Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Sorry my faithful readers but Xan and I took off yesterday to visit and Uncle who lives south of Tucson, so the blog was not written. I know the Rolex has been run and won, congratulations Chip, but I saw none of it. One post on my Facebook was interesting, pace car comes in to refuel! Told me there was a bit of  a delay. Great to see the Blundle/Brundle car doing so well, not bad for a pair of old farts. Anyway, back home, sorting out, getting ready for the week ahead which I hope will bring some good news. See you Monday.

Strange doings at the Rolex qualifying at Daytona yesterday. The Ferrari 430 entered by Aten, my mate Tony Dowe, was withdrawn by the "owner" at the last minute. Which begs the question, what else are you going to do with it? Put it in a museum? Why spend all last year building this, and rebuilding it after the fire at the "Roar" test weekend, and then decide not to race it? No one seems to know who the owner is, except presumably Tony. To add to the mystery the car seemed to do two laps in the last session, albeit very slowly, according to the timing and scoring. Was this on the truck on the way out? What are we missing here?

Jorg Bergmeister in the Flying Lizards Porsche Riley captured the Daytona Prototype pole position in a triumphant return to Grand Am for the successful ALMS GT2 team, with Dominik Farnbacher taking the GT pole with one of the TRG Porsches. Race starts Saturday at 3:30 pm EST live on Speed, for most of it anyway.

In other things that make you wonder, Oz GP Boss, Ron Walker, has warned of Australia losing the race because there are lots of other countries wanting a race. Really? Ron mentions Russia and India as two, who as far as I know already have one, keep up Ron, and Warsaw. Warsaw? We've had a lot of countries suggested, but perhaps Ron has an inside line to Bernie. Then there are Qatar, Dubhai and Kuwait, which are now the center of the F1 universe, we could run the whole series there, the World Cup are going to Qatar after all, and that old chestnut, Staten Island. ISC tried that one Ron, and see how long that lasted. Sometimes you have to wonder which world Ron is living in. A friend who worked for him on the Melbourne GP told me some weird stories.

Bernie of course has told the Mayor of Melbourne that there is no problem handing the race back, just call his office and work out the details. The penalty more like. This is all good fun isn't it? First the ASN, CAMS, say they are going to take it off the calendar because they are not getting enough of the payout from the race, sorry I mean the "profit," and the Premier of South Australia has to chime in with how Melbourne have screwed it up. Eh? Weren't they the ones who screwed it up enough that Bernie went to Melbourne in the first place? Most people think Australia is one country when it is actually a collection of States each with a direct line to The Queen, and who loosely agreed to work together at the start of the last century. They could not even agree then about where the capital should be so they had to build a new one, Canberra, in the middle of nowhere, and get an American to design it. When I worked for the South Australian Commissioner of Highways we were arguing about what color the lines should be down the center of the road! So you can see how they will all squabble over almost anything.

The new F150 Ferrari was unveiled today, the first of this year's cars, and to an untrained eye it does not look unlike last year's. But that is what the Designer said himself, but then said it wasn't. I guess the designers are so prescribed now it is hard to make the car look much different. Of course there is the disclaimer that the car that hits the track in Bahrain will look very different. So why "launch" it? I thought the front wing was supposed to be narrower and simpler this year, does not look it. Apparently the rear suspension is very trick, but it is hard to see from the photos.

Luca di Montezemolo is still sounding off about how F1 needs to stay the technology leader and decries that aerodynamics are over emphasized compared to the mechanics of the car. Keep pushing Luca, someone has to, until you go off to run Italy that is. It is suggested that naming the car the F150 in honor of the years since Italy was created from a number of States, sound familiar, is a political ploy to promote Luca's strong feelings for his Country.

