MOTORSPORT: Sydney's Smoke and Mirrors 500

And if we thought last week was silly season, with speculation about Triple 8 Race Engineering taking over from Walkinshaw Performance in running Holden Racing Team and Ferrari threatening to withdraw from Formula 1, then we've now moved into the bulldust season. And it could be a long one.

Right up to December 4-6, the weekend of what is now the Sydney Telstra 500 following the announcement of the country's major telecommunications company as the event sponsor. And beyond, we suspect.

First things first, V8 Supercars Australia (V8SA) launched the event last Saturday with six cars -- three Falcons and three Commodores -- driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and lots of chat, and lots of the championship's drivers present, at Martin Place in the heart of Australia's biggest city.

V8SA's announcement from last Saturday says: "A first year crowd of 150,000 people is expected to attend (the Sydney Telstra 500) across the three days."

So why does the NSW government department document we mentioned last week, here, contain forecasts of 84,103 and 93,237 -- the former by the bureaucracy and the latter by V8SA?

That's the same V8SA that on Saturday forecast 150,000 and in last week's Auto Action magazine was said to be anticipating 175,000.

And Saturday's announcement says: "The event will be televised live throughout Australia and New Zealand as well as broadcast in 110 countries and 850 million homes internationally."

Televised live in Oz and NZ, yes. Broadcast in 110 countries? We doubt. And broadcast in 850 million homes internationally?

Now, if indeed this event is to be broadcast into 110 countries, on whatever TV networks and at whatever times of day or night, the potential reach may be 850 million homes -- that is, basically, there may be 850 million homes in the countries to which it is broadcast, or at least 850 million capable of receiving it.

But what evidence is there to suggest that the penetration of the telecast, either in full or as a highlights package, will be even 1 per cent of those homes -- that is 8.5 million homes.

More likely that the number of homes that will actually see it will be one-tenth of that 1 per cent -- 850,000 homes.

What evidence, or grounds, is/are there for believing it will be any more? If you have any, please forward it/them.

We've occasionally mentioned here in the past the British audience for V8 Supercar rounds -- and they've generally been less than 10,000 viewers. Sometimes considerably less.

So let's take a figure, say 8000. Now Britain is a country with a rather large population and an appetite for motorsport, but if a V8 Supercar race gets about 8000 there, it would need the other 109 of the supposed 110 countries that are going to get a Sydney Telstra 500 telecast (full or packaged) to average close to that to get somewhere around 850,000 viewers.

Now many of those countries will have smaller populations than Britain, while some may have more. But few will have the interest in motorsport that Britain does. And it's important not to start getting muddled up between homes and viewers.

To get 850,000 viewers may require, say, 425,000 homes tuning in -- allowing for an average of two viewers per home. Whatever, we're a long, long way from 850 million anything.

And, on an average of two viewers per home, V8SA's 850 million homes -- which we're sure it would like you to believe is going to be the number tuned in -- would generate an audience of 1.7 billion.

Bigger than F1. Bigger than Texas. Almost bigger than World Cup soccer.

How come then that the world doesn't know who Jamie Whincup is? Or Garth Tander? Or Mark Winterbottom? Oh, they will after December 6. Or a couple of days later. Once the world has seen the Sydney Telstra 500.

Get the drift of why we think we're in the bulldust season? Well, if not yet, there's more.

There was a bit more to that announcement on Saturday that V8SA, perhaps out of modesty or just for reasons of brevity, didn't post on v8supercar.com.au

It was an extra three paragraphs under the heading, "About the V8 Supercar Championship Series". It contained the claim that 19 million Australians watched a V8 Supercar event on the Seven Network last year. No source is given for this information.

The ABC reported two months ago that Australia's population was about 21.7 million. Now does anyone seriously believe that 19 million of 21.7 million -- perhaps 21.6 million, or even 21.5 million at the end of the last V8 Supercar season -- watched a V8 Supercar event last year?

More likely, that two or three million, maybe a few more, watched some V8 Supercar racing, but that some of those viewers watched multiple events. Indeed, avid fans probably watched most if not all races. But 19 million? Bulldust.

But back to V8SA's additional information ... it told us in the same paragraph as it had 19 million Australians watching its racing that "more than 1.65 million people attended a V8 Supercar event" last year, and that "event attendances ranged from 50,000 people in Darwin to around 300,000 in Adelaide and on the Gold Coast".

