Motorsport News Issue 439 - January/February 2014

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No. 439 Jan/Feb 2014

Australia $8.95 NZ $10.99 inc GST

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Where the sport is headed next year and heyond

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

Editorial Enquiries

The Grid

Chevron Publishing Level 6,207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555,St Leonards, NSW 1590 editorial@chevron.com.au

Contributing Writers

MarkGlendenning, David Greenhalgh.

Edward Krause, Chris Lambden, Andrew van Leeuwen,John Morris, Bruce Moxon,Geoff Rounds

Graphic Design and Production Art Director Chris Currie

Junior Designer Melissa Karatzas

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Photography

Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, John Morris, Paul Cross, James Smith, Andrew Hall, Geoff Grade,Sportspics, Michael Vettas, Daniel Beard Cover photo:John Morris/Mpix Andrew Hall

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Where ofthe top levels of the sport are at right now and looking forward to where they're going in the future.

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What's the Diff?

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Leigh Diffey, that is, and the difference is that the man who once headed up Ten's V8 commentary team is now NBC America's new FI TV calier.

Level 6,207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590 Chief Executive Officer, David Gardiner Commercial Director, Bruce Duncan Motorsport News is published by nextmedia Pty Ltd ACN: 128 805 970, Level 6, 207 Paciffc Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065 © 2013.

All rights reserved. Motorsport News is printed by Webstar, Sydney, distributed by Network Distribution. No part of this magazine may be reproduced,in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher. The publisher wiil not accept responsibiiity or any iiability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. All material submitted is at the owner's risk and, while every care will be taken nextmedia does not accept iiability for loss or damage.

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' I Theedgeofreality II

That's where any good race simulator aims to take its drivers, and this innovative Australian developed system was instrumental in Mattias Ekstrom amazing Great Race debut.

motorsport news

Unusual Suspects

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i Ken Douglas He was a top production car racer in the late'80s and early'90s and even had a run at Bathurst in Allan Moffat's V8 Supercar Falcon.These days Douglas is a leading motorsport strategist the electronics whiz, and he's just developed a computer race simulator like no other.

The reructdnt ratecar The only GT3 McLaren MP4-12C in the sourthern hemisphere has finally found its way into the environment for which it was designed.

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Desert duel The FIA World Endurance Championship concluded at Bahrain at the end of November and Toyota took the consolation prize.

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Tight Rentch

Shannon and Ian Rentch were the dominant force In Off-Road racing in the latter half of the noughties and into the new decade the father and so are back to their winning best.

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American invasion

David Greenhaigh Motorsport historian David Greenhaigh has been tackling the big issues facing the sport and provides some illuminating analysis of the current state of our top categories and where they might be headed into the future.

The Americans are either here or on their way. Be ready to receive them at your local speedway this summer.

REGULARS 6

Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan

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The Scoop with Steve Normoyle On The Limiter with Chris Lambden

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United States of Origin Box Seat

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Model Behaviour

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Classifieds

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My Favourite Race

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Parting Shot

Leigh Diffey If you haven't got pay TV, you might have forgotten all about the guy who used to front Ten's V8 Supercar coverage.

But when the V8s went to Seven, Diffey went to the States - and has been there ever since. Now he's heading NBC's FI coverage.

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s this year comes to an end, I can't help looking around at motorsport's television landscape.

Part of the reason for doing that is, probably, because of my recent visit to NBC Sports' campus just outside of New York City. As detailed elsewhere in this issue, the Americans get a different view of Formula 1 from we do, and NBC's commitment to both IndyCar and, from 2015, NASCAR places it at the epicentre of the sport in the USA. In Australia, we get FI, MotoGP and NASCAR on free-to-air Network 10/ONE FID; V8 Supercars is on Seven/7Mate/7Two; SBS has Speedweek, with road racing, some bikes and drag racing. Nine and the ABC are not notable players in the sport, while FoxSports offers World Superbikes, IndyCar and a plethora of lower-level racing.

The current arrangements have been put in place under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, as Amended in 2012 [2013], This act of the Federal Government defines that an 'Anti Siphoning' list of sporting events like football grand finals. Open tennis, Australiavs-England test match cricket and so on, remain on Free-to-Air TV and not in the 'open' and, therefore, protected from bids by PayTV broadcasters. The Bathurst 1000 and both Australian Grands Prix (Formula 1 and MotoGP) are on the current list, the tenure of which is until 31 December, 2015.

It may not be in effect for that long. News Limited scion Rupert Murdoch was recently in Australia to inspect the new government that his publications so enthusiastically cheered to the ballot boxes in September. It is probably not a rash assumption that, among the list 6

Some V8 Supercar stakeholders will fancy the idea that a bid from a PayTV provider will up the financial ante and, potentially, boost the commercial share that teams receive. of items that Murdoch and his management would have sought to discuss with the Goalition would have been loosening the restrictions of the Anti Siphoning list.

Timing-wise, this could well be crucial. V8 Supercars' current TV deal runs to the end of 2014 and it will be keen to attract more viewers to its events in the next year - hence, its plans for twilight races. This will take some effort; quite how to place the V8s on the 'main' channel, and accommodate Seven's sacrosanct 6pm news bulletin will take some juggling which may require viewers to 'chase' telecasts onto secondary channels. That sounds tricky, as does programming a hard disk recorder to do the same thing...

Of course, some V8 stakeholders will fancy the idea that a bid from a PayTV provider will up the financial ante and, potentially, boost the commercial share that teams receive. If -IF - the reins come off the Anti Siphoning list this year, that may be good for the teams.

But rival sports like soccer and basketball have recently made considerable (and successful) efforts to get at least part of their content off Pay TV, and on to Free to Air. That prompts one to wonder whether PayTV is really the best format to place what viewers have

become accustomed to watching on free-toair TV. There may be a degree of inevitably that PayTV will, some day soon, take a bigger share of motor racing content. But before one signs up to hand over your dollars, there are alternatives. V8 Supercars' own webcast service, V8 Superview, is comprehensive and user friendly. Likewise, you can view FI on Tenplay, Ten's webcasting service. MotoGP, IndyCar and WSBK and a host of other have their own subscription services. On several occasions last year I drove my wife nuts by watching the introduction to FI GPs at the same time as keeping an eye on a DTM race on my laptop - because the German series is streamed live on YouTube, With media players, you access that content on your TV, computer or tablet or even your mobile phone. For a greyhair like me, it is pretty amazing what a device that fits in your pocket can do these days. In fact, with the aid of a wireless iMac keyboard, I am writing this column on my new mobile phone. It turns out the latest version of Android comes with a snazzy Word Processor built-in, and so far, it seems to work just fine. It hasn't even made that many spelking mistapes. motorsport news

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t the V8 Supercar awards gala dinner in Sydney on the Monday night after the Homebush V8 Supercar finale, Roland Dane found himself on stage accepting one of the many awards that went the way of Red Bull Racing Australia in 2013.

In his acceptance speech, the Triple Eight team boss confessed to be in ‘not good condition' after considerable hours spent celebrating Jamie Whincup's fifth championship success, along with another one-two for the team, and another teams' title.

But he did have the clarity of mind to express in simple terms what should by now be clearly apparent to anyone with an interest in motor racing: that Jamie Whincup is one of the best touring car drivers in the world.

You can argue with Dane but the numbers don't lie. Statistically, Whincup's is a telling story. Five championships in six years, and the one that got away in 2010 was on a knifeedge right to The end. It could just as easily have been six - in a row.

Jamie described his fifth title as probably his most satisfying, coming as it did in the first year of the all-new Gen 2 V8 Supercar, and after a start to the season for Triple Eight that was far from convincing.

The bottom line is that they can do a total rule revamp and Triple Eight still wins, just as we already know that Triple Eight can change manufacturers and keep on winning.

Whincup's world class, no doubt. But are we witnessing a journey that will end with him as our greatest touring car driver ever?

He has just joined Ian Geoghegan, Dick Johnson and Mark Skaife as the only five time winners of the Australian Touring Car Championship. There is time aplenty for more, too, because he's still only 30. Whincup is five years younger than was Skaife when he won his fifth title, and six years younger than Dick was when he won his firsti 8

Unless Whincup opts for an early retirement - and that's something he did hint at a few years ago - you’d have to say he's got at least another 10 good years in him. With no sign on the immediate horizon of Triple Eight relinquishing its ascendancy, that tally of titles might very soon hit six. Let's not forget that he's also four-time Bathurst winner - for the moment...

The thing that makes it all the more impressive is that for the whole time he's had to beat a team-mate who has always been widely regarded as the best.

But Craig Lowndes' career, stellar as it is, hasn't panned out the way it seemed destined to back in the late '90s. Back then he was close to unbeatable - no one in the entire history of the championship had made such an immediate impact as Lowndes did in 1996. He won the championship on debut, and after a year's hiatus in European Formula 3000, returned to win it in 1998 and '99 (think about that - it is the equivalent of Scott McLaughlin or Chaz Mostert becoming champion on debut this year and then backing it up in 2014 and '15).

Who would have thought that after three title wins from his first three attempts that 14 years later Lowndes would still be waiting for his fourth...

A shift to Ford that was dogged by team upheavals and uncompetitive machinery didn't help. It took five long, hard years for Lowndes to land a drive in a Ford team worthy of his talents - and then a year later along comes Whincup...

While Lowndes was at Homebush trying to bag that elusive fourth crown, he generously took time out to be the guest chequered flag waver on the final ever national championship race for Formula Ford.

For the record, it was won by Macauley Jones (the son of Brad Jones), although the title had already gone the way of Anton de Pasquale.

Whincup is world class, but are we witnessing ajourney that will end with him as our greatest touring car driver ever?

Lowndes won this championship exactly 20 years ago. It was the breakthrough win that helped launch him on the path to V8 Supercars. It was the same for Whincup, whose FF title win came nine years after Lowndes'.

Garth Tander won it in 1997 and was a V8 Supercar driver a year later. Chaz Mostert won it three years ago; Nick Percat the year before that; Tim Blanchard another two year prior. David Reynolds won it nine years ago; Will Davison won it the year before Whincup.

Jason Bright was FF champ in 1995, the year Mark Webber finished fourth before launching himself on the international stage.

And way back in 1990, it was won by Russell Ingall. The young Enforcer's nemesis back then was the guy who narrowly beat him to the title the previous year, a young lad named Mark Larkham.

Time moves on and things change, but I'm going to miss Formula Ford on the national stage. What I hope I don't miss in the future is a replacement series that continues to provide not only a logical pathway from karts through to local touring cars and/or international openwheelers, but also a place where the future Whincups, Webbers and Lowndes,, as well as mechanics and engineers, can hone their testing and development skills.

I ve not seen anything in the proposed Formula Four to suggest it's capable of doing this any better than Formula Ford has for the past 43 years. motorsport news

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ive championships and still only 30 years of age. And clearly there's no reason why that figure can't grow to a distinctly significant, record number pretty soon.

That was the impressive statistical outcome of the V8 Supercar Championship, which concluded at the concrete tunnel which is the Homebush street circuit. But, from where I sat, Jamie earned something even more valuable on that Sunday afternoon.

It's interesting how a single day, a single moment, can change people's perceptions.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one wondering whether Whincup was seriously insane, or just possessed with extraordinary self-confidence as the final race for 2013 played out. All he had to do to beat his one remaining rival - team-mate Craig Lowndes to the title was cruise. Simple. Top 15 was all that was needed. Just bring it home, son.

Yet there was the #1 Commodore on the edge, slugging it out, clashing door-to-door with Jason Bright - and not even for the race win. And it could have ended very badly. It placed enormous faith in Bright (and earlier, Ford arch-rival Mark Winterbottom) to play the game. Either could easily, accidentally even, have turned Whincup's car into that unforgiving concrete.

And that would have been that. Craig Lowndes would be champion.

So why risk it all for that?

Post-race, Whincup shrugged it off; said he was enjoying the race, couldn't help himself, and that the fans had paid to see a race . ..

Goodness knows what the Red Bull pit was thinking while this was going on. The fact that pit-car radio is publically accessible these days probably prevented a moderately terse conversation.

But, if a scan of social media and web comment since is anything to go by, that single decision, that single act, that single comment, has hit the spot with many race fans.

There are people who don't necessarily 10

Whincup's debonair approach to that Sunday decider has seemingly won him more fans. To simply shrug off the risk of a championship-destroying incident because he was enjoying the race is, well ... different! warm to Jamie, or at least his public persona.

It could simply be tall-poppy; it could be as simple as his sheer professionalism at the races as the primary race winner in a long standing, dominant, top team. Ask Sebastian Vettel - the parallels are there, although Jamie hasn't had 'Multi-21' moments, or the cross garage stress that have impacted the young German's image. Far from it.

Whatever, Whincup's debonair approach to that Sunday decider has seemingly won him more fans. To simply shrug off the risk of a championship-destroying incident because he was enjoying the race is, well . . . different!

Jamie's championship defence isn't the only repeat from 2012. Indeed, the quite startling other stat after the dust has settled is the extraordinary similarity between the top 10 championship positions last year and this.

Check it out. Same top four (the Red Bulls and the FPRs); Van Giz, Tander, Reynolds . . . The only ones missing are Slade and Holdsworth - both of whom understandably found themselves further down the table as Erebus found its feet.

In that sense, the Gen-2 (nee Car of the Euture) V8 Supercar hasn't really changed things. However, 13 individual winners does suggest that the status quo was at least shaken, with the BJR Coulthard/Bright duo and Carry Rogers' young find Scott McLaughlin taking wins, as well as Chaz Mostert.

Overall, an entertaining first year for the new formula, but with one yawning gap - the failure to integrate the two new manufacturers with reasonable performance parameters. With rare exception, Nissan and Erebus were in the bottom half of the field

and that isn't the 'parity' deal either was sold.

