AN ALMOST INDEPENDENT MONTHLY MAGAZINE /NOVEMBER 2009

Wacky RacesInside Formula One's craziest-ever season

Super Fly GuyThe sky's no limit for

Red Bull Air Race Champ Paul Bonhomme

Hulk v BeastEric Bana's Mad Max

car obsession

This magazine flies, fights and surfs a

Brazilian bore wave!See page 5

Exclusively with The Independent

on the first Tuesday of every month

Sweat, blood and fighting talk on Katie Taylor's Olympic medal quest

The Girl with the

Golden Gloves

THE COLA FROM RED BULL.

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Natural flavours from plant extracts and natural caffeine from coffee beans.

100% PURE COLA.The cola from Red Bull has a

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it’s the only cola that contains both

the original Kola nut and the Coca leaf.

Its naturally refreshing cola

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of plant extracts.

What’s more, the cola from

Red Bull contains no phosphoric acid,

no preservatives and no artificial

colours or flavourings.

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Enduring.

FULL FORCE

Print2.0

The tensile strength of the bones in a human hand is stronger

than that of concrete, apparently. We have this on good

authority, as The Bulletin’s resident physicist, Dr Martin

Apolin, tells us so, in his explanation on page 26 of how a

Karate dan is able to smash concrete blocks with his bare fists.

What he doesn’t add (’cos we didn’t ask him) is that this silent

strength is also one of the factors behind the frankly terrifying

ability of the ostensibly winsome Katie Taylor (aka ‘The world’s

best female boxer’ and this month’s cover star) to pulverise her

opponents into submission in a dizzying flurry of fist-work.

She’s a fearsome lass, is our Katie (see p52): 60kg of the

leanest, meanest muscle ever to hail from Bray, Co Wicklow,

and destined, almost certainly, to become its most famous

export. She’s a copper-bottomed gold prospect, y’see. Indeed,

she’s so good at her sport (record: 62 fights, 61 wins) it would

be a wise man who nipped down to the bookies now and

placed a sneaky fiver on her winning sport’s most-prized

gong at London 2012. (How’s that from a free magazine –

who said you never get anything for nothing?)

Away from the leather and sweat of the boxing ring, we soar

with Red Bull Air Race World Champion Paul Bonhomme (p44),

who can thread an aerobatic plane through an obstacle course,

at 200mph, better than most can thread needles. A rare kind

of skill for a man happy to admit his training diet includes

chocolate – to reduce the stress he feels when he can’t eat it!

And continuing our theme of speed, we take a light-hearted

look back at one of the craziest seasons Formula One has ever

known (p68), while also catching up with a young man, Daniel

Ricciardo (p34), whose career trajectory is carving

a perfect arc towards motorsport’s highest echelon.

Rocking your world yet? No? Well, this should: we’ve spent

time with hot LA band The Bronx – or Mariachi el Bronx (p90),

depending on which of their egos they’re preferring to alter.

And if that little lot isn’t good enough for you, don’t come

complaining, or else we’ll send Katie round for a chat…

Your editorial team

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WELOME TO THE WORLD OF RED BULLInside your all-action Red Bulletin this month…

Bullevard10 PICTURES OF THE MONTH 14 NOW AND NEXTWhat to see and where to be in the worlds

of culture and sport

20 KIT EVOLUTIONIt would make no sense for a timepiece to

be timeless, so the stopwatch has changed

unrecognisably since its first incarnation

25 WHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT?Goldie, the DJ with those teeth, is also

a roller-blading, art-creating classical

music composer. Where do we start?

26 WINNING FORMULAKarate chopping through concrete may

sound like a superhero stunt, but mere mortals

can do it. Here’s the science behind the blow

29 LUCKY NUMBERSThe first clown in space cuts a surprisingly

sensible figure. But then he’s Cirque du

Soleil creator Guy Laliberté

30 ME AND MY BODYMotoGP maestro Dani Pedrosa talks broken

bones, mangled muscles and the piece of

knee that never made it back from the track

Heroes34 DANIEL RICCIARDOThe newly crowned F3 champion is a chirpy

20-year-old Aussie with reason to smile:

his blistering pace this year is paving the

way for a Formula One future

38 HERO’S HERO Australian surf superstar Mick Fanning lost

his older brother in a car crash, but says

Sean will always be with him in spirit

40 ORSON WELLESThe man who made the ‘best film ever’ aged

25 was once a big-screen hero, but his own

story has anything but a Hollywood ending

44 PAUL BONHOMMEThe speedy Brit, who took the 2009

Red Bull Air Race World Championship

after two seasons in second place, is fresh

from victory (is that Mumm we can smell?)

and ready to discuss flying like a swan,

becoming a father and his chocolate diet

06

C O N T E N T S

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52

34

Action52 KATIE TAYLOR Ireland’s biggest hope for a 2012 boxing

medal comes in the unlikely form of a softly

spoken 22-year-old. And yes, she is a girl

62 POROROCA SURF Only a few fearless surfers strap up

and head out for the longest wave

68 FORMULA ONE Now that was a memorable season! Here’s

a lighthearted look at what happened

74 ERIC BANAThe Australian actor has left the Hulk

behind to focus on a different sort of Beast

More Body & Mind80 JASON POLAKOW The windsurf champ from Down Under

started out a long way from the waves –

in the mud of motocross

82 GET THE GEARWe’ve laid out all the knockout stuff

you need to step into the ring

84 ADVENTURES IN ODESSAFive days in Ukraine are enough to meet

a one-eyed mare, miss historical sights

and get a fast lesson in bribery

86 LISTINGSWorldwide, day and night, our guide

to the ultimate month-long weekend

90 NIGHTLIFEWe find The Bronx in London, Berlin at

the heart of Jazzanova and a taste of

south-east Asia in a Madrid nightclub

96 SHORT STORYMoney talks in this imagined future

98 STEPHEN BAYLEYContemplating the Mini at 50P

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THE RED BULLETIN Print 2.0

44

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WORD UPWisecracks and wisdom from the world of Red Bull and beyond.

Tell us what you think by emailing letters@redbulletin.com

“I always knew how to throw a punch. I know girls aren’t supposed

to know that and it was awkward for the lads as well”

“My clothes won’t fit back in my

suitcase… Have they grown?”

“You really don’t want to continually finish

second, do you?”

“WHEN I CRASHED IN QATAR EARLIER THIS YEAR I SAID, ‘OK

NOW I’LL STOP AND FIX THE LEG.’ A NORMAL SKIN GRAFT IS LIKE

CARPACCIO, BUT THEY HAD TO PUT SOMETHING THAT

LOOKED LIKE A STEAK ON IT”

“We were the skinniest guys there. All these

metal bands were just buff. When we were

playing, between songs someone yelled out ‘Go

and eat some food!’”

“My life has… turned upside down. I’ve had Flavio looking after me for 11 years. I have

never looked at the contract after I signed it on that first

day and there are not many people in this paddock you

could say that about”

“SOMETIMES WHEN YOU LISTEN TO PUNK IT SEEMS A BIT HEAVY

AND VIOLENT, BUT OVER TIME YOU GET USED TO IT AND NOW

I CAN EASILY FALL ASLEEP LISTENING TO PUNK. EVEN

SOME OF THE HEAVIER STUFF WITH THE VOMITING INTO

THE MICROPHONE…”

“I HAVE NO PRESSURE. I’M GIVING IT 100 PER CENT SO I CAN’T BE

DISAPPOINTED WHEN I RIDE BAD BECAUSE I KNOW I DID EVERYTHING. IF IT ISN’T WORKING, IT ISN’T WORKING,

THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT”

“OTHER THAN ME RUNNING OUT OF TALENT, BLOWING

THE TURN, BLASTING THROUGH THE SAND AND PILING INTO THE TYRES, IT

WAS AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE”

Your Letters

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BullevardNews and previews from the world of sport and adventure

HANG TIMEBU RKETOWN , AU STR ALIA

Print 2.0

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LARGE SCALEB ERLIN , GERMANY

12

YOU REALLY OUGHT TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT...

AXELCRUYSBERGHS

BRITISH AIRWAYS IS HELPFIND OUT HOW AT WWW.G

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B U L L E V A R D

OLD SKOOL MUSICALTaking the beats of the best B-Boys back to where they began: New York City

PING GREAT BRITISH TALENT TAKE OFF GREATBRITONS.BA.COM //////////////////////////

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Kingston Ljubljana

Daredevils gather for a celebration of adventure

UPHILLBATTLEA snowbound race 3000m above Santiago: feeling Chile?

SUMMIT MEETING

PICTURES OF THE MONTH

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WINNING WAYSHave you got what it takes to be the best? Teenage wakeboarding champion Victoria Young certainly has

The Olympic and Paralympic Games are a chance

for sportsmen and women with incredible talent to

perform at their best when the world’s spotlight is on

them. Inspired by these feats of sporting excellence,

British Airways, the official airline partner of The

London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games,

has launched a competition for Great Britons,

designed to find and reward UK residents who are

the best in their field, whatever that field is.

One of the winners is teenage Wakeboarding

sensation Victoria Young. Young, who is just 17,

was the first British female to represent Britain

at an international Wakeboarding event and is

currently ranked third in the world.

Not content with such a fantastic achievement

at such a young age, Young has set her sights on

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climbing through the Wakeboarding rankings and

becoming World Champion. This drive to reach the

top marked her out as special to the Great Britons

judges, while her dedication to and passion for

her sport earned her winning votes.

Part of Victoria’s prize is free flights to British

Airways destinations. “The flights will give me

a really good opportunity to train abroad during the

winter months and travel to the many competitions

that I take part in, including the European

Championships,” she says. “They will also give me

the same time on the water as the American and

Australian girls I compete against.”

And that’s what the Great Britons scheme is all

about – helping homegrown talent compete on a

level footing with the brightest and best in the world.

SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW US YOU’RE THE BEST GREAT BRITONS: THE SEARCH IS ON

KIT EVOLUTION

TIME MACHINESSport’s last 100 years has had plenty of times to remember thanks to ever-changing equipment putting in the hours. Give us a minute and we’ll explain…

THE OLD TICKERHEUER MIKROGRAPH, C1960

B U L L E V A R D

LIVING IN THE MOMENTETHERLYNX PROFESSIONAL

CAMERA, 2004

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SNOWFLICKSThe UK’s first-ever winter sports film festival

Sports quiz: who won Europe’s 2009

Champions League? That’s right, it was

BM Ciudad Real, the team so beloved

of the southern central Spanish town of

Ciudad Real. They’ve won three of the last

five continental handball titles. Handball,

yes. What did you think we meant?

Soon, though, the former capital of

the La Mancha region will have another

sporting claim to fame, because on

November 29, its suburb of Herencia will

be the location for Red Bull Don Quixote,

an enduro race named after the Great

Novel, written by Miguel de Cervantes,

which was partly set here.

It’s the first running of this 60km

race, in which both pro and amateur

motorcyclists switch between roads and

off-road in pursuit of the win. Think of it

as a scaled-down Dakar, and you get the

gist. Fittingly, three-time world Enduro

champ Ivan Cervantes heads the Spanish

contingent, linking the Don of old to Don

2009 with one rev of a muddy throttle.

MOTO EMOÇIONSpanish bikers head for the hills

Sardinia Porto Spa

B U L L E V A R D

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RACE OF CHAMPIONS

SEBASTIAN VETTEL MICHAEL SCHUMACHER ANDY PRIAULX JAMIE WHINCUP

JENSON BUTTON MATTIAS EKSTRÖM CLIVIO PICCIONE EMANUELE PIRRO

TOM KRISTENSEN MICK DOOHAN MIKKO HIRVONEN YVAN MULLER

B U L L E V A R D

24

The elite of two and four wheels go head-to-head in Beijing this month, but who’ll win bragging rights as the world’s best motorsportsman? Here’s your form guide

GOLDIEWHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT?

He’s an ex-roller skating graffiti artist who composes classical music… and his teeth are worth more than your car

HOME TRUTHS

IN THE CAN

DRUM MAJOR

TIME BANDIT

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN?

MINTED MOLARS

GOLDIE

LOOKING TAME

ACTING UP

GANG’S ALL HERE

SKATER BOY

DOUBLE ACT

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A SMASHING FELLOWTrying to break concrete slabs with

your hand may not be everyone’s idea

of fun, but with the right technique

it can be just that, says martial arts

master Ed Byrne, a man who has broken

a dozen records by breaking blocks.

“I’ve done martial arts all my life,”

says the 42-year-old, who’s a ninth dan

black belt in karate. “And I really enjoy

breaking. First, I get an all-over feeling

of adrenaline. Everyone has their own

way of psyching themselves up, and I

concentrate on seeing my hand as a knife

and the blocks as butter. In my mind’s

eye, I already see myself succeeding.

“Then it’s an explosion of power, and

technique is everything. I’m hitting with

the heel of my hand, so not directly on

a bone. I focus on the centre of what I’m

breaking and I’m putting my power, my

energy, right through the blocks.

“Some people jump and break, but

I’m quite powerful, so my hand usually

starts in line with my shoulder, then

ends up by my knee. Without that follow-

through, I could seriously hurt myself.

If you’re not confident in your ability,

you’re more likely to break your hand:

if you don’t break the concrete, the force

can bounce back at you and shatter bone.

“I had measurements taken for a TV

show recently, and it took a fifth of

a second for me to generate the power

equivalent to lifting a 40st (254kg) man

above my head with my right arm.

“In practice sessions I’ve broken 38

concrete slabs at once. The world record

is 36, held by a guy from Turkey, and

next year I want to break that.”

UNDER SLAB CONDITIONS“When a karateka [practitioner of

karate] hits a concrete slab, the upper

side is compressed and the underside

is stretched,” says Dr Martin Apolin,

physicist and sports scientist.

“The tensile strength of concrete

is much lower than its compressive

strength, so the underside of the slab

begins to break. Concrete slabs, as shown

here, break under slow stress at about

3000N of force. However, when a slab

THE BREAKSWINNING FORMULA

Man’s greatest power tool is his hands, but is it really superhuman strength or super-scientific know-how that keeps him cracking wise?

is hit, oscillations occur which cause

the slab to break under significantly

reduced stress levels. Current literature

varies, but the rule of thumb is around

50 per cent of tensile strength, in this

case around 1500N.

“How big is the force a karateka

exerts? To explore this question, I assume

that the slowing down of the hand on

the slab is uniform. The deceleration

(a) can be described by the formula

a = v2/2s; v is the hand’s impact speed

(video analysis shows that advanced

karatekas can generate impact speeds of

up to 14m/s, or about 50kph) and s is the

braking distance, or the hand’s “crumple

zone”, from the hand’s first contact with

the slab to its stop. I assume the hand’s

centre of gravity will continue to move

2.5cm (0.025m) due to its deformation

at impact. Using this data we get a

substantial deceleration of 4000m/s2.

The earth’s acceleration is about 10m/s2.

Casually stated, the hand is 400 times

as heavy as normal.

