MOTORSPORT: Grassroots as well as glamour

A huge weekend of international motorsport ahead – Formula One in Monaco; the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's longest race (the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte) in America; and a round of the World Rally Championship in Portugal.

No Aussies in either of the latter two, now that Marcos Ambrose and Chris Atkinson aren't on the major international stages, but reigning Australian rally champion Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt are competing in Portugal – in a Ford Fiesta R5 – among 27 entries in WRC2.

Daniel Ricciardo is hopeful of qualifying his Red Bull-Renault ahead of the Williams-Mercedes and Ferrari cars in Monaco, where there already has been a day's Formula One practice with none tonight because of the Ascension Day holiday.

At Indianapolis late call-up Ryan Briscoe will start the Indy 500 from the last of the 11 rows of the grid, as will fellow Aussie James Davison, both of them in Honda-powered cars qualified by other drivers.

Australia's best hope in this year's "greatest spectacle in racing", Will Power, is on the front row in a Chevrolet-powered Dallara, between pole-sitting New Zealander Scott Dixon and one of Power's three Penske teammates, Simon Pagenaud.

At home there's an endurance round of the Shannons Nationals at Victoria's Phillip Island, with several V8 Supercar drivers taking part – including Garth Tander in a McLaren 650S GT3 he's sharing with owner Tony Quinn and Scott McLaughlin in the Porsche Carrera Cup.

Among the line-ups there are Italian ex-F1 driver Andrea Montermini and versatile young German Christopher Mies, a two-time winner of the Bathurst 12-Hour and winner of last weekend's Nurburgring 24-Hour for Audi. Mies is also competing in the Australian GT 101 and Carrera Cup.

Tony Quinn, incidentally, has bought New Zealand's newest race track Hampton Downs, between Auckland and Hamilton, and has plans to extend it to 3.8km and have V8 Supercars racing there.

And in South Australia the Development Assessment Commission has approved plans for the redevelopment of the former Mitsubishi test track at Tailem Bend, almost 100km east of Adelaide by Peregrine Corporation, owned by the state's wealthy Shahin family.

It's an $80 million project to which the federal and SA governments have each pledged $7.5 million and is intended to become a V8 Supercar venue too – perhaps as soon as 2017.

Already known as SA Motorsport Park, the 680-hectacre site is to house – apart from road-racing circuits – a drag strip, drift/karting circuits and rally/rallycross tracks that will allow year-round activity for a broad range of competitors, especially at grassroots level.

Rallycross had been popular in Oz through the 1970s, particularly at Melbourne's Calder Park, and with its stars including Peter Brock and Allan Moffat too, but it "died" soon after that single national title.

However, another of the competitors from those days, rally great Bob Watson, is reviving rallycross in Victoria and lured a couple of hundred interested people – including numerous potential competitors – to its new "home" yesterday.

That's at the State Motorcycle Sports Complex at Broadford, just off the Hume Highway about an hour's drive north of Melbourne.

Rallycross sprints are a combination of circuit racing and rallying and Watson has created a 1.8km course using much of the tarmac motorcycle circuit with gravel sections within it. A jump and a water splash are to be added in time for the first rallycross meeting there on Sunday, July 19.

Watson anticipates 60-80 competitors and among likely entrants several sampled the course yesterday in cars that ranged from comparatively modern Subaru WRX and Mitsubishi Lancer Evo to an historic Ford Escort (formerly driven by Greg Carr, one of the latest inductees into Australian rallying's hall of fame), a Datsun and a couple of VW Beetles.

Watson is aiming to entice rally and autocross competitors with under-used machinery.

He has another single-day meeting planned for later in the year and hopes for an extended series next year.

Simultaneously a more up-market and expensive Extreme Rallycross Championship is scheduled to start in major Australian cities at the end of August, modeled on the World Rallycross Championship, now in its second season, and the American-based Global Rallycross Championship.

The Extreme series has been founded by Gold Coast marketing man David Ridden, and has already had a test day at Sydney Motorsport Park attended by Chris Atkinson and Alister McRae, as well as Australian Rally Championship competitors.

Anticipated next from Ridden is a driver line-up for the opening two-day round at the Mudgeeraba Sporting Complex on the Gold Coast on the last weekend of August and news of a shipment of 300-horsepower Superlite cars – the second tier in World RX – from manufacturer Olsbergs MSE in Sweden.

There has been talk of V8 Supercar drivers participating, while World RX boasts charismatic Norwegian Petter Solberg – its reigning champion and the 2003 world rally champion – and Swedish all-round star Mattias Ekstrom. YouTube sensations Ken Block and Travis Pastrana compete in the American rallycross.

Watson said the Broadford venue's undulation made it potentially a better venue than Calder Park and the course was almost twice as long.

