Motorsports

MARCOS Ambrose lost his best chance yet of a breakthrough Nascar win when he stalled his Toyota's V8 engine trying to save fuel in the road-coast race at Sonoma in California on Sunday. Ambrose looked to be cruising until a late caution and then a penalty by Nascar officials which dropped him to seventh, though he was eventually sixth behind defending series champion Jimmie Johnson.WILL Power is back at the top of the IndyCar World Series standings after finishing fifth, one spot behind his Aussie teammate Ryan Briscoe at Penske Racing, in the Iowa 250 last weekend. Tony Kanaan won the race.DANIEL Ricciardo moved into second place in the Renault 3.5 series championship with a runner-up spot in the second of two races at Magny Cours in France last weekend. Ricciardo was outclassed in the first race but rebounded in the second event by taking pole position.CHAZ Mostert became the first multiple round winner of this year's Formula Ford national title when he swept the races in Darwin last weekend. Two wins and a fifth place give him a 14-point break over Nick Foster, who could manage only fourth for the round behind Ryan Simpson and Geoff Uhrhane.CHAD Reed improved his recent form to finish third after two motos in the latest event in the AMA Pro Motocross series in the US. Reed rode his Monster Kawasaki to fifth and second-place finishes to give him enough points to improve to second in the series standings behind Ryan Dungeny on a Suzuki.A STORMING drive from 18th place resulted in a fifth-place finish for Owen Kelly in his first Nascar Nationwide Series start on the road course at Road America last weekend. He qualified ninth and was running strongly before a puncture that also broke the car's anti-roll bar.A FOURTH place in the Grand Prix of Poland moved Australia's defending world champion Jason Crump up to fourth in the title fight last weekend. Crump managed three heat wins but was outgunned in the final. Crump is now 20 points behind series leader Tomasz Gollob, who won in Poland.THE field is set for the World Series Sprintcars championship this summer, with defending champion Brooke Tatnell heading the line-up. The other contracted drivers for the WSS series are Americans Jason Johnson and Tyler Walker, and Aussies Robbie Farr, Max Dumesny, Ryan Farrell, Trevor Green, James McFadden, David Murcott, Bryan Mann, Steven Lines and Danny Reidy.

"It just caught my eye and had a nice, timeless shape," says Joe Jarick, 61.  In 1970, Jarick bought one of five Healey 100S race cars brought to Australia for $500 from a Mackay owner. It was in bits and stayed like that until Jarick sold it for $4500 just four years later while living and working in London. He used the funds to buy a complete 100S from Portugal for 2600 pound.  Jarick made a good profit on his first 100S, but it was later put together, restored and sold for $750,000. Yet Jarick isn't tempted to tart up his 100S for a massive profit.  "This car isn't worth that because it has a lot of warts," he says. "Like me it's not all that flash these days. It's got stone chips and torn upholstery but it's all original upholstery.  There is nothing on this car that is not original except for the spare coil and the indicators.  It's been painted and had new discs but not a lot of other work.  "I like it to look like it's just been on the race track." And racing is what this vehicle is all about.  The S in its name refers to the famous Sebring race track in America and 50 of the cars were used in endurance races such as Le Mans and Mille Miglia. The aluminium race car features a 132 horsepower four-cylinder 2.6-litre Westlake engine with twin SU carbies, an alloy head, an original 20-gallon long-distance race fuel tank in the boot and British Lucas electrics. Jarick proudly wheels his 100S out of the garage and tries to fire it up, but it won't spark.  "I think you put the kibosh on it mentioning the Lucas electrics," he laughs. However, a quick clean of the points and it's firing again, ready to relive its glory days.  "I've had it 36 years and I've never been tempted to sell it," he says.  "It was the first car in production with all disc brakes and a driver's seat belt." Jarick has raced it in a few Lucas GP rallies and in the historic demonstration races at the 1996 and `98 Australian GPs.  "It's a long-distance racing car not suitable for sprint events," he says.  "I'd like to go in some sprint events but in a short circuit I'd never get out of first because of its tall gearing (2.92:1)." Jarick loves his old English white and loberlia (blue/purple) 100S, but also has two restoration projects sitting in mates' garages.  One is a 1904 8 horsepower, single-cylinder de Dion Bouton and the other is a 1938 Lancia Aprilia road car that belonged to Ferrari racer Mike Hawthorn, Britain's first world GP champion in 1958. But it's the Austin Healey marquee that holds pride of place in Jarick's heart.  He joined the Sydney Austin Healey Owners' Club when he bought his first 100S, but he soon founded a Queensland branch.  The local branch celebrates 40 years with a show and shine at the Queensland Maritime Museum on July 4 from 10am to 2pm.  And you can bet Jarick's 100S will be there, warts and all.