“The force (F) occurring at impact

is described by F = m x a. If we assume

a mass m of 0.75kg for the hand, then

the force adds up to 3000N. That is more

than enough to break a slab. But why

don’t bones break? The answer is so

simple you will probably be disappointed

by it: depending on the direction from

which stress is applied, the fracture

stress level of a bone is up to 50 times

higher than breaking stress of concrete.

If you had concrete bones in your hand,

they would splinter at impact.

“A practised karateka can split

multiple slabs at once. It is important

that the slabs be separated by a small

space, as it’s impossible to break three

or more slabs together with one hit.

When there’s a little space between

slabs, they will break one after the

other in rapid succession – the energy

transfers, with some loss, from one

slab to the other. A point to note here

is that you do not need three times

the force to break three slabs.”

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GUY LALIBERTÉLUCKY NUMBERS

The fi rst clown in space is no fool, having built the billion-dollar Cirque du Soleil and made the giant leap

from sleeping rough to the edge of the universe

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DANI PEDROSAME AND MY BODY

A regular on the MotoGP podium, the 24-year-old Spanish racer has visited almost as many hospitals as racetracks, but he always comes out fighting

WALL OF PAIN

WEIGHTY ISSUE

WORLD CHAMPS ON HIS SHOULDER

HANDY WORK

BENT OUT OF SHAPE

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Top performers and winning ways from across the globe

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34 DANIEL RICCIARDO 38 MICK FANNING 40 ORSON WELLES 44 PAUL BONHOMME

HeroesHigh-flyers in the air, on the racetrack,

on water and on stage and screen

He’s already grinning as he sits down for lunch.

Then I mention Groucho Marx and his broad

grin breaks into laughter. “Groucho? Yeah, a few

people used to call me Groucho! I suppose I could

get the glasses, but I’m not so sure about the cigar…”

The youngster, spearing his tomato-drenched

fusilli with his fork, bears a curious resemblance

to the Hollywood comedian. And while Daniel

Ricciardo admits he’s a joker – think Jim Carrey

rather than Groucho Marx – his mild Aussie

accent cuts a serious tone when he talks about

his ambition to reach Formula One.

Yet the racer from Perth, whose Italian genes

are fused with a laid-back surfing manner, is a

delight to dine with during lunch at Brands Hatch,

at the final British F3 meeting of the year. He’s in

high spirits, as he is basking in the glory of having

just clinched this year’s British F3 championship.

By so doing he joins an illustrious roll of honour

that includes Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and

Nelson Piquet (Sr and Jr) and has taken a major

step towards achieving his F1 dream.

Ricciardo, 20, is the second consecutive racer

in Red Bull’s young driver programme to triumph

in the F1 nursery school that is British F3. Twelve

months ago Jaime Alguersuari won the title – and

he has since gone on to bag himself an F1 seat

with Scuderia Toro Rosso.

From 20 races this year, the chirpy youngster –

who won the Formula Renault 2.0 West European

Cup last year – has recorded 14 podiums, seven

wins and, significantly, only one non-finish racing

for the Carlin Motorsport outfit. It’s been a season

characterised by impressive speed combined with

level-headed maturity, a sure sign that Dr Helmut

Marko, the former F1 racer assigned to manage

the Red Bull Junior Team programme, has plucked

a great talent from the depths of obscurity.

“Daniel had nothing particularly special on

his CV when we tested him last year,” says Marko,

“but he was very fast from the first lap onwards

and he had a spectacular style going sideways

where he was just in total control. I could see

straight away that he was very special.”

Team owner Trevor Carlin, the man who’s run

some of the best young drivers on the single-seater

ladder to F1, including Robert Kubica and Nico

Rosberg, concurs. “Straight away he was up to

speed,” he recalls. “During pre-season testing the

telemetry data from one of his laps was simply

perfect. His braking was spot-on, his high-speed

commitment immaculate – the engineers said his

data of squiggly lines was beautiful to look at and

added that the pressure was on – because they

knew that if we didn’t win the championship

with Daniel this year, it would be our fault.”

It was back in Perth that Ricciardo first set his

sights on racing. He’d regularly visit tracks to watch

his father, Joe, race sedans and, as soon as he was

tall enough, he persuaded his parents to put him in

a go-kart. Inevitably if ‘Ricci’ wanted to think about

taking up the sport professionally, he’d have to make

the switch to Europe to see how he compared with

the cream of the world’s best young racers. So over

he came in 2007 and spent the season racing in

Italy, competing in the Formula Renault 2.0 Italian

Championship. After some decent results, he

was evaluated by Red Bull, which was when

Marko identified his talent – as well as his

permanent grin – and ushered him into the Red

Bull Junior Team. Last year he stepped up to the

ultra-competitive pan-European Renault series,

where he was in contention for the title until he

was vanquished in a wet/dry season-finale thriller.

Then he made the move to F3, a category where

it’s unusual for drivers to breeze in and out

in one season, but at the beginning of the year he

was given an ultimatum by Marko – he must win

the championship. So, no pressure then?

“Well Helmut Marko is a fair guy, but there’s

no doubt that if the Red Bull drivers have a bad

race then he’s not shy to call us and tell us what

DANIELRICCIARDOWhen he’s not making ‘beautiful’ telemetry for his engineers, the newly crowned British F3 champion from Perth, Australia, loves to laugh, listen to punk music and play Guitar Hero on PS3

Words: Brendan Thomas Portrait: James Pearson-Howes

34

H E R O E S

he thinks,” admits Ricciardo. “It might seem a bit

harsh sometimes and some of the younger drivers

take offence but, when you consider how much Red

Bull are helping us, it’s actually very fair because,

ultimately, it helps both of us. So there is pressure

being in the young driver programme, but it’s the

strongest scheme running in motorsport.”

After winning the British F3 series, the next step

will either be into the F3 Euro Series or the more

powerful World Series by Renault, which is where

Vettel, Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi cut their

teeth before him. There might even be the chance

to test with Red Bull Racing in F1 this coming

December – he’s already spent time on the simulator

at Milton Keynes and been told to prepare his neck

for the winter. As the saying goes, if the glove fits…

“The Red Bull Junior Team is about making

the next generation of Formula One drivers,” says

Marko. “And Daniel has already delivered for us

this year by winning the British F3 championship.

He did this by often choosing to stay in second,

collect points and think about the title, rather than

risk losing points and go for the win. Now we’ll

decide what the next step is when we evaluate him

again at the end of the season. Daniel is only 20,

but from what I’ve seen he’s very mature, he’s

very quick and he’s always smiling…”

Relaxing in the Carlin hospitality area, just

an hour after going P1 in qualifying, Daniel talks

about visiting Red Bull’s base in Austria and the

support he gets from the organisation. “Everyone

is really passionate and it feels like being part of

a really big family,” he says.

That family also extends into his social life.

Ricciardo has settled into the UK, residing close to

the Red Bull Racing factory in Milton Keynes. Just

10 minutes down the road lives Brendon Hartley,

a fellow Red Bull Junior Team driver built in the

same mould as Daniel: quick, laid-back and fun to

be around. It probably helps that they’re from the

same hemisphere (Hartley is from New Zealand).

Two or three times a week they meet up to play

tennis or visit the gym together, where they

might discuss racing lines or braking points –

or just play Guitar Hero on the PS3.

“That’s as close as I get to an instrument as

I don’t play myself, but I’m well into music and

went to the Reading Festival,” says Daniel with

a knowing nod. “I’ve been into punk for about six

years now and it’s quite inspirational. The last

band I went to see was New Found Glory and

I got goose bumps when I saw them play

live. Sometimes when you listen to

punk it seems a bit heavy and violent,

but over time you get used to it

and now I can easily fall asleep

listening to punk – even some of

the heavier stuff as well, with the

vomiting into the microphone…”

He laughs, that broad

grin opening out once again.

It’s quite unusual to find a young

driver who brings a combination

of intelligence and wit to the

table. Often in the junior series, they are quiet,

even timid. But Daniel’s confidence lights up

the room. When he talks, people want to know

what he’s got to say – even if they don’t always

understand it. “Yeah, it’s true, I suppose I do have

my own vocabulary a bit. I picked it up from the

motocross dudes,” says the man who described the

fact that he was going to feature in The Red Bulletin

as ‘sick’. “I like to describe the car in a different

way, to make it more enjoyable for the engineer

I’m working with. For example, if the car is a bit

oversteery at one particular corner, I might write

on the debrief sheet, ‘She’s a dirt-track cowboy’,

just to liven up the atmosphere.”

It might not surprise you to learn that his

hero is MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi, the popular and

extrovert Italian legend; he admires his attitude

as well as the other characters that populate the

biking world. “What I love about them is that you

have to be a little bit crazy to race on two

wheels and that makes the sport so much

fun. I think motor racing can be perceived

as being a bit too serious, and if you can

brighten it up outside the car, it makes it

more entertaining. But I suppose it’s OK to

be easy-going when it’s going well, but if

we’re off the pace and scratching our heads

then I’ll definitely keep it more serious.”

This season, as his team boss in F3,

Carlin has seen the smile disappear and

the intensity emerge. “Don’t let his sunny

disposition lull you into a false sense of

security,” he warns. “Beneath the smile

there is a very determined young

man. I’ve got no doubts in saying

that he’s as good a driver that’s

ever driven for us and that

he’ll have a very successful

future in the sport.”

If he does, you might never

be able to wipe that grin off

‘Groucho’s’ face again…

36

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Congratulations to Daniel Ricciardo from Cooper Tiresthe official tyre supplier and title sponsor of the British Formula 3 International Series.This prestigious and fiercely competitive series is widely acknowledged as the toughest

domestic single-seater championship in the world and is a genuine stepping stone

for great drivers on the way to F1. Motorsport at this level therefore requires the very best

components in every area, including tyres.

When you need tyres that perform on your car or 4x4 make Cooper your tyre of choice, every time.

For more information and to find your nearest Cooper dealer visit www.coopertire.co.uk

or telephone 01225 707050.

BRITISH F3INTERNATIONAL

My older brother Sean is my ultimate

inspiration. Sean was killed in a car

accident in 1998; he was just 20 at the

time. Since he passed away, he’s become

like a guardian angel to me. At times,

it feels like he’s right there with me,

watching over me.

As a kid, I looked up to Sean. He

was my older brother, but, like most

brothers, we were constantly fighting.

Despite all the little squabbles and

wrestles, we were great mates and he

always looked out for me. Our entire

family is very close, but we were the

youngest of five siblings, so we were

always hanging out, which is probably

why we had such a strong bond.

After Sean died, I had his name

tattooed on my arm, and I also had the

Fanning family crest inked beside it later.

I got the tattoos because nothing is more

important to me than my family. They

have been such a huge inspiration and

they’ve done so much for me, I just

wanted to keep that with me at all times.

I remember when we first started

really getting into surfing. I was 12 and

Sean was 16, and surfing was all we

wanted to do. Eventually, we persuaded

our mum to move to the Gold Coast.

We had only just moved there,

to Coolangatta when, in 1993, Sean

was offered a sponsorship deal from

Quiksilver. The guys who came to sign

him up were watching us surf together,

and they asked my mum who the little

fella was, out there surfing with Sean,

and offered me a deal, too.

Sean was a few years older than me

and was an amazing surfer, so I pushed

myself to reach his level. Sean and

I surfed really differently. For one,

he was a goofyfooter (standing on his

surfboard with his right foot forward)

and his approach was much more

relaxed than mine. When I was a kid,

my surfing was a little erratic at times.

Sean’s surfing was smoother, and

I always tried to emulate his style.

Along with being a great surfer,

Sean was also dedicated and really

professional. He put everything into

his surfing, and even before he passed

away I was inspired by that. He used to

wake me up early in the morning and

take me surfing; often, we’d be the first

on the beach and the only ones in the

water. I suppose he was my mentor,

really. He taught me by example about

being dedicated and professional, and

working really hard to improve.

Later, we spurred each other on,

pushing each other to become better

surfers. Sean is definitely part of the

reason that I’m where I am today. Losing

him definitely changed me. It almost

broke me at the time: I was devastated.

I suddenly understood how short life

can be, so if you have something you

want to achieve, you’d better get to it.

I think it also helped me grow up,

become a better person and keep things

in perspective. There are times in my life

and in competition where things could

really get me down, but I find it easy to

take a step back and count myself lucky

to be alive and living my dream.

When we were kids, we used to talk

about doing the tour together, and after

he died I had this incredible desire to

fulfil that dream for both of us.

On the day that I won the ASP

World Title in Brazil, I was obviously

very emotional, but what made it even

more significant was being in the water

with Joel Parkinson, one of my oldest

friends who grew up with Sean and me

in Coolangatta. When it was announced

I’d become the World Champion, Sean

was there in my thoughts.

It was a little mystical, too. Every

time I was in the water for a heat that

day, there was a dolphin just hanging

around. Every time I paddled out, it was

right there. In the end, I was just sort

of, like, talking to him, and he was just

chilling out. It was weird, because

normally you see a dolphin and it will

come up just for a little bit and take off,

but this one stayed there the whole day.

Usually, there’s a pod of dolphins, but

this one was just by itself the whole

time. I’m convinced it was Sean.

Hero’s Hero: Mick Fanning on

The World Champion surfer is on the crest of a wave with wins in the 2009 ASP World Tour, but he believes part of the reason he’s done so well is because his older brother is watching over him

Words: Huw J Williams

SEAN FANNING

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Print 2.0

This month, you can go to the cinema and see the

greatest film ever made. Co-written, directed and

produced by and starring Orson Welles, Citizen Kane

regularly tops the best-of lists compiled by critics

and film-makers. When it came out in 1941, Welles,

then just five days away from his 26th birthday, was

proclaimed the greatest storyteller of his generation.

He was certainly the most precocious. After

unprecedented success on radio and the stage, he’d

been given total creative freedom to make any film

he wanted – and what he made was a masterpiece.

In doing so, however, he came close to destroying

both his reputation and that of the film industry.

Welles was also the greatest casualty of 20th-

century entertainment. Others flamed out after

burning bright and briefly – Jimi Hendrix, James

Dean, JD Salinger – but Welles’ decline was slow

and painful. Even before Kane was released, its

backers were offered money to destroy it, and it

went on to underperform at both the box office and

the Oscars. There then followed 40 years of what-ifs

and if-onlys: Welles’ follow-up film was cut by the

studio against his wishes; his drive and talent were

reclassified as an ego few could or would indulge;

and by the time he was trying to finance what would

be his last (unfinished) film in the mid-1970s, he

was reduced to finding the money in Iran. He was

visible in his later years thanks to TV adverts for

photocopiers and champagne – a bearded and

bloated version of the striking young man who once

had the world of entertainment at his feet. His last

completed film role was voicing a planet-sized robot

in the animated film Transformers: The Movie. The

mighty have never fallen so far.

Citizen Kane was Welles’ first film and, unlike

other poll-topping film classics of a certain age, it

stands up to viewing today, and not in an “oh, look

what they had to do back then” way. It’s exciting,

engaging, witty and technically impressive nearly

70 years after it was made, and its story of media

power, the corruption of wealth and unwelcome

celebrity could not be more pertinent in 2009.

Welles himself is still culturally viable – later this

year sees the release of Me And Orson Welles, a

film about a teenage actor in Welles’ 1937 theatre

production of Julius Caesar, which stars the lead

from the High School Musical films, Zac Efron.

