Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Bernie is up to his usual tricks. No room for FOTA in F1. This is the man who got his power by taking over what was FOTA and with Max Mosely wresting the commercial control of the sport from the FIA. Seems there is a fight going on in the background over teams showing their sponsors logos at the track. What a cheek! In Canada it was about trackside, and at Silverstone it has moved into the paddock. The teams have been forced to take their prime movers with their logos off the trailers and park them outside. What petty BS. Of course Bernie says it is not him, it is Allsport, Patrick McNally, who is the signage rights holder who is doing it, and of course Bernie has no connection to "Paddy", just as he does not with Tilke. You just cannot have an F1 race without Alllsport having the signage.

Chris Pook is reported to be involved with the New Jersey aka New York F1 GP bid. Now Chris ran F1 at Long Beach and gave up trying to make money and went to CART. Chris told me in Detroit in '85, "If Bernie thinks you are making money he will put the price up." So why is he involved again? Most promoters have found out what Chris learned the hard way, and now Bernie has a built in escalator of 10%, so he makes sure you cannot make a profit. There is a great article in the June 10 Autosport about the money in F1, and a telling number is that it takes $250 from every spectator just to service the debt of the rights holder CVC. The average cost to buy the rights is $30m, and Abu Dhabi apparently paid $50m. Now do you fans understand why Austin does not seem a smart idea?

I am forever surprised at the naivete of fans, God Bless Them, but if you are into a sport so much then take the time to find out how it works, who runs it and who is getting the money. Yes, what happens on the track is the key, but it is only the end result of everything else that has got them to that point.

Emanuele Pirro is to step in for Lord Drayson in his Lola as the Lord has hurt his foot. It is a blessing in disguise, and it will be very interesting to see Emanuale and Johnny Cocker in that car at Miller Park this weekend. Not that there is much opposition, but that car has been struggling to beat what there is. GT's should put on the best show as always lately.

The Cypher would be US F1 team has come out at last and said it has lodged an official application for 2011. Still no details of who or where other than these are supposed to be the engineers and designers who have the knowledge and can make it happen this time. Confirmed that Jonathon Summerton is their driver if they get in. Good luck to you all, you are going to need it.

Saw an article by Jonathon Ingram about how F1 is not making a foothold here because the US has so much other motorsport that there is too much competition. My comment was have a look at Europe, there is way more going on over there, so that argument does not wash. I still stick to my premise that the US needs a very successful driver and/or team. No one here took much notice of cycling until Lance dominated, not just won, Greg Lamond had won, and then nothing. No one here cares about soccer until the US gets into the World Cup Finals and wins a game or two, then it is headline news. TV audiences in Germany bounced back when Schumacher returned. Sport is about heroes, forget that at your peril. IRL will struggle until an Unser or Andretti reappears. No one cares about a bunch of Brazilians, Englishmen, Australians or Frenchmen.

Rossi was back on a bike yesterday for the first time since he broke his leg. Seems it went OK, did a bunch of laps and his shoulder seemed to be more of a problem than his leg. His Father is counseling him to go easy, but Champions do not know how to. Good advice though, the last thing he needs now is to fall again.

Who can question whether motor sport will continue when you read an article from our National Public Radio, NPR, sort of BBC but more independent, about women racers in Palestine! Yes there is a Palestine Motorsport Federation. I would have expected just owning a car in Palestine would be a big ask, let alone risking it in racing! And there is a female team. Where there is a will there is a way. How can you say motor racing is going to die when you see it growing in the most unlikely places. We will always race something running on some sort of fuel.

I know NASCAR is not going to die, but it is going through some pain. The second biggest race at Daytona and the back stretch grandstand is not even open. Even the Budweiser Porch, where they took out seats, was empty, and the RV parking next to it empty as well. Now, it is still attracting probably 150,000, not too shabby, but the glory days seem to be over. I was sucked in by the promise of seeing all the green laps, presuming Coke had paid for the broadcast and there would be no ads. They manage to go 45 minutes of a soccer half without them, so why not. Wrong, while we had picture in picture, it turned out to be one long commercial, if possible more annoying than if they had ad breaks.

If you want to see a sport that draws a crowd tune in to the Tour de France. 450,000 yesterday in Rotterdam, and many, many more on the route today. The most amazing thing to me is that they stand there for hours waiting just to see them go by once for probably less than a minute. How do we explain that or learn from it for our own sports. And this is a sport that they keep saying is a bunch of druggies! I do not think the average Joe is buying that. These guys are real athletes and heroes of sport.

