Motorsports

JAMES Courtney is the halfway leader in this year's V8 Supercar   championship, as drivers and crews take a seven-week breather. Courtney's second-place in the second race in Townsville last weekend, and the failure by two-time champion Jamie Whincup, slowed the Jim Beam Racing driver to stretch an 18-point break into a 1947-1827 advantage, with Mark Winterbottom third on 1623 ahead of Shane van Gisbergen on 1598. CHAZ Mostert swept the Formula Ford races in Townsville last weekend, giving him his third overall victory of the 2010 season. He now leads the national championship by 49 points, up from a 14-point advantage before the Queensland event, with three rounds still to run. STEVE Owen used two wins in Townsville in his Holden Commodore to stretch his advantage in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Championship over Tim Blanchard, who broke through for his first heat win in the Queensland contest driving a Falcon. Owen now has 1028 points to Blanchard's 752, with Nick Percat on 750. DAVID Brabham won as usual when the American Le Mans Series hit Utah   last weekend. He drove his Highcroft Acura to another victory with   young co-driver Simon Pagenaud, a result which gives than an 11-point   championship lead. The World Rally Championship is turning into a one-make contest with   Citroen scoring a 1-2-3-4 sweep on the first bitumen event of the 2010   season in Bulgaria last weekend. Sebastian Loeb was the predictable   winner but, as the Ford Focus attack misfired, he was followed to the   finish by Dani Sordo, Petter Solberg and Sebastian Ogier in a fleet of   Citroen C4s. STEFAN Merriman blitzed the latest round of the Australian Off-Road Championship, winning overall and in the E2 class on a Yamaha YZ450F at Wedderburn in Victoria. Merriman led Toby Price on a KTM home by 14 seconds at the end of six sprint laps, with Jarrod Bewley third overall and first in E1 on another KTM. JAMES Coundouris scored a double first in the Australian GT Championship round at Phillip Island last weekend driving his Porsche   Cup S. David Wall was quickest in opening qualifying but was hit by a mechanical problem, so over the weekend Coundouris got a perfect score ahead of Dean Grant in a Mosler and Max Twigg in another Porsche Cup S. Jason Crump finally got back onto the podium in the latest round of the FIM World Speedway Championship, taking second at the British GP   in Cardiff, Wales. Crump was the most successful rider through the heats but was edged out in the final by fellow Aussie, Chris Holder. Formula One teams are promising a 13 per cent reduction in their carbon emissions by the end of the 2012 season ahead of a green change for the 2013 season. The biggest improvements are likely to come as F1 moves to boost the use of future technology, with turbocharging back on the agenda for future regulations. CHRIS Alajajian was unbeaten in three Mini Challenge starts in Townsville last weekend. It was his third consecutive round win in the   one-make series, but Paul Stokell was second for the round after taking pole position and still has a shot at the championship. COOPERS Clear team mates Jack Elsegood and Grant Johnson were on top in the V8 Ute series round at Townsville last weekend, although Jeremy Gray also got a race win with his Rockstar Falcon. The series continues at Phillip Island in September.

Straight after the Townsville round, I hopped in the campervan and drove home.  I got to Mackay, then Nat took over and drove to Gympie then I drove the rest of the way home to Kilcoy. So we were back home on the farm the next morning contemplating what could have been a great weekend, but turned out to be a bit of a disaster.  As Nat keeps telling me though, you can't change the past. So while it was a disappointing weekend we can also see some positives because we showed we had the speed to not only get pole, but also win races.  And that's a great positive to cling to as we now head into a nine-week mid-season break. It's important to focus on the positives and not be all doom and gloom or it could really play on your mind over nine long weeks.  I'm now trying to focus on the next race at Phillip Island. One of the interesting things to come out of the weekend was the incident where James Courtney ran into his teammate Steve Johnson and didn't cop a penalty.  I have never turned around a teammate and never had it happen to me. However, if you go by the rule book there should definitely have been a penalty.  We are all told by the stewards that if you destroy another car or hinder someone else's race and get a benefit you should cop a penalty. There has never been any mention of an exemption if it's your teammate. As far as I'm concerned Stevie could have got a better result than 11th and Courtney definitely benefited ending up in fifth.  Courtney originally got a penalty and then it was overturned, so what was a clear-cut ruling is now a grey area. I was involved in a couple of racing incidents of my own getting pushed into the wall in race one by Will Davison and badly damaging the car and then running up the tailpipe of Courtney's car in race two. Both are racing incidents and very disappointing.  The first happened at the start of a 72-lap race. We fixed it and I was down 10 laps, but at least I finished.  After the second incident I was out of the race completely. Before Tander went into the wall at turn three I had swapped places a couple of times in battle with Courtney.  He got by in turn two and didn't expect to see a HRT car sideways in front of him at the next turn so he slammed on the brakes just as I was accelerating.  I was totally unsighted and had no idea why he hit the brakes let alone any time to react. The crash put a hole in the radiator which we could have plugged, but we decided to change the whole radiator.  The rules state that to finish the race you have to have completed 75 per cent of the laps. We had the car running and were ready to push out, but we simply ran out of laps. We were about a lap away from our 75 per cent.  Oh well. That's motor racing. So now we're supposedly on holidays, but of course we're not stopping work. There will be work in the garage for the team and I'll be out doing plenty of PR. Plus I am competing in the Australasian Safari in September and flying to Europe for the Spa F1 GP next month.  I've been talking to Kees Weel who will be my co-driver in the Safari and he says our Holden Colorado pick-up truck will be together in the next week or two. The engine has been done and is back, the transfer case is on its way and the gearbox is getting finished off. It's the same as the six-speed sequential in my race car so that's handy for me.  That's at least one thing new I don't have to learn. It will be the first time I've ever raced on dirt and the first time I've ever had anyone in the car with me telling me where to go.  Well, of course I have Nat telling me where to go in our car, but I've never had a co-driver in a race car before, so that should be interesting.  I'm not sure if it will be a help or a hindrance. As for the Spa GP, I'm a little disappointed because I have to fly home before the Sunday race for a rookie day and test day the next week.  It would have been nice to see Mark Webber win another race, but at least we will be there for the practice and qualifying.

