MOTORSPORT: Ford and Holden dirty linen

A double dose of dirty linen today.

Two weeks after the thunderbolt that Triple 8 Race Engineering/Team Vodafone will switch to running Holdens next year it has become clear just how severe the breakdown in relations between Ford and V8 Supercar racing's dominant team had become.

And unfortunate news for Holden with the reigning Commodore Cup champion -- described as a potential V8 Supercar driver -- in jail on remand, awaiting sentence next Friday, for having kicked and punched a man, ruining the victim's life according to a Crown Prosecutor. And it came to light that this champion has two prior convictions for assault.

But there is at least one positive on the radar. Coming up on ABC TV early next week is an Australian Story program on the greatest icon of Australian motorsport, triple Formula 1 world champion Sir Jack Brabham. It's called When We Were Racing; it's on at 8pm Monday on ABC1 and at the same time Tuesday on ABC2.

Produced by Roger Carter, who created the award-winning Craig Lowndes Australian Story: A Red Hot Go in 2007, that's something not to miss.

Ford's side of its fall-out with Team Vodafone
The appropriate starting point in catching up with developments in the stoush between Ford and Triple 8/Team Vodafone is the content of an email that Ford Australia president Marin Burela circulated to the company's workers following the news that Team Vodafone will be racing Holdens next season.

Here's what Burela told the Ford workers:
"We spent a considerable amount of money sponsoring Triple 8 for a number of years.

"We honored every single aspect of our sponsorship arrangement with them and in return, we asked for one thing -- that they respect our brand by painting their cars blue.

"This wasn't just a simple request, it was written into their contracts every single year -- and each year Triple 8 chose to defy that contractual obligation and paint their cars red.

"That may seem relatively minor but it's not.

"We're running a business here and investing significant sums of money in supporting motorsport.

"If someone continues to take large sums of money from us every year while continuing to blatantly defy the obligations they've agreed to in order to obtain that money, then we have no choice but to end that arrangement.

"Make no mistake -- Triple 8 was given every opportunity to live up to the contractual arrangements they agreed to.

"Eventually we said 'enough' -- as any responsible company would do.

"I make no apologies for doing that.

"It's not just about the cars being painted blue, it's about whether or not we have an open and trusting relationship with an organisation that significantly benefits from their involvement with us.

"That wasn't there and, in the market environment we've been facing over the last few years, we simply cannot afford to continue giving money to a team that does not respect our brand.

"Secondly, we are hugely disappointed that Craig Lowndes will be returning to Holden at the end of this year.

"We're disappointed because he's a great talent and we're disappointed because we have gone out of our way to welcome Craig into the Ford family since he moved to us in 2001.

"We're also disappointed because we found out this was happening on Tuesday evening (before the announcement on the morning of Wednesday, July 29).

"Our sponsorship of Craig has hugely benefited him financially since 2001 and I have yet to receive a phone call from Craig himself telling me of his decision to re-sign with Triple 8 and subsequently return to Holden. (Burela has subsequently said he received a letter from Lowndes the next day).

"We had every intention of continuing our relationship with Craig into next year, but this is now not possible.

"We continue to support motorsport in Australia through our direct sponsorship of Ford Performance Racing and Stone Brothers Racing and we also continue to provide significant in-kind support to other teams such as Dick Johnson Racing.

"Motorsport continues to be a useful tool for us to communicate our brand promise to our customers.

"You can rest assured that we will continue to be involved in motorsport in Australia in the future and are completely focused on delivering winning results."

Burela has subsequently said that "we just couldn't continue the relationship where one party was not fulfilling their contractual obligations that they readily and openly signed up to".

He said the episode "just reinforces us and puts an absolute level of desire for us to find ways to win with the teams that we do support".

Triple 8's Dane says the truth is very different
Not surprisingly, Triple 8/Team Vodafone principal Roland Dane's side of the story is quite different -- and he hasn't been backward in putting it all out in the marketplace in response to Burela's comments.

Dane has called Burela's version "very far from the facts", "unfortunate and highly inaccurate" and "pretty much a pack of lies".

Dane claims Ford's marketing people had not objected to Triple 8's livery not containing blue, and that the contract between the manufacturer and team had not stipulated it.

Further, Dane claims that it was Ford's sponsorship and marketing departments that damaged the Ford brand -- not his race team.

