The Fastest Lap

Chandhouk

2010-03-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

I'm just watching qualifying for the Bahrain F1 race, and I'm pretty impressed with Karun Chandhouk. His first laps EVER in his HRT car were in this qualifying session. He went out and ran a 2:21 compared to a typical fastest time of 1:55. In only his second lap he ran a 2:08 which was as fast as any time that his team-mate Bruno Senna did the previous day. He went on to only be one second slower than Senna, despite having a whole day's-worth less experience. I think that is pretty damn impressive.

Look for Chandhouk to be the surprise of 2010...

Still here

2010-01-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it is seven months since I last posted on this blog, but since four of those have involved being a new dad, I think I can cut myself some slack.

I also found that much of what I wanted to say about motorsport I had already said (or other bloggers were saying the same thing). I got rather tired of the silly politicking in F1 and Indycar, and since there's many other sites out there doing race reports, why try to replicate that?

Anyway, I'm still watching racing and I'm still very excited by it. In fact, it will be a whole new experience when I next go to the track, since I'll be able to take my daughter with me. That race will be the ALMS event at Laguna Seca in May, and just to be on the safe side, we bought her a special Christmas present in preparation:

A question

2009-06-24T11:07:00.001-07:00

Am I the only one who is slightly disappointed that there won't be a breakaway championship with the big F1 teams? After seeing a tentative schedule yesterday I was rather looking forward to this.

The FIA/FOTA split

2009-06-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

I've stayed pretty quiet on this issue as there are a number of other motorsport bloggers who are far more knowledgeable and insightful about it than I am. Let me just just share a few of my opinions on it...

F1 has been pretty entertaining the last couple of seasons, although the novelty of Brawn GP winning everything will ultimately wear off. I worry that one way or another, F1 is going to get boring again.
Max Mosley disgusts me. Everything he does, and every way he does it, I find offensive. If a shake-up in F1 is what it takes to depose the shrivelled old goat then bring it on, I say.
A breakaway championship sounds all well and good, but 16 cars maketh not a particularly good race. However, if the championship is able to give a greater share of TV revenue to teams, it might actually be a cheaper option to get into a series with a higher budget cap but higher income than to go to the FIA's tightly-capped F1.
Does this offer an amazing opportunity to the A1GP blokes to finally get something out of their massive spend? Sell it, with its schedule, contracts, staff and assets, to FOTA and BOOM, instant championship.
I'd love to see more teams involved in F1. Back in 1991 I went to the British Grand Prix on the Friday and there were so many teams that there was a pre-qualifying session involving no-hopers like Fondmetal, Lamborghini and Coloni - 34 cars in total!
The breakaway (which we'll call the "Grand Prix World Championship" for shits and giggles) could potentially run at tracks which have left, are leaving, or are threatened with ejection from F1, such as Montreal, Silverstone, Magny Cours, Indianapolis, Hockenheim, Imola and Fuji, since the GPWC is likely to offer more favourable terms to those track promoters than Ecclestone. It goes without saying that the GPWC would be unable to race at current F1 venues...
However, these tracks face a serious issue - if they sign up to host a GPWC race, the FIA would almost certainly pull other FIA championships from those tracks - WTCC, FIA GT, and Formula 2 for example. This could affect "classic venues" like Silverstone and Imola, as well as GP-ready tracks like Brno, Portimao, Valencia and Oschersleben.
The FIA ultimately sanctions ALL worldwide motorsport, via national ASNs, and if an ASN provides local sanctioning for the GPWC they themselves could face retaliation from the FIA. I see this as being the potential ultimate undoing of the GPWC. I think they'll struggle to find any promoters, tracks or ASNs willing to go against the FIA.
The FIA is threatening legal action to FOTA teams. Fucking idiots. How about compromising on TV revenues and paying back revenue owed to teams in order to keep the lines of communication open? Any sane person would continue to work on resolving this. It seems to me that Mosley and Ecclestone are consumed by their thirst for power and influence rather than acting like motorsport management professionals. If this situation does anything, I hope it brings these two dickheads down to earth with a bang.

Le Mans is coming soon

2009-05-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

I'm totally fucking excited, even if it's one more year that I'm not there. I've established a pattern of going to the race on any year that ends in a 7 or a 4 ('94, '97, '04 and '07). That means it will be a bit of a wait before I go again, so I must make the best of it whilst being stuck in California for the weekend.

I schedule my work week around the evening qualifying sessions (or test sessions as one will be this year) so that I can listen to the commentary and perhaps catch some webstreams via proxy servers.

For race day, typically we've set up the TV in the bedroom the night before so that we can watch the first couple of hours (starting at 6am) from the comfort of our bed. We make coffee (a rarity for us, since we're tea drinkers) and purchase croissants for the full Le Mans Breakfast Experience (TM).

We have a laptop on hand with live timing and scoring, chat on the Ten-Tenths forum, and the inimitable Radio Le Mans providing audio.

During gaps in Speed Channel's coverage we find webstreams of the Eurosport coverage.

As the day progresses, the TV gets moved to the kitchen where we prep food for the evening's party. That food includes tartiflette, merguez sausages, homemade fries and roast chicken, all things you would find at the track. Party guests arrive in the evening, and we hang out, eat the food, drink wine and French beer (Kronenbourg 1664), and keep our eyes on the race.

In the past we've tried to stay up till the end of the race at 6am. This always fails (see above picture) and we end up recording the rest of it and watching it on Sunday without the Radio Le Mans commentary. This feels like an anticlimax. So last year we decided to go to bed at 11pm and get four hours of sleep so that we could check in for the final two hours. This worked well.

The major change this year is that there will be no party. This is for two reasons: first, I've found that all the party planning, as well as the entertaining of guests and cooking of food, means you actually miss what is going on with the race. Second, since we're expecting a baby in three months we have neither the energy nor motivation to go to such lengths and are opting for the easiest way out (like with pretty much everything we do in life at the moment).

However it happens, the Le Mans 24 Hours is always a big highlight of the racing year, and with such a great field this year it should be another cracking good time.

(I just took another look at my video of our 2007 trip to Le Mans - man, it send shivers down my spine. What an amazing place, and an amazing race!)

Motorcycle racing is dangerous

2009-05-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

Well, duh. Except it's pretty amazing how many riders are on the sidelines right now thanks to injury...

Regis Laconi, WSBK, DFX Ducati: injured in South Africa, being replaced by Lorenzo Lanzi
Sylvain Guintoli, BSB, Crescent Suzuki: injured at Donington, replaced by Michael Rutter
John Hopkins, WSBK, Stiggy Honda: injured at Assen, replaced by Jake Zemke
Max Neukirchner, WSBK, Alstare Suzuki: injured at Monza, replaced by Fonsi Nieto
Makoto Tamada, WSBK, PBM Kawasaki: injured at Monza, replaced by Jamie Hacking
Neil Hodgson, AMA, Corona Honda: injured playing around on a motocross bike, replaced by Jake Holden
Troy Corser, WSBK, BMW: injured at Monza, replaced by Steve Martin

It's a good time to be a good rider without a ride, if all the "regulars" keep throwing their bikes down the road and breaking their bodies in the process...

Long Beach

2009-04-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

Didn't the Indycar race at Long Beach look great? It reminded me of 1995, with all the top US open-wheel drivers and some notable foreigners going toe-to-toe in a nice big field of brightly-colored cars in front of a sizable crowd. It really feels to me like Indycar racing is truly back in business. Yes, there's still quite a lot of empty space on the sides of cars where sponsors should be, but there's also a number of new names like McAfee and the US Air Force, both of which are on Raffa Matos' Luczo-Dragon car.

What a difference two years can make. Compare the fortunes of NASCAR and the IRL back in 2007 with what we see today. Most amusing...

My only disappointment was the news that we may not see Will Power again until Indy. Although I'm pleased for Helio Castro-Neves, it is a real shame that a talent like Power will suffer from his acquittal. Here's hoping that Verizon can step up and fund the car for a full season.

The diffuser thing

2009-04-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

The FIA have decreed that Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams were within the rules when they ran with their "double-decker" diffuser for the first two F1 races of the season. This is great news, because it sets up much excitement for the rest of the season.

There is no doubt that those without the special diffuser will implement one, and that their performance will increase. McLaren in particular have much to gain, since their major issue was getting that rear wing to work, and with the extra rear downforce from the new diffuser that will become less of a problem. Ferrari are said to be ready to go with a new design, and they desperately need it after a shocking start to the season. Red Bull have looked to be amongst the "best of the rest", so in theory they could be right up at the sharp end. However, their car will not easily accommodate a change to the diffuser, so it may be some time before they can implement it. Renault might easily run something new as early as this weekend. What we can expect to see is the "Diffuser Three" become the "Diffuser Four" at China, then Ferrari and McLaren jumping on board at Bahrain, and (maybe) the remaining teams by Spain in May. This has effectively handed Brawn, Toyota and Williams a 2-4 race "head start" on the rest of the field, something that Brawn have best capitalized on. By the middle of the European season I can see the field being very evenly matched, which sets up a thrilling climax at the end as the powerhouse teams look to claw back their deficit from the early-season upstarts.

I think it is still quite possible for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello to be in the thick of the title fight as we approach the season finale.

Plato shows BTCC who's boss

2009-04-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Jason Plato very nearly didn't have a drive in the BTCC this year after SEAT cancelled their factory program. Luckily at the last minute he ended up in a Chevrolet Lacetti (probably ex-WTCC but I'm not sure).

Good thing too, because he put on one hell of a show in race 3 of this weekend's season opener. I've always rated Plato as one of the best tin-top drivers in the business and the clip below proves it. I also think his no-nonsense communication style and TV experience on Fifth Gear make for one of the most compelling personalities in motorsport too.

Rally spectators get the info they want

2009-04-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Having been to a couple of WRC events in the past, the issue of deciding which stages to see and where on those stages to go can be really tricky. I've got hundreds of megabytes of maps, stage descriptions and video accumulated for that very reason.

Rally Deutschland and this weekend's Vodafone Rally Portugal have attempted to solve that very issue. Not only do they put detailed maps and descriptions online (like a lot of other rallies), but they also post video of the spectator areas so that you can see the view that you can expect. Check out this superb stage overview which shows all the access points, and then go to this example spectator area page from the excellent Portugese spectator guide. There's a video link at the top, which shows a little SUV negotiating the stage.

It was just a bit of a shame that such a well-though-out and gorgeous rally dished up the same old snoozefest on the competitive side of things.

Unemployment up in Indycar too

2009-04-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

As the supposedly great state of California inches towards 10% unemployment (and as the start of the Indycar season approaches this weekend), I spent a moment thinking about all those poor saps who want (or have been connected to) fulltime Indycar rides. You know, people like Frank Perera, AJ Foyt IV, Buddy Rice, David Martinez, Oriel Servia, Townsend Bell, Neel Jani, Matt Halliday, Ryan Dalziel, Enrique Bernoldi, Bruno Junquiera, Dan Clarke, Tomas Scheckter, Darren Manning, Alex Lloyd, Mario Dominguez, Nelson Phillippe and Jaime Camara.

That's a lot of people. Considering there's 24 fulltime IRL entries thus far, that's a 42% unemployment rate. What the hell is everyone else complaining about??? Think of the poor IRL drivers!

I told you so

2009-04-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

Check it.

I win.

Bookies everywhere agree - it's Jenson

2009-03-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

I took a look at the betting lines on this weekend's Australian F1 Grand Prix over at Sports Interaction, and was pretty amazed at what I saw:

Button - 5:1
Raikkonen - 6:1
Alonso - 8:1
Massa - 8:1
Barrichello - 8:1
Hamilton - 11:1
Kubica - 13:1
Heidfeld - 23:1
Vettel - 26:1
Trulli - 30:1
Glock - 35:1
Kovalainen - 41:1
Rosberg - 41:1
Webber - 51:1
Nakajima - 71:1
Piquet - 81:1
Bourdais - 201:1
Sutil - 251:1
Fisichella - 251:1

Not sure why there's no odds on Buemi, but whatever. There's some fascinating insight here into what the public's perception is of how the weekend will go. After all, odds are generally calculated based upon bets received thus far, after an initial setting of odds by the bookies. Seems that Brawn's testing times have gotten everyone's attention, but what is remarkable is that Button is the one seen as the most likely to win, despite Barrichello's better record, and greater experience in a front-running team.

So there's some bargains to be had here and the one I've put a few dollars on is young Nico Rosberg. The German Swede posted the second fastest time at the Jerez tests, and third fastest at Barcelona, yet languishes at 41:1. An each way bet seemed like a no-brainer, since picking a winner in an F1 race (especially the first of the season) can be notoriously difficult. For a $5 stake ($10 each way) a win pays about $250, and 2nd or 3rd nets $45. Not bad at all.

Given BMW and Toyota's steady progress through the off-season, they all looked good too, bar Kubica, whose 8:1 odds can't justify the money. For anyone who wants to live closer to the edge, Webber and Nakajima are both wildcards at 51:1 and 71:1 respectively. The Williams in particular looks great.

Nothing like a flutter to make things more interesting!

V8 Supercars get mangled

2009-03-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Watching the debut round of the Australian V8 Supercars championship this weekend reminded me of one particular aspect of these cars:

When V8 Supercars crash, they produce the most mangled wrecks in all of racing.

Most race cars these days are made with copious carbon fibre or aluminium chassis and body panels. Not V8 Supercars... these things are steel, and when they crash they warp and bend in the most magnificent way. Making things even more gnarly is the fact that unlike NASCAR which also uses steel panels and chassis, V8 Supercars are derived from production bodyshells as opposed to tubular space frames, so there's a whole shitload of production-formed steelwork underneath too. The good news for teams is that this means they (and local bodyshops) can do much of the crash repairs themselves using welding and normal metalforming techniques including bringing out big hammers. One of the joys of V8 Supercars is watching crew members wail on the cars with massive hand tools after a car has made contact with another car or with the scenery.

With such massive grids, fuelled by Aussie-man macho driving styles, the opportunities to watch steel get formed into new and bizarre shapes are frequent...

Hotness

2009-03-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

The new Acura P1 car. Extremely good-looking car. And the sister car to the one pictured here grabbed pole at Sebring today, so it's quick too.

It is blessed relief from the new Audi which looks like someone painted up an old WR prototype in Audi colours, then softened it like butter in a microwave and made Hagrid from Harry Potter sit on the car. The word "fugly" comes to mind.

Given my appreciation of Japanese automotive technology, it's quite clear who to cheer for on Saturday's Sebring 12 Hours.

Lapping Laguna Seca

2009-03-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

In the period where this blog lay dormant, from September 2008 until February 2009, I had the pleasure of getting my Subaru WRX STi out to not just one, but two track days.

The first was at Laguna Seca, a track I knew pretty damn well from all the races I'd attended there, as well as my crazy virtual test drives before I bought the car. This was back in November, so the expectation was that the weather might be inclement. Luckily I convinced my father to join me in his Porsche Boxster, and his experience with track days in general and Laguna specifically proved to be great help.

We showed up to the Speed Ventures-organized day, surrounded in the paddock by everything from Ferrari 430s to Godzillas to a Mazda 3 and Infiniti M45. After a drivers' meeting I got a chance to sneak two sighting laps, which was hugely useful. My first impression was that the track seemed much smaller and more confined than either from the spectator areas or from Gran Turismo 4. The tyre wall on the outside of turn 3 was particularly worrying! I also noted how blind both the entry and apex of the Corkscrew were, requiring drivers to sight off a particular tree, conveniently marked with a cone.

My dad got to go out first, and I sat beside him to start learning the lines and braking points, as well as seeing the superb etiquette of a car track day (pointing people by if they're faster, something alien to me from my experience with motorcycle track days). It ensured the fast guys didn't get held up and the slower guys didn't feel pressured, both desirable goals.

Finally it was my turn. After a warm up lap I started to push the bright blue Rex, immediately discovering that once the needle hits 3000rpm, you need to start prepping for the upshift, because the 7000rpm redline is coming very soon. I'd set the rpm warning beep to come on at 6700rpm, but this soon proved too low. The key to performance was to keep that turbo spinning, and the flat four was constantly goading me into making it sing. In terms of handling, the phenomenal grip I'd experienced on the roads was clearly evident here, and it took some time before the limit on corner speed became mechanical rather than human. In some corners I vowed to never go full chat, simply to ensure I returned home with the car in the same condition as when I left.

Back in the paddock after the first session I reflected on the nature of the track. The gradients were massive and the characters of each corner so different that it felt like a series of mini challenges as opposed to one big one. What's the best line for the double apex Andretti hairpin? How late to brake for turn five? How much speed to carry into turn six? Where to shift in the Corkscrew complex? How to best string together the Corkscrew exit, turn nine and the Rainey Curve? All these questions come at you lap after lap, and very few were definitely answered by the end of the day.

The second session proved to be the fastest, as rain arrived after lunch. I managed to go faster than my Dad, although you'd expect an STi to spank a Boxster without too much trouble. By the end of this session I was unsure how to make any great gains, but this issue took a back seat for the rest of the day. Session three was slightly damp, so I focused initially on lines and braking points, then as it got wetter I looked to start experimenting with grip levels, seeing if I could start to get the car moving around beneath us (a tough job in a car that prefers to roll along like it's on rails). The best options for some tail-out fun were the uphill exit of turn 5, and the low-speed final hairpin, turn 11, and I took full advantage. Now that I'd learned the track, it was time to learn the car...

The fourth and final session was fully wet, and I managed to settle into a comfortable rhythm with a white STi and a red WRX. The three of us formed a dominant Subaru train, picking off cars one by one, regardless of their power, as they struggled on the soaking wet surface - Mazda RX8, Porsche 911, another Porsche, Nissan GTR, they each fell to the staggering capabilities of the Subarus, albeit piloted by track day newbies like myself. It was terrific fun, and proved that my fears ahead of time of it being wet were 180 degrees wrong. The wet track day is the best.

As we left the track my gas light came on. A glance at the odo and a quick calculation revealed a figure of 8mpg, which was hilarious in its political-incorrectness.

The next track day was at Southern California's Buttonwillow Raceway. Essentially a club-level circuit, there's no spectator facilities and very little to hit. The major challenges proved to be remembering the track, with its flat and featureless layout, and the soaking mud in the run off areas that threatened to turn any car turtle if they hit them at any kind of angle.

The main focus of this day was getting track time for my wife. One of the agreements we had made was that she would do a track day if I bought the car, so it was time to make good on this. Buttonwillow was a great place to start and once again the excellent Speed Ventures crew made it a well-run and unintimidating event. By her fourth session, with the help of an instructor, she'd finally gotten things to click, stringing together braking points, apexes and acceleration points to put together a clean and quick lap.

My experience with the day ended up finally putting me in a place where I was finding the car limiting my pace. Or to be more correct, the tyres. The Kumho Ecsta rubber was noisy and consistently letting me down on both turn-in and under acceleration, scrabbling for grip and making a big fuss of it at the same time. It's major selling points (cost and durability) seemed less important when you're trying to keep up with a 350z on track day rubber. Still, there's plenty of tread left on them, so it will be some time before I can upgrade.

The winner takes it all

2009-03-17T10:07:00.001-07:00

Man, I've gone three years without quoting Abba on this blog. Damn you FIA!

Mornings for me, like most people I guess, are tough. I have to grapple with wardrobe decisions (something I hate), try to eat a bowl of generally disgusting high-fibre cereal, face up to yet another commute in the rain on my motorcycle, and do all this after being rudely separated from blissful unconsciousness by the alarm on my irritating and ineligible-for-an-upgrade-until-May cellphone.

It doesn't help when my well-intentioned and well-informed wife throws out a comment like "did you hear Formula 1 is going to decide its champion based on number of wins this year".

This is something we all feared - Mad Bernie's medals system. Surely this was too mad to ever make it? Well, welcome to F1, where madness is the norm and those with sanity are considered insane.

However, further reading on the topic slightly alleviated my unhappiness. Turns out that only the winner of the championship will be decided by number of wins. All other positions will still be determined by points. It's a huge roll of the dice by the FIA since a situation like last year could easily crop up again whereby the guy with the most points isn't the guy who won the most races. How will Joe Public understand that? The old system seems to work just fine in every other motorsport championship.

It works well beyond motorsport too. Imagine if the Tour de France used an equivalent of the new FIA system? Mark Cavendish would have won the 2008 Tour with four stage wins. Except he wouldn't, because he left the race to train for the Olympics. Which meant Stefan Schumacher and Riccardo Ricco would have tied with two wins and it would have gone back to the old system to determine which of them was the winner. Except it wouldn't, because Ricco was thrown off the Tour for a positive drug test. This would have elevated Alejandro Valverde, who came second to Ricco on stage 6 to two stage wins, now tied with Schumacher. Hang on though, Schumacher tested positive for drugs in a retest two months after the Tour ended, so Valverde in theory would be the only guy with two wins. Hang on again, because the organizers haven't officially undone the wins of Ricco and Schumacher, even though Schumacher was also later disqualified. So Cavendish didn't win because he withdrew. Ricco didn't win because he was thrown off the race. Schumacher didn't win because he was later disqualified. Valverde didn't win because Ricco's win on stage 6 still stands. That means that ALL other stage winners would have tied, so the decider would have been the old system, and finally we would have gotten the same winner, Carlos Sastre, after much confusion and many months of delay.

You know you're in trouble when the controversy-riddled Tour de France is used as example of how things SHOULD work....

A quick look at the calendar

2009-03-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend sees the WRC in Cyprus and World Superbike in Qatar, both of which should be worth watching.

However, starting next week things get really cracking. The Sebring 12 Hours in the ALMS and V8 Supercars' season-opening Clipsal 500 are amongst the highlights of the motorsport year, and both are happening next weekend. They'll be backed up by AMA Superbike, World Touring Cars, A1GP and Japanese SuperGT to name but a few.

The weekend after that is notable for the first Formula 1 race of the year.

And once we get into April it's safe to say that the racing season is truly in full swing with action in F1, the WRC, World Superbike, the ALMS, the IRC's trip to Kenya and the start of the Le Mans Series, the Indy Racing League and the British Touring Car Championship.

Brawn can do it

2009-03-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go out on a limb here...

The former Honda F1 team might actually not suck this year. Here's why:

Two drivers who are proven race-winners. Being stuck in that awful Honda for so long might have shortened some peoples' memory as to how talented Button and Barrichello actually are
Ross Brawn, he's good. I seem to remember he did rather well when he was in charge of a team running a wonky-mouthed German chap.
KERS. Those that have it, and have it working, have a distinct advantage. Sounds like Brawn do.
Mercedes engines. There's not a bad engine in F1 at the moment, but an engine that propelled the world champ last year is surely a better bet than one that propelled the Honda team.
The new regs. Everyone starts with a clean sheet this year. That has to be a distinct advantage to anyone who struggled with the previous regulation set.
It's not a new team. F1 has seen a myriad of new teams arrive, fail and leave. Brawn is not in this category, despite the general feeling of "newness". Having an established staff, facility and a complete understanding of all facets of the series (sporting, technical, commercial, political etc.) means they are at least on the level of Force India, as opposed to, say, Stupid Aguri.

