Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Another terrible accident mars the MotoGP world this weekend with the death of Shoya Tomizawa. Much like Indy last week the track had nothing to do with the accident or the injuries, he was struck by other riders, but the manner in which the incident was dealt with has rightly caused outrage amongst motorcycle enthusiasts.

Anyone at any level of competition deserves the very highest standard of race management and officiating. Obviously a MotoGP event is operating under a high level of pressure, but that is no excuse for what we saw today. The race should have been red flagged to give the safety crews the time to deal with the riders properly, not drag them off the track, dropping Tomizawa at one point, so that the race could go on. The World Superbike race at Nurburgring showed how it should have been handled. I personally do not like red flagging races, too often I see it for no good reason, but when you see that crash it is impossible to think Shoya was not critically injured. How the message was put out that he did not have life threatening injuries is beyond me.

The TV coverage clearly showed a level of care way below what should be expected by riders. If you have a "spade" stretcher, as they did, it is made to come to pieces to slide under a fallen rider to prevent possible spinal damage, not for the rider to be rolled over and dumped on it! Thankfully Redding did not have serious injuries, but no thanks to the medical crew. I saw a comment that it was not the marshals causing the problem, but the medical team. In Italy, the home of Clinca Mobile and Dr. Costa, I am astounded at their performance. As a race organizer I have always made it my business to make sure I had the best available people working the tower and the track, and have made myself very unpopular for it.

When I went to Laguna to promote the Bike GP the medical was one of the high priorities to improve. I took the excellent Medical Chief to another GP to show him his job was to manage and train the medical team, not treat patients. I found the best corner workers, even talking to the SCCA at one point, yes the car guys. When I ran Phillip Island I brought in the pit lane crew from the F1GP, as the local motorcycle marshals had no experience of running a pit lane in these situations. In fact I really annoyed the first motorcycle club to use PI after I restored it. They ran that race very "loosely" as it was "only a club race." I asked where the switch was in their head that they would throw when they walked through the gate at the GP? They walked off and said they would not be coming to the GP, thankfully. Marshals and race officials need to run every race as a GP, that is what the riders are doing, they are learning their craft, and not going that much slower with less experience while they are doing it. It heartened me that after the GP this same club had the guts to come and say that they now understood, and could they please have another chance.

Then there are the corner workers who only turn up race day. Sorry, you need to be here all day every day to learn what to expect under stressful situations. Practice just like the riders. And no moving around to different stations during the week. I don't care if it is more fun, but learn what happens at that station and be anticipating it. Channel Nine used to have their cameramen out there covering the practice from the first turn of a wheel, even if they were not filming, just so they got up to speed. They understood.

What we saw today at Misano was unforgivable, and the FIM needs to take action. If the promoter cannot organize it better than that then he should not have a race, or the FIM needs to step in and train these people and manage the medical.  I am continually amazed that in this day and age when we know so much about how to stage a race properly, we continue to see a lack of care about reaching the highest standards, whether it is track construction or management. There are knowledgeable professionals out there, but too many would be track owners and promoters think they do not need to know, or think they can do it better. Who is enforcing the standards?

Oh yes, Tony Elias won the race, extending his points lead in Moto2, and Pedrosa won the MotoGP race from Lorenzo and Rossi, keeping his championship hopes alive. At the WSBK at Nurburgring the interest for me is not who won, but why Corser was suddenly so far off the pace, and why Leon Haslam is struggling after a great start to the season?

No one seems very impressed with the state of the Korean GP track, with Bernie joking that it will go ahead, even if they have to use tents. That will be the day. Now you could sell tickets to that!

Since the untimely death of Peter Lenz it seems there are calls to limit the age at which riders and drivers can race. From what I hear of the incident Peter's age had nothing to do with it at all. You could argue that lack of experience could have been a factor, except in Peter's case that was certainly not the case, and if you raise the age limit then when do they get that experience?

There are young children racing every weekend in karts and on mini-bikes all over the world. This is how all our champions learned, and if you do not start young you will never make it. How many deaths or injuries do you hear about? I'm sure there are some, just as there are for the big "kids" we watch on TV. I have a couple of expert witness cases involving young drivers, but not through faults in their driving. Let's not overreact to this tragedy. Yes, let us evaluate what happened, as we always should following a fatality, make adjustments to our rules to try and avoid a repeat, but motor racing is dangerous for all ages, and always will be. So is rock climbing, bull fighting, luge, and very many other pastimes we all indulge in. Just driving down the road is an adventure in most countries.

