Motorsport: V8 champs wait for all-clear

Friday motorsport reportFebruary 23, 2007

The authorities will decide today whether to allow Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly to race HRT's new VE Commodores at the Adelaide street circuit next weekend.

Pressure is intensifying for HRT to be expelled from the championship.

A pragmatic solution is needed, because there is a potential timebomb ticking here.

With Holden and Ford enduring tough financial times, it may not take much to trigger a decision at the headquarters of either car company to pull the plug on costly race programs which, sales figures would say, are of questionable value.

We have not placed any credence on lap times at this week's V8 Supercar testing in Victoria and Queensland.

Among the Holdens, 2006 Commodores were generally quicker than the new VEs -- but that's to be expected at what was ostensibly a shakedown. Adelaide will start to tell the true story.

Justice John Muir says deals between two-time Bathurst winner Longhurst and former Team Dynamik owner Wills were done to deceive the Touring Car Entrants Group (TEGA), who administer V8 Supercar racing.

Justice Muir questioned the credibility of evidence Longhurst and Wills gave at a four-day hearing this month.

The case, over the transfer of two V8 Supercar racing licences, is featured prominently in today's edition of Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper.

The court was told New Zealander Wills set up Team Dynamik in early 2002 and it bought a level one V8 Supercar licence which entitled it to race in the national championship.

After rule changes in 2003, TEGA cancelled existing licences and replaced them with two licences.

Team Dynamik ran two cars in the 2003 and 2004 championships, losing $1.5 million each year, the court heard.

No mention of it is made in the Courier-Mail report, and indeed there may have been no need for it to be mentioned in court, but Team Dynamik is most famous, of course, for the infamous test run at the Woomera rocket range in South Australia.

The Queensland court heard that, at the end of 2004, Wills approached a broker about taking on a business partner or selling equity in Team Dynamik.

Longhurst was reported during 2005 to have bought both licences.

This month's court case centred on whether the transactions were sale agreements, as Longhurst contended, or loan transactions, as Wills claimed.

In a 20-page judgment, Justice Muir found the documents for the first sale were shams and designed so TEGA would not exercise its right to buy licences offered for sale at the offer price.

The judge found documents used in the second licence sale were also shams.

Justice Muir said he did not regard Wills as a credible witness and he had willingly participated in the deception of TEGA.

He said Longhurst's evidence was contradicted in numerous significant respects.

"Like Mr Wills, he was a willing participant in the plan to deceive TEGA,'' Justice Muir said.

In conclusion, Justice Muir said claims by both parties based on the sham documents were abandoned.

"The Rat" thought he would be right to race Team Kiwi's Falcon recently acquired from Ford Performance Racing, but he's still not 100 per cent fit after breaking an ankle and his sternum in that huge Commodore crash at Bathurst last October.

Team Kiwi owner David John expects to name a replacement driver Monday.

Radisich came through a recent training camp with the FPR squad on the Gold Coast and tested at Victoria's Winton track this week but realised he was not ready for what is regarded as the toughest championship round, because of the heat and it being a solo race rather than drivers having the a chance to swap with co-drivers, as at Sandown and Bathurst.

"Adelaide is the hardest test for any driver," Radisich says.

"It is the longest single driver stints that we do in the championship, with 250km races each day.

"You need to be at 110 per cent every lap on a street circuit which is so unforgiving."

Radisich is hopeful of being right for Perth's round two at Wanneroo on March 23-25 and wants to be sure of competing in his home race on April 20-22.

"The championship is more than just one round and with Pukekohe (the NZ round) so early in the championship (third round) I need to give myself a little more time so we can come out all guns blazing in front of our home crowds."

Townsville mayor Tony Mooney, car dealer and chairman of the city's steering committee trying to secure a V8 race, Tony Ireland, MP Craig Wallace and Cochrane met Queensland sports minister Andrew Fraser on Tuesday.

Cochrane has been given the job of convincing the feds to add support to the state government's pledge, which amounts to about $15 million.

While the V8 Supercar organization initially projected the cost of getting the race up at a shade over $10 million, the state government has been saying for some weeks it reckoned the cost to be closer to $25 million, with ongoing annual costs of several million.

It seems all parties are now agreed on the higher projections.

Keeping spirits up is Cochrane's form in swaying the federal government to commit to the Bathurst upgrade a couple of years back.

Queensland's minister Fraser says he reiterated at this week's meeting the need for "a third partner" (i.e. the federal government, as $10 million is beyond any private consortium) and he says it needs to be "sooner rather than later".

The fact there will be a federal election later in the year may help the lobbying campaign.

Mayor Mooney says he's "really encouraged" and the quest for a race in his city is "back on track".

Steering committee chairman Ireland wants any deal to be for five to 10 years.

"These events are terrific community affairs," Ireland says.

