djr81

They didn't rip it off so much as tie it in to the narrative. If you watch the film you can play spot the F1 driver/team owner etc. The footage from Spa shows the complete lack of run off area/safety barriers, even seat belts....

Well they changed it because the drivers comments were just plain boring. I don't think the drivers can go the officials, however. Which to my mind put Stevie Johnson sailing a bit close to the wind after the dodgy penalty the gave him. That was the problem Lowndes had last year, as much as anything.

Scaife's name is actually spelt with a k. Yep, like PI last year was "even' & Eastern Creek this year was "even". Motor racing has almost always been about the car, not the driver. Why, for example, has Greg Murphy gone from kicking everyones arse to being an also ran? You can't tell me that the talentless hacks that are the Kelly clan are there because of talent. Tell that to Allan Grice. What you needed was factory support & the best of the latest bits that came out of the factory - before everyone else had them. Ofcourse having a shitload of money didn't hurt. What people tend to ignore is that Brocks ATCC record wasn't actually that brilliant. Atleast in contrast to his Sandown/Bathurst record. Check how many ATCC championships he won in the eighties - compared to Dick Johnson for example. Lastly Australia once had an endurance championship which incorporated races other than Bathurst/Sandown. Shame that it is no more & no one bothers counting who won what.

Stonger - ok then how? Stronger in tension? Stronger in compression? Stronger in bending perhaps & if so along which axis. Stronger in torsion? More resistant to fatigue? The bottom line is that unless you can physically compare two rods (ie side by side), measure them up, weigh them etc etc there is no mechanism to make a sweeping statement about which is stronger or better. That is why you can commonly find both types. Having said that I take the viewpoint that there are three things that will probably lead to the demise of my engine as far as the conrods are concerned: Fatigue ie crack resistance. An over rev ie wrong slot on the gearbox - this is about tensile strength & cross sectional area. Failure in buckling about the same axis as the crank caused by bad tune or by getting too greedy with the boost. For me the nominal advantage of an H beam rod ie lower rotational inertia is not of much interest in a short stroke turbo engine that only revs to 8000rpm. So I would prefer an I section rod on first pass. Lastly how is it that one of the conrods most important geometric properties -ie ITS LENGTH - never gets mentioned?

Well it isn't actually Ron Dennis' fault. More of a case of getting a deal done whilst he cane & whilst it can benefit McLaren. The rule shouldn't have changed - each entry should be required to use a different constructor. Back in the day companies such as Lola & March supplied heaps of chassis. & yep Honda suck wang this year. Hopefully they will improve.

It shouldn't matter whether it is an R32 or a 33. The offsets & dimension should be that same. Remember the Brembo gear supplied by Nissan (ie not the F40's, 50 etc) bolt up to both cars without a problem. There are only two critical dimensions you need for a hat to be manufactured. 1. The thickness of the centre of the hat, ie the mounting face thickness. This is so your wheel sits right. 2. The offset of the rotor from the mounting face. In plan view this basically defines how much "offset' the rotor has. It need to be accurate to about 0.5mms. This allows the rotor to sit in the middle of the caliper, not off to one side. After that as long as you have the right rotor thickness, od & enough radial depth for the pad to wipe on you are away. Anything else is the suppliers problem eg how many bolts the hat uses etc. Lastly I still would put money on this being the 1B2.7011A kit from the Z32.

This B team thing is one of the worst things to happen to F1. Now everyone will need a B team to get enough testing data. Why didn't they just leave things alone?

Well it's plausable. Which is the kindest thing you can say about some of his stuff.

Sounds like a typical Joe Saward piece of bullsh!t. He basically makes up whatever he wants & reports his opinion as fact or occasionally as conjecture. More often than not he is completely wrong. As the quote goes "Writing fiction is great, you can make up just about anything." He is one reason why I never used to buy Motorsport News. Although now you don't have to pay for it.

If the thing is making grinding noises is it coming from worn pads or from something else. So its $675 including hats, yes? Or just for the discs? Tony (?) from V-Sport is good value. If you can get one of the shops to make you some hats or know a milliner you can use a good range of rotors as the 332 x 32 size are very common (Read 13 inches by inch and a quarter). You can perhaps try Alcon & AP as they should have something similar. Did the Z32 part numbers match up as I noted before when looking around that the Stoptech R32 kit is the same as the Z32 kit... If you want to sling us a PM for the bits as I would be interested.

Look I may be WAAAAYY of target here, but the 332mm rotor I understand to match the F40 caliper. This setup is offered as a set for the Z32 rather than the R32 although from what I can gather it fits up. So maybe have a look at the part numbers for the 300ZX kit... Cattledog: http://www.brembo.com/CatalogoHPGT/Templat...T=NoModifyGuest Disc code (Note slotted, not drilled - don't get drilled) 09.5682.92/93 Do you know how much the rotors are out of interest? Also providing the disc offset is the same & the other diameters match as does the width you could get yourself a new hat & rotor from another manufacturer.

Not always....

Stop me if this gets too boring. The four main issues are: 1. Strength in tension. 2. Strength/buckling resistance in compression. 3. Weight 4. Inertia (Different to 3) #1. This is pretty easy - the more metal the conrod has in the cross section the stronger it will be. #2. This is a function of both amount of metal in the cross section (ie how many mm's squared) & also the geometry of the thing eg H or I section. All else being equal I section is better - that is why they make beams in buildings in an I pattern. #3. Obvious - lighter = better. #4. Inertia - this is where the H beam picks up on the I beam. It has less inertia - remember that the rod goes around as well as up & down. Means that H beam rods will allow the engine to pick up revs slightly quicker. Oh and as regards the rapidity with which they fail - dont worry about it. Once they go its going to get ugly quickly. As to the Pauter rods - I have NFI why anyone would want to use that pattern for a conrod. For me for a turbo motor I would go I section.

