MOTORSPORT: Late V8 racer's lasting legacy

Thursday motorsport reportFebruary 28, 2008

The 27-year-old Cooper, father of two young children, was a registered organ donor and a six-year-old received part of his liver and others received his heart, lungs, kidneys and pancreas, Adelaide's Advertiser newspaper reported today. (Thursday, February 28)

Cooper, of Ulladulla in New South Wales and who had been the 2006 V8 Utes rookie of the year, never regained consciousness after his Holden Commodore VZ smashed into a concrete barrier at turn 8 of the Adelaide street circuit on Saturday morning.

"Ashley had been in peak physical condition and the only injuries that he sustained were head injuries in the accident -- that was to his brain," his father, Alan, told Channel 10.

"The rest of his body, because he was a sportsman and looked after himself, was in peak condition and he was able to donate to seven people.

"Finding out that one of those was a young child with only days to live (who) received part of his liver ... saving that young child's life and allowing that young child to live a normal life for whatever time was just something very, very special to us."

The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) is to investigate Cooper's crash -- the second in the development series in less than 18 months to have claimed a life.

Clipsal 500 boss Andrew Daniels said it was "a wonderful, compassionate, loving thing" that Cooper's organs could be used to save others.

Gold Coast Indy general manager Greg Hooton and chairman Terry Mackenroth are headed to the US to confirm the international open-wheeler component of the Queensland event.

The Indy Racing League is basically absorbing the Champ Car series and, while it has not yet confirmed the Queensland race on the revised calendar, it is expected to do so within days.

The V8 Supercars have had equal billing with the Champ Cars on the streets of Surfers' Paradise in recent years and V8SA would be happy to have the annual carnival to themselves.

The V8 contract is up for renewal after this year's event in October and V8SA will be leveraging its position for all its worth.

However, we sense a determination among Gold Coast Indy officials to retain an international open-wheeler component.

In the unlikely event that they could not strike a fresh deal with IRL chief Tony George there is always the alternative of the A1 GP "World Cup of Motorsport" which has run three times at Sydney's Eastern Creek but is believed to be keen to get on the Queensland program.

However, A1 may have a higher asking price -- indeed a greatly inflated view of its value -- than the IRL.

While V8SA is unlikely to get its wish of becoming the single main act it probably will emerge with an even better financial deal than it already has.

Bayliss said he intended to leave his Monaco base as soon as he bows out of motorcycle racing and would settle on the Gold Coast, where many of the V8 teams are housed.

"I have racing in my blood -- I don't think I'm finished with racing," Bayliss told Australian Associated Press.

Bayliss recently tested an Aston Martin sports car in Europe.

Isn't David Richards a big shareholder in Aston Martin these days? Might that be a pointer to a Ford association for Bayliss?

He might have to service his time in the V8 development series, but -- with supercross star Chad Reed a few years away from a switch to four wheels -- Bayliss would be an excellent recruit to snare.

The Super Aguri outfit missed the last two F1 tests in Barcelona and appears dependent on Honda assistance if it is to make it to the grid at Albert Park.

Team principal Aguri Suzuki has spent days locked in talks in Japan with senior executives of Honda, which supplies engines to Super Aguri.

The team has not launched its SA08 car.

While Japan's Takuma Sato and Briton Anthony Davidson are expected to be retained if the team fronts in Melbourne, they have each taken part in only one test since December in an interim car.

Indian and Spanish syndicates have been linked to a possible bail-out of Super Aguri, but Honda would seem to be its best bet -- although it has its hands full making its factory team competitive.

Honda has recruited the renowned Ross Brawn, formerly of Ferrari and Benetton, to head its campaign this year but had the ignominy of seeing its British driver at the bottom of the timesheet as 19 drivers tested in Barcelona overnight.

Making matters worse, Japanese rival manufacturer Toyota headed the timesheet, although its Italian driver Jarno Trulli had a light fuel load.

David Coulthard was second fastest in a Red Bull car after missing the previous day with a sore neck.

Coulthar's Australian teammate, Mark Webber, wound up fifth -- with Nico Rosberg's Williams-Toyota and Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren-Mercedes -- between the two Red Bull cars.

Fernando Alonso's Renault was seventh, behind that of his Brazilian rookie teammate Nelson Piquet Junior, while Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen was ninth and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton 10th.

