my ears are still ringing after being a spectator at this years 1000 .those cars are insane not to metion noisy.missed out on a good see breeze today.apparently one of this years drivers (nissan) is a keen sailboarder.never got his name but one of the pit commentators metion it.
I only wrote it for the impact! You have to have a stir once in a while.
Whilst cars have never done anything for me I don't begrudge anyone their hobbies which is why I find the constant poleies vs kiters so pedestrian.
Had a couple of mates who dragged me to two grand pricks and for me it was an utter waste of time.
I have to say though that the narrowing down of the competition to Ford vs Holden lost me completely. Too much like canned sport.
i can remember my first bratwurst like it was yesterday.
october three years ago,i drank a shizz load of german beer, fondled a couple of fraulein's
and had my first Bratwurst.
I used to like the Bathurst 1000 when I was a kid. I think it was the Hardie Ferodoe 1000 or something like that. There were a wide variety of cars in the race. Big ones, small ones, fast ones and not so fast ones. Some were quite exotic and others were the sort of car you saw on the open road. Teams came from overseas with cars like Trans Ams, Pontiacs and Jaguar racing cars. I'm not sure what the exact cars were as I was quite young but it was pretty cool. The circuit was better too because they could really hammer it down the hill without that that zig zag at the end. Of course the circuit was more dangerous because they did really hammer it down the hill.
The whole Super Car thing with just two types of cars, a Ford and a Holden, that do not look that different to each other and both looking quite different to a car you saw on the open road, turned me off.
I'm sure its great to be there to watch at the circuit. It would be a lot of fun.
I used to go to lakeside back in the day and love Bathurst so i watch it every year.
usually try and make it to the gold coast race if I can. 2 years back as I was walking towards the gate with my 4 year old on my shoulders a guy cam up to me and gave me tickets and wrist bands for free and said have a nice day with your son.
what a champion that guy was!
needless to say my son cried for the first 15 minutes because of the noise. after that he had a ball. it was a very good day.
only thing better is 8 laps in a V8 at qld raceway..... oh yeah oh yeah.......
next. the formula fords are calling.
I think the cars now are based on a space-frame and effectively just have panels bolted and welded to it to make it look the same as the production car its meant to represent. I remember reading when they changed from one model falcon to another they just replaced some of the panels.
I think there was a push at one time to have them all use the same engine, to make it a fairer competition and avoid any claims that one manufacturer had better access to parts than another. Now it is more about the driver's skills than the particular car they are driving.
In all seriousness, its probably closer racing for this. When it used to be a bit more aligned to production cars, it was often a whitewash by whoever happened to have the most competitive cars. When the Ford Sierras came out, they blitzed everything, and the next season almost everyone was driving one. Then Nissan used the GTR Skyline, and it dominated. Hardly cars that were available to the general public.
http://www.v8supercars.com.au/championship/technical/car-of-the-future
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V8_Supercars#V8_Supercar_specifications
It was the bikes that were exciting at Bathurst for the Aust GP.
Down the straight (when it was, with no chicane) and over the last hump at 280 kph, airborne for 80-100m,
land & hit the brakes for corner into the main straight
Was back a while, but so good.
modern super cars have taken endurance to a whole new level.
now they drive absolutely flat out for the entire race. it's a joy.
down conrod they re pushing over 300km/hr.
Give me the days of Cortina's, Torana's, Camaro's etc. Bathurst was a great spectacle!! And if you have driven round the track (I did with my dad when I was a kid) you have some kind of appreciation how hard they go