Motorsport: Still no decision on HRT

Monday motorsport reportMarch 12, 2007

TEGA buys time in the HRT saga
The Holden Racing Team saga rumbles on. Instead of a decision today, the Touring Car Entrants Group has bought itself more time, ostensibly on the grounds of seeking legal advice, before announcing its finding on the ownership of HRT.

Mark Skaife's Skaife Sports company sent a load of paperwork to TEGA late last week and a decision was due by this evening.

The fact there has not been a decision is being perceived as putting Skaife being under severe pressure, indeed threat, of a negative outcome.

That could well be, but there is also a risk for TEGA -- the governing body of V8 Supercar racing, while Tony Cochrane's V8 Supercars Australia (previously called Avesco) is the commercial operation -- that it be seen to be bumbling this affair.

There is also a big risk for TEGA that if it comes down with a decision that angers Holden that company's management, particularly a detached -- in the emotional and motorsport senses -- American chief, Denny Mooney, may decide in an instant to slash the General's longstanding financial commitment to Australian motor racing.
And that would diabolical for V8 Supercar racing!

Ford boss Tom Gorman has already signaled that many of the Blue Oval's generous, arguably over-generous, contracts with drivers and teams will either not be renewed on expiry -- or not renewed at the same level.

TEGA is now in the hotseat as much as Skaife.

At the heart of this row is whether Skaife is the true owner of HRT or whether, since his re-emergence in Australian motorsport a year ago, Scottish entrepreneur Tom Walkinshaw has part-ownership or control of the team.

Walkinshaw's argument is that he is a supplier to HRT -- and to the HSV Dealer Team -- and that Skaife is the owner of HRT.

According to the latest edition of Auto Action magazine, there is a financial disagreement between Skaife and Walkinshaw.

While many of HRT's rivals, not only on the Ford side but even within the Holden ranks, say it should not be hard to prove ownership, and the fact that this matter has dragged on in public for weeks is proof of a problem, clearly things are not simple.

TEGA may well need the best legal advice it can get to ensure it makes the right decision, but this latest delay could also be seen as it not having the fortitude, under the weight of competing pressures, to make the hard decision it has to make, whether it be to allow HRT to continue to compete or to expel it from the championship.

And if it does the latter, what happens -- for starters -- to HRT and Todd Kelly's first-round victory at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide little more than a week ago?
TEGA is in a bind, because it seems, from recent reports, that it can only decide whether HRT stays or goes; that there is no scope for other penalties such as fines or suspensions.

The situation calls for some pragmatic brilliance -- a solution that placates most interested parties, but clearly one that does not drive the factory team of the factory that has been the longest and strongest supporter of Australian touring car racing out of the sport.

Someone needs to take a lead here and produce a palatable solution.

If there has been a breach of the ownership rules, large or small, perhaps the offender(s) need to fess up and volunteer something that is acceptable as a penalty.

That may be money, in which case it needs to be totally transparent where that money would go, or perhaps it could be in some other form. Maybe forfeiting the team's points from the Clipsal.

In light of the financial circumstances Holden, and for that matter Ford, are in, it would not be wise for anyone -- TEGA, V8 Supercars Australia, team owners or drivers -- to be doing anything at this minute that might enrage that long supportive manufacturer.

Even those who have been most outspoken about HRT are going to need to recognise that this whole sorry saga needs an outcome -- and that that outcome needs to be good for the sport.

Kicking HRT out of the championship, even if it -- or anyone associated with it -- is found to have been wholly in the wrong, would not be a solution for the betterment of the sport.

It's going to be far better to find a way for the show to go on with all its players than for some, or even many, to have a pyrrhic victory but the sport be diminished through the absence of one its lynchpins.

In reality, TEGA has almost a week up its sleeve to come to a decision before the HRT transporter needs to depart for the second round of the championship at Perth's Wanneroo on March 24-25.

We understand the outcome should be known in considerably less than a week. But we were also expecting the decision today.

For the record, TEGA chairman Kelvin O'Reilly says: "TEGA is attempting to have this matter determined as soon as possible.

"The complexity of the issue remains such that it will take time to dissect the documents (from Skaife Sports) and determine whether they are in order or not.

"This is an extremely complex and delicate matter that TEGA needs to work through.

"Paperwork has been lodged but that doesn't mean that it complies. That is for TEGA to ultimately decide."

Indeed it is. Over to you, oh wise men. You better get it right.

Loeb's Mexican triumph, good signs for Subaru
Subaru's new Impreza showed lots of potential, but the Rally of Mexico -- the fourth round of this season's world rally championship and the year's first on gravel -- ended with a familiar look.

France's triple world champion Sebastien Loeb stretched his record with his 30th WRC victory in Citroen's new C4, ahead of the Ford's Finns, Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen.

Australia's Chris Atkinson and co-driver Glen Macneall wound up fifth, 2½ minutes behind Loeb, in one of the new Subarus after better signs in the early stages.

Atkinson's teammate Petter Solberg won the first three stages of the event before he fell victim to a loss of oil, while the Australian also took a stage on the first day and was second on the first night.

