Motorsports

"There is no better roller coaster or theme park ride," says Michael Patrizi after riding piggyback with three-time World Superbike champion and MotoGP winner Troy Bayliss. "People think it's great when we take them on a V8 drive, but I've never experienced anything like this," he says. Bayliss, who retired from racing three years ago, has created a package of ride-day experiences which will be available in all mainland states. "After I retired, I was still contracted to Ducati and in 2009 I tested their GP bikes and since last year I've been testing their superbike," he says. "I also started teaching in their Ducati Ride Experience in Europe. I really enjoyed it, but I wanted to wean myself off Europe and thought I'd like to do something like that back here in Australia." Rather than reinvent the wheel, Bayliss has piggybacked on the established Champions Ride Day circuit to offer some special extras for fans. Riders will be able to follow Bayliss around the track to learn his lines, get special tuition from the champion and even dine with him. Non-riders like Patrizi can also enjoy a Bayliss experience by riding three laps two-up on the pillion seat of a special Ducati 1098 superbike with handles on the fuel tank, a specially adapted seat and lower footpegs. The Troy Bayliss Experience will be part of the Champions Ride Days at Queensland Raceway and Lakeside in Queensland, Eastern Creek and a 5.2km private track called The Farm Circuit in NSW, Phillip Island in Victoria, Mallala in South Australia and Barbagallo in Western Australia. Dates are available on the website . "(Patrizi) was my first two-up guinea pig and this is the first time I've ridden a bike on this circuit," says Bayliss after taking the V8 and Carrera Cup driver for a spin around Queensland Raceway which included a 100m wheelie. "It's great to see the look on his face when you get back to the pits. We've made a few adjustments so it's more comfortable on the back. It's a lot different with someone on the back, but I'm getting used to it. I even got my knee down in a few corners." Bayliss has put his four-wheel racing ambitions on hold for the new project after an abortive start in the endurance rounds of the V8 Supercars in 2009. He didn't get to drive in either race after early incidents with teammate Dean Fiore in the driver's seat. 2-up Ducati Superbike Experience: $295Day at the Track with Troy: QLD: Lakeside Raceway $895; Qld Raceway $795NSW: Eastern Creek $995; The Farm $1295 (limited to 12 riders)VIC: Phillip Island $995; Broadford Raceway $795SA: Mallala Raceway $895WA: Barbagallo Raceway $895 Web: www.troybaylissexperience.com.au

Glenn Allerton, who is 58 points clear in the Australian Superbike Championships at the halfway point ahead of next weekend's round at Queensland Raceway, is set to test for a WSB team. "I can't say who they are, but it's a German team that is extremely competitive and have been world champions in the past," the 30-year-old Sydney rider said. "Towards the end of the year I might do one of the last rounds of the World Superbike Championships with them. "I'd like to put on a really good show and get them to want me and pay enough to make it work." Allerton has already shown his winning ways internationally with a win last weekend in the Malaysian Superbike Championship. "It's not as competitive or professional as here, but it was a favour to a friend and it was good practice." The 2008 Australian Superbike Champion has won three rounds out of the four at the halfway point in the season. After Allerton, there is a tight points spread for the next four positions with Troy Herfoss (130 points), Queenslander Ben Attard (129), Victorian Craig Coxhell (123) and two-time champion Jamie Stauffer (119). "It's good to be in first position with a handy points margin but you have to keep the pressure on because if one of those boys gets a roll on it only takes one mistake from me and it's back on," he said. "I'm keen to race at Queensland Raceway which is a favourite. You always like tracks where you have good results." Allerton said his BMW S 1000 RR was very strong "straight out of the box" two weeks before the first round at Phillip Island. "It's a really powerful motorbike with traction control standard. We haven't touched the engine at all, just worked on the chassis and suspension to get the most out of the package. "If you push the power you get reliabiilty problems and this is already a fast and reliable motorbike. "Riding previously for Honda I can tell you they spend a lot of money to get it as fast as the BMW is straight out of the box." AT A GLANCE Glenn AllertonAge: 30 Current placing: 1st, 188 points 2010 Queensland Raceway result: 8th (round 3) and 4th (round 5) 2010 Championship Overall: 3rd Past highlights: 2008 Australian Superbike Champion 2011 RESULTS Round 1: Phillip Island - 1st Round 2: Symmons Plains - 1st Round 3: Hidden Valley - 2nd Round 4: Barbagallo Raceway - 1st AUSTRALIAN SUPERBIKES (after 4 of 8 rounds) 1. Glenn Allerton (NSW), 188 2. Troy Herfoss (Vic), 130 3. Ben Attard (Qld), 129 4. Craig Coxhell (Vic), 123 5. Jamie Stauffer (NSW), 119 6. Wayne Maxwell (Vic), 101 7. Cole Odendaal (NSW), 98 8. Robert Bugden (Qld), 90 9. Joshua Waters (Vic), 88 10. Ben Henry (Qld), 75

