MOTORSPORT: It's Homebush or bust

V8SA boss Tony Cochrane has dumped on Eastern Creek (pictured) in recent days, branding the circuit in Sydney's west "a disaster" and vowing that the V8s won't go back there.

With Oran Park's finale coming in early December, Eastern Creek will be left as the only permanent track left in Australia's major city.

Unless Cochrane can get the Homebush race up he risks not only being left with egg on his face but an entry in the history books as the man who killed touring car racing in Sydney.

V8SA seems increasingly confident that it is going to get its way on Homebush, and its confidence may now be well founded.

There appears to have been a shift in the corridors of NSW power, from bureaucrats who opposed the street race idea having the upper hand to cabinet ministers, including premier Morris Iemma, now favouring it -- and quite strongly.

Federal Liberal opposition leader Brendan Nelson has also thrown his support behind it as "a great initiative, a terrific thing... if all the environmental and other concerns can be addressed".

Things are at the stage of the formality of a feasibility study, which is being funded by V8SA -- which also says it is prepared to shoulder the financial risk of staging the event, beyond the set-up costs.

"If it is a loss then it is a loss to V8 Supercars, not the NSW government. We are putting our money where our mouth is," says Cochrane, who reckons the race would be no louder than the Royal Easter Show.

What is a little intriguing is that there has been no mention anywhere -- in all that has been said and written about the Homebush idea in the past few days -- of the new NSW events company charged with the brief of identifying and securing major events for the state.

Surely, if it is going to happen, the Homebush event would fall into that category.

Perhaps the major events company is involved behind the scenes; otherwise it's a case of parties -- government and the V8 honchos -- working around that company, and we'd have to wonder why that would be.

It would be great to see a big motorsport event in Sydney.

In fact, there already is one -- at Oran Park every year.

Let's not forget what a gem that circuit is, and it may well prove to be irreplaceable.

There's another big race every year a bit further west, at Bathurst -- but that's not Sydney.

We can now see the Homebush idea getting a green light, and if so we hope it works well -- despite our reservations about the wisdom of street races.

We can't see it getting the traction of Adelaide's Clipsal 500, simply because we don't detect the fanaticism in Sydney for motor racing, or at least attending it, as in the SA capital.

V8SA is clearly going to throw everything at making Homebush happen and work, but -- despite the bucketing Cochrane has given the Creek and John Cotter, president of the Australian Racing Drivers' Club that operates that circuit -- its own promotional record isn't without smudges.

And in the Daily Telegraph, the Sydney paper that has been so positive about the Homebush concept, motoring editor David Fitzsimons has pleaded: "Avoid anything like the newest V8 Supercar street race in Hamilton, New Zealand, this year. It came across on TV looking like a parade through the backstreets of a country town, which it was."

Even if Homebush goes ahead, and Cochrane is intent on it being the finale to the 2009 season, something needs to be done for the good of the Creek.

Unlike Homebush, it will be in place every week of the year and the only metropolitan Sydney option for other motor racing -- and other motoring and industry events.

A study is nearing completion on how it can best be upgraded, and it hasn't been helpful that NSW development minister Ian Macdonald -- now a Homebush proponent - has been bagging the Creek, which it ought be remembered is owned by his government.

Kicking the Creek relentlessly is doing motorsport a disservice, not a favor.

Homebush isn't over the line yet, although it is looking a lot more likely.

One hurdle to jump will be ensuring protection of the area's endangered green and golden bell frogs -- an issue the Olympics had to contend with years ago.

It's not yet clear how strong and co-ordinated the broader environmental opposition to a motor race on that site will be.

And, as much as V8 Supercar racing has thrived for 15 years now with a very dated product, we wonder how much, and particularly how fast, public sentiment towards motor racing may turn in the years ahead, much as it did on smoking.

The climate could change quite dramatically.

It came at a particularly good time for Ford Performance Racing, which has found itself in the firing line for having retained Ford financial sponsorship beyond this year when others, particularly Triple 8/Team Vodafone and Dick Johnson/Jim Beam, are losing it.

It reinforced our view that Richards fits like a glove at FPR, and that he and teammate Mark Winterbottom, who is a little further ahead in the championship after Darwin, are a great combination for the Bathurst 1000, which in our eyes remains very much the sport's grandest prize.

Richards, Winterbottom and Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander, the reigning series champion, monopolised the top three places in all three Northern Territory races.

Richards was unlucky to lose race two to Tander, getting jumped on the restart after a safety car because of an errant Holden flag on the track.

