If you wondered where the 2003 V8 Supercar Championship was headed in terms of competition and the unknown, just take a look at the off season. The silliest 'silly' season ever has just wound up, and few teams have remained untouched by change.

February was not just a bunch of sheets being ripped off cars to unveil new paint schemes: it was, this time, real change. And that change was being felt in some of the older and more established teams in the series as well as the new players. TWR started fiddling with its drivers, DJR restructured its operation from the ground up - including the replacement of one hard charging driver for another - Glenn Seton sold his team to Prodrive, while Team Dynamik appeared as a new two-car team from Adelaide.

Drivers were playing swapsies like never before: on a rough count more than two-thirds of the regular series drivers had a change of gig. Three drivers traded colours - Russell Ingall and Jason Bargwanna turning blue, while Paul Weel went red - and Larry Perkins, Neil Crompton and John Faulkner retired from doing the 'sprint' races.

There was also plenty happening to the series itself - new sponsors, a new pointscore system and revised races. TEGA had some structural changes, and AVESCO announced it would step in and run its own race, a daunting 400km single-driver event to shut down the season at Eastern Creek. The new cars were also the topic of hot discussion, with both Ford and Holden being sent away from the first aero test to rework the wing and front splitter package to get closer to the figures TEGA wanted to see, and also to make sure they were as even as possible.

Yep, there was plenty happening that's for sure, so sit back and join us on a new and exciting journey...

The changes - they are a-comin'

Mark Skaife and the HRT lifted a notch in 2002. Skaife started the season in record-setting form with five wins from the first five starts. It is the first time the super competitive V8 Supercar class has been dominated in such a fashion, and the first time in Australian touring car racing since Allan Moffat's start to his awesome 1977 season.

It signalled the start to a year that would see Skaife complete back-to-back Bathurst wins and his third series win on the trot. He now sits at the head of the all-time greats table with Dick Johnson and Pete Geoghegan on five ATCC titles, but he doesn't plan to share the top of the table for long and plans to break free with another series win in 2003.

But there are so many changes for this season one finds it hard to imagine that he - or anyone else for that matter - could stand up and dominate in the same way. There are no doubts he can win the series, and Skaife legitimately starts the year as a short-priced favourite, but the changes mean he will have to fight all the way.

It is hard not to sound like a PR bloke for the series, but there is no doubt in my mind that the '2003 V8 Supercar Championship brought to you by VB' is up for grabs. The new BA Falcon will be a totally different story from the AU it supersedes, and the VY Commodore has had a massive re-engineer over the VX, and that will pose a few problems for all Holden runners - yes, even the HRT.

The one thing waiting to scare the Holden runners is the belief that the AU Falcon did not suffer an aerodynamic deficiency. Figures V8X has seen state quite clearly the AU had about a quarter of the front downforce of the VX. This meant that to show speed, the Falcon had to be set up on the ragged edge and driven at full tilt just to keep close.

Project Blueprint has the stated goal of ensuring this doesn't happen, so with a better aerodynamic balance you can expect to see the Falcons more competitive in races, and not just relying on the brute speed of Marcos Ambrose in qualifying to gain its rewards. They'll be able to run the Falcons softer, and with the longer races that will be critical.

Richard Hollway from the HRT says the Holden teams face a massive engineering challenge, while the biggest thing facing the Ford teams is simply getting the cars built, which is why there will be a few AUs clogging up the track during the first half of the season. Holden teams can swap panels to start the update process, and this is not a luxury the Ford teams enjoy. That given, we believe a few teams will opt to run a VY and a VX until they get on top of some of the changes.

If anyone will cope with this engineering challenge as though it were nothing more than a new paint scheme, it is the massive TWR operation (incorporating two 2-car teams for 2003 and an arm's length third team) that can do it.

There are new testing rules in place to restrict the testing options for multi-franchise teams such as TWR. Known in pitlane as the 'TWR clause', it essentially is aimed at forcing TWR (or any other team with more than two cars) from testing extra cars. There are eight test days, which equals 16 car days for the year starting in February. If the TWR teams (or Prodrive for that matter) decide to run three cars at any one session, they will lose an overall test day for two cars.

