Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Although most of my blogs relate to the four wheel brigade my life has in fact been balanced between cars and motorcycles, promoting MotoGPs and working for King Kenny. Not much going on in the racing world except for a couple of items that caught my eye.

Mick Doohan enjoyed himself testing a V8Supercar yesterday, but said he did not see himself racing one. The piece commented on Troy Bayliss flirting with V8s after retiring, but there have been much more serious ex riders than that. Aaron Slight raced in the BTCC without a lot of success but acquitted himself OK, but Wayne Gardner has had a very good four wheel career, both in Australian V8s, Japan, and one appearance at Le Mans. I'm not sure the good ol' boys of the V8s gave Wayne much of a go, probably did not like him turning up with the Coke sponsorship and his own team instead of earning his stripes. But he had already done that on two wheels.

The other story unfolding at the moment is about our US series run by the Daytona Motorsports Group, DMG, and the Virginia International Raceway, VIR, which has staged a very successful round of the championship for ten years. It was announced the other day by DMG that VIR had turned down the contract for this year and cancelled the race which was scheduled for August. Now VIR has come out and said they were only given the contract in June after repeated requests for one since December last year. Obviously they did not like the terms, but as they say, even if they did the time left to organize and properly promote the race was ridiculous. I've been there as a promoter and the value of everything is drastically reduced if you do not have time to properly leverage it. All is not well with this once great series with top riders sitting on the sidelines or going to the British series for lack of money and interest continues to fall. A death spiral. As I said to someone when told of this, bikes no one wants to watch with riders no one knows.

On a final note it is a bit amusing that Team Lotus has bought Red Bull's KERS unit for next year. Do they not watch the race and see the problems RB has had? I know they are using the same drive train but seriously. This is the same team that still cannot get Trulli's power steering to work.

That was the Daytona 200 yesterday. What a shambles! How did it get to this? Instead of a 57 lap endurance race we got a 27 lap race which was red flagged because of tire wear problems, which is a well known problem here, a restart of a shortened 15 lap race that is red flagged at the first corner, and finally completed amid dispute about the minor placings. Never mind that the eventual winner changed an engine during the red flag stop!!! And what does the commentator say about that? Congratulations to the crew for getting it done. Where else is this allowed? To top it off the NASCAR Channel, aka Speed, switched over to the the Camping World Series before the last restart and replayed it about 11pm EST. I guess they know how motorcycle racing rates. Enough said.

I touched on the state of bike racing in my comments about my conversation with Kenny, and about Daytona. Kevin Cameron on the Cycle World web site elaborated, "In the press briefing, we were all reminded of racing’s shrunken state. Nineteen heads were turned toward the three riders. When the talking was finished, there were no questions. Two people clapped. That was that. The racing was grand. Where is everybody?" To read the whole piece go to;

http://blog.cycleworld.com/2011/03/daytona-2011-bad-day-at-black-rock%E2%80%94by-kevin-cameron/

Barcelona is basically rained out with going on two inches of rain. A few brave souls did some wet driving, but most packed up and went home. I know this is going to come as a shock but the dampers for the HRT did not arrive. So they will go to Melbourne, presumably, with the car not having turned a wheel, shades of 2010, and now we have the 107% qualifying rule back in play. So when did HRT know they needed dampers?

Sounds like David Brabham is going to be busy this year after not being sure of a ride, with plenty of air miles with rides in the Highcroft car, Sumo Power Nissan in GT1 and V8Supercar appearances. Go get 'em David.

It would appear that the rumors of Bernie's departure have been grossly exaggerated. Check out this nice piece on Pit Pass about CVC, Gribkowsky and Bernie.

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=43078

That should keep you readers happy for the day.

Quiet day news wise, at least nothing worth my time talking about.

The biggest issue is in Australia at the moment, Bathurst NSW to be precise. Now if the world knows of Bathurst at all it is because of the V8Supercar race once a year, but along with Phillip Island it is an historic track in Australian motorsport on two and four wheels, with particular attachment to the motorcycle brigade. The track is public road and has never been "safe" even before the walls were put in principally for a round of the short lived World Touring Car Championship. The track is now only used for "tin tops" and there has been a push to build another circuit to allow other forms of sport, especially the motorcycles to compete there again. The track is owned by the Bathurst Council being public roads, but I believe parts of the infrastructure have been owned by the ARDC who ran the 1000 km race for a long time. So what does the Government do? I presume it was the NSW Gov't, still trying to find that out, commissioned the Homebush Bay Motor Racing Authority, HBMRA, the body they set up to manage the V8Supercar event at the old Olympic site, to do a study. They in turn commissioned a consultant, and guess what, it is too expensive and cannot make enough to justify that cost. How is HBMRA funded you ask? And does it make money? No it is justified on the basis of economic benefit, but it seems poor old Bathurst must pay for itself, and the $57m in infrastructure improvements! What are we building? Phillip Island, home of the motorcycle GP has no infrastructure but manages somehow. When I proposed rebuilding it the traffic guys said the two lane bridge will not cope. I doubt that they have widened it in the last twenty years, and still they come. This is a classic political manoeuvre. ask the question the right way and you get the answer you want, look at the referendum on the Queen. Who wrote the brief for this study and what were they looking to build. And why ask the HBMRA to do it and not Bathurst Council? As the report correctly states this track would not get the F1 GP, and why would you want it at a loss of $50m a year,  and is unlikely to steal the MotoGP from the island, so it should be a safe, good standard national track, not some $47m monument to some politicians or consultants ego, and should be capable of running all year on a closed track so it does generate economic benefit and income. Not sure what things cost in Australia, but that could be built for around $12m here in the US, depending on earthworks, but my guess this is not going up the mountain.

Of course you could spend the money making the existing track safe, but I doubt the macho V8's would like that. The trick is always to make a track safe without gutting it of the character. I would recommend looking at Phillip Island, which I rebuilt for $5m including the pits and tunnel, and Road Atlanta here in the states.

You have to love the man, he gets mugged, looks awful, but uses it to promote the watch he was relieved of. Well done Bernie, you have some guts to do that, and you always have an angle.

Christian Horner is not impressed about Webber's shoulder injury, or the book. It appears he knew nothing about either. He might be more miffed about what is said in the book, unusual for a sports celebrity to write about current events, they normally wait until after they retire.

I have started a "conversation" on FaceBook about the future direction of motorcycle racing. There is a lot of agreement that there is plenty wrong and that the future is bleak, but little about what to do about it. Back to the future seems to be the consensus, and you only have to look at the success of events like Goodwood and the Nurburgring 24 hr to see that the spectators will come out for historic or modern events on classic circuits. Historic racing is strong, and why? It cannot be just nostalgia, there are not enough of us old farts to race and attend, there is something about those old cars and bikes, and the drivers that we miss. So what is it? The characters that are now muzzled by PC? Engineering we understand, and drivers can afford? Or just good racing? We want to see good drivers and riders, not just some young kid with a bag full of money. DTM and V8Supercars seem to have an answer, what is it in their formula that works with only two makes of vehicle? Moto2 would seem to have answered some of the problems with huge grids this year, but it already seems it is too expensive for young riders. Anyone with some good ideas?