MOTORSPORT: Win for defamed karting boss

The chief executive of the Australian Karting Association, Kelvin O'Reilly, has won $250,000 damages, more than $20,000 in interest and his legal costs are to be paid in a defamation case against a persistent Facebook critic.

And there could be more punishment to come for offender Peter Edgar, with a verdict imminent in a criminal case.

O'Reilly said Justice Bradley's decision in the Queensland Supreme Court defamation case was "complete vindication" not only for him but AKA chairman Mick Doohan, the five-time motorcycle world champion, and other AKA officials, suppliers and contractors who had been vilified by Edgar and his friends.

"None of them have deserved any of the lies that have been published about them by this 'enthusiastic retailer of distant, third or fourth-hand gossip'," O'Reilly said.

Justice Bradley said the last of 10 of Edgar's posts considered in the case "would have been devastating for the CEO of a motorsports organisation with 40 per cent of its competitors under the age of 15" and had made O'Reilly feel "hopeless and helpless".

Calling the posts from early 2016 up to last September "on-going unlawful infringement of his [O'Reilly's] right to protection of his otherwise outstanding reputation", the judge ordered Edgar to remove them from Facebook within a week.

One of Roger Penske's NASCAR champions, Brad Keselowski, has given Ford's Mustang its first victory in the top tier of American stock car racing at the second round of this year's Monster Cup at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

It was the 28th Cup series win for 2012 champion Keselowski. Another Penske driver, Joey Logano, won last year's series.

A fast-closing Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry driven by 2017 champion Martin Truex Junior finished 0.218 seconds behind Keselowski at Atlanta. Kurt Busch was third in a Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, while Kyle Larson led a race-high 142 of the 325 laps of the 2.4km oval in another Ganassi entry.

Daniel Ricciardo says one of the best things about the first of Formula 1's four-day pre-season tests last week was spending time with four-time world champion Alain Prost, regarded by some – including Bernie Ecclestone at times – as the sport's best.

"That is always useful," said carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo of analysing activities at the Barcelona circuit with Prost, an adviser to the Renault team.

Although Ricciardo was third fastest and German teammate Nico Hulkenberg topped last week's timesheets, the West Australian seven-time Grand Prix winner said it was hard to gauge yet where Renault stood in the pecking order.

"Decent, but everyone has a pretty decent car at the moment," he said.

"We are not going to know until Melbourne [the Australian Grand Prix on March 15-17]."

The only driver to have won all three of Bathurst's big enduros – the 1000, 12-Hour and Six-Hour – Paul Morris has launched a motorsport academy at his Norwell Motorplex in the Gold Coast hinterland.

"We're working to find the future stars of Australian motorsport," said Morris, already mentoring Anton de Pasquale in Supercars.

Morris has just added two Toyota 86 Racing Series cars to his stable for Queensland youngsters Declan Fraser from Mackay and Luke Vanna from Broadbeach Waters. Morris is also schooling Broc Feeney in the Super3 series.

As we've already reported on this site Sydney Motorsport Park's versatility will be enhanced by the $33 million investment package announced at the weekend, adding 150 permanent light poles to the venue.

News of the funding came from the Liberal government of NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian just a month before the state's election, and SMP's operator, the Australian Racing Drivers Club, says it will help create a world-class motorsport park.

It will enable the return of Supercar night racing to the government-owned venue next year, perhaps as early as January – with a reshaped 2019 calendar due to be announced mid-year, months earlier than usual.

Supercars held a night round at SMP last year with temporary lighting, but this year's SuperNight round is at Perth's Barbagallo Raceway in May.

Supercars chief executive Sean Seamer hopes the latest investment at SMP will lead on to the establishment of a Supercar team based in Australia's biggest city.

The new funding includes $6.4 million for a CAMS Centre of Excellence, which the country's governing body of motorsport says will be home to numerous community, grassroots and elite programs. Among them will be F1 in Schools and Dare To Be Different, which encourages female participation in all aspects of motorsport.

The grant also includes money for improvements to the adjacent Sydney Dragway and to find a new operations site for Motorcycling NSW.

"Motorsport is the fourth-most watched sport in the country and thousands of people in western Sydney love it, which is why we want to ensure the sport has a strong presence in western Sydney in the future," NSW sports minister Stuart Ayres said.

"Adding lights to Sydney Motorsport Park will make it more attractive for major events and allow motor enthusiasts to enjoy a lot more track time.

"This will make Sydney Motorsport Park the Silverstone of the Southern Hemisphere."

Seamer said the upgrade "will establish Sydney Motorsport Park as an elite, 24/7 motorsport facility".

"This also provides the catalyst to link Supercars' technology, education and training with western Sydney's strong tertiary education and engineering communities," he said.

"A Sydney-based team will also have the growing greater western Sydney community as a support base given the huge number of Supercars fans in the [city's] western corridor."

ARDC president Andrew Leithhead said the circuit lighting would "open the doors for substantial opportunities to further grow the western Sydney night economy, local tourism, as well as significantly expanding the existing on-site programs targeting performance engineering, education and training, innovation and technology development".

"It will help ensure Sydney Motorsport Park builds on its reputation as Australia's number one motorsport venue," Leithhead said.

ARDC CEO Glenn Matthews claimed that by working with CAMS and industry partners "we have been able to break the dominance of Melbourne and the Gold Coast as the sole location of technical development in Australia".

Matthews said $23 million had been spent on SMP over the past eight years – $16 million of it ARDC money with a $7 million contribution from the NSW government in 2012 towards extension of the Brabham circuit – one of four layouts at Eastern Creek.