And now for something COMPLETELY different ...

[Captain Hammer]

... Okay, this might be verging out of the realms of the usual discussion, but I was just browing through the main site and killing some time when I found a section I'd never seen before: the editorials. And among them were reviews of the films DRIVEN and TALLADEGA NIGHTS. Unfortuantely, I have actually paid good money to see these two terrible excuses for films (I especially like the way a gust of wind can blow a racing car into a double inverted somersault with pike in DRIVEN), and reaing the reviews has got me thinking. Every time Hollywood deals with the subject of racing, they've fallen flat on their face: DAYS OF THUNDER was just TOP GUN in racing cars, while the less said about THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, the better. We haven't really had anything decent since GRAND PRIX and LE MANS, though I have heard good things about MICHEL VALLIENTE, though I haven't seen it.

Now, I fancy myself as something of a writer, and I have what I think is a great idea for a story involving Formula One racing. It's pretty well-formed in my mind, so this thread isn't a case of me asking you what you think I should incude if ever I were to get published. Instead, I'm challenging you to come up with an idea for a workable story, one that could put the likes of Tom Cruise, Vin Diesel, Will Ferrell and Sylvester Stallone to shame (granted, it shouldn't be too diffcult). This is my idea so far:

Veteran racing driver Enver Kirilenku (he's Romanian) is in the twilight of his career. After a disappointing season that ends in an early retirement and with his team not willing to renew his contract, Kirilenku decides it's time to leave. He doesn't want to spend two or three years racing around the tail end teaching some upstart young racer how to drive. Shortly after the final race and the announcement of his retirement, his friend and former teammate-turned-driver manager Nathan convinces him not to leave the sport entirely. A small privateer team has folded, and Nathan convinces Enver to return for the next season as a team owner.

On paper, it looks pretty solid, but they're going to need a backer. Under pressure from a major sponsor who doesn't want to wait a year, Nathan and Enver get the support of a shady Mexican businessman and manage to get onto the grid in three short months, having purchased an unused chassis and secured an engine deal. For drivers they sign Dominic Phillips, a promising British driver who has just finished his first season in the sport, and Sophie Chevalier, a GP2 driver and the first female in the sport; both Nathan and Enver feel guilty that they hired her based on the fact that she could draw more sponsors rather than on her talent.

No-one expects too much to begin with, especially given the circumstances, and the best that can be said of the team is that they consistently meet expectations. They pick up a few points when results go their way, but over the course of the season, weird things start to happen. At first Enver suspects their Mexican partner, who has always provided his money when asked, but has never described where it comes from. In reality, he's actually their heir to a fortune based on manufacturing laxatives and condoms, and naturally wants to keep it quiet. The real threat to the team is Phillips, where it is revealed that he borrowed the mney to begin his career from some rather shady characters and hasn't payed them back. In fact, he's borrowed more money and injected it into the team.

Elsewhere, a major scandal breaks out among the top teams that demands considerable attention, and the paddock give it to them, unaware of Enver's problems. A lack of development on the car means everyone else is getting faster while the mob closes in on the team, and everything comes to a head at the season finale.

As you have probably guessed, I've drawn on a bit of reject lore to ake this work, namely the following:

- MasterCard pushing Lola onto the 1997 grid
- Tom Walkinshaw's mismanagement of Arrows in 2002, including his hiring of a less-than-trustworthy sponsor
- Honda's withdrawal in 2008 and the rise of Brawn in 2009
- The McLaren-Ferrari espionage scandal of 2007 OR the safety car fiasco at Melbourne in 2009
- Andrea Moda, circa 1992 (possibly a rival new team)
- Alain Prost learning the difference between driver and owner the hard way

And so on and so forth.

[RejectSteve]

On paper, it looks pretty solid, but they're going to need a backer. Under pressure from a major sponsor who doesn't want to wait a year, Nathan and Enver get the support of a shady Mexican businessman and manage to get onto the grid in three short months, having purchased an unused chassis and secured an engine deal. For drivers they sign Dominic Phillips, a promising British driver who has just finished his first season in the sport, and Sophie Chevalier, a GP2 driver and the first female in the sport; both Nathan and Enver feel guilty that they hired her based on the fact that she could draw more sponsors rather than on her talent.

