MOTORSPORT: Mayhem in NASCAR and on Dakar

Thankfully it’s been mayhem without injuries, although three people died in other circumstances in the first week of the Dakar.

Australian Marcos Ambrose was central to – but not the cause of! - the “big one” in testing of the new-generation NASCARs at Daytona.

Dale Earnhardt Junior’s Chevrolet touched Amborse’s Ford from behind and lifted it “like a forklift” and another 10 cars were caught up in the wreck.

The leading Aussie in the Dakar, Geoff Olholm of Cairns, had huge dramas on the eighth stage in Argentina, battling floodwaters, rolling his Toyota HiLux, shivering through a night in it, defying rescuers who would have had him disqualified and arriving, against all odds, at a checkpoint almost a day late – but still in 15th outright.

Still no confirmation of a TV deal for the V8 Supercar Championship season now just 44 days away, but there is some other good news.

Marcos Ambrose will compete in the Daytona 24-Hour sports car classic on the last weekend of this month – four weeks before the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup – and the first taste, or rather sound, of the V6 turbo engines to be introduced into Formula One next year has been reassuring.

Mercedes-Benz has played the audio from a dyno test of what will be its 2014 F1 engine doing a simulated lap of Italy’s Monza circuit to a select group of guests at its Brixworth engine shop in Britain.

While F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone had led opposition to Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president Jean Todt’s introduction of the 1.6-litre turbo engines, Autosport’s F1 editor Jonathan Noble reported after the Brixworth “teaser” that “the new deeper noise (of the turbo V8 compared with the existing normally-aspirated V8s) is certainly nothing to be disappointed about”.

“There is still a solidness to the sound; one that will be amplified when the engines are put on to racing cars with proper exhausts and allowed to play flat-chat on race tracks around the world,” Noble wrote on Autosport.com.

“Mercedes' engine chief Andy Cowell reckons the new engines actually sound 'sweeter' than the V8s, and no one present today could disagree.

“The state of secrecy in F1 means that audio of the engines will not be ready for public consumption for a while – for even the sound could provide an advantage to rivals – but fans should rest assured that there is little to fear from what is coming in 2014.

“You will still need your ear plugs next year. And that is great news.”

Incidentally, this year’s Red Bull RB9 car for triple world champion Sebastian Vettel and Australian F1 veteran Mark Webber will be launched on February 3 – two days before the start of F1 pre-season testing at Jerez in Spain.

Two other test will be held later in February at the Barcelona circuit.

McLaren will launch its new Mercedes-powered car to be driven by Jenson Button and Mexican recruit Sergio Perez on January 31.

Ferrari is expected to unveil its new car for Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa the day after red Bull’s RB9 – and just one day before the Jerez test begins.

Team owner Shank said Ambrose had been recruited as a “supplement” because one of the other four, GrandAm specialist Ozz Negri, was still recovering from a leg injury suffered while mountain biking during the off-season.

Ambrose impressed the team during recent testing on the road course at Daytona.
“Marcos fits perfectly. We are incredibly lucky to have someone like him interested in racing for us,” Shank said.

“Ozz is coming back quickly, but we wanted to go ahead and commit to having Marcos with us now.”

Ambrose said: “I’m only here to help. I feel priveliged to be with this team – it’s a championship team.

“It’s a lot of fun to be in this car. It’s beautiful. The speed really flies out of this car.”

Other than Negri, Ambrose’s other teammates will be AJ Allmendinger, IndyCar driver Justin Wilson and GrandAm regular John Pew.

Allmendinger, who drove a brilliant final stint to clinch victory in last year’s Daytona 24-Hour, was Ambrose’s NASCAR teammate at Richard Petty Motorsports in 2010.

Last year he switched to Penske Racing but was dropped mid-season after failing a NASCAR drug test. He was cleared to race again after 10 weeks in a NASCAR rehabilitation program but only drove two more Sprint Cup races for another team as Brad Keselowski charged to the first Cup title for Roger “The Captain” Penske.

Allmendinger’s future beyond the Daytona 24-Hour is still unclear.

The new cars have curved front bumpers – and the nose of the Chevrolet SS, the next-generation Holden Commodore, comes to more of a point than those of the other two manufacturers.

It’s that that has been seen as the cause of Dale Earnhardt Junior’s Chevy creating such havoc when it touched Ambrose’s Ford.

The accident happened 22 laps into a session on the second of a scheduled three-day test when drivers were practicing drafting with the new aerodynamics, which NASCAR has wanted to avert the “tandem drafting” that has been such a feature of races on the biggest of the American ovals in recent years.

