Surfers date locked and loaded

14/09/2008 Tony Cochrane has revealed exclusively that the Surfers Paradise round will proceed in October next year with or without the IndyCar series.

And Cochrane suggests that a shock option for replacing the IRL at the Gold Coast street circuit could be the Deutsche Touring Car Masters (DTM) German touring car championship.

V8 Supercars was forced to delay the release, originally scheduled for Phillip Island this weekend, of the 2009 Championship Series calendar however the Surfers issue with the IRL is not part of the reason for the delay as the date is firmly set.

Cochrane says that the DTM which runs V8-powered Mercedes-Benz and Audis would be his pick of international categories to replace the IndyCars.

The V8 Supercars are locked in for Surfers Paradise from October 22-25 and it is expected that the Queensland Government will search for another formula if the IRL, as many expect, brush Australia as a stop-off in the championship.

The IRL is not prepared to race on the October date which has been the position on the calendar for the last 11 years and has, instead, offered two other options which are untenable.

“That date (October 22-25) is locked in,” Cochrane told BigPond Sport exclusively.

“There is no question about that date and the Queensland Government has been running this event for a long, long time (since 1991).

“When I was chief executive of the Gold Coast Indy I moved it from March to October 11 years ago mainly because of requests from Queensland tourism and hotel groups because late October was a particularly quiet time there.

“It’s run happily ever since.

“No-one in their right mind would move it to the two dates the IRL suggest and one is the Clipsal 500 weekend and the other is late September which runs into preliminary finals in the NRL and the AFL.

“I’m here to tell you the Queensland Government isn’t budging from that date.

“I think if the IRL are stupid enough to pass on that date then the Government will just pull in another international category and there are lots of them out there.”

Cochrane says that of the championships available for the Queensland Government to head-hunt the GP2 series is a possibility, but he has ruled out the financially embattled A1 Grand Prix of Nations as a viable option.

“The A1 GP is $320 million in the red and my personal thought is that the Government wouldn’t look at that championship.

“Everyone has seen the figures from the Eastern Creek A1 GP round and they were terrible.

“I doubt the government would jump out of the fat and into the fire.”

Cochrane says that courting a round of the DTM championship would provide a celebration of the world’s leading touring car categories.

“I would personally see something like the DTM out here and make it the world’s greatest weekend of touring cars.

“We are the best two touring car championships in the world.

“How that would sit with their calendar, I don’t know but it’s certainly worth asking the question.”

Cochrane cautions that as unlikely as it seems the IRL may change tact and continue its association with Surfers Paradise.

“Maybe the IRL will wake up to themselves,” Cochrane says.

“That’s the weekend we will be there, that’s the weekend Channel 7 will be there and that’s the weekend V8 Supercars TV will be there.

“The only question mark is, will the IRL be there?”