Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I owe a shout out to my good Aussie mate, Bruce Polain, scourge of CAMS, who run motor sport in Oz. Bruce and I met in around 1979 while racing at Amaroo in Sydney. I say we met, I was racing my Morgan and Bruce had his Ausca, and we swapped places for a race. After I built the Adelaide track Bruce invited me to Sydney to the Seaforth "Round the Houses" where for fifteen minutes they let loose anything anyone has brung on the local street. Andretti's Lotus 79 to a Grand National Dirt car! That is when we worked out we had raced each other that day, and that we had the same disrespect for ignorant authority.

Bruce will stand for no cant, and is a regular letter writer to the head of CAMS, and anyone who will listen, about insurance, management of the "Club" as that is what it is supposed to be, and track safety. He provides me both sides of the correspondence for my amusement. Of course he cannot win, the suits always win, but that is no reason to stop trying. If Bruce were here in the US he would have a field day with the tracks we have, and the lack of anyone enforcing any standards. There would be no one to write to.

Bruce's latest campaign is about Turn 7 at the Bathurst track. Now this is a road course in the true sense of the word, controlled by the Bathurst City Council, who think because they have had a race for years they know how to design a track. When I first went there in 1985 or 6, long time ago, the concrete walls had not appeared, they were installed for the abortive World Touring Car Championship, and the useless "Chase" was not there. Most of the track was lined by wire strand farm fence, as that was the property usually lining the track. Here and there were odd lengths of guard rail, but most too short to do any good. As a journalist colleague drove me around it dawned on me that these pieces were stuck in after there had been an accident, not because of any overall safety plan. When I mentioned it my colleague was obviously struck that I was right, he had not thought about it.

Well it seems not much has changed, the City is still doing what it thinks is OK, and have placed walls at Turn 7 that both make it a blind apex on the inside and leave no room on the outside. Despite Bruce having photographic evidence and in his inimitable fashion chiding CAMS for not following their own rules he is of course being ignored. The significance of all this is Turn 7 was the scene of Mark Porter's fatal accident in 2006. What have we got to do to stop people dying unecessarily on race tracks?