Matt Prior
❝ While it’s not my primary motorsport choice, it strikes me as deserving of better than this ❞
It starts with race footage, which is promising enough, but the latest promotional video for Formula E takes a wild turn from there. The leaders crash. Oh no! What will become of them?
Not to worry, they’re fine. So fine, in fact, that they leap out of their cars and begin a heavily visually effected dash through the race’s host city on foot. Into buildings, onto rooftops, dashing into a restaurant kitchen, crashing over a diner’s table and then hurtling through a plate-glass window. All on foot, except for the bit on horseback (what?), before our leader finds themself back on track, right by the finish line, with time to see the rest of the field approaching before sprinting across the line to victory.
What exactly is Formula E trying to tell us here? That race footage from its previous season isn’t worth a oneminute highlights reel? That these cars are so slow that you can run (or gallop) around a city quicker than them? It feels like a video-game advert that runs a ‘not actual gameplay’ disclaimer.
I’ve watched a bit of Formula E in recent seasons, and while it’s not my primary motorsport choice, it strikes me as deserving of better than this.
Compare and contrast with my motorsport of choice: the Australian Supercars championship, which last week put out its 2022 season trailer. Short and to the point, it’s filled exclusively with last season’s event footage with commentary bites from the world-class pairing of Neil Crompton and Mark Skaife. I would have put in one or two cleaner overtakes to punctuate some of the dramatic comings together, but it’s a 39-second snapshot of what makes the flagship Antipodean race series so compelling.
It almost made it. Late last year, I wrote that my new (to me) Hillman Imp should be powering itself to the first Bicester Heritage Scramble event of the year, on Sunday 16 January. It got close.
The car wasn’t running cleanly, which could still be anything from gunk in a neglected carburettor (most likely) through to a blown head gasket (hopefully less likely), but I was limping along the back roads when it finally conked and I was ignominiously towed into the venue by my friend, the Reverend Adam Gompertz. The Imp was due on his Revs stand at the
Scramble. My car! On display at a real car show! A first and probably a last.
Anyway, it turns out that although it wasn’t running well, it was still running much better with fuel than without. During the short journey to Bicester, I had used the last of the eight litres that I had put into it the month before so that I could work on it.
The good Rev, meanwhile, will be at motoring destination pub Caffeine & Machine in Warwickshire on Monday 7 February for one of its ‘I love you, man’ events – a night of conversation about men’s mental health.
The regular events held by C&M and Bicester Heritage serve car people well. Bikers have had spots like this for a long while: cafes, car parks and places to congregate, usually but not always near good roads. Car drivers not so much. Single-make clubs might meet on the third Thursday of every month for half a shandy at a local pub, but C&M seems to offer something unique. I’m lucky that it and Bicester are both within easy reach of home, but as everyday driving and hobby driving diverges, it feels like there’s space for more places like them.