Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorsport/Archive 5

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Standard naming convention for disambiguating drivers

I've mostly seen "(racing driver)" used as a mean of disambiguation, such as the case in Gonzalo Rodríguez, James Weaver, John Watson or James Thomspon, but there are a few strays, such as Bernd Schneider (racecar driver), Greg Moore (race car driver) or Andy Wallace (racer). Shouldn't we have some consistency about this? In addition, there's a redlink for Kenneth Hansen (rallycross) (currently Kenneth Hansen points to a speedway racer), and I don't feel we should be specific about any specific sort of motor racing when disambiguating. --Pc13 00:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe there are also a few racing drivers marked as (Formula One) that should be more generalized as well. The359 01:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see them all as "(racing driver)", but I've never felt sufficiently passionate about it to change any of the non-conformists. Also note that if you had two notable racing drivers with the same name (not especially likely, but not impossible), then you might need to be more specific to distinguish them, e.g. if there was a notable rally driver named Alan Jones, then he might need to be "Alan Jones (rally driver)" to distinguish him from the F1 World Champion of the same name. DH85868993 02:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I've seen very many different implementations. See Category:NASCAR drivers for some entertainment. It's hopeless as far as I can see. I, too, don't see a need to change anything or come up with a standard name. One of my favorites are the Bud Moores. One was a NASCAR driver at the same time that the other was NASCAR's most notable owner! That page was fun to separate. Another favorite is Wayne Anderson who had a few NASCAR Cup starts, and Wayne Anderson (NASCAR Modified driver) who was the NASCAR Modified champ in 1994. There is a request for an article on the Modified driver. Royalbroil 04:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Implement changes wherever possible toward "(racing driver)" in the page names in question, and if there is more than one, simply pluralize the qualification, to "(racing drivers)", identifying all such in the single article instead of a disambiguation. Put them in chronological order of their beginnings in motorsports, if such matter ever becomes contentious. --Chr.K. 17:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

But by having two drivers in the same article, you suggest they are connected when of course, they quite probably aren't in anyway except for being racing drivers, and having the same name. AlexJ 17:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

...and the name of the game is disambiguation. If a driver is known almost exclusively for one code of racing then I see no harm in describing him/her using a specific suffix. Pyrope 18:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Mayumashu has recently renamed a whole bunch of racing driver articles [1]. He agreed to my request to interrupt the activity, so the matter could be discussed here. Mayumashu's stated rationale for renaming the articles was "to have a universally named disambiguation term. "auto racing" for people involved in auto racing either "motor racing" or "motorsport" for people involved in both auto and motorbike racing, and "motorsport" for those involved in even more general endeavours in motorsport." As a result of Mayumashu's changes, we now have a whole bunch of articles which are only linked to via redirects (e.g. [2], and quite a few double-redirects (although I think there are bots that will fix these?). What's our preferred way forward?:

• leave things as they are?
• revert Mayumashu's changes?
• update links for the articles which have already been renamed, but don't rename any more?
• complete the job (and update all the links?)
• something else?

DH85868993 (talk) 04:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Revert. There already was an established convention, and that was not it. Racing driver is used in a majority of circumstances, and unlike 'auto racing' is not a nation/region specific term. --Falcadore (talk) 04:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Revert. Sigh - what a waste of time. There are far more important things to do. I really don't like these changes - they're malformed. Never should an article on a driver be changed from (driver) to (auto racing) or (motorsport). For example, I think moved Jimmy Adams (driver) to Jimmy Adams (auto racing) is very wrong and misleading. The terms "auto racing" and "motorsport" are for sanctioning bodies, not drivers. Royalbroil 04:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Other sports (but not all) have gone to using the name of their sport as their disambiguation form as 1) a number of players/participants later become notable managers, owners, etc. and 2) it tends (but doesn t always) lead to more concise naming eg. (tennis player --> tennis; baseball player --> baseball) Auto-racing/motorsport biography pages had, from looking at the lists on their cat pages, no established convention so I attempted to establish one along the lines of other sports that have established one. I now realise that I was hasty by not having discussion first, and for not realising that auto racing isn t the standard way of refering to the sport in the U.K./Oceania/S.Africa. Mayumashu (talk) 04:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

"...auto racing isn't the standard way of refering [sic] to the sport in the U.K./Oceania/S.Africa." It seems that you need to develop a more international view of motorsport and gain more knowledge of it before jumping in head first and over-riding established methods. To do so without prior discussion really shows a lack of Wikiquette as well. Revert. Adrian M. H. 14:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I note from earlier sections in your talk page that those other sports you mentioned have had their WikiProjects put a stop to you and revert your efforts there as well. Maybe now you'll stop trying this? Maybe now you'll stop ignoring the WikiProjects? --Falcadore (talk) 21:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted them all (except the ones which had already been reverted by other people, or where the new name was as good or better than the old one). DH85868993 (talk) 09:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

List of 2007 motorsport champions

(copied from Talk:List of motorsport championships)
Does anyone object to the creation of a page similar to this which highlights the 2007 champions of various series? --Falcadore (talk) 02:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

How would you decide which series to include in the list? National and international only? What about series that are raced regionally but televised nationally? Where's the dividing line? Royalbroil 04:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Does there have to be a dividing line? List of motorsport championships seems like a starting point. I have a test page going based on the format used in Portal:Current events/Sports for a first pass, but clarity seems to be an issue. Look here --Falcadore (talk) 06:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right, this does look like a nice starting point. The wording on the top of the article states the criteria, which is a very important thing. Would you like help expanding the list? This list definitely looks like DYK material. Royalbroil 16:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Two things. 1 - If your page is for 2007 champions, why include the Top 3? Including just the champion makes things simpler, especially if there are ties and stuff in the Top 3. 2 - Your main article, List of motorsport championships, doesn't specify if it is only for current championships or any championship ever run in the history of motorsports? I think your original page needs a lot more work before we start breaking it up year by year. The359 (talk) 18:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Good points in the last post. A second place points finish in NASCAR is roughly considered about the same as a fifth place finish. Podium finishes is not a commonly used term in most motorsport genres in the United States. This list should be just the champions. The list should only include series that were active in 2007. The list of years that an inactive series was active should be used to update the source article, and then they should be removed from this list. It is a better article with the direction that The359 suggests. Royalbroil 23:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Another issue is shall we include redlinked series, no matter how notable they are. Willirennen (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is "Yes" - if they are notable enough that they should have an article. I have reorganized the List of motorsport championships article and added the start/finish dates for defunct series. The Australian Sports Sedan Championship sounds like a stock car championship. Is my assessment correct? Royalbroil 23:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Well there also needs to be some better organization as well. I assume we should list championships in alphabetical order? The359 (talk) 00:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Some articles (like Championship Off-Road Racing) are about sanctioning bodies that have multiple national series. That poses a problem with sorting by series name. Royalbroil 01:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Well I don't think we should include sanctioning bodies like International Motor Sports Association, Indy Racing League (they have two championships), FIA, or even Championship Off-Road Racing. Just the series. The359 (talk) 01:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Not every series has its own article. I think that all major notable series should be included, even if this article links to their sanctioning body and lists the multiple series below it. Many series make sense to be left in the sanctioning body's article, since an article on the sanctioning body has the right scope. Royalbroil 01:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

If a series is notable, why would it make sense for information on that series to remain in an article from its sanctioning body, and not its own article? The359 (talk) 01:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Love to ask this, would it be a good to have IndyCar to be in the same category as Formula cars since these are single seaters series as I have added the old Formula Atlantic series there. Willirennen (talk) 01:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

List of motorsport championships is not my article, merely an inspirational starting point and/or logical extension. Agree on reducing top three to just the champion. Sports Sedans is hard to quantify. It's a true silouhette class with spaceframe and monocoque construction with fibreglass, carbon or steel panels drapped around the chassis to look like a road car. The mechanical motive power varies greatly, Chev 5.8 V8 the most common, but the source vehicles range from BMW E36, Ford Falcon (Australia), Jaguar XKR, Mazda RX-7, Alfa Romeo Alfetta, Saab 9-3, Nissan 300ZX, Rover SD1, Opel Calibra it is as varied as they come so very hard to bottonhole. Do not believe alphabetical would be the best grouping. And finally for Willirennen - is you look at the test page, I've already combined the US open wheel series into the mix on the test page here. --Falcadore (talk) 02:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Another one as I have added one-make series, the main restriction I'm making on these as there are a huge number of them is I have decided to keep it just mainly to factory sanctioned series, feel free to make edits to these. Willirennen (talk) 03:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are going to only list drivers, I think the page title should reflect that. Champions can be awarded in a lot of different categories to more than just people. The359 (talk) 04:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree, I just had not gotten to the point to add manufacturers titles and what have you. The WRC tag with the indented JWRC & PWRC should reflect that the senior drivers title should stand out from the others. --Falcadore (talk) 07:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's up now at List of 2007 motorsport champions. Go at it with additions. Query though - might it look better with the driver name up first - for back to back comparisons what do the kind editorial folk think? First version:

• Formula One:2007 Formula 1 season

  Kimi Räikkönen

  Constructors:Scuderia Ferrari

• GP2 Series:2007 GP2 Series season

  Timo Glock

• Champ Car:2007 Champ Car World Series season

  Sébastien Bourdais

Second attempt:

• Kimi Räikkönen Formula One

  Constructors:Scuderia Ferrari

  refer:2007 Formula 1 season

• Timo Glock GP2 Series

  refer:2007 GP2 Series season

• Sébastien Bourdais Champ Car

  refer:2007 Champ Car World Series season

--Falcadore (talk) 08:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I feel that there is going to be an issue with adding motorcycling on this list as if you account for other international level motorcycling championship, this list is going to become too big for its own good, therefore it would be a good idea to have a separate list called List of 2007 motorcycling champions and List of motorcycling championships, not to mention another separate list for powerboating. Willirennen (talk) 00:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to reming you all that the motorcycling section of this page, as it is getting too large, I have split it off to its own page, see it at List of 2007 motorcycling champions. Willirennen (talk) 04:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Then as far as I'm concerned it is now an incomplete list. Motorsport includes motorcycling - why not make it a multi-page list with pages for auto racing, motorcycle racing, rallying etc. I think also it would be better to utilise tables to improve the layout of the page. Readro (talk) 15:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Comparing to the above two formats then - like this?

Series	Driver	refer
Formula One	Kimi Räikkönen	2007 Formula 1 season
	Scuderia Ferrari
GP2 Series	Timo Glock	2007 GP2 Series season
Champ Car	Sébastien Bourdais	2007 Champ Car World Series season

--Falcadore (talk) 04:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Move request of Special Stage

Considering the endurance racing page had received that treatment despite only one article about the topic, the term Special Stage is commonly associated with rallying more than Sonic the Hedgehog, I decided to bring it up here as one user has so far opposed the move. Please add your nomination on Talk:Special Stage#Requested move. Willirennen (talk) 03:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd say create an article on a Special Stage in rallying before we consider moving and disambiguating. The359 (talk) 03:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

"Major events" field in Template:Motorsport venue

What's the intention for the "Major events" field in Template:Motorsport venue - is it just supposed to list major events which are currently held at the venue, or should it list past major events as well? For example, Autodromo di Pergusa lists "Formula One". Once consensus is established, I'll add it to the template doc. DH85868993 (talk) 11:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I've always used it as past or present, then I list the years that a past event ran. Royalbroil 20:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Robert Babikian

Robert Babikian (via WP:PROD on 21 December 2007)

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No arguement here. Never even heard of the guy. From what I can gather from the 2001 ELMS results, he even only ran 1 race. The359 (talk) 23:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd consider objecting, but the article is one sentence long. Royalbroil 05:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

He did some races of British GT in 2000, and before that was a regular in British Porsche Carrera Cup. Was 1996 champion there, from what I could gather. But winning a national one-make cup is not very notable, and the guy's name is misspelled (it's actually Babikan), so delete away. --Pc13 (talk) 09:37, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the article to Robert Babikan, and moved the discussion to AFD, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Babikan. Aecis·(away) ^talk 17:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Italian Formula Three

Does anyone know of an online archive of past Italian F3 race and championship results? It would be of considerable use to me as part of my ongoing improvement of the Forti article.--Diniz (talk) 23:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Formel3Guide.com has a list of champions. Readro (talk) 13:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Some final points standings, although a bit sketchy in places. Readro (talk) 14:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You might also be interested in knowing that Forti entered two cars in 1992's F3000 World Cup at Buenos Aires. Readro (talk) 14:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Italian Formula 3 champions 1964 - 1994 The359 (talk) 19:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the information!--Diniz (talk) 15:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycle Racing

I notice the recent creation of Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycle Racing. Is there really enough motorcycle racing which falls outside the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Grand Prix motorcycle racing to warrant a separate WikiProject? Would it have been easier to expand the scope of (or possibly even rename) the existing WikiProject? If we think a separate WikiProject is warranted, then should it perhaps be called "WikiProject Motorcycle Sport" to also include non-racing motorcycle sport (e.g. Freestyle Motocross)? Newly-created stub templates {{Motorcycle-racing-stub}} and {{Motorcycle-racing-bio-stub}} are currently under discussion here. Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

GP Motorcycle racing is a small to middle-sized subset of the motorcycle racing that happens in the United States. There is also motocross, flat track to name a few. Ouch, that's a redlink! A redlink like that emphasizes that something needs to be done. It's up to the contributors to decide what they want, but single WikiProject with a task force for GP would make more sense to me. I rarely work on motorcycle articles so it isn't my decision to make. Royalbroil 01:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I wonder whether it'd be better to create Task forces instead of sub-projects, as some others are leaning towards them. 84.70.79.28 (talk) 01:35, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd fully support a unified project with an emphasis (or taskforce if someone wants to create it) on MotoGP. When I had suggested a completely reorganization of the WikiProjects under Motorsport, a broad Motorcycle Racing Project was one of my suggestions. The359 (talk) 02:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I think a single WP covering all Motorcycle Racing (or Sport) would be most effective (perhaps with taskforces for different areas). There's a lot of overlap at present between the old project and the new, and it would probably be more effective to have a unified project than to have discussions covering the same thing split over two places. AlexJ (talk) 15:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A single motorcycle racing WP covering all aspects of motorcycle racing makes more sense to me. And within it, specific taskforces set on specific forms of motorcycle racing (ie MotoGP, AMA...). Having a single WikiProject dedicated to just MotoGP has never made any sense to me due to the subject simply being far too narrow. Thoughts? Roguegeek (talk) 23:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe that Wikipedia:WikiProject Grand Prix motorcycle racing should be merged into Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycle Racing. For start, the name and scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Grand Prix motorcycle racing dont agree (superbike racing and supersport racing are not Grand Prix championships, only a number of Isle of Man TT races were grand prix races, etc...). In addition WP Grand Prix motorcycle racing ignores a great deal of motorcycle racing and until now most of the motorcycle racing articles (including the stubs above) were managed by the Motorcycling WikiProject. There were less than 100 articles in the Grand Prix motorcycle racing WikiProject, after I went thought the motorcycling articles there are now over 300 articles in the WikiProject Motorcycle Racing articles Category and I havent finished the articles that start with A yet.

As for motorcycle sport vs motorcycle racing, if you look at commons there is only a Motorcycle racing category that covers all motorcycle related sports even those that are not races and as I said in the stubs discussion Googling "Motorcycle sport" returned me about 108,000 results, googling "Motorcycle racing" returned about 2,860,000 results. "motorcycle sport" is not a widely used term.

