MOTORSPORT: Champ Cars back on TV

Channel 7 will start screening Champ Car races late Monday nights/early Tuesday mornings from next weekend's eighth round at Edmonton in Canada.

The arrangement makes sense on numerous counts -- Toowoomba's Power is now second in the championship for Craig Gore's Team Australia, behind Dutchman Robert Doornbos, driving for Australia's international aviation entrepreneur Paul Stoddart's Team Minardi USA -- and 7 will be telecasting Champ Cars and V8 Supercars from the Gold Coast Indy on October 18-21, so it has good reason to promote both.

Today's announcement describes Gore as "one of the key instigators who has worked hard behind the scenes for the national television deal for the Champ Car World Series in Australia".

Gore says: "The 7 deal will ensure a magnificent build-up for Will's return to the Gold Coast (where he had pole position last year and) where he should still be in a position to be challenging for the championship.

"The only way is forward from here and I know with this added exposure everyone will know who Will Power is before he comes home to create history at this year's event."

Now Mr Gore, that might be over-stating things a bit. Indeed, a lot.

But it is good news for anyone with an interest in motorsport, and particularly open-wheeler racing.

No mention is made about the nitty-gritty of the 7 deal, but it is likely that it involves a little "incentivisation" to 7 -- at least in terms of advertising placements -- from somewhere in Queensland, perhaps even with some assistance from the Champ Car series organisers in America, to put the races to air.

We believe previous Gold Coast Indy broadcasters 9 and 10 were paid to put the North American-based series to air.

Which brings us to the Champ Car picture in general.

The series organisers pay to get the races on TV in the US.

A question was put to Champ Car president Steve Johnson recently: "TV pays other series to broadcast their races. Champ Car has to buy air time. How much longer do you see this happening?"

Johnson's reply was: "I would say several more years … I think we're three to four years away (from getting away from time-buys)."

He claims that Champ Car's TV viewership numbers are well up this year -- more than 100 per cent on last year.

"I don't think there's any sport in the world that's showing an increase like that," he says.

Probably not, although Champ Car is coming off a very low base.

"Trends in NASCAR are down double digits," Johnson says.

"IRL (Indy Racing League) is flat to down; NHRA (National Hot Rod Association, or big-time drag racing) is flat to down. Look what's happened in others sports -- the NBA (National Basketball Association) is plummeting, the NHL (National Hockey League) is plummeting.

"We're doing something right here," Johnson says.

"Our TV numbers are up, our attendance is up 25 per cent over previous years.

"Our unique website visits are up over 100 per cent after the first four races. So that's not by accident.

"Our plan is working."

Hopefully so. It's pinned, in North America, on a new TV deal with ESPN, which Johnson claims goes into 96 million households, whereas Speed -- on which Champ Car races were broadcast last year -- only goes into 60 million.

Whatever improvement comes on Champ Car's television front, Johnson admits that on the financial scene "this time next year we'll still be a long way from where we can call ourselves healthy".

Kevin Kalkhoven, the Australian who has made good (indeed very good) in the US and is co-owner of the Champ Car series with Gerald Forsythe and Paul Gentilozzi, admits that its international television coverage "is not what I'd like".

"We fixed the US, we'll fix the international," Kalkoven says.

While he says Champ Car "will always be a North American series", there is talk now of more international races -- perhaps as many as half in the series, including up to four in Europe next year.

Some of that probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as does the following from Kalkoven.

"We're bigger in Australia than the F1 race," he says.

"The reason is that it's much more of a driver-to-driver environment (in Champ Car). In other words, the cars are similar, you can get more overtaking, the skills of the drivers and the engineers come through, rather than the skill of the software program.

"However, we're not in competition with F1. F1 is basically a television sport and it's a technology-run sport. We are much more a fan-friendly, butts-in-seats series. We're much closer racing and much harder racing than F1, and it's a much more exciting, wheel-banging kind of sport.

"So we're not really in competition with F1; we're just different."

Yeah, Kev, one big difference is that the general public at least know who some of the drivers in F1 are.

Dixon, who several years back was considered a chance of making the move from America to Europe to race in F1, followed up last week's road course victory at Watkins Glen in New York State with another in Nashville, beating IRL series leader -- and this year's Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti -- by just over 2 seconds.

