Yeah yeah, another '70s music reference...
***
So, now I think I have seen it all.
A BMW M3, complete with carbon fibre roof - like the one shown here - driving at the speed limit.
In the right lane.
It was on the 401 eastbound a few days ago.
Now, maybe I shouldn't stereotype M3 drivers.
But seriously - when have you ever seen an M3 driven at the speed limit?
Other than twice a day - once on the way up, again on the way down...
Predictably, there was a huge turn-out for the Celebration of Life Friday at Mount Albert Lions Club Hall for Peter Wright.
"Much love, much laughter," is how his wife Lorie put it, as person after person got up to recount stories of their association with this man.
'That's how Peter would have wanted it."
Most of them - of us - were motorsport connections, since cars were his passion.
But some of his friends knew little about his love affair with cars and competition. They knew him from sailing, from fishing, or from riding dirt bikes.
No matter; the stories all ended the same, about his smile, his laugh, his positivity.
A video loop showed Peter running his beloved Datsun 240Z in a slalom at Picton Kartway. He executed every corner flawlessly, taking the car to within millimetres of the apex every lap, with nary a bobble at the wheel.
"Smoothness," said Mike Acerra, one of his erstwhile competitors. "That's what he was all about."
That's also what made him such a great driving instructor. "Smooth comes first, then fast" was his teaching mantra.
The shot to the left shows the Datsun with his orange 'Contact Patch' van in the background; 'Contact Patch' was the name of his tire service company which supported motorsport events around the province.
As the Celebration drew to a close, three things came to mind, and/or were mentioned by the speakers, things we should all remember at times like these.
First, somebody should remember to tape these Celebrations. Repeat viewings can provide great comfort to those left behind.
Second, don't let friends and family grieve alone. Stay in touch, call them, invite them for dinner. Don't let the Celebration end today.
Third, as noted above, there was lots of love expressed for lots of people in that room today. If there is someone you love or admire, for whatever reason, don't wait until it's too late to tell them to their face.
Tell them today.
Peter Wright, one of the truly nice guys in the world of Canadian motorsport, passed away last Sunday from cancer. He was 66 years old. He is survived by his wife Lorie.
Peter was first exposed to motorsport when he navigated in rallies with his father in a Mini when Peter wasn't even old enough to drive.
He parlayed that interest and considerable talent into the Canadian National Road Racing GT1 Class Championship in his Datsun 240Z coupe in 1979.
He continued to compete at many levels, winning dozens of Solo/AutoSlalom competitions and Ice Racing championships.
He also founded Contact Patch, a mobile tire service company which supported events ranging from media and corporate tire testing for companies like Bridgestone and Yokohama, to private clients who wanted to try out their high-performance cars at race tracks and who wanted no worries about their tires standing up to the challenge.
His friend of 40 years standing, Jud Buchanan, invited him to try his hand at navigating again in the Ontario Winter Rally, with the promise that if he didn't enjoy it, Peter would pay for half the cost and it would never be mentioned again.
That led to him navigating for Buchanan in four Targa Newfoundland rallies in Buchanan's Acadian Canso coupe, which resulted in the team earning the coveted 'Gold Plate' for completing three consecutive Targas while meeting or exceeding the 'bogey' times for every stage in the week-long event.
When Porsche Canada initiated its Advanced Driving Program in 1986 - for some years, every purchaser of a new Porsche received a driver training program to make sure (s)he knew how to best handle their new car - Peter was signed on as one of the instructors. It was there that he discovered his true calling.
"He just loved to help people learn how to drive!'' said Buchanan. "He'd be the most cheerful guy every morning, and couldn't wait to get out on the track to impart his knowledge to others."
Peter was also the track manager for the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada Test Fest for 21 years, first at Shannonville Motorsport Park near Belleville, subsequently at the Niagara Regional Airport. Wind, rain, shine, even snow, he would be out there making sure every car was allowed onto the high-speed test track in a safe manner.
His ever-present grin and equally-ever-present pipe will not be forgotten.
Billy Joel sang, "Only the Good Die Young.''
He sure got that right.
***
A Celebration of Peter's life will be held at:
Mount Albert Lions Club (Main Hall)
5057 Mount Albert Road
Mount Albert Ontario
L0G 1M0
Friday, April 26, 2013, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Friends are invited to share their personal remembrances and tributes starting at 2:00 p.m.
Gary Lee Weinrib and Aleksandar Živojinović (better known as Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush) are both big car fans.
No no, big fans of cars, not necessarily fans of big cars...
