Horse 3416 - From Korean Drinking Game To The Premier League

"How" in this case is the form following the function of "what", and "what" this is, is a story which involves several links in the chain. So then, we shall start at the end and work our way backwards.

Liverpool 2 - Manchester City 0

Gakpo - 21'

Salah - 78' (pen)

2-0 is a fairly routine scoreline in a football match. 2-0 is a scoreline which seems comfortable and normal for a side which is in the ascendancy and which is at the top of its game. But when Mo Salah slotted (pun intended) away the penalty in the 78th minute against Manchester City on Sunday which is the side who by rights should be kicking all and sundry to the kerb, 2-0 suddenly looks dangerous. This 2-0 scoreline gave Liverpool 3 points and sent them 9 points clear at the top of the table. This 2-0 scoreline is immediate cause for abject fear in everyone else in the chasing pack.

However when the crowd erupted after Mo Salah's penalty and started singing, the radio commentary team at BBC Radio Merseyside were obviously confused as they couldn't understand what was being sung. I however instantly recognised the tune as I have heard it on the bus, on either 2Day FM or MIX FM. If a song has found its way from the hit parade into the songbook of football fans, then this has the potential to be something which lasts way longer than just a passing fad. Just occasionally, something from the passing parade of pop songs, has the potential to last as long as "Go West" by the Village People, or maybe even "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" by John Kellette.

The lyrics as sing by the Kop at Anfield are:

Mo Salah, Mo Salah,

Mo Salah, Mo Salah,

Mo Salah, Mo Salah,

Uh uh-huh, uh-huh.

Which in principle tells you nothing about the song in question. The original song in question is "APT" by Rose and Bruno Mars; which makes it unclear about whether or not this song should be classified as a K-Pop song or not. A glance at the lyric video for the song, tells you instantly what Rose and Bruno Mars were singing about in the first place.

The chant in the original song, and the reason why it is so transferrable (a bit like "Oh Mickey, you're so fine") is as equally earwormy and also why it shot to the top of the charts in Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Apateu, Apateu,

Apateu, Apateu,

Apateu, Apateu,

Uh uh-huh, uh-huh.

"Apateu" is a the loanword in Korean for "Apartment" and finds equivalents in Japanese and some dialects of Chinese. However even then, we are still no closer to working out why anyone would be singing this.

"Apateu" is actually a drinking game. The rules are simple. Several people in an apartment (presumably) put their hands into a big pile-up in the centre of the group. Someone calls out a number; then people take their hand from the bottom of the pile and place it on the top. When the nth hand has been placed on the top of the pile, that person wins/loses and must drink from whatever the thing in question is (apply other rules as necessary).

And that's it really. No really, the story is that simple. It still doesn't explain why the crowd of an English Premier League club, is stealing the tune from a K-Pop song for remanufacture with its own words though.

Football crowds have been stealing songs from everywhere, nominally since the 1950s. Legend has it that the first song ever sung by a football crowd, spontaneously by the crowd rather than just as a formal thing like a national anthem or "Abide With Me" which has been sung at every FA Cup Final since 1927 (Arsenal and Cardiff City; originally at the behest of King George V), was "Yes, We Have No Bananas" by a Liverpool crown in 1959, while they were trying to get rid of a brass band playing at half time, by drowning it out. 

Liverpool famously has "You'll Never Walk Alone" across both the Shankly Gates and the top of its full crest; which was take from Gerry And The Pacemakers' version of the song from 1963; which itself is taken from the 1945 Rogers And Hammerstein musical "Carousel" and is sung to a widow after her husband committed suicide following a botched robbery.

The fact that a Liverpool crowd should steal a song from K-Pop, is in the grand scheme of more than six decades of football songs, entirely expected. The fact that BBC Radio Merseyside has no idea what the song was or where it came from, is also entirely expected though perhaps if they'd listened to Radio 1, they would have been informed. The fact that I knew the song, and am questioning about whether I knew about this song because I was once a spry 20-something, has me wondering about the nature of reality. 

Is this central chant which has now escaped into football crowds something new, or did this actually exist 20 years ago or more? Did Rose actually write this, or was this already old? Is this new and have I therefore gaslight myself into thinking that this always existed? Why can I not get this out of my head now? Am I doomed to forever have this rattle around in my head like the song "Bananaphone" by Raffi? Or does APT just die a natural death on the terraces and get consigned to the dustbin of history? Who knows?

What we do know is that this weekend, it got real weird real quick. Anfield went K-Pop.

Horse 3399 - 2024 Bathurst 1000 Zs

The 2024 Bathurst 1000 has been won by Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood driving an Erebus Motorsport Camaro. This race was noteworthy for two things:

1 - this was the fastest running of the 1000km event; with the distance being covered in 5 hours, 58 minutes, 3 seconds; at an average speed of 167.62 km/h (104.15mph).

2 - this race had exactly 2 lead changes when Kostecki brought the Camaro into the pits on lap 27 and was passed by Will Brown, and the retook the lead on lap later when Will Brown brought his Camaro into the pits on lap 28. Basically apart from pit cycles, this was was decided on lap 1, and any and all intrigue evaporated from the race by about lap 3.

You could have literally had a nap on lap 3, for five hours, and then woken up to find the order unchanged and the almost six hour procession unaltered.

- Couldn't you go a Chiko Roll?

Well actually, yes you could. You could drive to the shops which are two hours away and come back and the running order would still be unchanged.

In terms of sheer number of laps led, this is only second to the Brock/Richards demolition of all and sundry in the 1979 running of the event when they were fastest on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Claimed Pole, Led Every Lap, Won the race, and when Brock claimed the lap record on the last lap. In this respect, Kostecki's winding out of the lead to no more than about 30 seconds, and not even claiming the fastest lap, looks incomplete as that honour went to Broc Feeney.

What did this six hour procession prove? Quite literally nothing that we already didn't know. Camaros finishing 1-2-3 merely further demonstrates that the advantage that the Camaro has over the Mustang remains baked in; and the processional nature of the race also further serve to demonstrate that the cars themselves by virtue of being faster and more competent than every iteration of top-flight touring car racing in Australia which had come before, are ironically worse.

The Supercars are basically a bespoke GT3-Minus category, which are reasonably heavy compared to a GT3 car, have a completely adequate and competent aero package, and a bound box of rules which is so tight that any advantage which exists is permanent. Results like we saw at the 2024 Bathurst 1000 are frequent, common, and worst of all, boring as all get out. If you had tuned into the race expecting to see an intriguing battle, then you wasted six hours. There wasn't one. What's worst of all is that thanks to the sunk-cost fallacy, we are stuck with this for the foreseeable future.

What the Supercars category demonstrates on a mind-numbly boring repeated basis is that although you can invent a category of motor racing which is fast, it doesn't work a jot for producing anything interesting to watch. Yes, Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood drove their Camaro the fastest, but even they knew that provided they could maintain any kind of gap over the car in front, they would win. Ho hum. Yawn. Crick. Roll over.

Motor Racing generally reached the point where being aero dependent was already known to be a killer of intrigue by about 1985. Aerodynamics as applied to a racing car is a fluid dynamics question; specifically about how you make the air flow around all of the parts and pieces and about how you generate downforce which is mostly a suck-pull force underneath either the wings or the car body itself. That's all fine and good until you put lots of cars into a line and you then invent the phenomenon of "dirty air".

A wing works best in still and undisturbed air. When you put many cars in a line, whilst it is true that the one in the front punches a hole in the air which the others then all follow through, the turbulence which trails off in three dimensions is not amenable to the wings and things of the cars which follow. This is exactly like the wake and the waves which follow after a ferry as it bluntly and rudely crashes across the harbour and creates an unpleasant ride for all of the wee ickle sailboats who then get chucked about in the waves of the wave. If you then multiply that in three dimensions, then that is what is happening to the cars which follow.

This then creates the dilemma that a car immediately following at close quarters, no longer has the aerodynamic grip of the car in front; so the driver will back off some distance to regain the aerodynamic grip that they want. By definition, a car which is following at an increased distance is not racing closely with the car in front. If you then multiply that by two dozen, then what you get is what we saw in the 2024 Bathurst 1000; with 24 cars nominally following each other at about 5 second intervals all day long. In fact, the interval between the Kostecki/Hazlewood Camaro and the Feeney/Whincup Camaro, hovered between about 7 and 15 seconds for most of the day.

What is awful is that we should expect this again and again and again, and we get it again and again and again. The organisers of the category have fallen for the fallacy hook, line, and sinker, that fast cars always equal good racing. They do not. Time and time again, we prove that the funnest racing to watch, is with the most rubbishy of cars. We have Hyundai Excel racing which is frantic. We have TCR which is cut an thrust racing at close quarters. Formula Ford with practically no aero is about slicing cars through the air and maximising drivers skill. Supercars racing is now purely about dialling in an advantage and nothing else.

