Back on the Grid!

Been missing your regular fix of the best sporting cars and motor sport around, well I'll concede its been a rocky few months here at SportsCar&Racer but we're still in there fighting. We've a new publishing company, a few other changes behind the scene but out front, were it matters to you, our readers, we hope you'll find it's all just as appealing as it's always been. Enough of us, what about your word, don't be afraid to write and tell us what you think on any topic and the more healthy criticism we see, both about the motoring world and this magazine, the better. It would be remiss of me to let a chance go by to not have a few words on one of my favourite topics, driver education - or the lack of it. Living in the state that builds its entire budget on taxing - sorry fining - motorists it's hard to not be focussed on the subject. After all you'd expect that those hundreds of millions of dollars that the Victorian State Government is grabbing from motorists are going to the benefit of the motoring public, yeah right! Barely any of the $15 a minute that the Bracks Government plans to collect from each and every one of us over the next 12 months will go back to motorists. Italian autostradi on the other hand, one of my favourite places to drive, are benefiting from just such lateral thinking. The Italian authorities, most enthusiastically the POLICE, have just RAISED the national speed limit to 150KM/H! The reason, the previous 130km/h limit (oh that we should be so lucky) was proving too boring and the Italians simply decided that a higher speed limit would make drivers more alert. We on the other hand are being fined into extinction by a regime that believes that terror will some how lower the national road toll, already at an all time low if you do the figures properly. As motoring icon Peter Brock said to me recently: "Driving is one of our last great freedoms, we need to be very careful that we don't loose that freedom to an overzealous authority." Hear, hear!

At a private function just before the Monaco Grand Prix, Volkswagen supercar maker Bugatti announced quietly that production of its EB 16.4 Veyron is to go ahead.
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