Ultimately, the COTF philosophy set out to match two physically differing types of engine -the existing 'push-rod' V8s and the newertech, overhead cam power plants. Initially it was assumed that the newer engines would be better and would need to be 'pulled back'. However, the category's 7500rpm limit proved to be more of a handicap to the normally higher-revving modern engines than anyone had anticipated, and the shoe was very much on the other foot from day one.

Understandably, perhaps, the incumbents have been reluctant to concede ground, and thus 2013 has pretty much played out as a traditional Holden-Ford battle. It's something the category's management has to address, if Gen-2 is ultimately to deliver what it promised.

Without labouring the point, I'll pose a single question: would horse-racing allow Gai Waterhouse or Bart Cummins to be part of the Melbourne Cup handicap committee?

Nope. It needs to be a totally independent process. Guess you can see where I'm going . . .

Moving on . . . this Christmas looks like offering hard-working team employees their first extended break for a while. With the exception of Garry Rogers' new Volvo outfit, there aren't new cars to be built en masse, and so the V8 Supercar entourage should at least be able to enter the second year of its new formula in a refreshed state of mind.

Having said that, there's only eight weeks to the pre-season test, so remarkably soon it will all be on again and the question will be whether anyone can keep Jamie from six . . . you wouldn't bet on it, would you. motorsport news

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f you're tired of landing on these pages and being slammed with another essay about IndyCar's ongoing struggle to gain traction amongst the broader motorsport community, then this might be a good time to turn the page.

Two things happened in the past couple of weeks that drove home just how much work single-seater racing in the US still has ahead of it. The first took place in my living room a couple of days ago. There was a college gridiron game on the TV (which means that it must have been Saturday - Saturday is college football day; Sunday is NFL).

College sports, gridiron in particular, are massive in the US. It's no exaggeration to say that it has a bigger following than many professional sports; last year just under 50,000,000 people attended a game at one of the 644 NCAA schools. In the South Eastern Conference, average game day attendances were above 75,000. TV coverage is extensive, too. With my being located on the west coast, which is three hours behind the east coast, it's possible for me to turn on the TV at 7am on Saturday morning to catch a game in Florida, and then just keep watehing other games back-to-back until late in the afternoon, all on free-to-air. For many Americans, the addition of some beer and nachos would qualify this as a Saturday well spent.

As someone still working to cultivate an ● appreciation for the intricacies of gridiron. I'm yet to blow an entire day sitting on the sofa watching large men crash into each other. But I was interested in where the college teams’ fan bases came from; do people follow teams based on where they live, or where they might have gone to dWWetsity? I-turned to Google Analytics for answers, and did a few scans of search terms based on region. In a few moments a map of the US appeared, with each state colour-coded in different shades of blue depending upon the amount of traffic it generated relevant to that search term.

Spoiler alert; there was a LOT of blue.

One thing led to another, and in short order I was trying the same thing with 'IndyCar' as the.search term. When I first hit the enter key, I honestly thought that Google was having a slow-down. I was expecting the map to turn a substantially lighter shade of blue, given that the Analytics system uses lighter colours to designate lighter traffic. I wasn't expecting it to go almost completely white.

Indiana represented a pale blue little island in the mid-west, and if you squinted a bit you could maybe detect a blue-ish tint around Florida. But for the most part, I might as well have typed in 'test cricket'. In the past few years IndyCar has had a new car, exceptional racing, an American champion in 2012, and it is STILL not registering with anybody.

We probably shouldn't be surprised that IndyCar is struggling to crack the general consciousness; it's hardly alone in being a 12

sport that thinks it deserves more coverage than it gets. The only difference is that unlike the other sports that are trying to go bigtime, IndyCar did once have some degree of recognition. I guess it's now that we are really seeing the full effects of the split back in 1996.

That's just the latest in a seemingly endless reminders of how invisible IndyCar is to the average person sitting in a coffee shop, but the reaction to the sudden retirement of Dario Franchitti illustrated that the series is still under-appreciated within the broader boundaries of the sport itself.

In territories where IndyCar doesn't race - ie, everywhere except North America - it's easy to get a sense that Franchitti's achievements are somehow lessened by the fact that he made his mark in IndyCar rather than Formula 1. This is a mistake; when the Scot's doctors informed him that the potential risks of another concussion far outweighed the rewards of another season in the cockpit, thereby forcing him to announce his retirement last month, the motorsport world was robbed of one of its greatest practitioners of the current era.

■ All of the numbers point to Franchitti's rare talent; had he not decided to try NASCAR in 2008, there's a very good chance that he'd have won five IndyCar titles in a row. That's extraordinary when you consider how many other good drivers are in the series right now, and also that the car is less of a factor than it is in FI - Sebastian Vettel is amazing, but having a Red Bull to play with doesn't hurt either.

His speed and versatility in themselves maike him hard to replace, but even more difficult to replicate are the intangibles that he brought to the team. In the days after Franchitti's retirement was announced, I spoke to representatives from three of his former teams - Kim Green (Team Green), Michael Andretti (Andretti Green Racing) and Mike Hull (Chip Ganassi Racing), and all of them referred to his complete selflessness within the team; his willingness to share everything he knew with his team-mates on the basis that whatever helped the team would ultimate ly help him, and that if his team-mates then used that information to go faster than hi m, it was his fault.

His final team-mate, Scott Dixon, has similar qualities. To get a sense of the dyn amic between them at Ganassi this year, imagine Alonso and Hamilton and McLaren, and then reverse it 180 degrees. So not only is Ganassi trying to replace an exceptional driver, but it also trying to replicate a degree of openness and trust within the team that only occurs very rarely.

The widespread assumption that an average FI driver - let's take Sergio Perez as an example - would be a 'natural' fit on the grounds that, well, he raced FI so how

hard could IndyCar be, is misguid^and | just shows how short some people's memories | are. Rubens Barrichello is better-credentialed % than Perez, and he didn't exactly find IndyCar f to be a cakewalk.

Whoever Ganassi hires will be a very good driver, but a pound-for-pound replacegjjfnt for Franchitti simply doesn't exist.

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takes a special kind of talent to properly get HAT'S your favourite on top of this place, and there are some very motor racing event?' accomplished drivers out there who say it's I've always found as tough as anywhere in the world (Martin that question pretty easy to answer. In terms Brundle tweeted 'Macau is the toughest track in the world' after Ian Hutchinson's Bike GP of an 'event', not just a track or a race but a win this year). whole package, the Bathurst 1000 is pretty Even away from the circuit, the event has hard to beat. It's got everything, including a very special feel. It's actually difficult to one of the world's truly great circuits, a revdescribe, although Autosport’s World Touring head atmosphere, and a trophy that is one of Car Championship reporter Sam Tremayne the most revered in world touring car racing. went close this year when he said something However, I have to say that Bathurst now to the effect of 'this must be what motor has some competition when it comes to racing was like during the tobacco era'. being my favourite event. Because over the Like Sam, I missed out on what was a last couple of years I've started making an more lucrative time for our sport, but as we annual trip to the Macau Grand Prix. And let milled around at the traditional Saturday me tell you, it's absolutely fantastic. Bathurstevening function, eating delicious food whil e spec fantastic. looking over the incredible Venetian Hotel Macau itself is an interesting place. in the Cotai Strip, it really did feel like we Radically different to its big brother Hong were in that bygone era, where budgets were Kong, the former Portuguese colony now just that bit easier to come by thanks to the thrives on its lucrative garnbling industry. cigarette makers.

In.fact, Macau now makes more money But to me, what really makes the Macau '.from gambling than Las Vegas, something Grand Prix special is that it's a one-off race. that's easy to believe when you see the ' sheer density of casino^vvith your own eyes. ^ There isn't a single driver in the field who is cruising around in fourth place, knowing th at ●Some might say it makes Macau a little X amount of points will be enough to seal ohe-dimensional, but it sure does look pretty the championship. Every single driver in the at night time - and talk about a stunning field is there for one reason - to try to win backdrop for a racing circuit. the Macau Grand Prix. That's all there is on Speaking of the circuit, it's one those offer, and it encourages some fantastic racin g. :. things you actually have to see to believe. I It's the best young drivers in the world, in . remernber my first trip to Bathurst, and being awesome cars, battling it out for one of the . '. blown away by how steep it was at The most prestigious junior titles in the world. And Cutting, and how narrow it was across the when you're watching guys like Antonio Felix top. But the Guia circuit takes it to a whole . . new level.

KWto't*. da.Gosta and this year's winner Alex Lynn (who is the real deal, trust me) doing battle, , Having missed out on the opportunity last it's lots and lots of fun. year, this time around I made sure I took a stroll around the circuit, joined by Autosport's Oh, and if that's not enough, there is Formula 3 expert Marcus Simmons, and World Touring Cars, the GT Cup (Maro Engel broadcaster extraordinaire Alan Hyde. It made monstering the Erebus SLS AMG around that for an intriguing bit of mid-morning exercise. circuit this year was amazing), and the bike The climb up San Francisco hill is GP, which is just frightening to watch.

While the race is dead serious, there is deceptively sharp, and the 'Mountain' section - from San Francisco Bend to the exit of also a sense of fun in Macau during race week. For most of the teams and drivers, it's the Melco hairpin - is mind-blowing. It's so narrow, a seemingly never-ending series of the last race of the year, so there's a holiday corners, one leading straight into the next. It's feel about it. And Macau's, ah, interesting an exhilarating experience on foot (although nightlife makes for plenty of fun (the famous that could be because the roads were still MP3 bar is great for spotting racing people on any given evening). Then there is the after open, and the locals are ... interesting drivers), so I can't even begin to imagine how party at the MGM's Lion's Bar, which, well it must be flat-out in an F3 car. Getting it right won't say too much. Let's just say booking an early ferry back to HK on the Monday must be both hugely exciting, and incredibly satisfying. morning is a bad idea (I learnt that the hard And then there is Melco, the mother of all way on my first visit).

It's actually unfair to try to choose a hairpins. Simmons, Hyde and I arrived just in favourite between Bathurst and Macau, time to see a light truck literally have to do a three-point turn, using both lanes, to make it because they are two totally different events around the corner. That says it all, really.

(I don't think the Grand Lisboa has camping When you see the circuit in the flesh for the spots...), so I'll just say this if you're a real first time, it becomes quite obvious why so motor racing tragic, and as an MN reader many of the drivers who win on these streets there's a better than even chance you are, go on to bigger and better things. It clearly add the Macau Grand Prix to your bucket list 14

When the circuit irTthe flesh for the first time, it becomes quife' obvious why so many of the drivers who win on these streets go on to bigger and better things motorsport r.<

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What shaped up as a three-way battle royale turned into a one-driver masterclass. Jamie Whincup brushed away a supposed hoodoo and raced to the end to wrap up the 2013 V8 Supercars Championship his way. Edward Krause witnessed his ascendency to greatness.

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hat Homebush hoodoo?

Fastest on Friday, fastest in qualifying, fastest in the Shootout followed by a dominant victory on Saturday that included setting the fastest race lap and leading 63 of 74 of them. It was the most emphatic rebuttal of those that pointed out that Flomebush was Jamie Whincup's weakest circuit on the championship.

As many noted, every year he came here he was defending a championship lead and was focused on risk minimisation rather than all out attack. But with only 20 points separating himself and team-mate Craig Lowndes, his best defence was aiways going to be a good offence.

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□ Office 365

When the championship kicked in February it was hoped that oft the technical shake-up with Car of the Future would provide a variety of winners. Early on it did just that - eight different winners in the first nine races, with the championship lead having being shared by Craig Lowndes Whincup and Will Davison at the conclusion of each of the first three rounds.

Whincup took the points lead back at the fourth round and went on to record seven wins in nine races - coupled with podium finishes the other races in Perth and Austin By this point his lead was 142 over Lowndes followed by Will Davison and Fabian Coulthard. Mark Winterbottom was eighth 356 points from the lead, after a fairly fraught start to his campaign But Winterbottom would hit a rich vein of form during the four rounds leading up to the endurance races. Two wins and a further four podiums, coupled with Whincup's indifferent form at Townsville and dualretirement disaster at Winton meant that his lead was cut to 55 over Davison and 70 over Winterbottom with Lowndes a further two points back as they headed to Sandown.

Roads to glory: Symmons Plains, top, and Pukekohe, above left, were among the several tough early-season events for Jamie Whincup, top. but by Queensland Raceway, centre left, things had turned for Triple Eight. Whincup was strong in Texas, left, although there was a big setback to come on the Cold Coast, top right motorsport news

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By this point the top nine - Coulthard, James Courtney, Jason Bright, Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander - were still the championship hunt, covered by 345 points.

Series rookie Scott McLaughlin in 10th was a further 284 points behind Tander.

A first at Sandown and a second at Bathurst helped Whincup extend his lead slightly.

Lowndes followed his team-mate home in both races, minimising the damage.

But a major turning point was Paul Dumbrell's crash at Surfers Paradise on the Saturday. This handed race winner Lowndes the championship lead. A podium on Sunday meant Whincup left the Gold Coast only six points in arrears of his team-mate. Bathurst winner Winterbottom's podium on Saturday was offset with an 18th on the Sunday and he was 78 points down on Lowndes.

The endurance races killed Will Davison's championship. His Sandown podium was the only bright spot; he would be relegated to only a 'mathematical chance' with two rounds remaining.

Just as Dumbrell's mistake at Surfers Paradise was a 'championship-changer', so too was the clash between Winterbottom and Lowndes in race one at the Island.

Winterbottom's move at the final turn of the final lap before the half-way break of the 60/60 race ended in both of them dropping from first and second to back in the pack, although Lowndes came off the worst by virtue of being pushed off the track. Given www.mnews-Com.au

the net result for Winterbottom was to start the second half from pole instead of grid two, it seemed a lot of risk for little reward.

Red Bull Racing boss Roland Dane labelled Winterbottom's move on Lowndes 'one of the silliest moves I've ever seen'. But Lowndes also forcefully defended against the move so if it was silly to attempt it was equally so to defend it.