The category could be fixed by throwing away the cars en-masse and actually re-inventing the rubbishy cars of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, when three-box sedans ruled the roads. They were designed to put families in, to get groceries, and occasionally do big road trips which included dirt roads. They were not designed from the outset to go motor racing. A rubbishy three-box sedan thing with practically no aero whatsoever and maybe enough horsepower to yell down a Valhalla war-hell-ride, is what the public actually would like to see, because the fastest cars in this category ever wasn't really the funnest of things to watch. It was okay but boringly forgettable. 

Horse 3393 - Why Sydney Lost The AFL Grand Final

 I have been asked to write a piece on why the Sydney Swans lost the AFL Grand Final in 2024. The person who asked me to do this (who asked to remain anonymous), couldn't work out in the heat of the moment why a team which went 17 and 6 during the regular season, should biff it so badly and lose by ten goals in the big dance on that one day in September. Seemingly there is no sensible description as to why a team which won the minor premiership, should splutter so badly when it mattered. On paper, this should have been a relatively easy victory for Sydney but football matches are not won on paper but rather, in a place with thirty-six players, green grass, and a football.

Probably the best way to view this match is to look at the relative formations of the two sides. Sydney nominally played a 6-6-6 formation, with 6 players the back, 6 in the middle, and 6 up front. Brisbane on the other hand, tended to play 8-5-5, with 8 behind, and 5 in the middle and up front. This makes some kind of sense in a big match like the Grand Final as a defensive outlook is generally how a scoreline like this eventuates. 120 is not an overly large winning scoreline but 60 is a scoreline which demonstrates either failure to convert possession into points or what happened here, failure to gain meaningful possession. Suffice to say, this match was more or less won in the first half.

The opening ten minutes were dour. No major score happened at all until Will Hayward opened the account for Sydney, then another goal by Tom Papley drew the lead out further; before Kai Lohmann scored two goals for Brisbane; wherein they took the lead and never ever relinquished it. It was the second quarter where Brisbane really put the boot on the throat of Sydney and chocked them into submission, and a comparison of the scores at the end of the first and second quarter bears this out.

Q1: Syd 3.1.19 - Bri 4.3.27

Q2: Syd 4.3.27 - Bri 11.7.73

One goal either way at the end of the First Quarter is not even remotely interesting. However, 7 unreplied goals in a quarter is the kind of thing which breaks a team's spirit and where the half-time break can not come fast enough. This is the kind of scoreline where you go into the dressing sheds wishing for lighting so that the game is cancelled. 46 points is also bigger than the largest margin that any side has come back from in the entire history of the Grand Final; so unless God himself is handing out miracles (which is unlikely as he doesn't even give the Saints any), then you may as well start tying maroon ribbons to the handles of the Premiership Cup there and then. The postcode of the address to mail the pennant to, already begins with a 4.

So what went wrong that Sydney should score but 1 goal to Brisbane's 7 in a quarter? Mostly formation.

I do not care if you are playing Australian Rules, or Association Football, or Cricket, or Field Hockey, et cetera, or any sport which takes place on a very big field, games are very much determined by how well you manage both personnel and space. This does not apply to basketball where the field is small, or netball where the positions are tightly bound in defined bound boxes, or Rugby League or Rugby Union where the scope of space management is very tightly limited by the shape of active play. Australian Rules Football which is played on a massive field and with a very very loose ruleset surrounding what is offside, is such that to the untrained eye it appears that players are free to go where they please; and it is this where Brisbane absolutely excelled where Sydney did not.

Remember at the beginning of this how I suggested that Brisbane tended to play 8-5-5, with 8 behind. That meant that in addition to the nominal 6 players that a team would logically play if they were playing with a balanced set up, that Brisbane had two extra players in their own fifty, most of the time. This meant that Sydney when they did push forward, tended to find contests for the ball where they were outmanned. Having 30% extra manpower to win possession in your own half, meant that even though Brisbane sacrificed players in the midfield and up front, they could win possession more easily when Sydney did foray forward.

This meant that Sydney had a choice. Should they commit players forward to meet the markups where they were outmanned, or should they make use of the extra player in the midfield and up front when Brisbane did push forward? This choice, is one which tactically gets more desperate when a side goes behind on points because of the dilemma that in order to score points, you need people up front to be able to win the ball in a useful position to be able to do so. When Sydney did decide to commit players forward, this created space and loose men in the midfield for Brisbane, who after winning the ball across the half-back line, played the ball forward through very limited corridors up the ground. 

The third quarter of the match which had the score blow out to 73 points, was simply more of the same. Again this was not about Brisbane trying to win the football up front, but choking out any and all opportunity for Sydney to score anything. In that third quarter, Sydney scored just 1.1.7; which in any match of footy is corpsing. Granted that they were allowed to breathe a little bit in the fourth quarter and they scored four goals, but had they done that then the scores would have both ended up at about 16 goals and change; which is both at about 100.

This match was not won because Brisbane were an amazing attacking side who kicked out and handpassed everywhere. Neither was this match about Brisbane restricting Sydney's repeatedly proven ability to play wide which they do at home very well. This match was won by Zorko, Answerth, Lester, Wilmot, Payne, Fletcher and Dunkley, all led by Harris Andrews who stood at the back directing traffic and trying to make sure that nothing got past him without written permission. 

Sydney's top goal scorer for 2024, Joel Amartey, got nothing in the final. Sydney's second top goal scorer for 2024,  Logan McDonald Sydney's third goal scorer for 2024, Tom Papley, got one goal in the final, right at the beginning and never really even saw the ball ever again. 

This is the point on which the match hinged. Brisbane winning a contest in their own fifty, then never allowing Sydney forward. That's where the match was won. You can not score if you don't have the ball. You can not win the ball if you're outgunned and outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned, in every contest. As Sydney were committed forward, there was consistently little organised defence out back because you can not be in two places at once.

Horse 3351 - Supercars Chooses To Shrink And That's Why SVG Left

The success of Shane Van Gisbergen in the NASCAR second tier Xfinity Series success has come as no surprise to anyone in Australia or New Zealand. His 14 year rise through Supercars was such that when Triple Eight Engineering needed a replacement for the aging Craig Lowndes, he was an obvious and amazing fit. What followed was a multi-year battle between him and Scott MacLaughlin at Dick Johnson Racing and when MacLaughlin left to join Roger Penske's Indycar team, Shane was more or less left at the top of the hill in Australian motorsport with no equal. He won three Championships and three Bathurst 1000's which by my crude index system, puts him in the top ten of all touring car drivers in Australian motorsport history.

But the fact that he left to go and race in a NASCAR street race (which he won) and then liked that so much that he decided to quit the Supercars series entirely, in favour of his American dreams in NASCAR, serves to highlight that Australian motorsport is kind of broken, that the pathways through Australian motorsport are kind of broken, and that Supercars in particular is also broken.

Let me explain the motorsport landscape in Australia. The top tier of Australian motorsport is unashamedly and unassailably Supercars. There are then second level series such as Super 2 and Super 3, TransAm, and TCR, and there is a pretense that there is a pathway system to get to the top tier. The unspoken truth is that everyone in Australia knows that the pathway is deliberately designed to be inherently broken, that the Supercars series is a closed shop, and that there really is no opportunity for any new players unless they buy one of the existing franchises. Generally speaking, one does not get to drive in Supercars unless you have driven for a Super 2 team and/or come from an international series which is so prestigious that Supercars' management will give you a free pass. Someone like Max Verstappen, or Kyle Busch would absolutely be given a free pass to drive in Supercars but someone like Ash Sutton as BTCC Champion might not. Note that I have not mentioned Formula cars here. Any driver who wants to seriously go Formula racing, must leave Australia and do Formula 4 or Formula 3 in England. That's it. Australia is simply a waste of time in that regard.

As for the actual Supercars themselves, they are the result of an evolutionary dead-end; which they kind of got to after twenty years of rolling inertia. After the death of the Australian motor industry and the subsequent end of sedans and big family cars, Ford wanted to push the Mustang rather than the Mondeo as their halo car and GM which really didn't care at all, released the IP for the shape of the Camaro. As it stands, instead of selling 6000 cars per month each, the Mustang is now selling less than 100 per month and the Camaro is discontinued which means that it sells 0 per month. Supercars management in a marketing push, is trying to chase some kind of nostalgia for a world which no longer exists, to attract fans that they refuse to cultivate, with cars that bear no relation to anything that anyone can buy; kind based upon the remnants of cars which no longer exist. As for what a Supercar actually is technically, it is a slightly worse GT3, which is made to a set of bespoke regulations which have been very much shaped by Ford and GM; which ensure that no other manufacturer will want to join.

