MOTORSPORT: Penske's almighty year

As Australian motorsport debuts another street circuit next week for the Supercars season finale in Newcastle, NSW, grand plans for an upgrade of one of the country’s permanent tracks, Queensland Raceway, have been shelved.

And while the world’s most successful race team owner, Roger Penske (aka ‘The Captain’), will have 24-year-old Scott McLaughlin vying for the Supercars title against six-time champion Jamie Whincup – and his other Falcon driver Fabian Coulthard is still a mathematical chance - he may have another champion in America by then.

Josef Newgarden, only 26 and in his first year with Team Penske, won the IndyCar open-wheeler series in mid-September and, this weekend Brad Keselowski, could win the NASCAR title for ‘The Captain’ in Florida.

Keselowski, 33, already a NASCAR champion for Penske in 2012, is one of four contenders for the Monster Cup at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

While Chevrolet has traditionally been the dominant make in NASCAR, with 39 manufacturer titles, including 13 straight from 2003 to 2015, two of the men racing for the driver crown this weekend – Keselowski and Kevin Harvick – are in Fords and the other two – Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Junior – are in Toyotas.

Ford’s last NASCAR Cup champion was Kurt Busch in 2004. The most recent of its 15 manufacturer titles was in 2002.

Toyota was the champion make for the first time last year, after a decade of trying, and leads again this year, with 1252 points to Ford’s 1221 and Chevrolet’s 1213. In the 35 Cup races so far this season, Toyota has 15 wins and Ford and Chevrolet 10 each.

For a company perceived as ambivalent about motorsport, other than its GT sports car endurance efforts in North America and Europe, Ford is already this year’s champion manufacturer in the World Rally Championship – courtesy of M-Sport – and could end up on top and with the champion driver in both NASCAR and Supercars.

While Penske fields Fords in both the latter categories, his and Newgarden’s IndyCar success came with Chevy power.

On the NASCAR front, Busch, Harvick and Keselowski have been champions before (Harvick in 2014 driving a Chevrolet and Busch in 2015, making him the first Toyota’s first title winner).

But he favourite for this year’s crown though is 37-year-old Truex - the only one of the four contenders without a championship on his resume – who has posted seven race wins already this season for the small Furniture Row Racing. The Colorado-based team is the only one in NASCAR which is based west of the Mississippi River, but its owner, Barney Visser, will miss the ‘grand final’ after a suffering a heart attack.

The Florida NASCAR finale will mark the retirement of NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Junior. At 43, Earnhardt has pushed his luck with crashes in recent years resulting in a series of concussions.

Although never a title winner like his legendary father, the younger Earnhardt has racked-up 26 Cup race victories, including the 2004 and 2014 Daytona 500s.

Major reversal on Queensland Raceway
Ipswich City Council’s plans for a $220 million redevelopment of Queensland Raceway (QR) and the wider motorsport precinct at Willowbank have been shelved amid turmoil which has seen former mayor Paul Pisasale facing corruption charges.

New mayor Andrew Antoniolli said that buying back the leases at the site (necessary for its proposed revamp, including extension of the 3.1km road circuit) “could not proceed without a protracted and expensive legal process”.

Queensland Raceway is operated by John Tetley, who still has almost a decade to run on a 30-year lease.

Further, the council’s controversial company, Ipswich Motorsport Park Pty Ltd (IMP), is to be wound up.

The Supercars organisation struck a deal with the council in the middle of last year to retain a round of its championship at QR until the end of 2018 and for some years has been installing temporary safety measures at the circuit because it currently doesn’t have a permanent CAMS licence and does not meet Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) standards.

More safety upgrades will be required for Supercar’s ‘SuperSprint’ round next July 20-22.

Deputy mayor Wayne Wendt said putting a line through the redevelopment plan “does not diminish our ongoing support for the current operators based at the motorsport precinct or our support for fans of motorsport”.

Mayor Antoniolli said the council had established IMP “with the sound aim of taking the precinct forward to become an internationally-recognised, commercially-sustainable headquarters for motorsports and large events”.

“Our view that this is possible has not changed, however we need any transition to be transparent,” he said.

“IMP has ceased all activities which were underway and the company will be wound up as soon as possible.

“This is a common sense approach while the future of council’s involvement and any investment in the precinct is under review.

“Council has repealed its earlier decisions relating to the Queensland Raceway lease and will not proceed any further lease resumptions.”

Lots in store at Adelaide festival
Nowhere in Australia celebrates motorsport like Adelaide.

This year’s Adelaide Motorsport Festival on 9-10 December will feature classic Formula 1 cars and also some classic rally machinery.

On Sunday, December 10 – the day after the three-day Adelaide Rally ends – a host of World Rally, Group B and Australian Rally Championship cars will be demonstrated at the Victoria Park sprint circuit in the Adelaide parklands.

Multiple Australian rally champion Neal Bates and his long-time co-driver Coral Taylor, (mother of reigning national champion Molly), will be star attractions with their title-winning Toyota Celica GT4.

Two WRC Toyotas are on the entry list, as well as three Audis from the Group B era of the 1980s – when the cars were deemed “too fast to race” and outlawed – and a Renault A5 turbo.

Among the drivers will be Perth’s Joe Ricciardo, in a 1974 Porsche 911 RS - at the place where he introduced son Daniel to F1 as a four-year-old - and YouTube sensation Irishman Frank Kelly and his ‘Baby Blue’ 1975 Ford Escort.