MOTORSPORT: Big news ... but will outcomes match it?

Casey Stoner quitting MotoGP, the next Holden Commodore for NAS CAR GAMES, and talk of another V8 Supercar entrant and venue
Rumour mills in overdrive
What a mega day in motorsport! Casey Stoner announces he'll quit MotoGP at the end of the year, and immediately speculation ramps up about him going V8 Supercar racing.

General Motors in the US confirms that the next Holden Commodore, the VF, will be its new NASCAR, in the guise of a Chevrolet SS.

Talk too of Mazda taking a close look at V8 Supercar racing. And Queensland regional city Mackay comes on the radar as a potential V8 Supercar venue. All of which has overshadowed the lead-in to the fifth round of the V8 Supercar Championship at Victoria's Phillip Island - as a sprint round after four years of endurance races at the seaside circuit.

Also this weekend Marcos Ambrose is racing for a $1 million prize in NASCAR's All-Star Race at Charlotte, North Carolina, while fellow Australians Will Power and Ryan Briscoe will vie with 30-odd other drivers tomorrow for pole position for the Indianapolis 500, to be run early on May 28, Australian time. And, while it has been huge day for news, all of it has contained elements that ought to keep feet firmly on the ground.

Stoner has said he won't be making an instant switch to V8 Supercars, a senior GM executive has said the group does not foresee the Australian-built Chevrolet SS -- short for Super Sport, and the first rear-wheel-drive in GM's American line-up for 17 years -- being a major seller, the Mazda report is kite-flying, and, while Mackay has a major events committee considering a pitch for a V8 Supercar round like Townsville's a member of that committee admits it's very early days, even calling it "pie in the sky stuff".

V8 Supercar has welcome mat out for Stoner
V8 Supercars has said in a statement today that it would welcome Casey Stoner "with open arms". No surprise there. Stoner has shown interest in the V8s over the years, attending various events and late last year having a drive of a Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodore at a closed session.

Triple Eight boss Roland Dane said at the time: "I see no reason at all why Casey shouldn't be very competitive in a V8 Supercar ... It is in his hands if he wants to drive a V8 Supercar. One day I suspect he will end up doing it." Today Dane has been careful not to add to those comments.

Stoner said at Le Mans in France, where he announced that will quit two-wheel racing at the end of this season (perhaps with a third MotoGP world title), that he will consider a future in V8 Supercars.

"It is something I am definitely interested to do, but whether I will be fast enough or not is another thing," he said. And he quickly added: "That [any switch] will not be in the near future, the immediate future."

Now the father of a young daughter, he said there were "many things that I would like to do with my life". He was insistent that his retirement from motorcycle racing was not linked to a switch to four wheels.

"There is no coincidence to it whatsover," he said. While Stoner could be a huge drawcard in V8 Supercar racing it ought not be forgotten that, while exceptionally fast at times, 1987 world 500cc champion Wayne Gardner did not win any touring car races of great consequence and two-time world superbike champion Troy Bayliss' attempt to break into V8 Supercars in 2009 was embarrassingly short-lived.

Commodore + bowtie badge = NASCAR
Mark Reuss, an American who briefly was the head of Holden in Australia and now is president of General Motors North America, delighted in making the announcement overnight that the next Commodore would become GM's next NASCAR.

The second generation of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow introduced in 2007 will allow the four competing manufacturers to run shapes more closely resembling their production models than the existing generic bodyshells that are differentiated only by the grills, headlight decals and badges.

 "I am delighted to say that Chevrolet will deliver a true rear-wheel-drive NASCAR racecar in the SS that very closely links the performance sedan that will be available for sale," Reuss said. "The Chevrolet SS is a great example of how GM is able to leverage its global product portfolio to deliver a unique performance experience that extends well beyond the track and I am personally looking forward to driving it."

Chevrolet has already tested the Commodore or SS, camoflauged in chequered livery, at Florida's Homestead-Miami Speedway. It will be introduced to NASCAR racing at next February 24's Daytona 500 although the production version will not arrive in American dealerships until late next year as a 2014 model.
And respected American motoring and motorsport writer Bob Pockrass has said on Sporting News that the car "is considered a niche, low-volume, high-performance vehicle that won't be built on the scale of the Impala (the front-wheel-drive Chevrolet model it will replace in NASCAR) or even the Scion".

And Pockrass quoted GM spokesman Monte Doran saying: "We're not going to sell as many Chevrolet SS's as Impalas. However, we felt like it was a really exciting opportunity to more closely align what we're competing with with what we're selling in dealerships.

"I still think the 'Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday' mentality works for the whole Chevrolet brand ... they may go buy a Silverado or a Camaro or an Impala. NASCAR is still a huge contributor to our overall brand awareness and it also helps build excitement from our performance brand."

And Chevrolet's top NASCAR team owner, Rick Hendrick, who has just chalked up his 200th victory in the premier Cup series, said: "We are [going] back to seeing in the showrooms what we are racing on the race track. "The fans have said they want that, and the manufacturers want it, and actually the teams want it... It's going to be better for the sport."

While V8 Supercar racing is not translating into sales growth for Holden's Commodore or Ford's Falcon in Australia, indeed quite the contrary, for the Chevrolet SS in America, starting from zero, the only way will be up -- albeit it in a niche, performance market with only a V8 version expected to be available.

Mazda kite flies over Phillip Island
The Mazda-eying-V8 Supercars kite has been flown in News Ltd newspapers today. A visit to Australia by Mazda development officer Shoichi Kamimura with the Japan Auto Federation has been portrayed as a cover for a visit to Phillip Island to study whether Mazda needs to counter Nissan's already-announced entry to V8 Supercars next year.

A mysterious "industry insider" is quoted saying "they [Mazda] are aware of the popularity of the V8 Supercar series ... [and] they don't want to miss the boat".

Nissan performance arm NISMO general manager Kamei Yasuharu also reportedly is attending the Phillip Island round. The Victorian circuit traditionally has been Holden territory, but Ford Performance Racing has won the past five races in this year's championship (and seven of the nine in the four rounds so far) -- although Commodore star Jamie Whincup has seized the series lead ahead of FPR's Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom.

Greatly-improved FPR is only one win away from equaling its best season -- eight wins in 2008 -- after a decade in existence since Prodrive took over Glenn Seton's team.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Shane Van Gisbergen's contract with the Stone Brothers Ford team has been extended for another three years.

Both the weekend's races -- over 32 laps of the 4.445km track on Saturday and 45 laps on Sunday -- are scheduled to be run entirely on hard compound tyres, rather than the combination of hard and soft rubber at recent rounds.

Mackay's interest in becoming a V8 Supercar venue has been reported in the Queensland provincial city's Daily Mercury newspaper. Mackay Tourism has established a committee to attract big events to the city.

Committee member Russell Spurrell said V8 Supercars was among the possibilities, as many people from Mackay, Moranbah and Dysart already travelled to Townsville for the annual V8 Supercar round there. But he said there was a lot to be discussed before any pitch was made.