Sidepodcast

A First Flying Lap Around the Hockenheimring

After our successful implementation of the F1 Happy Place this week, the memories are flooding back. Here, new guest writer Jim Newman talks us through some time spent at a certain German track.

Credit: Jim Newman

Hockenheim; the site of Rubens Barrichello’s first win and Jim Clark’s last drive. Like many Formula 1 tracks, this one has had it's share of tears shed on the unforgiving tarmac, both in joy and in sadness. On this day in 2005, it was the former.

With the winter snow all melted away and the spring shakedowns completed, it seemed my turbo Nissan 200SX was finally ready for it’s first trip to Hockenheim. Having received a freshly rebuilt motor after I destroyed the last one somewhere between the first and second carousel’s on the Nordschleife, and the one before it while doing autobahn tuning pulls on the A62 (Vettel of ’09 had nothing on me in terms of blowing up motors), the car was running excellently and was in prime shape. I gathered my gear, hopped in my RS13 (the chassis code for my model of 200SX), fired it up and set off from my sleepy village of Miesau-Bruchmuhlbach.

Credit: Jim Newman

We (my roommate and I, we, I mean I don’t have multiple personalities and refer to myself as we) arrived at Hockenheimring early, before the gridding of any cars and decided to kill time while the bikes were still running the track. This site has it’s own race museum so we figured that it was a good a place as any to spend an hour or so. We also wanted to take some time and hang out to see if the weather would clear, as I’m no Senna and prefer dry tarmac.

The race museum, at first glance looked to be quite awesome, until you came up to their cars that were as wooden as George Washington’s teeth (little American humor there for you, we'll see how well this goes over, I mean, if you told me Winston Churchill jokes, I don’t think I’d get them). Some cars were more suitable for a campfire than they were for a Grand Prix.

Credit: Jim Newman

Not Kimi Räikkönen's McLaren.

Their attempts at mockups of cars that did not come from Ikea were also remotely funny.

Credit: Jim Newman

Argh, Hans, this looks nothing like a Ferrari!

Credit: Jim Newman

It's ok, just slap a Michael Schumacher decal on that Formula Ford.

Later on in the exhibit, they finally had some actual vehicles that were not posing as something they weren’t.

Credit: Jim Newman

With our tour of the museum over, we realized so was our wait. It was time to hit the track!

When we arrived in the pit parking lot, we were instantly the center of attention, not because my car was so awesome, but because it was hideously ugly. Performance was all I cared about so I routinely neglected to care about the appearance of my venerable RS13. I stuffed the car into an embankment at Spa several months before, so with the body work required to make it look somewhat presentable, also came a rattle-can paintjob. The car was white on a cloudy day but looked more like a cow (white with black spots) in the sun. Luckily for me, it was still semi-cloudy, so no one on the track had to worry about being hunted down by a turbo bovine beast.

Our cars arranged on the pit lane in grid fashion, we awaited for the pit light to turn green and release us for a parade lap to heat the tires. Weaving back and forth, I took this time to reflect on the memories I’d had of this course. I thought of the many motorsport heroes of mine that had braved the same corners I was about to tackle and felt honored. I thought of Senna, for whom a corner here was once named. I thought of Prost, who was involved with Peroni’s career ending crash here in 1982. I thought about - Well, I thought about how stupid I looked that I was getting overtaken by a Renault Megane because I was I busy day dreaming and didn’t notice that the installation lap was over…

Credit: Jim Newman

With my game face on, I set about tackling the track.

Full throttle to nordkurve, dash of brakes, throw the car in and pray it sticks.

Down to the first hairpin, stab the brakes, rev-match to second, crush the apex, come out of the pocket hot! Through parabolika, rag the motor for all it’s worth, speeds reaching 140mph.

Make sure you didn’t leave your manhood at home as you come to the second hairpin.

Toes firmly planted on the brake, ABS clicking like a hoard of locusts, reach your heel over to find the throttle to blip so you can nab second and shoot out of the corner.

Everything was running through my head, the same way I had envisioned it the previous evening and the many sleepless nights I spent building the car for this moment. My knuckles, scared and scabbed from turning spanners on my motor and suspension, gripped the wheel as my heart raced. It was only my first day on Hockenheim, my first flying lap even, and I was hooked. I’ve driven on many different tracks in many different countries, but this, by far, was and still is my favorite.

