Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Many years ago when I lived in England I went to a waxworks which featured among other things a history of torture. One that stuck in my mind was "the death of a thousand cuts." These were just small flesh wounds, on their own not much problem, but 1,000 eventually bled the person to death.

Is this is what we are seeing in the new "unified" sports car series in America? This was no merger between ALMS and Grand-Am, the Doctor sold out to the ISC, and presumably to keep the fans and teams happy we were to see both series cars included with balance of performance. The DP is of course a NASCAR style derivative, and the LMP1 of Le Mans was way too quick to have a place, so we had LMP2 cars in the prototype class with the DPs. Last year the LMP2s were a lot quicker than the DPs, so we had to have a balance of performance to even things out, except as we have seen in the three races so far the DPs have won and the LMP2s struggled.

So what do LMP2 car owners, who are largely doing this for fun remember, decide when they are having no fun? They take their bat and ball home. Was this the plan all along, the death of a thousand cuts? Small nicks that seem slight at the time but in the end kill the class? So Grand-Am wins in the end.

Sure we have the GT Le Mans class, and thank goodness for it. They produced the best racing in the last few years of ALMS, and that's where the manufacturers are, so I don't see ISC killing that off, but you never know. Their GT class was modeled on the NASCAR culture of tube frame cars, so why would they kill that off. Just maybe the owners of those cars might feel like the LMP2 owners and just fade away.

Dyson racing have teamed with Bentley to go race in the Pirelli World Challenge. Got to be more fun than being beaten in Tudor Sports Cars. Strange decision though by Bentley. The Dyson team has been conspicuous for its lack of reliability and results in recent years. Still, it will be great to see the Bentley here in the US.

Back in the real world the WEC kicks off this weekend with the 6 Hours of Silverstone. First chance to see Porsche go head to head with Audi and Toyota. F1 is in China and Ferrari's new Team Principle is at hand, although what he is going to bring to the team other than another politician I don't know. Alonso seems to have pulled his finger out in the first days practice, new manager syndrome? It is early days though and we will see tomorrow just how close he can really get to the Mercedes.

A big weekend of racing. MotoGP turned on their usual good show, but Turn 1 at COTA? Tilke missed a great opportunity to make that a really good corner. Instead we have a crash site. But the commentators were at it again. "The most competitive field we have ever seen." Seriously? Where were you in the late 80's and early nineties when Gardner, Doohan, Magee, Rainey, Lawson, Mamola, Koscinski, Sarron, Schwantz and co. were around?

Indycar at Long Beach had its usual accidents at the usual locations. How anyone thinks this can be an F1 track is beyond me. If they left out some of the petunias around the base of the fountain we might have a track wide enough to race on. The Tudor Sports car race was a yawn. Time was when an LMP2 car could beat an LMP1 car around here, but now it cannot even beat a DP.

There is always the quote that "it's a long race" by drivers, even if it is the same length as all the rest, but Saturday evening we really did have a long race. 500 miles around Darlington took forever. I wondered why it started so early. It was all I could do to stay awake.

Which brings me to the point. I come from a European back ground with a spell in Oz, so I am used to watching a sport event without it being turned into a continuous commercial. Sky manages to show an entire F1 race without ads, so why can't Fox or NBC? I know Sky is subscription, but all the sport here in the US is basically on cable which I pay for anyway. NASCAR is by far the worst, a race being one long ad, even when the race is being shown with every opportunity taken to show a sponsor logo for Kentucky Fried, Sprint, Progressive Insurance etc. Then there are the "infomercials" during the sports car races, and Indycar has to go off and interview anyone they can find that they think is a star of anything. 

There has to be a template for showing sport in this country that includes three old farts in suits and ties blabbing on, and usually a female studio anchor and pit lane or side line reporter. With an average age of probably sixty the boys on NBC for F1 have about as much chance of bringing in a younger fan than I have of being knighted. Take a look at the Sky guys. They are at a race track and dressed like you would expect at a race. NASCAR and Indycar and even the NFL are all the same. Is this just me or is it that the TV guys know what the average American sports fan wants. A blonde bimbo with big tits.

Now that's off my chest, so to speak, let's look at F1 goings on. Domenicali has fallen on his sword, or was he pushed, and his obvious replacement is a car salesman. First guy I would have picked, not. Perhaps Montezemolo is actually the problem. Bernie's problems are about to get worse with the prosecution dismissing his blackmail defense. But the judge is going to give him days off it seems to run F1. Red Bull lost the appeal, as they should. Whining that they could not keep second place if they obeyed the rules is a strange defence. There are probably twenty other cars out there who feel they could win if allowed to cheat a bit. Or is that just me?