Button for champ? Not likely. But Brawn being the laughing stock of the paddock again? Also not likely. And who doesn't love an underdog?

Daytona again

2009-03-05T14:09:00.001-08:00

Weren't we just here? For some stock car race that I half care about? And before that, some sportscar race that I kind of take an interest in? Well, now it's a motorcycle race that is vaguely interesting. Every year the Daytona 200 should kick ass, and every year it kind of doesn't.

This time out we won't even have the benefit of live TV to analyze the kick-assed-ness of the whole thing, or lack thereof, as Speed Channel are moving to a tape-delayed "primetime special" format, whatever that is. Maybe it will be as lame as Pinks or one of the other shows I don't watch.

...tangent alert...

What DO I watch on Speed Channel these days? Not Dakar (because Versus have that, and even then I download the Eurosport coverage). Not the Daytona 24 Hours (because I was at a track day). Not World Superbike (tape delayed race two AGAIN, so Eurosport provided visuals). Not WRC (guess what, yes, Eurosport and Bit Torrent to the rescue again, same for the Monte Carlo Rally).

I'm paying $5 per month extra for this. And it's on my HD package now, so I'm clearly an idiot, on many levels.

...done...

Anyway, once again, the AMA has managed to split up the talent, with Suzuki vs. Yamaha vs. Ducati in the big-bike class and Yamaha vs. Kawasaki vs. Honda in the 600 class. Damn you all AGAIN. The one bright spot is that the gap that used to exist between the Suzukis and the 3rd place bike now seems to cover the top 10. So perhaps the racing will be good. Shame we'll have to wait two weeks to see it.

In the meantime, Eurosport will be on hand this weekend to show World Touring Cars and Intercontinental Rally Challenge and my laptop will be on hand to download it.

Not a good start

2009-03-03T15:14:00.001-08:00

Aston Martin's attempt at overall victory at Le Mans reminds me of the first few lines from the first song of Tenacious D's debut album: "I don't like that - so far, off to a bad start."

The car has yet to even run and Aston Martin Racing and their technical partners Lola are already squabbling over who has put the most amount of work into the car. Aston are trying to make out that the car is almost completely changed from its humble Lola tub origins, whilst Lola claim that Aston couldn't afford to buy the IP rights to call it anything that didn't include the Lola name, and that their statements otherwise are not in the spirit of their contract.

Last time I checked, this was not the kind of preparation Audi went through for Le Mans. Or Peugeot. Or even Pescarolo. Don't you think that there are more important things to focus on than whether it's a Lola, an Aston, a Lola-Aston or an Aston-Lola? Like beating the unbeatable VW group at La Sarthe in June?

Take that, Europe

2009-03-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

"BOOM!!!"

That's the sound of an American bombshell dropping into the predominantly European World Superbike paddock. Anyone need a quick reminder about who invented Superbike racing...?

Okay, I admit that I'm English, but I'm never going back and the USA is my home, so I'm just going to go ahead and be pleased for Ben Elbowz Spies.

Not convinced he can do well yet? Dare I throw out the names Merkel, Polen, Russell, Kocinski and Edwards? I do dare.

What a pair of races that was. Elbowz, the Sultan of Slide, the Pocket Rocket, Baldy Laconi, Jakub (can I buy a vowel?) Smrz and Fabrizio all looked rather great. Corser, Xaus, Sykes, Kiyonari, Nakano, Byrne and Checa looked a bit rubbish. Biaggi, Neukirchner, Kagayama and Rea ran hot and cold. The season continues to look ace.

And riddle me this: you have two smaller European manufacturers coming into the series after either a long break or for the first time, with brand new, never-raced bikes and they show rather well. Then you have Kawasaki, who have been in WSBK for years, who might have been better off providing their riders with scooters. What the hell is going on?

Team Green, you are the laughing stock of the bike racing world. Even when you try to quit a series you can't do that properly. You suck.

It's back

2009-02-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

What is back? I was going to say World Superbike, but my plans are that this blog is also back. Inspired by my good buddy John Dagys' new blog, I'm going to try to get this one up and running again.

To be honest, it's been hard to be as excited about motorsport lately, with the global economic downturn claiming such racing victims as Subaru and Suzuki in the WRC, Kawasaki in MotoGP, Honda in F1 and the AMA, and Audi in the ALMS. But now that the season is getting underway, it's a good reminder that racing will always be there, and that these contractions can be a good thing, forcing the sport to think more carefully about how it goes about it's business.

So here's what I'm finding exciting at the moment:

World Superbike - Having just watched the new Superpole qualifying format, along with the bevy of superstar riders and deep field of factory teams, I just can't wait for the first races tomorrow. And to have an American rookie on pole makes it even better...
The Intercontinental Rally Challenge - Although it may not be the future of rallying, it's proving some important things that the WRC is simply going to have to pay attention to. Cheaper cars? Check. Simpler gearboxes? Check. Incentive for manufacturers to join in? Check. A kickass TV package with lots of helicopter and in-car footage? Check.
Formula 1 - Everything points to an exciting season this year. It couldn't get much more exciting than the finale last year, but we may be looking at more than two people battling for the championship. Plus F1 races make my mate Dave want to have friends around and enjoy his superb BBQ, so I'm not arguing!
Le Mans - 26 P1 entries. 26!!! Nine of the them from factory programs! Three of those from Aston Martin! Ridiculously good.
All my favourite races: the TT, Sebring, Bathurst, Petit Le Mans, Nurburgring 24, MotoGP at Laguna Seca, Baja 1000 and of course Le Mans. These things are always great, regardless of the economy or quality of entry.

Damn, I love motorsport.

Here we go again

2008-09-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Time to finally break radio silence, and what a way to do it: a rant about this whole AMA situation.

For those unfamiliar with the situation, the AMA Superbike championship has been the top US motorcycle racing series for many years, featuring the participation of all four Japanese manufacturers. However, it's had its problems:

A confusing set of rules which have changed a number of times and overlapping classes have caused a lack of continuity. Although the class structure appears to be kind of similar to the World and British championships with 1000cc Superbikes, 1000cc Superstock machines and 600cc Supersport bikes, the reality is very different. Superbike rules allow for a level of sophistication similar to that found in WSBK. This effectively shuts out privateers from winning, even a very well-funded satellite team like Jordan Suzuki. As such, they go play in Superstock, which features slick tyres, and then bring those Superstock bikes into the Superbike race, effectively forming a class within a class, a kind of "best of the rest" deal. Furthermore, there's a fourth class called Formula Xtreme, which is kind of a 600cc Superbike: much more leeway for modification and innovation. Once again you have the same problem, a couple of heavyweight manufacturer teams thrashing the pants of Supersport riders looking for extra track time.
The racing is DULL, DULL, DULL. For some reason, Suzuki have been dominant for years. In fact, in the last two seasons a non-Suzuki has only won ONE race of the 38 run. The pattern is always the same: the two Suzukis roar out front pull miles ahead and may or may not fight it out amongst themselves. Meanwhile the other manufacturers have a second battle (along with one or two satellite bikes) whilst the true privateers wander around on their Superstock bikes waiting to get lapped.

Clearly change was needed, and when the AMA sold the series to the NASCAR-affiliated Daytona Motorsports Group, change was coming. However, DMG came up with a wacky class structure that seemed to elevate the Formula Xtreme-ish 600 Superbike class to the level of headliner, with a lame-duck 1000cc Superstock-type class called Literbike playing second fiddle. The manufacturers, who may have been okay with some levelling of the playing field and adoption of BSB-style Superbike rules (which are more like Superstock and allow for closer competition), were furious. They needed the premier class to be 1000cc, and I have to agree with them there. It didn't work very well when the Daytona 200 switched to Formula Xtreme, so the lesson should have been learnt.

The damage was done. No amount of backpedaling could fix it and conciliatory gestures by DMG such as "local variance" rules couldn't divert the manufacturers from their chosen course of action, establishment of a rival series, called the US Superbike Championship. DMG fucked up. Their attempt to tighten up the racing by removing technology and power from the manufacturers was worthy, but they seemed to forget that no matter what happens, the Big Four had to be involved, because even though they cause poor racing, they bring money, prestige, cool bikes and the best riders with them.

The split is bad news, there's no doubt about it, and even though USSB is saying it's not like the CART/IRL split, the effects will be the same. Everyone will have to pick a side: mechanics, riders, teams, promoters, media, TV networks, and, worst of all, fans. I can see some privateers sticking with DMG, safe in the knowledge that with the factories gone they have a chance at being AMA Superbike champion. Riders like Chris Perez, Martin Cardenas, Scott Jensen, Tony Meiring and Ben Thompson all now have a legit shot at the title. I'd guess that most satellite teams e.g. those that aren't factories but that bring the big trucks like Corona Honda, Jordan Suzuki, Hotbodies Racing and Rockwall Honda will go to USSB. Teams that have done well in Formula Xtreme may stick with DMG, such as Boulder Motorsports and Pegram Racing, both of which run Ducatis. True privateers may end up cherrypicking the best races from either series.

I can't imagine what will happen next. One thing is for sure: we're doomed to sit through another season of desperately boring American Superbike racing, regardless of whose name sits at the top of the program.

Update

2008-08-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

As you can tell, this blog has been very quiet lately. A combination of factors, including other things that are demanding much of my attention and brainpower, as well as a general lack of inspiration to write are to blame. The midseason also tends to be less contentious than the start, end and period between racing seasons, and blogs thrive on contention.

I'll return to the blog once those factors cease to be factors. Until then, enjoy your summer (or winter if you're in the southern hemisphere...)

Beard

2008-07-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

An extremely important topic is under discussion today on the Midweek Motorsport podcast: have there ever been any major motorsport champions who had beards at the time of achieving their championships?

It appears that the answer is no, making me wonder whether having extensive sideburns is causing me to be slower at trackdays than I otherwise would be.

The Onion meets Jalopnik

2008-07-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

How the fuck did I miss this? From the depraved mind of Evo columnist and Top Gear script editor Richard Porter, Sniff Petrol is like The Onion for the automotive world. I've already wasted many minutes this afternoon trying to catch up. One of my favourite features is David "Crazy D" Coulthard's column in which he's talking like Ali G. Check it yo...

The annual US MotoGP review post

2008-07-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

Since 2001 I haven't missed Laguna Seca's July motorcycle race weekend, with four years of World Superbike followed by 4 years of MotoGP. The transition from WSBK to MotoGP in 2005 was a tough one. On the one hand we were totally excited to see those amazing bikes and to have the biggest bike racing series there is in town. On the other hand we were shocked at the mind-numbing price gouging both in Monterey and at the track. The massive crowds only added to the misery making getting in and out of the track difficult, as well as getting around once there. Nicky Hayden's debut win helped make up for much of the negatives but I couldn't shake the feeling that something had been lost

The following year promised much but delivered little. Hayden won again, but it was less exciting, whilst the brain-frying 110 degree heat, coupled with a disastrous shuttle bus system for people who came in cars made for what was basically a shitty day. We had even foregone the usual plan of going for two days and staying in Monterey, gunshy of the hotel prices.

In 2007 we skipped the shuttle bus drama by riding in, although it turned out that they'd figured out the buses by then. It was this year that it seemed like Laguna Seca had finally gotten the hang of things, and the only major disappointment was the race, which turned out to be rather tedious.

This year again promised a dull race set against a backdrop of a well-run and easy-to-attend event. Anyone who watched the race knows that we were wrong on the first assumption, and I'm happy to say we were right about the second one. For the fourth year in a row we chose a different transportation option, going with the expensive (but worth it) VIP car parking pass. Getting in and out of the track was a breeze, and we were able to offset the cost of the pass by bringing our own food and beer, which wouldn't have been possible if we'd ridden or parked offsite and taken the shuttle.

Attendance was slightly down this year. In 2005 all 54,000 tickets sold out. For '06 the total available fell to 48,000, once again sold out, a feat repeated in 2007. This year there were 1,000 tickets left on the table - not bad at all. It felt busy, but it felt nice (see pic of me enjoying a drink above turn two!) and I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed the day, so much so that I might consider returning to the two-day plan for 2009.

And what about that race? Valentino Rossi proved once again why he is the greatest rider of his generation and perhaps the greatest ever, and Casey Stoner showed an almost Gibernau-ish indignance after being beaten fair and square by the Italian. It was certainly popular with the crowd... check out this shot of their reaction as he crossed the finish line to take the win:

A racing companion

2008-07-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

For most people (particularly men) who follow motorsport, it's a lonely pursuit. Unless they have equally enthusiastic friends who are into the sport, they're forced to find internet forums where they can have rewarding, meaningful discussions and engage in discourse about their hobby. I can imagine this could get frustrating.

Luckily for me, that's not the case. When I first met my partner K nine years ago, there was little indication that she had any interest in any sport, never mind motor racing. She didn't even have a TV, let alone cable and she'd never seen the Speedvision channel. A typical situation could have developed where one partner learns to tolerate the interests of another, but in this case something strange happened.

Straight off the bat, she developed a fondness for my cranky but lovable Alfa Romeo Milano. This was a good start. Then she began to come to races, beginning with a trip to the Wine Country Classic historic races at Sears Point. That weekend was brutally hot and could so easily have turned her off racing forever. It didn't, perhaps because historic racing presents such a friendly, low-key environment or maybe because she was able to witness first-hand my enthusiasm.

When I bought a motorcycle she was envious, having had a certain amount of experience in hanging out with the messenger biking crowd here in SF, as well as having learned to ride many years ago. It wasn't long before she was also on two wheels again. As my interest in motorcycles grew, so did my interest in motorcycle racing, so she was able to share in the process of learning about this new side of the sport.

It wasn't too hard a sell in 2002 when we went to Italy for three weeks to convince her that we needed a night in Milan (to ensure a visit to the Alfa Romeo museum the next day) and a night in Modena so we had time to visit Ferrari. She loved the Alfa facility (which felt more like a private collection) but was less excited about Ferrari, which was more of tourist trap.

Back in the US my interest in rallying began to increase, and before long I'd had a chance to go to the WRC event in Sweden which convinced me to learn how to co-drive. My first event saw K come along to work as a timing marshal. Despite the fact she stood on the side of a mountain in pouring rain for hours on end she continued to enjoy rallying. It was at this point that she revealed her mother had been a co-driver many years back. Aha! So it's in the genes! Now everything started to make sense....

Late in 2003 we both went to the WRC event in Wales. This was surely going to be the make-or-break moment. As we stood in freezing fog on the Rhondda stage on Sunday morning, with her favourite driver Carlos Sainz out of the rally two days prior, could she still muster excitement and enthusiasm? The answer came from behind a tightly-drawn hooded rain jacket... "yes!"

Pretty soon she was joining the annual pilgrimage to the July bike race at Laguna Seca, initially World Superbike, then MotoGP for the last four years, each year educating whichever newcomers had joined us that year.

It was only a matter of time before she came with me on the ultimate racing trip... a visit to the Le Mans 24 Hours. Sadly, the gods decided that since she was clearly able to cope with wet motorsport events, it would rain like the devil on Le Mans in 2007. Once again she kept her chin up, and was rewarded with a great time and apart from the first and last couple of hours, a dry race (and a dry pitwalk on the Friday, evidenced in the picture below). It was quite a step up from our annual Le Mans weekend barbecues back in San Francisco which she'd taken to leading the arrangement of.

She was even brave enough to come to see NASCAR this year. She got a very good look at Michael Waltrip:

So, where to next for my racing partner-in-crime? Well, after we take the plunge of actually becoming married, she can look forward to a little high-speed action herself, perhaps beginning with an autocross and then moving to some track days, now that we have a car worthy of such pursuits. If past experience is anything to go by, I should be ready to start buying tyres on a regular basis, as she proceeds to become equally excited by engaging in some on-track fun as I have been.

Audi, building their brand

2008-07-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

Last week I took part in something called the Audi Driving Experience. This was a totally free event up at Sears Point. Let me say right off that this was a clear attempt to sell some 2009 Audi A4s, but beyond that it was clearly much more, and hints at the very clever approach that Audi have in regards to building their brand.

The day began with complimentary breakfast in the main area of their purpose-built Audi Experience complex at Sears Point. We were split into two groups and each went to a classroom for a briefing on what to expect and a quick overview of the new A4. We were told that we would be "test drivers" of the new A4, a car that many car magazines have yet to drive.

Next up was an autocross. We paired up with another attendee and each of us got one lap of the course in each of four cars: a Mercedes C300, Lexus IS250F, BMW 328xi and the A4 3.2 Quattro. All four cars were four-wheel-drive, with similar engine sizes and spec levels. To be fair, the Audi was the spendiest at an MSRP of $48,000 compared with the $38k Lexus, the cheapest. Chris, my partner for the morning and I chose well by starting with the Merc before progressing to the Lexus, then Beemer then Audi. Funnily enough, that was also the ascending order of perfomance, and Audi clearly did a good job of proving that the A4 is the best. Despite its horsepower advantage over its rivals, I found that the Quattro system was the best of the 4WD drivetrains, with no annoying chatter of the outside rear wheel under hard acceleration out of corners, something that the Merc and Lexus were especially guilty of.

A couple of things to note here. Firstly the two guys running the autocross course were familiar to me: former Mitsubishi USA factory rally driver Lauchlin O'Sullivan, who lives here in San Francisco and who I know pretty well; and Ramana Lagemann, former Subaru USA factory rally driver. Secondly, it was a great reminder of just how much fun an autocross is. Both Chris and I were not afraid to really cane the nuts off the cars. Other participants were a bit more timid. I came away resolute to get my Subaru STi to an autocross soon. It will also be an ideal introduction into performance driving for my fiancee K, who is itching to get the Scoob onto a track day soon.

After the autocross it was over to the pitlane, where we set up in some more A4s. More rally drivers were in attendance here including a former Production-GT class rival, Stephan Verdier. We were led onto the track by an instructor in a TT and each got five or so laps, with the instructor leading us around by means of example and through walkie-talkies installed in each car. It worked very well and I thoroughly enjoyed my laps. The A4 was a decent car to have beneath me too: predictable, with decent grunt and a nicely setup chassis that was soft enough for road conditions but stiff enough for a few harmless laps of Sears.

What became obvious throughout the morning was that Audi are one of the most brand-aware car manufacturers out there. They know that BMW owns the "best German sport-sedan" title in the minds of the public and their inferiority complex has led them to put a lot of dollars into efforts to prove themselves sportier. This is why it's Audi who have the last eight Le Mans wins (yes, 2003 was a Bentley-badged Audi) and why they spend millions of dollars every year on initiatives like the A4 Driving Experience. I think it works. If someone were to ask me what the sportiest German car manufacturer is, ten years ago there's no doubt that BMW would be the answer. These days I'd probably be just as likely to say Audi. If I was offered either a BMW M3 or an Audi RS4, I'd probably take the Audi. It would be a tossup between an RS6 and an M5, but the fact that a car like that can come close to the amazing M5 says loads. It was an S4 that was so very nearly my next car back in March, not an M3. And BMW's reticence to leverage their F1 efforts, still hiding behind the "Sauber" moniker whilst Audi are loud and proud about their dominance at Le Mans, is helping tip the scales Audi's way too.

I've always imagined my next car would be an Audi S-something. Their investment in brand-building through sportscar racing, along with giving me the keys to a new A4 for the morning have done nothing to undermine that prediction, that's for sure.

Been kinda quiet...

2008-07-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true, I've been very neglectful of this blog for the past couple of weeks but I've compiled a decent list of excuses to justify my lax approach:

I got engaged to my longtime (9 years) partner K. Despite the fact that being so very anti-wedding we've decided to do a low-key thing at City Hall, we still wanted a party. So instead of a stuffy, expensive wedding reception, we're throwing an engagement party at the end of August. This is taking a little bit of planning to put together, so I've had slightly less spare time than usual. Look for a blog post very soon that will talk about how K is everything a male racing fan could ask for in a wife...
There's a term in baseball, "the dog days of summer", which refers to that period which exists after the excitement of the early stages of the season and before interest rises towards the end of the season. This coincides with the end of summer, when the days are long, hot and (since most baseball stadiums are in cities) muggy, sticky, hazy with pollution and generally unpleasant. I find the middle of the racing season shares some similar characteristics. All of the pre-season questions have been answered, any surprises that might be thrown up have done so, and we're still a long way from the end so we're not quite at the "nail-biting tension" phase. As a result, finding something interesting to write about is more difficult, and I'd rather not write than write drivel.
WRC is on a break and MotoGP is about to do the same.
Let's face it, in the summer the last thing you want to be doing is sitting inside working on a laptop (unless you're in windy and cold San Francisco like me, in which case, sometimes you do, such as right now!)

How does all that sound? Convincing enough?

Watch out

2008-07-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Timekeeping has always been an integral part of motorsport, and as I've become more interested in watches lately I've become much more aware of how closely linked the two industries are. These relationships seem to always be win-win: watch manufacturers gain credibility by associating themselves with the glamorous, sporty and hi-tech image of motorsport; and racing series, teams and drivers gain credibility by associating with the precision craftsmanship and luxury image of high-end timepieces. Just flick through the pages of British motoring magazines to see what I mean - ads all over the place for TAG-Heuer, Oris, Chopard, Breitling and more. Often you find watch reviews in their editorial too. In fact, American weekly rag Autoweek ran a feature on auto-inspired watches last month.

So where can we find these relationships? Generally in three areas: "official timekeeper" roles, sponsorship and endorsements and naming rights.

Official timekeeping deals are usually done with a race or with a racing series. In exchange for providing hardware and manpower to help run timing and scoring, a watch manufacturer sees their name notated on every timing caption on TV. In addition they often get to use the name and branding of the series on their products. Back in the 80s I can clearly remember seeing the Longines name during every Formula 1 broadcast before it was replaced by TAG-Heuer. Another big timekeeping deal right now is MotoGP's association with Tissot, which has spawned a MotoGP watch. The blingiest of all the Swiss watches, Rolex, is official timekeeper at Le Mans, as evidenced by the big Rolex clock hanging above the pitlane entry.

Watch manufacturers have long had a sponsorship presence in motorsport. What caught my eye most recently was Oris' name on Williams F1 cars. The deal with Williams has resulted in a lovely range of WilliamsF1 watches too. Breitling, best known for their aviation-inspired chronometer watches, were all over the Bentley Le Mans efforts in 2001, '02 and '03. A spin-off watch range resulted (a bit gaudy for my taste, I have to admit). Sponsorships do not just come from high-end luxury Swiss manufacturers: mid-range Italian watchmaker Breil sponsor the racing operations of Ducati Corse.

The biggest area of interaction between watchmaking and motorsport is in endorsements and naming rights. There's a myriad of watch collections out there with famous racing names on them, from the Chopard Mille Miglia to the TAG-Heuer SLR to the Panerai Ferrari to Jacques Lemans' mid-priced F1 range. Many top racers also lend either their name or image to watches including Nicky Hayden (Tissot), Kimi Raikkonen (TAG-Heuer) and Michael Schumacher (Omega). Even Marcus Gronholm has a watch endorsement, although in his case he's gone for Japanese maker Orient. For a more tenuous racing connection, look no further than Steve McQueen's association with the utterly cool Heuer Monaco, the watch he wore in the movie Le Mans.

