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HOME ALONE What drivers are doing

SUPERCARS TEAMS FIGHT CORONAVIRUSS

Supercars category medical delegate Dr Carl Le (above right) with the prototype box designed

by Erebus to protect health care workers.

EREBUS’ RAPID COVID RESPONSE AFTER A phone call from Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan, Supercars category medical delegate Dr Carl Le has worked with the team to developing products in the fight against COVID-19.

Dr Carl received a phone call from Erebus CEO Barry Ryan a fortnight ago asking what the Supercars team could do to help the aid effort during the current pandemic.

Coincidentally, earlier that day Dr Carl Le had read an article about a Taiwanese doctor who had designed a box designed to reduce the droplet spread when a healthcare worker feeds an incubation tube into a patient.

That conversation set in place a chain of events that saw Erebus develop a similar box in ensuing days.

The Erebus involvement is a particularly personal one for Mirko De Rosa, engineer to Anton De Pasquale, who is from Milan and has family there.

Witnessing the plight his home country was in, De Rosa was inspired to take immediate action.

Even though Dr Le and Ryan had only exchanged pleasantries at race meetings up to that point, in the phone conversation ideas thrown around and after an initial idea, the direction of the project changed. “I saw that picture and thought, ‘that’s interesting’ then a few hours later Barry [Ryan] rang me after engineer Mirko De Rosa had seen these Decathlon snorkelling masks and he did a 3D printing of an adapter piece, to turn them into sleep ape masks,� Dr Carl Le told Auto Action. “After speaking to them for a while, I convinced them that Australia is in a pretty good position at the moment, we have

low numbers, we’re well equipped and the government has taken action to double the amount of intensive care beds. “We don’t believe we’ll be short of ventilators and my other thought was if we help one patient, that’s one patient. But if we actually focused on healthcare workers then each healthcare worker can help many people.

If we turned this around to looking at products that we could make to help healthcare workers and focus on them.�

Now, thanks to this conversation, Erebus has created three Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) products – a mask, a box and a shield – that are now ready for mass production. “The mask itself we’ve changed to make an adaptor piece with industrial 3M filters, which in the filter world, P2 is the same as N95 in terms of its articulate or virus filtering,� explained Dr Le. “We’ve been designing that over the past nine days. It’s been really difficult; we had ordered in the 100s these Decathlon masks. We were in direct communication with Decathlon and they quickly stopped the sales of these masks and kept them for PPE purposes. “The box, I had one the next day [Thursday], then the most critical thing I realised I could add suction to the box. I had them drill a 15mm hole in the corner and added to the wall suction, which is available in hospitals with a central unit featuring fluid filters, particle filters and extraction to where the suction gets pumped out. “That’s the game changer. All of a sudden, we have an ability to isolate the respiratory area of the patient, particularly during that

intubation [called a Covid intubation].�

Further development of the box is already in the works, to enable it to be transported around hospital wards with the patient. A range of these boxes with instruction videos are currently in use across Australia and are being made in Melbourne by Erebus as well as Launceston, while CoolDrive is distributing the product.

The face shield is the product that is most needed, as paramedics are running out during every shift. The design is adapted from one designed in Auckland, which protectes the face and shoulders, with Dr Carl anticipating that thousands of these will be made.

Although both Dr Carl and Erebus have come up with new concepts every second day, the mask, box and shield are the core products the team are pursuing.

Another two products to aid ambulance and airborne health workers are also being developed in the background, but the focus will be on the initial three items before the new designs are taken a step further.

Dr Carl told Auto Action that once these items pass the final trial, there will be a call to the motor sport fraternity to aid in mass production. “We’re at that point now, a lot of what we’re doing has been to create the items to get them to the stage of concept proof,� Dr Carl said. “Within the next week, there will be a call to arms to the other motor sport teams to formally assist. “Thankfully, it is a family and soon we’ll be reaching out to them to help us achieve our goal because I think we’ve gone a bit further than anyone else has.�

Heath McAlpine

SOME OF Australia’s leading professional motorsport teams have swapped their engineering and design skills from chasing speed, to helping fight the coronavirus pandemic.

A variety of potentially lifesaving medical solutions have been produced ranging from Triple Eight Race Engineering’s low-cost emergency ventilator, to a protective mask and perspex aerosol box developed and manufactured by Erebus S di Dr D Motorsport in co-operation with Supercars medico Carl Le (see separate story).

Other teams and their sponsors have volunteered to assist with manufacturing and distribution of these and other items, as Australia’s health system prepares for an infection peak around June.

Ventilators are vital because critically ill COVID-19 patients often lose the ability to breath on their own.

There is a global shortage of ventilators and in some places where the pandemic has been severe, such as Italy and Spain, some people have died because they have been unable to access them.

Triple Eight started work on its emergency ventilator on March 20 and has manufactured a prototype inhouse using its 3D printing capabilities.

It has now been asked by authorities to go to the next stage and develop the invasive ventilator to comply with approvals provided by the likes of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). “We are engaged in the next iteration of a ventilator to come up with something that fulfils a more general, ongoing need, rather than just the emergency-type situation which we tried to cater for with the initial iteration,� confirmed T8 boss Roland Dane.

Other initiatives involving motorsport and automotive businesses include: • The Walkinshaw Group – part owner of the Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercar team – is investigating the manufacture of a temporary ventilator and/or ventilator parts, as well as personal protective equipment (PPE) and even hospital beds.

Walkinshaw Group owns Holden Special Vehicles and New Age Caravans and is offering its services to fit out vehicles as ambulances and mobile clinics. •Premcar, essentially the engineering and design side of the old Ford Performance Vehicles/Prodrive Australia, is co-operating with Walkinshaw and offering its service for manufacturing and assembly assistance. •Ford and Toyota’s Australian divisions are both in discussions with federal government ventilator taskforce to assist with design and manufacture. •Racing driver and automotive consultant Renato Loberto has established a website to co-ordinate the motorsport industry’s efforts to fight the coronavirus. http://www.raceagainstcovid19.com.au/ .

It allows racing teams, engineering firms, organisations and individuals to register their skills and contact details.

Bruce Newton

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Supercars teams adjust to life with the coronavirus In the face of the COVID-19, Supercars teams are battening down the hatches to preserve their workforces and operations.

By BRUCE NEWTON UNABLE TO race until at least June because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia’s highest profile race teams have for the most part sent the majority of staff on holiday or have them working from home.

None, as far as Auto Action is aware, have permanently severed ties with significant amounts of their workforces.

Feedback garnered by AA suggests the government’s JobKeeper allowance – and other initiatives – have been a welcome weapon in the fight to keep structures intact.

Here’s our team-by-team outline of what’s happening where.

Shell V-Power Racing/DJR Team Penske Drivers: Scott Mclaughlin, Fabian Coulthard

FORD MUSTANG THE CHAMPION team of 2019 has

some staff on leave, some working from home and a small group still based out of its Stapylton headquarters in south-east Queensland. Beyond usual race team tasks, DJRTP is also providing its 3D printing capabilities to the health community.

Both drivers are living on the Gold Coast, prepping for the new Allstars Eseries and training for the resumption of real-world racing. Mclaughlin has a home gym, while Coulthard’s training regime is more focussed on running and bicycle riding.

Triple Eight Race Engineering/Red Bull Holden Racing Team Drivers: Jamie Whincup/ Shane van Gisbergen

HOLDEN COMMODORE ZB THE BRISBANE-BASED team’s Banyo workshop is predictably quiet, with only a skeleton staff regularly attending the Scott Mclaughlin is spending time racing in the virtual Indycar series and training for the Allstars ESeries.

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office. Some employees are working from home, others are on leave. This situation will be reviewed after Easter.

Only one team member has left the squad. Florian Hoefflin, a German national, has elected to return to his home country.

T8 has made national headlines because of its development of an emergency ventilator, a process that took only 10 days. It continues development work of the device.

Jamie Whincup is based on the Gold Coast and has his usual array of business and personal commitments to occupy him, in addition to training and prepping for the Eseries. Shane van Gisbergen is in lockdown on his family’s property south of Auckland in New Zealand, where he is entertaining himself with his many motorised toys.

Tickford Racing Monster Energy Racing Truck Assist Racing Team Supercheap Auto Racing Milwaukee Racing Drivers: Cam Waters, Lee Holdsworth, Jack Le Brocq, Will Davison

FORD MUSTANG ONE OF the biggest squads in the championship is running on “lessened capacity” until the end of April, when the situation will be reviewed.

Some staff continue to work at the team’s Campbellfield headquarters in north-western Melbourne, but those who can work remotely are doing so.

Others are being encouraged to take annual leave or use up lieu days.

The new Eseries has occupied the time of some staff and engineers in

BJR driver Macauley Jones has launched a coffee brand called Caffine & Cars.

support of drivers. Tickford is also using this downtime to accelerate an update to its workshop.

There has been no downsizing of employment numbers.

As per other teams, Tickford’s drivers have been encouraged to isolate, train and prep for the Supercars Eseries.

In sync with his real-life racing, Cam Waters is also contesting digital speedway events.

Erebus Motorsport/Penrite Racing Drivers: David Reynolds/Anton De Pasquale HOLDEN COMMODORE ZB EREBUS HAS created national headlines with its work on the design and manufacture of medical equipment to fight the Coronavirus (see our separate story). It is the sole focus of work at the team’s Dandenong workshop currently.

While all staff are being retained, only four people are allowed at HQ at any one time. That structure will be reviewed on April 17.

The team’s intention is to keep all staff employed and the JobKeeper program is expected to aid with that.

Drivers David Reynolds and Anton De Pasquale are prepping for the Eseries.

With Reynolds a sim racing rookie and DePasquale a veteran, their positions are flipped from real-world Supercars racing. Reynolds has also gone public admitting he’s taking a 50 per cent paycut.

Brad Jones Racing Dunlop Super Dealer Racing Plus Fitness Racing Team Cooldrive SCT Motor Sports Drivers: Nick Percat, Todd Hazelwood, Macauley Jones, Jack Smith

HOLDEN COMMODORE ZB THE ALBURY team is operating on a three-day working week.

“We are feeling the pain that every other business in Australia is feeling and it’s a work in progress,” said team boss Brad Jones, who recorded a milestone 60th birthday last week. “Our position changes almost daily.”

Team driver – and Brad’s son – Macauley Jones has got up to something different to the norm during his enforced break from racing, launching a coffee brand called Caffeine & Cars. Nick Percat, meanwhile, has rolled out a series of behind-the-scenes videos delving into his personal life and preparation for racing. Nelson the dog also stars.

BIGGEST TEAM DIGS IN

GRM committed to TCR/S5000 programs

All dressed up with nowhere to go. Chaz Mostert is going stir crazy judging by his social media posts!

Kelly Racing Castrol Racing NED Racing Drivers: Rick Kelly, Andre Heimgartner

Team 18 DeWalt Racing/Irwin Racing Drivers: Mark Winterbottom/ Scott Pye

FORD MUSTANG KELLY RACING’S Braeside workshop was closed immediately the Albert Park F1 event was cancelled. Virtually all staff have been put on leave or are working from home. All team engineers have relocated their CAD stations to their homes.

The intention of team owners Todd and Rick Kelly is to retain the current workforce numbers if possible.

One silver lining of the pandemic-forced halt in proceedings is it will help the team improve the competitiveness of its new Ford engines before it hits the track again. They were 15kg overweight at the opening Supercars championship round in Adelaide.

While sim racing rookie Rick Kelly has been figuring out what digital racing is all about, Andre Heimgartner has guested for Renault in an F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix.

HOLDEN COMMODORE ZB ALL STAFF at Charlie Schwerkolt’s newly expanded team are on leave until after Easter.

Schwerkolt’s intention is to keep all regular staff employed by the race team or at his primary business, Waverley Forklifts.

Schwerkolt has a fleet of forklifts at the Albert Park circuit being used for teardown of track, which is due to finish by late this week.

Team Sydney Holden Commodore ZB Coca-Cola/Local Legends Drivers: Alex Davison/Chris Pither THE TEAM’S move from the Gold Coast to Sydney Motorsport Park has been reportedly delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Will Davison was anxiously awaiting his new simulator last week, leaving his wife and Fox Sports Supercars reporter Riana Crehan unimpressed.

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Matt Stone Racing Yellow Cover Racing/Unit Racing Drivers: Garry Jacobson, Jake Kostecki, Zane Goddard

HOLDEN COMMODORE ZB THE EMERGING Queensland team has placed all of its approximately 20 staff on leave until after Easter.

“It’s our plan to go back to work postEaster, pending the latest government rules,” team boss Matt Stone told Auto Action.

“We’re re-arranging the workshop layout to comply with social distancing and putting in place the latest health regulations.

“Under the current government guidelines, we go back to work in a limited capacity after Easter and then be ready as soon as we can go racing again”

Walkinshaw Andretti United Mobil 1 Appliances Online Racing Mobil 1 Middy’s Racing Drivers: Chaz Mostert, Bryce Fullwood

HOLDEN COMMODORE ZB THE SQUAD’S Clayton workshop is shut down until the end of April, with a limited number of staff working remotely on both the Eseries and Supercars championship engineering projects.

The team is also investigating ways of assisting with the fight against the Coronavirus, something revealed by team co-owner Ryan Walkinshaw a couple of weeks ago. However, no details are likely to become officially public for some time.

The team has not downsized personnel, with the JobKeeper program providing added surety.While both drivers are prepping for the Eseries, Chaz Mostert is clearly going a little stir crazy judging by some of his social media posts!

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AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST race team, Garry Rogers Motorsport, is keeping on all staff to maintain its fleet of S5000s and TCRs. Like most racing operations, GRM is closed until after Easter, with all 33 employees taking annual leave.

GRM quit Supercars after more than 20 years at the end of last season, but is running 10 S5000 and 11 TCR racers from its factory at Dandenong South, in Melbourne’s southeast.

It builds all the Ligier chassis-based S5000s, which are powered by locally modified Ford Coyote V8s.

By car numbers, GRM is the biggest squad in the country – as well as the oldest, having competed since 1963.

Team bosses Garry and Barry Rogers planned to review staff requirements this week for after Easter, with the option of extending leave for some.

“We’ll assess that to see whether we’ll bring everyone back or keep some on leave,” Barry Rogers said. “There’s not a lot of work we can do.

“No one has been let go. The government assistance will help.

“It’s very difficult until we know when things are going to start up again.”

GRM has 10 of the 16 S5000s built so far on site, plus three Renault Meganes, three Alfa Romeo Giuliettas and five Peugeot 308s. Mark Fogarty

SUPERCARS ESERIES UNDERWAY THE SUPERCARS Championship released its provisional All Stars e-Series calendar ahead of the opening round of the online series.

All 25 Supercars drivers (including both Matt Stone Racing youngsters) will pilot their own simulators to compete in the 10-round series. Each event will contain two races at venues from across the globe in the world, past or present.

Circuits that the Supercars regulars will compete at include legendary venues such as Spa-Francorchamps, Silverstone, Daytona and the defunct Oran Park. Bathurst is the only circuit on the current calendar that will host an event, while Phillip island will make a return.

Each round will be broadcast live on Fox Sports every Wednesday from 7pm to 9pm (AEST), with the opening round beginning on April 9 shortly after Auto Action went to print.

Dan McCarthy Provisional BP Supercars All Stars e-Series calendar: Round 1: Phillip Island and Monza (April 8) Round 2: Silverstone and Barcelona (April 15) Round 3: Mount Panorama (April 22) Round 4: Montreal and Watkins Glen (April 29) Round 5: Spa and Nürburgring (May 6) Round 6: Circuit of the Americas and Sebring (May 13) Round 7: Daytona Speedway and Talladega SuperSpeedway (May 20) Round 8: Imola and Interlagos (May 27) Round 9: Road Atlanta and Road America (June 3) Round 10: Oran Park and Mount Panorama (June 10)

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COPING WITH THE CRISIS How Supercars is going to survive

Supercars supremo Sean Seamer briefed select motor sport media, including Auto Action’s Mark Fogarty and Bruce Newton, on how the sport is planning for the resumption of racing – whenever that that might be.

Here are edited highlights of the ‘roundtable’ conference call discussion: On moving forward amid all the uncertainty My No.1 priority right now is trying to understand how soon we can go racing and a lot of that is understanding what the federal government and also what the state governments are doing. Because we’re a national sport, every time there’s a federal directive and the states decide what they want to do, we need to understand that we understand all those implications.

On multiple plans for a new calendar Everybody’s looking at when they can get back to what normal looks like. Our priority is making sure that we understand, as a sport, how soon we can get back with a TV-only product. Unlike the ball sports, we have quite a considerable footprint when we put on a TV-only event, so our priority has been what is the minimum number of people that we need to be able to execute the best possible product. We’ve been talking with the teams and our operations team have been talking internally about how we’ll be able to execute a TV-only product because our belief is that, from what we understand today, the first thing we are going to be able to do is deliver TV-only events.

The expectation is that the restrictions will be reduced gradually on the other end of all this. So the first thing we’ll be doing is a TV-only event and from there, start to be able to introduce more fans. So the big focus right now with all of our people is to understand exactly how many people do we need to execute a Supercarsonly event and what’s the minimum footprint? Nathan (Prendergast, Supercars Media boss) and the (broadcast team and ATB (head of motorsport Adrian Burgess) have been working with Motorsport Australia to see if we can keep clusters down. We can move TV outside of the event, etc. All the different variables you’d think we’d be looking at to get us to the lowest head count to execute an event. But the reality is, until we can cross state borders, until we can put on an event with sub-500 people, we’re in the same position as everybody else as it relates to information.

On how Supercars is avoiding going broke while other major sports cry poor Our No.1 priority at the moment is making sure that we can keep the sport relevant – and that’s what we’re doing. We’re in a unique position versus any other sport in Australia in that we’re able to simulate actual racing.

We’re not naive enough to think that the Eseries is going

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to be as good as the real product, but it’s certainly great content in a time when people are starved for content.

Our drivers have embraced it and we’re really looking forward to 10 weeks of activities throughout that process.

Obviously, we’re very fortunate that the docuseries around Erebus is again good premium content that can keep us front-of-mind and relevant throughout the market. The reality is that we as a sport have been working for a year now on a content and media strategy that acknowledges and starts to work on the fact that we can’t race 52 weekends a year, anyway, so how do we create ratings when we’re not racing? And what you’re seeing over the next three months is an execution of that strategy and that will help our relevance being front-ofmind. Being able to deliver prime time ratings even if it’s not the same as actually going racing will help all of us navigate this period.

On the sharp decline of income We’re absolutely tackling very similar challenges, not just to other sports in Australia, but to every business in Australia. The reality is that we have a 14-round championship that was very well spaced out. We’d spent a lot of time trying to get that right this year.

We have an entrepreneurial bunch of teams that are prepared to do whatever it takes to deliver the championship. We did some back-to-back rounds last year (Symmons Plains and Phillip Island). We’ve already started to test, as I said, what a TV-only product looks like. So whatever we have to do around format, whatever we have to do around the calendar, we have a very cohesive and entrepreneurial bunch of people both at the Supercars level and the teams level to be able to get this away. I can’t speak for what the other sports are going through. All I can do is focus on what we can control.

Supercars supremo Sean Seamer has much to consider before racing resumes. Images: LAT/ Supercars/Daniel Kalisz

The important distinction I would make is that we’re a very lean group of people. The second point I would make is that when we’re not racing, we’re not incurring any costs. So for us as a business collectively, what we need to do is navigate the next few months. Now, we’re not special. Everybody’s hurting. But what we’re focused on right now is what we need to do to keep the sport relevant over the next few months to make sure that we’re satisfying as much of our deliverables as possible.

We believe we can do a lot of that through the Eseries.

And the big question remains, which is true not only for us, but every other sport, is when we can go racing again – and from there, delivering the championship. So for us, we’re talking about 14 rounds – not 22, not 30, not every weekend, not twice a week. So the challenge that we’re dealing with is different and I believe, from the conversations that I’ve had, the entrepreneurial spirit of the teams and of us at Supercars will help us navigate this period. It’s not permanent. We will be back.

On when and how racing will resume The reality is that nobody knows for sure when and under what circumstances we’re going to be able to put an event on. We have multiple permutations of what the calendar looks like, when we can go racing, what is TV-only, what is not TV-only. But to project exactly which event is going to be first and when, you’re either lying or you’re Nostradamus. So for us right now we’re remaining flexible. We have a few different plans and our priority as things evolve is to make sure that we can deliver the championship. So, do I know what the date for Winton (still scheduled for June 5-7) is going to be? No, because I’m not a liar and I’m not Nostradamus.

I’m not trying to be elusive around the when and how of what we’re doing. The reality is that there are so many different scenarios that impact the timelines that all we can do is scenario plan and then, as we get guidance from the government, update those plans.

From what I am hearing from other sports and everyone else is that June from a TV-only product is a best-case scenario.

On the impact of the crisis on Gen3 planning Like every other business in the short term, our focus is on managing our costs and making sure we are ready to go again when we can go racing, making sure the sport comes through in the best possible shape.

We still have big questions that we need to tackle.

My hope is this experience galvanises the key decision makers to make sure that what we end up with from a product point of view with Gen3 really is cost-effective and focusses purely on entertainment, and is an entertainmentdriven exercise and not an engineering-driven exercise.

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If nothing else over the coming months, this experience should be good for that. The ambition of cost saving (with Gen3) might mean that the timeline can be reduced.

The reality is until we get going again properly, we aren’t going to know. But I haven’t received any information or communication to suggest the 2022 timeline should be pushed back. If anything, we would like to think that a simplified Gen3 program that reduces cost could be introduced sooner.

On the prospect of all teams surviving and maintaining a 24-car field From all the conversations I have had with all the teams, I think the one thing that is glaringly obvious is that motor sport is taking a little bit of a back seat in terms of what our priorities are and what our values are collectively, whether it’s team owners or engineers. I think you can see that coming through in the work that the guys at Erebus and the rest of pitlane are doing in terms of putting ventilators in place.

The reality of the situation is until we go racing again, until we know when and in what format we go racing again, it would be too early to speculate on who’s there and in what form that is. In the conversations I have had with all the team owners, their priorities are on their families, their businesses and their people. What the championship looks like and how that plays out is our focus and that is what they are relying on us for.

On his change of attitude towards TV-only events I know we said we didn’t want to run TV-only rounds because we believe this to be one of the last visceral experiences left on the planet and my position on that

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hasn’t changed. But at the end of the day our fans, our sponsors, our partners are getting starved for content quite quickly. The point I would make is we didn’t want to come out quickly and say “Right, we will do TV only”.

We wanted to take stock and that’s why we postponed those three rounds (Symmons, NZ and Perth). Things are changing every day and every week and if we need to adapt and be agile, we will.

The idea is we want to go racing as soon as possible and if that means we’ve got to do TV-only rounds, then so be it. That’s a different position to where we were two or three weeks ago. It was high-risk to pursue a TV-only strategy with those three rounds at that time. We have a bit more time to plan for that now and that’s what we are looking at.

On why Supercars is in better shape financially than AFL, NRL & other sports Let me be clear, nobody is having a good time of it at the moment. The point I was trying to make was when we are not racing, we are not incurring costs. I can’t speak for ball sports, but the rosters and the amount of people that we have is significantly lower, and the work that the government is doing around JobKeeper, JobSeeker, GST breaks, etc, significantly helps motorsport. Now, that doesn’t mean we are having a good time. We are under the same challenges as every other sport, but the point I want to make is when we are not racing, we are not incurring as much costs as everyone else.

But we still have to be lean and mean, and be ready to go at the end of the year.

It’s going to be a difficult couple of months for all of us.

Hopefully, in Q3 (July-September) we can get going again (with racing in front of crowds).

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Image: LAT

KIWI RALLY driver Hayden Paddon has confirmed that for the third time in less than 12 months he has made an unsuccessful return to the FIA World Rally Championship. In 2019 a testing crash ruled him out of Rally Finland, before his second attempt came to a halt when the Australian round was called off due to bushfires. The Kiwi has announced that he was set to contest a four event program with Hyundai in the i20 Couple WRC car, which was set to conclude in September at his home Rally New Zealand. The former Argentina event winner reached the contract stage but the outbreak of the Coronavirus has put plans on hold.