Efron’s presence is fitting, as Welles was once

the young darling of Hollywood, although not

in the same way as Efron. There was more to Welles

than on-screen appeal; he was as celebrated for

his directing and producing as for his acting. Born

on May 6, 1915, Welles got the bug for acting at

the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois, which

he joined in 1926. His mother, a concert pianist,

died in May 1923, four days after Orson’s eighth

birthday, and before starting at Todd, Welles

spent a couple of years travelling the world with

his father, an inventor who died in 1930.

In 1931, Welles left Todd and went on a tour of

Europe funded by his inheritance, during which he

made his acting debut, aged 16, at the Gate Theatre

in Dublin. Welles had the good luck to arrive with

the theatre desperate for a second lead in a play just

before the opening night, the nerve to tell them that

he was a big noise in New York theatre (that would

be years away) and the talent to secure the part. He

returned to America in June 1932 to act in theatre

and radio, and co-authored, with his old Todd

headmaster, Everybody’s Shakespeare, a how-to-

do-the-Bard manual for which Welles provided

text and hundreds of illustrations. The book was

published in 1934, the year Orson Welles turned 19.

Four years later, Welles was made a spectacular

offer by the head of the RKO studio in Hollywood: he

could make one film a year of his choosing, for an

annual wage of $100,000, which in today’s money is

equivalent to about 150 times that. By then, Welles

had made a big impact both in radio and theatre;

the two mediums were intrinsically linked in those

days, and many actors worked in both, as did Welles

in New York in the mid-1930s. In April 1936, two

ORSONWELLESThe man behind Citizen Kane was a genius who made ‘the best film ever’ aged just 25. But with the keys to Hollywood in his hand, he soon found himself locked out – for good

Words: Paul Wilson

Pioneer

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weeks before his 21st birthday, he directed Macbeth

in Harlem, New York, with an all-black cast of mainly

amateur actors, using government money assigned

for unemployed actors. It was a huge gamble and

a resounding success, and led him to form his own

company, The Mercury Theatre, the following year.

The Mercury Theatre became known more for its

radio plays than its stage work – this was the golden

age of American radio – and on Halloween in 1938,

Welles and his players put out their 17th broadcast,

a version of HG Wells’ The War of The Worlds set in

the then-present day. The broadcast was introduced

by an announcer as a work by “Orson Welles and the

Mercury Theatre On The Air”, with Welles playing

an astronomer trying to explain unusual activity on

Mars. This was then followed by ‘eyewitness accounts’

of strange happenings that interrupted a performance

by an orchestra, after which the play effectively

became a live news report of an alien invasion.

To those who heard the start of the show, and

Welles explain at the end that it was Mercury’s

“radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping

out of a bush and saying ‘Boo!’” it was an innovative

drama. To those who did not, it was something else

entirely; no one had played with convention like this

before. Welles even timed the landing of the Martians

in his play to coincide with the end of a comedy

sketch on a rival programme, when he knew people

would retune their dials to his station. Many in the

audience felt they were listening to something real.

By the end of the broadcast, policemen had come

to the building in which Welles was broadcasting.

The head of the station was there too, in his dressing PH

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gown and slippers. People had driven to Grover’s

Mill, New Jersey, the small town mentioned as the

Martians’ landing site (a commemorative plaque is

there now). Across America, listeners checked with

friends, family and the press that the world wasn’t

coming to an end. The next morning saw a glut

of newspaper articles – many criticising, others

praising, some with reports of moral panic – and

a press conference in which Welles apologised and

said he was “terribly shocked” to learn of the terror

his little play had caused. Of course, he wasn’t; his

gamble hadn’t come off, but the pay-off was far

greater. His radio show immediately got a sponsor,

the Campbell Soup Company, and its star was

transformed overnight from a noted acting prodigy

into the most famous and daring man in the world.

RKO and Hollywood came calling within days.

Welles settled on Citizen Kane after the writer

Herman J Mankiewicz pitched the idea to him in

1939. America, as it was called then, would be a

names-changed fictionalisation of the life of William

Randolph Hearst, then one of America’s richest men.

Hearst had made his fortune in the media, mainly

popular press and radio, and never let the facts get

in the way of a story. He was elected to the House

of Representatives, the US governmental level one

below the Senate, with a goal of the White House.

However, his vast personal wealth was at odds with

his aim of being a man of the people, and when

President William McKinley was shot and killed in

1901, not long after Hearst papers had called for

someone to do just that, he knew he’d never win public

favour. He retreated to the castle he’d built in San

42

H E R O E S

Simeon, California, where he later lived with Marion

Davies, a showgirl 34 years his junior. Hearst’s

efforts, and a good chunk of his cash, were spent on

an unsuccessful push at making Davies a movie star.

That Welles and his crew were taking on Hearst

was brave enough, but they also devised new special

effects, sound-recording and lighting techniques.

They dug trenches in studio floors to give the actors

a greater impact by virtue of being filmed from

below. And when Welles broke an ankle, he carried

on behind the camera in a wheelchair, and in front

of it wearing leg braces. The resulting film was

technically brilliant, deeply engaging and, because

of the Hearst angle, really rather dangerous.

It’s hard to imagine what a huge story Citizen Kane

became leading up to its release. The equivalent today

would be in the headlines for weeks. Imagine Daniel

Radcliffe making CEO Hurlock, a film about an

Australian media tycoon called Albert Hurlock. The

Harry Potter star writes an unflinching screenplay

about a man who, from humble origins, becomes a

billionaire through ruthless expansion of his media

businesses. Many of Hurlock’s foibles and professional

methods appear to be very similar to those of media

tycoon Rupert Murdoch. From the copy of the script

that leaks onto the internet, however, it’s clear that

Radcliffe’s legal team has earned its fee; the film isn’t

libelous, but everyone knows the truth. CEO Hurlock

is effectively The Story Of Rupert, and takes a

particularly savage line on the subject of the younger

woman the mogul left the mother of his children to

be with. Murdoch offers to buy the only copy of the

film from Radcliffe’s backers but they refuse, so

Murdoch issues an edict – not one print, TV, radio or

online outpost of his empire will plug or review the

film. Instead they will publicly scrutinise Radcliffe’s

personal life. Swap Radcliffe, Hurlock and Murdoch for

Welles, Kane and Hearst, and you have the truth of it.

Citizen Kane premiered in New York on May 1,

1941. Critics were kind, but audiences stayed away

for two reasons: the film didn’t get the wide release

its makers expected, and the ‘newness’ of the film’s

approach meant it didn’t connect with filmgoers. At

the Oscars in 1942, the film won just one award (for

its screenplay) from nine nominations and was booed

several times. Hollywood had had enough of its Boy

Wonder, and film distributors had bowed to pressure

from Hearst, who is said to have threatened to ban all

movie advertising across his media empire. Welles’

masterpiece only gained a new lease of life after film

students and critics rediscovered it in the late 1950s.

Writing, acting and directing; theatre, radio and

cinema – Welles had excelled in all of them by the

time he was just 26. Citizen Kane is a true classic, and

if you do see it at the cinema, you’ll be able to enjoy

it more than audiences in 1941 because you’ll know

you’re watching something special, and spot the tricks

and enjoy the parallels with life in 2009. You might

also think about its maker, who could never match

what he achieved so early in his life. In creating new

ways to excel, Orson Welles made sure Hollywood

would never again allow anyone else the chance to

do what he did, and condemned himself to a life of

disappointment. But he also left us Citizen Kane.

43

More than a million spectators lined Barcelona’s

beaches to watch the duel in the skies over the

Mediterranean. Twenty miles away and 24 hours

later, the pilots of the Red Bull Air Race World

Championship were to be found in rather less hurried

circumstances. Kicking back in their hotel, high in

the Prelitoral foothills above the Catalan town of

Terrassa, the mood is distinctly end-of-term. Pilots

are dotted about the lounge-cum-lobby, concluding

deals, enduring interviews, talking with one another’s

crews. Weaving, rotating hand gestures are prominent:

the international language of the racing pilot.

The one obvious absentee is Paul Bonhomme,

the recently crowned Red Bull Air Race World

Champion. A few enquiries reveal that he vanished

about half an hour ago, ostensibly to do a radio

interview in the quiet of his room. He’s located, and

appears in the cavernous lobby, his progress across

the floor interrupted for congratulations. He’s a very

popular pilot with his peers, and so these tend to be

couched with the typical sportsman’s backhanders,

but Bonhomme takes it all in his stride. The true

extent of a racer’s popularity can be measured by the

amount of champagne poured down his overalls by

the guys on the lower steps of the podium. Yesterday

Paul arrived in the post-race conference sodden

with vintage Mumm. Puddles of bubbly pooled

under his feet as he talked to the press.

Luck plays a part in motorsport, but not so much

in the 2009 Red Bull Air Race World Championship.

Bonhomme won half the races and came second in

the other half. Five years ago that wouldn’t have been

unreasonable, but today the field is ultra-competitive.

Nobody else won more than a single race. It was a

phenomenal effort from the pilot and his crew – and

after being the bridesmaid for the past two seasons,

no one begrudged him his eventual triumph.

Paul in person is very different to Paul in the plane.

The in-cockpit footage shows a pair of mirrored

sunglasses and a focused, almost pained, expression.

The voice is clipped and impersonal. On the ground

he’s transformed: easy-going, very good-humoured,

rarely without a grin that goes all the way up to his

eyes. Those eyes today are just a little bit red. Was

there, perhaps, a quantity of celebration last night?

“There may have been a small one,” acknowledges

the new World Champion. “I’ve got a headache – but

that was probably something I ate.”

So would the World Champion like to do this

in a darkened and quiet corner?

“Nah, let’s go to the bar.”

The Red Bull Air Race likes to spin out its

apportioned lot of drama. The format of the Final 4

round has the best quartet of pilots from the weekend

fly one final lap of the track. They take off and land

within seconds of each other, and only have contact

with the race director once they’re in the air. No one

knows who won until it’s all over.

This year the World Championship went down

to the wire. Bonhomme and reigning champion

Hannes Arch flew into the Barcelona Final 4, both

with a chance of coming out the other side as World

Champion. Bonhomme flew third, Arch flew last.

Paul had four minutes alone with his thoughts, lazily

circling above the shore, his fate now out of his hands.

It should have been nerve-racking. But was it?“It felt like a pretty good run. I didn’t think I’d picked

up any penalties – but from circling in the hold I saw

Hannes knock down a pylon. He’d have to do a

blistering run to get past the six-second penalty for

that, so I knew – but I’m a little bit superstitious, so

I’ll never assume. When Jimmy [Jim DiMatteo, race

director] came on the radio and confirmed it, I just

thought ‘Fantastic… cracked it.’”

Hannes was very complimentary afterwards. He said you were his role model when he was a Rookie – and other pilots still say you’re the guy they like to watch and learn from. Very nice to hear that, isn’t it?“I find that very humbling. But I fly the way I fly

because it’s one way of getting the plane to go

PAULBONHOMMEThe day after winning the title, new Red Bull Air Race World Champion Paul Bonhomme, a man who flies 747s like a swan, likes chocolate and has a rather dubious headache, faced a rather less formal examination…

Words: Matt Youson Portrait: Markus Kucera

The Interrogator

44

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“ WHEN THE RACE DIRECTOR CONFIRMED I’D WON, I THOUGHT ‘FANTASTIC… CRACKED IT’”

H E R O E S

quickly. If you don’t deflect the ailerons or the

controls into the breeze, you’ll have less drag.

Who do you try to emulate?“I pick bits from different pilots. Some people are

very smooth with their handling, others have really

good management skills in the cockpit; and some

are very good thinkers. Rather than just copying one

person, I take the best bits from lots of people.”

Hannes says last year he became World Champion because you made mistakes, and this year you won because he made errors. Do you agree?I agree with him about last year. This year… I don’t

think he made that many significant mistakes.”

Is the monkey off your back?“I think it probably is! There’s a huge amount of

relief because you really don’t want to keep coming

second. It’s dreadful.”

Is this a sport involving a lot of ego?“No. I think the beauty of flying is that it’s a good

leveller. You can’t afford to be too big for your boots

when you fly – it’ll bite you very quickly. I’d also say

that the most important aspect of being a good pilot

is being able to take criticism.”

What sorts out the men from the boys? Why is Matt Hall [Rookie] doing so well, and [double World Aerobatic Champion] Sergey Rakhmanin struggling?

“I think a lot of it comes down to getting all your

ducks in a row. You can’t leave anything to chance,

you can’t make assumptions and you have to make

sure everything is perfect. Sergey is an unbelievably

fantastic pilot. You just don’t get to win the world

aerobatic championship – twice – by being average,

so maybe he’s having trouble with his set-up this

year. And why is Matt so good? Again, you don’t get

to be an F-18 instructor in the Royal Australian Air

Force by being an idiot. He’s obviously very competent

and he’s got a plane that’s working well. I also think

it helps that he’s pretty compact. He’s carrying 22kg

less than me. It doesn’t sound like too much, but in

a 10G Cuban turn, that works out at 220kg. The

planes only weigh 540kg, and it’s like I’ve got two

passengers in there with me, compared to Matt.”

Do you watch what you eat?“It would be fair to say I’m rigorous in ensuring my

diet contains lots of cake and chocolate ice-cream…”

Surely you jest…“Only a bit. Actually I believe that, on the one hand,

eating lots of chocolate might add a few pounds, but

stress is a killer. If you get stressed seeing chocolate

and not eating it, then maybe that stress is more

harmful than the calorific value… I’m pretty good

at putting in time on the bike as well though…”

You became a father just before the season began. Isn’t that supposed to slow sportsmen down?“It seems to have sped me up. I think it improves

your perspective on what’s important and what isn’t.

In the past, I worried about trivia. I am a bit of a

faffer and would fixate on utter rubbish. I don’t do

that now. Maybe others have their lives under more

control. But fatherhood has been very good for me.”

Will you get quality time at home over the winter?“I’ll have some time at home and chill out, but I’ve

got a couple of airshows to do this year, then it will

be the usual steady supply of British Airways work,

though I enjoy that too. Flying a 747 is an antidote

to the fast pace of air racing.”

Sitting in the back for 14 hours is pretty boring; is it as bad when you’re locked in the cockpit?“It’s great! You’re busy. It’s a bit like being a swan

on a lake. It all looks graceful on the surface, but

underneath you’re paddling away like mad. You’re

constantly thinking about eventualities. ‘What would

I do now if an engine failed? What would I do if we

had a depressurisation? It doesn’t get boring at all.”

Do you get recognised wearing the other hat?“Probably half the time. Sometimes it’s a mad-keen

Red Bull Air Race fan, but mostly it’s just someone

who knows my name. It’s OK, but sometimes it’s

nice to be anonymous.”

How much would we have to scale up a racetrack to get a 747 through it?“I’m fairly sure that isn’t the sort of question my

employers would like me to be answering.”

So you have thought about it…“Not going to answer that one either. I foresee all

sorts of trouble at work if I did. Guaranteed.”