Not sure about Neil Peart - I think he's more into motorcycles.
I actually met Alex once, and he reads
Wheels faithfully - or at least did at the time.
And Geddy has owned a variety of interesting cars over the years - at one point, a rare Renault Alpine Gordini.
Which has always made me wonder - how come in the Rush song 'Red Barchetta', Geddy pronounces 'barchetta' incorrectly?
'Barchetta' means 'little boat' in Italian; the word has often been used to describe smallish two-seat open Italian sports cars like the one he's singing about here.
Again in Italian, 'ch' is pronounced as a 'hard C', as in 'chianti' - 'kee-AUNT-ee'.
So, 'barchetta' is 'bar-KETT-a', not 'bar-CHET-a'.
I would have guessed a car fan like Geddy would have known this. If not him, then Alex, Neil (who is such a stickler for detail), the producer, a roadie - SOMEBODY - would have caught this.
Cool song though. Probably not ex-OPP boss Julian Fantino's favourite song though, because it is essentially about street racing...
BTW, I assume the 'alloy air car' in that song is a silver Porsche.
And that of course is pronounced 'POR-sha'.
BTW (2), Geddy did a great job throwing out the first pitch at the Jays' opening game last week (in addition to cars and wine, Geddy is a huge fan of baseball). Given how R. A. Dickey did later that evening (and again Sunday afternoon) maybe Geddy should have stayed on the mound...
Does this mean winter is finally over?
We actually drove Mimi - Lady Leadfoot's Mazda Miata - top-down for the first time this year today.
Heater on, and one window down - for some reason, that seems to generate less turbulence than both windows either up or down - and aside from the hair getting quite a work-out, it was very pleasant.
We don't drive her in winter unless there's an emergency. We keep her outside, under a cover, with a trickle charger on the battery. She never fails to fire right up.
If there were some sort of award for the car that best discharges its responsibilities, best fulfils its brief, does exactly what it is supposed to do - do you understand what I'm driving at here? - then the Mazda Miata would surely win in a walk.
More accurately, it would win in a lovely drive through the countryside.
In a nutshell, it was supposed to be a two-seat British sports car that didn't break and didn't leak oil all over your driveway.
That was pretty much what Mark Jordan, a designer for Mazda North America, and Bob Hall, previously and subsequently a car journalist but then a product planner for Mazda, had in mind when they conceived the car on a cocktail napkin in a bar in Irvine California back in the 1980s; in profile, the original Miata looked more like the 1964 Lotus Elan than the Lotus Elan did.
Despite considerable upgrading and improving over the intervening decades, that's pretty much what the Miata still is today.
I.e., damn-near perfect.
Oh yeah, the company can try to call it 'MX-5' if they want, because the marketing people say that's how it is marketed in other countries.
Marketing people can be such idiots; like anybody over here gives a damn what they do over there.
It was originally sold in Japan as the 'Eunos Roadster'. Does that mean we should have called it 'Eunos Roadster' too?
Um, I don't think so.
The Miata Owners Club is still (I think...) the largest one-marque car club in the world, testimony to the affection people have for this car. Lady Leadfoot and I aren't 'joiners' per se, but might be talked into going on some of their cruises this summer.
We understand that the next-gen Miata will be a joint venture with Fiat through its Alfa Romeo brand. That company has no shortage of sports car heritage, although dead-nuts reliability like Miata enjoys has never even been hinted at chez Alfa.
Can the joint venture pull off a car that's as spectacular as Mazda was able to do on its own with Miata?
I hope so.
But I must say, I have grave doubts.
Aston Martin has renewed
the fourth car in its year-long total-product-plan refresh program -
the Rapide S.
A new front end, designed largely around European pedestrian crash standards, the new more powerful and torquier engine and a revised rear deck spoiler are the main upgrades.
Driving impressions to follow in a few days.
Aston Chairman Dr. Ulrich Bez also let slip at dinner last night here in not-so-sunny Spain that Aston will be the featured marque at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance this coming August, celebrating the company's 100th Anniversary. The official announcement will come on Wednesday.
Porsche will also
be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the 911 at Pebble.
This might be a good year to go...
In my post the other day on the MINI Cooper S owned by Howard Walowitz in the TV Series 'The Big Bang Theory' (which was parked in a spot coveted by the other "Cooper, S." - S as in Sheldon) I suggested it might have been a clever product placement by MINI.
I have no confirmation of that.
But it did remind me of what must have been the best automotive product placement of all time - certainly, the most cost-effective, max Bang for the Buck automotive product placement of all time.