I drove the 20km track at the weekend for the first time and it is every bit as challenging as Mt Panorama. After second place with Warren Luff in an Audi R8 in the Bathurst 12-Hour earlier this year Audi invited us to take part in the four-hour race at Nurburgring to gain accreditation for the 24-hour races there and at Le Mans next year.But things didn't quite pan out. The track is just amazing. We were going 268km/h on the back straight and frequently over 250km/h with an average lap speed of 176km/h. It captures many of the aspects of Bathurst and even has a Dipper although it's not as intense or aggressive as Mt Panorama.There are a lot of very fast blind crests where you have to position the car correctly to set up for the next corner. The biggest challenge for me was reminding myself where I was on the track. It certainly didn't come naturally like Bathurst. There are also parts where the car gets all four wheels about four inches (10cm) off the ground. It's an incredible circuit.At this stage I don't know if we've succeeded because I crashed in qualifying and we never got to race. It's a bit disappointing in the end, but I learnt a hell of a lot. We had a two-hour practice session and one-hour qualifying yet I only managed five laps because it's the longest race track in the world. Luffy has driven there before and track knowledge is very important so we decided early on that he would qualify and I would start the race.Warren qualified with 8:18.6 and I did 8:25.2, so we would have been ninth on the grid and just six seconds off pole. The winning Porsche would have started alongside us in eighth and our sister car only qualified 18th. We were the second fastest Audi out of the six competing. Luffy had a fresh set of tyres to have another go so we could have been even better.Anyway, I'd just done my timed lap and was on a second timed lap when disaster struck. About the 8km mark I was passing a much, much slower Golf and he clipped my left rear wheel which sent me straight into the fence. The closing speed between the fastest category of cars like ours and the others is incredible. I haven't experienced that for a long time.Trying to get a clean lap with 200 cars of differing speeds was ultimately quite difficult. The crash was devastating for me and especially for Warren. Unfortunately, the car was unrepairable in the two hours we had left to get on the grid. Audi had an onboard camera in the car and they can see it's a racing incident with no one to blame.The Audi Experience Team was looking forward to having a good race and was happy with our times, speed and how we adapted to the car and the circuit. Even though we didn't race, we had qualified well and Audi is investigating whether we can now compete in the 24-hour races. It's unclear at the moment. Interestingly the winning car was the only Porsche hybrid in the field.With its F1-style KERS system it was fast, winning by a lap, mainly because it could do 10 laps to a tank where everyone else was only managing eight or nine laps. After the race we were straight on to a plane and home for a debriefing on the Winton round and then straight into a test day at Queensland Raceway with our focus on Darwin in a couple of weeks.Mark Skaife also had a chance to do a few more laps in the car in preparation for the endurance rounds. And it was good to see former World Rally Champion driver Chris Atkinson have a test in Russell Ingall's car. It's always good to see a driver from a different category have a go at our cars. There is a massive difference between our big and heavy rear-wheel-drive V8 sedans versus the sort of small, four-wheel-drive turbo cars he has driven.

