MOTORSPORT: Trying to flick the light switch

Big push in Adelaide and Melbourne, again, to light street circuits for night racing, and a bombshell from the US - Penske to runs Fords and Chevys

Clipsal more likely than GP to get green light
Much of this week was about more of the same -- Holden retaining Triple Eight and HRT and Craig Lowndes staying at T8/Team Vodafone another three years -- but as the light of summer starts to fade the talk is of night racing.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone (pictured) has issued a new ultimatum that -- as part of any extension of the deal for Melbourne's grand prix, for which the contract runs to 2015, with this year's event just two weeks away now -- the race in Albert Park be run at night.

During the opening round of the V8 Super car games Championship in Adelaide this weekend V8 Supercar chairman Tony Cochrane will discuss with South Australian premier Jay Weatherill a plan to run part of the Clipsal 500 at night in future. This author's tip is that Adelaide may well get a green light but that in Melbourne there will be a red light.

Before looking at some of the factors at play in these two cases there has been some big news from the US.

Roger Penske is to switch from Dodge to running Fords in NASCAR next year, meaning he will have Chevrolet engines in his IndyCars while representing the Blue Oval in stock car racing. Only "The Captain", now 75, could get away with doing it. Penske, who had two stints running Ford stock cars previously and won 27 races for the manufacturer, will join Ford's long-time representative Roush Fenway Racing in trying to end Chevrolet's string of Sprint Cup titles since 2005.

Already questions are being asked about which other team might tie up with Dodge -- and up has bobbed the name of Richard Petty Motorsports, for which Aussie Marcos Ambrose drives a Ford. However, so much of "King" Richard Petty's success as a driver came in Dodges.

Meanwhile, five-time champion Jimmie Johnson is 23 points below zero on the Sprint Cup scoreboard after his Chevrolet was found to be illegal at the start of the Daytona Speedweeks and, among a raft of penalties (all under appeal), his crew chief Chad Knaus has been fined $100,000 and suspended for six weeks. 

And, also from America, confirmation that Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, veteran of more F1 races than any other driver, will race in IndyCar for KV Racing this year, on all tracks -- after his wife's earlier reservations about him driving on America's notorious ovals)

Meanwhile, the talk of lighting Adelaide's street circuit for the Clipsal event has been traced by the city's media to comments by Tony Cochrane at a midweek football lunch.

However, we note that the idea was raised in an interview with Channel Nine boss Jeffrey Browne published in Auto Action magazine on Wednesday but done by AA editor-at-large Mark Fogarty last week.

In saying that Nine's "scheduling space" could better accommodate V8 Supercars than Seven's for the category's next TV deal Browne -- a long-time motorsport fan and chairman of the Walkinshaw family's Holden Special Vehicles and HRT -- suggested that Clipsal be turned into a night race.

"I think that would be the first time the V8s had actually cracked it into live prime-time television," Browne said.

This steps up the posturing in the TV talks a couple of notches, with Browne foreshadowing that V8 Supercars would be largely on Seven's digital 7Mate channel if the incumbent remained the telecaster while saying the V8s would be more complimentary to Nine's winter schedule than that of Australian Football League rights holder Seven.

Browne said it was too early to describe Nine as a "serious player" in any contest for the V8 Supercar telecasts and that he expected Ten also would be interested in regaining them. However, there was no mention that -- with V8 Supercars apparently looking for $200 million over five years -- Ten and Nine are strapped for cash.

Browne's comments could be interpreted as something of a "tease" to ensure that Seven pays a high price to retain the V8s. However, his remarks may just be a clue that Browne and Cochrane have been talking the same language.

Cochrane has said the plan is to have the parklands to the east of Adelaide's CBD that house the Clipsal track that is a shortened version of the old F1 circuit be "lit up like daylight" for V8 Supercar qualifying on the Friday night and the weekend's first 250km race on the Saturday, with the second race remaining on Sunday afternoon.

SA premier Weatherill called it "an exciting proposal" and said the government would explore it via its Motor Sport Board which oversees the event.

Clipsal 500 chief executive Mark Warren admitted night racing would require "a large expense for event infrastructure" but that the Motor Sport Board was "very open to new ideas for taking the event to another level -- [and] one of those ideas is a night V8 Supercar event".

Melbourne's Calder Park Thunderdome, this weekend being used for the new stadium event kicking off the Australian Rally Championship, was lit in the early 1990s for what seemed then a modest figure.

Erecting and dismantling lights in the Adelaide parklands each year could be a much more costly exercise, but SA and its capital city have long had a stronger commitment to their motor racing street carnival than other places.

Victorian taxpayers, facing a loss of $55-57 million on this month's grand prix, are not likely to look as favourably on lighting Albert Park.

Ecclestone's latest call for the Australian GP to move to a full night race from its 5 pm "twilight" timeslot came amid controversy over the mounting cost of the event and the Victorian government's declaration that it wanted to renew the contract beyond 2015. The cost of lighting Albert Park has been studied previously but been ruled out.

Ecclestone has threatened, yet again, that Melbourne -- and Australia -- could lose the F1 race if he does not get what he wants, including his Formula One Management's steep and escalating fees. Lost in the controversy has been the distinction between Ecclestone's fee and the event loss, which is exacerbated by sales -- especially of big-money corporate tickets -- not being what they once were while operating costs have risen.

In a telephone chat with Australian journalists this week Ecclestone threw in a little tease that, if Albert Park were to be lit up, "maybe we (FOM) could help subsidise that a little bit".

Victoria's 16-month-old Liberal government is already under intense pressure over the GP costs and must be thought unlikely to stump up for lighting on top -- and risk further public backlash over more disruption in inner Melbourne.

While saying that the race was the least viable GP on the F1 calendar Ecclestone said he did not want it to leave the city. "If we were having a divorce from our friends in Melbourne we would probably be walking away from Australia," he said.

All the comments this week have shed a little light on the situations but the pictures are still far from clear -- much more so in Melbourne than Adelaide.

For this weekend there are two races on the streets of the City of Churches to focus on. It's the start of the last season of the purely Holden-Ford competition before the Car of the Future's arrival -- and Nissan, and perhaps another manufacturer or two, next year.