Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

RE: Rodney Inches's comment on GM and the tobacco industry

Let's not forget that the market for big pick-up trucks has not disappeared. True, it has gotten smaller, but it's still huge. GM still has to build a boatload of these vehicles, and all I've been saying is that they ought to build them where they can be built best, and most efficiently. The value of the Canadian dollar notwithstanding, whatever independent analyses we can get of these factors seem to indicate that Oshawa is that plant. Not to mention - although I am doing just that - that GM seemed to have struck a deal with the CAW not to shut that plant, then went ahead and did just that a couple of weeks later. I'm not necessarily a Union guy, but I have always believed that a deal is a deal.

Alanis Morissette would love this

I was cruising along with the normal flow of traffic today at about 3:00 p.m., eastbound on the 401 near Trafalgar Road. I won't tell you exactly how fast I was going - now that the Ontario Highway Traffic Act has been re-written to eliminate the usual protection of a fair trial, I can't take for granted my right not to incriminate myself, or to not have to testify against myself.

Suffice it to say that I was in a very good position to know that the medium-dark blue full-size Chevy pick-up truck that wailed past me was going at least 140 km/h.

Not so fast, however, that I was unable to read the writing all over it - the truck belonged to Environment Canada, the department of the Federal Government that is supposed to get us all to save our air, save energy, etc.

I think they call this 'irony'.

I have a new driving hero!

Robert Kubica!

He is THE MAN.

Not only did he take his first Grand Prix win in Montreal yesterday, a year after being carted out of there on a stretcher after a 300 km/h smash-up which anyone who saw it was sure he'd never survive; but he made a mockery of his colleagues who were whining about the track surface.

Sure, it was awful, despite the best efforts of the organizers to seal the wayward asphalt.

But it was the same for everyone. He never put a wheel wrong (hello, Senor Two-Time World Champion Alonso) and drove to a magnificent victory.

Sure, he might not have been there if Lewis Hamilton hasn't NASCAR'ed Kimi Reikkonen in the pits. Or maybe he would have;  given both of their penchants for off-roading recently, they might have done an Alonso too.

The point is, Kubica didn't. And he won.

Following up on his brilliant second place in rainy Monaco two weeks ago - the only one of the top drivers who never spun, never kissed a wall - well, I think that makes the Polish driver the new king of the traction-control-free Formula One era.

Good on him.

RE: GZ's comment

It is indeed a very relevant comment. Lack of lane discipline, NOT speed, is THE major failure on our freeways - anyone who has ever driven in Europe knows that. My Carte Blanche column in the print edition of Wheels this weekend deals in part with that. You still see a few of those signs around, but because our roads are designed so that the right lane (the 'Jim-only' lane) disappears all the time, people are reluctant to get stuck in there. There is no enforcement of the existing legislation that requires drivers to drive right, and no education either. Those stupid pixelboard signs should contain traffic warnings, or DRIVE RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS - nothing else. (BTW, there IS no blind spot, as regular readers will already know...). That same message should be painted on every overpass, and police should be required to put enforcement of that law ahead of EVERYTHING else except seat belt use and impaired driving. It would be SO easy...

RE: D. Cook's comment about me jumping on the GM Oshawa bandwagon

I think what you're saying here is exactly what I said in my original post, and have been saying for years! If quality and productivity are your biggest issues, why would you close your highest-quality, most productive plant? Recent news items suggest that the CAW has not been successful in getting this decision overturned, so unless the Federal Government investment fund can be tapped to attract another product to this plant, it may indeed be the end of the line for a whole boatload of Oshawa auto workers. Colonel Sam McLaughlin would turn in his grave, if he could figure out what to turn it in for.

Qualfiying at the Canadian Grand Prix

Sometimes the most exciting part of a Formula One Grand Prix weekend is the last 30 seconds of qualifying on the Saturday afternoon. Both strategy - what tires should be on the car - and tactics - get your driver out there on fresh rubber for a hot lap near the end of the session - come into play.

And Lewis Hamiiton and McLaren-Mercedes pulled it off perfectly in Montreal today.

Hamilton had been quickest for most of the session. Several other drivers, notably Felipe Massa and Kimi Reikkonen in the Ferraris, would record faster times in the first two sectors of a lap. But Hamilton seemed to be quickest in the last third, and maintained his pole position.

Then, with the chequered flag already showing, indicating that whoever was on the track at that moment would record just that one final lap time, Robert Kubica in the Sauber BMW ripped off the fastest lap to that point. Hamilton had one last chance - and he crossed the line with about half a second in hand.

