A biweekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird:
F1 Champion Niki Lauda dies, aged 70
We all thought he was invincible. Legendary Austrian F1 racer Niki Lauda cheated death in a fiery crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix, coming back to nearly win the championship despite severe burns. He won next year for Ferrari, and in 1984 for McLaren.
Not a bad record for a guy who was given last rites. He would forever be physically scarred by that fire, but he seemed not to care. His leathery visage, always topped by a red baseball cap, was a constant presence at every F1 race through the years, and if anyone was going to cut through the media relations spin and tell you what was really going on, it was Niki.
Now, sadly, the legend is dead. Lauda had been in shaky health over the last few years, receiving a double lung transplant in August of last year. Still, the news came as a shock to the motorsport community, nearly all of whom had been touched or inspired by Lauda in some way.
If you’d like to pay your own tribute to the man, I can recommend watching (or re-watching) Ron Howard’s Rush. The film deals with the events of the 1976 championship, and you go into it thinking the hero is the suave, handsome James Hunt, not his irritable and cocky Austrian rival.
But just watch a little more carefully and you’ll see who the true champion is on screen. Lauda wasn’t invincible – none of us are – but while he lived, he did so entirely on his own terms. He was a king among racers, and will be missed.
Locally shot racing film opens in August
In the opening shots of the trailer, you recognize the backdrop at once. That’s the old Sea-to-Sky highway, with a gorgeous sky-blue BMW 3.0CS snorting along it, a new puppy tucked happily in the back seat.
The Art of Racing in the Rain was published in 2008, drawing on the actual racing experiences of its author, Garth Stein. Stein had a proper racing licence from the SCCA, and was the points winner in his Northwest Spec Miata group.
The book is written from the point of a dog, Enzo, who does his best to try to be more human, such that he could be reincarnated as a racing driver. Enzo’s owner is a struggling racing driver himself, and the plot of the book revolves around his trials and tribulations – I won’t spoil it for you.
I have some concerns that the movie, which is loudly trumpeted as being from the same studio that produced Marley & Me, could turn out to be a bit schmaltzy. Enzo is played by a golden retriever who is so handsome he makes Brad Pitt look like a mop stuck upside down in an oil drum. Kevin Costner is narrating. I’m not sure there’s going to be much grit to the racing scenes.
However, it is pretty cool to see Mission Raceways on film, and a bit of B.C. backdrop. We really do have some great roads around here. And, based on the flipped pickup truck on the Upper Levels highway on Tuesday, maybe we could all work on the art of driving in the rain.
Order books open on Honda E
Electric car sales have been shooting up locally, spurred on by high fuel prices and big government rebates. With our overall mild climate and generally short commuting distances, EVs work well for many new adherents.
There’s just one problem: Not too many of them are lovable.
Oh, how I wish we didn’t have to wait to get our hands on the happy looking little Honda E. Available in the European and U.K. market, the E is a four-door electric hatchback with a roughly 100 horsepower electric motor and 200 kilometres of range, for roughly the same price as a base model Nissan Leaf.
And just look at it! It has all the charm of the original Honda Civic without veering into retro-nostalgic fakery. It looks modern and cheery, not overly aggressive, and you can get it in colours like Crystal Blue or Charge Yellow.
Lucky Europeans will be able to reserve theirs, and expect a delivery time of spring 2020. Care to give B.C. a go as a test market, Honda?
Alonso and McLaren miss cut for Indy 500
The Indy 500 is this coming weekend, and even if you aren’t much of a racing fan, I’d encourage you to go see the event in person one of these days. It’s not that expensive and it’s a spectacle that’ll stay with you for the rest of your life.
Or, in the case of F1 champion Fernando Alonso, a debacle that’ll stay with you. This week, one of the best drivers to ever sit behind the steering wheel failed to make the cut to compete in the Indy 500.
Why? Well, let’s start with that steering wheel. One week before Alonso was set to get in the car and start testing things out, the McLaren team realized they hadn’t got one. Kind of an important detail to overlook.
Then the car wasn’t the right colour and had to be repainted. Then there was a mix up between metric and imperial measurements, and the ride height was set too low. Then the gearing was wrong. And they had the wrong tire sensors.
Basically, the whole thing turned into a fiasco. On a more positive note, Alonso was bumped out of the running by rookie driver Kyle Kaiser and the Juncos team, operating with a budget that’s tiny next to McLaren’s.
Just making the starting group is a victory for Juncos, and I’ll be cheering them on come race day. That’s the thing about racing: big names don’t mean big successes, and the next champions have to come from somewhere.
Watch this space for all the best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to mcaleer.nsnews@gmail.com.