Moreover in Category:Motorsport, Motorcycle sport is out of sync with the rest, there is Air racing for planes, Auto racing for cars, Motorboat racing for boats, and Motorcycle sport for motorcycles. As for including non-racing sports, non-racing auto sports like Demolition derby and Drifting are covered by Auto racing so why cant motorcycle trials and Freestyle Motocross be covered by motorcycle racing? Chris Ssk _talk 00:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - suggest merge of GPMCR into MCR. It would also solve my old problem of where speedway articles sit as they currently sit rather uncomfortably in Motorcycling. Jsydave (talk) 08:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Racing is only one form of motorsport. There is also sprinting, hillclimbs, autotests etc. Readro (talk) 12:55, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) OK, so there seems to be consensus that there should be a single WikiProject. How do we go about merging WP:GPMCR into WP:MCR? Note that I suggest(ed) using the name "WikiProject Motorcycle sport" because it should be obvious to the casual observer that "WikiProject Motorcycle sport" covers motorcyle racing, whereas it may not be immediately obvious that "WikiProject Motorcycle racing" covers non-racing motorcycle sport. And "WikiProject Motorcycle sport" would be consistent with other WP:MOTOR children "WikiProject Australian motorsport" and "WikiProject British motorsport". But I don't really care what the WikiProject is called, as long as the scope is clearly identified. DH85868993 (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have a question regarding the term motorsport. Motorsport and motor racing redirect to auto racing. Are motorsport and auto racing the same thing? If that is the case (and I'm not saying that it is) then why is motorcycle racing (or motorcycle sport if you prefer) a motorsport subcategory? Chris Ssk _talk 19:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

My personal view is that "motorsport" and "auto racing" aren't synonymous terms. We discussed the meaning and scope of the various motor racing/motorsport terms a while back (and also as part of this CfR), but I don't think we came to a definitive resolution. It would perhaps be better if motorsport was a brief "overview" article with appropriate links to the related articles (auto racing, motorcycle sport, air racing, motorboat racing, etc). DH85868993 (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest that instead of "auto racing" we use "automobile racing?" It's more formal and I believe it to be less ambiguous. Readro (talk) 23:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Not to throw anymore confusion to this discussion, but I can't help it. Thinking out loud here and I'm not saying this is a good or bad idea. Just an idea. What about an all encompassing WP simply called WikiProject Powersports? I would think this would mainly be focused on motorcycle sports, but also include ATVs and other forms of powersports. Not sure if I like it or if it even makes sense, but I figure we talk about it now so we don't have to talk about it later. Thoughts? Roguegeek (talk) 05:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I never heard of the term powersports, but I think it's a good idea to group together all of those genres. Last year I went to a motocross track that had ATV events mixed in between motocycle events. Royalbroil 05:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I think powersports will be stretching the project scope too wide. I believe the best idea will be a wikiproject motorcycle sport that covers all sports sanctioned by the FIM[3] (disciplines not championships):

• Road racing (Motorcycle Grand Prix(125 cc, 250 cc, MotoGP ), Superbike racing, Supersport racing, Superstock, Endurance racing, Sidecar racing)
• Motocross (MX1 MX2 MX3, Supercross, Sidecarcross, Supermoto, Snowcross, Freestyle Motocross)
• Trials
• Enduro and Cross-Country Rallies (including Quads Cross-Country Rallies)
• Track racing (Speedway, Ice racing, Long track, Track Racing Sidecar). Chris Ssk _talk 12:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Chris Ssk. DH85868993 (talk) 12:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Whatever Wikiproject members want is fine with me. Thanks for providing that list. I used it to redirect flat track. Royalbroil 13:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

So, I believe we all agreed that the 2 WikiProjects should be merged, but we just didn't find a name. If its OK, I'm going to merge Wikipedia:WikiProject Grand Prix motorcycle racing into Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycle Racing and then try to resolve the name issue with the rest of the WikiProject members Chris Ssk _talk 15:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I did the merger and also changed the project page of this WikiProject to point to Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycle Racing. Chris Ssk _talk 02:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

New categories

Category:Monaco Grand Prix drivers and Category:Macau Grand Prix drivers have recently been created. I believe I understand the reasoning behind their creation (i.e. as subcats of Category:Racecar drivers by competition, similar to Category:24 Hours of Le Mans drivers and Category:Indy 500 drivers), but I thought it might be a good idea to gather opinion on whether there is general support for their existence before anyone goes to too much trouble populating them. Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 01:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Macau Grand Prix I can understand because it is a one-off race, but Monaco Grand Prix would mostly consist of the same drivers on Category:Formula One drivers. The359 (talk) 04:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

There are quite a few GP's that have histories outside of their Formula One histories, the first Australian Grand Prix that the World Championship was the 50th Australian GP, but potentially, some racing driver will have... 37 categories or something. Is there good reason for this diversification? --Falcadore (talk) 08:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming that Category:Monaco Grand Prix drivers was created on the basis that the Monaco GP is considered (by some) to be a "special" GP; I don't think there are/were any plans to create categories for all national GPs. DH85868993 (talk) 13:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

DH85868993 is totally right. The idea is having categories for special races only, such as Mille Miglia, Indy 500, 24 Hours of L.M., Monaco GP and Macau GP. Mxcatania (talk) 14:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, but we may need to watch for people helpfully adding all the other GPs. Do people really find these categories useful, btw? It's a genuine question. I don't, but I'm well aware that others may. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 16:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I personally prefer lists to categories as they can be sorted more suitably than just alphabetic, are 'prettier' to look at and things can be highlighted (e.g. Champions in a list of all drivers). But some may prefer categories - so long as we don't over-do either there's no problem. AlexJ (talk) 19:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Underwhat circumstances do these list become useful? What is the reason for creating them? Are they a category that might be searched? --Falcadore (talk) 09:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I say kill the category per DH. Guroadrunner (talk) 09:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't necessarily suggesting the categories should be killed - I was just raising the topic for discussion. Personally, I'm in two minds: One the one hand, I think Category:Indy 500 drivers and Category:24 Hours of Le Mans drivers are worthwhile, so, following the same logic, why not Category:Macau Grand Prix drivers? On the other hand, I ask myself "Is the fact that someone drove in the Macau Grand Prix a defining characteristic?" (to which the answer is "no"). I'm less enthusiastic about Category:Monaco Grand Prix drivers: (a) because it will end up quite large (but then again, so is Category:Indy 500 drivers and Category:24 Hours of Le Mans drivers will be once fully populated) and (b) because, as mentioned above, it might inspire people to create similar categories for other national GPs. DH85868993 (talk) 11:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As per Guroadrunner, we should delete all categories within Category:Racecar drivers by competition. I do not agree with that. Mxcatania (talk) 11:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is to at least keep Category:Indy 500 drivers and Category:24 Hours of Le Mans drivers since participating in those events define their career. I don't have enough background to comment about Monaco, Macau, or Mille Maglia. Royalbroil 05:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello all. I agree with Royalbroil, with the addition of the Mille Miglia, which was an important one-off, even when such events were not so rare. I'm much less positive about Macau – yes, it is a notable part of F3 and it has seen many of its competitors reach F1, but its influence is not that of the other three events and it does not define careers. Nobody talks about Macau in the way in which they talk about le Mans and the Mille. Adrian M. H. 13:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a little bit POV anyway to determine which races are suitable for categories. I'm also not certain what these categories are adding to the encyclopedia. Why not just "F1 drivers", "Indycar drivers" or "Sports car drivers" ? Readro (talk) 20:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Why not just "drivers"? Because readers want to be given easy stepping stones to aid their browsing of a subject. Cross-referencing by categories is helpful. It's not very easy to find stuff without thinking very specifically, particularly with the primitive search system, so we should present readers with routes to other interesting material that is related. Categories with a great number of entries are hard to browse, so this type of more specific cross-referencing serves a practical purpose. It is really the essence of categorisation, isn't it? That's the first time that I have ever seen anyone describe a form of categorisation as biased. Adrian M. H. 20:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

No, the categorisation is not biased - it can't be if it is based on fact - however, one can't pick the Monaco Grand Prix as a race deserving of a category without allowing all the others. That would be POV due to the belief that Monaco is somehow more "special" than the others. Why not pick the French Grand Prix because it was the first? Or the German Grand Prix because of the history of the Nurburgring and Germany in Grand Prix racing? Or the Hungarian Grand Prix because it was the first event behing the iron curtain? Or the US Grand Prix because of its history dating back to the American Grand Prize? Each race has a similar rationale as to why it should have a category. It would be better to scrap categories for individual races. Readro (talk) 20:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent) For your own convenience, you are focusing on a category that most of us think should not be used in order to criticise the thinking behind its creation. Whoever created these categories was not completely off-target. Monaco, special though it is, is just one of 17 to 19 events (not including those which have ceased to exist) whereas the three events whose categories I support are quite different and very much do stand above other similar events. As Royalbroil pointed out, they are career defining – and in a way in which even Monaco is not, in my opinion. If that makes me biased, well just go ahead and slap that label on me, but Wikipedia's editors have to make assessments just like this every day. If they didn't, we would not have very many categories, or very much of anything. Adrian M. H. 21:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A thought - any driver who has not raced at those particular races within their specialties might well fail notability guidelines for biography inclusion. A sports car racer that has not raced at Le Mans would probably fail notability, same with Indy 500. It is generalising but just think, compare how many have to how many have not. If the have nots are not significant in number than maybe there is not much point. --Falcadore (talk) 04:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Auto racing people categories

I'm looking to establish a hierarchy of categories for auto racing people. Currently, drivers are pretty well catered for, but it's a bit patchy for non-drivers (or former drivers who are more well known for their non-driving roles). Here's my current thinking:
Category:Auto racing people

Category:Auto racing people by country

Category:Australian auto racing people (would also be a subcat of Category:Motorsport in Australia)

Category:Australian racecar drivers

etc

Category:British auto racing people (would also be a subcat of Category:Motorsport in the United Kingdom)

Category:British racecar drivers

etc

etc

Category:Racecar drivers

Category:Racecar drivers by nationality

Category:Racecar drivers by series

etc

Category:Auto racing executives

Category:Auto racing crew chiefs

Category:NASCAR crew chiefs

Category:Formula One people

Category:NASCAR people

Category:World Rally Championship people

etc

Points to note:

• Looking at the current contents of Category:Auto racing crew chiefs, it looks as though the category is intended to include all team principals/owners/managers, not just those who are known specifically as "crew chiefs". With that in mind, I'm wondering it would make sense to rename this category to a more "generic" name? (Note that I would propose leaving the subcategory Category:NASCAR crew chiefs as is)
• I suspect that most of the people who are currently in Category:British motorsport technical staff would move into Category:British auto racing people

Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 11:23, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Racing homlogation and performance models on List of Bathurst 1000 vehicles

I am having some editing issues on the List of Bathurst 1000 vehicles list as after looking at the list, as I originally attempted to do add racing homlogation models as User:Falcadore intially allowed 2 race homlogation models (BMW M3, Volvo 240 Turbo) and another one I added on (Nissan Skyline GT-R) but not the others such as the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 and separate Toyota Celica Supra from the standalone Supra listing despite , stating that the former was never sold in Australia and what was known there despite some of them never being sold there such as the Sierras. Also every models of the Falcons, Commodores, Corollas under as a single line, when the 3 series BMW are listed separately. As I am heading to a massive debate over what car can be listed, should homlogation and performance models be listed separately, should this be done to an Australian view or to a worldwide view, how should this list be presented, and anything else, feel free to say what you think on the talk section here. Willirennen (talk) 04:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the Australians do it, but I'm fairly certain that every significant redesign of a car would require it to under-go rehomologation. I recall that when the 997 GT3-RSR debuted at the 2005 Spa 24 Hours that Porsche was not allowed to run the car in the GT2 class because it did not reach homologation requirements yet, even though the 996 GT3-RSR obviously did. The359 (talk) 05:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me but my objections had nothing to do with homologation. I merely wanted the list to reflect what the vehciles are known as on the road. To be a list reflective that it is a race with production car roots and that the vechicles be known by what they are known as in the showroom and on the street. To expand the list into each individual model of Skyline, Commodore, Escort, Corolla and Falcon would leave it looking like a large off-putting mess. My reasons for splitting similar BMWs and Volvos was because that is how they are sold. In those instances the specific model is the name of the car, not additional to the name, so grouping similar models together would be to create fictional car names not reflective of how they are sold and marketted. --Falcadore (talk) 08:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, on the worldwide/Australian view, I think the cars should go by the name they were entered into the event as. I'm not sure about the splitting, there are full model names on the Bathurst page for that year, so it could be seen as overkill on the list page, but I'm not sure. I can give some other feedback though, firstly the flags look strange. 90% of the cars are listed under the manufacturers nationality and 10% under where they were built. This looks weird (Ford Sierra a Belgian car?) and my suggestion would be to either flag the manufacturers (so you'd have USA Ford) or drop them altogether. Other suggestions would be to use a table to tidy things up and add information like No. of Wins. AlexJ (talk) 11:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

When I saw the flag placed by the cars, I thought that meant country of production, therefore I agree on dropping the flag bit by the car as there are cars that have been built in successive number of countries such as the Ford Capris. Also as I have always being in favour of creating tables rather than lists as it would make the list look more organised. Also, I think we should bold winners and italic class winners. Willirennen (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Flags removed as/per. Vehicle names restored to original to better reflect the history of the race as a comparison of production models. While there may be a double standards as to vehicle naming conventions, those double standard belong to the industry rather than to wikipedia so is a reflection of the industry.

Proposed cat renaming

I've also proposed Category:Grand Prix motorcycle races by year be renamed to Category:Grand Prix motorcycle racing seasons for consistency with other subcats of Category:Motorsport by year. Please add any comments you may have here. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 03:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Category:<year> in Australian motorsport

cross-posted from Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian motorsport (where, to date, it has generated no response) for consideration by a wider audience:

For most recent years, there are at least 6 or 7 motorsport-related articles in each "<year> in Australia" category (e.g. in Category:2007 in Australia, there are 10). I propose to move these articles from the "<year> in Australia" category into a (new) "<year> in Australian motorsport" subcategory, similar to the "<year> in Australian rules football" and "<year> in Australian football (soccer)" categories. Any objections/comments? DH85868993 (talk) 08:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Lap record

Every so often, (presumably well-intentioned) editors change the lap record specified in a circuit infobox to a faster time, which was recorded in practice or qualifying, rather than during a race. Am I right in thinking that the general understanding/consensus is that the "lap record" for a circuit is the fastest lap recorded at that circuit during a race? I was/am planning to add a "Lap record" section to the Fastest lap article, and wikilink it from {{Motorsport venue}}, to try to minimise recurrences of the problem, but I thought I'd better check first that my understanding was the correct/common view. DH85868993 (talk) 02:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Because cars can and do run in alterred trim in practice and qualifying, and may not even be legal, and because qualifying laps are not recorded in racing conditions, ie with cars fighting all around you, the consensus is that lap records can only be recorded during a race. If you want greater examples - have a look at the timesheets online at the natsoft race result archive. Each sheet contains the lap record at the bottom and that qualifying lap records are refered to seperately, when available on the qualifying sheets compared to the race sheets. To the best of my knowledge it has always been this way.