It was his second consecutive pole at Montreal, where he recorded the first win of his Grand Prix career in his rookie season last year. It would be a brave person who would bet against him repeating the victory tomorrow as well.

Maybe we've got it good in Fantino-land

Here in Montreal for the preview of the new Honda Pilot, and the Grand Prix. Driving on the local Autoroutes here, the pixelboard signs say something to the effect (they're French only but I think I get the gist of it) that 130 km/h results in a fine of $893 and 10 demerit points!

Holy O.P.P. Cruiser, batman - we don't know when we've got it good.

GM can't see the forest for the trees

The following comes from a column I wrote a while back when GM announced the proposed closing of Car Plant Number 2 in Oshawa:

"Rick Wagoner, chairman of General Motors, is the smartest guy I know. I figure if he can’t fix what ails GM, nobody can.

"So there must be something behind the proposed closing of Oshawa Car Plant 2 as part of this week’s massive cost-cutting announcement that is beyond the reach of mere plebeians.

"If the challenges of the car business are quality and productivity, how can closing your highest-quality, most efficient plant possibly help?"

Today, Wagoner announced that GM will be closing the Oshawa truck plant too, some time next year, meaning the loss of about a thousand jobs.

Due to collapsing demand for full-size pick-ups in the United States, three other assembly facilities, in Ohio, Wisconsin and Mexico, will also be shuttered. Chances are none of them will ever re-open.

Other truck plants - all in the US - will remain open to service whatever demand remains.

And the same comment remains: Oshawa has always been GM's most-efficient, highest-quality truck plant. So, why close this one?

The way things are supposed to work in the big bad world is the strongest survive, the weak get culled.

Instead, GM is culling the strong, and hoping to survive on the backs of the weak.

Sorry Rick; I’m missing something here.

I can't begin to know how these sorts of decisions are reached. But it sure looks like some American flag-waving is at work here.

Bloody shame, especially since just a few days after GM reached an agreement with the CAW that would save these 1,000 jobs.

Buzz Hargrove, I don't think you can retire just yet. Your toughest job may have just begun.

[UPDATE: GM's Oshawa Car Plant 2, now apparently called the "consolidated line", did not in fact close. Now that cars are once again king, it continues to crank out the Chevrolet Impala and Buick Allure/LaCrosse.]

Thanks to all!

Many thanks to so many people who have commented on my 25 years with The Star. Mostly complimentary, which is nicer still.

Every morning I wake up and think, "OK, today's the day they're gonna tell me I have to go get a real job.''

When I got out of engineering school, the two things I wanted to do were race cars and play in a rock 'n' roll band. The two things I swore I'd never do were teach, or have anything to do with computers.

Six years later, I was racing cars, playing in a rock 'n' roll band, and teaching computing at Ryerson.

So much for career planning.

And through a series of flukes too long and too boring to go into here, I lucked in to this gig.

Still racing cars (OK, rallying - close enough. The seventh annual Targa Newfoundland is coming up this September.)

Still playing in a rock 'n' roll band (had a gig yesterday; I sound like a CBC newscaster this morning. Scream out 'Mony Mony' at the top of your lungs and you'd be a little hoarse too. "The Compleat Works on their Mid-Life Crisis Tour." Our motto - "They weren’t oldies when we started playing them!")

But mostly, I've got the best automotive journalism job in the country, maybe the world.

Thanks to you, dear readers, for putting up with me for a quarter of a century. Geez, it seems a lot longer when put like that.

Thanks to The Star, for their never-flagging support, especially when I take on some contentious issues. (BTW, I NEVER advocated street racing; it's the O.P.P. which by turning regular commuters into street racers is denigrating the fight against REAL street racers.)

Thanks to a series of terrific editors over the years, who have kept me semi-under control.

Initially, John McDonald (no no, not the Blue Jays shortstop). That was pre-Wheels, when my column appeared in the Monday paper in the Life section, underneath the rutabaga recipes. Even my Mother couldn't find it half the time.

The late Dennis Morgan, founder of Wheels.

Richard Young, still on duty.

Joe Knycha, now with Formula Publications.

John Terauds, still with The Star.

Adam Gutteridge, likewise.

And the incumbent Mark Richardson, who despite being a bikey, has taken the section to new heights.

Hope I didn’t forget anyone - I come by this gray hair honestly.

Thanks too to all my colleagues over the years who have helped make Wheels required reading for anyone even vaguely interested in the automobile in all its manifestations, for good and for bad.

Fair warning - you ain't seen nothing yet.