Second Hand Racing

Another tough and intense racing week is ended for the 4Fun guys, and the current series are getting to the heart. The engines are roaring, the tires screeching, the cars crashing into each other – you know, all that usual stuff. Also the SRS Team Championship is happily on his way as Gianluca Roncaglia makes progresses with the abacus: he will go on with the points calculations with it, at least unless he’ll discover what the hell is that Excel application his teammates are continuously naming him.

It was also an intense week of vacation – no, not that kind of vacation – for Dario Bucalo, who was hosted as the third pilot from the nice Stefano and Paolo Del Grande brothers for the beautiful 24H of Le Mans organized by Italia Racing Team, in which they were able to get a brilliant 3^rd place in the GT2 class with the Porsche 911. Dario started as the last pilot early in the morning and arrived on his wheel rims and with only air in his tank after a couple of weeks. “It was a really amazing experience”, said Bucalo by pulling off the needle of his liquid food drip “I only had some problems with shaving while driving and with some disturbing sounds in the headphones – I was hearing Paolo and Stefano continuously saying ‘go faster, don’t let that car pass, you ******’, there must have been radio interferences or something like that”. At the end of the race Bucalo was also awarded for the Racer with the Most Stable Connection prize, being almost a miracle that he never disconnected throughout all the race. “We had a big party after the end of the 24H”, continued Bucalo “and I can’t wait to fight again with Stefano and Paolo in the Cupra series. I wanted also their cars to party so I poured some bottles of champagne in the tank. A nice thought, isn’t it?”.

Of course Bucalo also raced in Imola with the Cupra, but we will tell his disconnection stories another time, if he does not disconnect while telling us. Meanwhile, the overbusy Omer Kinay was able only to race once along the week, since he had to spare some time to invoice and deposit on his bank account his four-digits royalties that came from the copyrighted Seat Cupra-Tor Poznan setup. Kinay had a hard fight on the track and lost six times the rear of his car – we had to reread the press note six times before believing to this – being anyway able to get a final third place. Did he maybe forget to apply the anti-rust spray on his suspension? Sabotage? The matter is still under debate.

And it was another week of struggle for Matteo Venuti due to the perduring issues of his racing wheel and pedals, although he wouldn’t be in need of them since he can drive cars telepathically. Anyway, he was finally able to race using a food plate connected with a rubber at the wheel base and using the vibe mode of his cell phone to surrogate the force feedback, also replacing his rotten brake pedal with one from an old sewing machine and the throttle pedal with a chimney bellows. Still without a win approaching the end of the week, Venuti decided to play a Wreckfest game with his Lotus 49 and happily marched on bunches of cars corpses, finally grabbing his inevitabile win. “I mounted a cannon and a machine gun on my Lotus”, said Venuti “and I had only to fire them four times. After all, it was a clean race”. A heck of a tank driver!

And what about Gianluca Roncaglia? Well, after his troubled past week he was able to get two wins at Imola, and for the rest of the week he watched repeatedly Rocky and Rambo movies and also Rush, continuously criticizing Lauda and Hunt driving style in comparison to his own, so we’d better no ask him for any statement since the raceweek report space is limited and it must be published once a week. Too bad! See you next week and don’t forget to buy the anti-rust spray and to repair your racing gear!

Playlist of the week:

Pat Benatar – Hit Me with Your Best Shot (for Matteo Venuti)

Frank Stallone – Far From Over (for Gianluca Roncaglia)

13^th Floor Elevators – Slide Machine (for Omer Kinay)

Buckingham Nicks – Long Distance Winner (for Dario Bucalo, Stefano Del Grande and Paolo Del Grande)