scarface_au

Should come for a look-see ... always fun hanging out with you guys. Definitely up for a cruise before or after too.

Gotta work in the morning but might head down after, should see you about lunchtime!

Charli, those pics of your car are EPIC! Maybe you can take a couple of mine? Sorry I missed you guys, but I had to watch St Kilda teaching Geelong a lesson in defence. 3 points in an entire half ... how do you feel, PREMIERS? Almost as good as a cruise, really.

Brutal. Maybe next time we want to cruise up Kinglake we can pre-pay and save them the trouble!

Awesome, now that I've got a functioning clutch I can cruise with ease!

Ah, dammit, Wednesday is bowling night. Do you always go on Wednesday?

Yeah it's been there a while. Looks nasty, hope everyone was ok.

I'll be due for my next donation in about 2 weeks.

And I apologise if I arced up too much, I've been known to do so unnecessarily. As a counter-point I would bring up Alain Prost. Discounting his year off in 1992 (since I would argue he didn't retire voluntarily), he won his last championship in 1993 then promptly retired. He could have gone on and would have been in a championship-contending car, the one that Damon Hill came within a whisker of taking the crown with. He only retired because he didn't want the drama of being Senna's teammate again, and who can blame him? So there is precedent. Of course, Prost had four championships behind him by then, and 51 wins, which is a bit more impressive than Mark's four wins and leading the championship for a few rounds, but Mark's expectations are not that high, if they ever were.

Um ... excuse me, I'm well aware of what happened with Nelson Piquet. I may not know my F1 history as well as you but I do know a few things. I just don't understand why you thought I would confuse Mark Webber with Nelson Piquet. I never meant to imply that Mark was on the verge of quitting, just that leaving a successful team is not without precedent. Mark has admitted that he considered leaving F1 at the end of this year. I'm sure you're well aware of the demands of being an F1 driver, so it shouldn't surprise you that drivers may consider leaving it all behind. Past success is no guarantee of future success. How many times have we seen teams go from championship winners to also-rans in 6 months? Lots of drivers would rather quit while they're still successful than wait until they're struggling for points to walk away.

I think I've got a twin-plate clutch so Jim seems to think that it would have a different flywheel. I don't know since I'm not a mechanical person and I haven't looked at it (since I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyway). I don't recall the exact figure but I think it was something like $700 all up, and he might give me a bit back if my old clutch is worth something.

I'm sure I'll get your point any time now.

I'm from Victoria but I'm very interested. I'll have to think about it though, not sure what I'll be doing in four month's time.

I talked to Jim Berry today and he's going to do up a clutch for me (single organic with a Full Monty pressure plate was what I believe he said), but he wants me to track down a standard Nissan flywheel. The only thing is I have NO experience in buying parts and I don't want to get the wrong one. Can anyone help me out?

When's the next one?

Ha! I wanted to wash my car tonight but didn't have time. First time in weeks I've had the money to wash it :-)

A grey R32 ... and it wasn't me? I'm shocked. Shocked!

Tried calling Jim yesterday and he hasn't replied. Is he normally hard to get hold of?

I do believe that's the point I made at the end. However it's happened before that drivers in top form with great cars can walk away, because they get tired of being away from family and friends, ultra-strict diets, hardcore training, and risking their lives. I wasn't absolutely certain Mark would continue next year, because he's got plenty to be proud of already. I agree though that while he's still got a shot at the championship he will continue. I don't know if you watched the pre-race on Sunday but he did hint that he thought about retiring after this season in an interview.

When you've been busting your arse in F1 for 8 years and other formulae for 20 years before that ... it gets a bit wearing. You'd be surprised at what some F1 drivers have walked away from, and when they've walked away from it. Mark is fantastically disciplined and very motivated but everyone has their limits. I think he's happy enough with what he's achieved so far that he could quit now and be satisfied. The only reason he hasn't is because he still feels he can achieve more, and unlike a certain 7-time world champion, he has a good shot at doing so.

That could well have been it. It's quite possible that that tap damaged the gearbox enough to require a change. I'm not surprised that the conspiracy theorists are suggesting RBR changed a perfectly healthy gearbox just to sabotage Webber, but I don't buy it. Webber's tap, slight though it seemed, could well have bent something. F1 teams do this sort of thing regularly, it's quite routine. I don't see anything suspicious about it. It's far better for Webber to finish fifth than not at all. I'm not saying RBR don't have a bias against Webber, but if it was as bad as some people seem to think why would he sign for another year? I think at this stage of his career Mark would rather quit than put up with crap treatment. I don't know whether RBR would have treated Vetool differently, but it may well have cost him if they had. None of us have seen the gearbox, so we don't know how badly it was damaged, if at all. It could have failed and then Mark would have scored nothing. Championships aren't just about winning races, they're about making the best of bad days. Moving up two places from seventh may not have been the result we hoped for, but it could have been a lot worse.

Guys, I don't know how to get to the monash meet, can someone SMS me the address please? Done, thanks.

Cue the race driver excuses. "Err ... I had a brake problem, and there was a misfire in the engine, and something strange was going on with the electrics." Translation: "I'm too old and I should have stayed retired."

I might meet you there ... don't think I can make the pre-meet.

Haha doesn't matter, I still expect to be mocked for not achieving my impossibly high target :-p