Send in the Shrinks - I Agree with the FIA!
Now that I have had my “session” with auto racing’s version of Dr. Phil I feel I can reliably comment on this story that comes via Daily F1 News.
You’ve read what the cure was, here’s the shock that sent me into mental seizures of monumental purportions, I AGREE with the FIA! Yes you read that correctly I’ve come out in favor of an FIA position. (It’s Step 12 in the program)
The FIA has taken to task a certain writer for The Herald newspaper in the U.K who is calling for a ban on motorsport.
According to James Porteous “motorsport is the most wasteful, harmful, pointless leisure pursuit on the planet.”
So harmful he believes it contributes to more deaths via global warming (psst, they’ve changed the rhetoric to “climate change” you’re sadly out of step with the other scare-mongers) than boxing, rugby, equestrianism, or “even Ultimate Fighting.”
Well now that’s quite a charge, and note he fails to mention soccer football, more on that later.
Porteous rambles off the usual, 3.5 mpg racer cars, race teams jetting around the world and other “reasons” we’ve all heard ad nauseam, but somehow “one-use-only wheel bolts that cost
We pretty much put this baby to bed in the 70’s during the “Gas Crisis” when everybody figured out that how much fuel the race cars use is insignificant compared to the amount fans use getting to the race .
The problem I have is with the Auto Manufactures who engineer Formula One cars that can go from 0 to 100 and back to 0 is less than 6 seconds and then have the nerve to tell us they don’t have ability to produce production cars that get get better fuel consumption.
While I recognize the article provides excellent rant material you need to recognize the story for what it is: Public fodder that will lend credence to Max’s shrill cries for more “green” constraints on F1. You can expect to read more and more of these as the months unfold and Max can then point to support for his positions.
I will have to dig out the article, but I read recently in Autosport that the amount of energy expended, by a grid of F1 cars over a season, was about the same as what is required to power 6 U.K houses for a year.All in all the racing was but a drop in the ocean.
However, there was a catch, powering the wind tunnels was the equivalent of 1000’s of U.K houses.
Is that really the problem PhastPhil? I blame the U.S. consumer, consider this: When the seventies gas crunch hit Ford (Pinto) & Chevy (Vega)[for disclosure I owed a '73 ver Vega] produced more fuel efficient cars.
The consumer bought one hell of a lot of them, as soon as gas prices went down so did the sales of smaller cars. And save me from the “Pinto/Vegas were junk” excuse. They were but the “mini-fuel effecient” Mustangs weren’t of the era, had no major safety issues and their sales nose-dived after gas prices settled.
A similar thing happened when the CAFE standards were introduced. The streets were filled with smaller fuel efficient cars.
And thus… the SUV was bred by those CAFE rules and raised to maturity by thousands of consumers that choose them over smaller gas miserly cars.
George… I understand fully the reason for the article, you see the same thing by the enviro-weenies every late winter early spring and they usually coincide with Daytona Speedweeks.
And in every case they are filled with bias and inaccuracies. Not to mention no effort to really show why auto racing should be stopped before any other sport/event that uses as mush “precious” resources as auto racing.
Peter: “However, there was a catch, powering the wind tunnels was the equivalent of 1000
Hmmm a Swiss GP? Bernie & the gnomes of Zurich? Herman Tilke does the Alps? McLaren Technology centre moves to the CERN institute?
A thought on those wasteful wind tunnels.
The number one problem with F1 these days (lack of over taking) directly relates to the cursed wind tunnels operating 24 hours a day. Each new upper body, winglet, flip up etc. only produces more dirty air, making the task of following a car even harder.
The sooner the regulations clean up the upper body, by ditching all the attachments & move to under body generated down force the better, IMHO.
Bernie would be closer to Stockholm so he could politic for a Nobel Prize from a much better position.
Last I time I checked my local Toyota Dealer can’t keep a Prius in stock.
Marc - American Auto Makers have given us nothing but crappy choices. In fact we only given a Hobson’s Choice. We can have performance, quality and great fuel consumption - Japanese manufacturers prove it every day.
Great point phastphil. I’m 6′-5″, in excess of 300 lbs and fit comfortably in my Nissan Versa, with plenty of rear seat room for normal people. It’s not a road rocket, but it’s 122 hp is more than enough for commuter driving, and I average a legit 28.5 mpg average, with a moderately heavy foot. My last 2 hr highway drive averaged 40 mpg.
U.S car makers have closed the gap but it’s generally been too little too late. Hence their financial troubles.
Marc - It’s called vision! American Auto Makers Don’t Have It!
I think it would be fair to say that the whole world has a love affair with the auto.
The American market has made car choices based on the availability of a abundant & affordable fuel source……now thats all changed. Other 1st world economys did not have fuel at the pump at that price, hence the more fuel/moey saving car demands.
The US auto makers have plenty of vision. What they see is their inability to compete in the small car segment and then turned towards a market they could momentarily dominate, ala the SUV. And then the furriners catch up and bingo, another crises!
In fairness to Detroit, untill they find a way to handle their pension costs (which add almost 2 G’s to each cars cost) they are doomed to inadequacy until they can truly out innovate the competition. There are positive signs all around let’s hope they come to fruition.