MOTORSPORT: On safari for a week

Wild ride in the west, open slather in openwheelers OS
It's quite a different time in motorsport -- no Formula One for another week, the Bathurst 1000 three weeks away, but the seven-day Australasian Safari starts today and three Australians are vying for openwheeler titles overseas.

Marcos Ambrose is chasing a third straight top 10, and second consecutive top five, finish in NASCAR's Sprint Cup, while not impeding the chances of the dozen drivers in The Chase which starts this weekend.

And David Brabham is taking part in a very "green" event in Germany.

Safari is a 3600km, seven-day torture test
It's 25 years since the first Safari -- although it hasn't been run every year since 1985 -- and this year's is over 3600km through remote West Australian goldfields, desert, rugged bush and coastal dunes before finishing at Esperance on the state's southern coast.

It starts this afternoon at Hillarys Boat Harbour in Perth with the field of about 100 competitors -- in auto, quad bike and moto categories -- and almost another 500 in support and official crews.

They head east to Southern Cross, then north and further inland to Leonora, south to Coolgardie and then Norseman before on to Esperance on September 25.

Adding to the challenge this year, no servicing will be allowed on a couple of the legs.

There are international entries from Brazil, Sweden, China, Japan, Sweden and New Zealand.

But the celebrity starter this year is V8 Supercar ace Craig Lowndes, winner of last weekend's Phillip Island 500, in the PWR/Holden Rally Team's Holden Colorado with former Safari winner -- and former V8 Supercar team owner -- Kees Weel.

"This is the first time in my career for racing on anything other than bitumen, and the first time I'll have raced with a passenger sitting alongside me, so it's going to be a great experience," Lowndes said.

Australia's regular Dakar competitor and multiple Safari winner Bruce Garland is starting again with co-driver Harry Suzuki in an Isuzu D-MAX.

Des Harrington, who contested the first Safari, is making his 15th start in the event -- this time with his 20-year-old son, Richard.

As a media partner of the Safari we will have regular updates on the event.

Australian versus Scotsman in Japan
The IndyCar series which no longer comes to Queensland's Gold Coast is at Japan's Twin-Ring Motegi for the 12th year this weekend, with Australia's Will Power trying to maintain his lead over Scotsman Dario Franchitti with only one other round remaining.

It's Power's first start at Motegi and, despite five victories this year he's still chasing his first oval-track win.

Penske driver Power, who is 17 points ahead of the Ganassi team's Franchitti, said he was "going into this event with the mindset of giving it our absolute best" and that he thought the 2.4km egg-shaped track "will fit nicely with my driving style".

Fellow Australian and Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe is making his fourth start at Motegi but has never finished better than ninth there.

Last season, while leading the series by 25 points, Briscoe hit the wall while accelerating out of the pitlane soon after taking the race lead.

He finished 18th and it cost him the championship, in which he wound up third behind Franchitti and his Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon.

"I made a mistake in last year's race and I'm hoping to redeem myself with a solid result this year," Briscoe said.

He joked that he probably wasn't the best person to advise Power on how to approach Motegi, but -- more seriously -- said Power had done a brilliant job to be in the position he is with only the Homestead Miami night finale on October 2 after the Japanese round.

In particular, Briscoe said, Power -- in his first full season with Penske -- had gelled well with his race engineer, Dave Faustino, who also is in his first season with the team.

Young guns in the race for Euro glory
In Europe the British Formula Ford Championship and World Series by Renault are coming to a head, with Australians Scott Pye and Daniel Ricciardo in contention to win them -- and the penultimate rounds of both in Britain this weekend.

Pye, 20, from Mt Gambier, goes into the Formula Ford round at Donington Park in Leicestershire with 11 wins from the 20 races so far. His rival Scott Malvern has only two wins but has scored points in every race, while Pye failed to finish two early in the season.

While Pye is four points ahead, drivers must discard their two worst scores at the end of the season. On that basis Pye is 26 points ahead of Malvern but it is imperative that he finish all three races at Donington, and the two at Brands Hatch the following weekend.

Driving for Jamun Racing, he could become the sixth successive British Formula Ford champion in a French-built Mygale car.

The weekend's World Series by Renault round is at Silverstone, with Ricciardo, of Perth and driving for French team Tech 1, 10 points behind (101 to 111) experienced and consistent Russian Mikhail Aleshin, who is driving for Carlin Motorsport -- for which Ricciardo won last year's British Formula Three Championship.

Ricciardo, 21, is aiming to emulate the feat of Polish F1 driver Robert Kubica in winning the series in his first year in the category. He is already the F1 reserve driver for Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso but Aleshin is proving a tough rival.

Both have three wins from 13 races this season but Aleshin has had six podiums and been in the points at all but two races.

Argentina's third-placed Esteban Guerrieri has won four races but without points five times lies 26 points behind Aleshin and 16 behind Ricciardo.

Mathematically there are still seven drivers in the quest for the title but in reality it is now a shoot-out between Aleshin and Ricciardo, with the final round at Barcelona.

Ambrose getting better at going round and round
Marcos Ambrose is genuinely upbeat as NASCAR's Sprint Cup goes to Loudon, New Hampshire, for its 27th round -- and the first in The Chase, in which the dozen top drivers now vie for the title. Two weeks ago he finished in the top 10 and last weekend at Richmond, Virginia, he was fifth.

"We have hit on some things that will help us this weekend," Ambrose said.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway has seen 11 different winners in its past 11 races.

Five drivers in this weekend's field -- Clint Bowyer, Robby Gordon, Joey Logano, Joe Nemecheck and Ryan Newman -- earned their first victories at Loudon and Ambrose would love to join that club.

Although moving to Petty Motorsports next year from JTG Daugherty, Ambrose said he would be "driving 100 per cent (for JTG) up until the very end".

"Clearly you don't want to ruin a Chase driver's chance in the first week," he said. "I'm focussed on not ruining their chances and at the same time I am looking out for myself too. It's a fine line."

Brabham reunites with VW in eco series
David Brabham, close to his second straight American Le Mans Series sportscar title and fresh from last Sunday's Phillip Island V8 Supercar enduro, is at the Oschersleben in Germany this weekend for his debut race in the Volkswagen Scirocco R Cup -- billed as the world's most eco-conscious one-make series.

Each front-wheel drive VW has a 2-litre four-cylinder TSI engine running on bio-CNG, claimed to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 per cent compared with conventional engines.

The motor develops a peak of 225hp and 203 lbs ft of torque. A push-to-pass button allows a short 50hp boost.

"It's a pleasure to return to racing with Volkswagen - our relationship goes back to 1989 when I won the British F3 Championship and the Macau Grand Prix," Brabham said.

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