Tuesday 15 January 2019

Welcome to 2019


BA Baracus sporting some new Radials

Well I must apologise for the lack of articles and updates in the Blog but the silly season came upon us at the Podcast so quickly that I did not really have a chance to sit down and pen my thoughts as 2018 came to a close. Simon and his band of merry helpers have been flat out getting the BA Falcon ready for Radial Racing and we hope to have this completed in the coming months. I will touch on that a bit further on in this article. That said we are also working on some new ideas that we hope to implement during 2019. It will mean a more visual component to the Podcast as we make our way through the year.

The New Year marks a number of changes right across the world of motorsport. We will see a raft of changes come into Formula 1 and while most have not been heavily publicised there are many changes that will change the aero of an F1 car for 2019. I am a huge supporter of the changes the FIA made to reduce the dirty air influence and it's affect it had on the trailing car. There is a progressive plan for F1 in 2019 which is closely followed by more changes in the coming years.

Over in Supercar land we have had a number of driver changes. It started out with Mark Winterbottom switching over to the GM camp. It caused huge social media up roar with the Ford faithful. The media reports were reminiscent of the time when Craig Lowndes switched to Ford. To be honest I think the world of Frosty but his defect to Holden was of no surprise. The SC media machine really played on the defect and used the social media platforms to enhance the outrage but without Facebook I really don't think there was much of a story. The one change we did not see coming was the sacking of Garth Tander from Garry Rogers Motorsport. I wouldn't normally  criticise such a prominent person in the sport, but Garry's handling of this was nothing short of a public relations disaster. Given Garth left the team for the Christmas break with a clear understanding and deal settled for 2019, only to be dumped a few weeks later is poor form from Garry. In 2019 we pass off "Commercial Realities" as justification for inappropriate or ill informed decisions. Clearly Richie (Stanaway) and James (Golding) have negotiated commercial deals with their respective business partners and have bought sponsorship dollars to GRM but the team had made a commitment to Garth and should have honoured that deal.

Closer to home we have had some concerns regarding crowd attendance for Drag Racing at the Perth Motorplex. The 2018/19 season was the first test where we would not have any 400Thunder racing. This would mean Pro Slammer, Top Fuel, Pro Alcohol, Top Bike and Pro Stock would not be making an appearance in Perth for the entire season. The net result of this is yet to play out as the season is only midway however the Venues West team would have been taking a second glance at crowd figures the Monday after the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Car meet on January 5. The Motorplex was packed from door to door and there was not a spare inch of grass to sit on. To be truthful it really excited me seeing thousands and thousands of spectators watching the Nitro Funny Cars. While we all understand these cars are tamed down, their colour, stance and close racing is exciting to the wider demographic. The support acts were great and the WA Doorslammers held their own in the Summer Slam Series.

It leads me to another support category - Radial Racing. In WA this is in it's infancy however the team at the Motorplex saw the value in it and gave it a go. Corey Marriott has grouped together a number of racers and has been able to pitch an exciting new product. We also see the value in it as well and as mentioned on our Podcast Simon has commenced turning his once BA Falcon Doorslammer to a Radial Car. On the outside this would appear to be an easy task - just changing rims and tyres, well.....kinda......it's not that simple. To be frank the entire car has been stripped back to bare frame and is being re-assembled with Gonzo radial alterations along the way. Coupled with this build we have videos along the way and will make for some great content once the car hits the track.

So with that in mind I will bring this article to an end and hope everyone joins us for the ride in 2019.

Regards








Nick Dicembre