What do you think about pickleball? I thought so. It's the fastest-growing sport in America which, of course, says a lot about it. That and the fact that it's the fastest-growing sport in southeast Queensland. And that it's a combination of tennis, ping pong and badminton and the ball is like a wiffle ball. I think it won't be long before pickleball is more popular than Formula 1.
Not that new F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali hasn't got some top ideas. There's the three Saturday sprint races where Hamo and the lads decide who's going on the front row of the grid by racing 100km, or 20 laps, without pit stops in an attempt to make Saturday at the track less boring and more commercial.
I think Stef's strategy to bring the biff back to F1 is another winner. Of course, Stef is doing this gently. At Imola last race, we saw Val Bottas and Georgey Russell slam their cars into each other at super speed. Britain's Russell jumped out of his Williams to go and give Val, still sitting in his Merc, a fistful of gloves. But no, Georgey wimped it and just whacked Val's helmet, gave him the rude finger, uttered a few naughty words and stormed off.
But 18 readers, one friend but no family, it's a start. None of you probably watch rugby league (go the Roosters) but the world's best game of footy, State of Origin, traditionally began with a huge blue between the two teams, the ratings peaked, the blue ended and ratings dropped. So, I can imagine Stef has had the eco-friendly lightbulb moment of going back to a Le Mans-type start where the drivers are standing around, the eco-friendly green light goes on, the blue begins and the first driver to floor a rival runs over to his car, gives the rude finger salute to his competitors and sticks the pedal to the metal.
Now that the panic buying of hard assets, including any car with more than three wheels, is under way, time to do something for the kiddies. The Sultan, always a special at the Santa role at his Stepney HQ, is suggesting a lovely 2:3 scale D-Type child's car, a small version of the legendary automobile used to win Le Mans from 1955-1957. Comes with temperature and voltage gauges, tachometer and speedometer, and is powered by a gas engine mounted in the rear. Dave Gooding is offering it at his online sale beginning on Monday for about $25k.
One of the world's great auto engineers, Richard Parry-Jones, former boss of global product development at Ford, died last week in a tractor rollover on his farm in Wales. Parry-Jones spent over 40 years with the company and was responsible for classics like the Escort, Focus, Puma and Mondeo.