Dixon started from pole position and his winning move was an inside pass in traffic which rocketed him from third place into the lead.

Franchitti, a Scotsman of Italian origin, chose not to risk a high pass on Dixon in the knowledge that one of his Andretti Green Racing teammates, Brazilian Tony Kanaan, had crashed out early when getting too high on the track.

Dixon's latest victory is his eighth in his IRL career -- and the 14th in the category for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Danica Patrick finished third, equaling her IRL career-best finish a month ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

Dixon has narrowed Franchitti's series lead to 34 points with five rounds remaining -- the first of them in Ohio next weekend.

Englishman Dan Wheldon is a distant third in the series.

Kanaan and American Sam Hornish Junior were both fined and put on probation last week after on-track altercations that flowed over into fisticuffs between their camps in the pitlane at the end of the Watkins Glen race.

The IRL does not reveal the size of driver fines, but the teams of the two drivers -- Andretti Green and Penske -- were each slugged $25,000 and Hornish's father banned from the pitlane at Nashville while a cohort of Michael Andretti has been banned indefinitely.

Franchitti is now rumored to be at the top of Roger Penske's list if Hornish moves to NASCAR next year, but we have a sneaking suspicion that Ryan Briscoe -- the Australian racing in the American Le Mans Series for Penske -- is also in the running for that slot.

Briscoe, a former Toyota F1 test driver, has IRL experience from his ill-fated season with Ganassi, which ended with a massive crash at Chicagoland Speedway.

Less than two months ago Briscoe finished fifth in the Indy 500 for Penske's son, Jay.

Triple 8/Team Vodafone's Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes have been the two Ford drivers to win rounds this season -- Whincup at Winton in Victoria, and Lowndes at Darwin's Hidden Valley.

Queensland Raceway is the home track for Triple 8, Stone Brothers Racing and Dick Johnson Racing.

And Ford has the better form at the Ipswich circuit, winning five of the last six rounds there -- but HSV's Garth Tander won there last year.

Whincup, who is celebrating his 50th championship round start this weekend, says: "If you can do well at Queensland Raceway you can do well anywhere. We are now matching the pace of HRT and HSVDT, hopefully with more to come."

The Queensland round comprises the usual three 120km races -- the first on Saturday, the second and third on Sunday.

More on all of that during the week.

Since then we've come across a column from the Indianapolis Star newspaper that indicates at least some in that city won't be sorry to see F1 gone.

Under the headline "Indy can do without F1's arrogance", columnist Bob Kravitz calls the F1 community "The Guests From Hell" and bids them "Goodbye. And good riddance."

"During their eight years of coming to our fair city, the F1 leadership turned arrogance into high art," Kravitz writes.

"They engaged in the worst kind of snobbery, wearing out their welcome like an ungrateful in-law. They gave us a contrived finish, Michael Schumacher moving aside (in 2002) to let his teammate, Rubens Barrichello, win a race.

"They gave us the Michelin fiasco (in 2005), which should have spelled the end of the race right then and there. And along the way they acted like petulant children who were doing us some great favor by gracing American soil. The F1 race reached its apex in its first few years here, then spiraled downward.

"That wasn't Indy's fault. It was F1's fault. They acted like colonialists, ordering the natives around. Combine a sub-standard product and a restrictive media policy that made basic coverage next-to-impossible, and the race turned into a novelty act geared almost solely toward out-of-towners."

Kravitz admits that the money the GP brought to the city "will be missed" but is quick to add: "Indianapolis existed as a city well before F1 arrived in 2000, and Indy will continue to flourish long after the world's most boring race is a distant memory."

Kravitz had three words to send F1 on its way after eight years at Indy: "Bugger off, Bernie."

The departure of F1 from The Brickyard leaves arguably the world's most iconic motorsport venue with a road course on which Indianapolis Motor Speedway chief Tony George reportedly spent US$75 million.

George recently concluded a deal for a MotoGP race on that circuit from next year, but insists that arrangement is unrelated to the collapse of the F1 negotiations.