With the changes to the Commodore for this season, the ability to test extra cars would have been quite handy. With these changes we are essentially looking at a better balanced aero package for the Falcon and a new front suspension/engine package for the Commodores and there seems little doubt this will even up the field.

Late-December aero testing sent the manufacturers back to the design table: it seems Ford did not quite meet the front downforce expectations set by TEGA, while Holden was vastly over. The important thing here is that they were sent away to hunt out an aerodynamic balance between the Falcon and the Commodore in a process which if not totally transparent (ie, we weren't invited to watch) seems intent on producing results that will help the sport. This process was complete at the end of January, and the manufacturers went into production mode, trying to build enough wings and splitters to get their teams up and running by the Grand Prix meeting.

One of the biggest and outwardly most interesting changes for the 2003 series has been the changes to the entry rules. There will now be 35 cars running at each race, comprising 26 cars from the 13 Level 1 Franchises and 9 from the single car Level 2 Franchises. That means no prequalifying and no deciding to just run a race here and there.

This started an amazing amount of jockeying from the time it became clear the 2003 series was a closed shop. It gave a driver such as Paul Weel value beyond that of driver alone, he has proven ability behind the wheel (excuse the pun) and drove with Marcos Ambrose at Bathurst, but he also owns a Level 2 (one car) Franchise, hence his move to the Holden ranks to bolster the numbers at Team Brock. A 'use it, lease it or lose it' program was put in place, which is why Lansvale Racing Team is leasing one of its licences to Mark Noske so the young guy can go racing again.

It also effectively brought in restrictions as to how many cars can run under each Franchise, so TWR was forced to find ways of running such a big operation without risking a two-year ban. With Holden keen to keep the Team Brock name big and bright in the sport, TWR was asked to lend assistance - at least in name and title - under its wing via the leasing of Level 2 Franchise from Paul Weel Racing and Imrie Motor Sport.

And then to keep the Kmart cars racing, John Faulkner Racing was called in to provide the Franchise. In return Faulkner gets a probable drive in the endurance races as well as the funding to run a new Holden Young Guns outfit in the Konica Series. One would also imagine the deal makes him fairly wealthy too!

Then there was the Prodrive saga, which began the minute Prodrive took over the Special Vehicles Operation run by Tickford and indicated it wanted to take on TWR on the track as well as the road. It started mid-2001 and only found the first part of its resolution on the Friday before Christmas 2002 when team nominations closed with TEGA. After all the speculation indicated Prodrive would take over Bob Forbes' 00 Motorsport, a smokey came from Glenn Seton who stitched up a deal at the last minute to guarantee his future in the sport as a driver (and hopefully his resurgence too).

Ford boss Geoff Polites no doubt had a hand in the deal with Craig Lowndes becoming part of the package along with David Besnard to make a three car team using Seton's Level 1 Franchise and Rod Nash's Level 2.

The Ford Performance Racing (FPR) deal with Prodrive is one of the most important for Ford since the creation of V8 Supercars more than a decade ago. Ford Performance Vehicles is gearing up for a sharper edge on the road with a range of new cars to battle the mighty Holden Special Vehicles, and it knows part of its success is dependent on having Falcons winning on the track.

Don't expect miracles from day 1, but there is no doubt this will develop into one of the premier teams of the sport.

With these and many other changes materialising in mid-February it is clear the racing is a new ball game. The only team among the lead players not to have some form of visible change is the OzEmail Racing guys from Albury - although you could argue a new paint scheme to match OzEmail's revised corporate identity is a pretty obvious alteration.

And we also have for the first time, a clear weighting to the Ford product on the track, with 19 cars to Holden's 16. And it is not just the weight of numbers that could see a shift of power, by our reckoning there are four pretty serious operators in each colour. Holden's lead players should come from the HRT, Castrol Perkins Racing, Kmart Racing and Team Brock, with the Ford ranks being led by Stone Brothers Racing, FPR, Shell Helix Racing and OzEmail Racing. There are other teams with promise and history, but it is hard to see them breaking into the elite group this year - although stranger things have happened.

