Motorsports

EVERY car in the Clipsal 500 will make special recognition to the people of Christchurch following the recent disastrous earthquake in the New Zealand city. The V8 Supercars community - many from New Zealand - will pay tribute with a black Christchurch sticker on their racecars in the shape of the country's silver fern.BMW racer Glenn Allerton took top points away from the Symmons Plains round of the Australian Superbike Championship to extend his series lead over Troy Herfoss and Jamie Stauffer. Wayne Maxwell won the first of two heats for Team Honda but it was  Josh Waters of Team Suzuki who finished runner-up for the round.SCOTT Pye is continuing his drive towards Formula One with a fully-  funded season in the crack British Formula 3 championship this year. After taking last year's British Formula Ford crown the youngster, who is partly backed by Roland Dane and his Triple Eight Engineering operation, will race for the Double R team owned by former world champion Kimi Raikkonen. SEBASTIAN Loeb returned to his usual place at the top of the World Rally Championship pack with victory in Rally Mexico last weekend. He trailed his Citroen team mate Sebastian Ogier for a while, but when the youngster crashed he was able to cruise home ahead of Ford's Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala. CHAD Reed is closing on second place in the AMA Supercross series with another podium place in Daytona last weekend on his TwoTwo Motorsports Honda. Reed was second in Florida and is now only one point behind James Stewart, although they both trail series leader Ryan Villapoto of the Kawasaki team by more than 20 points.THE starting order for the Albert Park 400 could get a shake-up after a rule change for the V8 Supercars events at the Australian Grand Prix. A draw will be held after qualifying that will see a selection of the field inverted prior to the Top 10 Shootout, jumbling the field and creating the potential for any car that qualifies in the top 20 to move through into the Shootout. FOUR-time Australian rally champion Neal Bates is planning a comeback this year after losing his factory backing from Toyota when it withdrew from the series two years ago. The difference is that Bates will be driving a classic Toyota Celica from the 1980s, in place of his Super 2000 Corolla, as he joins a growing following for the championship conducted by the Australian Classic Rally Association.HE Mercedes-Benz grand prix team is now more than just a high-speed showcase for the German luxury carmaker. The one-time Honda team, which then became Brawn when technical chief Ross Brawn took over the ownership, is now a 100 per cent member of the Benz team following a 100 per cent takeover of the company by Daimler and Aabar Investments, the largest single shareholder in Daimler. PAUL Morris is expanding his motorsport interests after becoming an official CAMS licensing operator in Queensland. The V8 Supercars team owner will operate the licensing tuition and testing from his Gold Coast base, which is also the home of the Holden Performance Driver Training Centre. CHAMPION off-road racer Bruce Garland is headed for more surgery on top of the back injury that forced him to withdraw from this year's Dakar Rally in South America. The Isuzu team boss and lead driver has been diagnosed with heart trouble and faces a multiple bypass operation in Melbourne.

Porsche's Walter Rohrl today announced he would reunite co-driver Christian Geistdoerfer and the same 1981 911SC they campaigned in the 1981 San Remo world rally event. Rohrl didn't win there - the car expired on one of the last stages while wining - and come the 20th anniversary Targa next month (April 5-10), it will be the first time he's driven the car for exactly 30 years. The car was absolutely standard," he says.  "I never drove it after it broke down and I was told it had been sold and was gone.  It was only a few months ago that I learned it was still around and Porsche bought it back. "I now know t had a very hard life as a mule (to test new drivetrains and suspensions) in 1983, 1984 and 1985. It was in bad shape.'' It's in much better shape now, says Rohrl, whose only complaint is getting a good tyre selection for the now outdated 15-inch wheels. "The car is now on the boat on the way to Australia and I haven't made many tyre selections,'' he says. "It's probably a bit late now,' he laughs. Rohrl has done Targa twice before - the last in 2001 - and speaks highly of the course.  "Porsche will also bring down a 904 and a 550 Spyder - it's a great event for us,'' he says.

Timo Glock has been sidelined by appendix problems and will have to skip the Spanish test with his Virgin team after an operation. It's not as dramatic as Robert Kubica's life-threatening rally crash, which is likely to keep the Renault team leader on the sidelines for most of the year as he recovers from hand injuries, but it's still a big blow for Glock and Virgin. Glock had an operation on Tuesday to have his appendix removed after falling ill at his home in Switzerland on Monday. "Timo had an operation yesterday to remove his appendix after a sudden case of appendicitis," said Virgin team manager, John Booth. "The procedure was routine and Timo is recovering well in hospital in Switzerland, where he is likely to remain for a further 24 hours." But his comeback will not begin until Virgin joins the other F1 teams at Albert Park. "To ensure a swift recovery, it is unlikely that he will take part in next week's test in Barcelona and that Jerome (d'Ambrosio, his team mate) will run on all four days instead,"Booth said. "We will make a final decision early next week. We look forward to   having Timo back with us very soon." Virgin is working - like most other teams - on a late update to its car for the final hit-out at Barcelona next week.

