MOTORSPORT: Tweak for V8 Supercar points system

Friday motorsport reportJanuary 18, 2008

V8 points down to 30th again but emphasis on winning
V8 Supercars Australia has tweaked the points system again for this year's championship.

The emphasis remains on rewarding race victories, but points will again be awarded down to 30th place in races.

Last year, when the scoring system was given a major overhaul after Rick Kelly won the title with only one race win in 2006 and Russell Ingall only one round in 2005, points were awarded down to 15th.

To us it seems V8SA is taking a leaf out of NASCAR's book, and that's not a bad thing.

It appears to us that V8SA is appeasing teams in the back end of the field that need to have something to show for themselves -- particularly to sponsors -- at the end of a season, and that's fair enough too.

V8SA says it is also retaining important emphasis on passing.

The revised system will give race winners a bigger points gain against second place,  then equal graduations between second and sixth, seventh to 11th, and then from 12th onwards.

At three-race rounds a race winner will get 100 points, second place 92, then the graduation is six points per place to sixth, then by four points down to 11th, and two points thereafter down to 30th.

At double-header rounds, like Adelaide's season-opening Clipsal 500 on February 23-24, points will be 150 per cent those at three-part rounds, while at the endurance races all 300 maximum points go to the winners with 276 for second and 258 for third.

"We think we have improved on last year's points system by refining the tiers and placing more importance on winning or finishing higher in each graduation," V8SA chief executive Wayne Cattach said.

"It's important that the teams who make the effort but run in the lower half of the field are still rewarded with points that reflect their finishing position.

"We have done this without removing the importance of passing that we hope will result in a finish similar to last year when, after an entire season, one single pass would have changed the championship in Jamie Whincup's favor ahead of Garth Tander.

"The formula proved spot-on in 2007 and we trust it will be the same in 2008. It's always difficult to find a system that pleases everyone and is relatively simple to explain, but we believe we've achieved it."

Certainly we think the system is fair, and fairer than last year, but as for it being simple for a fan to follow we don't agree.

Television commentary can help make it easier for viewers at home, but that doesn't always do a lot for punters at the track.

All in all, though, it's a move in the right direction.

Our position on the dual V8 Supercar champion's American experiment has long been that he is doing a highly commendable job in adapting to speedway-based stock car racing but have serious doubts that he can go far with his existing team.

For this year Ambrose is doing another full season in the second-tier series, now called Nationwide (previously Busch) and had been booked to do 12 rounds of the premier Sprint Cup (previously Nextel Cup).

That dozen has recently become 16, although we recall that three times last year he was expected to make his debut in the top category and never did.

There has been a shake-up going on at the Wood Brothers/JTG Racing outfit that fields Ambrose's entries, and it may all be for the better.

The Wood and JTG sides of the business will now operate quite separately, it seems, although still from the same premises in North Carolina and sharing some administrative facilities.

Of the 16 Sprint Cup races now scheduled for Ambrose, 12 are to be with Wood Brothers and the new four with JTG.

He will have -- certainly for the races with JTG -- a new crew chief, Aussie Walter Giles, who has 12 years' experience in American NASCAR and been with Dale Earnhardt Incorporated -- where he was race engineer for Martin Truex Junior, who won a Nextel Cup race last year and earned a spot in the Chase for championship as one of the top drivers in the series.

Butch Lamoreux has joined JTG from the mighty Hendrick Motorsports as racing operations director.

And renowned Australian engineer Ken Douglas, previously involved with MoTeC Data Systems and Stone Brothers Racing for which Ambrose drove in Australia, has joined JTG as technical director.

Then there is another former Stone Bros engineer, Paul Forgie, who has also joined JTG to work on research and development projects.

All of this sounds very promising as Ambrose prepares to start a three-day Nationwide test at Daytona from Monday, Australian time.

But then we get a rather different perspective from a couple of other sources.

On Ambrose driving in about half the rounds of the Sprint Cup in a Ford Fusion that earlier in the season will be driven by dual Daytona 500 winner Bill Elliott and occasionally by Jon Wood, a member of the owner family of the long-established and once-great Wood Bros team, there is a comment on the website troubleinturns2.com that: "In Ambrose's case, his schedule will depend largely on the status of the team's owner points position.

"If they are outside the top 35, then Ambrose's race load might get slashed."

Another website, fordracingfans.com, in its season preview of Wood Bros refers to "Australian sensation" Ambrose.

"The team has signed sponsors for most of the 2008 season, but still needs sponsors for several races," it said before the news of the extra four Sprint races.