After another crash in race one at Brno last weekend, the Kawasaki Racing Team rider suffered further damage to his right knee which was injured at Philip Island in the first round in February.  The former World Supersport champion missed the next two rounds.The Kawasaki team's website announced yesterday that he would now sit out the rest of the season while his knee recovers and he considers reconstructive surgery.  Vermeulen is signed for next year with the Kawasaki factory team.He has not yet made a statement.

But these photos snapped at the Nurburgring show that Nissan has made some changes to its hero GT-R for 2012. There’s been some revision to the front, with the grille now looking more horizontal. And around the back they’ve restyled the bumper and diffuser and reshaped the flares behind the wheels.It’s likely the cosmetic changes will be applied to both the Spec-M and the hotter-handling Spec-V variants. Nissan has already hinted last year that the Spec-M interior will be softened and luxed-up a little to give it a more premium feel.But the engine is tipped to stay with the current outputs of 353kW of power and 590Nm of torque. There’s no official word on when the new Nissan GT-R will be unveiled, but there’s money on it being at Paris motor show in October.

INDEPENDENCE Day in the USA turned into an Australian celebration when Will Power and Ryan Briscoe swept the latest round of the IndyCar World Series at Watkins Glen in New York State. The Penske team mates are now first and fourth on the series standings. YOUNGSTER Daniel Erickson was another Australian winner at Watkins Glen, taking both F2000 victories at the track. Erickson had missed four races because of funding troubles but bounced back in the best possible way and is sixth in the championship. A win and a sixth keeps Daniel Ricciardo in contention for the Renault 3.5 series in Europe after the latest leg in Hungary. Ricciardo was the pacesetter in Budapest, fresh from track time in the Red Bull RB6 grand prix car, and is now second in the series at the halfway mark. CAM McConville is ending his V8 Supercar retirement by stepping into the Lucas Dumbrell-owned Commodore in Townsville this weekend, taking over from New Zealand youngster Daniel Gaunt. McConville has started several Fujitsu Series races to get sharp for the two-drive enduros with the Holden Racing Team but this weekend will be his first serious hit-out in the main game since he retired from fulltime V8 Supercar racing at the end of last year. SOME of the best-known cars from Australian touring car racing over the past 50 years were stars at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Britain last weekend. The Aussie contingent was led by Allan Moffat's 1977 Bathurst-winner Falcon coupe and included the Bob Jane-Harry Firth Cortina from 1964, one of Dick Johnson's Ford Sierras, one of Peter Brock's 1982 Holden Commodores and a similar Holden raced by Larry Perkins in the 1990s. DONNY Schatz, the racer regarded as the world's best sprintcar driver, will be back in Australia over summer for another raid on Parramatta City Raceway. Schatz will compete in four meetings from early December to January 15, including the $50,000-to-win Scott Darley Trophy race he has already won eight times. MONSTER Tajima topped the field in the 88th running of the Pikes Peak hillclimb on June 27, once again driving his twin-engined Suzuki SX4 hybrid. The Japanese star's win was his fifth in a row and came on his 60th birthday. Australian Superbike Champion Josh Waters has been tapped by Suzuki to race in two rounds of the AMA Pro Superbike Championship championship.   He will race a factory-backed Suzuki GSX-R in place of Blake Young, who is injured, in events at the Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca tracks. SEBASTIAN Loeb faces a tough new challenge when his young Citroen team mate, Sebastian Ogier, lines up against him in the all-new Rally Bulgaria this weekend. Loeb is a six-time world champion but was recently trumped by Ogier, who won promotion to Citroen's official factory team for the bitumen events through to the end of the 2010 season.