Warren Luff and I are racing an Audi R8 at the famous Nurburgring circuit to gain eligibility for the Le Mans 24-hour race. At this point we don't have anything secured for next month's Le Mans, but hopefully we can look at doing it next year.Ever since our second place in the Bathurst 12-hour Warren and I have had a very good ongoing relationship with Audi, so when this opportunity came up they contacted us to fill a car. It should be much the same R8 as we drove at Bathurst.From the info we have the Audi will do about 8.5 minute laps, so on calculations with pit stops we should do about 27 laps in Saturday's race. Mark Batting from the winning German Audi team at Bathurst knows the Nurburgring like I know Mt Panorama and he will hopefully give us some tips and guidance.There's no time for sightseeing as we are back on the plane and home again by Monday for a debriefing on Winton and then a test day at Queensland Raceway on the Wednesday. Winton was a bit of an up and down affair and we ended up marking time, staying in second place in the championship.It started ok with the car working exceptionally well and scoring my first pole there. My bad start on the Saturday was my undoing.We have a process for operating the clutch and I was still getting used to the method. I bogged it down on the line and got swamped. We were three wide in the first corner and there was a bit of biff and barge which bent the steering. We didn't know it was bent until the boys were checking it on Saturday night.Before Sunday morning qualifying we also had to change engines. But I got the clutch right on the Sunday and had the best start I've had all year, and with a handful of laps remaining we were running in fourth. We had been trying to get 26 laps out of a set tyres but the tyre life is really only good for about 22 laps, so we lost rear tyre grip right at the end.We also had a very noisy third gear which I haven't experienced for a long time. Thankfully it didn't affect speed or performance, but no doubt the team will have a look at that.Jason Bright had the best race strategy of pitting late and only doing about 19 laps on his last set of tyres. He was able to easily come through the pack and grab another victory after his win in Perth. Jason has always been very quick, it was just a matter of getting his car sorted. Now he's done it two rounds in a row, so the team is obviously getting things together.It was also great to see the other Jason (Richards) get up on the podium and accept the team trophy.

…and Carparazzi has caught a test car stripped of most of its camouflage.It's a smooth evolution that is being pitched against the Aston Martin Vantage and Jaguar XK, based on rival cars along for the drive, but with more lightweight work including extensive use of carbon fibre parts.

The CAMS Australian Targa Championship for tarmac rally cars will kick off with the new Supaloc Classic Targa Adelaide in September. Supaloc Classic Targa Adelaide replaces the former Classic Adelaide Rally that ran into financial difficulties two years ago. The new event is being run by promoter Octagon which has won its reputation with Targa Tasmania. A portfolio of Octagon's events has been linked together and it was announced in Adelaide yesterday the series had won CAMS endorsement to become an Australian championship. The championship for classic cars will include the Adelaide event in September, Targa High Country at Mt Buller, Victoria in November, Targa Wrest Point in Hobart in January and Targa Tasmania in April. A championship for modern cars will be held over the latter three, Octagon's managing director Sean Nicholls confirming yesterday there was no plan to add a modern competition category to the Adelaide event. "The targa format of rallying has been going from strength to strength over the past three years, growing out of Targa Tasmania," Mr Nicholls said. "Mote competitors will be attracted to it now that it has the backing of CAMS." CAMS president Steve Papadopoulos said the Australian Targa Championship would be a significant title in Australian motorsport. "Tarmac rallying is a real growth area of Australian motorsport," he said. Mr Nicholls said 100 entries had been taken for the Adelaide event so far and a further 100 were anticipated. The Adelaide event would have a prologue on Wednesday, September 14 followed by three days of competition, although that could grow to four days next year. The Adelaide event has drawn naming rights sponsorship from steel building system Supaloc - an SA firm run by Kevin Weeks who is a three-time winner of the former Classic Adelaide Rally in his 1974 Porsche RS and who won Targa High Country last year in a modern Lamborghini.

