Bathurst 1000 In Break With Tradition
The Age
Wednesday August 5, 1998
Mount Panorama will never be the same. At least not in October.
For Australia's premier V8 touring car drivers will switch their annual pilgrimage to the 1000-kilometre Bathurst road race to November.
The move is part of a new three-year sponsorship contract with insurance company FAI, which has secured the naming rights to the tin-top classic.
Factory Holden and Ford drivers such as Bathurst winners Larry Perkins, Craig Lowndes, Mark Skaife, John Bowe and Dick Johnson will exclusively support the new race on 15 November.
The FAI 1000 will be for homegrown Falcon and Commodore V8 touring cars with race organiser IMG expecting a capacity 55-car field to nominate and attempt to qualify for the race.
The deal was confirmed yesterday and, with a one-year option, secures the future of the race to at least 2001.
Just two days after winning the national sprint series at Oran Park, Holden ace Lowndes joined fellow drivers at Bathurst yesterday for shakedown trials.
However, steady rain kept speeds down on a water-logged Mount Panorama track with Falcon driver Bowe posting the fastest time of one minute 30.9 seconds, which was 20 seconds off the track record.
Both Holden and Ford factory teams have supported the switch to a November staging, which widens the gulf between the entrenched V8 category and the ambitions of the smaller two-litre series.
The two-litre Bathurst 1000 race scheduled for 4 October received another setback yesterday when the major support category, the GTP production cars, confirmed that they would race in a separate three-hour endurance event in support of the V8s in November.
GTP race manager Bill West said he had rejected an offer for his category to be included as part of the October two-litre event just to make up the numbers.
The rivalry between the two events also extends to television.
The Ten Network will televise the Holden-Ford battle on 15 November as part of an expanding motorsport schedule that also includes the Australian motorcycle grand prix at Phillip Island on 4 October.
Channel Seven has withdrawn from all motor sport coverage except for the 1000-kilometre race for European two-litre cars, also on 4 October.
SOUTH AFRICAN President Nelson Mandela will meet formula one racing boss Bernie Ecclestone on 19 August to discuss plans for a South African Grand Prix next year, Sports Minister Steve Tshwete said yesterday.
The meeting would be "quite critical" in view of the Government's proposed crackdown on tobacco sponsorship, Tshwete said.
Last week, the South African Cabinet approved legislation that would outlaw all tobacco sponsorship as well as smoking in public places. The draft law will come before parliament later this year.
Tshwete said that should the law be passed - and that is very likely - the sponsorship ban would be phased in and sports bodies and sponsors consulted.
He said he hoped the meeting with Ecclestone would clear obstacles that might stand in the way of South Africa's bid to host a grand prix next year.
Ecclestone has awarded races to countries where tobacco advertising is banned, but usually demands greater financial guarantees.
© 1998 The Age
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