Behind The Wheel

On the driver front the most turbulent off-season in V8 Supercar history was kicked off in the middle of 2002 when Russell Ingall confirmed he would be leaving Castrol Perkins Racing, and was hunting a drive for 2003. There were moves made to keep him as a Holden driver, but all approaches were rejected in favour of a Ford drive for the coming season, and Stone Brothers Racing was the favoured team from day one.

It was finally confirmed on New Year's Day that he would in fact be replacing David Besnard in the Caltex Havoline Falcon for 2003 and that his contract with SBR is for three years.

The reality of this sport is that if one of the lead pack moves - and being a three-time runner up in the series there is no doubt that Ingall is among this elite - there will be domino effect. For Ingall to run the Caltex car in 2003, David Besnard (a round winner in 2002) would have to move somewhere. He looked headed to 00 Motorsport where Neil Crompton had vacated a seat, but that evaporated when Seton sold to Prodrive and Lowndes and the Ford money moved out of 00.

Some jockeying was done, and Bezzy suddenly became the third driver at Prodrive. It is a move which should keep him pretty happy. The structure of the team is also such that either Seton or Besnard can be slotted into the CAT Falcon alongside Lowndes for the endurance races, with Seton and Bezzy driving generic FPR cars in the series.

DJR shrunk from its three cars in 2002 to just two, but Paul Radisich was strangely heading for other pastures. Max Wilson jumped ship from Briggs and landed himself the coveted #18 drive - it is certainly going to be amusing watching Steve 'Junior' Johnson and Wilson doing driver changes in the endurance races! We think Max could probably sit on Junior's lap and that he can just stay strapped in.

For DJR though, the changes to the team were much greater than the driver swaps; 2002 was the worst year endured by the team and it is one they don't want to repeat. Steve Chalker was brought in from CUB late last year, and his job was to restructure and put the pieces in place for the Shell Helix Falcons to be front runners again. We'll say they're front runners, but this V8X's biggest gamble on the crystal ball.

Jason Bargwanna's move to join Mark Larkham in the Orcon Falcons is a good move for Larko, it is becoming obvious that a single-car team will struggle and he has moved to stop himself becoming a permanent backmarker. After scoring pole at Bathurst a couple of seasons back, this team has faded. Even though he finished 23rd in the series, he was third in the single car ranks and that tells a story in itself.

We'd be very surprised to see a single car team make the podium at any stage during 2003, such is the significance of the weight of numbers while testing.

The Briggs operation obviously had some changes too - out were both its regular drivers in the Betta Electrical Falcons, and the CAT Falcon was a dead entity for the team. Dean Canto was signed up on what is supposed to be a 10 year deal, and we reckon he will do well - in fact we have been scratching our heads to work out why he hasn't won a regular spot earlier than this.

His teammate is Radisich, The Rat deciding his home of six years was no longer good for him and he moved up the road to try to rejuvenate his career after a season where the only highlight was a tour of NZ with V8X.

00 Motorsport was struggling with its driver line-up but as we hit deadline they announced ex-DJR pilot Greg Ritter and Rodney Forbes.

On the Holden side it was just a bit of shuffling within TWR and Holden. Mark Skaife and Greg Murphy were staying put, but all the other pieces on the team's chess board were being moved. Jason Bright was slotted into Team Brock to head the expanded operation, Todd Kelly was moved into team red, while little brother Rick was slotted in alongside Murphy in the white team. And of course, Paul Weel became a Holden driver with Team Brock.

In other places, Paul Dumbrell has stepped in to fill the void left by Larry Perkins' retirement from the sprint series, and Jamie Winchup will take Bargs' seat in the second Valvoline Commodore. We know Castrol Perkins Racing will be a top team in 2003, we're not so certain of the Garry Rogers operation.