Red Bull Air Race officials say they want this to be a sexy sport. What is it they want from the pilots? It isn’t beach volleyball in a thong, is it?“Wouldn’t be a very good look. Maybe Mike Goulian

could make it work [Goulian, winner of the Budapest

round, walks by the table]. I assume they mean they

want it to be more dramatic than ever.”

If I can get that image out of my head, Mike Goulian says aerobatics is 90 per cent pilot, 10 per cent plane, whereas air racing is the other way around. Do you agree?

“I don’t agree entirely, though I know where he’s

coming from. Yeah, to win the World Aerobatic

Championships you have to be an extremely good

aerobatic pilot, but in the Red Bull Air Race I think

it depends on the track. Get a straight-line track and

it’s mostly the plane, but on a tricky course winning

is down to the skill of the pilot, even if you do need

a fast plane. Think of a motor race on a wet track. It

evens the field out, and anybody can win. You might

have a million horsepower, but if you can’t get it

down, then it doesn’t matter. It’s the same here.”

Will you fly with more freedom next year, or will you perpetually be looking over your shoulder?“Hopefully I will be looking over my shoulder, which

is a hell of a lot better than the alternative. It will be

tougher though. Every year the Red Bull Air Race

gets more and more competitive.”

It isn’t kind of us to ask about 2010 when you haven’t had chance to melt down the trophy yet.“It would have been nice if you’d given me a day to

enjoy it! Actually I’ll be in planning meetings about

next year’s plane in a couple of days’ time.”

Why bother coming back? You’ve achieved the ultimate. Why not spend more time at home?“Because this is such good fun. I love aviation and

competition. If you combine them it’s the very best

– and it’s going to be even better next year without

everyone asking me about the second-place thing…”

Wade Hammond [Team

Bonhomme technician]

The best

Hannes Arch [former

champion, 2009 rival]Competitive

Mike Mangold [retiring double

world champion]Entertaining

Nicolas Ivanoff [Mercurial

French pilot, winner in

San Diego]Cool

Mike Goulian [Winner in Hungary]

Smiley

Boeing747 Royal

Spitfire [one of many

vintage aircraft Paul flies at air shows]

British

Edge 540 [Paul’s race

plane]Go-kart

Stewards [Red Bull Air Race]

Two seconds!

Stewardesses [the other job]

Essential

ChocolateAlso essential

FatherhoodAwesome

G-forces [12G is the

Red Bull Air Race limit]

Healthy

Air Gates Fun

Being World Champion

Yeeaaahhhh!!!

PAUL BONHOMME

PLAYS WORD

ASSOCIATION

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EPSONPHOTOGRAPHYCOMPETITION 2010Win a fantastic Epson Stylus Photo PX810FW All-in-One printer with Wi-Fi

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51

ActionGet up to speed with athletes around the globe

52 KATIE TAYLOR 62 SURFING THE POROROCA 68 FORMULA ONE 74 ERIC BANA

The Bulgarian keeps her guard up, her elbows

tucked in near her abdomen, her gloves resting on

her face guard. She ducks once, twice, and absorbs

a left jab, then a right hook, then a fl urry of punches.

Thirty seconds into the semi-fi nals of the European

Amateur Women’s Boxing Championships, and

Katie Taylor is already up 2-0.

The fi lm footage reviewed by Katie’s camp

shows that Denica Eliseeva prefers to work from

the defensive, countering when the opportunity

arises. Of course, that’s what the footage of most

of Katie’s opponents shows. Punches of the speed

and punishment level dealt out by the 23-year-old

Irish lightweight are atypical in women’s boxing.

As is Katie’s reaction time, her repertoire of

combinations and her virtuosity in changing

the game plan of a round as she’s boxing it.

Katie moves backwards, lightly, around the ring,

inviting Eliseeva to make a move. The Bulgarian

is slow and wary. She doesn’t take the bait. Her

opponent’s record might offer a reason why. Going

into this bout, Katie has won 61 of her last 62 fi ghts.

The most recent coming just a day before, when

MILLIONOLLAR

KATIEThe world’s best female boxer is punching her way through barriers of discrimination to become an odds-on favourite for 2012 Olympic gold. Meet the soft-spoken, hard-hitting Katie Taylor and fi nd out why the lady is a champ

Words: Andreas Tzortzis Photography: Thomas Butler

MILLIONMILLIONMILLIONMILLIONOLLAROLLAROLLAROLLAR

KATIEKATIEKATIEKATIE

53

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the referee stopped Katie’s quarter-final

bout after she broke her opponent’s nose.

“Feint your way in, Katie!” yells an

Irish voice from beyond the barriers

set up around the judge’s table. That

voice belongs to Pete Taylor, her brother,

a former boxer himself. In the stands

in this basketball arena in the former

shipbuilding capital of Nikolaev, Ukraine,

are Katie’s mother, her sister and Pete’s

girlfriend – their eyes nervously watching

the ring. Her cornerman is her father,

a former Irish boxing champion and his

daughter’s tireless, if sometimes reluctant,

trainer. “Angles! Angles!” Pete yells.

There doesn’t seem to be much cause

for concern. Katie puts on a clinical display,

notching points in each of the rounds. By

the time the bell rings, Katie is through

to the final after winning 8-0. Pearls of

sweat dot her forehead and nose and the

mask of concentration she’s worn since

entering the arena eases only slightly. She

doesn’t smile. This isn’t the gold, after all.

By the time London opens the Olympic

Games in 2012, there will be few who will

have not heard of the Irish right-hander

from the working class town of Bray, Co

Wicklow. In late August, women’s boxing

overcame the wary machismo and thinly

veiled sexism that had waylaid it for most

of the past decade, to officially become an

Olympic sport. Within a few hours, Katie

Taylor not only became one of the new

Olympic discipline’s poster children, she

also became Ireland’s best gold-medal hope.

There have been few boxers as

dominant in the young discipline as the

soft-spoken, hard-hitting dual sports star.

An accomplished midfielder who has

earned more than 50 caps as a member

of the Irish women’s soccer team, Katie’s

growing fame is nonetheless tied to her

formidable record in the ring. She has

won the European championships in the

lightweight category the last three years

running, is two-time world champion,

and, last year, was voted the world’s best

amateur female boxer by the sport’s

governing body, the AIBA (International

Boxing Association). Top boxing minds

in Ireland rate her the most technically

brilliant of the country’s impressive

boxing talent – male or female.

“There’s nobody more courageous

than Katie,” says Patrick Ryan, the ruddy-

faced veteran trainer of dozens of Irish

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A C T I O N

national champions who, three years ago,

began working Katie’s corner together

with her father. “That’s something you

can’t teach them. It’s the risks you take.

The more calculated risks you take,

the better your chances of winning.”

Such calculation is borne of

experience, something Katie – despite

her youth – has more of than perhaps

any other female boxer.

Bray lies half an hour’s drive from

Dublin, a faded seaside resort

town more occupied with youth

crime than showcasing its

marquee location along Ireland’s eastern

coast for potential tourists. Peter Taylor

spent his youth in Bray training to become

a champion boxer, which he eventually

was – winning the all-Ireland’s in 1986.

Then life intervened as he began to raise

a family. But he continued to train. And

when a babysitter couldn’t be found, he

took his youngest daughter, then just

five or six, with him to the gym.

Katie, who had already shown a gift

for football, took to boxing immediately.

“I always knew how to throw a punch,”

says Katie. “I know girls aren’t supposed

to know that.” Boxing was in the Taylor

genes. Taylor’s two older sons would

go on to box competitively. His wife,

Bridget, later became Ireland’s first

female boxing judge. And although he

had his reservations when it came to his

daughter stepping into a ring, Katie was

relentless in her desire to train.

“It’s individual,” says Taylor. “If your

daughter wants to box, do you stop her?”

So Taylor began calling up other

clubs, looking for sparring partners

and competitions. He’d enter her under

K Taylor and it was only after the bouts,

when she took off her helmet, that the

boys realised they had been bested by

a girl. “It was awkward for the lads as

well,” says Katie.

When Taylor appealed to the Irish

Amateur Boxing Association to set up

fights for his daughter with other girls,

he was met with stony silence. It was only

in 2000 that the IABA, an organisation

celebrating its 100-year anniversary in

2011, sanctioned women’s boxing, seven

years after the AIBA put on the first

women’s bout prompting a number of

countries, from the United States to

Scandinavia to quickly follow suit.

“You could write 10 pages about what

I had to do to get into the IABA,” says

Peter Taylor. “There was no interest.”

In October 2001, the amateur

association put on the first bout involving

women at the national boxing arena

in Dublin. Katie, then just 15, beat a

16-year-old girl handily, by a score of

23-12, with technique that belied her age

and gender. The Irish boxing community

was impressed. At the end of the evening,

which also featured a bout by eventual

European bronze medallist Andy Lee, Katie

was named the best boxer of the night.

But the novelty soon wore off and

people began to forget about Bray’s

rising boxing star. The town’s community

centre was only open to Katie for four

hours each week to train. So Taylor

trained her in the family’s kitchen,

teaching his two sons, Lee and Peter,

and Katie combinations, and letting the

siblings spar against one another.

“You could tell at a young age that

she was gifted,” said the younger Peter.

“She played soccer and was brilliant at

it. She boxed and was brilliant at it.”

The family patriarch, Taylor, a

self-employed electrician, took it upon

himself to fund his children’s ambitions.

He paid the expenses for the first few

tournaments Katie entered abroad. He’d

find boys for her to spar against. Their

punches were harder and faster, forcing

his daughter to react quicker, and to

endure more – allowing her to become

the boxer she is today.

“I guess that’s what sets me apart,”

says Katie. Her voice is softer than her

lightest punch. Everything about her

at first glance, from her porcelain skin

to her thoughtful eyes, suggests a girl

better suited to devouring Jane Austen

in a quiet corner than the pugilistic arts.

She’s quick to smile, and laugh, but just

as quick to focus her energy, blocking

everything out. It was the focus that

enabled her to turn potential into

concrete, astonishing success.

In 2003, she was brought into the IABA’s

high-performance unit, the first, and to

this day only, woman given that privilege.

“Because women’s boxing wasn’t in the

Olympics, it was very difficult to make

a case for her to get funding,” said Billy

Walsh, the programme’s director.

Taylor, meanwhile, had to give up

his electrician’s business as training and

tournaments made it impossible for him

to fulfil contracts. The money dwindled

and the family pulled together before

the Irish Sports Council awarded Katie

a developmental grant in 2005. Two

years later, they bumped her up to their

highest category, at €40,000 a year.

Her first European championship came

in 2005, when she was just 18, beating

Gülsüm Tatar, a Turk who had dealt her

two defeats in previous years. Tatar

would beat her twice more in the next

two years, before Katie hit her stride

and began dominating her rival.

Katie won the championships again

in 2006, her large victory margins over

one-time champions signalling a new

star on the women’s boxing circuit. That

November, she overcame a broken nose,

suffered in sparring, to win Ireland its

first-ever world championship in women’s

boxing. Two more European titles followed,

as did another world championship.

Not that anyone back home was paying

much attention. “The recognition is the

hardest part,” said Katie. “I won three

European titles before I finally started

getting my face in the papers.”

The Olympic announcement has

largely changed all of that. Along Bray’s

56

A C T I O N

pushed up against the wall, boxes of gear

line the walls next to punching bags.

She has no shortage of sparring

partners. When Taylor calls up other

boxing clubs looking for talented young

men to spar with his daughter, they ask

what time they should come over. “The

boys are learning from Katie because

Katie is very quick, very fast,” says Ryan.

“The guys have to be really, really sharp

because they don’t know what’s coming.”

Most of her female colleagues politely

decline invitations to spar with her. Others

demand Taylor ask Katie to go easy on

them before accepting. “She’s pound-for-

pound the best boxer,” says Lucy O’Connor,

the captain of the British women’s boxing

team. “Her hand speed is, well as you

can see, unmatched at the moment. She’s

laughs off, sipping her blackcurrant juice

while her friends drink cocktails. The

fact is, she doesn’t go out much, anyway.

Six days a week, you can find her in

a converted boathouse yards away from

the boats and lapping waves of Bray

harbour. Two years ago, after years of

battling, the city gave the building to

Peter Taylor, who converted it into the

Bray Boxing Club with the help of local

sponsors. The rattling trains of the

Dublin Area Rapid Transit are audible

through the corrugated metal roof of the

one-room building, as are the scrape and

scratch of the pigeons landing on the top.

Posters of Irish bouts and champions

gone by, including the requisite Ali

posters bearing the Greatest’s witticisms,

hang on the walls. A boxing ring is

high street, dominated by pound shops,

cheap booksellers and the occasional

pub, locals are quick to boast about “the

best thing that’s happened to Bray”.

“She’s a national hero,” says Harry

O’Toole, setting down his pint of Guinness

on the bar of Holland’s pub. “The youth,

both male and female, look up to this girl

as an example of how you can enjoy

yourself through sport. I’d like to wish

her health, happiness, a great future and

the Olympic gold medal. She’d lift the

hearts of everyone in Ireland, which is

more than you can say for the politicians.”

Katie can’t walk down the street in

her hometown without being stopped for

autographs. On nights out, she gets asked

a lot of questions and the occasional stupid

request to throw a punch, which she

57

58

my boxing idol.” O’Connor herself has

sparred against Katie, but never fought

her in competition. “No, thankfully,” she

says with a smile. “Formidable, I think is

the word you’re looking for.”

“People who follow boxing are very,

very knowledgeable,” says Ryan. “And all

you can do when you see Katie in the ring

is sit back and say, ‘Have a look at this.’”

S aturday in Nikolaev: the day

before Katie’s final bout. She’s

chosen to train away from the

other boxers, at a run-down sports

facility on the banks of the Southern Bug

river that flows into the Black Sea, 65km

away. As elsewhere in this fading city,

nature seems to be reclaiming the grounds

of the training centre, weeds spilling onto

the walkway leading up to it, the roots of

nearby trees threatening to break through

concrete at any moment. Suspicious-

looking men in tracksuit bottoms, their

pot bellies giving new shape to polyester

shirts printed with loud, colourful

patterns, loiter outside what looks like the

entrance to a modest two-storey house.

But a narrow hallway opens into a

large gym of chipped paint and scuffed

floorboards. On a raised boxing ring in

the back, a pale figure in Adidas gear

feints and punches, exhaling barely

audible whistles tinged with the sound

of exertion. A couple of young boxers sit

languidly at the edge of the ring. Katie

stalks Taylor around the ring, whipping

out jabs and hooks at the hulking figure

of her father. Hawk-nosed and built like

a tank, Taylor’s forearms, each bearing a

tattoo of the Yorkshire rose, are about as

thick as the ring’s corner posts. He walks

like a gunslinger, his shoulder and neck

muscles forming a broad, sloping triangle.

His daughter’s neck is similarly muscular,

the rest of her arms and shoulders slim

and toned and moving at lightning fast

speed. One of the young boxers films

Katie on his mobile phone, pausing every

once in a while to look over at his mates.

They shake their heads and smile.

