MOTORSPORT: Age before modern beauty in rallying

While this year’s Australian Rally Championship (ARC) has been described as “trying desperately to find its feet”, the strength of historic rallying is again evident in the bumper entry for December’s Alpine Rally.

The Historic Rally Association has 145 cars to consider for what is expected to be 120 starting places in the Alpine, which was first run in 1921 and ranks as the world’s second-oldest rally behind the Monte Carlo.

It is a classic gravel event for non-turbocharged two-wheel-drive cars built before the turn of the century, meaning lots of Datsuns, Nissans, Mitsubishis, Mazdas, Toyotas and Ford Escorts.

It is run every second year from Lakes Entrance in Victoria’s East Gippsland. The previous location based in Bright, in the state’s north-east, eventually proved unworkable as many of the roads are these days exclusively required for the forestry industry.

This year’s entry list contains many of the great names of Australian rallying, headed by Ross Dunkerton, likely to be driving a Datsun Stanza, Simon Evans – a four-time national champion this century – also in a Stanza, Bob Watson in a Datsun 1600, and David ‘Dinta’ Officer and his wife Kate, two-time winners in the 1980s, in their Mitsubishi Galant.

Then there’s flamboyant South Australian Jack Monkhouse, winner two years ago, back with his Datsun 180B rebuilt and with Dale Moscatt, Australia’s top co-driver, again alongside him.

The Alpine is a ‘blind rally’. Instead of crews making pace notes during pre-event reconnaissance runs, the crews are simply issued roadbooks containing basic instructions and diagrams, known as ‘tulips’.

Apart from a couple of stages adjudged to be too rough, the course for this year’s event, scheduled for December 1-3, will be largely the same as 2015.

A first for the modern incarnation of the Alpine Rally will be an influx of New Zealanders – four crews, all in Escort Mk2s. Foremost among them are Derek Ayson, a three-time winner of NZ’s Otago Classic Rally, and Deane Buist.

Challenging the Escorts and Japanese makes, as always, will be the Porsche 911 driven by Sydney’s Jeff David, the Alpine winner in 2013.

While historic rallying is strong, a blow for this year’s ARC is news that there may be no TV coverage of the remaining two rounds – Rally South Australia on September 16-17 and the event run in conjunction with Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour, NSW, on November 16-19.

RallySport magazine revealed this prospect on its website, rallysportmag.com.au, on Friday. According to the publication, this latest news contradicts a Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) announcement in March that: “the 2017 ARC season will be covered on Foxtel and free-to-air with Channel 10”.

According to RallySport magazine’s Peter Whitten, a CAMS spokesperson had said the TV partnership with Neil Crompton’s AirTime Media for the production of the coverage had only been for the first three rounds of the ARC.

“The lack of TV coverage – either free or paid – for the final two events of the series is a devastating blow for the series that is trying desperately to find its feet and build on renewed interest,” Whitten wrote.

“The losers are the competitors, teams and sponsors who were expecting coverage from five rallies, and for the fans unable to get to the events, and who were anticipating being able to watch the action from the comfort of their living rooms.”

ARC TV host Chad Neylon told RallySport Magazine AirTime Media was “very optimistic” about producing coverage of the remaining two rounds and “we’re going ahead as though it’s happening”.

However, Whitten commented: “the days of watching the ARC on TV could already be a thing of the past”, especially as in talks about a 2018 deal, “leading teams [are] being asked to put up funding in the vicinity of six figures”.

The pity is there is a tantalizing three-way battle for this year’s title between Harry Bates, the series leader, who is to debut a Toyota Yaris AP4 at Rally SA, reigning champion Molly Taylor in a Subaru and leading privateer Nathan Quinn in a Mitsubishi Evo. Former champion Eli Evans is now campaigning a Mini Cooper AP4.

Jack Monkhouse image credit: Motor Sport Photography

Volkswagen keeps doubling up in rallycross
While Volkswagen quit the World Rally Championship, it continues to be tops in rallycross this year through its association with Petter Solberg in Europe and Michael Andretti in North America.

