticking to the race track, creating a tricky surface to navigate. In the end it was not brute force that won the day, but clever application of power.

By simply qualifying at the Nationals Darren Morgan wrapped up the 2013/13 ANDRA Top Fuel crown with just enough points to defeat Phil Lamattina.

Victory at Calder Park last month proved vital in rounding out his championship campaign.

"This season was the longest and probably

toughest season conducted in the sport's history with 11 rounds, the introduction of the three-round format (at some events), two round weekends (in Perth and Brisbane) plus two new venues in two new states using the 1,000 foot race distance compared to 1,320 feet (quarter mile) at all others," he said.

It was the third consecutive title for Darren Morgan Racing and Darren's fourth overall after winning the Top Fuel championship back in 2004/2005 when he racing for the Lamattina family. motorsport news

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Champion ettorts: Darren Morgan, left, only needed to qualify at Sydney Dragway last month to deny Phil Lamattina, top right, the ANDRA Top Fuel championship crown. But John Zappia, right, had to come from behind to claim the Top Doorslammer title. Five drivers were in with a shot in Pro Stock but it was Jason Crima, below right. who emerged on top - without winning a single race all season.

With our 2014 season starting in just eight weeks at Perth Motorplex and after using this last round to test and set up next year’s new clutch program, we are already quietly confident of many more (championships)."

No Top Fuel competitors would take issue with the fact that the ANDRA Top Doorslammer championship had a far more thrilling conclusion.

John Zappia had just enough points in the bag leading into the event to be able to challenge leader Peter Kapiris, so long as Kapiris failed to qualify or went out in the first round.

That turned out to be the situation that followed when Victor Bray defeated Kapiris in the opening stanza and Zappia went on to win the Nationals, taking the championship win by just 19 points. www.mnews.com.au

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"Coming into the event, it seemed like an impossible assignment - having to win the event, and Peter having to either not qualify or lose in the first round,” he said. "But we stayed positive and focused and the fairy tale did come true.

"Our deepest commiserations go to our good mate Peter Kapiris, who led the series all year and just fell 19 points short to run a valiant second for the second year in a row.

"The feeling of jubilation after winning was just amazing. It has been a long and hard season, and to finally get a win and take the ANDRA gold Christmas tree trophy home to all our Perth sponsors and supporters was priceless."

It was Zappia's sixth straight title, equalling Victor Bray's record in the category.

The other thrilling championship fight was in Pro Stock where five drivers had a shot

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Cary Phillips climched the national Top Alcohol title.

at winning the title. Lee Bektash and Shane Tucker had slim shots that rode on other

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drivers not qualifying, but with Jason Crima, Wayne Daley and Aaron Tremayne all making it into the show it was down to those three.

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Daley was a shock first round loser, while Grima and Tremayne advanced to the second round where they woutd' race each other.

A red light from Tremayne decided the race there and then and it was an

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emotional Grima earning his first Pro Stock championship trophy.

"I was ecstatic, I got really emotional, but that's part and parcel with it, I think it is just the way it is," he said.

"We stuck to a tune up we knew would work and did not do anything out of left field. We unfortunately hurt the motor in the last round, but that is one of those deals." .

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Amazingly Grima won the championship without an event win during the season.

"The first win will come, we're making it easier and easier on ourselves," he said.

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Grima advised he plans to have his brothers James and Jonathon licence in the team's

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Other national series champions included Gary Phillips (Top Alcohol), Chris Porter (Top Bike), Luke Crowley (Pro Stock Motorcycle), Greg Clayton (Competition), Darren Parker (Super Stock), Corey Buttigieg (Competition Bike), Rod Harvey (Super Compact), Luke Marsden (Supercharged Outlaws) who also won the John Storm Memorial Trophy for most points scored in a season, Craig Baker (Modified), Johnny Kapiris (Super Sedan), Gavin Dohnt (Modified Bike), Carl Taylor (Super Street), Brayden Naylor (Junior Dragster) and Matt Forbes (Super Gas).

