MOTORSPORT: Bright side of V8s, for better and worse

Thankfully Karl Reindler and Steve Owen survived without major injury the huge blaze at the start of the second race when Owen could not avoid Reindler's stalled car, hit it at about 150kmh, flicking it in the air in the 37G impact and piercing the fuel tank which burst into flames. There has been criticism of the response of marshals to the fire, with calls for a dedicated V8 Supercar safety crew.

Images of the fireball understandably dominated the media coverage of the event, and the investigation into it now needs to take its course, hopefully promptly yet fully.

In the context of the championship, Jamie Whincup -- with two wins and a second place from the three races after three pole positions -- stretched his series lead from 81 to 142 points and Team Vodafone/Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Craig Lowndes has jumped to second at the one-third mark of the season.

There is less than 100 points between the next eight drivers, although Toll Holden Racing Team's third-placed Garth Tander is 67 points in arrears of Lowndes.

Jason Bright, now 37, won his first race for four years, since Bahrain in 2006, and after a drought of 137 races. It was thoroughly deserved by a driver this author has always admired -- initially for his courageous venture to America in the mid-1990s, then as a factory team V8 Supercar driver and a privateer owner.

It is fitting that Bright's tie-up with Brad and Kim Jones' Team BOC has produced the breakthrough win the Albury brothers have been chasing in V8 Supercars for a decade -- and almost 340 races. They may have repeated the dose in the final race if a stuck wheel clip had not prolonged Bright's pitstop.

Whincup summed up Bright well. "He seems to operate out of the square, and when he gets it right he's unbelievably quick," Whincup said.

Bright dedicated his race victory to Jason Richards, the driver missing from the Jones team while seeking a cure in America to his cancer.

"This one is for Jason -- he's going through a tough time and we want to do everything we can to make him happy," Bright said.

For Brad Jones it was the day he had dreamt of for 10 years and he called Bright's drive "sensational".

"Everything was just perfect. The only thing that was missing this weekend was not having JR here," Jones said.

While Reindler's car was from the Jones stable and is a write-off, there was other joy for the Albury team in the west -- with Jason Bargwana, in his new Jana Living livery, on the podium with third place in Sunday morning's race -- the first of two that day on soft tyres.

It was Bargwanna's first visit to the podium since the Gold Coast event in 2004, although it felt to him as though he had not been there since Noah's Ark.

Bargwanna jumped 11 places in the championship over the weekend to 13th, while Bright improved from 11th to seventh.

All three races were won by Holdens, with only one Ford podium for the weekend -- in the first race by Will Davison, who has overtaken established Ford Performance Racing teammate Mark Winterbottom.

Holden has now won eight of the nine championship races so far this season (four of them by Whincup), as well as the three non-championship races at the Australian Grand Prix.

Young New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen, a race winner at Hamilton in NZ two weeks earlier, is the highest-placed Ford driver in fourth -- seven behind Garth Tander.

Tander's teammate, reigning champion James Courtney, is 12th and -- 450 points behind Whincup -- with next to no chance of retaining his crown.

Rick Kelly, the other race winner in NZ, has slipped from second to sixth in the championship. His best finish of the weekend was ninth in Saturday's race on hard tyres, while brother Todd Kelly's best was 16th in the final race.

The big loser out of the weekend though was Winterbottom, who dropped from fourth to ninth in the championship and is 281 points adrift of Whincup. 

V8 Supercar Championship points after nine of 27 races -- 1. Jamie Whincup (Holden) 946 points, 2. Craig Lowndes (H) 804, 3. Garth Tander (H) 737, 4. Shane Van Gisbergen (Ford) 730, 5. Will Davison (F) 714, 6. Rick Kelly (H) 713, 7. Jason Bright (H) 674, 8. Alex Davidson (F) 666, 9. Mark Winterbottom (F) 665, 10. Steve Johnson (F) 639, 11. Fabian Coulthard (H) 557, 12. James Courtney (H) 496, 13. Jason Bargwanna (H) 455, 14. Lee Holdsworth (H) 448, 15. David Reynolds (H) 438, 16. Tim Slade (F) 423, 17. Michael Caruso (H) 421, 18. Jonathon Webb (F) 420, 19. Todd Kelly (H) 418, 20. Greg Murphy (H) 404, 21. Dean Fiore (F) 385, 22. Russell Ingall (H) 363, 23. Paul Dumbrell (F) 362, 24. Karl Reindler (H) 333, 25. Steve Owen (H) 321, 26. James Moffat (F) 307, 27. Tony D Alberto (H) 268, 28. Warren Luff (H) 247.

"It was a horrible feeling with fire inside the car," Reindler said. "I could feel my face burning -- I couldn't get the chains (safety harness) off... Luckily the car and (race) suit did what they were supposed to do. "But I'm back at home now and on the road to recovery."

The winner of the race in which Reindler was engulfed in flames, Bright, said that "seeing the vision on the big screens was pretty horrific".

"But the car and race suit did their job and he got out pretty quickly," Bright said. "It was scary seeing the mechanics first on the scene and fire crews walking casually up to the car.

"It's just lucky Karl wasn't knocked out, which would have been a far more serious problem."

Burnouts had been specifically prohibited at Saturday morning's drivers' briefing, but Tander was critical of the stance.