After Katie’s bout on Friday, Taylor

hung around to watch Turkish lightweight

Meryem Zeybek Aslan come back from

3-2 down to win her place in the finals

with some hard punching and a 6-4

score. Later that night, while Katie slept,

Ryan and Taylor stayed up into the early

hours, watching Aslan’s footage, and

noticed she left an opening for Katie’s

devastating left hook when she moved

in to punch. In the training session,

father and daughter practised a counter

punch, Taylor moving in close while Katie

59

A C T I O N

JUST FOR KICKSAlong with her boxing career,

Katie Taylor can lay claim

to being one of Ireland’s fi nest

female soccer players

sidestepped and swung a vicious hook.

Step, pop. Step, pop. Over and over again.

“It’s up to her when she’s in the ring,”

says Taylor. “We can prepare her and give

her tips, but she’ll feel her way in the ring.”

At the end of the 20-minute session,

Katie is off again: head down, quiet, already

thinking about the next day’s fi nal. The

pressure on her shoulders has mounted

considerably in the last two years as the

AIBA lobbied the International Olympic

Committee. In 2007, Katie took part in a

bout in Chicago held in large part to win

over the fi nal sceptics within the IOC.

“A fi ght’s a fi ght really, but I did feel

loads of pressure,” she recalls, “because

of who was there watching it and what

it meant for women’s boxing.” Katie put

on a powerful display, stopping her

opponent in the fi rst round on the

15-point rule as IOC president Jacques

Rogge looked on. Two years later, the

IOC voted for inclusion.

“Of all the Olympic sports, we

were the only ones without women,”

says Dr Ching-Kuo Wu, AIBA president

and a tireless campaigner for women’s

boxing since assuming his post three

years ago. “If we talk about gender

equality, then we have to bring women’s

boxing into the Olympics.”

A fan of Katie’s since seeing her box

several years ago, Wu says her combination

of carefully honed skill and personality

makes her the sport’s ideal spokesperson.

“She’s perfect at representing the right

image,” said Wu. “We are very happy

to have her. She’s brilliant.”

Such words of support are welcome

at the Taylor camp, even if the behaviour

of the Irish boxing authorities in recent

weeks has left Peter Taylor with a sour

taste. “There’s a chance we might get

a medal, so they all want to put their

hand in the pie,” he says. “It’s frustrating

for us, you know. We’ve soldiered away

all these years… I’m getting calls from

people who I knew who they were, but

I knew there was never any interest

from them in women’s boxing.”

One wonders if Katie is able to handle

the circus that will engulf her life in the

coming years. She’s averse to interviews,

turning down Ireland’s most popular

late-night show, The Late Late Show,

several times before Taylor managed to

convince her – and then only after he

promised to come on the programme

with her. A young life consumed with

training has made her shy and reticent.

Taylor likes to joke that his daughter

is “23 going on 15”.

“I am very innocent, I’ve been training

my whole life,” she says. “Other things, how

to handle them, how to deal with life. My

dad has to help me with those as well.”

Katie seems most lost after fi nishing

a tournament, when rest, instead of early

morning workouts and days spent in the

gym, are prescribed. “It is tough,” she

says “I sit at home some days when I’m on

a break and I do wonder what people do,

during the days, what people do at night.”

Morning breaks in Nikolaev

and Katie wakes after a

fi tful night in a hotel housed

in one of those jutting,

poured concrete monstrosities Soviet

developers seemed to specialise in. After

the early morning weigh-in confi rms her

at a trim 60kg, she takes a walk with her

father, listening to the same songs over

and over again on her iPod.

The 3500-seat arena is more than

three-quarters full by the time the bell on

the fi rst bout rings at noon on Sunday. The

national squads sit in clusters, recognisable

by the colour of their tracksuits – the deep

burgundy of Bulgaria, the red of Poland,

the blue of Sweden. Some of the boxers

sport bruises from the preceding days.

Girls in traditional dress with papier-

mâché crowns of garish blue and pink

fl owers sit in a row of seats, waiting out

the bouts until the medal ceremonies.

Katie has disappeared into the dressing

rooms, where she embarks on a set

preparation routine. As before all fi ghts,

she opens a Bible, stopping at Psalm 18:

It is God that girdeth me with

strength, and maketh my way perfect.

He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and

setteth me upon my high places.

He teacheth my hands to war, so that

a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Thou hast also given me the shield of

thy salvation: and thy right hand hath

holden me up, and thy gentleness hath

made me great…

As she prays, the bell signalling the

rounds progressing outside is muffl ed.

The shouts and applause of the crowd

barely reach her. Katie’s family is in the

stands, looking on nervously as Katie’s

fi ght approaches, the sixth of the day.

A medal ceremony wraps up and Katie

suddenly strides out, wearing red,

looking straight ahead as she mounts the

steps and climbs into the ring. People

move from the lobby to crowd the two

hallways that enter the arena. Taylor

leans in from the corner post. “Just go

out there and have fun,” he says. “You’re

boxing for yourself and no one else.”

Katie comes out aggressive, putting

Aslan on the ropes as she works her

JUST JUST JUST JUST FOR FORFORFORKICKSKICKSKICKSKICKS

60

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body. Her first point comes from a flurry

of punches to the face. The second is on a

probing left jab. On the third point, Katie

employs the move practised the evening

before, sidestepping the first aggressive

advance from Aslan and smashing a left

hook in. Unlike a men’s bout, where

testosterone often overwhelms technique,

the careful strategy and technical skill of

good boxers is quite obvious in women’s

fights. Watching the final makes another

thing clear: while her opponents are

good and getting better, Katie is quite

visibly in another league.

Round one comes to a close. Aslan takes

a seat on a plastic stool in her corner.

Katie stands in hers and stares into the

ring. Taylor leans in close to Katie: “She’s

going to come out aggressive.” Aslan

does and Katie counters immediately,

landing her fourth point. The points tally

up to seven as the second round ticks

down. By the third, it’s no longer a

question of if but by how much Katie will

win. Aslan has run out of the few ideas

she’s had. In the fourth round, Katie

absorbs a few blows to counter with a

flurry of body and head shots, bullying

Aslan into the corner of the ring as the

crowd claps appreciatively. The bell

rings. The computer screens read 11-0

for Katie and she allows herself a smile,

baring a mouthpiece painted in the Irish

tricolour. Taylor gives her a kiss and

Ryan a hug. It’s her fourth European

championship in a row – and she did

it without losing a point throughout

the entire tournament.

There’s a flurry around her as she

tries to make her way to the dressing

room. Everyone wants a photo with

Katie, everyone an interview. “Four in

a row,” says Taylor as Katie pulls off the

tape wrapped around her hands in the

dressing room. “Enjoy it.”

Katie moves out into the narrow

hallway, where yellow-shirted volunteers

and the tournament’s mascot, a teenager

wearing a yellow plush lion suit, want

photographs. The majority of the

Ukrainian women’s boxing team is next.

Ten minutes on, she’s walking out again

and up to the podium. She smiles as the

Irish anthem is played. But inside she

knows she would give back this medal,

give back all of her medals, for an Olympic

gold in three years’ time. And it’s not

difficult to imagine: the flag ascending in

the boxing arena in London; Katie smiling

in the Irish team jacket – the best thing

that’s happened to Bray, and quite possibly

the young sport of women’s boxing.

61

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Where the Amazon meets the Atlantic, fearless surfers head into an unforgiving swell that can carry them eight miles upstream – or plunge them straight to the bottom of the ocean

Words: Holger Altrichter Photography: Jürgen Skarwan

THE LONGEST WAVE

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Up to our knees in mud

on the banks of the

Araguari river, inland

of Brazil’s north-east

coast, one of our party

stops and points in

the direction of the

Amazon basin. He’s

from around these

parts, an indigenous

inhabitant of the rainforest with a Google-Maps

knowledge of the terrain and what it can throw

up: when he stops to point, you stop to look where.

On the horizon, we can just make out a thin white

stripe, and then the silence of our concentration

is broken by a faint, regular beat. Our spotter

turns to us and says one word: “Pororoca.”

He’s referring to the battle between the Amazon

and the Atlantic, where the ocean initially meets

resistance from the river and then forces waves up

to 4m high back inland at 30kph and for several

kilometres – waves, which, if you have extreme

courage and skill, can be ridden continuously for half

an hour and more. In the local language, ‘pororoca’

means ‘loud, destructive noise’, but in surfer-speak,

it could just as easily translate as ‘the ultimate’ or,

more accurately, ‘the longest wave in the world’.

There’s still a good while for us to go to get there,

however. Our wooden boat holds surfboards, life

jackets, waterproof camera kit and, among others,

Ross Clarke-Jones, a surfing legend in Australia;

Gary Linden, esteemed in California, where he

surfs and makes surfboards; top Brazilian surfer

Carlos Burle, mentor of big-wave surfer Maya Gabeira;

and Picuruta Salazar, the local hero who, it is said,

once surfed the pororoca for half an hour.

We began our journey at Manaus, a city in the

heart of the Amazon with a population of 1.7 million.

A century ago it was a centre of the rubber industry,

and its well-off residents were said to send their

clothes to London to be laundered and their children

to France be educated. Those days are long gone,

as are most of the rubber trees. People only really

come here now to start a journey to the mouth of the

Araguari, the perfect jump-on point for the pororoca.

During our week-long trip, home is the Forest II

a 28m-long, 6m-wide vessel powered by a 700bhp

diesel engine. From Manaus, the Forest II chugged

past the city of Santarém, where the Tapajos river

empties into the Amazon and a place that the

marine biologist Jacques Cousteau dubbed the

‘Amazon Caribbean’. After that, she should have

cruised directly northwards to the Araguari, but the

route was closed and we had to detour via the sea,

where the Forest II unwillingly made her saltwater

debut. She bobbed along the Atlantic coast for

a couple of hours before turning west again. We

weighed anchor by a small island in the Araguari

64

Manaus

BRASILIA

Rio de Janeiro

River Araguar i

BR

AZ I L

Print 2.0

65

to be safe from the pororoca, which has easily turned

over much bigger ships. It was due at daybreak.

At the crack of dawn we stride through the mud

to the small wooden boats, which seem like rubber

rings in comparison with the sturdier Forest II.

Our helmsman, Indio, gives the starting signal and

the outboard motors splutter into life. Indio has

encountered the pororoca dozens of times, yet he

seems tense. He warns us insistently that the

pororoca can be very dangerous, and if we find

ourselves rolled over by it, we’ll be in choppy, rough

water along with crocodiles, water snakes, piranhas

and the equally dangerous swirling tree trunks.

There is a distinct possibility that our little wooden

boat will run aground in the shallow water ahead of

the wave. “If that happens,” Indio explains, “you’ve

got to jump in and get as far away from the boat as

quickly as possible. Because if the wave hits the boat

and throws it up in the air, there’s a strong chance

it’ll smash you to pieces.” According to Brazilian

legend, the goddess Iemanjá gets angry with us

mortals, and as an orisha of the ocean, can call

on the pororoca to help mete out her punishment.

There are about 60 places in the world where

these long waves known as tidal bores occur,

such as the Bristol Channel separating Wales and

England, and the Qiantang river in China. The

latter, known as the Silver Dragon, can reach 9m

in height, more than twice that of the pororoca,

but it’s a fleeting victory: the Brazilian wave easily

outlasts them all in terms of minutes and miles

travelled. It is at its most spectacular in February

and March, after the four-month long Brazilian

rainy season has swelled the country’s waterways.

The pororoca first landed on the world’s

radar 25 years ago, when a research expedition

of Cousteau’s was severely impaired when the

wave capsized his boat with a cargo of expensive

equipment onboard. Back in 1984, the Frenchman

spoke of a wall of water hurtling towards him.

Today, we can understand what he meant.

“There’s a problem with the engine!” yells

Indio. One of Cousteau’s walls is surging towards

us. We get ready to dive into the water, but Indio

gets the outboard motor started again just in time

for us to make our escape. Another boat is less

lucky and runs aground. We watch helplessly as

the passengers dive overboard and try to get as far

away from the boat as possible. They don’t make

it far enough and the pororoca swallows them up,

chews them for second or two and then spits them

out. A lifeboat dashes across the river and fishes

them out one by one. Later, back on shore, we

meet those less fortunate than ourselves: one has

a gaping wound on his leg from the propeller,

another held up his surfboard like a shield to deflect

a direct hit from the boat. He escaped intact, with a

bruise on his back, but the board wasn’t so lucky.

66

Later still that day, we refuel at the buffet prepared by

Paolo, the cook on Forest II. Paolo is something of a

celebrity on these waters. In December 2001, he was

working in the galley of the Seamaster, the schooner

Sir Peter Blake was skippering on a Untied Nations

environmental expedition on the Amazon basin.

Pirates attacked, and Sir Peter, a New Zealander and

twice winner of the America’s Cup, was shot and

killed. With pride in his voice, Paolo recounts how

he survived by hiding in the boat’s lounge and then

later reported events to the police. According to Paolo,

the attack took place not far from where we are now.

Next morning, we approach the pororoca without

a hitch and the surfers proceed into the wave at exactly

the right time. They surf in a row alongside one other;

they surf in a line one behind the other… they just

keep on surfing. Salazar is the last to be thrown off

after an incredible 40 minutes of board time.

Back together again that night on the Forest II, the

conversations concern just one topic: the wave. “The

fascinating thing,” says Linden, “is that you only get

one chance each day. If you miss it, you’ve got to wait

24 hours to try again.” The tide, of course, comes in

twice a day, bringing the pororoca with it, but you

can only study and surf every second wave. The one

you can’t surf occurs during the night, while you’re

asleep, but you can feel it beckoning in your dreams.

67

A C T I O N

68

A C T I O N

F1 20 09WACKYRACES!

A team that came back from the dead; the (un)luckiest driver in the world;

a man winning a race with a broken leg and the end of an era for dinosaur

billionaires. We may just have witnessed the craziest Formula One season ever

Words: Matt Youson Illustrations: Lie-Ins and Tigers

69

A C T I O N

»>TEAM LAZARUSThey say it’s best to make a clean break,

but no one expected Honda to exit F1

last December leaving only a note on the

mantelpiece and having taken all the LPs.

Honda’s thinking? You don’t lavish

millions on a racing team when you’re

closing factories. The F1 organisation,

had three months to find a new backer

or face closure. So, no pressure.

Their top asset was Ross Brawn, who

had masterminded Michael Schumacher’s

seven drivers’ world championships.

Honda had lured him back, only to pull

the rug out with the job half done. He

could have walked away, but didn’t. F1

had a new team: Brawn GP, with Ross

cast as the eponymous, if reluctant, hero.

With the season on its way, Brawn GP

still didn’t have an engine, but a last-gasp

deal was done with Mercedes. Their motor

wasn’t a perfect fit in a car designed around

a Honda powerplant but, but armed with

yards of gaffer tape and a big hammer,

the engineers performed wonders.

The team arrived in Australia with

a car bereft of sponsors and test miles…

then finished 1-2, Jenson Button first,

Rubens Barrichello second. Button won

five of the next six races, aided, it must

be said, by a double diffuser that both

Red Bull Racing and Renault had earlier

been told was illegal. Without that

‘unfair advantage’ the championships

might have looked somewhat different.

