Motorsport: Massive historic meet at Island

Friday motorsport reportMarch 9, 2007

520 historics - what a classic
This weekend's Phillip Island Classic is the biggest historic race meeting in the Southern Hemisphere.

Among the record 520 entries for this mammoth event at the Victorian seaside circuit are a dozen historic Formula 1 cars as well as 25 Formula 5000 cars.

Porsche is the featured marque this weekend, with several cars brought out from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

They include a Type 804 -- Porsche's 1962 F1 racer.

The Porsche line-up also includes a 936/77, 911GT1 cars that won the Le Mans 24-Hour and two Targo Florio-winning 908s.

There's also a genuine Ford GT40 among the extraordinary array of racing machinery.

Among the other F1 cars are two 1980s Ferraris and two Repco-Brabhams.

The Formula 5000 field, predominantly Lolas, comprises 13 cars from New Zealand, nine Australian-owned and three from Britain. They compete in the Tasman Cup Revival Series.

What a weekend in Victoria, with the motor show still on in Melbourne and these fabulous racing cars -- and many more -- running around at arguably Australia's most picturesque circuit.

The aim was to spread the ACTU's anti-WorkChoices message at Supercar races in the lead-up to this year's federal election.

It would have involved a Supercar painted with the Your Rights at Work campaign logo and visits by drivers and cars to schools around the country.

However, Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper reported this week that "union greenies have prevailed over their petrol-head colleagues".

Apparently there was a feeling within the ACTU executive that it would compromise the organisation's new policy on climate change.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow says the decision against the sponsorship was taken reluctantly.

"It was very tempting, but we're also conscious that we've been out there saying we need to be more efficient in terms of the use of fossil fuels," she says.

"It was a close call. . . even the greenies were interested in the notion."

Ms Burrow says the executive's view is that the money is better spent on TV advertising.

After the tarmac, ice and snow of the opening three rounds of the Monte Carlo, Swedish and new Norwegian rallies, Mexico is the first of nine gravel events in the championship.

With just 366.06km of competition in 20 stages, including five runs over a super special, it is the shortest rally in WRC history.

All the stages are more than 2000 metres above sea level, and the engines of the cars feel "dead" at the highest parts -- about 2700 metres.

Held about 350km north-west of Mexico City, it is the fourth time it has been run as a WRC round, although the event has existed since 1979 and has been based in León, Mexico's fifth biggest city with a population of 1.2 million, since 1998.

It starts in another city nearby, Guanajuato, east of León.

Eight special stages will be run today, eight Saturday and four Sunday.

The interest for Australians will be the performance of our WRC representatives, driver Chris Atkinson and co-driver Glenn Macneall, in one of the Subaru factory team's two new 2007 Impreza WRXs. Atkinson's teammate, Petter Solberg, won the Mexican event in 2005 and finished second overall last season after leading early on.

Extrovert Norwegian Solberg is upbeat about the new Impreza's chances, while Atkinson is more cautiously optimistic. Subaru hasn't won a WRC round since the end of 2005.

France's triple world champion Sebastien Loeb feels he's in a good position to repeat last year's success in his Citroën C4 on its gravel debut, but Ford's Finns, Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen, have started the season well, winning the past two events in their Focuses, and Ford has an early 16-point advantage in the manufacturers' championship -- which it won last year after Loeb missed the late rounds with a broken arm.

Gronholm leads Hirvonen by four points in the drivers' championship.

RallySport, previously the printed monthly publication on Australian rallying but now solely online at rallysportmag.com.au, reports that the Australian Capital Territory's government is trying to sever a contract with the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport due to expire in 2008.

The government is reportedly prepared to see the event go ahead this year, on a smaller budget than last year, but is "adamant that they won't run the rally in 2008", according to RallySport.

Apart from the event being part of the ARC and APRC, there have been hopes for it to become a round of the new Intercontinental Rally Challenge for the new Super 2000.

Australian rallying generally, and individual events too, always seem to be fighting an uphill battle. As long as there are enough good fighters in its ranks it, and its events, will survive, but it's a pity it has to be such hard work.

It will be Subaru's first official foray into circuit racing after a decade of gravel and tarmac rallying campaigns.

Atkinson will be joined by Subaru's three-time Australian rally champion and reigning Asia-Pacific rally champion Cody Crocker and top West Australian rally driver Dean Herridge.

Crompton, who won the last Bathurst 12-Hour with the late Gregg Hansford in a Mazda in 1994 and was third in a Bathurst 1000 in the early '90s in a Nissan, will be joined by 20 year-old Chris Alajajian, who drove a Subaru Liberty GT in the 2004 Australian Production Car Championship, winning both the Class A and outright Championship, and a third driver yet to be named.

WRC driver Atkinson will come home immediately after the Rally of Portugal on March 30-April 1.

"I competed in the Nurburgring 24-hour race last year and really enjoyed it, so to get another chance at a tarmac endurance race is a fantastic opportunity and I jumped at the chance when offered a seat," Atkinson says.

Kimi fuels up for Ferrari debut
Michael Schumacher's replacement at Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen, has had a reputation for playing up on the booze -- and he's been making headlines again in Finland.

After the recent pre-season tests ended in Bahrain, Raikkonen was reported by tabloid newspaper Iltalethi to have been drunk in a Helsinki bar.

Iltalethi says he spent the evening drinking beer, behaving raucously, including singing karaoke, and that he autographed a bottle of Koskenkorva Viina, a clear Finnish spirit, before departing.

Pirelli scratched itself from F1 tussle
Italian tyre manufacturer Pirelli, which has been made the sole supplier for the WRC for the next three years, reportedly also came close to returning to Formula 1.

Pirelli apparently withdrew from that race against Bridgestone to win the 2008-2010 F1 tender after the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) refused to budge on tyre sizes.

Texan Foyt made his debut as a driver in 1957, won the Indianapolis 500 four times, made 35 straight starts in that iconic race, notched 67 IndyCar wins all up and his seven American championships.

He's the the only driver to win the Indy 500, the Le Mans 24-Hour and the Daytona 500.

He retired from race driving in 1992 but, at 72, remains an IRL team owner.

"Even though I'm crippled today from race cars, I don't know of anything I'd change because, all in all, the good's offset the bad. I wouldn't trade careers with anyone," Foyt says.

A 25-metre walking timeline chronicling Foyt's successful career will be displayed at every American race in this year's IRL.

Meanwhile, his grandson, A.J. Foyt IV, is in strife on a driving-under-the-influence charge.

The 22-year-old was pulled up near his home in North Carolina late last year and is to front court on April 9.

He will keep his IRL drive with Vision Racing owned by Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss, Tony George, godson of the great A.J..

There are two IRL races before the court case -- the season-opener on March 24 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida and the St. Petersburg Grand Prix on April 1.

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