Good Ole Boys

[Fax]

I see that Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are going to share a Crawford Chevy powered prototype with Andy Wallace at the Daytona 24 Hours this year.  Hope they let Andy start the car because after the Rushville Rocket and Little E get their mits on it, should be a smouldering pile of shattered carbon fiber.  I give it four hours tops.
John

[mgmark]

At least a shattered heap of carbon fibre would be marginally better for the morale of the non-driving team mates than watching your starting driver go piling past the pits on yet another hot lap only to run out of fuel, a la Biela.....

Another "Good Ole Boy" variety to watch out for at the moment, to see how long he lasts, is Mr Communication himself, Colin McRae,  on the Dakar that started yesterday.  

[Fax]

Couldn't agree more.  Would rather see the car trashed because you teamates were driving the wheels off of it (which they certainly will do) than watch a perfectly healthy car roll to a stop out of petrol.  I was watching that live on TV when it happened and about made me sick for the Audi UK guys.  As for Colin & Dakar?
Colin has always seemed to be from the Ari Vatanen school of win or leave it waded up in the trees trying.  Doesn't bode well for a month long rally.
John

[mgmark]

I was watching....made me sick for the Audi UK guys.  As for Colin & Dakar?   Colin has always seemed to be from the Ari Vatanen school of win or leave it waded up in the trees trying.  Doesn't bode well for a month long rally.

I don't know exactly what the reaction to Mr Biela was when he finally got back to the team, but I imagine that the air wasn't full of compliments about sound judgement.   As to the Dakar, British Eurosport is carrying daily coverage of the event every day - hurrah! - so it will soon become apparent if Mr McRae or others encounter rally-terminating problems, self-inflicted or otherwise.   That said, for the WRC driver of today, the Dakar is a massive challenge - stage mileage driven on 18 consecutive days that is the equivalent of more than that driven in 2 full WRC championships, plus about 10,000km of transiting between stages.......the transit from yesterday's stage just to get to the ferry to Africa from Algeciras yesterday was over 850km..... The 2004 motorsport season has started  

[dryhen]

My Dear Fax -

MacRae and Vatman are team mates on the Dakar, although not sharing the same car !  Who is going to Pickup the pieces (pun intended) ? !

[Fax]

It really will be very interesting to see how Colin fares in the type of event.  Ari Vatanen over the years has become quite an expert at the long "Raid" type of rally, which is pretty remarkable when you think about the sort of driving style he used to display on WRC events, one of the great acrobats of the Group B era.  He seems to have mellowed nicely with the years, being a MEP for Finland and all.  A former work colleague of mine does some SCCA club rallying and he worked some of the old US rounds of the WRC back in the eighties, he says that Ari is one of the nicest blokes he's ever met in motorsports.
John

[mgmark]

he says that Ari is one of the nicest blokes he's ever met in motorsports

Thats the impression that he has always given and as a result he doesn't suffer from the "image" problems that his team mate did/does.