Korea

Track looks good to me.

A good mix of speed, technical sections.

I really like the latter stages of the lap amongst the walls, seems so many of the Tilkedromes are one-line tracks with nowhere to overtake.

Well this has overtaking areas early on and in the latter stages a definate area where you can gain time and capitalise on a weak aero package.

The off camber corner is superb as is the corner like Turkey’s turn 8 and the Magny Cours tightening bend.

I love the fact it is slippy and that the tyres are rooting. these guys are far too mollycoddled anyway so a bit of dust and kerbs should keep them on their toes!!

The Big Four/Five

Bernie is trying to stir up interest in the closing rounds of the F1 world championship by posing the five main guys in the running for a pitwall type picture as he did with Mansell, Prost Piquet and Senna all those years ago.

I can’t help thinking it’s just not the same with these newer guys. We all know Lewis doesnt really like Alonso, yet there he is with is arm all there and round the Spaniards shoulder with both of them smiling like blokes who have had a few quid stuffed into their overalls!

The original shot from the 80′s is quite candid and all the guys are smiling and look genuinely happy.

This one looks a little more staged and set, the Red Bull guys are kept apart and Jenson is oding his usual happy- smiley-people bit!

The rivalry between the guys on track I think is now more fierce than ever, but I also think the sporting rivalry is less than it was in the 80′s.

Senna ushered in a new wave of ‘winner takes all’ mentality that Prost simply wasn’t prepared to tolerate and Mansell and Piquet, though hard rivals, were prepared to run toe to toe with any of them.

I fear that Vettel, Webber and perhaps even Alonso are prepared to put their rivals to the sword. And Hamilton has shown recently that he can over aggressive.

Button for me is the best proper ‘racer’ as Stirling would put it. He drives with his head, and is aggressive when needs be.

I think Jens would have fitted in nicely in 1986! the rest would have been banned! Or been as feared as a Brambilla or Arnoux!!

Keeping it real

The current crop of motorcycle world championships leaves me a little cold. It’s not the riders, the way things are run, or the format. It’s the lack of spectacle.

You see I was lucky, I saw the 500′s, the massive factory bike 250 grids. the 125 fields rammed with Honda and Aprilia bikes all of a similar spec and hordes of Japanese riders all banzai-ing each other! Legions of bikes in BSB and WSBK in the 90′s, massive fan numbers, great rivalries etc.

It’s the bikes see! They don’t slide anymore, you don’t get to see the craft and guile of a Kocinski, Rainey or Roberts. The patience of a Lawson or Doohan or the blinding speed of a Schwantz, Russell or Fogarty.

All we get to see is ‘who has the best software technician, or whose bike suits the tyres this week’.

Electronics are bad for bike racing. They have ruined the show, added totally unnecessary expense and all in the name of progress.

So tell me ‘Mr progress’, What Suzuki bike do you know that has anti-wheelie control, multi adjustable traction control, backshift technology, ride by wire, GPS, ability to change to several fuel maps, and an engineer in the garage who knows more about Marelli than Senor Magnetti??

It’s dull guys and it has now progressed (!) to WSBK and BSB, it is ruining the racing and taking away an aspect of rider skill that has always been there. The ability to race a bike on different levels of tyre grip.

Hailwood, Read, Roberts, Spencer, Sheene, Mamola, name the next hundred, they could all do it and it’s being left behind in the name of programming.

All very sad and let us hope that the likes of Dorna, Flammini et al realise that when Rossi is gone all you have left is the show! And without him the show is truly woeful right now.

Humanity

Just had one of those ‘life isn’t so bad’ experiences

You know what I mean, when you give someone a car park ticket with half an hour on it and they say thanks!

Or you hold the door open for someone and they grab it and make you go through first!

I was buying a pint at a pathetically slow bar for myself and a friend and got annoyed with waiting! Left the bar to see if there was another and quickly realised my mistake and returned to the bar.

A guy I was waiting with was just about to place an order when he saw me and said ‘No, you were before me mate, go on!’ This after he had seen me leave.

And all this in that bastion of other people’s ridicule Stevenage.

There are manners, politeness in the world and often in the unlikliest places!! Cheers mate

Is it time?

Like many other men of a similar age, I have a problem!

There is a soon to be far too obvious area on my body that used to be covered in something but now looks like it it is being starved of light or food!

It happens to men mainly, but you do see the odd woman suffering too! And in men it can appear in two ways…

1) From the front, which means not too drastic an action, it kind of leads itself to an action eventually.

2) The worst and mine, it starts at the back. This means two things. First you can’t see and second you become ignorant!

Now I am in a quandry. Do I buy the necessary implement or try and make the best of what is left?

Goddam old age and genes of two families!!

Inane purchases

I have to go and buy a vacuum cleaner today!

