With my last Talk Motorsport column of the year coinciding with Christmas Eve this year a Yuletide theme was a no-brainer.
What to write, or rather, ‘how’ to structure what I was going to write then became the issue…until I had an epiphany of sorts and decided to borrow the basic concept behind one of the festive season’s most perennially annoying carols, the ’12 days of Christmas’ ‘song.’
But, but, but. Because I don’t think even I could wade through the ‘Full Monty’ of 12 I decided to limit myself to six (going on seven!)
Here goes.
Day 1: ‘On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me…… a partridge in a pear tree…..OK! We don’t have to do this quite literally though the partridge/pear tree is arguably the most important one mentioned in the whole song cycle because the repetition always returns to it. The last word really has to rhyme with ‘tree,’ too! So let’s kick things off with…’On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me….. ‘a contract for Hayden Paddon to drive the best rally car regardless of make, money and politics….in the 2020 WRC!
Day 2: And in theory it should get easier but it doesn’t, particularly when – on the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me…..two turtle doves….. What? But again – because its #2 we’ve got to be talking about one of New Zealand motorsport’s highest achievers. Who better then, than 2019 Bathurst winner and now two-time Virgin Australia Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin, who has just married his true love (immediate white dove association there) and who could always do with another pair of ……….racing gloves!
Day 3: ‘Sure that one’s a bit cheesy, but with another 5 to go I’m betting now that it won’t be the only one with a distinct smell of cheese about it.
Ergo….On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me, three French hens……which is another hard-ish one to initially get your head around until you let your subconscious do your thinking for you and it comes up with the name Liam Lawson… Young Liam is one or our brightest stars who this year enjoyed a race-winning early run in the 2019 Euroformula F3 Open class….in France. He qualified third quickest and won the first race of the season then put it on pole but slipped back to fourth in the second.
Even more impressive, however, was his performance at the second round on this this year’s Euroformula F3 Open series at the storied Pau street race circuit in France’s far south-west. There, on an unforgiving temporary street race circuit which has been used since 1935, the young Pukekohe ace qualified on pole and duly won the first race. Liam then completed a third weekend racing in France, at the second round of the 2019 FIA F3 championships at Le Castellet (Paul Ricard) in June with a best finish of fifth in the second race.
But hens? OK let’s cheat a little and do some word association. Hens, Ben’s, Ken’s….hang on a minute the company which revolutionised the way we write, Bic, is a French company that makes – amongst a million other things, Pens…..so that’s our link. On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me three French Pens………….
Day 4: ‘On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, four calling birds. Ha. This one’s easy though sadly because Formula 4 promised so much yet has – in my humble opinion – failed to deliver, particularly in our little neck of the woods. You only have to cast your eyes across the Tasman to see that.
Like here, Australia has a thriving – let’s call it club-plus – State and ‘National’ level Formula Ford scene, which effectively feeds aspiring young professional drivers straight into a Supercar.
In theory CAMS ‘bought a franchise’ for the F4 class to try and replace the domestic but still club-based Formula 3 series with something kids could either jump straight into after karts, or offer up as a more sophisticated ‘wings and slicks’ alternative to the seemingly inevitable suck into the vortex which is ‘Supercars’
Unfortunately, no one seemed to seek ‘buy-in’ from paying punters (or their Dads) let alone the ‘paying public’ and despite some key support slots at Aussie’s biggest motorsport events the class struggled to get traction. To be fair the cars suffered from too much mechanical and aero grip which made the racing processional, and unlike our own Castrol TRS, there was no ‘manufacturer’ either directly associated with the series, or indirectly doing series PR for its own reasons.
Contrast that with the privately-conceived, planned, funded and now up-and-running S5000 series for V8-powered ‘wings-and-slicks’ single-seaters and you have a textbook example of why governing bodies should govern and not (never, EVER) dip a toe into the primordial swamp that is promotion….of categories, drivers, whatever
So, on the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me three calling birds…. all singing the same sad song, that their mate, Formula 4 is a dead duck!!
Day 5: ‘On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me…. five gold rings…………..Bugger. Why does it have to be five? If it had been four, I could have talked about the radical V8-powered DFM Audi (four rings in the badge, get it?) A5 Endurance racing weapon which Jono Lester and Matt Dovey have just put on the track. But I can’t. Nor, really, can I mention the TCR class and Audi’s v. cool TCR. But hang on a minute, hasn’t Scott Dixon won five IndyCar titles? So, problem solved. On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, five gold rings. To remind me of the five heady years I looked after Scott’s press and media relations.
Day 6: ‘On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six geese a-laying…Eh? Don’t worry, this isn’t as hard as you (and I, brother, you & I!) might have initially thought, because I’ve known the odd ‘goose’ (the late, great Ashley Stichbury’s catch-all term for an ‘idiot,’ in particular for fellow racers – how can I put this? – whose egos often wrote cheques their skill sets couldn’t quite match’). With six eggs, of course, you run the risk of going hungry if you put them all in one basket. In saying that I don’t think I can name one racing driver or motorcycle racer who hasn’t risked all by doing just that.
So on the sixth day of Christmas I’ll dedicate those six goose eggs to all those fantastic drivers who have risked all to advance their careers…..
Day 7: On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me… seven swans a swimming……Another easy one, because I can’t even think the number seven without word-associating it with the simply letters R & X that seem, such a natural fit in front. Once I’ve done that the floodgates open and the memories tumble and eddy down the spillway of time….of just sitting in the Fuelstar Mazda RX7 on the dummy grid waiting to head out onto a track….of my first fastest lap (at Teretonga) and first race win (at what we now call Mike Pero Motorsport Park). Then second race win (at Levels) and first time I was interviewed about such a feat….And as you can probably tell, the list can go on and on.
So yeah, on the seventh day of Christmas the swans can do what they like, given any opportunity I’ll reminisce about my season and a bit racing the Fuelstar Mazda RX7 in the Pyrotect South Island RX7 Series…..till the cows come home!
Time to wrap this little Chrissy flight of fancy up, though.
May I wish all Talk Motorsport readers a merry old Christmas and happy-as New Year.
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