Chris Rattue: Hand over city keys to petrol heads

COMMENT


It's certainly been a lean year around Auckland if you wanted to go and see a big rugby game.

That's the rugby over with, which leaves a bit of room to make a plea to the city fathers and mothers to get their brains in gear and put that motor race on.

The strangest aspect to the V8 controversy is why - if the city is so determined to stop motor racing around Victoria Park - they don't post a couple of traffic cops down there most days of the week?

It has to be said that while official news of the race is fairly fresh, young blokes in cars which appear to have no axles have been holding unofficial practice sessions downtown for quite a few years.

To be honest, I wouldn't have a clue what the race was about, and whether the cars involved have triple jet, overhanded, regulated ramshaft adjusters or not.

In my view, the only important thing about a car is that it isn't painted bright green.

I'm not one of life's petrol heads.

I have such a bad relationship with cars that it's a struggle to get through each week without flattening the battery.

This happened again yesterday because I'd become glued in the stationary, fully lit position listening to a debate on the car radio about whether we should have the V8 race in Auckland - a real double whammy.

This, after a sleepless night because some enthusiast with a hot-rod had decided to leave the hotel across the road at 3 in the morning.

I am assuming it was a hot-rod because this is the only vehicle I know of that might sound like World War III and take an hour-and-a-half to warm up.

So this plea is hardly from a vested interest, although excitement around the V8 race might boost sales of my book Jumper Leads - The Inside Story.

But I'm backing the motor heads, and anyone else who wants the race, to the hilt.

If we can't have things that big cities have, we might as well send all the Cantabrians home, which would turn Auckland back into a small town. Then we could get on with a nice rural life.

All cities have bigger-than-usual events to liven things up, something to put that added zip into everyone's step every now and then.

Melbourne has the Melbourne Cup, London has the London Marathon, New York has the US Open, Dunedin has market day.

But what has Auckland got? Zilch, unless the thing that floats your boat is a yachting race that takes place beyond the horizon.

And after all, there are a lot of disruptions Aucklanders put up with in the name of sport because that's the sort of things which happen in a city.

For instance, there are thousands of people I'm sure who would love to live between Dominion Rd and Sandringham Rd but are denied because rugby and cricket have got a blooming great ground there.

This would be especially galling for all those wannabe residents when there's a domestic cricket game on, realising that their dream home is beyond them just because the city wants to provide a pastime for 27 people (that's the radio audience - to be fair the total is much closer to 60 when you include the participants and spectators at the ground).

And what about all those other people who have to kow-tow to a load of cash-heavy Italian handbag salesmen having fun and games on our harbour.

If you want to ban something because it causes traffic jams in Auckland, then you'd have to ban getting up in the morning.

No, no. This is a matter of human rights.

So, protesting motor heads, start your engines.