Motorsports

Swedish driver Robert Dahlgren will partner rising Kiwi star Scott McLaughlin in the new factory-backed Volvo Polestar Racing outfit in the 2014 V8 Supercar Championship.The 34-year old Swede arrives with several years of Volvo S60 Polestar racing experience and road car development, most recently finishing a hard-fought and credible third place in the 2013 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship for Volvo Polestar Racing.“V8Supercars is one of the toughest in the world,” Dahlgren commented, referring to his first experience in 2006 of seeing the series in Darwin. Dahlgren was obviously impressed as he pursued a full time seat in Australia’s elite motorsport category.Dahlgren will need to rely on his previous Volvo racing experience as the V8Supercar rookie looks down the barrel of his biggest motorsport challenge to date.“The car I’m used to racing is a bit different, still a Volvo S60 Polestar but … is a DTM .  This V8Supercar is completely different and I have to learn a lot of new things…such as sitting on the right side of the cockpit,” Dahlgren says.The 2014 V8 Supercars Championship will mark 27 years since Volvo last raced in the then-Australian Touring Car Championship. The Volvo Polestar V8 Supercar team will enter the category a year after the introduction of the Car of The Future control chassis formula, and will join segment stalwarts Holden and Ford along with the Nissan and AMG efforts that entered the series in 2013.Volvo’s entry to the sport has been aided by pairing with the formerly Holden-aligned Gary Rogers Motorsport, where Dahlgren replaces Frenchman Alexandre Premat who drove for the team in the 2012 and 2013 championships.Progress and testing for the Volvo Polestar Racing S60 and its Volvo B8444S production-based V8 engine have been heavily guarded, although team principal Garry Rogers admits: “at this stage we are looking fair,  but I think we can improve from fair to very good, very soon!”.The Volvo racers will make their first public appearance on February 15 at the initial 2014 V8 Supercar test day at Sydney Motorsport Park. This will give the teams a mere 12 days to iron out any issues before the 2014 V8 Supercar Championship kicks off in Adelaide with the Clipsal 500 on March 2nd.First published at MyDrive: Volvo Polestar Racing V8 Supercar driver lineup confirmed 

