by Dr. Iain Corness |
|
Pattaya Kart Speedway this Sunday
 The
5th round of the Thailand Go-kart championships is being held
in Pattaya this Sunday at the Pattaya Kart Speedway. And the
hottest tip? A young 13-year-old girl called Anna, who is Andy
Scheidegger’s adopted daughter. Now Anna is literally pint
sized (or even half pint) and I have also seen Anna on the
track. Last year she challenged my Aussie prot้g้,
Julian Harburg, the ex Australian Porsche Cup winner and
Julian had to pull back. Anna may be small, but she is very
aggressive on the track, thinking nothing of doing some wheel
banging with the experienced Aussie driver. On her second only
championship meeting she was the winner in her class and my
money’s on her for a win at her home track.
 If
you do not know where Andy Scheidegger’s Pattaya Kart
Speedway is located, then shame on you! It is probably the
best circuit in Pattaya (but I admit I have not tried them
all) and has the fastest hire karts in the world. It is off
Thepprasit Road (the soi is almost opposite the 7-11 where Soi
17 joins Thepprasit) and is next to Bungee Jump and Paintball
Park.
|
We’re not the only country with a “grey import” problem
Last year we had the situation in this
country where warranties were in doubt with grey import
motor vehicles. That situation has died down, but “we
are not alone”, as Steven Spielberg would say. America
is now being threatened with grey imports from Canada and
this has been so prevalent that the Chrysler group now
says it will not honour warranties on 2003 cars and trucks
bought in to the States through unauthorized channels.
This is always a vexed problem. It is a
Chrysler. It is new. If it is as good as the manufacturer
says it is, then surely warranty goes with the vehicle?
Unfortunately, this is not so, because part of the sticker
price incorporates the costs involved in those warranties.
In the case of a grey import, that portion of the purchase
price does not come back to the servicing dealer network,
hence the stance taken by Chrysler.
|
Autotrivia Quiz
 Last week I asked you to have a look at
this photograph. This is an old Fiat and it took the world
land speed record in 1924 at almost 235 kph (or 146 mph in the
old money). It was driven by Ernest Eldridge who even had a
passenger with him. The question was what was significant
about the venue?
The answer was that it was the last time a
World Land Speed record was set on an ordinary tree lined
road. All the others following were done on special saltpans
and such.
 So to this week and another picture for you
to identify. This car was rear engined and had a 3.4 litre V8.
No more clues, you’re all getting too good!For the Automania
FREE beer this week, be the first correct answer to fax 427
596 or email automania@ pattayamail.com
Good luck!
| International drivers licenses
I recently made a quick trip to the
UK. While over there I arranged to have a drive of a
Noble M12 GTO, a rather fast British supercar. However,
when I looked for my drivers license, I had a problem -
my Aussie one had expired, and I could see that the Brit
coppers were not likely to accept my green laminated
cardboard Thai license which looks the greatest “make
it yourself-er” of all time.
Contact was made with the Australian
Embassy in Bangers who said I would have to fill out
forms for the Road Transport Authority in Oz, pay them
$80 and I could get the Oz license extended. All very
easy, the forms available off the net and everything.
Looked good till I tried to access the net address -
always down. Since I was starting to run out of time, it
was on to Plan B.
Plan B was to get an International
Drivers License issued in Thailand. This is possible,
show your ID card, house papers and drivers license and
it is issued by the Department of Transport, and you can
even get the nice people at the Royal Automobile
Association of Thailand (RAAT) to do it for you. And
only 800 baht - what a bargain!
I went up to Bangers to the RAAT,
showed them my passport, work permit, bills with my name
and address on them and recent photographs of my head in
assorted sizes. The 800 baht was extracted and we were
looking good - until the girl came back to say that they
couldn’t do it because my Thai license was only
“temporary”. Yes, my Thai license was only six
months old and for the first year it is “temporary”
only.
