Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I am a very fortunate man, a wonderful wife and so many great friends. My Mother once said that I had no friends, what she meant was where I was living at the time, and it was true, but I told her I had hundreds of great friends, they were just spread all over the world! Facebook tells me I have visited over 650 cities on five continents, so you get the picture.

What is truly great is that in the way of good friends we do not need to talk every day, or see each other for years, but we can reconnect as if we have never been apart. I first met Steve Hallam when he was working with Ayrton Senna in Adelaide in '85, and we have reconnected now we both live and work in the US.  And I continue to make new friends courtesy of the internet, with this blog connecting to people in over 45 countries.

Apparently Mark Webber is happy he and Vettel can be friends and will now have parity of equipment and strategy. We will see as we are in Germany this weekend and who would you want to win? Rain made for an interesting first practice with Sutil quickest and some of the big names making mistakes, especially Hamilton who took all four corners off the car. Button struggled with the new diffuser, but apparently was running on full tanks to look for a race set up and finished fifteenth fastest. Alonso ended up just in front of Vettel, with the Mercedes boys going well with Nico just in front of Michael yet again. McLaren will have a lot of work to do Saturday to make up for today's problems, and are still deciding whether to keep the exhaust diffuser for the race. As usual rain has made for an interesting weekend, except for Mr. Yamamoto who is a second slower than his team mate and last, nice one HRT.

Lots of racing this weekend, ALMS at Lime Rock, MotoGP at Laguna, and the end of the Tour de France. NASCAR is at Indianapolis with Jacques Villeneuve making a cameo appearance. It took them a few days but NASCAR has finally penalized both Edwards and Keselowski for their contact last weekend, about time.

On the Arizona front we now have a logo and I will share it with you when we go public in a week or so. Waiting on the promo video and we can now finish the web site with the logo, but it will evolve with the project.

Not much to comment on today. If you want a very good run down on the state of sportscar racing in the US following the Miller ALMS race then log on to www.lastturnclub.com.

Rossi says he will not win at Laguna Seca this weekend, he is saving that for a later race, so Lorenzo and the rest of the boys need to make hay etc. It will be interesting to see how Roger Hayden goes on a track he will know better than most and on a bike that has shown good form this year with de Puniet.

Red Bull are still at it. You must be getting tired of me writing about them , but they cannot help themselves. A week and a half later, and now the "engineer" come out and says Mark did not like that wing anyway.

On the home front the house is starting to look sorted, just need to recycle the paper and boxes now so we can walk around. Yesterday's meeting turned out to be defined by when people thought "tomorrow" was, so it is today. I'll update you tomorrow, that would be Wednesday, on the project.

How sweet it must have been for Mark Webber to win the British F1 GP  yesterday. "Methinks they protesteth too much" is how I would treat Red Bull's continual assurances that Vettel is not getting preferential treatment. Team Principal Christian Horner insisted that the differences between the two wing versions were minor, and only affected driving characteristics. If that was true why risk having a problem with Mark by changing it over to Vettel's car after Vettel's wing had broken in practice? Sources have revealed that there was both a lap time and a weight difference between the two versions. Mark commented that the car felt better with it on. Horner saying that they gave the wing to Vettel because he was ahead in points makes more sense than "there were minor differences." It's like the Turkey deal all over again, they cannot stick to a story. So, if Mark wins the World Championship are we going to see a Champion walk from his team again? You have to love him for his honesty and lack of PC!

Not that winning the Championship is going to be easy. They said that Jim Clark could just drive around a car's problems, as did Senna. Now I am not yet saying that Hamilton is in that illustrious company, but you have to admire his ability to take a car that is not well set up and putting it fourth on the grid when  his World Champion team mate can only manage 14th and says it is undriveable. Then he runs a strong second in the race, setting fastest times. Cudos to Button to take that ill handling car and get it up to fourth, he has a different style to Lewis but is still very effective. You do not really see how he does it. McLaren have a great team with these two and of course the engineers and mechanics, and yes I am biased.

Ferrari are again exercising their selective memory and "the rules do not apply to us" mentality. Do they not recall Spa three years ago and that great duel between Raikkonen and Hamilton? When Kimi pushed Lewis wide at the "bus stop" and Lewis did pass Kimi, let Kimi back past him again, and then overtook him, only to be penalized for not letting Kimi by far enough! Lost the race and the Championship. So why was Alonso's pass on Kubica any different?

Nice to see Williams up there again, and the Cosworth is obviously not too shabby. Yamamoto ran around last, must have been weighed down by his wallet! Well done Nico Rosberg, beat your elderly team mate again. Michael is not driving well and cannot be enjoying his time back in the car. Even the TV commentators are now comparing his age with every other driver he gets passed by.

Did not get to see the ALMS at Miller, but well done Highcroft, and it seems that the Drayson car ran well. Keep Emmanuele in the car so we have some competition for Brabham and co.

