Arrivin’ in style

11 November 2009 - 10:00

Video: arrivin’ in style

We've never really paid much attention to how pace cars turn up at race tracks. We always assumed they just, sort of, drove there.

But at last weekend's NASCAR race at the Texas Motor Speedway (somewhere in the US, so we're told), the Chevrolet Camaro SS pace car demonstrated that there's only one way to arrive at a race in style.

In a Chinook helicopter.

As a salute to US military veterans, the monster double-rotor chopper touched down by the side of track before releasing the Chevy from its belly in a sort of, er, glorious metallic birthing act.

The Camaro was driven by NASA astronaut Doug Hurley, who is not only a US Marine Corps colonel, but also holds a Texas Motor Speedway season ticket and piloted the shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station in July. We think Doug Hurley might be coolest man in the world.

Anyhow, this got us thinking: surely F1 must respond in suit? We want the Merc SL63 (or whatever car it'll be next year) to arrive at the first race in Bahrain next year... carried by a pack of mechanical winged monkeys. We shall settle for nothing less.