The ANDRA Drag Racing Series and Aeroflow Sportsman Drag Racing Championship now wait until January where they will resume in earnest in Perth and Portland respectively. motorsport news

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PRIIMTCAR ^ With the new sprintcar season already underway, Geoff Rounds looks towards what looks likely to be o stellar 2013/14 World Series Sprintcors tournament. ustralian sprintcar racing has already ignited for the busy speedway season and the usual suspects are back in action.

This really is one of the most defining years ever for the 800-plus horsepower winged warriors and all states are offering some superb events.

The major races on the national calendar are already attracting all the top-line Aussie drivers, along with a superb list of American drivers who are set to hit our shores in December for their annual pilgrimage mainly along the East Coast.

The 27th season of Australia's major sprintcar tournament, World Series Sprintcars, will commences on Boxing Day at Adelaide's Speedway City before winding its way through all major states before finishing at the

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stunning Perth Motorplex venue on February 22.

James McFadden will again be a contracted driver, aiming to become just the third person in history to win three consecutive WSS titles.

Only Skip Jackson (96/97, 97/97, 98/99) and Brooke Tatnell (07/08, 08/09, 09/10) have achieved the WSS 'three-peat' before.

An American stint that included the prestigious Knoxville Nationals and several World of Outlaw dates has McFadden is upbeat about his chances for a WSS repeat.

"I learnt a lot over there," McFadden said. "We had good car speed on the track, but suffered from a bit of bad luck and just couldn't put a full night of racing together, unfortunately.

"It's going to be tougher this year. There are some talented drivers on the tour and

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everyone has another year of experience at all of the tracks. Winning a third WSS championship is the number one goal."

The contracted WSS driver line-up also includes the father-and-son cars of Garry and WSS debutant Jordyn Brazier while Steven Lines, Jamie Veal, Luke Dillon, Daniel Pestka and Mark House who will be joined by popular Americans Shane Stewart and Tim Kaeding.

Stewart, who was runner-up to McFadden in last season's WSS championship, will again drive for the ultra-professional Monte Motorsport team from Perth and will be joined Down Under by Donny Schatz. The World of Outlaws champion and reigning seven-times Knoxville Nationals winner has already won 22 races on the tough Outlaws trail this year and his annual Australian tour

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n( \ was confirmed by Monte team manager Jeff Grubisa.

"Donny will be back for us in Brisbane only at this stage," Grubisa said. "We're running at Archerfield Speedway and after that I'm not sure if we'll venture anywhere else."

Kaeding lines up for his second year with four-time WSS winning team Krikke Motorsport, from Bunbury, and brings some super form Down Under, with nine wins and 26 top five finishes on the 2013 Outlaws trail.

While the 12-round WSS will take a major focus, many Australian states are already running their own domestic series of races.

Sydney becomes a major focal point in late December when Steve Kinser and his son Kraig are locked in to commence their Aussie campaign with the traditional running of the Valvoline Australian Sprintcar Grand Prix.

The Kinser's head a stellar list for us Aussies for this event and for the Aussie summer with other Americans Kody Kinser, Dale Blaney, Brad Sweet, Jason Meyers, Donny Scahtz, Daryn Pittman, David Gravel, Danny Smith, Geoff Ensign and the very popular Rico Abreu all entered for this event and many other

majors.

Valvoline Raceway manager Mike Raymond said luring the Kinsers back to Sydney was the culmination of nearly six months of negotiations.

We've completed arrangements with Steve Kinser and he'll be returning to Australia with his son Kraig," Raymond confirmed. "They'll run through until the Scott Darley 50K Challenge on January 17 and 18 and then the Kinsers go home after that. A couple of those others will go on to Warrnambool.

Teams will have little time after the Darley event as racing goes south for five straight nights of action. Avalon Raceway will quickly be thrust into the spotlight with the annual Essendon Ford Presidents Cup on January 22.

