V8SC: Dark clouds on V8 Supercar radar

The V8 Supercar Championship has some serious headaches in its heartlands as it eyes expansion in far-flung places.

Question marks over Sydney 500 and New Zealand
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Much has been made of plans to expand the V8 Supercar Championship to 18 rounds within two or three years, yet as 2011 draws to a close there are big question marks over what should be two linchpin markets in the series – Sydney and New Zealand.

These doubts coincide with tumbling sales of Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores, still the only two types of car in the racing category.

This week there also has been news of V8 Supercars Australia and the Bathurst City Council campaigning against the high cost of policing the Great Race at Mt Panorama – apparently $700,000 a year for 350 police officers to attend. That is something that probably is easily fixed at the stroke of a NSW government pen deeming the long-established Bathurst 1000 a hallmark event as Rally Australia, held just twice in the state, already is.

Some positive news for V8 Supercars on the international expansion front is that work is to resume on the new Circuit of the Americas where a championship round is proposed in 2013. The money men behind that track in Austin, Texas, have met Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone’s financial demands for a grand prix there next year that would mark the return of F1 to the US for the first time since the GP at Indianapolis folded in 2007.

“Mr Ecclestone received his cheque today,” one of the founders of the Circuit of the Americas, Red McCombs, said midweek.

Another US GP also is scheduled for New Jersey, on a supposedly totally privately-funded street circuit against a backdrop of the New York skyline, in 2013.

There may yet be more twists in the tale of F1 revisiting America, but the immediate worries for V8 Supercars are at home and across the Tasman.

As pointed out, earlier this week despite terrific racing the Sydney 500 has not been the roaring success its proponents, particularly V8 Supercar chairman Tony Cochrane, projected it was going to be.

Now veteran motorsport correspondent Mark Fogarty, editor-at-large of Auto Action magazine, has brought his perspective to the scene.

“The Sydney 500 is a financial flop. So much so that its future is, if not in doubt, then certainly in question,” Fogarty has written in his Auto Action column this week.

Fogarty disagrees with the “Taxpayers 500” tag put on the event by another veteran correspondent, Peter McKay, saying the NSW government provided initial funding for the street circuit infrastructure, “believed to be worth around $12 million”, but its annual contribution is only about $2 million.

This author’s belief is that the contribution approved under NSW’s former Labor government was considerably higher, but back to Fogarty’s perspective.

“It costs V8 Supercar Events $17 million to stage (the Sydney 500), resulting in a current annual shortfall of about $2.5 million,” he wrote.

“Which, as Tony Cochrane’s pet project, was fine until Archer Capital bought 60 per cent of the business. Its [Archer Capital] mandate is to cut costs and make V8 Supercars’ operations more profitable to secure a better return on its $180 million investment.

“I’m reliably informed that Archer doesn’t want to wear the loss on the Sydney 500 any more, and is looking to the NSW government to assume a greater share of the financial risk. The only problem is that not only is the state’s nearly-new Liberal administration not of a mind to increase public funding of the event, it is actively opposed to the idea of a street race event at Sydney Olympic Park (SOP) and would rather get rid of the whole show altogether.

“However, with two years still to run on the previous Labor government’s deal with V8 Supercars and no get-out or even buy-out clauses in the contract [short of V8SA not delivering an event], Macquarie Street [the NSW government’s headquarters] can’t shut it down before the agreement expires.

“Given the financially-struggling government’s disinterest and Archer’s insistence on turning the Sydney 500 into a money-maker, there’s a distinct possibility that they may just kill it off by mutual consent.

“Privately, V8 executives aren’t ruling out the possibility that last weekend was V8’s last appearance at the SOP precinct, ending the sport’s dream of establishing a major event in Sydney.”

Fogarty has painted a bleak picture there. And, dare this author say “told you so” -- it’s an all-too-familiar tale with races on temporary street circuits.

And it’s a similar story across the Tasman, where the event on the streets of regional city Hamilton have been a financial disaster for the local council – costing it several times what was envisaged.

Radio NZ listeners heard this week that “Hamilton City Council has lost $37 million on the race over three years, after believing it would bring economic benefits to the city”.

Hamilton’s Waikato Times has said the council’s bill has been “more than $40 million and race-related loans of about $22 million”, while V8 Supercars “endured big losses” this year after taking over promotion of the event from a local company with which Cochrane has said it had an “horrendous” relationship.

Next year’s Hamilton 400 will be the fourth and last, and Cochrane has been in NZ this week saying it may be the last V8 Supercar event in that country.

“At this point in time it’s more than likely our last appearance in NZ,” he said.

That ain’t necessarily so. More likely, we suspect, is that Cochrane is trying to position the Kiwis into thinking they can’t afford to do without a V8 Supercar event somewhere.

One danger for Cochrane is that if NZ’s new V8 SuperTourers series – with cars similar to those that will race in the V8 Supercar Championship from 2013, but with 7.0-litre engines – takes off in 2012 the Kiwis might not see any need for the show from this side of the ditch.

Cochrane told NZ media he was now “dealing with a pretty crap deck of cards” in terms of alternative venues to Hamilton as well as “that fabulous NZ concept of resource consent”.

The alternatives being mentioned are Hampton Downs, the new permanent circuit between Auckland and Hamilton; a return to nearby Pukekohe; the Whenupai Air Base on the north-western outskirts of Auckland; or even back to windy Wellington at the southern end of the North Island where street races were held long before the V8 Supercar era.

