h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I always used to wonder what the 'Bus Stop' referred to in F1. Murray Walker used to use it.

Well, as the author's (permanently) offline, I suppose I as Sub and racing fan ought to take some responsibility for answering random questions.

Forgoing the obvious answer that, if Murray is talking about it then it probably doesn't make sense anyway, the Bus Stop is the chicane near the end of Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

B

It's the name for one of the corners at the Spa-Francochamps (that spelling looks wrong) circuit in Belgium. Spa is one of the last 'Road circuits', where the race is run on closed public roads, rather than a specially built track. The other street circuits are (off the top of my head, so i'll probably miss a couple)
Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia (in a park in the city)
Monaco, the obvious one
Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada (not all public roads, but i seem to remember Murray saying that some of it was once)

Anyway, to get back to the subject, the Bus Stop Chicane is a corner at the Belgian Grand Prix, so called because in normal life there's a bus stop there. (You'd never have guessed, would you?!!)

An interesting thing to do is to get a map of the Malmedy area of Belgium and you find that you can actually trace out the route of the race as it winds between the villages of Spa and Francochamps.

And, while i'm here, I've just been looking at a certain television company's website (not the BBC, sorry!) and I see that the Belgian GP has been dropped for this season. What is Bernie up to? The Belgian GP is the best race of the seadon, bar none.

Damn, you got there before me
I must learn to type quicker!

I think the Belgian GP is in danger of being dropped unless it tightens up its track security. With another marshall being killed last year, Formula 1 is rightly anxious to make sure that bits of cars can't go flying anywhere (especially as they're increasingly lightweight and therefore fly further), and so is toughening up all the barriers. Spa failed.

B

Me... permanantly off line... not really... just been realllllly busy... little thing called real life... I've been tinkering with some of my project since I saw it being pushed though... more work will be being done...

Eric! You're back!

We never thought we were going to see you again.
We seem to have Edited most of your entries in the meantime, though - hope that's OK.

B

Yup it wonderufl infact... however I would hope... if you would perhaps let me review them and possibly submit suplimental additions... flesh things out... fix minor things I'm not happy with and stuff like that... all run by your desk of course :P

Well, you'll have to run it by the Towers' desks, actually. But, seeing as it's you, I'm sure they'll willingly make some changes.

A suggestion, though - ask them to make all your changes at once, rather than one at a time, or they tend to get tetchy.

B

will do... sheesh... lot of work now !

Belgium's gone because the Belgian government voted for a unilateral tobacco advertising ban in 2003 (as opposed to the 2006 limit everyone else has gone for.) Unsurprisingly, tobacco politics gets in the way of our sport.