Bob Barnard Track Engineering

A year or so ago I posted a blog entitled "Enough is Enough." It was prompted by an expert witness case I had involving the death of a 9 year old girl. Since then I have just come back from a 7 hour deposition over the death of a 12 year old boy, and have another case involving a 6 year old boy. I have three new case enquiries this week alone. This is more than enough to make most people say something must be done, but who knows?

I used to think no one was keeping score here, unlike road accidents, on-track accidents did not seem to count. I had a personal feeling, based on no knowledge, that we were killing someone once a week in the US. An attorney recently directed me to the Charlotte Observer web site, who have been tracking some deaths for the last ten years. They say the average is 22 a year, or nearly one every other week, bad enough, but they do not include karts or other forms of racing, mainly oval track, so I think my number is probably pretty good. This does not include those maimed, injured for life, mainly just for watching. When is someone going to do something?

I get the argument most of the times that the track owners or operators are not-for-profit, or a club of volunteers. When did not being paid give you a license to do it wrong and kill and maim people, people you probably know, or their kids! You should have even more concern. Laguna Seca is a not-for-profit track, it does not stop it from being a world class facility, and there are many others. Not being paid, or being an "amateur" or volunteer, is no excuse for doing it wrong. If you do not want to do it properly then don't do it. Motor sport world wide runs on volunteers, it could not run otherwise. All those flags you see being waived at F1 and MotoGP's are volunteers, highly trained and skilled.

When I grew up the England cricket team consisted of "Gentlemen" and "Players." Gentlemen were just that, rich guys from Oxford and Cambridge who played for fun, and the players were often Yorkshire miners who were paid, and looked down upon because of it. The suggestion was the unpaid gentlemen were actually better at the game. So don't tell me someone died just because we are unpaid, not making money, or volunteers. If you do not know get some advice. But we don't know where? The attorneys suing you will know where. But that costs too much. Well what is a life worth? In any event, people like me can sort out very quickly what should be done at a ridiculously low fee for the responsibility involved, and most of the measures that need to be taken can be done by volunteers and amateurs. The last time I looked there were no professional tire wall builders.

Now I know you were expecting a blog about the economy run that was the Malaysian F1 GP. Well, I think there is enough being said about all that, and I agree. But as Mark Webber said, if it were not for the fact that they have to drive to conserve tires, or in Mercedes case, fuel, then the situation with Vettel would not have arisen. 

As with last weekend, after being up half the night to watch the F1 race, and the aftermath, which was a lot more entertaining, and as it was raining and cold, no soccer thanks to the International break, I was forced to watch the Indycar race. Now I watch it for professional reasons, but it struck me sitting there, why does anyone else watch it? This is a serious question. It goes to the heart of the recent blogs on the death of spectator racing. I also watched the NASCAR race from Fontana which seemed to belie this as there were more spectators there than I have ever seen for a race at that track, notwithstanding that they had some seats covered up. Like most NASCAR races though you only needed to watch the finish.

Seriously though. We have a spec race series, with awful looking cars. We saw stupid driving, including an incident that this car design was supposed to stop, i.e. a car riding over the back of another. The drivers are either never-will-be's, or never were's, mostly from overseas, on a bad race track where overtaking is just about impossible, just ask Castroneves. We have interminable yellow flags, and the road sweepers must have done half the race distance. And they do not even have a female pit reporter! What are they thinking, at least some eye candy for the guys. And then there is Leigh Diffey, enough said.

If anyone can tell me why they watch, please comment.

Who else is tired of this whole Pirelli tire deal. Paul Hembery says that it is "just a phase" we hear it every year and by the eighth race the teams work it out. Eighth race, that is nearly half a season of a lottery! I logged in at 10 pm to Sky F1 on line to watch first practice from Sepang. What did I see? Nothing for 45 minutes, the teams were conserving tires. I bet the spectator, and yes I only saw one, and no wonder with nothing to watch, was as annoyed as I was, and I went to sleep. When teams do not have enough test time, according to them, why would they just sit in the garage. Oh yes, saving tires, great show that is.

