MOTORSPORT: Light on Ambrose's NASCAR route

Monday motorsport reportSeptember 24, 2007

Plans for Ambrose -- who this morning became a father for the second time, with his wife Sonja giving birth to another daughter -- to make two starts for Wood Brothers/JTG Racing came to nought, as did two offers to drive for Robby Gordon -- the American who earlier KO'd Ambrose from the chance of winning a street race in NASCAR's  secondary Busch series in Montreal.

Ambrose got on the track in a Nextel Cup car entered by Gordon at Watkins Glen in New York but rain washed out qualifying and he missed out as regular championship runners got a start ahead of him.

The Aussie says he declined the chance of racing for Gordon at the "Monster Mile" at Dover in Delaware this morning because of the baby being due.

He drove in the Busch round there 24 hours earlier, finishing 20th in his back-up car after a crash in qualifying and starting 42nd.

He reckons that result was "reasonable, when everything is considered".

Jim Utter, writing in The Observer newspaper in Charlotte, North Carolina, the capital of American stock racing, reports that Wood Brothers/JTG Racing plans to rotate three drivers in its No. 21 Ford Fusion in next season's Cup.

Utter says Ambrose is one of those drivers, Jon Wood -- son of team co-owner Eddie Wood -- is another, while the third is not yet known, and perhaps not even decided yet.

Len Wood, another co-owner of the team, says it will field one full-time Nextel Cup team in 2008 with three different sponsors for the three drivers.

He admits that is not the best scenario for the team, especially for one that wants to compete for the driver's championship, but adds: "That's the way the cards are dealt right now."

That can be taken as the team needing all the sponsorship it can get from whatever sources to make it through a season.

Utter writes that Ambrose is likely to drive in about a third of the Cup races (propagandists tried to kid us nine months ago he might nearly do that this year, but this time we find it more believable) and Jon Wood at least eight.

That will mean the third driver getting the most races -- 15 or 16, presumably because he will be required to bring the most sponsorship.

Ambrose, who has Ford's support through its stock car driver development program, is also likely to do another full season in the secondary series, which will have a new name with brewer Busch dropping out.

Ambrose is eighth in the series this year after 29 rounds.

The weekend's Busch race at Dover had a record 13 caution periods for a total of 61 of the 200 laps.

Denny Hamlin notched his third Busch win of the year, but Carl Edwards continues to lead the series ahead of David Reutimann and Kevin Harvick.

This week NASCAR moves on to the Kansas Speedway.

Canadian Villeneuve, driving a Toyota Tundra for Bill Davis Racing, qualified seventh but dropped out of the top 10 early in the race and hit the back of another truck around one-third distance.

Although a lap down at the finish, Villeneuve calls it "a great experience".

"It's quite aggressive in the first laps -- everyone runs aggressively," he says. "They slide the trucks around and it's good to see that you can slide them quite a lot without crashing.

"I got caught out on the first restart. That was a fun learning experience! We had pit stops and I worked with the 'spotter' -- that was very important. And we saw the chequered flag, which is good."

Looking for a rapid promotion into the Nextel Cup, Villeneuve's next scheduled NASCAR outing is another truck race on October 6 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.

Scott Speed, the American driver recently dropped by F1 team Scuderia Toro Rosso, plans to drive a Toyota for Eddie Sharp Racing at Talladega a day earlier in NASCAR's fourth tier, the Automobile Racing Club of America series.

Dario Franchitti, this year's Indianapolis 500 winner, looking to make a big switch to NASCAR may also start in that ARCA race as a soft introduction to stock cars.

It would be in a Dodge owned by Chip Ganassi, who also fields Juan Pablo Montoya in the Nextel Cup and gave him the same kind of entrée a year ago.

Speed will need to do a full season in ARCA because, unusually for an American, he has little oval experience.

Meanwhile, Red Bull's Nextel Cup team could be leaving the sport's new manufacturer participant, Toyota, for traditionally dominant Chevrolet as the energy drink company's chief, Dietrich Mateschitz, has been unhappy with Toyota's performance in its first Nextel Cup season.

Hewson's resignation as chairman of the Touring Car Entrants Group (TEGA), which owns 75 per cent V8 Supercars Australia, has been announced today.

The announcement says Hewson resigned at a TEGA team owners forum last Friday. He became chairman of that group in April after he was appointed its first independent directors last October.

Hewson's departure from the sport will be seen as a victory for V8 Supercar chairman Tony Cochrane, who appeared three months ago to be on the way out with Hewson being lined up then to replace him.

Cochrane has flagged that he may step down from the top slot at the end of the year.

If he still does, he may well now have a lot more say in who is successor is than if Hewson been around.

We hear the amount in dispute is about $150,000.

Apparel by Design says it did not want to initiate court action but got fed up waiting for payment.

The matter has been set for an NZ High Court hearing in February, but the clothing company hopes it can be brought forward to December.