He rubs it in, saying: "We also successfully developed the BF and FG (Falcon models) for Ford (in racing) -- both programs would not have had the level of success they enjoyed without Triple 8's leadership.

"We delivered more race wins during the life of the contract than all the other Ford teams put together."

A fuller version of Dane's thoughts/point of view is contained in a letter he addressed to race fans published prominently in this week's Auto Action magazine.

Here is what he said in that letter:

"Team Vodafone did not drop Ford -- Ford dropped Team Vodafone.

"We had a five-year contract with Ford that came to and end at the end of 2008.

"Ford, despite having agreed terms with us for a two-year extension, decided not to renew the contract and told us at the beginning of July 2008, leaving us very little time to seek alternative sponsorship.

"Maybe that was smart thinking by Ford because it effectively gave them Team Vodafone Falcons for 2009 without having to spend a cent. But how long can you reasonably expect someone to work for nothing?

"They paid us annually to produce results for them annually -- and we did.

"The major key performance indicators of our contract related to our performance as a team -- not the color of the car! -- just as they should, and we delivered more race wins than all the other Ford-supported teams put together.

"We proudly won Bathurst three times with their signage on our cars and we won a championship.

"Their 'reward' to us was to drop us, whilst they enjoyed the fruits of our labor on the new FG.

"Ford have told all and sundry that the only reason that they didn't continue with us was because we didn't honor our contract and paint our cars blue.

"The truth is that there was simply no obligation to paint the cars blue in the contract!

"Furthermore, when they agreed terms with us for a two-year extension at the end of 2007, they never mentioned 'blue' and they fully realised that, certainly in 2009 and probably beyond, the Vodafone colors would predominate.

"Is it really credible for them to suggest that they managed (at the end of 2003) to put into our contract a stipulation that the cars should be blue when they had (and continued to have for a long time afterwards) cars running at FPR and SBR (who both enjoyed greater support than we did) in colors such as black/yellow and green.

"The fact is that Ford support for us was never more than between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of our budget and therefore a naming rights sponsor would always take precedence, and the colors of the cars were never set in stone.

"Ford never activated its sponsorship of Triple 8 despite our other sponsors spending millions of dollars on activation that used the Falcon as the base at all times.

"Most automotive companies would jump at the chance to be involved with two of the world's largest and most valuable consumer brands -- Vodafone and Nokia. Not Ford.

"This despite, for instance, Nokia selling 20,000 Team Vodafone handsets in Australia last year that featured the Falcon on the packaging and the phone itself.

"How many times did Ford advertise the success of the Falcon after the Bathurst wins, for instance?

"So, when a company that is as proactive with its motorsport involvement as Holden approaches us, it doesn't take us long to figure out that our sponsors are going to gain a whole lot more out from a relationship with GMH than they ever would with Ford.

"It's my job to ensure that Team Vodafone has the best chance of success on track and also to ensure that the (Triple 8) staff have the best job security I can offer them.

"So when Holden approached us and made us and our sponsors feel welcome from the outset it wasn't difficult to work out the route ahead, especially given our experience of working with GM overseas.

"Ford had numerous opportunities to re-engage with us at the end of last year and earlier this year.

"They declined to take those.

"Those then are the main reasons why we are changing to racing Commodores in 2010, but there are many, many other smaller ones.

"For instance, Ford has no racing manager (an indication of their lack of commitment to the sport) and almost never any presence at the race tracks.

"They demonstrate no passion for the sport.

"They never once acknowledged the time and effort that I personally put into Formula Ford in Australia -- at no cost to them.

"I feel so sorry for the many hundreds of employees at Ford in Australia (and our many friends within Ford) who have shown us such support over the years.

"They deserve better management of their sponsorship and marketing departments than they've had in recent times.

"So please don't blame us for changing brands -- there are a few key individuals at Ford who made the decisions that set the wheels in motion for our swap to Holden.

"In hindsight, they did us a favor.

"Holden are committed to V8 Supercars, and are committed to Team Vodafone.

"What more could we ask for?

"Ford created a vacuum, Holden filled it."

Bottom line: Dane has the record, Ford has to fire
So what's it all mean? We remember commenting at length on Ford's new approach to motorsport a little more than a year ago, here.