Credit: Jim Newman

Welcome back to the Formula 1 calendar, Hockenheimring!

Friday Fun - Selling F1

It's the final Friday Fun for this off-season, and we've had some great ideas over the course of the series. From planning parties to writing job descriptions, we've covered every aspect of F1, but now it's time to turn our attention to the racing about to start.

In the comments, Maverick noticed that there has been very little advertising from the BBC for this season. Last year there were trailers every five minutes, and you couldn't escape the build up. Now, even Chris Moyles isn't talking about it.

So, our last Friday Fun outing for now asks:

How would you promote F1? Who would you use to sell the sport to non-fans? What slogans can you come up with?

As ever, the crazier the idea, the better, but serious suggestions are welcome to. I like the idea of coming up with a slogan for the sport, and for the year ahead.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with Friday Fun so far, all the great ideas we've had, and all who have taken part. Now, get your thinking caps on!

Light at the End of the Tunnel

The debut Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend seems to be progressing nicely. Personally, I have found the sessions to be slightly on the dull side, although the track is very good looking and the facilities appear to be top notch. One thing I have found curious is the lighting situation.

Back when Singapore was announced as the first ever F1 night race, the topic of just how the organisers would light the event was a talking point for weeks. We wanted to know whether they had a backup, what would happen in case of a power cut, if the bulbs went out, if there was some epic disaster that ruined the weekend.

The FIA took the safety of the event very seriously, and monitored the plans at every opportunity. Mika Hakkinen took time out of his busy schedule to head to a short stretch of track weeks before the event, to test out the visibility and viability of the lights. Although it seemed as though everything was in hand, there were still concerns.

One member of each team was sent over to the track to have a look, and see if they could find any potential problems. The drivers spent plenty of time deciding on which visors they would be running with, and whether tinted or clear tear-off strips were the best. In short, there was plenty of fuss, it was the most exciting thing of the year, and we talked about it at great length in advance.

This year, F1 turned up in Abu Dhabi, it got a bit dark, and they switched the lights on. Where was the fuss?

It does make sense that Singapore did such a great job with the lighting, that Abu Dhabi would just be able to copy their setup and be ready to go, but I can't believe there were no worries or thoughts about the lighting before the event got underway.

The twilight aspect of the race has me slightly concerned, only because driving into the sunlight is quite possibly the worst thing I know about being behind the wheel, and I only drive at 70mph. If there was a contingent sent over to Abu Dhabi from each of the teams to investigate the situation, we didn't hear about it. If the track has the same sort of backup system as Singapore, I haven't seen any news reports about it.

To me, the lights don't look as bright, and they don't look quite as consistent as the system in Singapore. However, none of the drivers have complained, and they seem to be quite comfortable driving once it gets dark.

The whole thing strikes me as a bit odd, but perhaps Singapore was so good that all the lessons have been learned already?

Keeping in Touch

Back in 2007, Christine and I attended our first ever Grand Prix. We went to the British GP at Silverstone, and it's fair to say we weren't very prepared. We stayed on site for the full three days, courtesy of Honda, but had no internet connectivity for the duration.

Although Sidepodcast had only been going for a couple of months, it meant we couldn't keep the site up-to-date in our absence, and we couldn't track any breaking news stories either. Predictably, because it's Silverstone, a major story broke on the Friday (on this occasion it was news of Nick Fry's meeting with Stepney / Coughlan), and having no other means of finding out what the heck was going on, we resorting to quizzing Maurice Hamilton for info instead.

_{2007 Honda Scooters}

Twice as Nice

In 2008, we again visited the British Grand Prix, this time having had chance to try out some form of 3G connectivity at the preceding Silverstone F1 test.

Armed with a fairly clunky mobile phone and what felt like a military spec laptop, we set about keeping the site up-to-date, and passing comments about our weekend back to anyone following at home. It wasn't a massive success though, given the laptop lasted barely an hour between charges and the phone struggled once more than 500 comments had been posted.

On returning home, we were faced with what seemed like an endless list of improvements to be made before coming back.

