Joe came to London to talk Formula 1 in February, and in part two of this special podcast the man returns to tackle more of Formula 1's difficult questions. A brief break gave attendees the chance to stretch their legs, before settling down for more insight from inside F1.
On the agenda in part two - Joe covers investing in the future of Formula 1 and self drive hill climbs, dangerous sports and keeping oneself young, plus art directors and the genius of Murray Walker. Finally the evening is wrapped up with a look at the mindset of a world champion and the motivation of a famous son.
I like to judge the success of an evening by how long it takes one to recover, and given that Christine and I were still feeling the after effects of Friday's inaugural Evening with Joe on Monday, I'd consider it a blinding success.
Joe tackles Formula 1's big questions with a microphone and a glass of wine.
Friday 26th was a busy day for us. We arrived in London uncharacteristically early, which gave us plenty of time to look around the designated venue, The Engine Group, just off Oxford Street. It's a great place, in an ideal location and Joe had booked the entire upper floor for the evening, bar included.
Wifi was provided, which was a great boon for Christine who was planning to live blog the whole evening, providing text and picture updates throughout the night for those unable to attend.
Before the doors opened, a quick soundcheck revealed the only major headache of the day - the building offers a fully integrated audio/video system to feed satellite TV to various speakers and screens, but there was no means of obtaining a direct audio feed of Joe's talk.
Joe took his seat just after 7pm to an almost full house, and from that point the night turned into something of a blur. Questions came from the floor thick and fast, and Joe tackled each one with candour. Every question was a good one, every answer detailed, insightful and often humorous. Still the questions came.
Although the original plan was for a Q&A session followed by a meet and mingle, the never-ending quest for knowledge meant questions continued past the enforced break, and kept on coming until event organisers eventually shut the bar and threw us out... well almost. I have no idea how Joe managed to talk for a whole evening and make it feel like five minutes had passed, we all wanted more and the night came to a close far too soon.
If we had a complaint it was only that there wasn't quite enough time at the end of the evening to meet everyone present. Being in the company of so many dedicated and intelligent Formula 1 fans must be a very rare thing, and I wish we could've spoken to everyone and for longer.
Eventually we really did get thrown out, packed up our recording equipment and headed to the nearest pub for yet more F1 chat. Sometime around 3am, we found our way home.
If you didn't manage to make the inaugural Evening with Joe, you really missed out. There is a second event planned for March 29th in Melbourne, and further talks around the world throughout 2010. Don't miss them.
We did eventually manage to record the whole evening using a room mic, but we've ended up with something like 3+ hours of content, so it might take an extra day or two for the podcast to see the light of day. Lou was designated official photographer for the evening, so watch out for plenty more pictures coming soon as well.
In conclusion, I think Joe's onto a winning idea, and I'm hoping that more F1 journalists give some thought to reaching out and meeting fans. F1 may be becoming more open than ever this year, but it could do with getting a bit more personal too.
A big thank you to Joe for putting together a fabulous evening's entertainment, to everyone who came over and said "hi", and to those who bought us drinks. I wonder how we can get to Melbourne?
This is the live thread we promised for our trip to London for the Evening with Joe. It's not clear how much we'll be in contact, but it's useful to have a thread just in case. Having said that, I know Alex is taking multiple Apple devices. We can use this thread for the many, many, many pictures from him, and we'll try and get a word in sometimes as well.
Hopefully we can give you a little insight if you can't actually make it to London, and it might spur you on to snap up tickets to the next Evening with Joe event.
We'll be keeping an eye on the comments, so if you have any burning questions you'd like us to throw at Joe, we'll see if we can get them answered.
The event starts at 7pm, but no doubt Mr C will be live commenting the journey to London as I do the driving. We will see you in and around the comments!
Updated: Joe has posted an update from the venue. Just half an hour to go.
Updated: Some mobile pics (sorry the lighting is a bit iffy):
Sidepodcast is heading to our nation's capital tomorrow for the Evening with Joe that has been highly anticipated for many weeks now. We're going there both as fans and as crew, to record some audio and take some photos for a podcast to promote the event. In some ways it's sort of like An Aside with Joe Live.
We're running a competition at the moment to win a signed copy of Joe's book The Grand Prix Saboteurs, but if you're lucky enough to be attending, Joe will be selling and signing books at the event.
If you're planning on being there, please do let us know in the comments, and we'll do our best to match any new names to faces. Don't forget that part of the evening includes "a chance to talk informally on any subject you care to mention", so make sure you arrive armed with plenty of questions and your best speaking voice.
We'll also open up a thread for the Joe talk on Friday so that us and others can feed back what's happening to those unable to attend. We'll be recording audio during the main part of evening for a future podcast, although I don't think there are any plans to do anything in terms of video.
There's no F1 Debrief show this week, but we hope to have some Joe audio edited out for you over the weekend, so if you're attending the event tomorrow, you can relive it, and if you're not, you can catch up with some more of the man's thoughts.
This week, Turkey Machine has taken up the Thursday Thoughts baton and presents us with this question:
What features or regulations from other racing series would benefit F1, and why?
Immediately, I panicked, because it's no secret that I watch very few other motorsport series unless they have a certain Frenchman in them. That, of course, is my way in, though. The Le Mans 24 Hours has quite a lot of bits and pieces that would be interesting to see featured in F1.
