MOTORSPORT: Arm wrestles in the West

Monday motorsport report
November 16, 2009

V8 Supercar title and circuit future in melting pot

A couple of big arm wrestles are coming up in Western Australia this week. One will be that between Jamie Whincup and Will Davison for the V8 Supercar Championship, with 108 points between them – in Whincup's favour.

A maximum 600 points remain to be won by either contender at this round and the finale, the new Sydney street event on the first weekend of December.

The other tussle this week will be between the West Australian government and the V8 Supercars Australia organisation.

V8SA has long been angling for facilities more to its liking in Perth – and threatening to drop the WA round of its championship if it doesn't get its way.

Its preference was for a street race close to the city centre, but that has already been ruled out.

There was talk too of an all-new permanent venue, but that appears unlikely.

A report to the government this year recommended a major upgrade of the long-established Wanneroo/Barbagallo Raceway.

There were options in that report on the extent of any upgrade.

Recent Perth media reports suggest the government is looking at a minimal outlay initially, with a strong hint of it being prepared to commit to assisting a much bigger upgrade in the future.

In the gamesmanship on this issue, the implication from the government seems to be that it will consider further assistance on the proviso that the state is assured of a round of the series long-term.

All of this makes for an interesting scenario.

To be a truly national championship V8SA needs a round in Perth. Yet it has always found WA governments harder to deal with than most others. The proposition that WA sport and recreation minister Terry Waldron puts to V8SA this week is unlikely to be very palatable to it.

It is for the spending of almost $5 million – on widening and resurfacing Wanneroo, and on planning a new circuit on the north side of that site.

The upgrade would be a joint project with the WA Sporting Car Club, which has operated the venue for more than 40 years. WASCC development committee chairman Russell Sewell has said the funding being talked about would be a great result for the WA motorsport community and give the club a platform for growth.

That seems a sensible, pragmatic approach, but the proposal is unlikely to satisfy V8SA. It places heavy emphasis on facilities, particularly on those for corporate hospitality, while others question whether it is for governments or taxpayers to bear the cost of the platform for those activities.

We can see some argy-bargy ahead on the future of Wanneroo, or more particularly V8 Supercar racing in WA, but an accommodation needs to be found in everyone's interest.

Minister who championed Sydney 500 dumped

Interesting developments in Sydney in recent days. Last Thursday morning there was a preview of the Homebush street circuit by track design consultant, now part-time racer, TV commentator and V8SA director Mark Skaife.

Among those Skaife showed around the venue was Ian Macdonald, then a government minister in NSW – and who had championed within that government the project for the creation of a V8 Supercar street race at the 2000 Olympics venue.

By Sunday afternoon Macdonald was no longer a minister in the government, so it looks as though he will be listed as a DNS (did not start) when the racing gets underway in a little more than two weeks now.

That may prove to be convenient.

We note that Macdonald was quoted in a V8SA statement last Thursday saying: "Not only will the event showcase Sydney to a national and international audience but will bring in nearly $110 million to the state over the next five years as well as creating 110 new full-time jobs."

National TV audience? No doubt. And 110 new full-time jobs? Maybe. The claimed $110 million economic benefit? Who knows? It won't be hard to find someone to write a report purporting to verify, even exceed, this forecast, if the event lasts the five years.

International audience? Now Macdonald didn't go into any detail here, of course, and this is the very loose claim that has been made so often about V8 Supercar racing – and never properly verified.

We're still waiting for some kind of clarification of the international TV audience for the Gold Coast's recent SuperGP, which ended up running as pretty much a straight V8 Supercar after the no-show by the A1 GP open-wheeler series.

Queensland sports minister Phil Reeves and his office made contradictory statements after that SuperGP, but in both cases the clear intention was to have the public believe there was a very substantial international TV audience.

Reeves' office said the information of which the government statements were made came from V8SA.