THE WAITING GAME Motor sport at all levels ready to go again Motorsport Australia chief executive Eugene Arocca and Australian Racing Group director Matt Braid told MARK FOGARTY how the rest of the sport is coping with the COVID-19 shutdown MA’S AROCCA The governing body’s boss outlines his view of the way forward at all levels

THE GLOBAL outbreak of the Covid-19 virus has resulted in the cancellation of this year’s Finke Desert Race, which was scheduled to take place from June 5-8. It is the first time that the Northern Territory based event has had to be cancelled in its 44-year history. Finke generally attracts around 7000 interstate visitors to the outback, and will return again in June next year.

Image: LAT

STEPHEN GROVE has won the Porsche Payce Carrera Cup Le Mans 24 Hours competition and this will see him drive in the Carrera Cup support race. Grove was the lucky raffle winner drawn to compete against a field of over 60 Cup cars set to take part at the legendary French endurance race meeting, which was scheduled to take place on 13-14 June, however due to the Coronavirus it has been pushed back to September 19-20.

Image: Neil Hammond THE 2020 edition of the always popular Winton Festival of Speed has been cancelled like many events, both nationally and internationally, due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the event not scheduled to take place until August 1-2, the decision has been made to cancel the festival for the safety of competitors, spectators and volunteers.

JOSHUA ANDERSON currently leads the popular pocket rocket Aussie Racing Cars Series and has announced that he will partner up with the Sieders Racing Team for the remainder of the 2020 season.

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What’s the latest outlook on a return to racing?

It’s such a fluid situation that it’s almost like every day brings a new challenge. But my gut feel, my impression, my understanding, my suspicion is that not much is going to happen anywhere in the sporting world before August. I’m not an authority on this, but I would think that it would be unrealistic to expect that we’ll be getting back to anything resembling organised sport until August.

I would think there’ll be some grass roots starting to come back to life before then, but I don’t think large crowd gathering are going to in vogue for some time. The fact that the government itself has allocated a six-month commitment for JobKeeper would suggest that that would probably be a very good indicator of where we think we’ll be – either coming out of this or, hopefully, very close to coming out of it.

What about TV-only events before then?

Well, the problem with motor sport is that TV-only events still have a fairly large infrastructure. It’s not like 18 athletes times two on a field. We have the infrastructure, everything from big trucks with lots of engineers and mechanics and drivers, and then you have the officials overlaid. And for some time there was confusion when the original 500 crowd gathering was in place, whether or not that excluded participants as opposed to spectators – and no one really seemed to answer that. But it became clear that it was 500 people in an undivided space. In motor sport, you have lots of divided spaces, so if you wanted to split hairs, you could have pits divided from the track divided from the officials, all sorts of variations. So my feeling is that it’ll be TV before crowds and that, again, will present its own challenges to motor sport because of the sheer volume of people involved in a large-scale activity, even without the crowd.

You look at something like Bathurst – you’re not going to get away with 40 officials, let along the teams that are competing. Even if you only had the one category, you’d still get a lot of people in and around. It’s something we’ve only had a very preliminary discussion about with , and we’re certainly willing and able to work with them in every way possible to get them back on the track and other events back on the track, but, again, I think we’ll see TV before we see crowds.

What would be the minimum number of officials for a TV-only Supercars event?

It’s a good question. We think this period of inactivity will give us, the FIA, race event promoters and organisers, the opportunity to

review how we might operate in a new world.

And so, from our point of view, we’re doing a bit of work back-of-house and we’re reaching out to the FIA to see how much can be done to allow motor sport to proceed, at least on the short-term, under some varied conditions. Now, we can never put safety at risk, obviously, because that would have a double whammy effect for us if we were to proceed with an event under limited rules and then have a major incident. So for us it’s that ever-difficult balancing act. But we certainly expect that, as many sports have said, we’re not going to come out of this the same way we went into it. And there’ll be some outstanding opportunities that come from this challenge and one of those may be streamlining further and becoming more efficient in everything we do – from board meetings right through to on-track activities and the way we manage them. On the basis that there will be racing again, and a likely crush of events trying to fit in as many as possible towards the end of the year, there simply won’t be the officials to go around. So we’re working on two things.

One is upskilling and adding more officials to the pool. There are a lot of people sitting at home, working less days, less hours, and we think we can come up with some innovative ways to actually increase our officials pool. And, secondly, find ways within the rules that we can operate safely and allow events like the Supercars or Shannons to proceed inside any public gathering restrictions that have been created by the government and might be relaxed.

Will you be able to cram all the series into the back half or even last quarter of the year?

I think you’ll find that will be one of the major challenges. I think if you’re trying to compress four, five, six months into, really, two-and-ahalf months if you start looking at OctoberNovember because Christmas rules out most of December. I think then you would be looking at a summer series. But I think there are creative ways of making what would be a standard event into a larger event to accommodate other championships. For example, Motorsport Australia has a number of single-day championships, and they often run separately and individually.

You could, for example, lock away four days at Phillip Island and run them all at once and get some economies of scale. You have the officials there, they’re there for four days instead of the usual three, but you’d actually put a lot more on the track. We know they’re already under the pump, but I think there are ways in which we can creatively work with the operators of venues, plus our officials, to get the most out of the track time we’re going to have. But I have no doubt that some will spill out and fall out, and not be able

to make it. That then opens up a whole question of whether you end up with a 2020/21 summer calendar. So it’s all very live, it’s very fluid.

ARG’S BRAID Promoter of TCR, S5000, TCM and Trans Am looking at all options When is ARG looking to return to racing and how?

From a group perspective and talking to most of the competitors in our categories, everyone is keen to get racing as quickly as we can. That’s what our desire is, but we need to be cognisant of the current situation with restrictions and health and safety. We are working very closely with Motorsport Australia on all that. Post-AGP, there were opportunities we were looking at – could we race within certain crowd restrictions, but obviously those restrictions kept getting further decreased in number and increased in severity, which meant it wasn’t feasible to run any form of motor sport at this stage, just given the number of people required to do it. We are continually analysing when would be likely and it’s still a bit of a guess, to be quite frank.

So somewhere between June and the end of the year?

Exactly. Effectively, June through to the end of the year and beyond. We’re working on multiple options at the moment – multiple calendar options of what it would look like – and, really, on the basis that if we get the go-ahead to start by a certain time, this is what it would look like. If it got pushed back later, this would be an alternative option and so on and so forth. It all depends on how long this goes on.

Are you looking at coming back initially with TV-only events?

There’s no final decision on it, but certainly we have done the modelling on TV-only rounds and, obviously, that could be an option for us to consider, definitely.

Would you come back with just the core categories of TCR and S5000 initially?

For us, given the categories we do have under the group banner, and also the partnership we have with Motorsport Australia and the Shannons events, it’s imperative for us to have as many categories as possible run. For example, the Sydney Motorsport Park round. There was modelling done that indicated we could get pretty close to being under the 500-person limit as a TV-only event. So, yes, we believe there is scope to have multiple categories rather than just one. We are looking at four-to-six categories potentially.

WANNEROO MASTER PLAN UNVEILED LAST WEEK the master plan forecast for the provisional Wanneroo Raceway upgrades were unveiled and featured an entirely new FIA Grade II circuit adjacent to the current complex.

The new precinct was proposed due to the cost of improvements needed to the current circuit outweighing the benefits and to optimise the parcel of land that is to the north of the circuit.

Within the master plan it was stated that Turns 3,4 and 7 needed to be realigned on the existing circuit.

Also, it was suggested that the circuit needed to be lengthened to at least 3km to attract world class international events and widened to 10m, to conform to Motorsport Australia guidelines.

The cost of these changes at approximately $2.8 million and the loss of character to the original layout contributed to the Wanneroo Council favouring an entirely new complex.

This doesn’t mean the current layout will sit dormant, but it will turn into a driver training and club circuit for the Western Australian Sporting Car Club.

The new 4.6km design produced by noted circuit designers Apex meets the above stipulations and includes the ability to use various configurations, such as a 2.9km National circuit inspired by recently built tracks such as The Bend Motorsport Park and Tony Quinn’s Highland Motorsport Park in New Zealand.

A significant pit lane facility featuring corporate and spectator viewing points are included.

The current layout will also receive a birthday with improvement of access into the circuit, an overpass and new fencing included within the master plan.

Priority 1 plans tally up to $183.5 million, which is

RACE-WINNING HERITAGE QUALITY VALUE & SUPPORT Tilton Engineering strives to produce the best racing parts and service for drivers and racing teams dedicated to their sport.

Tilton’s wide range of products spans across metallic, cerametallic and carbon/carbon racing clutches, hydraulic release bearings, racing clutch disc packs, racing flywheels, racing pedal assemblies and master cylinders, the renowned Super Starter series, and the accessories that make them all work together. made up of the above plus an off-road training course and an FIM motocross track.

Motorsport Australia has suggested the new facility should be run by a private operator, but support the new Keysbrook development also situated in Western Australia.

The Wanneroo Council are estimating the new complex, if all plans come to fruition, will be completed by 2030 as the area continues to have a population boom and eyes an increase in Asian visitation.

It was also highlighted that the Perth SuperNight Supercars event was ranked in the top seven events

by Tourism WA. These plans also come after the Collie Motorplex near Bunbury was recently extended and the aforementioned Keysbrook facility, located south of Perth, is currently being assessed. HM

WEEKLY USA TILTON AIR FREIGHT DELIVERIES

FOX OFFERS MOVIES INSTEAD OF MOTORSPORT PAY TV service Foxtel is offering sports subscribers extra content at no additional cost in an attempt to convince them to not cancel their contracts.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, virtually all live sports including all professional motorsports have been postponed, leaving Fox Sports customers without the content they are paying for.

Fox Sports is the primary telecaster of the Australian Supercars championship, Formula One and MotoGP, none of which are racing at the moment. It is telecasting the new Supercars All Stars Eseries instead.

Despite the lack of real-world racing and many subscribers also losing their jobs, Foxtel has not revealed any relief plan for financially distressed subscribers.

Instead it has offered them reviews of their situation on a case-by-case basis, as well as free additional content such as its movie channels.

Auto Action has been querying Fox for three weeks about any specific help it is providing to struggling subscribers during the pandemic.

“The feedback on movies in lieu of sport has gone down well with subscribers, but if people are still concerned they can contact us directly to discuss options,” a Foxtel spokesman told AA late last week.

Customers are asked to call the 13 19 99 or 1300 657 346 or request

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return contact by social channels.

They can also send a text to 0408 346 733.

But complicating this, the network has cut its call-centre staffing because of the pandemic and customers looking to reduce their spends or cancel contracts, are spending hours on hold.

Meanwhile, upgrades to a subscription service can be completed online.

An article on the news website The Daily Mail about the issue drew both critics and fans of Foxtel and Fox Sports.

One disgruntled customer wrote: “Given the sport i watch wont be on for another 12 months at least, and the fact ive spent over 3 hours of my miserable life on the phone trying to get through with no success.....when I do i wont be down grading as intended i will cancelling my whole platinum package on principle Foxtel customer service sux ... looking at Netflix now..”

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Conversely, a Foxtel fan wrote: “What is everyone whingeing about everyone that has the sport package have been given the movie package free until the end of June and all subscribers got the drama documentaries lifestyle and cartoons package free until the end of May so what is everyone’s problem. Oh I see you just want to have a whinge!”

Auto Action contacted the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for clarification. While not commenting on Foxtel specifically, it issued the following statement: “Where there have been changes to the service being provided, the ACCC expects that the business will clearly communicate these changes to its customers.

“Your rights in relation to a changed service will depend on whether the change is a material change or whether the change has a minimal effect on the business’ ability to provide the service originally contracted for.

“Where the change is a material change, you may wish to still continue with the service. However, if you do not wish to continue, the ACCC expects that business will not charge you for the changed service where you have advised the business that you do not wish to proceed with the changed service.” Bruce Newton

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TILTON - CHOSEN BY WINNERS SINCE 1972 For the full range of Tilton products call the Australian distributor Racer Industries 07 5546 2040 or visit www.racerindustries.com.au

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9

LATEST NEWS

CHINESE CAR brand Lynk & Co with Cyan Racing has announced two of its drivers for the upcoming World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) season, retaining the services of former British Touring Car and World Touring Car champion Yvan Muller and his nephew Yann Ehrlacher. Both drivers were part of the four car operation in 2019, however this season Ehrlacher moves from Cyan Performance Lynk & Co to reigning teams champions Cyan Racing Lynk & Co. The final two drivers are expected to be announced shortly.

FROM THE next round of the IMSA Sportscar Championship, both the Mazda RT24-Ps will be run by Multimatic Motorsports taking over from Team Joest which has ran the Mazda Prototype cars successfully since 2017. The terms of the agreement stated the partnership was set to terminate at the conclusion of the Sebring 12 Hours, but due to the Coronavirus the famous American endurance race has been pushed back until November. As a result Mazda and Joest parted ways at the end of March. This announcement will not change the driver line ups in either the #55 or #77 cars.

AS MOTORSPORT around the world has come to a stop, fans of car racing have had to turn their attention to ESports. However, real life race tracks are still being used but not for racing. Charlotte Motor Speedway in the United States is being used as a COVID-19 test site for residents. Without leaving their cars, patients could receive swab samples from medical professionals. Meanwhile, at the Buddh International Circuit in India which previously hosted Formula 1 races, it is currently being used as a shelter and quarantine zone.

HYUNDAI MOTORSPORT has revealed the liveries that will feature on its i30 N TCR cars throughout the 2020 World Touring Car Cup (WTCR). As previously announced, four of the Korean cars will again compete in the series this season with the two WTCR series winners Gabriele Tarquini and Norbert Michelisz remaining with the Hyundai N Squadra Corse team. Nicky Catsburg will again drive for the second squad which will now be run

by Engstler Motorsport, with reigning TCR Asia series winner Luca Engstler joining the Dutchman.

Both of the Hyundai liveries look similar but with different colour schemes (the image above is of the Engstler team colours).

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MCLAREN MULLING GTE

MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE has signalled an interest in expanding its sportscar racing footprint from GT3 into the world endurance championship GTE class.

The road-going supercar builder – as opposed to the F1 team that is part of the same group – currently campaigns the turbopetrol V8 720S coupe in GT3 racing.

But company managing director Mike Flewitt told Auto Action an expansion into GTE with the racing successor to the 720S is feasible.

GTE is the production silhouette class raced within the WEC. It is also employed by the North American IMSA series, where it is branded as GTLM. While GT3 and GTE cars have some similarities, attempts to unify them technically have failed in the past.

“We are not far off next generation GTE regulations,” Flewitt told Auto Action while in

Australia for the Bathurst 12-hour. “I need to wait and see what they are.

“They are a year or two away so maybe by the time we are designing our next GT3 car there might be an opportunity to do something that would be compliant with both.”

Flewitt said he was impressed by the way Ferrari developed its current 488 GT3 and GTE cars in tandem, suggesting McLaren could look toward a similar program.

“It made for a slightly more expensive GT3 cars, but it made for a very efficient way to go about the project,” said Flewitt.

“I looked at that and thought it made sense.

So if the regulations can remain sufficiently closely related, I could see us taking a leaf out of their book and doing something like that.”

Flewitt expressed more enthusiasm for ‘production-based’ sports car racing than prototypes, which are currently the subject

of a proposal that would unify WEC LMP1 and the IMSA DPi into the one class dubbed LMDh. It will debut in WEC in the 2021/22 season and IMSA in 2022.

“It’s not in the plan at the minute,” he said.

“If you asked me again in a few years’ time … maybe. I think endurance racing and GT racing is in our heart.”

Flewitt stressed a McLaren prototype racer would still have to be close enough to the road car so customers can relate to it, something he felt LMP1 and the supporting LMP2 category didn’t currently deliver.

“Frankly, if customers can’t relate to it, what’s the point,” he said.

“The litmus test for me - and I am an enthusiast – is if you wash all the paint off and people can’t tell you what car it is, then there’s probably not a great point.” BN

LOVE DELAYED REIGNING PORSCHE Carrera Cup Australia winner Jordan Love will have to wait to begin his first full season in Europe, but the 20-year-old is just glad to have a deal put together.

It was announced last week that Love will follow previous series winners Matt Campbell and Jaxon Evans in contesting the highest level of Porsche racing, Supercup.

The Fach Auto Tech operation Love joins has fielded Campbell and Evans in the past, which the youngster hopes he bring him the same success after putting the deal together.

“At the end of last year, the goal was pretty clear to head over to Europe, so naturally you start speaking to different teams to see what they have to offer,” Love told Auto Action.

“I spoke [team owner] Alex Fach at the Night of Champions last year, we spoke a little bit and nothing came out of it. Just after the Bathurst 12 Hour, I was pretty close to having a deal with another team sorted, but that fell through and I got back in touch with Alex, 48-72 hours later we had something ready to go.”

The Western Australian planned to test his new mount at Zandvoort, but the recent pandemic changed those plans quickly and he decided to head home from his UK base as the seriousness of the situation was realised.

“I went over and spent a couple of days with the team in preparation for our first test day, which was supposed to be at Zandvoort,” Love said.

“That got cancelled 24 hours before we were supposed to be there and it all happened pretty quickly. Within 48 hours I had nothing until May. “I realised it was getting serious and decided to go home when I could in case it got worse, which I did because it is pretty bad over there.

“I haven’t driven anything since the shootout last year and that was November!”

Love is part of three-car Fach Tech Auto line-up consisting of fellow Aussie Joey Mawson and experienced Dutchman Jaap van Lagen, with which he hopes to draw on their experience in the class.

with Oscar Piastri

NZ V8s TURN TO TA2 A MAJOR change will occur across the ditch as the NZ V8 Touring Cars adopt TA2 regulations for the 2019/20 season.

One each of the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro bodied TA2 chassis have arrived on Kiwi shores, joining a two-seater Camaro and a Dodge Challenger sourced from Australia for demonstration purposes.

A further order of four chassis is currently being shipped to New Zealand and another eight are heading into production shortly.

To be known as the NZV8TA2 Championship, it will follow the successful formula that hit Australian shores, with Howe Racing Enterprises building the models combining a purpose-built racing chassis and a 525 bhp motor.

“The NZ Touring Cars Ltd board and category management are delighted to introduce the all new NZV8TA2 Cars taking V8 Racing to a new era,” says BNT V8 Category Manager Gary Lathrope.

“At 1250kg and over 525hp there is no other car that can compare to the performance of these cars in their price range. This formula allows drivers to use their skill behind the wheel, not the money spent on the engine.”

The New Zealand models are the exact same as the ones raced in Australia featuring a McLaren Engineering-built 6.2L LS3, G-Force 4-speed transmission, Penske single-adjustable 7” shocks and 2” front sway bar, while Hosier will provide the 3045 slick tyres that will wrap around the 15” Bassett steel wheels.

The specification allows the organisations from both sides of the Tasman to have a closer working relationship.

“Over the past 18 months we have worked closely with Peter Robinson from PBR Distributions who owns the TA2 Racing Series in Australia. Peter’s passion and determination for this category to be introduced to New Zealand has been greatly appreciated,” Lathrope continued.

Peter Robinson says it is an exciting phase for domestic motorsport on both sides of the Tasman.

“It was approximately 18 months ago that I saw an advertisement on Facebook that the New Zealand BNT V8 Series posted, about looking to update their cars and include the Mustang, Camaro and Challenger in their series,” said Peter Robinson.

“PBR are the exclusive dealers for Australia and NZ for the Howe same-spec TA2 cars. New Zealand supply will be direct from Howe Racing Enterprises in Michigan to Paul Manuell from Eastern Automotive & Performance, who has been appointed as the importer and supporter of the race cars, sales, spares and servicing.

“We have already had direct interest from New Zealand competitors wanting TA2 cars as well as through the BNT V8s Championship, and despite the small level of advertising we have done, we already have a list of about 20 people with their hands in the air ready to buy one or more TA2 cars.”

The current Class One machinery is expected to be competitive against the new TA2 regulations.

Heath McAlpine

SYDNEY SPEEDWAY PLANS REVEALED FOLLOWING ON from the NSW Government’s declaration last year that Parramatta City Raceway would make way for a rail corridor, formal planning for the new Sydney International Speedway was announced late last month.

Sydney Metro have earmarked the new speedway site at Western Parklands’ Precinct 5: Eastern Creek Motor Sports Park. Construction is planned to begin later this year with a projected completion by the start of the speedway season in September 2021.

The multi-million dollar Sydney International Speedway project will be built on the western side of Sydney Dragway, between the strip itself and Ferrers Road, about 200m to the north of Austral Bricks. Sydney Metro states that the build project should create about 50 jobs.

The plans include a new world-class clay-based racetrack to an international standard for speedway vehicles and motorcycles. Support infrastructure will include pit bays, workshops, garages, trackside operational support services, a pit crew viewing platform and vehicle access to the pits via an intersection to be built off Ferrers Road.

Spectators will be catered for with a grandstand as part of the venue infrastructure, along with public amenities, corporate facilities, and provision for food, beverage and merchandise outlets. Besides dedicated parking for spectators and visitors, there will an overflow parking area.

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The latest in ancillary setup is also included such as lighting, fencing, fire safety systems, a fibre optic network for trackside and external broadcasting, with large screens and internet provided for.

The plans also have taken in the provision for stormwater drainage and flooding, as well as the impact on the surrounding area during the construction stages, environmental management measures, landscaping and finishing works.

The community will have the opportunity to have a say on the proposal during the public exhibition of the Environmental Impact Statement later this year. GOB

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HASN’T LIFE changed dramatically for us all since my last Auto Action column just a month ago?

The Coronavirus pandemic has created real challenges around the world; none more significant than for those struck down by the virus, or for our healthcare workers working around the clock treating the infected, and the massive number of people who have lost their jobs. It’s a difficult time for so many.

With that in mind, it’s essential for people like me who have been inconvenienced at worst to try and look at the positives, keep ourselves busy, and help out if we can.

My trip home for last month’s Australian Grand Prix has turned into an unexpected extended stay, and while I’d like to be racing, I am getting to spend a couple of months with my parents and sisters in Melbourne, which is a nice positive.

It’s the most extended stay I’ve had at home in the last five or six years, and that can only be a good thing.

Even though I’m almost 17,000km from London, I’ve still got plenty to keep me busy with training and schoolwork, and also staying in touch with Mark and Ann Webber.

We’ve got a pretty good home gym, so I’ve got all the tools to keep fit and keep up with my programs. The Renault Sport Academy has also been organising Skye gym session with all the academy boys once or twice a week and setting us a few challenges, so that’s been fun.

School is a little more complicated, especially as I’m nearing the end of my A-Levels at Haileybury near London. The time zone difference doesn’t work in my favour, but my teachers have been doing as much as they can to assist me.

Our exams have been cancelled, so it’s teacher assessments and working remotely, while waiting for the official guidelines on what’s going to happen and organising online meetings with my teachers at times which work conveniently for us all.

There hasn’t been any further news on what’s happening with the FIA F3 Championship as yet, with no official rejigging of the calendar as they’re waiting to see what happens.

I think the plan from the championship is to keep the nine rounds and there’s undoubtedly enough F1 rounds going on to get in nine rounds, so hopefully we’ll get in our full calendar.

The F3 Championship is another step up from Formula Renault with 30 fast, competitive drivers on the grid, including a few F1 junior academy drivers.

Like me, they’re all getting in extra training, so I have to make the most of all the physical exercise and keep my mind busy while still preparing for Round 1, whenever that might be.

Thanks to my family, my title-winning Formula Renault race car arrived in Melbourne the week before the Grand Prix.

It’s a pretty cool thing to have and look back on in the years to come.

Hopefully, the Renault title was the first of many, so I might have to talk to dad about what happens if we win a few more championships. We might have to make more space available.

While I’d like to jump in, fire it up and give it a few laps – it’s the closest thing to a current F3 car in Australia – I’m making sure I’m sticking to the government guidelines to stay healthy during the pandemic.

Please make sure you do too – stay safe, stay healthy, and self-distance.

Oscar’s next column will appear in Auto Action’s issue on sale May 7.

