Half of My Life

Firstly, I must apologise for not updating this site for quite a few days. I am at Phillip Island for the 19th annual Island Classic and I have my little laptop here that does not have my login details for this site stored on it. Thanks to Chris, my site administrator, who SMS’d me the details late last night, I am now able to bring you up-to-date.

I got down here early Wednesday morning after enduring a nightmare 10 and a half hour train trip from Moss Vale. Instead of doing the 160km/h the XPT usually does, it was restricted to 90km/h and so took an hour and a half longer for the journey. Next time I’ll take the punt of getting a seat where I can stretch my injured leg and take the plane instead.

I picked up my car from my son in Melbourne and headed out to Team Gunn HQ at Seaford, near Frankston. Roger Gunn, a Melbourne business man, runs a team of three Suzukis in Post-Classic racing, 2 Katanas and a GS1000S and he has invited my good Facebook friend, Edwin Haazer, from California, to come out from the US and race for him at the Island Classic. He also invited another American rider, Ed’s good mate, Jimi Mac, from Reno, Nevada, to come out as well, AND he asked me if I’d like to come down and hang out with the boys as guest of the team How could I refuse?

So, from Seaford, we headed down to PI with the three bikes in tow and the rest of his team, head mechanic, Peter Minehan and wrench, Mike Curtin. Roger has rented a house at Cowes so we settled in, hit the sack and got ready for a huge weekend.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a track day at the circuit and most of the competitors for the Classic were there, using the day as an extra practice day. Ed and Jimi were quickly on the pace as I knew they would be and it was all smiles in team Gunn by the end of the day. Peter and Mike spent most of the day fine-tuning the bikes to suit the new riders and the riders spent every session frantically learning a new, and very demanding track.

As one of the things that Ed wanted to do while he was out here, he had brought a mini voice recorder so that he could get some interviews with riders for Jim Race and Jules Clisek’s MotoPod internet podcast. Unsurprisingly, when Ed found out that I was a teacher and had lost of commentating and media experience, he prevailed upon me to do the interviews instead, especially since I knew nearly all the riders anyway. So, as well as helping out where I have been able, I have managed so far to do extensive interviews with Robbie Phillis, Josh Brookes, Steve Martin, Jeremy McWilliams, Ryan Farquhar and English Manx GP Ambassador, David Taylor. Tough work, but, somebody has to do it. Watch out for these interviews in the weeks to come on Motopod podcasts.

I have taken a hundred or so photos while trolling the pits and have spoken to literally dozens of the riders, mechanics and support crews. I have made friends with some of the British riders and especially the French riders who are in the pit bay next to ours. They are wonderful gentlemen, most of whom barely understand English, but, somehow we get by and understand each other. Their team has had some appalling bad luck with one of their best riders, Christian Vite, crashing in the very first session on Thursday and severely damaging his finger. This has required micro-surgery in hospital in Melbourne and there is some doubt as to whether Christian will be able to fly out with the team on Monday.

Phillipe le Grand, who rides a Seeley-framed Suzuki TR750 replica is such a charming and wonderful man, I wish I could remember more of my high school French so that we could converse more.

It hasn’t been a good weekend for some of the Suzuki riders either. NZ’s Russell Barker, holed a piston and damaged the crank on his GSX1100-engined bike on Thursday and is out of the event and today, the #7 Harris-framed GSX1100 ate the timing chain tensioner block, necessitating a complete engine tear-down to repair.

Rest of the World team’s Glenn Kelleher, from Taree, had a huge “off” this afternoon and the team was frantically rebuilding the CB900F when I left the circuit this afternoon. Glenn’s dad, Brian, is the proprietor of the National Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac on the north coast and he and his mechanic look like working a minor miracle and having the bike ready for racing tomorrow. Glenn is, thankfully, not injured.

Names? Malcolm Campbell, Robbie Phillis, Joshua Brookes, Steve Martin, Johnny Pace, Laurie Fyfe, Stuart Lolley, Leo Cash, it just goes on and on.

I’ve taken over 100 photos so far and published them on my Facebook page as an album. You do not need to be a Facebook member to view this album.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150620151015757.456144.785170756&type=1&l=72ea0b8b16

Tomorrow and Sunday I might be out of circulation, pit-wise, as I might have parlayed my way into the commentary box with Phil Harlin.  I hope so, they are predicting 32 degrees tomorrow and the box is air-conditioned!!  Stay tuned for further developments.

