MOTORSPORT: Rally Oz beats late challenge

There are still threats of protests from environmental groups and the NSW police will have both riot and dog squads on hand, but these threats rarely amount to much when the crunch comes.

The Federal Court's Justice Stone found Tweed shire councilor Katie Milne's injunction application to be "without merit".

While we haven't seen the paperwork, we believe the thrust of the application was that the NSW government's approval of the event was unconstitutional and raising environmental and ecological issues. The way the NSW government approval was gained certainly was crafty -- getting Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley to demand legislative sanction for the event, and none-too-subtly pointing out that the rally would not go ahead without such assurance.

The Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper reported this week that "thousands of protesters are expected to descend on the rally", which we doubt.

The No Rally group and 7th Generation have said they will stage peaceful protests, while a spokesman for Peacebus, Graeme Dunstan, reportedly -- in the Gold Coast Bulletin -- has threatened to light fires along the route so that drivers cannot see where they are going.

And indigenous group the Githabul nation is reported to have said "the rally will not go ahead" and that protesters will be bussed in from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Rally Australia organising committee chairman Garry Connelly said after Justice Stone's decision: "We have always complied with all laws and have spent a lot of time and effort to achieve the highest environmental standards."

Rally Australia board chairman Alan Evans described Ms Milne's injunction application as "misconceived" and "an annoyance".

Said Evans: "The federal and state government environmental authorities have looked at all of this. If these people (objectors) had any confidence at all in their position they would have placed it before a judge months ago... Instead they have waited until the teams are on their way and thousands of people have made personal and financial commitments that cannot be undone before they launch their court proceedings.

"We are fully committed to running an environmentally responsible rally for the benefit of the people of the region and the sport."

Pretty well hidden from public view
For almost two decades until 2006 Rally Oz ran in Western Australia, in and around Perth.

It was widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, run rallies in the world championship. The WA conditions were different to anything else in the WA, especially the ball bearing-like stones on the roads.

But from the very early days there were calls/moves for the event to be run on Australia's coast -- primarily to improve the national television audience, to bring it closer to the national bases of competing manufacturers, and to make it easier for those manufacturers to entertain corporate guests. Well now, at last, Rally Oz is on the east coast.

But is it going to work?

Firstly, we applaud -- again -- the notion of taking such a major motorsport event to an outlying area, in the same way as V8 Supercars this year took its show to Townsville, has gone to Darwin for years now, and includes Tasmania on its national calendar. But is Rally Oz going to work in the Northern Rivers, quite a distance from a capital city (Brisbane, across the border) and much, much further from Sydney and Melbourne -- and Canberra, a much smaller capital but a rallying stronghold. Our radar tells us that the revival of Rally Oz has not captured the imagination of the national, and particularly the east coast, sporting public... Probably, particularly because we're approaching football finals time.

And this Rally Oz is only going to be held every two years, rotating on the WRC calendar with New Zealand, whose round, incidentally, is to move back to Auckland in future.

While there will be some media activity next week in Sydney to try to create interest in the new Rally Oz, to date there has been little, indeed from our distant vantage point, next to no mainstream media exposure for it.

While it may make the evening TV news bulletins in the "big smoke" once the event is underway (Thursday September 3, until Sunday, September 6) there is no guarantee of that. Certainly TV news directors will be wanting to see spectacular footage from the Northern Rivers to warrant running anything on the rally.

As a contest it's a mega international event
The big plus with the revival of Rally Australia is that it brings to our shores the man who it could be argued is the best driver on earth today, France's five-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, and his now great rival, Finn Mikko Hirvonen.

On simple statistics, Loeb is the greatest driver in WRC history and, with Michael Schumacher retired from Formula One, has a record that compares more than favorably with the likes of Spain's dual F1 world champion Fernando Alonso or NASCAR's champion of the past three years, Jimmie Johnson.

So good is Loeb that he could switch to F1 in a flash if he wanted.

He has made it clear that his priority is to continue in rallying with Citroen, although just this week he has raised the prospect of racing in one or several grands prix next year when the schedules don't clash.

"Rather than constantly asking myself the question, 'What could I do in F1? I might as well give it a go. At least then I would be sure."

Loeb is one helluva driver -- and a magnetic personality. Yet, after winning the first rounds of this year's World Rally Championship, he now finds himself headed by Ford star Hirvonen -- 68 points to 65, with just two rounds remaining after Oz.

