MOTORSPORT: Skaife chooses desk job over racing

Following two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and 2005 Indy Racing League champion Wheldon's fatal crash in Las Vegas yesterday, Australian IndyCar star Will Power and Brazilian Tony Kanaan have withdrawn from the Gold Coast street race carnival. Others from the American openwheeler series may yet be non-starters on the weekend.

Power hurt his back in the 15-car pile-up at Vegas and has been replaced in the Ford Performance Racing team by Irishman Richard Lyons as Mark Winterbottom's co-driver.

Dane Allan Simonsen has replaced Kanaan as Jason Bargwanna's co-driver in one of the Brad Jones Holden Commodores.

Holden Racing Team is in the process of finalising a replacement for Wheldon as reigning V8 Supercar champion James Courtney's partner, with Englishman Darren Turner -- a former McLaren Formula One test driver -- believed to be the frontrunner.

A test day for all the international co-drivers is scheduled for Queensland Raceway tomorrow, although not all are likely to make it, but we will publish a full Gold Coast line-up here once it is finalised.

Meanwhile, Skaife has quit as an endurance race co-driver after deciding instead to take up the chairmanship of the new V8 Supercar Commission.

This retirement comes three years after the five-time national champion and six-time Bathurst 1000 winner bowed out of full-time racing.

But the door is still open for 44-year-old Skaife to return to part-time racing after the initial two-year term as V8 Supercar Commission chairman.

The top administrative role has been available to him for several months but he could not take it up before this month's Bathurst and even contemplated passing up the position to continue as an endurance co-driver in pursuit of the late Peter Brock's record nine Great Race victories.

As Skaife formally announced his decision on the Gold Coast today the V8 Supercar circus ringleader Tony Cochrane said there were "few people, if any, who have put their heart and soul into V8 Supercars like Mark".

Skaife intends to continue as a Channel Seven race commentator, including on Bathurst for the first time next year, but said that opting for the commission role over driving had been "one of the biggest decisions of my life".

"I have got to say it's a decision that's a bit more of my head and not my heart," he said. "Driving a V8 Supercar and racing at Bathurst has been a big part of my life for the last 25 years.

"I can't drive forever. I've really only got a two or three-year window at the highest level and, on the other side, I have an opportunity which has probably got a longer tenure and a modern career path.

"The biggest thing is saying my heart is still in love with driving race cars but my head tells me that this is too good an opportunity for me to pass up.

"I am very proud of where the sport is and I want to do all I can in the next five years to make it grow to the next level again.

"I can tell how committed the new owners [Archer Capital, with 60 per cent of V8 Supercars Australia] are to the continued growth of the sport and I know how committed I am to it.

"The commission is specifically tasked with the technical and racing components... I am very excited by the Car of the Future program [headed by Skaife], which will take the sport to the next level.

"It's also a matter of making the racing product the absolute best it can be to ensure better racing, more exciting racing and safer racing... The sport has become a world leader for its great racing and management.

"I am going to apply myself as much as I ever have in my life to make sure we are making decisions that are vital to the structure of the business.

"I can do that better if I'm not distracted by driving in two big events [Bathurst and the 500km Victorian lead-up enduro] each year."