Having run out of 5L V8 engines which were the backbone of Australian motorsport for half a century, the series then turned its attention to GM and Ford in the United States. Rather than buy in the 360cid engines which are ubiquitous in stock car racing in America, Supercars let Ford run its 5.0L Coyote V8 as found in the Mustang. As it is "impossible" to run a Balance of Performance between that and the 6.2L LS3 V8 in the Camaro, Supercars allowed GM to run an existing 350 Chev derivative and the result has been nothing short of boring. Despite half-hearted attempts to equalise the Mustang and the Camaro, the differences between the engines are so great and the differences between the shape to the rear ends of the two cars are such, that the Mustang basically stands no chance of winning at any high-speed circuit whatsoever. 

Not only does the Supercars series have cars with advantages that are baked in and will not be resolved until Gen-4 (if that ever happens) because of the sunk cost fallacy, the management and funding model of the series is equally broken and myopic. Supercars by virtue of being the inheritor of what once was the Australian Touring Car Championship, now commands the lion's share of sponsorship dollars in Australia like never before. It would say that it has a symbiotic relationship with television royalties and even pundits in the industry will tell us time and time again that the only way to pay for all of this, is to have subscribers pay for it on Pay-TV as the old free-to-air model for television generally has broken down across the board.

While there might be quite a lot of truth in there, mixed in with the batch of dough is the hubris of Supercars management, and the fact that unlike Formula One, or the English Premier League, or Cricket, there is not a whole world of willing subscribers from whom you can extract subscription payments from. Supercars is after all only a domestic touring car/GT championship and its prime audience comes from Australia, with some residuals in New Zealand and maybe 1% in the rest of the world.

But rather than actually try to grow the pie as the BTCC have done by showing the series on ITV4, or NASCAR's brilliant decision to play entire races mid-week on their YouTube Channel, Supercars Management have basically tried to stand on the throat of motorsport fans in Australia and if it isn't subscription payments for Pay-TV, it is ticket prices that have increased massively in relation to the rate of inflation. Although they might claim that this is because they want to offer a better experience, the truth is that at many circuits around Australia, camping numbers have been restricted and the so-called improved experience involves exactly the same grandstands that were put up more than 30 years ago.

The net result of all of this, is that we now have a highly professional series, which together runs no more than about 27 cars at the very biggest race series, with an insensible pathway into the series unless they are already connected with an existing team, no real hope that any new manufacturer will want to play, and very little opportunity for the rest of the world to sent their best drivers to com play any more. The other net result is that the drivers in the series, are being pulled every harder to the bright lights of NASCAR, where they run cars which are semi-broadly similar and where their skills are transferrable.

The truth is that if you are an international motor car company, there's no reason to even look at Australian domestic motorsport. If you are a foreign GT3 team, you have the Bathurst 12 Hours to try and conquer; which means that you can ignore Supercars. If you are an international driver, the Bathurst 12 Hours with 3 drivers per car, offers ample opportunity to come and play; which also means that you can ignore Supercars. TransAm Australia buys in cars, as does TCR, with none of the development work done here; which makes sense as there is no domestic auto industry to speak of anyway.

In a sensible world, Supercars, Super 2 and Super 3, would all just admit that the whole premise of what used to be Supercars, died in 2016 with the end of the Falcon. Unlike the world which used to exist, nobody takes a car off the production line to go front line motor racing in Australia any more. TransAm with its way cheaper cars, could have and should have become the standard. They should have all come to a sensible agreement that while 27 cars for a top-level series is nice, the crown jewels of Australian motorsport have always been endurance racing which have included Sandown and Bathurst. Those events work well when they are very very very big. 27 cars is a joke. 56 cars is nice. The bigness of an event means that you actually do attract overseas drivers, give space for up-and-comers to display their wares, and give little teams at least a chance to play with the big boys.

If there had been a common set of cars, then costs would have gone down and they would not have been so precious about what happens to them on track. Instead we currently get infringements for minor bumping; which just seems daft. In deliberately choosing a bespoke car which is expensive to damage and which is so fragile that they can't go banging into each other, in choosing to close the shop so that very few people are allowed to play, and in choosing to extract every single dollar out of fans to the point where casual fans have basically been excluded, everything that made Supercars what is was is being eroded. That's fine, but it does not inspire the next generation nor grow the series.

Horse 3330 - F1's Golden Elephant Problem

As we pass even further into yet another Formula One season where Max Verstappen and his Oranje Army rolls onwards to victory again and again and again and again, even Team Principals like Christian Horner are beginning to ask whether or not the sheer complete dominance of Verstappen and his Red Bull is bad for the sport. Presumably this is because the bosses at the various Formula One teams have begun to notice that expected TV revenues are starting to wane as advertisers either can't afford or can't be bothered to throw megadollarpounds at the sport. 

It does not help that the shop remains closed to newcomers, that prospective teams like Porsche/Audi and Andretti Motorsport with the might of General Motors behind it are actively denied entry. It does not help that Liberty Media have decided that watching Formula One is actively a Veblen Good and that they want to extract more from the wallets of would be spectators and viewers on television. It does not help that Formula One has abandoned its traditional homes of motorsport and can no longer get a French or German Grand Prix to be held any more, or that Formula One's treatment of nations like Korea, China, India, or even Britain and Belgium has been shocking.

Perhaps most worrying of all is that the cars themselves while being technical miracles, with arguably the best pilots in the world at the wheel, are just not particularly exciting to watch. They all stick to the road like they are on rails and even lap records look somewhat effortless. Partly the reason for that is that they probably do require less effort to drive than cars in the past and that they are all amazingly stable.

Stability in a motor car is usually a highly desirable trait. Stability through the three axes of motion (pitch, roll, yaw), means that you have a predictable motor car. That is exactly what you are looking for if the purpose is to transport people in safety and comfort but ironically if you want a maneuverable machine, then what you want is a thing which is more dynamic through those three axes of motion. The most excellent example that I can think of to demonstrate this, is the difference between a World War I fighter plane like the Fokker Dr.1 and the Airbus A380. The Fokker is highly maneuverable in all three axes whereas the Airbus is designed to give passengers a nice smooth ride.

A Formula One car, left purely to the whims of the engineers, is designed to go as fast as possible on a lap of a circuit, repeatedly. Given that this means sticking a Formula One car to the road as hard as possible so that the most power can be translated into raw speed, then this is the outcome which every team has chosen to pursue. Modern Formula One cars are also so aero dependent that in order to provide any kind of contest at all, they have had to hand back speed boosts to cars via the Drag Reduction System and 'push to pass' buttons which use the harvested hybrid power from the MGU-K. From a fan's perspective, who wants to watch a fun contest, the fastest and best cars at their job are boring to watch. If you are an engineer, boring is beautiful.

What the fans want to see, is ironically not the fastest and most technologically advanced cars in the world any more. The technical bound box has been so refined that exciting and fast are almost mutually exclusive concepts. This is why Max Verstappen and his Red Bull is bad for the sport. Together, they are arguably the second most complete driver to have ever existed, combined with the highest and best example of a Formula One car yet devised. That is boring.

If we turn back time to when I was ten years old, we again saw an amazing driver, combined with the highest and best example of a Formula One car yet devised. The difference back then though was that the cars were physically smaller and arguably harder to drive. If we place a McLaren MP4/4 from 1988 next to a McLaren MCL36 from 2022, we can see stark differences in philosophy. To wit:

On the left is the McLaren MP4/4 of 1988. It had the following critical geometry dimensions:

Wheelbase: 111.3"

Width: 72.0"

W/W Ratio: 1.5458

On the right is the McLaren MCL36 of 2022. It had the following critical geometry dimensions:

Wheelbase: 141.7"

Width: 78.7"

W/W Ratio: 1.8005

As regular readers may remember I have theory that the absolute best ratio for Wheelbase to width is the Golden Ratio (1+√5)/2, about 1.618033. I have no way to prove if this is right but it seems intuitively correct to me.

The McLaren MP4/4 of 1988 is I think undersquare by 4.47% whereas the McLaren MCL36 of 2022 is I think oversquare by 11.27%; relative to what I think is the perfect W/W Ratio. What this means in real terms is that the MP4/4 would have been easier to turn through the yaw axis and helped by throttle induced power sliding, whereas the MCL36 as a longer car, is harder to turn through the yaw axis and likely not helped at all by throttle induced power sliding, as power being transmitted through the rear wheels acts longitudinally down the axis of yaw. Add together the various vectored forces and this is why a modern Formula One car of Verstappen's looks so very sedate compared to the wild animals that Senna had to drive.

