primotipo…

Seasonal salutations to you all, I know we don’t all celebrate Christmas, but even for those of us who are not religious its a good time to pause, reflect and be thankful for what we have.

In this case to thankyou all for your ongoing support of this magazine.

In this nutty world ruled by Froot-Loops like Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un we need to just pursue our lives and passions in the knowledge that the ‘ruling class’ to a large extent, fortunately, have limited control over what goes on.

Modern ‘narrow-casting’ and the ability to selectively consume the media you want effectively allows one to filter out the fuckwits. They are there, ever present, but one can largely ignore them.

primotipo is an example of a niche site of the type I refer to, somewhere to lose yourself for a while away from the madness. There you go, a motorsport site with medicinal qualities- and free! How good is that?

I started it whilst working in Adelaide with plenty of time on my hands, on 15 May 2014, have a giggle at my first effort!

https://primotipo.com/2014/05/15/when-im-in-a-car-i/

Several years later there are now over 600 articles, long and short. Some I have enjoyed re-reading, others make me cringe.

I know its getting cold in the Northern Hemisphere just looking at my site stats- when you guys go inside out of the winter chill it makes a difference of anywhere up to 10,000 additional hits a month. Its nice to think I am giving some of you something to do!

Our little community is the same in terms of  the structure of readership as last year.

The ‘Top Ten’ countries are the same as in 2016; Australia, France, United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Holland, Brazil and Spain. 35% of the articles are Australian but only 22% of the readership are ‘Aussies- 78% of you are from other countries. Which is so wonderful! I never figured I would have global readership.

51% of you are from countries where English is not the native tongue either- that amazes me. Other than our large migrant population the average Aussie isn’t bilingual, we all struggle with the Queens English if truth be known- but look at you lot, clever sods that you are!

I don’t think I have had a guest writer this calendar year, which is a pain as i’ve done it all. Freelance contributions on just about any topic are welcome- mind you I owe a few of you big-time to pop up manuscripts you have generously provided.

I continue to get great support from Australian photographers in particular, these blokes are gold- Dick Simpson, John Ellacott, Lynton Hemer, Kevin Drage, Lindsay Ross, Rod MacKenzie, David Blanch, Dale Harvey and Terry Marshall ‘over the ditch’ in New Zealand. Similarly Steve Holmes of ‘The Roaring Season’ tolerates me raiding his wonderful sites photographic archives from time to time.

‘The Nostalgia Forum’ is content rich with a whole swag of Australian enthusiasts adding vast depth to all sorts of arcane topics which has added bigtime to the depth of articles beyond that possible from my own library or experience. There are lots of them but those fellas off the top of my head include John Medley, Ray Bell, Stephen Dalton, Lynton Hemer, Terry Sullivan, David Seldon, Ken Devine (who I met in Perth a month ago- expect some great West Australian content next year folks) Lee Nicholle, Greg Mackie, Bruce Moxon, Spencer Lambert, Wirra and others- apologies to those I forgot.

What can you expect next year? More of the same I think- still pretty random, discovery of a photo inspires the articles- I don’t have a list of topics as such. In recent times various of the State Library Archive’s in Australia have yielded some gold, some of these articles, features, are in the ‘back end’ of the site awaiting up-loading. The Getty Images, staggering global archive is often a source of inspiration too.

My (real) job workload has increased quite a lot this year with regular travel from home in Melbourne to Sydney and Perth so the regime has been three posts a week- a Thursday or Friday feature (anything over 1500 words) an odd or amusing snippet on a Sunday or Monday and another shorter article mid-week is the loose regime I work to.

My favourite articles this year are all about relative obscurities- the ATS 100 GP car, Aussie single-seater ace Bill Patterson, Derek Jolly and his sportscars and the ‘Penrith World Championship’. It is nice to do stuff not every other Tom, Dick, ‘n Harry has written- the hard part is coming up with them and the necessary research material.

Speaking of which- thanks to Martin Stubbs, Stephen Dalton, Rob Bartholomaeus, Patrick Ryan, Nigel Tait, Michael Gasking and Rod Wolfe for ongoing access to their archive or other information and corrections provided. I have no sub-editor so occasionally boo-boos are made- usually when I rely on memory which is dangerous given that particular resource is ageing rapidly.

Thinking of Rodway Wolfe reminds me I have been light on in terms of our Repco articles this year- I’ve done a few but only one of substance. I need to re-focus on that aim of documenting, as best we can, the insiders view of the Repco Sixties Glory Years.

Enough. Thanks for being there, it remains fun- I get a lot of satisfaction knowing I have regular readers in places such as Namibia, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Albania and Greenland- not exactly global centres of motor racing!

Finally, out of interest, the three most consistently popular articles are all ‘oldies’ on mainstream global topics- ‘Porsche 917: 1969 The First Season’, ‘RB620’ V8: Building the 1966 World Champion Engine’ (written with Rod Wolfe) and the piece about the Works/Chris Amon/Scuderia Veloce ‘Ferrari P4/Can Am 350 ‘0858’.

There is a lesson there of course, if you want the numbers write on mainstream topics.

For those that have one, enjoy the break!