Slack Bugger
I recent discovered a file in my computer full of half finished blogs.
...Twelve months ago Tamworth based Superkart racer Warren McIlveen lost the championship by less than a point. He lost it on a count-back of the results of the final race of the championship.
McIlveen holds a three point lead in his now four-year-old quest to win a seventh Australian Championship in the 250 International class. Drivers who have won seven titles in the same class are very hard to find.
"I can't wait to get down there again. My main concern down there will be tyre selection." McIlveen is planning to take both Dunlop and Bridgestone tyres...
...Sometimes we forget they are real people. The cult of celebrity and the worship of sporting gods separates the image from the reality. Dan Wheldon was a happy man. One of those race drivers who know they are living a life most people only dream of and so many others try and fail to achieve. He is British so like every young karter his age he wanted to be Nigel Mansell but his professional career took him away from Europe and he crossed the Atlantic at the Formula Ford stage of his career...
...With The Roar websites recent plunge on television advertising I wondered over to inspect the website and naturally looked up my favourite sport, only to find the first story in the search engine was an article attempting to justify Motor racing was not a sport because it was an extension of an everyday activity, ie driving, rather than presumably an exhibition of skill involving the manipulation of stick or ball.
However the logical extension of that argument would be that any sport based on an everyday activity could not be called sport, then that suggests that the Roar believes one of the planet's most lauded (and justly so) athletes Usain Bolt is not an athlete at all. Isn't the 100 m sprint just an extension of well... walking? Hard to get much more everyday than that.
For a website portraying itself as a leader on sports journalism in the electronic medium this was a disappointingly immature editorial attitude, and one I hope the Roar might grow out of, but it might be a while before I check up on them....
...Ford Australia started to take the race seriously in 1962 with a multi-car team of Ford Falcons led by Harry Firth arriving at Phillip Island. One simmering issue was brought to a head. The race surface of spray seal bitumen had been showing signs of wear. Endurance motor racing had not been a feature of the circuit. The bridge connection San Remo to Newhaven had never been strong enough to allow bitumen road surfacing equipment onto the Island. In 1962 the track suffered horrendous break-up issues. Weaving between potholes that swallowed Class D entrants whole, Harry Firth and Bob Jane were again the first drivers to complete the full race distance in their Class B Falcon. On the same lap was the Studebaker Lark of Fred Sutherland and Bill Graetz winning Class A. Brian Sampson and John Connelly, joined this year by Rex Emmett defended their class win in their Renault Gordini after the Renaults were moved up to Class C. Class D had now become a battleground for those two small car classics, the Beetle and the Mini. George Reynolds and Jim McKeown claimed the class win in a Volkswagen.
The race though was set for a fundamental change. Plainly Phillip Island would need major rehabilitation to be used for endurance racing again and there was no guarantee the money or the technology would be able to do the job. The race was on the move and a new home was found North of the Murray River.
Mount Panorama was a great circuit in 1963. It had yet to receive the international acclaim it holds now and its fable still had many exciting rivals elsewhere in Australia not yet closed by the march of time....
...A large, very large metallic object floated in space, in geostationary, or strictly speaking, lunastationary orbit above the pockmarked grey globe of this strange planet's only natural satellite. It had been here for some time. Several weeks earlier, using the Moon as cover to prevent detection from any Cybertronian or indigenous scans the vessel had carved its way into real-space and has launched Venom, Astrotrain and their teams into space to attack the Autobot cruiser. Within a day the vessel had been boarded. Its pilot was now a dismembered pile of junk on the bridge of the vessel. The two invaders had moved the vessel, briefly landing it on the satellite while the battle took place. In the aftermath Astrotrain's brief search for the ship yielded no results. Now back in orbit the vessel sat waiting.
Within, a tall mauve mech finally halted in his labours. He stood in a large space, if it could be called standing. The tall blocky figure floated in zero gravity. In front of him was a control station, beyond the large engines needed to achieve faster than light travel sat waiting. Power flowed to the engines, but the engines themselves were off-line. At the command of the one-handed mechanic the engines powered up to idling speed, then powered down.
