I'm having a bad hair night - the brain's a bit sore from setting up my new PC, so I haven't come up with a testing trivia question for you. HOWEVER... I thought it might be fun to ask: Who is your favourite driver, and why? I won't limit this to a particular class of racing, and I'll bet that there just might be a DJR driver or two among them
I'll get the ball rolling and start with a heap of names who rate for mine, in no particular order: Pete Geoghegan: although I've never seen film footage of him in his Mustangs, let alone seen it in the flesh, the superlatives heaped upon the big fella by the likes of Bill Tuckey meant that he cast a long shadow over just about everyone who aspired to be a touring car champion in this country ever since. He must have been something.
Kevin Bartlett: when I was cutting my teeth on Gp C tourers, KB was belting around in the Camaro, with the thing stuck out at all angles. He always came across as being very relaxed about what he was doing. Having read much about his earlier career, I am in awe of the man's innate skill, and what amounted to inhuman fearlessness: after all, he let the F5000's take a couple of big swipes at him, and they invented the term "the Lola Limp" to describe the results.
I could add a heap more: Allan Moffat, Alan Jones, Niki Lauda, Larry Perkins, Craig Lowndes, for starters, but during my formative years, there were none greater than...
Dick Johnson: although I only discovered him in the aftermath of The Rock in 1980, from then on for me, as a then-eight year-old Ford fan, he was the Man. The laconic one-liners, the no-fuss visage on Seven's RaceCam, the bellow of the Big Henries as the Pride of Queensland gave it everything he had, battling what seemed at the time to be a sea of Holdens. It made him the saviour of an entire generation of Ford supporters, previously cast adrift when the Blue Oval walked away from us. He was there for the return of the Big Birds in 93, ever-faithful to Ford; and for the death-or-glory years of touring car racing through the 80's and 90's, I thank him
I'll get the ball rolling and start with a heap of names who rate for mine, in no particular order: Pete Geoghegan: although I've never seen film footage of him in his Mustangs, let alone seen it in the flesh, the superlatives heaped upon the big fella by the likes of Bill Tuckey meant that he cast a long shadow over just about everyone who aspired to be a touring car champion in this country ever since. He must have been something.
Kevin Bartlett: when I was cutting my teeth on Gp C tourers, KB was belting around in the Camaro, with the thing stuck out at all angles. He always came across as being very relaxed about what he was doing. Having read much about his earlier career, I am in awe of the man's innate skill, and what amounted to inhuman fearlessness: after all, he let the F5000's take a couple of big swipes at him, and they invented the term "the Lola Limp" to describe the results.
I could add a heap more: Allan Moffat, Alan Jones, Niki Lauda, Larry Perkins, Craig Lowndes, for starters, but during my formative years, there were none greater than...
Dick Johnson: although I only discovered him in the aftermath of The Rock in 1980, from then on for me, as a then-eight year-old Ford fan, he was the Man. The laconic one-liners, the no-fuss visage on Seven's RaceCam, the bellow of the Big Henries as the Pride of Queensland gave it everything he had, battling what seemed at the time to be a sea of Holdens. It made him the saviour of an entire generation of Ford supporters, previously cast adrift when the Blue Oval walked away from us. He was there for the return of the Big Birds in 93, ever-faithful to Ford; and for the death-or-glory years of touring car racing through the 80's and 90's, I thank him