The racing / watch dynamic is extremely interesting and really comes with only one downside... cost. Most of the watches I mention above cost at least $1500 and can run up to $6000 in some cases. Ever wondered why there's so many emails in your junk mail folder with the subject line "Replica Watches" or something similar....?

NASCAR first-timer's report

2008-06-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

I popped my NASCAR cherry last weekend, by going up to Infineon not just once, but twice.

Saturday morning I went up with a friend who does some design work for one of the drivers and had managed to snag us a couple of credentials. Having free entry makes it so much easier to leave early and not feel weird about it which was exactly our plan. Being on motorcycles alos made things easier since we could enter the main gate and park right next to the paddock (good tip if you're ever planning on going to Infineon).

When we arrived we immediately got a close-up of the cars at pit-in, where the entrance to the paddock was. They looked very, very big, projecting an impressive physical presence thanks to the brightly coloured liveries. Unfortunately, our supposed "all access" passes were no good whilst the Sprint Cup cars were on track. We'd have to wait until noon, when they were done, to get into the paddock area. In the meantime we took a stroll around the vendor area and then sat in the grandstands to watch practice and happy hour. It was pretty cool stuff, the cars seeming to be reaching high speeds in spite of themselves. One particular view, of the middle of the esses complex, had the cars loading up their left side over a small crest, the weight visibly shifting. The noise was also pretty spectacular, reminiscent of Australian V8 Supercars. Speaking of which, former Aussie V8 champ Marcos Ambrose was making his first Sprint Cup start, and had qualified an impressive 8th alongside fellow former road racer Robby Gordon. The field was actually very well stocked with road course veterans, including Scott Pruett, Max Papis, Ron Fellows and Boris Said.

Once the cars were finished with their sessions we were allowed into the Sprint Cup paddock area. I have never in all my life seen so many semi tractor-trailers lined up like that. It was pretty interesting. The cars themselves were mainly in the garages, although I did get a nice close-up look at Michael Waltrip's "Toyota". The quality of the construction and preparation of the cars was very high despite their relatively low-tech nature.

And that was that for Saturday.

Sunday was going to be different, mainly due to the massive amounts of people going. Once again we took the bikes and once again got parked pretty close to the track, with no major traffic issue going in. Our pit walk passes were great, allowing us to get close to virtually all the cars, as well as view the track from the hot pit area.

After a stroll around the merchandise area (impressive but nothing like the massive merch presence at Bathurst) we grabbed some lunch and headed for our seats at turn two. The pre-race was a bit of a drawn out affair but allowed everyone a chance to cheers for / boo their favorite / least favorite driver, which was good fun. Finally the race got underway, as 43 cars charged through the corner in front of us, amazingly without incident. It was quite a sight but (sorry for constant comparison to Bathurst, can't help it) nothing like as cool as a field of V8 Supercars.

The race unfolded in a sort of endurance-race fashion, as I found myself watching gaps and tracking strategy. The details of the race can be found elsewhere on the web but no-one will have a picture of this guy, the archetypal Dale Jr. fan, who raised his fist in support every time Jr. went by:

When all was said and done, we watched a pretty entertaining race, marred by too many late-race cautions, in which none of the road course specialists did well. It was a good day's racing though, made better by a painless exit from the track. Infineon clearly know how to handle traffic. Take that Laguna!

Carolla talks Top Gear USA

2008-06-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

Popular Mechanics has the first major interview with Top Gear USA Clarkson-alike Adam Carolla on its website. In it Carolla debunks the myth that he'll have to be nice to cars from companies who advertise on the network, and mentions a few cars he'd like to drive on the show. An interesting read for sure, especially for those of us in the USA and/or fans of the snarky radio host.

Street racing

2008-06-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'm reading a fascinating book right now called "The Driver". It's written by Alex Roy, a guy who became famous for setting the fastest time ever to complete the Cannonball Run, the drive from New York to Los Angeles. There's plenty of info about the origins of the Cannonball (and its successor, the US Express) here, but Roy did it independently of any organized event.

What's fascinating for me is what drives Roy. His book, which is very well written, captures the feelings of winning on four wheels that every racing driver strives for. The only difference here is that Roy does his racing on public roads. "That's terrible" you say. "He's putting the lives of innocent people in jeapordy!" True, but Roy's approach is exactly the same as any racing team: obsessive, over-the-top preparation, the spending of large amounts of money in an attempt to improve the chances of victory and a single-minded focus that seeks to eradicate any random factor that could disrupt his racing. To that end, you get the impression that his driving is probably significantly safer than the bulk of people he shares the Interstate highways with.

This is no mindless punk doing 100mph on a busy city street at 1am and mowing down pedestrians as they emerge from a local bar or taqueria. This is a man who compiles stacks of data detailing average speeds, expected weather, probabilities of detection and other pertinent info in an attempt to outwit The Man, Mother Nature and other monolithic opponents.

The outright Cannonball record was set in 1983, long after Brock Yates shut the race down, at a remarkable 32 hours and 7 minutes. That equates to 89mph average for the entire run, including periods where the car sits at 0mph getting filled with gas. As you can imagine, the real required speed is significantly higher. Factor in at least two rush hours and the potential for inclement weather and unexpected construction and it's unsurprising to find out that you simply must do sustained triple-digit speeds for much of the journey. Roy did just that, along with his like-minded co-driver Dave Maher. They managed to beat the record by more than an hour in their highly-modified E39 BMW M5. Their effort was captured in a soon-to-be-released movie called "32 Hours 7 Minutes".

So let me pose this question: is this racing? Is it any less racing than a World Rally? Some might say it bears more in common with the WRC of the 70s and early 80s than current WRC events do. I just watched coverage of the 1985 Lombard RAC Rally, the British round of the WRC that year. Teams were subjected to a huge mental strain, racing for countless hours every day for 5 days in a row. This is not something Sebastien Loeb has ever dealt with. Alex Roy, on the other hand, has.

The concept of vehicles at speed on public roads is something I find quite fascinating and I'm not quite sure why. It's slightly disturbing! I'm clearly not alone though - look at the legions of followers of real road racing (such as the Isle of Man TT), or all those who compete on events like the Silver State Classic, or anyone who has ever downloaded footage of the legendary Black Prince circumnavigating Paris' Peripherique in 20 minutes...

Becoming NASCAR Nation

2008-06-20T06:44:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's true: I get to go to my first NASCAR race this weekend. I'll admit it's not a real NASCAR race since it features that very strange animal, a right-hand corner. Still, NASCAR put it on the Sprint Cup schedule so the drivers' loss is my gain...

What can I expect? It's hard to say when you're going to NASCAR in wine country. I'm sure there will be plenty of people there who aren't racing fans. Many of NASCAR's newer, bigger sponsors can be found in nearby Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the Bay Area, and this event serves as a big hospitality opportunity for them. I'm sure whatever local redneckery there is in Northern California will also decide to take their cars off the blocks in the front yard and come too. Then there's the gentrified WT crowd - these are the folks who make very good money as contractors or unionized workers and who buy those awful big pink tract homes with fake hacienda roof tiles in Bay Area sprawl communities like Tracy, Gilroy, American Canyon and Rohnert Park and who fill them with toy haulers, GMC Suburbans, dirt bikes and kids, whilst they always make sure to vote republican and make fun of San Francisco. I'm guessing that will be the bulk of the crowd since I see so goddamn many of these people as I travel around here.

So, a little like Bathurst then...

The similarities to Mount Panorama's "Great Race" may not stop there. We're dealing with an event of massive magnitude, the biggest sporting event west of the Rockies in fact, at a race track that dances up and down a hillside to the tune of a massive field of entries. The cars are not dissimilar either: pushrod V8s powering sedan-like chassis that bear little to no resemblance mechanically to the cars they're supposed to be based on. To be fair, NASCAR is much worse in this regard - at least V8 Supercars must start with a stock shell and chassis.

Like Bathurst, the race often turns on strategy. It's about 3 laps short of being a two-stop race, but the certainty of cautions opens the door to various strategies since gaining track position at Sears Point is so much harder than at most ovals.

I also expect outrageous traffic headaches going both in and out, so much so that my girlfriend and I are trying to figure out how to take our motorcycles, even though we have a third person coming with us. Traffic in that part of the Bay Area can be ferocious on Sunday afternoons at the best of times, so a little lane-splitting might come in handy.

Expect a full report next week.

Weekend Menu - Week 25

2008-06-20T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing a race this weekend, but more on that later. Here's the menu:

Magny Cours, France: F1, GP2, Porsche Supercup
Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course, OH: Grand Am
Sears Point, CA: NASCAR Sprint Cup
Donington Park, England: MotoGP, 125 / 250cc GP
Milwaukee Mile, WI: NASCAR Nationwide Series and Craftsman Trucks
Iowa Speedway: Indycars, Indy Pro Series
Adria, Italy: FIA GT
Nurburgring, Germany: VLN
Sepang, Malaysia: Japanese SuperGT
Estoril, Portugal: FIM World Endurance
Dungannon, Northern Ireland: Bush Road Races
Trebic, Czech Rep.: Horacka Rally Trebic (European Rally Cup Central)
Sofia, Bulgaria: Victory Rally (European Rally Cup East)
Mooloolaba Beach, Australia: Coates Rally Queensland (Australian Rally Championship)

How to do Le Mans

2008-06-17T12:09:00.001-07:00

We didn't go to Le Mans this year, but here's how we made up for it:

Listened to coverage of qualifying whilst watching the Eurosport live streaming video via a European proxy
Moved the TV to the bedroom so that when we woke up on Saturday morning we just needed to push the power button and we were good to go. Also had the laptop on hand to tune into Radio Le Mans for audio (we muted the Speed Channel coverage) and for live timing and scoring
Had fresh coffee, baguettes and croissants for breakfast, just like we do when we're there
Then we moved the TV and laptop to the kitchen whilst we prepped for the evening's Le Mans party
Taped Andy Blackmore's superb spotters guide to the wall, crossing off retirements as they happened, like you find in the local Le Mans newspapers
Had people show up around 5pm, just before Speed Channel came back on, and made sure to only invite true Le Mans fans. The group this year was great!
Provided French cheese and crackers for appetizers
Drank Kronenbourg 1664 beer and French wine
Cooked roast chicken and tartiflette, grilled fresh, hand-stuffed halal merguez sausage and borrowed my mate Dave's deep fryer to do proper twice-fried French fries. Delicious!
For dessert we had tasty little European confectionaries
We stayed up until 11:30pm Pacific time, got 3 hours sleep (like we do at the track) then got up for the final 3 hours

That's about as authentic as you can get I think. It was a Le Mans to remember.

Someone peed in their pasta

2008-06-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

Remarkable events have unfolded before anyone even turned a wheel in anger at Le Mans.

When the entry list was first published, many people questioned the inclusion an LMP2-spec Lucchini prototype entered by veteran Italian team Racing Box. The chassis was old and slow and other more worthy entries had been denied in order to allow it entry.

Part of the paperwork requirements at Le Mans is a certification from a car's manufacturer that the entry is as originally homologated, and if any changes have been made by the team that they haven't compromised the integrity of the tub.

Racing Box asked for this paperwork from Lucchini prior to the LMS race at Monza and received it, only to make some modifications afterwards (and before the Le Mans test day). When Lucchini heard about the modifications they informed Le Mans organizers, the ACO, that they were withdrawing their certification pending a re-inspection of the car. The ACO informed Racing Box of this development and the team made hasty arrangements to bring the car to Lucchini. On the day of the meeting, Lucchini's CEO called Racing Box to say he couldn't meet with them due to a bad back. Later that day he called again and said that he would meet with them to certify the car but only if they paid him 28,000 Euro!!! This amounted to extortion and Racing Box immediately called the police who raided Lucchini's premises and caught them trying to destroy documents.

Racing Box still turned up at Le Mans but failed scrutineering due to the missing paperwork. As a result, a second Epsilon Euskadi LMP1 coupe has taken its place with the powerhouse lineup of Stefan Johanssen, Jean-Marc Gounon and Shinji Nakano. Quite why this happened is unclear - we are well past the deadline for reserve entries to take a place, and Epsilon seemed *very* ready for the turn of events. Perhaps the ACO suspected that Racing Box would run into trouble and informed Epsilon that they might be offered another grid place.

There's much to this story that remains a mystery, but for now it's just one more piece of Le Mans' rich and sometimes bizarre history.

BMW: Toyota's worst nightmare

2008-06-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

Back in December 2006, I wrote a post about how Toyota should really be so much better than they are, not just in F1 but in all forms of motorsport. Here we are, 18 months later, and Toyota's generally poor showing in F1 has been brought into stark contrast by the remarkable first win for the BMW F1 team in Canada.

BMW seems almost to be the opposite of the behemoth that is Toyota. Perhaps the most successful "small" independent carmaker, they've made a point of generally kicking tail in every motorsport they've been in. Robert Kubica's win today is simply the latest in a long string of racing successes for the Munich-based manufacturer. Back in 1998 after a failed two-car Le Mans effort they radically revamped their V12LM prototype, realizing that revolution, not evolution was the way to go, and brought in the expertise of the Williams F1 design and engineering departments to help out. Whilst requiring more work, and representing greater risk of failure, it was this move that set the ball rolling for a victory at the Sarthe in 1999.

Since the return of the World Touring Car Championship in 2004, BMW has taken both drivers and manufacturers championships, always in the face of very stiff competition. Between 1973 and 1988 they won seven European Touring Car Championships, and the '88-'91 E30 M3 is often considered the most successful production-based racing car of all time.

When BMW brought their E46 M3 to the American Le Mans Series it was utterly dominant. It's not often that you see Porsche crying foul about another manufacturer cheating, but the success of the M3GTR drove them to such action. The car was swiftly banned for not complying with homologation numbers requirements. Next year sees the return of the M3 to the ALMS. I wonder how it will do? They're also going World Superbike racing in 2009 with a clean-sheet design, no doubt with series designs on the title.

And there's always the small matter of two Nurburgring 24 Hours victories with the aforementioned M3 GTR in 2004 and 2005.

For such a relatively small company, BMW have generally done a splendid job whenever they've gone racing. Toyota on the other hand have nothing but a string of failures to show for the ungodly amounts of money they've spent on their racing activities. The only bright spot in their racing portfolio is recent success in NASCAR, but based on this season's results, much of that is due to a certain Mr. Busch.

World Superbike at Miller, a spectator perspective

2008-06-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

We all know what happened in the races at Miller last weekend, so here's some non-racing observations from my first trip to this new track...

Event management was virtually flawless: Getting in and out of the facility was a piece of cake on all three days. Even on Sunday after the second WSBK race, when everybody left at the same time, it still only took about ten minutes to get out of the parking lot. From the checkered flag until I checked in at the airport took me 50 minutes, including a ten minute walk to my car and a twenty mile drive!

The schedule also ran to the minute - there were no red flags and any on-track incidents were handled quickly and effectively, no small feat given that the 4.5 mile track requires 250 marshals. The large run-off areas no doubt helped in this.

The crowd were great: Check this out from the track's CEO. I'd agree with him. People were courteous, friendly and it seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves. Every rider got a supportive cheer at the end of a race, and the enthusiasm during the press conference after WSBK race 1 was terrific.

The track still lacks soul: The very things that make Miller so great (plenty of space and high degree of safety) also rob it of soul. At the end of the day it's a flat circuit in the middle of a plain and all the runoff means that decent spectating spots are extremely rare. The entry to the Attitudes was pretty good, as was the Witchcraft corner. There's one small part of the straight between Tooele turn and Clubhouse corner that is quite dramatic. The best parts, strangely enough, are the pitlane entry and exit, both of which allow you to get very close to the bikes.

Biggest complaint: concessions: They make a big deal of the six "oasis" areas dotted around the circuit. These feature grass, restrooms and concessions. So I set off to walk the whole damn thing on Friday afternoon, having had some water before I started. Halfway round I was getting thirsty. I had discovered that there were no open concessions at the Tooele turn oasis, so I faced either a long walk back to the Clubhouse corner oasis or I could push on to the oasis at the southwest corner. I did the latter. When I got there, there was nothing - no food, no drink, nothing. I checked my map and found that there wasn't supposed to be anything there. My fault, but had the the cafe at Tooele turn been open I wouldn't find myself miles from water. Now I had to choose whether to wait for one of the very occasional shuttles, or continue walking back around to the cafe at Sunset corner. Since there was no sign of a shuttle I kept walking. By the time I got to Sunset I was utterly dehydrated.

The food and drink vendors that were there were not bad. The permanent cafes offered some decent platters with rice, beans and salad along with the tri-tip steak, whilst there was always a Mexican food vendor on hand. The shortage of vendors in general was brought sharply into focus on Sunday lunchtime - the lines were LOOOOOOONG.

Thanks for the pitwalk: Three times on Friday and twice on Saturday and Sunday the World Superbike pitlane was open for spectators. Not many people took advantage of this because the only place it was written was on a small sign at the east end of the lane. If people spend $15 on a paddock pass, they should be told that the things they want to see most (e.g. WSBK riders and bikes) can be viewed. Most paddock-goers only got to see the back of the garages.

Don't listen to me: I predicted that Ryuichi Kiyonari would do well this weekend. Instead, he sucked, with a poor qualifying position that forced him to battle for mid-pack places in both races. He made solid progress in each but was never in with a shout, unlike his team-mate.

Weekend Menu - Week 22

2008-05-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

I'll be at Miller this weekend, but here's what else is on elsewhere:

Mugello, Italy: MotoGP, FIM 250/125cc
Lamia, Greece: WRC Acropolis Rally
Croft, England: BTCC, Porsche Carrera Cup GB, Formula Renault UK
Pau, France: WTCC, F3 Euroseries
Miller Motorsports Park, UT: World Superbike, AMA Superbike
Ensenada, Mexico: Baja 500 (SCORE)
Milwaukee Mile, WI: Indycar and Indy Pro Series
Dover, DE: NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series and Craftsman Trucks
Valencia, Spain: GP2
Winton, Australia: Australian Superbike
Zolder, Belgium: Belcar
Spa, Belgium: International GT Open
Gellerason, Sweden: Swedish Touring Cars
Estoril, Portugal: Rally Transiberico (FIA Cross Country World Cup)
Hustopece, Czech Rep.: Agrotec Rally (European Rally Cup Central)
Kigali, Rwanda: Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally (FIA African Rally Championship)
Llandrindod Wells, Wales: Severn Valley Rally (MSA Gravel Championship)
Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Rally Hebros (European Rally Cup East)

Miller World Superbike

2008-05-27T11:44:00.001-07:00

My friend Chris and I fly out Friday morning for Salt Lake City, to go see the return of World Superbike to the USA. It should be a terrific weekend. Naturally I've been thinking a lot about what lies ahead and I reckon I've been hit by some divine inspiration about who's going to be a winner there...

Ryuichi Kiyonari.

Think about it: he was nearly a race-winner at Monza, a high-speed track with a long front straight, just like Miller. This time out, he won't be handicapped by being the only guy who hasn't been to the track before. They're ALL rookies this weekend. I think Kiyo's time has come.

Neukirchner's good for another win too, I reckon. That Gixxer is so quick.

Of course I'll be hoping for another Haga win because he's quite simply the coolest rider out there. Check back here next week for a report and some pics.

The Nurburgring 24 Hours

2008-05-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

It's weird to be out of town attending a wedding in Portland and to be listening to the Radio Le Mans coverage of the fabulous Nurburgring 24 Hours and watching streaming video on the event's website. It simply reinforces my opinion that 24 hour races are terrific fun, and if I was ever to return to competitive motorsport it would be with an eye towards taking part in one.

Just like last year's Britcar 24 Hours, this years N24 is stacked with incredible drivers and professional teams. Check it out:

Sportscar drivers: Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, Christophe Bouchut, Marc Basseng, Patrick Simon, Claudia Hurtgen, Tomas Enge, Karl Wendlinger, Dirk Muller, Dominik Schwager, Marino Franchitti, Emanuelle Collard, Richard Westbrook, Boris Said, Adam Sharpe, Vincent Vosse, Peter Dumbreck, Hans Stuck.

Touring car drivers: Tom Coronel, Duncan Huisman, Christian Abt, Stefan Mucke, Frank Stippler, Armin Hahne, Pierre Kaffer, Warren Luff, Frank Jelinski, Bernd Schneider, Jorg Muller, Augusto Farfus, Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

Rally drivers: Carlos Sainz, Giniel De Villiers, Dieter Depping.

Industry figures: Ulrich Bez, Hermann Tilke, Volker Strycek.

Journalists: Richard Meaden, Jethro Bovingdon.

What a lineup! And to think that there's nearly 300 cars out there, sharing pits with 6-8 cars per garage, racing on the mad bad Nordschleife in front of hundreds of thousands of drunk Germans. Fan-frickin-tastic!

Load of Bull

2008-05-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

This may seem a little bit obvious, but Red Bull spend a lot of money on motorsport advertising, sponsorship and promotion.

It hit me this weekend, as everywhere I looked I saw the iconic logo and typeface, whether it was at Sears Point for the AMA Superbike round to reading Racer magazine to watching the WRC on television. So here's my Red Bull sighting list:

Nicky Hayden's helmet in the French round of MotoGP
The Red Bull trials demo behind the grandstand at Sears Point
The crazy huge Red Bull structure in the paddock of Sears Point which was there supporting....
... the Red Bull Rookies Cup
The Citroen WRC cars which were competing on Rally Italia Sardinia, which had a number of stages that featured a...
... Red Bull inflatable banner that went over the stage
Red Bull-specific vending stations at Sears Point
Saturday morning I happened to catch the bizarre NASCAR pitcrew challenge, won by the #83 team, sponsored by.... you guessed it.
Eric Bostrom's helmet in AMA Superbike
I checked the results of the Oregon Trail Rally to find Travis Pastrana had won in his Red Bull-sponsored Subaru
An article on the early arrival of F1's silly season featured a picture of Mark Webber, in his Red Bull-emblazoned racing suit

It's remarkable just how prevalent the Austrian energy drink is in motorsport. Any large-scale investment in the sport has to be considered a good thing, and Red Bull have contributed a huge amount. They've also opened the door to both the creation and promotion of other energy drinks which have chosen to use motorsport as a major marketing channel. Monster, Relentless, and Amp were all evident in motorsport activity over the weekend.

The only concern I have in regards to Red Bull is the massive impact it would have if it were to ever shift its focus elsewhere. I work for a non-profit organization and in this industry it's considered a very bad idea to take too much money from any one source, because the absence of that source would cripple the organization. Something to consider for the US MotoGP events, VW's Dakar outfit, KTM's racing teams, Andreas Aigner's rally team, two teams in F1, the NASCAR Red Bull team.... the list goes on....

On a related note: Red Bull is now legal in France (albeit due to a reformulation of its recipe).

Close finishes

2008-05-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

Followers of World Superbike and World Supersport have had an absolute ball in the last two weeks. If you add up the finishing gaps of the top three riders in World Superbike's two races at Monza, and the top six in the Assen World Supersport race, you'd get a scant 1.165 seconds. That's about the length of time it takes an F1 driver to do a line of coke.

