China leads the way
Far from being a country inhabited by
penniless peasants, China is literally going from strength
to strength. Forget all those old jokes about China only
being copycats. China is standing on its own two feet these
days, and doing very well, thank you very much with China
passenger car sales up 55 percent in February. The following
item from Associated Press confirms that.
The Chinese are not coming - they’re here
already!
Shanghai (AP) - China’s passenger
car sales climbed 55 percent from a year earlier in
February, despite a long national holiday, on strong demand
for smaller cars and sport utility vehicles, an industry
group reported Tuesday.
Sales of cars, commercial vehicles and
SUVs rose to 942,900 units, while sales of all vehicles
including trucks and buses rose 46 percent year-on-year to
1.21 million, according to the government-affiliated China
Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Tax cuts and subsidies for small-car
purchases pushed demand sharply higher last year, with total
vehicle sales leaping 45 percent to 13.6 million, making
China the world’s biggest auto market, as American car sales
languished.
A large share of the vehicles sold in
China are small passenger cars and minivans used by farming
families and small businesses - the focus of the tax cuts
and other policies aimed at spurring sales of fuel-efficient
vehicles.
In February, automakers sold 623,100
passenger sedans, up 46 percent from the year before. Sales
of multi-purpose vehicles, mainly vans and minivans, jumped
72 percent to 25,200, while sales of SUVs more than doubled
to 70,300, the auto industry association said.
What did
we learn from the Bahrain GP?
We learned that anticipation can often be
better than realization. After months of waiting with the
unanswered questions regarding intra-team rivalry, what
would happen with full tanks, which teams were the quickest,
the answers were delivered in what was frankly a very boring
Bahrain GP.
With the no refueling regulations, almost
every team was running to preserve their tyres, fearing that
they would end up with multiple pit stops. Consequently we
did not see anyone really ‘having a go’, all running around
at 80 percent effort. When Jaime Algywotsit (who can hardly
drive out of sight on a dark night) in the Toro Rosso can
set some fastest laps, which he did at one stage, five
seconds off the qualifying times, this shows just how slowly
the so-called hot shots were driving. Yes, you read that
correctly - five seconds off qualifying times.
Back to the race, Alonso inherited first
place when Vettel’s Red Bull suffered a spark plug failure
(not an exhaust failure as initially thought), as up till
then Vettel looked completely in control. Thankfully Alonso
has stopped doing bird impersonations from the cockpit, so
we were spared that. However, at the post-race conference he
then dedicated his race inheritance to Ferrari president
Montezemolo in a wonderful display of brown nosing. Whilst
it was good to see Massa back in action, he could not hold
the Spaniard and has already all but relegated himself to
‘Number 2’ status in the team.
In Red Bull, Vettel out drove Webber; in
McLaren Hamilton out drove Button and in Mercedes Rosberg
out drove Schumacher. Yawn.
Even Michael Schumacher on his return to
F1 admitted that it was a boring race. If it was boring from
where he was sitting, it was interminable from where we were
sitting. “It’s the start and then after it is just sort of
go your pace and not do mistakes,” he told the BBC.
Much plaudits in the general press for
the HRT Spaniards, for having got there. If this had been a
club race meeting at Bira, I would have applauded too, but
it was not a club race. It was supposedly the pinnacle of
the world’s motor racing, and they presented two unsorted
motor cars, with rookie Chandhok crashing out on lap two as
he hit a bump he had never seen before! Just what is the FIA
doing? Bring back the 107 percent rule immediately. Mobile
chicanes are not needed at the top echelon.
Lotus finished shaking hands with
themselves for just having finished, in what was really a
dismal showing. Is this the pinnacle? It was more like
Pattaya FC playing Arsenal. Bring back the 107 percent rule.
Spectators? I thought I had spotted a few
standing on one corner, but they turned out to be palm
trees.
Finally, I can report with complete
surety that by half way through the race there were no
Virgins left at the Bahrain circuit!
The next race is the Australian GP in
Melbourne March 28. If you are of a God-fearing nature, pray
for a better race.
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I mentioned that there is a car
preserved in the Turin Automobile museum, which was built
for the Monaco GP of 1935. It was very radical, featuring an
eight cylinder radial two stroke engine, which was mounted
ahead of the driven wheels - which meant it was also front
wheel drive. It did not race after the early trials were not
positive. I asked what was this car? It was the Trossi-Monaco.