Kravitz says of MotoGP: "That's an event, populated by American riders, that can be grown in Indianapolis."

Not the kind of music Bernie Ecclestone will want to hear.

And that's before the motor manufacturers involved in F1 start airing their grievances about not racing in the most important market in the world.

We made the point on Friday that at the centre of the whole Indianapolis issue may well have been the issue that Ecclestone was unhappy getting a smaller fee from the US -- perhaps "only" US$10-12 million -- compared with the much bigger amounts reportedly paid by other promoters, particularly new circuits on the F1 calendar.

US reports suggest that Tony George drew the line at paying US$15 million next year.

Asked whether he might ask the Indianapolis city council to pay part of the sanctioning fee, George says: "I don't think so. I think the city is willing to consider how they can help continue to attract events like F1 to Indianapolis, and again that may be part of the due diligence as we pursue, as a necessary step in bringing F1 back (something George insists he wants)."

"But direct financial contributions, I don't see that at all."

Of the talks over the past few weeks, George says: "There was no discussion to what financial contributions the city of Indianapolis might bring to the relationship."

Quite different to the situation we've had with the Victorian and South Australian state governments and the Australian F1 GP for almost a quarter of a century, and that Queensland has had for the best part of two decades with its Indy race.

The point those signing off on the cheques in Victoria and Queensland could make is that, unlike Indianapolis in the case of F1, they still have their races.

As much as it seems George genuinely wanted to keep F1 at Indianapolis, more renowned for its Indy 500 and Brickyard 400, he consistently makes the point that, for him and his business, "it has to be a prudent business decision".

At race fees on the scale other F1 promoters are paying, reportedly now nudging A$50 million a year, a GP is clearly not prudent business for Indianapolis.

The GP there lost the naming rights sponsor it had in its early years and F1 never got traction on American television.

George makes it clear that a big sponsor and a proper free-to-air TV deal with "consistent, national broadcast exposure" will be essential to F1 returning there.

"The whole saga is disappointing. This isn't a Hollywood movie where when you get to the end credits and it's the end of the story," Coulthard says.

"This could have a long-lasting damaging effect to the integrity of the sport. The spin doctors will say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but...the type of companies that invest in F1 consider any whiff of insider trading on technology to be a taboo subject."

Coulthard, who spent most of his career at McLaren, vouches for the integrity of McLaren boss Ron Dennis and engine supplier Mercedes-Benz.

It has been reported over the weekend that Coughlan has admitted in an affidavit that he showed the Ferrari technical drawings and documents he had to several McLaren colleagues and that they all told him to destroy them.

Ferrari says the scandal came to light when Coughlan and his wife ordered photocopies of the files at a shop near McLaren's base at Woking in Britain.

Although a World Motor Sport Council inquiry is to start in 10 days, and expected to last three weeks, Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper suggests the saga will drag on for months -- if not longer.

It quotes Modena prosecutor Giuseppe Tibis saying action against former Ferrari executive Nigel Stepney will not get to court until next year.

Writing a mid-season report in London's Sunday Times, Brundle says: "It's difficult to see what Toyota are achieving in F1."

He says it is going to take "a sea change of attitude" to make the giant Japanese manufacturer more competitive and reliable.

Brundle also says Red Bull Racing, for which Australia's Mark Webber races alongside Brundle-managed David Coulthard, has gone down the wrong path with its unreliable seamless gearbox.

"They should really have bought that technology in rather than do it themselves," Brundle says.

When leaving the pits Ambrose clipped Clint Bowyer, damaging the right front corner of Ambrose's Ford Fusion -- including the tyre.

"I had been putting in some good lap times during the early running, comparable with the top 20, but brushed the wall at the wrong spot, right on an entry gate, which whacked the wheel alignment out making the car hard to drive," Ambrose says.

"Then during the first pit stop I clipped Clint Bowyer exiting my pit box, which bent the guard back on to the tyre and 1½ laps later the right front tyre blew, sending me into the wall.

"Although the damage wasn't that major we lost a handful of laps while we made repairs.

"From there it was a case of going around and aiming to simply get to the end."

He did -- in 37th place.

Now it's on to Gateway International Raceway in St Louis next weekend.

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