More than three weeks on, neither that state government minister, his office nor V8SA have produced any real evidence of the international audience. Yet four days ago a then NSW government minister trotted out that the Homebush event would be seen by an international audience.

Where? New Zealand. That's a given. And a few – very, very few – in Europe. Certainly a few in Britain, although we're hearing that the telecaster there may not have much of a future.

Where else? If the past is any guide, we'll never be told with any authority. And if it becomes an issue in NSW after the first Sydney 500 -- as it might well, judging by the vigour of the ABC's Stateline program's scrutiny of the event (check out its latest report) it will now be very easy to make Ian Macdonald the scapegoat.
 
Jimmie Johnson to the fore 
We've seen some great champions in motor racing already this century – Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Loeb, and American Jimmie Johnson must rank right up there with that pair.

Johnson, 34, won the penultimate round of this year's NASCAR Sprint Cup in Phoenix, Arizona, this morning, Australian time, and has almost clinched the title for the fourth straight year.

Others have won more titles, but not even "King Richard" Petty or Dale Earnhardt Senior did it four years in a row. Indeed the only other to have done it three times straight was Cale Yarborough.

Johnson now leads the Chase for the Sprint Cup by 108 points, needing only to finish 25th to make history at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida next weekend. While Aussie Marcos Ambrose finished a creditable 11th at Phoenix in a Toyota, Johnson led 235 of the 312 laps in his Chevrolet.

It was Johnson's seventh victory this year, his fourth in his last five at Phoenix, and the 47th of his Sprint Cup career.

Johnson's team owner, Rick Hendrick, has had 13 Cup victories this year. Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon, second and third in the standings, also drive for Hendrick.

The pair assured Subaru of yet another APRC manufacturers' title. In seven years Crocker has won three Australian titles straight and now four Asia-Pacific crowns. He and Atkinson won all six events this season -- Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and China -- and wound up with 94 of a possible 96 points.

Only 33 of the 81 cars that started the Chinese rally made it to the finish. Australians Dean Herridge and Chris Murphy and Finns Jari Ketomaa and Miika Teiskonen filled the other podium positions as Subaru Impreza WRX STIs filled the first three places.

New Zealander Emma Gilmour, Crocker's teammate in the Singapore-based Motor Image squad, had her left wrist broken when the steering wheel of her Impreza snapped back on her but, with British co-driver Claire Mole, she made it to the finish in sixth place.
Gilmour ended up second in the championship, albeit 43 points behind Crocker, with Japan's Katsu Taguchi (Mitsubishi Lancer) slipping to third after failing to add to his tally in China.

-- A French court next week will hear an appeal by ousted Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore against his life ban over Nelson Piquet's deliberate crash at last year's Singapore Grand Prix. Briatore has alleged that outgoing Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley "assumed the roles of complainant, investigator, prosecutor and judge" in the FIA case, and had acted out of revenge after Briatore's leading role in a possible rival series by manufacturers. Briatore has also claimed his good mate, F1 commercial tsar Bernie Ecclestone, should not have had a vote in the FIA World Motorsport Council decision. Renault's former technical chief, Pat Symonds, is also appealing his five-year ban.

-- Google has been ordered by a Brazilian court to pay the country's F1 veteran Rubens Barrichello  US$500,000 in damages over fake profiles of him -- including some depicting him as a toy turtle -- on its social network Orkut . Barrichello said he took legal action for "respect rather than money" and that he would donate the money to the charity he runs with his IndyCar racer countryman Tony Kanaan.

-- The car Michael Schumacher supposedly raced most in the season he won the first of his seven F1 world titles is for sale on eBay -- with bidding closing today and the price for the Benetton B194 close to US$2 million. Some reports say it is the car in which Schumacher crashed into Damon Hill in Adelaide to prevent the Englishman beating him to the 1994 world title. It is also said to have traction control, which was banned at the end of the 1993 season. Benetton was alleged to have continued using traction control during '94 but was never punished. More details on the B194 auction.