The qualifying lap record is essentialy a TV stat given great credence in Australia by Greg Murphy's 2:06 Bathurst lap from 2003 qualifying, but the official lap record is slower, recorded by Jamie Whincup in 2006. --Falcadore (talk) 03:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

NASCAR coverage never talks about lap record times, except those done in qualifying. Royalbroil 03:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think something done during an official practice or qualifying session should count, since they are indeed within the rules (in most any series I'm aware of) and under legal conditions. Really, the only exclusion should be for laps which occur during outside or private test sessions that are not part of a racing event. The359 (talk) 04:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The record should depend on the series, as sanctioning bodies/series interpret records differently. Records in F1 make sense to be in-race. Royalbroil 04:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

If we are going to adopt a per-series approach in which the fastest listed time is biased by the rules or conventions of the series from which the time was recorded, then it needs to be marked as such. However, I would prefer it if we continue to consistently favour race lap-times. The series that recognise any time are surely in a tiny minority? Adrian M. H. 12:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not correct; most US racing series that keep lap-time records use qualifying times. Until the last decade, this was the only reliable data, as cars did not carry transponders and only single-car sessions could be timed with greater precision than a hand-held stopwatch. This is still true for most regional series, including virtually all dirt-track racing. I've seen track records reported for dozens of US short tracks (used for weekly local racing with visits from regional touring series), and none are in-race times; all are qualifying times. Yes, we need to use whichever system is relevant to the type of racing being described, and we need to label it as such. We may need to report two "lap records" for tracks which host more than one type of racing. In the cases of Indy and Watkins Glen, the most notable since they hosted Grand Prix of the United States F1 events, F1 used a different track configuration than Cup. Same for Daytona using the infield road course for the 24 Hours but not for Cup. In some cases, the point about "no transponders in the old days" isn't moot because the rules have changed enough that old records still stand (e.g., from the days of Superbirds or from the days of no restrictor plates at Talladega). In a few cases, the track reports records from record attempts or from testing without inspections, and these should not be put in the infoboxes; if they're reported enough to be notable, they should be mentioned in the text with clear explanation. Barno (talk) 13:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Things always seem to be done differently in the U.S. I suggest that you all approach these infoboxes however you prefer. Adrian M. H. 14:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) How about if we have 2 fields in the template for each layout: "Practice/Qualifying Lap record" and "Race Lap record" and articles using the template can populate either (or both) as appropriate, e.g in the infobox for Indianapolis Motor Speedway, we could have:

• Oval
• Practice/Qualifying Lap record: 0:37.616 (Arie Luyendyk, Treadway Racing, 1996, IRL IndyCar Series)
• Grand Prix Course
• Race Lap record: 1:10.399 (Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari, 2004 Formula One)

Hopefully that would also remove any confusion about what "lap record" means. Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 23:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts are from what series I have personal experience of is that qualifying lap records in Australia are unofficial and are kept unreliably and are not referred to by race organisations. It tends to be external sources, like TV or something like Wikipedia, who perpetuate these unofficial stats and thus might create confusion by giving a stat importance is would not otherwise have. By way of example, the recording of podium places achieved in US racing where the 1-2-3 podium is not used and only the winner steps upon the dias. Local conventions should be acknowledged IMHO. --Falcadore (talk) 00:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In the USA, on the other hand, qualifying lap records are official and are the ones cited by tracks and sanctioning bodies. Few series or tracks here keep in-race lap times beyond scoring review, and fewer maintain quickest-lap-ever records. I agree with DH85868993's suggestion: make more-specific fields available, and only use those which are considered official and are reliably published. Barno (talk) 01:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly what I mean. Anyone researching the statistic is most likely to be local so the stat should reflect local convention. --Falcadore (talk) 04:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Because cars can and do run in alterred trim in practice and qualifying, and may not even be legal...

Now for what reason would someone run in an illegal trim in practice and qualifying? If you qualified like that you'll probably be caught, and if you practice like that you'll just get data on a set up that can't help you in a race. Getting back to the point, perhaps we could just exclude lap records from the infobox all together and just write it in as a new section in the article. There are already a few tracks that have sections listing qualifing lap and race adverage speed records. It's one less thing to worry about for the rest of us.Mustang6172 (talk) 04:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

This is about lap records and the standards for what is and is not were set thirty, forty, sixty years ago. This isn't a debate about cheating today. There were no data recorders back when people started collecting lap records. There were a team of people holding stopwatches. Motor racing rules were not invented last year. --Falcadore (talk) 04:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Rules applying to practice and qualifying sessions weren't invented last year either. Mustang's point was that practice and qualifying records should not be disallowed because they are not done outside of the regulations for whatever series it is. It would be inpractical for any racing series, no matter the era, to allow teams to practice and qualify cars that did not fit rules. The359 (talk) 06:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they should not be but they are. Practice sessions don't always carry the full force of scruitineering. By way of example in some series with control tyres the practice sessions are free as far as tyres go. You can run old tyres if you want to save wear on the precious few sticker tyres you have for the race meeting. So you run old tyres. But those tyres are not legal to run during a race. So if by chance you crashed at an earlier round and have leftover sticker tyres and you pop out onto a track with a set of tyres that can not be run during qualifying or racing and you set a time faster than previous records, then should it count seeing as that team has used an unfair advantage by using tyres outside of the set allocation?

Or for another example the age old practice of the hand grenade engine, great for one lap of qualifying but unlikely to last five laps of a race. For a while this practice was frowned upon but legal, and at other times illegal. But its still using an engine that could not be used during a race. I remember once that stung Nelson Piquet badly at the Canadian Grand Prixm after his car with the race engine crashed during an aborted start and he was forced to use his qualifying engine in the spare car at the restart.

Those were not the actual reasons. They were suggestions as to what the reasons might be. It could just be the lap records were originally referred to as 'race lap records' and over time got shortened to 'lap records'. What I do know is that qualifying sessions have not counted towards lap records in Australia and in F1, most of Europe and many but not all series for as long as I can remember. US series prefers to include qualifying lap records on oval based series? Then they can do that too. Whether cheating is good or bad is a side issue. I do not see a push to get qualifying records included when they have not been previously as a good reason to drop lap records from the infobox. I do no agree with including qualifying in series where that is not the norm, nor do I agree with excluding qualifying where that is not the norm. --Falcadore (talk) 06:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Or looking at it another way - wikipedia should reflect the real world status quo in varies series and regions, to do otherwise, searching for such stats not in general use, is fudging towards 'original research' --Falcadore (talk) 07:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

A hand grenaded engine is still a legal engine. Should we ignore qualifying because the teams, in most series, use the bare minimum of fuel for qualifying laps?

Really, should lap records for circuits even have to be done under the conditions of a racing series. I can think of examples such as the Porsche 917/30 being run at Talladega Superspeedway and claiming a world record for the fastest speed on a closed circuit, and certainly the fastest lap at Talladega (at the time). Should such information, which can be completely sourced, be ignored? The359 (talk) 16:38, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer to see as a note in the articles of both the Porsche 917 and Talladega, but not as the official lap record, but it was any context as being a part of motor racing is surely fictional. How can it be racing if there is no-one to race against? I say that because lap records are almost always cited in a racing context. That being said, it has already been noted that the practice is different on US styled ovals so in this particular example I can only offer an opinion. In the end Talladega would decide whether it constitutes their official lap record or not. Because US is different in almost every respect in motor racing to the rest of the world it can be hard to quantify any US based racing statistic against international standards. --Falcadore (talk) 19:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

(indent) It's called Lap Record though. Not Race record (although that is another category of record). There is no prerequisite for there to be a race, let alone competitors on the track.

For that matter, the record for the Nürburgring Nordschleife was not set during a race, but rather during qualifying (Bellof, Porsche 956). So it's hardly just the US that recognizes any lap, regardless of conditions or session, to be a record. The359 (talk) 19:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

That's because the Norschleife is these days as famous as a test track as it is a race track, and with no really quick classes racing there any more the outright lap record is available to be eclipsed by all sorts of odd attempts when normally a racetrack would have hosted a few really quick open wheel categories pushing it out of reach. I don't think one, you would have to say extraordinary, exception deflates the rules of decades. I'm sorry I know you really want to push for all comers records but it's just not recognised that way. --Falcadore (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The Nordschliefe record was set in qualifying for the 1000 km of Nurburgring, part of the World Sportscar Championship. How it is not recognized? The point is that it was not set during race conditions.

This has nothing to do with pushing for all comers, it has to do with a very big difference between lap record and race lap record. There is nothing that really states that records set during a race are the only ones that can be considered official. The359 (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The difference I suggest is not there in practice. The difference is certainly there in definition, one of the quirks of language was that long ago people started saying lap record to mean race lap record. There are always going to be excpetions here and there. Just one is the Nurburgring lap record you refer to was set on the old circuit. As I understand it the VLN series and the 24 hour races held at the circuit today utilise a different circuit, the combined circuit, mainly I suspect so they then gain access the the Formula 1 pit complex and associated buildings. The record you refer to is a 'dead circuit' record so people will quote what record they feel like. Also is it referred to as the lap record or the fastest lap - because there is language difference there to. I guess what I'm saying is that it is a record referred to colloquiollaly (sp).

This is the practice that is used for lap records. I don't know how else I can say it. This is not me making an interpretation. This is how it is done. --Falcadore (talk) 02:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

What documentation says that a record must be made during a race? Statistics for races which quote a "fastest lap" for a race are hardly declaring it a record. The359 (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe I will be able to satisfy you. There is no manual for lap records, it's about the least offical stat associated with motor racing. Who decides in a footballers career which games count towards his 'career goals' tally and which ones don't? This is the level you are arguing about. If a Cricketer plays for a 'Rest of the World' side does it count towards his international statistics, or first class stats? What I know is that qualifying lap records have always been refered to seperately when compared to lap records and are considered vastly less important. I have no further information for you. --Falcadore (talk) 06:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'd think each particular circuit would know their own lap record, and I'm sure several have them posted. Since any circuit in the world is going to have multiple series, with multiple rules, racing, the only impartial choice for what defines a lap record of a circuit is the circuit organizers themselves. If the Nürburgring Nordschliefe claims the time by the Bellof 956, regardless of when it was set, is the fastest lap ever, who are we to refute it? It's sourced, it's reliable, etc. The359 (talk) 18:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) There are major interpretation difference between contributors. Different series do lap records differently. Wikipedia is not a source of statistics but rather an encyclopedia. How about we get rid of the lap records? Royalbroil 01:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. If the lap record(s) for a particular track are of sufficient interest/notability, they can be described (to the desired level of detail) in the body of the article, as in Indianapolis Motor Speedway#Records. DH85868993 (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that to be necessary. If the primary source of difference is the Nurburgring lap record then the solution is easy. The page for the Nurburgring includes both circuits, but the info box represents the modern Nurburgring (Formula1) race track, so the Bellof record is not relevant to the infobox anyway. Even if it is for a breakout based on the Nordschliefe circuit the Bellof lap was not recorded on the current Nordschliefe track so it is still irrelevant. There is no reason it cannot be mentioned in the article, it is just that the infobox refers to a different circuit. --Falcadore (talk) 01:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The Nurburgring was merely an example off the top of my head. It was simply to show that provable, reliable records need not be set during a race. There is nothing out there that states that a record for a circuit has to be set during a race. The359 (talk) 02:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

A deeply flawed example. A question then if your problem is that 'Lap record' does not contain the word 'race'. 'Fastest lap' does not contain the word race either, or you going to change that definition as well? How do you successfully argue that blue is actually blue? I am at a loss to explain that we need to dumb down language to this extent and that established convention over decades means so little. --Falcadore (talk) 02:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Established by who? Fastest lap is clear cut, it is the fastest of the laps held in a race. There's no possiblity it is in qualifying or practice. A lap record however is not firmly established as being only in a race. The359 (talk) 06:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Fastest lap does not say fastest lap in the race any more than lap record does. You've made the implied leap that fastest lap refers specifically to a race and not to the related qualifying sessions but choose not to make the same leap with lap record. Everything else has been said previously above. I know you are not supposed to refer to previous personal experience but I've been working professionally within motorsport for eight years and I have been keeping records national and internationally since the mid 70's. I have hundred of event programms and timesheets. I guess I must be lying to deliberately provoke you in this manner. --Falcadore (talk) 07:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You're going around in circles again. You must on an oval in North America (that's a joke). I could make examples of race laps vs. qualifying laps in NASCAR too, but I'm not because the point is that the traditions in different countries and sanctioning bodies vary greatly, so the text should address the lap records if they are relevant. F1 is different than NASCAR is different than American Open Wheel is different than ... Royalbroil 02:26, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not have a problem with that, and repeatedly acknowledge that this applies differently for oval racing. Ovals are pretty much a side issue to the argument. My concern is not about another of the many reasons why US oval style racing does things differently, but rather my concern is factual accuracy and giving some achievements not acknowledged by anyone else in motorsport. --Falcadore (talk) 08:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject IROC

IROC as a series appears to be finished since they have sold all of their equipment, although their closure hasn't been officially stated. WikiProject members are currently discussing what to do with the WikiProject. So far everyone but myself want to change it to become a taskforce under WikiProject Motorsport. I recommend closing it period. I'll leave another message here in around a week with what we decide. Please let us decide. Royalbroil 13:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Beyond being aware of its existence, I'm not familiar with the project. How up together is the IROC coverage on WP? If a taskforce would not have enough to do, then I agree with your reasoning. Those who are still interested in working on IROC articles may not find any advantage in using and managing a taskforce. It only adds to the workload, after all, as I found with the touring car taskforce. Adrian M. H. 18:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I have left a message at the WikiProject Council to make the final decision based on our discussion. Royalbroil 01:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

A1 GP WikiProject status revisited

I proposed in October last year that we downgrade the A1 GP WikiProject to taskforce status. Some users suggested that I wait until at least the new year before attempting it. So, with the series back in full swing, the WikiProject, along with its talkpage still seem to be fairly inactive, with not much activity. I therefore believe that it would be in the best interests of those concerned that we downgrade it to taskforce status. Regards, D.M.N. (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages don't have to be in use. They're stll writing articles (see 2007-08 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Australia) and continuing the project as they should. The359 (talk) 19:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say leave it alone too. WikiProject NASCAR's talk page isn't used enough either, but I'm not concerned about the state of the articles. Royalbroil 03:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The A1 GP WikiProject use actually and update its own infracstucture (infoboxex, templates...). Downgrade is not necessary and won't bring anything more (no?). WP:A1GP is not a taskforce but its still a part of WP:Motorsport. It's true that talks page are not much active but the serie infos are up to date. I'm currently the mainly contributor of the project and all I done (with the others contributors) isn't "fairly inactive"! (not perfect, i accept the responsibility of my english that deserves revision). e.g. In the past few day : last race report for Australian round, creation of List of A1 Grand Prix records, new related drivers articles : Davíd Garza Pérez, Edoardo Piscopo and John Martin (racing driver), categorisation of the A1GP driver according their A1 Team Category:A1 Grand Prix drivers - Rollof1 (talk) 13:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

DTM

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but can anyone tell me what the difference is between this and this is, please? Thanks. --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 16:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. They should be merged. Readro (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they should. The Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft was a series from 1984-1986 and the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters is a series which started in 2000 so there is a difference even if it is every minor. D.M.N. (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

It's the second and third of three distinct eras of German Touring Cars - The first, DRM, ran from 1972-1985, then was Meisterschaft until 1996 and finally Masters from 2000 until today. AlexJ (talk) 18:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

If they are the only three, maybe they could get merged into one article. D.M.N. (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I would say merge, its confusing when you are searching eg. DTM... --— Typ932^{T | C}  18:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

DRM should definitely not be merged. Although it started as a touring car series, it quickly grew into a sports car, and eventually a flat out Group C championship with ties to the Interserie by time it was renamed Supercup and eventually collapsed.