What this means for the cars of two year's ago as opposed to three decades ago is that they have gone from being slightly stubby to being very long. I have no doubt that drivers like Aryton Senna or Alain Prost would very easily adapt to a modern car, as would Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton very easily adapt to a older car, but the fact remains that a modern Formula One car is hideously stable in a straight line; to the point where due to things like anti-stall and flappy paddle gearboxes, I could jump into one and drive it. That simply should not be. A Formula One car should be the kind of thing that drivers should be able to finesse through corners but as it stands, they're all point and click affairs. Whilst it is not quite as stark as the difference between dancing in ballet flats and dancing in Doc Martens boots, modern Formula One drivers are not asked to dance like Nureyev, nor do they have the moves like Jagger.

The elephant in the room though, is that a modern Formula One car is an elephant in the room. They are wide, they are long, they are big.

Obviously narrower cars would be better because of packaging constraints at places like Monte-Carlo. You can not make steel lined racetracks in hilariously small city-states wider. My wee ickle Mazda 2 DJ is 66.7" wide, which if the Golden Ratio is applied, produces a wheelbase of 108". Ironically this is shorter than the cars of 1988. What's more important is that it is a whole foot narrower for each and every car. When you've suddenly gained two feet of space, then that's pretty impressive.

If I was Grand Poobah and Lord High Everything Else, I'd also remove the big rear wings on the back entirely. I'd still want something to surround the wheels as the idea of jumped wheels is awful but I think that aerodynamic enhancement while good for lap times, is bad for motor racing. The older Formula Ford ruleset which had no wings at all, made for some really furious competition and a typical Formula Ford race was usually far more exciting than any Formula One race. The F4 regulations which have mostly replaced it, are just not inspiring. In that respect, Formula E looks way way cooler.

Horse 3318 - Supercars Needs Warwagons

Watching the motorsport media in this country go apoplectic over the fact that the Supercars are playing second fiddle to both Formula One and Formula Two at the Australian Grand Prix has been nothing short of hilarious. This being the Australian Formula One Grand Prix weekend, means that the world's biggest motorsport circus by value and second biggest by volume (F1 is way smaller in terms of numbers of haulers compared with NASCAR) than has rolled into town, and Supercars have been consigned to big marquee tents in the infield at Albert Park.

I think that it is something of a rude shock to the Supercars teams, that they are in fact the support category to something which is much larger than they. Supercars is usually the headline category at the facilities that they travel to and the Australian Formula One Grand Prix weekend might very well be the only date on the calendar when they are on the undercard. Supercars now find themselves in the same position which many smaller categories are in, week in and week out; which hopefully might mean that as a category they might be forced to learn some degree of empathy. I suspect not though.

The garages proper on pit lane have been firstly allocated to Formula One obviously, while the remaining garages have been given to Formula Two. That also applies to where all of the haulers have had parking allocation, with Supercars being given the secondary overflow yard which is outside the circuit on the Village Green. Logistically speaking, this means that any and all equipment, must be brought in and out of the circuit via the tunnel which is underneath the final corner at the circuit. Perhaps as a concession, there will not be any pit stops in the Supercars race; which means that whatever happens on track is immediately consequential.

Supercars' management has had to issue special regulations which are additional to the Further Supplementary Regulations Manual, to stipulate what kind of equipment that the teams will be allowed to use in pit lane. As this was sent in an email, I shall not link to that but the special regulations are as follows:

5.14.1 Service Vehicles must be one (1) “pushable tyre rack” and one (1) “pushable trolley” fitted out to carry the necessary equipment including a maximum of two (2) laptops and two (2) monitors per Team and one (1) tablet per Car.

5.14.1.1 There is no provision for electrical supply in Pit Lane. Equipment carried on the trolley must be self-powered.

5.14.1.2 Trollies should be lined up at the allocated garage at Pit Entry at the same time as Cars are called to move to the Marshalling Area.

5.14.1.3 When directed, these service trolleys must be pushed direct to Pit Lane following the directions of Officials.

5.14.1.4 The pushable tyre rack and pushable trolley must be stationed against the pit garage wall in the working lane, in a location as directed by the MOM. The allocated area per Car is designated at 5m wide x 2m deep.

5.14.1.5 For all sessions, each Team is permitted only one (1) pneumatic wheel gun in Pit Lane per Car.

5.14.2 At the end of the relevant session or race, when directed to do so, the trolleys must move back along Pit Lane to the Pit Entry end, then back to their Paddock Area.

- Further Supplementary Regulations, Supercars, 20th Mar 2024.

This is all good and proper and interesting but what this points to is the possibility that maybe, Supercars could adopt what has been use in NASCAR since about 1970; that is, warwagons.

A warwagon is basically a portable trailer thing which contains a good amount of useful spare parts, the communications equipment to talk to drivers on the fly, as well as the battery packs which enable the teams to run their electric rattle guns for changing tyres. As the warwagons are incredibly portable, then the individual cars can be rearranged up and down pit lane, based not just upon the teams' position in the championship but upon the teams' election of where they would like to be as a result of qualifying. The warwagons mean that NASCAR teams can run pitlane operations at places where there aren't garages, or in the case of Bristol and Martinsville where there isn't even anything apart from powerpoints on a concrete surface.

The space in front of a warwagon on pit lane, can be defined as simply as painting boxes on the road. Since nothing is allowed over the wall when cars are not being serviced, then the chances of stuff being damaged, cars being damaged, or people being damaged is far smaller. Also, as individual car places are determined by qualifying and the big warwagon dance which follows means that team mates aren't next to each other, this also effectively eliminates that dreaded notion of double stacking as cars do not share the same space.

At the extreme other end of the level of facilities is the Formula One garage. Formula One teams dress their garages with floor liners, entire workshops of parts and pieces, the necessary pit lane equipment, the rattle guns and the pit boom which houses the refuelling equipment. A Formula One pitstop has been brought down to as little as 2 seconds and may have as many as eighteen people in an orchestrated dance. In contrast a NASCAR pitstop has just six crew members allowed over the wall. 

Supercars thinks that it would like to be Formula One with its use of pit booms; but what this invariably means is that this merely gives the teams yet another excuse to leave the shop closed to new teams. In a Supercars pitstop at Bathurst; which might involve changing brake pads, there still can be as many as ten crew members in the service of the vehicle.

If I was Grand Poohbah And Lord High Everything Else, then I would make Supercars adopt the use of NASCAR's warwagons. For a start only having six people in pitlane when cars move through, is safer. Secondly, by switching to NASCAR's warwagons it would mean that they would not need a pit boom. The chap carrying the fuel can in NASCAR, is lifting 11 gallons on his shoulder. 11 gallons is 41.635L which is 38kg of fuel. I probably could not lift that kind of weight but there are plenty of beefy lads in a NASCAR pit crew who can. This also means that a NASCAR fuel drop only happens at the rate of flow that gravity will allow through the nozzle. 

By making teams use warwagons instead of the current pitboom system, means that the teams actually fit into a smaller area; as well as being able to fit into pitlanes of more spartan conditions. Places like Symonds Plains, Winton, and Wanneroo, would be able to accomodate more teams and it even opens up the possibility of running rounds of the championship at places with less than stellar facilities. Imagine being able to rock up at Wakefield Park, Lakeside, or even inside Olympic Park at Homebush. It would be ace. Even with the meagre facilities pictured here, with the adoption of NASCAR's warwagons could open up all kinds of possbilities.

Horse 3312 - NASCAR's Golden Problem

Week in and week out, whenever there is a snooze-fest of a NASCAR race, there is a section which always blames a lack of horsepower and/or the aero package that the car ran for that particular race. The problem is that if you map the fan survey which is regularly run by The Athletic Auto's correspondant Jeff Gluck and his totally officially unofficial scientifically unscientific question of "Was Such-And-Such a good race?" then what you find is that whether or not something was a good race has no mapping whatsoever to the amount of horsepower, the particular aero package that weekend, the size of the speedway, whether it was a superspeedway, short-track, or road course; in fact as far as I can make out, there is near enough no correlation with anything to determine if a given race will be good or not.

In a series like NASCAR, where the teams are very much bound inside a tightly controlled box by the rule book, any advantage that anyone can find comes at a premium. However, it all appears to be chasing down the very edges of performance such as manipulating 1% items of aero, which is why Joey Logano tried driving with a webbed glove to block out window drag, or why Joe Gibbs Racing put down 30 layers of tape underneath the livery wrap.