The Assen round of World Supersport was perhaps the closest, craziest bike race I've ever seen. The whole race was like a first lap, with finishing positions very much like what you'd expect to see as the riders come across the stripe for the first time, never mind the 17th....

Yesterday's WSBK round at Monza was another classic, but we've come to expect that from the Italian parkland track. The insane front straight, along with the typically Italian (read chaotic) chicanes make for great overtaking opportunities and we weren't disappointed in either race. What's more, the retirement of Troy Bayliss in race two, along with the superb performances by ice cool German Max Neukirchner and certifiably mental samurai Nori Haga helped make the championship a little less of a one-horse race than it has been so far.

Roll on the next round, which sees WSBK return to the USA, at Utah's Miller Motorsports Park. I'm going to brave that state's bizarre alcohol laws in order to check out this terrific championship. How fucking excited am I....?

Weekend Menu -Week 19

2008-05-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit lax the last two weeks publishing the menu, so here's this week's:

Istanbul, Turkey: F1, Porsche Supercup, GP2
Darlington Raceway, SC: NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series
Monza, Italy: World Superbike and Supersport
Barbagallo, Australia: V8 Supercars
Spa, Belgium: Le Mans Series
Douglas, Isle of Man: Manx Rally
Albacete, Spain: FIM Endurance Championship
Tsukuba, Japan: All-Japan Superbikes
Idrija, Slovenia: Rally Saturnus (European Rally Cup Central)
Palermo, Italy: Targa Florio (European Rally Cup Southwest)
Canberra, Australia: Rally of Canberra
Dijon, France: FFSA GT and Belcar
Kentucky Speedway, KY: ARCA/Remax Series
Algarve, Portugal: Rally of Portugal (IRC)
Mugello, Italy: Italian GT
Nurburgring, Germany: VLN

Irish road racing claims another victim

2008-05-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

The sport of "real road racing" has claimed another victim, with the death of Martin Finnegan this weekend in the Tandragee 100 in Northern Ireland. This genre of motorcycle racing is well-known for its inherent danger thanks to the myriad of deaths at the Isle of Man TT over the years, but the frequent additional tragedies during the rest of the season every year tend to go less noticed. The last three years have seen the deaths of Richard Britton, John Donnan, Darran Lindsey and now Finnegan on the Irish roads, in addition to the more high profile losses at the TT that have included David Jefferies and Jun Maeda. Back in 2000 there were eight deaths in real road racing alone...

I'll never call for the banning of this type of racing, because those who do it know the risks, but almost always the news articles include a statement to the effect of "he leaves behind a wife and a young child". That was certainly the case with Finnegan, Lindsay and Britton. I guess I just wish these guys would transition to circuit racing once they become parents.

An interview with 0-60's editor

2008-04-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I introduced you to 0-60 Magazine. Today, I chat with its editor...

Brian Scotto is the kind of guy you want to hate, given that his day job involves driving and talking about fast cars, but can't because he's such a nice chap. More importantly you're not allowed to because he's one of us. You know how most of the world just nods absent-mindedly and their eyes glass over when you talk excitedly about cars, bikes and/or racing? Don't you long for someone to talk with who actually gives two hoots about the difference between a first-gen and second-gen Lotus Elise or who understands the true importance of the Nordschleife? Scotto is one of those people, and he's transformed that passion about performance vehicles into an exciting new magazine.

Scotto comes from a VW background and in his teens and early twenties this led him to magazines such as Performance VW, European Car and tuner mags like Super Street, but as time went by he took a much broader interest in performance cars in general. It was here that he ran into problems. "None of what you call the 'buff books' here in the States really did it for me", he says. "I just didn't connect to Car & Driver even though I heard the legend of how awesome it was in the 70s." Salvation came when he discovered British imports: "Magazines like Car, Evo and Top Gear returned my interest in car mags, which in turn got me thinking about why we can't do an American magazine like this. After all, the Brit magazines are expensive and they do a lot of reviews of cars we just won't see in the US."

The plan for 0-60 started to form thee years ago, by which time Brian had three years of print journalism under his belt. He had firm ideas of how it should look: "We wanted something more exciting than other American magazines, something that focused on good storytelling and good photography and something that wasn't as concerned with the numbers, which is ironic since although we ended up calling it 0-60 we rarely use performance figures!"

There was an additional element that he wanted however. "A lot of us grew up modifying cars" he says, clarifying that "we might not all mod to the same level but we all speak that language. That's not something you see in the buff books. They're all about OEM, and the manufacturers themselves look at aftermarket as a different world. But look at Subaru - you can buy half their aftermarket parts over the counter. I have friends in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and the first thing they do when they buy a car is upgrade the suspension. So we're trying to blend that aftermarket feel and tie it in with OEM, so we're not Super Street mag, but we're also not Car & Driver."

The results are obvious, and Scotto and his team aren't afraid to make sacrifices in the name of quality. "There's been features that have come back with average photography and we've had to kill the story - we have a certain level of quality that we try to maintain" he says. "You've gotta make sure you have the best photos and that you use the best paper and we put a lot of attention on things like that."

Something I was eager to get Brian's take on was how he feels about the role of print media in a world dominated by the internet, and it was clear it's a subject he's thought about in depth: "Take the last two years, with sites like Jalopnik, you can get news way quicker than you ever can with a magazine, but if you look at the front of Motor Trend or Road & Track, they still spend a lot of time on news. It works for them, but because our readers are so much more focused than the average buff book reader, they've read it all before. And because we're a quarterly it's even less appropriate. This meant that we had to focus on storytelling. The article on driving the STI to the Arctic was 4100 words - there's no way you'd have read that on the internet, it gets a little tiring reading that much on the screen. So we realized that print media needed to be rethought, and to complement what you can get from the internet. We really just want to write great stories, like the Arctic feature, where you don't just report, you actually create the story. Funnily enough, that came out of Christian [Edstrom, Rally America co-driver champion who works as a copy editor on the magazine] and I watching Ice Road Truckers, and I said that we should go there and Christian said 'I fucking dare you', so next thing I know I'm on the phone with Subaru and we're looking at the date the road freezes, and we left the day after Christmas."

By now you're probably wondering what an interview like this is doing on a racing blog, but from reading the mag I was pretty sure that these guys would be mad racing enthusiasts. Turns out I was right. "In the first issue we did a feature on the Nurburgring 24 Hours" he began. "We stayed up for the whole thing and just soaked up the atmosphere. Then we headed up to Scotland and met up with Colin McRae before going down to France the next weekend for the Le Mans 24 Hours. So when we got back we had one month to print and we had to decide how to cover all this stuff. We could have gone the way of reporting about what happened, who won, that kind of thing, but anyone who really cares about the race will already know all that. So we took a different approach and asked ourselves about the culture behind the event. People build these massive viewing platforms and barbecue and bring their families, so we tried to capture the essence of what goes on, the things you don't normally see or hear about. We're not trying to compete with Racer or F1 magazine. This is us taking motorsports from a more lifestyle point of view."

They kept up the motorsport focus for issue two, when 0-60 looked at what makes the Mitsubishi Evo so special. Scotto notes that "we talked to all the people involved like Tommi Makinen and Ralliart's Andrew Cohen, and we also looked at the 1995 Safari Rally, which was the event that really put the Evo on the map. So we just tried to take a different look at it than a simple test drive."

Brian's words rang very true with me when he said "all of us are into motorsport here and in a way that's not limited to just following the results. Some people follow motorsport like kids in the States follow baseball, they know all the stats and details, but I think I think we realize that motorsport is the reason why we all get cool cars." Covering motorsport has not been easy for them however and Scotto and his team have had to constantly justify racing content to their publishers. "They ask us why there's so much racing in here and ask if this is a racing magazine. I try to tell them that I don't see racing as something separate from fast cars, it's part of everything we do and it's what makes all the great cars." It was great to hear Brian say "we try to remove all the politics from racing and focus on the bare essence of racing and what makes it awesome." Wise words Mr. Scotto...

So, what does the future hold for Brian and his band of petrolheads? The good news is that they'll be increasing the frequency of publication, moving to a bi-monthly or 8-per-year format. It's something he's looking forward to: "It's tough to work on a quarterly where if something doesn't work out it's dead, as opposed to changing things around and using it in the next issue like you would on a monthly. It also means that there's a greater chance that what you do won't get old on the news-stand." That very problem hit home for 0-60 after their very first issue, which featured an article about Colin McRae. Scotto had visited the ex-WRC driver, taken a ride in the infamous helicopter and spent a terrific evening listening to the Scot's tales of the WRC. The resulting story starts with how the photographer was so nervous to get into a heli with McCrash, and the photo that goes with it was Colin in his helicopter. It was all in good fun, but one month after the issue hit the streets Colin was killed. It was a tough situation: "Those who knew the issue had been out already saw it as the last ever story on McRae, but others who didn't thought we were just sick. The cover line was 'Crashing at McRae's' because we stayed the night there but the British media were furious because they didn't realize the timeline. It was a dark cloud on the first issue, but looking back now we just think about how special it was that we got to hang out with him."

It's nice to hear the editor of a US-based car magazine talk with such respect and reverence about someone so valued in the world of motorsport, and is further evidence that 0-60 is something that those of us who are in the USA and into racing would want to read religiously. If you need any other reason to dash down to Borders to pick it up, know that their upcoming occasional series of articles on homologation specials (think Porsche 959, Escort Cosworth, M3 etc.) is titled "Omologato Mr. Rubato"! Classic...

0-60, the savior of the US car magazine

2008-04-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

I love Evo magazine. I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again and I don't apologize for it, because it's been my go-to car magazine for years. Its photography and design work, along with the high-quality paper it arrives on make it a pleasant thing to behold, and the journalism contained within is always interesting, irreverent and compelling. Plus they only write about performance cars which, let's face it, is what we all love. After all, who wants to read about the entry-level model in the Chevy Cobalt range?

The main problem with Evo is getting your hands on it. I still haven't figured what time each month to go to Fog City News, our excellent downtown newsagent that carries a myriad of international magazines, to pick it up. On one recent exploratory trip I was searching the stands in vain for Evo, but instead came across a magazine called "0-60". It was as big and glossy as any of the British car magazines but I noticed the word "hoonage" on the cover in reference to an article about the new Subaru STi. I'm pretty sure hoonage is not a term used in England, so I was now very intrigued about this journal. I flicked through the pages and noted similar production values to Evo, but this was clearly coming from the USA. There was an article about driving the new Lexus IS-F from San Francisco to Las Vegas, another about basic mods for a bugeye WRX, the cover story featuring the exact same Nissan GT-R that Evo had driven in their last issue and most fascinating of all, a terrific feature about driving the STi from Seattle up to the Arctic circle on one of Canada's legendary ice roads.

SOLD! I dashed back to office and whiled away the afternoon with actual work awaiting my chance to go home and actually read the magazine. After gobbling up the content from cover to cover, I sent the magazine's editor Brian Scotto an email asking if I could interview him for the blog. He agreed, and earlier this week I gave Brian a call to find out a bit more about the story behind this exciting new addition to the world of automotive media, an interview which I'll post tomorrow...

Shuntorama

2008-04-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

What a weekend for big accidents. We saw two entirely different yet highly disturbing crashes, both of which illustrated the potential danger of the sport, as well as the incredible ability of modern race cars to protect its occupant when things go wrong.

Here's exhibit A. Stephane Ortelli's LMP1 class prototype experienced some kind of mechanical failure during the Monza 1000km and veered abruptly to the right. At this point the aerodynamics, which are designed to prevent a car getting air (like the Mercedes CLRs at Le Mans in '99) took over because the car was sideways, and aero is not designed for sideways travel. The car launched into a massive barrel roll. As with most accidents of this type, they look far worse than they are - the gradual release of energy throughout the crash ensured that Ortelli never experienced life-threatening G-loading. The scariest thing about this one is how close the flying Oreca came to decapitating Allan McNish in the Audi:

Onto Exhibit B. In the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix, McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen also experienced a mechanical failure that forced the car to go somewhere it shouldn't. In his case, the car speared off the track and he made contact with the tyre wall at an angle of about 30 degrees whilst doing 137mph. Unlike Ortelli's crash, Kovalainen DID experience massive G-loads, perhaps equalling Robert Kubica's record-setting 75G load during his accident in Canada last year. It's worth noting that 100G is enough to kill most people. An additional aspect of this shunt that was scary was the fact that the car dived UNDER the tyre barrier, and no matter how low down the driver sits, his head is very much at risk in that kind of situation.

I'm not that surprised that Ortelli was relatively unharmed (save for a broken ankle) but the fact that Kovalainen survived with nothing more than concussion and some bumps and bruises is incredible. I have no doubt that the HANS device played a key role in his survival.

The gains in safety since the Imola '94 have been remarkable and it's weekends like this, where we could easily have been mourning the loss of one, perhaps even two, professional racing drivers, that are testament to the work put in by many on this critical issue.

The value of grassroots

2008-04-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

I attended my first race event of 2008 today, the second round of the AFM season. AFM is the main sanctioning body for motorcycle circuit racing in Northern California, and they race at Infineon (that's Sears Point to most of us), Buttonwillow and Thunderhill. I had a vested interest in going: the guy who I sold my dirtbike to last week was racing, and I needed to give him the title for that bike, so I was able to do that and get to see some racing.

There were 12 races in total for the more than 20 classes of bikes, ensuring massive grids of between 50 and 65 bikes. Needless to say that there was plenty of action, but I was pleasantly surprised to not see a single crash all day long. The jewel in the crown of the AFM is Formula Pacific, a class reserved for only the fastest riders, in which any AFM-legal bike can be entered. The field is much smaller, something like 28 riders, and the racing is as fierce as you'll find in any national superbike race.

It was a great day of racing in beautiful, sunny 80 degree California weather and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The most significant aspect of the day for me was confirmation of something I've always assumed to be true but never really thought about: motorsport would be nothing without the thousands and thousands of amateur and semi-pro racers like you find in the AFM and other grassroots organizations around the world. There would be no top-level motorsport because there would be nowhere for racers to learn their craft and it's the entrants that are the core of any successful grassroots racing group. I spent a lot of time wandering around the paddock today and was amazed at the amount of money people spend on what is basically a hobby. There's very little income at this level, and racers are lucky to be able to get their consumables and some parts paid for via generous local sponsors. But despite this, they spend huge amounts of their own money on their racebikes or racecars, as well trailers, RVs, trucks, tools, safety gear and other necessary infrastructure. What's more, they spend countless hours prepping for races, as well as entire weekends racing. From their passion springs forth strong local racing organizations where the best and brightest young racers can build their careers and go on to be part of the more widely-recognized professional side of the sport.

I'm fully aware that no-one is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - racers race because they love to race. But I think it's worthwhile every now and then to recognize the important role that they play in this sport.

Dakar sans duneage

2008-04-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool fans of Dakar (and who felt truly gutted by the cancellation of this year's event) have something to cling to, as right now the Central European Rally is in full swing. Imagine all the usual Dakar cast members throwing their multi-million dollar toys around forests in Romania and Hungary for seven whole days and you'll get the idea.

I've been remiss in talking about this event, simply because a) I forgot about it; and b) they (the organizers) didn't seem to do very much to make sure that racing nuts like me don't forget about it.

All is not lost! I have gotten my hands on the Eurosport coverage of the first four stages and plan on writing about it as soon I've watched them all.

Just to whet your appetite, I've seen two photos, one of a VW Touraeg race vehicle about 15 feet in the air coming off a jump and the other of a Mitsubishi Pajero and another Touraeg duelling side by side on a stage. This bodes rather well, even if an inspection of the route maps indicates a lot of liaison for very little actual racing.

Let the Danica post-mortem begin

2008-04-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as a social liberal, generally nodding and agreeing with much of what I read on sites like Salon.com and hear on NPR. Social liberals are also generally required to be sypathetic to the principles of feminism, so sign me up there too.

However, a brief article in Salon's "Broadsheet", a column dedicated to women's issues, sparked a furious debate that to me seemed to trivialize Danica Patrick's historic win in the Indycar series on Saturday. Luckily my partner K was on hand to bring the discussion back on topic and she made some well-considered and salient points. Further evidence that I'm rather a lucky guy to have a partner who knows the name of one of the engineers on Citroen's World Rally team...

Anyway, there's a couple of things going on here:

There will be some who will call the win a fluke. It is true she did not have the pace all day and was never able to get any closer to the front that fifth. However motorsport is not always about who's the fastest and I'm not sure even Danica would claim to have more natural talent than someone like Scott Dixon or Helio Castroneves. Sometimes winning takes balls and brains, which is what got the job done in this case. Her team came up with a great strategy and Danica executed it perfectly. In this regard she outdrove Castroneves, who was on the same strategy but overdrove early in his stint. When he started to second-guess his fuel reserves, Danica had the guts to risk going for the win. Good job Mrs. Hospenthal.
It is probably true that had she been a guy, she would have been dropped by AGR after 2007 and would never have been in a position to fight for victory in this race. Her performances in the IRL have been rather inconsistent, with a second, a third and two fourths in the first three years of her IRL career. Once again though, there is a flip-side to this, and it's the acceptance that a driver's value to a team goes beyond pure results. Danica is PR GOLD, and the attention she brings makes AGR a sponsorship magnet compared with other IRL teams. AGR have four drivers - they don't need all of them to be championship-winners. Having a diverse line-up in which each driver has their own specialties and positive attributes is smart team management.
Which brings me to point three. What has Danica done for women in motorsport? I just noted how her gender has probably kept her in the team when a guy might have been dropped. Is this good or bad? Is it better for a woman to be shown favoritism in this regard, or for her to never even break through to such a high level of motorsport? I think K put it perfectly when she alluded to how drivers will always leverage whatever they can to achieve success, her example being Tony Stewart's association with Subway. It may very well be considered "tacky" for Danica to show off her admittedly rather pleasing body in men's magazines, but I've seen male drivers do other equally tacky PR. I can see how feminists might be upset with her doing such things, but to be honest I think her racing career would be no different had she not - she's a media- and fan-friendly figure who attracts attention because of her gender, regardless of whether she's in a bikini or a racesuit. I don't believe women have to strip off to get ahead in racing, but an insistence on equal treatment as the guys get will not necessarily be the answer either. People want newsworthy stories and in Danica's case it's her gender that's the tagline. It's no different to Graham Rahal or Marco Andretti, who court similar (albeit less widespread) coverage because of their ages and family backgrounds. And dare we even mention the colour of Lewis Hamilton's skin?

It was a bizarre win, but a win nonetheless. It was a moment in history. It was something that women can be proud of, but I think that motorsport has even more reason to be proud. After all, there was never any doubt that a woman could do this, but there was doubt as to whether motorsport would ever let them. That doubt is now gone. Hooray for that.

British Superbike - it didn't snow

2008-04-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

After the disappointment of the first round of British Superbike being postponed due to snow (check out the utterly bizarre pictures of Brands Hatch buried in the white stuff), it was great to watch round two play out at Thruxton today.

So what did we learn?

Cal Crutchlow really IS that talented: His debut season was on the Rizla Suzuki, a device invented with the sole purpose of turning kick-ass riders into also-rans. Despite this, he showed flashes of promise. Now that he's on the HM Plant Honda, it's clear he's a race winner. This is best exemplified by the fact he won a race...

Holy cow, Michael Rutter, you're not as over-the-hill as you seem: Rutter is probably benefitting in the same way that Max Biaggi and Ruben Xaus are in World Superbikes, by being on the 1200cc Ducati before regulation changes slow it down, as they inevitably will. Still, he spanked Leon Camier in race one, even though Camier is on the bigger budget and de-facto "factory" Airwaves Ducati.

Karl Harris isn't done yet: It appeared as though Harris was on a downward slide, having lost his factory Honda ride at the end of 2006, and then being booted by the privateer Hydrex Honda squad following an average 2007 season. However, he's adapted well to the Rob McElnea-run Yamaha, and if hadn't been for the fact he was bitch-slapped by Tom Sykes' flying Suzuki in race two, he could have placed very well. Nice that we'll have an additional "win-capable" rider challenging Airwaves and HM Plant every race.

We don't really miss Stobart: The loss of the Paul Bird Motorsport Stobart Honda team to World Superbikes might have been more keenly-felt if it wasn't for the fact that other teams seem to be in with a shout, chiefly Rutter's NW200 team and Harris' Yamaha squad.

Are the Leons feeling the pressure?: Neither Leon Camier nor Leon Haslam looked quite as sparkly as they should have done today. Haslam has probably got the best bike but seemed to be outridden by his team-mate Crutchlow, whilst the promise shown by Camier last year that should be fulfilled by being on one of the top two bikes has not yet been.

Watanabe, whatalearningcurve: Atsushi Watanabe doesn't yet look like the superstar that Ryuichi Kiyonari was. In fact he looked like a bit of a rookie, being bashed around by BSB mid-pack regulars. The fact he's on the Suzuki probably isn't helping, but they're the cards he's been dealt. I'd like to think he'll adjust quickly, along the lines of Kiyo in WSBK this year.

This should be a great year: I was concerned that losing Stobart, Kiyo, Lavilla and Walker would seriously detract from the championship. It looks like I needn't have worried.

Weekend Menu - Week 15

2008-04-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend in the world of motorsport:

Hockenheim, Germany: DTM, F3 Euroseries
Rockingham, England: BTCC, Porsche Carrera Cup GB, Formula Renault UK
Dubai, UAE: GP2 Asia, Speedcar Series
Shanghai, China: A1GP
Zolder, Belgium: Belcar
Knockhill, Scotland: British GT
Okayama, Japan: SuperGT
Nurburgring: VLN
Estoril, Portugal: MotoGP and 125/250GP
Salem Speedway, IN: ARCA/Remax Series
Phoenix Raceway: NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series
Pouembout, New Caledonia: Rallye de Nouvelle Caledonie (FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship)
Klatovy, Czech Republic: Mogul Sumava Rally Klatovy (FIA European Rally Cup - Central)

Indycar - go to your room!

2008-04-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Imagine the scene: an angry teenager has a fight with his parents and storms out of the house with the obligatory "I HATE YOU!" The clock ticks by and the parents move on from anger and transition into the worried phase. They start calling around to the boy's friends' parents. Then they call local hospitals. Finally, as they get ready to call the police they hear the front door open. Furious but relieved, they send the boy to his room. Meanwhile they admit to themselves that the anger was temporary but the love they have for the child will always be there since all the want is the best for him.

January 23rd 2008 marked the 13th anniversary of the announcement of the IRL. It's officially a teen.

And Sunday's race at St. Petersburg was like having the teen come home. As mad as we all have been about the CART/IRL split, we're just relieved that we're back to how we were before. The talent level is suitably high, driver backgrounds diverse, sponsorship present (and growing), grids are full and on racetracks that go right as well as left, the former ChampCar teams will be competitive, making for interesting races.