Turn 1: We don't even think of turn 1 as a turn. It's just a kink on the main straight where there is plenty of room to run side by side at speeds approaching 255km/h in sixth gear. It's hair-raising stuff.Turn 2: The right leg gets a big workout as we are hard on the brakes going into the 140-degree turn 2, banging down the gears from sixth all the way to 2nd for a 70km/h turn, protecting our line from someone ducking up the inside.Turn 3: In the run up to the next turn we get up to 4th gear and 180km/h before it's another hard brake down to 2nd for the faster 90-degree right hander that tightens up on exit. We take at about 90km/h.Turns 4-6: We refer to this area as a fast chicane but it isn't really a chicane at all, just a series of right, left, right kinks with a top speed in 4th gear of about 185km/h then full throttle to 190km/h for the last run down to turn 7.Turns 7 and 8: Hard on the brakes into 2nd gear for the much slower chicane and about 95km/h. The exit here is quite important as you have a long loaded right hander with two kinks down into the turn 11 hairpin.Turns 9 and 10: These are the two right-hand kinks over the train lines where we hope to get a good drive up to about 210km/h in 5th gear. We lift off a little before jumping on the brakes and gearing back to 2nd.Turns 11 and 12: We take this hairpin at about 65km/h and try to get good acceleration out of here as it bows around to the right through the turn 12 kink which we hit in 4th at about 175km/h.Turn 13: The last turn is a 1st gear corner and 60km/h with the all-important drive out of here to get the maximum terminal speed down the main straight.Traps: The things to look out for at Townsville are hitting your braking markers as hard as possible because there are four hard-braking corners. If you maximise your entry and exit speeds, you get good speed through the following straights.Tricks: It's important to have good car set-up to get good flow over the kerbs through the tricky back chicane. Another trick is to try to carry almost full throttle out of turns 8, 9 and 10. It's quite difficult to carry that sort of speed around this section, but it will give you a great passing opportunity in the back hairpin.Passing: There are really only three places to pass. Turns 2, 11 and 13 are all a duck down the inside under brakes. Around the back you are just basically blocking to hold your position. If your car is flowing well, you have a great chance of keeping competitors at bay.Bash and barge: Most of the crashes will be in the back section where you generally have big speed differences between cars. It's hard and dangerous to pass here, but some drivers will try to create a passing opportunity out of nothing but bravery... or stupidity.Qualifying tip: You have to be confident under brakes, get good drive off the corners and have a balanced car through the fast kinks.

It's the month when the master blaster of the current lineup, the wide- body STi sedan complete with rally-style giant rear wing, hits Australia.  The STi sedan dominated sales of the go-faster Subaru Impreza models through its previous run in Australia, then went missing when Japan decided on a hatch-only sales policy for the current car.But the USA went its own way, demanding a sedan, and it's now the building block for the upcoming local hero.  "It's set for September. It could even be late August, which would mean some hot August nights," says Nick Senior, managing director of Subaru Australia.He says the STi sedan will have everything from the pumped-out guards of the latest 'wide body' WRX to a competition-style rear wing and bigger alloy wheels and brakes.  "It's more aggressive, it has the big wing," Senior says.  He is expecting a big boost to WRX sales when the STi hits, partly because of the car and partly as customers return to Subaru showrooms after the global financial crisis."We're probably selling 10-15 cars a month and we hope to lift that to around 50 when we launch the STi sedan. That market has been the one that's been most impacted by the GFC. It's more of a discretionary spend than any other model we have."Senior says the regular WRX now also comes with a sedan body, a move is already giving a boost to sales. "We're selling two sedans for every hatch. That's consistent with WRX since we first launched it. For many years it was 90 per cent sedan in Australia."Over time we would expect 70-80 per cent of WRX sales will be sedans.  Globally, hot hatches are the thing in Europe but in Australia it's exactly the other way around. We're rather unique in that."

