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German GP this weekend
Now I know it is only a week since the French GP at Magny
Cours, but the Hungarian GP will be three weeks after this
German one (August 18th) to give everyone a sort of “mid
term” holiday. The starting time should be 7 p.m. our time,
so join me in front of the big screen at Shenanigans, but
check the green light time on Shenanigans notice boards. The
winner? Put your money on a red car that isn’t a Toyota!
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I asked you what very famous race car designer
invented socks with five toes? The answer was Ettore Bugatti!
Why he wanted individual toes I have no idea and I reckon they
would have been a pig to put on - but there you go!
So to this week. And no more socking
questions! Exchange engines are commonplace these days. Why
wait to have yours reconditioned when you can buy a “ready
to run” unit and drop it in and trade in your old smokey
one. In 1934, in the UK you could buy your exchange engine for
9 pounds 10 shillings (the 8 horsepower model) or go the whole
hog and spend 11 pounds 10 shillings for the 14.9 and 24 horse
models. Those prices included labour charges too! The question
this week is what vehicle manufacturer was it in the UK
offering the exchange engine service? This was also the first
of its type in the UK, by the way.
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to fax 038 427 596 or email automania
@pattayamail.com
Good luck!
Schumacher
makes it Number 5
With Schumi the elder winning in France, he has
wrapped up the 2002 title to make it is fifth, to equal
Fangio’s record. After the French GP he was asked how did he
feel about this, and his reply shows a remarkable humility.
“I have obviously been asked very often
about it but personally I have to apologise because I am not
considering it too much because I feel, and I have mentioned
this very often, what Fangio has done in his time is not
comparable to what we do, and I think the effort that he had
to put in at the time was probably a lot more than just being
a driver than in these days, where you have so many people
around you, where you have a lot more teamwork than you had in
the past. I feel it is not appropriate to compare these
things, at least from my point of view, and I simply enjoy the
achievement myself without trying to compare it to someone.”
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You wanna
race Eff Wun? Here’s how!
If you ever thought that you were as good as the overpaid F1
jockeys jet-setting all over the world, then the good news is
that you can have a go too. It’s not all that difficult. It
just involves that old bogey, called “money” and several
bucket-loads too.
 F1
drive
Now popular knowledge would have it that my
favourite race driver, Alex Yoong, pays for his drive with the
KL Minardi F1 team; however, apparently he does not, though it
is more a matter of semantics. Alex doesn’t actually put his
own hand in his pocket, but several Malaysian companies, the
Malaysian government and Malaysian Tourist authorities do.
According to F1 Magazine the original deal was for $20m but
this was eventually reduced to $8m (but apparently only $2m
has actually been paid so far).
So there you are, slap around $8m down and
you can get your backside in a Minardi F1 car. You aren’t
going to win anything, and you probably won’t go quick
enough in qualifying to make the 107% cut off to get on the
grid - but don’t worry, Alex Yoong hasn’t made the grid
twice this year already, so you’re in good company! Fair
makes me puke.
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A bit of
Antipodean Aspirations
Australia does not have an enormous history in international
F1. Sure, there has been a couple of world champions in Sir
Jack Brabham and Alan Jones, but the others have been thin on
the ground. Tim Schenken (now the boss of the Confederation of
Australian Motor Sports - CAMS) had a brief go, as did Larry
Perkins and a couple of others, including one of Black
Jack’s sons. Mark Webber is currently on the grid while
Minardi hangs on, but his future is anything but secured.
The fix for all this, says CAMS, is to do a
deal with the Australian Institute of Sport for four years,
where the AIS will bring the hopeful F1 Aussie drivers up to
scratch on nutrition, fitness and mental attitude. If this
gets an aspiring Antipodean on the grid I will walk backwards
to Bang Na with a lighted gas stove on my head and my trousers
round my ankles.
What CAMS needs to do is generate
enthusiasm in the major Australian companies to get behind
young homegrown talent. It takes megabucks to get on the grid
(just ask my mate Alex Yoong - see story above). You can be as
fit as you like, eating all the right foods and displaying
lots of “attitude” and you haven’t a snowball’s hope
in Hades of getting to the top without corporate backing.
Finding backers is more important than eating veggie burgers
in my book!
Ferrari
under the hammer
Mediobanca, the secretive Milanese merchant and
investment bankers have just sliced off 34% of Ferrari,
taking it from FIAT. Cost? A cool $768 million, that’s
all. Now these guys haven’t done this so they can have
their own Prancing Horse in their garages. There is much
movement behind the scenes. A few weeks ago I did
mention that FIAT Auto were in a bit of doggy doo back
in Italy, well it appears that Mediobanca are
pressurizing the Agnelli family (the owners of FIAT) to
sell off the loss making FIAT Auto and then they want
them to put Alfa Romeo under the umbrella of Ferrari,
alongside Maserati.
 Alfa
Romeo
That being the case, they have
secured the future of a top drawer Italian auto
manufacturing business. Mark my words, this mob knows
more moves than Gaeng, the go-go dancer from Walking
Street!
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Funny Cars
American racing evolved somewhat differently from the European
style. Drag racing, which is really big in the US, never
really got out of the hole in the UK. There are those who say
that it is popular in the States because it is easy to do and
takes no real talent like the roundy-roundy boys need to have.
These people have obviously never seen the real drag racers in
action.
 Hemi
Under Glass
For my money, the sheer noise and spectacle
of 4 second, 300 mph plus passes from AA Fuellers takes some
beating. You cringe beside the barriers as these thousand
horsepower monsters fling themselves down the bitumen. The
noise is deafening and they’re gone in one blink! The engine
blocks have no water (after all, they are running for less
than 30 seconds all up, including staging) and the water
jackets are sometimes filled with concrete to make the engine
bores more rigid.
Sure, the lower echelon is Downtown
Dullsville, USA. Barely modified sedans doing blistering 14
second passes leaves me underwhelmed too, but let me assure
you the “Funny” cars will leave you breathless. AA
Fuellers with a plastic body and all the similar spectacle. If
you ever get the chance of seeing the top operators don’t
miss it.
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