Sniff Petrol

Whilst the BRDC continues to act as if it isn’t annoyed by Bernard Ecclestone’s pretend plans to move the British Grand Prix to Donington or Brands Hatch or the Birmingham Superprix circuit or something, the Silverstone circuit itself is about to undergo an exciting revamp that will surely make it the best Formula 1 facility in Northamptonshire.

The new developments won’t be ready for this year’s British GP of course, but work will start on them the very second the last car has left the circuit’s car parks after this year’s race. And when those bulldozers kick into action in September, they’ll have quite a job on because Sniff Petrol has seen the new Silverstone plans and they’re certainly ambitious, whilst retaining the character of the probably-loved circuit and building on its strengths.

One of the first areas for attention is bleakness. For years, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone has been famed for the flat, unremitting miserableness of its views and the facelift scheme seeks to capitalise on that by levelling many of the surrounding fields and building over them with huge expanses of grey, slightly cracked concrete. In the original redevelopment plans, these areas could have been used for race day parking but in fact the planners have been much more canny than that, carefully securing an addition 30 acres of damp, muddy field in which people can lose their cars.

Other facilities haven’t been forgotten either because the new Silverstone will boast a 124 percent increase in the amount of space devoted to stalls selling cheaply made F1 related crap, including 216 percent increase in the areas devoted to stands hawking ghastly Ferrari branded clothing. There will also be a threefold increase in the number of rusty and unnerving fairground rides and, for more privileged F1 fans, a huge increase in the amount of helicopters that can’t take off because there are somehow too many helicopters already in the air.

Finally, it wouldn’t be Silverstone on Grand Prix weekend without the overpowering smell of chips and, under the new plans, that disgusting stench will be more all-consuming than ever thanks to a massive increase in chips stalls and a state-of-the-art fan system which will mean almost no part of the circuit will go without a vile greasy smell getting into the back of everyone’s throats.

The exciting new Silverstone facilities are expected to be ready just around the time Bernard Ecclestone decides he can’t be bothered having a Grand Prix in Britain at all any more.

There was excitement amongst fans of Web 2.0i Ghia last night with news that Sniff Petrol is to become an online magazine. Older readers may remember Sniff Petrol’s previous attempt to reinvent itself as a blog, and also recall that it was shit. However, there are no such worries this time around as the neterweb’s orangiest car-based nonsense site hurtles headlong into the rush to be the latest new automotive webzine that is claiming to be the first even though it probably isn’t.

“These are very exciting times,” said Sniff Petrol marketing director, Thisisa Madeupname. “Old school paper magazines are dead, webzines are the future. Of course, Sniff Petrol has never actually been a paper magazine but we did print off some old editions from the website and make them into a magazine just so we could have a meeting with some design consultants from Shoreditch and decide that it was dead”.

The beauty of the webzine according to Madeupname is that, using the latest computer technology, it can replicate many of the features of an old fashioned print publication. “Technology has thankfully got to the point where it can at last pointlessly replicate old fashioned things instead of looking forward,” he says. “What we’re going to offer here is things like page numbers on the bottom and, most excitingly, a graphical interface that looks like the pages of a magazine turning. It was developed by the same company that worked out how to put cassette hiss onto MP3s. We’re also very excited by a new feature that will exactly replicate the first time you open a new print magazine by allowing a big virtual pile of annoying adverts for car loans to fall out onto your desktop”.

However, new Sniff Petrol won’t be all about just inexplicably trying to make your computer look like a magazine. Madeupname promises some radical innovations too. “How many times have you been reading a magazine and thought, I’m enjoying listening to some of my own music in the background, but what I really wish is that the magazine itself would play me some repetitive tune that I don’t really like? We can provide the solution to that. And, without wishing to give too much away, I think we’ll have a pleasant surprise for anyone who’s ever thought, Damn, I wish it took longer to turn the pages of this paper magazine, and if only some of the content didn’t appear properly on the page and I had to leave the magazine for five minutes whilst it re-loaded”.

The new Sniff Petrol webzine will be completely free, until we have to start charging for something that basically no one’s going to pay for because it’s on a computer.

STOP PRESS: Sniff Petrol isn’t going to be a webzine after all. It was a bollocks idea.

Whilst Felipe Massa baffled race fans at the French Grand Prix with claims that he had injured his neck by ‘sneezing in a lift’, it now emerges that other F1 drivers may have suffered similarly rubbish and probably a bit made up accidents.