The following night it's across the border into South Australia for the Kings Challenge at Three-peat; James McFadden, centre, will be shooting for a WSS title hat trick, but the defending champion faces opposition from the likes of former champ Robbie Farr, above right.

Jamie Veal, bottom right, and Dave Murcott, bottom left, among a host of others.

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Hard Lines: Mount Gambler's Steven Lines, below, will be among the leading contenders in this season's WSS. Lines (3) above, flanked by Robbie Farr.

Borderline Speedway, Mount Gambier.

The huge interest, though, will then be on Premier Speedway at Warrnambool which comes into the spotlight on January 24, 25 and 26, 2014 when they again host the 42nd Lucas Oil Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic. ‘ This event has long been rated as Australia's most prestigious sprintcar event and will trial a three-day extravaganza of racing due to the ever-soaring entry list, which is headed by Mount Gambier ace and defending winner.

Steven Lines.

It is again very tasty for competitors with total prizemoney of $250,000 on offer, which includes $30,000 to the winner of the 40-lap Classic A-Main, plus two other features of $10,000 to the winner of each. That sort of reward should see numbers again exceed expectations, in what will be the biggest sprintcar race outside the USA. Another bonus of entering the Classic is the chance to grab qualifying spots in the World Challenge to be held at the 2014 Knoxville Nationals.

Premier Speedway Club Manager David Mills says the lure of potentially winning the Classic and qualifying for the Nationals was

again already posing great interest.

"The Classic is again a big carrot for many drivers and teams. There's the chance to not only win the Classic but also what is a gold ticket into the Nationals for next year with the World Challenge," Mills said.

Time will be again of the essence, with a quick trip back to Melbourne where the majority of Australia’s best will ready their cars and gear for a cruise across Bass Strait to Tasmania for the running of the 54th Australian Sprintcar Championships on January 31 and February 1 with James McFadden looking to defend his crown.

It's going to be a mega-summer of hot sprintcar racing in Australia, that's for sure.

WSS gets free-to-air TV dea Free-to-air has headlined the official launch of the 2013-14 World Series Sprintcars television championship.

As the 27th season gets set to roll for WSS, the vital announcement that Network Ten's digital channel, ONE, will show all 12 rounds has been welcomed by speedway officials.

"Flaving World Series Sprintcars aired on free-to-air channel ONE is a real coup for speedway fans," Speedway Australia's General Manager Dale Gilson said. "Thousands more viewers will now be exposed to the series and we are looking forward to growing our fan base and general interest in Sprintcars."

Gilson said the announcement would greatly enhance the sport and its sponsors ENZED, Hog's Breath Cafe, Amadio Wines and Carline Exhausts.

"ENZED have been the naming rights sponsors for World Series Sprintcars for two years now, and we are very proud to see the series step up to a new level," said ENZED's James Coulter.

"As we launch the new season, we look forward to further exposure, new opportunities and general growth for Sprintcars and their popularity."

The WSS season blasts off on Boxing Day at Adelaide's Speedway City and defending WSS champ James McFadden has his sights set on a third consecutive crown.

"This season is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever," McFadden said.

"We're aiming to put another WSS championship against our name with more people than ever watching at home." motorsport news

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e talked about the John Goss 1972 Bathurst Falcon XY CT-HO Phase III a couple of months ago, a new release from Classic Carlectables. Well, now we can show you this car. John always liked to do things his own way, including the giant NASCAR-style racing numbers on this car. No doubt scrutineers at 'the time had fits as they weren't the approved black-and-white versions, but somehow Gossy must have got his way.

This model (above right) is limited to just 1000 pieces and is a must for any John Goss fans still out there (come on - admit iti), and not to mention fans of the Blue Oval, as well.

As for fans of Red Bull Racing, those folk certainly have their Christmas sorted. Classic Carlectables' 1/18 scale VF Commodore COTF V8 Supercars (that's a mouthful) are set for release in December.