The reason is Tony Gaze, a wonderful man with a fascinating life story.Gaze is Australia's first official Formula One driver, competing in the 1952 season and well before Sir Jack Brabham made the trip to England. In fact, Gaze once signed Brabham as a member of his sports car team.  Gaze also helped get the Goodwood racing circuit, now the home of two of the world's best historic motorsport events, up and running after World War II.But motorsport is only one slice of Gaze's amazing life.  He is also a fighter ace from World War II who was shot down over France, was the first jet-fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy jet, and won the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry three times. He is also a champion glider pilot.Gaze is now 90 years of age and an old-school gentleman. He is a little stooped when he walks, but still stands tall and talks quietly with authority.  The man who gets him talking on Monday night is Peter Thompson, host of the ABC program Talking Heads. Thompson does a great job with all his guests and he has plenty to mine from Gaze's rich life story.The show was filmed at the RAAF museum at Point Cook in Victoria, with a Spitfire in the background. But there is some great historical motorsport footage and even film from early expeditions to Antarctica, including one involving his father.Gaze tells his story with dry humour and the sort of authority that only comes from a been-there, done-that personality.  It's a great story of a wonderful life, even though Gaze is still relatively unknown.  "You've got to believe you can do it," Gaze tells Thompson at one point and that pretty much sums up his life.Follow Paul Gover on Twitter!

So strategy was always going to play a huge part in the outcome. As a team we decided to have two different strategies, obviously the ultimate sin for teams is to have both cars in trying to do a pit stop at the same time for ultimately the second car is always disadvantaged.We opted to not start on the soft tyre where Jamie (Whincup) decided to start with it. The way we come up with that decision is basically the lead car in qualifying _ which was Jamie here _  has the priority, has the first option.He opted to start with it which meant we had to finish on the soft but we thought we still had a great opportunity to not only win but also to be on the podium.  Then the way the race panned out, I had a really bad start. It's always quite difficult to get these cars off the line and I spun the rear wheels up and fell back.Another element of the race here was knowing the guys behind you that are on the soft tyre and when to look out for them because the speed difference between a soft tyre and a hard is almost two seconds.  The radio communication from the team to me was quite busy _  giving me information about who was on what.From that we went about our normal strategy which was trying to split the race up into two thirds with a soft tyre in the mix. The last sprint to the finish was going to be on the soft tyre for us where we had great pace at the beginning but overtaking cars takes a bit of life out of the tyres.We burnt up the rears and finished fifth.  We also had a little issue in the pit stop when one of a regular tyre guys fall sick and we had to replace him with a backup. Unfortunately he was not quite as quick as our regular guys and when they dropped the car as normal the front left tyre wasn't on the car.We lost about six seconds in our pit stop just because of the mistake.  So if you look back we possibly could've finished fourth, third was probably a bit of a stretch.Now it's two weeks to Townsville and we'll be driving up as we did last year.  So we'll be leaving mid next week with the caravan and the kids, the kids will be on holidays, and we'll be driving up the east coast.

