MOTORSPORT: Where's the big rally?

Rally Oz has a date, a sponsor ... how about a venue?
The proposed resurrection of Australia's round of the World Rally Championship next year has had a sponsor for six weeks, a date has been reiterated this week by motorsport's world governing body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), but still no venue has been announced.

At the time of the Repco sponsorship announcement in mid-May, Colin Daly, executive general manager of Repco Australia and New Zealand, said: "We'll have to wait a little longer to announce the dates and venue for the long-awaited return of the WRC to Australia, but I can assure motorsport fans that the Repco Rally Australia 2009 is going to be fantastic."

There was also mention then of "an official launch planned for later this year".

For months, in FIA pronouncements, the date of the proposed 2009 Rally Australia has been early September -- indeed September 3-6 -- although it seemed a few weeks ago that there was a chance it might push back to November '09. However, September 3-6 has been confirmed this week.

But the question remains: where is Rally Australia 2009 going to be held? Remember that this country's WRC round was run in Western Australia for almost two decades up until 2006.

There were plans -- indeed very grand plans -- to revive it this year around a base at Norwell in south-east Queensland but with many, if not most or even all, of the stages in northern NSW.

That plan involved construction of a complex at Norwell that supposedly was going to cost $650 million but which turned out to be a lot of hot air and led to the embarrassing postponement of the revival of Rally Oz from this year to next.

In recent times the word has been that all the stages of the proposed 2009 Rally Oz will be in northern NSW, although the teams and officials may be accommodated on Queensland's Gold Coast.

However, ahead of last weekend's Australian Rally Championship round in Queensland we noted a report in the Sunshine Coast Daily newspaper in which Australia's WRC star Chris Atkinson supposedly endorsed the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast hinterlands (in Queensland) as ideal for Rally Oz.

But the report said the event "needs government support" -- and this gets to the very heart of the matter, which we have alluded to here before.

Consider these matters:
>> Is the Queensland government going to contribute the several million dollars, perhaps more than $10 million a year, that would be necessary to stage a WRC round in the state when it is already bankrolling the Gold Coast Indy and is committed to substantial funding of the new V8 Supercar Championship round on the streets of Townsville from next year? (We doubt it).
>> If Rally Australia is staged in northern NSW is the new NSW major events company going to support it in a major way financially? (We doubt it).
>> If the stages are in northern NSW but the accommodation on the Gold Coast is the Queensland government going to feel inclined to support the event, or might there be joint support from the NSW and Queensland governments? (We doubt it).
>> If Rally Australia is run on a course in either NSW or Queensland, or a combination of both, on roads that have not been used in the Australian Rally Championship in recent years, how come there does not have to be a trial event on the course a year ahead of it being an official WRC round, as happened in WA in the late 1980s?
 
We hear what Repco's Mr Daly and others have said about waiting a little longer for the details -- and we await those details with great interest.

We have made no secret here over the past year or so of our skepticism about Rally Oz being revived. Here is the link to our most recent comment (more here) and in there are links to earlier remarks. It's all a nice idea, but the time is rapidly nearing for the delivery of some substance.

At the same time, or even before, the chairman of Rally Australia's organising committee, Garry Connelly, who is also Australia's FIA representative, perhaps could enlighten the Australian motorsport public, and particularly people who pay fees to CAMS, how he voted at the June 4 meeting in Paris on FIA president Max Mosley -- he of the infamous dungeon sex orgy but who remains at the helm of the FIA after an overwhelming vote of confidence by the organisation's general assembly.

Provisional 2009 WRC calendar (dates are final day) -- February 1, Ireland; February 15, Norway; March 15, Cyprus; April 5, Portugal; April 26, Argentina; May 24, Italy; June 14, Greece; June 28, Poland; August 2, Finland; September 6, Australia; October 4, Spain; October 25, Great Britain.
 

It said the news "has given the sport's manufacturers much-needed stability to plan their long-term competition strategies".

Rallying's leading manufacturers, Citroen and Ford, had warned that they might withdraw had these decisions not been taken.

"It is also hoped that the new regulation framework will entice new car-makers into the WRC arena," autosport.com said.

From 2010 Group N and Super 2000 cars will be renamed Superproduction cars. The FIA is also to appoint a global promoter for the WRC as a matter or urgency.

Britain's North One Television -- which owns International Sportsworld Communicators, the WC's commercial rights owner (and previously controlled by David Richards of Prodrive/Subaru fame) -- is favorite to become the global promoter.

Citroen motorsport chief Olivier Quesnel has been scathing about the lack of promotion of the WRC.

"The promotion of rally is nothing. Look at other sports ... it's incredible. Look at DTM (the German touring car championship) ... it's so much more than WRC."

If the situation is that bad, there will want to be a big improvement if the WRC is to return to Australia in September 2009.

Oh Daniel, what a naughty boy you are
WRC driver Daniel Carlsson, who founded the World Rally Against Drunk Driving campaign, has been caught drink driving!

And Swede Carlsson tried to escape from the police who stopped him.

"I did something which is dangerous, stupid, and unforgiveable and which goes against my own convictions. I drove drunk," Carlsson admitted on his website.