The thing that nobody can address is that a NASCAR Cup car is very wide for the length. They are very hefty hecka-chonks that just don't rotate through any of the three axes of rotation all that well. While this means that they are stable, it also means that they don't pitch much and don't turn through corners all that well.

Speaking as someone who can only manipulate numbers and who can not actually perform the experiment, my suspicion is that the ideal ratio of Wheelbase to Width, is the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is (1+√5)/2, which is about 1.618033. A lot longer than this and cars will not turn very well hence why dragsters are long and skinny, and a lot shorter than this and paradoxically cars also do not turn very well due to the fact that turning a car is essentially operating a lever through the yaw axis.

In terms of what horsepower and the aero package actually do when it comes to how good the racing is, the reason why I think that they are most irrelevant is that even with a 1000 horsepower car, that power is still only being applied linearly and at best is only going to break the mechanical grip of tyres on the road. The aero package which is designed to suck a car to the track, only really applies vectored suck forced downwards relative to the axis of pitch in the car.

When it comes to what makes racing 'good' or not, then I suspect that the overriding aspect of a car's basic geometry by means of the axis of yaw, is in fact the single most critical aspect. Cars that are twitchy, are mostly twitchy through the yaw axis and while the three axes of pitch, roll and yaw all come into play when driving a car but only yaw is important when it comes to turning a vehicle through a corner. Granted that pitch and roll will affect the ability of the wheels to attach themselves to the road surface but how well a car turns through a corner, is the subject of loads and loads of dark arts which apart from camber, castor, toe, rubber compound, et cetera, is mostly determined by yaw. 

A NASCAR Cup Car which has had the base dimensions baked in ever since the 1981 season has the following dimensions.

NASCAR Cup Car: Wheelbase/Width.

110.0' / 78.6' = 1.399

A W/W ratio of only 1.399 is actually stubbier than my wee ickle Mazda 2 DJ. What this means is that a NASCAR Cup Car is a hefty chonky boi, which doesn't turn particularly well; which is expressed in the fact that they aren't exactly the fastest thing around road courses and street circuits.

So what's the solution?

The obvious thing that I can think of is simply to make the cars narrower. The closest that you can get to the Golden Ratio is 66 inches wide but that might look a bit silly. Seeing as the Ford Falcon from 1960-2016 was within a quarter percent of 110.0 inches by 72 inches, then that seems to me to be about right. A 72 inch wide car is like about the upper limit as that gives you a W/W radio of 1.52. 

The second obvious thing that I can think of is to make the tyres narrower. A NASCAR Cup Car sits on tyres that are 365mm wide. A V8Supercar tyre, which is a tyre for a similar application but which turns far more easily, is only 280mm wide. That's roughly a whole palm width wide. While that doesn't seem like a lot, rotating a wider tyre through its own axis of yaw is also harder than rotating a narrower tyre through its own axis of yaw; in addition to rotating the whole car.

The third thing that I would do is to increase the ride height relative to the road. This would also help to remove some of the mechanical grip by removing a lot of the vectored suck force which happens because a big thing is clearing the air away. 

By doing all of this, lap speeds would blow out and get worse but the cars would be far more nervous than they are currently. If the aim is to actually provide good racing, then making the cars more directionally unstable and making them dance more is surely the way to go. However, in making the cars more directionally unstable I would give back part of what I took away.

When Chrysler shut down its missile division in 1968, it found that it had a bunch of engineers left over. Rather than waste them, it immediately employed them to attack the problem of going motor racing the Superspeedways. The result was the Dodge Charger Daytona and the Plymouth Road Runner. Both of these cars had almost comically large fins which provided directional stability and kept them pointed in a straight line. 

Of course the idea of putting fins on a racecar had been known about since the 1930s. In the 1950s Jaguar made use of the existence of a driver in an open cockpit and put a giant fin behind the driver on their D-Type. Even though the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hour Race was marred with tragedy and Mercedes-Benz withdrew their cars, they were still being pushed by the Jaguars all the way. When in 1956 Mercedes-Benz didn't show up, Jaguar D-Types basically had no competition. 

Practically every car with any kind of aerodynamic attachment has end plates on the ends of their wings and modern Le Mans prototypes still have fins. Even NASCAR Gen-1 cars for a while had fins by default and it is reported that cars like the 1959 Plymouth Fury where the fins were quite pronounced, were pleasant to drive. If I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, then I'd think about putting big fins on the back of NASCAR Cup cars again. I'd also likely use the same kind of generic body from which the second division Xfinity series cars could come from and where Truck series trucks would come from. 

I have seen enough races over the years to know that when you have drivers pushing and bumping each other, that no human however superhuman they think that they are, can possibly understand or react to forces that they can not see. Quite often small taps, especially caused when a pusher is pushing a pusher, result in the car at the front of the train wiggling, then the driver trying to correct and overcorrect the steering; then in the space of microseconds, we have ten to twenty cars torn up for no good reason at all. At 200mph at car is moving at more than 293 feet per second. By putting big fins on the back, at least there'd be a tendency for the cars to want to continue to travel straight and true; which given the current aero kits which want to pull a car downwards, does not happen. Remember, forces are vectored; which means that they have both magnitude and direction.

And I think that fins look cool.

Horse 3311 - Green And Gold Crossed The Thin Blue Line

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/matildas-star-sam-kerr-allegedly-called-police-officer-a-stupid-white-bastard-after-cops-called-to-taxi-fare-dispute/news-story/5838b58a84545d37023ba2e35079bf20

More details have emerged about what Matilda's star Sam Kerr allegedly uttered to a police officer, which led to her racial harassment charge. 

Police will allege the 30-year-old called an officer "a stupid white bastard" after cops were called to break up a dispute over a taxi fare in Twickenham last year, The Sun has revealed. 

It has been claimed Kerr was sick while she was in the taxi after a night out with friends on January 30, 2023. 

Kerr has been charged with intentionally causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to the male PC under section 31(1)(b) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

She entered a plea of not guilty to the offence when she appeared via videolink in Kingston Crown Court in the United Kingdom on Monday. 

Kerr, who sported a t-shirt and black jacket for her virtual court appearance, had only confirmed her name and plea of not guilty during the hearing. 

Judge Judith Elaine Coello indicated Kerr's defence would be that she did not intend to cause alarm, harassment or distress to the police officer, and that her behaviour was not racially motivated, The Sun reported. 

- Sky News Australia, 7th Mar 2024

Oh dear.

Discrimination cases generally, have a pretty high standard of proof which needs to be crossed over. Racial discrimination cases in particular, take that standard of proof and apply a very particular set of conditions over the top of it. Generally speaking, these kind of cases have two elements. Firstly there is the question of whether or not a reasonable person was likely to be offended. Secondly there is the question of what kind of material tort resulted from the alleged event of discrimination. 

From what I can determine, as it specifically relates to this case, and from what little information which we've been told, this case will hinge upon what constitutes 'mere abuse' and whether or not The Man On The Clapham Omnibus is likely to be offended.

If the Metropolitan Police are to allege that Sam Kerr called the Police Constable a "stupid white bastard", then that will be a question of to what degree that a police officer can be offended and whether or not this constitutes racial discrimination.

If it is just the word "bastard" then the likelihood of a police officer being genuinely offended is small. If this was in Australia, then this would be a non-event. In fact there is quite a famous story when during the Bodyline Test Cricket series, Douglas Jardine complained to the Australian Test Captain Vic Richardson, who is reported to have opened the door to the dressing room accompanied with Jardine and asked the question:

"OK, which of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"

I personally do not believe that "bastard" is the word that was used in this context, and that the media is using scare quotes to hide actual words used; which might have genuinely caused offence.

However it is the qualifiers which have been used at the beginning of this abusive epithet which is where this case might actual draw its venom from. "Stupid" might very well be just an intensive modifier and therefore not material to the case. The thing that really might what lies as the heart of the case, is Kerr's use of the word "White". 

Is a White person materially likely to be offended if they were called "White"? Remember, the law not only has to be seen to meter out equal justice, it has to actually do so. If this had been someone racially abusing a black police officer, then the law can not act differently. 

I can almost guarantee that the Metropolitan Police have the incident on a body camera affixed upon the person of the police officer in question. I can also almost guarantee that the Metropolitan Police would not have taken this to the Police Prosecution Service unless they thought that this was a watertight case. I am 98% sure that the police have Sam Kerr bang to right on this. There is likely absolutely no fault with the legal materiel of this case.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/37/section/31

31 - Racially or religiously aggravated public order offences.