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LATEST NEWS

e-SPORTS IS NOW AS THE COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a stand still, motor sport has a unique opportunity to continue competition through e-Sports.

Top line categories including Supercars and Formula 1 have run e-Series events strictly for sim racers during the last few years, but now with varying degrees of seriousness they have created events for drivers, fans and celebrities alike.

It has evolved from strictly arcade racing to a serious form of e-Sport, with real world effects that include chassis set-up, tyre wear, fuel and strategy, providing participants with the experience of driving within the comfort of your living room.

It also gives the opportunity for fans to compete alongside their heroes, whilst race drivers keep themselves race fit.

ARG e-SPORTS DEBUT

LAST WEEK the ARG e-Sports Series kicked off with its opening encounter at the Mount Panorama Circuit.

The racing up front was exciting, close and fair, however there were a few hiccups along the way.

The livestream suffered technical difficulties throughout, which ARG media representative and commentator for the series Grant Rowley said was due to insufficient internet.

“The internet that we had where the stream was being created meant the host server was massively

compromised,” Rowley told Auto Action.

“We had given ourselves a lot of time for testing and setup, we had done some test streams but in the end we were chasing internet that just wasn’t there, and we couldn’t fix it. We couldn’t have foreseen it being that bad, so for Round 2 it will definitely be fixed up.

“For the second one we have got just a couple of really simple changes that will ensure that what the viewer sees is going to be much better.”

Experienced simulator racer and Garry Rogers Motorsport TCR driver Dylan O’Keeffe explained that the drivers themselves experienced worse lag than normal, because of some bad home internet connections.

“It was definitely worse than what it usually is. You could tell that it was struggling, my internet seemed okay but some others were not great,” O’Keeffe told AA. O’Keefe was involved in an exciting race long battle with former British Touring Car champion Ash Sutton, though he believes the racing could be further improved if some of the back markers are removed.

“Apart from the technical issues it was run really well. I didn’t mind the format, I probably would like to see half of the drivers not in there because they just crash,” O’Keeffe said. “When you came across lapped cars you didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Rowley felt that the collisions were mostly due to the nature of the Mount Panorama Circuit.

“I don’t think we need to cut down on the amount of entrants, the problem with Bathurst is when you have an off there aren’t many places to go, you hit a wall and you bounce back onto the circuit,” Rowley said.

Trans Am driver Nathan Herne kept his nose clean and as a result leads the series heading to the second round at Zolder, Belgium, tonight.

He enjoyed the round but was surprised considering the number of professional drivers that the racing was not cleaner.

“With 50 pure racing drivers I expected it to be a lot cleaner racing, more passing, and more room given, but yeah last night was different,” he said.

“No one was thinking about the end of the race at all, they were thinking about that corner.”

Rowley felt there were a large number of on track incidents due to glitching but as the stream is fixed they will now clamp down harder on penalties.

“The aim of the online racing is for some competitive fun while the real world sorts itself out. If we have to come down hard on drivers who disrespect the privilege of being involved in this series, then we will,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s for fun. Let’s not forget that.” Dan McCarthy

MCLAUGHLIN’S INDYCAR WIN

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REIGNING SUPERCARS Champion Scott McLaughlin has competed in the opening two rounds of the IndyCar iRacing Challenge, impressing overseas with a strategic victory at Barber Motorsports Park.

McLaughlin was already mooted as a driver to watch after finishing the opening round at Watkins Glen in fourth.

A two-stop strategic masterstroke devised

by Team Penske engineer Jonathan Diuguid enabled him to take victory at the second round, which was broadcast live in America on the NBC network.

“It was really cool. I had Jonathan Diuguid helping me who’s my real-life engineer at Team Penske and the # 2 Shell car and it worked out great,” McLaughlin said.

“It was better than last week when I was doing the numbers for fuel in my head. We worked hard on what we were going to do with the fuel, and we got some really good track position.”

Despite two strong performances contesting the e-Series, the two-time Supercars champ is not expecting the racing

to be the same in real life, when he is set to debut later this year.

“It’s going to be really different to do it in real life, but this has been really cool for me,” he said.

“It’s been a great way to get involved in the series and to help more people learn about the series. I’m really thankful to Team Penske, INDYCAR and iRacing for having the chance to run this race.” Dan McCarthy

RICCIARDO’S REALITY RATHER THAN return to his base in Monaco, Daniel Ricciardo remained in Australia at his parent’s farm near Perth after his home grand prix was cancelled. The Australian driver has been doing plenty of physical training in self-isolation while he waits for the F1 season to eventually begin.

“I’m not like racing laps in my head yet, because I don’t know what track we’re going to be racing on,” 2018 Monaco winner Ricciardo said. “I watched an onboard of Monaco and got a bit sad. I don’t really know where we’re going to be. That (cancelation) hurt me.

“They’re all going to hurt, for sure, Melbourne being so close as well. The reality is setting in, unfortunately.”

Ricciardo is looking forward to be able to race again.

“I’m thinking of qualifying last, because I think Turn 1 is just going to be mayhem,” he said of the first race of 2020. “I’ll just watch it all unfold, and then I’ll lead the first lap. I’ll put it on pole and voluntarily start last!”

It is a good thing that Ricciardo did not go back to Monaco because the drivers living there now have their training programmes curtailed because of the lockdown rules in France and Monaco.

Ricciardo has been doing this training via the internet with his performance coach Michael Italiano.

“Training’s definitely the thing that’s keeping me with that competitive mindset,” Ricciardo said. “You get a bit of anger out when you train, so that’s been my medicine for now. I feel like now is kind of perfect to get in shape. We’re forced to stay in, there’s no jet lag, there’s no airports, we can really create like a training camp which we don’t always have.”

For now he is being patient.

“It’s been nice knowing we’ve got time, we don’t have to rush it,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of drivers and people in general, whenever this is over, all pretty fit I hope.”

Lewis Hamilton, who is also doing his training in isolation, has chastised people who are ignoring advice about Covid-19.

“I’m praying for my family’s safety each day but I’m also praying for you out there,” he said. “There are people out there still going to clubs and bars and large gatherings, which I feel is totally irresponsible and selfish. There is nothing we can do about it either way except try to isolate ourselves, stop ourselves from catching it and spreading it.

“I’m praying for those working at the local store, deliverers, doctors and nurses who put their own health at risk to help others and keep the countries running. Those are the heroes. Please stay safe, people.”

TAKING ACTION AFTER BUMBLING through the last-minute cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix, the Formula 1 world started to take some decisive actions to deal with the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic.

First, however, Formula 1’s CEO Chase Carey sent an open letter to apologise to the fans.

“We wanted to provide some thoughts and perspectives from last week as we address the coronavirus pandemic,” Carey wrote. “First and foremost, our priority is the health and safety of the fans, teams, and organisations of Formula 1, as well as wider society. We apologise to those fans affected by the cancellation in Australia, as well as the postponement of the other races to date.

These decisions are being made by Formula 1, the FIA, and our local promoters in rapidly changing and evolving circumstances, but we believe they are the right and necessary ones.”

The FIA, Formula 1 (Liberty Media) and the

10 F1 teams held several teleconference meetings and came up with a plan of action.

Formula 1’s traditional mandatory mid-season break runs for 14 days in August. That break was extended to 21 days and brought forward to March/ April.

It makes sense to do this because the teams are in limbo, and this will allow their employees to stay home at a time when they should be doing just that.

Furthermore, some of the postponed races can now be slotted into August – assuming the F1 season has finally begun.

But now the seven F1 teams based in Britain have some of their workers return to the factories to produce the ventilators that will be required by Britain’s National Health Service to help save victims of the coronavirus.

One of the decisive actions agreed upon by the 10 Formula 1 teams, the FIA and Formula 1 is to delay the 2021 radical technical rules package – aimed at create more overtaking and more exciting racing – to 2022.

Furthermore, the teams will continue to use their 2020 cars in 2021.

However, the new cost cap of US$175 million (A$300m) per team per year will still go into effect next year. This will benefit the smaller teams as the big three – Red

Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes – were going to spend massive amounts of money this year developing their 2021 cars before the budget cap came into place next year. However, while those three teams will still invest in their 2021 cars this year, their spending will be limited by their decreased income.

And the financial playing field will be more level in 2021 leading up to the introduction of the 2022 cars.

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LATEST NEWS

NO ALMS ROUND AT THE BEND NEXT SEASON

THE ASIAN Le Mans Series has revealed its provisional 2020/21 calendar with the notable absence of an Australian round at The Bend Motorsport Park.

The ALMS visited the South Australian venue for the first time in January earlier this year utilising the full 7.77km GT circuit, however has been replaced on the calendar by the iconic Suzuka Circuit in Japan.

The managing director of the Asian Le Mans Series Cyrille Taesch Wahlen has put the decision down to the current global issue with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic problem it may cause.

“Unfortunately given the current global situation and its economic consequences, coupled with the logistics and calendar constraints we had to make the very difficult

decision not to return in the 2020/2021 season,” Wahlen said.

Wahlen is certain that the series will return to Australia in the near future as it proved popular with both teams and drivers alike.

“The entire paddock enjoyed our first trip to Australia and in particular the exciting challenges The Bend Motorsport Park offered the drivers,” he said.

“We remain absolutely committed to returning to Australia and The Bend Motorsport Park as soon as possible.”

The 2020/21 season begins in Japan for the opening round on November 29, before visiting the Shanghai International Circuit in China, Buriram Chang International Circuit in Thailand and concluding under lights at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia on January 23

2021.

Wahlen stressed that this was a provisional calendar and with the current COVID-19 pandemic the calendar may have to be changed.

“The health and well-being of our team, the competitors who race with us, our fans and all members of our paddock remains our priority,” he said.

“Therefore, we will continue to monitor the situation very closely and react immediately with a Plan B ready, should the situation require.

“Despite the difficult times we are all going through, and the uncertainty we are all operating in, we feel it is important that we let our teams and drivers know what our initial plans are and provide them visibility of our new season.”

The January finish is the earliest conclusion to a season since the 2016-17 campaign and this has been done for a number of reasons.

“In addition to the current challenging climate, we also had to consider a combination of shipping constraints, track availability, plus avoiding clashes with other significant events in the region,” Wahlen said.

“We must also consider the Chinese New Year break (12th of February 2021) which prevents us from holding a race for most of February.

“As a result of finishing earlier, teams will now have sufficient time to ship (rather than air freight), their cars and equipment back to their home base before the start of the European, American or Australasian Championships.”

Dan McCarthy

WRC 2022 ENGINE REGS CONFIRMED THE FIA World Motor Sport Council has made a number of important decisions and announcements in regards to the future of the FIA World Rally Championship, which is set for major regulation changes in 2022.

As previously announced, the WRC is pushing towards more environmentally friendly cars, moving to hybrid power from 2022. Currently all WRC vehicles run a four cylinder 1.6L direct-injection turbocharged power unit producing more than 283KW. At the recent World Motor Sport Council meeting it was discussed what the base engine should be going into the new era, whether the series should stick with the current power unit, or change to the similar, but less powerful R5 based engines used in WRC 2 and WRC 3.

A decision was reached to remain with the current engine formula featuring changes going forward, which will see a reduction in the development, manufacturing and running costs of the engine. This will be done by freezing the engine parts, simplifying the turbocharger and reducing the number of engines eligible to use per year.

In December last year the FIA put out an invitation tender to become the sole supplier of the hybrid kits for the initial three seasons of the new WRC Rally1 regulations from 2022-2024.

The FIA also confirmed at the meeting that German brand

Compact Dynamics was awarded the tender and will produce the parts. The company currently supplies systems to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, FIA Formula E Championship and the World Endurance Championship.

Despite losing Citroen as a WRC manufacturer ahead of the 2020 season the FIA rally director Yves Matton feels that the new Rally1 category regulations are continuing to gather

momentum ahead of its 2022 launch.

“I am convinced Compact Dynamics will bring a wealth of experience to the programme,” Matton said.

“Additionally, the measures approved will enable us to achieve cost reduction in both development and annual maintenance costs, alongside a simplified process.”

Dan McCarthy

MCLAUGHLIN INDYCAR DEBUT DELAYED THE 2020 edition of the Indianapolis 500 will not take place in the month of May for the first time in the event’s 104-year history as both the Indy 500 and Indy Grand Prix have been rescheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Indy 500, which was scheduled to take place on Sunday May 24 has been rescheduled to take place on August 23.

Traditionally in the weeks preceding America’s biggest race IndyCar holds a round on the Indianapolis Road Course, an event it was scheduled Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin was to debut. This round has been pushed back to until July 4 and as a result will not feature as the pre-500 race.

At this stage McLaughlin’s Supercars commitments don’t clash with the new rescheduled Indy GP date as it fits neatly

between the Townsville and Hidden Valley rounds.

However many question marks still linger over the Kiwis debut, one of the reasons is due to a likely re-gigging of the Supercars calendar to accommodate the three postponed events in Tasmania, Perth and New Zealand which may cause an event clash.

During the first round of the IndyCar iRacing Challenge it was discussed that the two-time Supercars champion may debut at another venue if there is a clash between Supercars and IndyCar on the July weekend.

The Kiwi has plenty of opportunities as the IndyCar Series organisers have revealed a revised calendar, but the Detroit Grand Prix double header is the latest event to be cancelled. However,

the Iowa Speedway and Laguna Seca rounds will become double headers.

A second race around the Indianapolis road course has been scheduled for October 3, the week before the Bathurst 1000.

The virus is evolving and worsening in America day by day, if the races do go ahead on the new scheduled dates international travel restrictions may still be in force and cause McLaughlin an issue.

His boss 83-year-old Roger Penske is now the owner of the both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar Series and will no doubt do everything in his power to get McLaughlin into the seat of one of his IndyCars, Penske said a few words on the Indy500 delay.

“The Month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is my favourite time of year, and like our fans, I am disappointed that we have had to reschedule the Indianapolis 500,” he said. “However, the health and safety of our event participants and spectators is our top priority.”

In recent days Penske has had to begin laying off a number of IndyCar and IMS staff. Sending out a letter to his 60,000 Penske Cooperation employees worldwide he stated that a number of his senior staff will be taking pay cuts. It is believed that 50 workers in IndyCar and at the IMS staff have been temporarily laid off for around two months, these are mainly construction workers at the circuit.

Dan McCarthy

HEIMGARTNER ON WORLD STAGE

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KELLY RACING Supercars driver Andre Heimgartner had a fraught debut contesting the second round of the Formula 1 e-Sports Virtual Grand Prix held at Albert Park.

The opportunity through BP/Castrol’s joint association with Kelly Racing and the Renault F1 team allowed the Supercars rising star to compete alongside many current and former Formula 1 stars.

Qualifying 15th, Heimgartner battled 2009 Formula 1 World Driver’s Champion Jensen Button for much of the event before the two tangled while the Kiwi was in 10th, dropping him back to 16th by the end of the race.

The star-studded field featured Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who won the round, while George Russell finished third, Antonio Giovinazzi fifth, Alex Albon eighth and new Williams recruit Nicholas Latifi in 10th. Dan McCarthy

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LATEST NEWS

WINTON’S TURN 4 COMPLETED THE ALTERATION to the kerbing at Winton’s Turn 4 has now been completed, but that’s not the only change.

The work carried out at Turns 3 and 4 included lowering the ripple strips, widening the kerb at Turn 4 in what was a general modernisation of the two corners.

Drivers at the TCR Australia test day sampled the new kerbing for the first time with the majority giving the changes the tick of approval.

Not only this., but Turn 4 will now be named Coates Hire Corner as the equipment hire outlet have agreed to take naming rights sponsorship of the newly modified section of the circuit.

Coates earthmoving product specialist Jason Snoodyk was pleased by the new partnership with Winton Motor Raceway.

“Coates Hire is extremely proud to be associated with the Winton Raceway name,” said Snoodyk.

“We, as well as many others have seen the significant improvement that

has been made and are extremely happy to be able to provide our quality products to help them with their big events. We look forward to continuing our association with them well into the future” With the works now finished and a new supporter, Jeff Grech can’t wait for racing to get back underway at the circuit.

“Having such a big commitment from such a well-known brand such as Coates Hire just confirms to us that

we are pointing in the right direction,” Grech said.

“With Coates Hire Corner now finished, we look forward to the day where we can show the fans and teams the positive changes we have, and will continue to make here at Winton Raceway.”

As it stands, Winton is set to host the next major national meeting, the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships on May 1-3.

Heath McAlpine

MCADAM BUILDING TEAM FORMER V8 Touring Car Series winner Liam McAdam has made the full-time switch to the TCR Australia Series racing for his own team Liam McAdam Motorsport.

In recent months, the Queenslander has injected an array of experienced people into the team as he aims to win the Michelin Cup. McAdam has competed in the Toyota 86 Racing Series the last three years, slowly growing his team from a family squad to a more serious multi-car operation.

McAdam believes getting the right people in the team is helping him in the driver’s seat.

“We have been slowly upscaling and getting the right people on board, I think that is the key when you are running a team yourself, making sure you get the right people on board,” McAdam told Auto Action.

“You can’t do everything yourself, you can’t expect to be knowledgeable about everything, and you can’t be the best at working on the car, running the

car and driving the car at the same time. You are better off getting the help that you need to be able to have the best shot you can.”

One of these new recruits to the team for this year is former Formula 1 and Supercars engineer John Russell, who McAdam has had previous experience with.

“I first ran with John in the 2015 Bathurst round in Super2 and he was great back then. He went off and did Formula E and a few other things,” McAdam said.

“I know he ran Brenton Grove in Super2 last year and then an opportunity came to snatch him up, he was quite keen to work on something a bit different and we got him on board which is absolutely fantastic, he is an amazing engineer.”

After contesting three rounds

of the TCR Australia Series McAdam feels he is on top of the Audi RS3 LMS TCR car and got former TCR Europe Series winner Jean-Karl Verney to assist him during a private test at Phillip Island.

“Everyone had to make that

transition into learning how to drive a high powered front-wheel drive car,” he said.

“It (learning the car) has gone reasonably well I feel, we got Jean-Karl Verney over at the beginning of the year we got him over to give us a bit of

coaching, a bit of setup advice and that definitely helped talking to someone who has been racing them for years.”

For more on Liam McAdam turn to pages 38-39 in which Auto Action talks to the 22-year-old on his interesting and successful

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LATEST NEWS

CANADIAN GRAND PRIX POSTPONED THE CANADIAN Grand Prix has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Originally scheduled for June 14, the Canadian event becomes the ninth Formula 1 race to be postponed or cancelled. The 22-race season was supposed to begin with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 15.

“This postponement was not a decision that was taken lightly or easily,” the Montreal organisers said in a statement.

“Over the past month, we have been in constant communication with Formula 1 and representatives from the city of Montreal, Tourism Montreal and both provincial and federal governments. We have heard the directives issued by public health officials and as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic are following the expert guidance provided by the authorities.”

Francois Dumontier, president and CEO of the

F1 SHUTDOWN EXTENDED AN EXTENSION to the Formula 1 teams shutdown period has been approved.

A statement from the FIA said: “Following unanimous approval by the Formula 1 Strategy Group, Commission and all teams, the World Motor Sport Council has ratified by e-vote the decision to extend the Formula 1 shutdown period from 21 to 35 days, to be taken in March, April and/or May, for all competitors and Power Unit manufacturers.

“Further discussions regarding this topic remain open between the FIA, Formula 1 and all teams in light of the ongoing global impact of Covid-19.”

In past years the mandatory shutdown for the teams was for 14 days in August. Because of the Covid-19 crises, that was extended to 21 days and brought forward to March/April. This opens up August for postponed races to possibly be rescheduled for that month.

McLaren and Williams have already put many of their workers on furlough. DK

Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, said: “I am proud to see how such wonderful initiatives and technical advancements stemming from Formula 1 are being applied in a time of crisis.

At the moment it is crucial that all of our energies be put together to overcome Covid-19.

We will welcome you with open arms at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Tickets bought for the race will be valid for the new race date when it is announced.

“We have been working closely with our friends at the Canadian Grand Prix over the past few weeks and support them in taking this necessary decision to ensure the safety of fans and the F1 community,” chairman and CEO of Formula 1 Chase Carey said.

Carey has said that races might be run on three consecutive weekends later in the year.

That opens the door for a Canada/USA/Mexico tripleheader. DK

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F1 INSIDER

RACING INTO THE UNKNOWN ... OR NOT? WHEN WILL the 2020 Formula 1 season finally start? The only thing I know for sure is that the situation will change a week from when I am writing this, and then it will change again a week after that, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to sweep around the world.

The announcement that this year’s Australian Grand Prix was canceled came out at 10:06 a.m. on the Friday morning of the weekend.

Fortunately, fans are getting told a lot earlier about the subsequent race postponements and cancelations.

The Chinese Grand Prix had already been postponed, and during the two weeks following no racing in Melbourne, the grands prix in the Netherlands, Spain and Azerbaijan were all postponed. And the Monaco Grand Prix was canceled.

Because of the long lead time needed to build up the Monaco circuit – work had already begun for the race at the end of May – and the disruption that that construction creates in the Principality, rescheduling the event was impossible.

Tentatively the Canadian Grand Prix will open the season on June 14. Francois Dumontier, the president of the Canadian Grand Prix, expects to know by May 1, if the race will take place in Montreal.

“The decision will be a common decision between Formula 1 and myself,” Dumontier said. “At this point, we all hope the race can go on

June 14. But at the same time we need to be realistic and look at the situation on a daily basis.

We still hope the event can go as planned, but if not we will postpone it.”

Next on the schedule are the French Grand Prix on June 28 and the Austrian Grand Prix on July 5. The organisers of the latter say that their race is going ahead, but the organisers of the former say that everything is on hold.

What about the British Grand Prix on July 19?

Currently all of Britain is on lockdown as are Canada and France. All motor racing in Britain is postponed until at least July 1st, and the Goodwood Festival of Speed, which was scheduled for July 9 – 12, has been postponed.

None of this bodes well for the F1 race at Silverstone.

F1’s commercial owner Liberty Media and the teams get

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14 AutoAction

most of their income from two sources – race hosting fees and television broadcasting rights.

No races equal no income.

China was due to pay US$50 million this year, so that would be a profitable race to keep on 2020’s schedule. The health situation in China is improving, so that race is a possibility, but will China be willing to take the risk of Covid-19 returning to the country with the influx of foreign visitors?

Other countries that pay high fees include Bahrain, Singapore, Russia and Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, Monaco and Brazil pay nothing.

Formula 1 and the FIA are considering two day race weekends, triple header races and extending the season into January, so as to fit in as many of the postponed races as possible.

The Concorde Agreement stipulates that there must be

at least eight races to make a world championship season.

Formula 1 CEO and chairman Chase Carey says that the season should start sometime during the European summer, and it should consist of about 15 to 18 races.

But he admitted that there is a significant potential for more race postponements due to the pandemic.

“It is not possible to provide a more specific calendar now due to the fluidity of the current situation,” Carey said, “but we expect to gain clearer insights into the situation in each of our host countries, as well as the issues related to travel to these countries, in the coming month.”

The teams will have no say in the revised calendar.

So when will the 2020 F1 season finally start? I don’t know, but I think it won’t be until August at the earliest.

We take a look back at what was making news 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago

All rights reserved No part of this magazine’s content may be reproduced, retransmitted or rebroadcast without the express written permission of the Publisher and Action Media Partners.

with Dan Knutson

1980: FORD DRIVER Greg Carr marched to his sixth Castrol Rally victory defeating the likes of guest teammate and World Rally Championship contender Ari Vatanen after he rolled his Escort RS1800.

Meanwhile, John Bowe won an enthralling battle with Alfredo Costanzo to win the third round of the Australian Drivers Championship at Symmons Plains.

1990: GODZILLA LIVES! The Gibson Motorsport Nissan GT-R, soon to be bestowed Godzilla, was pictured testing at Winton in preparation for its debut Australian Touring Car Championship at Mallala. It was all smiles for the Nissan team as Jim Richards charged to victory at the fourth round of the ATCC, also held at the regional Victorian circuit. Also, a tyre discrepancy forced Colin Bond to quit TEGA.