Team Vodafone's Jamie Whincup has lost ground again in the title fight, while his teammate Craig Lowndes' blown engine on the last lap of the last race has blown his championship hopes.

It's been a long time now since Lowndes won a title, back in his Holden days, but those endurance triumphs the past couple of years -- especially at Bathurst -- have done wonders.

There's been much tongue-wagging about Ford's revised approach of tipping money into only FPR and Stone Brothers Racing beyond this season.

The manufacturer is feeling under siege at the extent of the ill-feeling, but it had plenty of time to plot the roll-out of its announcement -- although it was always going to be unpalatable, no matter how it was dressed up.

Some of the attention will now turn to Holden and whether it looks for a window to further curb its contribution to the sport, and for any sign of Toyota wanting to enter the V8 fray.

Can't see Triple 8 going over to the Holden side, an idea floated in the wake of the Ford cutbacks.

Nor can we see Triple 8's Roland Dane twisting Toyota's arm.

V8 Supercar Championship top 10 drivers after 6 of 14 rounds - Mark Winterbottom (Ford) 1,402 points, Garth Tander (Holden) 1,344, Jamie Whincup (F) 1,276, Rick Kelly (H) 1,208, Steven Richards (F) 1,123, Craig Lowndes (F) 1,051, James Courtney (F) 949, Will Davison (F) 938, Lee Holdsworth (H) 876, Todd Kelly (H) 834.
 

Darwin round points - Steven Richards 284 points, Mark Winterbottom 278, Garth Tander 272, Jamie Whincup 214, Russell Ingall (H) 212, Will Davison 186, Rick Kelly 180, Craig Lowndes 154, Shane Van Gisbergen (F)  140, James Courtney 138.

V8 Supercar teams championship standings - Ford Performance Racing 2,525 points, Team Vodafone 2,327, Toll Holden Racing Team 2,088, Stone Brothers Racing 1,781, HSV Dealer Team 1,774, Jim Beam Racing 1,726, Garry Rogers Motorsport 1,428, Brad Jones Racing 1,351, Tasman Motorsport 1,350,  Supercheap Auto Racing 1,344.

His start from the second row of the grid was Senna-esque and he lapped all but the next two placegetters, winning by more than a minute -- the way champions do.

It was Hamilton's third victory this season and his seventh in 26 GP starts.

He rated this "by far" his best win, but we're still not convinced he's the best driver in F1 -- or better than Kyle Busch, who won his sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup round of the year at the weekend at Daytona.

Busch, though, never gets tested in the wet, because NASCAR doesn't race in rain.

At the halfway mark of the Formula 1 season, Hamilton is level with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa at the top of the drivers' championship, and BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica is only 2 points behind.

A race that looked so promising for Australia's Mark Webber after qualifying so brilliantly on the front row went wrong with a spin within seconds of the start.

While Webber was prepared to wear the blame, Red Bull Racing fessed up that there may have been a glitch with Webber's transmission as he changed up a gear.

It also calculated that, in the conditions, the best he would have finished was sixth anyway, so his eventual 10th -- after soldiering through the wettest part of the race on badly worn intermediate tyres -- wasn't so bad, although he need not count on the Australian public fathoming that.

With Red Bull teammate David Coulthard out on the opening lap, and taking secondary Red Bull squad Toro Rosso's Sebastien Vettel with him, and Webber without points for only the third time in 9 races, Toyota has jumped into fourth place in the constructors' championship.

Ferrari made a horrible mess of the British race by opting not to change Raikkonen's tyres at the first pitstop and with Massa spinning five times.

Hamilton's McLaren-Mercedes teammate Heikki Kovalainen could not translate his first pole position into a podium.

Instead BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld was right back in form, taking second, while Rubens Barrichello's third, courtesy of the right tyre choice, put him back on the podium for the first time since 2005.

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen called Heidfeld's performance "a liberating breakthrough for him".

"He didn't go off the track at all today. He stayed in control throughout the race and had two spectacular overtaking manoeuvres," Theissen said.

"He did everything right."

For the first time this season Heidfeld outqualified teammate Kubica and benefited from being gentler on his tyres and his crew making the right rubber choices.

The next driver to win a GP will be the 100th in the sport's history -- and nobody deserves more than Heidfeld to be that man.

Webber has renewed his contract with Red Bull for another year, while Coulthard will retire and Vettel probably come across to replace him, opening the way for a newcomer at Toro Rosso.

Bruno Senna, Ayrton's nephew, perhaps?