Hampton Downs managing director Tony Roberts has said his venue, with a track only 2.7km long but with plans and approval to go out to 3.8km, has plenty of time to be prepared to host V8 Supercars from 2013 and that it offers “a long-term solution, rather than a temporary fix”.

What Roberts might not be prepared to do is pay a big fee for that pleasure, especially if the V8 SuperTourer series debuting there in two months is a hit with Kiwi fans.

In any case Cochrane has said Hampton Downs would not work financially, while Pukekohe and Whenuapai would require major works.

Cochrane will be angling for the best deal he can make beyond Hamilton, but the golden egg that was NZ in the days of V8 Supercars at Pukekohe may have been scrambled.

Seton elevated to Hall of Fame?Two-time Australian touring car champion Glenn Seton this week was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame, becoming the 15th member of its “Grid of Champions”.

Now 46, retired from full-time racing but driving an XB Falcon in the Touring Car Masters, Seton won the national touring car title in Fords in 1993 and ’97 – both times as an owner-driver, the last to achieve the feat.

He also was runner-up in the ATCC in 1987, ’94 and ’95.

Victory in the Bathurst 1000 famously eluded Seton in 26 starts but he had four podiums at the Mountain - three runner-up finishes - in 1987 with John Bowe and 2003 and ’04 with Craig Lowndes – and third with James Courtney in 2006.

Seton’s 209 ATCC/V8 Supercar event starts puts him fourth on the all-time list behind Bowe, Mark Skaife and Peter Brock.

He won 40 championship races, had 17 round wins, 54 podiums and nine pole positions and also won the Sandown 500 twice (in 1986 and 1990), and took pole position at Bathurst twice – in 1994 and ’96.

The other V8 Supercar Hall of Famers are 1999 are Ian Geoghegan, Allan Moffat, Bob Jane, Norm Beechey, Dick Johnson, Peter Brock, Colin Bond, Bob Morris, Fred Gibson, Jim Richards, Harry Firth, Larry Perkins, John Bowe and, curiously, Adelaide’s Clipsal 500.

Moffat, incidentally, has been made a life member of the Australian Racing Drivers’ Club. The four-time touring car championship, four-time Bathurst victor and six-time Sandown endurance victor is a long-time ARDC board member.

Nice finishing touch to Ambrose’s NASCAR year

?NASCAR commentator Geoffrey Miller has identified A J Allmendinger as the strongest runner in the final stages of Sprint Cup races this year – and Allmendinger’s Richard Petty Motorsports teammate, Australian Marcos Ambrose, as the next best.

Miller has established that Allmendinger, who raced at the Gold Coast Indy in its Champ Car days, gained 134 places in the last 10 per cent distance of the 36 races in this year’s Cup season – and that was how he finished 15th in the championship rather than 24th.

He found that Ambrose made 85 late-race passes on his way to 19th in the series.

Ambrose’s first season with the rejuvenated Petty team included his breakthrough victory at the famous Watkins Glen road course, top-five finishes at Las Vegas, Dover, Sonoma and Charlotte and 12 finishes in the top 10.

Mercs v Audis at Bathurst in February?Six foreign entries – including two Mercedes-Benz SLS GT3s taking on two factory Audi R8 LMS GT3s – are among the 10 in the outright category for the Bathurst 12-Hour on the last weekend of next February.

The 6.2-litre Mercs have been entered by German team Black Falcon, which has won three German VLN championships and raced in the Dubai, Spa Francorchamps and Nurburgring 24-hour races.

The other GT3 entries comprise two Ferrari F458s, two Lamborghinis - a Gallardo LP 600 and an LP 560 - a Mosler MT900 and another Audi R8.

Another 18 cars are entered so far in the other seven categories.

Tasman Series champ Peter Gethin dies?

Peter Gethin, the Englishman who won the 1974 Tasman Series when it was for Formula 5000 cars, died this week, aged 71, after a long illness.

The high point of Gethin’s career was driving a BRM to victory in the 1971 Italian Grand Prix in which five cars flashed across the line with just 0.61 seconds between them.

He also raced in F1 for McLaren – after Bruce McLaren’s death – and Graham Hill’s short-lived Embassy team in F1.

Gethin won British F5000 titles in 1969 and ’70 and the 1973 Race of Champions, also drove in the Can-Am sports car series in North America and later managed the Toleman F1 team.

FIA vows support for WRC?

Motorsport’s world governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), has pledged its commitment to “ensuring the long-term commercial future” of the World Rally Championship following the collapse of its promoter’s parent company.

The championship is promoted by British TV enterprise North One Sport, which was acquired this year by Convers Sports Initiatives (CSI). CSI is owned by Russian businessman Vladmir Antonov – who was arrested and bailed in Britain recently on suspicion of fraud and embezzlement.

Antonov was the major shareholder in failed Lithuanian bank Snoras, a former sponsor of the Renault F1 team and owner of English soccer club Portsmouth.

The FIA said it would “make every endeavour to provide for” the WRC’s “future stability”.

It said it was working on “an immediate plan to ensure the fundamental sporting and safety elements will be in place for the start of the 2012 season”.

It has relaxed the deadline for manufacturers to enter next year’s championship until December 19.

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V8SC: Dark clouds on V8 Supercar radar

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