Competitive motoring

Once in a while it becomes total pleasure to be positive when talking about transport. Five young men organised into a serious motoring group by the indefectible Joe 'John Bull' Anastasi and whipped over to the first Cesaro motor hill climb in Sicily to do battle with the established Italian racing fraternity.

Zach Zammit, 20, son of well-known local competitor Joseph Zammit, driving a Ralt Honda 2000 came first. Cousin, and current leader of our national hill climb and sprint championship Josh Anastasi, John Bull's son, driving a John Bull special JBR-3, powered by a Kawasaki ZZR14 came second, to the total frustration, and I'm told, annoyance, of the Italian champion who managed nothing higher than third and shoved off before the presentation.

Matthew Zammit, yet another cousin and son of well-known driver Alex, came fourth in his Van Diemen Suzukii GSXR 1200.

Steve Zammit Cutajar, whose dad also competed in days of yore, drove his immaculate Tatuus Hyabusa 1300 into sixth place, and further Anastasi family member David, of a somewhat older generation as he performs at the comfortable age of 58, brought his very special, old-fashioned looking Mini Silhouette, powered by a Honda Blackbird 1200 engine into 16th place in the Supersalite class.

The entries ran into the hundreds, so we think our team were pretty darn good. They're strongest 'plus' was, of course, the fact that to compete at all at present in Malta and Gozo hills like the very slippery Miżieb are very much taken as the norm. In other words, we have to compete under conditions that continental Europe and the UK haven't experienced since the early 1950s. This has proven to be a remarkably sound and fertile battleground (read training ground) for any serious local drivers.

About 14 months ago, I was in serious discussion with a senior staffer from the Office of the Prime Minister about the Valletta Grand Prix, and the need to resurface Mtaħleb hill so that it would once more be the nation's genuine hill climb course came into the conversation. I was assured that it was in hand.

Which hand? The same assurances are once more circulating. However, this island is blessed with a fantastically large and expensive civil service, with a serious minority of servants who seem to think it right and proper to do as little as possible for as long as possible in order that they may retain their jobs for life. This ensures the continuing existence of our own brand of manyana (tomorrow) which makes the Spanish race seem a hurtling band of dervishes, bent on completing things within a mere span of years rather than decades.

Seriously chaps: there is, to the best of my knowledge, one foreign consultant within what used to be called the Roads Directorate, who understands competitive motoring and the important role that it has in society. There is one experienced driving examiner who regularly races a motorcycle on the Ħal Far quarter mile strip. Other than that, no one in authority appears to take any interest at all in promoting competitive motoring, even if it can be used as a means to making more poorly motivated drivers, safer drivers. The Malta Transport Authority (ADT), composed of a body of well-paid employees, could do so much to seriously promote, not only the national hill climb course, but the Valletta Grand Prix too if they were not so totally dysfunctional as a cohesive working body.

It has been decreed by a most senior fellow in the ADT that 'speed kills', and conveniently lesser staff will see no further than that erroneous half-truth. Of course speed kills, but it is the inappropriate use of speed, which could, as easily be 20 or 30 or 50km/h as 200km/h that kills, and not 'speed' in itself that is the silent killer.