As for the other two, they are really two seperate series, with very different rules. 4WD systems, highly tuned engines, multiple foreign manufacturers and the like were the name of the game for much of the original series, while the new series is rather strict in equalizing the field. The original DTM article also covers the existance of the ITC series.

I think the biggest help would be to clarify the DTM disambig page to be more precise in describing the two series. Italicized notes at the top of each of the two articles linking to the other might help as well. The359 (talk) 21:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The suggestion of hatnotes is very sensible. They also need major rewrites. The last thing that would be appropriate is a merger. However, I for one never had much success in the search for decent independent reference material about any part of Germany's touring car history and I had to give up on the idea of rewriting them. Adrian M. H. 01:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

These last suggestions are good, better disamg page and some notes to the top that you see straight away what series you are looking.. --— Typ932^{T | C}  01:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: James Burke (racing driver)

Another editor has proposed the deletion of the article James Burke (racing driver). I am not sure whether this person is notable or not, but if you feel the rticle can be improved, please do so. --Eastmain (talk) 01:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think he's notable, but in any case, the article would need a complete rewrite, possibly with the originator trying to revert it afterwards to its current state. Might be worth letting it go. Bretonbanquet (talk) 02:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem notable to me. His apparent claims to fame are a few wins in BRSCC, which I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's not the major British GT Championship, and some runs in Grand-Am Cup and the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, a NASA event. The359 (talk) 02:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the third incarnation of the article. All look about the same. User:Jamesburke46 has been heavily involved in the article's past. I don't know any of the series, so I'm leaving it go. Royalbroil 02:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I also support the deletion, I think a CSD would be best suited, judging by the poor quality of this article which would require a substantial rewrite as many of what is in this article tidbits from magazine articles. Plus, lets face it, I wouldn't think of writing an article like that even after 2 bottles of vodka! As for notability, when has competing in showroom stock and Global Lights, which is a club level "sports car" series that Adrian Newey used to compete in as a driver seen as notable. As for the above, I will say WP:COI applies to him. Willirennen (talk) 03:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Our beloved leader...

It would be great to have comments on the current state of Max Mosley. (The article, not the man, or we'll be here all year!). It's currently on peer review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Max Mosley. Ta very much. 4u1e (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Adam Spence (race driver) for AfD

Another race car driver article have been nominated for AfD, feel free to have your thoughts here, but personally, I don't really think he is really that notable. Willirennen (talk) 04:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I commented keep. Feel free is disagree with me - I won't be offended. It's no big deal to me either way. Royalbroil 16:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Race car driver

I noticed that most sports have articles for individual positions (i.e. Catcher, Quarterback, Point guard, Goaltender, etc.), but a search of "Race car driver" redirects me to Auto racing which has no section on the subject. I propose an article should be written to explain the physical demands of driving a race car, the safety equipment used by drivers, the use of driver aids, and a brief list of highly accomplished drivers. Thoughts?Mustang6172 (talk) 21:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I support the idea. It could also describe typical career progressions, e.g. karts-->FFord-->F3-->GP2-->F1. DH85868993 (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support creating that article. I disagree with DH's typical career progression because that is a Formula 1-centric view, except if there is a career progression for other major racing series. It could be said that drivers start out on a local level before they advance to national/international levels. Royalbroil 12:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm drafting a section about career progression for the Formula racing article, and I suggest that we do the same kind of thing for other equivalent articles if they don't already have them (I haven't checked yet). Each type of racing tends to have very distinct paths. If we're missing any articles of that type, that can be sorted at the same time. Adrian M. H. 14:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I like that suggestion much better. The article Stock car racing already talked about the regional to national level series. I created a subsection on "Stock car driver career paths" to discuss how drivers get into national asphalt and dirt series such as NASCAR. Royalbroil 16:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed category merger

I have proposed that Category:Australian Go-Kart drivers be merged into its parent Category:Kart racing drivers, on the basis that the parent category isn't large enough to need subcategories (and there aren't subcategories for any other nationalities). Feel free to contribute to the discussion. DH85868993 (talk) 02:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have left a brief comment in favour of deletion/merger. In view of Falcadore's suggestion, perhaps we could replace its parent category with a more specific and useful category such as "Category:Kart racing champions", which would provide the useful cross-referencing that categories are supposed to give. We could make it more specific if required to restrict it by formula or level. That's just an off-the-cuff thought, but would that work? Adrian M. H. 14:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing: only people who were known for their karting championships should get listed, but I wasn't sure how to implement it. I like Adrian's suggestion. Royalbroil 16:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject IROC closure

Consensus appears to be that the WikiProject should be closed with 5 members voting "close" and 2 voting "taskforce under WP:MOTOR". I'm having difficulty getting answers from the WikiProject Council about how to close the WikiProject. They appear to want to change it to a taskforce despite the consensus. Does anyone know how to close a WikiProject? I can deal with removing the WikiProject banner from the article talk pages with an AutoWikiBrowser. Almost every driver article is part of a different WikiProject since the series used the top drivers from other genres of motorsport. I think that WikiProject page should be redirected to WP:MOTOR and its talk page kept intact. Royalbroil 15:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well... I wouldn't worry too much about the WP Council, particularly if its contributors cannot help beyond coming up with that suggestion. I propose a form of soft redirect with a brief explanatory note, like "This project has been closed with the agreement of its contributors and its tasks are now supported by Wikiproject Motorsport. The talk page has been kept for historical reasons." Adrian M. H. 02:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I closed it by marking it as historical, and added a box at the top of the WikiProject page directing people here to WP:MOTOR. Almost all of the article were part of another WikiProject, so only a few articles were changed to part of WP:MOTOR. Royalbroil 16:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Is the redirect box a template or can the color be changed? It's a bit harsh on the ol' eyes... The359 (talk) 22:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You can change it to whatever color you want. Royalbroil 01:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge Formula's categories

It appear that Category:Racing formulas and Category:Formula racing series list the same articles, formula racing series. I don't see notable difference between these categories. So, both doens't mention all formula articles. I suggest to merge them as Category:Formula racing series. - Rollof1 (talk) 21:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the intention is that Category:Racing formulas includes articles about the actual formulas (formulae?) themselves, whereas Category:Formula racing series includes articles about racing series run to those formulas, e.g. Category:Racing formulas includes Formula Three whereas Category:Formula racing series includes Australian Formula 3, British Formula Three Championship, Formula Three Euroseries, Formula Three Sudamericana, French Formula Three Championship, etc. It gets a bit confusing when there's only one series run to a particular formula, e.g. Indy Racing League, in which case the one article describes both the formula and the series. DH85868993 (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

DH, would you please add some text at the top of each category so that the reader can understand the difference between the two categories? Royalbroil 02:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the discernment. Indeed, a description text would be adequate. (ps: Indy Racing League isn't the best illustration, it include IndyCar Series and Indy Pro Series) - Rollof1 (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

American Open Wheel racing

The two branches of the American Open Wheel racing IndyCars have finally reunited [4] into a single series. The talk page at WP:AOWR is buzzing compared to normal! Royalbroil 02:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it only took a few years, a lot of arguing and probably a lot of dollars too. And cost more than a few fans for both sides. To say that it's not before time is one heck of an understatement! After all the rumours that led nowhere over the years, I nearly fell of my chair in surprise when I read the confirmation. Adrian M. H. 16:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Victory lap image??

The article currently has no images and that doesn't make sense. There has to be some image of a victory lap in F1 with the flags waving in the background. I spent 10 minutes searching Commons, and all I could find was Dale Earnhardt, Jr. doing a burnout. Would someone add one? Royalbroil 13:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a semi-decent picture of Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan celebrating with each other side by side in the rain at the end of the 2007 Indy 500 if that'd work. No flag waving though. I think a picture of a burnout would be nice to have as well, as it can be a popular thing to do during a victory lap. The359 (talk) 13:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll try a few requests for images on Flickr, see if I can get the licence changed. The most common place for the flag stuff is at Le Mans, so I'll try with some of those. In the meantime, Image:Mansell and Senna at Silverstone.jpg is an image of a notable victory lap event in F1, where Mansell stopped on his victory lap to give Senna a ride back to the pits after he broke down.

Also, I believe it's generally a bad idea to have two unrelated topics on the same page, so perhaps the racing & academic parts should be split into separate articles. AlexJ (talk) 14:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

We have two images of Kimi Raikkonen's victory lap at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diniz (talk • contribs) 15:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The Raikkonen images just look like him driving on the track. I think that flag waiving is an important part of the selected image since the article talks about it. I have watched few F1 races, but I remember watching a race where one driver gave another driver a ride back to the pits. That incident would make a nice addition of a notable victory lap, so would someone add it? I think Earnhardt, Jr.'s burnout is more of an American thing. Correct me if I'm wrong. Splitting the article sounds like a great idea. Royalbroil 15:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added the image of Mansell and Senna to the article.-- Diniz (talk) 15:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I worded my response very poorly. Would you add some text describing the Mansell/Senna incident/ride that victory lap since it was a quite famous/notable example of a victory lap gone wrong? Royalbroil 16:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent) Would anyone object to a merger of this and the Polish Victory Lap article, together with a separation of the academic reference? Adrian M. H. 16:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I was going to suggest the same thing, only decided to wait until the outcome of the split before suggesting a merger. The PVL, while an important and notable type of victory lap doesn't have enough that can be written about it to justify it's own article IMO. Better to have it as a section in a good Victory Lap article. AlexJ (talk) 17:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm obviously extremely prejudiced in this case about keeping the Polish Victory Lap article since I started it and with how much effort I put into Kulwicki's article to become a current GA nominee. I'll abstain and live with consensus, although I think this discussion should be mentioned WikiProject NASCAR so that its notability within NASCAR can be ascertained. Too bad User:Barno has left (hopefully not permanently), because his vision of the "big picture" would be appreciated by me. Royalbroil 00:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I have separated out the academic reference and added a hatnote. Adrian M. H. 01:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

National Saloon Car Cup

Hi. I'm thinking about starting an article on the National Saloon Car Cup (sometimes called the National Saloon Car Championship) in the UK, but I need some more information first. It was (is?) a Group N championship that sat below the British Touring Car Championship, and from which many BTCC drivers graduated. I know that the championship ran in 2000 but I can't find any references to it after that. Does anyone know if it came to an end, or was renamed and is still running? Also, any other information people might have on the series would be useful. Cordless Larry (talk) 00:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The NSCC was not, by our standards, a notable series. The lack of reference material clearly shows that it is very unlikely to be suitable for inclusion. It would fail WP:N and WP:V and you would be lucky to make a stub out of it. Adrian M. H. 12:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with Adrian and I think you should try to write an article. It should be able to have an article if it is a national series or even a touring series (a series that races each time at a different location). Cordless Larry, why don't you create a personal sandbox and write it there? 2 reasons: 1) we can look it over to comment on its likely success/failure at articles for deletion 2) you retain access to the article if it would get speedy deleted (although as an admin I can access all deleted content and I'd be willing to provide the text under the right circumstances). There are numerous United States regional touring series and even smaller local tracks that do meet WP:N and WP:V to have Wikipedia articles, so I'm not convinced that the article would fail a deletion discussion. Just make sure that you have many citations from independent reliable sources. The best answer is: Can you find multiple reliable independent sources to use to create an article? Royalbroil 12:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Royalbroil: in the UK, "national" series are ten a penny and they are usually run by one of the many clubs, such as the BRSCC, BARC, 750MC, etc. There are dozens of club-run series that appear to claim national status by use of the term in their title, but most of them have no direct affiliation with the MSA. Adrian M. H. 12:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I personally disagree with Adrian as well as I wouldn't call it a club level series (probably the same level as British GT Championship) since in the 90's the NSCC had a decent amount of coverages on satellite TV and also on Autosport and Motorsport News, this was before the people took advantage of the internet. Because of lack of internet coverages, and probably now most of these magazines people brought have been now been turned into another piece of paper, this is why it is hard to get sources and is now forgotten by the younger generations. As for notability, NSCC will never be as notable as the other Gr. N series, Japan's Super Taikyu series. Why, because of advertising; ST attracts tuning and aftermarket companies such as Blitz, the controversial tuner Top Secret, aftermarket suspension maker Tein and bodykit manufacturer C-West and these lot do use the series to advertise its products in modified car magazines such as Option, not to mention that Falken Tires and Advan use the series to advertise its products. Willirennen (talk) 18:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You cannot compare it to the British GT Championship, which is MSA-run and recognised by the FIA. The NSCC never had the profile of the STC, STCC, Supertourisme, and so on. The fact remains that we cannot find enough (any, in fact) non-trivial treatments in suitable media to support an article. If you find any in the future, go create it. Adrian M. H. 18:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Banner advert for project

I decided to advertise our existence a bit more by creating an animated banner (Image:Qxz-ad127.gif), which I have added to Template:Wikipedia ads. If you want to add just our banner to your user page without the othr 126 random GIFs (!), you can use an image map:
<imagemap> Image:Qxz-ad127.gif|468x60px|Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorsport default [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorsport]] desc none </imagemap>
I hope you all like it. Adrian M. H. 23:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Is that a little British Racing green there? The359 (talk) 23:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It is indeed. I tried Cunningham stripes, but it didn't look right (it looked quite like the Israeli flag); Rosso Corsa is very garish; so BRG was the one! Hopefully, the nod to the Indy 500 will maintain a multi-national flavour. Adrian M. H. 02:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Qualifying races

As part of my development on the new Howmet TX article, I've come to a bit of a mental debate in regard to how many races the car won, as well as how many it ran. This has to do with two 1968 SCCA events it participated in, the Heart of Dixie race and the Marlboro 300. Both events had a main race on Sunday, and a qualifying race on Saturday. I cannot determine how many laps the qualifying races were, except to say that they were short. I'm also unsure if the qualifying races counted towards points or anything like that.