In just over two weeks he will become a grand prix driver for a day when he hot laps a McLaren Formula One car at Mount Panorama, Bathurst. Final approvals are through, the cars are set, the date is booked for Tuesday, March 22, and Lowndes said yesterday he is fit and focussed for the F1 challenge."I'm going to live the dream. If I feel good I'll give it a bit of a go," Lowndes said yesterday. "The amazing thing will be driving it over the top of the mountain. It will be so fast."Lowndes will be strapping into a McLaren in a 'changing places' promotion orchestrated by Vodafone, which sponsors both his Commodore team in the V8 Supercar championship and the McLaren team. As part of the deal, former world champion Jenson Button - who drove a Vodafone Commodore at Albert Park last year in a swap with Jamie Whincup - will strap into Lowndes' car."It's actually happening. It's all finalised and going ahead," Lowndes confirmed yesterday. "I cannot imagine the budget for this. It's bigger than Ben Hur. They have to close the track, find all the marshalls, get the two teams organised, everything else."Lowndes is now famous in Australia as a five-time Bathurst 1000 winner and three-time V8 Supercar champion, but there was a time when he was headed to Formula One. He was backed by the late Tom Walkinshaw for a season of open-wheel racing in Europe, driving a Formula 3000 car as team mate to Juan Pablo Montoya, who subsequently raced F1 with Williams and McLaren."That was 1997. It didn't work out," Lowndes said. He knows he is getting a second chance and, even if it's only for a day, he is happy. "The ultimate goal is not to crash it. I didn't make it to racing in Formula One so this is the next-best thing."Lowndes says he is hoping for around 10 laps at Bathurst and plans to push hardest through the two easy 90-degree turns onto and off pit straight. "They are the easy ones to get a feel. If I can get about four laps to find my way, then I'll have a bit of a go.  Across the top I'm expecting it to be pretty exciting."Jenson Button helped drive Craig Lowndes' grand prix dream with his request for Bathurst laps in a V8 Supercar. Button traded places with Jamie Whincup a year ago in the lead-up to the Australian Grand Prix, lapping his Holden Commodore at Albert Park. But he said he really wanted a crack at Mount Panorama. "It was on his wish list. He wanted it to happen," TeamVodafone boss, Roland Dane, said yesterday."We're happy to provide him with one of our Commodores. For us it's about the F1 car at Bathurst but for Jenson it's about ticking one off from his bucket list. Dane said the car will be running on soft-compound tyres to give Button better feel, but there is no plan to attack the lap record. "There won't be any timing. But there is going to be a brilliant viral video at the end of the day," he said.

