Anyone here understand Territory-speak?

[RaceTime]

Just received a package from the Northern Territory extolling the virtues of next years V8 SoupCar round in Darwin..read read read, turn page, read read read and come to this on page 3...

Super V8 Saturday
Those who witnessed the fabulous specitcal last year...

Can anyone tell me what a specitcal is please?

[Ray Bell]

Ah yes, this is an old one... I'd almost forgotten it!

Seems that some old lady in a typing pool somewhere, wearing he best one-piece, used to get confused about the words for the male genitalia. One day someone wanted to have the word 'spectacle' included in a paragraph and she went off her brain!

The upshot of it was that a circular was sent around the office (of course, it missed out on the square corners) verifying that the used of the word 'spectacle' was no longer allowed or they'd lose the sight of this old shiela in her one piece dripping with sweat in the Darwin typing pool.

It became necessary, therefore, to make up a special new word to replace 'spectacle'... and there you have your explanation.

There were other words that came to be changed too. One day I'll dig out the special 'Water Buffalo's guide to modern Northern Territory Language' and see if it's survived the mold problem all paper enjoyed in pre-air conditioned Darwin in the wet season.

You do know, of course, that November is known in Darwin as, alternatively, 'The Build Up' (before the rains come...); The Suicide Season and finally, 'The Silly Season.'

[Buckshot]

Bugger what Super V8 Saturday means - I want someone to explain what the hell Ray just said !

[RaceTime]

Wot ray sud maid poifect senc - didinit ray?

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by RaceTime
Wut ray sed maid poifect cens - didi'nit ray?

Of Coors...

[elephino]

I've seen worse from somewhere....

[Crash Test]

I'm sitting here thinking "yeah, the V8 race on Saturday from Darwin wasn't much chop, Racetime is right to be having a dig at this blatent false advertising......oh....".

[RaceTime]

Originally posted by Crash Test
I'm sitting here thinking "yeah, the V8 race on Saturday from Darwin wasn't much chop, Racetime is right to be having a dig at this blatent false advertising......oh....".

Listen here you...I didn't make the spelling mistake!

[Crash Test]

Sorry, I'm becoming hard of seeing in my old age (bugger me, I lose teenage status in about 20 days!)....

I saw a sticker on the back of some pretty boy racer in a car park the other other night that said "wicked", but I misread it as saying "********"....

[RaceTime]

You're forgiven - this time <g>

Hmmmm makes me think I should have checked the rear of the XR8 that ran up the back of the Tarago coming home from Phillip Island Sunday night ('I wasn't watching you - I was watching the driver of the car behind me'....Bang! One Vee shaped tow bar on the Tarago and a totally demolished front XR8 plastic bumper!

[Crash Test]

What's that? Large vehicles with bull cars and tow bars are more likely to be involved in fatal accidents? Fatal to the people in the other car...

Apologies, and all credit goes to Bart Simpson for that one...

So he turned yer tow bar into a Formula Vee? I suppose that wouldn't be hard to do! Here is a pic of a Formula Vee that was recently turned into a tow bar!

[RaceTime]

Eeeeeyuch - how was the driver? (And his transmitter?)

[Crash Test]

The wreck belonged to former National Champ Doug Angus. The crash happened during the first heat of the 2001 Nats at QR. He was t-boned at turn four by another car. Luckily Doug is a fairly skinny sort of a bloke, and the rescue crews were able to sort of twist him out of the wreckage. He was put in the ambulance and taken to the medical center where they put a bit of tape around his knee. But he was back walking in no time, and fit enough to get his ex-racecar onto the trailor!

Let this be a lesson to use cross bracing on the floor of your Formula Vee. The Bee Cee Jabiru was designed by former McLaren man Barry Lock, and it is a very strong and very quick race car. But it didn't have any form of bracing on the floor, which certainly didn't help in this incident...

Here's another pic

[Ray Bell]

Doug is skinny?

That's news... and the years should have padded him out somewhat too... he was the winner of the Nationals in about 1977 or something, how long has he been out of Vees? And how long back in them?

By the way, there is no National Champion in Vee racing in Australia... the 'Nationals' are a one-off race called the 'National Challenge' and carry no official title.

[Crash Test]

That's another fantastic CAMSinism that doesn't see any state level classes worthy of having a National Championship....then again, money talks.

