Ingall among stars facing eviction from Clipsal 500
30/1/2002 0:36 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Russell Ingall, the man that again came agonisingly close to an elusive V8 Supercar championship last year, faces the unlikely but not impossible prospect of missing Adelaide’s season-opening Clipsal 500 carnival due to the sport’s controversial pre-qualifying situation.
Top ten finishers in the 2001 series, K-mart Racing’s Greg Murphy and Todd Kelly, face a similar scenario, as does the sport’s most marketable man, Craig Lowndes.
Add to that list the likes of 1995 series champ John Bowe, twice Bathurst victor Tony Longhurst, Konica Series title holder Simon Wills, 500cc World Motorcycle champion Wayne Gardner, and TWR 'Young Lion' Rick Kelly, and you have a recipe for disaster at a do-or-die pre-qualifying shootout at Mallala Raceway on the Wednesday prior to the Clipsal 500.
All of these drivers will, in theory, take their place on the over-subscribed Adelaide grid. But the slightest mistake at Mallala could see any one of them evicted from the points-rich event.
That has incensed many drivers and teams, including Ingall, who claim AVESCO’s system of culling is unfair.
"I can't see how somebody who was second in the championship should have to pre-qualify," Ingall told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper. "What if there is a mechanical failure or a puncture and I didn’t qualify for the race?"
Ingall, the Perkins Motorsport team, their investors and sponsors, and an army of fans, are all asking the same alarming question.
The top 25 from last year’s championship will automatically qualify for the event, as will two Konica Series cars, with up to 17 drivers to battle for as few as nine remaining grid positions at the Mallala session.
However, those 25 are determined by car numbers and franchise holders, not necessarily by a driver’s own ranking. The system is said to protect the interests of franchise holders, but fails to reward driver performance.
Briggs Motorsport’s acquisition of the Fred Gibson-held Level 1 franchise will most likely see its rookie driver, Max Wilson, receive automatic entry, while Lowndes and Neil Crompton will have to battle through pre-qualifying.
Similarly, Paul Romano, should he start, will be gifted automatic entry due to the results of the K-Mart Racing Team (who raced under the Romano franchise last season), while K-Mart’s Murphy and Kelly will each have to pre-qualify.
John Bowe, who finished the 2001 series inside the top 25 aboard the CAT Falcon, will also pre-qualify due to his move to OzEmail Racing.
And while new rules allow for up to five cars to be run under the one franchise, only two receive automatic entry. Three-car outfits, like Perkins Motorsport, must therefore decide which driver to risk in pre-qualifying.
Ingall first learnt of boss Larry Perkins’ decision to hand him the perilous pre-qualifying assignment, ahead of Perkins and new recruit Steven Richards, when a journalist rang to interview him.
The outspoken driver, whose contract with the team expires at the end of the year, told the Herald Sun that he would “definitely be asking some questions” regarding Perkins’ decision. “I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come,” he said.
Perkins said that Ingall was the best man for the job. “I want to put my best driver forward,” he said.
Reportedly strained relations between the pair won’t be eased by the decision, especially in the unlikely case Adelaide-raised Ingall fails to qualify.
Serious questions will be asked, too, by event organisers if they are robbed of one of the sport’s major drawcards, like Ingall.
AVESCO CEO Wayne Cattach told Motorsport News last week that an influx of new entries close to Christmas forced the decision to run at Mallala. “This is the best solution we could come up with,” he said.
Drivers will have just 20 minutes to stake their claim at the 2.6km circuit, a former airstrip on the outskirts of Adelaide, after a 20-minute warm-up. Teams will not be allocated extra tyres for pre-qualifying.
After the Clipsal 500, event entry will be determined by current championship position.
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