(1) A person is guilty of an offence under this section if he commits—

(b) an offence under section 4A of that Act (intentional harassment, alarm or distress)

- Section 31, Crime and Disorder Act 1998

And:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64

4A - Intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he—

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or

(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

- Section 4A, Public Order Act 1986

Was there an offence under Section 31?

Can the police demonstrate that there was intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress?

Because almost certainly, if video and audio exists of the incident, then Section 4A(1a) and (1b) are a simple matter of fact. 

What I want to know is what the Metropolitan Police hope to achieve by bringing forth this case to court. If this involved a black player from the Premier League, would the Metropolitan Police still have brought the case to court? What kind of other political flavours are going on under the surface? Is the Police Constable in question a member of the National Front or the BNP? To what degree is this statutory revenge because this can be used as a highly publicised case? Remember, the 1980s and the 'sus laws' still linger on in people's memories.

This case has already gained political traction in right-wing media outlets like GB News, OAN, Fox News, and Sky News Australia. Likely it will also gain political traction across Europe as well. I imagine that there is quite a lot of dog whistling going on, as Britain sleepwalks to the right and as sections of the media quietly goose step towards cultural fascism. If that was the intent of the Police Constable in question and the underlying culture of the Metropolitan Police Service, then this is an open goal for them. 

There is of course a tension which exists in progressive politics which simply does not exist on the authoritarian right. An inconsistency like this debases progressive politics because although we want to lecture society on how we have zero tolerance for racism, it is still hypocrisy to dismiss it and laugh it off jovially it it happens to occur against white people.

The manner in which people dismiss this out of hand, precisely because due to the fact the recipient of the alleged abuse was a white man reinforces the notion in young white men in particular, that they are the enemy of progressive politics. It does not help that among some sections of progressive politics white men are the designated enemy of progressive politics. This in turn, which drives an imagination of the victimisation of white men (despite all evidence to the contrary) actually does help to drive extremism.

If what I suspect is true and that the Metropolitan Police have a watertight case, then this is pretty open and shut. It still doesn't detract from the fact Kerr was trying to use someone's race as a slur. She was being racist.

You can't sugar coat it.

It was a racist slur.

Actions have consequences.

Horse 3282 - Let MARC Play Properly

The Bathurst 12 Hours has firmly established itself as one of the world's great GT races. In some respects it has taken on a lot of the functions that the Bathurst 1000 in October used to play, in that that touring car race no longer invites overseas teams and has closed the shop to such an extent that privateer and teams wanting a one in a million shot, will never be allowed to play again.

Being a GT race, the Bathurst 12 Hours tuns according to GT3 rules, though to pad out the field, it has allowed Improved Production Cars and GT4 cars to play in the past. It has also allowed Invitational Teams to play as well and in this respect, I think that the race organisers openly show weaponised incompetence.

If you look through the list of competitors for the last decade, you will see the team MARC appear again and again in the Invitational Class. MARC Cars Australia Pty Ltd which is a race car manufacturing company, originally built a a prototype for South Africa's Global Touring Car Championship (GTC) and have supplied the tubular chassis ever since. The premise is simple, MARC provides a chassis, the teams are then free to source a bodyshell and panels to fit on the outside, then the engines are mandated at 2-Litre turbocharged and producing 325kW and 600nm of torque. 

However, MARC still wants to be able to sell it chassis beyond merely South Africa and putting it on the world's stage at the Bathurst 12 Hours is a sensible idea. However, at the Bathurst 12 Hours, MARC cars are effectively not eligible for a race win because they are consistently kneecapped so as not to show up the GT3 cars. 

In the past, MARC cars have included the Mazda 3, Ford Focus and Ford Mustang, and all run some version of Ford's Coyote V8. The MARC cars according to their own website are described as:

https://www.marccarsaustralia.com.au/marc-car-ii.html

MARC II V8, a second generation car featuring a more powerful 5.2L version of the Coyote V8. The Mustang inspired MARC II is a fully carbon body, paddle-shift operated Albins 6-speed transaxle gearbox with GT-style aerodynamics. 

- MARC Cars Australia Pty Ltd.

Here's where I think that the organisers of the Bathurst 12 Hours demonstrate weaponised incompetence. They have chosen to allow a car into an Invitational Class but not allowed it to win outright or effectively compete against anything else. Is it truly a race when you are the only competitor?

The problem is that that the MARC cars from the outset do not properly fit into a GT3 class. FIA GT3 does allow for a very large variety of car types to be homologated; seemingly with no limits on engine sizes, drivetrain configuration, or even rollcage and chassis construction. FIA GT3 homologation though, must be endorsed or approved by the manufacturer; which means that an independent fabricator like MARC would never be allowed to submit their work for GT3 homologation.

The unbelievable truth is that there is a series which upon finding that they FIA homologation process was too hard, decided to allow "FIA GT3 like" cars in its series; then even went and provided a standardised chassis and a crate motor for the purposes of allowing independents to join in. The Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) in running Super GT in Japan, has two classes being GT500 which was their eventual successor to Group A, and GT300 which as the name might suggest, is not exactly a GT3 series but a GT3 plus series.

In addition to FIA GT3 cars, there are so called "Mother Chassis" cars which teams are then free to put whatever they like over the outside, and JAF regulations which allow teams to build a car as though it were a GT3 car but without the need for FIA homologation. This is why for instance, there has been Toyota GT-86 MC and a Subaru BRZ JAF car but not an actual FIA GT3 Toyota GT-86 or Subaru BRZ.

So what gives? The Subaru BRZ JAF car took the EJ20 four cylinder boxer engine from the World Rally Championship WRX. The Toyota GT-86 MC uses the standard GT300 crate motor which as a 4.5L V8, looks suspiciously similar to the Nissan VK45 which is also a 4.5L V8 engine. How do these things run together in the same series? How do they run in the same series with the existing GT3 cars like the Lamborghini Huracán, Porsche 911, Mercedes AMG-GT, Audi R8 LMS Evo II, Lexus LC500 and Nissan GT-R? A curious thing called "Balance of Performance".

The end point of imposing Balance of Performance is obvious. As GT3 is already a mix of cars and GT300 further mixes those things, with engines in the front, back and centre, driving the front or the back, then power and weight is played with, then fuel flow rates are played with; along with a standard set of front and rear aero; all in the name of balancing the performance of the cars to make sure that they perform roughly the same on track and produce similar lap times. As far I can tell from the JAF GT300 regulations, weights and power generally range from 1000kg and 267kW to about 1330kg and 350kW.

Now here's the thing, if the FIA can do this kind of thing for FIA GT3 cars, and JAF can do do this kind of thing for FIA GT3 cars and JAF cars and Mother Chassis cars, then why is it beyond the organisers of the Bathurst 12 Hours? Are they just incompetent at running the race? Do they think that this is too hard? 

Since the JAF allows a team to put any engine ever made by a manufacturer into any car produced by that same manufacturer, then why aren't MARC allowed to out a Coyote into a Ford Focus and have it BoP'd against GT3 cars? It seems to me that Ford's 5.2L quad-cam Coyote V8 would already be a suitable candidate under JAF regulations. Since the JAF would have this car which produces "615 Bhp @ 7000 RPM" tariffed at 1725kg (since that's what the BoP works out to be), then what's wrong with that? I am sure that MARC could derate the amount of power coming out of the engine to be exactly equivalent with say the BMW M4 and the same weight by adding or removing ballast. If I can do these kinds of basic calculations, why is it beyond the organisers of the Bathurst 12 Hours?

From the outside, motorsport always looks like a plaything for the rich and by the rich that sometimes we are allowed to look on at. It also looks at though, given that Australia doesn't even have a motor industry any more, that the organisers of motorsport in Australia are perpetually too lazy to let people in Australia try to innovate and invent, because it is too much work for them to work out how to compare the new things to other things.

Quite frankly, I think that MARC should be allowed to play because they have invented a thing. If I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, then I'd have contracted MARC to act as the standard for our own Mother Chassis type cars and then maybe we'd have seen a whole flood of fabulousness in the Bathurst 12 Hours, just like they have in Super GT in GT300. However, MARC is not allowed to play because the shop is closed... again.

Horse 3273 - Senna v Prost: Senna Did It

There appears to be a kind of Vaseline-smeared, soft-lensed, rose-tinted view of Aryton Senna that I simply do not understand. Or rather, I do understand it because I understand how narrative works and that in the process of lionising Senna, his on-track faults and actions, have been forgiven by the passage of time; because that's how story and mythologising operates. It is just that having lived through history the first time around, I just do not believe the story put forward by certain documentary movies as credible. If you're going to have a hero in a piece, then you need to paint someone else as a villain. To some degree if you're going to have a hero in a piece, then also you need to whitewash everything that they do; irrespective of merit. The sad truth is that in Formula One, practically everyone is a villain all of the time. You don't get to be World Champion unless you are either a villain, or a genius, or a generational talent, or a brawler and grinder, or some combination of some or all of these things.