Both the Driving Standards Observer and then, after a RBR appeal, the stewards deemed it a racing incident. The in-car footage did show that the contact between Lowndes and Winterbottom wrenched the steering wheel from 'Frosty's' hands, which was caused the final bump that pushed Lowndes from the circuit.

Ultimately Winterbottom and Lowndes finished race one fifth and eighth respectively - but both were behind Jamie Whincup. On the final lap Whincup pulled a decisive move on Winterbottom at turn four to take fourth and gain an extra six points buffer in what would once again be his championship lead.

The Sunday was a Red Bull domination - a 1-2 led by Lowndes in the first race and a 1-3 to Whincup, with Winterbottom splitting the pair in the second - this time with no more contact or controversy.

But for Winterbottom, after out-qualifying Whincup in all three races, finishing behind the defending champion in every race and seeing the gap blow out to 124 points was an opportunity missed.

With 300 points up for grabs at the Homebush finale it wasn't over - but in practical terms he would need both Whincup and Lowndes to record DNFs. Lowndes hadn't failed to finish all season, while Whincup had three - but two of them were at Winton.

With only 20 points separating Whincup and Lowndes, unless disaster struck the Red Bull cars It was once again an intra-team battle to the end.

In the fortnight between Phillip Island and Homebush the Red Bull team were focused on ensuring they didn't trip each other up.

Roland Dane had said they had learned lessons from 2011, the last time they came to the finale with both drivers in championship contention. Jeremy Moore Lowndes' engineer - had said they would not stack Lowndes in the pits no matter what the circumstances.

Winterbottom was promising aggression, although after Phillip Island his choice of time and place to be aggressive was questionable.

But he had nothing to lose now.

Much was made of Jamie Whincup's comparatively poor record at the Sydney street circuit. In the four visits so far his best results was fifth on four occasions.

But with the exception of 2010, each time he's come here defending a championship lead and focused on risk minimisation instead of maximum attack. With the exception of 2010, each time he's done just enough to win the title.

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With no practice on before qualifying on the Saturday, Whincup used a fresh set of tyres to do a simulation.

The strategy paid off - he qualified fastest on Saturday with Lowndes fifth and Winterbottom jumping from 10th to seventh at the very end of the session.

In the Shootout Winterbottom jumped to the front row, the only driver to go under 1m29s until Whincup trumped him to take pole - fastest in every sector of the lap. They would start from the front row, however ,Lowndes made a mistake at turn nine, running up the escape road and would be starting from position 10.

The point during the race wastalking another altercation between Winterbottom and Lowndes early on. After completing a passing move, Lowndes was bumped in the rear at the next corner by the Ford driver and pushed into the tyres. The resulting melee left damage to both cars but neither would be shown a mechanical black flag. This particularly riled up Red Bull as it was clear that that there was loose bodywork - including a rear window hanging out - on the FPR machine.

The damage to 888 seemed minor, but the full impact wasn't known until they came to do their final scheduled stop. A crimped fuel line meant that the car was stationary for a very long time. Lowndes' annoyance was obvious - gesturing to his car controller impatiently. When he was finally released they realised that despite the elongated stop, still not enough fuel had made it in.

He would be required to do a splash and dash. It would drop him to 21 st, from which

Fop the second round in a challengers conspired to h advantage. And didn’t he r

he would recover to 15th, leaving him 110 points in arrears of Whincup leading into Sunday's finale.

For Winterbottom he hovered in the second half of the top 10. His steering had been damaged in the opening laps. The loose bodywork was taped over at his final stop and he was in a battle with Tony D'Alberto when a mistake by D'Alberto ended with Winterbottom going front-first into the wall.

It brought a muted cheer from the Red Bull team and ended both his race and his slim championship ambitions.

Speaking about the incident with Lowndes, Winterbottom said he wasn't sure if he received a tap from behind or accidentally got two pedals when braking but claimed there was no intent. But the three-time champion was furious with his rival.

"I thought we had it out at Phillip Island after the first race," Lowndes said afterwards.

"I thought he had gotten over it. But clearly he hasn't. It was unnecessary and it turned both our days into a disaster."

So for the second round in a row his two title challengers conspired to hand Whincup the advantage. And didn't he make the most

of it.

Frosty reception: It does not look as though Craig Lowndes and Mark Winterbottom will be exchanging Christmas cards this year after their second contretemps in as many events, top. Garth Tander and the HRT had a Homebush finale to forget, above: Jonathon Webb looked good for a while, above right, and Fabian Coulthard ended a career-best season as one of five first time race winners. Whincup's bold inside dive in the last race of the year didn't have the look or feel of a man protecting a big points lead, centre: Alex Davison's season ended with Jeld-Wen/FPR Falcon 13th overall, below right Ultimately he did two things right in the Saturday race. After losing the start he pulled a super-aggressive move on Winterbottom at turn one, forcing the latter wide and losing positions (to add insult to Winterbottom's injury, Whincup later said, when asked about why he pulled so seemingly risky a move, that Winterbottom had braked ‘super early', leaving him with no option but to overtake).

Secondly, at each Safety Car restart, Whincup was mega. Most times he had the impressive Jonathan Webb right behind him and nearly every time he had a gap of around two seconds by the completion of the first flying lap. Beyond that he circulated quick

'ow his two title nd Whincup the ake the most of it.

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The conundrum for Whincup on Sunday was how hard should he push. He admitted that, despite everyone thinking the jpb was done, he was ‘stressing dvernight about-how to play it.

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year, another lineup and Roland bove, right Jason rious contender early ●arly got on top of the quickly than anyone I sixth for team-mate season for BJR. It was iner of the last race of len, below left, whose 1 Tekno was one better tths early with SBR. Not inths ago had 'retired'

and comfortably heer dominance. )r Sunday: if Lowndes had 3 finished at all, cond. st, the title was The conundrum for Whincup on Sunday was how hard should he push. He admitted that, despite everyone thinking the job was done, he was 'stressing' overnight about how to play it on Sunday.

He knew he needed to be at the front to be safest, but that required taking risks in qualifying. Does he play conservative and take a spot in the top 10, or does he go for pole and risk having to start near the back?

Ultimately the racer won out. A lock-up and slide through a chicane were testimony to the fact he was giving it his all. He snuck into P3 on the final lap behind van Gisbergen and Jason Bright - with Winterbottom sitting right next to him on the second row.

For the bulk of the race Whincup ran in the top five, occasionally leading. For the most part he stayed right out of trouble. He had a couple of dices with Winterbottom through the pit cycles and then again with eventual race winner van Gisbergen.

But as they raced to the flag, he was in the battle for the lead with Bright and van Gisbergen ahead with David Reynolds and Lowndes right behind, van Gisbergen made the move to take the lead and Jamie went to follow through. They clashed and, motorsport news

for a moment, it looked like catastrophe could strike!

Whincup completed the move coming onto the pit straight but offered no resistance when Bright took second place back at turn one.

He resisted the impulse to attack Bright again and also the efforts of Reynolds to snatch the final podium position. He wrapped up the title with a podium position racing all the way to the end. He could have let his pursuers through, he could have not attacked Bright, he could have withdrawn from the battle and collected the title safely. He didn't.

"Dutto (Engineeer Mark Dutton) said 'you know what you're doing'," explained Whincup afterwards, although he admitted that he did think of them back in the pits, and that 'this wasn't the best scenario'.

"But I also thought of the people that spent $100 at the gate. Obviously it's a bit of a risk, but we're here to race. We're here to put on a show."

With this title, and at just 30 years of age, he puts himself alongside the legends of the Australian Touring Car Championship.

He draws level on five titles with Ian 'Pete' Geoghegan, Dick Johnson and Mark Skaife.

"Of course the number's massive, I have to admit that. I was happy with my first championship to be honest. I had a big opportunity to go three in a row in 2010 and threw it away here. I never thought that would happen again, so do three in a row is very, very special."

The only milestone left to match is Geoghegan's four-in-a-row. If he is to do this in 2014 he will stand alone as the very best with six titles. It's a massive incentive for a man who admitted that 12 months prior he was starting to feel a little stale.

We are witnessing what may well be the best driver/team combination in our category's history. This level of dominance can breed resentment among the fans. But in time those that lament this dominance will look back and be thankful they saw the great man in his prime.

The only question remains - when will it end, and who can stop him? www.mnews.com.au

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ome years ago Tomas Mezera famously commented that many of the press releases which bombard us today are pretty much of the standard that the driver has just had his hair cut.

The constant need for content for the motor sport news services, especially on the internet, means that some very good material is necessarily padded with a considerable amount of rubbish. The result is inevitably www.mnew5.com.au

that the overall product looks much more like a tabloid than a broadsheet, and more serious items are overlooked or given low priority.

For instance, we are currently in the middle of the second major revolution in touring car racing in the last 30 years. This one is much more important than the first one - but there has been very little real discussion about it, because the reporting focus is elsewhere.

Similarly, Formula One is about to embark on a major rule change, which in my view is

probably the most significant for 25 years, while prototype sports car racing is also about to undergo a major change of direction. In some ways, FI and prototypes are looking to their past for inspiration, albeit with a modern twist, while touring car categories around the world are doing exactly the opposite - they are trying to bury their past just as quickly as they can.

It is absolutely fascinating, it deserves closer consideration.

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THERE ^RE MORE CLOUDS ON THE El HORIZON TH/IN THERE HHHE BEEN FOR M^NY YE^RS. FI NEEDS ITS'NE^ REGULATIONS TO ^ORK.

In 2014, the current 2.4-litre V8s are replaced by 1,6-litre turbocharged V6s, with energy recovery systems. Crucially, there is a fuel allowance of 100kg, compared to about 160kg of fuel which is typically used in a race at the moment. It will not be an easy balance for the engineers.

So not only will turbochargers be seen and heard in a Grand Prix for the first time since Adelaide in 1988, but there is also the prospect of teams or drivers getting their sums badly wrong. Before that 1988 AGP, Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) warned Alain Prost (McLaren) that Berger would be coming past the McLarens - but not to worry about it.

Berger duly turned up the wick, led the race in fine style - and never had the slightest chance of reaching the flag. He obligingly tripped over Rene Arnoux, thus sparing the team and himself the inconvenience of making awkward explanations of just why an otherwise healthy Ferrari failed to go the distance. Watch for more of the same in 2014.

There is no doubt that the new regulations will therefore very substantially shift the emphasis away from aerodynamics back to engines. The most obvious parallel in GP motorsport news

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history is the period from 1982 to 1988.

The 1982 season was critical, because it marked the time when the teams started turning away in serious numbers from the famous DFV engine. The era of the old garagiste (buy a Cosworth engine and Hewland gearbox, plug them into the back of whatever chassis was available, and go racing) was gone, and that's why feelings ran so high in the FOCA/FISA war that year: the manufacturers were coming, and the stakes were raised.

The venerable DFV pulled off an unlikely win in that championship that year, as Ferrari's campaign was fractured by two disastrous accidents, but the writing was on the wall. Sure enough, if ever a World Championship was won by an engine rather than aerodynamics, it happened in 1983 when BMW eked staggering power out of its little four-cylinder block in the back of Nelson Piquet's Brabham BT52.

It was an era which also saw the introduction of tactical pit stops, and the gradual reduction in the amount of fuel allowed for each race. But the very presence of the additional manufacturers sealed the formula's fate: with most manufacturers turning away from turbos for their road fleets of the time, FI closed the door on the turbo era at the end of 1988.

WWW,mnews.com.au

Until now. Curiously, of course, the massive change back to engine-emphasis comes at a time when the manufacturer numbers are down, with Honda and BMW pulling out of FI in recent years. But the new regulations surely give FI a better chance of actually earning the label that is always so casually thrown around - that it is the pinnacle of the sport - rather than the excruciating and unintelligible-to-the-onlooker obsession with aerodynamics which has been the focus for the last 30 years.

Of course, just as happened in the mid80s, there will be constant carping in 2014 that the cars are on an-economy run, not racing. But the shift to engine efficiency is surely a good thing: in recent years, the FI regulators have so lost their way on technical regulations that they had to dream up the bizarre DRS, and call on Pirelli to produce a fragile tyre to spice up the action.

Both decisions had the unmistakable air of regulators who had run out of ideas, so the 2014 regs mark a very important attempt to wrest some innovation back into the cars.

Some people think the sport should not be "going green", but you don't need much imagination to perceive the social backlash heading the sport's way (as a waste of resources) in due course. It is much better to try to be ahead of the wave, rather than just

reacting when the criticism grows.

Looking past the regulations, there are more clouds on the FI horizon than there have been for many years. The allegations of Bernie Ecclestone's corruption; the whole failure to put in place a succession plan for him; the disastrous decision to sell part of the category to CVC, leading to the utterly predictable path of racing in obscure venues, with crowds as small as their racing heritage, in a frantic attempt to generate the funds needed to feed the private equity beast,..

FI needs its new regulations to work. Of the three main categories, it has easily the most to lose.

27

SPORTS C4RS A

nd sports cars have the most to gain.

The category has much greater manufacturer support than FI. This year's WEC has seen full factory, or workssupported, teams from Audi, Toyota, Nissan, Porsche, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Chevrolet, while in addition the flourishing GT3 category features works or customer-support programmes from BMW, Mercedes and McLaren, soon to be joined by Bentley. Nissan is almost certain to move up to LMP1 in 2015, and rumours abound of others doing likewise.

If the fans want to see genuine contests between great automotive houses which are actually responsible for the cars they put on the track (unlike the position in touring cars, as we shall see), then sports/GT racing is the place to be. Further, as all other categories have marched resolutely down the path of controlling everything from chassis to tyres to smaller components, sports cars - especially prototypes - have continued to back variety as being one of their central themes.

Some of those manufacturers - notably Audi and Porsche - have categorically

stated that they are in sports cars because the technical challenge (despite the popular perception) is actually greater than in FI. Certainly, the category can be very proud of its achievements on the innovation front, such as the diesels from 2006, and more recently the differing types of hybrids utilised by Audi and Toyota.

