MOTORSPORT: 10 years for V8s up top

Indeed, the NT has embraced the Supercars at Darwin's 2.9km Hidden Valley circuit and it's great that they visit one of Australia's major outlying centres. With a bit of luck Townsville will get a V8 round too within a couple of years.

However, it's hard not to feel at the moment that the V8 Supercar show has lost of a bit of oomph lately. Perhaps it is just that the race results have been so one-sided in Holden's favour: 13 to Ford's one.

Certainly the sport doesn't seem to have a lot of traction in the mainstream media at the minute. Maybe it is just that the country is also in the middle of the AFL and NRL seasons -- although the AFL is in the midst of its mid-season break.

Anyway, HSV Dealer Team reigning V8 Supercar champion Rick Kelly goes into the Darwin round of the championship -- the sixth of the scheduled 14 rounds -- with 276 points, 25 points ahead of teammate Garth Tander, who has won half the races (seven) this season. Tander has a 46-point break over Holden Racing Team's Todd Kelly and Triple 8 Racing/Team Vodafone's Jamie Whincup in equal third on 205 points.

Braking promises to be the key to the three 42-lap, 120km races -- one Saturday afternoon, the other two on Sunday. Turns one and three will be the big test of this year's one-size-fits-all Alcon brake discs.

Rick Kelly says braking stability is a key at Hidden Valley, along with being able to carry maximum speed through the looping final turn on to the fast main straight.

Kelly is shooting for his sixth straight podium finish this season.
The 24-year-old is the only driver to have been on the dais at every round so far. He hasn't finished worst than fourth in any race this season.

Kelly and Tander have both won races in Darwin -- Kelly in 2004 and Tander in 2005 -- but neither has won a round at Hidden Valley. However, the pair have scored successive double podium results in the NT.

While the conditions are sure to be sweltering for this round, HRT pair Todd Kelly and Mark Skaife could be just as hot as the series-leading HSV pair -- especially now that Skaife has the matter of overtaking Peter Brock's 37 wins out of the way.

Skaife's form at Sydney's Eastern Creek two weeks ago showed that given the equipment he is still very much a frontrunner in V8 Supercar racing. And the VE Commodore he has is the very latest of those built for the two top teams by Walkinshaw Performance.

Last years's Darwin round produced three different race winners, with Craig Lowndes taking the round win. Ford's superstar, Lowndes has been outpaced by Triple 8 teammate Whincup most of this season and is standing six in the championship on 148 points. It's time for him to fire a big shot -- if the BF Falcon is capable of it.

The ever-optimistic Lowndes insists he's a realistic chance of success in Darwin again.

The Stone Brothers Ford team has a good record up north too, with its former drivers Marcos Ambrose and Jason Bright, but its 2007 line-up -- James Courtney and Russell Ingall -- could be struggling with the dated Ford against the VE Holdens.

Ingall is still looking for a repeat of his triumph at Darwin's first V8 round a decade ago, while Courtney is still chasing his first round win.

Steven Richards (pictured), now with Ford Performance Racing, chalks up a milestone this weekend. It is his 132nd round in the Australian touring car championship -- one more than his Hall of Fame father, Jim.

That's something that could have had a bit more attention in the lead-in to this weekend. Evidence of how this scene is a bit down on oomph at the minute.

>> Smokescreen on Ambrose absence
We reported mid-week that dual Australian V8 Supercar champion Marcos Ambrose will not be making his debut in NASCAR's Nextel Cup this weekend, as the Australian public had been led to believe for six months.

We mentioned on Wednesday that there were suggestions of a sponsorship snag; that whoever was meant to be funding the one-off drive at Infineon Raceway at Sonoma, California, perhaps had not made the payment for it.

The Ambrose camp's preview of this weekend's Busch Series round at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has not really shed any more light on the situation -- and we have had no response to our message left with his representatives.

It's being painted as a case of concentrating on that Busch round and avoiding the 3500km flights between the two tracks so that Ambrose could do double duty.

But the race schedules have been in place for months. Indeed, before the announcement just before last Christmas that Ambrose would do two Nextel Cup road races this year -- and perhaps as many as 10 races all-up in that major league.

While we continue to wish Ambrose well in his bold NASCAR adventure, we just smell a bit of a rat with his absence from Sonoma.

"It's a bit unfortunate, but I am completely behind the rescheduling," Ambrose's Milwaukee preview quotes him saying.

Racing, or at least trying to qualify, at Sonoma would have meant missing the Busch qualifying and starting from the back of the field at Milwaukee -- a small price to pay for the chance to do a Nextel Cup race.

We can't recall AFL or NRL reserve-grade players opting to stay in the 'twos' when they have a chance to play in the main game.

Anyway, the Ambrose camp is insisting that he will do the August 12 Nextel Cup race at Watkins Glen, New York. The Busch Series will be at that circuit the same weekend, so that at least will make the double duty a whole lot easier.

>> Ecclestone given all-clear in Spain
Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has been cleared of any wrongdoing after he was accused of trying to interfere in the politics of the Spanish city Valencia which is to become a new grand prix venue with a street race from next year.

The opposition socialist party lodged an official complaint after Ecclestone said the seven-year deal for a European GP in Valencia was conditional on regional leader Francisco Camps winning re-election.

Camps' Partido Popular party has since cruised to landslide victory -- and the Valencian Electoral Commission has now given Ecclestone the all-clear, saying his comments were nothing untoward.

>> Developments on the sponsorship scene
This year's Gold Coast Indy will be the last with Lexmark as the naming rights sponsor for the Champ Car race. The five-year sponsorship package is up and is not being renewed.

Meanwhile, in the US NASCAR has filed a US$100 million counter-claim against telecommunications giant AT&T in a landmark case concerning the stock car organisation's right to offer its series title sponsor, Nextel, category exclusivity.

NASCAR is accusing AT&T of interfering with its exclusive sponsorship agreement with Nextel and wants all telecommunication companies, apart from Nextel, excluded from its racing.

The conflict arose after AT&T bought mobile phone company Cingular and inherited its sponsorship agreement with Richard Childress Racing and one of NASCAR's top drivers, Jeff Burton. NASCAR refused to allow AT&T to put its logos on Burton's car, claiming Nextel has exclusivity through its 10-year, US$700 million investment. AT&T sued and a court has allowed Burton to race with the AT&T logos.

Further inflaming the situation, AT&T now wants to extend the deal for another three years.

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