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44 years ago today Jim Clark died at Hockenheim

Posted on April 7, 2012 by driverjohn

I was sat quietly pondering about the lack of international motor sport over the Easter weekend; no F1, NASCAR or IndyCar, and reminiscing about the glory days of the sort of events we could enjoy when I was a teenager, those races where several of the F1 stars of the day would turn out to drive a GT or saloon in one or more events on non GP weekends and we had plenty of non championship F1 races too.

We also had F2, and of course it was in one of those races that we lost Jim Clark, 44 years ago today. I’ve written at length about that day here in another blog post so I won’t go all over it again, but it underlined those words that used to appear in motor sport programmes and on the back of tickets: Motor Racing is Dangerous.

It is of course a lot safer today and I would not want to go back to the days of such high risk, even for those with the highest skills, but I must say that those days of my youth were times when there was more opportunity to watch racing here in the UK and also to get close to the top drivers.

Anyway, with the recent loss of Alan Mann, we have lost another key player in that April day 44 years ago, for had the cards fallen slightly differently, Jim Clark and Graham Hill might have been at Brands Hatch driving for Mann instead. As it happened they loaded up the Lotus 48s and went to the European Championship F2 race deep in the woods of southern Germany and Jim’s number was up.

That’s how things were back in those days. Motor racing was dangerous.

 

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Weekend roundup – w/e 1st April 2012 #NACSAR #IndyCar #F1 #BTCC

Posted on April 2, 2012 by truckertoggle

#NASCAR at Martinsville. Good to see the modern cars at one of the sport’s spiritual homes. Kasey Kahne racked up pole for Hendrick, but went out with engine woes leaving the #24 and #48 to slug it out for what looked like a certain 200th win for Hendrick, but a late caution (when Rooti  stopped on the track) it all went wrong on the restart with Boywer’s #15 starting fast and getting a run down the inside into turn one and then the #15, #24 and #48 all spun leaving Ryan Newman and AJ to run out the last couple of laps pretty much side by side and finishing in that order. Junior got 3rd and a consolation for Hendrick.

#IndyCar from Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama with an odd looking top six shootout for pole after problems for some of the usual suspects, but round one winner Helio Castroneves picked up the pole for Penske this time out, but could only translate that into third whilst retaining the championship lead. Will Power lost last time out due to a poor strategy when starting from pole, but this time started well down the grid and won with a perfect fuel and tyre strategy. Dixon slotted in between the Penske pair for second. Rubens got into the top 10 on his second outing and looks like he might be getting the hang of things.

#F1 and it is good to see that we might be getting the French grand prix back onto the calendar. Ricard is a decent enough circuit too even if it is a bit isolated, but with a good date the weather should be cracking down South: It would be good to have it back in July so that it is adjacent to the British GP again. Our fingers will be crossed for a successful negotiation.

#BTCC got under way at Brands Hatch this weekend with Rob Collard (BMW), Matt Neal (Honda) and Jason Plato (MG) picking up the wins. Close and colourful action for the faithful on a bright day at the Kentich circuit. Almost wish we had gone…

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US Grand Prix – what a shambles #F1

Posted on November 17, 2011 by driverjohn

It is such a shame that we find ourselves in this mess over Austin and the prospects of having the US GP return to the F1 season. We wrote here the other week about how pleased we were to see F1 returning to America, but here we go with another complete shambles.

There are plenty of places where the F1 circus could go, albeit that Indy is probably the only one that would meet current standards for the poseurs, so why not get sorted and get a race on?

It’s all just to silly for words. And very sad.

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Bernie wants more US #F1 races does he?

Posted on October 29, 2011 by driverjohn

News that the diminutive one is up for more races in the US seems a but strange given that he has been willing to turn his back on such a large market for the last few years.

But never mind, things are looking up a bit with the prospect of having two GPs in the US soon, a bit like the old days of the US GPs East and West.

The problem that we have is in the venues; Monaco is Monaco, but other city street races are a bit of a nonsense. Valancia and Singapore are not really that good, the Aussies make do, but if we want to run on a decent track down under why not Bathurst? (OK we have our tongue in cheek a bit there, but at least it’s a good circuit).

The US has some cracking venues; the Indy GP circuit is a bit of a mishmash maybe, but it is Indy, and then there are Road America, Sears Point, Laguna Seca or Road Atlanta all of which are good tracks. Heck, we could even take the US GP back to its old home in Sebring! Any of those would be better to watch than plugging away around the grid road system of a US city (remember the lunacy of the car park grand prix?).

Toggle and I would love to see F1 back in the US, but if we truly want to grow the market surely we have to present F1 at its best, and scrabbling about the back streets is not the way to go. F1 is at its best on flowing circuits with a couple or three decent places to pass. We can’t let them have Spa perhaps, but, with the exception of Sebring, all of the US tracks named above do have elevation changes and a good range of corners.

For Bernie to be talking about having the Manhatton skyline as a backdrop is all very well, but we want people watching cars.

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Welcome to the fold India #F1 #IndianGP

Posted on October 29, 2011 by driverjohn

We have been critical here of some of the new additions to the F1 season, but we do really welcome India to the fold and we hope that they have a great race tomorrow.

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