The death of Fast And Furious star Paul Walker once again threw the whole street racing underworld into the spotlight. But the real fast car culture is a long way from the movies.He sports a pair of geeky thin-rimmed glasses. His Ikea wardrobe is bulging from a collection of nerdy IT-styled polo shirts. His beard is well-groomed; his hands wonderfully soft. He is as clean cut as any Sunday school teacher.But Ben McNeil is not the guy you pull up beside at the traffic lights and rev your little tricked Commodore SS engine at. Firstly, he knows better. He'll just let you plant your foot and scream away at the sight of green and bring yourself to the attention of the constabulary.Secondly, he would give you a flogging - if he wanted to.The 26-year-old tech-head is part of something rather odd happening at the now-booming Sydney Dragway, amid the usual plume of acrid smoke, wafts of nitrous oxide, and vehicles frequently sideways. Nothing odd about the souped-up streetworthy cars toeing the rubber-littered start line - those four-cylinder pocket rockets inspired by the Fast And Furious film franchise, the supercharged Commodores, the batty old Datsuns decked out with a rocking new block.Kind of looks like a typical suburban drag race event. But check under the helmets. Among the 200 blokes about to send their cars hurtling down the quarter-mile strip on Wednesday night are high-school teachers,successful entrepreneurs, corporates, and cashed-up IT professionals. In this world of drag racing, vilified as a bogan's paradise, McNeil is a stereotype smasher.This is his first run in his Toyota 86 at Race 4 Real, a race and burnout meet at Eastern Creek that gives any rev-head a chance to test out their wheels. All you need is a helmet. And trousers.This is a popular weekly event that saves lives, according to the dragway's CEO Graham Elliot - giving those with a need for speed a chance to legally blow off some steam and race their mates, away from the perils of a suburban street or parking lot.This is the first meet back at the track since exalted Fast And Furious actor Paul Walker died in a fiery crash in California. He is a venerable topic of conversation on this night, but not a reason to slow down - even for this self-professed, calculated nerd.'I'm in IT, isn't that obvious? But I've always been into cars," McNeil said. 'Motorbikes and cars are all my colleagues think about. Funnily enough, this is my daily car.'I have a track car. It's a Subaru Liberty. I'm kind of doing it backwards, given I've got a two-door sports car as my daily and a four-door family car as the track car." His mate Andy Chisholm enticed him to give his 'daily car" a squirt on the drag strip.Chisholm is another stereotype smasher, he being a boys high-school English teacher. His Mitsubishi Evo that he usually races next door on the Eastern Creek circuit has been running 13 seconds on this night, keeping the WRX drivers on their toes. Suffice to say, he sometimes struggles to keep his classroom on topic. "They quite approve of my hobby," he said.He also struggles with straight lines, given that his red rocket should be running 12 seconds, and is, well, not. 'I do circuit racing mainly.Driving in a straight line, it's hard, man," he laughed. "Give me some corners." While most of the 200 drivers are just trying to beat their personal best times and entertain the crowd, James Cannavo is trying to stay on the ground.Tucked away in the shiny cockpit of his Nissan Skyline, this Denham Court small-business owner has what every lad who forked out $55 to race tonight wants - a 10-second car, the expensive quest of a burgeoning breed who watched Fast And Furious on the big screen and had a moment.Actually, Cannavo's Skyline is not a 10-second car. It's a 9-second car: one of the fastest roadworthy vehicles in Australia. It even has a parachute."I built the engine myself. It has well over 1100 horsepower at the tyres. In the stages of developing this car, I've probably left behind $130k. It is well worth it," he said. He doesn't use nitrous oxide, or NOS, the famed gas glorified in the Hollywood blockbuster. Says it's cheating.Tonight there are eight cars sucking in NOS, giving their four-wheeled weapons some added poke when the foot is flat. Daniel Dona, a Parramatta real estate agent, is another novice attempting his maiden run on the drag strip.Dressed in a hipster cardigan, he stands beside his $70,000 WRX STi and admits to being wonderfully addicted. He hasn't even raced yet, but has a 'long list of parts ready to go ... Just waiting for the bank account to respond accordingly".Therefore he can't afford any speeding tickets. "You just can't get away with street racing anymore, there are so many more cops patrolling, so we just come down here to give it a squirt and get it out of our systems," he said.Not all cars here are the latest high-powered models loaded with all the tricks in the box. That's the beauty of nights like this. It's a great leveller, on the social scale.Menai brothers Josh and Michael Lawrie are the backyard tinkerers; two 20-something lads as genuine and earnest as they come. It's the relationships forged under the bonnet that brings them back week after week. It's not all about speed."You can go and buy a piece of crap car and build it up with your friends and then race it. You build bonds, you build friendships and you are helping each other out on mate's rates," Josh said.Case in point, on the issue of mate's rates: When Josh is not sending his Commodore SS down the straight track, he is sideways in the rough-and-tumble world of drift racing. It kind of helps that brother Michael is a panel beater.Michael drives a less-than-polished 1984 Corolla which he spent six days gutting and dropping a twin cam 4AGE engine under the hood. He says there is more satisfaction building something special yourself, rather than getting the latest rocket off the showroom floor. Down the line is Jose Rovira, a 43-year-old father of two racing his Mazda 3 turbo. He turns up "to keep myself occupied" - and to teach his son a lesson. 

Nissan made a splash at Tokyo motor show in November, and it's intent on carving itself a name at the world's racetracks too. Its latest outing is on Japan's Sodegaura Forest Raceway, with video showing it deftly handling the track.Watch the Nissan GT-R Nismo hit Sodegaura track video desktop version here.The GT-R has already set a lap record for 'volume production car' at Germany's Nurburgring with a time of 7:08.679. Critics will quickly point out that's nearly 12 seconds behind the Porsche 918 Spyder's Ring record of 6:57, but the key differences are the 918 being a small production run -- and much more expensive than the GT-R.Watch the Nissan GT-R Nismo Nurburgring video desktop version here.   Helping it get those results is a twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V6 that develops 37kW and 22Nm more than the current standard version, reaching 441kW of power and 650Nm of torque. Official performance figures are yet to be confirmed, although Nissan was suggesting an almost other-worldly 0-100km/h time of 2 seconds in motor show presentations.Read our road and track test review of the Nissan GT-R Nismo and GT-R Premium.The GT-R Nismo will go on sale in overseas markets early this year, but Nissan Australia is still working on a business case for Nismo models here, so there's no guarantee we'll see it locally any time soon.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