But with the presence of the manufacturers comes considerable risk. One of FI's great assets is its sense of continuity: the championship has run unbroken since 1950, and teams like Ferrari, McLaren and Williams have been there for decades.

By way of contrast, the World Endurance Championship (which used various names) went into hibernation between 1992 and 2012, which was hardly a good look for sports cars. The whole history of the category is one of very short, sharp campaigns by the manufacturers: Bentley in the 1920s, Jaguar in the 1950s, Ford in the '60s, Matra in the '70s, Peugeot in the '90s and again in the last few years. All of these companies achieved multiple wins at Le Mans - but chose not to hang around. The long-stayers like Ferrari and Porsche are the exception rather than the rule.

Even worse, several of the manufacturers

could decide to withdraw at the same time.

The quality of the Le Mans field in 1999 was staggering, with frontline prototype attacks from BMW,Toyota, Audi, Nissan, Panoz and Mercedes - but only two of them were there 12 months later, forcing the category into yet another rebuilding phase. The moral is clear: something needed to be done to get the manufacturers to commit more wholeheartedly.

The ACO (which runs Le Mans and the WEC)therefore consulted closely with the manufacturers before unveiling the 2014 regs: engines are free, an energy allowance is provided, and it is up to the ingenuity of the engineers as to what they can do with it. It has strong echoes of the fuel limits of Group C in the 1980s, but with a lot more imagination.

It is a braver, more concerted, attempt at innovation than what F1 has done and is likely to produce a wide variety of interpretations.

The category has also received a big boost with the addition of Mark Webber (of whom Tom Kristensen memorably said, “he's a sports car driver, we just lent him to FI for a few years"), indeed, it is the first time that a frontline FI driver has stepped straight into a fulltime prototype drive. FI fans will be

confident that Webber will blow away Porsche team-mates, while sports car f have their doubts. It will be a fascinatir contest.

Another perennial problem of sports car racing - the fracturing of series ana regulations - is also being addressed. II seems likely that there will be a longawaited merger between the GTE(WE and GT3 (everywhere else) regulations from 2016, which may go some way t( solving differences between the AGO £ Stephane Ratel. Meanwhile, in Americ; ALMS and Grand-Am are merging for i - an excellent concept, though it is har encouraging that the regulations are st very vague despite the Daytona 24 Ho looming at the end of January.

Sports car racing has been notoriousi cyclical throughout its existence. But e\ the critics of the category would have to concede that it now has considerabf momentum. It saw the desirability of" green" well before the other categoric: its new regulations are much more clea focussed on that aspect. That focus she serve it very well in coming years.

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he first revolution in touring cars occurred in the 1980s, when the parity concept started to take hold; before that, you pretty much "run what you brung". But Group A, introduced in Europe in 1982, depended heavily on the balancing of engine/weight/ tyre equivalences. Even though it was moving away from the fundamental concept of touring car racing - that the punter sees how his road car fares against his mate's - there was hardly a murmur of dissent. At a practical level, it was realised that homologation of road cars for racing had become a very clumsy and inefficient business.

But the second revolution, now underway, is a whole different story. To varying degrees - DTM and V8 Supercars leading the way, with a less extreme approach from WTCC and BTCC - touring cars are turning their back on their road-going heritage. DTM and V8s, in particular, now run a racing chassis with bodywork draped over it to give it only a passing resemblance to a road car.

When you think about it, it was a huge risk to take, because the regulators had to fervently hope that not too many spectators would reach the killer conclusion: that touring car racing has no real heart. The regulators had to hope that the spectators would be just motorsport news

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as happy seeing a clash of automotive brands, as a contest between road-based cars. This involved the further leap of faith - at least in V8 Supercars - that the public could accept that those brands had very little to do with the cars racing in their name. The crucial work on a Falcadore is done by suppliers and the teams, not by Ford or Holden.

Amazingly, bearing in mind that this process casually ignores what everyone always thought was the whole basis of touring car racing, the touring car categories have mostly managed to pull it off.

One of the fascinating aspects of the Car of the Future has been the approach of interested manufacturers. Holden has been fairly consistently aiming to protect its patch, while Ford’s policy has been far from easy to figure out - in my view, once Ford decided in 2008 not to back Triple Eight, it may as well have pulled up stumps, rather than suffering the (apparent) lingering death we presently see.

But Nissan is a different story. Eord and Holden were never allowed to run full works teams, but Nissan has arrived under the decidedly unambiguous banner of Nissan Motorsport. Accordingly, arguments about engine, aero specs and category management generally were always likely to occur, because unlike Ford and Holden, Nissan isn't just displaying its brand, it has had the courage www.mnews.com.au

to be doing most of the car - with associated reputational risks.

For its part, Volvo is talking of showcasing" its brand in 2014, and to the company's credit is doing its own engine. But BMW and Mazda have both said that the category does not offer sufficient technical challenge, and Mazda even played the roadrelevance card - not advocating a return to production-based cars, but saying that the category should contain the best-selling cars on the road i.e. small ones. The DTM is working towards just that, along with a Global Racing Engine which can span several categories.

The biggest challenge facing V8 Supercars is whether, and if so when, they make that jump back to smaller cars. Eventually, they may not have any alternatives - and it will be at least a partial backtrack down the path which touring car racing so definitely has trod.

Unlike the other two categories of the sport, touring car racing generally does not like looking back, so it will be a painful process when or if the time comes.

CONCLUSION A

s I see it, FI is hoping that its new regs will help it to overcome some pretty serious institutional problems. Sports/GT cars are riding the crest of a wave which shows no sign of breaking. And touring cars have pulled off one of the most remarkable transformations in the whole history of the sport by paying scant regard to their very roots, while still creating a very successful product.

These issues matter - and they are a tiny bit more important than whether a driver has had a haircut or changed his helmet design.

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eigh Diffey has made it big in the United States. The Aussie motor mouth is the host of the country’s Formula 1 telecasts and big things are in store for him.Phil Branagan caughl up with Diffey at NBC Sports Network’s new headquarters in Connecticut iu

ummer can be a crazy time in New York.

There they were, outside NBC's famed Rockefeller Plaza Studios, on a summer's morning. Heartthrob actor Ryan Reynolds, the star of a new animated feature Turbo, is here to race animatronic snails (I kid you not) up the side of the 1930s art-deco classic building. With him is Matt Lauer, for nearly two decades the face of breakfast TV in America, and several other network personalities. Oh, and three-time indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and this year's 500 Champ, Tony Kanaan.

Suddenly, Reynolds' snail takes off and leaves the others behind.

"Go Tuuuurrrrrrr-booooool" booms a voice. With an Australian accent.

Leigh Diffey has made it in America. As the host of NBC's Formula 1 and IndyCar broadcasts, when the network needed a voice to add credibility to this promotional stunt, they turned to him. The network is clearly keen to leverage its new commitment to motorsport, and it is hard to think of a bigger stage than the Today show and Diffey looks comfortable on it.

I It has been a long road for the former Channel 10 man. It is almost two decades 1 since he turned his hand to television, first with 10, then with the BBC in its World 32

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Anchorman: Leigh Diffey with co-commentator and former Formula One driver David Hobbs, left.

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I ●(when I first came M to America, the producers 1 asked in a very direct way that‘we can’t get around the fact that you have an accent but you can help hy using American phraseology’.”

Superbike coverage before he moved, 10 years ago, to Speed in the USA. When NBC took over from Speed Channel and Fox Sports as the broadcaster of FI in the USA at the start of this year, Diffey made the jump as well. During that time, he has worked hard to maintain his links with home; many in the business who know him will get emails or phone calls from time to time, to catch up or pass on information.

During a recent trip to New York, an invitation to sit in during a Formula 1 broadcast with Diffey and his co commentators David Hobbs and Steve Matchett is irresistible. Who could turn down a look at how Americans see FI compared to we Aussies - from the belly of the beast, as it were? After all, NBC's HQ at 30 Rockerfeller Plaza (that is where the name of the sitcom 30 Rock comes from) is only a 10-minute bus ride from where I was staying in New York. <Easy done.

But, no. This is at the network's new sports campus in Stamford, Connecticut, which is a whole other state. That means a subway ride and a 60km train trip due north. And I need to be there at 7am. And I have just arrived in NYC from Melbourne and because of jetlag, I have slept six out of the last 40 hours.

Of course, I say yes and go. Getting up in the dark and heading for Grand Central Terminal .. . let's just say that there are some interesting people on the streets of the city that never sleeps while most people are asleep.

But I arrive at NBC and sign in. Officious folks take my picture ("For a possible Olympics commentary gig?" I ask. "No," comes the stern reply). I am issued with ID and led down a maze of brand-new corridors.

And there, looking impossibly well groomed for this time of the day, is The Diff.

Boyish. Smile a mile wide. He hasn't changed a bit.

"G'day," he says in an impossibly Aussie accent.

Work is calling, so he heads off to finish the pre-broadcast details, leaving me in a care of

a producer who will guide me through the morning. The building is huge; it was formerly the HQ of haircare giant Clairol and has been leased to NBC as the base of the new cable Sports Channels. The building is valued at around US$20m - and after NBC moved in, as much as $100m more was spent to fit the place out.

And what a facility it is. In the home of the free, size is impressive and, according to my NBC guide, this is the size of six American football fields. That makes it around 43,000 square metres. There are six studios with their own control rooms, one of which will be dedicated to the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics (NBC Sports was nominated for six Emmy Awards for its coverage of the London Olympics.) The one used for this F1 telecast is one of the bigger ones, and is fully reversible (in other words, the stage can be rotated 180 degrees to shoot with a different background.

With this one, the background is a matrix of panels about the size of a 100-inch flat screen - on a grid that is four panels high and seven wide.

"What I am really looking forward to is the way that NBC has structured it. You would think that it will be on the 'main' NBC network but the NBC Sports Network is so important to the NBC Sports Group that they really want to see the numbers grow, in terms of the households that have access to it. Of those 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup events - and we will also have Nationwide as well - only seven will be shown on NBC. The other 13 will be shown in NBC Sports Network. That will be a huge shot in the arm to every other property on NBC Sports Network.

"So, fast forward to 2015; we will have NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR Nationwide, Formula 1, English Premier League, the IndyCar Series ... it is very exciting. NBC is a great place to be right now."

So, the pre-race show starts. F1 Countdown is a quick precis of what has happened in the most recent races, and what happened in qualifying. It all works seamlessly. Diffey, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett man the

It is so big that, at one stage, producers considered getting Mercedes-Benz (which sponsors the pre-race 'FI Countdown' show) to supply an actual FI car as a decorative piece for the set. It didn't happen for reasons that remain unexplained; given that this is FI, probably money had something to do with it.

"Nice, isn't it?" grins Diffey. But he cannot afford to feel too much at home; the next GP will be hosted from the studio next door because this one is to become the base for NBCSN's broadcasts of the English Premier League. The network is making a huge commitment to that, too. And NASCAR; from 2015, half the Sprint Cup season will be broadcast by the network.

"That is huge," Diffey smiles. "It is the biggest deal that NASCAR has ever done, in excess of [US]$4 billion for a 10-year period.

Talking heads; Diffey, Hobbs and team, top. Diffey and fellow announcer Schroeder chat with Hans Stuck, top right. Mark Webber talking to Diffey at Albert Park in 2004, right.

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Full HD desk, chatting easily about what is coming up.

"Where it has enabled it to come together seamlessly and effortlessly is that I had the good fortune of filling in for Bob Varsha from the first time I started working on Speed in 2003," Diffey explains later.

"It could have been anything from one FI Grand Prix on year to, one year I think that I did five. In reality, I have been working with David and Steve, periodically, for the last 10 years - in addition to being friends, off-air, with both of them. David would always join us for the broadcast of the Daytona 24 Hour and the Le Mans broadcast as well, so as far as time on the air, I knew David better than I knew Steve Matchett. But Steve lives in the same city as me and we have become very good friends over the years.

"So, when we all made the switch from Speed to NBC, it was kind of like three mates picking up where we left off. There was no 'I am going to say this, you say this and do that’. We just picked it up and did our thing."

While they are in Connecticut, NBC's man on the ground. Will Buxton, zaps around the pitlane and grid, bringing updates to air.

The former MN Box Seat columnist is impressive on TV. "He ties in naturally," says Diffey. "I have kind of just replaced Bob; Steve, David and Will were used to working together anyway.

It was kind of, 'as you were'. He is relatively new to television but he has picked it up and run with it. He brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm and knowledge and passion to it. That will always win out."

The 'pre-game' show's fourth segment is a piece on tyres that Matchett recorded earlier, and that is put to air while the three commentators move to their darkened, monitor-filled room separate to the studio. This is my cue to move to the control room.

The race starts and the commentators get to work. There is very little to give away the fact that the commentary team is 'at work' and all the information flows without apparent effort.

But, like Network 10 or ONE HD, NBC Sports is a commercial enterprise and there needs to be ad breaks. This is where the innovation comes in; as well as running ads, NBC runs what is calls 'Formula 1 Non Stop'. By embracing the fact that most viewers have wide-screen TVs (rather than the older, narrower design) the live feed of the race continues in a box ALONGSIDE the ads. You literally do not miss any of the action - and anything that happens during the ad breaks (and things ALWAYS seems to happen during the ad breaks) is also recapped when the commentators some back from the break.

[And, here is the funny bit: in spite of the fact that we are watching the racing during the ad breaks, the ID of the advertisers still gets into your skull. More than a month after watching the broadcast, I can clearly remember, without notes, that 'Formula 1 Non Stop' was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz, Mazda and Tire Rack. www.mnews.com.au

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(41am having the best fear of my career.This is the i8th year that t have worked . * I in tetevision broadcasting: .'and this is,in a way what l t have been working to , I achieve in the previous 17! )

Channel 10, please note ..,] From the control room, it is also obvious that the producers (and there are 15 or so of them in the room) have embraced Diffey's 'Aussieness'. While off-air he responds to verbal instructions in his earpiece with 'No Worries' and 'Thanks mate' and after he does, there is a wave of 'Thanks mate' around the room - flavoured with reasonable attempts at an Aussie accent.