Third Time Lucky

We've already covered in depth changes made this year to our hardware setup. Whilst in the background, Sidepodcast commenting functionality has quietly been improving to the point that it's now perfectly suited to following discussions from the grandstand at Copse - as we discovered when we settled in Friday morning at Silverstone.

During Free Practice one, we found ourselves relaxing with a Kangaroo TV in one hand, live comments in the other, 5Live commentary in our ears and race cars screaming past in front of us. We must've been the most informed people at the circuit. The folks in the media center may have had all the live timing screens in the world, but did they have a group of people watching, contributing and offering insight too?

Better yet, commenting has improved such that it's not just possible to follow, but posting and interacting was a breeze too. I fired off a quick question relating to 5Live's third presenter, and 20 seconds later received three replies that DJ Johnny Walker was in the commentary booth too.

On returning home this year, we came back without any kind of to do list.

_{Sutil Tackles Copse in 2009}

Live commenting just works. It's a fantastic thing to have with you trackside and joining in the fun is free (connectivity costs aside). Should you be interested, there are multiple ways you can contribute to the conversation:

• Live Commenting, Live... Thing - The ideal solution if you're travelling to a race with your laptop (and we spotted a few who do).
• Real-time Doohickey - Perfect for following and commenting if you have a modern hand held device (iPhone, G1, Blackberry etc).
• Real-time Mobile - A page for everyone else (especially anyone with older mobile phones).

There are plenty of races remaining this season, and if you're going to any of them, please don't forget to bookmark those links and comment to us from track. These days we live in a remarkably small world and there's no reason for anyone to feel as disconnected as we did back in 2007.

Keep in touch won't you?

Daily: 2nd May 2009

Heading into the weekend now, apparently it's David Beckham's birthday today. Good to know, hey, fact fans? Anyway, it seems to be a quiet time in F1 at the moment, as teams have a rest before Spain, and digest the budget cap information. Here are some of the things we're talking about at the moment:

• Coulthard can concentrate on his career as a broadcaster now, as Hartley has received the paperwork that will allow him to take on the third driver role at Red Bull. Hands up who's disappointed we didn't get to see DC back in the car if only for a short time?
• The Boston Big Picture (inspiration behind F1 Minute's daily big pic) had an F1 feature yesterday. 31 pictures take a trip back over the last few races and look at some stunning shots. It's good to see that we featured a couple in our big pic as well, meaning that our homage is working out perfectly.
• Finally, if you're craving some racing this weekend, Pat has written up a good guide to what you can look out for over the next couple of days. We're looking at A1GP, Touring Cars, and yes, NASCAR. Pat writes this up frequently, so it's always worth keeping an eye out if you're looking for more wheels to watch.

That'll do it for now. Let us know if you're up to anything exciting this weekend, and equally, let us know if you're up to anything not exciting. Yesterday's daily post saw comments about custard, so it's fair to say that anything goes. I'll see you in the comments.

Just Like Buses

A few days ago, Bourdais appeared to be pondering his future with no secure plans for 2009. In the space of two days, he's been confirmed at Toro Rosso, and now will appear at this year's Le Mans. According to ITV-F1, he'll be the first active F1 driver to appear at the endurance race in... a long time. At first, I was disgusted that they couldn't present an actual fact, but after a little bit of research myself, I forgive them. If anyone can find this out, or remembers, we'll give you a mention.

Update: From the comments, R.G has found: "I’m confirming Franck Montagny, in the break between the 2006 Canadian and British Grand Prix, he took part in the Le Mans event." Not that long ago at all, then.

As a Frenchman, Bourdais has naturally signed up with Peugeot Sport, and the announcement is due on Monday. That's the same Peugeot Sport that Montagny will be driving for as well. Imagine if they were in the same team! That would be some kind of super-Le Mans team. I'd definitely stay awake for that. All it would need is Loeb in the car as well, and I wouldn't even need Red Bull to stay up all night.

The 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans is on the weekend of the 13-14th June, and I'm already planning out the Live Commenting post that will go with it. Bourdais says that if he gets in the car, he plans to win. He's taken part in the event six times already, the most recent (and most successful) in 2007 where he finished second. That must have been before we were aware of him, and before I was interested in 24 hour racing. It's also worth noting that Le Mans is Bourdais' home town, so he should know the event inside out.