Tires are in the news today with Pirelli saying their tire will mean two or three stops during a GP. Hardly green is it, and I am not convinced it is good for the show, we are back to sprint races. Some of the best races last year were when someone made their tires last much longer than the opposition thought. In fact you could argue Ferrari lost the Championship because they did not expect Vettel et al's tires to last. We know Button can extend the life, and didn't Webber win in Hungary by making the softs last and Vettel ran the whole race in Italy to finish fourth. Now we are back to "wait for the pit stop" to overtake.

Hankook have been announced as the official tire of DTM. It is not long ago that the idea of a South Korean tire manufacturer supplying race tires to the DTM would have been laughable, but not anymore. I am actually having Hankook fitted to my street car, before hearing of the DTM deal. The reports from other users are great and the price is certainly right. Falken have been running a car in GT2 in ALMS and are stepping up with Derek Walker taking over the team for 2011. They put in some good performances last year that tended to fade away as the race progressed, so it will be interesting to see what they learned and what Walker can do. All adds to the interest of the GT2 class.

Well we are nearly at the end of the winter wait, with the first F1 test due in 15 days. Not that the tests are always a good indication, but it will be great to have some action on track again. The Rolex is due to run the weekend before that, so we can get our sportscar fix starting in just over a week. The "Lotus" court action is due to start next Monday, but this is not the sort of action I think we wanted to see. Can't Bernie bang their heads together?

It seems the Tobacco Police in Canada are not happy with the new (old) Lotus Renault paint job. JPS fags are still sold in Canada, so any likeness to a cigarette packet is against the law. This is just the sort of nonsense I went through at Phillip Island twenty years ago. I doubt anyone else would have noticed if they had not raised it, and since when has a driver been used to promote smoking? What other color schemes are suggestive of cigarette packets? Are they to be banned too? This is just what the Victorian Government wanted, a "white out."  But I suppose there is a white fag packet somewhere in the world.

Here in the US Monday Night Football was a huge success and has since been followed by Sunday and Thursday night games. Someone worked out that people are at home in prime time, and there is not much else to watch in "prime time." Now Luca di Montezemolo is at it again stirring things up, don't you just love him, by suggesting that 2 pm starts should be moved to 5 pm as "most people are on the beach." In a European summer that would work, and if not there are always lights. Not sure what that does for the Asian races though. Luca probably does not realize that people like myself record the races anyway so we can watch them when it suits us and we can skip through the ads.

Talking of moving times of races, I commented a couple of months ago that the Phillip Island MotoGP was always intended to be run in March/April, it was only the fight over tobacco that moved the race location and date. But of course now the F1 GP has moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, and November to April, so the GP Board, who promotes both races, have a problem. It seems Dorna, after twenty years, have decided the MotoGP needs to be in that time slot, and have threatened that the FIM will not license the track if it is not moved. Don't really see what the date has to do with a track license. I have heard of licensing a track for different levels of competition, never for different times of the year?  As I said before, move the F1 race to November and run it with the Melbourne Cup, what a week for partying!

I don't know if any of you have thought through the ramifications of the arrest of Gribkowsky, the banker who managed the sale of the shares to CVC, but if it is true he took a bribe then the person who paid it would also be in trouble presumably, and perhaps the whole deal could be in jeopardy? The bank that sold the shares is State owned and has lost a bundle in the last few years, so I am sure the State would like to get some of that back.  I am no lawyer, but this could get really messy, or just maybe it will get the sport out of the hands of people who care nothing for the sport and only its earning potential.

Senor Carabante of HRT has been ordered to pay an ex-partner an amount of 47 m Euros, that's a lot of dollars! With HRT already strapped for cash it will be interesting to see what this does. Still, they have money in from Tata for Karthikeyan's ride and another seat to sell, and there is always a new investor coming with these guys.

Practice for this year's Rolex started today with the two Ganassi cars at the top of the time sheet, no surprise there. Watch for the Aten entered Ferrari 430 run by my buddy Tony Dowe. This is the first outing for this car, but Tony has a good driver line up and is no slouch in long distance racing.