STEVEN Richards has signed to race the V8 Supercar endurance races with former full-time employer, Ford Performance Racing. The two-time Bathurst winner will partner Mark Winterbottom while long-time enduro racer Luke Youlden will drive with Will Davison in the other FPR car. Winterbottom and Richards have driven together before with Bathurst and Sandown 500 victories.AFTER 15 years as a full-time V8 Supercar driver, Steven Richards will follow his father, Jim, into racing Porsches.  He will compete in a full season of the Porsche Carrera Cup in a 911 GT3 Cup. His first race will be at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix from March 24-27. "Our aim for this year is to win the championship. It won't be easy. It's a competitive field," he says.SPANIARD Carlos Checa became the first rider to score a world Superbike clean sweep at Phillip Island since 2008 when he won both 22-lap races at the weekend. The Ducati rider was followed by world champion Max Biaggi of Italy on his Aprilia in both races. Briton Leon Haslam (BMW) and MotoGP convert Marco Melandri (Yamaha) claimed the final spots on the two podiums. The last rider to win both races at a Phillip Island WSBK round was Australia's Troy Bayliss. It is now the longest period since a local rider won at the island. Australians Troy Corser (BMW), Josh Waters (Suzuki), Mark Aitchison (Kawasaki) and wildcard entry Bryan Staring of Perth (Kawasaki) finished well down the order. Round two of the championship will be held at Donington from March 25-27, where Australian Chris Vermeulen is expected to compete after sitting out round one to allow his injured left knee more time to recover.NEWCASTLE'S Broc Parkes was pipped by 0.009 seconds for victory in the 21-lap World Supersports race at the weekend, but it was still his best result at Phillip Island. The Kawasaki rider was beaten by Yamaha's Luca Scassa, with Briton Sam Lowes (Honda) and Spaniard David Salom (Kawasaki) also involved in the drag to the finish line. It was Scassa's first World Supersport victory.BMW rider Glenn Allerton dominated the two Australian Superbike races at Phillip Island at the weekend. In the first race he gambled with slicks on a damp circuit to win by more than 20 seconds. He also won the second race on a dry circuit by a comfortable margin. Allerton is 13 points ahead of Suzuki rider Troy Herfoss who is only one point ahead of Arpilia rider Ben Atard. The championship continues this weekend at Symmons Plains in Tasmania.THE Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship will support two V8 Supercar rounds this year at Winton, Victoria, in May and Darwin in November. Organisers are also negotiating for a seventh round to be added to its 2011 calendar and have announced a "budget" race entry fee of $1600 per car, per round.FORD stalwart Dick Johnson will drive a GM product in his fourth Targa Tasmania. The five-time Australian Touring Car Champion and V8 Supercars Hall of Fame member will drive a V8-powered 2009 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 in the the 20th anniversary of the Targa in April.  The only Ford link for Johnson is that the car is owned by Yellow Cab owner Neill Ford, one of Dick Johnson Racing's sponsors.CHAD Reed has clung to third in the American and World Supercross after a dramatic clash with rival James Stewart in Atlanta at the weekend. The Australian led for 16 of the 20 laps, but collided with Stewart to finish third for the main event and hold on to third in the standings behind Americans Ryan Villopoto and Ryan Dungey. The next event is at Daytona this weekend. (March 5) ITEM DEFENDING kart champions Matthew Wall, Cian Fothergill and Pierce Lehane dominated their categories at round one of the CIK Stars of Karting Series in Ipswich at the weekend. Round two of the national series will be held in Adelaide on April 2-3.MARCOS Ambrose has jumped 10 places in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings with a 16th at Phoenix at the weekend following a 17-car pile-up in the opening-round Daytona 500 the previous week. At one stage he was running second until a race caution put him a lap down. "I know I've got great stuff and I know I can really do well," the Ford driver said after the race. The race was won by Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet), while second-placed Kyle Bushc (Toyota) leads the standings. The next round is this weekend in Las Vegas.LUKE Ellery leaves for Florida next Saturday (March 12) to race in the first round of the F2000 series at Sebring March 17-18 and Petersburg on March 26-27. The 21-year-old Victorian will then fly home and return to the US for the third round in Indianapolis in May. The IndyCar hopeful is a former national kart champion and three-time state Formula Ford champion. He will drive a Van Dieman for JDC Motorsports in the US series.

The Top Gear frontman took the wheel of Bathurst champion Craig Lowndes' racing Commodore and quickly discovered the combined impact   of speed and Queensland humidity."It's hard work. I'll be a puddle of sweat," Clarkson said after his first track laps with Lowndes in the passenger seat of the stripped-out 450-kiloWatt racer. He was quick to light up a cigarette as he took a break.Clarkson and James May are in Australia for a Top Gear Live tour and, while preparing for their opening show in Brisbane, hit the Holden   Performance Driving Centre for some fun with Lowndes' championship winning Vodafone team.Clarkson lived a personal dream when he drove the V8 Supercar racer while May, and Top Gear Australia presenter Shane Jacobson, got hot   laps alongside the five-time Bathurst winner. Clarkson has said the Bathurst 1000 is the only motor race he likes to watch."He's good. He took to it like a duck to water," Lowndes said. "I was rubbish," Clarkson said. The world's highest-paid motoring journalist was not giving official interviews yesterday, and had an large entourage to ensure his personal space and working room for a television crew, but he was clearly having fun."It's fantastic. A proper car," Clarkson said. He completed around 20 laps of the track without incident, although he did lock the car's brakes and got it sideways as he learned the limits. "That's no drama," Lowndes said.

It was the first event for our new line-up with Dane down the back of the pits and former DJR guy Adrian Burgess up front calling the shots with our race engineers.  The boys have commented that they've now got two voices calling out at them.I think the new line-up went quite well.  Roland is there to see that the team is running at the level he wants and I didn't see him too displeased at the end of the day; bar the race results, of course.  He can be quite vocal at times, but I think Adrian took it all in his stride.Adrian was calm and made good, collective decisions with the engineers. I think he knows just what to do to make it all work.  Three of our team have been over in Germany at the Sachs factory checking out developments in shock absorbers and clutches that we use and distribute.There was my race engineer Jeromy, Adam who works on our suspension and Neil who does our customer cars.  It was helpful having face-to-face meetings with the engineers instead of having to deal with issues via emails and pone.It was also handy for them to be able to explain to their engineers about our unique style of race car with its weight and horespower configuration. It's quite different compared with lightweight European race cars as I found out when I raced the Audi R8 in the Bathurst 12-Hour.  One of the key elements is the Sachs clutch we use.I haven't had any issues with it, but our heavy race cars make it difficult to get them off the line so the clutch has to be tailored to those demands.  I see a recent survey says that more than of all Aussie motorists flash their lights to warn oncoming drivers of radar traps.That's something we see quite often out in the country, usually warning of speed cameras rather than police hand-held radar guns.I don't disagree with the practice, but I don't encourage it either. People who habitually speed should be caught.  But warning people of a camera serves to make drivers more alert and pay attention.I think it's particularly helpful in the country where drivers can lose concentration on a boring stretch of road and not realise they have drifted over the speed limit.I'm taking the family off to the beach for some fishing and a bit of a last-minute vacation before the season starts in earnest in Adelaide later this month.  I'm not much ofa fisherman, but it's going to be the last time I get a chance to relax before a busy year ahead with V8 Supercars and the Australasian Safari.