2 2000: FORD TEAMS called for an iinvestigation into the parity between the AU FFalcon and the VT Commodore, after the oopening two rounds of the V8 Supercars S Series were dominated by Garry Rogers M Motorsport and the Holden Racing Team.

O On the international stage, Australian M Michael Guest took class victory on the rrough surface of Portugal in the 2-Litre W World Rally Championship.

2010: ANTICIPATION WAS ramping up for a potential Australian victory at Albert Park, after Mark Webber nearly snatched the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship.

In a Red Bull that was very much the top chassis on the grid, Webber had all the ingredients to win his home Grand Prix.

Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander signalled his intent to race overseas.

THE FOGES FILE

with Mark Fogarty

AA’s suddenly sedentary sage is adapting to life without real racing AS WE settle into life mainly at home, simple freedoms and pleasures we’ve taken for granted for so long are sorely missed. Among them, turning on the TV at any time of the day or night to watch sport from all over the world.

Even if you only watched motor sport – in all its many and varied forms or just car racing – weekends were choc a bloc with live telecasts. Plus plenty of feature shows during the week.

Well, that was certainly the case if you subscribed to Fox Sports, but even free-to-air diehards still got plenty of sport and some car and motorcycle racing action.

Over the past few weeks, major league sports have disappeared and our screens are largely filled with replays of past ‘classic’ encounters.

As they say, you don’t know what you miss until it’s not there and we’re definitely pining for live action sport.

When it will all return, who knows?

Maybe as soon as June in Australia for TV-only events with no on-site crowds, but more likely not until July or August.

Things won’t return to even a semblance of normality until very late in the year. That goes for our way of life as well as sport.

Like me, many – or most – of you have been casting around to find things to while away your confinement. Hopefully, we are helping by providing plenty of reading about your favourite pastime.

Esports has stepped in to fill the racing gap, while docuseries like Netflix’s Drive To Survive and Supercars’ Inside Line – A Season With Erebus Motorsport on Fox Sports are welcome diversions. Racing movies on DVD/Blu-Ray are also good time-killers for fans.

I’ve watched some of the F1, IndyCar and TCR Australia virtual racing telecasts, and was awaiting –

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with some trepidation – the first round of the Supercars All-Stars Eseries on Wednesday night.

I just hope it was a lot better than the F1 and TCR efforts. Even allowing for the fact that broadcasting these faux races to a general audience is new and still experimental, they were not impressive.

IndyCar’s efforts have been much more professional and realistic, enhanced for us by Scott McLaughlin’s fourth place first time out and then victory last weekend. If he’s half as good in the real thing (sometime) later this year, he’ll be a sensation!

Not great racing, but at least credible.

The first virtual F1 race was a shambles. Lacklustre field, unruly racing, amateurish presentation.

Seriously, why all F1 drivers aren’t compelled to compete in the official F1 Eseries is beyond me – especially as some, like Max Verstappen, were competing in unofficial races.

One of the attractions of the Supercars All-Star Eseries is that all 25 regular drivers are taking part – and, apparently, willingly.

ARG’s first TCR Ecup event at Mount Panorama was riddled with technical issues. It needs to get better – much better. But give them a pass for at least having a go and getting the thing up and running.

Some of the racing was entertaining and the crashes – especially Garth Tander’s aerial acrobatics – were spectacular.

Problem is, for my generation, it’s not real racing. Maybe for under-30s it works, but for the rest of us, it’s an amusing stop-gap at best. However,

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good may come out of it for realworld racing, as the virtual world is an opportunity to try new ideas and formats.

Much more appealing is the Erebus ‘fly-on-the-wall’ series. The first episode was a bit plodding, but I guess it had to be to set the scene.

It came alive in ep 2, which began to reveal the true characters of gruff, blunt team boss Barry Ryan, ‘Crazy Dave’ Reynolds and colourful team owner Betty Klimenko.

This is promising to be a revealing insight of epic proportions. Like Drive To Survive, it attracts a new audience, especially as the quirkiness of the team is revealed in its unvarnished glory.

I can’t wait for the remaining episodes. A follow-up covering this season is already underway. More of this gritty behind-the-scenes drama with other teams will add the colour and controversy missing from regular race weekend broadcasts.

I’ve taken this break in live action racing to catch up with the latest motor racing film, Ford v Ferrari, which I think is actually one of the better ones. It is a dramatised recount of Ford’s extraordinarily expensive effort to win the Le Mans 24 Hours, culminating in its breakthrough victory in 1966.

The movie is heavily stylised, playing up the intrigue and politics, as well as the wilful, ultimately tragic, rebellion of development driver Ken Miles. A lot of the action and dialogue are hokey and clichéd, but it shouldn’t offend motor racing aficionados too much.

It is, after all, a drama, not a documentary. For the uninitiated, it is a great story well told.

So that’s how I’ve spent the past few weeks in ‘self-isolation’. It could be worse. I hope you are all coping and, of course, staying safe.

Once we get through this, imagine how liberating ‘normal’ life will feel.

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15

LIFE AFTER

HOLDEN

Everything has changed, but as Supercars supremo Sean Seamer and prominent team owner Ryan Walkinshaw discuss, the future format of the cars is still critical 16 AutoAction

Although delayed by thee coronavirus crisis, Gen33 planning remains a priorityy for Supercars. Seamer andd Walkinshaw (right, beingg interrogated by Foges) agree that the death of Holden is not a crisis for V8 racing. Walkinshaw claims he has at least two new manufacturers interested in replacing the WAU Commodore (below).

JUST OVER a month ago, the biggest problem facing Supercars was the impending demise of Holden.

Holden General Motors’ decision to withdraw from Australia after nearly a century was a bombshell just days before the season-opening Adelaide 500.

The announcement added to the challenges as Supercars worked to secure a new broadcasting rights deal from next year amid a potential ownership change. Plus plotting the next generation of cars.

Since then, the coronavirus crisis has upended everything. The over-riding uncertainty is when the season will resume and what impact the society wide disruption will have on the critical TV rights and ownership negotiations, not to mention the finances of Supercars, teams and race promoters.

While racing’s immediate future is unsettled, planning for the next generation of Supercars will resume within weeks.

Holden’s exit highlighted the urgency of defining the Gen3 rules, due to be introduced in 2022.

Gen3 is aimed at making Supercars more adaptable to a rapidly changing automotive world.

The underlining premise is to accommodate more two-door cars without compromising body shapes while making the racers much cheaper to build and operate for the teams.

In the immediate wake of the Holden announcement, Supercars chief executive Sean Seamer and WAU co-owner and figurehead Ryan Walkinshaw sat down for an extensive roundtable discussion of what Holden’s impending demise means and how it affects Gen3.

Although over-run by subsequent events – and even if the current situation worsens and forces Gen3 to be delayed until 2023 – their appraisal of where Supercars needs to head remains valid for whatever new world emerges.

Images: LAT/WAU/Daniel Kalisz/Toyota/AA Archive Once we strip away the emotion of the Holden announcement, what are the ramifications of the decision for Supercars?

SEAN SEAMER: Look, for us, it’s something that we knew was a possibility.

We were planning for a future without the Commodore from late last year – all of that’s been well-documented – and the ramifications for us, and from what I’ve seen since the announcement, is a focusing of the collective mind up and down pit lane.

I think you’re seeing a lot of unity from the team owners and from management, and some focus and some direction on a path that we knew we were going to have to tread, with some discussions about timing.

RYAN WALKINSHAW: I pretty much echo Sean’s comments. I think when any challenge presents itself, an indication of a good business, a good community, a good culture – whether that’s Supercars themselves or the wider Supercars community with the teams and partners involved – is whether they come together or do they all fall apart. And I think what we’ve seen so far is actually an alignment and a unity from the teams and the partners and the executive team at Supercars to work together, to resolve any short-term solutions and to continue to activate the medium and long-term plan of the sport.

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SS: And that support is from sponsors of teams, sponsors of the series, and Kay Hart and her team at Ford as well.

Some might characterise this as a crisis for Supercars, with its biggest and most enduring brand disappearing. Is it a crisis and even if it isn’t, isn’t there the risk of that being the perception?

SS: It certainly not the reality. I understand that there are people who might like to turn it into that, but the reality is that we knew that we were going to be working in a world post-Commodore. We also have a lot of people that are very, very experienced in the automotive industry – one of whom is sitting right next to me – and none of us is naive enough to think that that dynamism and the volatility that you see in the global automotive market wouldn’t have an impact on us. So the reality is that long-term in the automotive industry is what used to be short- to medium-term. You used to talk about 10 years out; now you’re talking three to five years out. We have people that are very, very experienced in the automotive industry, very plugged into it. We know what’s going on, we’re not naïve and I think that we’ll navigate the next three to five years perfectly because of all of that experience.

RW: I’m an eternal optimist – whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is, I guess,

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for others to judge – and I like to look at every challenge as an opportunity. And I think I’ve actually said this before to you, Mark, in automotive discussions and in racing discussions. That tends to be my outlook. People will focus in the short-term on the disappointment that the Holden brand won’t be here, but I think that there’s a lot of opportunity that presents itself for Supercars in re-evaluating who were are, what we do and what our product is, and a lot of that evaluation was already going on with Gen3, and then using this as a catalyst to actually benefit the sport. Look at new manufacturer, new products, and try to create something which is even more exciting in the future. If we take that view, I think there’s a lot that we can achieve together.

Is this an opportunity to prove that Supercars is not too reliant or even totally dependent on Ford versus Holden?

SS: Absolutely. And, again, the guy sitting next to me will be able to answer this as well, but you’ve seen for a long period of time now that we’ve put a lot of effort into the teams, the team owners, the rivalries up and down pit lane and the drivers as heroes. Everything from the team owner media conferences that we do at some events, all the way through to some of the behind-the-scenes and reality programming

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that we’re doing. It’s more than just Ford versus Holden. I’ve been talking to fans in the past 24 hours and, for example, some Chaz Mostert fans have moved with him. They didn’t say that because Chaz doesn’t drive a Ford anymore, we’re not going to be Chaz fans. So I think we’re not being fair to the stars of the show to assume that it’s all about the car.

RW: I actually agree with Sean on this and I think it’s worth mentioning, what do the fans enjoy about Supercars?

Well, they enjoy the drivers they follow, the brands they follow, the teams they follow. There is a range of support.

If you speak with fans, they may say “I’m a Holden fan, but I’m also a Jamie Whincup fan”. And some may move over to a different brand, some may follow drivers and so on, but what they’re really here for is the product thatt we produce, which is the best racing in Australia, some of the best racing in the world. And while we still have that, I think that’s the core reason the fans are still here. They’re motor sport fans first and everything else is underneath that. So as long as we continue having any exciting product with exciting cars on track, with the best drivers in Australia, all fighting hard in close racing, that’s what the fans are focused on. Everything else is part and parcel of that core attraction.

Seamer and Walkinshaw are in alignment on what Gen3 needs to achieve: wider manufacturer appeal and a big reduction in costs. Seamer says Ford Australia boss Kay Hart (right, at Mustang racer reveal) supports Gen3 philosophy. Holden demise is heart-breaking for Walkinshaw family, which is continuing the legacy of Ryan’s late father Tom, the founder of HSV/HRT (left, with Mark Skaife).

Ryan, you and your family have been so closely linked with Holden for so long, this decision must tear out a piece of your heart.

RW: I’m not going to pretend that it’s not something which is sad. Let’s not shy away from it – it’s disappointing – and I think there are millions of Australians who will feel the same way. I think it’s important that I’m not just looking at my own disappointment with this decision and my own passion for this brand, but thinking about the people who’ve been affected by it even more so than me, which is the employees of Holdens, the dealers, the customers and the millions of fans who’ve lived and breathed this brand for a very, very long time. But life changes, things change, and when there’s change, there’s opportunity as well. My family has obviously had a strong alignment with Holden for a long time, but we’ve also strong alignments with many other manufacturers globally well before I became involved. I’m in my 10th year here, believe it or not, Mark. I can even remember the first time in my first month that I was here when you sat me down and asked me a whole bunch of questions I didn’t know how to answer. I think I’ve got a bit better at it since then and obviously there’s a huge amount of emotion around Holden’s impending demise. But my focus and my team’s focus – not just for us but also our business partners Michael (Andretti) and Zak (Brown), who I have to think of

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in this – is to support Supercars in what they try to transition into and to take this opportunity to grow, and then also for my own team to explore what other manufacturer opportunities there will be for us in the future as well, which I’ve been vocal about for the past 12 to 18 months.

Sean, what’s your understanding of Ford’s commitment to Supercars? Any concern that there could be a domino effect?

SS: No. Kay (Hart) and her team have been brilliant over the past three or four days. I’m sure we’ll talk to them about what our future plans are as they’re a key stakeholder in what may or may not be discussed around 2021. They’re obviously across what’s being planned for 2022 and have been hyper-engaged and very, very supportive. Not just over the past week, but over the past 12 to 18 months, both here in Australia and out of Detroit.

Let’s look at the wider view. Gen3 is scheduled for 2022. Does this at least hasten the introduction of some of the changes that you were planning?

SS: Still too early to make proclamations around that. Obviously, we’re moving as quickly as we can to go through an assessment of that with people like Ryan, Roland (Dane), Brad (Jones), Rod (Nash) – we’re all talking about it. But the reality is, we’ll move as quickly as we can, but we’re not going to make a knee-jerk decision.

This is a big, complex eco system and decisions such as this need to be very thoroughly thought through because from what I’ve seen in even my short time here (two years), even with the best intentions, if you rush a decision and don’t think it through properly, you don’t consider the follow on impacts and there are a lot of unintended consequences even with great intentions. So we’ll take our time, we’ll be methodical, but we won’t take too much time.

One quick fix could be to change the height of the roll cage hoop and generally speed up the process of accommodating more easily other twodoor coupes, especially the Camaro.

Will that be considered, to hasten the change to try to possibly get Camaro on the grid next year?

SS: A new chassis was always part of the Gen3 plans and that’s something that we’ll look at over the next couple of weeks. But it’s still too early to make any proclamations about that, as we’ve said. That news has arrived as people were rolling into a test day. We’ve then come down to Adelaide and now we’re in the middle of a race meeting, and to be honest with you, we probably need to get away from the racetrack and get together the right people who will be together next week (February 26) anyway, because there was a Gen3 committee meeting already scheduled for then, and with some clear air and some time to digest everything, work through that in the right way.

Ryan, without any commitment, if the change to accommodate the Camaro shape better were made for 2021, would it be possible? Your group has done the engineering studies and the calculations, so could it be done for next year?

RW: Well, look, I know you’re trying to push the Camaro thing as a key point, but from our perspective, we’re going to wait and work with Supercars to ensure that any changes we have to the chassis are done the right way, and whether that’s for 2021 or 2022 is yet to be seen. And we’re investigating a variety of different body shapes and have been in discussions with several different manufacturers for the future. I’m not going to go into any details about what manufacturer that is, what product that may be. I can understand the connection you’re trying to make, but I’m not going to comment any further on that.

But in a broader view, as far as the team is concerned, is it practical to change the chassis design in time for next year?

SS: I think you have to remember that it’s not just building one car. You have to build 16, 17, 18 cars; you have to go through aerodynamic testing. Many things are possible, we have some extremely talented people in pit lane, but there is a big, broad eco system and things need to be done properly, as I think we’ve seen and what we’ve tried to do leading into this season.

So we just need the time to let the people that are best placed to work through this.

That’s kind of the answer, isn’t it? In theory, yes, but the practical difficulties pretty much rules out such a major change for 2021.

SS: You never rule anything out. It’s just too early to rule it out or say yes. I think that’s the answer. In theory, everything’s possible, but we’re not in a theoretical situation and it’s a complex process.

Supercars is back to two manufacturers, soon to be just one. Is it still attractive to big car makers? Can you make the rules work to attract other manufacturers?

RW: I have a view on this that I’ve mentioned several times publicly, so it’s not going to be anything new, and that is that the days of having a passionate fan base purely around four-door sedans is past. Interest in four-door sedans in the retail market in Australia and globally has been in decline for a long time. Australia was unique in that you had Holden versus

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Ford with the Commodore and the Falcon, which were essentially four-door muscle cars with interest in a similar vein to what you had in the States with Camaro, Mustang and Dodge Challenger. The only difference was that they were two-door coupes. With consumer interest moving away from four-door sedans, we have to try to create a platform which is attractive for manufacturers to invest marketing dollars in a product that they have interests in showcasing to be an exciting, fast racing sports-based car. With most of the manufacturers that have four-door cars, the interest is not really around that.

I’m not saying there aren’t manufacturers that want to run four-door sedans because there are – and we’ve spoken to one that’s very, very interested. But, at the moment, my feeling is that the current chassis limits the amount of options, so what I want to see as a team owner – and I know this is in the plan for Gen3 – is a few small tweaks that will allow all the teams to go to lots of different manufacturers and let them have more opportunity to choose the product that they want to race as opposed to being pigeon-holed into only a small section of your portfolio that can fit on the chassis. So just opening up options is really what we need and that would attract more interest from manufacturers.

I can sit here today with my hand on my heart and say that we’ve spoken with several manufacturers over the past 12 months and there is a lot of interest. But there’s also things that need to happen

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for them to fully commit and, thankfully, Supercars has been really, really proactive in ensuring that in the future, those options will likely be available.

SS: I’d build on that. Obviously, Ryan is essentially a manufacturer, anyway, so he can give you a very good point of view on interest levels. But for me and Supercars, our No.1 priority is making sure that whatever we do, whatever we’re racing, that we’re doing it the right way, that we’re doing it in an entertaining way, that we’re still putting on the best show in town and that the fans are engaged because, like any business, you have to think about who your end consumer is, and we don’t want to get too caught up in the product right now and lose sight of the consumer.

So from a series point of view, the DNA – irrespective of what that thing looks like out there – will remain the same.

The foundation will remain the V8 engine?

SS: Well, the foundation is fast, loud and close. If you go back into history, and I always quote this, Skaifey’s 1992 lap of Bathurst in that Skyline was not a V8, but it was fast, and it was loud, and it was entertaining. So I think, yes, there are some negative connotations around different types of engines because it’s perceived that they’re not going to be entertaining, but they can be and I think we’ve seen that in other eras.

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RW: I agree with Sean and I’m going to add that what I’ve always said is that I think one of the key foundations of the sport is the fans. What the fans want, the consumers, as Sean has mentioned, and whilst we still have an exciting product and exciting racing, the fans will be here – and that’s regardless of any manufacturer. As long as we keep the fans at the front of our minds and keep thinking about what appeals to them and keep ensuring that we keep doing what we’ve been doing so well for such a long period of time, then that will be attractive and valuable to not only manufacturers, but all the other wide range of sponsorship partners that we have up and down pit lane.

Are you suggesting that we’re getting to the point where there’s room to move outside the V8 format?

SS: We look at what all the other series are doing around the world. Humbly, I think with Formula 1, the change they’ve been through – V8s, V10s, V12s – there wasn’t a problem around the number of cylinders in those cars until they became quiet.

So let’s not get hung up on cylinders.

What I’m saying is that the DNA of being fast, loud, in your face and good visceral entertainment will remain irrespective of what’s in the front of the cars. And history has shown that can be maintained because it has been. We’re open-minded and that’s the whole point of Gen3. We talk to NASCAR, we talk to F1, we talk to

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Seamer revealed that Supercars is not wedded to a V8-only future, asserting that other engine formats – like R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R’s growly turbocharged straight six – can also be “loud and fast”. Attracting Toyota by allowing Supra (left) to be accommodated by Gen3 rules is a clear Supercars aim.

IndyCar. Like us, IndyCar is fast and loud.

We’re not hung up on cylinder numbers.

What we are hung up on is whether it’s entertaining or not.

In the Gen3 discussion, there has to be a place for some sort of hybridisation, doesn’t there? BTCC is adopting it and even NASCAR is looking at it.

SS: Its always been under consideration.

We are talking to the BTCC and NASCAR about what they’re doing. We share a transmission manufacturer with BTCC and NASCAR (Xtrac). Our view right now is that we will be a fast follower, but we’re not in a position to be dictating to other categories around the world what the right solution is. So we will quickly follow as we see momentum in other markets.

That’s where we’re at. I don’t think you’ll see us pioneering a hybrid solution in Australia at this point in time due to the costs and risks associated with the implementation.

That fast follower policy, Ryan, is that a good approach?

RW: I think Sean’s right. The biggest issue you’re going to have is cost of implementation. Every single time we go through this, we explore the options and it’s always very, very expensive. So unless we can find a partner that’s going to fund that, then I don’t think it’s necessarily going to happen organically – I don’t think it makes economic sense – and if it’s going to be something that’s going to require a huge investment from teams, then is it something that’s going to add value to the show and, therefore, for the fans? It might add a bit, but then you have to understand what’s the risk/reward?

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RW: Not being a first-mover sometimes has a lot of advantages.

How long will the Gen3 rules last? At least a minimum of five years?

SS: Yes, I think so. As I said before, longterm used to be 10 years, now it’s five years. So for us, a five-year plan for Gen3 is the right timeline.

If it’s going to cost us $5 million, is it really going to give us $5 million worth of additional value to our fans? I would say probably not. If there’s a manufacturer that wants to come in and do something in that vein, I’d be personally supportive of trying to do everything to try to encourage manufacturers to be able to have the opportunity to run things as long as they fit into the mould of roughly what we have and we don’t end up having huge issues with managing parity. I’m open to that. If a manufacturer came to me and said “Hey, we’d like you to go and run this”, I would explore that with Supercars and see if it was possible. And if it was, then great. But at the moment, from my perspective – and the certainly the perspective of the rest of the teams – I think we’re all pretty happy with what we have (powertrain-wise). Cost of implementation is going to be your issue there.

The cost of the componentry for some kind of electric assistance is plunging…

SS: Correct.

And you’re half future-proofed, anyway, because the Xtrac transaxle is ready to incorporate an electric motor generator.

SS: That’s exactly my point, Mark. As I say, we’re going to be a fast follower. BTCC and NASCAR are ahead of us on that journey, but they are working with our transaxle supplier on those plans. We talk to them regularly about it. Yes, solutions are getting cheaper and cheaper, technology is changing rapidly. Hydrogen is now coming into the picture. There’s a lot of movement and you can quite quickly lose a lot of money if you move too quickly. We want to be relevant, but in that space, if you look at us in a global context, we’ll be fast followers.

Part of the many aims of Gen3 is to facilitate two-door coupes, particularly their aesthetics, ensuring they look like the road cars. How far do you go with that, though? Will you stretch the rules so far that the Toyota Supra could fit?

SS: I don’t think we’d stretch the rules.

I think that in Gen3, you include the opportunity – or maximise the opportunity – for as many different relevant shapes to be used, based on what a manufacturer wants to do. There’s been a lot of conversation – and Ryan can talk about this – around two-door performance cars because there is a market between $80,000 and $150,000 that’s relatively affordable. They’re attainable and they’re also aspirational.

Now, we’re not talking about Ferraris and all the rest of it, but I can aspire to owning a Mustang or a Camaro or a Supra or even an AMG C63 or a BMW M4, whatever it might be in that attainable performance car market. In the conversations that we have with manufacturers, we see longevity

in that platform. Now, SUVs, utilities and those cars have some longevity over that five-year period, based on the conversations we’re having with manufacturers. That’s why I think some of the discussion is centred on those cars.

RW: The way we’ve been pitching a lot of the discussions we’ve had with manufacturers isn’t just around “Hey, you need to come and race this product just purely for marketing that single product”. You’re using that as a halo, using it as a showpiece which you can then activate around. So when we go and speak to a manufacturer and they have a product which is, let’s say, a two-door sports car that is an exciting product that with the Gen3 changes, whenever they’re implemented, would allow them the opportunity to come into Supercars, it’s not just about throwing money at the program to get direct sales from that. It’s about leveraging what you’re doing on track and the interest it’s generating on track with the fan base into activating it around the circuit and through the rest of your media and marketing campaigns. You’re not just trying to sell the model you’re racing, but your whole portfolio of products benefits from that exposure. You’re trying to convince people to have an affiliation with and a passion for your brand through racing, and bringing them along for the ride so that when they buy a ute or an SUV, they can still relate to that brand. And that’s where we’ve found a lot of interest. We’ve even found a lot of interest from brands that would like to go racing in Supercars with one product, but actually at the track, they want to activate their electric or hybrid products, which is completely the opposite of what Supercars has been based around. But they’re seeing value in trying to leverage the Supercars racing opportunity to gain interest in the rest of their portfolio and I think that’s one of the big attractions we can create if we do things the right way going forward.