So to this week. What engine was
described as having “pistons like dustbins, moving
deliberately up and down like lifts by Nogood-Waytis”?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to email
[email protected]
Good luck!
Action
galore at 3K - Nitto meeting
A couple of weeks ago I attended the 3K -
Nitto race meeting at the Bira Circuit on Highway 36 in
Pattaya. A ‘club type’ meeting, it presented non-stop action
with short races scheduled one after the other, many
different categories including ‘Retro’ and pick-ups and
plenty of racing, plus thrills and spills.
I walked around the pits and chatted to
the competitors, and the laid-back atmosphere was great fun.
I wanted to speak with the owner of a Datsun SSS from the
Retro class as I had raced one of these many years ago, and
even though he had very little English, other drivers came
to his assistance and we had enjoyable chats ‘in the round’.
With a B. 50 entry as a spectator, it
doesn’t break the bank to bring the family, and the viewing
area from under the tree at the hairpin at the end of the
straight has become a bit of an ex-pat hangout. It is not
too far to walk to the pits and the Bira Caf้ presents
reasonable Thai food very inexpensively, as well as cold
drinks.
The next 3K race meeting will be in May
on 29/30. See you under the hairpin’s tree.
Remember there is also the ‘Pro’ Racing
series at Bira with the first round on April 24/25. Again
not as intense or rigidly organized as the SuperCar events,
but plenty of fun.
To be repaired in der Black Forest by der
Elves
Staying on
the saddle
Welcome to part three of our Pattaya
riding course from HiSide Tours:
The biggest single factor that will keep
you alive and unhurt the longest in road riding is
observation. No amount of skill can help you avoid a hazard
you have not seen, whereas even a bad rider with good
observation skills will be able to avoid most hazards.
Don’t try this at home!
This is not a god-given skill that some
have and some don’t. It can be acquired. Firstly, of course,
the more of your attention you can spend on looking around
and not on operating the controls the easier this will be,
so familiarize yourself with all the instruments and the
operation of your bike controls so that you are not looking
at them too often. If you still have to look at the clutch
to change gear you should not be on the road!
Split screen. You need to develop what I
call the PlayStation? vision. Imagine that your field of
vision is a TV screen and you are playing your friend at
some racing game where the screen is split into two halves
by a horizontal line in the middle. You are player number 1
at the top and he is player number 2 at the bottom. As you
play your attention is on the top half of the screen as you
avoid the obstacles coming at you, but out of the bottom of
your eye you are tracking your friend’s progress at the
bottom of the screen. What you don’t do is focus your
attention on his half of the screen because then you crash
at the top.
You need to develop a similar skill in
your riding observation. Looking ahead into the distance and
focusing your attention there will allow you to see things
far enough ahead of you to react smoothly and avoid any
hazards without sudden maneuvers. When you look into the
distance you need to scan the field of vision to see the big
picture. When your scanning has identified a potential
hazard, e.g. a truck stopped in the middle of the road, you
mentally click on it and keep scanning for other hazards.
Position yourself on the road to avoid the hazard and ride
around it. Too many times I see riders in front of me
suddenly panic braking because they have failed to look past
the bumper of the car in front of them to see a hazard I
have already identified and planned for 100 meters further
back. Your greatest advantage on a bike is the ability to
maneuver freely, use it! Look through car windscreens, ride
to the right or the left of them, look over them. Whatever
it takes so you can see what is ahead of you. Choppers with
their low seating position and extended length cannot do
this easily, another reason why these bikes handle so badly.
There is a saying in track riding which
is; “You go where you look”. And unfortunately the human
instinct when faced with a danger is to look at it. So when
something pulls out in front of you, your immediate instinct
is to stare at it and then apply the brakes in a panic. You
are suffering from “target fixation”. This makes it almost
impossible for you to see any easy escape route because you
cannot focus on anything except for the on-coming hazard. It
is almost impossible for the normal rider to drag his
attention away from a hazard once this target fixation has
taken over, so you need to counteract it, before it kicks
in, by focussing your attention past the area immediately in
front of you. Use your peripheral vision to monitor things
close up and plan far ahead, that way you will be able to
ride smoothly around hazards that other less skilled riders
will only see at the last possible moment.
You will not achieve this skill overnight
and even vastly experienced road and track riders still
suffer from target fixation occasionally when their
concentration slips. So keep practicing every day on your
bike or in your car.
Cheers,
Graham
Graham Knight can be contacted at graham.knight@
highsidetours.com
