On my way back from dinner at the wonderful L'Autre on Saturday I was (sh)ambling down Shepherd Street. As is my habit, I was looking up at various bits of architecture, when I noticed a modern-looking house all finished in very sober black ( Read more... )

...the A1GP motor racing series is demonstrating itself to the people of Manchester this weekend; I ambled over for a couple of hours to take a look and noticed that the A1 Team Lebanon car is there. Rather poignant considering what's going on there, although less so if you know that the car's usual driver Graham Rahal (the only Lebanese person ( Read more... )

If you want to read a damn good story, I strongly recommend David Dowse's account of Morgan's return to Le Mans. For anyone who's a petrolhead, there's some great racing tales in there; for anyone who wonders why I'm nuts about sports car racing, Dowse lifts the lid on the deals, the politics, the sheer hard work, the personality clashes, the long ( Read more... )

ITV are increasing their commitment to the BTCC. All 10 rounds will receive live coverage - the third race from each round will be shown live and in full, with highlights from races 1 and 2 shown 'as live'. (This is apparently the first time every round has been covered live, even the BBC used to show them delayed occasionally ( Read more... )

One of my heroes died last night. Keith Duckworth passed away at the age of 72. Difficult to sum him up in a few words, but how does "the greatest racing engine designer ever" sound ( Read more... )

Well, I've at least finished playing with the pics from my holiday.

Out and about:

Chapultepec Park, Castle, Posh area near our hotel - culture and scenery.
Paseo de la Reforma, Zocalo and around - hustle, bustle, and Catholicism.

Racing:
Grand-Am practice, early Friday morning - sportscars and Leonard Cohen records on the PA! What more could ( Read more... )

One of my team was unfamiliar with the origin of the phrase "Gawd's 'oly traahsers!" - this worries me ( Read more... )

Weekend at Emma's - BTCC at Croft. What more can a man ask for ( Read more... )

for anyone with a suitable Freeview box. Now that E4 has gone free-to-air rather than being part of the Topup.TV subscription package, they have replaced it with British Eurosport. Which means Champcar racing, FIA GTs, and the World Touring Car Championship, at least ( Read more... )

Perusing the 2006 engine regs, like yer do....

No material with a density exceeding 19,000kg/m3 may
be assembled to the crankshaft.

fascinating, 'cos the heaviest tungsten-based alloy that's currently used is about 18500kg/m3.

Depleted uranium is 19050 kg/m3 ;)

I assume there's a similar rule about chassis ballast ;P