The other side of that is that, even if he does so with an Antipodean accent, Diffey is speaking American, not English.

"That is something that, when I first came to America, the producers asked in a very direct way that,'we can't get around the fact that you have an accent but you can help by using American phraseology'," he says.

"Sometimes, that means 'sked-ule' not n shed-ule', 'hood' not 'bonnet', 'windshield' not 'windscreen' and so on. Little things like that help the audience. I started to do that in 2002, so to me, it is not strange.

"I know I have not lost my Australian accent, but you would have noticed me using words like that. To me, it does not sound any different to my ear!"

It is an interesting combination. Hobbs, the former driver, obviously talks from a

driver's perspective, and is exceptional at explaining complex situations in plain language. Matchett, whose FI career began as a mechanic at Benetton before he turned his hand at writing and broadcasting, is razor sharp at spotting tiny differences on the cars.

When two cars touch and one is damaged, he immediately picks up what has happened and the likely consequences, and he is right on both counts. But it is not for several minutes that it becomes apparent that he picked up the information from something in the BACKGROUND of a shot that was on the screen for only a few seconds - and I only pick it up when I see a producer in the control room going backwards and forwards over the same shot several times, and in slow motion, to set it up for a replay.

And Diffey holds the whole thing together.

He is really good at this, and it shows.

Not bad - particularly considering that the hundreds of good-looking Americans emerging from colleges with degrees in Broadcast Journalism each year are looking for jobs on TV and Diffey is not one of them.

In fact, in his former life, he was a school teacher.

"That fact has not been lost on me," he says, "and it wasn't in 1996 when I got my

first job with Ten - or later that year when I was working on Sports Tonight. The fact that I am not actually formally trained in broadcast journalism is not lost on me.

"But I think that there are so many factors that come into play. A lot of it is good fortune; there is a fair bit of 'right time, right place'. But at the same time, when the opportunities present themselves, you need to be able to A, recognise them and B, capitalise on them. I feel very, very fortunate to be where I am, and I recognise that. But at the same time, I have worked extremely hard to get this right. My family sacrifices a lot so that we can enjoy this position.

"1 am having the best year of my career.

This is the 18th year that I have worked in television broadcasting, and this is, in a way, what I have been working to achieve in the previous 17!"

But.while it all looks easy there is, clearly, a massive effort going into this. The second half of the FI schedule features nine races in 14 weeks, and while Diffey and co only actually attend one, in Austin, they are in Stamford working hard for the others - often with a time difference that means that they are up at some pretty inhospitable hours. Add to that the occasional IndyCar race and you realise that the Diffey family is without its dad for a lot of weekends. With a wife and two growing kids, Diffey is keenly aware of the importance of prioritising his time at home.

"It has taught me that over the years especially this year. I thought that I was pretty good at time management but this year, I have become much better at it. You need to maximise your time at home, as opposed for taking that time for granted. I enjoy being home a lot more - some weeks, I am getting home on a Sunday and out again the next Thursday."

It appears to be worth it. In its first year as America's broadcaster of Formula 1, NBC is happy with its ratings, but offers a lot for the future. When the NFL football season starts, it is hard not to notice the promotional Just like old times: Diffey was back on home soil when Speed TV ventured down under in 2011 to cover the Bathurst 1000, below. In the '90s Diffey co-hosted Ten's V8 Supercar coverage with Mark Oastler and Barry Sheene, below left.

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mentions of FI in the breaks, and the potential to grow the audience in the USA is obvious.

"I would say that there are some occasions /r . J at which it has been higher than Speed and some in which it has been lower," says Ditfey, "On the whole, we are probably on par with Speed Channel. Everyone would like, always, the numbers to be higher but the ^EIGH is not the only name on y be NBC's Diffey Formula 1 broadcasts that ma general feeling is that the powers-that-be are familiar to Australian fans. quite happy to be matching Speed. We are After three years as Speed's man in the only in our first season with Formula 1; Speed pitlane. Will Buxton made the move to NBC and Fox had it for 17 years." at the start of the year. Buxton, who was The race ends and the telecast comes to its Motorsport News' FI man and Box Seat conclusion. I move back into the studio and columnist for three years, is having the time sit off-camera while the 'boys' wrap up the of his life - even if he did not expect to race. During a break, Matchett's echoes the move to FI with the network. words Ross Brawn has said to Buxton during "It was pretty much a huge surprise but an interview in an impeccable impression of I loved it," he said. "I had three amazing his old boss at Benetton. Then Diffey records years with Speed before that, and it was a a link for NBC Sports' website coverage of the bit of a shock. To get the call from NBC was event, as well as a spot for that afternoon's amazing. sports round-up show, that will throw FI I knew that NBC were getting the in with some EPL and local sports. Once he IndyCar rights, so I arranged to get myself gets the all-clear, the dash is on; all three to an IndyCar race. It was when I went over commentators have planes to catch, soon. I there I found out that NBC had the rights to have a less-glamorous train to connect with, Formula 1 [for 2013] and I was introduced but while one of the producers is suggesting to some of the guys from NBC while I was that he rings a cab to get me to the station, there. They said that they were interested in Diffey emerges - shorts, tee, suit bag slung trr, me coming over and, a little while later, I got over the shoulder. The immaculate TV the call. It was a massive shock!" presenter, who was on-air just five minutes One difference Buxton has noticed is the ago, has been replaced by the Queenslander level of commitment from his new network. who has a barbecue to get to at home.

"Speed cared passionately about Formula "I'll drive you," he offers and we dash for 1.

There is no two ways about that. The the rental car. issue came up because Speed is owned by On the way to the train, out come the Fox, and I don't know if Fox did, or even pics of the wife and kids, and it is clear that tried to, understand what Formula 1 is all as well as he is doing in the USA, he misses about. We were always coming up against home. quite large hurdles.

"My family, my mum and sister are still " '"But vvhen you look at NBC, there is a there," he says. level of pride to have Formula 1, from the , "My extended family and my mates are top of the network and all the way down.

■people you can't replace. We have been They are very, very proud to have Formula fortunate to make a lot of friends in America 1 as a part of their programming. They over the years, but it is still there. Sometimes are committed to rolling out commercials you miss the jokes and the sense of humour, to promote FI in the middle of their the ease of communication. We have become used to having to explain ourselves. A lot of our good friends over here understand Aussie humour now.

"And we miss the Aussie beachesi" The train station looms into view. Diffey has 15 minutes to make it to a regional airport for the flight south. It would be a tight drive for me, but like everything else he has done since he got up just after 4am, he nails it and is home by mid-afternoon.

A few days later, NBC confirms its commentary team for the Sochi Winter Olympics. Diffey will be one of the voices Americans hear as their athletes bid for gold in February.

The Olympics in Russia is a long way from a classroom in Queensland - especially if you go via England and America. And I doubt that when Diff hits the ground in Sochi, he will need his tee-shirt and shorts.. .

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38

NFL football broadcasts. They ! do that right across NBC and the NBC Sports Network.

It is a very professional outfit and they are totally across what they are doing. They want to do everything they can to promote the sport in America."

Perhaps the most visible demonstration of the difference that NBC has made in the sport came at Austin in November. Having been to the maiden race at the Circuit of the Americas with Speed in 2012, Buxton and the whole NBC crew found a much bigger response this year.

[A] massive increase," he says The first year, we were all slightly concerned that the sport would be viewed through rose coloured spectacles and to be honest, we went back with some trepidation. Year One had been so good we were worried it would not match up. It was amazing. They had college football on the same weekend, the [University of Texas] Longhorns were playing nearby on the same weekend. They got just under 100,000 at the football game. We got 113,000! NBC got the biggest viewership, I think, that they had for the whole year.

The number of fans that were there was only a part of the story. Wherever you went, the comments were like, 'Thank you SO MUCH for bring us Formula 1 in America’.

That made it a special weekend Nineteen races, 18 of them on the road, is a big commitment. Diffey, Buxton and co are working hard to grow FI's audience and ir Year 1, at least, it seems to be working

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Most of us have had a go on a computer racing game. Some of us will have even been in one of those fancy sit-down capsule ones. Mattias Ekstrdm and Andy Priaulx used a type of computer game to help them get a handle on Mount Panorama last October - only theirs wasn't your average racing game, but rather a proper Formula One style race simulator. It's a simulator designed and built right here in Australia, and one which incorporates an innovation that has put what was once megabuck technology within reach of the average race team. By Steve Normoyle 40

motorsport news

M

attias Ekstrom is one of the best touring car drivers in the world. Flis appearance at Bathurst last October was thus a tantalising prospect: how would a twice DTM champ fare in the Great Race with no prior V8 Supercar race experience, and without having ever even set foot on Mount Panorama before?

Pretty damned well, as it turned out.

Neither Ekstrom nor Xbox One Racing Commodore co-driver Andy Priaulx put a wheel wrong all week. By Thursday afternoon - day one at Bathurst - the Swede was clocking competitive times.

In qualifying he was less than half a second shy of the top 10; in the race he was 13th fastest of the 55 drivers.

Ekstrom and Priaulx spent much of the race in the top 10. They led 17 laps. A nicely timed

Safety Car late in the race and they'd have been a genuine podium threat.

Ekstrom's performance in particutar was astonishing; surely there has not been a more impressive debut in the race's history.

Of course, the Euro duo did get a bit of outside help. As is the"way of things these days, they spent plenty of time learning the track in a computer simulator before they got to Bathurst. Indeed, Triple Eight had a Mount Panorama computer simulator already set up in the workshop for the visitors when they got there.

Triple Eight's simulator is of the six-axis type used by top Formula One teams. It is similar, but not the same, because instead of simply buying whatever simulator Ferrari, Red Bull Racing or McLaren was using. Triple Eight found there was a better alternative closer to home - right here in Australia, in fact.

Ekstrom and Priaulx had two and a half days in the simulator, and two days in the car at Queensland Raceway. That was it. From there it was off to Bathurst.

www.mnews.com.au

1

SIX DEGRES OF FRBIOM T

he six-axis, or six degrees of freedom, simulator is the Rolls Royce of computer racing simulators.

The base architecture for these types of simulators is a thing called a hexapod, or Stewart platform as it used to be known when NASA was experimenting with it in the 1960s. The hexapod was conceived in the 1950s by automotive engineer Eric Gough, who used it to develop a tyre testing simulator as early as 1954. The technology soon found applications in things such as flight simulation, but more recently developments in computer technology have greatly expanded the potential of the hexapod principle, the basic concept is reasonably simple (see below). The six axes operating from the base of the platform allow the simulator 'cockpit' to move in vertical, longitudinal and lateral planes. The six axes are actuated electronically and programmed to mimic the real car's . responses, relative the driver operating it and the circuit being used, simple terms, imagine a sit-down computer racing game that exactly represents the way a car performs around a track, right down to the effect of,,say, running an inside wheel over a kerb.

Sd.what is it like to 'drive' a six-axis simulator? It is an experience l that feels remarkably close to the real thing. Steve Hoinville explains ' ^ 'how;it works after we tom a few laps of ‘Phillip Island' driving a 5 1 ;(virtual) Formula 3 car: - "When we go into turn one, we roll the cockpit about the roll centre of the car. Then if you put the inside wheel up on the kerb, the . car no longer rolls about the centre line of the car, it rolls about the _ outside of the tyre contact patch. They're the subtleties we can get into kith the six degrees of freedom system.

"We.br^e you with some longitudinal dive, and we turn you in ■‘it -.'kith'spm^ateral, and we roll you about the centre line of the car, and tjn;e'rt^hen you hit the kerb we roll you about the outside tyre contact patch area. These subtleties which you can build into a six-

degrees system are crucial, because otherwise if you’ve only got three or four degrees of freedom, you're trying to generate lateral Gs and you can't separate the inputs that we can - like separating the effect of going over a kerb with braking and cornering forces. To get that clarity of motion, you need six degrees.

"We’re also able to replicate the texture of the road surface of that particular track. So, for example, if it's coarse chip surface, you'd feel a high frequency buzz in the simulator, similar to what you would in the car."

"There are basically two choices of simulator type," Ken Douglas adds. "A full static machine, where the visuals and sound are good, but no movement, or six axes.

"The problem is that if you have something in between (less than six axes) you wind up with a system that gives drivers false cues. If, for example, you've got a simulator that only tilts and rolls - a twoaxis machine - and you want to simulate braking, what you do is lift the back up to tilt it forward. But without having enough actuators there’s no way to tilt it forward without simultaneously lifting. So the driver hits the brake and then feels as though he's gone up. With a six-axis machine, if you want a braking effect, that's what you get- a braking effect."

"The forces we exert here are obviously not the same magnitude as in the race car on the track," Hoinville says. "Anyone who tells you a simulator is reality is talking nonsense. All of the forces are scaled down to a percentage of the real thing - but they are felt at the same rate as they would be felt in the real thing, by using the data from car's lap.

"You'll never build your neck muscles up like you would driving the car, but you could have it in your office of garage and literally drive Phillip Island in an F3 car ever day of the week for no more cost than the initial outlay."

The WHR Devices AAP6 Motion Platform six-axis simulator is the brainchild of Ken Douglas and Steve Hoinville. It has taken the pair four years to develop the system, but it looks as though the hard work has been worth it. The technological breakthrough Douglas and Hoinville have achieved with the MP6 might not amount to a revolution in racing simulators, but it's going to slash the current cost of them by as much as 70 percent - which means that what was once something only top F1 teams could afford is now within reach of pretty much any professional motor

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For those unfamiliar with the concept of the 'six degrees of freedom' simulator (see breakout) just think of it as the ultimate computer racing game, and one which offers a sense of realism way beyond even the most expensive of sit-down gaming capsules.

Only it's not a game; it's a serious engineering tool. One with which the driver can not only learn a circuit 'driving' a realistic simulation of the race car, but a tool which also can also be used, in conjunction with the race engineer, to tailor the car's setup for the

circuit before they've even left the workshop.

