Bob Barnard Track Engineering

It's Kenny Roberts' birthday today, so happy birthday Kenny, and many more. I have only had the privilege of attending one of his New Year's and Birthday bashes, and it was quiet by the usual standards I guess. There may be no "beater" races, but I bet the cannon fires!

So the headline says that Rome Authorities "approve GP plans." Not so fast, the story actually says that they "are not opposed" and will continue to review the plans. Just a small distinction, but important. You've got to love headline writers. After the first test at Eastern Creek the screaming headline was "Track Unsafe!" Nowhere in the story did it say that and the writer of the piece just shrugged it off and said that was the headline writer, not him. Some responsible journalism there. And we all know most people just skim the headlines.

In a similar vein the Austin F1 track construction is not started just because a truck is taking soil samples and there a few pegs out there. Now I do not doubt that it will be built, they just do themselves a disservice with this sort of stuff, it smacks of what USF1 did with all the PR. Just get on with it, even if it makes no sense economically to me, you are obviously smarter.

Now we know why Michael Schumacher did not win the championship this year, he did not have a driving simulator! Well that's what Ross Brawn says. Funny Nico did not have a problem beating him without one? It is  a sad day when F1 is won by the team with the best simulator. As I have said, if the simulators are that good, and obviously the top teams ones are, then why not just run the races in cyberspace?

Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading. See you in 2011!

Must be nearly New Year as the news has died down to a murmur. Just to give us hope, like the first flower poking through the snow, comes the news that the 2011 Ferrari monocoque has passed the crash test, so the new season must be getting close. The Rolex 24 hr is less than a month away, so we just have to hang in there. The Dakar starts Saturday, so there is another glimmer to maintain the faith. It's sad isn't it, we are just motorsport junkies. In the "good old days" we would have had the Tasman Series to keep us going through the dark days of winter.

At least I have a new track to keep my brain occupied, and it is a challenge. It is the old No Problems Raceway which was essentially a drag strip, which is now the "Circuit Grand Bayou" in Louisiana. So to wrap a track around the strip on a flat, narrow, long site and make it safe and fun. I am in mind to do something like the straights either side of the main stand in Malaysia, but still in full 'dream' mode, let it come.

Down to the last couple of chapters on the book, up to Daytona 2004, and 2011 could be busy so I need to finish it off.

Interesting to read that Team Lotus, or whoever they are, Mike Gascoyne's team, are building a wind tunnel. This is serious stuff and shows the level of commitment that Tony Fernandes is making to bring this team up to par with the big guys. I look forward to seeing the 2011 car with Renault power and Red Bull power train getting amongst the second half of the top teams. They have the drivers to do it.

It is still the "silly season" it seems, with a Spanish web site sending false messages about Santander buying in to HRT. So not to be left out I will pass on a bit of fun I read in Nigel Roebuck's piece in this month's Motor Sport about a pilot coming in to land at Gatwick and announcing to the passengers "Welcome to Gatwick, the only building site with its own airport." That struck a chord with me, it seems every airport in the world, at least the ones I go through, are building something. You hear about problems for airlines making money, but the amount of travel must keep going up to warrant all this building.

Seems like no one is happy about what is happening to the Nurburgring, and nor should they be. A friend, Allen Petrich, asked the question about how the current drivers would fair on it against the likes of Nuvolari and Fangio, especially if they had to drive those old cars. He suggests building a new Auto Union and letting the youngsters try to match the times the old guys set, but it occurred to me that some bright programmer must be able to simulate a race between these guys. There is always going to be talk about who was really "the best" which is usually defined by whoever is doing the talking, and it makes for good discussion and often argument, so maybe we do not really want to find out?

In other bits and pieces Adrian Newey says the RB7 will be an evolution not a revolution, but Red Bull might build its' own engine one day. Don't know why you would want to do that with the new regs being sold as the way to bring the likes of VW and the Japanese companies in. Ferrari is really the only chassis/engine manufacturer that has succeeded on a consistent basis, but perhaps Mercedes will change that, and what of McLaren? BMW, Honda, Toyota and Renault tried it, with Renault the only modern success story, but even they really did not build the chassis.

