Did you watch the 60th anniversary Bathurst 1000 where two brands (neither of them Holden, but I’m on the waiting list for a new Corvette so I’m not going to complain or talk about Ford pulling out of Supercars which is not in that good a shape anyway) will pretend to race around 6.213km, or the Qatar Grand Prix where 20 drivers in ten teams, the majority with the same brand engine will try to catch Mad Max around the 5.419km track, or the Darts World Grand Prix, at Leicester’s Morningside Arena where our correspondent Kim Morrissey from Balls (no I didn’t make that up) magazine breathlessly tells me there was a huge upset on Thursday night as Michael Van Gerwen, six-time reigning World Grand Prix champ, crashed out to Chris Dobey.
“Amazingly Van Gerwen missed the bull to seal a 9-darter twice in a span of three legs”, Kim said, or the World Grand Prix of Underwater Dominoes and Croquet in the pool of the Michael McMichael Memorial Home of Peace on the wonderful Isle of Capri (the name of which the bloody Italians stole and plonked on some old rocks in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea)?
Here’s your first clue.
Three of these events were on Kayo, the other one was being broadcast live on to the big 17 inch screen of the AWA Radiola Deep Image black and white TV in the Corner Bar of the Kensi. The only KPIs the Kensi owners, Jenny and Peter Hurley, have set me has to do with how many Coopers’ drinkers I attract to the pub.
The faster you go, the better and more feelsome the steering wheel gets.
On the other hand, the owners of Kayo (who also own the global multimedia group that publishes this very paper) set me KPIs that determine whether I am here each week. So do your best.
OK, 55 blokes and one woman, Simona de Silvestro of Gnome Land, will run around the Mountain this weekend in Chevs and Fords.
It is great racing but, really, not as interesting as before the Supercars takeover when Mini Coopers, Nissan Skylines, BMWs, Toyota Supras, Corollas, Jags and even Volvos raced with drivers like Peter Brock, Denny Hulme, Wayne Gardner and Andrew Miedecke and non-anodyne sponsors like Benson & Hedges, the Daily Planet Happy Ending Club, Hugo Boss and Binding Smash Repairs put the cash up.
I mean Tooheys were even the major sponsor. (For readers outside NSW, Tooheys is the cockroach state’s very pale imitation of Coopers.)
Now this is not some yearning for the good old days.
The fact is that Supercars are serious race cars but to believe that eventually a two-car sport, with basically serious but mainly personality deprived drivers, makes as great viewing (except for Bathurst) as a mixture of touring cars is a fantasy.
Even with my personal favourite racer, the Australasian driver Shane Van Gisbergen, in the mix, the big choice you have is to follow a wheeler with facial hair or no facial hair.
Clearly Simone is in the latter category as is our pick for up and comer of the year, Jayden Ojeda.
What Supercars needs is a bit of biff. Let’s cross to Road and Track’s Fred Smith reporting live from the NASCAR Trucks Race at Talladega. Over you Fred: “Johnny and 20 readers, driver Nick Sanchez, driver of the #2 Rev Racing – Gainbridge Chevrolet in the
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series – was recorded on video threatening to kill another competitor.
In our exclusive video of the incident Sanchez and another person are being held on the ground and pulled away from each other after some sort of altercation.
Sanchez, with a visibly bloodied face, repeatedly declares “I am going to f***ing kill you at Homestead” as he’s pulled away by impressively calm fellow driver Cory Roper, adding “you f***ed with the wrong guy, motherf***er.”
Well that’s one way to increase the ratings.
Talking of controversy: Ten per cent of all readers (two) emailed and posted letters about my remarks last week about F1 not being all that interesting.
Reader 14 Ian Gibson was strong on it still being great racing.
OK, let’s move from talking about the winner to the best of the losers. Mercedes and Ferrari are racing to see who will be second and third in the constructors’ championship with Aston Martin and McLaren battling for the next bad positions.
The Senturion watch.
The Senturion watch.
There was also some comment on my mention of the Lotus watch having little connection to the Lotus Car, which of course is one of the three non-EVs I have recommended this year. The Ford Wildtrak and the Chev Corvette being the others.
So, the good folks at the Senturion watch company contacted me by the psychic internet to say “our clock is the only luxury timepiece in the world that enables you to simultaneously wear your supercar on your wrist”.
Heavy I thought, particularly on the arm, but the Senturions assure me that their clocks can be synchronised to any number of the world’s top luxury brands, including Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, Porsche, Bugatti, AMG and Corollas. Senturion is a soap dodger company with clocks starting from a very reasonable MG priced at $20k to a yellow Lambo priced $400k.
For $400k you get the most complex meteorite core structure produced in the world to date. Its alien pattern, known as the Widmansta¨tten etch, is impossible to be replicated by man and can only be achieved by slow cooling at zero kelvin in space. Yup, and you thought this column was hard to follow.
Talking of great drivers, a reason to keep off the streets of Perth from now on.
Younger reader advisor JP has just got his road licence after ten years of hard effort on Forza Horizon. JP, real prangs do hurt.
Our car of the week shows how car collectors have collectively caught mind flu.
It’s a 2018 Mercedes-Maybach G650 V12 Landaulet with 1500kms on the clock.
One of only 99 built by Mercedes-Maybach, quick of the mark but limited to 180km, it handles like it looks but has seats that heat, cool and give you a better massage than the old gang at the Daily Planet.
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