In the case of the MP6 Motion Platform used by Triple Eight to bring Ekstrom and Priaulx up to speed, they went the whole hog, to the point of replicating the Xbox

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Commodore's entire cockpit architecture internal roll cage, seat, steering wheel, gear lever, controls, instrument display, pedals. the lot.

For the gear shift, Hoinville and Douglas built their own mechanical lever which replicated the forces of the real V8 Supercar Albins transaxle gear change. This was achieved by getting the driver's shift efforts recorded on the car's data log, and then replicating the same level of force required to move the 'fake' gear lever.

Why go to all that trouble when they could have just attached the lever to an actual V8 Supercar gearbox? The problem is that added weight affects the efficiency of the simulator's operation. And in the case of the MP6, weight - or lack of it - is the critical factor. It is in this area where the MP6 stands out from other simulators (see breakout).

T

he side door though which the driver climbs into the simulator is covered in

a kind of black cloth. But a piece of cloth from the local dress maker’s shop won't cut it for this purpose; what's required here is a special polyknit with a vinyl overlay material.

Imported especially from New York, it's a custom-made opaque fabric designed to allow no light in while also preventing any shading effect from the lights inside the machine. This is crucial to the operation of the simulator, because of the need to create one visual frame of reference (which is the screen). Without this, the driver won't completely 'believe' the simulated experience.

"So much of this is trying to create an illusion of reality," Douglas explains. "It's like you go to the movies and become immersed in the film, but if someone's mobile goes off you're suddenly snapped out of that mindset. "it's the same with this. If you get a response or a movement that isn't expected or isn't real, then you start to question the whole experience at some level.

The simulator's pedal box is identical to that of the race car, complete with master cylinders and hydraulic lines. These were connected to an actual V8 Supercar clutch unit (which sat on the workshop floor outside the simulator) and, for the brakes, a replica of the V8 Supercar calliper and disc (using the real V8 Supercar brake system was impractical). As had been done with the gear lever, the 'fake' brakes were programmed to match the exact pedal pressure and 'feel' the driver experiences in the race car.

So what Priaulx and Ekstrom were presented with when they arrived at Triple Eight's headquarters was a simulator that looked and felt exactly like the car they would be driving at Bathurst in nine days' time.

Naturally the simulator was loaded up with The edge of reality: Ken Douglas prepares the software for another simulated session at Mount Panorama, top left. In order to make the experience even more real, the simulator cockpit was constructed as a replica of the Xbox Commodore's cockpit, top.

4. motorsport news

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he WHR Devices MP6 Motion Platform is different from all other six-axis simulators in one key area: it requires neither a threephase electric power supply nor servo hydraulic power assistance.

All it needs is domestic 240 volt power, and a small bottle of compressed air.

This might not sound like much of a big deal, but it is a crucial point of difference. It means that while all other sims require fixed installation in an industrial setting, the MP6(while not exactly easily portable) can be used almost anywhere. Not only that, but it means the MP6 is less complex, smaller and far less expensive.

Hoinville and Douglas have managed to avoid the need for a heavy industrial power source by designing the upper section (the cockpit) in such a way that it balances in space naturally, without needing any power to hold it there. This is a breakthrough in simulator technology.

"What we've come up with basically is a neutral buoyancy system," Douglas explains. "Within the centre of its working envelope, it floats. It requires no energy input to hold it there, whereas everything else (other simulators) does.

"Most people who do these systems use hydraulics. They're good, but they're expensive. It means your end price goes up and you have a very small group of people who can afford it."

Douglas came up with the idea during his 2008 spell in the US as technical director at JTC Daugherty's Nationwide Series team.

"I saw an early version of iRacing in Charlotte and that piqued my interest, because clearly the technology was evolving. I saw all the simulators that were at the PRI show in Orlando, and I thought that they were not that good, and very expensive. So I though there was an opportunity to do something that was good and reasonably affordable."

The pair spent six months of 2009 doing feasibility studies - was it physically possible to achieve a neutral balancing system; could they get enough power out of a 240 volt system to do it?

The big issue they faced was the weight of the cockpit upper section. A lot of effort was put into making it as light as possible, so that it could be more easily balanced without power (the entire cockpit unit weighs a mere 50kg, against 370kg for the base).

"Once we realised that with the power packs and balance systems we'd developed, the concept was feasible, we went ahead with it," Hoinville explains.

"It's been three and a half years in the making - we thought it would only take a year!

"[But] It was never going to be commercially feasible for us to do this if we had to rely on three-phase power, because we'd only be offering what was already on the market, and probably for about the same price. It was crucial for it to be 240 volt system from a production cost point of view, so we could offer it at a competitive price, but it was also crucial to us in terms of ease of use for the end user- that they would not need three-phase servo hydraulics to, operate it.

"All you need'With'obtS'is a 240 volt pow'gfPfiBint, access to compressed air, or an air bottle - which will last for 30 days operation^ - and the internet.

The MP6 has oniy just gone on the market. Hoinville and Douglas hope to offer it as a lease or buy option. They've already received one order, from the American-based automotive development company. Optimum G. The unit we saw had been leased by TMR Australia and was being configured to train the various drivers in the Fiat squad for the Bathurst 12 Hour.

"There are lots of other people doing simulators," Hoinville says, "but to get six degrees of freedom you're paying $150,000-plus-. You can get systems with iimited movement frqnj,about $5000 up. Ours,-- - V is about $45,000, and we don't believe there is anything else in the world that offers that level of motion for anywhere near that price.: n "It's a lot of money, but if you're a race team you've got to weigh n up what it costs you to do a test day: tyres, brakes, general wear and tear, circuit hire, crew members etc. And then you've got the issue of , so many series these days being subject to limits on test days. With this, you have the ability for the driver to do simulated testing on an unlimited basis.

"So this gives them the ability to sit in there and learn the basics of the car, get familiar with the controls, and the circuit, try a few different things and develop a rapport with the engineer - you can do all those things way before you even get to the track.

"FI effectively can't test any more, so they spend a lot of time in simulators. It gets them further down the road before they get to the race meeting.

"It's a fantastic training tool. It rewards everything that a racing car rewards in terms of stringing a good lap together, and it punishes all the things that a racing car punishes."

Motor racing is the primary market initially, but Hoinville sees the potential for the MP6 to be used in domestic driver training and road safety programmes.

"We've already started building a learner driver version," he says. "But whether it's learner driver, heavy vehicle, or even flight simulation, our fundamental base technology is the motion, which is from the base down, and what you put on top of that is to a large extent up to the end user.

"The system is fully configurable by the end user - if it were a double-decker bus, for example, we can shift the roll centre on the simulator to match."

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HE BRANS IHJST K

en Douglas (right) has, he says,'no formal qualifications', but over many years in motorsport has become something of computer guru. In a past life he was also a pretty reasonable racing driver - and it's because he was a driver that he developed an interest in electronics in the first place.

In 1990 when he was competing in the Australian Production Car Championship, Douglas devised a PC-based timing system to record lap times of all the cars in a session or a race. This was many years before the advent of transponder timing.

"The motivation for doing it wasn't to create a commercial product," Douglas says, . ";but rather I needed it to help me with my *■racing. I needed to know there and then 'V-.T> whether I was quick enough, not an hour or so later when the timesheets came out, as it ■ vyas back then. ' "But the fact that I needed it for a certain reason matched up wj.1;lj other competitors " needing it too, and I sold about 70 or 80 software systems to other competitors. It gave me an understanding of programming, which then got me involved with Motec."

He ended up working for Motec, and . wrote the company's first interperative data analysis software, which was the basis ; for Motec's first commercial data logger. ^r:*Pougl|LS ended up running the entire Tgompariy before becoming technical director ^ ● ^lat Stone Brothers Racing. >3 .'In the partnershTpl*With Steve Hoinville'**'"" (below) at WHR Devices, Douglas handles > V the electronics side, the programming, the geometry and interfacing all the different elements that go into it. Hoinville's specialty is the mechanical side.

Hoinville is a mechanical engineer with an extensive fjistory in the sport (aside from being the son of Graham Hoinvile, one of the founding members of CAMS and the

first navigator winner of the Australian Rally Championship).

He was vehicle dynamics engineer at ,Tickford (FPV) from 1992-98, and race engineer to John Bowe at CAT Racing in 1999. In 2000 he returned to Ford and was lead engineer on the BA V8 Supercar programme, covering all aspects of chassis dynamics, the aero package, development and homologation. Later Hoinville did consulting work to Ford and was involved in the BF V8 Supercar aero program (with Triple Eight), and the initial feasibility of the FG V8 Supercar.

'Hoinville also had responsibility for the introduction of the Duratec engine in Formula Ford for 2004, and was founder and director of the Pirtek Rally Team Ford in 2006. Amid various freelance consultancies both in motorsport and the general automotive sector, he managed the Stillwell Group Mini Challenge program in 2008-09, and was the Technical Chair for the Touring Car Masters from 2010 to 2013.

the most detailed Bathurst computer software available. That took care of the 'track'.

As to the performance parameters and characteristics of the 'car', there was a level of guesswork involved because the existing Bathurst setup data related only to the old pre-Car of the Future V8 Supercar.

In the end, that didn't matter much, Ken Douglas says.

"Most of the exercise was about giving the drivers experience of the track in something that was approximately similar to the race car they'd be driving," Douglas explains.

"So much of it is the visual and sensory cues that you get from driving around Bathurst. Bathurst is so much about turning into corners that are blind, and knowing where to position the car before you know where the corner is going. That was probably about 80 percent of what we were trying to achieve with Mattias and Andy."

The Euro aces arrived in Brisbane on the Tuesday the week before Bathurst. They spent that afternoon and most of Wednesday in the Triple Eight workshop aboard the simulator before being introduced to the actual real-life Xbox Commodore V8 Supercar at Queensland Raceway on Thursday. After two days testing at QR they were back in the simulator on Saturday. That was it. From there it was off to Bathurst.

Had they done enough, and how well would they be able to translate what they'd learned in the virtual world to the real-life Mountain?

Rather well, as it turned out. On Thursday morning in the first of the two split driver sessions, Priauix's best lap was a mere 0.87s off the session's fastest, which was Craig Lowndes, and only three tenths slower than the sister Triple Eight Commodore with Jamie Whincup at the wheel.

At least Andy had been there before.

Ekstrom was up against it on all fronts, and yet he still managed a 2m15.9s on his first flying lap. He ended the session seventh fastest, 0.99s off Steven Richards' time, and a bare two tenths slower than Lowndes' co driver, Warren Luff.

It was an amazing effort. Like everyone else, Ken Douglas was impressed with their immediate pace, although he was not surprised by it: "Andy is a world champion, and while he comes across a little bit laid back, he's deadly serious in the way he goes about it. And Mattias, to call him determined would be an insult. The guy is just A-grade. But they're both at that level.

"I think in the race they were doing 10s, and that's what they were doing in the simulator after the first day. After working with them in the simulator, it's what I expected.

"I think there are many things that led to how well they went at Bathurst, but a significant part was the way they were able to get familiar via the simulator." motorsport news

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World’s fastest Man -that might be oversellmg Narain Karthikeyan just a ' little, but if the Indian never really shone in Formula One, it wasn’t as though he was ever blessed with the fastest car on the grid. Karthikeyan spoke to Andrew van»Leeuwen about the frustrations of FI -and life in racing after it.

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arain Karthikeyan is the sort of driver that is very easy to underrate.

Admittedly, the cold hard facts of Karthikeyan's F1 career don't look great. For starters, he arrived in Grand Prix racing at the cashed-starved Jordan team in 2005. The cars were largely void of any advertising decals, aside from those provided

by Karthikeyan's long-time sponsor, Indian auto giant Tata.

Then, there's the fact that he started 46 Grands Prix, with a best finish of 11th (OK, technically his best finish was fourth, but that was at the farcical US Grand Prix in 2005 that featured just six cars).

These are the sort of facts and figures that just scream things like 'pay driver' and ‘never deserved to be in FI'. But it's not that simple.

Outside of FI, Karthikeyan has had a very good career. Fle's won races in some very competitive junior championships, such as British Formula 3 and the World Series by Nissan, alone efforts that make a driver a genuine FI candidate. He's also been a winner in series such as A1GP (the first version, when it was quite good) and

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Superleague Formula. At the moment he is the man to beat in AutoGP. In other words, he's won in almost everything he’s done except FI - and he's done so having to constantly break new ground as an Indian race driver in Europe, a tougher gig than most give it credit for. Is Narain the greatest driver to never win a Grand Prix? Not by a long shot. Is he a driver whose F1 record could have looked a lot better with some more fortunate timing? Absolutely.

I was a pioneer from India. I was the first Indian Formula 1 driver," he says when asked to describe his FI career in 15 words or less.

In FI you need to have the right breaks, and being the first Indian guy always meant it was going to be difficult. I never drove for a good team, so it was difficult for me to show my real speed. But occasionally in the wet I was fast in 2005 in the Jordan, but with the FIRT I didn't stand a chance. It was just hopeless.

Karthikeyan's self appraisal of his occasional efforts in the '05 Jordan are not wide of the mark. When the FI season kicked off in Melbourne that year, Jordan was a team on the way down. The Russian-

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the end it got very dangerous, because the team weren’t spending any money and things were H breaking on the car. controlled Midland Group had arrived for a full takeover, and the team was forced to take not one, but two rookie drivers, Tiago Montiero joining Karthikeyan. Everything was against F1's former giant killers, but Karthikeyan still managed to qualify a credible 12th in difficult conditions on debut. Fie bettered that at the penultimate race of the season in Japan, where he qualified 11th.

The highlights were there, but they were few and far between.

"The team was just starting to slip away at that point," Karthikeyan admits.

"The Russians were controlling the whole thing by that point. I just arrived at a time when things were on the way down. But it's FI, and when you get an opportunity you can't say no."