These are a completely new mould as the VE stuff won't work. Also, there should be a new interior/undercar and engine and transmission, as these have all changed or at least been moved since the old cars. As we've

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said before, this is a very expensive exercise, so the manufacturers will appreciate your supporti FJRT and FPR fans will need to be a little more patient. Models of these cars (including the Winterbottom/Richards Bathurst winner) are due out in early 2014.

Speaking of Christmas, Flallmark's offering this year is another classic American, a 1955 Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria Skyline (another mouthful). These are available in Target stores but might be sold out already (but look online if you're keen). These are not great models in terms of detail and accuracy - they're really a tree decoration, but they're nice all the same.

Hallmark has also done a 'Lowrider' hot rod/dragster sort of thing this year. It's got a Santa Claus figure in it and is labelled 'the reindeers take a break.'

But how about this? A model of the wagon which Chevy Chase buys in National Lampoon's "Vacation". It's just as butt-ugly

as a model as was the car in the movie. And if you younger people don't know what I'm on about, find the movie - it's very funny.

The car was called the 'Wagon Queen Family Truckster'. What is it with big names this month?

I must say I rather like Biante's 'production approved' 1/18 HJ Monaro (below). This is a model of the four-door car, with a 5-litre V8. The pictures we've seen of the preproduction sample show a fantastic-looking car. Not as overstyled as the earlier Monaros, this car doesn't have the lairy stripes and blackouts, but rather more subtle treatment.

As we expect, the doors all open showing the detailed interior. The boot and bonnet open too - everything is where it should be and represented with high accuracy.

This looks like the first HJ from Biante -

more will no doubt follow so you might want to get in early to make sure you get all the colours.

As a teaser, I see that Biante has also approved development of the only HQ ever to contest The Great Race. The Ron Dickson Monaro four-door raced at the Mountain in 1973 and 74 and it will be released in the latter guise, as a 350. More later.

Still on old Holdens, the Statesman, is, I think, a forgotten classic. Like Ford's Fairlane, the long-wheelbase Statesman was a darn good upgrade on the standard Falcon and Kingswood upon which they were based. Trax models is making a limited run in its ‘Opals' series of the 1979 SL/E version of the Statesman, in either red or white. The HZ SL/E had the upgraded 'Radial Tuned Suspension' so was far more engaging to drive than the former versions, which had been rather 'American' in terms of their soggy suspension tune. Interestingly, a quick look at a couple of on-line car sales sites show that, while you can get a 1990s or 2000s Statesman for a few grand, a decent old one will set you back many times this, in some cases. Might make a newer one a good buy as a very comfy daily drive.

The Opals cars have opening doors, bonnet and boot, quite a big deal in a 1/43 model. Hopefully they'll be able to do a 'Magnum' version later on - the HDT upgrade of the Statesman - I'm told they were a really good thing.

You can check out the Statesman and Trax's other new models, the VG Valiant Regal and the FE Holden Station Wagon at www.topgear.com.au Also just in time for Ghristmas, stocks of the Audi R8 LMS as driven at the Bathurst 12-hour this year by Rod Salmon, Craig Lowndes and Warren Luff are due any time now at Apex Replicas. While their effort was ultimately without www.mnews.com.au

Apex is expecting stock of the last Mark Webber FI cor. The Red Bull Renault in 1/18(made by Minichamps) will be a must“have for ony Webber fan .r-

success, the very colourful Skwirk-sponsored car looked a million dollars in the flesh, and Lowndes' drive, in particular, was spectacular. after they went a lap down with an unluckilytimed pit stop.

The model is available in both 1/43 and 1/18 and will be strictly limited to just 300 pieces in each scale - get in quick. They're made for Apex by Spark so you can be sure the quality is great.

Also due in are Apex's stock of the 2012 Le Mans winner, another Audi, this one the R18 e-tron Quattro. This too is 1/18 scale and the photo shows a fantastic-looking model.

Finally, Apex is expecting stock of the last Mark Webber FI car. The Red Bull Renault in 1/18(made by Minichamps) will be a must-have for any Webber fan. Hopefully someone will soon be able to bring us his 2014 Porsche.