Apparently the boys finally came out and proceeded to "melt" the tires in the heat and green track. One of the Team Principles wrote an email to Pirelli suggesting an extra set of tires to be used by Friday drivers. Well I guess it would have cars on track, but we pay to watch the real drivers, not the reserve team. How would football fans like it if the teams put their reserves out for the first half?

To digress and follow the football analogy, why is motor sport stuck on this performance balancing? Success ballast? Manchester United players would be wearing diving belts by now. Federer would have a heavier or smaller racquet. They all do it one way or another, spec racing or regulations so restrictive that it may as well be. NASCAR thinks having 43 cars within a second and racing in big packs is what the spectators want. It did not seem a problem when Richard Petty won 200 races back when the sport was growing. There is an old saying that if you develop a better mousetrap the government will invent a better mouse. Well the FIA and NASCAR have done that very well lately. What happened to racing as innovation? There is a good article on where the "United Sports Car Series" should go:

http://www.racer.com/opinion-back-to-the-future-for-american-sports-car-racing/article/285560/

Without innovation where would the Chapmans and Halls be? Like Adrian Newey. Every new idea gets trodden on. You can't do that, all the teams will have to do it. So what, isn't that the point. And then there is the cost containment mantra. Let them spend what they want, if they go broke so what? Look at Rangers in Scottish Football. They survive even if it is back to square one. How about a relegation system for F1? Impossible you say, but what if the GP2 winner of 2012 is told he will get the spot in 2014 of the last team in 2013. That gives them a year to get ready, and if the winner does not want it then offer it down. Get some fresh blood in.

Bernie has success ballast of course. If you win you get loaded down with bags of money, bit like the Premier League actually, except if you try and spend it the FIA will stop you, or now take more off you. Bernie giveth and the FIA taketh away.

Sorry to wander around, but this blog is about what stirs me. Joe Saward has a great piece in his blog today about the disclaimer on Mercedes press releases:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

Scroll down it is the third or fourth article. Now you will have heard me talk about "the suits," the corporate men who run things now, lawyers and accountants. Well if you ever needed convincing then this disclaimer will do it. I know Mercedes is a public company and they need to be careful with what they publish, but this is a race team, a separate entity!

Talking of suits reminds me of "the blazers." These are another dangerous species in our sport, the people in the sporting bodies who spend their life being elected to higher and higher positions nationally and finally internationally. One of these, the FIA, has organized a conference this year at Goodwood to discuss the future of the sport. Being interested I checked it out, and who do you think the attendees are? The ASNs, the FIA member bodies. I would have thought that if they knew how to fix the current problems they would be doing it? How about bringing in the stakeholders, the people who have money invested in the sport. Teams, promoters, manufacturers, sponsors, drivers, and the media, and maybe Joe Blow public? This remind me of going to the FIM where the only people allowed to talk where the "blazers."

And so back to Sepang for practice two, at 2 am my time. Alarm set, ready to go, and so were the drivers this time. We were treated to lots of shots of some very nasty looking tires, but we are assured that the track is "rubbering in." I bet it is with that amount coming off the tires. We saw the usual suspects at the top of the time sheets, but as always it is hard to work out who is actually doing what. It is great that Johnny Herbert can hear and spot what is going on in the car, but at that time in the morning I am not awake enough to notice. Inevitably the rain arrived with 30 minutes to go. What did the teams do? Go out on inters to see what conditions where like in case it rained on Sunday? Hell no, they sat in the garage to save the inters, and I went back to sleep. It was bad enough when we saw teams saving tires in Q3, but it has now spread to the whole weekend, it is time this nonsense ends. If you want to know why spectator racing is dying, it is because the show is bad and getting worse.