Not much else going on in the motorsport world. Vettel still is getting grief about his dumb move on Button, and Alonso is losing the Tifosi with his driving on the weekend. Button is suggesting that Red Bull has been slowed as a result of the tighter "flexi-wing" tests, and there are comments that the front wing did not seem to be as close to the ground as previous races. We will see, Spa was never said to be suited to the RB6, and Monza likewise, so let's wait until the fly-away races and not count them out yet.

Bulgaria, that hot bed of racing, is reportedly teaming up with that other great motorsport country, Abu Dhabi, to build a track and run an F1 GP.

What a weekend! Crashes marred almost all the racing, and unfortunately took the life of an up and coming young American rider, Peter Lenz, at Indianapolis. The description of the incident shows that whatever we do with a track as designers the worst can still happen, and does, when two cars or bikes get together. The number of falls at the MotoGP, Rossi fell four times in the weekend, begs the question of what is wrong with the track surface? Indy has a history of problems with grip and tires for NASCAR, F1, and now MotoGP. From looking at the race I was amazed at the extent of the cracking on the infield track, which is not really that old. I know Indy has some bad weather in winter, but that seemed strange. The bumps cannot be bad asphalt laying, it must be movement in the base, but again, why?

The Moto2 race looked insane, with riders going down everywhere. Looked like a GP2 race! Speed did their usual bang up job, replacing the regular commentators with Larry and Mo, Diffey and Russell, and was more interested in giving us "background color" than showing us the race. Not that the race was very exciting, but more than Nicky Hayden at the dirt track!  I thought Australians were jingoistic, but American commentators beat us hands down.

I see that Valentino is calling for the removal of the electronic aids from the bikes to make the show more exciting. It certainly needs something. Apart from Ben Spies leading for a while, there was little to keep me watching except for professional interest. Not sure just removing the aids will do it though. It needs a group of equally good riders on equivalent machines, no not spec racers, but manufacturers all producing good machines. Suzuki certainly is not, Ducati is not on par, and Honda is up and down. And not just two from each either. Back when we saw Yamaha for instance with KR, Ago, and Sarron's team, six "works" bikes with good riders.

Spa turned on its' usual show. We moved house over the weekend and for some reason my DVD did not record, so will have to watch the replay Wednesday, but from the accounts it was a very good race. Well done Lewis and McLaren. Red Bull shot themselves in the foot again. Webber's anti-stall kicked in at the start which let Hamilton jump him and never look back, and Vettel did his now accustomed self-destruct, this time taking Button out instead of his team mate. Barrichello ran into Alonso and put himself out early, while Alonso took himself out later. Good result for Kubica and Renault. What would he do if he had a McLaren or Red Bull? Mercedes continue to be the mystery of the season. Season is building to another close finish, but now I have a problem. I have always liked Lewis, but I love Mark's grit and he is an Australian. So I cannot lose whoever wins the Championship, but who do I want to win?

And then there was Mosport, that 50 year old jewel. Well those 50 year old pine guard rail posts did not take kindly to being smacked by a 2010 Porsche. I told Don that they needed changing when I inspected the track after he bought it in 1998! Timber posts can be used if already in place, but are supposed to be rectangular hardwood, not old, round, pine. As soon as I saw that crash I knew they were never going to get that rail repaired. Even steel posts would still have given, that is the way rail is supposed to behave, and that is why I personally prefer a concrete block wall. It still moves, but is easy to pull back into place. The race? Shades of Lime Rock with cars running into each other all over the place. Interesting rather than exciting.

Good to see Boris Said finally win a NASCAR race, even if it was a Nationwide event. Sounds like a good race with Papis and Villenueve right there at the end.

Well Spa is living up to its tradition of throwing up odd results. Rained of course, but not all the time, which is also as usual. We are actually moving house as we speak and my recording of practice, it starts a bit early here in Arizona, was interrupted by the cable company swapping the service earlier than we expected, so I have yet to see any of it. Just reading the reports though sounds pretty bizarre. Practice held up by spectators climbing the debris fence! I've seen them climb it in Suzuka at the end of the eight hour and run across the track, and I've seen grandma and the kids break a hole in it at Paul Ricard during the GP to get a better look, but not heard of this one. Then the lights at the end of pit lane would not change? Whole session disrupted so the times are a bit pot luck. Alonso quickest and Hamilton third, so that's not so strange, but Sutil second? It shows that some characteristic of the Force India car especially suits Spa following last years performance. It will be interesting to see if this will continue through the weekend. Webber is way down the field, but says he is not concerned. The comment I liked was Michael showing you can go through Eau Rouge with opposite lock. Now that would be something to see! Not that it did him any good timewise by the look of it.

