STRAIGHT TALK – PAUL J WEIGHELL Dressed to impress? Unravelling the code behind the WRC dress code
agreed standard.’ So says the dress code card produced by the British Racing Drivers’ Club. The card is replete with a photograph of the flagship Silverstone clubhouse, resplendent in summer sun, white canvas awning and a selection of august members grazing sedately in their enclosure. On the reverse side is the
‘P
required litany of taste and discernment: No very short and / or frayed or scruffy shorts. No dirty and / or frayed jeans. No T or collarless shirts. No muddy or oily clothing. No scruffy trainers, absolutely no beach sandals or flips-flops ‘worn by gentlemen’ (surely redundant as no real gentleman would be seen in such footgear) and it should go without saying that no hats of any kind are to be worn inside. Race suits may be worn but never are they to be tied down at the waist – heaven portend! Be warned that BRDC staff
are empowered to eject any oiks that do not live up to the dress code. Mindful, however, of those poor apologies for human beings genuinely unsure if toupees count as hats or whether string vests can be construed as collarless shirts, there is always the generous option of inviting the Club Secretary to rule on the subtler points in order to prevent you being forcibly de- bagged and thrown out on your inappropriately-attired bottom. One may chuckle, but were
such codes to be applied to FIA championship sponsors then perhaps one could bar the sartorially challenged before they did any damage. How about a code which states that those who promise to sponsor a race series should stump up 100 per cent of the cash before being allowed to make boastful announcements to the press?
lease do not embarrass yourself or your guests by failing to meet the club’s
Late in 2011, North One Sport,
cash-strapped offspring of Convers Sports Initiatives, failed to stump up the readies it had promised to the FIA and the result is a World Rally Championship forced to appear this year wearing the very latest in stark naked series sponsorship apparel. The Convers Sports Initiatives
website is still available for those with a penchant for the memorabilia of decaying businesses and, as an example of the Emperor’s New Clothing syndrome, it leaves little, or rather everything, to the imagination. The entrapment sales puff for the company states, ‘Convers Sport Initiative
announcements and handing over the goodies? Repeat after me: Horse first, then cart. Horse first, then cart. Horse first… We are informed that
following the initial series sponsorship promises, the WRC may then have promised something to BMW such that BMW spent a clubhouse load of cash making the Mini into a WRC entrant. When BMW initially announced that they would a-rallying go, Ian Robertson of their board of management had high hopes: ‘Mini customers have always shown great interest in motorsport. The World Rally Championship is the pinnacle of rallying, making it the ideal
“the very latest in stark
naked series sponsorship apparel”
is a business specifically created to maximise an immediate and significant opportunity.’ That text is posed surrealistically just below the legal announcement of closure from the administrators. Whenever a business claims
to ‘maximise an immediate and significant opportunity’, most sensible people make polite excuses and depart swiftly, donning their hats only when outside the building, of course. Perhaps not so the FIA who seem sadly to have allowed a ‘very short and / or frayed’ business, quite clearly shod in ‘flip-flops’ to have persuaded it of sufficient pedigree to sponsor the series. How often have we been
here before? Just recently, we have suffered Donington Park F1 track, A1 GP, US-F1… I begin to lose count. Motorsport Emperors Without Clothes hiding their pink and shiny parts under glossy websites and ‘oily clothing’ seem to be breeding somewhere. When will the FIA and others learn to count the cash into their accounts before making press
Dress code; very important
platform for demonstrating the competitive spirit of our brand.’ But BMW eventually slimmed down their involvement amid growing concerns over poor European TV coverage, ‘financial instability of key participants’ and the never ending series of same old same old wins from
Loeb. It has not turned out too well for BMW and they may now just be waiting for their Prodrive contract to end before taking control for themselves, or even walking away. VW is presumed to be in
next year’s WRC but, if they just bought Citroën and changed the badges, it would save them a lot of effort. This season’s WRC is well under way, yet despite the 2011 efforts to dry clean and re- make it into a more contemporary and fashionable garment, the same Citroën driver and team has already won the first six rounds. That does not seem so bad unless you know that the same Citroën team and driver has won the entire WRC for every one of the last eight years! The much-vaunted new 2011 engine regulations, brought in to lower costs and perhaps shake up the sport, seem to have had, er, no effect whatsoever on the results. The WRC claims to be
properly dressed as a world class competition, but it is not easy to see how it can justify that catwalk statement when one make and driver have dominated for nearly a decade. If eight years of same old wins had happened in NASCAR, many people would have been whacked and buried in unmarked graves in the boonies. Even in F1 the odd eyebrow would have been raised, and a long time ago Bernie would have whispered into a shell-like ear or 200.
The endless Loeb wins have helped make WRC rather a damper squib than everyone had hoped when the new regulations appeared for last season, and it is now time to go out and buy a new shirt, even if the current one does have a collar and club tie. That is the trouble with
enforcing dress codes – you still get the same people inside the new clothing – when what one really needs to guard against is not the schmutter, but them wot wears it.
May 2012 •
www.racecar-engineering.com 5
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