I also do not accept that Senna was the greatest Formula One driver of all but was cut down before he could prove it. Statistically Lewis Hamilton is the greatest Formula One driver and Michael Schumacher is second. Both of these two gents have seven World Championships to their name. Next would be Juan Manuel Fangio with five and he might very well have more if it wasn't for that pesky thing called World War II interrupting the beginning of his career. Next should be Alain Prost with four World Championships and it is he whom is most compared with Senna as contemporaries.

In the case of Prost though, he lost 1983 because of illegal fuel at one race. Had the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix gone full race distance he'd have won that title by one point instead of losing it of a half-point. Prost lost the 1988 World Championship because of operation of the rules and being better than Senna; and he lost the 1990 World Championship because Senna used his car as a weapon and instead of being banned for life was rewarded with the World Championship. Prost could very well be sitting on eight titles, had the cards fallen differently.

This is the base problem with trying to paint Senna as some kind of hemi-demi-semi-quasi-god. Granted that he won three World Championships but two of those are horribly tainted and other World Champions such as Vettel, Piquet, and especially Brabham and Stewart, won their World Championships under far more noble circumstances. Jackie Stewart is my not very well paid opinion the greatest Formula One driver of all; not because he won three titles but because after he retired he pushed relentlessly for better track design, better car safety, better medical teams and he more than anyone else is responsible for the fact that a Formula One driver doesn't die on average at the rate of one every four weeks. Greatness is often not determined by results but by character and legacy.

There is one famous incident involving Senna, which is viewed by his fans as being Prost's fault, by others as a 50/50 incident; which I am not going to mention until the end of this. In many cases in history, if you place an event back into the context in which it exists, then drawing conclusions which are more rational being to emerge.

Senna v Rosberg - 1985 Brands Hatch, European GP

Senna started on the front row and led off the line. Mansell was in second but slid wide at Druids; which allowed Rosberg and Piquet past. On lap 7 when Rosberg attempted to overtake Senna at Surtees, Senna blocked Rosberg, then came back and deliberately chopped the nose off of Rosberg's car, which meant that he was hit by Piquet in third, who had nowhere to go.

I have idea what Senna's beef actually was with Rosberg in the 1985 European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. The 1982 champion was simply going for a move which makes sense after passing around the outside at Druids, which then sets you up on the inside for the next two corners. Senna's move here seems unprovoked and cynical here. Rosberg would go on to finish the race in third anyway; so Senna's punting him off the track here, seems completely unnecessary to me. 

I just don't get it. There wasn't a championship on the line here. There wouldn't really be any advantage to be had since Mansell had the fastest car and the most local knowledge. This is just Senna giving Rosberg a blood nose because it's fun, I guess? At kindest, this is silly. Beyond that, this marks a character flaw; which the rest of Senna's career proves, was never ever resolved.

Senna v Mansell - 1987 Spa-Francorchamps, Belgian GP

The first start was a farce and a series of crashes meant that the race had to be restarted. On the restart and lap 1 of the resumed race, Senna made it to the hairpin at Radillion first, then led most of the lap until the run back down the hill, when Mansell had a faster car and tried to go around Senna at Campus. Senna did not like this and rather than concede the place, he more than likely punted the rear end of Mansell; which sent both of them spinning off into a gravel trap.

Maybe Senna could have won the 1987 Belgian Grand Prix? What is absolutely certain is that he was in no mood to let anyone else win it if he could help it. IN hindsight, Senna's punting of Mansell into the gravel at Belgium, cost Mansell the 1987 World Champioship and handed Nelson Piquet his third.

Yet again, we see Senna being unhappy because someone else was faster than him, and because he ran out of performance and apparently talent and ability, he deliberately chooses to use his car as a weapon and whether or not he took himself out of the race in the process, is of zero concern to him.

Senna v Prost - 1990 Suzuka, Japanese GP

The general story is that Senna took out Prost at the opening corner of the first lap at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix as retaliation for what happened the year before. Now you'll note that I have not included the incident from 1989 deliberately; this is because although I think that Senna also caused that, this incident is proof of character.

Before the Japanese Grand Prix, at the drivers' briefing meeting, Senna who was unhappy about the positioning of where first and second were on the road, made the comment that he "can not be held responsible for what will happen today". On board telemetry showed that Senna didn't lift off of the throttle; which also serves to prove that not only was this deliberate but premeditated. Now if this incident happened on the road and a judge was faced with this kind of evidence, then you would suspend the driver's licence immediately. Instead though, Senna was rewarded as being the 1990 World Champion.

In a post race interview with Jackie Stewart about why he had taken out Prost, Senna said:

“Being a racing driver means you are racing with other people and if you no longer go for a gap that exists you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing.”

The problem with this remark, is that he was lying; and it took him almost 12 months to admit that he was lying. He was still lying nonetheless. What's insane about this is that the lie lasted just long enough for him to win the 1990 World Championship. After any legal challenges were dropped, the lie was dropped. Personally, winning a World Championship through deliberate criminal action should automatically disqualify someone from any kind of discussion about greatness. 

Senna v Mansell - 1992 Adelaide, Australian GP

I have watched this and re-watched this again and again and I simply have no decent explanation as to why this should happen. This is not raw and unrefined Aryton Senna in a Lotus at Brands Hatch in 1985 but Triple World Champion Aryton Senna in a McLaren at Adelaide, with seven years of experience added.

Yet again, there was no gap. There was never any gap. There was not going to be a gap. Mansell never ever changed his line at any point whatsoever. What was Senna trying to do here? If this is mere brain fade, then what does this say about him as a World Champion? If this was deliberate, then what was to be gained? Is this revenge? If so, for what? I simply do not understand; nor can I find any plausible entry to doing so.

Remarks:

As much as I think that he was an undeserving winner of two of his three championships, the record books show that Aryton Senna is a Triple World Champion. The one incident which I have not presented (which is arguably the most famous) is not an event which happened in isolation but one which happened in a cloud of many. There is something to be said about judging each case on its merits but when you have a trail of similar and like incidents which keep on happening, then patterns and likelihoods emerge. At the time of the unnamed incident, James Hunt on the BBC commentary mentions several laps beforehand that he suspected that something might happen; you don't get to make that kind of assessment unless there is form. 

So while I can admit that Senna was good, he wasn't as good as Hamilton, or Schumacher, or Vettel, or Prost. I don't think that he was as good as Stewart, or Piquet, or Brabham, or Lauda, or Verstappen. I don't even think that he was as good as Hill, or Fittipaldi for that matter. It is likely the result of him dying and his career being cut short, that the myth making has gone on to make Senna bigger in the Formula One pantheon than he otherwise would have been. 

In fact, in re-watching video of five incidents, I think that I have shifted my opinion about the unnamed incident here. Once is unlucky. Twice is coincidence. Three times is suspicious. Four times is a pattern. Five times is pretty much bang to rights.

Senna v Prost - 1989 Suzuka, Japanese GP

I have changed my opinion on this. I used to think that Prost moving over was unfortunate and that Senna ploughing through was reckless. I am now prepared to say that this is not a 50/50 incident but a 0/100 incident and Senna is entirely at fault. Barging through and trying to take a space, including when going for the lead, even if it including taking both cars out of the race, was not mere accident on the part of Senna. This was modus operandii. 

"The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.” 

– Brutus, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 1.

Senna never acted with remorse. Power was abused, repeatedly.

Horse 3220 - Sit Down And Be Counted. Watch More Football And Less Kardashians.

Australia 1 - England 3

Toone - 36'

Kerr - 63'

Hemp - 71'

Russo - 86'

There were a lot of people on the telly on Wednesday night wondering what went wrong with the Matildas in their 1-3 loss against England in the Semi-Final. This can be summed up in a few sentences. 4-4-2 met 3-5-2 on the pitch. England had an overlap in midfield. England found that they could get away with roughhousery. Tony Gustavsson was timid and didn't make whole scale changes. 1-3 sounds like a howler but really, it's one defensive error coupled with a lack of ability to smash through the midfield, to supply strikers who both looked anonymous.

What the pundits kind of hinted at but couldn't really say in the moment, was that what we saw although disappointing was an Australian Football Team in the Semi-Final of a World Cup. How ridiculous is that?! Australia didn't get bundled out of the group stage, or fail in the Round of 16, but sniffed the chance of being in a World Cup Final and were only beaten by an England side which has lost exactly once since 2017 and that was in the World Cup Semi-Final against the USA four years ago. These are the European Champions and will either be No.1 or No.2 in this tournament; while the worst that Australia can now do is 4th. I saw an Australian side not fail against Iran in Melbourne 25 years ago and in all that time, no Australian side has been in rarified air like this. This was amazing.

