MOTORSPORT: The great Gold Coast contradiction

Much of the action in Australian motorsport in coming weeks is going to be in northern climes

The next V8 Supercar Championship round is at Ipswich's Queensland Raceway on August 21-23, the new Rally Australia is in NSW's Northern Rivers region on September 3-6, and then the Gold Coast's SuperGP (previously Indy) is in October.

So it's appropriate to start turning our focus to those parts; not so much to those events just yet, but to issues related to them.

And the point we will come to in amongst all this is some stark evidence of how the Gold Coast's two-decades-old street racing carnival has done next to nothing for motorsport generally in that area.

But firstly some other matters ...

Lots of speculation that the first two rounds of next year's V8 Supercar Championship will be in the Middle East -- in Bahrain and a new event in Abu Dhabi, which within three months will have staged its first Formula 1 grand prix.

Some would have you believe that starting Australia's premier race series offshore is terrible, but what's it matter? (Although clearly Adrian Musolino of The Roar thinks it's plain silly).

Adelaide, which has hosted the season opener for a decade, couldn't care less. Its only preference is that its Clipsal 500 be in March rather than February, and so long as it's the first round on home soil all's well with it.

Some speculation also this week about the next V8 Supercars Australia CEO to replace Cameron Levick, who lasted about as long as the Nissan safety car.

It's been reported in Sydney's Daily Telegraph that former Manly Sea Eagles rugby league boss Grant Mayer is among a supposed queue of 50 applicants for the job. "At least two other NRL administrators and an AFL bigwig" are also supposedly in the race for the $400,000 a year slot.

Of course, V8SA's executive chairman Tony Cochrane says there's been "a terrific response ... (and) we haven't even advertised the position (yet)".

"We want a top-flight CEO and are prepared to pay top money. We are determined to get the right person," Cochrane says.

Isn't that the same tune that was heard from the same mouth in the lead-up to the Levick appointment?

Perhaps V8SA ought to forget about finding a CEO to work with/under Cochrane, save itself the $400,000 a year and just have him continue doing his thing as executive chairman. He's already got a couple of senior people in the organisation who ought to know the game plan well enough to make it work.

On the Rally Australia front, news that charismatic Norwegian former world champion Petter Solberg won't be coming is a big blow.

And still no word of a drive for Australia's proven world-class rally driver, Chris Atkinson, a former teammate of Solberg.

And the politics in the Northern Rivers region about the event rumble on (see a recent article on article on newmatilda.com titled "Is NSW being taken for a ride?")

On the SuperGP front, some good news is that Australia's likely driver in the A1 GP open-wheeler race that replaces the IndyCars, 25-year-old Queenslander John Martin, won a race in Europe last weekend.

A1 GP is in recess -- indeed the Gold Coast race will mark the start of its fifth season -- so Martin was in the new Superleague Formula at Britain's Donington Park.

We applaud here on this site Aussies winning abroad, as we have done recently with Newcastle's Josh Scott, Sydney's Daniel Erickson and Gosford's James Kovacic, as well as Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo, Will Power and Ryan Briscoe, David Brabham at Le Mans and Will and Alex Davison's cousin James' feats in Indy Lights in the US.

So too Martin in this instance, as he's plugged away overseas for quite a while now.

But it's hard to fathom yet what to make of this Superleague Formula, in which the drivers of V12, 750-horsepower single-seaters bear the colors of European football -- that is, soccer -- teams. Martin carries the colors of Glasgow Rangers.

The Superleague Formula, with the stated aim of introducing soccer/football fans to motor racing, bills itself as "a new global championship", but its six rounds this year are all in Europe. Donington was round 3.

It's talking of expanding to up to 17 races, with rounds in South America and Asia, even "the possibility of staging a series of street races".

Sound familiar? Alarm bells are ringing in this author's ears.

The series has got some classy drivers, including Italian Giorgio Pantano, an ex-Jordan F1 driver and winner of last year's GP2 series, and Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia, once an F1 teammate of Mark Webber in the days of Jaguar Racing.

Martin finished second in the opening race at Donington, collided with Pantano in the second, yet bobbed up and won the "Super Final" -- and 100,000 Euros! (although we doubt he gets to pocket much of it after expenses).

Martin's success would seem to us to be a perfect promotional platform for the Gold Coast's SuperGP organisers, but not a word about it from that quarter this week.Perhaps Martin isn't as solid in the A1 Australia seat as we'd thought.

The preoccupation in Gold Coast motorsport circles at the minute is with a campaign called Place to Race.

The support of many motorsport luminaries, most of them Gold Coast-based, has been invoked -- Sir Jack Brabham, Alan Jones, Mick Doohan, Wayne Gardner, James Courtney, Ivan Mauger. Think we've heard Jason Crump's name too, and surely Casey Stoner's is to come.

This Place to Race campaign is the brainchild of Terry Morris, father of racer Paul, and colorful media identity Brett "Crusher" Murray. Hatched over a glass of Terry's Sirromet wine a week ago, they say.