The problem is that at both of these events, the Howmet TX won both the qualifying race, and then went on to win the main race. So the question is, did the Howmet TX win 4 races out of 4 races, or was it really just 2 races out of 2, with a notation that it also won some qualifying sprints? The359 (talk) 17:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

In the U.S., I've always seen the usage 2 out of 2, with 2 incidental notations on qualification wins (if even mentioned). It doesn't matter on the sanctioning body. I noticed that you nominated the article for WP:DYK! Royalbroil 18:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Willirennen actually did, but I had planned to nominate it anyway once I was done writing the article. Would be foolish to pass up a DYK on the Howmet TX. The359 (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Driver profile info that includes place of residence

Does anyone know of any databases or profile websites that include a driver's current place of residence? Adrian M. H. 18:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't but I think it would be interesting optional information to add to a driver's infobox. I would avoid it for the NASCAR driver's infobox because the driver's hometown only is considered. Royalbroil 19:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I must admit that I was asking only out of curiosity, as a result of a discussion with someone about drivers who move to tax havens and those who live nearer to their teams. Neither of us knew of any info in biographies and profiles. I wasn't considering it as an infobox field at this time, though it might be something to consider in future if some helpful sources were found. Adrian M. H. 20:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

As of this season, country of residence information is included in F1 TV captions. AlexJ (talk) 17:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not know of a major database, but I know a lot of entry lists in certain series (ALMS I know for certain) lists place of residence along with nationality. The359 (talk) 18:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The annual NASCAR Preview and Press Guide from UMI Publications has this information and could easily be raided. -- Guroadrunner (talk) 06:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Motorsport: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 56 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

How interesting, most are American monster trucks, which I would argue are inherently notable since they are in a large national touring series. USA-1 was extremely important in the 1980s so that one definitely needs to stay. I don't have sources on monster trucks and I'm not very knowledgable about them. I can't see how they could be merged into an article, except for a List of notable monster trucks which would get real long. The monster trucks are usually more famous than their driver! Royalbroil 18:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I think notable Monster Trucks should be included, but I don't think we should include all of the competitors in the Monster Truck series. But just like you, I know little to nothing about Monster Trucks outside of historical trucks like Grave Digger, Bigfoot, or USA-1. The359 (talk) 22:52, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Remind me to go through the Monster Trucks to evaulate notability on each marked. Looks like they were tagged during a stub sorting run. Will post any recommended prods or AFDs. -- Guroadrunner (talk) 06:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Help request: GA backlog

Hello. There has been a large backlog at the Good Article Nominations page for a while, and some articles wait up to 50 days for a review. Since most of my editing is in the Sports and Recreation category, that is the area that I am currently focusing on. To try to cut down on the backlog, I'm approaching projects with the request that members from that project review two specific articles over the next week. My request to WikiProject Motorsport is to try to find time to review Glebe Dirty Reds and Andy Reid (footballer). If these are already reviewed by someone else or you have time for another review (or you'd rather review something else altogether), it would be great if you could help out with another article. Of course, this is purely voluntary. If you could help, though, it would help out a lot and be greatly appreciated. The basic instructions for reviewing articles is found at WP:GAN and the criteria is found at WP:WIAGA. I recently began reviewing articles, and I've found it fairly enjoyable and I've learned a lot about how to write high quality articles. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 17:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

How ironic, I just got done passing one of GaryColemanFan's article an hour ago. He is right, there are 3 motorsports nominees in the queue. I've been waiting 3 weeks for Alan Kulwicki's article to be reviewed (but none of us should be reviewing it). I already did 2 reviews waiting for the Kulwicki article to progress. Is is a good or bad idea to review articles that you have absolutely no background on? I don't know the first thing about rugby or Association football. Royalbroil 18:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This has always been my problem when it comes to looking at the GA list. I either know nothing about the subject and don't think it fair to attempt to review it, or I'm too deeply involved with the subject, such as motorsports. I too have a GA nominee, as well as another one on the way, although I'm not inherently in a rush to see them completed. The359 (talk) 18:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I apologize if this came off the wrong way. I appreciate your review, RoyalBroil, and I'm not trying to create unwanted spam. If the nominations have to wait a little while, it's not the end of the world. I was just trying out an idea to reduce the backlog. Please feel free to delete this section if you want. Sorry for an inconvenience, GaryColemanFan (talk) 19:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Not being familiar with a subject is not, in my experience, a barrier to reviewing it. You can still tell if it's well written, and see if there are bits that leave you asking questions (making it incomplete). Plus you can see if there's anything which assumes too much specialist knowledge. AlexJ (talk) 19:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

(Strongly agree with Alex here - I frequently review things at GA and Peer Review about which I know very little. I almost always get a positive response. Even if you don't know a subject, you usually get a feel for where the gaps are, and you certainly can spot where there is too much jargon etc. It also gives me useful moral leverage when asking others to review articles I'm working on :D 4u1e (talk) 12:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC))

We discussed our misunderstanding on our talk pages. Gary took a comment of mine about "spamming" wrong, I do find this nudging helpful! I am concerned that I couldn't assess part (a) of the broadness section: "addresses the major aspects of the topic". A person who knows nothing about a topic would be the best type of judge of part (b) of the broadness section: stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary details" plus would be suited for all of the other criteria (WP:GACR). I wasn't trying to imply anything by saying "How ironic" - it was merely an observation with no implications. I struck it out. There are other types of articles on GA nominations list that I have just the right amount of knowledge: I know something about it but I'm not an expert. Wrestling is a good example, as is American football and others. Royalbroil 19:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Max Mosley at FAC

M. Mosley is at WP:FAC. If you want to object or make comments, you probably don't have much time left. Please note, I am not requesting support: please express whatever views you have on the article! We're mature enough to take the rough with the smooth, and I'm sure you wouldn't want a below par article representing motorsport. As far as I know it is acceptable for members of relevant Wikiprojects to vote on articles within their domain, although you might want to note your membership when doing so. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 12:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Due to recent news stories (and some remaining issues on quality of writing), the FAC was failed. Talk about bad timing. 4u1e (talk) 12:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Chris Rado for AfD

An article for Chris Rado has been nominated for AfD, for those who don't know about him, he is one of the several prominent import drag racers in the NHRA Sport Compact series. Feel free to have you say on this nomination. Willirennen (talk) 18:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Sponsor Names

I'm wondering if the project has a policy on the proper way articles should be named. There is an argument at Pramac d'Antin's talkpage (MotoGP team) of what the article name should be. The team is Pramac d'Antin and is competing this season as Alice Team because is sponsored by Telecom Italia's Alice internet service. Its my understanding that sponsors are not in the title. ie F1 teams are mamed WilliamsF1, McLaren, etc rather than AT&T WilliamsF1, Vodafone McLaren etc. Similarly other teams in other championships. Champion Racing rather than Audi Sport North America in ALMS, Triple Eight Race Engineering rather than Team Vodafone in V8 Supercars and Triple 8 Race Engineering rather than VX Racing in BTCC. Is there a policy on this? Chris Ssk _talk 13:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• WP:COMMONNAME. I'm not aware of any NASCAR teams that have made this change. I'm sure it's coming soon. Royalbroil 13:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

We also have Firestone Indy Lights Series. Ideally you'd rename it as Indy Lights, however that is taken up by the old CART-run series. Maybe we need to call one Indy Lights (CART) and one Indy Lights (IRL). There shouldn't be Firestone in the article title though.

Another problem is that all the NASCAR race articles include the sponsor name. Some of them seem to constantly change title sponsor year-on-year and the articles are getting moved around every year. Maybe a neutral name like California Speedway NASCAR Sprint Cup Race would be better. Readro (talk) 13:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

NASCAR always seems to be a problem when it comes to event names. I know my policy in the Sports Car World has been to eliminate sponsor names as much as necessary from teams and events. NASCAR suffers a bit from having too many new tracks with no neutral, historical names except for the Daytona 500 or Firecracker 400 and such. I recall a debate two years ago of whether the 24 Hours of Daytona should be used or Rolex 24 at Daytona. The359 (talk) 18:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Good point about NASCAR naming events vs. team names. Using sponsor names on the article actually has surprisingly worked out well. Your suggestion wouldn't work since most tracks have 2 events. You couldn't even call them Event 1/Event 2 because some tracks have switched the order of the events!

Consensus has been reached at WP:AOWR to merge the two Indy Lights articles, since the new series could be considered a derivative of the previous series if you consider the merger of the 2 series (IRL & CART). Both are/were the undercard series. Royalbroil 03:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we just keep this as a genuine difference between (broadly) US and the rest of the world in racing. Sponsors seem to have far more significance in the States. 4u1e (talk) 12:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

There's even a saying about it -- "It's all about the almighty dollar". Royalbroil 14:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, European racing is just as dependent on sponsorship, but it seems generally to be tolerated rather than embraced! 4u1e (talk) 17:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

england-autoracing-bio-stub

Someone has proposed the creation of {{england-autoracing-bio-stub}}. If I understand correctly, their rationale is to avoid stub articles for English auto racing identities neeing to include both {{UK-autoracing-bio-stub}} and {{England-sport-bio-stub}}. Feel free to add any comments you may have here. DH85868993 (talk) 06:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Our favourite topic crops up again (See Archive 1,2,3...) The problem is, participants in the discussion make the valid point that we already use categories called English racecar driver, Scottish racecar driver etc. despite our current (just about) consensus to describe drivers racing with GBR nationality as British from England/Scotland/Wales/NIreland. But to lump everyone into one big British category would make it fairly huge. AlexJ (talk) 00:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm more relaxed about categories than I am about the nationalities listed in the infobox, because I don't think they carry quite the same implications. I suppose the problem as usual is, how do you prove that someone is English? You can prove that they were born in England, but that's not the same thing. In other sports you can prove that they compete for England, but not often in motorsport. 4u1e (talk) 16:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

FIA authority in USA

Does anyone have a good handle on what the current relationship between the FIA and the various US motorsports authorities is? My understanding was that the FIA was the umbrella organisation, as it is for other NSAs round the world (and per this page). However, when I checked on the FIA website, there are no clubs or NSAs listed for the US on this page. Is this significant, or is it an error? 4u1e (talk) 08:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Their website seems to have a problem. The list for the United States works if you click the text, but not if you click the map.

The American Automobile Association (AAA), American Automobile Touring Alliance (AATA), and Automobile Competition Committee for the United States (ACCUS) are listed as affiliated clubs, with ACCUS as the National Sporting Authority. The359 (talk) 09:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, should have spotted that. OK, well looks like my understanding was right then. 4u1e (talk) 09:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Motorsport/Motor racing/Auto racing

Currently Motorsport and Motor racing are both redirects to Auto racing. Following on from this earlier discussion, I propose to convert Motorsport and Motor racing from redirects into articles, to distinguish between the three terms. In summary, my definitions would be:

• "auto racing" = car and truck racing, but not motorcycle racing
• "motor racing" = any motorised racing, including auto racing (see above), motorcycle racing, air racing, powerboat racing, snowmobile racing, lawnmower racing, etc
• "motorsport" = any motorised sport, including all forms of motor racing (see above) and also non-racing motorised sport, e.g. drifting and freestyle motocross

Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 09:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your definitions. Go for it, as long as you have enough material to write articles. Check out the Off-roading article for more genres, especially the "off-roading topics" navigation infobox at the bottom. Some additions to "motor racing" would include Monster truck racing, and quad racing (that's the term used in the U.S. for racing ATVs too). Additions to "motorsport" would include rock crawling. Royalbroil 12:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree and support the idea. for me those are the correct terms. Though the terms are not really defined, for example the FIA calls itself the governing body of international motor sport though they only govern automobile related sports. News websites, newspapers etc put auto racing and motorcycle racing (and any air racing or powerboat racing they may have) in the motorsport section so I believe we should also define any motorised sport as motorsport. Chris Ssk _talk 14:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Rather than a separate article, I ended up making Motor racing a subsection of Motorsport. DH85868993 (talk) 07:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the new article messed the interwiki links a bit as many links in the auto racing article are for motorsport and also there are motorsport links that were not linked and need to be linked now. Is there a bot that can do this? Chris Ssk _talk 14:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

(International?) F3000 drivers

Is there a category for drivers who drove in (International?) F3000 between 1985 and 2004, e.g. Alain Ferté? I see Category:Euro Formula 3000 drivers, Category:Japanese Formula 3000 Championship drivers and Cat:International Formula 3000 Champions, but not Category:International Formula 3000 drivers. Or am I missing something? DH85868993 (talk) 15:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Euro F3000 and Japanese F3000 both reference current series whereas International F3000 is defunct, having been replaced entirely by GP2. I would suggest that might be the reason for the difference. I would also discourage the creation of it, as there are so many defunct series ripe for such categorisation, European F2, pre-war European F1, World Sportscar, Can-Am, Tasman etc, potentially turning the category lists into worthlessness from the sheer bulk numbers of them. --Falcadore (talk) 07:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It is not because a series is defunct that it not deserve a driver category. International Formula 3000 was a notable series (with a lot of currently notable drivers), as GP2 Series, so the Category:International Formula 3000 drivers should be created. - Rollof1 (talk) 08:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of notable series so I'm concerned about reducing the value of the categories generally if we get to many of them. --Falcadore (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Reducing the value of the categories? Shouldn't the categories be tools to find similar articles quicker? If we need a category, we should create it. How does it "diminish" the other ones? --Pc13 (talk) 09:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

You could have a parent category Category:Formula 3000 drivers and then have the subcategories Category:International Formula 3000 drivers, Category:Euro Formula 3000 drivers, etc. That would organise things nicely and still have value. Readro (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Just the numbers. Say Jean Alesi could have categories for 1964 births, living people, people from Avignon, F1 drivers, French F1 drivers, F1 race winners, French drivers, Ferrari drivers, Prost drivers, Sauber drivers, Arrows drivers, F3000 Champions, FNippon racers, DTM drivers, that Asian NASCAR series, before you know it there are four or three lines of categories and it will look visually like a blue mess. --Falcadore (talk) 19:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:French Formula One drivers is subcategory of Category:Formula One drivers and Category:French racecar drivers so not all 3 need to be listed Chris Ssk _talk 21:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Wait, I know this is a side-topic, but do you have to know the nationality of a driver in order to find him when clicking on the category for Formula 1 drivers? I REALLY disagree with that. How many people searching for a Formula 1 driver who they may not know the spelling of for example are going to know their nationality? I'll take this up as a seperate thread. --Falcadore (talk) 22:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

(On side topic - I reckon more people know that Nakajima junior is Japanese than can spell his first name, for example (I can't), so I'm not sure your point is correct).

On main topic: In the beginning there was F2, used widely around the world and acting (more or less) as the last step before F1. Then there was F3000, used almost as widely (Europe and Japan. Australia?), and fulfilling the same function. And most recently there was GP2, which only happens in Europe, and fulfills (partly) the same function. It seems obvious to me that an F3000 category is just as useful as GP2. And don't we have an F3 category too? That must be massive. 4u1e (talk) 10:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

National Grands Prix

As we know Formula 1 today is made up of 15-20 national Grands Prix. There is no article though that summaries motor racing's Grands Prix. The article Grand Prix motor racing covers essentially pre-WWII Formula 1, so it is not really good enough. An article that sums up events as diverse as the French Grand Prix, the United States Grand Prix, the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Singapore Grand Prix, the Australian Grand Prix, the Indonesian Grand Prix, so many countries have had Grands Prix and present articles are very-F1 centric. --Falcadore (talk) 01:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I have not checked as I write this, but if it's not already described in Formula One, you could make a section for it. Adrian M. H. 02:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you actually read the above? Grand Prix WITHOUT Formula 1. The current information is heavily biased towards F1, ignoring the non-F1 history of several races. --Falcadore (talk) 02:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I did read the above, so you might want to [a] drop the uncivil attitude and [b] phrase your question better. Adrian M. H. 13:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

My apologies for the attitude, but in referencing the Formula One article you are highlighting the problem. --Falcadore (talk) 20:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, there are some gaps in the pre-F1 grands prix. The Japanese Grand Prix was originally a sports car race at Fuji, and the Canadian Grand Prix started out as a Can-Am event at Mosport. The359 (talk) 04:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Not just those, but countries like Indonesia, Libya (Tripoli), Korea, Singapore and New Zealand who have never (yet) had an F1 race, but have had Grand Prix races. --Falcadore (talk) 05:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

They were just examples I was remembering off the top of my head. I see nothing against articles about other non-F1 Grands Prix, as long as they're notable. The359 (talk) 06:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Out of the hundred+ national Grands Prix, only one article has actually got to a good standard (Monaco Grand Prix) where it covers all types of racing held there. If you feel like improving another national GP article to cover it's entire history then go ahead. The articles are WIP rather than final products so it is not surprising they don't currently cover all aspects of the topic. The only way this can change is for someone who cares to do something. BTW, I'm not sure what pre-WWII F1 is, as the class was only introduced in the late 1940's? AlexJ (talk) 12:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I would guess Falcadore means the pre-WWII top single seater categories, which I suppose filled much the same spot as F1 does nowadays.