Watching St. Petes was like a throwback to '95. I really enjoyed the race and in particular I loved seeing the ChampCar refugees take it to the IRL regulars. It was close racing with some great performances from a number of drivers. Various strategies unfolded, incidents shuffled the field, caution periods kept the pack together and the changing conditions provided the canvas upon which a very appealing picture was painted.

It only took 13 years for me to get excited again about US open wheel racing. Now go to your room Indycar! You're grounded! (and you look hungry - would you like a sandwich?)

Weekend Menu - Week 14

2008-04-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Now we're up and running! A big weekend of racing lies ahead, including the start of British Superbikes and the Le Mans Series.

St. Petersburg, FL: American Le Mans, Indycar Series and the Indy Lights Series
Valencia, Spain: World Superbike and World Supersport
Bahrain: Formula 1, GP2, Speedcar and Porsche Supercup
Catalunya, Spain: 1000km of Catalunya (Le Mans Series)
Texas Motor Speedway, TX: NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series
Monza, Italy: Italian GT
Wakefield Park, Australia: Fujitsu V8 Series
Puebla, Mexico: World Touring Cars
Brands Hatch, England: British Superbike
Jedburgh, Scotland: Brick and Steel Border Counties Rally (MSA Gravel Rally Championship)
Busselton, Australia: QUIT Forest Rally (Australian Rally Championship)
Motegi, Japan: All-Japan Superbike Championship
Monticello, NY: Rally New York USA (US Rally Championship)

Brace yourselves for US Top Gear

2008-04-02T15:50:00.000-07:00

Over at my favourite automotive pro-blog Jalopnik, Top Gear is highly-revered. So when some idiot from New Jersey comes by throwing down Clarkson impressions in a most nauseating fashion, you can bet there will be much knashing of teeth.

Best comment on the video comes from 1300ccsoffury who is equally appalled at the idea of Adam Carolla hosting the US version of Top Gear, and says:

Adam Carolla ruins everything he touches. He's like that guy from the Skittles commercial who turns things into Skittles when he touches them. Only replace the Skittles with disappointment.

Hysterical!

Max Mosley - it is my OPINION that you are a piece of....

2008-04-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

....shit.

This is disgusting

For a less inflammatory version, go here.

Okay, let's be perfectly clear, just so I don't have lawyers on my admirable-helping-underserved-youth-non-profit-job-salary-earning ass: in no way am I representing any of this post as FACT, but I personally FEEL that Max Mosley is a stinky dog turd of a human being. I would rather have my genitals slashed with broken glass than have him continue as the most powerful man in my favourite sport, although I wonder if something like that might actually get him off...

What people do in their own bedroom is their business. S&M doesn't freak me out, and I'll staunchly defend the rights of people to engage in sexual behavior of their choosing. However there's two additional issues here:

The first is that elements of what Mosley has been accused of doing, if proven to be true, constitute a serious criminal offence: it is alleged that he paid women for sex.

The second is that the scenario used in this particular mode of sexual expression is derogatory to a large group of people. Since Mosley is in charge of an INTERNATIONAL federation, he cannot be seen to insult any cultural group. If he does, it undermines his position and authority in a manner that would appear to make his continued work utterly untenable.

Up until now, I, like many, many others have vehemently disagreed with how he runs the FIA, but like it or not, it's his toy and he can play with it how he wants. Whether this sequence of events is true or not, the fact that he put himself in a situation that can produce such damning evidence, even it ultimately proves to be untrue (not sure how that can be, but anyway...) should be enough to make him step down. That would be the right and honourable course of action.

Although "right" and "honourable" don't seem to be concepts Max grasps very well, given his alleged behavior in that Chelsea dungeon.

One last thing: how sad is it that I had to spend significant time reading up on California defamation law before publishing this post? So one last time - I don't represent anything in this post as truth, it is all entirely my opinion.

Hey, even one more thing: all this goes down two days after Max's FIA predessor and one-time nemesis, Jean-Marie Balestre, dies. Weird. The ghost of JMB is already hard at work.

These guys are gods

2008-03-31T11:07:00.000-07:00

Watching yesterday's MotoGP from Jerez in widescreen thanks to the BBC's great production values once again showed how unbelievably talented top-shelf motorcycle racers are. Some of them are even utterly cool dudes, to wit Colin Edwards. And Motorcycle Moment of the Year couldn't have gone to a nicer guy than the Texas Tornado himself. Check this craziness out:

Max

2008-03-30T23:33:00.001-07:00

I wrote a post earlier today about the story published in News of the World in which they alleged that Max Mosley was involved in a sordid S&M and Nazi-style roleplay session with prostitutes . I even published the post, stuffed full of as many disclaimers as I could think of.

However, until the story develops further the post returns to unpublished status. I'd hate to be made an example of. How fucking sad. Freedom of speech and all that...

David Leslie, 1953-2008

2008-03-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm sure the motoring press will carry decent, well-researched obituaries for Scottish touring car driver David Leslie, so there's no need for me to go into any great depth about his career. He was a great driver who enjoyed a reasonable amount of success in the BTCC, as well as in sportscar racing. He went on to do some great work as a commentator for Eurosport and MotorsTV, filling the role of expert on coverage of the WTCC, Le Mans Series and SuperGT amongst others.

I'd like to simply add one David Leslie memory I have to the wealth of others that people will be talking about as we remember the man.

It was back in 1997, at Laguna Seca. My father and I were down there for the fantastic Monterey Historic Sportscar races, and the highlight of the day was the historic Trans-Am race, featuring wonderful old muscle cars such as Camaros, Chargers, Mustangs and Challengers. Leslie was lined up in a Shelby Mustang 350 fastback, but for some reason had to start from the back of the grid. For ten spectacular laps the Scotsman showed his innate talent as he battled through to a worthy third-place, behind the legendary Parnelli Jones and Tommy Drissi's Camaro. It was one of those races that sticks in your mind, and I'm truly grateful to David Leslie for the entertainment he provided to us that day.

RIP David, and sympathies to his family.

Weekend Menu - Week 13

2008-03-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

The Indycar and BTCC seasons open this weekend:

Brands Hatch, England: BTCC, Formula Renault UK, Porsche Carrera Cup GB
Homestead-Miami, FL: Indy Racing League, Indy Pro Series, Grand-Am Rolex Sportscar Series
Villa Carlos Paz, Argentina: Rally Argentina (WRC and Production WRC)
Nurburgring Nordschleife, Germany: VLN
Jerez, Spain: MotoGP, FIM 125GP and 250GP
Martinsville, VA: NASCAR Sprint Cup and Craftsman Truck Series
San Marino: Rally di San Marino (FIA European Rally Cup Southwest)

Formula 1, Top Gear-style

2008-03-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Rumours are flying in the UK that with the switch of F1 coverage from ITV to BBC next year, Top Gear's Richard Hammond is set to anchor the broadcasts. Furthermore, Jeremy Clarkson and James May, Hammond's co-presenters, may also wind up being involved.

I cannot decide how I feel about this idea. I love Top Gear. Despite all its chest-pumping, anti-American vitriol and Clarkson's brainless pontificating, it is a genuinely enjoyable TV show with rich content and extremely high production values. People complain about how TG emphasizes impractical, expensive cars and engages in childish stunts but if you took Top Gear and made it more "practical", less fancy, and with less cartoonish presenters, you'd have Fifth Gear. That show is still enjoyable but is nowhere near as compelling as Top Gear. Thinking about it though, it's the stories in TG that I find most compelling, not the personalities. In F1, we'd be subjected to more personality and less story, so it might get very irritating, very quickly. Even more worrying, despite winning an Emmy for "best unscripted documentary" or something, Top Gear is very tightly scripted, even the road tests, something that the F1 coverage won't be. How will they do without time to work out what they're going to say?

Still, it's an interesting idea. I'm curious to hear from those in the UK what they think of this...

Weekend Menu - Week 12

2008-03-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of the weekend's major racing:

Sepang, Malaysia: F1, Speedcar, GP2
Nogaro, France: FFSA GT
Nashville Superspeedway, TN: NASCAR Nationwide Series
Oulton Park, England: British F3, British GT
Mombasa, Kenya: KCB Safari Rally Kenya (FIA African Rally Championship)
Derry, Northern Ireland: Circuit of Ireland Rally (Irish Tarmac Rally Championship)

What have we learned

2008-03-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

One final post before I put this whole car shopping thing to bed.

It's been terrifically engaging to spend all this time deciding on a new car, and it's fair to say that I've learned a lot from the process.

Gran Turismo 4 does a great job of simulating a car's behavior. There is no doubt that the rough impressions I got from my Gran Turismo track test were borne out for the most part in the real world. According to GT4 I could expect the Audi to need to stay in the upper rev range, the Evo to handle sublimely well, the M5 to feel heavy despite its power, and the STi to be the most fun, and it was totally right

The heart always wins. My father is great example of this. He is the most logical, analytical person in the world, but when it comes to cars for himself he'll usually go with what his heart tells him, and for the most part has been happier for it. From the very start I wanted an STi, but I made myself think critically and devise intelligent and methodical approaches to making a decision. However, when all was said and done, and there seemed little reason to not pick the STi, that's what the choice was. Yes, the Volvo would be marginally more practical, lower profile, more mature and less likely to endanger our drivers licenses, but it couldn't offset the emotional component of the decision.

Always bring someone with you. I drove two cars without someone I know, but they were never really a factor. For the cars that were serious contenders, that second opinion counted for a huge amount. K's opinion was critical, since she's going to be driving the thing on a regular basis, but even with the Evo and M3, which she didn't drive, it would have been easy to second-guess myself without my father being present. Validation of a decision really helps.

Test drive it properly. A little cruise around city streets says nothing about a car, especially if you enjoy a spirited drive. The Audi S4 was unable to make a case for itself until I took the second one out around Twin Peaks. I got to know the car well and although I didn't love the power delivery or handling, it was able to frame itself as being either a serious challenger or not. It's worth the extra trouble to meet the owner in a location that affords you the opportunity for a proper drive. When it comes to selling a performance car, the owner should expect buyers to want to see the car in its best light.

Test driving cars is easy and fun: If you can put up with private sellers' scheduling games or salesmen's pressure tactics, it's pretty easy to get a drive in a good car, even if you're not in the market. We had talked about going to drive some cars that weren't even on our list, just for the fun of it, but ran out of time. There is nothing to stop us doing that though - some might say it is unethical but I call it a free market. Now if I could just find a Mustang that doesn't have an automatic transmission...

Take it to a shop. Duh, this is obvious, but the peace of mind is worth as much as averting potential financial disaster. My stomach was in knots waiting for the result of the STi's checkover but it was easily worth it.

Never own a boring car. We are truly lucky to have such a wealth of interesting cars available to us, and in the US for such a small amount of money. When I first researched used car values and began to draw up a shortlist, I was amazed at what was out there. In 3 or 4 years time, when we'll want something a bit more grown-up, the Volvo will still be there waiting, newer Audi S4s, S6s and RS4s will be an option, Subaru's Legacy Spec B will be worth a look, Pontiac should have a GXP version of the G8 by then, the list goes on. Too often sellers told us they were getting rid of their car to get a minivan or SUV because they had a child, when in reality the car they were selling would have no problems accommodating their needs. They were simply choosing to accept a stereotypical path that says you must not own an interesting car when you have a family. As you can see, this is simply untrue. You can own an interesting car throughout your life, and the STi marks the start of that philosophy for me.

The US market has turned a corner. Yes, there's a number of interesting European performance cars we can't get our hands on. But for the most part, the cars I read about in Evo magazine are cars I can buy. Fifteen (maybe even ten) years ago this wasn't the case. But companies have taken the gamble to bring cars like the Evo, WRX, Volvo R cars and the GTO to US shores, and they've done pretty well for the most part. Gradually the US car-buying public is discovering performance motoring.

I'm a lucky guy. Too few men have an enthusiastic and supportive partner when it comes to car buying. Even though a recent article in one of K's culinary magazines stated that women are making a greater number of automotive decisions in their households, I doubt that it's yet to reach that 50/50 proportion, and even if it does, there's nothing to suggest that it's making the life of the traditional car decision maker, the guy, any easier. In my case, it did. K's mother has a history of being into fast cars, and luckily the genes passed on. Selling the idea of buying a performance car didn't take much work, and throughout the process K did a superb job of providing important input where needed without derailing the process that I had mapped out in my head. She saw the enjoyment I was getting and shared in that, and when the time came the decision was a joint one.

Return of the virtual track test - now with 100% less virtual - Part 3

2008-03-19T09:25:00.001-07:00

And so to the top three cars on my shopping list. Remember that I first drove all candidates virtually on the magnificent Gran Turismo 4 Playstation game. At that time I was looking to learn about handling and get an idea of how quick the cars were. Back then, the BMW M3 led the way ahead of a Mercedes E55 (standing in for a BMW M5), the Mitsubishi Evo 8 and the Subaru WRX STi.

By the time K and I sat down to choose our car, there were only three cars left. Thrown to the curb were the cheap-feeling GTI, torque-steering Acura TL, overly-heavy BMW M5, uninspiring WRX, poorly-badged GTO, boy-racer Evo and expensive M3.

Third: Audi S4: The first S4 we looked at was much more appealing than I expected, decked out in bright red with the distinctive chrome Audi "S" mirrors. Inside the seats were a combination of leather and suede, the suede parts ensuring there would be none of the summer sweatiness that leather can create. Trim was a nice perforated titanium. Our test drive revealed little about the car, other than it had some decent power and credible brakes. One week later I found myself in another S4, this one ugly in silver with an all-leather interior with wood trim. Although I wouldn't have bought that particular car, it was close by and offered the opportunity to see how it really performed. The owner tossed me the keys and said "see you in ten minutes". Free of suspicious eyes, I took the car up around Twin Peaks, whose rough asphalt, variety of corners and minimal traffic provided a good venue to see what the 2.7 litre biturbo could do.

Straight off the bat the car exhibited notable turbo lag and I was forced to stay above 4500rpm. This could get very old when looking to accelerate into a gap on the freeway or city streets. The first hairpin told me much about the German's handling: heavy tyre squeel, as the car lolled over onto its sidewalls, protesting all the way. Having said that, it stayed on line - it was just a less than fun way of going quickly. This car's brakes were just as good as the red car's and were one of the highlights of the drive.

The thing is this: for $15,000 (or less) the S4 is a great car. K really liked it, especially the way it balances performance with refinement. My budget stretched further though, and the remaining two cars were just better, goshdarnit. As we mulled the decision over homemade pasta and mussels and a lovely French white, lower scores for external aesthetics and driving dynamics spelled doom for the Audi. Let's be clear however: this was a contender right up to the end.

Second: Volvo S60R: Who would have thought a Volvo would be one of my top two choices? In retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised - it was the dark horse of the virtual track test, despite being represented by the front-drive T5 version.

We convened at the South Beach Marina to see a silver '04 S60R. Unlike the majority of Rs, this one came with the optional (albeit mandatory in my book) bodykit, that transformed it from boring family car on kick-ass running gear to impressive sports-sedan. It certainly looked the part, although silver would not be my ideal choice of colour.

A consistent complaint of mine about Volvos is the ugly treatment of centre consoles - they make 'em wide, with lots of space between switches. This one was no different. However the leather seats were comfy, the clocks attractive and the ergonomics good. Once on our way, the first thing I noticed was the very light power steering. This did not bode well for how the car would feel during more spirited driving, especially as the steering wheel itself was a little too thick for comfort. Once onto more deserted streets behind the baseball stadium the R showed its muscle: deep reserves of power, delivered calmly all across the rev range. On the few corners on our test route it had more poise than the Audi, which surprised us at the time since we assumed it to be heavier - later research indicated the Volvo to be marginally lighter. Up onto the freeway all was sedate, plush and effortless. Brakes were decent enough but not worth writing home about.

This particular example had been well-cared for, came with a decent service history and had just firmly established itself as a contender. This is the car we would buy.

If...

...there was no such thing as a Subaru Impreza WRX STi.

We met the 2004 STi's owner at the top of Twin Peaks, with a test route planned out that took in some of San Francisco's best (few / only) drivers' roads. We waited as the clock ticked away before finally the bright white of the Scooby's HID headlights appeared in our mirrors. I'll be honest here: I've always loved the looks of this car - the flared arches, outrageous hood scoop and mad wing for me contribute to a coherent exciting profile. K thinks it's a bit silly and she's probably right. A quick walkaround of this car showed it to be in very nice shape. Time to hop in: we were greeted by a very attractive blue and black interior with the coolest, raciest seats known to man. They were also very comfortable. A twist of the key lit up the lovely red dials and the stock exhaust burbled away with its flat-four exhaust note. I pulled out of the parking lot and started my way down the hill. A stab of the throttle hinted at immense, immediate power, and the next corner promised of mind-bending grip. The run down to the bottom was very entertaining, but it wasn't until we started back up the other side that the blue rocket sealed the deal. The road was wide, empty and straight, so I punched it. I have never, ever felt such speed and power in a four-wheeled vehicle - it was intoxicating, I wanted more and wanted it NOW. Through the next few sweepers the STi remained utterly composed. Halfway up, the route turns right onto a smaller road with much tighter corners. Now we'd learn about grip. Each corner I went faster and faster, before one final hairpin in which I just piled on as much speed as I could. The rally-rep just STUCK. It was the proverbial on-rails experience.

Now it was K's turn. Taking it easy on the first few corners before the road straightened out I wasn't expecting her to pile on the beans quite as soon or as hard as she did. We were screaming down the hill, rushing headlong into a rough hairpin. At the last minute she lay on the fabulous Brembo brakes and all returned to calm. "Hello" I thought, "this might actually be a realistic option". By the end of her drive I could tell - she'd been bitten too.

Just to be sure, I drove a white 2006 STi a couple of days later, and had my mad driving dad check it out too. Performance was identical, but the plain black interior of this white car was less impressive. Still, it was nice to have my initial impressions confirmed.

The Decision
I dashed back on Sunday evening having driven the last of the cars, with no doubt in my mind. I was ready to call and make an offer on the STi there and then. K, in her infinite wisdom, wanted a more methodical approach. So out came the laptops (and wine) and a comparison list was drawn up. Fuel consumption, time to pay off based on the same monthly payments, trunk space, power to weight ratio and subjective ratings of aesthetics and driving dynamics were all analyzed and discussed. Remarkably, almost everything came out even. Yes, the STi has the smallest trunk, and the Audi is the heaviest, but for the most part the comparisons indicated that we were free to pick based on what we wanted, not what we "should" buy. K knew that the Volvo was fighting a losing battle. I asserted that if we bought the S60, I'd experience a twinge of disappointment every time I got in it, thinking that I could have had an STi. The writing was on the wall. With one final flourish in which I had to promise to contribute to the cost of her first track day in the car, the STi was chosen. A call to the owner, an offer, an acceptance and we were good to go.

In three days time, K and I become STi owners, and faster than virtually anything else we come across out on the public roads of America. Lock up your women, children and animals...

New blog

2008-03-18T11:03:00.001-07:00

Just a quick shout out for a new racing blog, Starting Grid News. These guys (like me) cover all kinds of racing, which is great since it makes for an interesting read. Check it out!

Return of the virtual track test - now with 100% less virtual - Part 2

2008-03-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

After using Gran Turismo 4 to track test cars I was considering buying, the time had come to do some real-world test drives. The lowest ranked cars can be found here.

Sixth: Pontiac GTO: I originally hadn't considered one of these cars, but there was one for sale close by, with a low price, and the sun was shining and I was feeling whimsical, so I decided to try it. First impressions are very good: it has a powerful presence, especially this one in black, and the interior was sporty, leathery and bespoke. Seats were positioned low, with the gearshift easily at-hand. We started off around town where it rumbled menacingly, hinting at the demonic Corvette motor under the hood. Then came time to get on the freeway, and I unleashed the full power on the on-ramp. WOW! The Goat is insane! It's like being picked up by a heavyweight UFC fighter and hurled across the ring, terrifying and impressive at the same time. Around corners its weight betrayed it somewhat, but it still felt very sporty and exciting. The two biggest drawbacks are sadly not easy to fix: the Pontiac badge, and the rather plain styling. I need to feel pride in my car when asked what I drive, and I need to be excited when I walk out of my house and see it sitting there. Neither of these things are possible with the GTO. Sounds shallow, yes, I know.

Fifth: Mitsubishi Evo 8: From the very beginning, K warned me that she would hate the Evo. As boy-racer-ish as the STi is, the Evo is worse, much worse in her eyes. I can see her point. The design of the STi is more coherent, whilst the Evo looks like a cheap Japanese econo-box that's been tortured by a bunch of import-tuner drifter-wannabes. A scan of the classifieds revealed that for the most part, Evos have been molested, whilst STi owners were more likely to keep their's stock. It was late in the game when I got into an Evo, this one a nice black colour with a few mods but not too many. Unlike in GT4, power delivery felt higher up the rev range than the STi, perhaps as a result of the grapefruit-shooter exhaust. When it did arrive, the power was massive and the little Lancer took off like a scalded cat. Handling was ridiculous: in one classic moment, after I had handed the reins over to my track-day-addict father, we were on a 360-degree freeway on-ramp doing a ridiculous speed only to find wood-chips all over the road at the bottom. Did the Evo care? Not a bit, it proceeded as though there was nothing there. The poor young owner of the car did - he let out an involuntary yelp, surely a highlight for me of this whole process!

One thing that can't be denied is the sheer shittiness of the interior of the Mitsubishi. It really is an utterly unpleasant place to spend any time. Seats are supportive but ugly and the dash screams cheap Korean shopping car a la Ssang-Yong or Kia. Since a driver spends more time looking at the inside than outside, this alone DQ'ed the Evo. One other quick note - freeway manners were very good, with little of the go-kart stiffness I expected.

Fourth: BMW M3: The M3 was the last car I drove. By the time I got to it, my mind was virtually made up, although I knew the M3 had the potential to forestall my decision if it was special enough. It wasn't.

I expect BMWs to be very, very nice inside. The M5 had been, if a bit too haughty. This car was nice, but not up to the level I would expect and demand, given the going rates for a used one. Where my father's old E36 M3 would close its doors with a nice "whoomph", this one returned more of a mechancal "clank". Inside, switchgear was flimsier than the E36, seats felt no better than any other car I'd been in and the overall effect was of a good car, not a great one. Once out on the road, Dad and I both wondered where the additional 100bhp over the E36 had gone, because it didn't feel any faster. Weight is surely a factor. Adding to the negative impression was the badly-geared 6-speed tranny. Most of the other 6-boxes I'd tried added the sixth as a pseudo-overdrive, decreasing fuel consumption and noise when freeway cruising. The Beemer instead used it to shorten the other 5 gears, making for overly-frequent shifts. Rather than aiding acceleration rates, it disrupted the flow of the drive.

On the plus side, it had that typically buttery power you expect from a BMW straight-six, and its handling is sublime: safe (with traction control engaged), predictable, usable and with potential for massive enjoyment. Is this enough to justify going to the very top of my budget range to buy, maintain and insure? The cost of a clutch job and set of tyres was beginning to scare me to death - the fact it wasn't worth it made my decision a whole lot easier.

