Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Following my comments on the "old guys" winning at Phillip Island, and my other recent comments on the lack of new blood in motorcycle racing in particular, I was struck by the difference over at NASCAR. Here we have a 20 year old rookie winning the biggest race of the year at his first try. Now NASCAR still has its fair share of "good ol' boys," Mark Martin and Bill Elliott to name two, but if you look at the field at Phoenix there is more younger than 30 than over it I would guess. Brad Keselowski. Joey Logano, Regan Smith, are just three names that come to mind as new boys. These guys not only get into the Sprint Cup they also get good rides and are able to stay there, unlike F1 which seems to suck in new boys with a bag of money and spit them out for the next one.

So why is this? NASCAR has a terrific farm system of short track races all over the US, and then the top tiers of ARCA, Trucks and Nationwide to bring these guys through. Obviously there are many more than those we see make it, but the chance is there, and you do not see the young guys buying their ride, they earn it. This is a very American thing with the NFL, NBA and NHL relying on the colleges as their farm system, and Baseball using the colleges and then their minor leagues to develop talent. F1 relies upon the myriad of open wheel formula to sort out the best, but at what cost to the drivers? At every step the driver has to bring money and it is ridiculous what GP2 costs. Even when they get there a competitive seat is not guaranteed and your time in F1 very short lived if you do not get in to a top team.

So what is MotoGP doing to nurture new talent? Nothing that I can see. Moto2 is expensive for a young rider, and like F1, there is no guarantee you can make the step up. OK, NASCAR is in one country and has control over much of the racing, and MotoGP is international, but through the FIM and the members they have the ability to do something. When I worked for Kenny in Spain we worked with the Spanish Motorcycle Authority, a promoter and the manufacturers to put together a "finishing school" to identify fresh blood, and it did for a while. So it can be done, just needs some foresight and commitment, not just taking from the sport. What is Dorna going to do when Rossi retires?

Nice article on Crash.net about Sir Jackie Stewart's views on the lack of overtaking and Mr. Tilke's tracks.

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/167041/1/stewart_tilke_tracks_to_blame_for_lack_of_passing.html

Joe Saward also has a piece about the Serious Fraud Squad, is there a "not very serious" Fraud Squad? Apparently A1GP is being investigated for losing all that money. It never made sense and the revival as A10GP does not either. There are always people who will look at what Bernie has and think they can do the same.

On a similar note the Two Wheels web site is reporting that the Jerez track is in trouble.

http://www.twowheelsblog.com/post/6050/jerez-de-la-frontera-circuit-may-shut-down-motogp-round-risk?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+twowheelsblog%2Fcom+%28twowheelsblog%29

The model is broken, tracks can no longer make money staging spectator races, even if a huge crowd turns up like they do in Jerez for the MotoGP. Unless a Government is paying do not even start down this road.

Amazingly most of the motorsport web sites have nothing new to say this morning, so little, or "petit" to stir my comments. There does seem to be a lot of interest though in the number of cars likely to enter this year's Petit Le Mans, and the tracks' ability to handle them. Check out Murphy The Bear's very latest offering:

http://murphythebear.com/blog/index.php/2011/02/26/185-le-grand-petit-how-many-at-road-atlanta/#more-1019

When I was there running Road Atlanta for the first one we were just happy to have entries without worrying about if we had too many. I recall one SCCA event that was delayed in starting and they threw out most of the entries in one session of practice, over eighty cars from memory. Bit of a nightmare and would not want to do that again, but amateur drivers going in all directions. No red flags though.

No such problems for motorcycle racing these days, lucky to have a field. Down at the Island Carlos Checa preserved his pole position for the Superbike Round by winning the "superpole" shootout by a slim margin over his arch geriatric rival Max Biaggi. So the race is anybodies it seems, should be worth a look.

See you all tomorrow.

The Boss of the Barcelona Circuit has come out and said that the comments of the Region's new President were in the way of a negotiating ploy to get the future GP fee reduced. He stated the obvious, "It is hard to negotiate with monopoly." In the end all you can do is say no and walk away. He did echo the Presidents comments that due to the inbuilt escalation clause, believed to be 10% a year, the cost of the race by the end of the current contract is "unaffordable."

Interesting in these unsettled times that the Williams float is apparently fully subscribed. There must still be money out there if you can make it look worthwhile, or is it the excitement of owning a piece of an F1 team? Williams CEO Adam Parr came out and said what we suspected, that his team would not have gone to Bahrain if it had not been canceled.

Malaysia, a track built in 1999, is "tired." Strange that tracks like Spa or Monza somehow manage to stay fresh? Perhaps their design does not get old. It was apparently rushed and done cheaply. Really, I bet it cost more than most at the time and took a couple of years to do. Phillip Island cost $5m and was built in less than a year and I do not hear of that being "tired." What they really mean is that the people are tired of it. They had a crowd of less than 100,000 over three days last year, how can you justify the fees for that? The solution? A night race of course. Let's spend a lot of money lighting the track and then hope enough people turn up to make that cost worthwhile. Clutching at straws it seems to me.