As for Ross, at Ferrari he’d received

a papal blessing. Now, thanks to a couple

of miracles and a resurrection, the media

treated him like the Second Coming.

Hats off from the entire paddock, but

they’ll have it harder in 2010 from

Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Ferrari.

»>LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE-GATEWhat started out as a coda to the

Australian Grand Prix turned into

a full-blown rock opera when F1

arrived in Malaysia for round two.

Toyota driver Jarno Trulli finished

third in Oz, only to have the stewards

penalise him post-race for making

an illegal overtaking move, passing

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton during

a safety-car period (when everyone

is supposed to hold station). The

hapless Jarno claimed that Hamilton

had pulled over and let him through.

The stewards summoned Hamilton

and McLaren sporting director Dave

Ryan. They denied everything.

Their strategy had two very minor

flaws, though: Hamilton had already

told the whole world he’d let Trulli through,

and his car-to-pit radio confirmed it.

McLaren had committed the ultimate

sporting sin – they got caught.

The media went ballistic. The fallout

had McLaren team boss Ron Dennis –

an F1 fixture as venerable as Bernie

Ecclestone – exiling himself to focus on

McLaren’s latest road-car project, leaving

deputy Martin Whitmarsh holding the

baby. Meanwhile Ryan – regarded as an

honest man in a sport of scoundrels –

fell on his sword. Hamilton somehow

emerged as the innocent pawn of evil

machinations. He hinted at inner turmoil

while bravely soldiering on. The affair

was brief and bitter, yet as is the F1 way,

after spat, counter-spat, FIA hearings

and political machinations, all was

forgotten by mid-season.

70

ADRIAN NEWEY SAID: “I DO ENJOY REGULATION CHANGES SUCH AS THOSE WE HAD LAST WINTER. WHEN THINGS STAY THE SAME IT ISN’T QUITE SO… INTERESTING”

»>RED BULL RISINGIt’s been a good – almost great – season

for Red Bull Racing, with teen-number

podiums, multiple victories, season-long

consistency and a fight to the very end for

the driver’s title. The RB5 car, designed

under the direction of Adrian Newey, F1’s

boffin-supreme, has been the only rival

to Brawn. When it won, it won easily,

but like a racehorse – only on ground

it liked: it excelled on fast, sweeping

circuits and whenever F1 got away from

the modern, slow, TV-friendly tracks,

it looked the Thoroughbred it was.

German prodigy Sebastian Vettel took

Red Bull Racing’s maiden victory from

pole in Shanghai, then won again in

Britain and Japan. He hates to be called

‘the New Schu’ but does a very good

impersonation. Meanwhile Mark Webber,

the bad-luck magnet, raced the first half-

season with a leg looking like a bag of

hammers after losing an off-season bike-

versus-SUV altercation. He won after

dominating in Germany (his first F1

victory) and Brazil. The stuff of legend.

So why didn’t the team win even more?

The double-diffuser volte-face was a

handicap, as were some tough stewards’

decisions. Tyres, tarmac and temperature

all played their part, but racing usually

comes back to the horses and while those

with Mercedes engines had power to spare,

the Renaults of Red Bull still tend to lag

a little. And as F1 engine development

is currently frozen, thanks to a set of

regulations regarded by some as bonkers,

there isn’t a lot anyone can do about it…

A C T I O N

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A C T I O N

»>THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT SUZUKA…F1 returned to its traditional Japanese

home this year. Despite a few cosmetic

tweaks, Suzuka remains the ultimate

test of skill and courage, thanks to the

looping, soaring figure-of-eight layout.

Somehow, this narrow, twisting

tarmac ribbon brings out the animal in

drivers. Thanks to a washout on Friday,

the field went into the weekend without

having purged it from their system, and

the following carnage was spectacular.

Mark Webber destroyed his chassis in

the morning, then the afternoon claimed

Jaime Alguersuari, Heikki Kovalainen,

Sébastien Buemi, Timo Glock and half

a dozen near-misses. A modern circuit

wouldn’t get away with a 290kph sixth-

gear corner inches from a big wall, but

history is part of F1 – and if the Degner

Curve was good enough to catch out

Nigel Mansell, it’s good enough for this

generation. You don’t mess with a classic.

»>FORMULA TOPSY TURVYIt’s been a bizarre year. At the Turkish

GP, Brawn were so superior that Button

was in the EasyJet Speedy Boarding

queue before the rest had finished. At

the next race, in Britain, Vettel won by

a minute, humming the theme music

from The Archers. Hamilton then

dominated in Hungary for McLaren and

Nico Rosberg’s Williams was easily the

fastest car in Singapore. But the most

surprising thing of all was Force India

taking pole position at Spa-Francorchamps.

Minnows just don’t do that.

Fortunately, sanity was restored

when Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen woke

up from his torpor to win the Belgian

Grand Prix. You could give Kimi a milk

float and he’d somehow win at Spa.

With the exception of last year, he’s

never finished lower than first.

»>POLITICS!The typical F1 season is nine months

of wrangling, occasionally interrupted

by a motor race. The arguments don’t

change, but 2009 at least had some

new factions. There’s still the FIA and

President Max Mosley in the blue corner

and the gestalt commercial rights holder,

fronted by Bernie Ecclestone, in the

black. But the new player is FOTA, the

Formula One Teams Association.

It isn’t uncommon for the teams to

unionise, but usually they fall out after

20 minutes and start throwing dung.

Surprisingly it hasn’t happened this time.

They’ve found common cause through

the indignity of having new rules

bulldozed through without their input.

They’ve also expressed their displeasure

at the commercial rights holder taking

50 per cent of F1’s income for doing

approximately none of the work. When

Bernie was running everything no one

begrudged him his cut, but now it’s

a group of shadowy bankers who are

leaching the sport dry to service the

debt they ran up buying it, so things

are different. The teams decided to pull

out, form their own series, keep all the

money and race anywhere they pleased.

Then it turned out that the FIA and

the commercial rights holder could be

reasonable… of course the fallout – or

not, depending on who you believe – was

Mosley’s decision to step down. In the

election of a new president, he’s backing

former Ferrari boss Jean Todt over former

MEP and World Rally Champion Ari

Vatanen. This might be a mind game;

Vatanen is the spitting image of Mosley –

maybe this is a plot to ensure Max remains

president for eternity. Mwahaha!

TOYOTA BOSS JOHN HOWETT ISN’T THE BIGGEST FAN OF KERS: “IF YOU LOOK ON SOME OF OUR ROAD CARS, YOU’D FIND MORE SOPHISTICATED TECHNOLOGY”

»>TECH TROUBLEThis year F1 has sunk hundreds of

millions of dollars into new, overtaking-

friendly bodywork that hasn’t improved

overtaking, moveable front wings that

nobody moves and, of course, KERS –

the Kinetic Energy Recovery System. It

was F1’s hybrid sop to the green lobby.

Oddly, it involves a series of non-recyclable

volatile chemical batteries that make

cars heavier and – because it’s used

to improve acceleration rather than

economy – is actually less fuel-efficient.

Even the teams at the forefront of

hybrid-car design said it was a waste

of time, but F1 ploughed on anyway,

though in a half-arsed manner that

meant only seven drivers used it. The

technology was difficult to get working:

it started fires and electrocuted mechanics,

but mostly it just didn’t work. Specifically

it didn’t work for the larger drivers. F1

cars have a minimum weight of 605kg,

but every team likes to get their car

well under that, and then add ballast

to balance the car. The 30kg KERS

was a big stretch, annoying the taller,

heavier drivers, who were never going to

make it work without hacking off a limb.

It came good in the end, particularly for

Mercedes, who received just reward

for their efforts and multi-million dollar

investment with a winning second

half of the season. They’d probably

have a big advantage next year, except

that now everyone’s agreed not to use

KERS anymore. How very F1.

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A C T I O N

»>THE TAO OF FLAV…Part I: Jenson Bollard

A rant from Flavio Briatore is always

worth deciphering. The one he launched

into just before the Chinese Grand Prix

was a classic. A protest launched by

his Renault outfit and several others

regarding the legality of the Brawn

cars was thrown out. He wasn’t very

happy and said this:

“The drivers in our teams have been

and are world champions, while the

championship is now fought between a

pensioner [Barrichello, 37] and another

who is a good guy but a paracarro [Button].

People want the fight at the top to be

among the best drivers in the world.”

Somewhat confused, the British media

all ran off to their Italian counterparts for

translation. A paracarro is a kerbstone.

Basically Flav was likening Button’s

pace to that of a concrete bollard.

II. Taxi for Brawn

Not content with having a pop at

Button and Barrichello, Briatore – former

mastermind of Benetton’s US chain of

woolly jumper emporia – also decided

to go for Ross Brawn, casting doubt on

the latter’s suitability to run the FOTA

technical working group. “Anyone is

better, even the first Chinese taxi

driver you see in the street.”

Of course Flav wasn’t the only one

shooting from the lip. Bernie decided

the run-up to the German Grand Prix

was the perfect time to express

admiration for Adolf Hitler; “a man

who could get things done.”

III Buried in the Kaka

Flav is an expert commentator on

other sports too. Since buying into

second-tier football club Queens Park

Rangers, he’s taken them on the

proverbial rollercoaster.

Two years in, he’s onto his fifth

manager, is rumoured to pick the team

over the phone, and is not averse to the

odd diatribe whenever the urge takes

him. He started the year by savaging

Manchester City for the effrontery of

ambition, after they tried to lure Brazilian

playmaker Kaka from AC Milan. “If you

put Schumacher in a Minardi, it wouldn’t

have gone nowhere. If you put Kaka in

this club, it is going nowhere anyway.

I think it is completely mad.”

At the time of writing Man City

are fourth in the Premier League, QPR

most definitely are not and Briatore’s

position as a ‘fit and proper person’ to

run a football club is being investigated

by the Football Association.

»>EQUALLY CURSED AND BLESSEDSo, was Felipe Massa extremely lucky, or

terribly unfortunate? His collision with

an errant suspension component at the

Hungarian GP was a freak, million-to-

one chance. Had it hit him a millimetre

on either side, Felipe could have lost

the sight in his left eye – or worse.

Of course, within approximately 0.7

seconds of ‘Flippa’ being declared ‘stable’

the debate turned to his replacement.

After 0.71 seconds, Ferrari testers Marc

Gené and Luca Badoer were discounted

on the grounds of not being Michael

Schumacher. But Schumi, it transpired,

wasn’t match fit [broken neck vertebrae

from a motorbike racing accident earlier

in the year], so Badoer got the nod.

Luca’s last F1 race was in 1999, and he

held the dubious distinction of being the

driver with the most races (56) for zero

points. A turn in the shiny Ferrari would

surely get that monkey off his back? No.

Badoer was slower than glacial erosion.

With no race miles and precious little

testing recently, only very accurate

scientific instruments could tell the

difference between him and stationary

objects. His tenure lasted 10 days. And

it took his zero-points race tally to 58.

RENAULT’S NEW DRIVER, ROBERT KUBICA, SAID: “YOU HAVE TO BE PRETTY DESPERATE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT”

FELIPE SAID: “I’VE HAD OTHER ACCIDENTS THAT DISTURBED ME A LOT MORE… ONES THAT REALLY MADE ME THINK…”

73

A C T I O N

»>THE FUTURESo, that was 2009. What’s up for 2010?

Well, we’re almost sure to get another

cost-cutting initiative. If it’s anything

like the last couple, it will be expensive

to implement, ineffectual and end up

being thrown in the spare room with

the ice-cream maker. Lewis Hamilton

will continue to express himself like a

polite young man from the 1950s. ‘Gee’,

‘Gosh’ and ‘Darn ‘will feature prominently.

The four new teams – Lotus F1, US F1,

Manor Grand Prix and Campos F1 – will

generate massive attention at the first

race, then trundle around at the back,

never to be heard from again.

Bernie Ecclestone will announce

a date for the Indian Grand Prix. He may

also add dates for races in Russia, South

Africa and Narnia while he’s at it. Drivers

will continue to lie about the unrelenting

tedium of driving in Monaco. Organisers

will continue to insist everything is

going according to plan and Donington

Park will be ready to host the British

Grand Prix – meanwhile they’ll also

be rearranging the deckchairs and

asking the brass band to strike up

Abide With Me. New Ferrari driver, the

notoriously fractious Fernando Alonso,

will achieve his lifetime’s ambition and

start a fight in an empty room.

The trend of younger drivers will

reach its natural conclusion when

their union, the Grand Prix Drivers’

Association, demands Barney the

Dinosaur wallpaper, the right to wear

Heelys and a bigger run-off at Monza’s

Variante della Roggia. They won’t get

the run-off. Kimi Räikkönen will

continue to imbibe, rather than spray,

his champagne. He will also hibernate

from April until the August Bank

Holiday, then briefly wake up, win in

Belgium, say very little in the press

conference and prepare for another

nap. The spectre of Ron Dennis will be

used to frighten young mechanics into

behaving themselves and making sure

everything is tidy. A celebrity girlfriend

will mysteriously appear in the paddock.

Just as mysteriously she will disappear

again, shortly after her movie/album is

released. Despite being pointedly told

he’s live on TV, Sebastian Vettel will

still talk about ‘Kate’s dirtier sister’.

One of the teams will have a

revolutionary aerodynamic device in

Bahrain. The other teams will question

its legality while furiously working to

copy it. Robert Kubica will look more

and more like a slightly bewildered owl.

»>CRASHGATELast season, 2008, Nelson Piquet Jnr

splattered his Renault all over the

Marina Bay grandstand during the

Singapore Grand Prix. The accident

looked a little odd, prompting jokes

about the fix being in. It was funny

because a) no team would actually go

down that route and b) as Piquet had hit

pretty much everything else that season,

it didn’t seem inconsistent. We now know

better and, once again, the reputation of

F1 has been dragged through the mud.

A few former drivers, safely retired

and with money in the bank, snorted

and said ‘so what’s new?’ but for the rest

of the world ‘crashgate’ was a big deal

and F1’s rule-makers, the FIA, saw it as

such, too. Team boss Flavio Briatore

received a lifetime ban. Pat Symonds –

the man who did most of the work while

Flavio was busy squiring supermodels

and buying football teams – has been

banished from motorsport for five years.

Quite what it’s going to cost Piquet has

yet to be determined; he was eventually

granted a whistleblower’s immunity,

but with his reputation in tatters, don’t

expect to see him in F1 anytime soon.

Junior’s replacement was a young

Swiss robot called Romain Grosjean who,

displaying a previously unsuspected

genius for slapstick, crashed his Renault

at exactly the spot as Piquet in practice

for this year’s Singapore Grand Prix. He

received an ironic standing ovation from

all in the media centre, while Renault’s

acting team principal, Bob Bell, didn’t

know whether to laugh or cry. In the

end, he opted for the former.

and theBEAST

How a teenage obsession with Mad Max turned into a Hollywood star’s life’s work, and the only mates-and-cars film you’ll ever need to see

Words: Paul Wilson Photography: Michael Klein

BANA

A C T I O N

75

This isn’t a story about a Hollywood

actor simply flashing the cash and

pretending to be a racing car driver;

it’s the tale of an Aussie bloke and his

mates, and a 25-year love affair with

a 35-year-old car. It’s easy to confuse

the two, not least because the Aussie bloke in question

is Eric Bana, star of Troy, former Hulk and, most

recently, bender of the space-time continuum in

The Time Traveler’s Wife. His first film as director,

the documentary Love The Beast, stars himself, his

friends and family, a 1974 Ford XB Falcon Coupe

and – the following spoiler will not spoil your

enjoyment of the film – a gum tree on the side of

a Tasmanian country road doubling as a rally track.

