23 August 2008 |  Qualifying  | Mosport
front man


“Tach it up, Tach It Up,
Buddy Gonna Shut You down
It happened on the strip where the road is wide
Two cool sharks standing side by side…”
--Shut Down (Beach Boys)

Car culture never had a bigger booster in the pop world than the Beach Boys. Brian Williams and his fellow Beach Boys have cranked out song after song about cars—in particular the California car culture—that are now engraved into American cultural history. The impeccable harmonies that the Beach Boys put together (you can hear a later iteration of that style in the Eagles harmonies) gave them a totally unique sound that many tried to capture but few could. Link to 1964 video >

It’s summer now—not many days left—and if you haven’t pulled out or pulled down a good round of Beach Boys music for use on the lake, at the beach, around the pool, or just hanging around the beach house, then hop to it. Everybody likes the Beach Boys and most of us like it loud. Highly Suggested: Sounds of Summer, a 31 selection CD by the ‘Boys. It’s running right now and the lyrics to “Jack It Up” provide the perfect segue to a short profile of Risi Competizione’s pole sitter at Mosport, Jaime Melo.

Melo was born in Cascavel, Brazil, on 24 April 1980. He is a factory driver for Ferrari and was one of the development drivers on the F430GT project. I believe he has more time in a 430GT than anyone else on the planet and it shows when he’s on the track. When not turning hot laps for Risi Competizione, Melo is a GT Development Driver for the Corse Clienti program at Ferrari. 

I first met Jaime Melo three years ago, at the 12 Hours of Sebring, when he was our go-to guy in the first big North American race for the new Ferrari 430GT. That was 2006. There were 26 lead changes during the 12 Hour race and Risi Competizione took a third at Sebring that year. Sebring, 2006, proved two things: Melo was very quick and the 430GT was fast out of the box. Both have lived up to that early preview of potential.

All Melo has done since then is team up with co-pilot Mika Salo to win the 12 Hours of Sebring (2007) in the closest race in history, the 24 Hours of Le Mans (2008), where the team pulled out a 7 lap lead over the second place car, delivered the 2006 and 2007 ALMS GT Championship to Risi Competizione; earned the 2006 FIA GT2 Driver’s Title, and combined with Risi Competizione teammate Mika Salo to win the 2007 ALMS Driver’s championship. Not a bad run and it’s by no means over.

Melo and Salo (Fire and Ice) split qualifying duties for the Risi Competizione’s 430GT. About 15 minutes ago, Melo blew up his previous qualifying lap record at Mosport in gaining the pole, again, at the Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport, which runs tomorrow (live coverage on Speed TV, check your local listings for time and channel). That makes three poles for Melo this year. He produced 7 poles in 2007, splitting duties in qualifying over the season with Salo.

It is well known in ALMS that if you want to put your Ferrari 430GT on the pole, give it to Jaime Melo. His record is impeccable and he has another advantage that both team owners and team engineers love: he is very easy on the machinery. No race car driver runs a season with a few of the old bump-and-grinds, but Melo is quite kind to Mr. Risi’s Ferrari, a fact that has endeared him to team management.

The combination of Jaime Melo and Mika Salo has been extraordinarily productive for Ferrari and Risi Competizione. They are so complimentary in driving styles that a setup that works for one works for the other; in short, a very perfect combination of professionalism and mutual respect. These guys can deliver the mail, as anyone who has them catch them from behind or fought them for a pole will gladly attest.

Melo is also astonishingly focused. Before he left for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Melo returned to Brazil to reflect on last year’s racing season, the start of this year’s ALMS season, and the goal that eluded him at Le Mans last year. When Jaime Melo arrived at Le Mans this past June he was “in the zone”. Relaxed, focused, and fast, he teamed with Salo and Gimmi Bruni to deliver one of the most flawless runs ever at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, bringing home the GT2 Championship for Ferrari for the first time in 20 years.

At Mosport today, if you were lucky enough to be tuned into the qualifying via SpeedTV’s online link (thank you, gentlemen and now could we make that a permanent production item…it will pay huge dividends down the line), you saw Melo (Ferrari) and Dirk Werner (Porsche) and Dominik Farnbacher (Ferrari) go at it without remorse in the tight, 20 minute qualifying session.

There were a few head games played in the pits: both Farnbacher and Melo stayed in the pits when the session started. No need to go out too soon—after all, you only need one good lap to take the pole.