Now where has this 1.65 million figure come from? A V8 Supercar crowd attendance table -- or spreadsheet -- for the past 14 years, emblazoned with the V8 Supercars logo and which has been sitting on our desk for six months, has a cumulative total of 1,454,122 for 2008.

So how does that 2008 figure inflate by mid-2009 by almost 200,000 to 1.65 million? That's growth of 13.5 per cent without needing to open a gate. Indeed, after the gates closed on 2008.

And, now, the Darwin attendance is supposed to be the bottom of the range, at 50,000. But the spreadsheet shows last year's attendance at Darwin's Hidden Valley to have been 46,569. "Growth" there, since that event was held, of more than 7.3 per cent.

The spreadsheet also shows the crowds to have been lower at the Bahrain round (35,000 claimed), Melbourne's Sandown (40,015) and Sydney's Eastern Creek (28,511).

Now it is Eastern Creek, on the western fringe of Sydney, that has been shunted from the V8 Supercar Championship calendar in favour of Homebush.

This author has repeatedly stated a preference for permanent circuits rather than temporary tracks -- on the basis that they are more viable long-term, can serve other purposes and many forms of motorsport, and that they can, or have to, survive on their merits rather than be propped up by taxpayers' money, as temporary tracks invariably are -- even more so in economic times like now.

Now it can't be denied that Eastern Creek has not won the hearts of motorsport fans. There have been grand plans to upgrade it, but -- like the Sydney Telstra 500 -- that was dependant on winning NSW government financial support. And V8SA and Homebush have won that contest hands down over the Australian Racing Drivers' Club-operated Eastern Creek.

All that aside, that 28,511 figure for the attendance at last year's Eastern Creek round is not a pretty number. And, it could be worse than that. We have information that there were less than 11,300 paying spectators at the Creek round last year.

An events arm of V8SA ran a couple of race meetings at Eastern Creek itself a few years back. In 2003, on the figures in the spreadsheet, if they can be believed, the ARDC-run round there drew 39,800 and the V8SA's round -- billed as the "main event" -- 41,300.

The next year, again on the figures in the spreadsheet, the ARDC round drew 28,000 and the V8SA's round -- the season "grand finale" -- 52,918.

That last figure is substantially better than any other for V8 rounds at the Creek, although we're very dubious about all the numbers in the spreadsheet (it has a note that there were no V8 Supercars at the 2008 Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne, as well as 2007, while clearly the Supercars were back there in '08 -- even if the figures in this spreadsheet indicate they boosted the four-day attendance by only 2000 people. Surely not? But V8SA could sheet those attendance figures home to the Australian Grand Prix Corporation).

Now it's nice if you can run the V8 Supercar series and deal yourself the final round, when in all likelihood the championship will be decided. Homebush, of course, will be just such a season grand finale.

But V8SA may need a promotional magic wand to make it work -- certainly financially. V8SA chairman Tony Cochrane has already waved one magic wand in enticing NSW government support for this street race after years of ministerial and bureaucratic indifference.

As we highlighted last week, the NSW government is in for $13 million in up-front assistance for capital expenditure -- primarily building crash walls and safety fences, we suspect -- and $2.5 million a year for five years -- presumably mainly towards the erection and dismantling of those walls and fences.

That leaves a lot of costs unaccounted for, at least transparently -- and we wonder if that indeed is the full extent of the NSW government's commitment.

Saturday's V8SA announcement mentions only that the government is "providing Sydney Olympic Park and funding the construction of the facilities for the next five years".

Other costs include things like police, ambulance, a public transport subsidy (normal for such events), tree lopping and relocation at the venue, median strip removal and replacement, ANZ Stadium hire (if that is not covered by the government providing Sydney Olympic Park), storage of the fencing, and cleaning of the venue.

V8SA, via Cochrane, has always said it was prepared to shoulder a large part of the risk in staging this event, and it may well be doing so. Certainly more, it seems, than it is on the new Townsville street race on July 10-12. So it should.

Why should taxpayers be footing the bill for a private operator to run its show anywhere, let alone on what is almost a "sacred site"?

