Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Quiet day news wise, at least nothing worth my time talking about.

The biggest issue is in Australia at the moment, Bathurst NSW to be precise. Now if the world knows of Bathurst at all it is because of the V8Supercar race once a year, but along with Phillip Island it is an historic track in Australian motorsport on two and four wheels, with particular attachment to the motorcycle brigade. The track is public road and has never been "safe" even before the walls were put in principally for a round of the short lived World Touring Car Championship. The track is now only used for "tin tops" and there has been a push to build another circuit to allow other forms of sport, especially the motorcycles to compete there again. The track is owned by the Bathurst Council being public roads, but I believe parts of the infrastructure have been owned by the ARDC who ran the 1000 km race for a long time. So what does the Government do? I presume it was the NSW Gov't, still trying to find that out, commissioned the Homebush Bay Motor Racing Authority, HBMRA, the body they set up to manage the V8Supercar event at the old Olympic site, to do a study. They in turn commissioned a consultant, and guess what, it is too expensive and cannot make enough to justify that cost. How is HBMRA funded you ask? And does it make money? No it is justified on the basis of economic benefit, but it seems poor old Bathurst must pay for itself, and the $57m in infrastructure improvements! What are we building? Phillip Island, home of the motorcycle GP has no infrastructure but manages somehow. When I proposed rebuilding it the traffic guys said the two lane bridge will not cope. I doubt that they have widened it in the last twenty years, and still they come. This is a classic political manoeuvre. ask the question the right way and you get the answer you want, look at the referendum on the Queen. Who wrote the brief for this study and what were they looking to build. And why ask the HBMRA to do it and not Bathurst Council? As the report correctly states this track would not get the F1 GP, and why would you want it at a loss of $50m a year,  and is unlikely to steal the MotoGP from the island, so it should be a safe, good standard national track, not some $47m monument to some politicians or consultants ego, and should be capable of running all year on a closed track so it does generate economic benefit and income. Not sure what things cost in Australia, but that could be built for around $12m here in the US, depending on earthworks, but my guess this is not going up the mountain.

Of course you could spend the money making the existing track safe, but I doubt the macho V8's would like that. The trick is always to make a track safe without gutting it of the character. I would recommend looking at Phillip Island, which I rebuilt for $5m including the pits and tunnel, and Road Atlanta here in the states.

Don't often find anything interesting to write about Indy Car, but the announcement that they are going to trim the funding scheme from 24 to 22 cars "in a move aimed at boosting the quality of the field" has caught my eye. You are going to stop paying $1.2m a car to the bottom two teams to improve the quality? And you do not expect the size of the field to reduce, so presumably those two cars are going to have "pay for ride" drivers to make up the loss. That will improve the quality. Randy speaks with fork tongue methinks, he just wants to save $2.4m. Maybe he got this Bull from his previous job, which he is somehow still listed as holding.

It seems the American motorcycle world is in need of some financial assistance with comments today about the number of good riders without a ride for 2011. "Hopefully, this is the bottom," said one team owner of the current situation. What is going to change to make it the bottom?

Not much else to report, 100 days to the start of 2011 F1 season, hang in there. V8Supercars at Homebush in Sydney this weekend, is this the last race of 2010? Still, gives me time to finish the book, Chapter Nine under way, back in Oz after the '93 USGP.

Slow news day, I guess we will have to get used to this as we go into the winter break, but who knows, there may be more gossip then.

Portugal qualifying washed out. Phillip Island is not looking so bad now. It must rain a lot in Portugal, although I always thought of it as a dry country like Spain. I remember Senna's great win there in '85 when it was a washout.  So Lorenzo on pole by half a second and Hayden, Rossi and Stoner all close. I bet Pramac are glad they drafted Checa in to improve their performance, he is last and over 5 seconds off the pace. Who thinks that was a good move? There are only two races left with this one, what was the risk of giving some young guy a chance?

V8Supercars will not be returning to Bahrain next year with scheduling around other events as the reason, but I suspect since no one turned up to watch it may not be worth what the V8's were asking. Now Abu Dhabi is a stand alone race which cannot be a cheap exercise, so you wonder how long that will last, but I guess they have to put something on at this billion dollar mausoleum.

Peugeot ran a test hack at Monza to prepare for next year's Le Mans. Not sure I like the sharks fin, I know it is there for safety reasons, but it does not look right on what was surely one of the most beautiful sportscars ever built.