Retired seven-time world champion tested for Ferrari earlier in the week but, while showing he has lost little of his magic, was headed by Hamilton and Raikkonen.

Meanwhile, speculation is mounting that Mercedes wants Ron Dennis to step aside as the head of McLaren -- in the wake of last year's Spygate saga, including a US$100 million fine and the loss of its constructors' championship points and indeed world title -- and allow his right-hand man Martin Whitmarsh to take charge.

Dennis has run McLaren since the early 1980s and produced nine drivers' world championships and seven constructors' titles.

Dennis had been Lewis Hamilton's great patron, fostering the black youngster's career for a decade before his F1 debut in Melbourne last year, and a change at the helm may destabilise the rising star as he attempts to do what he just missed out on last year -- taking the F1 crown.

The speculation about Dennis heightened as Italian investigators still pursuing details in the Spygate case interviewed several McLaren chiefs at their homes and at the McLaren Technology Centre this week.

New Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Drew Ward refused to reveal how the attendance figures are arrived at.

The four-day attendance in 1996, the first year in Melbourne after 11 years in Adelaide, was announced as 401,000, while the past couple of years it has been given as around 300,000 -- and somehow fractionally higher last year than in 2006, despite the absence of the V8 Supercars in '07.

After an "exclusive" story in Melbourne's Age newspaper casting doubts on the veracity of the GP crowd numbers, Ward said the precise attendance figures needed to be kept confidential for commercial reasons.

"This information, if it is provided in the public domain, could be used by our competitors, by cities that are bidding against Melbourne to host an F1 GP," he said. "And we would obviously therefore suffer commercial disadvantage."

Clipsal 500 organisers announced a crowd of 291,000 for the four days of this year's V8 Supercar event -- 15,000 more than last year, and with almost 92,000 on Sunday.

"We're actually getting 16,000 people-plus coming across the borders, coming from interstate and overseas, injecting between $30 million and $35 million into the local economy," SA Premier Mike Rann said.

"In Victoria with the grand prix they get a few thousand more than we do (in total attendance), but lose $40 million."

What nobody has been able to tell the public yet is how motor racing, the most technological of sports, cannot afford and provide turnstiles to produce accurate crowd figures rather than these rounded-off "estimates".

Atkinson's hopes up for Rally Mexico
It's round three of the World Rally Championship in Mexico this weekend, with the world champion of the past four years, Frenchman Sebastien Loeb, trying to haul in Finn Mikko Hirvonen after crashing in the Swedish round.

Citroen star Loeb won in Mexico last year but sits six points behind Ford driver Hirvonen this year, equal with Jari-Matti Latvala, the 22-year-old Finn who won in Sweden and became the youngest driver to notch a WRC victory.

Australian Chris Atkinson is looking forward to the first gravel rally of the season. Atkinson finished fifth in Mexico last year.

 "It's a difficult rally with the altitude and the conditions, but if we (the Subaru factory team) approach it with the same strategy as we have started this year, we can do well," Atkinson said, adding that the ageing Impreza STI should be strong at this rally.

"We have a strong engine in the car that seems to perform well at altitude, which I think is one of the reasons we go well here."

Atkinson Norwegian former world champion teammate Petter Solberg has been fifth and fourth in the two rallies so far this year, has finished on the podium in Mexico the past two years and won there in 2005.

Targa Tassie field may top 300
Targa Tasmania organisers are boasting that it is likely they will have more than 300 competitors in the five-day event starting in Launceston on April 15.

"We've got 350 applications and it looks like we are going to break the 300 barrier for actual starters -- maybe even stretch it further," said Targa director Mark Perry.

The record was 299 starters in 2000, when the event ran for six days.

The biggest fields for a five-day Targa in Tassie were 291 in 2002 and 2004.

Recent Rally Tasmania winner Steve Glenney is now on Targa reconnaissance but has confirmed that he will not be doing the Australian Rally Championship gravel series.

"Is anybody doing the ARC this year?" Glenney said in an interview with RallySportmag.com

"I certainly won't be doing any gravel rallying in the first half of 2008. There's a couple of rounds of the South Australian championship which interest me, including a new tarmac event, and I may also consider contesting Rally South Australia (an ARC round)."

Image by Justin Deeley, courtesy of inet pics

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