I spent a thoroughly enjoyable night last Saturday at my local speedway at Nowra. Those of you who know me know that speedway and me go back a long way, further even than motorcycles and me and it was real thrill to be able to commentate one of the most prestigious meetings on the Australian speedway calendar, the Australian Speedcar Grand Prix. Saturday was the 61st running of this event which goes back to 1938, and which has been won, over the years, by the cream of the crop of both Australian and American speedcar drivers. Legendary Americans like Bob Tattersall, Mel Kenyon, Ron “Sleepy” Tripp and A J Foyt all have their names on the trophy along with equally legendary Australian drivers such as Gary Rush, Ray Revell, Barry Graham and Johnny Stewart.

I had the privilege of having the doyen of speedway commentators, Allan Edworthy, assisting me in the commentary box and, between us, we had enough fun and frivolity to last us well into next year. I know the crowd (and it was a HUGE crowd) had fun, but they couldn’t have had as much fun as Ollie and me with the constant back-chat and banter that was taking place behind the microphones. I first got to know Allan in the early 80′s when I was working the infield communications loop at Parramatta City Raceway. Allan and Stuart Telfer were the commentary team, but  Allan’s other speedway commitments sometimes kept him away so I was called in as relief commentator. Then Allan came to me one night after the meetings and said, “Hey, Phil, would you be interested in the gig at Kembla Grange (Wollongong)?” I knew that he was doing PCR, Kembla and Newcastle and he said that it was all getting a bit too much. So I offered to go down to Wollongong the next Saturday night, call a meeting for free and see if the club liked what they heard. If they did so, then I was happy to do it on a regular basis. The rest, as they say, is history and I commentated the last three seasons at Kembla until the horse racing people resumed the property to expand their complex and the speedway was closed at the end of the 1985 season.

So it was a huge buzz to work with the man again especially since he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the sport and particularly of speedcars. The meeting was a huge success for the little local club to promote and the drivers were universal in their praise of the track and how the meeting was run. There is even talk that the GP may be run at Nowra again in 2013 (you heard it here first).

BUT there was one thing that disturbed me a little. Also on the programme were Wingless Sprintcars (just like the real ones but with no wings and a smaller engine), Lightning Sprintcars (look exactly like real ones only smaller and run a 1000cc engine) and Compact Speedcars (look like proper speedcars but are restricted to a 1300cc engine) plus the big speedcars (restricted to a 2700cc engine). The problem is that they nearly all looked exactly the same.

Now there was a time in speedway where every open wheel division had cars that looked different and that difference was dramatically illustrated by the static display in the spectator are, the star of which was the glorious SCAT/VW-powered speeedcar that took A J Foyt to 3 ASGP victories in the late 1970′s.

Over-restored, unfortunately, but wonderful nonetheless.

So, what is the problem? Well, nearly all open-wheel speedway cars now conform to the wedge-shaped design as shown below. Constrained to a certain extent by technical regulations and engineering considerations, the various divisions seem to have morphed together into a unified design that makes it hard to distinguish one from another.

These are compact speedcars.

This is a sprintcar

This is a speedcar. Take away the wings and they could be the same car almost.

So there is a loss of individuality taking place that is subtle and sometimes unavoidable, but is robbing each division of its own style and attraction. And, before we say that it’s just a speedway thing, let’s take a look at our own back yard.

What bike is this?

Yes, it’s an M1 Yamaha, but you’re a knowledgeable reader. Haven’t all our modern sports bikes, MotoGp bikes, WSBK bikes become so similar that it takes a moment to detect which is which? This bike, without the sponsorship decals, could be any bike, really. The same ting is happening in Formula One and in other areas of car and bike racing. Individuality is being suppressed by technical regulations, aerodynamic considerations and designers who lack the creativity to create anything more than a “me too” design. It’s much easier to copy than it is to innovate.

Of course this whole “me too” philosophy is symptomatic of a general malaise that has now permeated our whole society, where “standing out” “being different” is seen as being somehow rebellious and subversive. Our society is sinking into a blandness from which it may never recover. And it is reflected in car and bike design. Let’s hope that the next radical thinker is just around the corner, someone who can work within the required parameters but still produce something that is new, refreshing, innovative and fun. I’m tired of the grey porridge school of design. Bring back John Britten!!!

PS: Thank you to all my readers who pointed out that Kembla Grange didn’t close in 1895!!!