Motorsport: HRT row is over money

Midweek motorsport reportWednesday, March 7, 2007

Countdown to owning up - or else
Today's Auto Action magazine has got closer than anyone yet to the heart of the Holden Racing Team hot potato -- that it is a financial dispute between Mark Skaife and Tom Walkinshaw that is central to the controversy that could see HRT expelled from the V8 Supercar Championship within a week.

Auto Action editor-at-large Mark Fogarty reports in today's edition of the magazine that the Touring Car Entrants Group's inquiry into HRT's ownership "was triggered by the revelation that Walkinshaw Performance, which owns the cars raced by HRT, had presented a demand for payment of a multi-million dollar bill for its services to Skaife's company (Skaife Sports)".

Fogarty writes that Skaife, if a settlement can't be reached, Skaife could be left without cars, equipment and personnel -- after Todd Kelly came away from Adelaide's Clipsal 500 leading the championship.

"TEGA's board of directors was alerted to the crisis, which called into question who has ultimate control of HRT," Fogarty writes.

"Holden, which owns the HRT brand and licenses its use to Skaife Sports, is trying to broker a solution to the argument."

Walkinshaw had a meeting with TEGA chairman Kelvin O'Reilly at last weekend's Clipsal 500 in Adelaide and, Fogarty writes, the Scottish entrepreneur dismissed speculation that he is at the centre of HRT's licence drama.

"It's got nothing to do with me," Walkinshaw says.

"Other than all the scuttlebutt that goes on, we (Walkinshaw Performance) are not really involved.

"We supply services to Skaife Sports. We own the cars. We lease them ... I don't believe that the team is in non-compliance with the regulations.

"We don't own the teams. I don't have any financial involvement in John Kelly's team (HSV-Toll) or Mark Skaife's team.

"I have never sought to own the licences. My job has been to help the teams be more competitive."

Motorsport News magazine makes the point in its report on the row that, if not satisfied with answers to its queries about HRT's ownership by the deadline at the close of business next Monday (March 12), TEGA can only terminate the team's two licences.

Motorsport News quotes an anonymous team owner saying TEGA's Teams Licence Agreement does not contain provisions for any other form of punishment -- such as fines or suspension -- for any breach.

"TEGA can only issue a licence to compete in the series and then terminate that licence, if and when it sees fit to do so," the team owner says.

"Any talk of fines, suspension or any other actions are complete rubbish and being spread around by people who have no understanding of what is going on."

Skaife is a member of the TEGA board but, according to Auto Action's Fogarty, has not taken part in any TEGA talks about the HRT licence issue, nor has he been suspended from the board.

WPS Racing owner Craig Gore says Skaife should have stood down until the row is resolved.

TEGA's O'Reilly says: "He (Skaife) has been trying to sort out his arrangements. The board can't suspend a director."

The new telecaster claims to have had more than one million viewers at the peak on Sunday and to have set new audience records for coverage of V8 Supercars.

It claims its coverage of the first 250km race on Saturday was up 34 per cent on the TV audience achieved by Network 10 at last year's Clipsal 500 and that Sunday's second race coverage was up 46 per cent on 10's audience in 2006.

The 7 publicity machine says that, on top of an average of 540,000 viewers for Clipsal in the five metropolitan markets on Saturday, 262,000 in regional markets viewed its coverage, and that on Sunday, on top of the average 710,000 metropolitan market viewers, 324,000 outside the five major markets watched the coverage.

There is always a lot of huffing and puffing -- and, at times, ducking and dodging -- by networks on such figures, but the general feeling about 7's debut has been pretty positive.

What 7 conveniently overlooks is that during last year's Clipsal the 10 network was up against the Commonwealth Games on 9. And a trusted source tells us that, while average audience of 625,000 in the five big markets over the two race days is excellent, 10 averaged 646,000 in 2002.

All propaganda aside, the audience numbers are very good.

However, there's no V8 Supercar replays on Fox's pay TV service this year -- at this stage anyway. V8 Supercars Australia and Fox haven't come to terms on a deal.

At yesterday's launch of this year's Gold Coast Indy, scheduled for October 18-21, the 7 network pledged 12 hours of television of the V8s and Champ Cars.

Sydney misses out on Supercar team
Sydney won't have a V8 Supercar team to call its own this year after all.

The Touring Car Entrants Group has rejected Walden Motorsport's application to compete in the V8 Supercar Championship.

The Sydney outfit had been wanting to run a Holden Commodore for Garth Walden.

The sport's 32nd licence -- used last year by Larry Perkins' Jack Daniel's Racing under a lease from Romano Racing -- will be put up for sale soon by TEGA.

The dual Australian V8 Supercar champion is the leading Busch rookie, standing equal fifth in the series after three rounds.

He's already earned US$127,550 -- or about A$162,300 -- and the season is only one-tenth over.

Ambrose was comfortably in the top six on the Mexico City road course on Monday morning, Australian time, until a spin dropped him to 24th. He made a big comeback, passing seven cars in the last two laps while Juan Pablo Montoya was first to the chequered flag.

Ambrose collected US$53,820 (A$68,674) for his eighth place -- his best Busch finish.

"I think we passed more cars than anyone out there," he says.

Motorsport News says Besnard may be paired with James Courtney for the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000.

Besnard came close to winning Bathurst with Stone Bros in 2000 until co-driver Tony Longhurst crashed within 10 laps of the finish, but he won the Queensland 500 with Simon Wills for the team in 2002.

He later raced for Ford Performance Racing and WPS before moving to the New Zealand V8 series this summer.