Either Loeb is going to become a six-time world champion or Hirvonen is going to join the list of Finnish rally greats.

Hirvonen has won three of the past four rounds and his Ford teammate and countryman Jari-Matti Latvala the other. In terms of a head-to-head motorsport battle it doesn't get any better than this tussle between Loeb and Hirvonen.

And this pair are just two of 27 international entries, along with 18 from Australia. The 45 cars, comprising seven brands, will have drivers representing 16 countries. So truly a major international event.

The great pity is that Australia's top rally driver, ex-factory Subaru driver Chris Atkinson, will be absent -- unable to land a drive in these difficult economic times.

Also missing is Australia's top young prospect Brendan Reeves, who is about to turn 21 but has been wearing a neck brace since a huge crash just 5km from the finish of the final round of the Australian Rally Championship in South Australia. Reeves co-driving sister, Rhiannon Smyth, is still nursing two broken legs.

Reeves had been the favorite among six young Asia-Pacific drivers, including three other Australians (Eli Evans, Glen Raymond and Nathan Quinn), to win a Pirelli-sponsored WRC drive and development program next year that, by some estimates, could be worth as much as $1 million.

There has been some good news on Australian representation in the new Rally Oz, however. Three-times Australian champion and three-times Asia-Pacific champion Cody Crocker will get to drive courtesy of Tasmanian rallying benefactor, Les Walkden.

Crocker and his regular co-driver Ben Atkinson, brother of Chris, will drive the Impreza that former touring car ace Tony Longhurst used in this year's Targa Tasmania. The Group N (production) car has been converted from tarmac to gravel specification and Crocker said it would have the differential and engine mapping settings from his Asian Impreza.

Crocker will test the WRX STi at a Rally Australia shakedown on Monday, with the event proper starting with a super special stage in the streets of Murwillumbah on Thursday night, followed by 35 special stages over three days comprising 340km of competition.

"It is important to have the best possible Australian representation at our round of the WRC, and Cody is the perfect man to have behind the wheel," Walkden said.

The contingent from the Australian championship is headed by reigning -- and now triple -- champions, husband and wife Simon and Sue Evans, in a privateer Mitsubishi Evolution Lancer and four-time national champions Neal Bates and Coral Taylor in a Super 2000 Toyota Corolla specially cleared to run in this WRC round.

The Bates entry has renewed Toyota support for this event, and a second similar S2000 Corolla from the Bates workshop will be driven by Queenslander Stewart Reid.

Spa, Montreal and Mosport
While Rally Australia is still a week away, our interest this weekend will be in the Belgian Grand Prix at Formula One's best track, Spa-Francorchamps and Australians Marcos Ambrose and David Brabham going around in Canada.

Australia's F1 driver Mark Webber is hopeful of being much more competitive in his Red Bull RB5 at Spa than he was in last Sunday's European GP at Valencia, Spain, where he was a disappointing ninth.
Some F1 statistics now, courtesy of Reuters:

Five different drivers have won the last five GPs - Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel, Webber, Lewis Hamilton and Rubens Barrichello.
Only three teams have triumphed so far this season - Brawn GP (7 times), Red Bull (3) and McLaren (1).

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen will be the only driver on the starting grid on Sunday to have won before at Spa. The Finn is chasing his fourth win at the circuit in five years.

Marcos Ambrose says his third place in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol, Tennessee, last weekend was "huge for me -- absolutely huge".

Yes, indeed, and a reflection of that is an article titled 'Marcos Ambrose rekindles bygone era of NASCAR'. It is on the Scene Daily website, written by executive editor Jeff Owens, and -- other than the mistake of saying Tassie native Ambrose is from South Australia (southern Australia, yes!) -- is an excellent piece, see here.

There's a week's break in the Sprint Cup calendar, but NASCAR is having a second-tier Nationwide Series round in Montreal, Canada, this weekend -- on the same Gilles Villeneuve Circuit that for so long was the home of the Canadian GP -- and probably will be again next year.

Ambrose is hoping for a case of third time lucky there, having had his chance of victory in 2007 wrecked by Robby Gordon and last year by weather and a pit lane speeding penalty.

Apart from the stock car race, Ambrose will share a 500hp Dallara-Ford with fellow NASCAR racer Carl Edwards in the tenth round of the Grand-Am Rolex Sportscar Series. (Note: this is not Ambrose's Grand-Am debut -- he shared a Porsche GT3 Cup car with Paul Morris, Craig Baird and John Teulen at the 2005 Daytona 24-Hour.)