SS: Let’s not forget that, overall, the sport’s in very, very good shape. We had a fantastic year with ratings last year

compared with any other sport in Australia., We had brilliant events We had attendances at our events. records in Auckland and Gold Coast, so with all due respect to Holden – and, yes, they are front and centre at the moment – that doesn’t mean the underlying, key quantitative publicly available information about Supercars has just been wiped off the slate. So we’re in a really strong position for us to be able to go through this next phase of change. The platform’s there, the stability’s there and we have really strong partnerships to help execute on that. This is not a crisis.

Is this an opportunity also to look at the much longer-term future, maybe 10 years out, given how much the car market has shifted so radically and will continue to change? Should you be looking at eventually racing SUV-look vehicles?

SS: We could all be flying around in hovercraft in 10 years if you listen to some people, Mark. So I think we have to focus on the short- to medium-term and because things are evolving so quickly in that fiveto-10-year window, I think the next three to five should be our primary focus.

And, Ryan, from a team’s point of view, part of Gen3 is also about reducing the cost of racing. How critical is that?

RW: It’s very important. Motor sport is always going to be a really expensive sport to play in, especially in Australia because of the size of the country and the number of events we do. But I think that there is a lot of opportunity to reduce costs, and I think Adrian (Burgess, Supercars’ head of motor sport) and his team have done a really, really good job of identifying those, both themselves and with the support and engagement they’ve been getting from the top teams. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit we’ve already removed; there’s still some big low-hanging fruit that we can focus on for Gen3 as well. Frankly, in my view, the cars are expensive, they are over-complicated for what we need, and where you have over-complication, it ends up costing you more money. That’s not just the difficulties of ruining these cars, but also the cost of the people you need in the team and back at the workshop. All that extra expense doesn’t make one iota of difference to the interest from the fans. I’ve been saying for a long time, remove all the funky stuff and just have good, exciting, loud cars that go racing. We don’t need to have all this heavy engineering that goes on because the fans don’t give a shit, they really don’t. They want to watch their favourite drivers go around and have close racing at some of the best sporting events in the country. That’s what we provide, so why do we need to have all the complexity

we currently have in these cars? Let’s take Gen3 as an opportunity to remove as much cost and complexity as possible. Whether that happens all in one go or it’s phased in as needs be, we’re open to that. There is a lot of cost that can be saved. Every motor sport category is looking at the same thing, so we’re not the only ones.

SS: Every sport is looking at cutting costs and improving competition.

RW: There are a lot of smart people in this category and I think we’ll all be doing a big job of working together to ensure that it’s sustainable.

Is Supercars committed to trying to carve as much cost out of the cars as possible?

SS: I think we’ve already shown that we’ve made some pretty good headway this year in terms of the removal of the tyre bank, the control damper, and the flow of the calendar and what that’s done.

So are we committed to cutting costs?

I think we’ve already proven we are in the shape and the context of this year’s championship, And we’ll continue to do so, absolutely.

RW: And I’m OK with that, by the way!

Supercars is talking with NASCAR and BTCC about future tech, adopting a “fast follower” approach.

Multi-make BTCC (shown here) is scheduled to adopt hybrid petrol-electric power units in 2022. Hybrid tech is being looked at for Gen3, but not initially.

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UNDER THE SKIN

HONDA NSX GT3 EVO

If there is a GT3 model on the market that reflects the international nature of the class, it is the Honda NSX GT3. HEATH McALPINE delves Under The Skin into the engineering partnership between JAS Motorsport and US-based Honda Performance Developments

The successful Acura TLX (above) was the precursor to the NSX GT3 (below).

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Images: Insyde Media/Honda

AFTER FIRST being announced in 2016, the Honda/Acura NSX GT3 finally made it to Australian shores for the Bathurst 12 Hour earlier this year in the form of a newly launched Evolution version.

Although the new model failed to finish, the NSX GT3 Evo demonstrated sharp improvement across the weekend. Dane Cameron set the race’s fastest lap to that point, 0.7s faster than its qualifying pace, until electrical gremlins halted the team’s run in the eighth hour having already been delayed earlier in the event.

Yes, it was a disappointing result, but the NSX GT3 is a successful GT3 model in the US where it won the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship last year courtesy of the Meyer Shank Racing team of Mario Farnbacher and Trent Hindman. This was among eight major titles won across Asia, Europe and the US, amassing 17 overall and class

victories during the calendar year.

The NSX GT3 was revealed at the 2016 New York Motor Show, but there had been quite a build up to that point.

Originally Italian-based Honda affiliate JAS Motorsport partnered with HRD Sakura to kick off the project, but Honda Performance Developments based in Santa Clara California took over the Japanese manufacturer’s role.

Since then, the Evolution kit was released for the beginning of the 2019 season with improvements focused on aerodynamics and practicality.

HPD has previously provided engines to IndyCar and completed the development on racing prototypes including the DPi chassis that Team Penske campaign in the outright class of the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship.

Engineering partner JAS Motorsport is experienced in touring cars mostly having raced Honda Accords through

Super Touring and developed the Euro R for S2000 competition in the World Touring Car Championship. This partnership has extended further into TCR where the Civic Type R is one of the top models in the burgeoning class.

Upon its launch, JAS Motorsport CEO Alessandro Mariani was enthusiastic about its success. He told Auto Action at Bathurst about his push for Honda to enter GT3, which kicked off a new era for the Japanese marque.

“The project, the Honda NSX is a top car in the market so all our competitors are racing in GT3,” Mariani said. “We also like GT3 because in the past we have relationship with Stephane Ratel and GT3 is an amazing championship between the events worldwide and manufacturers involved.

“For me, it was a good opportunity to keep the brand of Honda at the top of a challenging championship.”

Mariani is also determined to have JAS Motorsport to run a program to oversee any troubleshooting, as the NSX GT3 continues to be developed for serviceability and user-friendliness.

“I push for us to race directly, because it is easier for us to understand directly the problems with the car,” he continued.

“It is difficult for the manufacturer to understand because the team is not at the professional level.”

This will occur as Honda will undertake its first full attack on the Intercontinental GT Challenge through JAS with a single-Pro entry. HPD will aid with the program after coordinating much of the development work on the Evo kit, as detailed by Principal Engineer Lee Niffenegger.

“The program actually started in Japan with HRD and then in December 2015 it was transferred to HPD,” Niffenegger told Auto Action. “Honda wanted it for the Acura brand in the US so we took over the development of the car and took it to homologation.”

Honda’s American luxury brand Acura had previously used the GT World Challenge America as a development tool for its road cars through programs utilising its Integra, TSX (Accord) and AWD TLX models.

But, with the category’s move towards GT3, both Acura and Cadillac, which entered models not conforming to the new regulations decided to develop new machinery. Cadillac alongside Pratt & Miller built the controversial ATS-V. R GT3 while Acura/Honda entered the NSX GT3.

The Cadillac was described as a prototype by regulation creator Ratel once it had completed its domination in the US.

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The NSX GT3 on the other hand was and continues to be very much based on the road car, utilising the two key components of any road-going or track machine, the engine and spaceframe.

“All the series are going to GT3 cars, it’s obviously the direction we had to go in, the TLX was sundown and the GT3 car took over in 2017,” Niffenegger reflected.

“Given the timing that we had, they literally had just started doing on-track testing so we took it from that point, so there was very little actual running of the car. It was a complete takeover from that point, some stuff we changed, some stuff we didn’t it just depended on performance and FIA requirements.

“JAS went through the initial development phase with Japan before we took over.

They already had probably multiple ideas built up, then we went testing with plenty of trial and error occurring, plus compared notes with us.”

When the original GT3 version was launched in 2016, it was highlighted that there was much corroboration between Honda’s development teams of the road-going and race-spec machine. This continues with the Evo as the HPD team utilise the same 3.5 litre twin-turbocharged V6 unit to power the GT3 built at Anna Engine Plant, Ohio. This is longitudinally mid-mounted.

This part fails to sound particularly challenging, removing the hybrid system that is a fixture of the road-going supercar was, as Niffenegger explained.

“Our car is still very much based on the road car, we use the spaceframe straight off the factory with just some minor modifications, including a cage,” he said.

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Big radiators feed the mid-mounted twin-turbocharged V6 with the required cooling (above) The interior of the NSX GT3 Evo is neat and features two pedals, thanks to an e-clutch (below).

“The engine itself is straight out of the road car, we get the engines from the factory, they prep them for us. We run now for the latest Evo a European-spec turbo, it’s a little bit different just due to the emission regulations, it can handle higher exhaust temperatures, so good for racing.

“Good for emissions also good for racing in that case, different goals.

“That’s what we changed to in 2019, all we really do is take the road car engine,

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do some minor machining that the factory guys do for us externally, not internally just to mount alternator [and the] starter that the road car doesn’t have because it’s a hybrid. It’s just external, we don’t touch internals at all from the factory, completely stock.”

This means that the block, heads, valve train, crankshaft, pistons and dry-sump are directly from the road-going engine drawing comparisons to the Civic Type

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UNDER THE SKIN

HONDA NSX GT3 EVO

The heart of the NSX GT3 Evo is a near-identical to what is featured in the road car, traced back to the removal of the hybrid system (above).

R TCR, which is designed much in the same vein.

“The TCR engine is probably more modified than the GT3, it has a little pan baffle and stuff like that,” Niffenegger remarked. “The NSX is already dry-sumped from the factory so it’s ready to go.”

Although the engine remains the same, there are some parts that have been developed due to the hybrid components being taken away.

“Basically, we take all the hybrid motors out, make a flywheel, then add a starter to the bellhousing adapter and match the Xtrac transmission to it,” Niffenegger explained.

“From the engine side, we just change the wiring harness and similar hoses to motor sport spec so it’s more reliable for a higher temperature environment, high stress running.”

The aforementioned Xtrac six-speed semi-automatic gearbox is worked through paddlehifts on the steering wheel, which is now the trend within any race car interior.

The 3-disc sintered clutch is supplied by SACHS, which is electronically assisted through the PANKL double tripod drivetrain.

“We use the Xtrac because it is very similar to a couple of the other cars, just with our ratios,” said Niffenegger. “The project had actually started and they had already chosen Xtrac; from the HPD side we have very good experience with Xtrac, we used it in the TLX GT. “There was no reason to change it, we knew it was reliable.”

Also, the addition of a larger fuel tank forced the team at HPD to change the layout of the interior, which has had an effect on the method in which the clutch is activated.

“We’ve had to make an enclosure into the cabin, which has created its own set of challenges and knock on effects,” recalled Niffenegger. “It takes up space that’s normally for the driver, we started out with a three-pedal system, but we ended up going with an e-clutch and pedal system, the clutch is actually operated from the steering wheel.

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“It’s just a two-pedal system. It also runs an auto-launch program. It’s really good for gentleman drivers because you don’t have to have that clutch feel from a racing component because we can just tune it to different modes, launch, pit lane whatever.

“That’s was really driven by the need to have enough space for the driver because you can only push the pedal box so far forward.”

SACHS also provide the 5-way adjustable shock absorbers, which are mated to bespoke suspension components including FR/RR sway bar with adjustable blade. The stock mounting points are utilised with a double wishbone system at the front and multilink in the rear, but modified to remove the limitations placed on the systems for road application.

“The suspension mount points are the same as the road car, but we make all bespoke suspension parts, it’s the same style, but the race car runs lower, different travels and tweak the geometry,” said Niffenegger.

“Mainly, it’s the same as the road car, we have all the same mount points on the chassis side.”

Brembo provide the braking system with 6-piston calipers at the front mated to 390mmx34mm discs, while 4-piston calipers work together with 355mmx32mm discs to stop at the rear. A Bosch M4 ABS system provides just one of the aids that GT3 models feature to make the category easily accessible to gentlemen racers.

Surrounding the brakes are 12x18” OZ Racing rims at the front and 13x18” at the rear with Pirelli 315/680 – 18 DHD2 tyres at the front and 325/705 – 18 at the rear.

Inside, the clean interior features a multitude of Bosch electronics including DDU8 dashboard display, which is backed up by a C60 data logger and PBX90 power box, while Cosworth provide the ECU. The steering wheel is a bespoke JAS item, but has been developed alongside Italian race equipment manufacturer OMP, which provide the belts while a Sparco floormounted seat is utilised.

As previously mentioned, the NSX GT3

features a two-pedal system with the clutch operated through the steering wheel, but the pedal box is also a display of the engineering prowess of JAS as the pedals and mechanisms are developed in-house. The masters are an AP off the shelf product.

Safety was a key agenda for HPD when producing the Evo, going above the FIA regulations to provide peace of mind to its customers starting off with a now essential piece of equipment, the fire bomb.

“The fire bomb system is an off the shelf OMP item. We’ve been through a couple of manufacturers just based on FIA specifications, then the manufacturer we were using didn’t get certified,” explained Niffenegger “Safety feature-wise, we do have some extra side impact foam that’s not required by the FIA. It’s been installed based on the

experience JAS has with touring cars, but if you look on the roll cage side there are extra energy absorption pads, basically things we thought were important. It’s extra safety for the driver and things that the FIA say is a good idea, it’s not required, but you can do it if you want.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had some big hits, but the drivers have come out of it and said, ‘good job guys, thank you’.”

One main criticism about the first version of the NSX GT3 was the lack of the downforce in the rear, having the flow on effect of scorching the rear tyres. The work completed on the aerodynamics was undertaken by HPD across wind tunnels in the US, Asia and Europe. Aerodynamics is an important feature of the model because it lacks in other areas due to the FIA’s Balance of Performance measures.

“We used wind tunnels from all over the

HONDA NSX GT3 EVO CHASSIS

Aluminium alloy extruded profiles / cast nodes, roof structure in steel, TIG welded roll cage in 25CrMo bolted to chassis

ENGINE

Twin-turbocharged DOHC V6/75°, 3501cc, Light alloy block and head, cast aluminium pistons, 24 valve, IN/ EX VTC, chain driven camshaft, direct and port fuel injection, dry sump system, drive-by-Wire throttle system, electric wastegate control, 2 Off – Mono Scroll turbocharger, Twin Pipe with CAT converter Layout: Longitudinal/mid-mounted Bore x stroke: 91 x 90 mm

TRANSMISSION

Gearbox: XTRAC semi-automatic 6-speed sequential, ZF/SACHS high performance sintered or carbon clutch (endurance option), electrically assisted, PANKL double tripod system driveline

SUSPENSION

Front: Double wishbone Rear: Multilink SACHS 5-way adjustable dampers shock absorbers, FR/RR with adjustable blade sway bar

BRAKES

BREMBO disks 390x34 front / 355x32 rear, BREMBO 6 piston front calipers /4 piston rear calipers, BOSCH M4 ABS system

WHEELS

Front: 12”x18” OZ forged aluminium Rear: 13”x18” OZ forged aluminum

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: 2630 mm Overall length: 4612 mm Overall width: 2040 mm Front track: 1715 mm Rear track: 1687 mm Weight: 1240 Kg

There were concessions made concessions required to the cockpit due to the installation of a larger fuel tank (above left). Brembo provide the stopping power, which is a strength of the NSX (above). Seven different wind tunnels were used to redesign the Evo's aerodynamics (left). Mario Farnbacher and Lee Niffenegger (right) are HPD's right hand men. world, there’s one in Japan that belongs to Honda. We use Wind Shear, which is one a lot of car manufacturers use in the US so we correlate all these wind tunnels and depending on what we’re doing or what the purpose we use different tunnels, we’ve used the Sauber wind tunnel for the Formula 1 team, that’s where the FIA does its testing,” revealed Niffenegger.

“Centre of Pressure is one of the things we look at, so we look for a particular characteristic of how the car makes downforce. There are performance windows so the FIA determine the performance of a GT3 car by three categories, engine power, aerodynamics and drag, so they mix them around in different ways and compare.

“Every one of the GT3 cars has to come within those windows, you can choose where you want to be to define the characteristics of the car so that’s your guideline of the design of the model.”

While balancing this aspect of development, HPD was mindful to still produce a user-friendly chassis for its target market of gentlemen drivers. As Niffenegger further elaborated, making the NSX GT3 Evo the optimum racer would not only take away from the gentlemen aspect, but as the category is BoP driven, it is not necessary.

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TEST AND IMSA Sportscar Championship driver Mario Farnbacher has led development of the Honda NSX GT3, joining the effort in the midst of testing the Evolution kit.

The 27-year-old German is thoroughly experienced when it comes to endurance and GT racing, winning the IMSA Sportscar GTD Championship in the US last year with Meyer-Shank Racing.

Through the development phase Farnbacher identified key areas that needed improvement including the rear tyre life, whilst a focus on useability for a gentleman driver was also a top priority.

“The main problem before the Evo kit was the rear tyres got eaten up due to not enough aero, especially at the rear,” Farnbacher told Auto Action.

“The main change for the Evo kit was basically aero and some small details around the car, which was a huge step forward especially in terms of drivability and overall pace during a stint.”

These cars are made for gentleman drivers as well so we have to keep that in mind, it was one of the reasons why we developed the Evo kit and it has definitely showed some strength around the world where gentleman drivers, plus “If you solely focus on a Pro driver going fast then a gentleman driver may not be able to handle it,” Niffenegger illustrated.

“One of the big targets that had to be met especially during the model evolving was not necessarily going for outright performance because this is a BoP series. If your test driver is only making

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professional teams, are picking the NSX. “We are really, really proud of this.”

And the strengths of the NSX GT3 Evo? According to Farnbacher, it's the braking performance.

“It’s really hard to tell because the BoP factor is a big game changer in the end so for sure braking is one of the strengths of this car, you can basically set up the car before braking. Weakness, as soon as we get some weight in the car it doesn’t perform so well.” HM

the thing go fast, it’s not going to work out for the junior or gentleman driver.

“One of our other targets of the car was to focus on balance, not necessarily having the slipperiest car.”

Also high on the priority list was serviceability. Honda is renowned for its reliability and market leading service

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performance so this had to carry through to its customer racing program, launched in 2018.

Honda are gearing up for a dramatic growth in GT3 in the next year, which has begun with various NSXs racing in Europe and a large presence in Asia.

Now we just need one in Australia.

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TURBO POWER

After Australian Alan Jones dominated the first round of the 1980 Formula 1 World Championship in Argentina, As DAN McCARTHY reports, the second race in Brazil saw the altitude heavily favour the turbocharged Renaults which dominated.

BRAZIL HOSTED the second round of the 1980 Formula 1 World Championship in the city of Sau Paulo and the Renaults were competitive from the word go.

The first round in Argentina was a race of attrition, pole sitter, Australian Alan Jones despite an unscheduled pit stop rose through the field to take the win. Jones beat home two future world champions who both earnt their first career podium finishes, Nelson Piquet in the competitive Brabham BT49 finished the race in second with Keke Rosberg in the Fittipaldi third.

It was a disastrous round for defending teams champions Ferrari with both reigning champion Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve retiring from the race. However, it was even worse for Renault with both Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Rene Arnoux out of the race before the end of lap 4.

Months before the race took place a number of drivers including the reigning world champion Jody Scheckter attempted to skip the event due to the incredibly bumpy surface. Improvements had been made to the 7.87km track, however drivers felt the poor track surface, inadequate catch-fencing and ditches that aligned the track made it an unsafe venue to host a Formula 1 event. Despite these concerns being raised the race still went ahead.

In 1980, the Interlagos circuit was 7.9km compared to the 4.3km layout used currently. Situated 850m above sea level, the altitude benefits gave the turbo-charged entries a distinct advantage compared to the naturally aspirated

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opponents.

Coupled with the long straights, which allowed the turbo-assisted engines to use the light-switch like power and the two yellow Renaults became a serious threat in Brazil.

Qualifying yielded a mixed grid with four different teams making up the opening positions. Jabouille took pole position for Renault by 0.25s from the Ligier of Didier Pironi, Ferrari’s Villeneuve started third alongside Jones’ Williams teammate Carlos Reutemann.

On the third row Jacques Laffite started ahead of Arnoux while championship leader Jones started 10th after he qualified 1.98s off pole position.

As the race began the turbo lag meant Jabouille got a slow start, alongside him Pironi also bogged down off the line and allowed Villeneuve to thread the needle through the pair and take the lead.

Just behind, Pironi was second his teammate Laffite third as Jabouille slipped to fourth.

On the long run between Turns 2 and 3 Jabouille in the monstrous Renault blasted past Laffite into third position and then made short work of Pironi out of Turn 15.

Heading onto lap 2, Pironi in the slipstream of Jabouille was unable to keep with the Frenchman and came under threat from the defending Brazilian Grand Prix winner Laffite, although he tried up the inside into Turn 3 and again into Turn 6, the Italian held position.

Like he had with the two Ligiers previously, Jabouille breezed by Villeneuve and into the lead, then was soon followed by Pironi, Laffite and Arnoux.

Gilles Villeneuve split the opening row to lead the early portion of the race, (above). Alain Prost proved his debut finish in the points in Argentina was no fluke by backing that up in Brazil (below).

Villeneuve lead his turbocharged rivals early, but it didn’t last.... (above right). Elio De Angelis survived the hot conditions to finish the race second (below right). The same could be said for Alan Jones in third, as he qualified within the mid-pack in 10th, but attrition aided his climb.

At the end of lap 2, Jabouille led Pironi, Laffite, Arnoux, Villeneuve, Lotus driver Elio de Angelis was sixth and Jones seventh, but were loan hands for their respective teams.

The 1978 World Champion Mario Andretti crashed out and Reutemann retired with transmission failure.

The long Brazilian circuit was abrasive on tyres, Pironi and Villeneuve both pitted early in the race, Pironi dropped to 21st after stopping on lap 4. He was swiftly followed by the Canadian Ferrari driver who pitted on lap 6 falling to 15th.

A quarter of the way into the 40 lap distance, Jabouille led from Laffite, the pair comfortably ahead of Arnoux, de Angelis, Jones, Piquet and Riccardo Patrese in the Arrows.

Nothing was going the way of Scheckter in 1980 with his Ferrari powered 3-litre V12 engine letting go after just 10 laps leaving the South African pointless after the opening two rounds.

He was quickly followed into retirement by the second placed man Laffite, who suffered an electrical gremlin in an increasingly unreliable Ligier.

Hometown hero Piquet’s race also came to a sudden end with suspension failure caused by a flat left-rear tyre.

This left Jabouille comfortably in the lead at the halfway stage ahead of teammate Arnoux, de Angelis, Jones, Patrese, Prost and Pironi. The latter was on a charge after his early stop had carved his way through the field to be back in the top seven.

Canadian Villeneuve was also making progress and sat behind Rosberg in ninth.

Pironi continued his march forwards overtaking Prost on lap 21 and quickly ranged onto the back of the Arrows of Patrese.

Out front, Jabouille slowed suddenly on lap 25 dropping to seventh before entering the pit lane only to be forced into retire with turbo failure.

Meanwhile, Pironi continued to scythe through the field demoting Patrese a spot at Turn 3.

This meant that with 14 laps remaining Arnoux led from de Angelis, the consistent Jones, Pironi, Patrese, Prost and the recovering Canadian Villeneuve.

Prost caught and made light work of Patrese until the powerful Arrows cruised back into fifth before the end of the straight with a handful of laps remaining. The Frenchman made the pass stick later in the lap and held on until the flag.

Just behind, Villeneuve in seventh position pitted late in the race with a throttle issue dropping him to 16th, 4 laps down.

In just his 20th Formula 1 race, Arnoux took his maiden race victory and in doing so scored

Renault’s second victory as a manufacturer and just the second win for a turbo-charged Formula 1 car.

Just seconds after crossing the line, Renault’s thirsty 1.5L V6 turbo engine ran out of fuel, however the Frenchman hitched a lift on the side of Patrese’s Arrows back to pit lane.