A single glowing green eye surveyed his work, before turning to regard his companion.
"Satisfactory."...
...There were a few news reports in the last week stating Jamie Whincup had become the first driver to win championships for Ford and Holden, but it is a dubious statistic on several levels and an insulting one. Mark Skaife won for Nissan and Holden, why is that achievement less notable? Jim Richards won for BMW and Nissan. Allan Moffat for Ford and Mazda. Bob Jane for Jaguar and Chevrolet. What makes their efforts less worthy than Whincup? Perhaps most insulting of all, Norm Beechey, the first multi-manufacturer champion, and the first V8 champion, won his two championships driving a Ford Mustang in 1965 and a Holden Monaro in 1970.
If these drivers are not part of V8 Supercar's history, why are they recognised as Hall of Fame inductees? Please V8 Supercar, stop picking and choosing which parts of history you do and do not like, especially now as you are preparing the ground for the announcement of a third manufacturer for the 2013 season.
...My journey through motor racing media has brought me to some interesting times and places. One recent incident comes to mind. I recently met Peter Mears, a long time sportscaster for ABC television, then subsequently media representative of Queensland Rugby Union.
Mears is one of three panellists on Steve Austin's Monday night program on 612 ABC radio, the Philosophy of Sport, on which I've guested several times as a fill-in panellist and motorsport expert.
Mears grilled me on why I loved the sport I do, at the time I'd interpreted as why I loved Formula One, but in hindsight I think he meant Motorsport in general. I think now I have an answer to that question.
Motorsport is colourful. It is noisy. It is an assault on the senses. Bright livieries compete with engine roar, squeal of brakes, the pungent sounds and smells of automotive products in hard use and the odd wave of heat and the spray of champagne. It is visceral.
But motorsport also has its subtleties. This is something the camera has taught me as much as anything else. Budding motorsport journalists should spend some time against the fence with a camera to learn this...
Jeex I'm a slack bugger. Could have finished one of those... probably a whole bunhc more..
...Twelve months ago Tamworth based Superkart racer Warren McIlveen lost the championship by less than a point. He lost it on a count-back of the results of the final race of the championship.
McIlveen holds a three point lead in his now four-year-old quest to win a seventh Australian Championship in the 250 International class. Drivers who have won seven titles in the same class are very hard to find.
"I can't wait to get down there again. My main concern down there will be tyre selection." McIlveen is planning to take both Dunlop and Bridgestone tyres...
...Sometimes we forget they are real people. The cult of celebrity and the worship of sporting gods separates the image from the reality. Dan Wheldon was a happy man. One of those race drivers who know they are living a life most people only dream of and so many others try and fail to achieve. He is British so like every young karter his age he wanted to be Nigel Mansell but his professional career took him away from Europe and he crossed the Atlantic at the Formula Ford stage of his career...
...With The Roar websites recent plunge on television advertising I wondered over to inspect the website and naturally looked up my favourite sport, only to find the first story in the search engine was an article attempting to justify Motor racing was not a sport because it was an extension of an everyday activity, ie driving, rather than presumably an exhibition of skill involving the manipulation of stick or ball.
However the logical extension of that argument would be that any sport based on an everyday activity could not be called sport, then that suggests that the Roar believes one of the planet's most lauded (and justly so) athletes Usain Bolt is not an athlete at all. Isn't the 100 m sprint just an extension of well... walking? Hard to get much more everyday than that.
For a website portraying itself as a leader on sports journalism in the electronic medium this was a disappointingly immature editorial attitude, and one I hope the Roar might grow out of, but it might be a while before I check up on them....
