Aussies up for Indy success

Power, Briscoe want Indy high spot, Supercar drivers round up chances, Cosworth says goodbye and more

Aussies hot for Indy
The weather forecast for the Gold Coast Indy isn't favorable, with persistent showers predicted for Sunday, but that could see a double whammy benefit -- an exciting Champ Car race and perhaps the best performance by an Aussie in the event's 16-year history.

Toowoomba's Will Power is aiming for a podium with Team Australia, while Sydney's Ryan Briscoe is hoping for "out-of-the-box competitiveness" in his debut with the RuSPORT team.

Power was on course for fourth place last year in his debut until an incident with his teammate, Canadian Alex Tagliani, and this will be the first circuit at which Power has raced a Champ Car twice.

"I've won here before in Formula Ford (2000), Honda Young Guns (2001) and Formula Three (2002) and know the track pretty well, so a podium finish is a definite possibility," says Power, who is seventh in the championship (only 11 points from fourth) and the leading rookie in the series.

Sunday's race will see a woman competing for the first time -- Katherine Legge, who escaped a massive crash at the previous round in Wisconsin with only a bruised knee.

Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais is looking to clinch a third straight title from four years in the series -- and needs only ninth place on Sunday to do that.

There has never been a repeat winner at the Gold Coast Indy. Four past victors are competing this year: Paul Tracy (1995), Mario Dominguez (2002), Bruno Junqueira (2004) and Bourdais (2005).

V8 Supercar battle intensifies

Trailing Craig Lowndes by 101 points with four rounds of the V8 Supercar Championship to go, Ricky Kelly is sick of being the bridesmaid and has vowed to have a big crack at the title. "It's time to have a bit of a go," Kelly says. "We have been very conservative. I've got out of people's way when they were faster. I'm not doing that any more. I'm sick of it." Kelly has had six podiums from nine rounds so far, with four seconds -- including in the past three events, at Oran Park, Sandown and Bathurst. In the two endurance races, Kelly's combined losing margin with brother Todd was a mere 0.75 seconds. However, he came through the enduros with a haul of 620 points -- the same as Lowndes.

Garth Tander, back in the HSV Toll fold after driving the enduros with Holden Racing Team, is the only driver in the V8 Supercar field to have tasted victory at all four of the circuits left on this year's calendar. He has won V8 rounds at Surfers Paradise, Symmons Plains and Phillip Island, and in Bahrain earlier this year he won a race for celebrities in HSV ClubSports at the country's Grand Prix.

Mark Skaife will revert to an earlier HRT Commodore at the Gold Coast after the damage done to his latest car on the first lap at Bathurst. Teammate Todd Kelly will drive the 2005 Bathurst-winning Commodore that Jim Richards and Ryan Briscoe had for this year's enduros. Tasman Motorsports has repaired Jason Richards' runaway Bathurst Commodore, while Greg Murphy and Cameron McConville will both be back in the Holdens they raced earlier in the season. Larry Perkins says Steven Richards' practice crash at Bathurst was his most expensive as a team owner. That car came home fifth at Bathurst and Richards is in it again this weekend, while Paul Dumbrell takes over the Commodore in which young Jack Perkins inadvertently punted Skaife at the Mountain.

Chad Reed, the motocross/supercross star from NSW's Hunter Valley who makes a fortune racing in America, is testing a V8 Supercar today at the Holden Performance Driving Centre on the Gold Coast. Reed's great American contemporary, Ricky Carmichael, is eyeing a move to NASCAR.

The Bathurst-winning Falcon will remain in its usual colors for Craig Lowndes to race this weekend, despite major sponsor Betta Electrical having gone into receivership. "The vast majority of what needs to be paid has been paid," Triple Eight team boss Roland Dane told Auto Action magazine. It had been thought LG would take a bigger presence on the car for the rest of this season ahead of Vodafone's arrival next year.

Jason Bright will drive his 100th V8 Supercar round this weekend at the street circuit where he drove a Champ Car so impressively in 2000. The V8 Supercar format is three 22-lap, 100km races -- at 4pm Saturday and then 11:05am and 3:55pm, following the Champ Car race, on Sunday.

MotoGP moves away from Bathurst

As predicted here on September 11, a clash of the Bathurst 1000 and the Australian MotoGP next year has been averted, with the two-wheel race at Phillip Island pushed back a week to October 14. A new, but less important, clash now will be the Gold Coast Indy on Channel 7 on October 20-21 next year up against the Malaysian MotoGP on Channel 10.

McRae set for Rally Oz

Scotsman Colin McRae is likely to continue in place of injured world rally champion Sebastien Loeb at next week's Rally Australia. Loeb's broken right arm may keep him out again, while Rally Oz is a favorite of McRae -- and he with it. If he gets another chance in Frenchman Loeb's Citroen he reckons he could do better than the seventh place he held in Turkey last weekend before an alternator failure on the last stage.

Top guns for the Safari

The revival of the Australian Safari at its new home in Western Australia is still almost a year away, but key appointments are being made. Adrian Stafford, who competed in two Safaris and is a veteran official at Rally Australia, including having been clerk of course since 2003, will be the safari's Sporting Director. Fellow West Australian Haydn Joss, another long-time Rally Oz official, becomes the safari's clerk of course. The off-road event will be run over more than 5000km from August 24 to September 1next year.

F1's grandest finale

There are good and bad omens as the curtain prepares to come down on Michael Schumacher's record-breaking Formula One career in Brazil early Monday, Australian time. Ferrari has not won at the notoriously bumpy Interlagos since Schumi's victory there in 2002. But in the German's 14 Brazilian starts he has finished in the points in all but one -- in 2003, when he spun out in the rain. As well as four wins, he has had a record 10 podiums at the event and one pole position in 2001. This will be his 248th GP and he's aiming for his 92nd victory, which would be as many as Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna combined. Even if Schumi wins this weekend, Fernando Alonso only needs to be eighth for his second world championship -- and to deny the great German an eighth title! Word is that soccer icon Pele will make a special farewell presentation to Schumi, whatever the outcome.

Williams living in the past
Mark Webber's disappointing stint with Williams comes to an end at Interlagos. While this year has been the team's worst since its formation in 1977, the Williams spin doctors remind us that their cars have taken 40 per cent of all pole positions and fastest laps, and 22 per cent of race wins, in the past 18 races at the Sao Paulo track. Indeed, Williams' last GP victory was at Interlagos in 2004. The driver that day was Juan Pablo Montoya, who also won last year for McLaren but has since defected to American stock car racing. With Williams switching to Toyota engines next year, this weekend will also mark the end of Cosworth's participation in F1 after 39 seasons that produced 176 wins.

Formula Ford Festival turns 35

Britain's famous Formula Ford Festival, something of a junior world championship, celebrates its 35th anniversary this weekend. It will be the 30th time the festival has been held at Brands Hatch in Kent. Ten former festival winners have advanced to F1. Almost 90 drivers from 14 countries are competing this weekend, among them three Australians -- John Martin in the Aussie-built Spectrum, Paul Laskazeski and Nathan Caratti. Mark Webber was the last Aussie to win the festival - in 1996.

Aussies up for Indy success

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