Bana’s petrol-driven journey to that hunk of

wood took a quarter of a century, and forms the

backdrop to the best film about cars and driving

of the last few years. Most motoring movies are

distinguishable by their slick cinematography,

fetishistic discussion of engine vitals and fleeting

glimpses of hot driver wives. Mrs Bana, does crop up

in her husband’s flick, and is lovely, but there the

similarities end. There’s much more to Love The

Beast than fast corners and fast zooms, and because

of that, it’s a film for car lovers and everybody else.

The story begins in 1984, when the 15-year-old

Bana bought a car he had dreamed of owning since he

saw one in the film Mad Max: a 1973 Ford Falcon XB.

Max’s was a souped-up GT Hardtop; Bana’s was a

knackered old Coupe that only ate up time and more

money. For years, he and three friends put countless

hours into the car, which acquired the nickname

The Beast and lived in the Bana family’s garage.

Over the next 10 years, before Bana established

himself as a sketch comedian on Australian TV, he

and his friends spent time and money on the car.

“There were many times when I couldn’t afford

petrol,” says the 41-year-old. “For some stupid

reason I just hung onto it, and then I found myself

in a position where I’d never need to sell it.”

After Bana won his career-making role in the

2000 film Chopper, his life turned upside down.

Hollywood came calling a couple of years later,

affording him the resources to get The Beast fit for

competition. He and his mates – Tony, Temps and

Jack – still found time to tinker and maintain their

friendship and shared passion. It’s this aspect of Love

The Beast that’s the most appealing and very real.

“The film has an effect on people,” says Bana.

“Particularly those my age and older. It touches

on mortality, ageing, and how much you have or

haven’t maintained friendships. Crashing the car

and putting me and my best mate in the path of

serious harm did elevate it to something that

it could not have been otherwise.

“I’ve spent my life with these guys, dicking

around with cars. We chose to carry on after

we had kids, after I became an actor. I was

nervous about how the film looked on paper,

so I made it largely in secret. I was

prepared for criticism saying,

‘It’s just a vanity project’.

That’s almost offensive

to me: what is a vanity project? It’s a film that

a director wants to make because he cares about

something enough to make a film of it.”

You can tell from speaking to him, and watching

his film, that Bana really cares about his friends and

his car. He calls on Jeremy Clarkson and US talk-

show host Jay Leno, two famous car nuts, to give

his film a bit of clout, but they’re almost surplus to

requirements. Watching Bana and his friends grow

into their roles of driver, co-driver, manager and

“shit-stirrer” (their words) in Team Bana, the film

has all the context it requires without Leno and

Jezza’s input. The film’s best nod to wider car culture

is a clip from The Speed Merchants, the documentary

about the World Sportscar Championship series in

1972, from Le Mans to Daytona.

Skilfully doffing his director’s cap, Bana uses

a clip of The Speed Merchants featuring the Targa

Florio, the Italian sportscar event that ran for

over 70 years until 1977. The Targa took place

on public roads in the Sicilian mountains, and

the footage is spectacular and evocative. Bana

is right to single out the film – “it’s probably

my favourite car film of all-time, in terms of

capturing the emotion behind cars and racing” –

not least because it sets up his film’s final act.

It’s 2007, and Bana’s Beastly band pull up at

the start line of the Targa Tasmania, a race inspired

by the Targa Florio and that has taken place on the

Australian island state’s roads since 1992. “It began

as an enthusiast’s event,” explains Bana, “for

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A C T I O N

people who wanted to race classic cars. Now it’s

a full-on competitive race in classic and newer

categories. Anyone with a proper racing licence

can enter.” Bana, who also races a Porsche in an

Australian GT series, has his licence and is itching

to put the Beast through the five days of racing.

The first three days go according to plan, but it’s

on day four that the racing comes to a halt.

“I was in shock for about a day after the crash,”

says Bana, who, along with co-driver Tony, escaped

unscathed. “I had a good night with the boys the

night we crashed, and then the next day it all

became very clear as to which way it was going to

go. I was more than happy to be in the lap of the

gods. That’s the beauty of documentary. In the ones

I love, the director, to a degree, is unable to control

what happens. And I realised that it would be a

better film for what happened.” Bana’s retelling

of his crash and the unexpected off-track turns his

story then takes, are the best things about the film.

After the tree-car interface, Bana was left

with two very different creations: an engaging

documentary and a pile of twisted metal. Love The

Beast made good money at the Australian box office,

went down well at film festivals and you can watch

it on screens big and small from mid-November.

The Beast itself is undergoing a long and careful

rebuild. “It’s had its rollcage cut and its chassis

straightened,” says Bana, “and there are a fair few

man hours of bodywork to come. Someone had

a go at the film because it doesn’t say how much

I’ve spent on the car. That made me laugh, because

that’s insignificant. Some guys can spend a few

hundred grand on their car; mine had nowhere near

that amount, but it has had lots and lots of time.”

What about a return to the Targa Tasmania? That

gum tree may have won the argument first time

around, but there’s still a point to be made and, very

possibly, Love The Beast II: Drive Harder. “Never say

never,” says Bana. “Check back in five years. Or 25.”

77

EYEWEAR + ACCESSORIES . SAN FRANCISCO www.sutrovision.com

80 HANGAR-7 INTERVIEW 82 GET THE GEAR 84 TRAVEL 86 LISTINGS 90 NIGHTLIFE 96 SHORT STORY 98 MIND’S EYE

Where to go, what to wear, who to listen to – and more

More Body & Mind

79

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Jason Polakow sniffed petrol long

before the fresher breezes of sea and

surf came to rule his life: in his teens

he was Australian youth motocross

champion, but moved to Hawaii at the

age of 18 to outsurf board legend Robbie

Naish in his own backyard. It was a

remarkable achievement, making

Polakow the first non-Hawaiian to win

the Windsurf World Cup on the island

and enabling him to go on to ventures

such as launching his own brand of

board. Heady times, but these days he

takes things a wee bit easier, surfing

only the biggest waves – which is why

he has time for a little dinner à deux.

You’ve just arrived from Tahiti where you surfed one of the world’s most dangerous waves, the Teahupoo. Explain to a landlubber what it’s like to tame that kind of monster?To be honest, I find it a lot easier to

surf the really big waves because you

automatically get the speed you need.

The problem is that the wind has to be

blowing from the right direction so that

you can get into the wave. Once you’re

in it, though, Teahupoo is one of the

most beautiful waves in the world. It

can be up to 5m tall, is seriously quick

and makes the perfect tube. It feels

something like having an enormous

avalanche roaring behind you.

What does it feel like when you get swallowed up by something like that?Not good! First you get hit in the back

by a couple of tonnes of water and then

it pulls you under and you feel like

you’re in a huge washing machine.

It doesn’t matter how strong you are,

there’s nothing that you can do against

the water and it practically rips your

arms and legs off. That’s when you

need to have good lungs to withstand

the pressure and to be able to stay

underwater for long enough. The

important thing is to stay calm and

not panic or you’ll use up all your

oxygen. You’re in real trouble if you land

on a reef. In some places, the water under

Teahupoo is only half a metre deep and

the corals are as sharp as razor blades.

Is there a way of protecting yourself in that kind of situation?With Red Bull’s help, we’ve developed

a new life jacket. It doesn’t look that

much different from other life jackets,

but it’s more buoyant and has more air

in it on the front side. So it automatically

turns you onto your back and that means

you won’t drown if you’re drifting in

the water, unconscious.

Speaking of fish... have you had any encounters with sharks out there?Of course. I’m from Australia. Every

Aussie surfer has had a date with a shark

at some point or other. Mine happened

to be harmless. The fella just knocked

his head against my board.

Still, you must have had a couple of scratches in all the time you’ve been wind-surfing...I have had some serious injuries, but

I got most of them riding motocross.

How about doing something safer, like chess or Sudoku?I love tearing through the wilderness

on bikes, but unfortunately I often put

my foot down a bit too hard and end

up in the mud. I’ve done myself harm

on so many occasions that one of my

sponsors contractually forbade me

from riding motocross. For a long time

I couldn’t even look at bikes. Mind you,

those breaks due to injury had their

positive side, as I would do things that

I normally didn’t have time for. I got

my pilot’s and helicopter licences a

couple of years ago when I couldn’t

surf for five months. I don’t get to

put them to use much, but when I’m

here in Hangar-7 and see all these

cool aeroplanes, I instantly want to

get back up there.

We’ve also heard that you have a passion for cooking?I love doing the cooking myself. That

way I can make sure first and foremost

that I’m eating healthily. I usually end

up with chicken or fish on my plate

with a decent side order of vegetables.

I normally make a large amount in one

go and then fill up 20 or 30 bags and

put them in the freezer. Which means

there’s always something good to eat

in the Polakow household.

Sharks, monster waves and the world’s most ferocious currents hold no fear for the man, who, at 37, remains the world’s top windsurfer. He talked to The Red Bulletin about his salty passions over dinner at Hangar-7, Salzburg

Words: Christoph Rietner

What’s been your worst experience in the water so far?I’ve been in some pretty hairy situations,

but the worst must surely be the current

in Jaws. It’s one of the biggest waves

in Hawaii and if you fall there you get

caught up in a strong current. You’re

constantly being hit on the head by huge

breakers and the suction pulls you right

into the wave. You get thrashed about

until you’re all out of strength and think

you’re almost done for. And then

eventually the wave gets bored of the

taste of you, spits you out and washes

you onto the rocks like a stunned fish.

Jason Polakow

80

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

Print 2.0

Get the Gear

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8383

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it seems, favour a more dress-

down approach – shaved hair

or blond-streaked mullets and

the ubiquitous tracksuit.

The city boasts a

waterfront park that is the

favourite destination of newly

weds and their accompanying

photographers and VHS video

guys. We encounter about

eight different parties during

a 15-minute walk, their

bridesmaids in apparent

competition with one another

for the shortest hemline

trophy. Out on the other side

of the estuary leading into the

Bug, the rusted metal of the

massive wharves attests to an

industry that has seen better

days. But there is an intimate

charm to Nikolaev, a city laid

out in a simple grid pattern,

with wide, one-lane roads

and sidewalks.

The Nikolaev Zoo,

we’re told, is the best in

Ukraine. We’re told this

repeatedly, so there’s nothing

to do but oblige the kind

suggestions and head over

there. The verdict is almost

instantaneous: if this is the

country’s best zoo, one’s heart

weeps for the fate of the poor

So I’d like to say we were

prepared for this eventuality,

but the heart still skipped

a beat when the cherubic

Ukrainian police officer

with the traffic wand waved

down our Hertz Mazda.

We’d evidently violated some

traffic law or other on our

way to the airport. Which

one, we’ll never truly know,

however, as we’d left our

Russian-English dictionary

at home. It would have been

useless anyway, at that

moment, as we were exposed

to rapid-fire Russian through

the driver’s side window.

In the past four days

we’d encountered thuggish

Ukrainian locals, stomach-

churning cuisine and enough

acid-wash denim to outfit

a John Hughes box set –

why not a traffic stop lost

in translation as well?

We’d started our trip in

Nikolaev, once the Tsarists’

shipbuilding capital on the

Black Sea, now the home of

some of the Ukraine’s top

bride brokers. The city lies

along the Southern Bug river,

137km north-east of Odessa,

along a pot-holed and mildly

heart-arresting road lined

with the occasional vegetable

cart and marble plaque

mourning those who were

less careful behind the wheel.

Along its main street, high-

cheekboned women with

slender figures parade in

tight-fitting jeans and

precarious heels. The men,

One-eyed mares, misplaced Potemkin steps

and a Ukrainian cop not averse to some

easily earned cash. What more can one hope

for after five days in the southern Ukraine?

Ukrainian Odyssey

Travel

84

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

creatures in the others. Near

an empty bear pit, deeply

depressed bison stare straight

ahead. We go up to stroke

the nose of a white and grey

mare leaning out of her

paddock. She accommodates

us, and then turns her head

towards us to reveal a blood-

reddened socket where her

left eye should have been.

It’s time to leave.

The next night, we’re

on the road back to Odessa,

ready for a real city. A port

town with a history reaching

back to antiquity, Odessa has

weathered the transition

to capitalism quite well. Its

baroque architecture and

pedestrian walkways recall

Vienna, Krakow or Munich.

Still a popular resort

destination for Russians and

eastern Europeans, its bars

and nightlife wouldn’t look

wildly out of place in

London’s Soho. Restaurants

line Deribasovskaya Street,

including one so drenched

in folk kitsch it would be a

shame to pass up. A waitress

in a traditional dress brings

us “Ukraine national drink”,

the same vile vodka we met

and didn’t get along with

a few nights before in

Nikolaev. But the hospitality

is appreciated, as is the

chicken Kiev dunked in

a crunchy batter, with hot

butter and parsley streaming

out. Around the corner from

us, the Odessa Opera House

boasts a lighting design to

rival the Acropolis at night.

We have a morning

left before our trip to the

airport and run-in with

the cops, so we head

down to the Tomb of

the Unknown Sailor,

a monument placed on

a parapet above the waves

of the Black Sea, lapping

below. Odessa seems to

lack the sort of seafront

promenade found in most

coastal cities and could

do with a significant

investment in its

infrastructure and public

parks, but it’s also got the

sort of rough charm one

If You Go imagines Prague and

Budapest had before German

investors and British stag

parties descended.

Our last stop before the

airport is the Potemkin Steps,

the vast staircase made

immortal through Sergei

Eisenstein’s 1925 epic, The

Battleship Potemkin. We

pinpoint a word on our hotel

map that resembles ‘Potemkin’

and pull up to the steps and

park our car. Underwhelmed,

we walk up remarking to one

another how narrow they are.

We’re at the top after a two-

minute walk. This doesn’t seem

right. But time is ticking, and

we scramble back to head off

to the airport. As we drive

past the naval port that

served as the background to

the film’s horrific final scene,

we turn our heads to the left.

There climbing up in all their

magnificence are the vast

and remarkably symmetrical

steps. “Oh,” I manage, and

then we’re past them.

The befuddlement at

missing something so massive

is still with us when our

friendly officer waves us

down. The photographer

sorts out the paperwork and

returns to tell me that the

kind fellow won’t hand back

his passport. Instead, he gets

in the passenger’s seat. With

a combination of Russian and

hand signals, we manage a

U-turn back to his motorbike.

As we sit there talking at each

other in foreign languages, a

light goes on in my confused

head. I slide my wallet out of

my pocket and slowly shift a

few Ukrainian Hryvnias so

that they’re visible. He looks

at the wallet, looks at me

and gives the international

sign for “two”. I pluck the

requested bills out and

hand them over somewhat

clumsily. A smile crawls

across his Borscht-fed face.

