MOTORSPORT: Kalgoorlie racer strikes gold in US

A young racer from Kalgoorlie has won a $500,000 prize in America that gives him a leg up on the open-wheeler ladder there that could him to a career in Indy racing.

Anthony Martin, 21, clinched the US F2000 Championship in the last of 16 races at eight venues – five road courses, two street circuits and one very famous oval, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

He won seven of the races, although neither at the final round in California.

Among those Martin beat to the title were Toowoomba's Jordan Lloyd, the first Australian Formula 4 champion last year, and fellow West Australian Luke Gabin.

Martin's main rival though was his Canadian teammate Parker Thompson in the Florida-based Cape Motorsports that has been the top team in the series for several years.

"Wow, I've just come such a long way," said Martin, who wins a fully-paid scholarship from Mazda for next year's Pro Mazda Championship – the next step up on America's 'Road to Indy'.

The scholarship is valued at US$378,000 – or A$502,740 at today's exchange rate.

"The Cape Motorsports boys have given me a great car all year and I'm so happy to be No. 1."

Matthew Brabham won the US F2000 title in 2012, followed by the Pro Mazda title the next year, with the same scholarship. This year, after racing in the Indy Lights series in 2014-15, Brabham drove in the 100th Indianapolis 500.

David Besnard was another Australian winner of the US F2000 series, in 1998, while Jason Bright came close to taking the title in the 1990s too.

The cars in recent years have been Van Diemen Elan spaceframe chassis with front and rear wings, 13-inch slick tyres, and 170-horsepower Mazda MZR 2.0-litre naturally-aspirated engines – all prepared and sealed by Elite Engines in Wisconsin – with Hewland five-speed sequential gearboxes. Next year the series will run Tatuus USF-17 carbon-fibre cars with six-speed paddle shift gearboxes, while Pro Mazda uses a rotary engine with another 90hp (260hp).

Brazilian Victor Franzoni, driving for ArmsUp Motorsports, won both races at the weekend's final round of this year's US F2000 series at Mazda Raceway – better known as Laguna Seca – on the Monterey Peninsula in California.

Martin finished second, a little more than 10 seconds behind Franzoni, in the last, 21-lap race with Parker third, another 1.4 seconds back, followed by Lloyd for Pabst Racing and Gaben for JAY Motorsports in the field of 17.

The previous day Parker finished ahead of Martin after a torrid duel in the first half of the race. Both were well behind Franzoni at the chequered flag, with Gabin fourth and Lloyd fifth.

Martin only began karting at 14 – several years older than many others do – and moved to Perth in 2013 as he advanced to Formula Ford with former Formula 1 engineer Brett Lupton's Fastlane Racing through which Garth Tander graduated and with which Daniel Riccardo briefly raced.

Martin – whose website describes him as "a country boy with a heart of gold from Western Australia's home of gold" – was destined to move to America, having been offered a soccer scholarship there, but decided instead to concentrate on motor racing.

Irrepressible Zanardi now after Rio glory
Still on the Indy front ... two-time CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) champion Alex Zanardi is out to repeat his 2012 Paralympic success in Rio de Janeiro this week – 15 years after the crash in Germany in which he lost both his legs.

Zanardi, now 49 and an inspiration the way he has lived life to the full on prosthetic legs, won two gold medals and a silver in handcycling at the 2012 London Paralympics.

He is to contest a time trial, a road race and a mixed team relay in Rio on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Coincidentally, the Rio venue is built around the site of the Jacarepagua circuit where he raced in his CART days – although he never won there (his best was second to late Canadian Greg Moore in 1998).

Zanardi's London Paralympic success was at the Brands Hatch circuit which once was a British Grand Prix venue and remains a major track for many forms of racing other than Formula 1.

Title No. 10 for sports sedan king
And more 'gold' heads west ... Perth's Tony Ricciardello has clinched his 10th Australian sports sedan title.

Jack Perkins won all three of the category's races at Victoria's Phillip Island at the weekend, but Ricciardello – second in each race – can't be beaten in the series even though there is a round to go at Sydney Motorsport Park in two months.

Ricciardello, 37, races a Chevrolet V8-powered, spaceframe chassis Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV built in 1992 and which he said is "getting tired".

"It has probably lost its teeth and got dentures now, but it is still going and we are still at the head of the pack," he said.

Perkins' championship chances in John Gourlay's Audi A4 were blown by four DNFs earlier in the season.

John Bowe extended his lead in the Touring Car Masters with two wins at the Island on Sunday in his 1976 Holden Torana SLR 5000, after Eddie Abelnica had won Saturday's race in his 1974 Ford Falcon XB coupe. Glenn Seton set a TCM lap record in his 1964 Ford Mustang at 1 minute 40.7450 seconds, while Perkins set the sports sedan record at 1:27.2757.

The TCM series concludes at Bathurst in October.

Hamish Hardeman is the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge champion, although Jaxon Evans won the Island round, while Tim Macrow has wrapped up a third Australian Formula 3 title ahead of the final round in Sydney.

Three ARC leaders but none of them SA winner
The fourth round of the Australian Rally Championship began with one leader, Harry Bates, had another on Saturday night, Molly Taylor, and yet another after Sunday's finish, Simon Evans.

However, a driver not registered for championship points, Brendan Reeves, won both heats of Rally South Australia.

Bates crashed into a tree on Saturday, putting him out of the first heat and requiring major repairs to the front right corner of his Super 2000 Toyota Corolla for Sunday's second heat, in which he finished third.

Molly Taylor in a production-class Subaru WRX STI was second and fourth in the two heats, and she and Bates will be challengers to new series leader, and multiple national champion, Simon Evans at the final round at Rally Australia in November at Coffs Harbour.

Evans' Subaru hit kangaroos a couple of times on Saturday. The second time he could only limp through the day's final forest stage, losing almost 14 minutes and dropping him to seventh place in heat one.

However, he finished second, little more than half a minute behind Reeves in another Subaru, on Sunday to take the championship lead.

Reeves and his co-driver sister Rhiannon Gelsomino completed a hat-trick of rally wins. They won the second round of the ARC in Canberra and a recent round of the New Zealand championship – the latter in a Mazda2.

Rally SA organisers had to alter the weekend's route after heavy rain in Adelaide/Mt Crawford/Barossa Valley late last week.

Despite an exhaust leak, Reeves finished heat one more than two minutes clear of Taylor, who notched her best finish of the season in her first year representing Subaru.

Then in heat two Reeves won five of the six stages to complete what he said had been a "pretty perfect" event.

"The fast shire roads really suit my driving style and the car, so when the organisers had to re-route the event and include more shire roads I was really happy," Reeves said.

"We had a ball."