MOTORSPORT: SA's Tailem Bend project gains ground

HRT GOES DAY-GLOW RED - AND ROLAND DANE SEES RED
V8 Supercar teams
are busy holding launches ahead of the new season, which kicks off this
Saturday with the official test day at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Holden
Racing Team’s launch today (Feb 12) at Bathurst’s Mt Panorama circuit,
where it has won the 1000km October race seven times, revealed a return
to day-glow red in its colour scheme, including on the wheels of the VF
Commodores of Garth Tander and James Courtney.

The emphasis on
red perhaps is appropriate in light of the “blood nose” fellow Holden
factory-backed team Triple Eight Race Engineering already has given it
this year.

Triple Eight black-balled HRT from recruiting Tekno
Autosports owner Jonathon Webb as Tander’s co-driver for the Sandown,
Bathurst and Gold Coast endurance rounds of the championship in
September-October.

Tekno has Triple Eight-built Commodores,
although it is expected to run only one this season for Shane Van
Gisbergen -- unless a late deal is done for Tony D’Alberto to drive the
other, vacated by Webb as he devotes time to fatherhood rather than
full-time racing.

Adrian Burgess, the new HRT team principal
poached from Triple Eight’s Red Bull Racing Australia in the middle of
last season, worked with Webb at Dick Johnson Racing in 2010 -- the
season Courtney won the title with that team.

Instead of Webb,
Warren Luff -- who partnered Craig Lowndes in winning the first Enduro
Cup trophy last year for Triple Eight -- will partner Tander, while
veteran Greg Murphy will remain Courtney’s co-driver.

Not only
has Triple Eight boss Roland Dane blocked Webb from joining HRT for the
enduros, but his brilliant technical director Ludo Lacroix has given
Holden’s long-time factory team, controlled by the Walkinshaw family,
little chance of success this year.

Lacroix has predicted fewer
teams will win races in the second season of the new-generation cars
(previously called Cars of the Future).

“This year there won’t be
as many mistakes by the more successful (teams) and therefore less
opportunities (for other teams to win),” Lacroix said.

“I think
the most successful teams, off the back of where they finished last year
and their understandings of the car, will be Brad Jones Racing (BJR),
FPR (Ford Performance Racing) and us.

“I think those nine cars will make up 90 per cent of the race wins this year.”

If
that prediction is correct it will leave little room for the new-look
HRT under Burgess to improve on, or even match, last season’s three
victories.

“Obviously Red Bull is in a very good position -- I think the championship is in good hands,” Lacroix said.

New
V8 Supercar participant Volvo will unveil its S60 cars to be driven by
young New Zealand star Scott McLauglin and Swede Robert Dahlgren on
Thursday morning, with Triple Eight and FPR to follow later in the day.

Nissan Motorsport’s launch revealed that it has stuck with centre-mounted rear wings on its four Altimas for the second season.

The
team operated by Kelly brothers Todd and Rick and which traditionally
ran Holdens, had tested wings with side mounts like the Commodores and
Ford Falcons after feeling that was one of the key factors in Nissan
underperforming the traditional manufacturers last year. 

Todd
Kelly has said that end-plate-mounted wings his team tested -- after
collaboration with Nissan’s fluid dynamics experts overseas -- did not
produce the desired reduction in aerodynamic drag. 

As teams
lock in endurance co-drivers even before the championship begins, with
the first round on Adelaide’s street circuit on the first weekend of
March, BJR has retained Luke Youlden and Andrew Jones to partner Fabian
Coulthard and Jason Bright.

Youlden led the class-winning Fiat
Abarth at last weekend’s Bathurst 12-Hour with co-drivers including
motoring.com.au and carsales.com.au Editor in Chief Mike Sinclair.

Regulations covering development of Mitsubishi’s former test track at Tailem Bend were amended by the Coorong Council, which is selling the 680-hectare site 100km south-east of Adelaide to the state’s wealthy Shahin family.

As we reported here three months ago, the Shahins plan to spend $40 million on what has been claimed will be Australia’s biggest motorsport park.

The Shahins envisage it including an airstrip, a hotel, caravan and camping facilities, restaurants, a convenience store and service station as well as racing facilities for events up to “A-grade, first-class national and international” levels.

The Murray Valley Standard newspaper reported that the council pushed through the regulatory changes at a special meeting but declined to entirely remove those governing native vegetation, landscaping and on-site advertising.

A public meeting on the changes had been scheduled for the next night but was cancelled because the only submissions were from the Shahin family’s Peregrine Corporation and supportive federal MP Tony Pasin.

Contracts for the sale of the property have been exchanged but the transaction has not been settled yet.

However, council chief executive Vincent Cammell told the Standard: "We will be doing everything we can as a council to work with Peregrine Corporation to assist in facilitating the delivery of this project.

“Peregrine Corporation has the financial resources to ensure the success of the development and a track record of delivering."

The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) and the SA government favour the project.

Peregrine has been hosting events for drift, drag and rally cars and motorcycles at the venue this month under an interim lease using the name SA Motorsport Park.

Meanwhile, the community group on NSW’s Central Coast wanting to create a driver education and motorsport park hopes to have raised the money by the end of this month to lodge the development application with the Wyong Council.

Brad Wilson, co-founder of the Community Automotive Sport and Recreation (CASAR) Park project, said it was envisaged that studies which form part of that application would take eight months and council consideration another five months.

Wilson was hopeful the development could happen by the end of next year.

A 3.5km race track and a kart track doubling as driver training facilities are planned on a 115-hectare site at Bushells Ridge bordered by the Sydney-Newcastle freeway and train line.

The cost has been put at $25 million -- initially $14 million, with the other $11 million to be spent on a later stage.

The land is owned by the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, which has signaled its willingness to enter a long-term lease.

The Wyong Council and Central Coast Tourism also have shown support for the project, which Wilson has claimed could be “a game-changer” for the area.

“CASAR Park will become the No. 1 visitor drawcard for the Central Coast,” Wilson said.

“It will change the economic face of the community through tourism, sport, recreation and social inclusion.”

The coverage averaged 225,000 viewers across the five major capital cities.

Keeping it in perspective, that was barely half the figure for the day’s No. 20 program  on Australian television (440,000) and only 17.8 per cent of the audience in the five capitals for last October’s Bathurst 1000 (1.263 million, the best figure for that event since 2007’s 1.357 million).

So while the 12-Hour has made important strides in recent years, especially with the introduction of GT3 cars, it has a long way to go to match Bathurst’s original Great Race.

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