Red Bull passed the flexi wing test, not that there was any doubt it would, they are way too smart for that.

GP2 qualifying sounds even more chaotic than F1 practice, with the track flooded at one point and a load of accidents. Shook up the order, so that race could be more fun than usual. Series leader Maldonado ended up third in his Rapax team car. Always wondered where the name Rapax came from, and it comes from a Roman Legion with the motto, "we came to win." Very apt for the race team, but it seems the Legion got wiped out!

Lots of activity on the motorcycle front with Ben Spies being confirmed as Lorenzo's team mate for next year. Well deserved after a good rookie season, if you can call a World Superbike Champion a rookie. Colin Edwards is apparently still hoping to retain his Tech 3 ride, while Divizioso is looking to keep his ride at Honda when Casey Stoner moves over. Stoner meanwhile is fastest in first practice at Indy with Lorenzo second and Valentino fifth. What is the story there, Vale still nursing his shoulder and leg? Ducati has withdrawn its' factory team from the World Superbike, a series it has supported and at times dominated since it inception. It says it will leave it to privateer teams to race their machines, but did not sound too please with the direction the class is heading. It sounds as if WSBK is heading away from production machines, which I thought was the whole point, and MotoGP seems to be dumbing down. So in the end we arrive at two series both looking the same? That always seemed inevitable as soon as MotoGP went to four strokes. IRL v's Cart, Grand Am v's ALMS anyone?

ALMS is at Mosport this weekend, a track described by ALMS this way on it's web site. "When it comes to old-school, Mosport International Raceway is as close as it gets. The site of the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón’s eighth and penultimate round has many of the same features it did when it opened 50 years ago – high speed, dangerous curves and a certain level of risk." Could not have put it better myself. Sounds just what you want for an International Race Series in 2010.

Grand Am is supporting the Nationwide series up in Montreal, which should be worth a look to see them on a decent track for once. Can anyone beat Ganassi though?

Finally, congratulations to Rubens for his 300th race. Who could have imagined any driver reaching that milestone? Just putting up with the travel would stop me a long time before that. Eddie Lawson said that he would not have retired if he could have had a helicopter pick him up at his front door and drop him at the track.

Not well today so I have spent it in bed watching football and racing. I know, but someone has to do it.

Did not see the Le Mans Series race from Hungary, but it is amazing that the LMP1 cars all failed and the Strakka HPD won the race followed by a bunch of other LMP2's. David Brabham could not pull off the same result at Road America, which lived up to the expectations of Last Turn Club and turned into a great finish. Drayson finally won a race on the last lap, but if Lord Paul had not insisted on driving the result would never had been in doubt. I loved the commentator that said "he is putting in some pretty fast laps within three seconds of the leaders!" Johnny Cocker was four or five seconds quicker than everyone else. You had to feel sorry for Cytosport who showed what they could do with two pro drivers. Lord Drayson started the race after Cocker put it on pole, and went from first to last in the prototype class in one lap. Give it up.

The race was 2 hours 45 minutes and it seemed to me that half of that time was ads. Has anyone ever put a watch on this? We then had some long cautions. I understood the first one, but when the Jaguar inevitably broke down and had to be pushed behind the wall did we really need what seemed to be ten laps under caution? Then there was the Porsche that hit the pit wall on the straight and moved it. We did not get too good a look at it, but it seemed to me that it separated like there was no pin in it? The time we did have the racing live we were treated to watching a continuous infomercial, Scott Atherton's obligatory fifteen minute free promo for how great next year is going to be, and coverage of the spec racers while we had great races in the two real classes. GT2 was not quite up to its usual standard, still good, but what happened to the Ferraris?

Over on Versus, V's, we saw the IRL at Sears Point. These guys treat you to a small screen showing the action during the commercials, but it was like watching ants crawl around. When most of the ads are for the IRL and for the channel,you have to ask about the value of the broadcast. And how do you go to an ad with five laps left and two cars racing for the win, and come back with two laps left! Our would-be F1 driver, Danica, says she is looking forward to getting back to the ovals. Last time I looked we do not race F1 on ovals? She did her usual stellar job.

Thank goodness we have Spa to look forward to next weekend.