Are we talking about having an article that explains what a motor racing Grand Prix is? Tricky topic, because as far as I know there's no real control over who can use the term and for what. So you'd be covering everything worldwide from (probably) clubmans racing up to F1 going via touring cars and sports cars on the way. Not to mention stock cars, dirt track cars and drifting! 4u1e (talk) 10:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about that at all. Most of the events you refer to place a qualifier in their name, D1GP, A1GP or Motorcycle etc. The contrast is the New Zealand Grand Prix, a 50+ history covering Formula One, Tasman, Formula 5000, Formula Atlantic, Formula Holden and Formula Toyota and not a World Championship F1 race amongst them. --Falcadore (talk) 20:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see what you're getting at now - a country's recognised 'national GP'. I just wonder whether it's always clear which one the national GP is. In the case of NZ, yes it is clear. In the case of the UK, it probably is too; despite the various events using the title, the F1 race is almost certainly what most people think of, although it doesn't hold any official status as such. I'd be surprised if there weren't some ambiguities out there, and there is no official source for nominating the official GP. 4u1e (talk) 06:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)Almost anyone can use the term Grand Prix for a sporting event. just of the top of my head I can think of five 2008 motorsport events called British Grand Prix. the Formula One British Grand Prix, the motorcycle road racing (MotoGP) British Grand Prix, the A1GP British Grand Prix, the Speedway British Grand Prix and the Motocross British Grand Prix. these events are totally unrelated and don't belong in the same article other than a disambiguation page

As for explaining what Grand Prix is. There is a definition of Grand Prix at Wiktionary and the Grand Prix disambiguation page links to sporting events that use the term Grand Prix. Chris Ssk _talk 15:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

They belong in the same article if the event transfered from one series to Formula One. The Japanese and Canadian Grands Prix did this. The359 (talk) 18:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the disqualifiers are right there in the name, Motorcross, A1GP, Motorcycle, etc. You've answered your own question. --Falcadore (talk) 20:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

In which case, what is the special link between, say, the British (F1) GP and the Macau (F3) GP? Why do they belong in the same article? 4u1e (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

To summarise, by the way, what we're talking about is the article List of 2007 national Grands Prix, defined as 'the car racing events Grands Prix of motorsporting nations'. 4u1e (talk) 20:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The text probably needs tightening. --Falcadore (talk) 20:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The title is certainly too ambiguous. You need the fact that you are talking motor racing in there. Pyrope 21:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Is Macau a country or a Chinese territory? --Falcadore (talk) 20:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Macau is apparently a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China. It was previously a Portuguese colony. So not now a national GP, and arguably not one before 1999 either. 4u1e (talk) 06:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:MOTOR/SOURCES

As a result of the 1995 Japanese Grand Prix FAC, I've gone ahead and created the WP:MOTOR/SOURCES page. Please expand/add if you can. I've only done it for F1 for the moment, so other websites for other types of motor sport will need to be added. Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest that it would be useful for us to come to an agreement on which of those sites we regard as reliable sources for the purposes of Wikipedia articles? A couple of bits picked out from WP:RS

• "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."
• "When adding contentious biographical material about living persons that relies upon news organizations, only material from high-quality news organizations should be used."
• "Self-published sources may be used only in very limited circumstances; see above." 4u1e (talk) 17:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

As per WP:RS "reliable, third-party, published sources". Should an official website be considered a reliable source? In many cases, like for rules, results, calendars etc an official website is actually the most reliable but for news an official website will never bad mouth its own series so it will spin and or ignore bad news. Chris Ssk _talk 20:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it depends what for. In theory the official F1 site would be a good source for results and for explanations of rules etc. (In practice, there're quite a lot of errors hiding in their results!). For fair and balanced coverage of, say, F1's financial position relative to the football world cup, perhaps not. 4u1e (talk) 20:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Danica Patrick

Her article currently has the following referenced quotation.

"With her win in the 2008 Indy Japan 300, Patrick became the first woman to win a major closed course race against multiple competitors."

Now, this is plain wrong. Desiré Wilson won a Formula One race and several major sports car races. Jannine Jennky and Eliška Junková also won Grands Prix. What would be the best way to correct the article? Removing referenced material looks bad, but in this case the referenced material is wrong. Readro (talk) 22:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Stick to the basics. She was the first woman to win an IndyCar race. Pyrope 22:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep, Pyrope has the correct statement. The359 (talk) 22:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

She's probably the first American woman. From what I've seen, the only other American woman that any major motorsport event was NHRA drag racer Shirley Muldowney who was a 3 time season champion. I agree with Pyrope that we should stick to the basics. I was shocked to see the win on the ITN section. Other major motorsport things like this that I've proposed where shot down with a flaming arrow. Royalbroil 00:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't remove the ref, just change it to one that is correct - and send that sports writer a note with "WTF!" on it. ;)
An article on Females in motorports or some such might be in order. ZueJay (talk) 04:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea actually. I wish I'd kept a magazine that had an interview with Giovanna Amati, that contained a fascinating insight. Readro (talk) 07:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I still have tha Autosport where one of the Journalists talks about females in Formula One (at least if not motorsport in general!) --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 10:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A British championship race win in second hand cars, a French championship race win, and a two litre Sportscar race. I think Autosport would have no qualms defending the statement. I guess the important bit for them was trying the least clumsy phrasing without getting Michelle Mouton mad. It's all about the word 'major', its ambiguous enough to mean anything the writer chooses to believe, and its sufficiently large enough that it sends people like us diving into the books. How many decimal places do we measure and at what point is rounding acceptable? --Falcadore (talk) 11:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I would argue that the Aurora round was major, but regardless, Wilson won the 1980 Monza 6 hours and the 1980 Silverstone 6 hours - both races in the World Sports Car Championship. These alone would be enough to justify her taking this title. Readro (talk) 12:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

(I don't know the actual status of the Coupe de Bourgogne that Jennsky won, but don't forget that there was no world or European championship in 1928, so the French championship was the highest level of championship available. I also note from Grand Prix motor racing that no GP was held anywhere outside France before 1922, so it's not as if France was a backwater! 4u1e (talk) 13:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC))

Absolutely. France was the home of European motorsport at the time, so the achievement is an impressive one. Readro (talk) 15:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The guidelines state that ambiguous phrases without definition such as major/minor, large/small etc. are discouraged so I'd say we go along with something we can clearly define and keep it to 'first in Indy Car racing'. AlexJ (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm giggling. I never thought this topic would generate this much interest here. There's lots of talk about her here in the U.S. She's been on the American television talk show circuit a lot the past few days. Royalbroil 15:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget Milka Duno (as much as you may want to). She won races in Grand Am, albeit with a co-driver. That is certainly "a major closed course race against multiple competitors." About Patrick we could say she is the first woman to win a top-tier open-wheel race in a US-based series. But that's synonymous with IndyCar. Kenhullett (talk) 18:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ellen Lohr won a DTM race in 1992, according to her article anyway. Giovanna Amati won a few F3 races, although I definitely wouldn't contend that those were top-level. Italian F3's not the most competitive, anyway. 4u1e (talk) 19:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Sabine Schmitz won the 24 Hours Nürburgring as well. The359 (talk) 19:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

And how about the all-female team of Elsie Wisdom and Joan Richmond who won the first Brooklands International 1000 Mile race in 1932? Pyrope 20:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

On a non-"closed course" front we also have Pat Moss (2 major rallies in the 1960s) and Patsy Burt (British Sprint Champion, no less, in 1970). How many more can this page attract I wonder? Pyrope 21:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's not forget Karlīne Štāla, who won an entire championship (admittedly 1.6-litre Belgian FRenault). Perhaps we should copy this section and send it to the offending news outlets? ;)-- Diniz(talk) 21:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

From her article - She was the first ever woman to win a single seaters championship. Sadly this is also wrong! Amanda Whitaker was thrice UK monoposto champion from 96-98. Readro (talk) 07:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't there a woman who won a couple of WRC rallies as well? (Sorry, still haven't found said issue yet, but I do remember a female rally driver (possibly from South Africa or perhaps I'm confusing her with Wilson) who won a handful of rallies in an Audi.--Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 09:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Michele Mouton and Pat Moss have both won rallies. Readro (talk) 09:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Formula One support races - flag of GP or actual location?

This may seem like a trivial dispute, but Falcadore and I have become engaged in a dispute over the 2008 GP2 Series season article. The debate centres on whether the round at the Valencia Street Circuit which supports the Formula One 2008 European Grand Prix later this year should be designated with a Spanish or European flag. Since there are only two of us discussing the issue at the moment, additional input here would be appreciated.-- Diniz(talk) 22:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

GP2 Series results table

There appears to be different versions of the GP2 results table floating around.

This is Table A, from Ben Hanley's article:

Year	Team	ESP		TUR		MON		FRA		GBR		GER		HUN		EUR		BEL		ITA		Pos.	Points
2008	Barwa International Campos Team	FEA Ret	SPR 9	FEA 15	SPR 6	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	FEA *	SPR *	14th*	1*

* Season in progress.

There appears to be a second different version. Look at Table 2, below, from Bruno Senna's article:

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	Pos.	Points
2007	Arden International	BRN FEA 4	BRN SPR 8	ESP FEA 1	ESP SPR 4	MON FEA 11	FRA FEA 3	FRA SPR 7	GBR FEA 11	GBR SPR 10	GER FEA 15	GER SPR Ret	HUN FEA 13	HUN SPR 12	TUR FEA 10	TUR SPR 6	ITA FEA 4	ITA SPR 3	BEL FEA Ret	BEL SPR 8	VAL FEA Ret	VAL SPR 14	8th	34
2008 Asia	iSport International	UAE FEA 2	UAE SPR 19	IND FEA 7	IND SPR 2	MAL FEA Ret	MAL SPR 8	BHR FEA 4	BHR SPR Ret	UAE FEA DSQ	UAE SPR 12												5th	23
2008	iSport International	ESP FEA 2	ESP SPR 4	TUR FEA 15	TUR SPR Ret	MON FEA *	MON SPR *	FRA FEA *	FRA SPR *	GBR FEA *	GBR SPR *	GER FEA *	GER SPR *	HUN FEA *	HUN SPR *	EUR FEA *	EUR SPR *	BEL FEA *	BEL SPR *	ITA FEA *	ITA SPR *		7th	11*

* Season in progress.

• I personally prefer Table A myself. I think it'd be better if we are consistent in all of our articles, hence why I've come here to get a consensus. Also, some articles don't have a GP2 Series table whatsoever, so they need to have a table inputted into them. D.M.N. (talk) 10:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The first table can't be used for drivers with multiple seasons Chris Ssk _talk 10:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Table A is prettier, but as the previous guy said, it's no good when a driver competes in two or more seasons and the race venues change. The second table is perfectly fine anyway :) Bretonbanquet (talk) 11:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Flags...again

I just noticed a relatively recent (April 10) addition to WP:FLAG, at WP:FLAG#Use of flags for sports people:

"There is widespread usage of flags in squads and lists of results. However flags should only be used where that person is representing a national team or country such as the Olympic games. Flag usage such as Delray Beach International Tennis Championships or using a national flag for Formula One teams and drivers are incorrect as they are not representing a nation."

It appears to have been added with minimal discussion (see WT:FLAG#Suggestion related to sports players). Should we conform to this? Or re-open discussion there? Chuck (talk) 05:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

If they didn't represent a nationality, drivers wouldn't have their national flags plastered on their cars. I still fail to see what the big deal is with using flags, and have yet to see a convincing arguement as to why they should be used. The359 (talk) 06:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Would this mean that in racing series where drivers don't have their national flags on their cars, flags should not be used with the drivers in the tables, do you think? Chuck (talk) 12:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No, but I mean that every international racing series that I am aware of, the nationality of the driver is always listed. Substituting acronyms for these countries, to me, makes less sense than using flags. The359 (talk) 12:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:MOTOR isn't only about international series, though! :) Should a series primarily based in one country, but drawing drivers from a wide variety of countries (indeed, from all six inhabited continents), which does not display drivers' flags on their cars, include flags for the drivers in the series and race articles? (I'm sincerely asking, not arguing--I don't have a strong opinion about this one way or the other.) Or should I just take the discussion to the appropriate child project already and shut up about it here? (Any other child projects or series where this is an issue?) Chuck (talk) 13:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that there are more national series which include international drivers (NASCAR for one), and I think this is a bit of an odd issue. I have however noticed recently that some NASCAR articles have started to use state flags for American drivers, which I think is just silly as, although I am sort of helping WP:FLAG's arguement, US state flags are not easy to identify, and would not at all be recognizable to an international crowd, and since Wikipedia is not US-centric, they should go. The359 (talk) 14:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Motorsport nationalism is a funny hangover from the Corinthian ideals of the Edwardian gents who set the first motor races up. The Gordon Bennett Cup races were built around highly nationalistic teams, and this ethos has filtered down through the years and is now firmly entrenched in the sport. In National Level events nobody really cares what nationality the drivers or teams are but there is some use of flags simply because of trying to emulate the higher levels. In International Level events, however, that nationality of the driver (and to a certain extent the team) is still of great cultural, if not intrinsic, importance. No, the cars and drivers are no longer explicitly representing a nation (the era of the amateur chap racing for national pride really died a death at the end of the 1950s, and had the final nails banged into its coffin when national colours were made optional in the late 1960s) but the culture remains. At the end of most international races (and particularly in F1) flags are hoisted and anthems sung, and that to me is proof enough that the historical culture of nationalism is still alive an kicking. On the downside, the moronic Spanish abuse leveled at Lewis Hamilton of late is proof that the more seemy side is still alive too. Anyway, after that rambling discourse, my point is that the editor was who made that adjustment was pontificating in ignorance. National identity is an intrinsic part of many motorsport classes, and absolutely a part of the culture in F1, so flags stay. Pyrope 13:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Flags should stay for F1 drivers at least. FOM (producers of F1's television world feed) currently put 4 details on their TV captions for drivers; Name, team, current position and National Flag - proof that flag/nationality is considered to be of high importance. AlexJ (talk) 14:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not even F1, really. For 2008, the FIA GT Championship requires every car to include the flag and abbreviation for the nationality of the team, and as with F1, displays national flags on the podiums. The359 (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Auto racing competitions in Mexico

I have nominated Category:Auto racing competitions in Mexico for deletion due to being inconsistent with our standard scheme for categorising auto races by country (i.e. "Category:Motorsport in <country>"). Feel free to contribute to the discussion here. DH85868993 (talk) 10:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Allow listing Featured Article Candidates?

