Neil Smalley

Reproduced from the Sunday Times Website

"Real men get muddy, while the nancy boys get the girls

IF YOU'D gone to the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago with one of those electronic damp testers that estate agents use, it would have shown the track was moist. There had been a light shower the previous month and some of the precipitation was still hanging around, albeit in underground caves about 2,000ft below the pits.
So obviously, the nancy-boy drivers, who are only paid eleventy million pounds a year, decided it would be best to start the race behind the safety car. I mean, left to their own devices, anything could have happened. They might all have bumped into one another at the first corner. Someone's hair-do could have been damaged.

It was pathetic. If you're going to remove the most exciting part of the race in the name of accident prevention, why not go the whole hog and stay behind the safety car right to the end? Better still, why not simply get out of the car and run?

I love Formula One, partly because of the glamour and bravery, but also because of the sense that during the ad break, anything could happen. One day we'll get back to the action and Martin Brundle will tell us that, while we were away, Murray Walker exploded.

But without that snooker break, scatter-gun start, Formula One will become as dull as rallying, a sport where Juhujuhukakakakinan and Hujuhuhikkkkkkkkki drive past men in bobble hats.

I used to go and watch it when I was younger, but it's amazing how quickly you tire of having your face pebble-dashed by cars that are invisible save for their headlights. It's cold, too, and at some point in the night, you're sure to fall over and get mud in your sandwiches.

Rallying is a dirty, frostbitten pursuit for people who can't even spell girlfriend. So I was a little disappointed to find last week that I had to go all the way to Cumbria to see Ford's new rally HQ and then, after lunch, drive Colin McRae's Focus through a wood.

The first surprise came when the rally team sent a shiny helicopter to pick me up, and the second when it landed in the grounds of what appeared to be Buckingham Palace. It was quite the largest, most sumptuous house I'd ever seen, and tacked on to the back was an equally vast, equally luxuriant workshop where they appeared to be making brass fondue sets. And all so that they can put a rollcage and a big turbo in a Ford Focus.

Lunch, in the best rallying tradition, was fish and chips. Then they strapped me into a car and I set off up what an Ordance Survey map would call a footpath (disused).

In less than a second, the dash went red, signalling that I must change into second. No need to use the clutch, you just pull a big handle and, bang, the dash went green again. But only for another second and then it was time for third.

This meant I was doing probably doing 60mph in a wood with a 100ft drop to my left and a million elephant pines to my right. And up ahead there was a corner so, obviously, I needed to slow down. In fact, I slowed down so much that someone watching on a geostationary satellite feed would have sworn on their mother's grave that I wasn't moving at all.

But I must have been, because when I turned the wheel the back started to slide toward that 100ft drop. I knew, of course, that I should have steered into the skid and stamped on the throttle, but my right leg has no power of rational thought and refused to obey instructions from my ego. Mercifully, it hit the brake.

It happened on the next corner, too, and the one after that. Each time I turned the wheel, even a fraction of an inch, the back just set off in the direction of gravity and, so far as I could tell, there was no way to make it come back in line.

Rally drivers apparently like what is known as a loose rear, which must mean that, to find future stars, team managers have to hang around airports and supermarkets, scouting for talent among those who round up the trolleys.

If you think you're a bit handy with a car, get a job in Formula One. They'll pay you a considerable amount of money, give you a girlfriend with colossal breasts and stop the race if you need a wee. Whereas in rallying, you will be nailed to the seat of an atomic car that has a mind of its own and expected to drive at 100mph through a blizzard.

This afternoon, Colin will be in Cyprus battling for the world championship with a fellow Brit, Richard Burns, and Juhuhuhuhuhu. But we'll all be watching the nancy boys in Monza. Why? Well, rallying doesn't really work on the picture wireless because the TV companies can only afford five cameramen and, with the best will in the world, that's not enough to cover the 5,000 corners. Pity."

MarkF

Dunno where Clarkson thought he was going in the car. I've been up the track they used dozens of times and the 100ft drop is, in reality about 20ft! Its just a fairly straght forward forest track with a bit of broken tarmac thrown in. Must admit Dovenby Hall looks a bit different from when it housed another kind of nutters!
nice to hear how journo's describe areas that you know well isn't it?