Daily: 2nd February 2009

Okay, so where did the weekend go? It's Monday already and yet we're no further on down our to-do list.

It looks like the next twenty-something hours are going to be dominated by the very British subject of the weather. Already drop.io is filling up with images of snowy vistas and there's talk tomorrow of missed school and building snowmen. This clearly isn't going to be a normal Monday by any stretch.

Top subjects up for discussion today include:

• It would appear that Bernie has finally come around to the idea that Europe may be in need of an additional race. According to Grandprix.com, with France almost out of the picture, Germany suffering financially and the British GP anything but secure, Portugal might be an attractive alternate. From what we've seen of testing, it looks like a world class venue, and thus far free from the hand of Tilke. What more could we ask?
• On the subject of circuit design, R.G. has been busy drawing, designing and manipulating some very grand tracks using quikmaps.com. If you're feeling arty, why not jump in with some other European destinations for Ecclestone to consider?
• The Sidepodmusicgroup now counts 32 members amongst its ranks and as a result, Muse pretty much own this weeks chart. If you're a music fan, and don't happen to listen to an excessive amount of Muse, please do join up and help redress the balance next Sunday.

It really is amazing how little F1 news there is at 2:30am on a Monday, however, there's no doubt things will liven up later in the day. Please let us know if you spot anything exciting, keep your snowy pictures coming, and yell especially loud if you're marooned for the day.

An Audience With Mark Webber

There must be something about the off-season that leads us in the direction of Mark Webber. This time last year we ended up dining in his restaurant, and 12 months later we spent an afternoon at Silverstone listening to him talk.

The Porsche Driving Centre, a recent addition to the Silverstone circuit and situated next to Hangar Straight, were running a workshop today called "Fit to Race". In essence this consisted of a number of demonstrations relating to driver performance metrics, from diet and training, to mental preparation and psychology. Mark was in attendance as a guest speaker, offering his take on subjects such as hydration, working out and how he's been coping with a dodgy leg.

The man talked at length in two separate sessions, and we'll no doubt go into more detail in future. Suffice to say, on behalf of all Sidepodcast listeners we put the question of Michael Schumacher's speedy recovery in '99 to Mark and the official word is, he believes he'll match the former World Champion with an eleven week recovery period. How annoyingly diplomatic.

We have to say a huge thank you to Mike Garth, who originally mentioned the workshop on Twitter. Mike was another speaker at Silverstone today (and if we may say so, best after Webber), he specialises in psychology and performance coaching in motorsport, and you can find out more information at Sun1400. As a sideline, he also finds things for Sidepodcast to do during the winter, and we can't thank him enough.

There's so much more to discuss about our day, we met so many fantastic people, we don't know where to begin. We'll cover more in a future podcast, but with the debut of Sidepodchat tomorrow, it may have to wait a while. It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on our Flickr pages during the week though.

Daily: 3rd January 2009

Ah yes, your friendly daily post from Sidepodcast. I've no idea what's going on in the F1 world at present, but thankfully Christine does. According to F1 Minute, newsworthy topics include Paul di Resta and Michael Schumacher. Let us begin then:

• Paul (or PdR if you prefer), says for him Formula One remains a possibility. I don't think there are many people in the world who would begrudge him a drive, but if McLaren don't give him a chance where else do you think he'd fit in, and who would he replace?
• Schumi has suggested that Hamilton may not have been able to bounce back if he'd suffered a second championship loss in Brazil, but are there any past drivers who've come closer, yet still managed to fight back to eventually take the crown?
• Off-topic and in the comments, Trig has asked for thoughts on the evolution of the biscuit, which must be a sidepodfirst. If anyone has any opinion on the matter, please let us know.

Just like always, the daily thread is the best place to discuss anything that doesn't belong anywhere else on the site. Do shout if you find any exciting F1 related news, because it's a bit thin on the ground at the moment.

Can You Hear What I Hear?

A few minutes ago, I was busily running back through all of the live comments we missed out on during the weekend, when I came across a short sentence from Scott posted during Friday's first session. The statement left me completely gobsmacked and admittedly I reacted quite strongly, so much so in fact I thought I needed a full post on the subject.