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motorsport news

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Bathurst - 50 Years Of The Great Race celebrates the rich history of the annual October 1000km endurance race, an event that really is the Melbourne Cup of Australian motorsport. This 224 page book is a pictorial history of the Bathurst 500/1000, and traces the humble early ’60s origins of the race as a test of endurance for standard production cars to today’s professional V8 Supercar extravaganza. It also tracks the sporting rivalry between Holden and Ford which began at Bathurst in 1968, and the myriad of star drivers - the likes of Allan Moffat, Peter Brock and Dick Johnson, to today’s heroes such as Jamie Whincup, Craig Lowndes and Garth Tander, to name but a few.

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Shane van Gisberqen Pukekohe, 2005 Shane van Gisbergen's national Formula Ford debut went from hero to zero to hero, all in the space of a single race at Pukekohe. Qualifying on pole on debut, a first corner spin led to a comeback that ended with retaking the lead on the final lap. Fie tells the story to Edward Krause.

86

motorsport news

tihlinik I IliiadI mmr dbine as race in tte wtt Ibiafore in Foirmula; Ford dildsnit iltaniow whsot was going to'hioppon..

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ne that sticks out for me is my first national Formula Ford round at Pukekohe in New Zealand in 2005.

I did Formula Vee the year before and finished third in that championship in my first year (out of karting), so it was a step up into Formula Ford. We did the winter series, but it didn't go so well, but we made some improvements to the car (before Pukekohe) We didn't know where anyone was going to be and there were some pretty big names in Formula Ford at that time in New Zealand. Nelson Hartley, who we fought the championship with, Neil Bamber, Michael Burnett and the young karters that had come through with me as well. so lots of top guys that were probably rated higher than we were at the time.

It was my first time there in a Formula Ford and we qualified on pole by seven-tenths, which surprised everyone.

For the race, I was really nervous at the start, because it was the first national championship race, I had never had a pole position before or anything so I was quite surprised myself. And then it rained right before the race. We were sitting on the grid and it was still raining. I don't think I had ever done a race in the wet before in Formula Ford so I didn't know what was going to happen.

I remember going in to turn one where I spun out and went backwards and went back to 15th or something. I think just tried to take the turn line flat, which is easy in the dry but because we were approaching it slower I thought we would be OK. It just spun on a white line, I think, and I had the whole field coming towards me, which wasn't nice.

I almost did a 360 with no damage, so it was all good. But then at the next corner someone had spun as well, so we had to stop for them.

I don't really remember much coming back through, but just we had to do it in, I think eight or 10 laps. I think just (passed them)through the corners and over the hill and the outside at turn one was quite good in the wet, so we got a few. I just remember everyone being so surprised and sort of 'where did he come from?' sort of thing. Because no one knew really that we were going to be that strong, so it was good.

Formula Ford was one of my favourite cars to drive. When they were good they were perfectly balanced and it was real racing, just flat the whole way. They were only short races, but it was always enjoyable, swapping positions the whole time.

I passed Simon Ganboe (for the lead) at the end of the back straight, so only two corners to go, which was pretty cool. I was pretty stoked.

I had come and won the first national race, so it was a pretty big deal.

It was a bit of both (surprise and elation). Probably more surprising because we had been back to almost last and then to come back through again.

Dad was pretty excited as well, but we had a couple more races to go, so we couldn't let it get to us too much.

We won all that weekend, so it was pretty good. That started the championship well for us and we won it with a race in hand. We were a long way ahead and then had a DNF with a crash, so it closed it up, but we were doing pretty good that year. www.mnews.com.au

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Saia man Jim Scaysbrook is the editor of our sister publication, Old Bike Australasia. But anyone familiar with the motorcycle racing scene in Australia will know that that’s only a tiny chapter in the story of Jim's career on two wheels - which is so entertainingly told in Along for the ride - People, places, motorbike races.

