Full Throttle

Independent board member Mark Skaife and the five-times Bathurst winner has delivered his lengthy document on the Australian V8 Car Of The Future project but fine details will remain secret for the time being.

V8 Supercar board members were handed the document Car Of The Future chairman Skaife in Melbourne Monday.

The lengthy document was delivered on time by Skaife who was given the brief to handle the new chassis which is aimed at reducing the build cost by $100k to about $250k and which aims to make the cars smarter and easier to construct and repair.

All the team owners are yet to be briefed on the document and despite approaches by BigPond Sport there remains a firm “no comment” on the initial disclosure.

V8 Supercars chief operating officer Shane Howard was present at the Monday briefing but would not expand on any of the finer details.

“We have been instructed not to comment at this stage because it would be unfair given that the entire V8 grid have not yet been informed,” Howard said.

The Car Of The Future is scheduled to be implemented by 2012 but there have been suggestions by Skaife and V8 executive chairman Tony Cochrane that it could be implemented by 2011.

Despite some errant reports that the initial launch date is 2011, it looks increasingly likely that the Car Of The Future will not be introduced until the originally targetted date of 2012.

Cochrane was not present at the Monday briefing as he was in the Middle East shoring up what is believed to be “some loose ends” for the 2010 season-opening double header in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.

However Cochrane and Skaife have conversed on a regular basis about the project since the champion racer was installed as the head of the Car Of The Future assignment midway through the year.

It is planned for the Car Of The Future document to be signed off by the board either later this month or at the final scheduled board meeting of the year on the Monday after the Sydney Telstra 500 on December 7.

According to one report the V8’s Car of the Future will hit the track for the 2012 season.

The subject of going to something akin to NASCAR’s Car of the Future first arose two years ago with the death of Fujitsu series driver Ashley Cooper. Cooper’s untimely death occurred a short 18 months after New Zealander Mark Porter’s death during the Bathurst 1000.

Porter’s Holden was struck in the drivers door which raised concerns from then Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes.

“Side impact is our worst nightmare because there is no crumple zone,” Lowndes said at the time. “Front or rear impact isn’t bad because we have a large crumple zone. (On the side) there’s not a lot of room between us and the outside of the car. To have an incident like that (Porter-Clark) is pretty freakish . . . now we’ve got to figure out ways to prevent it.”

Lowndes also expressed a desire to allow drivers to position themselves closer to the center of the vehicle (sound familiar? - ed) and adopting a driver safety cell like those in use in the German DTM car series. Essentially the cell is a pod-like structure that can be easily removed by rescue crews with the driver inside.

It will be interesting to see what comes of any potential changes in V8 Supercar safety, will they go NASCAR’s route – clues above seem to indicate no – or remain with the current production based chassis?