De Angelis finished 21.8s behind Arnoux, bagging his first career podium and the first podium for Lotus in 1980.

Jones brought his Williams home in third and extended his championship lead in the process. Pironi recovered to an impressive fourth position in his Ligier, despite his early stop.

Newcomer Prost impressed by again finishing ahead of experienced McLaren teammate John Watson. The Frenchman finished fifth, receiving praise from 1976 World Champion and BBC commentator James Hunt during the race.

“Alain Prost has been comfortably quicker than Watson in testing and both the first two races and he would appear to be a very major prospect for the future in Grand Prix racing,” Hunt said.

How right he was.

1980 BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX - SAU PAULO

Pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ

Driver Rene Arnoux Elio de Angelis Alan Jones Didier Pironi Alain Prost Riccardo Patrese Marc Surer Ricardo Zunino Keke Rosberg Jochen Mass John Watson Jean-Pierre Jarier Bruno Giacomelli Derek Daly Emerson Fittipaldi Gilles Villeneuve Patrick Depailler Jean-Pierre Jabouille Nelson Piquet Jacques Laffite Clay Regazzoni Jody Scheckter Mario Andretti Carlos Reutemann Jan Lammers David Kennedy Stefan Johansson Eddie Cheever

Drivers’ Standings 1.

2.

3. = 5.

6. = = 9.

10.

Jones Arnoux Piquet De Angelis Rosberg Pironi Daly Prost Giacomelli Patrese

Team Renault Lotus-Ford Williams-Ford Ligier-Ford McLaren-Ford Arrows-Ford ATS-Ford Brabham-Ford Fittipaldi-Ford Arrows-Ford McLaren-Ford Tyrrell-Ford Alfa Romeo Tyrrell-Ford Fittipaldi-Ford Ferrari Alfa Romeo Renault Brabham-Ford Ligier-Ford Ensign-Ford Ferrari Lotus-Ford Williams-Ford ATS-Ford Shadow-Ford Shadow-Ford Osella-Ford

13 9 6 6 4 3 3 3 2 1

Laps 40 40 40 40 40 39 39 39 39 39 39 39 39 38 38 36 33 25 14 13 13 10 1 1

Result 1h 40m 01.33s +21.86s +1:06.11s +1:40.13s +2:25.41s +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +1 Lap +2 Laps +2 Laps Throttle Electrical Turbo Suspension Electrical Engine Engine Spun Off Transmission

Grid 6 7 10 2 13 14 20 18 15 16 23 22 17 24 19 3 21 1 9 5 12 8 11 4

Constructors’ Standings 1.

2.

3. = 5.

6. = = 9.

10.

Williams Renault Brabham Lotus Fittipaldi Ligier McLaren Tyrrell Alfa Romeo Arrows

13 9 6 6 4 3 3 3 2 1

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FAREWELL HOLDEN MOTORSPORT 1948-2020 - PART THREE

THE TOUGHEST

TORANAS Remembering the legendary L34 and awesome A9X

In the third part of our history of Holden in motor racing, BOB WATSON and BRUCE WILLIAMS recount the development of the L34 and A9X Toranas, which delivered Holden a bag of ATCC and Bathurst wins and are now revered among Australia’s greatest touring car racers.

IMAGES: AA Archive/Autopics.com.au/Holden Motorsport/an1images.com

HOW DO you follow up the extraordinary success of the giant-killing Torana XU-1?

A stunning Bathurst victory in 1972, an Australian touring car championship and four national rally championships, plus the development of two of Australia’s finest drivers, Peter Brock and Colin Bond.

Tough to top.

Well, if you were Holden and you had an enthusiastic sales manager in John Bagshaw, a cooperative board of directors and technical input from the Old Fox, Harry Firth, it was a no brainer.

When he was competing in racing or rallies, Firth made sure he always had the best equipment. So, when he became the Lion’s motor sport guru in 1969, he continued that approach with the Holden Dealer Team.

In 1972, he began experimenting with XU-1s fitted with V8s. But then a public furore erupted about ‘supercars’ that were too fast for the road and the planned XU-1 V8 was canned.

Fortunately, the next-generation LH Torana was already scheduled to include a five-litre V8 option.

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LH SL/R5000 - A new V8 weapon

The LH was totally designed in Australia and hit the market in March 1974, engineered to be capable of taking four, six and eight-cylinder engines. This meant a longer wheelbase and, initially, a four-door body. The shape was penned by design director Leo Pruneau, a brilliant stylist who had a hand in the design of all the Torana models. Of course, with competition in mind, a V8-powered sports model, the SL/R 5000, was included in the range.

Chief engineer George Roberts, an American, set down the suspension parameters, with a widened LJ front cross member and four-link rear suspension. Roberts had a penchant for soft, wallowy suspension, so the ride and handling boys had some work to do to make the LH into a track weapon.

The Holden chassis group eventually came up with a package that included radial ply tyres and other enhancements, which later the marketing people eagerly christened

“Radial Tuned Suspension”. It was ironic that this was some years after racing competitors became aware of the benefits of using Michelin XAS radial ply tyres on the racing Monaros at Sandown and Bathurst.

The L34 Option package (the homologation special for racing) featured these and other improvements for the race cars, including what were to become iconic bolt-on wheel arch flares. Engine development company Repco was commissioned to explore increased output V8 engines for racing, the brief being to produce a powerful motor suitable for production car racing that was highly reliable. The aim was to have an engine that produced at least 300 horsepower, with the possibility of more.

Eventually, with the demise of the Repco racing organisation, Dave Bennett’s Perfectune took over the manufacture of special parts for the L34 engines.

Chassis engineer Ray Borrett took an L34 prototype known as LH16 to the Lang Lang proving ground and used it

for development of ride and handling, and to work on oil surge problems with the engine. LH16 was a noisy monster, having straight-out exhausts that exited under the front doors, but Borrett had a lot of fun in it.

The SL/R 5000 (not the L34) began racing in the Australian Touring Car Championship, which was for vehicles complying to the CAMS Group C Touring car regulations.

The first LH SL/R5000 to appear for racing was in late April 1974 when Allan Grice raced his newly built car in the fifth round of the ATCC at Oran Park (he had demonstrated the car at Amaroo two weeks before). Peter Brock finished second in the race aboard his HDT XU1 and the Grice car finished in 14th place.

It was a modest start for the new V8 powered Torana, but it was soon to be the car to beat with Peter Brock driving the HDT version of the SL/R5000 to a first up ATCC win at Surfers Paradise and then Adelaide. These results helped deliver Brock secure the ‘74 ATCC title using both the XU1 and SL/R5000 vehicles over the course of the series.

Holden’s Torana L34 was troubled initially but quickly became the car to beat in Australian Touring Car racing, especially in the hands of the likes of Colin Bond.

Peter Brock’s new Holden Torana SL/R5000 in action at Calder. Two wins in this car helped his secure the 1974 Australian Touring Car Championship title for the HDT.

SL/R5000/L34 - Potential realised While the SL/R5000 was being raced, the L34 racing variant was developed and enough cars sold via dealerships to allow this newly released version to compete.

The L34 was instantly competitive if not fragile. All the development work on the L34 had delivered speed and at Bathurst in 1974, Peter Brock and Brian Sampson in the HDT L34 lead

the race by a large margin. Ultimately the L34’s debut at Bathurst was unsuccessful with several issues plaguing the teams, several due to oil surge and driveline problems, with the number 1 HDT car failing in a cloud of smoke with a holed piston.

All was not lost for the General, though, as Colin Bond took the L34 to wins at the Adelaide, Surfers Paradise and Phillip Island rounds

of the Manufacturers Championship, helping deliver Holden the 1974 title.

Unsurprisingly, Harry Firth was not satisfied, complaining that Holden management was not putting enough development into the car.

Harry was a hard task master and even as the L34 Torana delivered a clean sweep in the seven round 1975 ATCC, he was plotting to build a

better mouse trap.

The L34 was proving to be a potent race car for both the Holden Dealer Team drivers and privateers, with wins for the HDT, Allan Grice, and Bob Morris.

Colin Bond won the ATCC and the L34 took top spot at Bathurst with Peter Brock and Brian Sampson at the wheel in their privately run GownHindhaugh L34, a redemtion for their ‘74 miss.

In 1976, the Torana dominated the ATCC with wins in eight of the 11 rounds. John Harvey won the opening round at Symmons Plains driving a privately entered B & D Autos L34. Colin Bond took three wins, then Allan Grice won the AIR round. 1976 also saw a debut win for a young privateer called Charlie O’Brien, when Bond and Grice took each other out at the Amaroo round.

However, it was Allan Moffat driving an XB coupe that won the title with three round wins.

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Peter Janson was one of many to campaign a Torana L34. He was an early adopter and was undoubtedly the most colourful.

Seen here at Philip Island in the 1974 Re-Po 500, round 5 of the Manchamp series.

1976 made it two in a row for the L34 at Bathurst, repeating the success for Holden, when Bob Morris and John Fitzpatrick nursed a sick and smoking car home for an emotional win. Morris had been a long time campaigner of Holden products and had driven for Harry in the XU-1 days.

On the rally scene, LH L34s were rallied by the official HDT and some privateers including the flamboyant Ed Mulligan. Colin Bond had some notable successes, but the bulk and power of the L34 was more suited to

the racetrack.

The LH SL/R 5000/L34 had been a solid workhorse for the Holden teams, but it still had short comings and at times could be fragile. The driveline was a constant issue and would often fail when the cars were pressed hard, as did the brake package.

However, drivers like Brock, Bond, Morris and a few others could push with some mechanical sympathy and deliver results.

But by then the Ford Falcon Hardtops had started to become

THE DRIVER’S VIEW RACE AND rally star Colin Bond excelled in the Torana L34 before defecting to Ford in 1977.

At the time, it was a shocking move. The first time a Holden hero had moved to Ford.

In 1976, Bond – so versatile he won rally championships as well – was fed up with HDT boss Harry Firth’s penny pinching and switched in ’77

to the Moffat Ford Dealer Team for a bigger pay packet.

But while it lasted his tenure at HDT was very successful. Bathurst 500 win in 1969, three Australian rally championships in XU1s, plus the ’75 ATCC. Back in ’72, though, he realised Holden needed V8 grunt to win at Bathurst.

faster and more reliable, and the fragile Torana had to be pushed harder and issues started to become more frequent. The back room boys had a plan, all they needed was the new model LX to arrive in the show rooms ...

1977 SL/R5000/L34/A9X The ultimate Torana

When the LX Torana road model was introduced in 1976, it came with a new hatchback variant.

And with the LX came an opportunity

to upgrade and re-homologate the racecar, rectifying the issues of the L34.

This spawned the legendary SLR5000/ L34/A9X option in mid-1977, which became the ultimate Torana racer.

Firth was keen to use the hatchback body, and once again chassis engineer Ray Borrett was called on to develop the suspension for a lowered race car.

The suspension mounting points were thus relocated on the production car so that they would be suitable for the lowered competition cars.

All of this was done under the watchful

L34’s winningest driver recalls Torana’s greatest days “The XU-1 was a pretty good car, generally speaking,” he remembers. “A good rally car, good at most circuits, but at Bathurst we definitely needed a V8.”

Of the L34, Bond said: “It was OK, except the axles were fairly marginal. The Falcons had much bigger axles. If you ran over kerbs and things, you could easily break axles, especially the co-drivers who weren’t used to the car.

“If you were cutting corners and putting your foot into it, bang goes an axle.”

Among the SL/R 5000s oil surge dramas, Bond revealed HDT resorted to inserting pipe cleaners in the push rods to restrict oil flow to the top of the motor.

“The oil wasn’t draining back to the sump – it was suspended up in tappet covers,” he explained. “We put pipe cleaners in the pushrods to restrict oil flow.

“It was a problem they eventually overcame.”

Bond figured in the controversy of the 1976 Bathurst 1000, won by Bob Morris and John Fitzpatrick.

To this day, conspiracy theories persist that Bond and co-driver John Harvey completed

more laps, but Holden didn’t protest because it didn’t want to upset major Sydney dealer Ron Hodgson.

Bond isn’t phased about the one that might have got away.

“We were that far in the lead that I just took it easy,” he said. “I was coming down the straight at 5000 revs instead of 5500.

Unbeknown to me, at 5000 revs, the motor had a vibration that eventually threw the fan belt. If I’d revved it as normal, there’d have been no drama.

“I kept driving it without a fan belt. The motor was getting hot, but I could cool it down on the straight. But in the end, we decided we had to come in and fix the fan belt.

“You just accept it and get on with your life.

I know Harves was dirty, but it didn’t worry me. It was no big deal. You thought you’d win another one or two or three. Of course, I never did.”

After dominating the 1978 ATCC and enduros with Moffat, Bond conceded that in ’78, the A9X was unstoppable.

“It became a much better mousetrap than the Ford,” Bond lamented. Mark Fogarty

Young privateer Charlie O’Brien created history when he won the Amaroo Park round of the ATCC CC ana in ‘76 (above) after Colin Bond and Allan Grice clashed. Grice was the first to race the new Torana SL/R5000 (above right), seen here on debut at Oran Park. Peter Brock was the man to beat as the SL/R5000 was developed, seen here at Calder (right).

eye of German Peter Hanenberger, then a senior chassis engineer but later to become Managing Director of Holden.

Dozens of minor changes were made to the L34 specs to update the new LX’s A9X option. These ranged from the fitting of bigger brakes and wheels, stronger front stub axle assemblies, thermo fans, brake ducting and heavy duty bushing, plus an optional delete list of surplus components such as radios and bumper rubbers, etc.

Other significant improvements were made, including modifications to the rear floor pan (later to be part of the UC

Torana upgrade) that allowed improved suspension mounting points and to make room for a larger and stronger Salisbury rear axle assembly, which also included rear disc brakes, both coming from the soon the be released HX Holden range.

A new rule related to carburetor freedoms also required a rear-facing bonnet scoop, as Firth’s Weber setup projected above the bonnet line. Optional transmissions were also now permitted, so the A9X racer was fitted with a Borg Warner T10. With the wheel arch flares, front air dam with brake scoops, rear spoiler and a rear facing

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Jim Richards burst on the Australian scene at Bathurst in 1974 in this L34 he shared Rod Coppins (left) while Colin Bond won the Manufacturer’s Championship for Holden the same year (above). Bond even rallied the L34 (below) though it was ultimately not as adept on the dirt as its XU-1 predecessor.

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Peter Brock and Brian Sampson famously won Bathurst in 1975 for the tiny Gown-Hindhaugh privateer team (above). A year later Brock was racing another L34 for his own team, here leading Colin Bond in the HDT entry and Allan Moffat’s Falcon Hardtop at Calder (right).

bonnet scoop, the A9X – especially in two-door hatchback form – became the ultimate boy racer’s dream car.

The A9X seemed to be the perfect weapon to take on the Moffat and Bond Falcon hardtops which had dominated the ATCC in the first part of 1977.

Right up until the Sandown Hang Ten 400, the Falcons had been tough to beat. The Holden teams knew what was coming and waited with anticipation.

They got what they needed, and it was a dream debut for the A9X, with Peter Brock winning the pre-Bathurst enduro at Sandown.

It had been a solid test for the new Torana racer and it was suggesting that the future for Moffat and his fellow Ford racers could be difficult, with only a few weeks till they showed up at the Mountain.

However, it was not to be a win at Bathurst for the new A9X in ’77 as the Moffat Ford Dealer Team went on to record a crushing 1-2 – the famous form finish – with the first Torana home that of the flamboyant Captain Peter Jason in combination with ex-F1 driver Larry Perkins, recently returned from Europe.

After the much-vaunted Ford 1-2 at Bathurst with the XC Falcon Hardtops, Toranas returned to the winner’s circle in the final few races in ‘77 and dominated the next couple of years.

1978 Turning the tide.

If the 1977 ATCC series and Bathurst had been a demolition of Holden by the Moffat lead Ford Dealer Team, 1978 would deliver a complete turn around for Holden and their teams. With the now well developed and super reliable Torana package, it was the begining of a fight over which A9X mounted driver

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would dominate. Peter Brock won the ‘78 title over Bob Morris with the Torana A9X’s winning six rounds of the eight round ATCC. The ‘78 season delivered wins for Brock, Morris, Grice, 1978 also delivered Ian Geoghegan’s final ATCC win at Sandown driving the Bob Jane owned orange hatchback.

1979 Formula Torana Morris Wins tittle

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The 1979 ATCC became known as Formula Torana, as a result of the complete domination of the Torana A9X equipped teams.

Bob Morris would ultimately go on to win the Championship, his first and only ATCC series win.

It was a year long battle between the factory supported HDT A9X of Peter Brock and the privately entered and supported Ron Hodgeson/Channel 7 Racing team of Morris. Morris took the title with four of eight round wins, with Peter Brock taking three, with HDT teammate John Harvey taking another opening round win at Tasmania’s Symmons Plains.

Bathurst 1978/79 Torana A9X domination.

At Bathurst in 1978 and ’79, Peter Brock and Jim Richards and the HDT were the dominant winners.

With Brock back at the HDT under the direction of John Sheppard and with a new co-driver in Richards, it was always going to be a race for the Dealer Team to lose.

Morris lead at the starts, Brock was slow away but soon went by the leading Fords, sweeping to a comfortable win with Richards alongside.

In the ‘79 race, not content with i h a totall d domination, i i B Brockk pushed home the result, breaking the lap record on his final lap. He finished a record six laps in front of the Peter Jason/Larry Perkins hatchback. This small privateer combination, lead

by Harry’s apprentice Ian Tate, had delivered two podium finishes out of three Bathurst enduros starts for the colourful Captain’s Torana team.

The ’79 race was the swansong for the mighty A9X, the model taking the first seven places at the finish. It was the last great race success for the Torana model, as Holden planned to switch to Commodores for the 1980 Great Race.

Move over Torana, it’s the end for you

The LH/LX Torana had been the mainstay of Holden’s racing program since 1974, with both the factory supported HDT and many privateer based teams deliverying dozerns of major race wins across the country.

The Torana name had delivered Peter Brock four Bathurst victories and into the minds and homes of motorsport fans and indeed the nation.

Th The A9X b became the h b boy racer’s ulitmate dream car, with thousands of every day Toranas retro fitted with flared guards and bonnets scoops, replicating the 450 odd A9Xs that had been originally built by the factory.

There was a undignified end to the A9X model when in the first part of the 1980 ATCC, a change to the homologation rules allowed teams to continue to run the cars converted back to L34 spec whilst they finished their new Commodore racers.

Some of the modifications required included having rear drum brakes fitted replacing the discs, removing the iconic bonnet scoop and even removing the rear boot lid spoilers on the hatchbacks.

Altogether, the Torana models had won five Bathursts and four ATCCs, placing the cars firmly in Australian touring car racing’s Hall Of Fame.

It’s also a testmant to the significance of these vehicles that road versions of both the L34 and the A9X and even the original SLR5000/SS have become some of the most collectable Australian made cars of all times.

THE FACTORY MAN How L34 and A9X beat the system

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Bob Morris and British driver John Fitzpatrick famously and controversially won the ‘76 Bathurst enduro, limping home in a cloud of oil smoke from a leaking engine rear main seal (below) - though at the time thought to be a differential leak - highlighting the on-going fragility of the L34 Torana. Holden strongly supported its successes in period with an advertising campaign.

HOLDEN’S MOTOR sport man during the 1969-79 ‘golden age’ was Joe Felice, a marketing operative who ran Fishermans Bend’s racing ‘slush fund’.

After going through the cancellation of the XU-1 V8, Felice finessed the SL/R 5000, L34 and A9X through the Holden system.

“The plan was always to replace the XU-1 with an SL/R 5000,” he recalls. “But the SL/R 5000 was only ever an interim car. We knew it wasn’t good enough.

“It was only a road car initially. It was an interim move from XU-1 over to a V8.”

Employing the expertise of Repco’s F1-winning race division, headed by Malcom Preston, Holden set about homologating the stronger L34 in time for Bathurst in ’74.

He had to overcome a change of engineering management, with Cadillac-inspired American George Roberts taking over at Holden.

“The SL/R 5000 was never really intended to be a racecar,” Felice said. “But George Roberts was anti-racing and wouldn’t even approve rear disc brakes for the L34. It also had the small diff which was designed for the FJ and it had shitty little axles.” Felice revealed he boondoggled CAMS (now Motorsport Australia) to accept the A9X as a variant of the troublesome L34.

“We couldn’t fix all those problems until the A9X.” he said.

“To be honest, I pulled a swifty with CAMS. I homologated it as an evolution of the L34, which meant we could just put a standard 308 engine in the road-going A9X but we could use the L34 engine for racing. It was a much better car altogether.”

The A9X’s racing record in ‘78/79 justified the big change.

“When you look at its results, it was the best Torana ever in racing,” he said.

Felice revealed that the Repco-developed L34 engine caused Holden warranty grief because of the engine’s racing tolerances. In road-going form, the motor was very rough and rattly because of racing-orientated piston slap.

“Lots of buyers complained that ‘It’s got the death rattles’ and we had lots of claims,” Felice said. “It cost us a fortune in warranties, but there was actually nothing wrong with it. It was the way it was designed, with lots of racing clearances.” According to Felice, the hatchback version of the Torana SS A9X was preferred because HDT boss Harry Firth “found he could fit bigger rear tyres”.

Although unsuccessful in ’77, the A9X came into its own in ‘78/79, with Peter Brock dominating both seasons. A9X refined the L34 and overcame its engine, drivetrain and suspension shortcomings to become one of our most revered racers. Both designations, by the way, were internal engineering codes – just like XU-1 – rather than marketing labels.

Yet they remain among the most iconic designations of any Aussie muscle cars.

Mark Fogarty

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THE V8 GREAT Ultimate racing Torana - arguably best ever

Four of the men behind the success of the L34 and A9X tell MARK FOGARTY how they overcame shortcomings to become Holden racing icons TORANA A9X. Has an Aussie touring car racer ever looked tougher? The swooping fastback shape, prominent flares and spoilers, rear-facing bonnet scoop. The thing screamed muscle.

The toughest looking of all time? Some debate. The 1984 Group C Commodore – lionised as ‘The Last Of The Big Bangers’ – is a worthy rival for that accolade.

But for many fans, the 1977-79 A9X – specifically in two-door hatchback form – is the car that defines an era. Small car, big engine, homegrown.

The A9X is the peak of the Torana V8 legend. From the still-born XU-1 V8 to the LH SL/R 5000 and its L34 variant, to the LX A9X, V8 Toranas are a big part of the foundation of what is now Supercars.

They are also fundamental to the folklore of Aussie muscle cars, true factory produced homologation specials built in limited numbers for the road to go racing.

Arguably, the L34 and A9X were the last true racers for the road – certainly in terms of running down the production line.

Following the “Supercars” furore in mid-

1972, which killed the XU-1 V8, Falcon GT-HO Phase 4 and Valiant Charger V8, Holden pressed on with the upgraded LJ Torana XU-1, boasting the bigger 202 cubic inch (3.3-litre) straight six, through 1973 and early ’74.

The Holden Dealer Team had limited success in that period, but what kept wily boss Harry Firth going was the knowledge that an “acceptable” V8 Torana – bigger, heavier and bluffer – was on the way with the all-new, all-Australian LH Torana.

Introduced in March, 1974, the LH range was initially headlined by the SL/R 5000, powered by Holden’s five-litre V8.

It was a natural for Australian touring car racing, recast under the Group C rules to allow more racing modifications while still based on a limited-run production model.

The SL/R 5000 was underdone. Its racing flaws were manifest. The L34 option, introduced in time for the ’74 Bathurst 1000, made it faster – mainly thanks to a Repco-modified engine – but no less fragile.

The fortified 308 ci (5.047-litre) Holden V8 still suffered initial oil surge problems and the feeble rear axles weren’t up to the task.

And yet, the SL/R 5000 helped Brock secure his first Australian touring car championship in 1974. The L34, despite its limitations, won the ’75 ATCC for Colin Bond and also the separate manufacturers’ championship (Manchamp), plus the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 with factory castoff Brock in his privateer entry.

The L34 went on to claim the ’76 Bathurst 1000 (Bob Morris/John Fitzpatrick) and the Manchamp title.