But Jim Scaysbrook's autobiography is as much a story about a motorcycling family, because the Scaysbrook clan is something of an Australian motorcycling dynasty, spanning three generations. Jim's father, Charlie, was a motorcycle enthusiast and a scrambles and trials rider; Jim's son, Rennie, is a top motorcycle journalist and an accomplished racer. Rennie's mother. Sue, was also a motorcycle racer, and met her future husband when one day she wandered into Jim's motorcycle dealership.

Selling bikes was a short chapter in Jim's working life compared to his journalistic career. Jim has written eight other books on motorcycling, and somewhere along the way found time to work as a writer and creative director in the advertising industry, something he did for 25 years anyone remember the 'Adelaide Alive' campaign used to promote the Australian Grand Prix in the '80s?

When it comes to two-wheeled vehicles powered by engines, Scaysbrook has just about done - or perhaps that should be raced - it all. In a racing career that spans 49 years and isn't over yet, he has probably tried his hand at every form of competition there is: all the various dirt bike disciplines along with road racing, locally and internationally, which includes three attempts at the Isle of Man TT.

People, places, motorbike races.

JIM SCAYSBROOK In the '70s Scaysbrook found himself teaming up with retired former world motorcycle champion (and former Formula 1 driver) Mike Hailwood. Initially it was an unlikely pairing in the Castrol Six Hour at Amaroo Park, but the association and the friendship grew.

A reasonable section of the book is devoted to Hailwood, but you can also read about one of Jim's motorcycling chums from the early days, Ian Kiernan, the same Ian Kiernan who would be named Australian of the Year in 1994 for his Clean Up Australia campaign.

This book is a bit like a series of pub stories. But like all good pub yarns, it's some of the more mundane stories that are the best. Like the saga which ensued after the young Scaysbrook and mates decided it would be a nice adventure to do a round trip from Sydney to Dubbo via Tamworth, in the middle of winter, with only gardening gloves and plastic spray jacket for weather protection. Or the many and varied characters that popped up along the way, such as Bill Watson, the agent for the Czechoslovakian-made CZ Motorcycles brand and for whom Scaysbrook raced motocross bikes in 1969. Poor eyesight and two artificial legs (which he lost to polio as a child) did not stop 'Tin Legs' Watson from racing himself, although it was to cause race officials at the Moorebank dirt circuit some consternation one day when Watson crashed, shedding both legs in the process.

It's full of stories like that. The title Along for the ride actually sums this book up perfectly; it's just a great motorsport yarn.

Steve Normoyle

www.mnews.com.au

89

iRaceshop IS

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To advertise in raceshop call Luke Finn on 0423 665 384 products," said Tony Swiatek, Product Manager (Automotive) at FUCHS lubricants Australasia.

"It doesn't matter what you drive, our lubricants that use the new XTL oil technology will reduce the risk of engine damage during start-ups and can even reduce fuel consumption."

Even in extreme conditions, products which contain XTL oil technology reach the areas inside the engine which need protective oil film far more efficiently than similarly specified oils.

Fuchs demonstrated this by testing oils that featured XTL technology against conventional oils in both fresh and used states, in a constant temperature of minus 27 degrees Celsius, oils were compared with the same start-up parameters, looking at oil circulation time, start-up time and starter energy consumption. The results of the conventional product showed that oil circulation times were relatively long and increased significantly in the case of well used oils.

Drained and replaced with a product based on XTL technology, the fresh oil circulation times were 50% shorter and with used oils, the increase was less than half and start up FUCHS times were significantly shorter.

As the oil circulates more rapidly, the engineis subjected to less wear during the oil change interval at both high and low temperature I extremes. a

FUCHS engineers high performance XTL oil technology Th e trend towards smaller modern compact engines with higher power outputs, and the emergence of hybrid engines that feature stop-start technology, means that these days there is immense pressure and stress on the performance and reliability of engine lubricants. This stress can result in damage to engine components during start-up, particularly in very cold or very hot conditions when ineffective engine oil is used.

