A slightly bastardised line from the Blues Brothers, certainly relevant for this weekend in Adelaide. F*ck me! It has been non-stop noise from the air and the track as the Clipsal 500 invades the parklands near my sleepy suburb (even sleepy by Adelaide standards, which is close to comatose). The cars are a low din. The helicopters every 2 minutes of the day (i am not kidding) are a pain. The F-18 is just stupidly noisy, but quite awesome - draw a straight line from the start / finish straight, which is what the planes follow, and there is our house. Well, actually, that's a lie. It's the neighbours house. Cant imagine you would have much chance getting out of the way of a bomb dropped from 300ft or so - they are out of sight before you know what's happened. It came over 3 times on the weekend smack bang in the middle of the kids' sleep, although somehow didn't wake them up!?
Of course, dear comrades, it wasn't always that I was aghast at the stupidity of motor racing. My trip to the San Marino GP in 1988 (eek!) was a long held dream come true. The great Ayrton Senna won in a McLaren, but died at the same track 6 years later. My most vivid memory was crowd favourite Michele Alboreto stalling his Ferrari before the race started and was relegated to last place. The collective groan (and screams of distress) from 120,000 or so Ferrari-mad Italians might have even drowned the sounds of the Adelaide airshow? And weren't the fashions just so fab!?!
Yes, these were the days of Senna v Prost with Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell mere alsorans. Cars still had clutches and gear sticks. McLaren won every race except for Gerhard Berger and Alboreto getting a 1-2 for Ferrari at the Italian GP at Monza. The crowd and nation went wild! Pathetic!But perhaps not as pathetic as the Reds, it would seem. Dear me. Craw must be going spare and that TV be getting a right talking to, perhaps at a slightly lower volume so as not to wake the Benjamin?
Hope the weekend treated you all well and that any golf scores were worth talking about.
Til next time
Lord