We'll see the wraps come off the 2015 Subaru WRX STI on January 14 at Detroit motor show, and more importantly we'll also get to see what's under the bonnet -- and what it can do.The high-performance -- and high-winged -- version of the WRX will possibly carry on with the turbocharged 2.5-litre four-cylinder, but with outputs raised above the current model's 221kW of power and 407Nm of torque, and still delivered with a six-speed manual transmission.However, there's also a chance it could be powered by an uprated version of the 2014 WRX's 2.0-litre turbo four -- as seen in the Levorg concept at Tokyo show with outputs of 221kW and 400Nm. That's 21kW and 50Nm more than the 2014 WRX revealed at LA show in November, and which our test drive in December proves is itself a great engine.Expect to see more aggressive styling -- including likely the customary wing -- stiffer suspension set-up and possibly some weight-saving strategies, particularly if it's using the smaller engine.What we'd like to see, but won't, is a hatch body emerge from underneath the Detroit silk. But Subaru has said the WRX will continue only as a sedan -- cue the violins.  

At the start of the 2009 season I was the fittest I'd ever been. We had some teething problems with the new Ducati but we managed to get it moving okay. We knew that this bike had real potential and we still hadn't got to the tracks where we usually excel at, so we were feeling confident that we stood a very strong chance of winning the championship back. Then something started to go wrong that I couldn't explain.After the race at Mugello I was a lot more tired than I had ever felt in a race. I was surprised because I had been training well, so I didn't really understand it and just shrugged it off as a one-off. Then during warm-up on the morning of the next race in Barcelona I was worn out after just a few laps. I was so tired I went back to bed and slept for two hours.That afternoon was when it really hit, exactly as everybody saw on the television. It didn't come on slowly, the fatigue hit me with a big bang after about five laps. One minute I was okay and then suddenly I had so little strength that I was just hanging on to the bike by the end of the race, so exhausted that I could barely get off it in parc ferme. I couldn't walk or talk, I just wanted to throw up and almost collapsed on the podium.I had seen doctors about some tiredness back in Australia in 2006. They said I had chronic fatigue syndrome, which they put down to a combination of my diet and my busy schedule. But this time it was far more serious and it seemed that no matter what I tried to do to make myself better I only got worse. I started having more recovery drinks made up of milk and whey powder and my condition continued to deteriorate even more rapidly.I didn't suspect that what I was doing to help was causing even more problems. We battled on but by the end of every race I was struggling just to stay upright. Nobody knew more than me that things weren't good but the tension started to build with Ducati as well.Read full story at foxsports.com.au

Easy house demolition 101: first have your home address on a rally course. Then make sure this driver is competing. The just sit back and wait... Watch the "How to demolish a house with a rally car" video on our desktop site.  

A 12,000km flight is set to change the face of V8 Supercars forever. The president of American racing giant, Penske Racing, landed in Sydney on Friday to negotiate a deal that could see one of the world's most famous race teams, run by one of America's most powerful businessmen, join the sport. In a coup that could tempt Australian NASCAR star Marcos Ambrose to quit America for a V8 homecoming, Penske Racing head Tim Cindric had a series of meetings at the Sydney 500. Penske Racing, owned by billionaire Roger Penske, operates two of the biggest teams in both NASCAR and IndyCar, and has competed in Formula One. Now the American institution wants in on V8 Supercars. Cindric held high level talks with V8 Supercars boss James Warburton on the weekend after touring pit lane. When fronted in pit lane, Cindric confirmed the company's interest in the sport and revealed former American businessman of the year Penske had been in Australia twice in the past two months. Penske owns one of the largest car dealership chains in the world, operates America's biggest trucking fleet and recently bought Australian trucking company Western Star trucks. Carsguide has been told he plans to conquer Australia and will use V8 Supercars as a platform to take on Toll and TNT before tackling the car dealership industry. "Roger has always had racing as part of his business plans. He has been out here a couple of times," Cindric said. “We want to understand it and then work out how to get involved.'' The whirlwind visit sparked talk of a return for Ambrose, who is off contract at the end of the season. V8 officials would not comment on the surprise visitor, or reveal what was discussed in the meetings.  

People imagine being a motoring writer involves nothing more than stepping out of one Ferrari and into another.