Jean Todt thinks we should worship Michael Schumacher like that, "He demands respect." No one demands respect, you earn it. I do not care what he won, I still do not respect him. I respect his skill, but not the man. Stirling Moss never won a World Championship, but who could have more respect?

Our Japanese stand ins at the MotoGp certainly are not winning any respect. Akiyoshi managed to beat Dovizioso, but only after Dovizioso had fallen off!

As I said a while ago, who arranged this timetable? Tour de France, World Cup Soccer, MotoGP in Spain, Daytona, IRL at the Glen, you get the picture. I'm trying to do some serious writing, and I'm not talking about this blog. I guess Wimbledon is finishing as well. Glad it is actually a holiday on Monday, but the Tour goes on.

Mark Webber did a promotion with the Red Bull F1 in Parliament Square, London, and wowed the crowd. There is nothing like seeing a F1 car on streets you know and where you can get close to appreciate just how fast they accelerate and brake. That is what is so astounding about these cars that sets them apart from say NASCAR, where the top speed is the same but it takes them two laps to get there. That is why I love street tracks, provided they are done right.

Elsewhere the other Schumacher finally seems to have come good in the DTM with his first pole. The Norisring track is interesting, it is on the old Nazi Party rally grounds. Looks a bit like the old Avus circuit in Berlin. If you have never seen that check it out, it had an amazing banked 180 degree corner that puts Daytona to shame. Over at Daytona Brian France is talking about going green with a bit of ethanol, provided Sunoco agree, and possible changes to The Chase again to include some sort of knockout. I had that idea a while ago, to make sure they all go for it. Start with the top ten and whoever is the last of those ten drops out, so even for the last race you do not have to win it, just finish in front of your competitor. What do you do if they both crash?

Australian Daniel Ricciardo won the Formula Renault 3.5 race in Hungary and still leads the Championship. The next Mark Webber? Joylon Palmer returned to the winners circle in the F2 Championship and is leading that handily.

Big crash during practice at The Glen. Viso ran over the curb at Turn One and could not get it back in time and hit the wall on the exit head on. I said a few weeks ago that I was unhappy about some aspects of that track when there seems to room to move barriers back, and that is one of them. It is also down to the asphalt run off behind that curb that allows drivers to try and drive out of an off without lifting.

Been a long week with a lot of late nights, but very productive. Some of the sessions with the clubs turned into "the great lie telling sessions," you know "the older I get the faster I was." Projects have a life of their own if they are going to happen, and this one is certainly gaining momentum. More meetings next week including the first real test of the County's reaction and what they are going to want for a planning proposal.

Plenty to do over the weekend, mainly writing and some cash flow projections, and preparing for the County meeting. That is between the World Cup and some racing, and the Tour de France. Lance has said this is definitely his last, so he wants to go out with a win. Big ask, but with Lance never count him out, he is a role model for not giving up. I have good friend in hospital in Australia with bleeding in the brain. Out of the blue had a really bad headache! Should be dead or paralysed, but hanging in there, so get yourself well Dale! Once you're out I want to see you as trim as Lance. Dale had been waiting a year to start a new job in the US and was due to come over this coming week. You never know in life so grab every minute while you can.

Our "new" riders in MotoGP, Mr's Yoshikawa and Akiyoshi, are in a race for last at Barcelona, both 4.5 seconds off the pole man who is Lorenzo of course. Yoshikawa says he will treat the race like a test. Well I guess that's what he knows to do, but not quite sure the fans paid to see a test.

F1 is actually asking the fans what they want, what a novel idea! FOTA had a fan session, a "town hall" as we would say in the US, and let's hope they listen better than our politicians. In the end it is the fan, at the track or at home watching on TV that pays the bills, through the gate, TV audience that generates ad revenue, or the sponsors by buying product or services, so let's see what he wants to spend his money on. At some levels racing is an end in itself, people who can afford to indulge their hobby, but they should not expect people to pay to watch. At the top levels it is entertainment, and a lot of series had better relearn that if they ever knew it.

The DTM, German touring car series, believes it is doing it right, with BMW ready to join Audi and Mercedes, and talks in progress to have some equivalence with the Japanese and US series so that cars can compete in more than one. I for one would love to see more of the Japanese series with some great cars from Nissan, Honda and Lexus. Not quite sure how they fit with Grand Am, I think they would blow their doors off.

Just watched the Brazil-Holland game. Pretty ugly. It seems unfortunate that for South American teams the "beautiful game" goes out the window if they start to lose. Very sad when you know how they can really play, but as we have said many times, winning is largely in the mind. Lose control of that, and you lose.