When they hit the track, the battle got serious. Werner first had the pole, then Farnbacher, both running in the very low 1:17’s and small change range. And then Melo got the rhythm (he had one lap a bit out of shape, back it down a bit, reset his focus, and went back after it) and knocked down the first sub-1:17.000 lap. The next lap he did it again, posting a 1:16.863, another new qualifying lap record.

If Mika Salo is the best closer in ALMS racing—able to maintain a lead or track down a leader with lethal efficiency—then he has the perfect mate in the young, quiet, Brazilian Melo, who can open the door to the pole position better—in my opinion—than anyone else racing in GT2 at this time. This is not to diss the other drivers; as often repeated in this column, EVERBODY is good at this level and the competition in ALMS is the very best in the world in GT2 racing. It’s just a bit of an appreciation for what Melo is able to do, weekend after weekend, in good times and bad. You can read Melo’s complete bio on this side here >

Sports Illustrated ran a great profile of tennis champ Jimmy Connors once, and in the article one great line stood out: “(he) has this uncanny ability to beat you not just when you’re playing OK or good, but to beat you on the day you are playing the very best you have ever played in your life”.

Melo’s like that, but on a race track.

22 August 2008 |  Qualifying  | Mosport
don't look back

In 1967, documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker shot, edited, and released his epic, ground breaking film on Bob Dylan. Titled "Don’t Look Back", the film featured Dylan in performance at the Albert Hall, London, along with flashbacks to various other performances and scenes of the very young Bob Dylan (25 at the time) hanging out with his friends, being pushed around by the press and pushing back, singing at a rally in Greenwood, Mississippi and making music with a young and striking Joan Baez. Link to movie trailer >

In the film are Joan Baez, Donovan, Alan Price (formerly of the English group The Animals), Marianne Faithful, John Mayall (his band, the Bluesbreakers was one of the seminal bands of the early rock era), future Cream drumer Ginger Baker (easily one of the best rock drummers of all time). The business community was represented with Albert Grossman (Dylan’s manager), Bob Neuwirth (his road Manager, and Tito Burns (BeBop Dance band leader and music agent). Dylan is Dylan: puzzling, controversial, confrontational, intelligent, intense, rebellious.

Don’t Look Back was inducted to the U.S. Library of Congress as one of the seminal films in American history in 1997 and has been available as a DVD for several years, but if you want to see the film at it’s best and most complete (i.e. extra scenes!!!), get the version that was remastered in February of 2007. That’s the keeper and the one to use to turn a friend who doesn’t quite understand what all the fuss about Bob Dylan was about to the right side of the force.

The title, Don’t Look Back, pretty much sums up this season for Risi Competizione. We’ve had our highs (winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans—it doesn’t get much higher than that in sports car racing) and our not-so-highs (ALMS 2008 Season). But the motto now in our pits is “Don’t Look Back”. The future—as some famous politician once said—is in front of us so just let it (the past) be.

Trying to set the stage for this weekend’s race at Mosport, I pulled up the stats for the entire ALMS season to date. Risi Competizione’s No. 62 car ,driven by Mika Salo and Jaime Melo (with “Gimmi Bruni” in for Sebring and Le Mans) has qualified 1st twice in the ALMS race season to date (not counting today’s qualifying at Mosport), 2nd four times, and 3rd once. All very respectable. Melo has posted the fastest lap twice.T he highest finish to date (Excluding Le Mans) for the No. 62 car has been a third.

This is all very respectable stuff, except for the finishing spots, which are definitely not consistent with Risi Competizione’s finishing positions in years previous. The last three races (Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, and Road America) were just massively disappointing-especially Road America, where the car was in front for three out of four hours.

But it’s off the table now—the past—and we’re done with analyzing it, thinking about it, and philosophizing about it. Don’t look back.

Racing is about going quickly into the future and taking with you only what you learned that deserves to make the trip—setups, tire combinations, damper rates, strategies, tweaks.

If we have a true Risi Competizione weekend at Mosport, if we run the kind of race in two hours and 45 minutes that we proved at Le Mans we were capable of running for 24 straight hours (in all kinds of weather conditions) then we will post a good result, maybe even a very good result.

The past is not prologue. Don’t look back.

Look up, and look out.

After all, we’ve won the last two races at Mosport and the boys seem to like the track.