by Dr. Iain Corness |
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The Indy 500 - on the world’s
oldest surviving racetrack
In line with the Editor’s notification
that this is the 500th edition of the Pattaya Mail, I
thought I should throw a few 500’s at this week’s column.
One of the most famous 500’s is, of course, the Indy 500,
run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, otherwise known as
“The Brickyard”.
In its early days, it certainly was a
brickyard, with 3.2 million bricks being used to build the
paved surface necessary to run motor races; however, most of
these were replaced with asphalt in 1961, leaving just a strip
of bricks at the start-finish line. The circuit was actually
first built in 1908 and the first races were held in 1909, but
the Indy 500 mile race did not occur until all the bricks were
down in 1911. Since then it has been an annual event, other
than during the war years, but recently the F1 wallahs have
been running on part of the banking and a specially designed
new circuit inside the famous oval, as well as the Indy 500,
making it two major events a year.
The Cooper-J.A.P.
500
After WWII, motor racing began to kick off
again in the UK, but in those days there was not much money
around and small engined race cars, built in back sheds,
became the name of the game, and the original rear engined
Coopers had a 500 cc J.A.P. motorcycle engine installed in
them. It was in one of these that Sir Stirling Moss began his
career.
Cooper
500
It was a simple, light design using the
remains of two Fiat 500s for front and rear suspension, a
J.A.P. speedway engine, a simple ladder style frame and
aluminium body. For largely practical reasons, the engine was
placed in the rear of the car, driving a chain to the gearbox
and a second chain to the rear axle.
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The Speedway 500’s
The top class in speedway racing
motorcycles has the 500cc engine capacity, and the J.A.P.
engines ruled the roost for many years. I have to admit to the
fact that I was (and still am) a great fan of speedway solos.
I have had a few of the great names of speedway as patients
(Ivan Mauger, Phil Crump, John Titman) and was even in
Crump’s crew when he won the Australian title in the mid
70’s and realised a life-long ambition when I rode John
Titman’s world championship speedway bike in the early
80’s. I still believe that speedway solos are the most
exciting form of motorsport to watch, and incredibly
difficult. After my try-out on the speedway solo, John Titman
offered to get me a start in C Grade the following weekend. I
declined. At 41 years of age, I could at last say I had done
it - there was nothing to be gained by tempting fate! Other
than perhaps a broken leg!
Speedway
J.A.P.
Speedway began in Australia in the 1920’s
and it was exported to the world. The bikes are 500cc, run on
methanol and have no brakes! The power to weight ratio is
incredible, and riding one of these jiggers goes down as my
all-time most frightening buzz!
Fiat 500
The Fiat 500 was introduced in 1957 and the
production run went for 20 years, with 4 million of the little
runabouts being built in that time. The 499cc engine produced
a breathless 18 bhp which gave the diminutive car a top speed
of 100 kph. The early examples had ‘suicide’ doors (hinged
at the trailing edge) but this was changed for safety reasons;
however, the Giardiniera ‘van’ still retained them till
the end. There was also an open model, called the Jolly and
was designed and built by the bodymaker Vignale. The little
buzz-bomb also had drum brakes and a crash (non-synchro)
gearbox.
Fiat
Jolly
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The
Hardie-Ferodo 500
This was a 500 mile race for series
production saloon cars in Australia, held at the Mt. Panorama
Bathurst road circuit. It later became known as the H-F 1000
when Australia went metric, and now is called the Hardie 1000.
Until they restricted the race and made it V8’s only, it was
the most popular motor racing event down under, but factional
in-fighting has seen the popularity wane as the premier
meeting as other Bathurst events have been put into the
calendar. (I raced at Bathurst a couple of times and it was
the most demanding circuit after the old Nurburgring in
Germany.)
Hardie
Ferodo 500
The manufacturers used the Hardie-Ferodo
500 as a “Race on Sunday, sell on Monday” promotion, with
more and more powerful models appearing as ‘showroom
stock’ vehicles. FoMoCo even built a Cortina 500 which had
twin fuel tanks and all sorts of good bits to run in this
event.
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The Land Speed Record exceeds
500 mph
In 1964, Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons in
jet engined record breakers attacked the Land Speed Record,
with Breedlove’s three wheeled Spirit of America breaking
the 500 mph barrier first with 526 mph, to be quickly eclipsed
by Art Arfons in the aptly named “Green Monster” at 536
mph. Neither of these cars were wheel driven, but were rather
planes that didn’t fly!
Art
Arfons
FIA to use ‘Spy in the
Cockpit’ technology
At the introduction to the media of the new
F1 Ferrari challenger, Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn
revealed that the FIA is to introduce a revolutionary ‘spy
system’ later this year in an effort to catch cheats. “At
the British Grand Prix, there will be a series of changes to
reduce the usage of Driver Aids,” he said. “This means
that traction control, launch control and automatic gearboxes
will be banned. In order to police these strategies more
effectively,” he continued, “the FIA are introducing a
‘Spy in the Cockpit’. This will be a monitoring device
inside the car to provide data to detect the usage of these
strategies. We believe it essential we avoid the suspicion and
innuendo that existed prior to the legalisation of these
strategies and we are working together with the FIA to ensure
satisfactory policing in the future.”
Now while that sounds all very fine, the
actual realities will be much harder. The FIA legalised
traction and launch control a couple of years back, because
they were unable to find a foolproof way to police the
technology. Indeed, as Ross Brawn correctly said, there was
much innuendo (not an Italian suppository either) and pit
mutterings about who was using launch control and who was not.
Has the FIA managed to come up with the definitive electronic
policeman? I wonder!
There is no doubt in my mind that we, the
viewing public, want to see the drivers get their cars off the
line without stalling and change their own gears. And may the
best man win!
There is some discourse in the F1 fans as
to whether the removal of the driver aids will make any
difference. Will we see new faces at the front? I believe you
can get an inkling of what is to come by looking at the
performance of the drivers in the wet. This is a ‘seat of
the pants’ situation, and Michael Schumacher didn’t get
given the title of the ‘rainmeister’ for nothing. MS will
still be up there. Another great driver in the rain is Mark
Webber. I watched him way back at Bathurst in a Formula Ford
in the rain - just sensational. That is one reason that I have
always been a Webber fan. Raikkonen is also good in the wet -
but I am not so sure about Coulthard. I believe we shall see
Coulthard relegated to ‘Number 2’ status by the year end.
Montoya will also out-drive the junior Schumacher I believe.
The answers to this conundrum will be seen after the British
GP when the aids are all turned off!
Autotrivia
Quiz
Last week I mentioned that historically
there have been many connections between cars and planes,
SAAB, Bristol made both, while even Ferrari had a connection
(through the prancing horse insignia). However, there was also
a connection between airships and cars, with one airship
designer also building rear engined cars in the early ’30s.
The designer was a titled gentleman and was British. No more
clues. What was the name of the cars?
The correct answer was the Burney, built by
Sir Dennis Burney, the airship designer.
So to this week, and staying with the 500
theme, look again at the photo of the Cooper 500. Who is the
driver? A clue - the registration plate on his road car was
DAD 10.
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
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