Brouhaha At The Rack & Pinion

Ye Olde Rack & Pinion pub was recently the scene of a particularly vigorous commotion generated by the F1 faction that meets there regularly to debate the finer points of the sport that Neville Tyrebyter calls ‘the world’s fastest soap opera.’ Since Neville and the rest of the R&P regulars were bored with the lack of racing at this time of year their always noisy discussion, fueled by copious quantities of Burst Headgasket bitter and Cracked Piston ale, soon deteriorated into an almighty uproar that rattled the rafters of the ancient drinking establishment that in days of yore was a coaching inn of some ill repute.

Nev Tyrebyter (prone to beery exaggeration) detonated the fireworks by claiming that the second fastest thing in F1 (after Lewis Hamilton's Merc) is a rumour speeding through  the paddock. Nev (whose second cousin was once a gopher for a long defunct F3 team) said a red hot rumour travels at only slightly less than the speed of light (186,000 miles a second). According to Nev, what begins as a lukewarm gossip item, such as Driver A being seen entering Team B's motorhome/brandcentre, tends to be on a collision course with reality. Though Driver A may have only be using Team B's toilet for an emergency pit stop, the truth quickly becomes warped from severe heat buildup. By the time it reaches the far end of the paddock, rumour has it that Driver A has signed with Team B for 50 million dollars.  Nev blamed the ‘embedded’ F1 media for this sorry state of affairs, claiming that the impoverished hacks who follow the F1 wars are jealous of all the money everybody else makes in the world’s most expensive sport so they concentrate on gossip-mongering and try to transform the drivers into noteworthy personalities, which is a lost cause because modern drivers have none.

Furthermore, ranted Rupert Mainbearing (who has a crumpled photocopy of his hero Colin Chapman’s autograph), the media clowns in the F1 circus can’t comprehend the sport’s technical complexities so they use journalistic vitriol to make F1 heroes into villains. This factor, bellowed Rupert, is a product  of  the notorious feet-of-clay syndrome in which the media builds up images in order to tear them down. Never mind, roared a now red-faced Rupert, F1 is indeed peopled with dastardly villains and turbocharged loathing is the prime motivating force in the sport.

Tyrone Conrod, a longtime F1 fan (he’s 87 years old) who considers himself an authority on the media (he once had a letter published in Gearloose, a  long gone racetech magazine ), provoked an even more heated debate by contending that the most outrageous speculation is started by the idiotic gossipmongers who pontificate on the internet, even though they have never been within a million miles of an actual Grand Prix. Ty,  a confirmed luddite who believes the electronic media is making the world stupider faster,  compared the nuts on the net to pyromaniacs who ignite blazes for fun.  According to the venerable Ty, these blithering arsonists generate more horsepower (these may not have been his exact words as his speech tends to slur when he’s tipsy) with their their mouths than an historic red-lined Matra V12 engine.  Furthermore, Ty shouted, the internet-generated idiocy is dumbing down the sport because most of the electrified geeks can’t write and are talking to people who can’t read. (Ty, who once belonged to a rock group called The Gas Filled Struts, may have been paraphrasing Frank Zappa’s famous tirade against rock journalism)

By this time the tumult in the F1 corner of the Rack & Pinion resembled a frenzied pit lane scrum for an interview with Bernie Ecclestone. Hubert Headgasket, the increasingly flustered publican (Hubert brews the heady Burst Headgasket bitter in the R&P cellars) eventually restored order by waving a yellow and red flag (occasioned by Tyrebyter spinning out on some spilled beer on a pit stop trip to the loo) and threatening everyone with retroactive suspension.

Everyone ordered more brew and settled back into their cups. Tyrone Conrod tried to calm things down  by employing a Safety Car measure in the form of a F1 quiz, a familiar tactic that met with groans all around, since only Ty ever knew the answers to his obscure questions. The quiz quickly fizzled out when nobody responded to his query as to which driver wore lucky red underpants. (Ty said it was Alan Jones).

Rupert Mainbearing, now more subdued having quenched his personal fires with yet another pint of Burst Heagasket, opined that since most F1 designers don’t know what they’re doing as soon as one innovative wizard stumbles upon a go-faster item: Presto! - quicker than you can say Adrian Newey - - the gimmick is repeated in every chassis along pit lane. F1 design is such a black art that even if the tweak doesn't work no one can afford not to try it. The speed at which the pit lane industrial espionage agents work would shame MI5, the CIA, - even Putin's updated KGB. In fact, with the superpowers now mostly in a peace mode, Rupert contended that certain of the richer teams are using the services of redundant spies.

Neville Tyrebyter wondered if anyone else had heard about the driver caught canoodling in a motorhome with the team manager’s lady friend. And how about the team suspected of experimenting with Vaseline petroleum jelly as an aerodynamic aid. Rupert said he had it on good authority that an illegal downforce gizmo had been found hidden in the decals of a certain driver’s helmet. Tyrone Conrod then revealed the latest rumour about Goatherd, the Swiss cheesemaker, seeking to become a F1 team sponsor. According to Ty the terms of the deal would require the entire team to be decked out in the puce and chartreuse Goatherd corporate colours, while the cars’ bodywork and the drivers’ suits would be perforated with holes to further identify with the sponsor’s product and that Goatherd is developing a special cheese-scented oil additive that will enable the cars to emit a gorgonzola aroma at F1 tracks around the world. Nev countered this revelation with news that Egbert Amok, a 15-year-old Bulgarian kart racer, had secured the necessary budget for a full F1 season. He was now shopping for a ride with a team that would feature a unique fuel supplied by his major sponsor. Nev said that Bulgarian State Prune Juice intended to use its product to run Amok...

At this point Hubert Headgasket called time and the Rack & Pinion's bleary-eyed F1 contingent lurched out into the rainy night



The Rack & Pinion (formerly the Horse's Gonads) now hosts fierce F1 debates (Hart Archives Picture)