Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Busy weekend on the motorcycle front. MotoGP at Misano with the Honda's quickest today and the Ducati's struggling. Can Pedrosa catch Lorenzo? Not without a few DNF's for Jorge, which seems unlikely given his reliability thus far. Stoner says he is not watching the Honda, but he must be dying for the season to end to get on it. Does not sound as if Dovizioso is willing to vacate the seat quietly, will Honda run three bikes? Misano was the scene of Wayne Rainey's unfortunate accident this weekend in '93.  Some days you do not forget. I had the privilege of getting to know Wayne and Shae when I lived in Spain and worked for Kenny, and then in the planning for the USGP at Laguna. A great Champion and individual.

World Superbike is at Nurburgring with Checa quickest, but good to see Troy Corser has the BMW right behind him. Troy seems to struggle over a race distance so let's hope he can hold it together this weekend for a podium. A young Australian, Mark Aitchison, is making his debut in the  Supersport class and is tenth in practice, not bad for a guy who probably never saw the bike or the track before. WSBK needs some fresh blood, Checa, Biaggi etc are a bit long in the tooth now.

AMA is at New Jersey in time to meet Earl, but it is supposed to clean up for the weekend. Tommy Hayden is quickest thus far, but with this series would anyone but the diehards notice.

Elsewhere a few series are restarting after the summer, like the F Renault 3.5 who are at Hockenheim with Australian Red Bull protege, Daniel Ricciardo, fastest in practice. F3 Euro are at Brands Hatch with the DTM and Audi leading practice. It is odd that either Mercedes or Audi dominate at a track, their characteristics must be quite different. BTCC are at Knockhill in Scotland, and F2 are at some place unpronounceable in Germany where most drivers have not been before with a Russian with an equally unpronounceable name quickest in practice. Tony George's stepson, Ed Carpenter shocked everyone with pole at Kentucky Speedway, let's see if he can make something for the race from there.

Over at F1 it is "back to the future." Korea is still trying to finish the track and the date for inspection by the FIA is Sept 21. As Tilke says, it is always tight building a track as the race date is fixed, not like a normal construction project where you can delay the opening if you get in trouble, but that has been the way since I built Adelaide, so why is that news? Korea had one go at running a GP and had to pay Bernie not to run it once before. Chandook is supposed to run a car on the track this weekend, so it will be interesting to see if he has the off road tires on it. What happened to the 90 day curing time on the track surface?

On the car front it seems we are to have 1.6 liter turbocharged cars with ground effects for 2013. Works for me, we had 1.5 liter screamers before, and ground effects and some great racing. The fuel flow to the turbo is apparently going to be regulated, and presumably the boost level, so we do not have 1000 hp grenades like before that basically made all the run off too short when the ground effects stopped effecting.

Sebastian Vettel still thinks he is going to win the Championship this year. I want some of what he is on. It is one thing to have confidence and I do not knock him for that, I guess all drivers need to think that they will win, but Webber and Hamilton have to have an amazing run of bad luck for Seb to get up from here. Bit like Pedrosa, maybe they should compare notes.

Back in Arizona we move forward on Sol Real with the land in escrow and a meeting with the City next week. Legal docs should be available this coming week so we can get serious. Membership applications will be available as well for those who want to reserve a place, with no money required until there is a track to drive on, although we are setting up a simulator, so that should be virtually very soon. Texas reconnected today, so should be making a trip there later this month. The program is out for the Forum in Cologne in November on track construction and ownership, so if you want one sent by e-mail please contact me, I can also provide a discount on the fee.

You may think I've lost it, but the most interesting thing today is an article on paint drying.  If you go on the ESPN F1 site, en.espnf1.com, there is an article there about how McLaren save a couple of kilos in weight from the paint, while keeping the car looking fantastic. Presentation has always been Ron Dennis' thing, and how he got the Marlboro money and McLaren in the first place. He ran a F2 or F3 team back in the early eighties called Project 4. That is why the McLarens since he took over are all MP4's. While running on a very tight budget he always made sure the cars and team were all immaculately presented. Marlboro were sponsoring the McLaren team which was going through a slump, and put Ron and McLaren together in a sort of shotgun marriage, and as they say in the classics "that was the start of a beautiful friendship."

I have read before that Ron had the cars stripped of paint after each race rather than just repainted so that the weight does not increase, so when you read about what they do today it all makes sense. To me it is what makes F1 so incredible. The attention to every little detail is what adds up to success, and obviously costs lots of money.

That is apparently what the new boss at Renault F1 has found out. There are rumors of Renault buying back a larger share in the team now business is better and the team are obviously doing well, so the two stories add up to a possible outcome. Not really sure what a venture capital group was doing buying an F1 team anyway, except as a fun business for the manager. Yes the teams make money under Bernie's arrangement, but it is an expensive sport and high risk if you are not winning.

August was a busier month for the blog, despite the F1 hiatus, with nearly 3000 visits from 59 countries! Thank you all for reading and responding. It puts the pressure on me to keep finding interesting stories to comment on.

Well we now have the design for the Austin F1 track, and I think it is everything we feared. They say it will be a classic track, and it is, classic Tilke. How many corners can we fit in? Over 20 is the answer.

In other bad news, Cycle News has ceased publication, the only weekly motorcycle magazine here in the US. When I came over to run the USGP for Kenny in '93 I was amazed at the lead time for the other monthly's, we could barely run a couple of ads for a race nine months away. Victim of the internet or is there something else going on here?

Rome is the latest place that says it is going to run an F1 GP in 2012. Is anyone keeping track of how many races there will have to be in 2012 to accommodate all these? Or who is going to lose their race is probably the better question. Spa? One thing is for sure, Bernie has plenty of options for squeezing more money out of, Russia, India, Qatar, Bulgaria, Rome and Austin. We won't have a race at a track we recognize soon, or worse, one that we want to watch.

On the home front I moved house over the weekend, not a lot of fun even though we have done it often. Still sorting out the mess. Looks as if the Grand Bayou track in Louisiana is ready to move on a redesign, and still having contacts with overseas potential circuits. Sol Real has been going through some introspection and rethink on the site, but we are about through that. Basic layout will not change as the lots here are all based around a section, one square mile. So I can now get into the detail of the layout and look at how to build in some elevation without moving a million cubic yards of dirt! Good presentation again last evening and another likely founder. Once we have the legal documents finalized we can move on closing some deals.

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.