Brazilian GP this weekend
Interlagos
Second last Grand Prix in a less than
star-studded season. Will Jenson Button limp over the line
and take the championship? Or will we have to wait until the
new Abu Dhabi event November 1?
There have been five Brazilians who have won their home
Grand Prix. Yes, five. Fittipaldi, Piquet (Snr), Senna, Pace
and Massa. However, only Carlos Pace is enshrined at the
Brazilian circuit, with it being called the Autódromo José
Carlos Pace in Interlagos, a district in the city of São
Paulo, Brazil.
With Massa no longer being an outright contender for the
2008 world championship, national Latin sentiment will be at
an all-time high to back Barichello for the win and the
driver’s championship. I would not be surprised if the
spectators were to lie down in Button’s path to allow
Barichello to score.
With the time difference between Thailand and South America,
the live telecast will be seen here at 11 p.m. on the Sunday
night. Nevertheless, I will be taking my place in front of
the big screen in Jameson’s Irish Pub on Soi AR, next to
Nova Park. The pub will be staying open until the GP is
over, and does sell all sorts of alcoholic beverages with
which we can celebrate, or drown our sorrows. I will be
getting there well before 11 p.m., so join me for the
nail-biting action.
The Goodwood Revival
Words and pics by Simon Panton
(www.simonpanton.co.uk)
British motor sport enthusiasts have a particular
reason to be grateful to the Second World War. The outbreak
of peace left a surplus of airfields and their perimeter
roads just looking for something useful to do. Part of the
Goodwood Estate had been commandeered by the War Department
as an overflow airfield to RAF Tangmere, becoming RAF
Westhampnett for the duration. On 18th September 1948, Lord
Freddie March opened Goodwood Motor Circuit by driving a lap
in a borrowed Bristol 400.
Stirling’s
forgotten his helmet again!
Fifty years later to the minute, on 18th September 1998 his
grandson, Lord Charles March recreated the moment, again in
a borrowed 400. This time, as he completed the lap he found
Ray Hanna flying toward him in a Spitfire at “an altitude of
nothing very much”. At the time, I was standing alongside
the pit straight, about two meters above the track surface,
when the Spitfire flew past with the wing-tips at nose
height, a couple of meters away from my face. Not the kind
of experience a boy forgets in a hurry. Apart from Ray
receiving a terrible telling-off from the authorities, that
set the tone for the future of the Revival Meeting. The
circuit had been restored to look as close as possible to
its original format while having been discretely bought up
to FIA safety standards with run-off areas and buried
tyre-walls, but that was about the only concession to the
modern world. The meeting would only feature cars which
would have raced during the track’s original period of 1948
to 1966, and spectators would be encouraged to dress
appropriately to that period.
Mr Bean
This has led to a very strange,
other-worldly, theatrical atmosphere embracing the weekend.
Dressing up and being dropped into a make-believe setting
seems to encourage old-fashioned courtesy and manners among
spectators, while racing also adopts behaviour not seen in
modern “sports”. Perhaps encouraged by the absence, in many
cases, of roll-over hoops or seatbelts, there won’t be any
deliberate crashes on lap 14. But make no mistake, this is
proper racing. The Mille Miglia might these days be a mere
procession of rich old people in valuable cars, but at
Goodwood the racing is hard but fair and you will see real
damage to priceless motors.
Lwt
E-Type and out of shape Ferrari
This year’s Revival meeting celebrated Sir Stirling Moss’s
80th birthday. Stirling contested - and won - his first
race, the day after his 19th birthday, at Goodwood’s first
ever meeting in 1948. The circuit was also the scene of the
accident that ended Moss’s career in 1962 and left him in a
coma for more than a month. Yet he still considers the
circuit to be his favourite for the atmosphere it had in its
original period and has again now.
The Freddie March Spirit of Aviation concourse was judged by
guest Buzz Aldrin, flown in on a Huey helicopter and
transferred to a 1961 Indy 500 Pace Car T-Bird, to make his
own speech in the Stirling Moss tribute.
Jackie
Stewart in Prince Bira’s ERA Remus
St Mary’s Trophy, the ever-popular saloon car race
alternating each year between ‘fifties and ‘sixties cars,
was this year for Minis only, to mark the car’s 50th
anniversary. The two-part race was between ‘star’ drivers
such as Jackie Oliver, Stefan Johanssen, Rauno Aaltonen and
Christian Horner (and most points in between), for the first
leg, followed by the cars’ owners for the second leg.
Another part of the Mini’s 50th birthday celebration was a
parade of Minis - Minisprints, Radfords and Wood & Picketts,
the Outspan Orange promotional vehicle, a Wildgoose camper
and on and on. Tragically, there was also the chronically
unfunny Mr Bean’s Mini being ‘driven’, we were supposed to
believe, by Rowan Atkinson from an armchair on top of the
car (and not by somebody in the back seat, disguised as a
bucket, honest).
The RAC TT Celebration is another star-fest, featuring such
drivers as Marc Gene, Jean-Marc Gounon, Emanuele Pirro,
Bobby Rahal, Danny Sullivan… And the cars! The value of the
30-car grid must have exceeded $100 million, including six
E-Types including three lightweights, five Ferrari SWBs (if
you count the ex-Count Volpi ‘Breadvan’), and four GTOs,
half a dozen Cobras…
The turnout of rare and staggeringly beautiful cars is
stunning every year, but there are only so many cars in the
world appropriate to the period and types of competition of
the Revival Meeting. Every year I expect to see nothing new
and every year I’m surprised. Lotus 25 R4, for example, with
which Jim Clark won his 1963 World Championship with wins in
Belgium, Holland, France, Britain, Mexico and South Africa,
raced for the first time in 40 years. Most astonishing, for
me, was a Ferrari 156 ‘Sharknose’, of which none exist! This
was a recreation, based on an original engine, transaxle and
other parts, of Olivier Gendebien’s chassis 0002, which ran
for the first time to spontaneous applause.
Each year I struggle with the dilemma - is it right to join
in with the dressing up and pretend it isn’t yet 1966?
Shouldn’t a meeting like this be able to stand on its own
merits without such gimmicks? And each year I go along with
it, a little reluctantly, only to find that it’s the most
fabulous weekend of the year. The attention to detail is
meticulous, from the Walmington-On-Sea Home Guard platoon
from Dad’s Army to the Earl’s Court Motor Show, and from the
‘fifties garage workshops to bumping into Groucho Marx in
the paddock. Every year we meet people who clearly have
never been to a motor circuit before, with their wide-eyed
children obviously enchanted by the noise and the spectacle.
If only a small fraction of those people, or their children,
are sufficiently bitten by the bug to go racing again, then
the theatre behind this meeting has provided a valuable
gateway. Motor racing needs more friends in order to stand
up to the ‘mentalists who consider our sport wasteful, or
polluting, or too loud as is happening at Spa-Francorchamps
at the moment. Welcome aboard, even if you do look
ridiculous in that hat.
(Thank you Simon for the detailed report on the Goodwood
Revival. To all our readers, think about next year’s.)
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I asked who designed Germany’s
first V8 for the N.A.G. company? It was the designer
Paul Henze. First correct answer was Ivar Hoyem from
Norway!
So to this week. Which British Queen drove an electric
car around the grounds of Sandringham House?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first
correct answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
Race meeting at Bira
as well
Local race fans also have a SuperClub meeting
at the Prince Bira circuit this weekend. Always fun
events, they begin around 10 a.m. and finish around 4
p.m. Not the ‘professional’ level of the SuperCar
classes, but plenty of entries and even more enthusiasm.
This is grass roots stuff and the drivers of tomorrow
start here.