We saw some rationale in what Ford was doing, appreciated its very clear preference for blue, and concluded: "We can foresee a bit of arm-wrestling between Triple 8 and Ford ... But the main factor is going to be how FPR and Stones perform on the tracks. The jury is out on whether Ford has made a blue here, or whether it will be proven to be true blue. We might just have to wait two or three years for the verdict."

It's easy to think now that the verdict has been delivered much sooner than that.

Triple 8 remains the No. 1 team in V8 Supercar racing this year and is switching to Holdens next year. Holden Racing Team is the No. 2 team this season. So next season Holden will have both Triple 8 and HRT.

FPR is fifth in the teams championship this year and SBR is eighth.

Dick Johnson Racing, once the favored team of the Ford factory but these days only a recipient of 'in-kind' support, is third in this year's teams championship. The evidence is that Ford has put its money on the wrong horses. So far, at least.

It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that FPR and SBR can yet deliver for Ford. Indeed, FPR came pretty close to challenging Team Vodafone at times over the past couple of years.

But things are going to have to change at FPR and SBR for them to match -- and beat -- Triple 8, whether it's running Falcons or Commodores, and HRT. Expect a shake-up at at least one of the Ford factory-backed teams very soon.

The linen that has been aired by Ford and Triple 8's Dane in the past couple of weeks has been far from pleasant, although it makes juicy content for media and chat for fans -- of whatever allegiance.

And perhaps it's for the best that it is all aired -- and that everyone now gets back, or down, to racing.

Certainly we would have to award the points in this great "blue" to Dane at this stage. Not only has his Team Vodafone got the score on the board from the tracks, he always makes his case coherently and eloquently. Knows how to play the game.

Burela's message to the Ford workers has the ring of spin, even a little desperation in trying to placate disappointed, unhappy and annoyed workers and race fans.

As Dane said somewhere else, it appears Burela was not well briefed by his staff.

Ford needs to get its racing act together, off the tracks and on it -- through its designated FPR and SBR.

And, with the might Holden will have in the red corner next year, it would be great to see the Blue Oval come bouncing back through one or both, of its factory teams.

Or, for the sentimentalists, via DJR -- although, again, that would raise big questions over the wisdom of Ford's approach.

Commodore Cup champion admits vicious assault
It's no fault of Holden, but the case of reigning Commodore Cup champion Michael Tancredi is bad news. Tancredi won the series in his first season last year in the name of Top Shelf Racing. He's running sixth season, but won't be at the next round at Oran Park.

Yes, there is still a bit of racing at that grand old Sydney circuit, but the Shannons Nationals there on August 29-30 will be its last national-level meeting.

Tancredi -- who in a 10-year karting career won a Victorian title and was runner-up in a national title -- this week pleaded guilty in Geelong County Court to recklessly causing serious injury to another man at 1am on June 14, 2007.

Crown prosecutor Paul Darcy told the court the victim left the Eureka Hotel and walked into Geelong's main street, Moorabool St, to catch a cab home when he was set upon by Tancredi and then associate Andrew Pamvouxoglou.

A cab driver reported seeing Tancredi kick the victim twice to the upper body, then Pamvouxoglou do the same before the pair got into a car and drove off.

The Geelong Advertiser newspaper's account of the court case began: "Two thugs, one with the potential to become a V8 Supercar driver, have admitted to a street bashing that left another man in a coma with serious head injuries."

Prosecutor Darcy said the victim, who had to be flown to Melbourne's Alfred Hospital with bleeding from the brain, "spent six months undergoing rehabilitation, lost his job as a tiler and remains depressed, suffers low self-esteem and feels robbed of the happiness and confidence he once had".

Tancredi's lawyer, James McQuillan, conceded his client may have reacted too quickly, supposedly not knowing whether he was going to be attacked first before kicking the victim and punching him in the jaw.

McQuillan said that although Tancredi, 26, had two prior convictions for assault, he was otherwise of good character, running a family concreting business, was engaged to an accountant and was known and respected in motor racing circles as having the potential to become a V8 Supercar driver.

Judge Anthony Howard remanded Tancredi and Pamvouxoglou for sentencing on August 21.

So rugby league isn't the only sport with bad boys.

Motor racing can do without these types -- on either side of the fence.

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