A friend of mine ran (maybe still runs - haven't seen him in a while...) a publicity firm in Southern California which had (maybe still has...) the contract to place General Motors cars in the movies.
He was contacted by a never-was director (at the time, best-known as a stunt man) who had stupid B-Movie script about beer smuggling, and had somehow scored a soon-to-be has-been actor to star in it.
He needed a car, some sort of fast car.
My friend said, "Well, there's this thing over here, they're probably going to discontinue the car next year, so why not use it?"
The director was Hal Needham.
The star was Burt Reynolds.
The movie was 'Smokey and the Bandit'.
The car of course was the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am - the black one with gold trim (a colour scheme apparently inspired by the John Player Lotus Formula One cars of the mid-1970s) and the 'dead-chicken' decal on the hood.
The car became the star of the movie, and went on to many more years of successful sales.
My friend said he got $400 from GM for the product placement.
Pretty good deal for GM, I'd say.
Does anyone else watch Big Bang Theory?
Yeah, pretty much everybody - it is at or near the top of Canada's TV ratings charts every year, and not just because Toronto's own Barenaked Ladies sing the theme song.
The episode I saw last week (originally shown last fall, according to CBS's web site) revolves around Howard Wolowitz getting a new car and taking over Sheldon Cooper's parking spot at the University where they both work.
Even though Sheldon doesn't even have a driver's licence, let alone a car, he decides Howard should not have 'his' spot, and tries to take it back.
First, he tries to push the car out of the spot - hard to do with the car presumably locked, in gear, and with the parking brake on.
You'd think a guy as smart as Sheldon professes to be would have known that...
Then he tries to prove he does 'use' the spot by setting up a work space there...
...and by painting his name over Wolowitz's on the curb stone.
I am ashamed to admit that even I didn't get this part of the joke, so thanks again to an 'alert reader':
Howard's car was a MINI Countryman Cooper S.
This might have been one of the most clever if most subtle product placements in television history...
I just watched the 'Up Close Open Mic' feature on Sportsnet with new Blue Jay R. A. Dickey.
Not only is this guy a fabulous pitcher - the current National League Cy Young award holder is expected to lead the Blue Jays to heights not seen since the early 1990s.
But in this series of interviews, and in all cases where he has dealt with the public through media contacts, he appears to a most thoughtful, intelligent, serious and articulate man.
His references to his wife and children also reveal him to be a God-fearing family man.
He notes how his family is looking forward to getting to know their new country, learning our culture and our customs.
Welcome to Canada and to Toronto, R. A.
But allow me to introduce you to one Canadian custom with which you do not appear to be familiar.
In part of this TV show, Dickey is shown driving his car through downtown Toronto traffic. He comments that it is not as congested as the New York City he is used to.
But as you can see from this still clipped from that show, Dickey is not wearing his seat belt.
By the way, this is not merely a Canadian custom, my man.
It is our law.
It stuns me that someone apparently this smart and this devoted to his family would do this. If he wants to grow old to enjoy those children that he loves so much, I beseech him to wear it at all times.
Even religious people will say that God helps those who help themselves.
If you get hit head-on by some drunk - it happens - your seat belt will help a lot more than faith in any god.
We have lost too many athletes who thought they were above the laws of physics. Former NHL defenceman Steve Chaisson immediately comes to mind.
Dickey's knuckleball may appear to be defying those laws.
But if his unbelted body is hurtling towards his steering wheel and dashboard at 50 km/h - about half the speed of his knuckleball - it is going to end very badly.
Given that Dickey is a public figure and stands to be a role model for all our children, I beg of him: please R.A. - set the right example.
Oh yeah - and win 20 games.
I used to draw cars as a kid.
Who amongst us didn't?
They didn't look like this one. In fact, I couldn't - still can't - draw a straight line with a ruler. I had to find some other way of expressing my interest in the subject. Whatever you may think of my writing or photography, they beat the heck out of my drawing.
So when I see someone who CAN draw, it just impresses the hell out of me.
This video below is long by the standards of today's video clips - about 8 minutes.
It shows Filippo Perini, Chief Designer for Lamborghini, sketching the Aventador Roadster freehand at the recent press preview for the car in Miami.
If you have any interest whatsoever in this car, or in drawing cars, I think you'll find it a worthwhile investment of your time.
The sketch is a bit - well, sketchy - from paper to overhead projector to my camera to YouTube to your monitor, you lose some resolution.
You may have to squint; it gets clearer as he progresses.
And Perini's voice is a little muted - crank up your speakers, and please enjoy.
