MOTORSPORT: Courtney makes it a title fight

They were not only a belated 65th birthday present for legendary team owner Dick Johnson, but the first championship success this year for Ford -- although Courtney did win a non-championship race at Melbourne's grand prix in March.

Courtney has narrowed Jamie Whincup's series lead to just 24 points -- from 204 before the weekend.

The fresh reason for interest in the championship was reflected in a small way in the weekend's TV figures, but more importantly, there is now cause for hope in the upcoming rounds -- with the next at northern Victoria's Winton track on May 15-16.

The TV audience for Saturday's first Ipswich race averaged 250,000 in the five major state capital cities, according to OzTAM figures. That was 37,000 -- or 12.9 per cent -- below the Saturday of last year's Queensland Raceway round.

But, perhaps because of the Courtney/Ford victory on Saturday, the average Sunday audience in those five capitals was 274,000 -- just 1000 less than last year.

Now that 275,000 for the second race at Queensland Raceway last year was the worst Sunday TV number in last year's championship, so 274,000 is not a flash number. But it could be a sign that the decline in the TV audience for the series can at least be arrested if there is genuinely a chance of a Ford winning rather than always a Holden.

While Ford is now on the winner's list in this year's championship, an irony is that the Dick Johnson Racing/Jim Beam Falcons were built by Triple Eight Race Engineering, which is now running Holdens for Whincup and Craig Lowndes as Team Vodafone.

Triple Eight cars have now won eight of the 10 championship races so far this season, with Toll Holden Racing Team the only other victor to date with Garth Tander. Sixteen races remain.

Another irony is that the Jim Beam cars sport little blue -- an issue that was at the heart of Ford's split with Triple Eight.

Courtney's weekend wins take his victory tally to five since he came home to sedan racing after an international career in open-wheelers. He declared it "game on" in the championship now -- and that can only be a good thing.

"We will put the pressure on him (Whincup) and see how he operates," Courtney said.

Whincup's weekend was one he was almost bound to have at some stage of the season, but it will be good to see him challenged now -- and perhaps to see a proper Holden v. Ford battle for the rest of the season.

Lost in the talk of how the 18 international guest drivers for the Gold Coast round in October could endanger the championship standings of regular drivers has been that V8 Supercars Australia needs the title tussle to go the wire at Homebush in Sydney in December.

Despite the excitement of last year's inaugural Homebush event, the title fight was a non-event there, with Whincup only needing to finish second last in the first of the two races. Courtney has done the series organisers a huge favour by closing the gap on Whincup and increasing the chances of a season-long battle.

Lots of other stellar performances at Queensland Raceway too, especially by Shane Van Gisbergen for Stone Brothers Racing/SP Tools and Michael Caruso for Garry Rogers Motorsport/Fujitsu Racing on Sunday.

Van Gisbergen is third in the championship on 981 points, 207 behind Whincup and 12 ahead of Tander, fourth now with Lowndes just another three back.

The big loser from Queensland Raceway was Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom, who dropped from third to eighth in the championship, 297 points behind Whincup.

The weekend raised a significant safety concern at the circuit for CAMS -- the Confederation of Australian Motorsport. It was lucky that only two spectators received only minor injuries when a MINI jumped the fence at turn six on Saturday.

It was a stark reminder of what every entrance ticket to motor racing events says -- that the sport is dangerous -- and that there is no room for complacency or short cuts on safety issues.

Kyle Busch ended a 21-race losing streak with a late pass of four-time champion Jeff Gordon, who is now without a win in the last 38 races -- and he has had eight second places in that time.

Kevin Harvick, who was third at Richmond, overtook Jimmie Johnson, champion of the past four years, in this year's standings, with Busch third, as the series now heads to Darlington, South Carolina.

Busch's victory for Joe Gibbs Racing was the 24th for Toyota since it entered the Sprint Cup in 2007. It was Busch's 17th Cup win and his 13th in a Toyota.

Ambrose started 20th and held off Johnson in the closing laps to finish ninth.

"Finally a top 10 in the bag ... I think we are turning the corner now," Ambrose said. "The next aim is obviously to shoot for the top five. I think we had the car at Richmond to get that job done."

Ambrose moved up two spots in the championship at 28th on 925 points, still 288 behind 12th-placed Clint Bowyer -- the significance of 12th being that only the top dozen make The Chase, the title-deciding "playoffs" over the final rounds.

Australia's Ryan Briscoe qualified fastest at Kansas and led the first 31 of 200 laps but finished sixth, while fellow Aussie and Penske teammate Will Power, less familiar with ovals, was only 12th after qualifying seventh.

Ganassi Racing pair Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti were first and second, with New Zealander Dixon narrowing Power's series lead (largely from winning the first two races) to 26 points -- 190 to 164.

Brazilians Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves finished third and fourth. Castroneves, the third Penske driver, is now third in the series, 28 points behind Power, while Briscoe is seventh -- another 30 points back.

The Ganassi and Penske teams have won the last 14 oval races in Indy racing, with the last by another being Kanaan's victory for Andretti Green at Richmond in 2008.

The crowd for the latest Kansas race -- the fifth round of this season -- was estimated at less than 15,000, with SpeedTV cameraman Brian Clark saying: "I've got more dandelions in my yard than there were people in the grandstands."

Briscoe said of the race: "We had a tough day out there. We got out of sequence when we lost a wheel (on a pitstop) and that left us short a set of 'sticker' tyres. It was an exciting race and we probably passed more cars than anyone else out there. Considering the day we had I feel pretty good that we were able to finish on the lead lap and bring home a top-six finish. Hopefully we can learn from this and go into the Indianapolis 500 in good shape."

Power said: "The first stop I went a touch long in the pit box which cost us some time. The car felt pretty good all day. The restarts were interesting and I definitely have a better idea of who I can work with out there. Overall I'm glad we ran as well as we did and I'm feeling good going into Indy."

Team Penske has won the Indy 500 a record 15 times -- including three with Castroneves.

Practice for the classic starts, under this year's shortened schedule, on May 15.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi