MOTORSPORT: Dark clouds over V8 Supercars in NZ

"We cannot guarantee racing in NZ after 2012," V8 Supercars chief Tony Cochrane said in a statement today.

V8 Supercars told the Hamilton City Council this week it wanted out of its contract to stage the loss-making street race in the regional city in the Waikato region. The series has offered to pay the council NZ$1.25 million to be released from the contract, but wants to take infrastructure that has cost many times that with it.

V8 Supercars ran the Hamilton event this year following the collapse of the previous local organiser, Caleta Street Management.

The championship's NZ round moved to Hamilton from Pukekohe on the southern outskirts of Auckland, where it was hugely popular. It had planned to establish a street race in Auckland, NZ's biggest city, but could not get consent and settled on the regional city.

While V8 Supercars may have future alternative plans in NZ, the demise of Hamilton is a big loss of face and raises doubts about the potential to expand the championship to include six overseas rounds a year.

While the series races in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East, has a deal for a new event in Texas and the prospect of rounds in Singapore, the Philippines and India, already gone from the calendar is Bahrain. A Shanghai round only lasted one year.

The NZ picture for V8 Supercars is clouded by the start of the country's new V8 SuperTourers series next year featuring home-grown drivers including national hero, Greg Murphy.

The opening round will be at Hampton Downs, the purpose-built, privately-owned circuit midway between Auckland and Hamilton not thought to be in V8 Supercars' thinking.

This means that next year's event -- scheduled for April, 2012 -- will be Hamilton's final V8 Supercars event.

In 2010, following the financial demise of the previous promoter, V8 Supercars stepped in to save the event and took on the associated financial risk in staging an event that costs several million dollars annually to run.

Unfortunately, the 2011 race was impacted by the Canterbury earthquake, Rugby World Cup and economic downturn; attendance and corporate sponsorship fell below expectations and the event returned a significant loss to V8 Supercars.

In addition, V8 Supercars expressed preference for a November race date, however HCC advised that November would not suit (inner suburban) Frankton businesses and is outside of school holidays yet very close to Christmas. Moving the race would also require a lengthy and costly resource consent process.

HCC and V8 Supercars have been discussing the event's outlook for some time and are disappointed that in spite of their combined efforts to find a way forward, future races held in Hamilton are likely to remain unviable and result in no return to HCC.

In that evaluation, ongoing challenges -- including Hamilton's distance from a major corporate centre, modest hotel infrastructure and the downturn of ticket sales in the Waikato region -- have also been taken into account.

A one-off NZ$1.25 million payment will be made by V8 Supercars to HCC, recognising the early ending of the contract.

V8 Supercars has released HCC from its annual financial commitment after the 2012 race and V8 Supercars will continue to absorb any losses from the Hamilton event.

V8 Supercars will also assume responsibility for the race-related infrastructure.

Commenting, Hamilton mayor Julie Hardaker says: "This is the best outcome for both the city and V8 Supercars. While I am sorry to see such a high-profile event go, there has been a cost to the ratepayers which is not sustainable. We've reached an agreement with the promoters that is the best for the city."

HCC chief executive Barry Harris said: "V8 Supercars has been completely transparent and collaborative in working with council in attempts to find ways forward. Contrary to some media reports, V8 Supercars in no way blindsided council.

In the New Zealand Herald newspaper, published in Auckland, it was reported by Nikki Preston that: "If the council does not accept the offer of $1.2m to terminate the contract two years early, V8 Supercars would apply to move the resource consent to November 2013 which was unlikely to get any support from the Frankton business community. The council would have to pay $600,000 for the new resource consent and V8 Supercars would walk away without even paying an exit fee if its attempt was unsuccessful."

Preston also noted that: "the council is still waiting on the findings from an independent audit by Audit NZ into the processes which led to the council racking up a loan of more than $14 million and the event costing ratepayers more than $30 million".

She wrote that the council paid $17.97 million for set-up costs, despite initial amounts being reported at $7.95 million.

She also wrote: "The race organisers have not started looking for a new city to hold the event but would like it to stay in NZ.

"One race expert believed Pukekohe would be the only possible venue for the event as it would tap into Auckland's large population and did not think V8 Supercars would have a go at another street circuit this [NZ) side of the ditch."

The Waikato Times, published in Hamilton, said V8 Supercars had "blindsided" the Hamilton City Council.

It said that the pull-out, and the deal that came with it: "stunned city councillors, who are thought to have had no idea what was coming".

"The deal involves V8SA running next year's event, while concurrently applying for resource consents to stage a NZ round elsewhere. Its bid for the race assets strongly suggests a street race in another city," the paper reported.

It also noted that: "councillors last year unanimously decided to transfer the Hamilton 400 event management to V8 Supercars, extend the contract for seven more years, and write off $1.58m owed to the city by the previous promoters".

V8 Supercars was happy to portray itself as the "saviour" of the Hamilton event after the demise of Caleta Street Management. Today's announcement again makes mention of V8 Supercars having "stepped in to save the event".

The reality is that V8 Supercars has done no better at running the Hamilton event than Caleta -- in the same way as it has done no better than previous promoters with the Queensland Raceway round or the Victorian 500km endurance race in September (which now appears set to return to Sandown in Melbourne after four years of poor attendances at Phillip Island).

Today's announcement also makes mention of "Hamilton's distance from a major corporate centre" and "modest hotel infrastructure". Those factors, surely, applied just as much before the decision to stage the event at Hamilton.

And V8 Supercars chief Tony Cochrane has said: "A street circuit is expensive to create, with race infrastructure unique to each venue, and requires considerable corporate sponsorship to achieve. Despite our best efforts… we could not secure the corporate support we had budgeted for Hamilton."

Again, the extravagant costs of street circuits were well known before V8 Supercars decided to go to Hamilton. Whatever difficulties or "challenges" have been encountered there, the admission that there has not been sufficient corporate support is evidence that the V8 Supercar is nowhere near as rosy as Mr Cochrane has been so fond of telling all and sundry for so long.

Richards couldn't take up the seat in the Bathurst 1000 that would have been his in one of the Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodores. Instead he will drive an HQ Holden in the Touring Car Masters.

Richards was offered the opportunity to drive in the support category by Masters car owner Tony Hunter and was strongly encouraged to do it by close mate, former V8 Supercar star and Bathurst hero, now Masters hero, John Bowe.

Richards is still a long way from out of the woods with his illness but recent reports are that his cancer has stopped growing.

More -- much more -- on Bathurst next week.

Another Kiwi, former IndyCar champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon has scratched himself from the Gold Coast 600 two weeks after Bathurst. Dixon was to have partnered Stone Brothers Racing's young star Shane Van Gisbergen on the streets of Surfers' Paradise. However, the birth of Dixon's second child has prompted him to stay in America with his family.

Italian Emanuele Pirro, a multiple Le Mans 24-hour winner and ex-Formula One driver, is Dixon's replacement.

Power already has won the Mario Andretti Trophy as the top road racer in the series for the second year and could take the AJ Foyt Trophy as the top oval racer too.

Two races remain in the championship, both on 1.5-mile (2.4km) ovals in Kentucky this weekend and then Las Vegas two weeks later.

Power leads defending series champion Dario Franchitti by 11 points, having overcome a 62-point deficit in the past four rounds.

Scott Dixon leads the oval-track standings with 181 points, 17 ahead of Ganassi Racing teammate Franchitti, 36 ahead of Team Penske's Power and 37 ahead of Spaniard Oriel Servia, who drives for Newman-Haas.

Power notched his first oval victory this year and said that winning the Foyt trophy would be "a big deal to me… a real honour".

Power's fellow Australian teammate Ryan Briscoe is sixth in the IndyCar series and, like the third Penske driver, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, winless this season.

Castroneves is ninth in the points and this week was fined US$30,000 for comments he made about series race director, Brian Barnhart. Power was also fined recently -- US$50,000 for an outburst against Barnhart, who admitted his error restarting a race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway while the track was wet.

Both drivers have been offered the alternative of doing "community service" for IndyCar instead of paying the fines, while Barnhart remains in his position despite the constant criticism of his performance.

The Penske team censored Castroneves' criticism of Barnhart in a column ghost-written for him, but the Brazilian let his feelings at being relegated from seventh to 22nd for passing under caution late in the round at Japan's Motegi be known on Twitter.

"This is just absurd. It is sad to see one person being responsible for bringing down an entire series," he said. "Brian Banhart is inconsistent and even changes the rulebook when is convenient for him, and his own personal interests."

Castroneves invoked the words of another colourful Indy racer, Canadian Paul Tracy, who got into strife some years ago for calling Barnhart "a circus clown".

Sir Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac, designer of the Repco-Brabham cars in the 1960s, will be at a suburban bookshop later in the day, signing limited copies of 'Maybach To Holden - Repco, the cars, people and engines', by Malcolm Preston.

The venue is Sue's Transport Books in the Southern Antique Centre in Kogarah. Brabham and Tauranac are due there at 3.30pm.

Bookshop operator Chris Wood said of triple world champion Brabham: "He was born in Hurstville, trained in Kogarah and did his apprenticeship in Treacy St. Jack is back!"

Wood said Brabham's original speedway midget car will be at the shop tomorrow afternoon -- but not, unfortunately, the 1966 Repco-Brabham with which he and Tauranac conquered the world for Brabham's third F1 title.

Young Australians Brendan Reeves and Molly Taylor are competing in Ford Fiesta R2s at the French round of the WRC Academy today and tomorrow. Reeves is running third in the Academy series.

Meanwhile, Australia's former WRC star Chris Atkinson could clinch the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship at Japan's Rally Hokkaido this weekend. Driving for Proton, Atkinson has scored three wins from four Asia-Pacific events this season.

He was an early retirement from last weekend's Intercontinental Rally Challenge in Italy but has good reason for optimism in Japan -- apart from his form this year with Proton, it was in Japan that he scored his first WRC podium in his days with the now-defunct Subaru factory team.

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