It took Craig Lowndes barely six months to win his first V8 Supercar championship. His fourth, however, has been a painstaking 14 years in the making. "It has been a long time," said Lowndes, on the verge of claiming his first title since 1999 at next weekend's season finale in Sydney."Fourteen years is an incredible drought. I had 10 years between Bathurst victories, but since we managed to win a second we've gone on to win a couple more. So who knows? It's definitely the perfect opportunity to win another championship.""To have such a drought and to then come back, I think after 14 years, will probably be one of the (career) highlights." The popular veteran is just 20 points shy of series leader and Holden team-mate Jamie Whincup, who won all four of his titles in just five years.Victory in both 250km races at Sydney Olympic Park will deliver the 2013 crown to Lowndes, but he'll have to get past the man on the opposite end of the Red Bull garage first. "We go down to a championship decider on the last round of a championship which - for the modern era - it's the great battle," he said."It's probably the battle of all battles." Despite Ford duo Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison each sitting 124 and 223 points back, they are still in the hunt and sure to add to the noise at Homebush when the action begins on Saturday. Lowndes has won at the Sydney 500 twice the past two years while Whincup has never graced the podium.Yet Lowndes, not one to stir the pot, isn't underestimating the power of his nearest rival and his impressive record on street circuits. "If you look at his results on the Gold Coast and Clipsal, there's no doubt he'll go this year and make it all happen," he said."In the last couple of years he's really just needed to go (to Sydney) and finish races and to basically consolidate. But this year, he's going to have to race to try and win the championship. I think whoever it will be standing on the top step as a champion will definitely deserve it."DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP LEADERBOARDSYDNEY 500 CIRCUIT OVERVIEWTURN 1 Jim Beam Corner You have to move down into second gear and it's one bumpy ride. The track is really uneven because they've had to take out all the median strips and islands that would usually be there. It's easy to damage a tyre when you hit it. An actionpacked part of the track.TURN 2,3 and 4 Coppers Chicane You have to use a lot of the kerb on the chicane. And once you hit it, the car wants to bounce around and that makes it hard to come out of it cleanly.TURN 5 Sweep The trees hang all over the track around here, so it feels like you're in a tunnel. This is where 12 of the 15 lead cars went slamming into the wall when it rained in 2011TURN 6 and 7 This is a double off-camber turn, which means you don't get too close to the kerbs and walls. It's hard to set up your run on to the next straight through here.TURN 8 Fuso Corner This turn comes up really quickly. A lot of drivers overshoot here. You'll see a lot of cars get swallowed up by the concrete.TURN 9 There's heaps of undulations when you turn into the left-hand corner and you have to be all over the kerb as well.TURN 10 Coates Hire Corner The right-hand turn is tight and you want to get close enough to the wall that you're grazing your right mirror.TURN 11 Sydney Corner You drop down into second gear for this turn and then you stay in second for the entire section before you get on to pit straight.TURN 12 ARMOR ALL Corner A tight left-hander and you need to get it right because you have to set up your run into the final turn before pit straight.TURN 13 You turn in second gear, but then you're accelerating and eventually hitting sixth gear down the straight.PIT STRAIGHT It's a bit tricky when you cross the start/finish line because the straight goes from being really thin and then it opens up really wide.Circuit length: 3.4 km (2.1 mi) Turns: 10 Lap record: 1:28.3839Craig Lowndes, Triple Eight HoldenVE Commodore, 2011 

Newly-retired Formula 1 driver Mark Webber says he'll contest his first Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race in 2015, sharing his Porsche with Australian movie star Eric Bana. Barely two days after his final F1 grand prix in Brazil, Webber revealed his intention to compete in Australia's longest motor race via Twitter on Tuesday.Asked by a fan whether he will be driving for Porsche at the growing sportscar race at Bathurst's Mount Panorama track in February next year, Webber replied on Twitter: "15 with @EricBana67 @jamestomkins65" Bana responded "Sounds like a plan".It is likely the 37-year-old Webber will drive a Porsche 911 GT3 at the sportscar endurance event, having just signed with the German sports car maker.Bana, best known for his roles in Chopper, Black Hawk Down, Hulk, Munich and Troy, is a renowned car enthusiast, producing and starring in the feature-length documentary "Love the Beast".He has previously raced in the Bathurst 12 Hour as well as the Targa Tasmania rallies and the Porsche GT3 challenge.Webber quit Formula 1 after 12 seasons in the category to switch to sports car racing with German manufacturer Porsche.The Australian will link up with his new team in January and is yet to reveal his 2014 schedule, but has confirmed he will be attending the Australian F1 Grand Prix on Porsche's behalf.The Bathurst 12 Hour has been rapidly building its reputation internationally, with exotic sportscars from Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes and Audi contesting this year's race.www.heraldsun.com.au