Return of the virtual track test - now with 100% less virtual

2008-03-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Back in the winter, when racing was scarce and the Playstation was looking dusty, I did a virtual track test of a number of cars I was considering buying, having switched jobs and putting myself in the place of being able to afford some new wheels.

So it's time to update the blog on the process, because I've made my choice and am in the process of buying something. Apologies for the tenuous racing connection in this post, but a number of readers had asked about where things stood.

A quick review of the contenders: '00-'02 Audi S4, '00-'02 BMW M5, '04-'05 Acura TL, '04-'05 Subaru WRX STi, '04-'05 Volvo S60R, '06-'07 VW GTI, '02-'05 Subaru WRX, '03-'06 Mitsubishi Evo, '01-'03 BMW M3 and I took a test drive in one other car not on the list, an '05 Pontiac GTO.

Here's how they stacked up:

Tenth: VW GTI: Admittedly a wild-card choice from the start, given it's front-wheel-drive platform, I was seriously concerned my partner K would fall in love with it whilst I would be less excited. This example sat on the nicer 17" rims as opposed to the ugly 18"s, and was a nice dark grey, with a carbon fibre intake under the hood. From the get-go it felt eager, with a fun power delivery from the 2.0 FSI turbo engine. The brakes were strong but snatchy. The two major knocks against it were the blah handling and an aura of cheapness. It didn't suffer from too much torque steer, but there was little of the planted feel you get with a 4wd or that lively back end in a RWD car. And despite VW's best attempts to match sister brand Audi in fit and finish, there was no doubt that this was an econobox. The nail in the coffin was the potential depreciation nightmare buying a very recent economy car for $18,000. Thankfully, K hated the car, after a brutal battle with the transmission which left both car and driver refusing to talk to each other.

Ninth: Acura TL: Another virtual non-starter due its FWD platform, but I've always liked the look of these cars, so wanted to see how they were to drive. After much searching I found a stick-shift example at a local dealer. The interior was the antithesis of the VW: it was light, airy, comfortable, classy, high-tech and generally pleasant. Clocks were easy to read and cutting edge in design. On the road, the power of the 3.2 V6 was really impressive, its sub-6 second 0-60 time very believable, despite the car's weight. All was going well until I hit the freeway on-ramp, and stood on the loud pedal. My gentle steering input was ruined by vicious torque steer as the front wheels struggled to cope with that much power whilst turning too. This resulted in instant disqualification, although I really liked everything else about the car. If they move the drive to the proper end of the car, this would be a true BMW 5-series competitor.

Eighth: BMW M5: Speaking of the 5-series... We tried an immaculate black 2000 M5, although pootling around Redwood City didn't reveal much of the car's handling or performance. What we could gather was that it was immensely powerful with a turbine-smooth delivery. However there was no getting around the fact that this was a massive vehicle. There was little fun to be had here, with the austere interior reminding me of those people who have a "formal" living room. K quite rightly exercised her veto power here, feeling uncomfortable with the size of the vehicle. To make things worse, the driving position and long hood required her to raise the seat to see where she was going, which forced her long legs up against the dash. I think it's safe to say that this is for people who want a big car that happens to be fast, not vice versa. In other words, not us.

Seventh: Subaru WRX: To be fair, the poor Rex had the dubious distinction of being driven after the STi, so comparisons were inevitable. Furthermore, it was forced to be compared with our current car, a lively, characterful 17-year old Subaru Legacy wagon that seems to go faster the further it goes beyond 200,000 miles. This WRX was filthy, owned by clueless owners and was fitted with a stupid HKS blow-off valve and turbo-timer, so the odds were utterly stacked against it. The 40bhp more than our wagon seemed like a small difference, and the grip levels were so much lower than the DCCD-equipped STi that it made for a tedious drive. The interior was utterly boring (which I knew from my rally co-driving days) and the seats were very average. My suspicion is that given a more entertaining road and less irritating owners, barking warnings and directions from the back seat, we might have thought more of this one.

Stay tuned for the top six...

Weekend Menu - Week 11

2008-03-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

What a weekend ahead of us! ALMS starts their season with the magnificent Sebring 12 Hours, and Formula 1 finally sets us free from all the winter page-filling and mud-slinging and actually goes racing...

Sebring Raceway, FL: 12 Hours of Sebring (ALMS), Speed World Challenge, Star Mazda, IMSA GT3 Cup and IMSA Lites
Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia: ING Australian GP (F1), V8 Supercars
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexico: A1GP
Suzuka, Japan: SuperGT
Eastern Creek, Australia: Australian Superbike
Bristol Motor Speedway, TN: NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series
San Felipe, Mexico: San Felipe 250 (SCORE desert racing)

Groundbreaking in motorcycle racing

2008-03-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

It's worth noting two major shifts in motorcycle racing that are occurring this weekend:

1. MotoGP is running its first-ever night race, in Qatar on Sunday. After numerous tests, there was virtually unanimous agreement amongst riders, officials, press and spectators that it works very well. Formula 1 will stage its first night race later this year in Singapore, and no doubt everyone involved in that effort will be taking a close look at this Sunday's race.

One funny thing is how teams are tackling the unique challenges of running at night. Team members have struggled to identify their own bikes on track, so Kawasaki have placed an illuminated Japanese character on the front of their bikes. How's this for imagination: the character reads "front"!

2. The AMA has sold all of their Pro Racing properties to a consortium led by the boss of Grand-Am and Moto-ST, Roger Edmondsen, and boss of the Daytona Speedway, Jim France. Unlike Dorna and Flammini's deals with the FIM to lease commercial rights for MotoGP and World Superbike, this one has involved an actual sale. The only thing that is leased is the AMA name. I'm not sure whether this is the smartest move on the AMA's part, but it does indicate a strong motivation to be rid of Pro Racing once and for all. Now that it's in the hands of a proper commercial promoter, we can expect many changes to make the show more interesting and fan-oriented, although those changes will be brought in gradually throughout 2008 and over the off-season.

The open-wheel spiderweb

2008-03-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

Much has already been written about the "reunification" of American open wheel racing, and I'm not sure I can add much to the chatter. But one thing that has struck me is the sheer reach and knock-on effect of the situation.

When Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven were trying to hash out a schedule, the first issue was the clash of dates between Long Beach and Motegi. So they went to Honda, who own the Japanese track and asked to move the date, which Honda agreed to. Now the FIA stepped in, since the rescheduled date was too close to the F1 Japanese Grand Prix, and TG and KK were forced back to the drawing board. They came up with a compromise that sees both races running on the same weekend with equal points available to competitors in both events. Attendees to the Californian event will be robbed of the opportunity to see the newly reunited series and all the top names, instead having to put up with a last gasp of ChampCar. Who knows how many cars will actually show up? Thank goodness that the ALMS is also part of the event.

What about the people? How many people are going to lose their jobs? What will these people be facing on a day-to-day basis? How many mortgage payments will be missed? This is truly the butterfly effect in action. One person who has already been laid off is Shrek-alike Paul Tracy, whose former team boss was one of the main shareholders in ChampCar. Perhaps the financial toll of propping up ChampCar for years has proved too much, and Gerry Forsythe simply can't face starting over.

The bulk of ChampCar races are gone for 2008. My local race, which had been scheduled at Laguna Seca for May will once again have to go ahead as a standalone Grand-Am event. The cancellation of the Houston race has forced that entire event to postpone until 2009, despite a promise a few weeks ago that it could run as an ALMS event. This is bad news for the Risi Competizione Ferrari ALMS team who are based in Houston and use that race as a major opportunity for entertaining team sponsors and guests. How many local merchants are losing major contracts? I feel bad for the trucking company contracted to move those big concrete walls, but even worse for the low-income local residents who work for Reliant Park as parking lot attendants and t-shirted security and who are only paid when there are events.

Over in Australia, the Surfer's Paradise event will be going through some changes. The weakening of the Indycar side of that weekend in recent years was good news in part for V8 Supercars, which lately had attracted more interest in the weekend than ChampCar. That is set to change, even though this year it's likely to be a non-points event for the IRL, due to contractual obligations to Chicagoland Speedway which has a lock on being the season-closer. A reschedule is not possible due to the V8 Supercars race, which can't move. Next year, organizers will be able to pick a date that ensures the race will have championship significance.

So whilst everyone is purely focused on car counts and the bringing together of two sets of drivers, it's worth considering that this thing means much, much more to many people and organizations.

Weekend Menu - Week 10

2008-03-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

MotoGP is back this weekend, and AMA kicks off with the Daytona 200.

Daytona Speedway, FL - AMA Superbike and the Daytona 200
Losail, Qatar - MotoGP and 125 and 250cc GP
Atlanta Motor Speedway - NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series and Craftsman Trucks
Eastern Creek, Australia - V8 Supercars
Teretonga Park, New Zealand - NZV8s

Weekend Menu - Week 9

2008-02-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

WTCC is back in action...

Curitiba, Brazil: World Touring Cars and International GT Open
Las Vegas, NV: NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series
Leon, Mexico: Rally Mexico for the WRC and Production WRC
Daytona, FL: Moto-ST's Daytona 300
Phillip Island, Australia: World Superbike and World Supersport
Llandovery, Wales: MSA Tarmac Rally Championship's Tour of Epynt
Laughlin, NV: Best in the Desert with the Laughlin US Hare Scrambles
Timaru Raceway, New Zealand: NZV8s

Driver donates organs

2008-02-27T12:28:00.000-08:00

The support series for Australia's V8 Supercars has suffered another fatality. Back at Bathurst in October 2006 Mark Porter was killed in one of the Fujitsu Series races, and on Monday Ashley Cooper succumbed to injuries he received in a Fujitsu race on Saturday at Adelaide.

The silver lining to this tragic bit of news is that Cooper was registered organ donor, and thanks to Australia's more lax approach to patient confidentiality it has been revealed that his organs were involved in seven life saving operations.

Although the idea of organ donation makes me uncomfortable, I'm pragmatic enough to realise that it won't matter once I'm gone, so I'm an organ donor and strongly urge everyone else to register for organ donation too. If you're in the USA, go here for more info.

And World Supersport doesn't look too bad either

2008-02-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

A brief epilogue to my World Superbike preview earlier this week...

It's worth noting that World Supersport might once again be worth a look. I followed it religiously back in 2002 and 2003 but kind of lost interest as some of the more competitive teams either left for World Superbike, lost their edge or dropped out. What followed was Ten Kate domination, with Karl Muggeridge, Sebastien Charpentier and Kenan Sofuoglu. This year brings promise of a tighter championship and more exciting races.

So who are we watching?

Ten Kate Honda: Acknowledged WSS masters, Ten Kate are giving British Superbike star Johnny Rea a year of apprenticeship before moving him up to WSBK. Rea is the real deal: very fast with amazing bike control honed from years of racing motocross as teenager. I'd like to predict he'll be a challenger all year despite his unfamiliarity with the tracks. Alongside him will be a man whose career highlight thus far was a WSS title, Andrew Pitt. He struggled in MotoGP, did pretty well in WSBK but he's great on a small bike, especially one as well prepped as a Ten Kate Honda.

Yamaha World Supersport: Consistently Ten Kate's closest challengers, Yamaha once again field two guys who have shown to be WSS experts and WSBK also-rans, Broc Parkes and Fabian Foret. Their issue will be the bike - the current generation R6 has never quite had the handling to match the Hondas, although its engine is very strong.

Gil Motorsport: The top Kawasaki team will this year have former 125cc champ Arnaud Vincent, WSS frontrunner Katsuaki Fujiwara, and WSBK race winner and crowd-favourite Chris Walker. It's a slight step backward for the Stalker who had a terrible 2007 in British Superbike, but let's hope he can regain his form as he returns to the green machines. Fujiwara is always near the sharp end on a 600.

Honda Althea: Formerly Italia Megabike, Althea is definitely the next best Honda team. Tommy Hill moves up from British Superbike where he had the speed but not the equipment, and often pushed too hard as a result. Joining him is WSS staple and former Ducati man Gianluca Nannelli. They'll be looking for podiums and the occasional win.

Others that might figure include Parkalgar Honda's Craig Jones, Intermoto Czech's Mathieu Lagrive, Stiggy Motors' Josh Brookes and Robin Harms, and the exciting return of Garry McCoy who will be on a Triumph 675.

Weekend Menu - Week 8

2008-02-21T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yay, V8 Supercars and World Superbike are back!

Adelaide, Australia: V8 Supercars Clipsal 500 and Fujitsu Series
Losail, Qatar: World Superbike and World Supersport
California Speedway, CA: NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series and Craftsman Trucks
Bournemouth, England: Sunseeker Rally (MSA Gravel Rally Championship)
Durban, South Africa: A1GP
Salem, MO: Rally of the 100 Acre Wood (Rally America Championship)

World Superbike Preview

2008-02-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

What a weekend we have ahead of us, as both World Superbike and V8 Supercars return to action. Today I'm going to take a quick look at what the former has in store for 2008.

Championship changes
Corona have departed as title sponsor, replaced by the Taiwanese LCD manufacturer HANNspree. I've never been particularly comfortable with a championship sponsor also being the main sponsor of a competing team (in this case Ten Kate Honda), so I'm a bit disappointed that series organizers the Flammini brothers weren't able to find someone else. Alas, you have to take what you can get when it comes to racing sponsorship these days, so we'll just let it slide. Incidentally, HANNspree will also be sponsoring Ten Kate's World Supersport effort, Althea Honda's WSBK and WSS teams (previously known as Italia Megabike) and Stiggy Motors in WSS. Talk about focussing your marketing dollars....

The other big change for WSBK is the return to the USA, with a round at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah at the end of May. Sadly, the AMA guys will be competing on a different configuration of the track so there will be no comparison of lap times, but it's terrific news that the US is once again on the schedule. I've bought my plane tickets, and am prepared to put up with 3% beer for a weekend if it means watching WSBK again!

Other noteworthy calendar items: the unfinished Parkalgar circuit in Portugal will host the final round of the championship (if it's finished in time). It is said to be a spectacular facility, so fingers are crossed. Also joining the calendar is Sentul in Indonesia, a circuit whose safety I have to question, and the Nurburgring in Germany which replaces the Lausitzring.

All in all, a nice full, diverse calendar. Well done Mr. and Mr. Flammini!

Contenders

Ducati Xerox Team: Without a doubt, Troy Bayliss has to be favourite to take a final championship before he retires. The new bike has been quick, and is developed enough to be reliable too. A question mark will remain over his new team-mate Michael Fabrizio. The young Italian has shown flashes of great speed but has been hampered by poor machinery wherever he has gone in his career. It's now time for him to show his true potential, which I'm guessing will be tail-end of the top ten.

HANNspree Ten Kate Honda: Last year's championship-winners roll into 2008 with an all-new rider line-up, all of whom come from other championships. The team's success will therefore rest on how fast each rider comes to grips with the new bikes and new circuits. The main guy will probably be British Superbike ace Ryuichi Kiyonari, a man whose talent is never in question. However, I've seen him make some blunders in the past and he has a tendency to run a bit hot and cold sometimes. Behind Kiyo will be Carlos Checa. Will we see another Alex Barros-like rejuvenation, in which Carlos rediscovers his love of racing and returns to being a contender? It's distinctly possible. In his favour is the fact that only four of the tracks are those that WSBK has been to before which MotoGP hasn't. The rider on the team who knows the tracks best will be Kenan Sofuoglu, who took the World Supersport championship last year. The latest Ten Kate WSS grad to step up, will he be a Chris Vermuelen or a Karl Muggeridge? I think if he can hover around 7th or 8th and pick up the occasional podium, the team will be happy and will look for him to be a contender in 2009 or 2010.

Yamaha Motor Italia: No changes to the main Yamaha team, except in the engine department, which sees the arrival of the variable length inlet tract that is standard on the road bike and has been run by the US factory team in AMA. Their bikes were underdeveloped so it was hard to tell if the fancy intake made a difference or not. Even if nothing else changes, Nori Haga will always be a threat, and although Troy Corser seems to be past his best, he should still figure in the top six most weekends.

Team Suzuki Alstare: In addition to pulling their championship sponsorship, Corona also quit the Alstare team, who revealed their new sponsors this week. You have to wonder if they've been making budget cuts with the loss of Corona, and if so what effect that will have on the team. Yukio Kagayama, like Troy Corser, is typical top six material and usually has a mid-season purple patch, so expect a win or two from him. Many people have predicted new recruit Max Neukirchner to be championship material and with his first season on a race-winning bike, we'll find out. I share the opinion that he's a dark horse. The other new rider is Fonsi Nieto, a man who has built a career on his last name, not his riding skill. I'm guessing that this will probably be his last season in anyone's favour and he should end up on satellite machinery in 2009.

Sterilgarda Go Eleven: Top Ducati privateers, Sterilgarda boasts the most mercurial and fan-favourite line-up with bin-it-or-win-it specialist Ruben "Spiderman" Xaus and the remarkable Max Biaggi. There's no doubt that Max should be on a faster bike this year, but he once again played the silly season game badly. In testing the satellite Ducati has been on pace with the factory bike (not surprising given that they are identical in spec) so if development of the bike either stays static or the team get new parts when the factory does, Max can challenge for the title. Xaus is too inconsistent, but is an asset to the championship for his exciting style and occasional wins.

Worth Watching

PSG-1 Kawasaki: Let's face it: Kawasaki are not that good at building racebikes. Their lack of results in MotoGP and World Superbike demonstrates this, and it's only in the AMA's Supersport category that they've had any degree of success. Although the ZX-10 is new (again) can anyone reasonably expect a leap forward into contender territory. What is exciting here though is the arrival of MotoGP winner Makoto Tamada, who first made a name for himself winning WSBK races in Japan as a wild card. I think we'll see some promise from the Japanese this year, and perhaps he'll find himself on a competitive bike in 2009. As for his team-mate... yawn.

DFXtreme Racing: With an all-Aussie line-up this year, the plucky Italian team might be in the scraps near the front occasionally. Perennial Superbike under-achiever Karl Muggeridge steps up from the hopeless Alto Evolution team and hopes to save his career. Team-mate Russell Holland will sink or swim. He's got good results in Aussie Superbike behind him.

Paul Bird Motorsport: Coming from British Superbike, these guys have great pedigree, two wild-card wins in WSBK with Shakey Byrne in 2003 and a terrific rider in Gregorio Lavilla. Teams that have moved up from domestic championships have always struggled, except for Renegade who did well on factory equipment in the lame-duck 2004 season. As soon as they lost machinery advantage they were awful, with a 2005 to forget. Perhaps the shrewd leadership of Bird and the massive talent of Greg will be enough.

HANNspree Althea Honda: This is the team that was Italia Megabike in WSS and now steps up to the big time with former Ten Kate man Roberto Rolfo. Roby's jump to a front-running team last year was a disappointment as his team-mate won the title, so perhaps a reduction in expectation and pressure will allow him to ride with more vigor and less restraint. He is certainly a talented rider.

RG Team: A former Italian Superstock team, this is a major step for them. It's also the new home for Dr. Evil-alike Lorenzo Lanzi, who had a terrifically average couple of years with Ducati's factory team. This year he's back on a satellite bike and has run well in testing, so perhaps he'll win both German races again? My comments about Rolfo apply equally to Lanzi.

Filler

GMT94 Yamaha: Coming out of the endurance racing world, Seb Gimbert and David Checa both return to WSBK. This is a good team with pretty good riders, but I see them struggling in their first year. Look for results from them at the end of the year or into 2009.

Team Pedercini: They're always there, but in 2008 they switch from costly Ducatis with 400km rebuilds to Kawasakis. Yes, the slowest of the Japanese bikes. Pedercini, take your usual place in the high-teens or low-twenties.

Alto Evolution Honda: Sergio Bertocchi, former owner of this team, is still in litigation, whilst the team struggles to improve upon their position. The one bright spot for them is the arrival of Japanese 250cc ace Shuhei Aoyama, although I have to question his wisdom in taking this particular ride.

So there you have it. Whichever way you look at things, WSBK continues to go from strength to strength. Last season it provided way more entertainment than MotoGP, and it's distinctly possible we'll see the same thing again in 2008. The changes are all interesting and have certainly done nothing to detract from the spectacle, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I plan to.

The road course / NASCAR crossover trend

2008-02-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

Is this a good thing for racing? I'm still trying to decide whether it's okay that road course racing genres losing their drivers to NASCAR is something I support. During NASCAR's Daytona Speedweek Juan Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Robby Gordon, AJ Allmendinger, Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, Boris Said, Marcos Ambrose, Andy Lally and Colin Braun all have raced in one of the three categories.

On the one hand it could be argued that this crossing of lines signifies that NASCAR is not really so different to any other form of racing, and if that's true then it may only be a matter of time before the wealth (TV time, sponsorship and media coverage) is shared more evenly with other championships.

But you could also say that it's an admission that NASCAR is really the biggest, most important form of racing on the planet.

On the flipside, it's nice to see NASCAR's top stars in the Daytona 24 Hours. It's a shame that NASCAR's schedule is so full, otherwise we might have some hope of seeing more such appearances. I'd love to see Jimmie Johnson in a Corvette at Le Mans!

Anyway, with all these interesting road-course refugees, I'm certainly paying more attention than I otherwise would. Having said that, when faced with spending the afternoon drinking beer in the sunshine with friends at San Francisco's legendary Zeitgeist or watching the Daytona 500, I'm going to skip the couch/TV option. Had Boris Said or Patrick Carpentier made the big show, the decision would have been more difficult...

Weekend Menu - Week 7

2008-02-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

It's the return of the Midweek Menu. This weekend:

Daytona Speedway, FL: NASCAR Sprint Cup (Daytona 500), Nationwide Series, Craftsman Trucks, and on Thursday the two Gatorade Duels to determine grid position for the 500
Sentul, Indonesia: GP2 Asia and Speedcar
Manfeild Autocourse, New Zealand: NZV8s

The Gatorade Duels are always worth a watch, and NASCAR is once again making all its online goodies (including that cool 3D virtual race view thingie) available for free.

The M3 returns!

2008-02-07T21:33:00.001-08:00

Yesterday's announcement of BMW returning to the ALMS with the M3 is possibly the best racing news I've heard this year. I'm a huge fan of the iconic M-car, having always lusted after an original E30 since I was a teenager. I would still love one, but these days they're firmly in "classic" territory e.g. slow for the price, difficult to find parts for and starting to need significant TLC from their owners just to stay on the road.

The E36 is getting very affordable these days and I also hold it dear since it's the first M-car I ever drove. The smooth, turbine-like rush of power is a party trick I don't think you can tire of.

Moving onto the E46, the car got bigger, faster and much more expensive, going for more than $60,000 when it first came out in 2001. Thankfully depreciation has now put it within reach of my own non-profit derived income and next month I'm going to test-drive one or two, something I'm very much looking forward to.

And finally today's E92 M3, which brings the concept bang up to date. It's received the usual raft of rave reviews but a return to racing has to be its most significant characteristic.

Racing was the very raison d'etre of the M3: a desire to race in the European Touring Car Championship demanded a number of big changes to the standard 3-series platform, resulting in a car different enough that BMW needed to homologate a new model. This dispatched thousands of street-legal M3s onto the roads of Europe and a legend was born. Meanwhile on the track M3s won touring car championships in Italy, Germany, the UK and Australia as well as European and World titles, and even made an impression in tarmac rallying.