Quite Loud

This year, Christine and I attended our second ever Formula 1 race, Christine also attended her first F1 test just last week. Occasionally in the past we've also been present during a number of F1 demo runs. All of these things are important, because they involve exposure to either a running V8 or a running V10 engine and those things can be quite loud.

How loud? Well roughly speaking, at full pelt a modern F1 engine creates between 120 and 140 decibels of loudness. By comparison a normal conversation measures approximately 60 decibels. According to the UK Noise Association, human hearing can be damaged through sustained exposure from levels over 85db (although it can vary depending on the situation and the individual).

What this means is that standing close to a Formula 1 car whilst it's running at full speed can very easily cause some form of hearing loss, whether temporary or more permanent. The more frequently you attend races, tests or demo runs and the closer you get to the action, the more damage you're likely to be doing.

Given this information, it should be obvious that every single person attending a Formula 1 race should use ear protection. In fact on the reverse of this weekends entrance ticket the following advice is provided:

You are advised to wear hearing protection during races...

Although admittedly it's written in such small text, it's unlikely you'd ever notice it unless you were specifically looking for it as I just was.

Say What?

Regardless of how much noise an F1 car makes, in my opinion the biggest danger to your hearing at a race is other members of the public brandishing air horns.

I don't want to come across as a great big party pooper, but air horns are one of the most foolish and annoying inventions ever to grace this earth. They're loud, obnoxious and entirely pointless and we're seriously thinking of starting a campaign to ban them from the face of the Formula 1 planet.

I cannot imagine what goes through the mind of any human being who decides to pay good money to make everybody else's life miserable, but I'm damn sure they must be some pretty sick and twisted individuals.

The above information alone however, shouldn't be enough to warrant a reaction from me that involves insulting a commentor on this site, so let me give you my story.

I Must be Hearing Things

A very long time ago, when I was maybe 15 years old, I tried out for a band. It was the sort of band that played chart music and as I was playing the Bass guitar it meant the main focus of my attention revolved around the drummer. A small drum kit happens to be quite loud too, approximately 100db or thereabouts.

We practised for a couple of hours in a small room, and at the end of the rehearsal it was announced I was good enough to join the fray and thus I became their new Bass player. However, a couple of hours after our first meeting I noticed a distinct ringing in my ears that wasn't there previously. It sounded a bit like a very high pitched, albeit distant kettle boiling and to cut a very long and protracted story short, it turns out I had Tinnitus.

If you're not aware of this phenomenon, you can read the full details on Wikipedia. What I will say though is it's bloody annoying and I wouldn't wish it on anyone especially if it can be avoided due to plain common sense.

Say That Again

So, what has this to do with F1? Well a drum kit, played intermittently between much discussion, simply wrecked my hearing, probably for life. A drum kit is 20db quieter than a single F1 engine, let alone 20 of the things running past in close quarters.

Exposing yourself to the noise of these cars is self inflicted noise trauma, and could very likely damage your hearing either temporarily or forever. Repeated exposure produces cumulative hearing loss and if 20 cars zooming past for the best part of 90 minutes isn't repeated exposure, I don't know what is?

Self Preservation Society

Protecting yourself at Formula 1 races is simple. You can purchase ear plugs (usually small pieces of foam), or ear defenders (which look like oversized headphones) from any hardware store prior to a race. Additionally some stands sell these inside the venue, although at vastly inflated prices.

Sadly safety equipment manufacturers insist on making both of the above look unsightly (often luminous) due to their usual employment in the industrial trades. I really wish teams would take a proactive stance in this area and start producing branded plugs / defenders so that fans can buy these things along with their caps and t-shirts. It might help take a vast amount of the stigma away that's associated with wearing these things.

The initial effects of my Tinnitus have subsided a little over time, mostly because these days I am super careful about these things and literally carry ear plugs (plus spares) everywhere I go. Additionally I've versed Christine in the dangers and try to carry spares for her too.

I apologise if this post comes across as preachy or condescending. I don't know why I haven't tackled it sooner, and I apologise to Scott for jumping off at the deep end. Your comments and experiences, as always are very much welcomed on this subject.