He was third overall at the Timaru round last weekend but says: "Unfortunately the third race on was very disappointing as we should have really come away with the champagne. I've got no doubt we should have won the round, but I got nailed from behind in the reverse grid race."

With two rounds remaining in the NZ championship, the first of them this weekend at Teretonga Park, Besnard is fourth in the standings on 668 points -- 101 behind leader John McIntyre.

In a one-off return to open-wheelers, Besnard this weekend will also be part of European Technique's two-car entry with Leanne Tander, wife of Garth, in the NZ Grand Prix round of the Toyota Racing Series.

It will be Besnard's first openwheeler outing since he raced a Champ Car at the 2004 Gold Coast Indy, finishing seventh.

"We'll have limited testing, like none (this weekend), so the goal is to be on the pace by the third (openwheeler) race of the weekend, which is the NZ GP (over 40 laps) ... Hopefully I'll have enough miles under my belt to have a good one. The NZ Grand Prix is a pretty big deal," Besnard says.

Previous winners of the GP include Bruce McLaren, Keke Rosberg, Jackie Stewart, Jack Brabham, Sterling Moss, Chris Amon and Kenny Smith, a veteran who is a triple victor and entered again this year.

It is the 50th year of motor racing at Teretonga Park on the outskirts of Invercargill. The circuit is the first in NZ to chalk up the half-century.

David Richards, the head of Ford Performance Racing's owner Prodrive and who has the franchise for the new F1 team, is now reportedly the preferred bidder for long-established luxury sports car maker Aston Martin, which is being hived off by Ford.

GP drivers lament low top end
Grand prix drivers say the new 19,000 rpm limit on F1 engines will inhibit overtaking this year.

Just what F1 doesn't need, with its critics always pointing out that its biggest problem is the lack of passing.

The new limit has been introduced as the start of a so-called "engine freeze" in F1, intended to contain costs.

The best F1 engines have been revving up to 21,000-22,000rpm in recent years.

German magazine Auto Motor und Sport estimates the disparity between the various F1 engines is now only 20 horsepower.

"The performance of all the engines are practically the same," says Australia's F1 driver Mark Webber.

"Because of that it is practically impossible to get in the slipstream of the car in front so you can overtake."

Ferrari's Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, who is F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone's tip for the world title, says that, because of the rev limit, "we now lack the kick to overtake, which you could get before from the higher revs".

"When I turn 100 I will start to think about it," Ecclestone says. "There is still plenty to do."

While two of the tiny country's tycoons have been negotiating with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to get the GP, Singapore's trade and industry minister S. Iswaran says the government is "willing to support such a venture up to a level commensurate with the broader benefits to the economy".

The government believes F1 can expose Singapore to a different audience from the business and financial people it traditionally attracts.

Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister who remains Singapore's dominant figure, is reported to have said he regrets a "stupid decision" not to allow F1 racing on the island earlier.

Despite suggestions a Singapore GP is now just a matter of time, Bernie Ecclestone insists it is not a done deal yet.

Patrizi, 22, from Kalgoorlie, will be competing in this year's Euro F3 series against a field that includes Germany's teenage A1 GP star Nico Hulkenberg.

Crocker goes back to Asia
Australia's Asia-Pacific rally champion Cody Crocker is returning to that series this year -- and he may drive in the Australian championship that he won three times, in 2003 to 2005, as well.

"Ultimately it's down to Les Walkden (Tasmanian-based team owner who fields a Subaru Impreza WRX STI)," says Crocker.

"We will be doing the Asia-Pacific championship again (although missing the opening round in New Caledonia), which is great, but the ARC is a far more challenging championship.

"It would be great to do both, but I am not that confident it will happen."

Hopes of a production world championship campaign for Crocker fell through because Walkden could not raise sufficient budget.

They will join the Asia-Pacific series at the New Zealand round but Crocker is particularly looking forward to the Canberra round in June, "where we will be able to show how competitive we are against the ARC front-runners".

Sydney car dealer Kevin Shaw intends to run a privateer Fiat Punto S2000 next year.

"We tried to pull it off for this year but we couldn't secure key parts, and some of the funding, but it will be here for '08," Shaw told Auto Action.

Fiat was a force in the ARC a quarter of a century ago with Greg Carr.

Toyota and Ford will be fielding S2000 cars -- Corollas and Fiestas respectively -- in this year's ARC.

The S2000 cars are normally-aspirated with electronic aids banned.

Reigning champion Simon Evans will start the new season on Queensland's Sunshine Coast at the end of this month in one of the Group N prototypes Toyota campaigned last year, before joining team boss Neal Bates in an S2000 Corolla at Canberra.

V8 Supercar star Jason Bright's Britek is building the Fiestas for Michael Guest and Darren Windus, with the engines coming from Mountune in Britain.

Tucker bags US drag chance
Young Australian drag racer Shane Tucker has the chance to compete in the US with top pro stock team Cagnazzi Racing, but the deal is dependent on sponsorship.

Queenslander Tucker almost won last season's Australian pro stock championship in his rookie season, finishing runner-up by just five points.

In his Pontiac GrandAm, Tucker's is in contention for this season's national title.

Cagnazzi Racing's Dan Pikarsky says the team is trying to find sponsorship for Tucker to run in the US.

"Shane has movie-star good looks and will bring a young, hip factor to whoever he represents," Pikarsky says. "He will be a great addition to the team and the pro stock class (in the US) -- and a good ambassador for the sport."

Image courtesy of Auto Action magazine

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