NZ track goes to stock market
New Zealand's Taupo Motorsport Park is to be floated on the stock market next month.

The circuit was upgraded for this year's A1 Grand Prix round in NZ earlier this year at a cost of $13 million.

The float is only aiming to raise $3 million to repay debt and expand activities. A small profit, and dividend, is forecast in the first two years.

"We're not aware of any race tracks around the world that are listed -- they're all held by private interests, but we understand they're profitable," says Stephen Eaton of McDouall Stuart Securities.

"Taupo's got revenue from corporate hospitality, it's got revenue from signage, it's got revenue from sponsorship, so it has a whole range of income streams."

Taupo chairman John Parker says there is no concern that the A1 GP could be lost in a couple of years to the New Hampton Downs track closer to Auckland.

The latest scuttlebutt is that Brazilian Felipe Massa is talking to Toyota because his number will be up at Ferrari if dual world champion Fernando Alonso can get out of his McLaren contract and join the Italian team.

Brazilian Massa has been a protégé of Ferrari's F1 chief, Jean Todt, and is managed by his son, Nicholas Todt.

There is paddock speculation that Todt Senior's days may be numbered at Ferrari, in which case we would wonder whether he might make his way across to Toyota's team -- and take Massa, winner of five GPs, with him.

Toyota could well do with Todt's skills and experience after squandering billions of dollars for little return in six years in F1.

Montoya on the two sides to Ron Dennis
Juan Pablo Montoya, the fiery Colombian now racing in NASCAR, is perhaps one of the best qualified people to comment on the dynamics that have seen the relationship between Fernando Alonso and McLaren F1 chief Ron Dennis fall apart within months.

That pair reportedly have not spoken since the Hungarian Grand Prix in early August and many at McLaren must be blaming Alonso, at least substantially, for the US$100 million fine imposed on the team in the "Spygate" affair.

Montoya, who walked away from McLaren in mid-2006, says Alonso's problems began the moment Dennis chose rookie Lewis Hamilton as his other driver for this year.

"Lewis is Ron's baby. Ron paid his whole career, so Ron wants him to win and not Fernando," Montoya told Associated Press. "He would rather see Lewis win, who is like his own child to Ron. Fernando is nothing to him.

"Ron, outside the work environment, is a great guy. But he's two different guys. The guy who I signed with and played golf with, he just didn't exist in the office. He was just a different person -- you wouldn't even recognise him.

"He wants to control everything, and I think Fernando is angry about that because he is not used to someone controlling everything and did not like that Ron was like that. I think Ron is used to drivers who don't say anything back.

"He (Alonso) thought he was going to come in and be No. 1, and he's just not.

"They try to make them be equal, but Lewis is genuinely a really fast driver. And apart from being really fast, he's Ron's favorite. It's just the truth, and it makes it bad for Fernando."

Montoya says he was surprised at the severity of the fine the World Motor Sport Council imposed on McLaren, but cannot understand how it did not strip the McLaren drivers of their world championship points when it took away the team's constructors' championship points.

"That is crazy, because they took the constructor points but the drivers gained from the knowledge," Montoya says. "So if you are going to do it, do it properly."

A report in The Telegraph newspaper says profits have crashed from US$312.7 million in 2005 to just US$6 million, because of US$220 million in debt payments to service US$2.5 billion CVC borrowed to buy Slec, the Jersey-based company whose name is a short form for Ecclestone's wife, Slavica, and which is the ultimate parent of F1's commercial rights holding company, Formula One Administration (FOA).

F1 fundamentally remains a very profitable business; it's just that the cost of holding the business is high at the minute.

Journalists Christian Sylt and Caroline Reid, who are developing a specialty in reporting on the business of F1, point out this is why more races are being introduced outside F1's traditional European heartland.

"Countries such as China and Bahrain are paying well over US$25 million annually for their races," they write. "Over the next four years new F1 races are scheduled to take place in South Korea, India, Abu Dhabi and (from 2008) Singapore.

"These races will bring in a total of US$140 million to FOA annually and are likely to further reduce the number of races in Europe, which has already dropped from 12 to eight in the past 10 years.

"It is feared this reduction is having a knock-on effect on teams: the majority of their revenues come from sponsorship so presence in key countries is seen as crucial."

Sylt and Reid say that F1's revenues -- essentially from TV revenues and race fees -- rose only 6 per cent in the last nine months of 2006 US$725.2 million, compared with usual increases of more than 10 per cent a year.

"Alpha D2's profit margins were squeezed over the period by huge overheads, which total US$484.6 million," they write.

"Payments to the 11 F1 teams comprise one of the biggest chunks of this sum: 47 per cent of the revenue from F1 television rights deals as annual prize money, believed to be around US$380 million.

"This gave Alpha D2 an operating profit, before debt repayments, of US$240.4 million."

So, without the debt, that's what the profit from F1 would be. Most of us could live on that.

