BINTULU 6

Bintulu 6 – February 19th to March 23rd 2005.

Bintulu March 6, 2005.

I ponder. Today is a race day for Formula 1 racing cars. The first leg of this year’s race season, held in Melbourne, Australia. This year sees a new team in the line up and a mix of experienced drivers with a couple of new ones including Karthikayan from India, the first F1 driver from that country. I enjoy watching the F1 race, albeit on the TV only. I have tried not to miss any of the races previously but not to the extent of forgoing other important things that I may need to do at the same time. I was in a way looking forward to this race, so also, apparently, were my two grandsons. Not that they were looking forward to it, but when the TV was on and showing the cars they were excited, “Racing car, racing car,” they said and dropped everything else, getting themselves glued to the TV. Babang chose the blue car while Dedek chose Yellow. They were noisy, noisier than the TV, especially Dedek, all excited. When the race got underway, they were even more excited, standing up and jumping up and down. “Go, go, go” said Babang with hands in a fist and waving forward. Looks professional enough as a spectator!! I could not hear Martin Brundell’s commentary for the first 10 laps at least!! By then Dedek’s attention span had waned. “No accidentttt” he said. He was beginning to race the sister’s empty pram around the hall and not concentrating on the TV anymore. After a while he was playing alone with his other toys. Not Babang though. He was full of attention right through the race. He had a lot of questions though. “Tok Bah, why is the car being pushed?” or “Tok Bah, what happened to that car?” or “Where is my blue car? What number is it?” and similar questions. When, Fisichella won, he was up jumping, “Yeh, yeh, yeh, my blue car wins”.

I ponder. During my teen-days, there used to be motor racing in my home town. Its usually a two days affair with the final races for motorcycles held in the morning of the second day and for cars in the afternoon. The races were held on normal roads which were barricaded off for the race. I used to love watching the mechanics working on the machines after the first day’s heats or trials. You can hear the clanking of spanners, the metal grinding and pumping sounds while they were at work. Everything were mostly mechanical then. Drivers, when racing, changed gears, breaked and do other things necessary to win the race manually, just like driving normal cars. Communications between drivers and the pits were through cue cards held up as he passed by. Not now. Everything is electronics or computerized. The steering wheel is not round anymore but square and imbedded with multi switches and buttons. There’s traction control, speed control, gear control and a multitude of functions all on that square wheel and buttons. Drivers communicate with their Engineers over the radio instantly. Its more intricate and the tests on drivers are heavier. The speed too is much, much higher now, three times higher than what it was when it was all manual.

I ponder and wonder. What will it be like when Babang, Dedek, Najla and Hadieya are about 30 or 40 years old. Will the speed at the races get any higher? Will there be more controls and gadgets installed in the racing cars. Will our children get the opportunity to keep abreast with the technical development in the electrical/electronics and computer scene in the race through life? The drivers of technology and modern living? If the opportunity is there, will they have the capacity to acquire the knowledge and skills? What is there to do and how to prepare them is the question that need answers now. A young mind can be groomed and moulded to make them become successful in whatever field desired.

I ponder and wonder. I ponder and wonder and hope that these young children get the right guidance from their parents, mentally and spiritually, to achieve whatever goals they set themselves to achieve. It’s a challenging world, and the challenges have to be faced head on. The tools are out there and you will have to search for it. It will not come onto your lap. If you don’t go for it you will miss out and be left behind. Wonder what to do, search and do it. Do not wonder what happened later.

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Bintulu