MOTORSPORT: Aussies rule at Eldora and Nurburgring

Sydney speedway star takes throne at American sprintcar classic
A Sydney speedway racer has won one of America’s biggest sprintcar events while a Melbourne teenager has gone further ahead in one of Europe’s junior open-wheeler championships after another two victories.

Kerry Madsen literally sat on a throne at the Eldora Speedway in Ohio, owned by NASCAR multiple champion Tony Stewart, after becoming the first Australian to claim the Kings Royal race ahead of five-time World of Outlaws champion Donny Schatz.

Further back in the field were two of sprintcar racing’s greatest racers, perhaps the two greatest – Steve Kinser in 12th in his final race as a full-time driver and Sammy Swindell in 17th.

Madsen, 42, had come close to glory in the event at the famed half-mile (800-metre) dirt oval twice before, beaten by Kinser (the record seven-time victor in the race)  in 2010 and Swindell (a three-time winner of it) in 2012.

Madsen raced the high line this time and was uncatchable after taking the lead a little after quarter distance in the 40-lap classic, although a caution with a lap to go bunched the field up with Schatz on his tail – but again he rocketed away.

He collected $50,000 for the win – the same first prize as next year’s Bathurst 12-Hour GT event.

It was Madsen’s fourth win of the year in America and his seventh straight podium finish in the World of Outlaws.

Crowned “King Kerry XXXI” in front of a crowd that included many dedicated Australian speedway fans, Madsen said: “I was teary after the checker [chequered flag]. When I got to the scales I was trying to bound myself up so I didn’t look like a cry-baby.

“My dream was to win the Kings Royal one day. This is pretty much the race that hooked me on American racing.

“You gotta dream and dream big, but guys like Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell … they are still racing. It feels like we really accomplished something.”

American speedway correspondent Jeremy Elliott of pennlive.com described Madsen’s drive from seventh at the start as “both aggressive and patient”.

Madsen said he had stood aside from the other drivers in the race before the start “telling myself to have more patience than the Dalai Lama”.

“I just wanted to position myself and run a smart race,” he said.
   

De Pasquale, 18, notched another two victories at the weekend on his first visit to the 5.1km Nurburgring circuit in Germany.

He won the first of the two 10-lap races by more than 3 seconds and the second by almost 5.3 seconds.

Dutch rival Janneau Esmeijer jumped De Pasquale at the start of the first race but copped a drive-through penalty and finished almost 20 seconds behind him in fourth place.

Esmeijer is the only other driver to have won in the series this season, in the two races at Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps, and finished second to De Pasquale in the damp second race at Nurburgring.

De Pasquale, whose earlier victories were at Zandvoort in Holland, is driving for the long-established Austrian team Lechner Racing through which four drivers have graduated on the way to Formula One – Stefan Bellof, Karl Wendlinger, Alexander Wurz and Christian Klien.

Setbacks for Power and Ambrose in America
It wasn’t a good weekend for Australia’s high-profile racers in America.

Will Power lost his joint lead in the IndyCar series to Brazilian teammate Helio Castroneves in Iowa while Marcos Ambrose finished a lap down in
NASCAR’s Sprint Cup round at New Hampshire and dropped a place in that championship.

Power plummeted 10 positions in the closing laps of the Iowa Corn Indy 300.

He ran high on the banked oval track with seven laps to go and had to fight hard to keep his Team Penske Dallara-Chevrolet off the concrete wall.

He had been fourth at the final restart in the race but wound up 14th, while Castroneves finished eighth to take a nine-point lead in the series with six races remaining.

Fellow Brazilian Tony Kanaan led 247 of the 300 laps at Iowa but could not deliver top team owner Chip Ganassi’s first victory of the season.
American Ryan Hunter-Reay won for Andretti Autosports after leading only the last two laps – the first time he had led a race since winning the Indianapolis 500 in May.

Hunter-Reay is now up to third in the series in which he was champion in 2012, with Frenchman Simon Pagenaud and Juan Pablo Montoya – who crashed 19 laps from the finish in Iowa – both dropped a place in the standings to fourth and fifth.

Australian Ryan Briscoe was ninth for Ganassi at Iowa and is ninth in the points ahead of a double-header round on the streets of Toronto next weekend.
Penske’s 2012 NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski won the weekend’s New Hampshire race in a Ford – and his teammate Joey Logano was running second before being taken out by 72-year-old Morgan Shepherd.

While Logano was not happy about that, Roger Penske accepted it as “one of those things”.

Keselowski, with 10 top 10 finishes this season, is third in the Sprint Cup behind Chevrolet stars Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Junior.

Ambrose, who was classified 27th in his Ford at New Hampshire, is 20th in the points – immediately behind Tony Stewart.

There is a week’s break now before the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, with the round at the Watkins Glen road course in upstate New York on August 10 the best chance for Ambrose to notch a win.

New Seton stars but Holt and Kostera take enduro
Garry Holt and Stuart Kostera won the Australian Four-Hour, a round of the Australian Manufacturers Championship, at Sydney Motorsport Park in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 10.

The 16-year-old Aaron Seton  matched Kostera for pace during his stint in another Mitsubishi entered by Bob Pearson while his former touring car champion father Glenn Seton set three of the fastest laps of the race before  broken wheel studs on the right front of the car forced it out.

The 17-year-old driver involved in the horrific fiery crash at the circuit on Friday, Brock Giblin, remains in a Sydney burns clinic in a serious but stable condition.

Giblin suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body when the Mazda 3 he was driving rolled at turn one and he was trapped in it minutes after it caught fire.

The car was owned by the Osborne Motorsport of former CAMS president Colin Osborne. Osborne, who withdrew his other entry from the weekend’s event, said the fire “was a result of the accident, and not the cause”.

“The team is working closely with CAMS to identify the cause,” Osborne said.

“We are confident that the car’s construction, safety devices and the driver’s safety apparel did their job to restrict any further injuries to Brock.”
Fellow competitors Ryan McLeod and Matt Cherry assisted in Giblin’s rescue.

The latest is Finn Toomas Heikkinen, victorious in a VW at Mettet in Belgium at the weekend.

Norwegian former world rally champion Petter Solberg’s fourth place in Belgium, after starting the final on the front row in his Citroen, has given him a three-point lead in the championship ahead of the next round in Canada on August 7-8.