HRT's engineer says KERS is an inefficient system and is only being used in F1 for the manufacturers to sell it on their road cars. If it is inefficient on F1 cars why is it not the same on road cars? The Williams flywheel system seems efficient enough for Porsche, so perhaps he is just talking of the electrical systems. I am all for using the energy out of the current engines as efficiently as possible and think we are still scratching the surface. Gordon Murray's town car just did London to Brighton on less than a gallon, which must be getting close to 100 mpg, and not an electrical cord in sight. But if we are going to all the trouble and cost of developing these systems and putting them in a race car why are we limiting the amount they can store and when they can use it? It just seems another "push to pass" deal, why not just use the energy as efficiently as you can whenever you want? That rewards the best engineering, which is what most of us want to see, until the FIA ban it.

Talking of HRT they are going to use the 2010 car for the first test so they can try out drivers. Yeh right.

Niki Lauda wants Sutil and Hulkenburg at Force India. Well I suggest he buys Force India, then he can have who he wants, until then who cares and why do we keep reporting what Niki wants? It's like Mosley, just fade away.

I would hope that if you read my blog you know of the Nordschleife, the "green hell" built in the 1920's and one of the most famous tracks in the world. It was deemed unsafe and a new sanitized F1 track built to bear the name Nurburgring, and the Nordschleife looked like fading away for a time. It seems to have a had a revival of late with huge crowds attending the 24 hour races there and I guess it was like so many things in life, you do not know what you have until it is almost gone.

As you will read if you click on the link below is that in tune with the times it was thought necessary to add a large entertainment center to the tracks at the Nurburgring. This featured in the Professional Circuit Owners and Investors magazine as part of the way forward for tracks, but now it seems that the tracks have to support the entertainment. It reminds me of the eighties when the talk was all diversification, until we found that going into industries you do not understand was a recipe for disaster, and then the cry was "stick to the knitting," i.e. do what you know. So as you will read, giving control of the race tracks to the guys who got them into this mess with the entertainment does not sound a smart move, but then again, who said Governments were smart? If politicians were smart they would be making lots of money in business.

http://savethering.org/

So, sign up to be friends of the Ring and let's help save it. At the recent conference in Cologne it was pointed out that there have been no new tracks built in what was West Germany for eighty years, Hockenheim was the last one, amazing. So they cannot afford to lose any.

Derek Hanbidge posted some great photos on FB from the recent Six Hour at The Island, including a couple of nice ones of Wayne Gardner helping his son Remy who is racing a 70cc class, and doing well. Wayne looks great and Derek said he looked happier than he had seen him wrenching and polishing for his son. Nice one Wayne, you must be proud. Don't make it too easy for him though, we need him tough like his old man. Mr 110%. I have had some great moments in my life, but seeing Wayne win that first race at Phillip Island takes some beating.  Thank you for sharing the photos Derek.

Time heals all wounds they say. Not sure about that, but it does allow a better perspective about events. As most of you would know from reading the blog I am writing  my life story, my memoirs I guess you could say, a challenge I have attempted a few times in the past, but events and wounds were too fresh. I can now write about those events and look upon them as part of life's great adventure, a learning experience, and hopefully I can pass on some of those lessons for others.

In a similar vein a friend mentioned the other day an article in Car and Driver from earlier this year.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/10q2/america_s_best_road_courses-feature/road_atlanta_page_2

When we rebuilt Road Atlanta back in 1998 there were some who were very much against the changes, as the article implies. Among the most vehement was James Weaver who saw the "gravity cavity" as an opportunity for him to gain on opponents who were more wary of that series of corners. It is interesting that time has allowed the changes to be viewed more dispassionately for what they were and what they did to ensure the track maintains it's place as one of America's best tracks. Not sure James would have changed his mind though.

As I have said recently about the possible second track at Bathurst, the trick with working on famous old tracks is to make them safe without losing the character and history, not easy to do, and it will be a challenge at Bathurst, expectations are high. Looking back at the 'gravity cavity" it was America's Eau Rouge, and perhaps the solution would have been to remove the bridge which was the real issue, but then how to access the infield? The new tunnel only went in because we raised the dip, so that would not be a solution. Perhaps move it back up that long back straight, not sure that would work with traffic flow either, so no easy choices. One of the things I have learned is that you never get to do exactly the same thing twice, so unless you make a real mess of things it is not possible to know if you were right or wrong. Doing nothing is what is usually the biggest fault, so make a decision and live with it.

A bit like Ferrari at Abu Dhabi, there are a lot of suggestions about what they should have done, and I guess in hindsight you can simulate the race and see what would have worked, but in the heat of battle make a decision and live with it, it is a sport between humans, not machines thank goodness.