But the Ford race legend will be in a GM product - a 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 which means it comes complete with seven-litre V8 engine.My plan is to exercise caution," says Johnson, now aged 65.His Dick Johnson Racing outfit, having taken James Courtney to be reigning V8 Supercar Champion, has its two Jim Beam Falcons in the hands of Steve Johnson and rookie James Moffat, to hit the track at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide three weeks from now after which he prepares for Targa Tasmania, April 5-10.Johnson will drive the Corvette coupe at the invitation of its owner Neill Ford who is a long-time Targa competitor and whose business Yellow Cab is a DJR sponsor in V8s.Three-time winner of the Bathurst touring car race and twice Sandown 500 winner, Johnson will be having his fourth drive in Targa Tasmania, which uses public roads closed to normal traffic over long competitive stages twisting through hills."It's a great event to participate in," Johnson said.  "I drove a Maserati Marchetta which was an open-top car  I have never been so cold and wet in my entire life. This time, thankfully, I've got a roof."Asked if he would be doing any pre-event testing to get familiar with the powerhouse Corvette, typically jocular Johnson said "It depends how far it is from aif parc ferme aifto the start line."Fellow touring car champion (with four titles) Jim Richards, a former race circuit rival of Johnson, has become the king of Targa Tasmania with a string of victories in Porsche cars.

Robbie Farr, a racer who began his sprintcar career as 'The Wild Child', has finally lifted the biggest prize in Australian speedway racing. Farr is the new World Series champion after a nail-biting finish in Perth last weekend saw him edge out David Murcott and American 'Racing' Jason Johnson. "It's a 20-year apprenticeship to get here to win this championship. I'm absolutely stoked," says Farr. Murcott was unable to challenge at the Perth Motorplex and came up short in the C-main race, giving Farr an eventual margin of 234 points after trailing by only two into the grand final. "I have been sweating bullets for the last couple of weeks. It's in the record books, they can't take it off us," Farr says. The other top-10 finishers in the 2010-2012 World Series were Steven Lines, Ian Madsen, Max Dumesny, Trevor Green, James McFadden, Danny Reidy and this year's Australian champion Brooke Tatnell.

Australia scored the first shock with the fastest qualifying time and victory in the first of two two-hour races.  The nation was represented by six motoring journalists including pole sitter and Carsguide Big Wheels reporter James Stanford and Carsguide motoring reporter Mark Hinchliffe.The first race started as an Ashes struggle between Australia and the UK, but ended in a cold war with Russia.  Australia emerged the clear winner by more than 90 seconds over 21 laps of the 4.9km course.The win earned Australia pole for the second two-hour race which was an arm wrestle with Russia who adopted identical pit strategies.  Panel paint was swapped aggressively between the two countries in the last few laps, but Russia held on for victory over Australia with Belgium in third.The ice race was the second MX-5 promotional event after the first last year in Venice to celebrate the sports car’s 20th year.  National teams raced in 20 cars with some countries sharing cars. Among the 120 drivers was former Formula One racer Rene Arnoux.“I have driven on ice before in France but that is a short 600m course which is like a slalom,” he said. “This was bumpy and fast and very challenging.”The event was run by Mazda in Europe with Australia the only non-European entrant.  Mazda Europe boss Jeffrey Guyton said he was pleased Australia had flown from the other side of the world to compete.“The idea was to have a bit of fun, but who could have written a script like this,” he said of the close result.Guyton said the event was a “significant investment” for the promotion of its hero car which holds the Guinness record for the most sales of a two-seater open-top roadster, having passed the 900,000 mark recently.Mazda Australia spokesman Steve Maciver said the race was designed to show “zoom zoom” potential of the MX-5.  He said he would love to see the event staged in Australia some time.The cars were lightly modified mainly with weight stripped out and studded tyres for the ice.  The course was a tight slalom of 23 left corners and 20 right carved out on the ice of Lake Kallsjon in northern Sweden.