Ibanez rules!! and don't they ever?

Look.. five of the best.

Archie's bunker. My music shop buddies up the road at KC's Rockshop have their guitar department really honking along these days with a great range of Fender's and Squier's, there are Godin's, ESP's, Yamaha's and of course the ever popular Ibanez guitars and basses. Although never having been an Ibanez owner I have always admired their beauty and build quality Ibanez put into all their instruments. In particular their hardware. The Ibanez tremolo systems are not only original but masterly pieces of engineering. No, I won't mention Honda but you get the comparison.

The Indy 447.5

Doin' the Honda Stomp.

After a magnificent effort from Fernando and the Andretti team his Honda woes finally catch up with him at the 101st running of the Indy 500.

Kimi second but not second best.

If I'm here too long I'll melt.

Even though the principality served up the usual procession I enjoyed the race. What matters to us read on..

A happy Fernando

Fernando was absolutely chuffed with his final Indy qualifying. After a little battle with the windy conditions, fried brakes and an earlier engine change (that's a power unit to you F1'ers) Fernando put his #29 McLaren-Honda-Andretti Honda in the middle of the second row out of P5. I somehow don't think he will be missing Monaco too much this weekend. And how about those cars flying past in the background at over 200mph?

Think of the GST on this deal

Going, going, gone!!

Guess what? For a cool 100,000,000 big ones you can have yourself a Supercar Championship. Well not quite, I believe that's only the major share of 65%. Who has the other 35% is anybody's guess. Remember the old adage.. you get what you pay for and I'm not sure if you get the new Tonka Truck series thrown in but you will get all the sham and that will include the turbo 6's and whatever else will become Supercars with a capital S. One fan says "It isn't the V8's anymore, that's why they are selling before the product dies. If you want to watch touring cars, tune into Europe". Perhaps Roger Penske may pick it up and get those big Nascar style numbers back on the doors.

F1 sprint racing? Yes? No?

Love the facial hair Danno.

Danny boy finally gets to taste the Moet in Spain with a stupendous third place finish. Luckily he had the crayons out and replaced the numbers on his car earlier in the week. The unfortunately, and there is always one, Dan finished a whole 74 seconds in arrears of race winner 44HAM which makes the RB's well over a second a lap slower than the Silver Arrows. In fact 1.12 secs to be a little more precise. That is a cab ride and this is only the gap between first and third. So what's the answer?

Play by the book or it'll cost yah!

That's Esteban with the pink helmet and the day-glow green camera.

Even I know that.

Is this the FIA on a fund raising drive? While the grid isn't exactly full of pink cars with merely just two, our boy Esteban and his buddy Serg, the FIA has to ping them for not displaying the large NASCAR-style numbers as they are now supposed to. Unfortunately for Force India, after passing pre-race scrutiny they also copped a $37,000 fine for not doing so.. after the race.
But all's not lost with the pinkies finishing the Spanish GP in fourth and fifth. Esteban picking up ten points for his fifth place finish now puts him eighth in the championship.

Oh really?

No, it's...

So who drives this F1 car? Well the clue is under the red arrow. You're correct. While you may not notice the car number or the abbreviated drivers name it's none other than your fav and mine.. the bling king, Lewis Hamilton. Or 44HAM for short. I was wondering where they were going to fit the NASCAR style numbers on the cars and it would seem the fin above the bonnet was the best spot. Where to put it next season when the fin's won't be there will be a car designers nightmare. Do we really need names and numbers on the cars when only the pink cars count anyway? 

The new Mustang GT and it's not a V8

My Mustang has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

New new is the Fender Mustang GT series. I tried a quick Google to see what the internet community had to say on the new new Mustang series and typing 'Mustang GT' in the search field I was surprised to have the googly's return me seventeen million six hundred thousand results. Of course what Google had actually found were 7,600,000 pages of not the Fender Mustang GT but the Ford Mustang GT cars. Was tagging the new new Mustang amplifiers with GT a brilliant idea on Fenders part or just really really dumb? A cool little modelling amp all the same with more than the lot if you have a smart phone. Unfortunately my steam powered phone isn't that bright. In fact I'm the only guy I know that is smarter than their phone.

Bend it like The Bend Motorsport Park

Lines in the sand.

Someone has been hooning in the desert or could it be a sign for our Martian friends? Either way it's not crop circles as we know them. In fact it's progress from the owners of The Bend Motorsport Park at Tallem Bend by the South Australian and Victorian border. It's a fair way from anywhere which may be good for racing but will it be good for spectators, bum's on seat's? The circuit will be FIA certified as a grade 2 track which means we can have racing for the Tonka trucks and pretty much every class other than Formula 1. I guess you have to be able to afford a Hermann Tilke track to obtain a grade 1 licence. Still, it will be another Australian purpose built race track which is a good thing for the sport.

Guitar of the week!!

Very cool!

Well it was last week actually, I've been in Reformatland for the past few days. Here we have a new offering from Squier guitars This is the second to lowest priced guitar in the whole Squier range. Having said that this is far from the bottom as far as playability and coolness goes. They have called it Jazzmaster, I guess they're running out of names. Or perhaps it's a marketing ploy? "One day I'll grow up and get me a real Jazzmaster".

I'm sooo dissapointed..

Can we make a quick detour and call into Bunnings?

The new utes won't be seen this season as Supercars were trying for. Instead they will be rolling out the old dunny doors and Ford V8's, that's V8 utes. Although past their use-by-date the V8 Utes still present a good show in what will be now a short six race series. Supercars state that homologation of the new breeds and delays in the development of prototype machinery is what's keeping us in suspense. What do you think?

Alonso has a part time drive.

All eyes on Indy.

Alonso flies through his IMS Rookie Orientation in just an hour on the Indianapolis hallowed ground. Quite a simple 3 phase test and all against the clock. Those 3 Phases consisted of: 10 laps between 205-210mph, 15 laps between 210-215mph, 15 laps 215+mph. So now Fernando can get out there and get a few practice laps in with the professional left-turners in prep for the big race.. the 101st running of the Indy 500 on May 28th. Can't wait to see how he goes.

Valtterri gets his maiden

Yep, I'll have another, line 'em up.

Bottas was definitely in the hot seat in Russia last night. The pressure applied by Seb in the second half must have been immense for the lad. Nice also to see Russia's numero uno motorsport fan handing out the hardware plus a little friendly banter to the drivers.