“I was just going to give him (Ambrose) a push down the back straightaway and see if he could get the lead,” Earnhardt said.

“We got off the back straightaway and (I) was pushing along there and our cars didn’t match up very well.

“I got him hooked into the fence. I didn’t have any problem with any other cars, but that was the first time where I pushed a Ford.

“The roll bar at the front of my car is just at the right place and his car sat up right on top of that roll bar – and then I was kinda wheel-barreling him around a little bit.

“I sort of had him going down the back straightaway like a forklift.

“It was a big mess and tore up a lot of cars (including new champion Brad Keselowski, now in a Penske Ford after Dodge’s withdrawal from stock car racing).

“Definitely, the drafting is not like it used to be. You've definitely got to be more careful pushing people.

"The cars are really tail happy and real loose because of the downforce they have on the back. So it's a little bit more of a handful."

Ambrose didn’t blame Earnhardt.

Here’s the Australian dual V8 Supercar champion’s version of events.

“He (Earnhardt) is just a great drafter, really can feel it well,” Ambrose said. “I guess I just got caught on the edge of the bumper there and, just with the shaped noses and the tyres, it just spun me out.

"It was hardly even a bump. It was just enough at the wrong angle, wrong time and I just went for a spin.

"I feel bad for everybody because quite a few cars were torn up there.

"I definitely think it's a consequence of the new shape. The car's very light and it doesn't take much.

“We used to get greedy with the old cars. It was very easy to bump draft.

“You really had a good square surface to push from. You could get across on an angle and still get away with it. So I guess we are used to that.

“I didn't think anything of it. I got a couple shots from him (Earnhardt) down the backstretch and we carried some steam. Just the third shot just spun me out. So I definitely think it's a consequence of the new shape.”

Earnhardt said there were no issues between him and Ambrose.

“It’s not really between me and him. He didn’t do anything wrong. I think it was my responsibility not to wreck him,” Earnhardt said.

“He doesn’t have much control at that point. That was the first Ford I had pushed. I don’t know. You don’t want to push too many Ford’s if you can help it.”

The wreck ended the test for both Penske cars (Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano), both Richard Petty Motorsports cars (Ambrose and Aric Almirola), two Hendrick Motorsports cars (Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne), Phoenix Racing’s Regan Smith and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s Jamie McMurray.

“It’s unfortunate but sometimes you have to wreck ’em to learn,” Keselowski said.

At least four other teams — all three Michael Waltrip Racing cars as well as that of Scott Speed — also packed up after the accident to concentrate on this week’s testing at Charlotte, North Carolina.

Popular veteran Mark Martin had the last word on Daytona incident.

“It appears to me like we’re not going to be able to do much pushing, which gets us back to the old style of racing - which probably the fans like better,” said Martin, who now races for Michael Waltrip racing.

“Much less passing and probably more wrecking.”

That left French legend Stephane Peterhansel in a MINI a little more than three minutes in front of Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah in a buggy at the rest day in the middle of the marathon two-week event.

Only five cars reached the end of Saturday’s disrupted stage normally because of the suddenly flooded river the fielded encountered.

Officials decided that the times of those five should stand but that all others be given the stage time of Peterhansel – the last driver to finish the scheduled 470km before it was called off.

That worked in Al-Attiyah’s favour as he was one of the many stuck at the flooded river.

South African Giniel de Villiers in a Toyota HiLux remains third overall, almost three quarters of an hour behind Peterhansel.

The neutralisation of the stage also kept Aussie Geoff Olholm in 15th despite all his dramas, while Bruce Garland and West Australian Dakar rookie Adrian Di Lallo are 44th and 45th in a pair of Isuzu D-Maxes.

Olholm reported encountering a huge wall of water as he and British navigator Jon Aston reached the river crossing.

Olholm said the river was suddenly two metres deep and they tried to find another place to cross but rolled their Toyota.

A crew in a rescue helicopter wanted to pick them up but that would have disqualified them.

Working in rain, the pair had righted the Hilux by midnight but it was too dangerous to drive in the dark so they shivered in the cabin until daylight, finally reaching the end of the stage at 1pm Sunday.

Organisers classified them 11th on the stage.

Motorcyclists in the event, who ran ahead of the cars, had a much easier time of the eighth stage.

Rod Faggotter remains the top Aussie on two wheels in 16th, while Ben Grabham is 21st and Simon Strange 34th.

Today’s stage, still in Argentina, is 593km from San Miguel de Tucuman to Cordoba.