...Ford Australia started to take the race seriously in 1962 with a multi-car team of Ford Falcons led by Harry Firth arriving at Phillip Island. One simmering issue was brought to a head. The race surface of spray seal bitumen had been showing signs of wear. Endurance motor racing had not been a feature of the circuit. The bridge connection San Remo to Newhaven had never been strong enough to allow bitumen road surfacing equipment onto the Island. In 1962 the track suffered horrendous break-up issues. Weaving between potholes that swallowed Class D entrants whole, Harry Firth and Bob Jane were again the first drivers to complete the full race distance in their Class B Falcon. On the same lap was the Studebaker Lark of Fred Sutherland and Bill Graetz winning Class A. Brian Sampson and John Connelly, joined this year by Rex Emmett defended their class win in their Renault Gordini after the Renaults were moved up to Class C. Class D had now become a battleground for those two small car classics, the Beetle and the Mini. George Reynolds and Jim McKeown claimed the class win in a Volkswagen.
The race though was set for a fundamental change. Plainly Phillip Island would need major rehabilitation to be used for endurance racing again and there was no guarantee the money or the technology would be able to do the job. The race was on the move and a new home was found North of the Murray River.
Mount Panorama was a great circuit in 1963. It had yet to receive the international acclaim it holds now and its fable still had many exciting rivals elsewhere in Australia not yet closed by the march of time....
...A large, very large metallic object floated in space, in geostationary, or strictly speaking, lunastationary orbit above the pockmarked grey globe of this strange planet's only natural satellite. It had been here for some time. Several weeks earlier, using the Moon as cover to prevent detection from any Cybertronian or indigenous scans the vessel had carved its way into real-space and has launched Venom, Astrotrain and their teams into space to attack the Autobot cruiser. Within a day the vessel had been boarded. Its pilot was now a dismembered pile of junk on the bridge of the vessel. The two invaders had moved the vessel, briefly landing it on the satellite while the battle took place. In the aftermath Astrotrain's brief search for the ship yielded no results. Now back in orbit the vessel sat waiting.
Within, a tall mauve mech finally halted in his labours. He stood in a large space, if it could be called standing. The tall blocky figure floated in zero gravity. In front of him was a control station, beyond the large engines needed to achieve faster than light travel sat waiting. Power flowed to the engines, but the engines themselves were off-line. At the command of the one-handed mechanic the engines powered up to idling speed, then powered down.
A single glowing green eye surveyed his work, before turning to regard his companion.
"Satisfactory."...
...There were a few news reports in the last week stating Jamie Whincup had become the first driver to win championships for Ford and Holden, but it is a dubious statistic on several levels and an insulting one. Mark Skaife won for Nissan and Holden, why is that achievement less notable? Jim Richards won for BMW and Nissan. Allan Moffat for Ford and Mazda. Bob Jane for Jaguar and Chevrolet. What makes their efforts less worthy than Whincup? Perhaps most insulting of all, Norm Beechey, the first multi-manufacturer champion, and the first V8 champion, won his two championships driving a Ford Mustang in 1965 and a Holden Monaro in 1970.
If these drivers are not part of V8 Supercar's history, why are they recognised as Hall of Fame inductees? Please V8 Supercar, stop picking and choosing which parts of history you do and do not like, especially now as you are preparing the ground for the announcement of a third manufacturer for the 2013 season.
...My journey through motor racing media has brought me to some interesting times and places. One recent incident comes to mind. I recently met Peter Mears, a long time sportscaster for ABC television, then subsequently media representative of Queensland Rugby Union.
Mears is one of three panellists on Steve Austin's Monday night program on 612 ABC radio, the Philosophy of Sport, on which I've guested several times as a fill-in panellist and motorsport expert.
Mears grilled me on why I loved the sport I do, at the time I'd interpreted as why I loved Formula One, but in hindsight I think he meant Motorsport in general. I think now I have an answer to that question.
Motorsport is colourful. It is noisy. It is an assault on the senses. Bright livieries compete with engine roar, squeal of brakes, the pungent sounds and smells of automotive products in hard use and the odd wave of heat and the spray of champagne. It is visceral.
But motorsport also has its subtleties. This is something the camera has taught me as much as anything else. Budding motorsport journalists should spend some time against the fence with a camera to learn this...
Jeex I'm a slack bugger. Could have finished one of those... probably a whole bunhc more..