The quirky Rogers, perhaps the most interesting team owner in pitlane, has led a struggling team since its Bathurst win in 2000. Tander has looked good at times, his talent sometimes shining in what appeared to be a pretty ordinary car. The question that is left open is how well a medium-sized team will cope with the engineering changes needed for 2003, and only time will answer that for us.

But what does it all mean except for a new range of merchandise becoming available at all the teams? TWR is obviously hunting for three teams that can win titles, and has put its three fastest drivers in separate teams. The HRT is obviously still its top team, and Skaife being paired with Todd Kelly is going to be a pretty strong combination, and they're gonna sell a lot of red shirts and caps as well as win a lot of races.

Ross and Jim Stone are hungry for a title, and you get the feeling the team has a new edge for 2003. They are confident the new car will be the goods, and with Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall as its two chief drivers there's a truck load of talent sitting in the two cars. In fact early testing with Ingall has shown Rusty could be the one to beat in Ford colours.

No more bogus pitstops Longer, harder One of the biggest changes to the 2003 series is to the race formats at many of the rounds. The races are going to be longer and harder, with five of the 13 rounds now featuring a 300km race and the season closing with perhaps the toughest of the lot - a 400km race at Eastern Creek one day before the start of summer. The longer races should prove a bit of an equaliser, taking the emphasis away from straight out speed and pitstop ability, into one of strategy and where a better chassis balance is needed to make the tyres last as long as possible. The drivers seem split as to whether the changes will be good or bad; interestingly it is the HRT drivers who seem most against the idea. > Unchanged The Clipsal 500, VB 300 @ Barbagallo, Hidden Valley, Bathurst, Gold Coast Indy 300, Pukekohe These five rounds of the series remain unchanged for one reason or another. For the Clipsal 500 and Bathurst it is because they are classic events that should never be mucked around, for others it is a combination of television and what is physically possible - a 300km race at Barbagallo for instance would have cars struggling to finish with any rubber at all, while 300km at Darwin would probably see drivers fall out of the car half dead. > Changed Phillip Island, Eastern Creek, Winton, Queensland Raceway, Oran Park, Sandown One of the biggest switches to the calendar for 2003 is the switch back to the Sandown 500, the Queensland round now becoming a standard 300km event. This is the most positive news of recent years for history buffs, and will no doubt work well for the series. The other four rounds will now see the standard 300km races on Sunday, with no racing on Saturday. > New Eastern Creek 400 Baby is this one going to be big, not only is it the first event run and promoted by AVESCO (so expect all the bells and whistles), it is also going to be one of the toughest races ever seen. 400km at the threshold of summer is really going to push the drivers more so than the machines, they will need to be fit! It will also have a shootout for the entire 35 car field - although shootouts can be a bit boring. Pity we have to wait all year for it.

