Bob Barnard Track Engineering

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.

Heat, we love it. Had breakfast outside this morning, no humidity and a great temperature. Place is looking like home already. This is what I remember from my years in Alice Springs, yes the sun is strong if you are stupid enough to stand out in it, but shade is great.

Had a very good session yesterday getting up to speed on the project. Visited with the architect on the graphic renderings of the track layout and buildings for the presentations. This is going to really surprise people, and not just in the US! This will be something really special, and the track layout I like more every time I look at it. Logo is just about there and web site will launch in two weeks. There will be a blog page on it with the latest development news and this blog will also be added to it. I will continue under this log in as well so you can take your pick.

San Antonio is looking to build a first stage of their track all in the base of the quarry, so hopefully that project will move forward. Still no news from Singapore or Saudi, but one of the expert witness cases is moving again. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow, but exceedingly fine, as someone once said.

Carl Edwards latest move at the weekend is not winning him many friends in the paddock, and the media are asking if the NASCAR move to allow more freedom for these guys to hit each other has gone a tad too far. Someone is going to get really hurt here soon, not that I want to take all the "rubbing" out of the racing, just the purposeful hit to take someone out.

You have heard me talk about Jeremy Burgess, the man behind Valentino Rossi, Mick Doohan and countless other Champions. Well it seems Jeremy is not likely to go to Ducati with Rossi, wishing to stay at Yamaha. Perhaps he sees Lorenzo as the future? Of course he plays down his value, it is a team thing, they can do without me. Yeh right Jeremy, I have been around you for twenty five years so tell that to someone else.

Jacques Villeneuve's F1 team bid has been rumored to be backed by Gadafi's son, with ties to the state owned oil company Tamoil. He denies it, but it reminded me of when I was promoting the USGP at Laguna for Kenny back in 1993. We were having trouble interesting US companies in sponsoring the race, and a "French Connection" said he had a deal for us, but could not tell us who it was. OK, the money was good, but as we got close to the race I said we had to start making signage so I needed to know who it was. He told us it was an oil company. Great, I thought, Total. Well, they then said they were working on State Dept. clearance! That ran up a few red flags. Iraq? can't be. No he said it is OK,  it is Tamoil, from Libya! In 1993 we were not so friendly as now with Libya, so I could see some definite downsides to the USGP being backed by a Libyan oil company. Grid girls in yashmaks? Libyan suicide squads parachuting from the sky? Needless to say we said thanks, but no thanks.

Lastly, there is a great piece on the Jaguar effort in the ALMS and Le Mans on the Last Turn Club page, http://lastturnclub.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=712&Itemid=51. I believe this is what I have been saying for a couple of months now. Sad.