How does everyone feel about allowing nominators to list motorsport Featured Article Candidates here at the parent Motorsport WikiProject? There are pros and cons. The con is that it might look like vote stacking. My admin friend who is well-versed at FAC says that lots of WikiProject's members all vote to support each article that comes up and sometimes weaker articles pass. I don't think it's vote stacking if I comment on an F1 article since I never did major editing on the article and I'm not close to the subject. The pro is that then contributors who are motorsport "experts" (but in a different genre) might see ways to improve the particular article that only someone with "expert" knowledge could see. Since WP:MOTOR members are found around the world, it also helps the article's world-view. A lot of non-fans on a topic are less inclined to support, but comment without voting. I saw that happen on a recently-failed FAC that I nominated. It failed because no one supported or opposed - they just commented. Royalbroil 14:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Track map request

I'd like to make a simple request for a track map, or at least a variant of a track map. For my Race of Two Worlds article, I'd like to have a map of Monza as it was in 1957/1958. this map is currently the only one we have of the layout at that time, but it is of the full circuit, and not the best map in my mind. I'd prefer something much more similar to this, which features the full layout, but with only the oval in bold and the rest of the circuit grayed out, and up to par with the current map of Monza in terms of quality.

I'd also ask to include the name of the two turns and the two straights, as well an arrow or two to point out that the oval runs counterclockwise. It'd be much appreciated. The359 (talk) 04:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I left an image request on the Commons talk page and native language talk page of the contributor who uploaded the current map of Monza. If he/she can't do it, then a resource that you could use is Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Requested and orphan maps. If all else fails, let me know and I'll give it a try. Royalbroil 12:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Image:Circuit Monza 1955 Oval.svg --Rumbin ** 14:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you much. The359 (talk) 18:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we also need a proper updated map for the Fuji Speedway article. I note that the last section used in F1 appears to be missing. D.M.N. (talk) 09:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Nope, that's the correct Fuji layout. The359 (talk) 09:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

My mistake, I was looking at this image of the old track. Nevermind. D.M.N. (talk) 09:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

GP2 Series race reports

Danny 93 has created a 2005 GP2 Series race report article at Talk:2005 San Marino Grand Prix Feature (in the talk page for some reason). I don't think that individual GP2 races are notable enough to deserve their own articles. What do other people think about this?--Diniz(talk) 19:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we had a discussion before regarding what series were considered important enough to have individual race articles. I believe the consensus seemed to be that the top level for an internationally known series was notable enough to have race results (F1, World Sportscar, World Touring Car, World Rally, NASCAR, IndyCar, etc), while while smaller national or continental series would suffice with simply having season summaries (BTCC, Formula Atlantic, Formula Nippon, etc). GP2 however is a bit of a middle ground, as it is internationally known, as are its predecessors, but simply not the top rung of the ladder. The359 (talk) 20:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is that it meets notability (you can find a few race reports from independent sources for each race, therefore it's referencable and hence notable) but considering we haven't done race reports for a good 80% of F1 races, it comes pretty far down the priority list. Nevertheless, if someone's willing to write and reference a start class article, I'd lean towards keeping it, but lets not create tons of articles with nothing more than a table of results. If it were to be done, then I believe both sprint & feature race should be covered under the same article. AlexJ (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with Diniz and The359 on this one. On that note, does the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix article just cover the Formula One event or all events that took place at Imola during that weekend? I've never come across a situation like this, hence why I'm asking. Maybe a small section called "Support races" is warranted with mini-reports for other series' that took place on that weekend. Just a thought. D.M.N. (talk) 21:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I there sorry about putting it in the talk discussion place, was wondering why it kept coming up (page does not exist). I think the GP2 races deserve their own summary because it would be easier for people to see what happened in the races & how the Formula One stars today got on that season e.g. Nico Rosberg. & I should've said GP2 San Marino Grand Prix Feature so that people don't get confused! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danny 93 (talk • contribs) 00:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If someone wants to find out how Nico Rosberg got on in his GP2-winning season, they can look at the Nico Rosberg and 2005 GP2 Series season articles, where the information already exists. The only advantage to separate race report articles is if they have a race report, not just an inofobox and a table.--Diniz(talk) 17:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If we start GP2 race summaries (and I agree with the above suggestion that both races should be placed on a single page, rather than one for the Sprint and one for the Feature), then it might help if those who wish to do so possible for a "Junior Formula" Project, something I had previously suggested. So that this doesn't have to fall under Formula One, but rather a separate project to cover GP2, F3000, F2, F3, F.Renault, F.BMW, etc. The359 (talk) 00:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It is possible to offer for it to e a new project by the way. Chubbennaitor 10:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I think we should cut off the race reports at the GP2 level (possibly Renault World Series). I have no problem with having season articles for junior formulae although for multiple ones such as Formula Renault and Formula BMW we should stick having all the results in a single article (namong them 2007 in Formula Renault, etc) one could possibly do the same with Formula Three as well... --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 12:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I suppose a new WP or taskforce could be created to deal with "junior" formulae articles. However, I'm still not convinced of the merit of including articles for races of this level. All of the important information already exists in the season articles, and I'm also in the process of adding GP2 and F3000 results tables to drivers' articles. I believe that major series such as NASCAR and the IndyCar Series don't have individual race report articles (except for cases such as the Indy 500). There aren't any complications such as split classes which would warrant a separate article, and the inclusion of both races in the article would require two infoboxes or substantial modifications to the existing racine report infobox template. It will also be very hard to create meaningful articles for F3000 and F2 races (if this is the intention), as once the internet archives stop, then I don't think any race reports exist beyond very old copies of motorsport magazines. To summarise, having GP2 races as articles seems to be to fall foul of WP:NOT.--Diniz(talk) 17:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as they are sourced by multiple independent reliable sources, they probably would be kept in any AFD discussion no matter what we discuss here. I think if someone wants to spend the time to write the article, then let them. We have plenty of WikiProjects and task forces that have very limited activity, so why start another. Royalbroil 05:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Goodwood FOS = Photo Field Day

It's that time of year again, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where a lot of great great cars are out on display, and we thankfully can get a lot of great great photos of some rarities. I've already found several collections on Flickr which are under the Creative Commons licenses, so they can all be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Photos pertain to Rally cars, Touring cars, Formula One, Junior Formula, IndyCar, Sportscars, NASCAR, and Motorcycle racing.

Here is a collection from Flickr user Estoril, here is a collection from user Exfordy, and here is a collection from user mark.woodbury. Expect more galleries in the near future as people upload their photos.

Please make sure all photos are placed in the Commons:Category:Goodwood Festival of Speed 2008, in order to help make sure that we are not uploading the same pictures multiple times. Feel free to pass these links on to the various Motorsports Subprojects and Tasks Forces. The359 (talk) 02:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, these are interesting sets! Both of these NASCAR cars already existed here on Wikipedia (Matt Kenseth, Bobby Allison). Royalbroil 05:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Formula Renault season articles

I would like to draw your attention to the following articles:

• 2008 Formula Renault UK season
• 2008 Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season

While I do agree that documenting on junior formulae season is appropriate, I do not think it's appropriate when considering there is a more broader article, 2008 Formula Renault seasons, which serves the purpose of these two articles and then some. In the cases of Formula Renault, BMW and possibly Ford I would like to see a similar approach taken with Formula Renault and put all an article, possibly renaming it 2008 in Formula Renault to make it seem more encyclopaedic.

I would like to see these articles merged to the parent Formula Renault. But I wouldn't mind getting your thoughts on this idea for the junior formulae. --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 13:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Do not merge. If someone wants to spend the time to create season or even event articles on any notable racing series then allow them to, even if it's a junior series or a notable regional (subnational) touring series from a large country. Then they can expand on the details of that particular series or event. They should meet notability criteria. The broader 2008 Formula Renault article is very long and splits like these are important. Royalbroil 15:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

merge I'm the mainly contributor to Formula Renault seasons and I've merged all series to not create article like 2008 Formula Renault UK season with useless informations : 'Teams and drivers' and 'races' sections are already include in the 2008 Formula Renault seasons standing table (venues, dates, winner, pole...) and the some season informations too. Not merge create many poor articles with redondant informations (many tables) and merge create one big article. Eventualy, it's possible to separate 'Formula 2.0' from 'Formula 1.6 and other'. In any case, I'm the one who update standings and informations, and I don't want work in several articles to update these useless tables, if someone split the article, he must update the new article, I would not make it. - Rollof1 (talk) 09:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Driver autographs

Does anyone feel that driver autographs have a place in Wikipedia? As signatures, these are not copyrightable so they do not need to pass fair use. I have the autographs of Michael Andretti, Juan Manuel Fangio II, Hiro Matsushita and I think Scott Pruett (or Jimmy Vasser, one of the two). What are your thoughts on scanning and entering them into the Wiki? -- Guroadrunner (talk) 12:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

They could easily be used by scam artists for fraud, so I oppose uploading them. I think it infringes on the celebrity's rights, even if it's not illegal. Royalbroil 13:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Same reason as Royalbroil. --Falcadore (talk) 17:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think many drivers use their real signature for giving autographs, most just use their first name. Autograph forgers will likely already have access to the starts autographs so no problem there either. However, I don't think there's a need for them. AlexJ (talk) 17:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Idea withdrawn per discussion Made my day easier so I can move on to other projects. Thanks for the comments and consultation. Guroadrunner (talk) 16:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Touch of class

I've got a request for help. It's been clarified HM=SCCA's Class H Modified, but I'm concerned about over-generalizing. If somebody's got access to a contemporary rulebook (the website doesn't say, & the regs are likely to have changed since the '50s...), it would be a help. I'm also posting to WP Sports Car Racing.

Also, I'd welcome clarification on where the Offut & MacDill events were run, & anything else...

If you read Italian, you can also help out with the associated links & at Bandini Automobili & its links... Thanks. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 06:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me bump this one. We've been muddling along, more/less in the dark on the actual state of play. Does anybody have sources on what SCCA/sports car racing was like in the '50s & '60s? You can be a big help here, just for a start. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 18:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

BTCC Photos

Just to let you guys know, I've released a number of photographs for use on Wikipedia after my trip to Oulton Park yesterday. I have a few more (I took over 300 photos in all yesterday) so just ask for a subject and I'll see if I took a picture of it (driver or car). Cheers. --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 13:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: A few comments about where I could improve would be useful as well. ;-). --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 13:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Some nice photos there. Can't really offer much advice on how to improve, other than occasionally and where possible, leaving some breathing space for the photos. I was told that with a moving car, a perfect crop allows some empty space in front of the car where it is about to move to. However on Wikipedia it's very much a compromise between this, and having a tight enough crop that the subject isn't too small at the reduced size it would be in the article. AlexJ (talk) 14:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I dabble in a motorsport photography myself. Took probably 800-900 shots at the Snetterton BTCC meeting, so will echo Phill's offer. Phill, you seem to have a good eye for it. Have you considered getting a digital SLR camera? That would be the next logical step I'd have thought. You'd get much more control and the larger sensor would give you a crisper image. Earlier this year I took some shots at the Masters Festival at Donington with my old camera and was frustrated with the quality so went out and bought a DSLR. I haven't looked back since! The improvement is fantastic. I don't know how much control you have on your camera but if you can run a slower shutter speed you'll get a more dramatic image. When panning, to get a nice dramatic shots you want a sharp car, but the wheels blurred. Sometimes you've got a picture which looks like the car is stationary on the track, which you can avoid if you set a slightly longer exposure, say 1/150. Readro (talk) 14:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks both of you! ;-) And no, not yet on the DSLR front, Readro. They're just a little too expensive for me. Besides, couldn't I just buy a lens for my FujiFilm camera? As for the high exposure time, I'll keep that in mind for any future trips but, as my skin found out later on, it was particularly sunny that today (as it is today in Cheshire) and the sun kept reflecting off the cars and I thought this would make the images more brighter than I wanted. Thankfully Windows Live Gallery has some option to tone down the brightest areas of the photos so they aren't as worse as they could've been. But I've certainly learnt one thing and that's Knickerbrook and Clay Hill are good places for shots. Although, and I do say this in some shame, I missed a chance to take a snap at who I thought as Damon Hill, obviously come to watch his son Josh in the Ginettas, but I had some doubts whether it was him or not so I didn't really want to take a snap. :-(

Although I will admit Parc Ferme was fun, but the garage lighting was rubbish so I didn't get a chance for many driver pictures there either. I remember Adam Christodoulou (bless me ;-)) posed after I took the shot, although I prefer those natrual shots, where the driver is more caught up in his work rather than showing off for the camera. Speaking of Formule Renault, if you ever go to Oulton Park, never take pictures of those cars at Old Hall corner (first corner) because the pit wall hides the cars so you can't see them until it's too late. ;-) --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 14:49, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Yup, probably was Damon. He's been watching the Ginettas in the spectator areas this season. At Snetterton I was at Coram Curve for a lot of the day but moved up to Russell's chicane, only for the commentator to immediately say that Damon was now at Coram! Readro (talk) 15:05, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Damon appears to be a slippery one for us Wikipedians. ;-) --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 15:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I managed to grab Damon at Thruxton in May and got a couple of shots of him in the pits. My work won't ever be on Wikimedia though; I don't give it away free of charge. Skully, you could definitely do with new gear if you're into motorsport photography. You need a decent sports-orientated body and a couple of good sharp super-teles with fast and reliable AF. If you can't afford good glass, you can rent it as and when. If you want more advice, I recommend that you join this forum. Adrian M. H. 15:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1300 articles are assigned to this project, of which 297, or 22.8%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place a template on your project page.

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be useful, so I've added the template as instructed, with the hidden attribute applied. Adrian M. H. 18:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox racing driver

So, I posted a comment there a while ago...okay, about a month ago... calling attention to the fact that now that the unintentional red border issue has been resolved, these people infoboxes make it look like all the drivers are dead, to put it bluntly. Please take a look at my previous comment for explanation and weigh in with your thoughts. Thanks. ZueJay (talk) 21:43, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

How does that make it look like they are dead? I have never seen an infobox with a red border except one or two that carry a red colour scheme, in the same vain as those that have a blue/green/whatever colour scheme. Ours is grey because it matches the other motorsport infoboxes, to which no one has ever objected before as far as I am aware. I never use IE unless I am debugging code in the course of my work, so I looked through the old revisions and viewed them in IE: the red border looks ugly and wrong, so whoever removed it was right to do so in my view. When I created that template, I took the code wholesale from another similar bio infobox (don't ask me which one – it was far too long ago). I didn't even notice the red hex value and compliant browsers always show the last hex value if there is more than one, so I was unaware of its existence. If "all" bio infoboxes should actually have this ugly red border, where is it written? Adrian M. H. 22:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Please review my comment at Template talk:Infobox racing driver. I have added another for (hopefully) clarity. I am trying to keep the conversation on that page as, I assume, there are multiple wikiprojects with interest in this infobox. Thanks! ZueJay (talk) 22:22, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Procar print sources

I'm currently working on getting Procar into GA status, and the last hurdle seems to be a lack of print sources, mostly because I do not have any historical books so most all of my sources are online. If anyone has a book which covers or at least discusses the Procar series or any of the other racing M1s, any references that could be added to the Procar article would be much appreciated. I haven't found anything in the project's Library which would cover it, but there might be a mention or two in non-specific books, or even the F1 histories. The359 (talk) 01:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I see around 700 mentions of the term "procar" at google books [5]. I hope you thought about the following: Maybe the New York Times database has something [6], although I bet it got little press in the United States. What about other major world newspapers or magazines? Some have archived stories online. Royalbroil 15:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I haven't got anything that goes that far back. Sorry. The 79 and 80 Autocourses might cover it, but I don't think any of us have them. Presumably the problem is a lack of reliable sources? Having print sources is not one of the GA criteria and should not be grounds for failure on its own. 4u1e (talk) 16:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, actually you've given me an excuse to look through my recently acquired 'Motor Sport 1980s digital archive collection' - i.e. a chance to see whether it was worth the cash. It may take me a little time to sift through it, the search facility's a bit basic, but I'll let you know what I find. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

