TGTC Round 3 this weekend

The Thailand Grand Touring Car (TGTC) circus comes to town this Sunday. These race meetings are the most professional motor sport events promoted in Thailand and feature the highly modified Grand Touring Cars, where you can find V8’s stuffed in 3 series BMW’s and similar fire-breathers.

Sport Grand Championship cars

At these meetings you will also see the Sport Grand Championship cars (AKA Concept II). These race-cars are very quick and the drivers have, in the main, graduated from the Concept I series which had its inauguration last year. Like scaled down Can-Am cars, they are very pretty to watch and the action is close.

The entry level Concept I cars will also be at this meeting, with our own flying Finn, Matti Kaikkonen from Jomtien, trying to emulate the exploits of Kimi Raikkonen from the Sauber team. Unfortunately Matti has left his run about 25 years too late, but is still having fun the renta-racer series.

At lunchtime on the Sunday the crowd are invited over the bridge to do a pit walk to see the cars at close range and meet the drivers and take photographs. This will happen around noon, but I suggest you get to the Bira circuit at around 10 a.m. to catch the first events. You can generally find me somewhere in the pit area too!

For those who do not know where the circuit is located - it is at Km 14 on Highway 36 heading from the International School of the Regents and going towards Rayong. The circuit is on the right hand side before the overpass with Highway 331 (going to Chachoengsao).

Natter Nosh and Noggin

Bolwell Nagari

Our little fun crowd evenings on the 2nd Monday of the month at Shenanigans have turned up some wonderful people and some great cars. The gathering is purely one of car enthusiasts, there’s no membership, no dues, no fees. You don’t need to own (or have owned) anything exotic - just be passionate about motor cars. Between us we have unearthed a Bolwell Nagari (hands up all those who know about those vehicles) and a lovely old Mercedes being restored in Pattaya as we speak. We kick off at 7 p.m. in the back room at Shenanigans. Just ask any of the lovely waitresses where Dr. Iain and the car people are. Love to see you there.

Arrows go Cosworth for 2002 The Orange Arrows F1 race team is dropping the Asia-tech engines for next year and are getting customer (Ford) Cosworth engines instead. This is the next step forward in the resurgence of Cosworth, let me assure you. It is not that long ago that more than half the field were running the all-conquering Cosworth DFV’s, one of the best F1 engines of all time. It would not surprise me to see a head to head situation in F1 between Ferrari and Ford customer engines in a couple of years. What is also notable in this deal, is that Orange Arrows are getting the whole kit and caboodle electronics to go with the engine as well. This comes from Pi Research and is an integrated control system. For Pi Research, it is the first time they have supplied a complete car electronic package to another F1 team other than Jaguar Racing. Orange Arrows will get to run the same 2002 specification Pi-VCS (Vehicle Control System) which integrates engine, clutch, gearbox, and differential controls as well as comprehensive monitoring and telemetry systems as Jaguar Racing themselves. Cosworth Racing is certainly no back alley engine tuners and employs 725 people at its Northampton (UK) headquarters and at its North American base in Torrance, California. The company became a wholly owned Ford Motor Company subsidiary in 1998 and now has an annual turnover of $113m. They supply racing engines to the Jaguar Racing Formula One team, the Ford World Rally Team and to CART and NASCAR. While never owning a DFV, one of my race cars had a racing BDG, the 4 cylinder Cosworth race engine, complete with forged crankshaft, forged rods and pistons. An amazing engine that always sounded like it was about to blow itself to bits at idle but was sweet as a symphony above 9,000 RPM. My race engineer would plead with me to limit the revs to 9,500, but I’m afraid 11,000 was seen on more than one occasion when you just wanted to squeeze that little bit extra out of the car without wasting time by changing up and then down again between corners. Cosworth used to give absolutely fabulous service as well, air-freighting bits which would arrive complete with a note from them hoping the race meeting would be successful, and enclosing a little Cosworth sticker for the racer.

Eff Wun - Has Schumi done it? Will he be jumping at the season’s end? Michael Schumacher is currently leading the world championship with 84 points and there are five Grands Prix to go (Hungary, Belgium, Italy, USA and Japan) which amounts to a possible 50 points up for grabs. There are only three drivers mathematically close enough to Schumi the elder to overhaul him - Coulthard with 37 points adrift, brother Ralf Schumacher 43 points behind and Barichello 44 points away. Even if Coulthard wins the next four races and Schumacher Snr fails to score a point it would make the final round in Japan 84-87 (Schumi-Coulthard). However, there is not much chance of this happening, the most likely being that Schumacher would score some points each race making him uncatchable by that stage. While Schumacher would undoubtedly like to equal and then pass Alain Prost’s all time wins record of 51 GP victories, I believe he will be going for points, rather than victories, until he cannot be overhauled. However, in the meantime, Ferrari will be having a close look at why two Ferrari’s failed at Hockenheim.

Autotrivia Quiz

Last week I wrote about Giancarlo Baghetti who won on his first time out for Ferrari and I asked who was next to achieve this? I said it was easy, and it was - It was none other than the whining Brumm, Nigel Mansell.

So to this week. Another easy one for the folk interested in engineering. What thread type do you find in the knock-offs for the wheels of the MG T series? Now that’s really simple.

For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first correct answer to fax 427 596 or email [email protected]

Ford - Where to from here? FoMoCo has not been having one of its finest years. Re-shuffling of the top posts has been taking place, after some criticism of the top jockey, Jac Nasser and there is definitely a feeling of flux being felt by the middle/upper group of Ford executives. The shambles over the Firestone tyre recall on the Ford Explorer has not helped either. However, there does seem to be some long range planning and direction and here’s the future for some of the Ford models. Ford is consolidating platforms among its global brands. The company owns 33.4 percent of Mazda, and it acquired Volvo in 1999 and Land Rover Ltd. in 2000. The future range of lower-medium cars will use the same platform and share major components, systems and modules, beginning as soon as 2003. 2002 Thunderbird Ford’s C1 Technologies programme, headquartered at Ford of Europe in Cologne, Germany, will produce the next generation Ford Focus, Mazda Protege and 323, and Volvo S40 and V40. Ford is taking the lead on suspensions and vehicle dynamics. Mazda has the lead responsibility for four-cylinder engines while Volvo is involved in safety and manufacturing technology. Ford has said the C1 program will develop as many as 15 vehicles, including variants that will be produced in as many as six countries (and Thailand will be one of those I predict). The first vehicle will be the Focus-based multi-activity vehicle, a seven-seat model scheduled to appear in Europe in calendar 2003. There could be a new Ford Coupe. Ford unveiled the Forty-Nine concept at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The retro-looking concept uses the 3.9 litre, dual overhead cam, 32-valve V-8 powering the Thunderbird and Lincoln LS. The Thunderbird returns for the 2002 model year as a two-passenger roadster, with more retro styling from the 1955-57 models. But while the styling is retro, the componentry is 21st century, with about 65% heavily borrowed from other Ford vehicles. Ford is capping annual Thunderbird production at 25,000 units to maintain the T-Bird’s appeal and used-car values. Lincoln will field a new entry-level sedan in 2004 that will be smaller than the LS sedan. The new model will compete with the Mercedes-Benz C class and BMW 3 series, two successful lines that accounted for combined U.S. sales of more than 124,000 last year.