The E36 never had a significant presence in racing, so it wasn't until 2001 that a factory-backed M3 was raced again. By now, the car had grown in size and performance enough (and rules packages evolved away from the M3 platform) that it found a new home in sportscar racing. BMW developed a V8-engined version of the standard 6-cylinder car and named it the M3GTR. In 2001 it was the car to beat in its class in the ALMS, but it was only through taking advantage of a rules loophole. That was closed before the 2002 season and BMW, facing potentially crippling weight penalties, pulled out of the ALMS. Their presence there was predicated on some questionable rules interpretation and I always thought an 8-cylinder M3, a car not available for purchase, was a bit unfair. It was damn exciting to watch though!

Happily the magnificent GTRs lived on in the hands of Schnitzer Motorsport, winning the Nurburgring 24 Hours in 2004 and 2005. Meanwhile, PTG chose to run 6-cylinder M3s for one more year, and then again in 2006.

Given the somewhat abortive ALMS campaign in 2001, it could be argued that the M3's return to the ALMS later this year, in the hands of Bobby Rahal's team, is the first proper factory-backed effort for a production-derived M3 since the days of the E30.

And that's why this is such exciting news...

IRL wins

2008-02-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

Let's not beat around the bush: IRL wins, ChampCar loses.

The IRL has:

A car count of 18, the majority of which look like solid, dependable entries
A TV package on ESPN2 and ABC that it is not paying for out of pocket
American drivers, some of whom have legitimate star power, like a young Andretti and a hot chick who doesn't win but brings in the crowds
The Indy 500
A pretty diverse calendar that includes five road courses and a trip to Japan
Close racing
Great teams such as Penske, Andretti-Green and Ganassi
Most importantly of all, momentum

ChampCar has:

Two truly marquee events at Long Beach and Surfers Paradise, both of which are upstaged by supposed "support" races (ALMS and V8 Supercars respectively)
One powerhouse team, Newman-Haas-Lanigan
Series owners with deep pockets
Road-course credibility

There's no doubt that if ChampCar failed, some or most of its teams would move over to the IRL, as would the Long Beach Grand Prix (Surfers is looking at A1GP and may not be interested in IRL). Promoters of other ChampCar events would also be looking at the IRL and some would end up coming to a deal, probably increasing the proportion of road courses in the championship. Road America, Laguna Seca, Toronto and Cleveland would all be good candidates for an IRL event, whilst the European swing would fade away.

What would we be left with? An American open-wheel series featuring the Indy 500 and a 50/50 split of road courses and ovals, featuring some of the top US racing teams and a healthy mix of American and international drivers racing at well-attended events being broadcast via a decent TV package. Is it 1995 again?

So please, please, please, ChampCar, just fucking die already...

Aussie V8s' silly season a microcosm of racing economics

2008-02-05T09:36:00.001-08:00

Like it or not, the bulk of silly season activity in any genre of sport is driven by the sponsors that drivers and riders bring. If you have good backing, you'll have a decent chance of a sideways move at worst and an upwards one at best.

Beyond all this though is the fact that those at the very top of their sport don't have to deal with that kind of unsavoury activity and make moves based on income, ambition and promise of success. British Superbike is a perfect example: the plum rides have gone to those riders who have either shown incredible promise (Tom Sykes, Cal Crutchlow, Leon Camier etc.) or those with a proven track record like Shakey Byrne. You don't start to get into riders who bring backing until about 10 spots down the grid.

All of which makes the V8 Supercar silly season seem somewhat weird. Of the 12 places on the top 6 teams, three were open for change. The factory Holden Racing Team let go of Todd Kelly, who had had a bit of a lacklustre year, and managed to woo '07 champ Garth Tander away from the HSV Dealer Team, an outfit that was supposed to be the second best Holden team but has somewhat led the way lately. Along with Tander came some of the top staff of HSVDT and their primary sponsor, Toll. This left HSVDT in a bit of a pickle. They needed a sponsor and a driver, so what could be better than a driver that brings a sponsor? Enter Paul Dumbrell, an average talent, along with Autobarn, the Australian equivalent of Kragen or Schucks.

Over in the Ford camp, Stone Brothers Racing were at the end of the road with 2005 champ Russell Ingall. In his place they brought in talented young Kiwi Shane Van Gisbergen. No connection between Van Gis' contract with SP Tools, and the fact SP Tools is title sponsor of that car now...

This left poor old Ingall out in the cold. You would think a recent series champ would get a drive based on his own merit, but it took an alliance between him and sponsor Supercheap Auto to sort out a ride. Supercheap were leaving the PWR team, who were breaking up into small pieces, and latched onto Ingall in order to put together a package with midfield outfit Paul Morris Motorsport. If Ingall hadn't thrown his hat in with SCA, he'd be looking for work as a racing instructor at Queensland Raceway in 2008...

At the tail end of the field, where all drivers must bring cash, the song remained the same. A man who's had a mediocre career in anything he's driven, Marcus Marshall, brings his family's No Limits money and sponsorship to the struggling Britek team. Four guys who do well in the Fujitsu V8 support class but who now bring their backing to main series teams are Tony D'Alberto, Kayne Scott, Andrew Thompson and Fabian Coulthard. Their financial means are clear, given the quality of equipment they've secured in the Fujitsu series, with D'Alberto in particular getting his hands on ex-championship winning chassis.

Perhaps the most bizarre pay-to-play example in V8s is Michael Caruso, who came second in the Fujitsu championship last year. He's been hired by Garry Rogers Motorsport, who are typically top-ten material. Ordinarily you'd expect a team like that to go for pure talent - in this case they've gone for someone with slight potential but decent money. Another shrewd move by the eternally shrewd Garry Rogers?

The economics of racing is a fascinating topic, and I hope that one day someone gets around to writing a proper book on the topic. Surely there are plenty of smart drivers who have run out of backing, looking to put their experiences down on paper? I remember running into Morgan Davies, a friend of a fellow rallyist, at a rally in Southern California. Morgan had been running very successfully in single-seaters but even so his stories of trying to secure backing made my eyes water. In desperation, he had turned to the ARCA series, since he claimed it easier to find sponsors for stock car racing. Of course the costs were higher too. A check of his website reveals no recent news so perhaps that strategy didn't pan out.

2008 Predictions

2008-02-04T11:35:00.001-08:00

Now that we've looked back at my 2007 predictions, it's time for the 2008 version. In order to improve my terrible results, I'll be posting three predictions for each series. The first pick is the logical pick, whereby past performance, testing and other info indicate this is the best bet. The second pick is the person who has a chance and whose win would go against prevailing expectations. The third pick is simply the person who I favor.

Formula 1
Logic: Lewis Hamilton. Alternative: Fernando Alonso. I cheer for: Lewis Hamilton.
The young lad came so close last year, and there doesn't seem to be any indication that he'll be at a machinery disadvantage.

MotoGP
Logic: Casey Stoner. Alternative: Nicky Hayden. I cheer for: John Hopkins.
Stoner's incredible testing lap of Phillip Island today doesn't indicate any decrease in performance, but Hayden has made good progress with the Honda. Hopkins continues to be the fastest guy who hasn't yet won, mainly because he hasn't yet been on a top bike.

WRC:
Logic: Seb Loeb. Alternative: Mikko Hirvonen. I cheer for: Mikko Hirvonen.
There's no doubt these two are the class of the field. There's a small chance Mikko could do it, but it would be truly against the odds, despite him being better than any other rally driver except for one...

World Superbike:
Logic: Troy Bayliss. Alternative: Nori Haga. I cheer for: Nori Haga.
The new Ducati has looked just as fast as the old one and will only get better. Bayliss already loves it. But Nori is clearly up to the task and on a bike that he's comfortable with but that has also picked up some extra speed in the off-season.

AMA Superbike:
Logic: Ben Spies. Alternative: Neil Hodgson. I cheer for: Eric Bostrom.
This will be Spies' last year before he heads for MotoGP and I don't see any other team catching up just yet, or Mat Mladin getting the title back. The dark horse is the new Honda though, and Hodgson is a fighter.

NASCAR:
Logic: Jeff Gordon. Alternative: Tony Stewart. I cheer for: Dario Franchitti.
It's a toss-up between Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, but if Smoke can get that new Toyota working well it would be nice to see him challenge. I'll be cheering Scot-Italian Good 'Ole Boy Dario.

V8 Supercars:
Logic: Jamie Whincup. Alternative: James Courtney. I cheer for: Greg Murphy.
Whincup came so close in '07, and with Garth Tander at a new team I have to pick Whincup. An interesting contender is James Courtney who continues to improve and impress.

British Superbike:
Logic: Leon Haslam. Alternative: Leon Camier. I cheer for: Shakey Byrne.
This is the first year Haslam doesn't have to deal with Kiyonari or Lavilla, and he'll be on the best bike in the paddock to boot. Having said that, the Ducati could go well, and I'd pick Camier as the faster of the two GSE riders. Doesn't stop me cheering for Shakey!

IRL:
Logic: Dan Wheldon. Alternative: Helio Castroneves. I cheer for: Dan Wheldon.
This could be quite a tight series and might be worth watching. I don't see any one driver as having a shoe-in spot as winner.

British Touring Cars:
Logic: Fabrizio Giovanardi. Alternative: Jason Plato. I cheer for: Darren Turner.
Like IRL, this one is wide-open, with any of about six drivers with the talent and machinery to win.

Le Mans:
We don't know the entry list yet, but who wants to bet against Audi? Peugeot would be the obvious alternative, whilst Pescarolo deserve the win. GT1 will again be Aston vs Corvette and I see Corvette getting revenge this time. GT2 is always an excuse to cheer for the Flying Lizards.

ALMS:
Despite a weight gain, Penske will once again push Audi all the way, but I'd expect more of a fight this time. I'll go out on a limb and say Acura will win one race overall.

SuperGT:
I'll say only one thing: The Nissan GT-R is back. It doesn't matter what happens, it's just great to see a GT-R racing again.

Getting ready for predictions

2008-02-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

This time last year I threw out some predictions, which I plan on doing again. Before that though, let's see how well I did:

MotoGP
Predicted: Dani Pedrosa. Actual winner: Casey Stoner. I wasn't far off, since Pedrosa took second, however he was very far behind Stoner and was never really a contender, given the slow pace of development of the Honda RC212V.

WRC:
Predicted: Marcus Gronholm. Actual winner: Seb Loeb. This one was very close, and if it hadn't been for Marcus' error in Ireland, I would have been right. In reality I had expected Seb to do it, but went for the more nostalgic choice, given Marcus' imminent retirement.

F1:
Predicted: Kimi Raikkonen. Actual winner: Kimi Raikonnen. I was one of the few who got this right, but once again it was a close run thing. The prediction was based on a belief that Alonso would struggle in the McLaren, and I never even considered Lewis. Still, a win is a win!

World Superbike:
Predicted: Noriyuki Haga. Actual winner: James Toseland. I honestly expected Troy Bayliss to win, but the cantankerous old 999 proved too much. Picking Haga was another example of the heart ruling the head, since who doesn't want to see Nitro win just once?

AMA Superbike:
Predicted: Eric Bostrom. Actual winner: Ben Spies. I thought the Yamaha would be so much better than it was.

British Touring Cars:
Predicted: Jason Plato. Actual winner: Fabrizio Giovanardi. A fair pick on my part in a competitive championship.

Champ Car:
Predicted: Justin Wilson. Actual winner: Sebastien Bourdais. SeaBass and his team were just too good, but the series is so messed up it's almost pointless to think about it...

World Touring Cars:
Predicted: Jorg Muller. Actual winner: Andy Priaulx. Jorg was never in with a shout, but five drivers still had a chance going to the final round. Predicting the WTCC is perhaps harder than climbing a greased pole.

DTM:
Predicted: Gary Paffett (if he gets an '07 car). Actual winner: Mattias Ekstrom. Paffett never got the current-spec car and so was never in with a shout. The fact that Bruno Spengler, in an '07 Merc, did have the right equipment and came 2nd says a lot about what Paffett might have achieved.

V8 Supercars:
Predicted: Mark Skaife. Actual winner: Garth Tander. Skaife's strong finish to '06 hinted at big things in '07, but his Holden Racing Team was once again upstaged by Tander's HSV team. The fact that HRT has basically stolen all the successful elements of HSV for '08 says a lot about their strength.

British Superbike:
Predicted: Chris Walker. Actual winner: Ryuichi Kiyonari. I SO wanted The Stalker to do well, but he had a terrible year. Once again, I went for the emotive choice. Is he past his prime?

IRL:
Predicted: Helio Castroneves. Actual winner: Dario Franchitti. After a promising start, Helio never looked that good and nor did his team-mate. Not the best year for Penske in the IRL.

NASCAR:
Predicted: Kevon Harvick. Actual winner: Jimmie Johnson. Although I think Harvick is perhaps one of the top three most talented stock car drivers out there, his team struggled to get to grips with the Car of Tomorrow (Today? Yesterday?). Had he been in a Hendrick car, Johnson might have had an extra rival.

Le Mans:
Predicted: Audi, RML, Aston Martin and Scuderia Ecosse. Actual: Audi, Binnie, Aston Martin and IMSA Performance. So I got two right, not bad I think.

ALMS:
Predicted: Audi, Dyson, Corvette and Flying Lizard. Actual: Audi, Penske, Corvette and Risi Competizione. Once again, two right, but I never would have predicted the strength of Penske.

So I got 6 out of 21 correct. That's pretty bad for a supposed "expert". Fact is, I tended towards choices that reflected who I wanted to win, not who I thought would win. So for 2008, we'll have two sets of predictions, those of the head, and those of the heart. Stay tuned.

The life of the racing fan

2008-01-27T10:21:00.001-08:00

Getting up early to watch races. Scheduling non-motorsport weekend activities based on which races are on. Scouring the web for racing torrents. Driving vast distances to attend events. It's all part of being a dedicated racing fan, and with the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona and the Monte Carlo Rally, it's all starting up again for a new season. After the dark days of December and January, we can now all look forward to the debuts of many championships and another great racing season. Thank goodness!

After a big 2007 in which I went to all kinds of races all over the world, 2008 will be a little quieter, partly due to a demanding new job. Having said that, I'm going to try to make the most of what is available locally, from Grand Am to Champcar to NASCAR to IRL to ALMS to AMA to MotoGP. I am planning a couple of trips further afield, including the return of World Superbike to the US, at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah at the end of May.

As I watch the final three minutes of the Daytona 24, it's nice to reflect on how cool this sport of racing is and how much there is to look forward to in 2008...

Calendar

2008-01-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

Call it my own little contribution to the worldwide web: I've put together another motorsport calendar. This little project grew out of an Excel spreadsheet I had been keeping for a number of years, highlighting all the racing I wanted to follow. Once it transitioned into an Access database it grew dramatically, powered by my slightly obsessive personality, and after exporting it to Excel and creating a webpage out of it, it was ready for publishing. Last year it featured 80 championships, this year 78.

Check it out here.

Racing's top dogs come out for the Daytona 24

2008-01-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

As much as I dislike the Rolex Sportscar Series, there's no doubt that they've done a good job of rebuilding the Daytona 24 Hours after its decline in the late 90s and early 00s. These days the Rolex 24 is something akin to summer (winter?) camp for top drivers of all disciplines, primarily financed by the wealthy team and car owners along with pay drivers.

Although the Daytona Prototype cars are ugly and slow, and the GT cars significantly slower than their ALMS counterparts, the sheer size and quality of the entry helps ensure that it's an entertaining event.

Just take a look at this incredible who's who of racing on the entry list:

American sportscar racing
Scott Pruett
Memo Rojas
Allan McNish
Ian James
Guy Cosmo
Wayne Taylor
Max Angelelli
Bill Auberlen
Joey Hand
Pat Long
Andy Wallace
Darren Law
David Donohue
Hurley Haywood
Terry Borcheller
Colin Braun
Oliver Gavin
Nic Jonnson
Memo Gidley
Jim Matthews
Marc Goossens
Johnny O'Connell
Jon Fogarty
Alex Gurney
Andy Pilgrim
Kelly Collins
Jan Magnussen
Ralf Kelleners
David Empringham
Nathan Swartzbaugh
Randy Pobst
Gunnar Jeannette
Johannes van Overbeek
Romain Dumas
Andy Lally
Lonnie Pechnik
Craig Stanton
Max Papis
David Murry
Wolf Henzler
Sacha Maassen
Jorg Bergmeister
Dirk Werner
Dominik Farnbacher
Timo Bernhard

American open wheel
Scott Dixon
Dan Wheldon
Alex Lloyd
Alex Barron
Ed Carpenter
AJ Foyt
Vitor Meira
Stephan Gregoire
Ryan Briscoe
Helio Castroneves
Michael Valiante
Ryan Dalziel
Milka Duno
Buddy Rice
Justin Wilson
Graham Rahal
Andrew Ranger
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Jimmy Vasser
Robert Doornbos

Stock cars
Dario Franchitti
Juan-Pablo Montoya
Bill Lester
John Andretti
AJ Allmendinger
Kurt Busch
Jimmie Johnson
Boris Said

European sportscar racing
Lucas Luhr
Mike Rockenfeller
Harold Primat
Tomas Enge
Justin Bell
Derek Bell
Fabio Babini
Stephane Ortelli
Matteo Bobbi
Antonio Garcia
Mike Newton
Tommy Erdos
Tom Kimber-Smith
Joao Barbosa
Eric van de Poele
Darren Turner
Fabrizio Gollin
Gabriele Gardel
Johnny Mowlem
Thomas Biagi
Robin Liddell
Tim Sugden
Emmanuelle Collard
Richard Westbrook
Richard Lietz
Patrick Huisman
Tim Bergmeister
Pierre Kaffer
Frank Stippler

European open wheel
Salvador Duran
Ricardo Zonta

One minute superbike

2008-01-19T09:57:00.000-08:00

The good folks over at Superbike Planet just posted a great YouTube video of Ducati Corse building one of their factory World Superbike 999R bikes shot in time-lapse.

Makes the pathetic 2-hour long process to check the sparkplugs on my old CBR600rr look rather lame...

RIP Ouninpohja

2008-01-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

The world's fastest rally stage, Rally Finland's Ouninpohja, has been axed for being too fast. The maximum recommended average speed on a gravel stage is 130km/h, or 81mph.

Back in 2004, Petter Solberg blitzed the 33.01km stage in 15 minutes, 19 seconds. There's amazing video of this on Youtube (and on my hard drive LOL!). The average speed of this run came out to 129.39km/h which was too close to the maximum speed for the FIA's comfort. For 2005 and 2006, the stage was split into two, resulting in stages with 129.54km/h and 128.10km/h average speeds. Once again, Ouninpohja was too fast.

For 2007, the organizers put the stage back together, this time with three chicanes installed to dramatically affect the times. The result: Marcus Gronholm comes within 0.5 seconds of Solberg's incredible 2004 time, meaning he was effectively going MUCH faster through the bulk of the stage.

It had become clear to the organizers that although they could keep Ouninpohja within the maximum average speed numerically (just), it wasn't in the spirit of the rule, and crews, spectators and marshalls were being put at greater risk.

Which is all a great shame, because as I've mentioned on this blog before, Rally Finland and its "queen stage" are a perfect example of the true essence of stage rallying. To lose part of that is a loss for rallying the world over.

The AMA Superbike Sale

2008-01-09T12:53:00.001-08:00

The commercial rights for the AMA Superbike Championship are on the block, and not a moment too soon, given the massive mismanagement over the years. Moto journalist Dennis Noyes has an excellent series of articles about it over at the Speed Channel website. Check out part one and part two, and keep your eyes peeled for the final two parts in the next few days.

Dakar is not dead

2008-01-08T18:01:00.001-08:00

The ASO, organizers of the Dakar Rally, are certainly up against it. Although the event is terrific and well-loved by the motorsport community, mainstream media tends to focus on the more negative aspects of the rally, including competitor deaths, civilian injuries and deaths, kidnappings and terrorist threats.

This year it all proved too much after alleged Al Qaeda operatives threatened the race directly. Whether there was any substance to the threats was deemed irrelevent by organizers who felt they had no choice but to cancel the whole thing.

Should a similar threat occur next year, we can only imagine the outcome will be the same. So what next for the Dakar Rally? Surely it's too big a risk to run the race through these areas of unrest?

Many have suggested an alternative part of the world for the rally, Patagonia being one suggestion and the Asian steppes another. It's hard to say if the event would retain the same spirit if it moved out of Africa. Most people would agree that the real character of the event emerges in the middle of the event with a series of marathon stages crossing thousands of miles of dunes. A rally raid without this iconic group of stages would surely never feel like a "real" Dakar. After all, the last time the race deviated from its basic Morocco-Senegal path was when it crossed the top of north Africa and ended in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, and the plentiful dune stages helped the event retain its character, despite a vastly different final few days.

Perhaps a raid that includes the heavily-duned Gobi or Taklamakan Deserts in China might be the answer? Dunes are also very prevalent in the Arabian Desert which is the second-largest non-polar desert in the world.

For me, however, the issue needs to be addressed from the perspective of finding the best way to continue to run the event in Africa. If we assume that for now Algeria and Mauritania are off-limits, many other options exist. The event has run through Libya in the past, so it should be feasible to start in Europe, spend a day on a boat to Tunisia, then run through Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Mali and into Senegal. Those last three listed countries are all moderate, reasonably stable states and offer plenty of terrain that is so synonymous with the Dakar Rally.

Another option that comes to mind is doing it in southern Africa, taking in the dune areas of Namibia, after travelling through Zambia and Tanzania before ending in Cape Town.

Whatever the ASO comes up with I hope that the Dakar Rally is able to continue and do so without losing the character and challenge that makes it such an important and special race.

Status update

2008-01-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

Things have been somewhat quiet here lately, a combination of Christmas commitments, a slow news period in racing and a transition to a new job with a new computer on my part. Let it be known however that I'm not missing any of what's going on, chiefly the cancellation of the Dakar Rally...

Gran Turismo virtual track test epilogue

2007-12-31T11:53:00.001-08:00

Being on a winter break, I decided to revisit my Gran Turismo track test exercise, and managed to improve my times in all eight cars. Interestingly, some gained more than others:

M3 - 1'41.859 (-1.905) - gains 2 spots

Merc E55 - 1'42.453 (-1.203) - same

Evo - 1'43.095 (-0.238) - loses 2 spots

Subaru STI - 1'44.646 (-0.908) - same

Audi S4 - 1'46.762 (-1.191) - gains 1 spot

Volvo S60 - 1'46.921 (-0.463) - loses 1 spot

VW GTI - 1'51.634 (-1.735) - same

Acura CL - 1'52.035 (-1.509) - same

The main conclusion here is that the M3, which I described as being a more demanding and rewarding drive, had a lot more to give, whilst the Evo turned out to have very little extra depth - the time I got first time round was very similar to this time. I ended up spending more time in the Evo than any other car, because I couldn't believe that I couldn't do any better. Alas, I was wrong.