From this section, I picked up the feeling that it was GLAS-turned-Modena/Lambo with the unused chassis and Mexican businessman. Isn't "Sophie Chevalier" a character in the video game Ridge Racer Type 4 though?

[CarlosFerreira]

Sound good, but there's too much Hollywood-ish story. We need more track time.

Let's have Sophie collecting the very first points for the team with some last-corner late braking kamikaze over some Italian rival, and being faster and more consistent than Phillips throughout the season. Maybe she's been an up-and-coming Formula driver that didn't progress in F1 and stuck to Touring cars or Endurance, instead of just a young pretty face? Can I please suggest Marisa Tomei or Mira Sorvino?

Am I getting ever so very slightly ahead of myself here?

[Ben Gilbert]

I also had an idea for a story, but I haven't been able to put it to paper/computer yet. It is well formed in my head, so here is an overview. I feel that it's quite centered on the racing, and may be better (more accurate) than the Hollywood detritis, but I may be wrong

It is the mid 2040s. After the massive economic downturn of the 2010s, the FIA stepped in with drastic measures for Formula One. Costs were reduced significantly, the rules were slackened slightly, allowing more freedom for the engineers, while leaving most of the late 2000s regulation changes intact, and the sport has taken a backward step, closer to the heydey. Because of the lower costs, more teams are springing up, and the certain 'Amateur spirit' that F1 had from the mid 1970s, until the 1997 season, has returned. There has alos been an extension to the calendar, with more than 20 races per season, plus a special, non-campionship endurance race, at the end of each year, held at an F1 track, that didn't appear in the preceeding season.

Enter Great Wall Motorsport. The team was founded by the largest private car manufacturer in China, and in 2045, they ran some tests with a veteran driver, and the car proved moderately competitive.S they paid the $1,000,000 entry fee for 2046, and began the long trek to start the next season, and build their new factory near the British GP track, Donington, providing access to a test track, and close to F1's Silicon Valley. The team will run their test chassis, but once the factory is complete, they will build a brand new one. Another thing that they have decided, is to build their own engine, rather than run the Mercedes V10 they used in testing. Instead, they will have their factory in China, produce a 2.7 Litre W9 engine, with 3 rows of 3 cylinders. The rules state that the engine can be between 8 and 12 cylinders, and up to 3 litres. The team believe that their chassis was competant enough to negate the power deficit, while the lower weight and smaller size of the engine will also compensate, allowing for a slimmer rear of the car.


They have signed up two drivers, and one tester. In the first car, is a veteran of 19 seasons of Formula One, Belgian old-hand Jan van der Berg. The first ever Belgian Champion, he won the title three times, but that was in the first decade of his career. He spent the twilight of his career wallowing in low teams, such as his homland's Vlaamspeed and Citroen, but gave his all in whatever he drove for the love of the sport. In the other car, will be the youngest driver to start a race, should he make the grid in Australia, local of Donington Park, Jack Thompson. A touring car driver for the last three years, he enjoyed a meteoric rise to win the BTCC in his 3rd season, despite winning only one race, before being snaffled up by GWR. They also signed an erratic, but fast, Lithuanian driver, Lukas Bardisauskas, who partnered Thompson in the BTCC last season, to be their tester and reserve.

The team's challenge will be making the grid this year. With nearly 40 drivers battling for 26 grid places, the qualifying rules have been expanded. The current, 2009 system has been extended, so there is a knockout for all entrants, and the list slowly wittles down. To retain a 26 car start, if any drivers cannot start the race, those below will be promoted accordingly, and those just below the grid will be bumped up. With an underpowered, virtually untested car, and the smooth, unspectacular driving styles of their drivers, they may have an uphill struggle to make the grid.

I have got further in the story, and I know pretty much how their first season pans out, but this is the main overview. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask

[Reverie Planetarian]

Reminds me of my own racing-themed fiction that I've been doing lately. It's air racing, though, but a lot of team chemistry and tales are based off actual F1 teams and seasons...

