Bob Barnard Track Engineering

"The devil is in the details" as they always say, and they would be correct. Starting something like Sol Real from absolute scratch is about details, and what to attack first. Projects evolve, so you do not want to lock into some things too early, but you still have to give sensible answers to questions, and "I don't know" does not instill confidence. Following the successful first presentation we met yesterday to go over the questions that prompt the need to fine tune the details of our package. Country Clubs for motorsport are still in their early stage of development as an idea, and each of the existing  clubs are working from their own model, so there is not a set path to follow, which is both good and bad. There are so many possible scenarios as well, and some of the answers will have to be developed over time and experience.

Working through mundane stuff like business cards and some corporate clothing takes time, but are important part of building our brand. More meetings scheduled in the coming days with small groups or individuals, and a group presentation will be staged every Tuesday from now on. Moving forward and moving fast!

Not a lot else going on. ALMS at Mid-Ohio this weekend, but don't look for it on TV, it is delayed a week. Hope I can remember or be bothered to watch by then. How can you take this seriously with this sort of timetable. Can you imagine NASCAR doing this?

Sorry folks, Tuesday was very hectic and hence no posting. Sol Real became "real" last evening, sign on the door and open for business. Not the track of course, but our "office" come toy store in the hanger. It looked great with a couple of special motorcycles and cars, posters on the walls, an RV to look like a paddock set up, and projection on the wall. An invited audience of twenty from a cross section of racers, tuners and enthusiasts were treated to the first showing of the promo video and a presentation on the project and memberships. All were excited by what they saw and heard and fired up to find a way to become involved, so a great "kick off." Now we will fine tune some things based on the feed back and move forward with one-on-one sessions and more group presentations.

On the wider scene there was not a lot from the motor sport world to make ones juices run and stir the pen. We enter the enforced F1 shutdown period when the factories close, but you can imagine they cannot shut off the brains. They will be going full bore with ways to catch up or stay in front.Last Turn Club has some great scuttlebutt on Grand Am's moves to take over the sports car world here in the US, "The World Turned Upside Down." Check it out on their web site.

In the motorcycle world the worst kept secret is out with Valentino Rossi going to Ducati, that's according to Ducati. Nice chance to sell a lot of merchandise Valentino. Biaggi has apparently re-signed to ride Superbike next year. They will have to have wheelchairs to get these guys to the grid soon , and trainer wheels. Soon the rookies are going to be in their mid thirties by the time they get a chance.

Bob Varsha was in fine form today during practice for the Hungarian GP. As he said himself most of it was useless trivia, designed to show his extensive knowledge of things none of us actually care about. And then there are all the promos for things coming on Speed, which if I really cared about I would go to the guide to find. In between this we did get a bit of the practice. Bob needs to learn that if you have nothing to say then keep your mouth shut. Commentators do not have to talk all the time, we are quite happy looking at the pictures. If not we would be listening on the radio. I particularly liked his put down of how Andrian Newey designs his cars. Oh my gosh, he still uses a pencil, like a "cave man drawing on the cave walls with a stick" to quote Bob. So what does Bob use? I happen to use a pencil to draw my tracks, it is a process of creation, it is a tactile thing. The "design" that the two hundred guys behind Adrian are doing on computers is pure mechanics, if they could create what Adrian does then they would be doing it. Inspiration comes in its own ways.

Whatever Adrian is doing it is working much better than anyone else at the moment, the Red Bulls being in a different class to everyone except the Ferrari, and you suspect there was a bit of sandbagging going on there. Lotus again had hydraulic problems. C'mon all you tech guys out there, how can that continue for all these new teams. Mike Gascoyne is no newcomer to this, so why all the issues at every race?

Interesting to hear Ron Dennis say how ticked off he is to hear his drivers complain about lack of speed in qualifying. According to Ron, McLaren have purposely gone for race speed not qualifying, and seeing as how they have both won races and are leading the Championship, then he would like to hear a lot less complaining thank you.

Cypher have announced they are not pursuing their F1 entry, no money. Not surprising given the USF1 debacle, they cruelled it for anyone following for a while I suspect.

Nice piece on www.lastturnclub.com about ALMS and Lime Rock, well worth reading as it raises some broader issues with tracks being selected on purely commercial grounds despite their unsuitability, and the lack of any centralized or coordinated licensing system for tracks in the US.

World Superbike at Silverstone this weekend, and nice to see someone other than Biaggi on pole. In fact five different makes in the top five grid spots, interesting.

Here in Arizona the project web site is due to go live tonight, so watch for the address here tomorrow. Another overseas approach for a track overnight, and another here in the US. If only a couple of these come about I am in trouble, busy enough as it is.

Been a busy day today on the Sol Real project. Web site has been updated and looks like a version we can go live with as long as the other guys are happy. Video needed a lot of "tweaking" to put it kindly and rewrote the story line and script yesterday afternoon. Spent the morning with the editor and I think we have it back on track. Both of these will be works in progress, as starting any project like this is difficult. There is no track to film or photograph, so we have to try and use stock footage, which for country club tracks is almost non-existent. Hopefully Thursday we will have a revised video to look at.