The Audi made a marginally better gain than the Volvo too, but was still tedious work.

The STi was still my favourite!

The Lappies 2007

2007-12-27T14:45:00.001-08:00

Time to hand out some gongs. I wouldn't be a legit blogger without coming up with year-end awards, so with slight apologies to Jimmy over at The Armchair Bike Fan blog, here we go....

Race Car of the Year:
Citroen C4 - In no other top international championship did a brand new car come in and be instantly competitive despite stiff competition. Some could argue for the Peugeot 908 in the Le Mans Series, but in reality it was short of real rivals, except at Le Mans where it flat out lost to Audi. The C4 won its first event (followed by many more), and went on to take one of its drivers to a world title.

Race Bike of the Year:
Ducati GP7 - The 2007 MotoGP regs were trouble for everyone bar Ducati. Somehow the smallest of all MotoGP manufacturers took the fight to the big boys and totally destroyed them.

Driver of the Year:
Lewis Hamilton - I'm boring. But to be honest, what clinched it was his epic drive in Top Gear's awful Lacetti in which he beat all other F1 drivers around the show's test track despite damp conditions. Sounds strange, but seeing something like that, where the driver is out of his element, simply hits home how incredibly good the guy is.

Rider of the Year:
James Toseland - Although he wasn't spectacular, he rode like a champion from the first lap of the season - always thinking, always focusing and never letting his emotions get in the way. His ride in the wet at Silverstone, along with a "do what you must" final race at Magny-Cours are just two examples of why he was a deserved World Superbike champ.

Race of the Year:
Petit Le Mans - Show me one other race where the ratio of winning margin is so small compared to the length of the race. Petit was an epic clash of Porsche and Audi, where those in the ascendancy went up against those that should win. For 10 hours the lead went back and forth and even going into the final lap, the victor was unclear.

TV coverage award:
Australia's Channel 7 for the Bathurst 1000 - The channel gave the event the kind of airtime it deserved, and did it in style with 150 cameras, 50 of which were in-car, and two cable-run cameras. The crowning glory was the commentary team who did an exceptional job over the four days.

Championship of the Year:
V8 Supercars - Another year of close racing, and the progression of the final four events was absolutely riveting as the four challengers each experienced the highs and lows of racing. The final race of the entire season was a suitably nail-biting affair.

And now for the fun stuff....

The Idi Amin Award for Benevolent Dictatorship:
FIA President Max Mosley for ignoring advisors, not listening to his constituents and suppressing the press.

The England Football Team Award for Cracking Under Pressure:
Marcus Gronholm, for having not one, but two potentially championship-ending crashes in events where second would have been sufficient.

The Heinz Baked Beans Award for Building Cars that Crush Like a Can:
Team Dynamics, for their energy-absorbing BTCC Honda Civic that saved Matt Neal from being squashed like lime in a tequila bar at Brands Hatch.

The McLaren Award for Innovation in Race Car Engineering:
Ferrari F1, for their wheel fairings, inert gas mix used in their tyres and the all the other bits that McLaren wanted to use...

The Monty Python "Always Look on the Bright Side" Award for Blind Optimism:
Petter Solberg and the Subaru World Rally Team, for their insistence that things will get better despite having a car that hasn't been anything approaching "good" since early 2004.

The Depends Award for Racing Beyond Your Years:
David Coulthard, for clinging to the hope that "being a good development driver" is good enough to retain a place in F1, despite 22-year olds being faster and better by a huge margin.

The Hara-kiri Award for Enduring Suicidal Levels of Disappointment
The Japanese Lamborghini Owners Club, who took a Murcielago to Le Mans, promptly crashed it in practice, rebuilt it from a whole new tub in two days then retired on the first lap of the 24-hour race.

Gran Turismo virtual track test Part 3

2007-12-19T09:41:00.001-08:00

Belly full of pizza, I got stuck into the second half of my track test of the cars on my shortlist for purchase in 2008. An overview of this madcap idea can be found here and the first half of the test here.

Today's line-up was a little more difficult to put together, as four of the remaining five cars are not actually in the game. A little creativity helped solve that issue though, as you will see.

Mitsubishi Evo - Best time of 1'43.333 - Comparisons with the Subaru WRX STi are inevitable, as indicated by a thread I started on the NASIOC forum asking for people's personal opinions on the two cars. Straight out of the box the Evo felt exceptionally fast with more urgency in the lower part of the rev range than the STi. Curiously, the game reports its power as 316bhp, whilst US manufacturer figures are 271bhp. Quite a difference, and I'm not sure whether this is the manufacturer being coy, GT4 being optimistic, or a difference in spec between the Japanese and US models.

Through the corners the Evo has a more neutral balance than the Scooby. Whereas the WRX will pitch in tail-happy and drift the front on corner exit, the Evo will get into a constant four-wheel drift all the way through. It's the kind of handling that makes you feel like a driving hero, regardless of how much is actually down to built-in handling gizmos. This doesn't diminish the fact that it will dive into a corner, seeking out the apex like a missile on radar lock. The downside of this very quick steering is that it's harder to keep in a straight line on the straights, where a subtle weave is a common sight (a victim of the video game interface and certainly not what you'd expect in the analogue world). It's also worth noting that the brakes are very good, and have an edge over those on the 'Rex.

There's a problem though, and it's something I've read about in real-world road tests of Evos: it's all a bit easy. This may sound odd, but this car drives like a video game. Remember those old-school arcade racers where you never really needed the brakes and could only get into trouble when you hit the scenery? The Evo is like that. To verify my hypothesis I took the car out for a few more laps, this time deliberately driving like a hooligan, braking too late, turning in too hard, applying the gas too early, and generally being cack-handed. Amazingly I was still clocking times as quick as I had in the STi, and on my filthiest, most wretched lap I was faster than the Audi S4 had ever gone.

What happens in the Evo when you drive like this is that the four-wheel drift becomes the standard method of cornering, and will end up simply scrubbing speed all the way through the corner, leaving you with a low exit velocity. Each corner starts out by feeling amazing but ends up being disappointing. It's the antithesis of the M3 where a thoughtful, measured approach gives great satisfaction thanks to that perfect application of power from apex to exit. I can only guess that it's the Active Yaw Control that's to blame here, a piece of electronic trickery absent on the US-spec Evo VIII. In the real world, where hooligan driving comes with more consequences, and any Evo I drive will be sans-AYC, it might make for a better drive.

Volvo S60-R - Best time of 1'47.384 - There's no S60-R in GT4, but there is an S60 T5 Sport. A trip over to the tuning shop gave me the opportunity to add on the extra bits that Volvo added in the real world: sports suspension, better brakes, close-ratio gearbox and uprated turbo. In the real-world there's plenty of additional engine mods, but the turbo upgrade in the game brought me right up to the 300bhp that you find on the R. The one thing I couldn't change was the drivetrain, so I had to make do with front-wheel-drive as opposed to the R's all-wheel-drive.

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting much, but ended up pleasantly surprised. The big Swede proved to be damn quick, hauling itself up and over the crest at Laguna's turn 1 with gusto and making me hope the brakes were up to the job. The S60 is very stable in cornering - you'd expect a front-wheel-drive platform to generally tend towards understeer, but in this case the long wheelbase seems to help it keep the nose tight. "Keeping the boot in" works in many places around Laguna, especially turns 3, 9 and 10, where it felt like it was running wide but always "just" made it around as long as you steadfastly refused to back off.

In retrospect, the close-ratio gearbox with its default settings may not have been ideal and I found myself frequently having to change down as I was exiting corners. Perhaps reverting to the original tranny would have helped in that regard. Braking performance was acceptable - nothing to write home about, but by no means a disappointment like the M3.

One of the best things about the Volvo was the exhaust note, a raucous growl, the result of the asymmetrical number of cylinders (five) no doubt. This example obviously didn't sport the accoutrements of the R version, itself available with a spoilers'n'skirts treatment, which in my opinion does wonders for the staid looks. Best I could do was purchase a set of Enkei alloys in the Gran Turismo wheel shop. A reduction in unsprung weight was an additional advantage and may have helped the car ride the kerbing (particularly through the Corkscrew) better.

Acura TL 3.2 - Best time of 1'53.544 - Once again, the TL is not in GT4, so I drove a 2003 Acura CL Type S. It shares a platform with the previous generation TL, which ended up being carried over into the car I'm considering. All three sport the same 260bhp 3.2 V6 engine. So I think it's safe to make comparisons using the '03 CL instead of an '04 TL. It should also be noted here that the inclusion of the Acura on my list is definitely a wild-card choice. Performance figures are good enough, so I decided to include at least one contemporary luxury car for the sake of diversity. Who knows, perhaps I'll prefer the gadgets and leather of the TL over the manic nature of a Japanese rally-rep?

Initially the car is similar in feel to an M3 with smooth, seemingly effortless power delivery. On arrival at the first corner, the brakes did their job well, the nose tucked in neatly to the first of the two apexes and stayed there until I was ready to put the power down to exit. When I finally did so it obeyed well without any loss of front grip and bounded off towards the next corner. The pattern repeated itself all the way through the first lap. "This is going great" I thought. The car seemed pliant, willing, fast and controllable. Then, as I crossed the start/finish line I realized why: it was slow. It seemed fast, but much of that was down to the rough ride that kept the vibration motors in the controller rumbling away throughout the lap. I wondered if maybe I wasn't trying hard enough, so I attempted to put in a couple of flyers, only to immediately find the cars limits. It won't do anything abnormal, but when the Acura is within its comfort zone it feels like it's doing a great job. Sadly that's because the car is never going particularly fast or being dynamically challenged.

A definite thumbs-down, despite the fact it seemed so good. I want an honest car - the Acura makes slow feel fast (whilst the Evo and STi make fast feel slow...)

BMW M5 - There is no E39-model M5 in the GT4 and no BMW even remotely like it. The E60 M5 is completely different with a larger V10 engine and much more power. Instead, I drove a Mercedes Benz E55 AMG. Best time of 1'43.656.

I picked the Benz because, like the M5, it weighs 4000lb, is rear-wheel-drive, has a 5.0 V8 and makes more than 400bhp. It's an utterly terrifying car to drive. The power is monumental and you can almost feel the shove in the back, which keeps building. The massive brakes do their job well, considering they're stopping 2 tons of car and the car is surprisingly agile turning in to corners. However, like the M3 (the only other RWD car in the test), when you get it wrong there's no room for error. Where the Evo will cosset you and make you feel like nothing's wrong, the Benz will send you into the bushes faster than you could ever imagine. My worst "offs" of the whole track test were in this car, most notably at turn 3, where a skim of the gravel trap is the norm but a collision with the fence is what the Benz delivers. That same rear-wheel-drive dislike of trail braking that the M3 exhibited showed up again proving that you have to be deliberate in doing one thing after the other to avoid running into trouble. With speeds this high, that kind of trouble is literally around every corner, as you struggle to slow it down, turn it in, hit the apex and get on the gas without jettisoning yourself off the road, spinning, or worst of all in a game like this, driving like a granny.

Eventually, after 6 laps, I was able to make a mistake-free run, and the time produced was good enough for second-fastest. With some more work, I see no reason why the Benz (and consequently the M5) couldn't outpace the Evo.

Subaru WRX - Despite the presence of 15 different road versions of the WRX on GT4, none of them are equivalent to the US-spec non-STi version. All have power outputs in excess of 275bhp, whilst the regular WRX puts out 225bhp. Amazingly, this is the one car I couldn't end up including in the test. Based on times from the STi I can only guess that with a power difference of 75bhp, it's going to be a good 5 seconds a lap slower, perhaps in the 1'50 range.

The final scores

Mitsubishi Evo VIII - 1'43.333
Mercedes Benz E55 AMG (standing in for the BMW M5) - 1'43.656
BMW M3 - 1'43.764
Subaru Impreza WRX STi - 1'45.554
Volvo S60 T5 Sport (standing in for the S60-R) - 1'47.384
Audi S4 - 1'48.672
VW GTI - 1'53.369
Acura CL 3.2 (standing in for the Acura TL 3.2) - 1'53.544

The verdict
Last place goes to the Acura, which ended up being a big fraud, but perhaps in the real world this isn't such a bad thing. Driving some of the great Northern California roads and feeling like you're going fast whilst not endangering your license is worth a consideration. After all, its pace was virtually identical to that of the VW. Ahead of the Acura is the Audi, which delivered in the engine department with a lovely free-revving V6 twin-turbo, but was badly let down by a chassis that seemed to suck all the joy out of the driving. The opposite can said of the little GTI, which I'm placing sixth. It certainly had a zippiness to its handling, but going up and down the hills of Laguna Seca (and in the real world, San Francisco), I wonder if a bit more torque would help complement the fun-loving chassis.

Fifth goes to the Mercedes, doing a fine job of pretending to be an M5. To say it's a handful is a bit of an understatement. If you listed these cars based on difficulty to drive the Merc would rank as most difficult. Along with that comes the greatest satisfaction, but in this case the effort required is too much. The M3 strikes a perfect balance in that regard, whilst the Evo is the polar opposite.

Ahead of the Merc is the Volvo, which ended up as the dark horse of the test. I can't wait to get behind the wheel of an S60-R, because that lovely 5-cylinder engine (mated to a chassis that does well in FWD form and must surely be even better with AWD) made for a truly enjoyable drive. At this level, the only thing holding it back is a slight lack of spark or excitement, something that the third place Mitsubishi has in spades. For years I've lusted after an Evo, but now I'm in the position to buy one it's not the slam-dunk that it used to be. Questions about its reliability, fit and finish, cosmetics and now, it's handling, all have me thinking much harder about whether it's the car for me. Still, they're damn exciting.

And so to the final two cars. Both are incredibly involving, but in entirely different ways, the M3 being a more cerebral, rewarding drive whilst the STi offers immediate satisfaction along with characterful handling. Based purely on driving pleasure I have to give it to the Subaru, mainly due to the slight nervousness and reserve that the Beemer induces in the driver. In the real world, they're also very different. My budget will just about get me into a 2001 M3, whilst I can get an '04 or '05 Subaru. Maintenance and reliability are cheaper and better in the Japanese car, but the BMW brings with it a level of luxury and refinement lacking in the STi.

I'll post again with real world test-drive experiences in two months time. First thing's first, I need to replace my motorcycle! That's a much easier proposition, since I know what I want. Oh, and since I don't own Tourist Trophy...

Gran Turismo virtual track test Part 2

2007-12-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

We're off to the track! Yesterday I outlined my plan to track test the nine cars that are on the shortlist for my next car purchase, and to do it on the Gran Turismo 4 video game. Today, I took the first four of them out onto the track at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Time to channel my wannabe Evo-mag writer side:

VW GTI Mk. V, 2 door, manual transmission- Best time of 1'53.369 - The first thing you notice about the VW is that it feels a bit sluggish, not surprising considering it's the least powerful of the nine cars on the list. Trying to gain speed as I climbed the front straight at Laguna was a chore, so I fully expected my first touch of the brakes to be equally disappointing. How wrong I was. As I executed the stopping for the Andretti hairpin, I found myself ending up well short of the corner. Lesson learned.

For low- and mid-speed corners, the little VW loves to dart for the apex on initial turn in, but if you carry even a little too much speed, that's quickly replaced by ugly front-wheel-drive ploughing understeer. As you can expect, backing off the throttle will solve the problem, happily without the lift-off oversteer that was so common on older GTIs.

There's no doubt the GTI is a nimble, fun car, but the lack of power and that nagging FWD understeer tendency definitely detracted from the experience.

Subaru Impreza WRX STi (JDM 2.0) - Best time of 1'45.554 - The game lacks an STi with the USDM 2.5 litre engine, offering instead a 2002 Japanese-spec 2.0 STi or the lightweight 2004 C-Spec STi. Of these two, the '02 seemed more like what I was looking at, especially as it sported the 2004 facelifted cosmetics for some weird reason.

The Impreza immediately feels much faster than the Golf as my first lap beat the best time that I was able to achieve in 5 with the VW. Corner after corner, the rally-rocket is afforded greater agility due to its free-revving engine that jumps in to solve any handling errors. Turned in too late? No problem, get on the gas and the car goes where you point it. In too hot? A quick lift of the throttle instantly rotates the back of the car in your favour. If you continue to push too hard towards the apex the car tends to a full understeery 4-wheel drift, as opposed to the Golf's ploughing.

The brakes are okay, but couldn't match the bite of the GTI and weren't helped by the massive speeds the car could quickly pick up. Acceleration out of the corners is magnificent, but correct gear selection is important, as a lack of torque made things difficult. This is perhaps indicative of the 2.0 engine - the 2.5 is supposed to be much better low down the rev range.

The STi is like an oversize go-kart, quick to respond, incredibly communicative, agile and fast as all hell. How the US version compares is to be determined in analogue, but I can't wait to have a go!

BMW M3 E46 Coupe - Best time of 1'43.764 - As the computer handed off control before turn 11, the car felt big, slow and heavy. Then I applied the power coming out of the hairpin and the Laguna Blue Beemer just pulled and pulled and pulled, before long eclipsing the highest speeds that the Impreza could attain. The shifting feels slow, perhaps due to turbine-like characteristics of the engine - you get the impression that there's a massive flywheel in there somewhere. The power delivery is so buttery smooth you hardly notice it until you reach brake markers and realize you're two gears higher than expected. A quick, panicky deceleration and it's time to get back on the gas as you pass the apex. Here is where the massive grip of the M becomes evident - pick your line and the car will stick to it come hell or high water. It's the proverbial "on rails" experience that makes Laguna's butt-clenchingly exciting turn 4 a joy to behold. Moments later however the BMW's major flaw comes through as you throw out the anchors for the difficult, misleading turn 5. You have all this speed, but very little with which to get rid of it, and the M3 made numerous trips into the gravel at both 5 and turn 2 as a result of crappy brakes.

Handling is more stately than in the previous two cars and demands a very different approach. There is certainly the feeling that it prefers that you brake in a straight line because it wants to steer from the rear wheels under power application, and trailbraking on corner entry causes unwieldy oversteer. It will turn in predictably but without the lightning sharpness of the STi or GTI and feels less twitchy as a result. Once you've got the hang of it, it's rewarding stuff, although finding the limit is much harder because its handling is so good (until things go wrong). This was also my experience in the E36 M3 I had a chance to drive a few years ago. It thus took more laps to put in a mistake free run. Once I did though, I killed the Impreza's time by 1.8 seconds.

This Beemer felt like a very serious, grown-up fast car. In the real world this is bolstered by the well-equipped interior and quality of finish inside and out. It faces the highest insurance quotes and one of the highest purchase costs on my list, so I envision a "head vs. heart" conundrum...

Audi S4 - Best time of 1'48.672 - This car is harder to find on GT4, since it's only available in the used car lot and only from time to time. I already had one in my garage, but specced up to 360bhp. First thing's first then, time to remove the chip, exhaust, racing clutch and racing suspension. Man, how I wish I could have kept them though...

...because the S4 was an utterly boring drive. The engine wanted to rev, but the chassis wasn't good enough to allow it to do so, demanding gentle turn in and prohibiting early application of power. What made things worse was that the rev-limiter was set too low, meaning the fun-loving engine ran out of room before it was ready, putting itself back into the low end of the rev range after a shift. Understeer was rampant, albeit in a 4-wheel drift pattern like the Subaru showed. Difference was that the Subaru would only resort to that behavior when it had run out of all other options. In the Audi you turn in a touch too fast and it immediately throws its hand up and says "sorry, too fast, back-off or we're making a reservation at the Understeer Motel for the next two weeks!"

Try as I might I couldn't improve my time. People talk about how the S4 is ready for modding and I see why - in stock form it's really not the sporting vehicle it claims to be. The engine note is somewhat flat for a V6 bi-turbo, and it certainly lacks visual excitement, going for style instead. Even with that approach, it kind of fails with its jelly-mould looks and lack of purposeful lines. Only a striking colour like the Nogaro Blue example I saw advertised locally can save its aesthetics.

So after the first day's competition, the scoreboard looks like this:

BMW M3 - 1'43.764
Subaru Impreza WRX STi - 1'45.554
Audi S4 - 1'48.672
VW GTI - 1'53.369

Tomorrow I'll look at the Evo VIII and fudge my way through the other four cars, none of which appear in the game...

Gran Turismo virtual track test

2007-12-17T23:33:00.000-08:00

Since we're in the off-season and racing news is somewhat thin on the ground, I think it's time for a little fun and games...

I've been lucky enough to be offered a new job starting in the New Year, and it brings with it a very significant pay increase. For years although I've had nice motorcycles I've always had old and/or difficult and/or ugly cars ('83 Golf GTI, '87 Alfa Romeo 75/Milano, '90 Subaru Legacy). So I've decided that I'm going to be spending a portion of my new paychecks on a car payment, and that for the first time in my life I'll have a nice, newish, fast, interesting car.

Numbers have been crunched, spreadsheets created, insurance quoted and classified listings scanned, and a shortlist of nine cars came out. It was easy enough to gather information on acceleration, insurance costs, fuel consumption and other pertinent details to help my decision, but until I start test-driving actual examples, it's hard to figure out how well each will perform, and impossible to determine their abilities at track days (until I'm the owner).

Then the idea came to me... I'll do the ultimate virtual track test, utilizing the amazing tool that is the Gran Turismo 4 video game on the Playstation. I've always loved this game, and am far enough in to be able to buy all the cars in question without emptying my virtual bank account.

The rules are simple:

Each car will be stock. No upgrades or modifications, and all must be on street tyres.
Each car will lap Laguna Seca in practice mode with no other cars on track until I feel that I've done as good a lap as possible.
Traction control will be set to 50% (default is 70%). If I was to turn it off, basic control of the car would become impossible and I'd spend more time struggling to play, than actually evaluating the cars.
Manual transmission must be used.
If a car is not in the game I will endeavor to find something suitably close for evaluation purposes.
Cars will be evaluated based on best lap time as well as handling and power characteristics.
As much as I'd love to use my Driving Force steering wheel, the game is actually harder with it. See the traction control rule. So I'll use the standard dual-shock controller.

Okay, let's look at the projected line-up:

2002-2005 Subaru WRX 4-door (US domestic version manual tranny and the 2.0 turbo engine generating 225bhp)
2004-2005 Subaru WRX STi (US version with the 2.5 turbo engine, generating 300bhp)
2003-2004 Mitsubishi Evo VIII (standard version, not the lightweight RS or the faster MR)
2001-2002 BMW M3 (E46 model, 2-door, manual tranny, not the SMG)
2000-2002 BMW M5 (E39 model with the 440bhp V8)
2000-2002 Audi S4 (4-door, not the wagon, and with manual tranny)
2004 Volvo S60-R
2006.5-2007 Volkswagen GTI (2-door, manual tranny, not DSG)
2004-2005 Acura TL 3.2 (manual tranny)

Let the games begin!!!

(By the way, what do you think of my choices? Any other suggestions? Some cars that were considered but discarded include the Pontiac GTO, Nissan 350Z, Audi TT, Volvo V70-R and Mini Cooper S.

Budget is less than $25,000, and it must be fast, interesting and have rear seats.)