I'm Kev (aka fongu, a moniker I've had for around 20 years) and I've loved making cars for GP4 for nearly 20 years and I also enjoy collecting 1/43 models. In this blog, I hope to show you some of my current works for GP4, and maybe look back at some old ones, and I will start doing some 1/43 scale F1 model reviews overtime.
I've always loved cars since I was a little boy, but occasionally I'd catch a little bit of the end of a Grand Prix when the TV was on, but I'd never watched a whole race before. I remember being intrigued when Mansell won the championship, and kept remembering seeing a young German by the name of Schumacher on the podium in 1993. So come 1994, again I caught the end of the first race in Brazil and thought I'd make some effort to try and watch it, but not really knowing when the Grand Prix would pop up.
But it was on Saturday 30th April, 1994 that I caught the news that Roland Ratzenberger had lost his life in practice for the San Marino Grand Prix. I was going to be out on Sunday, but I set my VCR recorder to tape the race in the morning. When I got home, I was disappointed to find that I forgot to rewind the tape to catch the whole Grand Prix, it only recorded up to the end of lap 3 (thankfully!).
I watched the build up, from Ruben's horror crash, but lucky to get away without major injuries, to reports of Roland's brief career. And then the race start saw J. J. Lehto in the Benetton stall on the grid as the field sped past him. But Pedro Lamy in the Lotus did not have enough time to react and BANG into the back of the Benetton. Then out comes the safety car and my video ended. Dramatic, sad, engaging, full of tension; I was hooked.
I went to sleep and turned on the news the next morning to find out a few laps after my video had stopped, more tragedy. I was 10 at the time and pretty glad that I didn't see the accident nor the prolonged footage from the stoppage. But though I was new to the sport, I was deeply struck by Senna's death. I heard clips from the post-race press conferences, would Schumacher continue his career? And would Gerhard Berger, ex team-mate and friend to Ayrton and fellow Austrian with Ratzenberger, tearfully considered the same thing in front of the cameras. The emotions were gripping and I was keen to know how all the drivers and teams would move on from the tragedy. I don't watch the sport for crashes, I don't wish anybody be hurt in motorsports, and I'm pretty squeamish and I have to look away when I see a crash and I know the driver gets injured. But it was the human emotion and reactions and how to move on from such tragedy that got me interested.
I don't remember much about the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, except that Andrea de Cesaris ended up in a coma following his crash in practice. Schumacher duly won his fourth race in a row. Onto Spain and I remember Schumacher's brilliant drive when stuck in 5th gear for two-thirds of the race. Though I acknowledged that Schumacher was brilliant, my patriotic side was glad that Damon Hill won, from the same team as Senna and for the rest of the season, it was the Brit who I wanted to win the Championship.
I loved the racing, but it was the technical side that drew me in. I loved it wasn't a spec series, that every constructor made their own car, and I loved the different aerodynamic solutions: high nose/low nose, anhedral lower rear wings to double-decker rear wings, how many barge-boards can you go and how would the teams handle the mid-season regulation changes. I suppose that's where my fascination with F1 and aero-surfaces comes from.
25 years on, and I still love F1, and I'm still fascinated by the drama of the 1994 season.
Read my model collecting story: Part 1
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