The thrust of the message, as outlined on the website placetorace.com.au and aimed at the Gold Coast City Council, is:
"Over the last 20 years Gold Coast motorsport venues have disappeared in plague proportions and none have been replaced. Mike Hatcher Raceway and Reedy Creek Raceway are next on the Gold Coast City Council's shopping list. It has to stop!

"The next step will be a meeting of all the major stakeholders and then a public rally, the likes of which have not been seen on the Gold Coast before."

We have advocated strongly here on this site over a long time now in favor of permanent venues, for the good of motorsport generally and at all levels, so we empathise with this campaign.

Especially as this author can remember the old Surfers' Paradise International Raceway, which hosted car racing, motorcycle racing and drag racing. Perhaps rallycross too, and an associate reckons he has vague recollections of a dirt speedway there or nearby.

That famous venue long ago gave way to property development.

It's a great pity there has been no multi-dimensional replacement for it, because if there had been there would not be the problem the motorsport community on the Gold Coast now has. As we've said, the Place to Race campaign is very much directed at the Gold Coast City Council.

Mayor Ron Clarke professes to be a sympathiser with the cause, although we're not convinced he has any affection for motorsport. Clearly many of those around Clarke at the council are vehemently anti-motorsport.

So we don't see Place to Race getting a lot of joy from the council, and surely it won't be long before those involved in the campaign try to turn to the state government for a helping hand.

Which brings us to our earlier point -- and a few others.
>> So just what has almost 20 years of "Indy" on the streets of Surfers' Paradise done for motorsport in that part of the world? Don't toss up international television exposure. We shot that one down long ago. The Queensland taxpayer was subsidising American viewers to the tune of about $10 a head in the end. And don't bother bringing up economic benefits -- with crowds claimed to be similar to Melbourne's F1 GP, the official studies show one-third the financial benefit of the F1 event (if either can be believed). And clearly the Gold Coast street race has not helped keep permanent facilities for other motorsport alive.

>> Has it been wise, and good for Gold Coast motorsport, for the Queensland government to pump more than $10 million a year into Indy -- surely now about $200 million over almost two decades? What lasting benefit has there been from that money in the way of permanent facilities?

>> Having splurged about $200 million on Indy, should the government now be expected to contribute more taxpayer money to, or even underwrite, permanent motorsport facilities in the area? Perhaps the money should have been invested in a major permanent facility in the first place -- if indeed that ought to be the role of government, rather than private enterprise. Remember, Surfers' Paradise International Raceway was owned and operated by the legendary Gold Coast entrepreneur Keith Williams -- and perhaps any future complex ought to be named after him.

>> Would it be fair for the Queensland government to say that it has been more than generous (even blind and misguided?) in spending the money it has on an annual street race rather than permanent facilities, and that it is not prepared to throw more money about on the same sport?

>> While this author empathises with the Place to Race desire for permanent venues and the campaign's proponents, where were these voices on this very subject until now? What evidence is there to see or hear that they felt so strongly about the need for permanent facilities for all forms of motorsport while so happy to align for so long with a costly street carnival?

>> And how seriously can the calls for support on permanent venues, now predicated on safety education grounds, be taken? For sport and entertainment, yes. But safety? Seriously, who is going to swallow that? Next someone will try telling us that the motoring writer caught driving a Ferrari at 231km/h on a public road in WA recently was doing it in the name of safety!

>> Might people involved/associated with motorsport on the Gold Coast, particularly at lower levels, be entitled to be a little cynical about these voices speaking up after the gates have, literally, closed?

>> And what has the Gold Coast Indy chairman Terry Mackenroth, a former Queensland government minister and more recently high-profile lobbyist, done over the years to ensure the survival of the doomed permanent motorsport venues on the Gold Coast?

>> And how true is the suggestion from around A1 GP headquarters in Europe that it will be paid about $10 million by SuperGP organisers to bring its show to the Gold Coast in October, in light of A1's well-documented problems -- including having only one other race confirmed on its season five, supposedly 10-race, calendar?

There could be other questions asked too -- and there may well be.

Briefly on other matters:

>> Mark Larkham has earned a lot of kudos for his TV commentary on the V8 Supercars. Likewise, his column in Motorsport News' weekly eNews is informative and incisive. This week's column on the Kelly Gang is particularly so.

>> Marcos Ambrose's chances of a big NASCAR finish at the rain-delayed Pocono race this week were wrecked through no fault of his own, but the Watkins Glen road course in upstate New York this weekend will suit him to a tee.

>> Nelson Piquet Junior has been flung by the Renault F1 team after not scoring a point this year, when his contract stipulated he earn at least 40 per cent of teammate Fernando Alonso's score. Piquet has called his 18 months in the big league "the bleak period" of his career, and Renault team boss Flavio Briatore, also Piquet's manager, his "executioner". And he says: "There are incidents that I can hardly believe occurred."

Come on, tell us Nels. That Singapore GP crash last year? Was that someone else's idea? From the sidelines? To aid Alonso's ultimate victory? Any audio or transcripts of the radio communications handy?

Renault's French test driver Romain Grosjean is the likely replacement for Piquet, whose triple world champion father Nelson Senior is reportedly keen to arrange a rescue of the BMW Sauber team when the German manufacturer pulls out at the end of the season.

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