The driver silly season goes on, with Hulkenburg getting a big rap from Sir Frank Williams, just when he was about to get the axe for Maldanado. D'Ambrosio is rumored to be close to signing for Virgin, so who's out?

A couple of odd pieces of news today caught my eye. BMW is "considering a V8Supercar entry." As far as I knew, and I would think most motorsport fans are concerned, the V8's are a closed shop. Toyota have even tried court action to get an entry, so why should BMW, a yuppies car not liked by your average aussie race fan, think they can just apply? Well lo and behold, the V8 Supremo said in response, "We would love a brand like BMW to be involved," V8 Supercars boss Tony Cochrane told AUTOSPORT. "We're very open-minded about working with them and trying to find some common ground. We're talking about quite a few manufacturers at the moment and we're trying to be as accommodating as we humanly can." What an odd way to put it, "accommodating as we humanly can." What does that mean? Is it a Japanese no? The success of the V8's is built on the Ford/GM rivalry that borders on fanatical, that is where "fan" comes from. There was a time when the Touring Car series, as it then was, had BMW, Nissan, and Toyota, and Ford's were Mustangs or Sierra's, not quite the fair dinkum aussie Ford. Then there were two series, one with 2 liter super tourers for the BMW's etc to win, but we know who won that battle. So, are we going to see a real BMW out there, even a DTM silhouette car, or are we going to see a spec racer with a BMW badge on the front? At the price of BMW's in Australia I am amazed they sell any of them.

The other odd news was that Jeff Gordon, who has Dupont paint in his veins, is to lose them as a major sponsor and replace them with an ARRP Foundation "Drive To End Hunger" campaign sponsorship. ARRP Foundation ultimately expects the sponsorship will help raise far more funding that they will actually spend, estimates about the foundation's investment being between US $10 and $15 million per season. Is that all? You can feed a lot of people for that, or buy a lot of lobbyists. I dislike most of what ARRP does, it seems to me as a past member they are more interested in selling insurance than anything else, and this smacks of desperation on the part of Hendricks, and a stunt on the part of ARRP to promote their insurance in the guise of a worthy cause. If NASCAR wants to help this cause get each of the drivers and owners to drop a percentage of their prizemoney in it. It is like the NASCAR "jeans day" deal, buy a pin and wear jeans to the office. This is one of the wealthiest group of people in America, you donate the money.

It seems the two newest team owners in F1 know more than the powers that be that have been running the thing. Tony Fernandes has come out and said we should get rid of blue flags because it is slowing his cars down, and Sir Richard agrees with him. I think there a lot of things slowing their cars down, that is why they are seeing the blue flag. It cannot be the engine though as Williams is using the Cosworth to great effect. Cannot be the drivers, Glock, Trulli and Kovalainen are no slouches. Cannot be the tires, they are all the same, so it has to be the car. Fix the car, don't try and fix the sport. If there were no blue flags then presumably his drivers would be looking in the mirrors even more than they do now as they would have no other warning.

It seems everyone except Lorenzo enjoyed seeing the fight with Rossi, and more than a few took exception to Lorenzo's comments after. Personally I interpreted them as not bemoaning the forcefulness of Rossi, just that it should not be what a team mate does when the other rider is trying to win a Championship, which is not unreasonable. Bit like Vettel on Webber at Turkey. Once Lorenzo seals the Championship then it will be something to watch.

Alonso says he is ready for some pain in the four remaining races. Not quite sure what he was referring to other than perhaps a lot of extremely long hours and hard work for the team. Let's hope he does not expect physical pain. Looking forward to Suzuka, should be a cracking race, and the tension gets ramped up every race.

Also on next weekend, not that we get to see it here in the US, is the best touring car race in the world, Bathurst. If you have the chance be sure to watch. David Brabham is a glutton for punishment and after a ten hour race at Road Atlanta is heading to Bathurst for another one on an equally challenging track and, if possible, even more competitive cars!

It comes as no surprise that Sergio Perez will line-up alongside Kamui Kobayashi at Sauber next year in a new deal involving Mexican communications giant Telmex. Let's hope he gets a better chance to show his talent than most of the recent new boys, but Peter Sauber has demonstrated that in the past and has brought in some very good drivers, so good luck Sergio. Hopefully the Telmex sponsorship will move Sauber up the grid, it has not hurt Chip Ganassi in the Grand Am.