So the Grand Prix year is in full swing again. The next round is this weekend in
Malaysia. For the last couple of years Malaysia has been at the more exciting end of the calendar, but a re-shuffle of dates sees Malaysia in March. I believe the ticket
sales have not been good, but no doubt we will hear more about this after the meeting.
Join me trackside at Shenanigans at 1 pm as we are one hour behind Kuala Lumpur. Will Schumi make it two in a row? Will McLaren get both cars to the
finish? Will Rubens try another of his optimistic passing manoeuvres? Will Villeneuve have stopped whinging about Raikkonen? Will Minardi get another car to finish? Can
Raikkonen score another point? The answer to all these fascinating questions will be revealed on Sunday afternoon. See you there!
Automania Quiz
Last week I asked about the TR 3 B. Yes, there was one, and it was an interim model between the TR 3 A and the TR 4. So what was the difference? The TR 3 B
had an all synchro gearbox, instead of the crunchomesh first gears on the earlier models.
Reminds me of the time I bought a Datsun 240 Z gearbox for one of my race cars -
it cost $5 but it came in a bucket. The guy had no manuals, so I went to Datsun and photocopied the parts book exploded diagram and re-assembled it. The amazing thing was
that every bit of the gearbox was there. Every little circlip and washer. It was the best value gearbox I’d ever bought. It was a bit “growly”, but in a race car, who
cares. A bucket full of Molyslip and it was hot knife through melted butter!
So to this week’s quiz question. Now we all know the Maserati brothers were behind the Maserati marque, with the name still being around today, even
though the brothers are not. There were also four enthusiastic British brothers who founded a new sports car marque in the UK. Their names were Bob, Ivor, Trevor and Douglas.
What was the name of the marque?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first correct answer to fax 427 596 or email [email protected]
Safety in F1
Following the death of a trackside marshal in Melbourne, the more sensational ends of the media have again been beating the “Danger” drum. Really, it
is the uninformed comment that gets me down. These days, it seems there are no “accidents” - someone always has to be blamed, no matter how tenuous the connection.
Unfortunately, immediately there is a fatality, the drivers do not help their own cause by beginning to criticise each other as they point the finger of
accusation (or is it covering their own backsides). Now while I personally think that Jacques Villeneuve’s attempt at passing Ralf Schumacher at the AGP was incredibly
clumsy, at no time during the split second of his decision making process did he decide he would murder a trackside marshal. The driver was not “to blame”. It was not a
deliberate attempt by a driver on somebody’s life.
To say, “Ah yes, but if Villeneuve hadn’t hit Schumacher the accident wouldn’t have happened, so the marshal wouldn’t have been killed,” is as
silly as saying that if the bus driver hadn’t picked the marshal up that morning, he wouldn’t have been there at the circuit to be killed either.
Both drivers and officials know that motor racing is dangerous. It is the nature of the sport. The public love the crashes - just ask them. If you don’t
believe me, an e-friend of mine Chris Balfe runs a Formula 1 website in the UK called planet-f1.com and regularly gets requests for the site to supply “best crashes”
screen savers.
Following the Melbourne accident Chris, as the editor of the website, wrote, “We call for more stringent safety measures to guarantee the lives of
drivers and officials. We call for wider gravel traps and stronger safety fencing. Yet when the race fan finds himself pushed ever further from the track and ‘caged in’,
circuit owners and the FIA are accused of destroying the sport.”
“We call for more overtaking, which by its very nature is extremely dangerous. Two open-wheel cars attempting to pass one another at 30 or 200 mph are a
recipe for disaster. The slightest miscalculation, an error of mere millimetres could end in tragedy. When it comes off we applaud all concerned and talk of how wonderful the
sport is, when it ends in tears, fingers are pointed and the sport - and its fans - labelled barbaric.”
While the sanctity of human life is totally accepted in principle by me, there are also risks “acceptable” in all forms of human endeavour, by the
people who do it. People jump out of perfectly good airplanes, people climb mountains in sub-zero conditions and finally, people actually cross the roads. They accept the
risks.
Returning to Formula 1 motor racing - it is not as if officiating is wholesale carnage. In the past ten years there have only been four track marshals
killed during an F1 race, including the one last year in Italy. And none of those marshals were driven to duty at gun point. They were the true enthusiasts who have kept the
sport running for as long as motor racing has been a popular pastime. They knew, and accepted, the risks.
Old bits and pieces
A copy of the Classic Motor Monthly (incorporating the Autojumbler) came into my hands last month. What a wonderful English newspaper! In it are advertised
all sorts of “forgotten” things. Do you remember when ‘lead wiping’ was the correct way to repair imperfections in the bodywork? Classic Motor Monthly has the Lead
Wiping Kit for you, including four lead sticks, solder paint, tallow, acid brushes and one flat and one half round maple paddle and all for thirty eight pounds ninety five
new pence. What a bargain!
Your classic not steering too well? You can get exchange steering wheels for such gems as an Austin 7 Ruby or the ever popular Ford Popular. The readers’
letters were a scream, with one chap spending months tracking down a vibration in his Austin A40 and finding it was in the prop shaft. He then applied a Jubilee Clip
(There’s never a drip from a genuine Jubilee clip - remember?) and progressively moved the worm screw around till he counteracted the vibration. What a hassle! All he had
to do was take the prop shaft to the dynamic balancing shop (there’s plenty in the UK) and it’s fixed. All serious race cars have the prop shaft balanced, otherwise it
shakes the car to bits.
All day, Hyundai
Local production of the Hyundai Elantra (Lantra in some markets) at the Banchang General Assembly Plant will see a few more of these on the roads. They
will have the choice of the 1.6, 1.8 or 2.0 litre engines. The Santa Fe sport utility vehicle (SUV) is scheduled to be produced on the Eastern Seaboard next year. This SUV
was reviewed in Pattaya Mail Automania Vol IX, No 8 and will be a welcome addition to the ranks of the cross-over vehicles in this country.
Anybody got a spare half a million quid?
If so, the new Bugatti Veyron is just the ticket. No change from the half a mill, but you do get an 800 BHP 4WD supercar which will have policemen writing
tickets as soon as you drive out of your garage. Only 50 cars to be made a year, so it’s a bit exclusive too. The engine is an 8 litre W16 (two banks of V8’s), which if
you find it a little slow, can be ordered in Turbo form, giving over 1000 BHP. The Veyron will be in your local neighbourhood Bugatti Dealers in 2003, with the Turbo Veyron
the year after. Start saving your new pence now.