On the tenth anniversary of his passing Barry is having a lot written about his life, so as I was fortunate to call him a friend I thought I would add some of my recollections. Barry moved to Australia around the time I started my brief career in motorsport in Australia. I was The Engineering Manager for the first Adelaide F1 race in 1985 and heavily involved in all aspects of the event, and eventually as the Operations Manager for the race. Now as most people know Adelaide set a new standard for turning a race into a carnival involving the whole city. One event was the Grand Prix Ball at the Hilton Hotel on I think the Thursday evening. Now I was a bit busy as you can imagine, and a lot tired, having worked for nearly twelve months to get the track built and operating. So the last thing I wanted to do was to go to the ball, but it was mandated that we should go and host a table. The organizers stupidly believed that the teams would attend, and had tables arranged for each of them hosted by a staff member. In my case I had the Lotus Team, who of course did not turn up. So my wife and I sat at this empty table until a couple of derelicts headed our way surrounded by cameras and the press.

Now Barry was renowned for not dressing as required for these type of functions, and his friendship with George Harrison was also well known, but not by me at the time. So imagine my surprise when these two under dressed individuals turn out to be Barry and George. They sat at the other side of the circular table and never spoke a word to us. So much for my fifteen minutes with fame.

After this Barry and I did get to meet with George in pit lane for the GP, and in his role as a Channel Nine commentator we met often, and travelled to overseas races on the same planes with Darrel Eastlake. Their presence livened many a trip as you can imagine, especially to Japan as Barry hated them with a passion. He would purposely start a line at some unattended counter in Narita airport with his baggage cart just to see how many of them would line up behind him. He had a line right across the concourse one day. It was always fun to let Barry go through the metal detector first as he had so much in him it would always set if off.

Small things come to mind, like him smoking Gauloise but always biting off the filter. One trip he had a bunch of CDs just loose in his inside jacket pocket that he got Mamasan to play in the "Rog Cabin" in Suzuka. He always had at least on female in tow, and often two. Stephanie must have been a very understanding wife.

My lasting impression is of someone who was just fun to be around. He loved and lived life. He may have seemed like he played the fool, but he certainly was not one. He managed himself and cultivated his image to make himself one of the most recognized personalities, even in Oz. He managed his own affairs, and was one of probably very few sportsmen who end up with money put away at the end of their career. His love of Gauloise finally got to him, but we can all learn from him about how to live it while we have it. RIP Barry.  

I owe a shout out to my good Aussie mate, Bruce Polain, scourge of CAMS, who run motor sport in Oz. Bruce and I met in around 1979 while racing at Amaroo in Sydney. I say we met, I was racing my Morgan and Bruce had his Ausca, and we swapped places for a race. After I built the Adelaide track Bruce invited me to Sydney to the Seaforth "Round the Houses" where for fifteen minutes they let loose anything anyone has brung on the local street. Andretti's Lotus 79 to a Grand National Dirt car! That is when we worked out we had raced each other that day, and that we had the same disrespect for ignorant authority.

Bruce will stand for no cant, and is a regular letter writer to the head of CAMS, and anyone who will listen, about insurance, management of the "Club" as that is what it is supposed to be, and track safety. He provides me both sides of the correspondence for my amusement. Of course he cannot win, the suits always win, but that is no reason to stop trying. If Bruce were here in the US he would have a field day with the tracks we have, and the lack of anyone enforcing any standards. There would be no one to write to.

Bruce's latest campaign is about Turn 7 at the Bathurst track. Now this is a road course in the true sense of the word, controlled by the Bathurst City Council, who think because they have had a race for years they know how to design a track. When I first went there in 1985 or 6, long time ago, the concrete walls had not appeared, they were installed for the abortive World Touring Car Championship, and the useless "Chase" was not there. Most of the track was lined by wire strand farm fence, as that was the property usually lining the track. Here and there were odd lengths of guard rail, but most too short to do any good. As a journalist colleague drove me around it dawned on me that these pieces were stuck in after there had been an accident, not because of any overall safety plan. When I mentioned it my colleague was obviously struck that I was right, he had not thought about it.

Well it seems not much has changed, the City is still doing what it thinks is OK, and have placed walls at Turn 7 that both make it a blind apex on the inside and leave no room on the outside. Despite Bruce having photographic evidence and in his inimitable fashion chiding CAMS for not following their own rules he is of course being ignored. The significance of all this is Turn 7 was the scene of Mark Porter's fatal accident in 2006. What have we got to do to stop people dying unecessarily on race tracks?