[RejectSteve]

Enoch, haven't you got a comment here? I seem to remember on your F1 Rejects author profile about your alternative championship with Mika Salo taking the 1995 Finnish GP.

[Captain Hammer]

Isn't "Sophie Chevalier" a character in the video game Ridge Racer Type 4 though?

She is?

[IntegratorTypeR]

If you want to make a movie about motor racing, you are going to fail. When Hollywood tries to make movies about racing, the people who are racing fans, ie: geeks like us, can spot the mistakes and errors a mile away. Cuts showing a driver stomping on the gas and changing a gear to get past on a straight, every cut to a car is accompianed by the sound of an upchange, wheels always locking under braking etc etc. They try to inject excitement but totally OTTalise it. Movie producers don't want to show racing in the way that we, the fans, understand it but as short sharp editted down effect for narative purposes. IMO if you want to make/write a movie about racing, make it NOT about the racing but just have the racing as the background to the story.

You should make something like a Jerry Mcguire but with racing drivers and enginers instead of football players and agents. Or how about an action movie about a drug dealing gang who operate during the Le Mans 24 Hours and the efforts of one police officer to bring them down. Maybe a thriller where an assassin has made their way into a GP and is going to kill the President/Prime Minister as he presents the trophy to the winner.

[thehemogoblin]

Epic signature, Capt. Hammer.

[Nuppiz]

Enoch, haven't you got a comment here? I seem to remember on your F1 Rejects author profile about your alternative championship with Mika Salo taking the 1995 Finnish GP.

Too bad the profiles don't work at the moment, I get a 404 Error on both Enoch's and Jamie's profiles...

[Captain Hammer]

Sound good, but there's too much Hollywood-ish story. We need more track time.

Track time there would be, but as Enver and Nathan are the main characters, the story would largely focus on them in the pits. It's very difficult to write a story where the characters do the same thing fifty or sixty times one twenty occasions across the year.

As for the Hollywood-ness, that's just the way I write. A lot of my characters are "aware" that they are in a Hollywood version of something; that's not to say they know they are characters in a work of fiction, but moreso that they are a little more clued in to the world they exist in. Everything is slightly exaggerated and larger than life.

[Reverie Planetarian]

*deleted because something went wrong and this would've been a double post.*

[Reverie Planetarian]

You should make something like a Jerry Mcguire but with racing drivers and enginers instead of football players and agents. Or how about an action movie about a drug dealing gang who operate during the Le Mans 24 Hours and the efforts of one police officer to bring them down. Maybe a thriller where an assassin has made their way into a GP and is going to kill the President/Prime Minister as he presents the trophy to the winner.

What? Like Driven's attempts at off-track drama? Or the Fast And (The) Furious always crumbling into Bad Boys with neon lights under it by the end? Or Speed Racer in its many, many episodes?...AND the movie?
Look, what we're talking about here is a racing movie, where the racing takes precedence rather than just providing a setting. We're talking about making another Grand Prix, not making another Fast and Furious or Speed Racer. Or Driven. Or Days of Thunder...

Frankly I'd love to see a movie about what you've been plotting, CH. It's got a sort of motorsports "This Is Spinal Tap" feel, if it were represented as some kind of mockumentary. Played straight it'd provide some real insight into the also-rans of racing.

[CarlosFerreira]

I hate to say this in an F1 Forum, but this would be much more interesting in a Championship like Le Mans Series. The cars are visually more stimulating. Or maybe I am still mesmerized by Steve McQueen in Le Mans?

[RejectSteve]

I hate to say this in an F1 Forum, but this would be much more interesting in a Championship like Le Mans Series. The cars are visually more stimulating. Or maybe I am still mesmerized by Steve McQueen in Le Mans?

Sports car racing works wonders because you have the cars circulating while your main driving characters interact in the paddock before going back out and having the ensuing mayhem.

I'm mesmerized by Le Mans too, definately racing's greatest film. No dialogue in the first 37 minutes, fire, explosions, and racing? What more could you want?