I thought I might add a couple points to this discussion about rear wings & things. 1. The rear wing will feel as is it is producing more rear grip because in part it is, but also because it is degrading the front grip. The down force & the drag that the wing produces, respectively behind & above the rear axle line will induce an uplift on the front axle. 2. Front splitters & rear difusers only work well when they are located close to the ground. The difusers becoming fashionable on the new cars are mainly for show & also to lessen drag by cleaning up the undercar air flow. 3. Very few production cars can actually produce any downforce, let alone meaningful downforce. Check the V8 supercar figures if you don't believe me. For all the size of their wings the downforce produced is suprisingly small.

No I don't I'm sorry. Just ring the WASCC (or email them) & ask. They are nice people & don't bite!!!

If you ask nicely, seeing how the year if half gone & the V8's done you may find that membership is not much different to the $115 for the remainder of the year. You get a free track day voucher with the membership. Not sure what the nomination fee is, however. Just a thought for any first time locals. Worth asking.

What worries me about Webber is his seeming inability to consistantly manage clean overtaking manouvres. How many times this year has he speared off whilst trying to outbrake someone?

His own thread? Man he has his own website - complete with forum: www.takumasato.org

Not sure I agree. Now Skaife gets to include his Sandown & Bathurst Enduro results (Or some of them anyway, the ones with Freddo don't count). That other Brock bloke won 9 of each. So should the tally be 56 to 40 (Or thereabouts?) Secondly Brocks ATCC record is nowhere near as good as his Bathurst/Sandown record. He didn't ever dominate the ATCC to the same extent he did the enduros.

To be honest for the extra coin I would recommend the RR. You can log & export data & then use it how ever you like. The attached image shows a gain in both balance & lateral grip. Obviously the circuit is anticlockwise.

The two things I found a bit wierd were Alonso swerving toward the pitlane after failing to overtake Lewis & also why wasn't he wearing the dodgy oversized "suit" that they wear at the press conference so the sponsors logos show up? I am sure both of those things will piss Ron Dennis off hugely. Bit of a dull old race other than that. Rosberg was well unhappy, as you would be. The Super Aguris showed glimpses of their blinding speed.

Well if the dorito heroes are down Saturday I hope they have sufficient manners to clean the track before Sunday. By the way Snowman it is Sandgroper, not grouper.

A few thoughts come to mind. 1. As much as I dislike Cochrane & the way he goes about things it is not his job to look after other categories. His job is to do the best he can for the V8 cricus. So aping Bernie is probably not a bad way to start. 2. As for teams not being able to afford to run - well it has been ever thus. Team Kiwi were pretty much broke last year & needed to pass the hat around before even making this years grid. BJR has always run on next to no money. DJR have been wobbly since the whole Wespoint debacle, but look to be on the mend. Holden have always preferentially tipped money into the factory team to the expense of all others. Hell I remember in the pre V8 Supercar years when HRT couldn't afford to do all the ATCC rounds, ahhh, happy days. 3. I for one would like to see more diversity in the support categories, but really what was wrong with the Eastern Creek supports? 4. Half the reason the cars are relatively affordable is that they aren't much like the road cars anymore. Project Blueprint & the way teams are forced to make the cars are two of the best things about the category. Please don't wish production car dodginess (read cheating as inevitably happens when manufacturers get involved) on anyone.

There are a total of four different units. The cheap ones you see on EBay are the oldest. The RR & SS models are the most recent. I have an RR. In short for the money they are very, very good. They can accurately give you a quarter mile time & at the same time via the downloads allow you to see (in the comfort of your lounge room) which rpm launches worked best. When used on the circuit they can allow you to pinpoint the effectiveness of different modifications you may have made to your car. I would thouroughly recommned them if you want to dip your toes into the cheaper end of the data logging world. Oh and don't bother buying the old, cheap ones. They are nowhere near as good.

Senna was in the Toleman (Later known as Benetton) in 84 - the year of the shortened race that actually allowed Niki Lauda to win his third drivers championship. The point I was trying to make was that amongst other things drivers like Clark had to contend with such things as: Crook aero. The dirty secret of the Lotus 48 was that it generated aero lift at the front end. Compare nose cones with the equivalent Brabham at the time - clearly Ron Tauranac new something that Colin Chapman didn't. As an aside if you want the classic story of bad aero check the history of the Porsche 917 Longtail. Back in the sixties & even the seventies drivers were very, very vulnerable. Having an off didn't means stalking back to the transporter whilst the mechanics got the spare ready. It meant a trip to the hospital in an ambulance (if you were lucky & if there was an ambulance) or to the morgue if you weren't so lucky. There is a reason why F1 no longer goes to such places as the long Spa circuit, or the full Monza circuit or the Nurburgring. Drivers didn't just used to do F1. They commonly did full seasons of F2, Sports cars, Can-Am, Tasman Cup, not to mention non championship F1 races. Hell Denny Hulme drove for McLaren in the Can-Am at the same time as driving for Brabham in F1 - try that now! Jim Clark was killed in an F2 race, remember. Bottom line is that it is impossible to compare champions from different era's - in motorsport as well as in any other sport (Maybe cricket aside) What makes them champions is talent, commitment & even ruthlessness - traits that are shared by all winners & traits that don't necessarilly make them nice people. So best bet is to pick someone you respect. Oh and Jim Clark never had automatic gearboxes, anti stall, anti lock brakes (At the rear the F1 cars still have this in effect). Hell he never even had seatbelts half the time, nor HANS devices or a good helmet or....