A saturated Phillip Island circuit is a long way from the Nurburgring, but for Nissan test driver Tochio Suzuki it's just another demonstration of how good the GT-R is.Suzuki set the production car lap record at the famous German track in 2008, but today he's chauffeuring journalists on a series of hot laps on Australia's best bit of bitumen in weather that even has the Cape Barren geese grounded.Hot laps in these conditions is a succession of high-speed drifts and even higher plumes of water as Suzuki prods ridiculous speeds from the twin turbo 3.8-litre V6, then overcomes the grip of the four-wheel drive machine with a flick of the wheel. The conditions are, frankly, crap, and it's in situations like this the GT-R proves its worth.There's already 270-odd Australian owners of Nissan's $160,000 supercar - 30 per cent above sales estimates - and the 2010-11 update has a host of small refinements to improve the experience.Chief among them are revised suspension settings which Nissan says improve steering stability and ride comfort. A modified exhaust system boosts low and mid-range engine response, though there's no change in the 357kW/588Nm outputs.The wipers now adjust according to the speed, the headlights are automatic, the navigation system is stored on a hard drive and the Nissan now accepts Bluetooth and USB/iPod connections.Nissan communications head Jeff Fisher admits the improvements are incremental, but notes so much work went in to developing the GT-R that there's little to be done."The MY10 GT-R is an update in line with Nissan's normal model evolution,'' he says. "Remember, we're talking about a car that has won 66 awards in the two years since it was launched. There isn't a lot of room for improvement with the current model."It's a sentiment echoed by the man responsible for creating the GT-R, Kazutoshi Mizuno, who says the project brief was to create a supercar literally from the ground up. Mizuno replaces marketing spin with maths and science as he explains how the car's weight (at 1470kg it's heavy by supercar standards) is a direct function of the need to maximise grip in all situations.Following the "give Godzilla grip" formula led him to install a V6 rather than a V8, 10 or 12-cylinder engine."The most important performance essence and a key element to car design is tyre grip force," he says. "Rear tyre grip decides front tyre grip, which decides weight centre... and then engine specification. Normally supercar designers decide on the engine specifications separately although I can't understand why.''Anyone who drives the GT-R, especially in the wet, will be inclined to agree with him.NISSAN GT-RPrice: from $158,800 (plus dealer delivery and statutory charges)Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged 24-valve V6Power: 357kW@6,400 rpmTorque: 588Nm @3,200-5,200 rpmTransmission: 6-speed Dual Clutch, auto shift or full manualEconomy: 12.4 litres/100kmFuel: Premium unleaded, tank capacity 74LSusupension: Double-wishbone w aluminium upper arms (front), multi-link w aluminium upper links (rear)Brakes: Nissan Brembo 4-wheel disc brakes - 380mm front and rearDimensions: Wheelbase 2780mm, length 4650mmm, width 1895mm, height 1370mmWheels: Lightweight forged-aluminium wheels, 20" alloys in black or chromeTyres: Dunlop SP Sport 600 DSST (GT-R), Bridgestone RE070R (GT-R Premium)Safety: Dual-stage driver and passenger front and side-impact and roof-mounted curtain airbags, pretension seatbelts, front and rear crumple zones, Advanced Vehicle Dynamic Control, Anti-lock Braking System, Electronic Brakeforce Distribution, immobiliser and security System.

AUDI has drawn level with Ferrari on the all-time winners' list with   its success in the Le Mans 24-hour sports car classic last weekend.  The German brand's ninth victory was a 1-2-3 sweep - led by the 'youngster' car driven by Timo Bernhard, Mike Rockenfeller and Romain Dumas - helped by engine failures which sidelined all four Peugeot 908 coupes capable of upsetting the latest diesel-powered R15. Porsche is still the all-time champion at Le Mans.DAVID Fellows and Bark Bergamin took full advantage the speed in their twin-turbo Toyota Jimco Buggy to win the Fink Desert Race last weekend. Brad Gallard and Scott Modistach, driving a Chevy Trophy Truck, were second ahead of Daniel Auricht and Garry Connelly in a V8 -  powered Jimco Buggy.MARCOS Ambrose finally got something good from in Nascar season with 15th place in the Sprint Cup race at Michigan last weekend. He had an early spin but recovered for a solid result, although he is still only 30th in the championship standings and looking for better in the upcoming road-course races.JAMIE Whincup has a brand-new VE Commodore to take into battle against the similar all-new Holdens of Garth Tander and Will Davison of the Holden Racing Team this weekend in Darwin. The only major changes to the TeamVodafone racer are a seat moved further inboard to improve driver protection and some weight reduction which allows the team to run more ballast.SEBASTIAN Ogier has been promoted to the frontline of Citroen's effort in the World Rally Championship following his victory in the New Zealand Rally. The French youngster has been promoted into the official team alongside seven-time champion Sebastian Loeb for the gravel rallies through the rest of the 2010 series, although Spaniard Dani Sordo - who has been dropped - will return to the squad for bitumen events.AUSTRALIAN officials will make the difference again in a new Formula One race in a deal between CAMS and the organisers of the upcoming Korean Grand Prix in October. CAMS has won a three-year deal - similar to ones previously for the Malaysian and Singapore GPs - to supply training, organisational and operation support for the Korean crew.