"We're not allowed to show any emotion and put on a show for the people who pay the money to come watch us race," he said. "It was absolutely silly that we all got told off after Shane's win in New Zealand. What a joke."

Tander was handed a $10,000 fine -- $8000 of which was suspended if he's a good boy until the end of the season -- for using indecent language during the telecast of the weekend's racing.

WA Sporting Car Club event co-ordinator Jennifer Harrison said the circuit would be "looking different" for next year's round. The first of the work to be done with more than $15 million of WA government money will be to move the pitlane to the infield.

Ms Harrison said the next phase would be the acquisition of more land to further develop the track.

Separately, there also are big plans to restore and develop the old Caversham airfield circuit in the Swan Valley.

The Vintage Sports Car Club of WA hopes to turn Caversham into something similar to Goodwood in Britain. The idea surfaced at the weekend when Australia's triple Formula One world champion Sir Jack Brabham visited Caversham for the official naming of a new suburb after him.

Brabham raced there in Australian GPs in 1957 and 1962 and the suburb borders the old main straight.

"It would also be very good if the circuit can be restored and put to use again," said Brabham, now in his mid-80s.

VSCC spokesman Rob Ozanne said a park that had already been named after Brabham still had the remains of the D-shaped circuit.

"There's a lot of international interest in our plan to restore the old D circuit," Ozanne said. "We have a lease on the land and the aim is to create a complex like Goodwood, where historic events can be run.

"A big benefit is that vintage aircraft can also land here... We are confident that many overseas enthusiasts will ship their historic cars here if we can provide an Australian version of Goodwood."

Saturday's average audience across the five major capital cities was 323,000 while Sunday's was 423,000. The Hamilton numbers were 310,000 and 375,000, so a two-day tally of 746,000 for the Perth telecasts versus 685,000 for Hamilton.

Last Saturday's audience was up almost 10 per cent on the 294,000 viewers in the five capitals when the V8 Supercars last raced in Perth in November 2009. However, Sunday's audience was down almost 11.5 per cent from the 487,000 on the Sunday in November 2009 -- which was the penultimate round before the first Sydney 500.

The two-day tally in the five capitals for the latest round was 746,000 -- 35,000 less than what it was in November 2009.

Particularly disturbing in the latest Oztam numbers, after some positive signs out of Adelaide's Clipsal 500 and Hamilton, was that fewer people watched the WA round in Sydney and Melbourne than in Brisbane.

Saturday's race averaged 88,000 viewers in Brisbane, compared with 81,000 in Sydney and 80,000 in Melbourne.

Sunday's racing averaged 121,000 in Brisbane, while Sydney averaged only 76,000 and Melbourne 104,000.

So Sydney had fewer viewers on Sunday than Saturday -- and fewer than the 90,000 in Australia's largest city who watched Hamilton's Sunday race two weeks earlier.

Australian Marcos Ambrose was 23rd in his Ford and is 21st in the championship which is headed by Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Busch.

Ford star Edwards, whose Roush Fenway Racing contract is up for renewal and who is being eyed by other teams and manufacturers, was fifth at Richmond and Chevrolet champion of the past five years Johnson eighth.

Ambrose's Richard Petty Motorsports teammate AJ Allmendinger is 11th in the championship and will make The Chase if he maintains that position.

Ex Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya, now in his fifth year in the Sprint Cup, is 12th and also will be in The Chase is he stays there.

NASCAR Sprint Cup points after nine of 36 races -- 1. Carl Edwards (Ford) 335, 2. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 326, 3. Kyle Busch (Toyota) 305; 4. Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 301, 5. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 300, 6. Kurt.Busch (Dodge) 289, 7. Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet) 284; 8. Ryan Newman (Chevrolet) 277; 9. Matt Kenseth (Ford) 276, 10. Tony Stewart (Chevrolet) 275; 11. AJ Allmendinger (Ford) 263, 12. Juan Pablo Montoya (Chevrolet) 262. Australia's Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 21st on 209.

Power, who won in Sao Paulo last year, maintained his perfect record of pole positions with his fourth of the season -- and his 11th in his past 13 road course starts. Fellow Team Penske driver Briscoe started from fourth this morning.

There were numerous crashes in the first eight laps, including one involving Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves that triggered a multi-car pileup.

"I wanted to race and I thought we could get it in," Power said. "When the cars were out the second time the rain slowed down and I thought we could get the track in good enough shape to race... It's unfortunate but I guess we do need to think about safety first."

Almost 80 minutes remains in the two-hour race time limit.

After missing the opening round in Spain because of his Toro Rosso practice commitment at the Chinese GP, Ricciardo finished 10th and ninth in the two Renault races at Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps at the weekend.He qualified sixth for Saturday's race, although he had been second before a high-speed crash coming out of Eau Rouge, and seventh for Sunday's race. This year he is with Czech-owned team ISR.

Britain's Carlin Motorsport scored quinellas in both the Spa races, with Canadian Robert Wickens its victor on Saturday and Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, like Ricciardo a Red Bull junior driver, on Sunday.

Wickens leads the series on 71 points from Vergne on 57 while Ricciardo has only three -- and faces an uphill battle to better his runner-up in last year's championship.

Meanwhile, Ricciardo, 21, from Perth, will continue his Friday morning GP practice outings with Toro Rosso at this week's Turkish GP.

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