"Marcos Ambrose will drive about 10 races in the Little Debbie Ford, Jon Wood will run nine with backing from the US Air Force, and Bill Elliott is expected to run the remainder of the races."

Then fordracingfans.com author Andrew gets to the point: "The team struggled mightily in 2007, finishing 36th in the owner's standings, leaving themselves without a guaranteed starting position in the first five races of 2008, which includes the 50th running of the Daytona 500.

"As hard as the 2007 was, I predict a solid turnaround for the Woods in 2008.

"While a single-car team with three drivers sharing the wheel is certainly not the most efficient way to be successful in the new NASCAR, I think that Wood, Ambrose and Elliott will combine to get and keep the machine in the top 35.

"The team's best runs will likely come at the road courses when Marcos Ambrose, road race expert, takes the wheel.

"As for a final position in the owner points, I predict that the #21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford will end up in about the 30th position.

"If the team wants to contend for wins and return to their past glory, they must expand.

"Until then, the team will remain mired in the middle to back of the pack, falling farther and farther behind the top teams."

Now that is a very sobering assessment.

We have wondered for some time now whether Ambrose is going to need to get with a better team if he is seriously to go anywhere in NASCAR racing.

His options are limited to Ford teams, though, and you then have to wonder whether any better team would consider him when it must make more commercial sense to have an American driver.

So then it perhaps boils down to whether JTG co-owner Tad Geschickter can make big things happen out of that North Carolina raceshop.

We'd like to think so, but at the top level NASCAR is probably the toughest league in world motorsport.

Team Kiwi takes yet another direction
New Zealand's sole V8 Supercar team in the Australian championship, Team Kiwi Racing, will appear in yet another incarnation this season.

With Stone Brothers Racing exercising its right to install 19-year-old Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen as its replacement for Russell Ingall, who has gone across to the Paul Morris/Holden team, Team Kiwi is set to field veteran Kayne Scott.

Negotiations to continue its full technical arrangement with Stone Bros fell through, so TKR -- based at Hamilton, venue for NZ's new street race in the championship -- has bought Triple Eight Race Engineering's spare Falcon chassis, in which Jamie Whincup won the 2006 Clipsal 500 and Stone Bros will provide the engines.

"We need to be more in control of our own destiny and direction," said TKR owner David John.

"We've had more than our fair share of issues and allegations made against TKR (particularly in its earlier bust-up with Ford Performance Racing).

"TKR is returning more to its original philosophies of developing New Zealanders into the V8 Supercar Championship at all levels."

John Martin, 23, is now Australia's lead driver in the A1 Grand Prix series which is holding its fifth round at Taupo in New Zealand this weekend, and he will get support for his second season in the British Formula 3 Championship -- this time with Raikkonen Robertson Racing rather than Alan Docking Racing.

James Davison, 21, finished second in the US Star Mazda Series last year with three pole positions and three race wins and will race again in America this year under a deal yet to be announced but which he hopes will eventually lead him into the Indy Racing League -- and the chance to drive in the Indianapolis 500.

Reigning Australian Formula Ford Champion Tim Blanchard, 20, is off to the British Formula Ford Championship with Jamun Racing, which has won that prestigious title the past two years.

The deal keeps Blanchard in a French-made Mygale chassis with which he is familiar.

Ashley Walsh, also 20, who won 10 races in last year's Australian Formula Ford Championship and was runner-up to Blanchard, has tested with Hitech Motorsport in Europe and hopes to join it for Formula Renault's Western European Cup.

May start for alternative rally championship
Finally there was some word mid-week from the January 9 meeting in Sydney about the Australian Auto Sport Alliance's proposed alternative Australian Rally Championship.

AASA spokesman Bruce Robertson said the meeting was attended "primarily by the event organisers and invited guests".

He said the AASA's philosophy is that the championship be "owned' by the event organisers -- that it be run by rally competitors, for competitors, with the focus always on reporting to event organisers.

Robertson said the organisers were unanimous in wanting to call the series the AASA Australian Rally Championship.

The first round planned is a rally at Bathurst on May 24-25, with other events in Queensland in July, Victoria in August, and NSW again in September and October.

Ed Ordynski, one of the top drivers in the history of Australian rallying and for much of last year chairman of the Australian Rally Commission, "facilitated" the Sydney meeting by invitation.

Other well-known names associated with the AASA proposal include Murray Coote, Wayne Bell and Bruce Garland.

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Ambrose image: BAM Media