But as far as I'm concerned the hotter the better.  The hot temperature seems to suit me better than most drivers who suffer from heat exhaustion.  I think it's because I don't sweat a lot. Some drivers are like that.So I intend to put a little heat on my teammate (Jamie Whincup) and JC (James Courtney) and close the gap this weekend.  I'm excited about coming to Darwin after a five-week layoff.I've had some good results here in the past, plus it's a bit of a homecoming for me because I've got two aunties that live in Darwin.  We also return to the hard-compound control tyre this weekend after two rounds of exclusively qualifying and racing on the soft sprint tyre.That's something all the teams will have to get their heads around again for qualifying and racing on the Saturday.  But just to throw a spanner in the works and make things interesting we get one sprint tyre to run in the Sunday race.Balancing the cars for the two different sets of circumstances is going to be taxing on the race engineers, in particular.  A lot of people have pointed out that I've had better results than Jamie on the sprint tyre and wonder why one side of the garage can get it so right and why the other side can't.Apart from car balance and set-up, it probably also comes down to driver styles.  The sprint tyre gives me what I'm looking for which is front grip. That gives me confidence in the turns.The Falcon I raced over the past few years had more turn-in grip than the Commodore I'm in now which is where I struggle.  Jamie struggled early on with the sprint tyre, but he's started to get on top of the problem and was achieving some good performances in the last round in Winton.He's also got a new brand new car this weekend, so that should build his confidence and help him bounce back into the lead again.  It seems like an eternity since we last raced at Winton. The five-week break was because the Perth round was dropped.One of the things I've been doing to keep my mind and reflexes sharp over that time is clay target shooting.  My wife Nat is more the shooter than I am. For her it's an enjoyable pastime, but for me it's another angle I use to sharpen my hand-eye co-ordination.The clay target machine we've had for the past 12 months oscillates so you don't know which direction it will throw the target. You really have to have quick reflexes to hit the targets.The next stage for me will be to turn it into an Aussie version of the winter Olympic cross country skiing event where they ski, then stop and shoot at five targets, then ski on to the next stop. Only I'll include running instead of skiing. The idea is you have to develop aerobic fitness and steady your heart so you can hold the rifle still enough to hit the target.  Maybe we can develop that into a summer Olympic sport. Most fans would know I've had photos of my kids on the back of my racing helmet for a few years now.  But they grow up so quick. So at the start of the season I had photos taken of them to update my helmet.However, I'm still waiting.  The guy who is doing it rang me and said he has only just got the undercoat on.  He's a perfectionist and a real artist so you can't hurry him.  Hopefully I'll have it for the first of the enduro rounds at Phillip Island after our nine-week mid-season break.

RYAN Briscoe finally got back to winning in the USA at the weekend, making amends for a slow start to the Indy Racing League season and a crash in the Indianapolis 500 with victory at Texas Motor Speedway.   Briscoe qualified on pole position for Penske Racing and led home Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti in a result which bumped him up to   fifth in the IRL season standings.DANIEL Ricciardo had a tough time in the latest leg of the Formula Renault 3.5 series in Europe, only managing 12th and fifth-place finishes in the double-header at Brno in the Czech Republic. Still, he is second in the standings to Mikhail Aleshin at the mid-point of the F1 feeder series.BRYAN Staring used a clean sweep in Queensland to jump to the top of   the Australian Superbike standings for the Cougar Bourbon Honda team. The 23-year-old Gold Coaster broke through for his first victories in the series and, with two-time champion Jamie Stauffer retiring from both races on his Ducati to slide from fourth to eighth on the   pointscore.SECOND in Texas was good enough for Chad Reed to continue at the top of the AMA Pro Motocross championship last weekend. Reed actually extended is margin with his Monster Kawasaki, although Ryan Dungey was the winner at Wortham in Texas and improved to second in the   series heading to the next round in Pennsylvania.NEWLY-CROWNED Australian sprintcar champion James McFadden will join the World Series Sprintcars train in November. The 21-year-old is one of the 12 contracted drivers for the 19-night tour which starts in Brisbane and wraps in Perth in February.BRAZILIAN motorcycle ace Ze Helio is the first major international, and the first Brazilian in the history of the event, to confirm a start in this year's Australasian Safari in Western Australia in September. Helio is a three-time Brazilian champion and two-time Baja champion who will be riding a Husaberg FE570 in the Safari.QUARTER-MILE team boss Santa Rapisarda has added a Nitro Funny Car to   his stable and will race the car for the first time in Sydney on July 31. It is a Chevrolet Monte Carlo-bodied McKinney chassis built by Don Prudhomme Racing in the USA and will be under the control of  Rapidarda's US-based crew chief, Glenn Mikres.3:55 PM 7/06/2010