The more racing we do the better for us and the fans. That's the biggest thing to come out of the new ownership arrangements in V8 Supercars announced this week. Teams may get some extra money out of the new ownership, but the flipside of the extra rounds is the expensive infrastructure teams will need to be able to get cars to every one of those rounds. The organisers need to have a good look at where we go with these extra rounds, especially the international rounds. Asia is the most logical because it's closer than the Mid East where we have been racing. It's also in the same time zone which is better for Aussie fans. Circuits such as Singapore and Malaysia are where we should be focusing. China was a debacle the first time we went there but I'd love to go back. It's a great track. Apart from New Zealand it was our first real push overseas and I think it was successful on some levels, but politics got involved so we've never been back. We will also introduce the car of the future in 2013 so it will be a big year for our sport. I know there is scepticism about our chances of getting other car manufacturers to compete, but once they understand the extra exposure from the bigger season, I think they will be convinced to join. Which companies they are I don't know and couldn't guess. This weekend we head to Winton which was my training track in the old days when I first got out of karts and into Formula Ford. It was my club and home track and since then I've done a lot of racing around Winton. It's a tight and narrow track and it's quite difficult to get the car set up right because of the different nature of the corners. I won both races in 2009 when they introduced the Dunlop soft tyre and I finished second in both races last year, so I'm comfortable racing there. However, I've never qualified on the front row and this year I'm hoping to change all that and grab pole. Qualifying has been one of my weak points and it would be nice to finally get it right. You need to start on at least one of the first two rows here because the narrow track makes passing difficult. It's a place where you can easily over-drive the car. You have to be patient, hit your marks and get the best out of the soft tyres which we will be using all weekend. We're expecting very cold temperatures and possibly rain on the Sunday so the soft tyres should last much longer than they did at Perth. I'm hoping to see Karl Reindler and Steve Owen back this weekend after their fireball start-line incident in Perth. I know Steve is fit and ready, but I'm not sure about Karl. He's had to have some skin grafts on his hands. It would be great for the fans to see him come back after such a horrible accident. The starting-line crash highlighted some big problems with our cars so Triple 8, being an engineering company, has gone to great lengths to fix it. Our chief engineer Ludo Lacroix has looked at everything that sits around the driver and tried to make it more fire retardant and easier to get out. He's also looked at the fuel tank. All the changes he's made to our cars for this weekend are also available to teams that have bought cars from us. The co-drivers for the endurance races, including my partner Mark Skaife, will get a run in the first practice session. It will be vital for Mark to keep his eye in, but don't expect to see him in the development series. There are rumours around that we are going to have a fourth car so Skaifey can get more experience. I can't say we haven't looked into it, but running a four-car team is probably beyond our abilities.

But it won't be next year. We will have to wait until the 2013 season to see another (highly competitive) make in the premium A1 class of WRC. VW last week unveiled the concept of the Polo R WRC, the car with which it will compete from 2013 onwards.With "the hottest Polo of all time" VW is looking forward to this new challenge and is working on the project with the same passion with which it won the Dakar Rally in the past three years. VW will leverage its involvement in the Dakar for its WRC campaign.The race car will have a 230kW, 1.6-litre, TSI engine and four-wheel drive based on the Polo. New technical rules have come into effect in the WRC this year. For the first time, engines with a maximum displacement of 1,600 cc, direct injection and turbochargers are prescribed.These new regulations are an ideal fit for Volkswagen's production car philosophy - downsizing, high efficiency and reliability are top priorities. VW will prepare and enter the Polo R WRC as a factory commitment.The Wolfsburg-based squad can build on structures which have been established over the past few years.

The company has released a video teaser for its new F4 RR version. Under new importers MV Agusta Imports, the standard F4 costs $25,800 ride away which is substantially less than the $32,000 it used to cost.However, you can expect to pay a lot more for the RR when it finally arrives.MV Agusta Imports manager Kevin Beale says the bike will be coming to Australia but ``extracting hard info from HQ is difficult''.``All we know about it is it will have 200hp (150kW) and Ohlins suspension, but it will be exciting,'' he says.``Right now we don't have confirmed production start-up month, but we are expecting it to be this year judging by the way the Italians are talking."``It's not going to be a cheap bike. It will come with a fairly big premium over the standard.''Other models in the MV range include the naked Brutale 1090 ($20,800, previously about $25,000) and Brutale 1078 ($17,800, previously about $25,900). Beale says the Italian brand has promised shipments of the new F3 600cc three-cylinder Supersport F3 from the first run of production in September.``Our goal is to have it launched in Australia in March 2012.'' MV has also dropped the iconic under-seat ``organ pipes'' and replaced them with a Buell-style exhaust system underneath the engine.Details of the power and performance of the vehicle have not been released. MV has a dealer in each state and two in NSW.``Sales are quite healthy,'' Beale says.Their biggest seller is the Brutale, but they admit supply is short.``We're a start-up company and we didn't know how many of each colour and model to order,'' he admits.``We took a stab in the dark and have under-ordered on Brutale.''Visit: www.mvagustaimporters.com.a

Donald Trump has turned down the offer to drive the pace car for the 100th anniversary running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 29, citing a busy schedule.However, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway may know the insider’s reason for Trump’s no-show, citing in their press release that “Donald J. Trump today informed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that he may be announcing shortly his intention to run for the office of President of the United States, and therefore he thought it would be inappropriate to drive the pace car."I very much appreciate the honor, but time and business constraints make my appearance there, especially with the necessary practice sessions, impossible to fulfill," Trump said. "I look forward to watching the race from New York."Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Jeff Belskus said that he understood Trump’s withdrawal, and thanked him for being “a true fan”.