MOTORSPORT: More Indy questions than answers

V8 Supercar shock: numbers that don't add up
Another V8 Supercar Championship round gone, and one that thankfully keeps the title fight very much alive; another podium for Chris Atkinson in the World Rally Championship; and another Grand Prix over, with a new winner -- but the most pertinent issue right for Australians with a passion for motorsport is the future of the Gold Coast Indy.

We'll come to Indy in detail in just a moment, but firstly some shock news: V8 Supercar officials understate a crowd figure!

At the end of the weekend's eighth round of the V8 Supercar Championship at Victoria's Winton circuit the media were given crowd numbers -- for each of the three days, and a total.
Friday: 6,232
Saturday: 12,678
Sunday: 38,407
Total: 56,317

Now hang on a minute; by the maths we were taught at school, and admittedly it was a good few years ago now, those three daily figures add up to 57,317!

Someone is going to be in the sin bin at V8 central for this terrible "crime".

How could anyone bring the sport into disrepute with such a simple miscalculation?

Apart from the adding up, looking at those numbers we glean one thing -- that whoever did the counting on Sunday was not operating on unleaded fuel.

We here are fans of Winton, and of the championship going to such regions, but almost 38,500 at a country circuit without a big grandstand ... pull the other leg.

Apart from anything else (and we know people come from far and wide to the Winton round each year), that Sunday crowd number is more than four times the population of the nearest major town, Benalla.

And it's almost three times the population of the whole municipality. And it's bigger than half the eight AFL game crowds last the weekend.

We're pretty sure the AFL crowd numbers would withstand a thorough audit; we don't have the same confidence about the V8 numbers.

Indy organizers, government caught on hop
The Gold Coast Indy situation that we brought to the attention of readers last Thursday is a shocking mess.

As much as there is now a rearguard action underway to save the event beyond this October, we have grave doubts about it continuing in the form we've known it -- with what has always been ostensibly the world's No. 2 open-wheeler series on top of our popular home-grown V8 Supercars.

Just to recap: Indy is going ahead this year on October 23-26, but as a non-championship round - and with a major sponsor still not named but supposedly set to be announced, presumably for one year only though.

And the event is not on the Indy Racing League's 2009 calendar.

It seems the IRL (the American-based IndyCar series now incorporating the former Champ Car "World Series") wanted the Queensland race earlier in the year, perhaps September, while the traditional October works best for Gold Coast tourism and the Australian motorsport calendar.

Apart from a September race clashing with AFL and NRL finals, it would encroach on other motorsport events -- perhaps a World Rally Championship round envisaged for northern NSW, and perhaps even the warm-up enduro (now at Victoria's Phillip Island) for the Bathurst 1000, our country's biggest domestic motor race.

And a September Indy would come at a time when the Gold Coast least needs an influx of tourists, because the accommodation is overflowing with families enjoying school holidays.

Queensland sports minister Judy Spence was cornered by a couple of media people last Thursday about Indy's absence from the 2009 IRL calendar, and indeed what the future of the Gold Coast Indy was.

She was adamant that the event would not go ahead with only V8 Supercars as a main act.

Queensland premier Anna Bligh has said the same thing since.

In a worst-case scenario this could be taken to mean that, without the IndyCars, there won't be a Gold Coast Indy event at all beyond this year.

More likely it means that if a deal is not struck with the IRL an alternative international open-wheeler category will be found.

Now there are lots of open-wheeler categories around, but not a lot worthy of top billing -- or equal billing with the V8 Supercars -- on the streets of Surfers' Paradise.

The most obvious is A1 GP, which pitched itself to the Gold Coast organizers quite a while back but was told it wasn't required -- certainly at the price it wanted, which we hear might have been more than US$10 million a year.

However, we can see that A1 might yet be a reasonable substitute, perhaps at around US$3 million a time.

A1 racing is billed by its organizers as the most competitive open-wheeler action on earth, and there's some truth to that.

The downside is that the drivers are unknown, and invariably are rising young stars rather than established names.