Did not see WSBK either, but it is turning into a Biaggi benefit. Pity about Corser and the BMW's. Did anyone see the accident in practice? Brno is a safe track so I am surprised at his injuries, was it just a high speed get off?

Congratulations Spain for the World Cup. I lived in Spain for a year and love the people and the Country, so if England could not win I am glad Spain did. Hard to believe it was their first final and win.

Sad to see Lance Armstrong having such a tough time on the Tour, but I guess when your luck runs out. He is still amazing, but in a way he is finding out what Michael is finding out, the current crop of riders are pretty damn good! I know I am an Aussie, but I think Andy Schleck is who I would like to win.

Air travel, who needs it! It is supposed to be fast and convenient when in truth it is neither. A good friend back in Australia who was a pilot told me "if you want to be sure of getting somewhere do not fly." And that was in the late seventies, how bad is it now. Missed the blog yesterday while flying from Phoenix to New Orleans on Delta, via Atlanta of course, and taking twelve hours with only four of that actually flying! I would not mind that they have delays and problems with aircraft if they actually told you the truth and not the continual lies.  Only one very nice lady actually told me the truth. They must all go to school to learn how to lie to customers, yes customers, something the airlines have forgotten about, and to threaten them with not flying at all if they dare to complain. Try and find a complaints button on their web site.

So, here I am back in Louisiana finishing packing and getting set to drive back to Phoenix. We have a hanger to set up at Falcon Field, a municipal airport in Mesa, where we are going to promote the new track. Put in some toys to compliment the helicopters, planes, and power boat already there, and set up a projector and some couches and we are ready for our first group in two weeks. As I said, the project is evolving and we are now planning to place"casitas," garages with living space above, along pit lane so it looks like a European track. Getting nicer every day.

Big day today which I will try and watch between packing. World Cup final, British GP, ALMS Miller, and Tour de France. Hope you all enjoy, back Monday!

Bernie is up to his usual tricks. No room for FOTA in F1. This is the man who got his power by taking over what was FOTA and with Max Mosely wresting the commercial control of the sport from the FIA. Seems there is a fight going on in the background over teams showing their sponsors logos at the track. What a cheek! In Canada it was about trackside, and at Silverstone it has moved into the paddock. The teams have been forced to take their prime movers with their logos off the trailers and park them outside. What petty BS. Of course Bernie says it is not him, it is Allsport, Patrick McNally, who is the signage rights holder who is doing it, and of course Bernie has no connection to "Paddy", just as he does not with Tilke. You just cannot have an F1 race without Alllsport having the signage.

Chris Pook is reported to be involved with the New Jersey aka New York F1 GP bid. Now Chris ran F1 at Long Beach and gave up trying to make money and went to CART. Chris told me in Detroit in '85, "If Bernie thinks you are making money he will put the price up." So why is he involved again? Most promoters have found out what Chris learned the hard way, and now Bernie has a built in escalator of 10%, so he makes sure you cannot make a profit. There is a great article in the June 10 Autosport about the money in F1, and a telling number is that it takes $250 from every spectator just to service the debt of the rights holder CVC. The average cost to buy the rights is $30m, and Abu Dhabi apparently paid $50m. Now do you fans understand why Austin does not seem a smart idea?

I am forever surprised at the naivete of fans, God Bless Them, but if you are into a sport so much then take the time to find out how it works, who runs it and who is getting the money. Yes, what happens on the track is the key, but it is only the end result of everything else that has got them to that point.

Emanuele Pirro is to step in for Lord Drayson in his Lola as the Lord has hurt his foot. It is a blessing in disguise, and it will be very interesting to see Emanuale and Johnny Cocker in that car at Miller Park this weekend. Not that there is much opposition, but that car has been struggling to beat what there is. GT's should put on the best show as always lately.

The Cypher would be US F1 team has come out at last and said it has lodged an official application for 2011. Still no details of who or where other than these are supposed to be the engineers and designers who have the knowledge and can make it happen this time. Confirmed that Jonathon Summerton is their driver if they get in. Good luck to you all, you are going to need it.

Saw an article by Jonathon Ingram about how F1 is not making a foothold here because the US has so much other motorsport that there is too much competition. My comment was have a look at Europe, there is way more going on over there, so that argument does not wash. I still stick to my premise that the US needs a very successful driver and/or team. No one here took much notice of cycling until Lance dominated, not just won, Greg Lamond had won, and then nothing. No one here cares about soccer until the US gets into the World Cup Finals and wins a game or two, then it is headline news. TV audiences in Germany bounced back when Schumacher returned. Sport is about heroes, forget that at your peril. IRL will struggle until an Unser or Andretti reappears. No one cares about a bunch of Brazilians, Englishmen, Australians or Frenchmen.

Rossi was back on a bike yesterday for the first time since he broke his leg. Seems it went OK, did a bunch of laps and his shoulder seemed to be more of a problem than his leg. His Father is counseling him to go easy, but Champions do not know how to. Good advice though, the last thing he needs now is to fall again.