"It is in the best interests of the sport not to appeal," McLaren says. "The time has come to put this huge distraction behind us."

McLaren still insists there has been "no evidence that the (Ferrari) information was applied, tested or shared with the (McLaren) engineering team".

"To our regret and embarrassment, the content of the previously unknown emails (between test driver Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso) demonstrated possession not being limited to a single person, albeit unsanctioned in any way by the team," McLaren says.

"The major principle of the issue for McLaren is: this information was not used to gain advantage on its cars."

Triple world champion and former rival team owner Sir Jackie Stewart says he "never saw anything that categorically said that a crime had occurred -- I didn't see any conclusive proof".

McLaren's decision not to fight its penalties assures Ferrari of its 15th constructors' world title.

McLaren won at Fuji in 1997. The driver was the late James Hunt, who had taken the world title there the previous year after Niki Lauda famously withdrew in the crazy rain.

This Sunday's winner will receive a trophy that is a scale model of an erupting volcano.

Perhaps it will be appropriate if McLaren wins again!

This is the team that began life in 1991 as Jordan. When it transformed from Midland to Spyker last year the sale price was US$106.6 million.

Now the price is US$123 million -- more than twice what Minardi was sold for two years ago, when it became Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Bernie Ecclestone has given the Spyker management a parting spray, saying they "did not really contribute anything" to F1.

Oh what a night in IRL
While F1 is still a year away from its likely first night race in Singapore, the Indy Racing League will have five night races next year.

They will be at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway, Richmond International Raceway, Nashville Superspeedway and Kentucky Speedway.

The IRL has taken Champ Car's former mantle of boasting that it runs on all kinds of circuits.

Among the IRL's 16 rounds, three are on permanent road courses, two on temporary street courses, and the rest on ovals -- big and small, including a race at Motegi in Japan.

The crown jewel remains the Indianapolis 500, scheduled for May 25 next year and likely to carry 20 per cent higher prizemoney -- with US$2 million for the winner.

The IRL plans to guarantee full-time competitors US$1.3 million per car next season, including at least US$300,000 for competing in the Indy 500.

Under this system, race purses will be eliminated except at Indianapolis. The IRL says that's a way to "bring value to the current teams and make it attractive for a new team to participate".

Teams that participate only in the Indy 500 will be guaranteed about US$230,000.

Despite these attractions, NASCAR is likely to have more Indy 500 winners racing in it next year than the IRL.

NASCAR is set to have five -- Juan Pablo Montoya, Sam Hornish Junior, this year's 500 winner Dario Franchitti, Jacques Villeneuve and Buddy Lazier -- and the IRL three -- Dan Wheldon, Buddy Rice and Helio Castroneves.

Yu Zhifei, 54, a former Shanghai city official and general manager of the Shanghai International Circuit, "embezzled large amounts of money and should bear criminal responsibility", the China Daily quoted the prosecutor as saying at Yu's one-day trial in Wuhu, west of Shanghai.

The charges date from 1997-1999, before Yu took on the job at the Shanghai circuit in 2001.

The first GP at the elaborate track was in 2004 and there is no indication that the case will have any impact on the F1 race coming up there on October 7.

The China Daily said Yu had forged documents to embezzle 1.05 million yuan (US$138,700) from the Shenhua soccer club while he was its legal representative.

He was also accused of making an unauthorised payment of 1.18 million yuan on behalf of the club towards an apartment he bought.

Richards and teen 'burn' in Tassie
Jim Richards -- the master of tarmac rallying, especially in Tasmania -- has done it again.

Driving a Porsche GT3 with regular Tasmania co-driver -- and V8 Supercar commentator -- Barry Oliver, Richards at the weekend won Rallye Burnie for the third time its four-year history.

Richards and Oliver have won Targa Tasmania eight times and Rally Tasmania three times.

Just four seconds behind them in heat two of Rallye Burnie this time were 19-year-old Victorian Brendan Reeves and his co-driver sister Rhianon Smyth in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI sporting P-plates and entered by Tasmanian rallying enthusiast Les Walkden.

Reeves and Smyth have also been sensations on gravel this year in their Australian Rally Championship debut.

TV personality Grant Denyer crashed another Subaru out of the event on the famed Hellyer Gorge stage.

"Unfortunately I asked a bit too much of the car, we had a minor brake failure and I left the road," Denyer says.

"I just couldn't get the car to pull up and in the end we went over the edge."

Larkham joins safety institute
Mark Larkham -- former open-wheeler and V8 Supercar racer and foundation member of AVESCO (now V8 Supercars Australia) and the Touring Car Entrants Group Australia (TEGA) -- has joined the board of the Australian Institute for Motor Sport Safety (AIMSS).

This body is chaired by Dr Michael Henderson and the other board members are Allan Moffat, Colin Osborne, Bob Glindemann and Andrew Papadopoulos.

Larkham's first duty will be to chair two sessions at the AIMSS 'Safety -- First' seminar in Melbourne on October 12.

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