"It is something I have never done before, but one time is one time too many and I'm going to accept the consequences of my actions. There's no defence for what I did."

Oz GP later in '09 but still 'on pole'
The Australian Grand Prix will be later next year -- still the opening round of the Formula 1 World Championship, but at the end of March.

That's going to mean a clash with either the first or second round of the Australian Football League for, from memory, the third time since the GP has been in Melbourne.

That's no big problem as the AFL is likely to avoid scheduling a game, certainly in Melbourne, during Sunday's race -- which will start at 5pm, eastern Australian time.

No announcement yet from the Victorian government or F1 emperor Bernie Ecclestone on the mooted extension of Melbourne's contract -- from 2010 to 2015.

The 2009 calendar has 19 GPs -- one more than this year.

The addition is the new race in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, at the end of the season.

The United States GP is missing from the schedule for the second year, although Indianapolis Motor Speedway chiefs still say they would like to have F1 back -- but that it is dependent on finding a sponsor prepared to underwrite the event.
 
Provisional 2009 F1 calendar -- March 29, Australia; April 5, Malaysia; April 19, Bahrain; May 10, Spain; May 24, Monaco; June 7, Canada; June 21, Great Britain; June 28, France; July 12, Germany; July 26, Hungary; August 9, Turkey; August 23, Europe (Valencia); September 6,  Italy; September 13, Belgium; September  27, Singapore; October 11, Japan; October 18, China; November 1, Brazil; November 15, Abu Dhabi.

Mosley turns the heat on Ecclestone
The World Motorsport Council meeting on Wednesday was not as explosive as anticipated, but the signs are that FIA president Max Mosley is starting to turn the screws on F1 commercial tsar Bernie Ecclestone.

The FIA is to review how F1 is governed -- a move seen as trying to reinforce the FIA's authority to Ecclestone's disadvantage.

The FIA has stipulated that F1 entries for next year's world championship will be open from only July 1 to 31 -- a move seen as heading off any sudden attempt by Ecclestone and the teams to create a rival series.

And Mosley is seeking to revive Formula 2 as F1's feeder series from 2009 on much smaller budgets than the GP2 series that replaced Formula 3000 and is supported by Ecclestone and Renault F1 chief and driver manager Flavio Briatore.

It's going to be fascinating to watch Mosley, under so much pressure for the past three months, turn up the heat on long-time ally Ecclestone, who has denied any suggestion that he had a hand in exposing Mosley's sex scandal.

Here's some further reading on the week's events:
grandprix.com
timesonline.co.uk
timesonline.co.uk

AA over-excited about Sydney street race?
The long gaps between rounds in the V8 Supercar Championship at the moment seem to be creating vacuums which get filled with what we might politely call overheated stories.

One such, we suspect, is this week's cover story -- "SYDNEY 2010 -- Homebush deal closer as pollies ramp up interest" -- on this week's Auto Action magazine.

Inside on page three the story is headlined: "SYDNEY STREETS AHEAD -- Events NSW confirms a Homebush street race is on its radar."

Here's how it begins:
"The prospect of a V8 Supercar race around the Sydney Olympic Park precinct moved one step closer with the NSW government confirming that it is conducting a feasibility study into what would become a marquee event for Australia's premier motor racing category.

"While it's too late for a 2009 calendar slot, Auto Action understands that the prospect of a V8 Supercar Grand Finale on the streets of Homebush in 2010 is now closer than it has ever been."

The story then quotes an Events NSW spokesperson saying: "We have become involved in this process just in the last week or so when we've been asked to conduct a feasibility study regarding the project, which we've now initiated.

"It is quite a substantial piece of work. We've been brought in through government in the last week or so. It's looking at the logistics, any infrastructure costs, looking at the whole project of holding it on that site."

We don't like potting our journalistic cousins at AA, but the story doesn't couch the possibility -- perhaps even probability? -- that Events NSW will come back with a report confirming long-held suspicions in and around the NSW government that a V8 Supercar event at Homebush is not a goer.

Events NSW's "homework" may include reading the auditor's report on Canberra's short-lived street race, perhaps considering why Perth has been so reluctant to have one, as well as turning the reading lamp on the financial accounts of the F1 GP on the streets of Melbourne's Albert Park.

Events NSW may get a more positive vibe from looking at Adelaide's Clipsal 500 and last April's new Hamilton street race in New Zealand, but it might then need to weigh that positivity against the TV audiences -- especially the size of the international audiences (not the potential reach, but the actual penetration into those potential markets -- i.e. the actual audiences!) -- to gauge whether the world really is hanging out for a Homebush street race.

Even V8 Supercar head honcho Tony Cochrane -- a man never known to see the glass being either half full or half empty, only ever overflowing -- told AA:
"We don't have any sense of being any closer to where we were 18 months ago. Nothing's changed. Our status is the same.

"I've been trying to get a street race up at Olympic Park now for five years.

"My comments still stand: I still would like to get a Sydney street race up, I'm still working towards it, I'm still remaining forever confident, but am I any closer than I was two weeks ago? No."

That seems to be a pretty fair summary of the situation.

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