Developed specifically to cope with significantly varying hot and cold climates, such as those experienced in Australia, the new FUCHS TITAN XTL range of engine oils combine high performance reserves and excellent ageing stability to offer maximum engine protection, reliability and fuel economy.

While engine oils that meet the requirements of engine manufacturers already offer very high performance levels, Fuchs has gone a step further to produce XTL oil technology which is now featured in a range of products.

XTL oil technology offers outstanding performance potential in extreme weather conditions, with faster oil circulation, lower fuel consumption and improved long-life performance.

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QBEJoins World Superbike grid Leading Australian insurer QBE is the new naming rights sponsor for the opening round of the FiM Superbike World Championship, to be held at Phillip island next February.

The QBE round on February 21 -23 will kick off the 2014 season for the world's leading production bike riders with new teams, new riders, new regulations and new liveries to debut.

The sponsorship was announced last month at the circuit, with QBE’s National Manager - Motorcycle, Michael Gallagher, being welcomed to the start grid on Gardner Straight by track owner, Andrew Fox. "The motorcycle team at QBE is very excited to be the naming rights sponsor for the 2014 world superbikes." Gallagher said. "It is a great opportunity to keep QBE top of mind for motorcyclists throughout Australia."

QBE has specialised in motorcycle insurance for more than 40 years and since 2008 has taken a sponsorship platform at Phillip Island's world superbike round. The company offers Australian riders a variety of specialised motorcycle insurance products developed by riders for riders.

Event organisers are expecting world superbike's new cost cutting regulations and the introduction of the EVQ class to the world supers grid will buoy competitor numbers.

"We are thrilled to have QBE join world superbikes, IWWIIIIIIIUIH at an event we believe will signal the start of a new era for the category," said Fox. "World superbikes is all about real bikes, the bikes we see on the road, being pushed to maximum performance. We look forward to welcoming our fans and the world teams to the QBE round and promise to once again launch the world superbike season in super style at Phillip island ."

Tickets for the FIM Superbike World Championship, QBE round, Phillip Island, 21 - 23 February 2014 are on sale now.

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For further info go to www.worldsbk.com.au 90

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siRaceshop IS New GTS The long awaited Gran Turismo 6 is almost upon us. It will boast new cars, tracks and enhanced features to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the popular racing game.

With the introduction of new tracks such as Ascari, Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Mt. Panorama and Willow Springs, the GT6 has 37 locations -for a total of 100 different layouts.

The vehicle range has been expanded to more than 1,200 cars, including the current FIA GT3 machines and supercars such as the Pagani Huayra '11, plus a range of historic road and race machines.

But there will also soon be 'virtual' cars. The collaborative 'drive the future' Vision Gran Turismo project has inspired a number of exclusive cars that will be released for the game periodically over the next year. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, along with brands such as Nike have joined forces to create Gran Turismo concept models.

New to GT6 is an environmental simulation based on the longitude/latitude position of the track reflects the conditions of real life locations. So while you race the Le Mans 24 Hours in GT6, the night-time constellations match the sky >J"3 rrg-C _ from the 2013 race. The environmental changes that happen seamlessly according to the passage of time during gameplay is no longer just a I recreation of a track, it's the simulation of the earth itself.

[I An upgraded ‘Course Maker' feature will allow players to create |1 new tracks within the game when it is released through an update. An vGRMjmism t i addition to the functionality will be the inclusion of a new 'GPS Logger' It mobile app for smart phone devices. Drivers will be able to record real I GPS data from their own car and then recreate the route as a track in

WRC Watch The PU2055X is the newest member of the World Rally Championship inspired range of Pulsar timepieces.^ This feature-packed watch includes a 60 minute stopwatch, stainless steel middle and back, a leather strap with distinctive coloured stitching and 1C water resistance The watch also sports a calendar, black patterned dial and a 24-hour hand to deliver unrivalled style and performan RRP$250.

H the game. The ‘GPS Visualised also utilises GPS coordinate data from a real car on the real-life versions of the GT6 circuits. The data can then SS,; be imported into GT6 to create a 'virtual' replay image of your laps in the game.