V8 Supercar front-runner Lee Holdsworth and his brother Brett combined for a major success in the Commodore Cup series at Winton last weekend, taking the Ashley Cooper Memorial Trophy.  Adam Beechey and Dean Crosswell won the first of two races at Winton, and took the overall round victory, but the Holdsworths got the major trophy on a Shannons Nationals weekend when Tony Evangalou was the best in a field of 14 ex-V8 Supercars in the V8 series. MARCOS Ambrose rebounded from his disastrous road-course mistake a week earlier to take a solid 13th place on the high-banked oval at Loudon in New Hampshire last weekend. The Aussie qualified 12th in his Toyota Camry and a strong run improved him slightly to 27th place in Nascar's Sprint Cup standings. DEFENDING champions Simon and Sue Evans extended their lead in this year's Australian Rally Championship with a clean sweep of Rally SA, their fourth straight victory in the Adelaide-based event. The pair won both heats with their Subaru Impreza and their job was made easier when Scott Pedder had a heavy crash in his Lancer Evo, promoting youngster Nathan Quinn to second in Sunday's heat. The Ypres Rally in Belgium didn't last long for Australia's Chris Atkinson in his Proton Satria. The former Subaru WRC star's return to rallying in Europe was over after just one stage when his car's engine failed. PIRELLI is already working on its new tyres for Formula One in 2011, having won the grand prix tyre contract as the replacement for Bridgestone. The Italian company says it will hit the track soon with a GP2-specification racer, the closest thing available to an F1 car because of an in-season testing ban on the world championship teams. A major new historic racing event - the 'Festival of Speed' will be held at Winton in Victoria from August 13-15. It is being organised by the Victorian Historic Racing Register and will be held on the V8 Supercar-style 'long' circuit, with a series of 15-minute sprints run alongside the usual regularity events for the old-timer cars. MULTIPLE national champion co-driver Coral Taylor will join her driver daughter Molly in a rally for the first time when the pair compete in the Isle of Man Rally next weekend. Molly Taylor is trying to break into the World Rally Championship by competing in the UK and is driving a Citroen C2 R2 Max - the car she will also share with Coral in Ulster in August - in her second overseas season. ONE of the top technical chiefs at McLaren, Pat Fry, has defected to McLaren in the first major switch of the 2010 grand prix season. Fry was with McLaren from 1992 and led the design team on a range of cars including the one driven to the world championship by Lewis Hamilton in 2008. VICTORIAN kart racer Lee Mitchener has just returned to Melbourne after a major victory in the Bruno Grana International Trophy event in France. It is his first overseas win and comes in a year when Mitchener has also won both his state title and the national crown at Easter, leading up to the final of the CIK Stars of Karting series at Port Melbourne in early August.

Defending champion Jamie Whincup believes the endurance race, to be known as the Albert Park 500, will help lift the sport's profile both locally and internationally.  The revamped event will be run over three days during the Australian Grand Prix with a prize pool of $500,000. "In the past we have only really done a bit of a demonstration race," Whincup says.  "For us proper racing is pitstops and long-distance racing and that's what's going to happen next year." Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom says all drivers welcome the event.  "The only negative about this race in the past was it wasn't long enough and that's been fixed," he says.  "The pitstops will make it more exciting.  It will be a highlight of the year." The Bathurst-rival Albert Park 500 will move to a three-race format during the Australian Grand Prix, a move Whincup says is important.  "It's an important round for us as teams because it's extremely important for the corporate brands that we represent," he says. "We've got hundreds of thousands of fans but this type of event in particular has a very different type of fan base.  "There is a lot of glitz and glamour with this event."  Jason Bright says V8 Supercars will be able to put on a proper show. "It's a great thing for V8 Supercars.  "We feel like part of the show now.  "It's always been a bit of a challenge for the teams being out the back and coming into pitlane to set up very temporarily for each session. "Being able to set up properly and have our boom setup and do the fuel and tyre stops that we enjoy at each race meeting does throw a pretty big dimension into it.  "It's much better for the fans having that aspect." Despite the three-race format teams will not receive any championship points.  Next year's race will be the first as part of a five-year plan to change from the current race format to endurance races on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday and Saturday will be 200km events with a final 100km race on Sunday.  Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief, Drew Ward, says some other support events will be juggled to fit in the new timetable for the V8s. Teams will get their own temporary garages on pitlane, separate to the Formula 1 garages.  Ward says apart from garages, the new pitlane buildings will also have room for corporate sponsors.  "It will be a signature event, just like Bathurst," he says. They will take four weeks to build and two-weeks to dismantle and be similar to the buildings used for the Homebush race in Sydney.

The students – who study an automotive certificate at the remote town's Western Cape College – will come to Townsville as guests of the FPR team, whose sponsors Orrcon Steel have donated both tickets and the use of the corporate hospitality suite on the Friday.There's something of an alumni link between the college and the V8 Supercar race team, with driver Steve Richards' number 1 mechanic David Moris-Fontes being a previous graduate.The success of the course has boosted its popularity – and its number of enrolments of both indigenous and non-indigenous students.Due to their geographic isolation, the students have rarely seen the world outside their own community, except on television. This will be their first chance to see a V8 Supercar ‘in the metal’, with the race car being a far cry from the diesel 4WD vehicles – and occasional petrol passenger cars – they mainly work on.