Thursday, August 11, 2005
FUEL CONSUMED
Every so often the carefully-managed faux-mainstream image falls away and Greens reveal what they really think. Here’s Greens senator Bob Brown:
“Otherwise you have enormous problems of bootlegging, boundaries that can be crossed by people who want to make money out of the miserable business of selling petrol.”
Petrol retailers should refuse to serve him, or any of his colleagues. After all, if selling petrol is a “miserable business”, how much worse is it to buy petrol, thus encouraging this despicable trade? No wonder Nationals senator Julian McGauran was moved to gesture at Brown yesterday in Parliament. Poor Bob was outraged:
“It was a disgusting display of arrogance against the chamber and against our democratic system.”
Easily upset, isn’t he? In other petrol-chomping news, organisers of the upcoming Lexmark Indy 300 recently flew a bunch of us media folk to the Gold Coast for some PR fun. Cumberland Newspapers photographer Daniel Aarons and I missed our Sunday morning flight (JetStar closes flights earlier than other airlines; if you’re ever bored at an Australian airport—what are the odds?—go hang out at the JetStar counter and enjoy the furious reaction of customers when told it costs an extra $50 to get on the next available plane. Daniel actually paid for one guy’s fee, such was his concern at the fellow’s rage). On-time Gold Coast arrivees enjoyed a helicopter ride to Queensland Raceway. We got there in a rented Nissan.
Which was good practice for Monday’s Big Kart Race. We were pitted against actual racing driver David Besnard, who obligingly started last. He overtook most of the field in the first corner, led by the second, and thereafter dropped back to watch us wannabes trip over each other, overtaking at will whenever he got bored. The Newcastle Herald’s Brent Davison, a very skilled driver with some race experience, eventually won after my last-lap passing move ended in dreadful violence (Besnard, who is very polite, later described the attempt as “ambitious”).
Heartbreakingly, timing sheets revealed that Besnard’s quickest lap was four seconds faster than me and Davison. Training was needed. Holden’s Performance Driving Centre has a skidpan with a difference—it includes a big fat rotating steel disc that shoots you off in all manner of fascinating directions:
Get it wrong and you end up somewhere near Cairns. The centre also has a racetrack, race instructors, and race machines; they’re like civilian-friendly V8 Supercars, with 350 horsepower or so, race suspension, Hollinger gearboxes, monster brakes, and Michelin slicks. They’re a delight, especially gearbox-wise. You know how road transmissions, even in sports cars, always have some lateral play? Nothing in these. No spring-loading, either, which makes it easy for hopeless Bulletin staffers to miss upchanges. This is a third-gear sweeper; close examination may reveal the White Knuckles of Desperation in advance of a (somehow held) roll-oversteer exit:
Much thanks to Daniel for the photographs, Indy 300 people for the hospitality, and, as always, Senator Bob Brown for the inspiration.