"We came here looking for a top-five finish and, although things could have been better, it's not a bad result to take away," says Atkinson, who admits the team made a call on set-up for the final day's four stages.

"We had to back off a bit -- it was more important to finish.

"Overall, I think we're all pleased with the way the new car has performed.

"On its first time out we've got a few stage wins, it's proved competitive on superspecials, and works well on repeated stages too.

"It's already got better traction, more stability and a more consistent feel than last year's car.

"Now it's a case of fine tuning it for me and Petter after we've had a chance to analyse what we've learned in Mexico.

"But I'd say things are looking positive for Portugal."

Returning to the WRC calendar for the first time since 2001, the event in southern Portugal will be another on gravel.

Ford, which had won the second and third rounds of the championship on snow, still heada the manufacturers' standings and Gronholm the driver standings -- four points ahead of Loeb.

World Rally Championship - Drivers:  M. Grönholm 32points, S. Loeb 28, M.  Hirvonen 26, D. Sordo 13, H. Solberg 11, C. Atkinson 10. Manufacturers: BP-Ford 58 points, Citroen Total 43, Stobart VK M-Sport Ford 19, Subaru 19, OMV Kronos Citroen 17.

Ambose in Busch's high five
Marcos Ambrose has been the top rookie finisher in two of the four rounds of NASCAR's Busch series and is in the top five in the competition -- in which many  drivers from American stock car racing's premier series, the Nextel Cup, also race.

Dual Australian V8 Supercar champion Ambrose, driving a Ford Fusion, finished in the top 10 for the second consecutive Busch round in the 300-mile (480km) race at the weekend on the newly-steepened banks of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Ambrose has completed every lap so far of the Busch season -- the only rookie to do so, and he's the top rookie for the season.

He was one of 12 drivers to lead a lap in Las Vegas.

Although it is NASCAR's secondary series the prizemoney is massive -- the Las Vegas round had a prize pool of more than US$1.6 million, or more than A$2 million.

Ambrose's 10th place earned him US$35,875 (A$45,964) and the four races to date have brought him US$163,425 (A$208,264).

Juan Pablo Montoya, who had won the previous weekend's Mexican round of the Busch series, finished 20th, four laps down, at Las Vegas.

Jeff Burton won the race, in front of an estimated 110,000 people, from Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart.

The fifth race of the Busch series is at Atlanta Motor Speedway next Sunday.

Busch series after four rounds -- Carl Edwards 650 points, Denny Hamlin 582, Dave Blaney 521, Kevin Harvick 496, Marcos Ambrose 484, Jon Wood 452, Greg Biffle 446, Tony Stewart 442, Mike Wallace 430, Kyle Busch 412.

The team says it will put former world touring car champion Radisich through a rigorous fitness test on and off the track.

Radisich has struggled to regain full fitness after his big crash at Bathurst last October, and stood aside from the opening round Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, where Australian Adam Macrow deputised in the team's new ex-Ford Performance Racing Falcon.

"I am physically fit but I have an issue with my ankle that was broken," Radisich says.

Team Kiwi is looking to have its car and driver in top form for the New Zealand round of the Supercar championship at Pukekohe next month.

Macrow was the second fastest Ford driver in Adelaide and seventh fastest overall at Clipsal, but -- with several Kiwis available this time -- the team is giving no hint of whether he will get the drive again if Radisich is ruled out.

Besnard's overtaking in the reverse grid race at the end of the round was brilliant as he scorched to victory.

Defending champion Kayne Scott won Saturday's first race but struggled in the reverse grid race, making an error that cost him the round.

Scott McIntyre, who celebrated his 30th birthday at the weekend and won the second race, leads Scott in the series by 43 points, with Besnard another 37 points back in third.

Gaunt has won every title he could this season, including the famous Lady Wigram trophy at Christchurch in January.

Kiwi hero climbs new mountain
One of the starters in NZ's Race To The Sky hillclimb at Easter, Tony Christianson, lost both his legs at age nine in a rail accident. Driving his 540-horsepower Pontiac Firebird, Christianson will have to negotiate 137 corners on the climb, which is being held for the 10th time near Queenstown.

Red Bull energy drink tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz, owner of the team that Australia's Mark Webber is racing for this year as well as half of Scuderia Toro Rosso (with his Austrian countryman Gerhard Berger) ranked 287th with US$3 billion.

Microsoft's Bill Gates heads the list at US$56 billion. Forbes says the world has 956 billionaires.

Meanwhile, Turkish daily newspaper Sabah says Ecclestone is to take over the management of the Istanbul Park circuit that stages the Turkish Grand Prix.

All-clear for the Unsers
Charges against three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Unser of resisting arrest and obstructing a police officer have been dropped.

Al Unser senior, a four-time Indy 500 victory was acquitted by a jury in December of charges over the same incident near the family's base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The pair were arrested on August 9 when authorities contended they tried to get around a roadblock and ignored orders to leave the area, where authorities had cornered an armed carjacking suspect.

The Unsers contended they were on their own property and were strong-armed by the authorities.