FIA Madness?

There seems to be a lot of fuss made about Ferrari pulling out of Formula 1 if plans to introduce a standard engine for all teams come to fruition. You can’t blame them, I imagine old man Ferrari would spin right out of his grave I the F1 team used an engine that came from outside Maranello. What interests me is that there are members of the public who think that standard engines are a good idea as it provides a more level playing field for the driver’s championship.

You can see where they are coming from, there are plenty of one-make championships but is there any way of being certain that the chap who is best in Formula Ford is a better driver than the fellow who can master a TVR Tuscan (not that I imagine Tuscans race anymore but I recall they sorted men from boys when they did)? A standard car does not tell you who the better driver is, only who is best in that car!

Unless there is room for parallel driver and constructor’s championships; one weekend drivers race in standardised cars and the next week they race for team glory in cars that suffer the least possible regulation on their construction. What I have in mind is similar to an idea advanced by my friend Simon. The schedule of race fixtures is known and the length of the race is also known before the start of the season and aside from a stipulation that the top six finishers must complete the race distance (if it is 70 laps all finishers must do 70 to score points) and the fact that the cars must fit in a notional box (say, 14-feet by 6-feet by 4 feet tall). Everything else would be left to the imagination of the designer.

It should make for an interesting grid, especially if all the teams do something different; so we see front and rear engines, enclosed bodies and open wheels, moving and fixed aerodynamic surfaces, small, medium or large engines with or without forced induction and possibly exotic fuels that may or may not need replacing every couple of laps. I think it would be a cross between the heyday of Can-Am racing and the Wacky Races – I’m certain that for anyone who loves engineering it would be a lot more interesting than the current season!

Weekend update Part 4

Time for a little light entertainment before the weekend. I am quite pleased with some of the photos I took at the Gold Cup. Static photos are quite easy to take but I’m particularly fond of this scene with a Lister Jaguar.



Action photos are more difficult. I know a poor workman blames his tools but action pictures don’t always focus in time and there is an annoying delay between pressing the button and the picture being taken – time that can make the difference between capturing the moment and missing it completely. One that did come out well was this scene of three Lotus Cortinas cornering hard at Cascades corner.



Sometimes the pictures were just a little too small or slightly out of focus. This picture of a Ford Falcon illustrates the problem.



Even more depressing is the perfectly framed shot that is completely out of focus. This Chevrolet Corvette was an interesting subject as it had been hastily repaired after an accident, you can make out the blue “gaffer tape” but the detail is lost.



Then there are the photos that were taken way too soon…



… a little too soon …



or too late.



I can’t remember what happened here but it was probably quite dramatic given the smoke hanging in the air…



But sometimes, if you’re too slow on the button, all you get is a picture of an empty stretch of tarmac.

Weekend catch up Part 1

I spent the weekend up in Manchester with my friends Simon (of MG Midget fame) and Ally. What a wonderful weekend it was, catching up, chatting, messing about with Si’s sports car, enjoying tasty food and taking in some motor racing at Oulton Park.

Over the next few days I’ll try and post some of the photos I took of the racing and of the interesting cars parked on the hill overlooking Cascades. Before then I need to share a few observations:

1. The noise limit seems to have been tightened, some cars did not sound as ear-splitting or dramatic as I remembered from past years.
2. What happened to the pre-war cars? Last year there was some pretty good racing from the vintage and post-vintage crowd.
3. Where have all the Jaguars gone? The first Gold Cup meeting I attended had XKs, C-types and D-types racing but they seem to have deserted the Gold Cup.
4. Digital photography of moving cars can be a bit hit and miss. I promise to share some of the more amusingly bad examples.

I’ll leave you with this picture from practice for the Guards Trophy race.

Torotrak update

The development of the Torotrak transmission has moved to the next stage. You may remember my enthusiasm when Torotrak announced that it was working with Xtrak on a drive system for Formula 1 cars (see July to refresh your memory). A major F1 team has become the first customer of a Torotrak-based kinetic energy recovery system.

The name of the customer has not been revealed but it is encouraging that progress from concept to application has been so swift. If only someone would use a Torotrak transmission in a car. Recovering energy that would be wasted under braking is very admirable. It is even better not to waste energy in the first place by running an engine at inefficient speeds.