The dramatic ’76 Bathurst 1000 was a crushing Holden triumph – the famous “Magnificent Seven” sweep, with the first Ford home a three-litre Capri in eighth.

The A9X in ’77 fixed all the problems, but also ran straight into the Moffat Ford Dealer Team leviathan, which dominated with the rejuvenated XC Falcon Hardtop, including the historic Bathurst 1-2 form finish.

H Fi th’ loyal l l lieutenant li t t Ian I Tate T t was a kkey Harry Firth’s player in the Torana story, from XU-1, though L34 to the glorious A9X.

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Peter Janson was a Torana mainstay, enjoying incredible success at Bathurst driving with F1-returnee Larry Perkins (above left). HDT was in full force during the A9X era, running up to three cars including one based in Western Australia for Wayne Negus. The Perth driver joined the team for the enduros, seen here at the ‘77 Sandown 400 (above) sharing with John Harvey, who was mainstay of the HDT attack at that time.

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NEXT IN LINE The man who made the best of the A9X

RACECAR PREPARATION guru John Sheppard took over the Marlboro Holden Dealer Team in 1978 following Harry Firth’s retirement or ouster – whoever’s story you choose to believe.

Fact is, under Sheppo, the MHDT performed a stunning revival in ‘78/79, led by the return of Holden talisman Peter Brock.

Renowned for his pristine presentation, Sheppard improved the appearance and performance of the team.

He secured the job ahead of touring car international Frank Gardner, whose insistence on a Sydney base put off Melbourne-centred Holden.

While he had no role in the original development of the A9X, Sheppard certainly developed it to its peak.

As an outside observer, he was amused by the L34’s engine oil surge problems.

“I used to laugh at the bloody disasters with smoke pouring out of the exhaust pipes,” Sheppo recalls. “I think it was Harry that convinced Holden that you couldn’t get a wet sump to work on the 308 over 5500 revs.

“But I was doing one for John Pollard at the time and we designed a sump which worked,

and we used to laugh up our sleeve about it all.”

He claims that under his rein, MHDT fabricated a “properly designed” new sump – which also resulted in an immediate 12 horsepower gain.

Sheppard, as precise and acerbic as he was in his heyday, maintains “Windage from the crankshaft was more a factor than slosh in corners and braking”.

He added: “It was just a matter of people understanding what fluids do under forces.”

Once sorted, he acknowledged the A9X was “a weapon”.

MHDT and other leading Holden teams preferred the two-door hatchback version of the Torana over the four-door.

However, his theory was never tested beyond his previous experience with the Monaro GT350 improved production/sports sedan he built for Bob Jane.

“In my opinion, because it had less holes in it, it had better torsional stiffness,” Sheppo said.

“But we never actually tested it, so it might have been an urban myth.

“I think they were preferred because everyone thought they looked better.

Also, when I built the HQ Monaro for Bob Jane, we went for two-door because it was significantly lighter than four-door.”

Sheppard remembers that much of the A9X’s running gear transferred to the Commodore for 1980.

“Holden gave us one of their engineering test cars to play with, and we just hacked it up and put all the stuff from the A9X into it,” he said. “It behaved itself reasonably well.”

During his HDT tenure, Sheppard says the 308 race engine’s power increased from 375 to close to 400 horsepower.

He sold the team to Brock at the end of ’79, ostensibly because Holden announced it was withdrawing from racing. In fact, financing was shifted to Brock under the HDT Special Vehicles banner, funded by major dealers as well as cigarette maker Philip Morris, but still with significant Holden engineering input.

Mark Fogarty

AN1Images.com/Ian Smith

Few people remember now but when John Sheppard took over the HDT in 1978 Peter e Brock returned to the fold and initially raced a four-door A9X, not a hatchback. He’s seen here leading Bob Morris’ hatchback at Sandown. Stonie hinted at what was coming.

Holden and the A9X replied in ’78 with withering force as HDT returnee Brock claimed the ATCC, Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000.

The A9X’s success culminated in well-funded privateer Morris beating Brock in the ’79 ATCC, but the Marlboro HDT hero dominated the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 with Jim Richards.

Bathurst ’79 was Brock’s peak at Mount Panorama. He won by six laps and broke the lap record on his final tour.

The Fords, again, were nowhere.

From 1980, the Torana was replaced by the Commodore, beginning another Holden epoch.

Such sustained success couldn’t have been imagined back in 1974, when HDT was struggling.

HDT boss Harry Firth’s loyal lieutenant back then, as he had been through the ‘Fox’s’ previous Ford phase, was Ian Tate, long-time engine-building guru who is still active in the historic racing scene at 81.

According to Tate, the need for the SL/R 5000 and L34 option was urgent by 1974.

“The XU-1 was running out of puff,” he said. “Midway through ’73, you could see the writing was on the wall, although the

’73 XU-1 was the most successful one. It was at the peak of its performance.”

The LH SL/R 5000 racer was an interim measure before the L34 could be homologated in time for Bathurst.

Allan Grice beat HDT to running the SL/R 5000, which Tate recalls started around 310 horsepower.

“It was a sweet handling car and a lot quicker than the XU-1,” he said. “It gave us a lead-in to the development of the L34, but it came too late in ’74. We didn’t get the L34 early enough, we didn’t do enough development on it.

“We were behind the eight ball from the start.”

The SL/R 5000 and L34 were plagued by oil surge problems, weak axles and topend motor inadequacies.

You could write a dissertation about all the issues, but in summary, the package – even the Repco-developed L34 engine – was flawed.

“They were quick, they had the pace, but the oil system wasn’t refined enough,” Tate said. “We didn’t have enough testing with it.”

Suspension and drivetrain frailties also had to be overcome.

In the meantime, HDT tried pit stop innovations for refuelling – developing a multi-churn system and then swappable fuel tank, both of which were banned.

Heading into the ’74 Bathurst 1000 with the L34, HDT conducted a full race simulation at Calder.

“We had no trouble at all,” Tate recalls.

“The car went faultlessly. So we went to Bathurst and we were very confident. But as it turned out, Peter’s cars developed a strange engine miss when leading by six laps.

“Harry was going berserk and trying to slow him down. There was no need to slow him down. The guy was driving around pretty easy at that stage. He wasn’t using the car all that hard. It burnt a hole in a piston, as simple as that.”

After a long investigation/witch hunt, it turned out to be carburettor jetting problem. Poor quality jets starved the mixture in one of carbies, which ran too lean.

“It was a pretty poor showing, all in all,” Tate said. “It was a wake-up call, We needed a lot more development with the car.”

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There were also brake hose, valve spring and clutch problems.

“If we’d run the ’73 XU-1 at Bathurst in ’74, we would’ve killed it,” Tate lamented.

“In the end, it was raining and the XU-1 would’ve been in its element in those conditions.”

Still, Bond won at Surfers Paradise and Phillip Island, and Brock claimed the ATCC. Tate noted that the Repco-developed L34 engine produced 350 horsepower on its dyno, but only 320 when run on an independent rig.

“We were really upset about that,” he said. “It was far short of what we were expecting.”

With some rushed development, hand-finished Perfectune cylinder heads, Holden-developed camshaft and new exhaust system, the L34 reached 350 bhp for Bathurst, with a strong torque and power range from 4200-6500 rpm.

Among the changes to the five-litre Holden engine: higher compression, beefier rods with bigger big end bolts, cast slipper pistons, roller rocker arms and lightened flywheel. “It was a reason-

ably good package,” Tate said. Not so the cobbled four-speed gearbox – designed for much lower outputs – which required a “non-standard” breather pipe and the axles, which were ultimately strengthened

by Holden.

Tate acknowledged that Brock’s domination of the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 in his privateer Gown-Hindhaugh L34 was “a huge embarrassment” for HDT. “The car was a heap of shit,” he spat. “How it lasted I’ll never know.”

All the drama of ‘74/75 did Tate’s head in and he left HDT’s by then poisonous en-

vironment. “I couldn’t stand it anymore,” he said.

Tate wasn’t involved in the development of the LX A9X, which debuted in ’77. Firth was still in charge, but Bond had defected to Ford, joining Moffat.

Firth was more involved in the A9X, driving prototypes on the road and at Holden’s Lang Lang proving ground, again working with senior company engineers like Fred James and Ray Borrett, among others.

“The A9X sorted all the shortcomings of the L34,” said Tate, who ended up

FROM FIRTH TO FISHERMANS BEND Holden engineer at the heart of racing for four decades

RAY BORRETT started work for Harry Firth as a first-year apprentice motor mechanic in 1963. Firth was very active in both racing and rallying in that period, effectively running Ford Motorsport.

At that time, Harry was completing the build of 500 GT500 Cortinas, which subsequently won the Bathurst 500 in 1965.

After the GT500 Cortinas came the XR GT Falcon and then the XT GT Falcon, which ran in the first London to Sydney Marathon.

Borrett worked on all of them.

“Harry was a hard task master, but a good teacher, so those learnings stood me in good stead for the rest of my life,” he recalled.

“Little things like ‘You only get one chance to do it, cock, so do it right the first time. When the flag drops, there is no coming back for a second go’.”

Firth had a falling out with Ford in 1968 even though he had achieved good results in the London to Sydney marathon, and in 1969 the Holden Dealer Team came under

the control of Harry, supported

by Peter Lewis-Williams and John Bagshaw at Fishermans Bend.

HG GTS350 Monaros were initially used for racing and rallying, but in late ’69 the LC Torana came along and Harry built a small six-cylinder race car that proved it could beat the Falcon GT-HOs. Over the next few years, the Torana XU-1 evolved into what became one of the most successful all-round race and rally cars ever produced in Australia.

Having exposure to Holden executives at the races as a mechanic allowed Borrett to chat with them over a beer afterwards.

He realised that he would not be content as a mechanic forever, and seeing shortcomings in the production cars, he decided to become an engineer and work at Holdens.

In 1971, he quit working full-time for Firth and studied mechanical engineering at nearby Swinburne University. He needed an income, so continued to work

at Firth’s on a part-time basis.

Borrett started work at Holden as an engineer in Experimental Engineering. Parked out the back, gathering dust, were three prototype V8 LJ Toranas that were about to be scrapped. He naively asked if he could buy one, but no go. What a missed opportunity!

He progressed to a design/ development role in the chassis group, responsible for Torana and Gemini. The L34 Torana had been released and had shortcomings in handling. Some modifications were needed for the homologation of the race cars.

With the new LX Torana, Holden managing director Chuck Chapman and chief engineer Joe Whitesell wanted the cars to ride and handle better, and be fitted with radial tyres.

This is when RTS (Radial Tuned Suspension) came into being and when Peter Hanenberger came to Holden.

Through this development, Borrett became very familiar with

an1images.com-Ian Smith

Boob Jane B Bob Jane rran an one off the h country’s biggest professional racing teams in period but was only an occasional entrant in Touring Car competition. Here his immaculate Torana A9X driven by Ian ‘Pete’ Geoghegan does battle with Bob Morris’ similar example seen here at the ATCC round at Sandown. It was Geoghegan’s lastever Australian Touring Car Championship race win. (above) Peter Brock was the most succesful Torana driver, in all its various XU-1, SL/R5000, L34 and A9X guises. Here he powers into turn one at Bathurst (right) on his way to his most famous victory of all, winning the country’s iconic motor race by six laps with co-driver Jim Richards in 1979. Brock famously smashed the track record on his final lap.

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the geometry and dynamics of the car’s suspension and what it needed to work well.

During 1976, he was asked to develop a production variant of the LX Torana sedan and hatchback for racing. This was the A9X. With significant input from Harry Firth, and a lot of development at the Lang Lang (Victoria) proving ground, the suspension pick up points were changed to suit a lower ride height for racing, and the Salisbury diff and rear disc brakes incorporated.

There was an LH Torana at Lang Lang that had been used for engine development for racing, so Ray converted that to full A9X specs for the development. It was basically a race car.

“What fun we had and got paid for it, too,” he smiled.

After the production release of the A9X, Borrett was sent to the USA to study vehicle dynamics at the GM University in Flint, Michigan, and work in Advanced Engineering at Chevrolet and Milford Proving

Ground, so he did not get to see the A9X race the first year.

Holden then sent him to Germany to work for Opel, so he missed out on racing for yet another year.

By the time Borrett got back to Australia, the new Commodore was in production. He moved back into racing and became the technical liaison person between Peter Brock and HDT Special Vehicles, and was heavily involved with the whole Polarizer saga. That episode, unfortunately, cost him his long friendship with Peter Brock.

He subsequently rose to the position of Director of Engineering at Fishermans Bend and head of Holden Motorsport, until retiring in the mid-2000s. Bob Watson

running colourful privateer Peter Janson’s enduro-centric campaign.

“It was a fantastic motor car, no doubt,” Tate noted.

After leaving HDT, Tate went out on his own, building race-winning engines for other Holden teams.

One of them was Janson’s plucky privateer effort, of which he took over the running in ’76. Janson and Kevin Bartlett finished fifth at Bathurst that year and then with the switch to the A9X, ‘The Captain’ finished third with Larry Perkins, the first Holden behind the form-finish Moffat Ford Dealer Team Falcons.

Tate also orchestrated the Janson/ Perkins runner-up results at Bathurst in ‘79/80, a period the master mechanic rates as one of the most enjoyable of his long career.

Under Tate’s tutelage, Janson also nearly won the ’77 Phillip Island 500, losing on a controversial countback to Grice, and claimed victory in the ’78 Calder 250 Manchamp round.

Tate was at the heart of the L34/A9X era, masterminding developments with the factory Holden team and then subsequent outstanding performances with a privateer team.

He helped evolve the toughest Toranas, which live on as icons of a golden era of Australian touring car racing.

NEXT ISSUE OF AUTO ACTION, WE HAVE PART FOUR OF OUR HOLDEN IN MOTORSPORT LOOKING AT THE VB TO VK COMMODORE BEFORE GROUP A ARRIVED IN AUSTRALIA

Once developed, Holden’s Torana A9X hatchback was unstoppable, even in privateer hands. Among those most prominent were Bob Morris and Allan Grice. Morris drove for the Ron Hodgson/ Channel 7 Racing. 1977 saw him locked in a season-long battle with Brock in the ATCC, which ulitmately delivered him a title win (above). Allan Grice was always a front runner in his own Craven Mild backed team. He delivered race wins and many podiums in Toranas and was a hard and aggressive racer (below).

Bathurst 1978 saw the Torana A9X go headto-head with the Falcon Hardtops, now in infamous Cobra livery. Bob Morris led to the first corner but victory went to Peter Brock, seen here (above) in fourth.

SLR5000/L34/A9X SCOREBOARD ATCC AT TCC - FOUR FOU OUR R WINS WINS 1974 – PETER BROCK ’75 – COLIN BOND ’78 – BROCK ’79 – BOB MORRIS

BATHURST 1000 FOUR WINS 1975 – BROCK/BRIAN SAMPSON ’76 – MORRIS/FITZPATRICK ’78 – BROCK/JIM RICHARDS ’79 – BROCK/RICHARDS

SANDOWN 500 - FIVE WINS 1975-79 – BROCK

MANCHAMP 1974/75/76/79

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37

STEP BY STEP

TCR Australia is fast becoming an opportunity for young drivers to demonstrate their potential.

The experienced Liam McAdam aims to do just that as DAN McCARTHY discovered Images: TCR Australia/Daniel Kalisz/Toyota/ McAdam library AT JUST 22-years-old, Liam McAdam boasts an impressive resume across a wide number of disciplines including Formula Ford, Toyota 86 Racing Series and capped off by winning the 2015 V8 Touring Car Series title.

McAdam started his career in racing competing with his father’s old 125cc Rotax SuperKart and loved it.

“After the first race I was pretty hooked, but I think the point I knew I wanted to make a career out of it was when I met Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo at the 2010 at the WA Festival of Speed,” McAdam told Auto Action.

“Just meeting the two of them I was star struck and in awe, I just wanted that to be me when I was older.”

The Queenslander was successful in state-based Superkart before taking the next logical step into Formula Ford. Two years of Australian Formula Ford Series competition culminated in a seventh place for Dream Motorsport.

During his time McAdam dabbled in tin top racing driving a Mazda MX-5 and quickly set his sights on Supercars after enjoying a sample in a Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon.

“It was in 2013 when I first had a test

38 AutoAction

drive, and by that I mean two or three laps in a V8 Supercar which was one of David Reynolds’ Project Blueprint chassis,” McAdam recalled.

“I had a drive in that and loved it.

“Supercars was a more achievable goal. Getting to Formula 1 now seems to cost A round Millions. Supercars was still a winner fantastic competitive category in Toyota and I certainly had a bit of love 86s, Liam for the cars.

McAdam “Driving that (the Supercar) transitions to was so different. Not sitting TCR in 2020. in the centre of the car and the sheer power; obviously in Formula Ford you have to modulate the throttle but this was another the logical step up to the Super2 level, it was so different. It felt like such a Series with Eggleston Motorsport purpose built race car and just so refined, starting with the final two rounds of 2015 ahead of an anticipating full-time so nice to drive.” campaign in 2016.

The next step after Formula Ford It was a successful opening innings was the V8 Touring Car Series, which for McAdam, who finished his debut McAdam was one of the first to use as a Super2 race at The Mountain in stepping stone to Supercars.

“During that series I had Alex Rullo there 11th place. However, the Car of The Future chassis became eligible to as well and that was a hotly contested run in Super2 the next year, which battle throughout the year, which for the disadvantaged the Project Blueprint most part was just me and him playing entries of which he was one. out the front,” McAdam explained.

“When the COTF cars came in we McAdam secured the title and made

were a little bit behind the 8 ball in terms of our performance because we stayed with Project Blueprint,” McAdam recalled to AA. “As you move up the categories sponsor dollars become more and more important and that is a really tricky thing. You can teach someone to drive but they don’t teach you how to get sponsors, but it is important that you are good at both of them.”

Towards the close of the season, McAdam decided to leave the team

McAdam received help from Audi Sport TCR driver Jean-Karl Vernay during the summer months (above) and in fact will drive the same Audi RS3 LMS TCR that the Frenchman took to a debut TCR Australia race victory (below)

w the aim of finding a team with a with C COTF chassis, however after further investigation he felt it was not worth in the money and reassessed his options th for the following year. The decision fo w was made to run his own team, Liam McAdam Motorsport and enter the M Toyota 86 Racing Series.

To Competing in the series from 2017C 2019 McAdam recorded a round victory 20 among multiple race wins in a period am which the Queenslander described as wh “very up and down.”

“It is a really interesting category. I have got a lot of love for the cars. I originally wrote the category off in my mind, then drove it and thought these are actually a good car to drive,” he said.

“It’s so competitive, you see quite often the top 15 guys are within a couple of tenths. One week you’ll be right up there and the next week you won’t, it really highlighted the importance of qualifying

iin those cars. We came level, that was when we started to get away with a couple of wins in more people and more employees.

We certainly felt we had the capability which we are pretty happy to do it and we certainly had the setup with.”

For McAdam it was the in terms of workshop equipment and trucks and all that stuff, [so] we figured first time that he ran his let’s take that in-house and manage it all own squad at a national level, which grew from ourselves.”

McAdam explained to AA that he like a family-run operation to f everyone else has learnt a lot about the something more serious.

“We had Brett Francis engineering the front-wheel-drive machines in a short space of time. car the first year with me and my Dad “It has been a steep learning curve, doing all the work on it, we learnt a lot that year,” he recalled. it has been like that for everyone in Australia because we haven’t previously Last year McAdam dipped his toe in the water of the TCR Australia Series contesting three McAdam demonstrated his rounds of the front-wheel-drive talent early, by winning the V8 touring car series in a Melbourne Touring Car Series in 2015.

Performance Centre run Audi RS3 3 LMS TCR car.

In the six races he finished, the Queenslander bagged four top 10 finishes highlighted by a sixth place result. In 2020, McAdam will contest the full season running an Audi under his own team banner.

“We gained a bit of confidence running a three car team in the 86s with Jaden Ransley and Richard Peasey last year.

“That took us to another

had a highly competitive and powerful front wheel drive racing series.”

McAdam expects strong competition in the category this year but goes in optimistic of some solid and consistent results.

“It would good to be up on the podium for a couple of races, that would certainly be one of the major goals for the year,” he said.

“I think if we could be consistent enough to finish top eight for the season, I would be really happy with that. We just have to be keep consistent.”

AutoAction 45

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p ra w S L A N NATIO

TRIBUTE TO LAKESIDE QUEENSLAND RACERS returned to an old stamping grounds for the Lakeside Tribute meeting on March 14-15.

QLD TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP

UPGRADING HIS Holden Commodore VL was fruitful for Matthew Haak to score three Group A and outright race wins. The task was madec easier when Steve Hay (Commodore VK) had a major engine blow-up in qualifying after going fastest.

Haak grabbed the early Race 1 lead. Chris Sharples (Holden Monaro) was within a car length and almost pulled off a pass in lapped traffic. Third went to Chris Brown (Commodore) ahead of Piers Harrex (BMW E30) and Dean McMahon (Monaro).

The second race was stopped when Sharples crashed at Turn 4. Upon resumption, Piers Harrex retired with a fuel vapour issue.

Brown also dropped out and Haak ran dry on the final lap. McMahon won while Haak limped to the finish second in class behind three A2 cars. McMahon lead the third encounter until Haak passed him. Brown worked through to third. In the final Haak again won from McMahon and Brown.

In Class A2, it was a clean-sweep for Rob Droder (Commodore VE) and four times he beat Stuart Walker (Commodore). Michael Woodcroft (Holden Torana) scored three thirds after Mark Giorgio (Ford Falcon BA) chased the leading pair in the first.

With the groups determine by lap times, the Group B entries of Giorgio and Mark Hyde (Ford Escort) were pushed to Group A2 after qualifying. In the first race Dave Hinton (Toyota Corolla) won ahead of Scott Kelly (BMW 318is) and Gerard O’Flynn (Commodore VZ).

Hinton headed Kelly in the second by 0.5s as Andrew Knight (E36 323i) netted third.

The last two races were merged with Group A. With Hinton moved to A2, it was Knight who showed the way ahead of Kelly who was

Matthew Haak was dominant in the Queensland Touring Cars driving his upgraded VL Commodore. Images: MTR Images

promoted for the last where Lance Jurgeleit (E46 330i) was the best.

AUSTRALIAN TRANS-AM

IN HIS 50th year in motor sport, John English was the overall winner. But he didn’t win the first race. That went to fastest qualifier Ian Palmer. English looked to make it a one-two for the Pontiac Firebirds but the gear lever broke and he had to concede Anthony Tenkate (Ford Mustang).

Palmer led the second until English passed him. There was contact between Palmer and Tenkate where the former spun and the latter copped a post-race 30s penalty. Palmer retained second with Chris LaRosa (Mustang) third ahead of Tenkate. English followed up with victories in Races 3 and 4, ahead of Palmer and Tenkate.

In the 5.0-litre class, Ron Prefontaine (Mustang) took a clean-sweep. Gareth Jones (Mustang) won the battle for second in the opener, while Mike Collins (Mustang) claimed second in class over the remaining three races.

HISTORIC TOURING CARS

QUALIFYING FASTEST helped Peter Baguley (Holden Torana XU-1) to the first race victory over Stephen Scales (Chev Camaro) and

Andrew Adams held off Wayne Hennig to win Production Sports.

Grahame Wrobel (Ford Mustang). Scales came back to win Race 2 ahead of David Waddington (Ford Falcon XY) with Wrobel and rear-of-grid starter Baguley completing the top four.

In Race 3, it was Waddington starting at the back. Baguley chased down Wrobel and then Scales for the win with Waddington and Martin White (Ford Falcon Rallye Sprint) from the back, followed at the expense of Graham Streat (Torana) who had been running fourth until spearing off at the final corner. The final race went to Baguley ahead of Waddington and White who pipped Scales by 0.2s.

PRODUCTION SPORTS

AT ROUND 1 it was on between Andrew Adams (Ginetta), Wayne Hennig and Joe Barbagallo in their Porsches. Tim Janke (Mazda MX5) was also prominent, only faultering in the final race. It didn’t go well for Graham Lusty who crashed in Friday’s practice, missed qualifying and finished just twice.

