Motorsport: Morrie's major challenge

New World Rally Championship Commission president Morrie Chandler wants to encourage private teams to enter. Picture / Richard Robinson

Morrie Chandler, the new boss of world rallying, had his first taste of international competition 34 years ago in a standard road-going Skoda.

It was 1972 and New Zealand was tiptoeing on to the world circuit with the Heatway Rally, which covered 3200km around the North Island with 45 special stages. The winner was Briton Andrew Cowan in a Mini Clubman GT.

Chandler didn't feature in the major placings, but the rally started a career that has brought the 66-year-old Aucklander to the top job at a time when the world rally championship has for the past two years been, in his own words, "quite turbulent".

So how did a New Zealand electrical contractor emerge as the man to try to put the sport back on course?

Chandler was never a star at the wheel like his predecessor Shekhar Mehta, the Kenyan Safari specialist, who was third in the 1973 Heatway. But the Aucklander has an impressive resume in administration.

He rose through the ranks of the Northern Sports Car Club, overseeing the building of their headquarters at Mt Richmond when he was president. He spent 20 years as president of Motorsport New Zealand, chaired Rally New Zealand and acted as clerk of course for the international.

He entered the international scene as deputy to Ron Frost on the FIA, the controlling body of world motorsport, and was elected to replace Frost when Frost died in the early 90s.

Chandler became a member of the FIA's Rallies Commission, then president of the World Rally Championship organisers before being elected president of the World Rally Championship Commission this month.

He expects to have to increase the frequency of his visits to the headquarters of world motorsport in Paris and he is stepping back from his business, but will continue to live in Auckland.

Chandler is a strong-minded individual - some local critics might phrase that differently - but he has a record of getting things done and that may be just what is needed to cut through the factionalism of a billion-dollar sport.

Countries are clamouring to join the 16-round championship, but manufacturers are dropping out of the contest to field teams.

"One of the things the World Rally Commission has not been doing in the last three or four years is having some longer-term objective," said Chandler.

"Already we've put in place a three-year calendar so that people know where they're going. We've presented this to the FIA and next year's has been published."

For manufacturers seeking consistency, the commission has said that the current crop of cars will be retained for at least the next three years. Manufacturers will know well before specifications for the following three years come into force.

Chandler believes the sport will remain manufacturer-driven and he commends Subaru and Ford for contracting a team to run their rallying programme.

"One thing we want to do is to shape our rules so that manufacturers cannot gain much by spending abnormal amounts of money. That's why we're saying four engines per season, though that's not set in concrete yet."

The idea is to pull back the technical specifications and testing rules to reduce spending where other manufacturers and private teams are encouraged to enter.

Chandler's greatest challenge may be to squeeze 20 events into 16 slots. One solution might be to allow teams to choose 16 events, but to insist they compete at all those outside Europe so that the contest remains truly global.

New Zealand retains its spot for the moment.

But even Morrie Chandler will struggle to save it if the wheels fall off.