MOTORSPORT: All go for Townsville (almost)

Far North's new V8 round only needs final council OK
The financial hurdles created by the rising cost of the proposed Townsville V8 Supercar Championship round appear to have been overcome and the Far North Queensland city is firmly on course now to stage its first event in July 2009 (proposed track, pictured).

It only remains now for the Townsville council to formally tick off at the end of this month its increased monetary contributions to which mayor Les Tyrell has committed it.

That would seem to be pretty much a formality, although there remains some vocal opposition in the city to the proposed race.

Construction of multi-purposed facilities that will serve as the pits and the roads that will form the 2.8km temporary track at the city's Reid Park looks set to start in August or September.

After some recent argy-bargy between the Queensland government and the Townsville council -- mainly, it must be said, from the state's sports minister, Judy Spence -- each has agreed to chip in an extra $2.29 million.

The total revised construction budget is $29.58 million, which Spence said was a $1.2 million saving on the cost estimates supplied to the government earlier this year. The original cost put to the government two years ago was $25 million.

"The increased infrastructure costs reflect cost increases in building supplies and normal increases in delivery costs since the project was costed two years ago," Spence said.

Mayor Tyrell has said: "There's no risk here for ratepayers."

For the record, the revised $29.58 million comprises, according to the Townsville Bulletin newspaper:
>> $14.61 million from the Queensland government.
>> $4.97 million from the Townsville council.
>> $10 million from the federal government.

In addition, the Bulletin has reported, the Queensland government will provide $2.5 million a year for five years towards staging costs.

Curiously, the Bulletin said "the remainder of the cost" would be met by V8 Supercars Australia "which would gain revenue from ticket sales, sponsorship, corporate sales and rights to fees for merchandising, catering and television".

What is this "remainder"? How much more is this race going to cost?

Anyway, despite our oft-stated dislike of temporary circuits on cost grounds, it is great to see a major regional city getting a round of Australia's premier motor racing series.

We just wonder how long it will be before the city comes to realise it would be a whole lot better off with a permanent circuit.

New Zealand businessman Bernard Gillon failed in his attempt to appoint a receiver and team principal David John said: "The outcome of the court hearing has yet again shown the actions and or allegations made against TKR to be wrongful."

Gillon admitted loan payments from the team to him were up to date but said he was worried about his financial interest in the team.

"All these smoke and mirror things about me wanting to take the team over, there's nothing further from the truth. That's ridiculous," Gillon said.

NZ's Sunday News reported that roughly half of a rumored $1.5 million loan was understood to have been repaid.

TKR said: "High Court proceedings have been filed against Gillon and the receivers for damages caused to TKR and its sponsors in relation to the earlier purported appointment of the receiver."

Mosley is the man in strife for taking a Friday afternoon off to go to a London dungeon where he had a sex orgy with five prostitutes for five hours.

Despite the many people who want him ousted from the FIA presidency, the thing to remember in this matter is that his fate is in the hands of about 220 members of the FIA's general assembly, who are to vote on June 3 on whether Mosley should go or stay.

And Mosley, who -- despite his indiscretion which also had Nazi connotations, although he denies that -- is a brilliant man and a master politician has written to those who will vote with what could be called some heavy electoral propaganda.

He is warning -- we could even say scaring -- his "constituency" that there is a grave danger of the FIA losing control of its crown jewel, Formula 1, if he is ousted.

And that, he has suggested, will wreck the FIA's finances and diminish its power over other forms of motorsport.

Mosley appears to be pitting himself against the man who has been his closest ally for about 40 years in the sport -- F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

Mosley is saying that Ecclestone and CVC Capital Partners, the private equity outfit that now owns 75 per cent of Ecclestone's F1 empire, wants to take complete control of F1 -- by changing the 100-year deal Mosley did, on behalf of the FIA, with Ecclestone a decade ago -- so that they can eventually sell the "show" for more than it would otherwise be worth.

In the process, they want to take the FIA's rule-making powers over F1 as well, he has said.

Mosley is strongly opposed to these moves, and is playing to the heart-strings of the FIA assembly members in his letter to them.

He's also warning that a massive financial crisis is imminent in F1.

"Costs have gone out of control, income is insufficient and major manufacturers are in difficulty with their core businesses," Mosley said. "Only with fair and realistic financial arrangements will we avoid losing more teams (after the recent demise of Super Aguri)."

Mosley and Ecclestone have appeared very much a double act for the 17 years that Mosley has been in the FIA chair. Although there have seemed at times to be differences, we have generally interpreted them to all be part of a game. Despite the appearances, they may be again this time.

The game might just be for Ecclestone to shake himself free of CVC so that he has the whole commercial empire to himself again. Perhaps, though, there is a serious arm wrestle now between Mosley and Ecclestone.

Cleverly, Mosley is trying to engineer a way of retaining his FIA reins until the natural expiry of his presidential term in October next year by offering to avoid the ceremonial roles, delegating public appearances to deputy presidents Marco Piccinini (representing motor sport) and Franco Lucchesi (representing the FIA's member motoring clubs).

Although The Times of London has commented that "Mosley neither feels embarrassment nor is capable of acknowledging errors of judgment", there is some merit in finding a compromise which enables motorsport to have the benefit of Mosley's experience and undoubted acumen without him being its public face.

He was given the message that he was not welcome at the Bahrain, Spanish and Turkish grands prix, and while he intends to attend this weekend's race in Monaco -- where he lives a lot of the time -- it seems he does not anticipate any official engagements and is aware many in the F1 paddock are keen to avoid being seen with him.