There’s nothing to do but

smile back. After all, what the

southern Ukraine might lack

in tourist charm, it more than

makes up for in stories.

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M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

HOTSPOTSLove sports and travel? Then try on this to-do list for size

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ASP WOMEN’S WORLD TOUR 03 - 08.11.09

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86

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

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87

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THE BRONX

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88

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89

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

The Green Room

LONDON

New MexicoSound

THE BRONX

A new direction is bringing the

good times, mariachi-style, for

LA rockers The Bronx. Have the

band gone soft? Tom Hall went

to Shoreditch to find out

90

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SAMIYAM14.11.09

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20 YEARS GROOVE MAGAZINE19.11.09

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Two Hearts, One CityAlex Barck, of the DJ collective

Jazzanova, is a Berliner to

the core. Straddling the city’s

historical east-west division,

he tells Florian Obkircher why

the answer to his preferred

area of the capital is “both”

Resident Artist

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SpanishNightsSouth-east Asian cuisine and

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94

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

HARBOURLIFE 21.11.09

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Eight floors up, Dan Cooper moodily

contemplated the view. There was

little else to do.

One of the most desirable features

of his apartment – centrepiece of the

brochure, in fact – was the double-skin

glazing that became translucent at the

flick of a switch. Recently, though, he’d

been foregoing the pleasures of opacity.

Economy measures: he couldn’t afford

the electricity, commissions having dried

up months ago. Anyone looking over from

one of the neighbouring buildings could

see, at any time, what he was doing – which

is to say, not very much. Occasionally he

would amuse himself by wandering the

apartment nude, although the amusement

would pall into disappointment when no

one reported him to the authorities.

There was a compelling reason for

not going out: he couldn’t leave. More

out of boredom than hope – he didn’t

even bother to put on his shoes – he

walked through the open-plan kitchen

towards the hated front door.

“You again,” it said, the electronic

voice that had formerly greeted him with

a solicitous purr (while silently directing

a micropayment from his credit account

into the coffers of the management

company) now acknowledging his

presence in a tone of disdainful hauteur.

Dan Cooper was neither particularly

young nor especially stupid. He’d endured

two previous downswings of the Malthus

cycle, timing his leaps from moribund

profession to minted new one with

aplomb. This time he’d been complacent.

He’d enjoyed the life of a feted artist too

much: the parties, the attention, the

media celebration, the ludicrous amounts

that wealthy philistines paid him to churn

out freakish but essentially meaningless

metallic sculptures. And, of course, the sex.

Fame came about by accident. His

signature work resembled a giant ovary

on a spring, with an absurdly complex

internal rigging of wires and pulleys. Stuck

again afterwards, for by then the

neophiliacs would be craving something

else to get excited about. He would be

so, like, last week. But his stewardship

of his own finances had been less than

prudent. If he’d two pennies to rub

together, so to speak, he’d drop one

in the slot and step out for a while.

“Are you going to stand there, shoeless,

like a twit,” said the door, its synthesised

vowels approximating impatience, “or are

you going to cross my palm with silver?”

Cooper’s resolve failed him. He’d

meant to initiate some sort of argument.

Not that the door would capitulate;

no pleading, begging or flourish of

rhetoric would persuade it to open up.

But with all the apartment’s electronic

entertainment facilities also awaiting

payment, this was as near as he would

get to conversation. Now, though, he

was struggling for an original angle,

something that would cock a snook at

the door’s heuristic intransigence.

“You know I haven’t got any,” he

said, limply.

“So, like a prole, you thought that if

you carried on asking the question you’d

simply wear down my resolve? That I’d

just give up and let you through?

“That’s the trouble, you see. No

invention. No ambition. No wherewithal.

An unvirtuous circle. People like you are

for a name or theme for his creation,

he called it Phenobarbital and described

it as “a mechanical recreation of Elvis

Presley’s final minutes on earth”. Perfect.

Within a week it had been anointed as

a masterpiece of pop art.

The recession – not that they called

it that these days – rather crept up on

him. One by one his clients, wise to the

movements of the managed economy and

its effects, withdrew from conspicuous

consumption and tucked their finances

out of view. By the time he realised he

was no longer ‘hot’ he was well on the

way to financial dudgeon. The final

insult – his ejection from the cashless

payment system – was confirmed when

an ungracious functionary from the

management company arrived to fit

a coin slot to the door. Coins! The

hallmark of the underclass!

The parties, the attention, the media

celebration – and, regrettably, the sex

– also terminated. Cooper could probably

have ridden it out, reinvented himself

A story by Stuart Codling

‘ He’d enjoyed the life of a feted artist too much: the parties, the attention, the sex’

HouseArrestDan Cooper is stuck in

a world where talk is

cheap – it’s everything

else that costs money

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About the authorStuart Codling lives in Farnham, Surrey, with his wife and two cats. He has yet to engage in meaningful and productive dialogue with any of his domestic apparatus, but that has not stopped him trying.

food has been running down a bit, and

not just because you’ve been so stubborn

about access. I’m certain that even

Cooper here will admit to becoming

complacent about his work situation. But

what do you expect when our existence

is governed by a self-serving elite and

their arbitrary economic cycles? Even the

name of it is a con; Malthus wrote that

war, disease and famine acted as natural

checks on population growth. There’s

nothing in there about the ultra-rich

banking their takings while everyone

else goes to rack and ruin.

“When Cooper gets kicked out of here

he’ll lose his vote. He’ll disappear. He’s

got to rise up and take arms now. We’ve

got to mobilise – to revolt!”

“How are you going to rise up and

take arms? You haven’t got any arms. Or

any legs, for that matter. If you’ve been

robbed of your purpose it’s because of

that man’s indolence, not the system. The

management company isn’t responsible

for the conduct of residents. When he’s

evicted, he’ll be replaced by someone

economically active. My function will

have meaning again. It’s the beauty of

renewal. And I’ll be rid of this wretched

coin slot. Even the presence of hard

currency makes me feel soiled.”

Talk of food had set Cooper’s empty

stomach gurgling. Having desired

conversation for its own sake, he now

felt it had taken a disagreeable turn.

Here he was being spoken about in the

third person while slowly starving to

death. What if the door and the toaster

were only the first to find voice? What

if he was to see out his final days in

a cacophony of synthesised chatter?

He had to act. What other under-

occupied domestic appliance would

be next to join the debate? He glanced

over the contents of kitchen. Ah! The

pasta maker. It had to be.

Face set in a mask of grim resolve,

Cooper marched over, seized the still-

mute device, and with some satisfaction

decanted it into the waste disposal chute

– to the bowels of the city, where he

would soon be joining it.

toaster’s grease-smeared surface, slack-

armed with the screwdriver hanging

from his hand. To be held to ransom by

your own front door is unfortunate; to

have your toaster quoting something

that might be Shakespeare was, if not

careless, a possible sign of lunacy.

“Since he never cleans you out, you

probably contain rather more than a

quintessence of dust,” sneered the door.

“What I’m trying to say here,” said

the toaster, “is that as a human being,

Mr Cooper has almost limitless abilities.

I merely apply heat to carbohydrate

products according to his personal

preferences. I don’t even need artificial

intelligence – some middle manager

added it so that I would have greater

perceived value than rival products. I

suppose if I belonged to an elderly person

I could warn them not to insert metal

utensils into me to extract the toast

they’d just burned, but since I wouldn’t

have allowed the toast to burn in the first

place, the situation wouldn’t have arisen.

Therefore any intellect I may bring to

bear on a given situation is, axiomatically,

redundant. I toast, therefore I am.”

“But I’m not just a door. I’m a portal

between one space and the next. A

gateway. A promise of new horizons

and unexplored places, journeys to be

undertaken. Instead I sit here doing

nothing while this jackass fritters his

pathetic life away watching daytime

TV, or twittering over the internet at

people he hates or hasn’t even met – or

at least he did until it was cut off.”

Glumly, but silently, Cooper had to

concur. Another memory disinterred:

years ago, in his teens probably,

devouring fictions. Travels With My

Aunt; the retired bank manager liberated

by his aged relative from the torpor of

tending his dahlias, delivered into a life

of excitement and minor crime, of illicit

pot-smoking and cash smuggled in false-

bottomed suitcases. He, Cooper, planned

to do all of it and more. He would hijack

an airliner and hold the passengers to

ransom. Dump them off at a provincial

airstrip and then parachute to freedom

with the takings, never to be seen again.

People always used to say his name

sounded like an alias on a fake passport.

“It’s true to say that I’ve been under-

utilised lately,” said the toaster. “The

destined to end up at the bottom of the

pile. That’s the beauty of the Malthus

cycle: out with the dead wood, the

irrelevant professions, the deadbeats.”

“So you’ll just leave me here to starve,

then? Isn’t that against some law of

robotics, or something?” Cooper was

wondering when he’d be missed. Waiting

for a casual visitor was out of the question;

the postal service was declared obsolete

during the last downturn. The postman

would have been good for some change.

Cheery fellow, if a bit dim – never quite

grasped the importance of delivering the

right package to the right door. Wonder

what he’s doing now, if he’s even alive?

No, it would have to be the parents, retired

by the sea, or on some perpetual holiday

somewhere. Could be weeks, months.

“To hell with Asimov. Your physical

status is outside the scope of my

programming. You pay, I open. It’s as

simple as that. Really, you people live

in the realms of fantasy. All that time

dreaming of a future where robots did all

the work for you. Well, here we are in the

future and you all seem to have forgotten

the fundamental laws of economics. How

did you imagine the world would work?

I’m simply an agent of the management

company. If you don’t pay, you don’t get.”

“You used to compliment me on my

fashion sense.”

“I debited extra money for that, and

I was lying. Those mustard-coloured

trousers were unspeakable.”

Since the conversation, such as it

was, had once more ended at an impasse,

Cooper turned on his heel and threaded

his way back through the kitchen, delved

among his tools and returned with a

screwdriver. Working methodically, he

tested the edges of the coin mechanism

for weak spots.

“Do that,” warned the door, “and I’ll

fetch the police.”

Another voice – tinny but crisply

digitised – broke in.

“I wouldn’t let it talk to me like that

if I were you,” it said.

The words hung in the enclosed space.

Cooper dimly recognised the source of

the voice, hitherto only heard uttering

bland but mildly intrusive pre-breakfast

platitudes: the toaster. It spoke again,

warming to its theme.

“What a piece of work is a man! How

noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!

In action how like an angel! In

apprehension how like a god!”

It fell silent again, as if relishing the

impact of its interjection. Cooper, having

failed to anticipate the direction of this

exchange, had no response. He simply

stared at his distorted reflection in the

‘ To have your toaster quoting Shakespeare was, if not careless, a possible sign of lunacy’

97

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

The greatest British car? Possibly

the greatest of all time? The Mini,

designed by Alexander Arnold

Constantine Issigonis, who

was born in Smyrna. Here is a

car woven from tangled webs.

My father took me to see

one of the first Minis at Liverpool’s

Rocket Garage, so called because

of its association with the transport

innovation that was Stephenson’s 0-2-2

railway locomotive. However, this

historic resonance was lost on me at

the time. I really was quite small. We

drove there in a Jaguar or a Humber or

something-or-other large and dark and

smelling of wood and leather. It was

August 26, 1959. Even a child could see

that the bright, tiny Mini represented

ingenuity of a very high order.

The Mini is one of a handful of the

great car designs of all time, an example

of the synoptic genius of Issigonis – a

martinet, intolerant of authority and

hierarchy. His design was stimulated by

the 1956 fuel crisis caused by the Suez

invasion, but he was determined that

it should not be a crude Kleinwagen or

‘bubble’ car, such as the Germans made.

Instead, Mini had to conform to the

idiosyncratic brief he set himself. A man

preoccupied with the intelligent use of

space, Issigonis’s concept was a car only

10ft (around 3m) long, with 80 per cent

of its length devoted to passengers. To do

this, he turned the engine sideways. The

10in (25.4cm) wheels limited intrusion

into the passenger cell and gave the car a

unique stance. To save space, the gearbox

was expensively, but ingeniously, placed

within the engine’s crankcase.

Issigonis made the economical

philosophy explicit by exposing welding

flanges on the bodywork. There were

sliding windows and plastic door pulls.

But among these austerities, the Mini

had astonishing internal space. However,

since Issigonis believed it was safer for the

driver to be uncomfortable, he deliberately

chose an awkward driving position.

By eschewing styling, Issigonis achieved

the unconscious chic of a Wellington boot

or a ball-pein hammer. Because it was

so radical, the Mini was impossible for

a snobbish British consumer to categorise

and thus, astonishingly, became the first

small car to be perceived as classless.

And like all great art, the Mini defined

– in fact, predicted – the mood of an era.

Remember, the car came before the skirt.

But even as it became the most influential

car ever, the Mini financially ruined its

manufacturer. Issigonis’s brow-beating of

the cost accountants meant that woefully

inept management didn’t realise the car

was being manufactured at a loss until

the 1970s, by which time the rights to

the name were owned by the industrial

calamity that was British Leyland.

In an act of opportunistic gallantry,

BMW bought the remains of BL in 1994

(rebranded ‘Rover’ in a fit of pathetic

reinvention). The grandmother of Bernd

Pischetsrieder, then chairman of the

Bavarian company, was Issigonis’s aunt,

so it was perhaps an emotional deal more

than a rational one. Pischetsrieder didn’t

want Rover’s scruffy factories and

demoralised workers; he wanted access

to the Britishness of Austin Healey, MG

and Riley – but most of all, the Mini.

History, Marx said, repeats itself first

as tragedy, then as farce… then as the

Mini. The BMW Mini appeared in 2001.

Sales-wise, it was a clever way to extend

BMW’s product line to lower price-points

without damaging its premium reputation.

Art-wise, it was more clever still. Line up

new against old and you’ll see no true

similarity; the new car is much larger,

much heavier, self-consciously cute. In

fact, it’s a travesty of Issigonis’s minimalist

vision. ‘Retro’ is too crude a term for so

sophisticated a conceit, but Audi designer

Walter de Silva damned it as ‘repetition’.

Maybe, but the astonishing success

of Mini 2.0 has delighted and baffled

by turns. It proves, if nothing else, that

consumer psychology is driven by nuance

and evocation rather than rationality.

The Mini plays with our collective

consciousness: the design is of a fantasy,

not of a machine. It is an idea, not an

invention. It has the appeal of a toy.

So who drew the BMW Mini? It

was Frank Stephenson, a 49-year-old

American. He soon moved on to Ferrari,

then McLaren, and his latest work is a

reissue of the McLaren F1. Is the future

to redesign the past? The Mini, and now

McLaren, with its MP4-12C, tell us yes.

Stephen Bayley is a former director

of the Design Museum in London

and an award-winning writer ILL

US

TR

AT

ION

: V

ON

Mind’s Eye

Stephen Bayley explores the

development of a small miracle

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‘ Even a child could see that the Mini represented ingenuity of a very high order’

A Mini History

M O R E B O D Y & M I N D

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