Nurburgring September 14-16th. The Red Mist once again will ride the waves of the Green Hell.
Soaring climbs and perilous drops, blurry red and white kerbs flashing underneath the softened tyres, whose soprano threats will lead the red-line chorus through glory and sweat to the long, floating finishing straight.
To the end.
To the beginning.
What is this life if not such a circuit.
I watch and await.
December 30th I returned the car for some warranty repairs.
It’s still not fixed.
Lack of parts apparently.
Mojo left the building.
What now?
“It’s not FAIR!”
“I’m not playing anymore if you’re gonna keep winning!”
“Let ME have a go!”
“Muuuuuuuuuuuummmm!”
So Formula 1 is back.
The side show that is the actual racing was mildly interesting but it’s the amazing ability of the FIA to intervene and make vast mountain ranges out of the molehills that F1 drivers make. These days the race is not the event that defines a drivers career, his success or the teams benchmark.
No.
The race is in fact what we call the “going in stand point”.
Take an omelette for example. We have eggs – still in shells, cheese – a block, some ham, and some tomatoes. That lot sitting on your kitchen top is the equivalent of the end of the race in Formula 1.
What you then do is grate, crack, mix and cook. In the end you have an omelette that some people like, and some don’t.
That’s the FIA’s work.
What happened on Sunday is this: Jarno fell off the circuit behind the safety car, and Lewis let him back in front once he’d sorted out what was green stuff, and what was the black stuff. McLaren got themselves in a bit of a mess and tried to grab a third place with some opportunism, and it spectacularly back-fired. Like a bunch of kids, they tried it on.
Thing is, NONE of that is racing. So NONE of that should make the headlines. But it did.
Jensen’s great drive? No. Sebastien Buemi’s impressive debut? No. Even Hamilton’s meteoric rise through the pack? No. Instead we got to listen about trials, questioning, appeals and counter claims.
I suspect the bar exam next year will contain a question on the Monaco Grand Prix.
On top of all that farcical Carry-On-Grand-Prix, there were the cars.
What in God’s name has happened?
This ’sport’ used to be the pinnacle of engineering. Now it looks like somebody got the lego out on a Sunday afternoon and butchered what little bricks they had into some ogreish mess called a car.
All I wanted was an omelette.
When did you become a petrolhead?
What is the defining criteria that stops you being a bog-standard head, and instead classifies you as a petrolhead?
For me, an early memory sticks out.
The year is about 1981. I’m 4. My dad has an army green Cortina Estate. I guess I considered it to be a part of his life. His thing that heused and required. I didn’t think of the car as an entity in it’s own right. I was too busy with my painted wooden bricks, and lego.
Ace.
Then there’s this one day when me and him go somewhere, I don’t remember where but it doesn’t matter. He let’s me sit in the front if I behave myself. Deal.
When you’re 4, you can’t see much from the back seat. Watching stuff go by out of the side window is nothing like the magnificent view out of the hallowed front window. So this trip into the unknown was massive for me. This was no car-journey. This was an expedition.
On the open road all I could look at was the tarmac immediately in front of the bonnet. It splayed out like boiling lava, and in a flash disappeared under the bumper. The Cortina really, truly devoured that black, stoney carpet. Suddenly this vehicle became a spirit. A demon. I was at the mercy of this mechanical human-sharpener. My dad was so cavalier about the experience that I wanted to scream at him to look at the road. How could he not want eat the steering wheel?
The car became something else to me. Suddenly it moved up the pecking order. The dog didn’t matter so much now. Even my Mum and Dad had competition.
I’m not convinced that the audibles were part of the experience for me, but the thrill of speed found a haven in my frontal cortex. It’s set up shop there, and is now entrenched along side the need for food, love and sexual conquest.
Sometimes today, almost 30 years on I catch myself driving on a dull empty motorway, looking at the disappearing tarmac in front of my bonnet, letting myself go all the way back to that Cortina. Then the foot gets heavy, and the exhaust note loud. The tarmac thunders underneath and wind picks up.
That was when I became a petrolhead.
I’m Murphy. I’m a petrolhead and this is where I’ll write about the petrol things that I find interesting.
I drive a humble car – a Ford Fiesta ST, and together we are returning the Nurburgring in May.
Who know’s how this blog will turn out. Maybe one day I can sell it and buy a Focus RS with the proceeds. Until then, I guess I’ll carry on writing.
Ring Love