The title that QR gave the meeting was "Formula Vee Nationals", and the race was called the "2001 Formula Vee National Challenge Final", so you've got me there.

Yeah, Doug looked pretty skinny, although saying that, he might have shat a few bricks with the other car bearing down on him at a fantastic rate!

[RaceTime]

Originally posted by Crash Test
That's another fantastic CAMSinism that doesn't see any state level classes worthy of having a National Championship....then again, money talks.

The title that QR gave the meeting was "Formula Vee Nationals", and the race was called the "2001 Formula Vee National Challenge Final", so you've got me there.

Most state categories manage to have one meeting a year called The Naitonals - Formula Vee have had them this year (can't recall the circuit though), HQ's were at Hidden Valley in September and Improved Production had theirs last weekend at Symmons Plains.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Crash Test
That's another fantastic CAMSinism that doesn't see any state level classes worthy of having a National Championship....then again, money talks.

Actually, you're wrong there... particularly the comment about money, and consider that there was never (and really still isn't) any such thing as a 'state level class'. Let's look at the history:

Vees came in as a 'low cost' class in 1965 (yeah, 1965... I watched it happen!) and were adopted by the CAMS in toto from the American rulebook... well, there might have been some small changes, but not many.

CAMS' wisdom at the time was: "Let's ensure the costs don't get out of hand, determine that there be no National title for them so that there will be no pressure to go interstate all the time and run up big travelling bills."

I agree with that principle, and so did everyone at the time. Later the same applied to other categories... Clubmans for example.

But the Vee Association, I think the Victorian Association, found a loophole. The wording of the title... "Let's call it a National Challenge, one race, PIARC will host the event, it'll be great!"

And it was. Note that all of this started in CAMS' backyard in Melbourne. Every aberration does. In time it spread to Clubmans and to HQs, but along the way the history was forgotten and the word 'challenge' was dropped from time to time.

Has the Vee Nationals become a series? If so, they have gone full circle to destroy the original intent of that fairly reasonable rule. I doubt that the CAMS will have backed it, however, so it's only a Club thing (or an Association thing, at least...)... or have they just had qualifying events in each State?

[RaceTime]

Ray,

No the Nationals haven't become a series - each category hold one Nationals meeting a year.

However - the Formula Vee Association are now holding a series of specials - Super Series I think they are calling it from memory. This is taking the form of a meeting being held at various circuits with - and someone correct me if I am wrong here - the top runners from various states being invited to run

[Ray Bell]

Of course, we're well off topic now, and the old chook with the one-piece has never even heard of a Formula Vee!

[Crash Test]

The thing is that all of these State level classes (ie, those that don't have national championships or series to themselves, that regularly run at State level race meetings all over the country) seemingly all have these 'Nationals' race meetings. Fvee, and Sports 1300 had their in QLD, HQs at Hidden Valley and Improved Production at Symmons Plains etc.

Not everyone goes to these events and bankrupt themselves, generally only people who are competitve and have the cash to do it properly travel interstate. So where's the harm in giving them some formal recognition?

[RaceTime]

Because by calling them a National Championship the *******s at CAMS treble the permit fee for doing SFA in terms of additional work - IOW a complete rip off

[Crash Test]

Ah of course...

Does anyone know the difference in permit fees for a State Championship meeting and a club meeting?? It aint small...

[RaceTime]

Between $5,000 and $15,000 depending on how many CAMS hangers on errrr Officials have to go along

[Vandas]

The licensing fees to run a National Series for a class are ridiculous.

Therefore classes like Improved Production run Tri-State Series Events, and the one meeting Nationals.

You still award a National Champion and keep the costs down.

Strange though that the Improved Production Racing Association decided to hold the Nationals on the same weekend as Island Magic (which hosted the third and final round of the Tri-State Series).

Island Magic had 53 Improved Production cars entered.

The Nationals had 27.

Bad move, but good to see there are still strong fields on the same weekend in two states.

[Crash Test]

I asee Roger Hurd won...was there any chance at all of anyone knocking him off anyways, especially at his home track? I see Morriss and Ambrose (whose car made quite a stir when he was up here a few months ago....any word on IP minimum weights?) competed but failed to finish.

QLD also had the final round of our IP Championship on the 25th, thus none of our guys made the trip down. Next year, the Nationals will be at QR, will you be coming up Vandas?