Lots of people on and around the Gold Coast, notably including media, were caught on the hop by Indy's absence from the '09 IRL calendar, when they shouldn't have been – and there are some advisers who ought be called to account.

Anyway, the campaign to keep the event now in its tried and true format has an air of desperation about it.

The Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper has pleaded with IRL supremo Tony George to come see this October just how irresistible Queensland-style Indy is.

The paper is even offering to pay George's airfare from his base at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- the world-famous "Brickyard".

It will indeed be interesting to see whether George makes it to the Gold Coast in October, especially as it is a post-season, non-championship race.

But one other thing intrigues us more about George and the Gold Coast.

He is, remember, the man who copped most of the flak for the 12-year split in American open-wheeler racing -- and perhaps not as much as credit as he should for this year's amalgamation.

But, and we suspect few remember this, before that split there was some form of agreement between American open-wheeler racing -- then known as Championship Auto Racing Teams, or CART, or whatever it was -- and Formula 1 chieftain Bernie Ecclestone that any races outside North America in that CART series would be on oval tracks, so not as to be seen as being in competition with F1.

Now we wonder whether Tony George might still feel bound by that "agreement", or whether -- as part of his desire to get F1 back to his "Brickyard" -- he has even come under some renewed pressure from Ecclestone not to run road races outside North America.

Amid all the ruckus on the Gold Coast, V8 Supercars Australia chairman Tony Cochrane has been singing a familiar tune -- "75 per cent of the people who come to the Gold Coast at Indy time are here for the V8s (anyway)'' -- although he's been wise enough to see that the Queensland government is not going to spend the money it does on Indy -- now about $11.7 million a year -- for his obvious preference of a V8 Supercar round pure and simple.

However, Cochrane is by no means the villain in this Indy fiasco.

The fingers ought to be pointed, in the first instance, at the event organizers and with equal vigor at Queensland sports minister Spence and Gold Coast Indy chairman Terry Mackenroth -- a former Queensland treasurer.

Here is what Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper had to say last Friday:
"The (Queensland) government trumpeted a new six-year deal for the Gold Coast Indy after Ms Spence and event chairman Terry Mackenroth travelled to the US earlier this year [our note: at the time of the Indianapolis 500 in May].

"However, Mr Mackenroth yesterday admitted the deal was only subject to a memorandum of understanding and not a formal contract. We need to make it iron-clad," he said.

"But I am very confident that we'll have a race next year and the year after that and the year after that. I've been involved with Indy for 10 years and every year someone says it's doomed."

Perhaps so, Mr Chairman Mackenroth, but this time those doomsayers might just be a lot closer to being right.

Hopefully not, but those with responsibility for this event need to lift their collective game.

A Brock book - How Good Is This!
Before we get to other racing matters, one that will touch the heartstrings of Aussie motorsport fans.

There's a new book out about the country's favorite racing son, the late Peter Brock, titled 'How Good is This!' -- that familiar Brocky line.

It's by Wayne Webster, who for many years wrote for Sydney's Daily Telegraph, was close to Brock and co-drove with him in numerous events.

Publisher Penguin Books and Webster are on a national promotional tour and we caught them in Melbourne yesterday, across the road from where Brock's funeral was held, almost two years ago now.

We even bought our copy of the book -- it's $49.95, with a special edition of 900 (representing 100 for each of Brocky's nine Great Race victories at Bathurst) at $250 a pop), and proceeds after expenses going to the Peter Brock Foundation, which at the minute is concentrating on road safety for school students and has a DVD due for release soon marking the 30th anniversary of Peter Perfect's 1978 Bathurst triumph.

The new book doesn't contain all the "warts" it might have, although Webster says that -- while uneasy about a biography while alive -- Brock told him to "write what you like once I'm gone".

It's certain to be a bestseller, even if only a small percentage of what Webster calls Brocky's 22 million friends (every Australian) buy it.

We haven't even had a chance to have a thorough look at the book, but just to have a copy is an uplifting experience -- in the way we all always felt when we were in Brocky's company.