The Polos of Norwegian Solberg’s PSRX Volkswagen Sweden team, driven by Johan Kristoffersson and Solberg himself, finished first and second at the eighth round of the World RallyCross Championship (World RX). While the championship is predominantly based in Europe, the latest round was at Trois Rivieres in Canada.

Kristoffersson’s victory in Canada completed a hat-trick for him, and he had another earlier win this season.

He leads his team boss Solberg, by 35 points (211-176) with four rounds remaining – in France, Latvia and Germany, before the final at a new event in Cape Town, South Africa, on November 10-12.

Sebastien Loeb was third in Canada, giving the record nine-time WRC champion a hat-trick of World RX podiums, for Team Peugeot-Hansen.

Reigning World RX champion Mattias Ekstrom of Sweden was only seventh in his Audi after a clutch problem dropped him to the back of his semi-final, while Ken Block was ninth in his Ford.

Ekstrom (158 points) sits third in the championship, with Loeb fourth on 144.

Loeb is now preparing to test a Citroen rally car with his old WRC manufacturer trying desperately to make its struggling C3 more competitive.

PSRX Volkswagen Sweden leads the World RX teams’ championship with 387 points to Team Peugeot-Hansen’s 279, the 236 of Ekstrom’s EKS and 217 of Block’s Hoonigan Racing Division.

Meanwhile, the so-called Global Rallycross Championship (GRC), primarily run in the United States, is being led again by Andretti’s drivers in a pair of Volkswagen Beetles, with Tanner Foust ahead of the team champion of the past two seasons, Scott Speed. They have had four one-two finishes this year, with two wins by each driver.

The next round of the GRC, in which Australia’s Chris Atkinson races for Subaru Rally Team USA, is next weekend on a new, anti-clockwise layout in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Atkinson is seventh in the series on 329 points to Foust’s 488 and Speed’s 462, while Volkswagen has 34 points in the manufacturers’ championship to Honda’s 28 and Subaru’s 22.

Nissan topples Cadillac in IMSA series
Nissan has broken Cadillac’s stranglehold on the top level of American sports car racing for cars called Daytona Prototype internationals (DPis).

The breakthrough came courtesy of young Brazilian wiz Pipo Derani and his American co-driver, Johannes van Overbeek in a two-hour, 40-minute race at Road America in Winsconsin.

They ended Cadillac’s streak of seven straight victories in the first season of the DPis.

Another Nissan, driven by Ryan Dalziel and Scott Sharp was third, behind the Cadillac of Jordan and Ricky Taylor (winners of the first five races of the International Motor Sports Association – IMSA - season).

Ford won the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class at Road America, ending a six-race winless drought.
That Ford was driven by American Joey Hand and German Dirk Mueller, while Australia’s Ryan Briscoe and Britain’s Richard Westbrook were third in class in another Ford.

The top three teams in the GTLM standings, from three different manufacturers (Corvette, Ford and BMW), are separated by a mere six points with three races remaining, while Briscoe and Westbrook are only 11 points out of the class lead.

Meanwhile, the first of two Acura ARX-05s - which Roger Penske’s team is to campaign for Honda in DPi next year - has come through its first test at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. It has a French-made ORECA chassis with a twin-turbocharged V6 engine.

Penske has not yet announced his driver line-up for the IMSA campaign starting at the 24 Hours of Daytona in January.

New Boss Fpr Toyota Motorsport
Toyota has promoted its general manager of motor sport development, Hisatake Murata, to president of Toyota Gazoo Racing – which runs its world endurance sports car and world rally activities – as well its overall Cologne-based Toyota Motorsport.
Murata, 53, replaces Toshio Sato, who has been moved to the powertrain division after overseeing Toyota’s failures the past two years as the Japanese giant endeavoured to break its duck in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

While committed to the World Endurance Championship for next year, Toyota’s participation in hybrid sports car racing is uncertain beyond that (Porsche has already announced it will quit the WEC at the end of next season).

Murata has been responsible for Toyota’s hybrid powertrain development in motorsport for more than a decade and has been senior in the WEC project specifically since 2012.