First to offer an inexplicably strange excuse for an injury, and for being rubbish, was Brit ace Jenson Button (who is still British but sadly not ace). Sources within the Button camp (where his dad parks the caravan) say that the Honda driver filed another dismal performance in France because of a hurty eye muscle caused by doing a big yawn in a fast moving taxi.

Meanwhile, paddock sources say Adrian Sutil is having an equally inadequate season because of a painful arm injury caused by doing a small vurp whilst on a bucking bronco and that Giancarlo Fisichella can attribute his unnoticeable performance this year to an injured back muscle received by pushing out a massive fart during an air display.

However, seasoned F1 pundits say that this rash of bizarre injuries is in fact nothing to the so-called ‘dark years’ of 1996 – 2006 when almost every driver in successive championships would find themselves practically deaf by the end of the season and unable to get their helmets on because the sides of their heads had become massively swollen. This was eventually traced to an instinctive desire to slam their hands over their ears every time they saw Jacques ‘Fucking’ Villeneuve so that they didn’t have to hear his sodding stupid pre-pubescent Quebecoise voice.

Och aye tha noo muthafukas! Crazy D openin’ one o’ his last cans o’ the mad taste o’ Red Bull. Kinda like drinkin’ that stuff they use to give labs rats a heart attack. Yea. So this be it brothers, Crazy D, he announce that he hangin’ up he helmet. Don’ worry ladies, I only mean ma helmet of tha safety kind. Know wha’am sayin’? Fo’ sho. So people, they be sayin’ why you quit D Man? And tha D, he take it coooool. ‘Cuz he be considerin’ his otha opportunitaaaaays, yea yea. An’ ain’t no one gonna say is just pre-mothafuckin’-emptive strike ‘cuz Marky Mark and Seb Vetay got tha Red Bull shee-it sewn up fo’ ’09. No way. However, if you would like a copy of my CV and a full list of references than please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Remember people, a shameless cash-in book is for life, not just for father’s day. That’s why the latest chunky and easy-to-read-whilst-having-a-poo publication from the bloke behind this website (and his friend Giles) is still on sale in all good bookshops. It’s called My Dad Wished He Had One Of Those and it’s a reasonably affectionate trot through some of the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Jaguars and other posh things that your old man couldn’t afford when you were growing up.

If you fancy a copy, and if the idea of doing us out of a few pence in royalties slightly arouses you, why not order it from amazon.co.uk by CLICKING THESE WORDS.

That is all.

Against the crisp sky of a ruthless July, delicate curtains of brown drape the immortal profile of Issigonis’s creation, remixed for the Playstation age. Framed by a soft green canvas of whsipering grass, it’s a scene to raise the rev limiter on anyone whose four stroke heart pumps pure gasoline through their braided veins. I could happily drink in this vignette for an easy five minutes or so, my eyes suckling on each plump curve and details so delicious you could put them in a baguette and call it a sandwich. Sadly, however, there are driving chores to be done.

In truth, today these are no chores at all for I am about to sample the new Mini, re-tooled, re-booted and re-edited for a whole new audience. This is nothing less than the Mini Clubman. Some say it’s an estate, some say it’s nothing more than a Mini hatch made more spacious to the tune of a gnat’s snatch. Me, I say it’s both. And that’s a good thing.

However, what really makes the Clubman work is the way it pedals. Slam it down a testing twist of hard baked blacktop and the Mini comes home to work. This baby is alive in your hands and you decide the song. The steering is heavy yet precise like cutting cheese with a sword, the gearchange as firm and chunky as a fridge full of Branston Pickle. But it’s the chassis that really steals the sunshine in this all-star show, keying into the road and gripping like a Velcro monkey as you guide the Clubman almost telepathically towards Wisbech.

If that sounds boring, don’t worry. This little Mini isn’t just about sheer Evo-Stik grip; it also wants to dance like one of Spearmint Rhino’s finest, and you’ve just put a 50 in her pants. Turn in hard, feel the back go light, let it come round and chose your escape route, giving Mr Apex a clip round the ear on your way through. One dab of oppo, I caught the lot and I was away.

I don’t know where it is, but I want to be part of this club, man. The Mini is a bitch, and I spanked it.

Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-at-large for DAB OF OPPO magazine