New World Order - AVESCO Steps Up One of the more significant, but little heralded so far, changes for this season is AVESCO stepping in to fully promote and manage a race meeting. We are all familiar with AVESCO from its day-to-day running of the series, but this more focused activity is a new venture for the Gold Coast-based operation. The race that has been set aside is the final race of the year, the new 400km race at Eastern Creek, and hopefully it will be the race that decides the 2003 Champion. AVESCO's Wayne Cattach says this step was pretty much always a plan for the sport's promotional body, it was just a matter of timing. "It was always on the business plan that we would move in this direction," he said recently. "But slowly and selectively. "I think you've got to recognise that one of the joint venture partners of AVESCO is SEL, and they have a huge amount of experience in running and promoting events, but not necessarily sporting events. So, we didn't have to look too far to find the right people to do the job and Tony Cochrane has headed up some of those activities so we had somebody - we had a resource available that we could readily employ. "We see it as an opportunity to, first, participate in the promoter's margin - which really is a way of more vertically integrating the business. I should stress that we'll be very selective about events and this does not mean that AVESCO will promote all of its own races. At this stage there is only one planned for this year and we may add to that, but it won't be a wholesale roll-out of our attempt to run all of our meetings. "Second reason is that we think we can add value and we think we can lift the bar; we think we can create something a little more special and that's the test we've set for ourselves with the Eastern Creek round." > Taking stock He said they will sit down after the race and measure themselves on the obvious things - such as how many people come through the gate - as well as some of the less obvious and perhaps harder to quantify items. Eastern Creek has not yet tickled the fancy of Sydney's V8 Supercar fan base, and with another round earlier in the year AVESCO will have a very easy head count system to measure ultimate success. So far AVESCO has not received any negative feedback from promoters worried about the series organiser stepping on their turf, and Cattach says the ARDC, which looks after Eastern Creek, has been encouraging. > Something new The format of the meeting and specifically the 400km main event, has been the subject of much talk. When it was announced at Sandown, drivers' jaws dropped to the floor in collective shock, but it seems a lot of that has dissipated since. "We wanted to have something that was quite unique and that's why the 400km format was looked at. It's a fairly big ask for a single driver and we're carefully evaluating that, but we think it's something we can do. It would be a great way to finish the season. As you know, we've revamped the points score this year and we hope that will bring about a down-to-the-wire championship. And if that's the case it could well be decided at this very event. "There is a possibility we may change it. But we would only do that if we were convinced the 400km task was more than a single driver could cope with. Although, at this stage, the kind of feedback we're getting generally from the drivers is it's OK. This is the sport now where you've got to be an elite athlete, you've got to be at the height of fitness. And if you're not, given that the standard race format is 300km, then you're really not going to be in contention." We can expect to see the great AVESCO/SEL marketing machine crank itself up for this with the push started near the end of April, building from a walk into a sprint as the event gets nearer. "You've got to be a bit careful that you don't unleash that too early, because otherwise you may well cause confusion in the market place. We like to unfold our championship in a fairly logical way, so I guess you will see a little bit more information start to be released after April and we will build it into the final package a couple of months before the event's actually held."

Franchises: Level 1 vs Level 2 Hit them with the old one-two One of the greatest mysteries of V8 Supercar racing is the outwardly strange franchise system, which has over the summer break undergone a few significant changes. The franchise system exists to manage two functions - one is racing based, the other business. >Racing On the racing side of the ledger the Franchise system is responsible for the control of the car licences for the series, with 35 up for grabs. In short, a Level 1 Franchise is now made of the two-car licences, while a Level 2 Franchise has dropped back to a maximum of one (there is also a Level 3 franchise for the Konica Series). "The old franchise system was terminated and those who held entitlements under that system were offered renewal with the new team's licence agreement," former-TEGA Chairman Wayne Cattach explains. "Level 1 teams were offered two single-car licence agreements. The old agreement allowed them to run three cars under the one franchise; the new agreement gives them two licence agreements and they could run one car out of each licence agreement. "With the old Level 2 you were entitled to run two cars out of a franchise agreement; the new licence agreement allowed them to run one car as a Level 2 licensee. Now any team can run up to four cars, but to do so they have to either sub-lease or purchase their entitlements from another team." He explained the new licence system also includes a cap on the number of cars any team can run, limiting each operation to four cars. Cattach says the penalties for a breach are pretty extreme, and a new TEGA Tribunal can exclude a team from racing for two years. There are new testing rules as well, with a maximum of two cars per test session allowed for each team before they start losing days, and with only eight days up for grabs teams will be very selective about using extra cars. How this works with HRT and KRT is not totally clear, although the spirit of the rule as we understand it is to restrict them to two cars from the four at any session. That pretty much covers the racing, except to note that all of the Level 1 licensees have to run at every race meeting, while the Level 2s have to run 80% of the meetings, which on rounding to the nearest number is 10 rounds. >Business The business side of a franchise is equally important, with the franchise holders making up a large section of the shareholding of AVESCO. "The distribution of money is a little bit more complex," Cattach starts, "but the fundamentals are that the Level 1 licence holders get a significantly higher share of the revenues than a Level 2 licence holder." The relationship is not proportional, a L1 Franchise earning a greater share than two L2s for instance. A bit like the voting rights, each car in L1 has two votes while a L2 car has only one vote. If the franchise is leased, the voting rights stay with the owner. "A Level 1 franchise holder had four votes at an AGM and a Level 2 had one vote. If under the new arrangement they were to split their two Level 1 licences, then clearly they will come back to two votes to a Level 2's one vote." But much of the talk over summer was on the value of the various franchises as they started swapping hands. The worth of these things when AVESCO started was zero. It may now be that a Level 1 franchise has a paper value of more than $2 million. "If you looked at a race team when I first arrived on the block and I was faced with this dilemma, a race team's worth not much more than an auctioneer could get for the bits and pieces in the workshop if you lost your sponsor. So in other words there could have been 20 years of knowledge in that business... you know in most other businesses you can think of where you've got 20 years of knowledge, there's a certain element attached to good will. "I couldn't see any reason why that wouldn't be the case with motorsport, so that was really the basis for moving into this franchised agreement in the first place - to try and create a bit of value for the teams. "