The last F1 test is now on March 9 and HRT are reported to be bringing the 2011 car. Ross Brawn tells us he is not concerned about their current form as the car they are running is not what will show up in Melbourne, so let's look forward to that. Red Bull are "sandbagging," and Sam Michael likes both the Pirelli's and Maldonado. Frustrating time of year for us fans isn't it? Who or what do you believe?

The motorcycle world kicks off this weekend at Phillip Island with Checa continuing where he left off in testing by capturing pole for the opening round of the World Superbike. Perhaps Ducati should have dropped the works team in MotoGP and not WSBK? Part of the GP bikes problems are put down to the carbon fiber frame, which is presumably much stiffer than the aluminium. I remember Cagiva coming out with a CF frame in 1990, and having all sorts of problems. As Warren Willling put it, they are starting from scratch as all the previous set ups mean nothing, and it would take a huge amount of time and effort to work out what to do. Cagiva gave up.

Over at IndyCar all is not as well as it seems if Gil de Ferran and Tony Kanaan cannot raise the money to go racing.

Casey Stoner continued his domination of testing in Malaysia with all the top Hondas under the track record. Yamahas made up places 5-7 with Edwards again in the mix with his factory team compatriots. Ducati is "sandbagging" really well if that is what they are doing, filling the 11-14th slots, Rossi being the quickest of them and nearly two seconds off the pace. Even the Suzuki is faster.

Back in Europe Valencia is now denying asking for a reduction in fees for the GP, and did not address the rumor that they have not paid for last year yet. The Minister also said he was not aware of other races pushing for a fee reduction. Why even raise these issues unless there is something to them?

Bernie is pushing for Bahrain to join Abu Dhabi and Brazil at the end of the season in back to back to back weekends of fly-away races. Not something the teams have done and a bit of a nightmare for them, especially if we have a situation like last year. Bernie obviously would like his fee. In the meantime he is not winning any friends with his comments in the new book about other personalities such as Jean Todt and Sir Richard Branson. Why would you say those things to a writer? Does he think he is invulnerable and can say what he likes? It seems so at times. It reminds me of when Kenny Roberts was running his team. On a slow news day journos would get a comment from Kenny as he was always good for something to stir things up, but never in this fashion.

If the Canadians are worried about the Renault JPS livery what are they going to say about the Williams Rothmans throwback?

Lord Paul Drayson has given up on ALMS for "greener" pastures, i.e. electric racing. His car will be missed if not Lord Paul, and good luck, I hope you have enough extension cord for your "zero emissions" vehicle. How much longer do we have to put up with this BS? He of all people should know that at the moment he is just moving the emissions elsewhere.  What now ALMS?

Glock is saying that the new Virgin is a second or more off the pace of the Lotus due to a problem with the rear wing. Nick Worth just needs to fix it apparently, oh if it were that easy. Presumably "I don't need a wind tunnel" Worth would have fixed it already if it was that easy, and just maybe a wind tunnel may have shown the problem.

On the home front it has been a busy and exciting week. More expert witness work, an overseas contact for a track, and a positive response on a major project I am trying to initiate here in the US. Hopefully I can tell you all about it in the next week or so.

So Bernie is being Mr. Nice Guy and forgoing the fee from the King of Bahrain for the cancelled race. The King is getting the "Royal Treatment." Bernie is apparently trying to reschedule the race and Abu Dhabi has come out and said it's OK with Bahrain sharing the limelight at the end of the season, so if things settle down that is probably the best option. Bernie's other side is being exposed in the new book on his life, "No Angel," so the King should be happy that his right side is on show at the moment.

Not much else going on. MotoGP testing continued in Malaysia with the Hondas 1-2-3, and Rossi missing with a cold. Spies and Lorenzo followed up the Hondas, while the sponsored Yamaha second team, how does that happen, were next up with Colin Edwards.

Kolles is still saying the HRT will beat the Virgin and Lotus this year and Luizzi says he is not paying for the privilege of trying. Not sure what Kolles is on, but it must be good. Trulli says that the Pirelli's not only wear faster, but their characteristics change suddenly from understeer to oversteer, while Massa loves them. Who ever said ask a driver's opinion? Trulli also comes out against the constant rule changes in F1, costs too much and us poor fans cannot keep up. Lot of truth in what he says.

Some interesting comments on the Crash.Net web site from a lawyer on "force majeur" clauses after the Bahrain cancellation. A force majeur clause is meant to cover unforeseeable events such as earthquakes, and there is an argument that going to places with potential unstable political situations it is entirely foreseeable that one day there will be a problem. But I suppose you could use the same argument about staging races in earthquake prone regions.