Wide
Sierra
Motor sport has its fair share of rules and
regulations, and there are people who have made a nice fat
living out of inaugurating and applying those rules.
Successive presidents of the Federation Internationale de
l’Automobile (FIA for short) have done very nicely thank
you, none of whom appeared to have starved to death in the
reputedly unpaid position.
Since the objective in 99% of motorsport is
to get to the finish before the rest of the turkeys, this
means that we have a contest, with the first regulation being
that “The motor car that is leading at the end of the race
is declared the winner.”
Many years ago, the rule-makers saw that to
keep the contests interesting you needed to keep the competing
vehicles together, so the concept of “classes” was
introduced, and the regulations flowed on from there. These
days there are more classes than there are go-go dancers in
all of Thailand, and the regulations for these take up several
libraries. These days, there are also legions of racers
reading the regulations and working out their ways around
them. Legally or otherwise.
There are also countless thousands of
examples of cheating, or bending the rules, only found out
when the perpetrator has been found out. Like the Japanese
rally team that ran oversize tricky turbochargers, or when a
certain front running Eff Wun team was found to be running
jungle juice instead of the correct race fuel.
But these are ham fisted attempts at
getting an advantage. There have been much better examples of
the fine art of fudging. From across the pond, there was the
NASCAR stock car that was later found to be a 9/10ths scaled
down replica. At 9/10ths the frontal area it slipped through
the air just so much better. It looked perfectly standard,
until someone put the rule over the car! In Australia, a Ford
Sierra was found to be wider than all the others, to give that
certain edge in cornering.
Returning to the US of A, where the fuel
tanks were limited in size in a certain class, one competitor
managed to go for many laps further than the rest of the field
on the same sized tank of fuel. The tank was taken out and
measured - perfectly legal! However, the several tens of
metres of very large bore “fuel lines” running from the
rear and around the interior of the vehicle, on the way to the
engine, were later discovered and considered against the
spirit of the regulations!
However, some of the more inventive
applications of the human brain to circumvent regulations have
come via the motorcycle racers. These are guys with a very
healthy disrespect for all rules, regulations and policemen.
You have to admire them.
The following examples are true, but names
have been withheld to protect the guilty. The first involved
an illegal cylinder head. One rider, suspected of running a
very modified cylinder head on a production bike, was
approached by the scrutineers, wishing to measure and examine
said cylinder head. “No worries,” said the biker, “give
us a couple of minutes and we’ll bring it down to you.”
Now the powers that be weren’t that silly, so they said
they’d wait. “No worries,” was the rejoinder again.
Much spanner twisting ensued and the head
was lifted off. “I’ll just give it a clean for you,”
said the mechanic, dropping it into a large drum of murky
petrol and giving it a shake and swirl. Lifting it out, it was
dried and handed over. The head was checked for capacity, port
sizes, the works. It was totally legal. And of course it was.
The one they were given was the ‘other’ standard cylinder
head which had been sitting waiting in the bottom of the large
drum of oily petrol!
These are still but crude and clumsy
efforts at getting around the regs, so keep reading, the
following fudge is one of the best. In Production Bike racing,
one of the biggest problems in cornering is the exhaust pipes
grounding, particularly noticeable on some famous Italian
machines. In Australia there was a six hour race for
production bikes and on this particular year, one Italian bike
team appeared to have the problem licked. All the others were
scraping away, while this one team did not scrape once in
qualifying. Of course this produced the attention of the
scrutineers who noticed the exhaust headers were different
from the others. “How come?” “These are a optional
headers” was the reply, but the scrutineers insisted on
inspection.
The offending items looked like factory
bits, complete with the part number stamped into the metal,
but nobody in the officials had ever heard of a production
option being available. It was then suggested that they go to
the closest dealer and inquire there.
The scrutineers went to the dealer,
straight to the parts counter and being crafty, asked to see
the parts book. There it was in black and white - Optional
Header, part number XYZ. The disbelieving scrutineers then
asked if the dealer had any of these items. The answer was in
the affirmative and two headers were produced, exactly
identical with the ones on the bike at the circuit. There was
no option open to the officials, other than to pass the bike
in question, which they did.
What they did not know, was that there were
only four of these “factory” headers in the world, all
hand made and hand stamped. Two on the race bike and two at
the dealership. The page in the parts book was a phoney too,
all done as an elaborate and well set up fraud!
And cheats never prosper? Think again!
However,
I do not believe it was all Ralfie’s fault. Going back to
the first corner maxim, as they approached the braking area,
if Rubens had admitted to himself that he had cocked up the
start and had lifted the throttle to avoid contact with Ralf
(and then Kimi), he would have lost one position only - to
Kimi, as he was already behind Ralf on the grid. Instead, he
kept his right clog in it, hoping that Providence would come
and clear the track for him, and a total of five cars ended up
not making it to the chequered flag. (Maxim number 2: “To
finish first, first you have to finish!”) 
Ralf
Schumacher 
So
to this week. Who remembers the ‘Hurgs’ (HRG’s)? These
quaint little sportscars even won their class at Le Mans in
1939. The owner of the company that produced HRG’s was a
chap by the name of H.R. Godfrey, but his initials (HRG) did
not give birth to the initials HRG used for the cars. Where
did the initials HRG come from? For the Automania FREE beer
this week, be the first correct answer to email automania @pattayamail.com