In 2006 Jordan officially became Midland FI, leaving Karthikeyan on the outer (in an Trailblazer: A race seat with Midland(now Force India) and test driver role at Williams made Narain Karthikeyan India's first FI driver, centre, top right.

Fie might have missed out at Force India, but he did drive for the Indian team in A1 Grand Prix, opposite centre.

ironic twist, Midland would later become Force India, the first Indian-owned FI team).

Post Midland, Karthikeyan decided to look for a good test driver job, and found what looked to be a good opportunity with Williams, a team that at that stage was still there or thereabouts.

"Williams was a big organisation, with a lot of very famous people working there," Karthikeyan says. "The first time I tested was at Jerez with Mark Webber and [Nico] Rosberg at the end of 2005. I was quicker than both of them.

"I was trying to be the third driver for 2006, but then [Alex] Wurz came along.

Because he'd been with McLaren, and because he had a lot of years' experience, they signed him as a third driver. Then it was too late to go anywhere else, which was a shame because I'd had an offer to go to Red Bull as a test driver, but at that point Williams was a much better team that Red Bull.

"Anyway, Williams let it go for so long, and then in January they said they were taking Wurz, so that wasn't very good. I stayed there as a test driver for 2007, and then [Kazuki] Nakajima came along with the

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Toyota deal and I got sidelined again. That was that, really.'

With his F1 career seemingly over.

Karthikeyan went looking elsewhere. He had some success with India's A1GP team winning a couple of races, and was also a race winner on behalf of Dutch football club PSV Eindhoven in the somewhat bizarre Superleague Formula series.

But it was in America that Karthikeyan really turned heads. In 2010 he showed up in the Camping World Truck Series, making nine starts. His best finish was 11 th - reasonably impressive given his absolute lack of experience in the unique world of stock car racing. But it was the way the fans took to him that was even more impressive Karthikeyan becoming the first foreign driver to win the series' fan-voted Most Popular Driver Award at the end of the season.

NASCAR, I would say, has to be the standout of what I've done outside of FI. It was crazy," he says.

mnews

big steering wheel like a bus driver, and the car is just so heavy. It's hard work, the driving technique is not easy.

And your feedback to the engineers is very important. That's why you see drivers who go from single-seaters, like Juan-Pablo, they're quick, but they can't beat the guys like Kyle Busch, the guys who grow up with that. They race karts in mud on ovals, and it's completely different to racing in Europe.'

After returning from the US, Karthikeyan found himself with another opportunity in F1, this time with the Hispania Racing Team.

While the 2011 -version car was hardly a world-beater, and Karthikeyan was forced onto the sidelines for half of the season to make way for the Red Bull-funded Daniel Ricciardo, he was able to fulfill a life-long dream of racing a Formula 1 car, in a World Championship Grand Prix, qn Indian soil.

I had to pinch myself and say 'I'm in India, driving in a Grand Prix! he laughs. "It was really funny, a very strange moment. A happy

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driving in a Grand Prix!’ It was really funny, a very strange moment. A happy moment, but a strange moment.

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my car at the beginning of the year, and we just weren't able to catch up after that. We

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^ had a small development for the floor for the Spanish Grand Prix, and that was it.

Despite the difficulties, Karthikeyan was keen to press on at HRT. But the team folded before the 2013 season could get underway, ending his second stint in FI. Yeah, it's frustrating sometimes, but it is what it is," he says. "It's a difficult world in Formula 1. And to be honest, coming from India, if you told me I'd one day be a Formula 1 driver at all I would have laughed.

While many would have simply walked away from the sport after the HRT debacle, Karthikeyan has spent much of 2013 reinventing himself. In a bid to keep singleseater fit, he found himself in the growing AutoCP World Series, which is essentially the original Lola A1GP cars with much better aero and more user-friendly Kumho tyres. After three tough rounds with Zele Racing at the start of the season, Karthikeyan switched to the famous Super Nova squad - and has won four of the eight races since.

My aim at the start of the year was to continue with HRT, and that didn't happen he explains. "After that, there weren't many options. I wanted to keep racing in singleseaters, and this is a good championship, so we chose to do this.

It's completely different [to A1GP] because the car has so much more downforce now. And the tyres are much different; the rear tyres on the A1GP cars were humungousi The issue is that these cars are very physical to drive, because they don't have power steering, and I had gotten used to power steering on other cars.

Now, happy to concede that his time in F1 is probably done and that he needs a new focus in his racing life, Karthikeyan is looking at IndyCar in the US. He was almost an IndyCar driver once before, testing with Cheever Racing Team as a Red Bull-backed driver back in 2004 before heading back to Europe to race for Jordan, and is hoping to make the move Stateside as soon as next season.

I'm very happy to have done what I've done in Formula 1, and I have no regrets about it," he says.

Now I want to show my speed in a onemake series, and IndyCar would be perfect for that. It's a high-level championship. high-profile, and I know a lot of the guys racing there successfully. I see no reason why I couldn't be competitive there.

HRT star; Driving for the HRT in Australian V8 Supercar racing is a pretty decent gig, but a seat in the FI version was for Karthikeyan little more than a dead end, above, right. mofdrspofff

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The Highlands Motorsport Park McLaren MP4-12C is the racecar that almost never was. Purchased by Tony Quinn for the 2013 Australian GT Championship, the car roared in anger just once at Queensland Raceway before It was sent to Highlands Motorsport Park In New Zealand. Having established the unofficial lap record during the first official meeting at the circuit, the car was placed on display in the venue's Motorsport Museum. That was until the AGT circus arrived.

72

motorsport news

he Highlands Motorsport Park McLaren MP4-12C was introduced to the Australian Motorsport public at the 2012 Gold Coast 600. It was on display in the foyer of a local hotel, where fellow competitors and fans savoured the car's sleek lines, resplendent in McLaren orange, with the clear engine cover offering a tantalising glimpse of the ample twin-turbo WWW mnews.com.au

V8 engine slung low in the car's midship.

The prospect of a new marque - especially one with the cache of McLaren - in the 2013 championship brought much anticipation and excitement for the year ahead.

And then, nothing.

The McLaren's Australian domicile ended as quickly as it began. Having tested the car with Craig Baird at Queensland Raceway, Tony Quinn found the handling of the rear-engined

MP412C to be vastly different from his much loved Aston Martin DB9. Quinn's focus soon shifted to the 2013 Aston Martin Vantage, whilst the McLaren was destined for life as a museum centrepiece in the land of the long white cloud.

The car was scheduled for one last drive at the official opening of Highlands Motorsport Park. In the hands of Craig Baird, the MP412C set a benchmark of 1.41.9 on the green 73

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track. The car then returned to its place in the museum, where it stayed until the inaugural Highlands 101 race weekend.

Greg Murphy was entrusted with the responsibility of racing the car and upholding the honour of McLaren which, let's remind ourselves, is racing royalty in this part of the world. Sharing the drive would be the widely experienced Neil Crompton.

The Highlands McLaren MP4-12C is the only GT car of it type in Australasia, just one of 40 cars built to date, as well as being the first sold to a non-European team. This car was considered so highly that McLaren CT Managing Director, Andrew Kirkaldy flew over to New Zealand to oversee the race debut with technician Andy Scott.

The MP4-12C exudes its Formula One pedigree. From the MP4 moniker given to all McLaren race cars to the steering wheel taken from the McLaren MP4-24 FI car, it truly is a work of art. It's a point not lost on Greg Murphy: "This thing has ABS, traction control, paddle shifts. It's very light, it's a single seater with a roof on it".

The McLaren is built on a carbon fibre monocell, with aluminium front and rear sub-frames. The 3.8-litre engine (tuned down from the unrestricted 470kW CanAm edition) produces 368kW via twin Eberspacher turbo-chargers. Power is delivered to the wheels via a six speed sequential gearbox with paddle shift. The car hangs on double wishbone suspension with coil over springs and four way adjustable dampers. Stopping power is provided by six piston front and four piston rear Akebono monoblock calipers sitting on 378mm and 355mm discs respectively. Race tyres are fitted to 18 inch forged aluminum wheels, 12 inch at the front and 13 inches at the rear.

Greg Murphy explained that Tony Quinn had spoken with him prior to the race. He wouldn't elaborate on the content of their conversation, other than to say: "You can probably pretty much imagine what he said to me.

Andrew Waite, who piloted Quinn's older DB9, was quick to add, "Tony only gave us two instructions. Qne, stay off the grass.

Two, don't wreck the car."

Tony Quinn admitted to the chat with Murphy, though conceded: "At the end of

*■-

the day nobody's going to stop him racing".

And that is exactly what Murphy and Crompton did over the course of the weekend. From first qualifying, Murphy took some four seconds off the McLaren s previous best, finishing the weekend with a fastest lap in the 1m34s.

The McLaren gained a podium on debut as the Quinn cars succumbed to late tyre problems. Race 2 netted fourth place.

Murphy and Crompton saved their best for the Highlands 101 qualifying session, in which netted second on the grid.

Murphy stunned the crowd by moving into the lead by mid race, while Neil Crompton matched the pace of BJR's Jason Bright in the Rod Salmon Audi R8 Ultra. A late dive into the hairpin resulted in the McLaren's first battle scars when the Ultra's front wing plane gouged into the MP4-12C's side skirt and tyre. A subsequent pitstop dropped Crompton from a possible second place to fifth.

Fifth amongst a brace of ACT and V8 Supercar regulars was a good result for the car's debut. Though not a true indication of the speed shown across the weekend, it was just what Andrew Kirkaldy had travelled across the globe to do.

"We wanted to convince Tony that the car belongs on the racetrack and not in a museum," explained Kirkaldy.

Qn Monday morning the McLaren's place in the museum lay vacant. Instead it sat amongst the other ACT cars waiting to be transported back to Australia, if the rumours are correct, perhaps Andrew Kirkaldy may get his wish after all. We can only hope.

Orange Crush; The McLaren MP4-12C, below, left, right, made its racing debut at Highlands Park in the hands of Greg Murphy and Neil Crompton, but will it be seen in action again? The debut of the only GTS in the southern hemisphere was enough of an occasion for McLaren to send out its own engineering team, centre right. Tony and Klark Quinn unveiled the MP4C at the 2012 Cold Coast 600, far centre right.

The Highlands McLaren MP4-12C is the only GT car of it type in Australasiajust one of 40 cars built to date, as well as being the first sold to a non-European team.

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The FIA World Endurance Championship concluded at Bahrain at the end of November. Audi had alreaffsecured the with Allan McNishTom Kristensen and Loic Duval, but Toyota ended the season on a Buemi combo. Andrew Hall was there to bring us these images.

76

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q n motorsport there's a long history of successful father-son teams. ^ Just a quick flick through any genre of n motor racing and it's easy to find some j of the most well-known throughout the world.

There are the Andrettis, Kinsers and Earnhardts in the US, to name a few. In touring car racing here we've got the Johnsons and Richards, and in speedway there's the Dumesnys and Braziers. There are plenty more besides across all disciplines - let's pot forget the Brays in drag racing.

There is also a very successful father/son combo in off-road racing, in the form of Warrnambool duo of Shannon and his father and navigator, Ian Rentsch, who together have pretty much made the Australian Off Road Championship their own.

The Rentschs' domination in the sport was further franked recently when they added the 2013 Australian Off Road Championship to their other five wins, in 2004, '05, '06,'08 and '09.

A reduced commitment to the past three years meant they relinquished their status as the ones to beat for the AORC John Pryce Memorial Trophy.

But a new car, renewed interest, work, marriage, a new baby and the prospect of racing side by side saw the Rentschs return in emphatic fashion and with a fresh resolve and renewed enthusiasm.

These championships don't get any easier, Shannon told us. "When we started.

I never thought we would have won six championships by now.

"Dad and I had lots going on in the last few years so we just pulled back from racing and concentrated on other things. That certainly changed this year and we did a full championship this season. That's something we haven't done for a few years."

The Rentschs, who made their AORC debut in 2002, say the 2013 season has been their most consistent.

"It was the most reliable season we've ever had Shannon said. "We finished every race

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and in every section we competed in, and we won two events and placed second three times.

Their winning year started in perfect style with a first-round win at Hyden in Western Australia where they grabbed not only their Pro Class win but an outright win. This was backed up with another victory in Baroota, South Australia, in July. In the end they finished no lower than second in the five rounds across Australia.

Their toughest race of the year was not part of the official AORC racing schedule - but will be in 2014 - the iconic Finke Desert Race on June 6-9.

A second placing for Shannon and Ian this year now ranks with their victories in Australia's toughest off-road event in 2005 and 2006.

"Again, yes, it was the toughest race was.

We've won it twice, but the last few years we haven't done very well, we got second there this year so that was good. It's the one event we want to win the most and it's in the championship calendar next year. It's the biggest race, attracts the most people and the hardest to win."

Their title-winning car is one of the best in the Southern Hemisphere. Their Jimco buggy is the most successful brand in the US. A Nissan 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 is the powerplant, running through an Albins five-speed gearbox with torque convertor.

Speeds of 240km/h are not uncommon from a highly specialised machine that costs around $250,000.

You need the best equipment, obviously, but Shannon says course knowledge and confidence in your own driving ability are the key secrets to their success.

"We race in the toughest terrain in Australia and you can bring yourself undone pretty quickly if you don't know the course," he explained. "I go in confident with Dad at motorsport news

'5

each race as we both know what it's about and trust each other and our car."

"If you're in a competitive car and you have a clean weekend without any trouble, you're a good chance of finishing up the front.

"You do need the speed, but If you have the speed and can have a clear run, you'll be up the front nine times out of 10."

Thirty-one year-old Shannon believes having his 61 year-old father literally by his side all of the way through his career has been his biggest asset.

"He has been there the whole way. He knows straight away how I'm driving and he tells me - I do take It on board."

"Dad and I run a scrap metal yard and wrecking yard and have tow trucks as well.

We get on really well and work and race

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together great also."