Plan C was next. Way back in the dim
dark distant ages, when Adam played full back for
Jerusalem, I did actually have a British drivers
license. This I had taken out in 1968 when it was always
necessary to have several licenses so you could show the
coppers a different one each time and you didn’t rack
up too many points on one permit. My Brit friends all
told me that the Pommy license was good till I was 70
years old, all I had to do was to say I had lost it
(which I had) and they would replace it in a couple of
days! Looking good!
|
Japan car makers going Banzai
Is the motor vehicle recession over? The
major Japanese car manufacturers are all claiming big profits,
or profits after several successive losses in the past few
years, so Japan is looking good.
According to Automotive News in America,
Toyota claimed an operating profit of $8.43 billion, which was
the highest operating profit ever for any Japanese company in
any industry.
Mitsubishi posted a net profit of $84.5
million after a net loss of $2.1 billion last year, easily
meeting the Mitsubishi Turnaround Plan’s target of breakeven
for the year. Operating profit swung $301.9 million into the
black from a loss of $554.3 million previously. Mitsubishi
said its three-year goal of slashing purchasing costs by 15
percent would be surpassed, and the cuts probably would end up
at about 20 percent.
Mazda and this Ford Motor Co. affiliate
swung to a net profit of $66.3 million from a loss of $1.2
billion a year earlier. Operating profit swung to a gain of
$214.3 million from a year-earlier loss of $112.1 million.
Subaru’s net profit rose 33.8 percent
from a year earlier to $227.3 million, a record revenue. The
company said results benefited from a $244.7 million currency
gain and a 10 percent rise in North American unit sales.
Honda also recorded profits in the past
fiscal year, so the troubled US auto industry should perhaps
look carefully at their operations and work out where they are
going wrong.
|
A sock under the bed ain’t such a bad idea after all!
Consumer fraud is a
problem, in fact, identity theft was the most common
type of consumer fraud complaint in 2001, according to
U.S. Federal Trade Commission statistics. Hijacking of
personal information for fraud or theft generated 85,000
complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission in
2001 and was up sharply from the previous year.
So what is the relationship to the
auto industry? Well, Ford Credit, the consumer
financiers have just had to tell 13,000 people of credit
fraud risk, caused by hackers getting into their data
base in America. According to Reuters, Ford sent letters
last week to the 13,000 people, of whom 400 were Ford
Credit customers, warning them that Social Security
numbers, bank and credit card account information and
other data may have been copied. The data in the reports
could be used for any number of crimes, especially
getting credit cards under false names.
Ford Credit said a person, or group,
posing as its Grand Rapids, Michigan, office accessed
the reports between April 2001 and February of this
year. The scheme was uncovered after they found the
hackers were using different software from than that
used by Ford.
Has anyone got a sock without holes in the toes? |
Jaguar gets cold feet over the F-Type
The Jaguar marque, which was one of the
high flyers in the Premier Automotive Group division of Ford
Motor Corp, has just done a U-turn on the F-Type which was
shown in prototype form in auto shows in America. From a
position of “definitely for production”, the F-Type
project has been committed to the back burner.
 Jaguar
F-Type
With Reitzle having gone, the bean counters
reign supreme and the F-Type roadster is the first casualty.
According to a Jaguar spokesman Simon Sproule, “Jaguar is
still emotionally wedded to doing the F-Type. We just need to
do other things more urgently.” Apparently Jaguar has 17
product programmes coming in the next four years. They include
redesigns of the XJ sedan, XK grand-touring convertible and
the S-Type - but no F-Type. I do not predict great things for
Jaguar. I think the corporate financial thinking is going to
knock the nuts off the once proud Jaguar cat!
|
|
|
|
News | Business News | Features | Columns | Letters | Sports | Auto Mania
Kid's Corner | Who’s Who | Travel | Our Community | Dining Out & Entertainment
Social Scene | Classifieds | Community Happenings | Books Music Movies
Club in Pattaya | Sports Round-Up
E-mail: [email protected]
Pattaya Mail Publishing Co., Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596
Copyright © 2002 Pattaya Mail. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
|
|