Bunbury launches, now for the bunfight
It's great that not all Australian motor racing news of any consequence has to come from the eastern seaboard or even the cities in the central time zone, Adelaide and Darwin.

News out of Western Australia this week is that work is about to begin on the proposed new $30 million, 4.1km race circuit at Bunbury, 175km south of Perth.

The plans have been in the melting pot for some years, but this week it all seemed to be moving ahead with talk of up to five international events a year, starting by enticing Japan's Formula Nippon and Super GT series, as well as an Asian Festival of Speed.

There's also talk of the GP Masters series that includes drivers like Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, as well as perhaps recreating Perth's former World Rally Championship special stage.

The first event, the developer and operator -- Perth International Motorsports Management (PIMM) -- says, is scheduled for December this year, with the circuit to be ready by September for certification by the world governing body of motorsport, the Federation Inernationale de l'Automobile (FIA).

However, there are a couple of problems -- one of them major.

CAMS, or the Confederation of Australian Motorsport, the FIA's local arm, says it hasn't been contacted by PIMM about any proposed events.

The other potential obstacle is that the owner of Sydney's Oran Park, Tony Perich, is looking to recreate that circuit further out of Sydney as the urban sprawl extends and is looking to entice precisely the same Asian events that PIMM is talking about.

CAMS says it has "noted with interest" the reports filtering out of WA about the Bunbury track.

It says that, as the peak governing body of motorsport in Australia, delegated by the FIA, it would normally be involved in talks to host the kind of events it is proposing in Australia.

"Any legitimate international competition within Australia can only be organised under the auspices of the FIA and, in this case, through their sole delegated authority for motorsport in Australia, CAMS," says Bob Glindemann, acting chief executive of CAMS.

"In this scenario the accepted protocol for the organisation developing the track should be to contact CAMS outlining their proposed plans for the event.

"An application for a track licence would normally follow and CAMS would then arrange inspections to ensure that all the correct approvals have been sought and that all necessary safety standards are in place." 

CAMS says it has been in contact with its counterpart, the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF), which was concerned that Formula Nippon and the Super GT series not run in WA outside of the FIA's authority.

"Formula Nippon indicated that they have had no contact with the circuit in question, whilst the Super GT promoters said that they have been approached by the circuit but were not keen to bring their event to Australia, and totally exclude the possibility of bypassing the JAF," says Masato Yamaguchi, a senior JAF official.

CAMS' Glindemann says: "At this stage, CAMS has received no correspondence from PIMM regarding the proposed events."

Now that's strange, considering PIMM talks of ongoing negotiations with the Bunbury City Council, Dardanup Shire Council, South-West Development Commission and international motorsport governing bodies, as well as its launch this week at the Royal Perth Yacht Club and chief executive Bill Marmion saying the first event is slated for December this year.

Earthmoving is due to begin at the 333-hectare Bunbury site this weekend.

The track has been designed by Ross Roberts, who is the PIMM managing director.

John Castrilli, former mayor of Bunbury who is now the local member in the WA parliament, says he convinced PIMM several years ago that south-west WA was the place for a circuit.

"I think they were off on their way to Queensland and I said, 'Well, why go to Queensland, you're Western Australians aren't you? Why don't you come down to Bunbury and see what we can offer you down at Bunbury?' " Castrilli says.

"They sort of looked at me a bit funny and the next week they came down -- and the rest is history."

PIMM CEO Marmion says the project "has been a roller-coaster ride for us and finally we are at the doorstep to begin the circuit".

MD Roberts claims there were will be extensive television coverage of the circuit's events, especially in Japan, and the venue will provide a unique opportunity to promote Bunbury and WA tourism throughout the Pan-Pacific region.

"It will be a catalyst for a broad range of activities that will bring new tourism and economic benefits to WA and the south-west region of the country," Roberts says.

Sydney out for F1 GP
Suggestions this week, with the appointment of sports administration superman John O'Neill to head a NSW government major events task force, that Sydney may try to lure the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix away from Melbourne.

It looks like posturing at this stage. But here's a perspective ... More than a decade after it lost the GP amid much acrimony, Adelaide does not appear to have many regrets.

And, with the losses mounting in Melbourne (more than $21 million last year), Victoria may start wondering about the wisdom of keeping it beyond 2010.

Indeed, we wonder if some Victorian powerbrokers may be happy to "handball" it over the state's northern border.

Recent reports suggest the absence of the V8 Supercars from Albert Park this year could add about $5 million to the bill Victorian taxpayers will have to pick up this year.

Is the GP such a grand prize, or might it need a John O'Neill to breath some fresh life into it?

From now it will be managed as four regions -- the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia (including Australia and New Zealand).

This weekend's A1 round is on the street circuit at Durban in South Africa, with three rounds after that -- in Mexico, Shanghai and at Brands Hatch in Britain -- to complete the second season of the so-called "World Cup of Motorsport".

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