Regular race support also comes from Shannon's mother, Dianne, wife Katie and young daughter Milla who try to attend all events, while Mount Gambler sprintcar driver Karl Ended is the team's main mechanic.

Ian says he has supported Shannon since the age of 16 when the pair raced off-road motorbikes and still enjoys the whole racing experience and wants more championship wins.

"Yeah it's great," Ian said. "We put a lot Into it to try and win.

"For 15 years we've done racing together and sometimes I have to tell him to tell him to hurry up, while we're racing.

"I want to win 10 like my old mate Garry Rush - he won 10 Australian sprintcar

championships. Well, that's the aim anyway for now."

Another future challenge for the Rentsch boys could be taking part in one of the toughest off-road events on the planet - the legendary Baja 1000.

This gruelling frontier event takes place j on Mexico's Baja Galifornia Peninsula each November and Is a point-to-point loop from Ensenada to La Paz. "It would be a big challenge to do the Baja and it's a realistic thought one day for sure," Shannon said.

For now, though. Shannon and Ian Rentsch are readying themselves and their title winning machine for the 2014 AORC which will commence over the Easter long weekend (April 19-21), the Kalgoorlie Desert Race.

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MERKAN INVASION The Americans are landing on our shores right now,and they are heading to a speedway near you. Geoff Rounds takes a look at the stellar stars and stripes lineup that will compete down under ahead of what is shaping up as a fantastic summer of sprintcar racing.

T

HE American invasion on again and I love it!

Since the late 1970s we have observed the playing of The Star Spangled Banner at various speedways around Australia and since that time the Australian-American rivalries have continued to run deep in our sprintcar scene.

The USA is seen as the home of world sprintcar/speedway racing and during the past 40-plus years we in Australia have been very lucky to see virtually all of America's best on our shores - and this season is no different.

While the northern hemisphere's speedway season is taking their annual winter solstice the southern hemisphere's speedways are about to or are already hosting some of the

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biggest names in American sprintcar racing.

The 2013-14 period between now and the end of January is the peak time for us Aussies to welcome and watch the northern hemisphere's best - and I do mean the very best. It is an opportunity not to be missed.

Many Americans will be here for Boxing Day racing, mainly on the East Coast, and what a potent range of imports will be assembled indeed.

Leading the Yankee charge is current World of Outlaws champion Daryn Pittman and reigning Knoxville Nationals winner Donny Schatz.

These two made the chase for the Outlaws in 2013 their own and while both are regular Down Under visitors many of their fellow countrymen are also proven performers who

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he 2013-14 period between now and the end of January is the peak time for us Aussies to welcome and watch the northern hemisphere's best- and I do mean the very best. will challenge.

The busy December-January period will be no different with more than 20 Americans racing around Australian speedways.

Along with Pittman and Schatz this year's stars-and-stripes contingent is likely to feature Jason Sides, Brad Sweet, Steve Kinser, Kraig Kinser, Kody Kinser, Dale Blaney, Justin Henderson, Kevin Swindell, Shane Stewart, Kyle Hirst, Terry McCarl, Geoff Ensign, Paul McMahon, Randy Hannagan, Danny Smith, Tim Kaeding, Kurt Winker, Jason Meyers, David Gravel, Travis Rilat and Rico Abreu.

Pittman lands in Australia armed with his maiden Outlaws championship win. Schatz only narrowly missed his chance at what would have been a sixth Outlaws title by just 14 points despite 23 wins for the season, including his seventh Knoxville Nationals win in just eight years.

Superstar Schatz is locked in for Boxing Day at Archerfield Speedway in Brisbane, as

is Sides, with the latter also touring to other parts of Australia during his summer sojourn.

The bulk of Uncle Sam's men will be racing between speedway venues in Warrnambool, Avalon, Mount Gambier, Adelaide and Perth.

The Kinsers will be the headline act at Sydney's Valvoline Speedway from Boxing Day, with Steve a 20-time Outlaws legend and his son Kraig, as well their nephew and cousin, Kody Kinser.

An interesting entry is four-time and defending All-Star Gircuit of Champions title holder Dale Blaney, who will race in both Sydney and Warrnambool in the 42nd Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic.

The 1998 Outlaws Rookie winner and 2000 Kings Royal winner sits on a whopping 99 career wins in the All-Star Circuit of Champions. Making him the most successful driver in the history of the tough All-Stars circuit.

Blaney, though, may never have

opposite left, Donny Schatz, top left. Dale Blaney, top. Brad Sweet, above, and David Gravel, below.

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tasted the dirt of the world tracks as he was an outstanding college basketball player - so much so that he was drafted to NBA powerhouse, the LA Lakers, in 1986. He did choose motor racing in the end, and he is part of a rich family history in the sport with his brother is Dave, who races regularly in NASCAR, he'll be a winning chance during his tour.

Another NASCAR star, Kasey Kahne, will be very well represented by his two regular American open-wheel pilots in Australia, at the Classic and in Sydney with Brad Sweet and Daryn Pittman.

Sweet is a somewhat regular in the NASCAR Nationwide Series for Kasey Kahne Racing and his season has been highlighted by winning the famed Kings Royal at Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway in Ohio, while Pittman did everything right this year to win the Outlaws title.

Perhaps the perennial favourite and adopted Aussie, six-time Classic Champion Danny Smith, could add another Classic to the six he's already got. Terry McCarl is a big threat on his Aussie tour and was runnerup to Steven Lines in the 2013 Classic and it would be no surprise if he takes home Australia's biggest sprintcar prize.

Two drivers that have stood atop podiums in both countries, Shane Stewart and Kevin Swindell really need no introduction.

Stewart has done the double and won the Classic (2010) and the prestigious : Scott Darley Challenge (2012) and with the powerful Monte Motorsport team behind him one if not both events are again very possible.

The Swindell name is legendary in world sprintcar racing and Kevin, a four time Chilli Bowl Champion will come armed with everything he needs to taste success at Avalon and Warrnambool. David Dickson from Essendon Ford will arm him with a brand new Maxim that has been built to Kevin's specs and is being shipped to Australia from Indy Race Parts.

In a somewhat amazing fact is that Swindell's success during Southern Iowa Speedweek saw him claim the Jesse Hockett Mr Sprint Car title, despite not having raced a winged car since his 2013 Classic appearance in January 2013.

So the Americans are here and they know what is required to win Down Under. The Scott Darley Challenge, for instance, is one local title that has been dominated by the visitors; Schatz has won it eight times, Stewart and Joey Saldana once.

As far as the Classic goes, they have won 15 of the 41 contested and have either won or been on the podium every year since 2005. You'd have to be a brave person to predict they won't be again. Hell, they even may fill the whole podiumi Stars and stripes:(from top) Kraig Kinser and the legendary Steve Kinser, Rico Abreu, Jason Sides and Kevin Swindell.

84

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here's good news from Classic Carlectables with the announcement that they'll be another variant on the beautiful EH sedan we covered a little while ago. This one is finished in Winton Red with a white roof. Showing the pictures to a couple of people, they didn't realise at first it was a model, not the real thing.

As with the Kalgoorlie Gold car from earlier. the detail is superb, as are the fit and finish of the parts. A great Christmas gift for the classic Holden enthusiast in your life.

Meanwhile, Biante isn't letting itself fall behind when it comes to great models.

Its 1/18 scale model of Glenn Seton's 1993 ATGC-winning EB Ealcon is in stock now at www.biante.com.au or at your favourite retailer. This is an important car; the first winner of the then-new 5-litre V8-only formula. Of course, you'll need to source Peter Jackson stickers to finish the model.

Then there's a couple of classic Holdens, to go with the Glassies EH. In 1968, who finished second at Bathurst? Nobody remembers, that's right. Don't worry, because I do remember - it was Jim Palmer and Des West in a Monaro. We all know Des West Peter Brock's first co-driver at the Mountain, but Jim Palmer is probably a mystery to most current fans. Palmer was a New Zealander and one of their very best drivers in the sixties. He was a top runner in the annual Tasman Gup races and even tested a Ferrari at Fiorello.

The model Monaro is presented in Holden Dealer Racing Team livery, which was based on the factory yellow paint. You can read all about this team's formation in Australian motorsport news

Muscle Car - check our back-issues department!

By 1971 the Holden Dealer Team, by then under Harry Firth, was running Toranas instead of Monaros. As it turns : out, possibly a mistake, but so much of history is. Colin Bond drove an LC XU-1 in the 1971 Hardie-Ferodo 500 to a class win and fourth outright behind three GT-HO Phase II I Falcons. Bond's awesome skill wasn’t enough to bridge the gap to the Falcons, but still, this very nice-looking model commemorates a brave effort. Of course, the next year, and the 202 engine in the LJ model were enough to get Peter Brock over the line in first.

This year's Bathurst 1000 didn't have the sheer number of 'retro' liveries as last year, but there was one that stood out: the DJR Falcon in 'Green's Tuf livery commemorated (if that's the right word) the disastrous Johnson campaign in 1983.

Apex Replicas has taken advantage of the change to Car of the Future to increase the level of detail and quality in its

www.mnews.com.au

87

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< V8 Supercar models.

The other announcement from Apex (at least of a car) Is the Glenn Seton Sierra, the 1990 Sandown 500 winner.

Like the Falcon we mentioned above, this dIe-cast will need the addition of after-market stickers to complete.

And just now, Apex announced a 1/6 and 1/18 figurine of Steve McQueen as h appeared in the final scene of the classic Movie Le Mans - you know, where he's giving Siegried Rauch the two-finger salute?

The smaller one will be about $50 and will go very nicely with my similarly-scaled 917.

It's summer, and in Australia, that means it's Speedway Season. It's looking like a pretty exciting sprintcar season given the contingent of Americans lined up to hit our shores. And to that end Sydney Speedway's Mike Raymond has done it again - he's brought one of the greatest sprint car drivers of all time to visit us this summer. Steve Kinser is one of the great racing drivers of all time. While he may never have tried Formula One, Indy Cars or Le Mans, his exploits in those bucking, snorting animals called sprint cars make him a legend.

Over the years, we've had many of the best dirt-track drivers visit, but Kinser is Royalty.

While his career is certainly on the back nine by now, he's guaranteed to be hard to beat on the clay quarter-mile oval.

So you'd expect models of Steve Kinser's sprint cars to be an important part of any speedway fan's collection. Good thing there's plenty of them about, then.

David Grose of Hoolagators All American Die Cast sent me details of a few Kinser cars. First of all, there's a menacing look about a sprint car. There's no mistaking them for anything else that big wing, the offset tyres and the general look of brutal minimalism leaves little room for doubt that they are serious racers.

The first thing that struck me is that none of the three David sent me were green I For what seems like forever, Kinser has been associated with Quaker State Oil and their signature green livery. The black car shown is from the 2012 Knoxville Nationals and was a special livery for that event. The red car is from the same year and is a Bass Pro Shops livery. (You know a market is big when you have shops just for fishing for Bass). Both 1 /24 scale cars feature removable wings, engine cover and lots of internal detail.

You can check them out in more detail by visiting www.hoolagators.com.au but make sure you tell David I sent youl 88

motorsport news

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The XA was also the platform for the greatest Australian high-performance production sedan that never was, the stillborn GT-HO Phase IV Bathurst special. Ford Falcon XA GThds the full story of this incredible Ford muscle-car, and much more.

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It started with a phone call out of the blue. A last-minute drive in the A1 Grand Prix in his home GP turned out to be one of Dutchman Jeroen Bleekemolen's favourite and most memorable racing weekends ever. He tells his story of becoming on instant hero to 140,000 of his countrymen to Edward Krause.

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Hulkenberg for second place. There is always a big fight between the Dutch and the Germans so the whole place went mad when I took second. It was unbelievable. I could hear the crowd screaming from my race car.

Then I went on to take the lead at the same place round the outside of turn one from France - Nicolas Lapierre - and then we were leading.

That lap when I came round for the first time as leader, the place went even crazier than before. There were 140,000 people, everybody dressed up in orange, because that is our colour. It was like a World Cup final, winning the World Cup final in soccer - it felt like that. That is really how the audience was, the Dutch are crazy about sports when people from their country are doing well, and they showed that again. www.mnews.com.au

There Is alwd^y^s m bTgTighJ .''I Dutch and the Germahs so-the whole^i^ladrwenti mad when I took second. , 1'^ could' hear the crowd : mf^rocecati screoimlng In the end we made a big mistake on strategy because it dried out, and we had a big lead but the team decided to leave me out and all the others pitted for slicks, so they overtook me. I was overtaken by (Australian) Ryan Briscoe on the last lap for the last podium spot so I finished fourth in the end, but I was the hero of the day there.

People weren't even paying attention to the overall podium, they were just watching me and cheering for me.

Hulkenburg won it in the end. We should have won, but it was just an unbelievable experience.

It has been six or seven years and even now people still talk aboutit in the Netherlands.

When they see me, they still go back to this race. It made my name really big. It was in every newspaper on the front page in the

Netherlands, so it was such a cool race to do. Yeah, I mean our national racing is not so big, we don't have a main series that is really well known like you guys have here, or like Germany's DTM or the British Touring Car Championship.

People tend to watch FI but then when A1 came it got nearly as popular as FI is in the Netherlands, so we had lots of spectators.

It definitely raised my profile. All the racing-interested people would know me because I had done DTM and all the big endurance races, but the general public in the Netherlands who didn't know about racing got to know me as well, because it was such an incredible thing. Everybody who was there was blown away by the way the whole crowds went crazy. It was just unreal, really cool.

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The old Ceelong Sprints annual event was reborn in 2012, and this year's Ceelong Revival saw a big increase in both competitor and crowd numbers. Here's cross section of the wide array of machines that took on the curved Geelong waterfront course.

Paul Cross

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Macauley Jones crosses the line, above, to win the final ever national Formula Ford Championship race. To mark the championship's passing, the chequered flag was waved by Craig Lowndes, who was Australian Formula Champion 20 years ago. right.

Dirk Klynsmith

Next issue of Motorsport News on sale 13th February

98

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