It's been four weeks since the last round in Winton and we still have another week before we head to Darwin.  We should have raced at Wanneroo in Western Australia last weekend, but the round was dropped after disputes between V8 Supercars and the track owners. However, our team still went over to fulfil our commitment to the fans.  We had about 300 people turn up for our ride and open day and it was interesting to hear what they had to say about the situation.  They are very passionate about cars and motorsport over there and they were very disappointed about losing a round. The majority of the conversation was why the V8s weren't in Western Australia this year.  Most of them don't really care where it is or whether it's a track or street race. They just want a round back in the west and I agree.  It's a huge part of our sport to go to every state and territory. That's what makes it a national sport. Hopefully the powers that be will sit around a table and come to their senses.  Meanwhile, the ride day gave me a chance to keep my hand in, do a few laps and stay familiar with the instruments, the noise and the smell.  I've also been diligent about keeping up my fitness during these long lay-offs with lots of gym work and running. I love running and it's important to have good aerobic fitness in this sport. Sounds like a couple of my colleagues have been in the wars during the break - break being the operative word.  I heard Steven Johnson broke his leg and ankle on some stairs in Fiji and that Jason Richards broke his nose while playing with his kids. In a lay-off like this you can let your guard down and the next thing you know you've ended up getting injured in something that should have belonged on Australia's Funniest Home Videos.  I don't pack myself in cotton wool, though. In fact, I get out on the dirt bikes as much as possible even though it's fairly dangerous and I could end up hurting myself. The thing is, a lot of the V8 drivers ride motorcycles because it keeps them familiar with throttle and brake control and reading tyre traction levels.  I've recently taken delivery of my new Suzuki dirt and road bikes and I've been getting to know them. I've already had some suspension work done on the dirt bikes by the Suzuki motocross racing team boffin as I reckon that's the most important thing with an off-road machine.  The vehicle has to cope with a lot of bumps and bangs and it's important that it is comfortable and still handles well when it's being tossed around. Speaking of which, this week I've had my first look at the Holden Colorado I'll be racing in the Australasian Safari with Kees Weel in September.  He co-drove it last year with his son Paul at the wheel so the cockpit was set up for him.  Paul's a V8 racer as well and he's almost my height, so a lot of the ergos, switches and instruments felt kind of familiar. However, we'll still need to make a few minor tweaks to make sure it's totally familiar and comfortable for me.  As soon as the car is back together in one piece we'll do some testing on a private property near Albury. It'll be my first serious time in an off-road racer and it's going to be important not only to test the car and become familiar with its handling, but also to establish a good rapport with Kees inside a race car.  I need to understand his lingo and he needs to understand mine. We'll do a lot of the testing in the nine-week break we have after the next two rounds in Darwin and Townsville.  However, toward the end of that break, my wife Nat and I will be going to the picturesque Spa circuit in Belgium for the Formula One GP as part of a promotion with our sponsors, Norton. It'll be the first time I've been back to Europe since I raced Formula 3000 there in 1997 and I'm really looking forward to revisiting the track. I believe it's had a substantial facelift since I was there.  Finally, I'd like to say a big thank you to the Queensland selectors for seeing reason and selecting Israel Folau for the second State of Origin match, despite his intentions to quit league and go to AFL at the end of the season. As someone who copped flack for switching sides, I can understand the dramas he's been going through.  Obviously it was his personal choice to switch codes, but right now I believe he has the right to be part of the Maroons squad. He's playing exceptionally well and will bring an important element to the team as he did in the first game.  Besides, the fans deserve to have the best players available on their representative team.

While performance tyres are all about grip, the growing but still fledgling sport of drifting seems to be all about the total lack of grip. However, Hankook drift expert and number two Korean drift competitor Joosuk Jang says it is more about having a tyre that they can predict and ‘feel’. It also pays to have trust in a tyre when some drifting competition can feature sideways displays at up to 170km/h. The 32-year-old should know about feel and predictability. He is not only a drift ‘god’, but also a former Korean GT champion. Jang is now preparing for a season of racing and drifting in the US and hopes to one day be ‘a famous drifting champion’. He says the key to drifting is throttle control, but his explanation of the intricacies of the art of making a car dance sideways remains veiled by his lack of English and an interpretor who doesn't quite convey the nuances Mr Jang seems to display in his body language. Jang's tyre of choice for a drifting display at Hankook's Geumsan proving ground is the 225mm-wide Hankook Ventus S1 EVO with a 40 profile on 18-inch wheels under his 340-horsepower (253.5kW) Hyundai Genesis Coupe. He's not just horsing around with the horses, either. After just a couple of minutes of tyre-smoking action, the car's turbo is on fire and the Hankooks have melted down to the metal. All in a day's work.