Apart from a 250km V8 Supercar race on both the Saturday and Sunday, there no doubt will be a very full support race program. And there are to be concerts on the Friday and Saturday nights.

The ticket prices look reasonable enough, with a three-day grandstand seat at $299. The event ought to pull a decent crowd.

But relatively cheap tickets and, we're sure, potentially high costs rings alarm bells with us. And who's going to pick up the tab if there is a load of red ink? NSW taxpayers?

A couple more queries ...
>> If V8SA is 75 per cent owned by the competing teams, and V8SA is taking a lot of the risk, are the teams exposed to 75 per cent of any losses, just as they will presumably be entitled to 75 per cent of any profits there may be? Are the teams potentially financial losers as well as potential winners?
>> The other 25 per cent of V8SA is owned by SEL -- Sports and Entertainment Ltd. That is a 12-year-old business of which Tony Cochrane is a director, of which Basil Scafidi is a director, of which James Erskine is CEO, and of which David Coe is chairman.
We have alluded previously to David Coe, in the third item of the commentary here.
The launch of the Sydney Telstra 500, in which SEL is the driving force through V8SA, came two days before the administrators of Allco Finance Group -- which was headed by Mr Coe and collapsed owing $1.145 billion to creditors in one of the country's biggest corporate crashes -- recommended it (Allco) be wound up.
We wonder again, as we did a couple of months ago, whether it's appropriate for Mr Coe to remain chairman of SEL as the clock now ticks quickly on the Sydney Telstra 500.

"HRT is run by Walkinshaw Racing and we are endeavouring to continue that function with them," McNamara says. "At the end of the day, we hold the HRT brand and we can do what we like with it.

"But we have a long history with Tom (Walkinshaw) and there is no reason to change it at this stage.

"We are focused on making HRT a winning team.

"There are no discussions between Holden and Triple 8 Race Engineering about Triple 8 becoming HRT in the future."

Gore, business partner John Atkinson and five associates are scheduled to appear in the Federal Court in Brisbane on June 15 and 16. His WPS Racing and Consolidated Project Homes are in liquidation with collective debts of more than $1.2 million.

The Tax Office has secured Federal Court orders to wind up WPS Motorsport over a debt of about $1 million.

A report in Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper said it was understood WPS failed with about $6.9 million in debts and just $100,000 of assets.

Gore, 42, is said to have once had stakes in 120 companies after emerging from bankruptcy a decade ago.

Every driver in the Sprint Cup has been tested at least once this year. Mayfield is the first driver in the premier series to be suspended.

Kevin Grubb, a driver in the second-tier Nationwide Series, was found dead in a hotel room recently with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after having been suspended indefinitely for substance abuse.

The event has been given an ecological tick, there's a pledge to take care of koalas, the route has been finalised, there supposedly will be a $31 million economic benefit and a cultural heritage report has been done.

FIA president Max Mosley repeated that F1 could live without Ferrari, see here.

When the teams got together with Mosley and F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone there were some very tense moments, but it soon became clear that the idea of a two-tier F1 -- with smaller and new teams running to a strict budget but with greater technical freedoms than bigger, richer teams -- was not on. The BBC's coverage of that meeting, including a video interview with Mosley, is here.

And grandprix.com has an interesting perspective on why there can't be further compromise in a hurry. That's here.

Someone new, someone old for F1? Aussie Martin in Monaco
Other open-wheeler racing news... German youngster Nico Hulkenberg, a former winner of the A1 GP series, looks to be in line to replace Nico Rosberg in the Williams F1 team if Rosberg moves to McLaren next year, as looks increasingly likely. Italian Giorgio Pantano is mooted to be in line to replace Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais at Scuderia Toro Rosso, sooner rather than later.

Pantano drove for the Jordan team in 2004 and won last year's GP2 series. But might Red Bull/Toro Rosso opt instead for one of the drivers out of its junior development program -- perhaps New Zealand teenager Brendon Hartley, already the reserve driver for those two teams?

John Martin, Australia's representative in the A1 GP series the past two years, has scored a guest drive in the Formula Renault 3.5 support race at this weekend's Monaco Grand prix. The line-up for the Indianapolis 500 is complete -- with 30 men and three women -- after last weekend's final qualifying and it is here, although Canadian Alex Tagliani is set to take over the car qualified by Brazilian Bruno Junqueira.

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