There's three articles that mention the series very briefly on The Times' digital archive (which is currently available free of charge). Interestingly, on July 11,1980 the paper says "Tomorrow final practice for the Grand Prix will be followed by a BMW Procar race for, which the fastest five GP drivers from today's practice will be eligible." The WP article says for 1980 "Unlike the previous year where the fastest drivers in practice earned seats with the factory BMW team, five drivers were designated as the primary drivers for every event". AlexJ (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I had not thought of Google books, there are a few references in there that I could add/replace. The NYT archives I'm having trouble with, as I can't find the digital archive which includes free articles from before 1981, so unless I'm completely lost, I haven't been able to find anything there. The359 (talk) 19:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, just to clarify I meant The London Times at http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/ AlexJ (talk) 20:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

That makes a bit of a difference, thanks. ;) The359 (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

For the NY Times, you just do a regular search. The result includes some articles before 1981 for free, so you take what you can get. Sounds like there aren't any on this topic. Que sera, sera. Royalbroil 00:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I bet the coverage of Procar would be inside a book on the BMW M1, BMW marque and possibly a retrospective in F1 Racing Magazine and/or Autosport. Are there any retrospectives on Piquet or Regazzoni? I personally have nothing. Guroadrunner (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I found some BMW books on Google Books, and the article has passed GA now, so I'm good. The359 (talk) 20:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I tell a lie -- check this out: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Road-and-Track-BMW-M-Series-Portfolio-1979-2002/Staff-of-Road-Track-Magazine/e/9781855206274/?itm=1

"Road and Track BMW M Series Portfolio 1979-2002" -- Guroadrunner (talk) 20:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

More accessible and recent (or cheaper?), an article on (the old?) BMW M1 was in Road & Track's February 2006 issue. -- Title: "BMW M1: THE "ULTIMATE" EXOTIC" , by Joe Rusz. Page 80 of the article, which to me sounds like it was a feature article within the magazine (multi-page, ~1,400 words). -- Guroadrunner (talk) 20:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

New Formula D pictures

I've put up a bunch of Formula D photos on Commons - here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Formula_Drift

They aren't that great, but it will let us put images for Tanner Foust, Rhys Millen, and a couple other articles. I also have AVIs of the action that are better than these photos, but Wiki won't let me upload an AVI. So I'll get around to converting that. (.OGG is not my deal and I personally dislike it).

I also have action from Figure 8 racing for Figure 8 racing (Figure 8 banger racing), same track. I also have AVIs of that too, actually pretty good.

My intent is to use the images to describe and show these forms of racing. Anyhow, if you get to them before me and stick them on the pages, great. If you don't think the pics will benefit anything, that's okay too. Just a heads up.

-- Guroadrunner (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to replace my short video of Figure 8 racing as long as it clearly shows how they race in an 8 shape. All Figure 8 racing here takes place long after dark, so the action is impossible to videotape clearly. I agree that it was a pain to convert to OGG format, but everything needs to be in a free use format. Royalbroil 02:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Litespeed F3 AfD

JUst to let you guys know, Litespeed F3 is being nominated for deletion. You can find it's entry: here. --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 10:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Jaguar Racing, Jaguar Junior Team

Hey guys - just wondering, when Stewart Grand Prix became Jaguar Racing, did Stewart's Formula Three team also become a Jaguar Team as well. Because having recently taken a trip down memory lane, I believe a Formula Three car with Jaguar livery came to my high school once, no running of the car was done, however! ;-) Back to topic, is this car the Jaguar's Junior team which was ran in F3? and Formula 3000 as well? If so, would it be worth mentioning in the Jaguar Racing article as well as it's Formula One involvement? --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 15:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Scratch that, there was no Formula 3000 team... --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 15:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The only cars I recall having a similar paint scheme to the F1 team were the Palmer Jaguar JP1s. The359 (talk) 15:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, essentially it's Paul Stewart Racing, which became Stewart Racing, which then became Jaguar Racing. I can't for the life of me remember who drove though! Readro (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

And Aussie and an American, iirc. --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 23:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The Aussie was James Courtney who was heading to a dominant championship win in Brit F3 until a massive testing accident at Monza in one of the F1 cars, the biggest of that year by the G loading placed of Courtney, put him into bed for a month and he lost too much ground to salvage his title. From there he moved to Japan, smashed the F3 title over they before nursemaiding pay drivers in Super GT for Toyota before eventually moving home to Australia to race V8 Supercar. --Falcadore (talk) 03:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm absolutely incorrect, but wasn't Eddie Lawson the American? There was some other American people were excited by back around that era. Townsend Bell and Buddy Rice come to mind, but Rice never actually got to Europe. As for the original question, I don't believe Jaguar bought up Paul Stewart Racing. -- Guroadrunner (talk) 06:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC) - scratch all of that, I am way off. I am interested in knowing who the American was, though.

Andre Lotterer, who is very German and not at all American. Courtney's almost championship year was with Carlin in 2002 rather than his year at Jaguar Junior in 2001 when he was fourth. Looked from 2000 to 2003 and could find no Americans in British Formula 3 until Richard Antinucci and Scott Speed appeared in 2003 racing for Carlin, two years after Jaguar Junior folded. --Falcadore (talk) 07:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Eddie Lawson raced Indycars around 1996 if I remember correctly - could that be what you were thinking about? Readro (talk) 12:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

EFDA Nations Cup

I just found this article about the EFDA Nations Cup, a "world cup of motorsport" event held with Formula Opel cars during the 1990s. The article is a complete copyvio from its referenced source, needs clean-up and wikifying. Another problem is that the source championship doesn't have a main article. There is currently nothing on Wikipedia about Formula Opel, Formula Opel Lotus, Formula Vauxhall or Formula Opel Euroseries. --Pc13 (talk) 14:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Needs a lot of work, I'd suggest discussing with the author over whether or not he has information on the various Formula Opel/Vauxhall series so that it can be fleshed out. Maybe move the entire article into Formula Opel? The359 (talk) 17:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Scratch the first part, it appears the author hasn't edited in several months... The359 (talk) 17:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Mario Andretti nationality issues

There has been edit warring and lots of discussion about how to present Mario Andretti's hometown since it was part of Italy when he was born and it later went under Yugoslavia control which caused his family to emigrate to the U.S. I was very close to full protecting the page. There are two nationalistic editor going back and forth on the topic, and I've been both trying to keep it cool yet voice my opinion on the topic. Please review the comments at Talk:Mario_Andretti#Birth_country and give your opinion on how present his hometown. Feel free to disagree with me (of course). Royalbroil 19:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

"Vehicles introduced in <year>" categories

I notice the recent inclusion of Maserati 250F into Category:Vehicles introduced in 1954. Is this something we would want to see extended to all other racing car articles? Or should those categories be reserved for road cars? (The "Vehicle introduced in <year>" categories themselves don't indicate their scope, although I note that the parent category Category:Vehicles introduced by year is a subcat of Category:Years in motoring, the other contents of which appear to be mainly concerned with road cars rather than racing cars). DH85868993 (talk) 05:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Buenos Aires Grand Prix drivers

I notice the recent creation of Category:Buenos Aires Grand Prix drivers. Do we want to keep it? We had an earlier discussion about some similar categories, but there didn't appear to be any clear consensus. DH85868993 (talk) 01:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally, if participation in the race is not worthy of mention in the drivers biography article, then its not worthy of a participation category. --Falcadore (talk) 04:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I've run into this guy before. I think he might need to be warned that every single motorsports event in Argentina doesn't need its own article. I notice his trend is mostly to just include results, with no text whatsoever, so I think he might not understand English. My vote is once again for deletion. The359 (talk) 04:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed it on my watchlist. I think it's severe overcategorization. We shouldn't create a category for every driver that participated in an event, with a possible exception of the Indianapolis 500. Not even the Daytona 500, 24 hours of Le Mans, any specific Grand Prix, etc. Royalbroil 05:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Why not Le Mans? It hasn't even been part of a regular championship calendar/series for half of its existence? It's mostly a one-off event. The359 (talk) 05:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is a need for a category like this for any race. Perhaps, but only perhaps, there could be a category for winners of Indy 500, Le Mans and Monaco GP respectively (as they are usually counted towards the unofficial Triple Crown of Motorsport) but no more than that. John Anderson (talk) 22:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Side issues surely. Let's delete the cat huh? --Falcadore (talk) 07:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. John Anderson (talk) 12:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've nominated it for deletion. DH85868993 (talk) 16:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It's been deleted. DH85868993 (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

German GP or West German GP?

What is the historically accurate name of the German Grand Prix before unification, for both the Formula 1 and motorcycle Grand Prix? I was under the assumption that it was called the West German Grand Prix, and it is listed as such on the MotoGP web site. I realize this may be a politically sensitive subject, and don't want to step on any toes.Orsoni (talk) 10:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I think at least the Formula One event was officially called German Grand Prix even before the reunification. As for MotoGP I have no idea. John Anderson (talk) 12:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, the automobile race was always just called the "German Grand Prix". As for the motorcycle race, it looks as though there were separate "Grand Prix" races in both East and West Germany from 1958 to 1990, so I guess it makes sense to call them the "East German Grand Prix" and "West German Grand Prix" during that period at least (and especially from 1961-1972, when both races were part of the World Championship). Noting that it only covers World Championship events, www.motogp.com refers to:

• the race in East Germany as the "East Germany Grand Prix" from 1961-1972,
• the race in West Germany as the "West Germany Grand Prix" from 1952-1990 (i.e. including 1952-1957 when there was no race in East Germany), and
• the "German Grand Prix" from 1991 onwards.

Hope this helps. DH85868993 (talk)

But I haven't really answered the question, have I? You asked about the historically accurate names. So I'll try again. One difficulty is that I'm not sure the races have/had "official" names in English. As far as I know, the official name of the automobile race in German has always been "Großer Preis von Deutschland". The motorcycle race programmes at www.motoprogs.com suggests that the motorcycle Grands Prix held in West Germany were called "Großer Preis von Deutschland" [7], and the ones held in East Germany were called "Großer Preis von Deutsche Demokratische Republik" [8]. So I guess the questions are:

• Do the races have official names in English and if so, what are they?
• If not, how should we translate "Großer Preis von Deutschland" before 1945, from 1945-1990 and from 1991 onwards? Pretty obviously, it translates to "German Grand Prix" before 1945 and from 1991 onwards. But from 1945 to 1990...?

This probably hasn't helped. DH85868993 (talk) 03:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The Formula One event was indeed always the "Großer Preis von Deutschland". The359 (talk) 04:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Calling the two German states between 1949 and 1990 West Germany and East Germany might be in common use, but it is inaccurate, suggesting symmetry and equal status between the free democratic Federal Republic of Germany that continued (and continues) pre-WW2 sporting traditions, and the short lived Soviet satellite state German Democratic Republic that needed to build the Berlin Wall to keep its people from defecting. In several kinds of racing, from horses to cars, motorbikes, boats etc., it was/is the "Großer Preis von Deutschland" ("für Motorräder") (GP of Germany (for MCs)). Check out the excellent internet projects, the general "Motor Racing Programme Covers" [9] sorted by tracks, and the motorcycle-specific "Cor's motoprogs.com" [10]. The "other" race at the post-WW2 Sachsenring, organized by the ADMV (de:ADMV), was the "Großer Preis der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik" (GP of the German Democratic Republic) in 1958, and with WC-status from 1961 to 1972. Interestingly, they claimed to host a "GP of Germany" in 1959 and 1960, but I doubt that this was recognized outside the Eastern Bloc. Thus, the GDR races should not be called East German GPs, and the German GP should not be demoted to West German, as only the German GP carries 8 decades of tradition under that name, compared to the single decade of WC races in the GDR which were no German GPs. After all, even in years with two WC races in the United Kingdom, nobody called the Tourist Trophy "West British GP", to tell it apart from the "North British GP" Ulster Grand Prix. Italy has two races on the calendar, like the USA, while Spain has even 3 WC races, but nobody demotes "Spanish GP" to "South Spanish GP". Yet, (not so) funny names are given to German races (and teams, and even states). Sadly, the website of MotoGP introduced the stupid WGER/EGER codes, while the Olympic IOC has an even bigger mess currently, with four(!) codes. So, please, call it German GP, and GP of the GDR. -- Matthead  Discuß   00:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It is interesting to learn that East & West Germany never really existed in the minds of Germans. I never realized this was a politically charged topic. As I said before, I know this may be a sensitive topic and I don't want to offend. I would like to think that sporting events such as the case with the Olympics, should try to stay out of politics. I would think that at the very least, during the years that there were two German Grand Prix events on either side of the iron curtain, they could be differentiated as West German and East German, simply to avoid confusion to the casual reader not well-versed on the political ramifications. For instance, most people don't recognise the name Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, but do recognise Imola as a racing venueOrsoni (talk) 08:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Performance or Racing Driving?

As I said at Talk:Driving (please read), performance driving or racing driving isn't really discussed in that article (Driving), although it seems to be a tangible concept which could be discussed. In contrast, as I also say there, the article (now) Racing line can be argued to be non-encyclopedic, being an attempt to create a science which, I am told by enthusiasts more expert than I, does not exist well-defined in written form. Aside from that, it would seem Racing line should perhaps be referenced by a Racing driving or Performance driving article, an equivalent of which I cannot find. But, even better, the concept could be a section of such an article, or even just inferred by the content of the article. (i.e. concepts distributed throughout the entire article). Now, it would seem de facto project leaders here (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Motorsport) might have thoughts on whether the article should be Performance driving, Racing driving, or something else (which may even exist, although I overlooked it), or just added as a section in Driving. OTOH, I can imagine there may have been past politics which make adding it to Driving unacceptable. There is in Driving reference to Drifting (motorsport) which seems rather odd, since it occurs despite the lack of reference to other forms of performance driving. And then again, wikipedia is not an instruction manual, although I really think performance or racing driving can be discussed while sticking to that guideline. Sorry, I seem to be someone who agonizes a long time over small refinements, hoping that that will ultimately improve quality. (Haste makes waste).--SportWagon (talk) 17:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Driving and Category:Driving techniques do provide some of what I was suggesting. Perhaps some of the topics contained there (including Racing line) would justify more mention of performance driving in Driving article. I.e. it seems to me categories benefit from having a "root" article which explains the existence of, and other things about, that category.--SportWagon (talk) 18:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me Racing driving would be the sensible umbrella article for all hi-po driving, given there's enough material for it; otherwise, as a section under Driving. I think there's probably enough for a separate article, given the difference between "slide" & "drift" (no, not the recent sport, quite different entirely, which also needs to be dabbed), the selection of lines, the change to what was called "the wide angle of entry school" (which, I think, obsoleted the use of slide & drift in sports car racing), explaining "drafting" (& how it doesn't apply in open-wheel, no matter what David Hobbs thinks), & (for the master class) an explanation of how Emmo could a) hang out the tail of a Lotus 76 & b) go faster doing it. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 23:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

2008 Donington Superleague Formula round up for AFD

Possibly not the wisest decision I've ever made, but I've nominated 2008 Donington Superleague Formula round for deletion here on the grounds of notability in the general scope of things. D.M.N. (talk) 21:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Closed as No Consensus. If the article doesn't get any further development, I'll send it back to AFD again, along with any other similar articles to AFD. D.M.N. (talk) 06:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Motorsport

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

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