Moved furniture into the hanger we are going to use as our presentation area, and installing A/C. "Toys" will go in early next week and some suitable posters and photos and we will be ready for a dress rehearsal. We progress.

More e-mails overnight from foreign parts, and at least two could actually turn into projects. Documents coming for a new expert witness commission, and the attorney is actually coming to see me this time. Being involved in these cases is a salutary experience and shows just how dangerous motor sport is and just how you cannot take your eye of the ball for a second when running a track. It is like when I design a track, I have to keep telling myself that anything can happen and probably will at some point in time at each and every point around it.

In the wider world, the Ferrari debacle still reverberates. Bernie has come out and said whatever the teams do should be their business, because to him it is a business, but businesses succeed because of their customers, so ignore their views at your peril. There is a short piece on Last Turn Club about the decline in the attendance at the Brickyard 400, and how this is a sign of a serious loss of interest in NASCAR by its fans, and NASCAR needs to pay attention.

Murphy the Bear has his latest offering on www.murphythebear.com, always worth a read, and interesting forecast on who will have an ALMS race next year. In other news Mini announces it is coming back to world rallying, a place where it made its name in the 60's. Villeneuve and Durango are confident in their bid for the next F1 team slot, and Austin announces the site for the track and a major backer in Red McCombs. Tavo says the USGP was successful when it was run at a permanent circuit, i.e. Watkins Glen, but that was long before Bernie was running things and when the cost of the rights was the prize money.

Don't know which lagoon to comment on first, the one at Lime Rock or the one in California. Qualifying at Lime Rock could not have been fun for the ALMS boys, but David Brabham showed his class with pole for the Highcroft Honda. Watching the race today two of my pet peeves come to mind, gentlemen racers who should not be out there, and running races at tracks that do not showcase your product well. Lime Rock is a lovely little track, but too short and too narrow for a full field of ALMS. I say full field, but it is actually far from it. Good job the prototype class is so depleted. Speed TV did its usual job of running an infomercial for 2 hours plus. I guess Don has to make money somewhere. If you want to know who makes the money then check the archives at Last Turn Club, they did a three part examination of the money trail. The Jaguar actually ran the whole race, not the quickest car, but it did at least run. Pity about the puncture to Brab's car, spoiled a good finish.

On the other side of the country it was good to see Casey Stoner fastest in Friday practice, let's hope he can keep it up today and stop the Lorenzo show. Roger Hayden has been thrown in the deep end on the LRC Honda, and was slowest, but not by a lot compared to the geriatric Japanese test riders we have been seeing lately. Perhaps with yesterday's sessions under his belt he can qualify OK. Good to see a young guy getting a break though.

At Indianapolis a couple of ex F1 drivers are at opposite ends of the field after Friday practice. Montoya was fastest and Villeneuve 42 nd! Looks like Jacques has his work cut out to qualify that car, pity after his run in the Nationwide car at Road America. I'll admit to being a Montoya fan and would love to see him break through with an oval win, especially at Indy. Wrap up an amazing season for Ganassi.

Over in Germany McLaren has decided to stay with the blown diffuser for qualifying and the race. At some point if you think it is the way forward you have to stay with it and get it to work. Like a lot of things in life, make a decision and go with it, it is better than not making one at all. You rarely, if ever, get the chance to do the exactly the same thing twice, so you never ever know if the decision was right, so live with it. Seems to have worked OK, not on pole but not too shabby. Great qualifying session with Ferrari pushing Red Bull all the way. Button obviously happier with the car in qualifying after some very bad practice times. So sad to see Michael not making it into Q3, not! Mercedes obviously struggling at their home GP, cannot be happy with that. Rosberg commented that the basic car is not good this year, and though they are working hard on making changes it is hard to make a big difference if the base is off. Times are so close it is still anybodies race tomorrow, and if it rains? The Virgin cars are still suffering gearbox problems, which seems to have plagued them since the start of the season. Hard to see why they cannot get on top of this. Nick Worth is under a lot of pressure, but this should have nothing to do with the aerodynamics, which is what Nick and CFD is about, but I guess if you are responsible for the cars design then you have to carry the can for whatever is going wrong. Still, the gearbox is a bolt on piece, unless the hydraulics and the way they are built into the car are at the heart of the problem.

Tour de France going out with a bang. Great time trial today and watch out for Andy Schleck next year, he really put it to Contador who looked totally wiped afterwards. Roll on 2011. Got to go and see this race one year. As an event organizer the logistics of making this happen are amazing. It is one thing to put an event on at a track over three or four days, but to do this for three weeks and move it every day, that is some organization! It is one of those things that to start now would be a real challenge, but these guys have been doing it for a hundred years and building it every year.