It came to light at the weekend that one of the five prostitutes in his orgy -- indeed the one who filmed him and, it seems, leaked the story and footage to the News of the World newspaper -- was the wife of a member of Britain's MI5 intelligence service. The MI5 officer has been forced to resign.

As much as Mosley suspects that one of his many enemies set him up, there is no serious suggestion that MI5 has been involved.

In another recent twist in the saga, a Czech ally of Mosley, Radovan Novak, who had suggested that the McLaren team was behind the revelation of the orgy has apologised profusely to McLaren, presumably to avoid a potentially costly legal action.

McLaren, of course, was the team fined US$100 million and stripped of its constructors' championship points last year for having a dossier of Ferrari secrets.

This whole Mosley matter has been a messy affair and the sooner there is resolution of it the better.

Kyle Busch to try F1 - with eyes wide open
NASCAR sensation Kyle Busch is set to test a Formula 1 car later this year.

It will be a Toyota, as that is the make he races in NASCAR. Indeed, the 23-year-old gave Toyota its first victory in big-time American stock car racing.

He's had two other Sprint Cup wins since -- and eight successes in three forms of NASCAR this season.

As much as Busch will talk up the F1 test, he is a wake-up to how it is different to NASCAR.

"It seems as though their racing isn't all that great -- they kind of get stuck in line and the aero takes over everything," he said.

Rallying - Australia's future and Sardinia's immediate past
Further to our perspective on the future of Rally Australia in our last report (more here), we are hearing that the i-METT proposal is dead and that the plan for next year as it stands now is for 90 per cent of the stages to be in northern NSW, with the event headquarters at Sanctuary Cove and the main service park at Carrara football ground.

All of which may mean the rally would need to be run in November, we are told.

Apparently the Queensland government has now been approached for financial support, but we don't like the chances.

For starters, that government is already bankrolling the Gold Coast Indy and the new Townsville V8 Supercar event.

While the spending on accommodation for such a rally would be primarily in Queensland, why should the Queensland government be greatly interested in assisting if most of the action is in NSW.

Meanwhile, round six of this year's world rally championship has been run and won on the Italian island of Sardinia.

French multiple world champion Sebastien Loeb took the honors in his Citroen C4 ahead of the Ford Focuses of Finns Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala.

Australia's Chris Atkinson was sixth in his Subaru -- only the second time this season he has missed the podium -- while his Norwegian teammate Petter Solberg was 10th.

"It's good to get more points and to still be third in the championship, but it's definitely not been an easy weekend" Atkinson said. "I drove the best I could and made no mistakes, and that's it."

Subaru team boss David Richards admitted at the weekend that his drivers are in basically four-year-old cars using a 19-year-old gearbox.

World Rally Drivers' Championship standings after 6 of 15 rounds -- M. Hirvonen (Ford) 43 points, S. Loeb (Citroen) 40, C. Atkinson (Subaru) 31, J.-M.Latvala (Ford) 24,  D. Sordo (Citroen) 21, G. Galli (Ford) 17.

World Rally Manufacturers' Championship standings -- Ford 71 points, Citroen 64, Subaru 42, Stobart Ford 34, Munchi Ford 16, Suzuki 7.

Power makes Indy 500; Gold Coast has no sponsor
Will Power has qualified for next weekend's Indianapolis 500, making it two Aussies in the great race.

Power will start 23rd -- on the seventh row of the 33-car field -- in his KV Racing car while Ryan Briscoe had already earned a front row start with Team Penske.

Both had crashes on Friday, but while Power's car had to be hastily repaired for his qualifying shot Briscoe's was his back-up car.

The only other Australians to have started the Indy 500 were triple F1 world champion Sir Jack Brabham and Le Mans 24-Hour sportscar winners Vern Schuppan and Geoff Brabham.

While Briscoe was fifth in the race last year, Power is aiming to emulate Schuppan as the only Australian to be the Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year.

Queensland sports minister Judy Spence will be at the Indy 500 for talks about the Gold Coast Indy -- with the news for series organisers that the Surfers' Paradise race in October is without the $2 million sponsor it wants.

The Indianapolis 500 field:
1. Scott Dixon (Ganassi) 226.366mph average for 4 laps (16km); 2. Dan Wheldon (Ganassi), 3. Ryan Briscoe (Penske).
4. Helio Castroneves (Penske), 5. Danica Patrick (Andretti Green), 6. Tony Kanaan  (Andretti Green).
7. Marco Andretti (Andretti Green), 8. Vitor Meira (Panther) 9.  Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green).
10. Ed Carpenter (Vision), 11. Tomas Scheckter (Luczo Dragon), 12. Townsend Bell (Dreyer & Reinbold).
13. Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan), 14. Darren Manning (Foyt), 15. Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne).
16. Justin Wilson (Newman/Haas/Lanigan), 17. Buddy Rice (Dreyer & Reinbold), 18.  Davey Hamilton (Vision).
19. Alex Lloyd (Rahal Letterman/Ganassi), 20. Ryan Hunter-Reay  (Rahal Letterman), 21. John Andretti (Roth).
22. Sarah Fisher (Sarah Fisher), 23. Will Power (KV), 24. Jeff Simmons (Foyt).
25. Oriol Servia (KV), 26. E.J. Viso (HVM), 27. Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold).
28. Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne), 29. Enrique Bernoldi (Conquest), 30. Jaime Camara (Conquest).
31. A.J. Foyt IV (Vision), 32. Buddy Lazier (Hemelgarn), 33. Marty Roth (Roth).

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