The MC of the Melbourne launch, veteran motorsport commentator Will Hagon, read a couple of extracts, and on the basis of those teasers alone we highly recommend it.

Triple deadheat and title fight is alive
Now the V8 round at Winton ...

Good to see, purely in the name of parity, Holden take a round after four straight for Ford.

In a sense Ford still took the honours, with Jamie Whincup and Will Davison each winning a heat in Falcons while Holden's reigning champion Garth Tander was the General's sole victor.

The trio ended level on points for the weekend but Tander was the round winner courtesy of his victory in the third race.

While series leader Mark Winterbottom had a horror weekend -- his best result was second in race two, after a puncture wrecked his chances in race one and an "off' in the third was his own fault -- the title is looking a much closer fight now, with six rounds to go, than we'd feared after the Queensland Raceway round.

So bad was Winterbottom's Winton weekend that he has surrendered his previous 122-point championship lead to Tander -- or, as ‘Frosty" put it, "lost my yellow jersey".

We said before Winton that we were keen to see how James Courtney and Russell Ingall backed up after their podiums at Willowbank.

They each had top 10 finishes in two of the three races, with a best of seventh for Ingall and ninth for Courtney -- so still way short of the consistency that makes Tander, Winterbottom and Whincup -- and to only a slightly lesser extent Rick Kelly, Davison and, especially in endures, Craig Lowndes - the men to beat.

A big six-week break now in the V8 Supercar calendar, but lots to look forward to with the endurance races coming up -- firstly the new Phillip Island 500 on the second weekend of September.

Winton round top 10 -- Garth Tander (Holden) 272 points, Jamie Whincup (Ford) 272, Will Davison (F) 272, Rick Kelly (H) 194, Craig Lowndes (F) 190, Lee Holdsworth (H) 184, Todd Kelly (H) 160, Paul Dumbrell (H) 152, Jason Bright (F) 142, Mark Winterbottom (F) 138.

V8 Supercar Championship after eight of 14 rounds -- Tander 1,844, Winterbottom 1,832, Whincup 1.758, R. Kelly 1,506, Davison 1,427, Steven Richards (Ford) 1,383, Lowndes 1,365, J. Courtney (F) 1,343, Holdsworth 1,200, R. Ingall (Holden) 1,189.

Atkinson Australian of the Year so far
Rallying now, before F1 -- because Aussie Chris Atkinson's form in the WRC this year has been close to phenomenal.

Atkinson was third in the weekend's Rally Finland, which marked the series resumption after a five-week break.

It was Atko's first podium in this year's model Subaru Impreza.

The only drivers ahead of him after three tough days were the two men vying for the world title -- Frenchman Sebastien Loeb and Finn Mikko Hirvonen.

Loeb's victory in his Citroen C4 was his 42nd in WRC competition -- and particularly sweet for him in conditions in which the Scandanavians are rarely beaten.

Loeb took 15 of the 24 stages and is now just one point behind Ford Focus driver Hirvonen.

Atkinson climbed from seventh on Friday to lead Loeb's Spanish teammate Dani Sordo by just 1 second at the start of the last stage, but he stretched that gap to 17 seconds at the end.

Although 3 minutes behind Loeb, it was a brilliant result for the Aussie.

Atkinson has now had three thirds and two seconds from nine rounds so far this season and is standing third in the championship, while his Norwegian former world champion teammate Petter Solberg was sixth in Finland is sixth in the championship, with the next round in Germany the weekend after next.

Atkinson could feel entitled to be regarded as Australia's best-performed international driver this year.

Mark Webber has had a pretty good season in F1, Ryan Briscoe has won two IndyCar races, and we are particularly impressed with teenager Daniel Ricciardo in Formula Renault in Europe (eight wins from 12 starts, and this weekend contesting the Formula 3 Masters in Belgium), but all things considered Atko has his nose in front with us at the minute.