David Brabham, leading the American Le Mans Series in a (Honda) Acura with Scott Sharp, is at another Canadian track this weekend -- the super-fast Mosport, a former Canadian GP venue.

The 4km Mosport circuit has the highest average lap speed on the ALMS calendar. The race will be 2 hours 45 minutes and is the last of what ALMS calls it sprint rounds, with only the 1000km, 10-hour Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta and the four-hour season finale at Lagua Seca to come.

Oran swansong
On home soil, the Shannons Nationals round this weekend will be the last national-level race meeting at the grand old dame of Sydney circuits, Oran Park.

What a pity it is to have lose this great venue to housing development. As the circuit's advertising says, for 40 years Oran Park has been Sydney's favorite place to race.

There will be more than a tinge of sadness in the air Sunday. But there is still quite a schedule of activity at the track over the next two months -- which can be seen at the website oranpark.com.au

Judge Anthony Howard said in the Victorian County Court that 26-year-old Tancredi's action had been an unprovoked attack on a drunken man in Geelong's main street in the early hours of June 14, 2007.

Tancredi pleaded guilty on August 12 to a charge recklessly causing serious injury.

A couple of little contradictions
It was only yesterday that we got around to reading the 'Futurama' interview with V8 Supercars Australia executive chairman Tony Cochrane by Auto Action editor-at-large Mark Fogarty in last week's edition (No. 1354) of that magazine.

Almost choked before the end of the second paragraph of the precede at the mention, admittedly not by Cochrane, of "the category he launched over a decade ago". It would be more accurate to say Cochrane launched a brand -- V8 Supercars.

V8 touring cars had been around for yonks before Tony Cochrane appeared on the scene. They go way, way back.

If anybody is to be credited with launching "the category" -- in any case this author would say re-launching -- it is former Channel 7 motor racing frontman, Mike Raymond.

And if Raymond was the "father" of modern V8 "Supercars" his "brother" in that mission was Tom Smith, former motorsport manager at Shell Australia.

Can't say that we felt much, if any the wiser, having read 'Futurama'. But a couple of comments stuck as contradictory to what we read in the Ipswich newspaper, the Queensland Times, after last weekend's V8 Supercar Championship round there.

Consider this:

In Auto Action, Cochrane tells Fogarty: "Our growth rate's phenomenal." And later: "In a difficult economic climate, our sport is going absolutely in the correct direction."

Yet, in the Queensland Times, we read of "a dramatic drop in crowd numbers" at Queensland Raceway last weekend.

Its report said "the overall attendance over the three days this year was 48,986 -- nearly 16,000 less than the 2008 figure of 64,856".

What the paper called a Queensland 300 spokesman, not named, was quoted saying: "The effect of the global financial crisis was also evident in the corporate hospitality numbers for this year, which was down from 3188 to 1049."

Readers may think we're drawing a bit of a long bow here, but from our education and experience heading south so drastically is not "going absolutely in the correct direction". Phenomenal perhaps. But not in a positive sense.

Now does he really believe that, or might it be just a case of trying to tell people things to please them -- and end up compounding matters.

So what if racing is sport or entertainment?
The Indian government has classified F1 as "entertainment" rather than "sport" -- because it does not believe that hosting a GP in the next couple of years will help develop sport in the country.

The Indian GP promoter JPSK Sports had sought currency exchange concessions but was rejected because the event will be "a commercial initiative".

"The proposed F1 race does not satisfy conditions which focus on human endeavour for excelling in competition with others, keeping in view the whole sports movement from Olympics downwards," the Indian Sports Ministry told the Times of India newspaper.

Now the reason we mention this is that we wonder, if the Australian government was to take the same stance, whether it may change the TV anti-siphoning laws in Oz. In particular, whether it might open a "window" for F1 to be screened on pay-TV, rather than the insistence/protection under the existing arrangement that it must be on free-to-air TV.

This, admittedly, is a very long bow we draw.

Heat on as helmets under scrutiny
Another article we came across this week, and certainly more immediately relevant, was headlined 'How Felipe Massa's Helmet Saved His Life' on the New York Times' Wheels blog.

It's quite short but contains some incredible details about the testing that helmets already undergo. It's worth a read and, if you find the introduction a little odd, be assured it soon gets better. See here.

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