Adams converted his pole into

42 AutoAction

a Race 1win, from Hennig, Barbagallo, Janke and Lusty despite a red flag period after Chris Battista crashed his MX5 at the end of the front straight. Adams and Lusty both failed to finish Race 2, as did Brian Ferrabee while Wayne Hennig only managed a tenth. Barbagallo was the winner ahead of Janke and Kevin Vedelago (Porsche).

Hennig bounced back to take the third race in front of Adams, Barbagallo, Janke and Shane Plohl (Eunos Roadster). Adams nailed the start of Race 4 which set up the win, just in front of Hennig with Brendan Whittaker (MX5) third ahead of Lusty, Barbagallo and Janke.

QR SPORTS & SEDANS

FOUR RACE wins went to Lachlan Gardner (Tundra OzTruck), three of them ahead of fellow OzTruck drivers Greg McIntyre (Ford) and Graham Struber (Silverado). McIntyre DNF’d out of Race 4.

Behind them Ettore Vosolo (BMW E30), Martin Smith (Nissan Pintara) and Zayd Tones (BMW 318) swapped positions several times. That ended in race three when Vosolo blew a tyre and found the wall near the old spectator bridge. After two fourths and a sixth, Tim Jordan (E30) finished third in the last.

Garry O’Brien

VIRUS CURTAILS AUTUMN HISTORICS JUST BEFORE the tighter COVID-19 public gathering restrictions came in, the Historic Sports & Racing Club went ahead with its Autumn Historic race meeting at Wakefield Park on March 21-22.

Conditions on the then in-place guidelines were implemented. That meant the meeting was only accessible to competitors, their families and crews, officials and club members. No general public spectators were allowed.

The HSRCA did advise that entrants would be allowed to withdraw should they wish. Some did, but almost 80 did make the trek to the rural NSW circuit.

Group S Production Sports Cars numbered up with the most entrants where Wayne Seabrook (Porsche 911 Carrera) dominated until calling it a day.

Fellow Porsche driver Andrew Purvis netted a series of seconds but retired from the last which was won by Damien Meyer over fellow MG Midget driver Warren Hotz.

In the five outings for Group N Historic Touring Cars, David Stone (Nc Ford Mustang) was first with daylight next.

Second positions went to Mark Lenstra (Ford d Escort RS1600) in the first three races before Graham Gulson (Nb Alfa Romeo Guilia Special) secured one ahead of Paul Tierney.

The latter in his Holden Torana XU-1 saved Chris Collett (Mini Cooper S) from disaster in race one. The Mini looked like it would roll over at Turn 2 until it bounced off the Torana and still managed to finish. There Torana didn’t but came back later for a couple of second places.

The BMC Challenge brought Group S and N together.

Meyer won from Collett and fellow Mini driver Graham Russell with Colin Dodds (Cooper S) fourth.

Bruce Connolly (Elwyn 003B) was the fastest Formula Ford qualifier but had no answer to William Marshall

Justin McClintock dominated Group Q & R driving the Galloway Sports 1300 (above). Wayne Seabrook did the same in Group S (below). Images: HSRCA David Jenkins

(Reynard 88) in any of the races. Kieran McLaughlin (Van Diemen RF89) and Dan Holihan (Swift DB1) were barely separable in the first race for third.

Travis Clark (Van Diemen RF86) was third in the next outing, ahead of Holihan before Geoff Morgan (Swift) edged out McLaughlin in Race 4. In the fifth, which included comfortable winner Justin McLintock and his Galloway Sports 1300, Marshall was second

and McLaughlin took third narrowly ahead of Holihan and Connolly. Marshall snared the last just in front of McLaughlin, Holihan, Clark and Connolly.

McClintock had Group Q&R to himself after a runaway win over Peter Turnbull (Turnham TS Sports) and L, M & O was a similar story with Wayne Wilson (Brabham BT21C) winning as David McKenzie (Elfin Steamliner) Brian Wilson (Brabham BT9) shared the runner-up spoils.

In the Supersprints the fastest time went to Michael Henderson (Mawer Clubman) over Sean Turnbull (Turnham Clubman) and Kerry Hughes (Aussie Racing Car). Garry O’Brien

Wayne Wilson topped L,M & O driving his beautifully presented Brabham BT21C.

TIGHE’S UP BOTH HILLCLIMBS TWO ROUNDS in the one weekend is now a tradition for the opening stanza of the NSW Hillclimb Championships, and Queenslander Dean Tighe won both on the first weekend of March.

Armed with his standout F1 Judd V8-powered Dallara, Tighe recorded FTDs on Saturday’s Esses course and backed up with the best time on the following day’s Mountain Straight course, the same one used for the 2019 Australian titles last November.

The only hiccup across the weekend was a spin coming out of the Dipper on his first run where he was able to continue and complete, albeit with a slow time. His next three runs, and four on Sunday, were faster than second placed and fellow Formula Libre over 2000cc class rival Ron Hay in his Synergy Dallara.

The fastest at the end of the first run was David Mahon in his Formula

Dean Tighe relished the challenge of The Mountain to win the opening two rounds of the NSW Hillclimb Championship.

Image: BLCC Tony Hanrahan

Libre under 2000cc Dallara F394. But cubic capacity took over after that with Hay second for both rounds and Mahon third overall twice.

Tighe’s best times on both courses took place on the final runs with a 23.02 and a 39.69 respectively. He finished the two comparable 2019 rounds with two thirds; therefore two wins were a cracking start to a full title assault this year. He expects more to come with the debut of his new Empire/Hayabusa at Kempsey’s

Round 4.

Fourth across both rounds was Zac Le Lievre (Open/Closed Sports up to 1600cc Westfield Megabusa) ahead of Greg Boyle (over 3.0-Litre Sports Sedan Nissan Skyline R32 GTR) on Saturday and Brett Bull (Formula Libre over 2.0-Litre turbo Van Diemen RF03) on Sunday.

Completing the first round top 10 were Peter Brown (Prosport Mulsanne), Steven King (Uberkart Reaper), Bull, Tim Blake (Subaru

Impreza WRX) and Michael Dunbar (Holden Commodore). Boyle was sixth in the second round ahead of King, Malcolm Michel (Holden GTS), Brown and Geoff Brisby (HSV Clubsport).

Fastest female went to Karen Wilson (Ford Focus) over Louise Hayes (Clubsport) and Mechelle Sahyoun (WRX) on day one before Hayes turned the tables on Wilson the next day where Eva Fil (Ford FPV F6 Typhoon) was third. Garry O’Brien

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43

p ra w S L A N IO NAT

BIRTHDAY BEGINS NEW YEAR WEST AUSTRALIA’s racing year began with a two-day Birthday meeting at Wanneroo Raceway at the beginning of March featuring the Gerry Prosser Memorial Plate for Formula Vees.

Jacer drivers David Caisley and David Campbell fought over the spoils with two wins each. The difference was that Caisley was a close runner up in the two wins he missed out on while Campbell mustered a third and sixth. Mark Horan (Stinger) battled with the leaders for a Race 2 second and Rod Lisson (Sabre) was second in the last.

Andrew Lockett (Ajay) beat all in the 1200s at each encounter. Kathy Lisson (Sabre) and April Welsh (Jacer) initially fought second in Race 1 before Brett Scarey (CD-Vee) took them both after a bad start. Scarey retired out of Race 2 where Welsh snatched second, but came back for another two strong seconds later.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION

THE FIRST race was taken out by the returning Barry Baltinas (BMW E46 M3) from Michael Sciorio (Subaru Impreza WRX) who copped a 5s penalty for a jumped start. Third was Reuben Romkes (Holden Monaro).

For Race 2 the first six were reversed. Sciorio sprinted away leaving Romkes second until Baltinas claimed him on the final lap. Again in Race 3, Sciorio led but Baltinas ran him down for the win. Romkes also relegated Sciorio. Ben Riley (Honda Integra Type R) chase them home, as he had to in the fourth race.

EXCEL CUP

WINS WERE split as Robert Landsmeer took the first two. Hill who was second in both, was able to overcome and pass Landsmeer for the last two victories.

Mason Harvey was able to finish third on four occasions despite drama in the Race 2, which was stopped when several cars came together at the start. Connor Wroth sustained bad damage while Harvey was able to be patched and restarted.

Jake Passaris was a clear fourth in Race 1, Cameron Atkins took the spot in the second and was edged out in the third by Natasha Passaris

David Turner took four wins driving his Ralt RT4 in Formula Classics (above) and the Excels provided close racing (left).

Images: Mick Oliver

Cl Clinton Rayner (Chev Camaro).

G Graeme Woolhouse (Ford Mustang) just 2.4s ad adrift of Johnson in race two, and ahead of Barr be before Woolhouse won the third from Barr and Jo Johnson. The last race was a handicap event wi with the early starters Laurie Lapsley (Jaguar M MkII) and Dan Forster (Mini Cooper S) first and wi with Barr third. before it was Ryan McNess’ turn in the last.

HQ HOLDENS

THE OPENING round win went to Michael Howlett who was involved in four tight struggles which reaped three wins including the revers grid race, and a second place. His major protagonist was Michael Howlett with two seconds and a victory.

Roy Sharp finished a close third in Race 1, and fifth behind Dennis Russell and Steve West in the second before splitting in the next. In the last he trailed the leading duo before a slight miscue from Woodbridge allowed Sharp to grab second and third overall.

SPORTS SEDANS/SPORTS CARS/STREET CARS

OVER THE four races Grant Hill in his exSupercar Ford Falcon BF was unbeaten. His challengers were John Roderick (Lamborghini) and Peter Major (Lotus Exige) who were runners up in Race 1. In the second Major harassed the leader until he retired, Roderick second clear of Richard Bloomfield (Porsche 997).

Major was on the back of the Falcon in race three until a Turn 1 spin. That allowed Roderick

to take another second as Major recovered ahead of fourth placed Bloomfield.

Major put the pressure on Hill again in the last.

When Major retired, Roderick benefitted in front of Walter Epple (Porsche 911). Meanwhile Street Car honours were taken by Philip Crouse over Deon Crous in VW Polos.

F1000/SPORTS RACERS

OVER THREE races, Jordan Oon was unbeaten in his Stohr F1000. However it was a close result in the first after the race was stopped when Keith Folwell (Stohr) and Clint Watts (Radical SR3RS) went off at Turn 4. Gianni Lutzu (Stohr) was a close second after Max McRae took the fight to Oon, and then retired with a gearbox problem.

Lutzu was second again in Race 2 with Michael Epple (Stohr) taking his second third just in front of McRae who shadowed Oon across the line in the third. Lutzu and Epple were next.

HISTORIC TOURING CARS

WHAT STARTED comparably easy just got tougher for Grant Johnson. The Holden Torana XU-1 driver delivered by almost 6s in Race 1 ahead of the similarly-mounted Greg Barr and

HOSTS WITH THE MOST POINTS

Image: Elgee

44 AutoAction

FORMULA RACING FO

AL ALTHOUGH MARTIN Bullock (Chevron B20) got the better start in a couple of races, he wasn’t able to hold out David Turner (Ralt RT4) who scored four wins. Simon Alderson (FF2000 Van Diemen RF88) relegated Bullock in the latter stages of the Race 1 but after that he had to settle for three thirds.

SALOON CARS

DESPITE ONLY one race win Matt Martin (Holden Commodore VT) topped the Pro points.

Glenn Crankshaw (Ford Falcon AU) won the first race from Robert Marcon (AU) and Martin.

Marcon turned the tables in Race 2 ahead of Grant Johnson (VT) who blew the gearbox in qualifying.

Martin finished second to Marcon in Race 3 after Johnson spun at Turn 1. Johnson finished second behind Martin in the last with Rick Gill (AU) third. Marcon and Crankshaw suffered DNFs in the later races.

Carl Fanderlinden (Falcon EA) won the Pro Am first encounter from Brock Ralph and Chase Hoy (both Commodore VNs). After Ralph led early, Marc Watkins (EA) won Race 2 from Fanderlinden and Hoy and continued that success in the last two for the round win.

Mick Oliver

THE HOST MG Car Club of Victoria took the lead in the annual three-round Rob Roy Interclub Challenge, scoring the win in round one on March 1 ahead of the Victorian Historic Racing Register and the Gippsland car Club.

The fastest time of the day went to 16-yearold Daniel Leitner who recorded a personal best of 22.3s in his rebuilt Subaru Impreza WRX for the MX5 Club. Col Hunter took second outright and a class second for the GCC in the WRX that he shared with his wife Laura who was the fastest female.

The MGCC had no class winners but made up for it with more entries and places in four classes, led by Adrian Azzopardi (MG Midget) with a second place. Frank Bradley (Mini R56) and Mark Atkinson (Falkenburg Jinx) were both class winners for the VHRR.

Russ Mead (Ford Anglia 105E) was top performer for the GCC with a class win while John Read (Mazda MX5) performed well with a class second and eleventh outright. Quickest of the defending title holders, the Renault Car Club was Jack Allisey (Renault Megane RS).

Entries were down but there were still 16 clubs represented, albeit a number of them with only one entry. Points were earned for the number of entries plus for the top four in each of the eight classes. The outright win was just for honour and did not gain any additional points.

The clubs no longer have to enter cars of their appropriate marque, sso some clubs aimed instead to get the most competitive entries. Past winners have certainly used that strategy.

Gary Hill

TRADITION LIVES ON AT BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE’S HOSTING of the three most prestigious state handicap races has become a tradition at the opening round of the Tasmanian Circuit Racing Championship which took place on March 1.

SPORTS GT

IN A Subaru Impreza WRX originally built for Time Attack, Liam Hooper dominated the final 2019 round and continued where he left off with a similar display in Sports GTA. He won the first heat comfortably, but a poor start in the second race saw Brad Sherriff (Nissan Skyline) score a win.

Sherriff missed the double-points final which was won by Hooper who seemed to be cruising and took a handy lead in the series.

Dave Wrigley was a clear winner in Sports GTB, running the Ford Mustang which was damaged at last years’ final round and showed no sign of any lack of pace, involved in good scraps with Dennis Howard (Nissan 350Z). Meanwhile, GTB rookie Ben Lockley (Holden Torana SLR5000) held out the front-runners in the final event, the Stateline Freight

Boss of Baskerville handicap, for tin top sedans.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION

A WIN and a second started the day on the right note for Leigh Forrestt (Toyota Celica Turbo) so too for Matthew Grace (Nissan san 200SX), also with a win and a second. In the final, inal, Forrest jumped the start and was penalised 20s, while Grace was slowed by tyre issues to eventually finish fifth. Forrest looked a chance to still finish strongly until a spectacular engine blow-up on the seventh of ten laps, leaving a considerable trail of oil on the back straight.

The former champion seemed far enough off the track to not cause any more dramas. That was until Farrell White (Holden Commodore) lost his brakes and smashed into the Celica several laps later, destroying its rear end, before also impacting the tyre wall heavily, sustaining considerable damage as well. The race was red flagged and Ayrton Richardson (Toyota Corolla) managed to avoid the

carnage to win and collect a handy haul of points.

FORMULA VEES

THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED duel between reigning state champion, 15-year-old Callum Bishop (Gebert) and former three-times Australian ace Wade McLean (Elliott) lived up to expectations.

Although McLean was on the pace early, Bishop won the double points final and only lowered his colours to McLean in the second heat, by the barest 0.0002s after an epic race-long battle.

However, they were unable to run down Michael Vaughan (Spectre), who made good use of his handicap to win the Dick Crawford memorial from Stephen Cashion (Scorpion) and McLean, with Bishop fifth.

HQ HOLDENS

Callum Bishop (left) and Liam Hooper (above) were rewarded with victories at Symmons Plains. Images: Angryman Photography

BACK TO his best Phil Ashlin won both heats and the double points final from Andrew Toth and Otis Cordwell. Alex Bird looked set to claim the Laurie Kelly Memorial handicap, but an incident with Zach Bennett a lap from home, saw their chances evaporate as Cordwell swooped with Ashlin in tow.

Cordwell was caught out with a backmarker, which allowed Ashlin to snatch a timely win. He was possibly helped by the chequered flag that came out a lap early, which prevented any hope of a Cordwell comeback.

SPORTS & RACING

THERE WERE some great dices between Phil

EXCELS AND TT GO LONGER ONE-HOUR ENDUROS for two categories with obligatory compulsory pitstops highlighted the second round of the Motor Racing Australia Series at Sydney Motorsport Park on March 14-15.

EXCELS

DRIVERS WHO tackled the enduro singlehanded took out the top three places. Will Longmore won comfortably ahead of Ben Crossland and Preston Breust.

Qualifying caused confusion as there was a red flag after just a few minutes, when few drivers had a chance to do a lap.

When the session resumed, it started to rain, heavily. This left Nash Morris and Broc Feeney on pole from Longmore.

In the race, Longmore made the best start and quickly built up a lead. Morris dropped to fifth after one lap. Rick Bates was sharing Matthew Drane’s car and was second from the Jeremy and Gary Hodges entry, and Crossland.

That’s how they ran until lap 19 when virtually everyone pitted. The pit lane was about to close and the rain had eased and a dryer line was in evidence. Just one lap later out came a safety car, just as pit lane closed.

When the race restarted, Longmore was well ahead with several lapped cars between him and Drane. On the penultimate lap Drane had a big moment at the last set of corners and was passed by Crossland, Feeney and Bruest.

Post-race Morris and Feeney were penalised 5s which dropped them to fifth while another four entries were docked two laps each.

Sutton (Dallara F3) and Mal Lee (PRB Clubman). Lee took overall honours while Chris Long made a welcome return to racing in John Parr’s ageing Reynard Formula Ford to finish third overall.

SPORTS SEDANS

WITH HIS 6.0-litre NASCAR-powered Holden Commodore, Brett O’Shea showed the way early.

However, he didn’t partake in the final, which allowed Danny Slater (Holden Torana) to take the win and overall points.

HYUNDAI EXCELS

REIGNING CHAMPION Josh Webster won all three races convincingly, despite suffering from the ‘flu.

He was 1.1s clear of Jamie Keeling in the first race while further back Jeremy Bennett was just ahead of Callum Mitchell in the fight for third.

In the next outing Mitchell was second and Bennett finished third. Fourth across the line was Peter Kingston but he was relegated to last due to a 20s penalty. Bennett went one better in the last for second ahead of Keeling.

HISTORIC TOURING CARS

THERE WERE several battles between John Talbot (Ford Mustang) and former state champion Michael Cross (Holden Torana GTR XU-1). The honours went to Talbot who also won the double-points final.

Martin Agatyn

ALFAS

Image: Riccardo Benvenuti

SUPER TT

TODD HERRING won both races, the early sprint and the onehour enduro. Greg Boyle (Nissan Skyline) was away quickly in the longer event but soon lost speed with an intermittent electrical issue. Herring (Mazda MX5) passed the ailing Boyle on lap seven, pitting a lap later and getting the compulsory stop out of the way early.

A safety car at this time saw the field close up behind Boyle, who still hadn’t stopped and light rain was falling. The resumption on lap 11 saw Boyle in front from Dennis Walker (Skyline) and Adrian Wuillemin (Peugeot 205). None of the three leaders were in a position to stop early as all needed to refuel.

Wuillemin pitted on lap 13 and handed over to Parry Anastakis, ultimately finishing 20th. Boyle pitted on lap 17 but a mistake in the stop led to a five-lap penalty and 28th in the end. This left Herring in front to the end.

The light shower had ended and a late safety car didn’t give the pursuers a chance to catch up. Second went to Jimmy Tran (Honda Civic) from Jordan Ford and Paul Royal (Skyline) who were second in the earlier race. Several teams were penalised allegedly jumping the start.

THE WEEKEND didn’t start well for Daniel Gatto (GTV6). He led Race 1 before retiring and was a non-starter in the second.

But after that the next three races were his, beating Michael Musumeci (GT) on each occasion after he won the first two.

Thirds were shared between Brad Wilson (147), Urs Muller (156), Mark Baggetto and Robert Seritti (GTV6) with the last two.

MX5 CUP

IT WAS a trifecta of victories for Todd Herring. He came through from a poor starting position in Race 1 to head a quartet of Herring Racing Mazda turbos ahead of Andy Harris, Verne Johnson and Richard Herring. Todd Herring dominated the very wet following races ahead of the same three. Best of the non-turbos was Stuart McFadyen in each.

CLUBMANS

PRB DRIVERS Ivan Srejber (Birkin S3) and James Dick (Widebody) scored one-twos in the first two outings with Peter Nowlan (NRC Bullet). The latter turned the tables in the third, taking the victory over his rivals. Russell Butler (Arrow SE) was set for three fourths but a 5s penalty in the last, relegated him a spot to Josh Versluis (S3).

SUPERKARTS

ON A 250cc Anderson, Lucas Vitale (Anderson) was a clearcut winner of the first two races, ahead of the best of the 125s which was Mark Robin (Avoig Elise). But after that Vitale had to retire from the last two races which paved the way for Lee Vella (Anderson) to net a pair of wins over Robin.

Bruce Moxon

AutoAction

45

Motorsport Trivia Crossword Across 3. In 2020 which British Touring Car Champion will be embark on his 30th campaign in the series? (full name) 6. Team Lotus took it’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix win in 1961, but who was driving the car? (surname only) 8. Who is the reigning FIA Formula 2 champion? (surname only) 10. Craig Lowndes made his Touring Car debut at Sandown in 1994, but who was his co-driver? (full name) 12. Which circuit has hosted the most Formula 1 races?

13. NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt was killed at which American circuit in 2001?

15. Who was Peter Brock’s final co-driver in the 2004 Bathurst 1000? (full name) 17. At the 1983 European Grand Prix who made his F1 debut driving a third Williams, his only start for the team? (full name) 21. In what country did Jenson Button win his first Formula 1 race?

22. At which circuit did Dick Johnson make his ATCC debut?

23. By how many points did Garth Tander win the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship?

25. Who had the 1986 World Rally Championship taken from him 11 days after the conclusion of the season? (surname only) 26. The 1992 Australian Grand Prix was won by who? (surname only) 27. A German F1 driver holds the record for the most amount of Formula 1 podiums finishes without a race win, can you name him? (surname only) 28. Who claimed the only victory for Team Penske in Formula 1? (full name) 29. How many minutes did Greg Murphy have to stay in the pits after a fuel spillage during a scheduled stop?

Down 1. At the end of the 2012 Bathurst 1000 which current full-time Supercars driver earnt his first podium? (surname only) 2. Keke Rosberg holds the joint record for taking the least amount of wins in an F1 title winning season, how many races did he win in 1982?

4. Only one driver has won the Bathurst 1000 on his birthday, who is it? (full name) 5. Excluding 2020 how many times has the Monaco Grand Prix not featured on the F1 calendar?

7. Michael Caruso has taken two Supercars race wins, at what circuit were they both taken?

9. Two drivers have won the Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000 and ATCC in the same year, Brock is one, who is the other? (surname only) 11. Who won the inaugural Australian National Sports Sedan Championship in 1976? (full name)

46 AutoAction

The Motorsport Australia Championships Crossword Answers #1782

12. Steven Richards, Garth Tander, Nathan Pretty and who won the 2002 Bathurst 24 Hour? (surname only) 14. Who became the first Estonian World Rally Champion? (surname only) 16. One person has won a World Championship on both two and four wheels, who is it? (full name) 18. Who won the 1987 World Touring Car Championship after finishing the Bathurst round in third? (surname only) 19. In which city did Jamie Whincup take his first Supercars race win?

20. In the last 20 years how many Supercars Championship manufacturers’ titles have been won by Ford?

24. What number did Damon Hill race with in 1993 and 1994?

1 down – John Martin 2 across – thirty one 3 down – two (this may change) 4 down – eleven 5 across – Will Brown 6 down – BMW 7 across – Bargwanna 8 across – Bathurst 9 down – Jayden Ojeda 10 across – Jordan Caruso 11 down – O’Keeffe 12 down – six (accurate at time of print) 13 across – Perini 14 across – Harri Jones 15 across - Barram

Image: Porsche

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INTERVIEW AutoAction

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