Full details of the GT6 features are available to explore online at www.gran-turismo.com.

GT6 goes on sale on December 6.

For stockist information please phone 1300 300 776 or email contact® pulsarwatches.com.au

independently programmable for function, colour and brightness, allowing teams to create customised sequences to suit each driver.

Beyond appearances, the new Cl 85 delivers the data logging smarts for which MoTeC is renowned. It comes standard with 250 of this stunning new colour display from MoTeC is a MB internal logging memory, which can be upgraded to 500 MB at powerful data logger with configurable auxiliary control and plenty any time, allowing for approximately 14 hours of professional level of options for professional level expansion. data recording. Over 300 channels can be derived from a mixture of Engineered with a suite of sophisticated features and an Autosport inputs, with logging rates up to 1000 times per second. connector, this latest addition to MoTeC's highly sought after colour Ethernet connectivity ensures fast download of all that data, ready Display Logger range provides the flexibility to suit virtually any for expert analysis. C185 customers may already be familiar with application.

MoTeC's world class I2 data analysis software as it is the choice of At first glance the Cl 85 captures attention with its vivid 125mm many professional motorsport teams. The Standard version is free LCD display. The screen is high resolution, ultra bright and anti and an upgrade can be purchased to use the more complex features reflective, ensuring the clearest view, even in unfavourable light in i2 Pro. conditions like direct sun.

Advanced Functions is also an option for those with professional Users can select from numerous supplied layouts, each with level requirements. It provides Advanced Maths, Channel Maths, crisp, high contrast graphics in various colour combinations. Within additional 2D and 3D Tables and extra User Conditions, these layouts, the channels, labels and measurement units are all As standard, the Cl 85 offers 20 inputs - a combination of configurable. analogue, digital, switch and speed - plus 6 outputs. For those The Cl85 also features 10 built in, high intensity LEDs for wanting extra functionality, an upgrade is available to enable use as shift lights, warnings or other driver alerts. Each light is numerous additional inputs.

Expansion is also possible using MoTeC's E888 and E816 devices or VIM/SVIM modules.

These CAN?based expanders give users greater T flexibility to add sensors, customise channels and control more auxiliary functions.

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Taverna Chassis, injected 355 methanol stroker by Southside Engines. New set only done only 5 meetings. All build details and receipts available. TB T400, Mechanical Injection, accumulator, delay box, new chute,slicks. Ran 9.71 but will go faster. With trailer, w/ shop and track gear. Will separate $30,000, Steve 0403 001 100 www.mYio5.com/iii74

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X GT. Performace M3 E46 Professionally built, Beehag cage. Proflex MCS adj. Shocks, major suspension and mechanical upgrades, Floating discs, A.P. Calipers, Modner LSD. Carbon bonnet, very competitive immac.car, suit state classes, many spares, wheels, springs, mechanical, new susp.arms, bushes, ready to race. 0418 721 776

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2010 Tarmac rally or track car, built to highest standards, FIA Possum Bourne Cage fitted by PBMS, carbon door trims/footwells, fresh race engine - dry sump, Cosworth, Motec dash + ECU, Diff controller, DMS, Whiteiine bars, PBMS exhaust, 300kW ATW 710 Nm, FMIC, All the Fruit! Regrettable sale, as new has to go.0407 911 848 www.mYi05.com/8404

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built in 2007 to carry Walkinshaw Group A race car. Lower rear tail and extra long ramps. Can load my race car without removing front spoiler.

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1.5 million

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The late-October Cold Coast 600 is part of the new Pirtek Endurance Cup, but touring car enduros at Surfers Paradise at the end of October are nothing new. This is Dick Johnson 30 years ago in the Surfers Paradise 300 on the old Surfers Paradise International Raceway, which was barely a few kilometres west of today's Surfers street circuit. Johnson was guest driving his old 1982 XD Falcon after having written off his Creens'-Tuf XE modeUri that famous through-the-trees wipeout at Bathurst four weeks earlier.

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