One of the most fascinating concepts that Le Mans introduced recently is the diesel powered cars. The idea has been around for a while, but Audi built the first victory winning diesel for the 2006 race, and the fuel has really taken off since then. Peugeot built a competitor to match, and the pair of them have been going head to head each year without a sniff of petrol.
For every disadvantage the diesel has, particularly being heavy and sluggish, there are advantages, and one that particularly applies to F1 is the fuel economy. With the ban of refuelling coming in for this season and beyond, fuel economy is going to be one of the most important factors of a race. Every drop of liquid on board can add time to a lap, so perhaps a switch to diesel could start a revolution.
Every drop of liquid on board can add time to a lap, so perhaps a switch to diesel could start a revolution.
The other element of Le Mans racing that fascinates me is the pit stops. A car has to be shut off as it refuels, which obviously makes things a lot safer for the personnel involved. F1 has no refuelling at the moment, so that isn't really an important factor, but something worth noting for the future.
There aren't enormous amounts of personnel involved in a Le Mans pit stop, compared to the army of mechanics trained to service an F1 car. A pair of mechanics run round to each corner of the car, changing the tyres. Just two men. It's quite amusing watching them dash around the car, and I think this would add something to F1 pit stops, particularly if there is to be no other action going on.
It would be particularly good if it was the same two men at each team for every race. The pressure would be on them to do a perfect job, we would be able to see who was good and who let the side down. You could even end up learning their names! Making F1 more human was an added bonus I hadn't considered when I thought this idea up.
Of course, the other thing that F1 needs to take from Le Mans is Franck, but I believe that to be a whole other blog post!
It's Friday and that can only mean one thing - time for some fun and games. That is quite literal this week, as due to my forgetful nature, I asked for suggestions in the comments and Gavin came up with this:
Because this week they had 'Young Driver Testing', can you come up with kids' games that they must have played while passing the time between test sessions?
So far we have had suggestions such as Twister and Skittles, based on their performance out on track.
I'd also like to extend the game to things they might have played as kids to try and prepare for their F1 future - such as Monopoly, to hone their business skills in case they ended up facing one of Briatore's contracts! Let us know what toys and games would be useful for an up and coming driver - both in preparation, and to pass the time once they are in the garages.
Also, if you have any suggestions for Friday Fun, you can email me christine at sidepodcast dot com. I'd appreciate it, as I am more than likely to forget again this time next week!
Last week, we introduced the concept of Thursday Thoughts, a question posed here on Sidepodcast to encourage F1 bloggers and writers to publish a few words on the subject. The first question seemed to go down quite well, the experiment was successful despite it's hasty organisation.
This week, we have had a bit of time to prepare, and are giving you plenty of time to think up an answer to today's question. I asked for a couple of suggestions in the comments, and Jackie came up with a great idea:
Who should be the next boss of FOTA?
Now that Luca di Montezemolo has suggested he won't continue with the role for too much longer, as he has himself a proper job, who do you think should take his place?
If you have thoughts on this subject, please post them to your F1 blog and share the link in the comments (even if the pinger gets there first). If you don't have a blog, you can still participate by posting in the comments here or if you've got a lot to say, I'm sure many blogs will be happy for a guest post, or we can publish them here.
I'll be thinking up my answer to the question later today, and we would like to put a deadline on it by about 9pm GMT. Of course, it's not the end of the world if you miss it, but we'll have probably started pondering what next week's question should be by then. Happy blogging!
Maverick and Jackie bring the Pitlane Fanatic Wednesday night quiz to life, as Steven Roy and Journeyer battle it out for a number of rounds. The tension is high, the knowledge is incredible, but who will emerge victorious?
If you've not managed to catch an episode of the Parade Lap this year, you're missing out. It's a show unlike any other we do. Alex takes the reigns, it feels more like a radio show than a podcast, and it goes out live on a Sunday, one hour before the BBC's race coverage starts.
Last week's show was extra special, as we managed a live link-up with Scott who was hiding out behind the grandstands on Silverstone's main straight.
We could detail the complexities involved in setting up such a scenario, but I think Alex summed it up best in this comment, where he points out:
My favourite part of the show was that:
We were on a live link to Silverstone talking to Scott.
And I was sitting on a second live link.
And I read a question from the comments from Lukeh about Heidfeld’s beard.
And Scott knowing the community so well had already asked Heidfeld about the beard and could answer.
Something about the interconnectedness of it all was pretty mind-blowing.
Here's a snippet of the audio in question:
Two Skype links, one iPhone, a live streaming server and a question about a beard!
We've suffered from so many technical gremlins during live broadcasts in the past, that it's remarkable an event like this could ever happen in the first place. I'm sure the BBC aren't exactly shaking in their boots at our achievements, but we're pretty chuffed it all came to together when we needed it to.
A huge thank you has to go out to everybody who took part on Sunday. It cannot be done without you.
This show takes a look at the highlights from the second series of Sidepodpanel - six fun-filled episodes of F1 thoughts, ideas, and impressions, plus a bit of singing thrown in for good measure.
Here are links to the original shows if you want to hear more:
Don't forget, you can find out more about the Sidepodpanel shows both past and present on the wiki. There are pages of statistics, leaderboards, plus many ways for you to get involved.
