scarface_au

I nearly got cleaned up by a wanker in an XR6 Turbo yesterday, I was driving along the Maroondah Highway at 80 km/h and changed lanes, not realising the XR6 was coming up behind me at about 140. He had to swerve back into the lane I had just left to avoid hitting me. I get nervous whenever I see a "hotted up" (I use the term loosely) Falcon or Commodore. It seems like a lot of them are idiots.

So bummed I missed it, would have loved to be there but the car has been held up (cracked windscreen meant it couldn't get rego). Next time!

I believe it may have been changed from 107% to 110% before they finally got rid of it. I guess the FIA decided they'd rather have a full grid than a field of decent cars, much like this year.

I love speedhunters, I've just been introduced to them and damn, they have some gorgeous pics.

It's not porn ... except for that scene where they all have sex with goats.

You may have been talking about championships but I wasn't, I was only referring to his race wins. Plenty of people have come and gone in F1 without managing that, so it's something to be proud of. Let's wait and see how he goes this year. He has a real chance if testing is anything to go by, the car looks like a race winner. But you know what they say, when the flag drops the bulls**t stops. Don't write him off yet, that's all I'm saying.

Not true http://www.f1-facts.com/overview/person/Ade_Cesaris . 214 races and nary a win. Even good ol' Nick Heidfeld is yet to crack a win, after 169 races http://www.f1-facts.com/overview/person/NHeidfeld . Martin Brundle, Derek Warwick ... lots of people have run more races than Webber without a win. And how many people have won after a drive-through penalty? I can't think of anyone except schumacher, although I'm sure someone will correct me :-)

Fair call. I don't think anyone would call Webber the Australian Schumacher but at least we've got a half-decent driver, aka race winner, in the field. I'm too young to remember Jones, and as for that Brabham bloke ... (I mean junior, not his three-time-champ dad).

Red Bull Racing (aka Australia F1) FTW!

Picking up my R32 on Friday, would love to show it off! Just tell me when/where.

Could be, the driver weight difference will be a smaller percentage of the overall car weight so will affect the car's performance less. I don't think it makes a lot of difference anyway, they all bring the cars up to the minimum weight with ballast anyway. The only difference is the lighter drivers have more options re: placement of ballast.

Well it's my opinion too. Most modern cars are quite capable of running ethanol, whereas older cars can be totally stuffed up. I don't know where the cut-off is, it probably varies by model, but I wouldn't even think of putting ethanol in, say, a pre-1990 car. Generally I'd say if your car was built before ethanol became widely used, don't do it. I would never put ethanol in my car anyway unless it's specifically designed for it, but I'm prejudiced ;-)

Hmm, I can see why that would be a problem. To be honest I can imagine a cop seeing a bunch of Skylines together and thinking, "hmm, defect party!". Even if they look over everyone's cars and find nothing (which would surprise me), who wants to stand around while cops inspect their car? The trick would be to find somewhere that cops aren't likely to drive past, but that could look suspicious in itself. Hmm, 6 Skylines in an industrial estate? Wonder what they're up to? Not to mention the lack of food suppliers in such areas. Just a question: what about smaller "chapters" within SAU-VIC? I'm a newbie with no understanding how the club works, but I'm wondering if we could have smaller committees (even 1-3 people) responsible for social events in a section of Melbourne, and others for their town in rural areas. Obviously this will only work if people are willing to take on the responsibility, but could it be done?

Saw pics of the hail on Facebook from a friend east of me and thought I'd better get the car under cover ... no hail yet but there's more weather to come according to the radar

It's mostly stock at the moment ... but I plan to change that

Hey, hopefully I'll have my car by next Friday, might come up and drive around with you.

HRT also stands for Hormone Replacement Therapy ... wouldn't want to be a woman working for that team. Or a girly man.

May see you there if my car is ready in time

Wow, misquoted already. Must be a budding journo in the forum. Rack off, I'm the one who's qualified to libel people.

Perhaps, although bear in mind Brundle's role in the telecast, he's there as the technical expert and ex-driver, so he's there more to fill in the gaps from the other guy (I forget his name) than to give his opinion. At least that's the theory. I do agree, though, that when it comes to the media, you shouldn't play both sides of the street.

This probably should have happened years ago, not that his dad has done a bad job (that I can tell) but F1 is several orders of magnitude bigger than anything else. Is there any particular reason for ragging on Martin Brundle? Has he done a bad job previously? Bear in mind that his record as a driver has nothing to do with his skills (or lack of) as a manager. I don't particularly care who manages a driver, unless they have a conflict of interest in managing a team as well (are you listening Flavio? Of course not). Hakkinen, though ... I'm not sure. I think he could do better. I don't recall him being noted for his media skills, one of the key skills for a manager (liaising with the media). The 2MB guys are much better at that (are they still together?).

Lol, I'm already paranoid about unmarked cars, I'm a model driver whenever there's a late-model Aussie-built sedan behind me, and I don't even have my R32 yet. I know there are other unmarked cop cars, but in my experience they're usually the latest model Aussie-built sedan, eg FG Falcons or VE Commodores. The police buy their cars in fleets like every other government organisation.

An American F1 team makes about as much sense as an AFL team in Western Sydney ... 90% of americans don't give a crap about F1. And basing it in the US? Crazy. I'm not surprised it has flopped. I have to say this is probably Mark Webber's last and best chance to be champion. Test times suggest the car is going to be well up there, and remember the cars are not greatly changed from last year, except for the XL fuel tanks. I'm not saying he's a shoo-in, he's still going to have to have a very good year, but he should definitely win races, and if you win enough races you become champion.

Damn that sucks. I test-drove two, liked the first one better but the second had much nicer wheels, so the dealer is swapping them over for an extra $800. Not sure how long it will be before I get it, I was told two weeks and that was a week and a half ago, might need to check up on them and find out.

Pics will be forthcoming shortly.