"It's a toe-in-the-water exercise ... a couple of meetings this year and hopefully more thereafter," 77-year-old Watson said.

"Rallycross will be attractive to current rally and autocross competitors.

"It is easy to reach, our meetings are one day only, all the action is in one place, there is wheel-to-wheel competition and tyre and fuel bills and wear and tear on cars will be much lower.

"We're seeing a lot of enthusiasm for it.

"We're catering for a wide range of people and we are trying to gather autocross people who are currently competing on dirt.

"Our first category is for grassroots people, who can run street cars that'll save them a lot of money.

"The other category is for any rally car that complies with any CAMS category.

"This will give a spectrum from historic rally cars right up to the modern-day turbocharged rally cars."

Not only is a woman leading the Australian Rally Championship after Molly Taylor's historic victory at last weekend's National Capital Rally in Canberra, but new technical regulations are to be introduced next year – and New Zealand will adopt them too.

ARCom chairman Colin Trinder and ARC sporting director Peter Macneall have outlined two proposed new categories – AP4 and G4.

AP4 is for 1.6-litre turbocharged "Maxi'-type cars that originated in Argentina. Mark Pedder, brother of reigning ARC champion Scott Pedder, is already driving a Peugeot 208 'Maxi' in the ARC.

G4 is 2-litre and a similar concept to the ARC's existing Group N (Prototype), with two-wheel-drive cars converted to four-wheel-drive – as multiple national champion Neal Bates did a decade ago with Toyota Corollas to compete against Subarus and Mitsubishis.

Justin Dowel, the 2011 ARC champion, debuted a G4 Hyundai i20 – with a Mitsubishi Evo drivetrain – at the National Capital Rally

Both categories will use 34mm restrictors.

Trinder said the AP4 regulations had been designed "to reflect the concept of Federation Internationale de l'Automobile R5/S2000 category vehicles but at significantly lower cost".

"The current generation of PRC/FIA Group N spec cars have served our sport incredibly well for almost 20 years, but since 2013 the FIA has moved away from these categories, adopting more 'race-car' like R-formula cars," Trinder said.

"We've looked closely at the R category vehicles and concluded that, at the top end, it is just too costly for rallying in Australia and NZ.

"However, we believe that in both the AP4 and G4 regulations we will have the ability to incorporate a lot of the elements of the FIA cars at a much lower cost point for competitors.

"Australia and NZ agreed that it would be silly for each country to develop its own interpretation of the FIA's R category when we all face the same problems – an ageing fleet of existing cars and potentially unmanageable costs to develop new-generation FIA-compliant cars.

"We hope that our combined efforts with these regulations will foster development of this category and co-operation across the Tasman for the good of both our championships."

Trinder and Macneall said cost was at forefront of the conceptual development, while still trying to deliver a new generation of cars that were fast and spectacular to drive and watch – and that could compete in international events.

"We looked very closely at the 'Maxi' regs before setting out the AP4 rules," Trinder said.

"The attractiveness of the 'Maxi' car is that it contains a lot of elements that are designed to be cost-effective with many common and interchangeable parts.

"While these are custom-built race cars they retain a lot of production-based elements like their engine, gearbox and differentials."

"We need the best teams out there to invest in these new cars and show the rest of the sport how these cars can work," Dowel said.

"There are no manufacturers out there, like in the old days with Subaru and Mitsubishi, building new cars every year and then selling them down to the next level of competitors anymore.

"That's why we've ended up with a sport full of 10, 15, even 20-year-old cars still making up the bulk of the field."

Dowel said that, with the move back to four-wheel-drives as the premier machines in the ARC, the leading teams needed to get behind the new-generation cars.

 "We've got to reinvigorate the sport," he said.

"The thing is the sport is going to get dull very quickly if you continue to run the same cars.

"So the top teams need to make sure we're updating our cars and then passing those cars along to the other privateers and lower-budget teams so they can continue to progress into better cars as well.

"Driving the Hyundai has not only given me something new and exciting to play with, but all the teams in the service park and all the spectators out on the stages get to see something new and exciting too and we need that to get people excited in our sport.

"I think we are always looking to keep flogging the same old cars for years and years, and to the public out there it's just boring and dull seeing the same cars every season.

"There are options out there to take existing technology in all our cars and put it into new body shells. Our Hyundai is an [Mitsubishi] Evo X underneath.

"The only things on my Hyundai that don't fall under the PRC regulations are the body kit, the rear wing, and the rear cross member. That's it!

"I know new cars and regulations can scare some people, and it's easier to stick to the old 'tried and trusted' machinery, but if you know how to work on an Evo then you could work on my Hyundai without an issue in the world."