Probably this World Cup has caused an impact on the Australia psyche which is going to have ripples for years to come but the one question which is going to echo on and on is why female professional athletes don't make as much as money as male professional athletes. We have already had our first important moment when the then Matildas side walked out of the offices of Football Australia and refused to play the then World Champion United States because of a pay dispute but the next step involves a systemic question which nobody wants to touch with a barge pole.

What happens in October after the hype is gone? Part of the reason why there is a pay difference in this case is purely down to the fact that people don't show up at women's football games. This goes for women's sport generally. If 90,000 people will show up for Collingwood v Carlton, then why don't 90,000 people show up for the same fixture in the WAFL?

Look at the A-League Women, the WAFL, or WNRL, or even Netball. They play in front of a few hundred people week in and week out, playing their guts out and for what? Where are all the mums taking their daughters to matches? Let's make this political. Where are all of the feminists?

I might be confused but last time I checked, women actually make up slightly more than half the population. If men can stand out in the rain, bedecked in blue, yellow, red, white, then why don't women? Men are able to care about stupid things like sport, which has absolutely zero consequence in the world; why can't women? They should be going nuts.

Men will watch stupid and pointless things on television, such as motor racing and other men wailing on each other, literally punching each other into the ground, and the media companies will show this and make money through advertising. One of the delightful features about dollars is that they are perfectly fungible and the thing about business, which is what all commercial media is ultimately, is that it cares not a jot about how it makes money and profits. The television stations, both Pay-TV and Cable, will show whatever brings them subscribers, viewers, and advertising revenues. When money talks, business listens.

Women will also watch stupid and pointless things on television and because dollars are perfectly fungible, business listens there too. If people want to watch The Kardashians, Home and Away, The Voice, My Kitchen Rules, or womens' sport, media companies honestly do not care. If you won't want to watch this thing but do want to watch that thing, then the advertising revenue is likely to follow that thing.

The only reason that The Kardashians are sitting there with millions of dollars and handbags and purses and shoes and Botox, is that the money and attention already spoke and the media companies listened. You know who isn't watching The Kardashians? Men. Quite honestly, the fact that I know that a Kardashian is a person on a reality TV show that I have never seen and not an alien from Star Trek, is shameful. End the Kardashians. Stop watching. 

11.15 million people watched on in abject horror as the Matildas fell apart against a well drilled and well sorted England side. You can't complain any more than men will not watch women's sport because not only was that the biggest television event in the history of Australia but 42% of people in the country watched on. 

This Women's World Cup has proven comprehensively that men will watch women's sport; although, we already knew this. Sport such as Women's tennis already makes superstars out of women. Media companies and advertising already listened and that is why Serena Williams is famous. Maybe Sam Kerr is the first proper superstar of women's football in Australia but there is no good reason why Ellyse Perry or Daisy Pearce aren't, other than the money wasn't listening. How come I already knew that Courtney Vine plays for Sydney FC? Why is it that I know that Canberra United has an A-League Women's team but no equivalent men's team? If I know this, why don't you?

When we get to the 2043 Women's World Cup, will you be able to name your top five all-time A-League Women's players? If you want this, show up. Mums, take your daughters to football matches. Yell and go nuts like the men do. Take your boyfriends and husbands. This is the ground floor. Men have been caring about stupid stuff for years. Women, it's time for you to take up your position at end of the couch and yell like a nutcase at the television. It's time for you to sit down and be counted.

Horse 3198 - Johnny Bairstow's Smarter Than The Average Bair(stow)?

Johnny Bairstow's smarter than the average Bair(stow).

He is always getting in the Umpire's hair (stow).

He has got it better than a millionaire (stow)

Johnny Bairstow's smarter than the average Bair(stow).

The Second Test at Lord's has been and gone and England fans are looking at a series which is reminiscent of days of yore. Forget Bazball, Gazball, Cazball or Fazball, England are playing Surrender Ball and looking competent but inadequate against an Australian side which is not stellar but is doing just enough all the time.

Heading into this Ashes series, this was an English side who had been okay, but thanks to the press were heralded as the coming of eleven saints; along with full Greek chorus of praise. About three balls into the first over on the first day of the first test, the press reverted to type; wailing and moaning, demanding that every English player's head be put on a pike and put on display outside the wall of the city, as England hurtles towards a five-nil thrashing. I for one love it. In what other sport (except for every other sport) can you see such a turnabout, as opinion writers lurch from side to side like brainless sheep on a B-24 Liberator?

This England side has tried everything and anything, both sensible and insensible, to try and wrangle anything from the first two tests. To do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result is insanity. To do everything different and still get the same result is destiny. England has tried to smack every ball out of the ground. England has tried to bore Australia to death. England has tried playing attacking shots, measured shots, illogical shots, sensible shots; but the one thing that they have not done in this series is do enough of everything against an Australian side which is also doign those same things. The first objective in a Test Match is to take twenty wickets. England have done that. The second objective is to score more runs than the other side and they will not do that by giving wickets away. Both teams have sportsed and one team is sportsing better.

The full details of the Second Test are here:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/the-ashes-2023-1336037/england-vs-australia-2nd-test-1336044/full-scorecard

Australia 416 & 279 def. England 325 & 327

Perhaps the biggest symbol of why England have failed thus far, is the tale of how Johnny Bairstow got out "stumped".

10 - Jonny Bairstow - st.Carey b.Green

The reason why Johnny Bairstow got out "stumped" is to do with a simple checklist of Law 39 "Out Stumped". It reads:

39.1 Out Stumped

39.1.1 The striker is out Stumped, except as in 39.3, if

- a ball which is delivered is not called No ball

- and  he/she is out of his/her ground, other than as in 39.3.1

- and  he/she has not attempted a run when his/her wicket is fairly put down by the wicket-keeper without the intervention of another fielder. Note, however Laws 25.6.2 and 25.6.5 (Dismissal and conduct of a batter and his/her runner) and 27.3 (Position of wicket-keeper).

You be the judge. The frame immediately before the stumps are broken will now be showed presently:

As you, and I, or anyone, or even Blind Freddy can see, Johnny Bairstow being out "stumped", is absolutely bang to rights. This is a lay down slam No Trumps hand. This case is watertight. This is showing up before the judge, pleading guilty and having the book thrown at you. I think that there is no way, no how, in no universe, where Johnny Baristow is not out. He is so out that the Umpire didn't hesitate and upon appeal to the Third Umpire, they also didn't hesitate. 

Literally everyone in the world, including blind people who didn't see it, dead people who weren't alive, and imaginary people who never existed, except Johnny Bairstow could see this was out and yet, like a petulant child who has been caught scribbling on the walls with crayon, who has the crayon in his hand, and who has eaten some crayon and there's crayon all over his face, Johnny Bairstow stood out in the middle apparently confused about what the law says.

As a professional sports player, and even as a student of the game, he should have known what the Law says. If he had been playing for St.Hubris Third XI against Banana Primary School's Shoeless XI, he would have known what the Law says. The Law in question is law 20 "Ball Is Dead". It reads:

20.1 Ball is dead

20.1.1 The ball becomes dead when:

20.1.1.1 it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.

This means that you can not have a faff about in the middle and discuss the weather. You can not go farming and pad down that imaginary bump in the middle of the pitch. You can not wander and stare at the sky and watch the planes, wondering where you will go on holidays. You can not feign or claim ignorance. The ball is still alive until it returns to the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler. Full Stop; comma; no returns. Until the ball has returned to the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler, it must be treated like an unexploded hand grenade with the pin taken out. Ignore it and it will go off. Ignore it and you will be out. Ignore it and you deserve to be out. Not even St Anthony, the patron saint of lost causes and quite a handy tail-ender who could be expected to make the odd pull shot and score a handy yet pointless 14 in a losing side, would dare stand about like some mouth open, hackneyed eejit, until the ball has returned to the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.

Yes, the Laws of the Game do speak about the Spirit of the Game but as a game of Laws and order, the Law is both a standard for the wise and a schoolmaster for fools. Take this as a lesson Johnny Bairstow. The one who never made any mistakes never learnt anything and you have made a mistake loud and proud in front of two nations.

And this is why England are two-nil down in the Ashes thus far. In a game which can and has in the past swung on the margin of 1 or 2 runs, it is the 1% things which need to be in order. England have been okay. Okay is not good enough when the opposition is Okay + 1%.