Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Motorsport Magazine - The reason paper and ink were invented!

Did you ever see 'The Fantastic Voyage'? The 1966 movie where a group of intrepid explorers are miniaturized so that they can enter a chronically ill man's body to destroy cells and save his life. Raquel Welch in a wet suit, what else is there to say?

I'm firmly of the opinion the fine people at MotorSport Magazine have used that self same technology to enter my head and have a good old rummage around. There is really no other way of explaining the fact that month in and month out, the magazine is crammed full of features and interviews on almost every aspect of racing from the eras I'm most enamored with. If you can't tell from the radio show, that would be anything and everything to do with global motorsport from about 1960 to 1990.

How else would they know that I have been curious for over 20 years as to why the Beatrice Lola Ford F1 program never reached a level of performance that reflected the sum of its parts? The answers to that question were revealed over lunch with Alan Jones in last month's issue.

Incidentally, the accompanying pictures would indicate that the 1980 World Champion really, really enjoys lunch. That whole Cosworth turbo F1 program is very close to my heart because the new car was on the cover of the first Autosport I ever bought with my own cash in 1985, I was sixteen and was about to fall deeply in love...with racing.

As a besotted teenage fan I never fell for the advances of the Ferrari Spa. I was surrounded by people with an impregnable loyalty to Modena's finest, but I never wrapped myself up in the marque, some of their drivers yes, but the Prancing Horse itself? No. I was always drawn to those with potential or the outright underdog.

As the season kicked off in Brazil in 1989 the talk was of Senna and Prost and how their relationship would develop at McLaren. I was more excited about the fact that Mauricio Guglemin finished on the podium in Rio driving a March Judd.

Lost in the hoopla of Nigel Mansell's victory and Johnny Herbert's fourth place finish, on his F1 debut, was a storming drive by Derek Warwick in the Arrows Megatron (nee BMW). Warwick finished just over 17 seconds behind Mansell but he had one extra pit stop which undoubtedly cost him the win. I may be the only person besides Derek who even remembers this.

This brings me to their ‘Team-Mates’ feature which is the most satisfying of reads. I just wish that my local Barnes & Noble had enormously oversized novelty chairs for me to sit in as I read about, this month, Eddie Cheever and Derek Warwick's relationship within not only the USF&G Arrows set up but also the Silk Cut Jaguar WSC program. The pairing worked in sportscars but was more factious in F1 but Warwick still holds Eddie in high regard. As I read I was praying that I would get a microscopic tidbit concerning the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix and DW's feelings about the one that got away [Edit: The lastest edition available to us chaps here in the colonies, features a reply from Cheever, which is also mandatory reading].

I'm not that concerned however, seeing as they have a crack team of boffins inside my head right now looking for editorial cues for future editions. How else do you explain recent features such as 'Porsche 936: The Forgotten Winner' or 'Lunch with Gordon Murray', maybe the single best interview I have ever read in a racing publication.

My parting shot is simple. Just go and look at the 'Parting Shot' page at the end of the editorial section of each edition. It crystallizes the magazine in a glorious black and white spread each month and if you can even order the picture online directly from the supplier. Now where did I put my credit card?