Franchises in a Nutshell Level 1 Franchise > 4 votes > 2 cars in 100% of V8 Supercar races > Estimate of profit share is 4:1 over a Level 2 > Value - between $1.5 and $2 million Level 2 Franchise > 1 vote > 1 car in more than 80% of V8 Supercar races > Estimate of profit share is 1:4 over a Level 1 > Value - between $600,000 and $750,000 Level 3 Franchise > Konica Series only Testing and Team Restrictions > 8 test days for 2 cars each year, extra car at each test day removes a day from the test day allowance (ie, 1-2 cars = 1 test day, 3-4 cars = 2 test days) > Maximum 4 car licences per team

Matter of fact, we've got it now For the year 2003, the sponsorship of the V8 Supercar series has essentially been split in two, and one half of the deal is with VB. The series will be officially be referred to the as the rather wordy '2003 V8 Supercar Championship brought to you by VB and whoever else comes on board'. For VB this move was a pretty easy and evolutionary step from where it had been with the series, and represents an increase of activity rather than a shift. It continues its involvement with DJR and the HRT and drivers Marcos Ambrose, Jason Bright, Russell Ingall, Steve Johnson, Todd Kelly, Greg Murphy, Mark Skaife. It is also a key player in the Perth round of the Championship which would have died last year but for the intervention of the beer giant. "VB has enjoyed a highly successful alliance with AVESCO and the V8 Supercar Series since 1997," VB National Sponsorship Manager of Motorsport, Pete Gallagher explained. "Just as VB has developed into a major Australian brand, the V8 Supercar Series is now a truly national sport. The new sponsorship alliance, until 2008, is a win-win situation for all parties - AVESCO, CUB and VB, and the loyal V8 Supercar fans. CUB wants to demonstrate to the public, V8 Supercar fans and loyal VB consumers that we are committed to the V8 Supercar series for the long haul." Part of that leverage program is going to be the creation of V8 Superbars in some of the cities where the series is run, and we at V8X are certainly keen to get into these for a cooling beer or two! The first of these should be up and running in April, so stay tuned for all those details. Beer and motorsport has always been a controversial mix, with the wowser fraternity complaining about the message being delivered to car drivers. They forget of course, that some beer in the belly is OK otherwise the BAC limit for driving a car would be 0.00 instead of 0.05. "The management of the V8 Supercar series along with the teams and drivers involved in the sport are all highly professional individuals who are cognisant not only of the fact that the V8 Supercar series is a highly visual sport, but also of their social and ethical responsibilities in regard to drink driving and the responsible consumption of alcohol," Gallagher said. "All key drivers are aware of their high public profile and use it to endorse messages about not drinking and driving. At all times CUB adopts a responsible approach to the marketing of our brands - especially in association with motorsport. At all major sporting events where CUB plays a role, the company aims to have light beers available, and CUB actively promotes a range of reduced alcohol beers."