World Rally Drivers' Championship after nine of 15 rounds -- Mikko Hirvonen (Ford) 67  points, Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) 66, Chris Atkinson (Subaru) 37, Dani Sordo (Citroen) 35, Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford) 34, Petter Solberg (Subaru) 23.

World Rally Manufacturers' Championship -- Ford 108 points, Citroen 105, Subaru 62, Stobart-Ford 45, Munchi's-Ford 19, Suzuki 12.

Webber's Red Bull Racing losing ground

Hearty congratulations to Heikki Kovalainen on his first F1 grand prix victory -- and on becoming the 100th driver to win a GP.

But it is a cruel injustice that Felipe Massa did not win in Hungary and that he is not leading the world championship.

While the McLarens occupied the front row of the grid, Massa and his Ferrari were in another league once the race got underway in Budapest.

How rare to see a Ferrari engine blow, but Massa's did on the pit straight with three laps to go, gifting victory to Kovalainen -- who had done it pretty tough at McLaren this season, and at Renault last season.

A brilliant drive to second by German Timo Glock for Toyota just two weeks after he left Hockenheim in an ambulance.

Kimi Raikkonen, very much in Massa's shadow recently, was lucky to pick up third place in his Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton to be fifth in his McLaren after being outpaced by Massa and then getting a puncture that dropped him to 11th.

Fernando Alonso, who swapped seats with Kovalainen this year, was fourth and his suddenly-improved Renault teammate Nelson Piquet Junior sixth.

Jarno Trulli (Toyota) and Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) were the final two point-scorers, ahead of Australia's Mark Webber in ninth -- and almost a minute behind Kovalainen, but ahead of the BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld and Red Bull teammate David Coulthard.

Although McLaren won the race, still no McLaren driver has scored a hat-trick of victories in a decade.

Hamilton had won the previous two races and, while not dominant beyond qualifying on pole in Budapest, his championship lead stretched a point because of Massa's misfortune.

Hungary emphasised to us what Webber has feared -- improvement by Toyota and Renault that has pushed Red Bull back to sixth in the constructors' championship.

That's sixth of 10 teams, so in the second half of the pack!

While BMW-Sauber remains third, it has lost a lot of ground to Ferrari and McLaren in a hurry.

Honda remains very much a disgrace to its F1 heritage -- something hopefully Ross Brawn, formerly of Ferrari and Benetton, can at least improve next season.

But, whatever anyone thinks of GP racing on its bad days, this is proving to be an enthralling season.

World Drivers' Championship after 11 of 18 rounds -- Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes) 62 points, Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 57, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 54, Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) 49, Nick Heidfeld (BMW-Sauber) 41, Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren-Mercedes) 38, Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 22, Fernando Alonso (Renault) 18, Mark Webber (red Bull) 18, Timo Glock (Toyota) 13, Nelson Piquet (Renault) 13, Rubens Barrichello (Honda) 11, Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota) 8, Kazuki Nakajima (Williams-Toyota) 8, David Coulthard (Red Bull) 6, Sebastien Vettel (Toro Rosso) 6, Jenson Button (Honda) 3, Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) 2.

World Constructors' Championship -- Ferrari 111 points, McLaren 100, BMW-Sauber 90, Toyota 35, Renault 31, Red Bull 24, Williams-Toyota 16, Honda 14, Toro Rosso 8.
 
NASCAR victory elusive for Ambrose
One -- indeed another one -- got away from Marcos Ambrose in NASCAR's Nationwide Series in Montreal, Canada.

Ambrose has now dominated this race twice, but "not closed the deal" either time.

Last year he was punted by Robby Gordon. This time a drive-through penalty for speeding out of the pitlane after his mid-race stop cost him dearly as the event was cut 26 laps short in atrocious conditions.

Ambrose led 27 laps and wound up third, behind Canadians Ron Fellows and Patrick Carpentier and feeling "a little robbed".

This week he's back up in the premier Sprint Cup, on the famous Watkins Glen road course that should suit him.

But it's still going to be on the ovals that Ambrose's NASCAR career will be gauged.
 

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