Mark WalkerTasmania’s Mega Motorsport Heritage
With the SpeedSeries once again kicking off its season in Tasmania this weekend, it’s prudent to look back at the incredible motorsport-mad legacy that continues to grow to this day on the Apple Aisle. Often overlooked by other major league sports, motorsport has found a home in our southern state and continues to thrive from its 1950s roots, when the wild roads around Longford were the focal point of world motorsport. From there, Baskerville and Symmons Plains flourished, while Targa Tasmania brought motorsport to the people, with its tour of the incredible backcountry lanes, mountain passes, and street sprints attracting
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Richard CraillMoffat on his TransAm Switch, Gen 3 + Superbikes and more!
James Moffat trades two-litre turbo for V8 grunt this year as he switches from TCR to TransAm in 2023 - he joins the show to discuss the move, the firepower in the TransAm field this year and his career as it stands - plus his burning desire to get to the top step at Mount Panorama in the Gen III era. Bracksy joins the show to preview this weekend's round of the World Superbikes at the Island, and then we run down the week that was, and - because we recorded this before anything happened - probably get everything wrong
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Dale RodgersThe drivers must be the heroes, not Gen3
Motorsport 2023 came alive the other week with a scintillating Bathurst 12 Hour GT3 race. Missing this depth of overseas teams and star drivers since 2020, the 12 Hour burst back into life with a nail-biting climax. After 12 Hours and 2006km of racing, the first three cars were separated by 1.41 seconds. Just let that sink in. Oh, and it was after a record green flag running time, not the result of a last-gasp Safety Car. And the speed, the first sixteen cars – well the whole field in the end– posted faster race lap times than any Supercar
Continue readingVic State Blastoff at Sandown
The 2023 888 Home Loans Victorian State Race Series kicked off with a bang, with a diverse spread of ten categories taking to Sandown Raceway, with some genuinely feisty racing broken up by various significant moments. In a change of tradition, all races were time certain, a move which essentially kept the program on track, and penalized those who created delays to proceedings. After a red-letter 2022, Formula Vee kicked off the new season with more of the same, with Lee Partridge coming from the clouds to win a drama-filled opener. Reigning champ Heath Collinson finished the race in the
Continue readingDaytona dreaming – the sweet 60th
IMAGINE for a moment you could cut a line vertically through the grandstands of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Then, imagine splitting the ground apart at the line you’ve just made, opening the almost perfect circular ground up in the same way you prize the sections of an Orange open with your thumbs. Where the MCG was once a circle, it is now an almost-straight line of grandstands and where once it would sit in its serene Yarra Park surrounds now it stretches, in a gentle parabola, more than 1.2 kilometres long to sit neatly between Federation Square and Punt Road.
Continue readingWorld Champs in Bathurst this weekend
Mount Panorama comes alive this weekend for a World Championship event with a twist - the 2023 World Athletics Cross Country Championships. A challenging course has been devised enclosed entirely within the confines of the Mount Panorama Circuit, with the start/finish area in the heart of the paddock campground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP68-6wtYL8 Despite being based on the lower slopes of The Mountain, there is still plenty of terrain to cover in the 2km long loop, including a section through the Mount Panorama Vineyard (header pic), the Billabong dam, plus temporary dirt and sand obstacles. The event has drawn the best athletes from
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Team TRTF1 to Symmons Plains
FORMER Grand Prix racer Roberto Merhi will return for a second Aussie appearance in the S5000 Australian Drivers' Championship at AWC Race Tasmania. The Spaniard, 31, will drive a Garry Rogers Motorsport-prepared entry in the opening round of the 2023 championship on February 24-26. Merhi contested the two-round 2021 S5000 Tasman Series, finishing second overall and claiming a race win at Sydney Motorsport Park in the process. Merhi raced for the Manor Marussia Formula One team in the 2015 FIA Formula One World Championship, contesting 14 Grands Prix with the team. Prior to that he won the Formula 3 EuroSeries
Continue readingLast Brabham F1 car set for Adelaide debut
The last Brabham grand prix car, the 1992 Brabham BT60B Judd, will make its first appearance in Adelaide at the 2023 Adelaide Motorsport Festival. The BT60B was driven by Eric van de Poele, Giovanna Amati (the most recent female driver to have entered a grand prix) and future world champion Damon Hill over the course of the 1992 Formula 1 season. Brabham folded following the 1992 Hungarian Grand Prix, meaning the team and the BT60B never made it to the season-ending Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. The BT60B's appearance at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival will, therefore, be a fitting first
Continue readingSweet 66 for Bathurst 6 Hour in 2023
Another stunning chapter is set to be added to Mount Panorama's endurance racing history with the 2023 running of the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour. The seventh running of Australia's Easter Enduro has attracted a 66-strong final entry list, spread across the usual array of classes, makes and models. The 66 entries remain two more than the previous record grid for a Bathurst enduro, set at 64 cars in the 2017 running of the event. 63 cars started last year in a race that saw a stunning battle between Cameron Hill and Tim Slade in the closing stages, before BMWs
Continue readingMatt McLean to S5000
MATT McLean will join VERSA Motorsport to contest the 2023 S5000 Australian Drivers' Championship this year. The 26-year-old from Melbourne first tasted S5000s unique blend of horsepower, wings and slicks at the S5000 Open Evaluation test at The Bend last year, driving for Versa Motorsport and impressing with his instant pace. He enters S5000 with a wealth of V8-powered experience under his belt following two seasons contesting the Dunlop Super2 Series with Eggleston Motorsport. His Super2 highlights included a podium finish at Mount Panorama, 5th in the 2021 championship and claiming both the coveted Mike Cable Young Gun Award and
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