I don’t think I have ever been so un-motivated to buy something in my life! The only reason I need one is because I can’t stop dropping crumbs when i eat!

I can’t help thinking I should wear a bib, then I wouldn’t need to spend 50 quid on an utterly pointless piece of Chinese electronica!

Cock lights

Well this one is easy after a while away.

Was with a mate the other day and he was looking to buy a new Ford Focus. This was all fine and dandy until the salesman mentioned what updates are being put into the new version of the Focus.

All he managed to get out of his mouth was, “You know those lights that Audi have on their c…” before I nearly choked on my own vomit!

Now those little beads of LED lights look great on an R8, or perhaps a slinky A6 or something, but a Focus!! Cmon?

I even saw the damn things on a Citroen the other day, and to make matters worse, they were sodding vertical!! What’s going on there?

Simply put, they are a fad. Marketing dicks know that sad people buy cars on looks and trinkets and sadly some people will probably only buy a car unless it has cock lights fitted.

They dont serve a purpose but I need to do more research to find out if they come on automatically or if the majority of women (for it is them that always have them turned on) are trying to blind every other motorist and say “look at me, please look at me, you can’t see me boobs, but I am still here, look!”

Either way, shall we christen them Audi cock lights or just cock lights? Because pretty soon you are going to be able to get them in Halfords and you can maybe already get them as standard on a Hyundai or Kia!

Vorsprung Durch Cock!!

Bunny Hop

This is one for the older petrol heads out there.

Do any of you know what a bunny hop is? I will give you a clue.

It involved a plank of wood, a pushbike and Peter Purvis!!

Still none the wiser eh, well this all came about after watching Kickstart, the motorcycle trials series presented by Purvis, the former Blue Peter presenter.

It involved the top trials riders in the world hacking about on Lord Hesketh’s estate over very tricky obstacles, one of which was called the ‘Bunny Hop’!

Now this was basically a plank of wood laid lengthwise along the floor. It was help upright by two easily knocked over pillars at either end and the rider had to approach the Hop, jump over it with both wheels while not knocking over said plank!

This looked amazing to us kids and of course the inevitable happened as this show was on during school holidays!

Suffice to say many of us kids were entranced and went out immediately to try and emulate Eddie Lejeune on our Grifters or in my case a metallic green Strika!!

There was much falling over and many grazed knees and rattled pre pubescant scrotii! But a technique was mastered, basically you stand on the pedals and lift up the bike with your arms and legs, somehow the thing stuck to your legs and you were bunnying!!

I can only imagine the local Halfords being inundated with punctures and bent spokes/wheels for weeks after this amazing new trick was born!

But I was able to manage to do one, but sadly never managed to find a spare plank! No one need know that though of course!!

Disaster

So what happens to a race series when by far its biggest star crashes and will be out of the sport for many months?

I am, of course talking about Valentino Rossi who is facing many weeks of rehab and pain before being able to ride again.

Now, the issue is; Rossi’s presence on the grid and his personality have been masking a race series utterly devoid of action and passing for many years now.

The last great year was 2006 when Nicky Hayden triumphed and Valentino wowed us all by nearly winning despite having a multitude of problems and crashes on a recalcitrant Yamaha.

Since the 800cc rules were introduced the racing has, by and large, been appalling. there have been some memorable races, but whereby in the past a dull race would still have something going for it, nowadays we get very processional, strung out races where the first 20 laps are just couting time and the last few decide the race.

Also, since the rules were introduced at the beginning of an econimc downturn two things happen:
1) A whole host of bikes that before could have been leased cheaply are now scrap.
2) An even bigger budget is needed by the existing teams to develop new engines and make the sport apparently safer! Genius!!

What can be done about it then?

Well I would like to see the abolition of fuel limits and the loss of electronics on the bikes.

Power sliding is the next best thing to good racing, and yes the rubbish guys might crash a bit more, but it hasnt really dumbed down F1 has it?

Rossi is going to leave sooner or later and Dorna and the show masters have to do something. He IS the show right now and the racing mattters little.

That will not last when he goes, and what are all these fans going to do then?

Best looking car?

Great little snippet in the F1 coverage from the Beeb this morning.

What is your fave Lotus F1 car?

Well for me a contender should be the 99T, the Honda engined beast that had active suspension. Was not a great looking machine but totally revolutionised the sport and made active suspension seem an altogether real possibility for some teams as Lotus were never having the biggest budget but managed to come up with this.

The 100 and 101 alos looked very pretty, the 100 in fact being so low and sleek.

I also liked the Type 88, again because it was revolutionary.

But my all time fave has to be the 80, that utterly amazing looking wing car The version that ran with no winglets and a sort of Indy rear wing, it looked years ahead of its time.

It was useless and Mario and Reutemannn hated it, but my God it looked fabulous!

Any ideas?