Formula 1 drivers' world championship after 9 of 18 races -- Lewis Hamilton 48, Kimi Raikkonen 48, Felipe Massa 48, Robert Kubica 46, Nick Heidfeld 36, Heikki Kovalainen 24, Jarno Trulli 20, Mark Webber 18, Fernando Alonso 13, Rubens Barrichello 11, Nico Rosberg 8, Kazuki Nakajima 8, David Coulthard 6, Sebastian Vettel 5, Timo Glock 5, Jenson Button 3, Nelson Piquet 2, Sebastien Bourdais 2.

F1 constructors' world championship standings -- Ferrari 96 points, BMW-Sauber 82, McLaren-Mercedes 72, Toyota 25, Red Bull-Renault 24, Williams-Toyota 16, Renault 15, Honda 14, Toro Rosso-Ferrari 7.

The announcement was rather low-key, with Victorian premier John Brumby not waiting for Australian GP Corp chairman Ron Walker to return from his latest meeting with Bernie Ecclestone in London -- which ensured Walker stayed out of the firing line for questions about the terms of the deal.

Melbourne's F1 races will start at 5pm in future, negating the need for lights but making them a friendlier 8am in western continental Europe and 7am in Britain.

That does some favors for the live telecasts, although with the British TV rights returning to the BBC next year from ITV there is a question mark over whether there will be the mid-afternoon replay in Britain that drew 3.9 million viewers this year.

On the home front the race organiser, the AGPC, now has the certainty of seven more races on which to try to improve ticket sales and sponsorship.

Meanwhile, there is amazement that Ecclestone has signed a 10-year deal for Donington Park to host the British GP from 2011, leaving the traditional Silverstone out in the cold.

If a massive Donington upgrade is not completed in time Britain could be left without a GP.

The Tasmanian Tarmac Challenge, to be run near Burnie in the state's north-west on October 4-5, has replaced the cancelled Rally of Melbourne, keeping the ARC at a six-round series.

It's one bit of good news for what has otherwise been a troubled Australian rally scene in recent times.

Australian Rally Commission chairman Col Trinder said: "Tarmac rallies are definitely part of the future of the sport."

Toyota team leader Neal Bates, a triple national champion in the 1990s and leading the championship this year, is the likely favorite for the Tassie round, but expect South Australian Steve Glenney to feature strongly too if he makes it there.

The Tasmanian event was previously called Rallye Burnie and has the well-known and regarded Ross Tapper as its clerk of course and Scott Spedding as event director.

Dixon had won the race the previous three years but spun while trying to warm his tyres under caution and Briscoe, who had taken pole position and led most of the race after the final round of pitstops, could not avoid him.

That left Texan Ryan Hunter-Reay to collect his first IndyCar victory for Rahal Letterman Racing after two wins in his Champ Car days.

Dixon wound up 11th, Briscoe 12th and fellow Aussie Will Power 15th.

Might the dual V8 Supercar champion now racing exclusively in America be another victim of Ford's motorsport sponsorship monies shrinking?

Ambrose's American patron, Tad Geschickter, said: "Marcos is one of the premier drivers in the world.

"He's adapting to the ovals quickly.

"He's proven he's ready to take the next step in his development for me to provide the equipment he needs to do the Cup series.

"Cup is where we need to be."

Geschickter said he was "open" on what make of car they campaign.

Ambrose said: "He's been good to me and I'm going to stick with him. Whatever he chooses to do, I'll follow suit."

In the second tier Nationwide Series round at Daytona at the weekend Ambrose finished 20th after qualifying 34th.

Denny Hamlin won ahead of Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Junior.

Oh, and did we tell you that the plan for Earnhardt to race a V8 Supercar in the development series round at Oran Park's grand finale in December clashes with NASCAR's end-of-season grand banquet?

Readers, you be the judge of where Earnhardt is likely to be.

We're seeing reports that all voting members of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council, other than the president Max Mosley, are meant to be representatives of national organisations that are members of the FIA.

However, Bernie Ecclestone and Ferrari's Jean Todt are not, although Todt did not vote anyway.

If Spygate was your cup of tea, here is a first anniversary feature from The Times on how it unraveled.

Mosley's dirty linen airs in court
FIA president Mosley's defamation case against the News of the World is underway in London.

On the opening day it was revealed that the video of Mosley's orgy with five prositutes was viewed 1.4 million times in its first day on the newspaper's website.

Now in his 80s and needing regular dialysis for kidney problems, Sir Jack is giving his nickname to an Australian Grand Prix 66-foot racing yacht to be called "Black Jack" (more here)

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