User talk:GTHO

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Welcome!

Hello, GTHO, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! 

(Standard welcome above, personal below)

Hi GTHO. Thanks for filling in some of the vagueness in Australian Touring Car Championship. Is it possible there is info missing from List of Australian Touring Car and V8 Supercar Champions for the non-V8 winners between 1993 and 1998? You might be interested in WikiProject Australian motorsport, the Australian Wikipedians noticeboard and the Australian collaboration of the fortnight, too. Welcome. --Scott Davis Talk 12:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't be too scared of the rules. Most of it boils down to be polite, and remember we're writing an encyclopaedia, not building a soapbox. One "rule" is Be Bold. The trick is to guess what is likely to be contentious, and ask first, or if you guess wrong, be gracious when it's pointed out - we all stuff up sometimes.
The winners listed for 1993 to 1998 appear to be all V8 Supercars/ Shell Series. Was there a separate "Australian Touring Car Championship" awarded in that period for some other class? --Scott Davis Talk 11:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Excel files

In answer to user talk:ScottDavis#Excel Files & Wikipedia, see de:Wikipedia:Helferlein/VBA-Macro for EXCEL tableconversion. --Scott Davis Talk 06:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] renaming a page

See Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page in the tutorial. --Scott Davis Talk 13:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statesmans and Caprices

I believe that there is a strong case for the removal of HQ to WB Statemans and HJ to WB Caprices from the “List of Holden Vehicles” as these models were Statesmans, not Holdens. I offer the following in support:

  • The July 1971 brochure for the HQ Statesman Custom & Statesman de Ville does not use the terms Holden or Holden Statesman at all. In fact it even refers to General Motors rather than General Motors Holden’s.
  • The article on Page 62 of the September 1971 issue of Modern Motor magazine begins with the words, “The first thing to get straight about the new Statesman is that it is not a Holden”
  • The article on Page 44 of the October 1971 issue of Modern Motor includes the following:
Road Test Data – Specifications
Manufacturer ... General Motors-Holden’s Pty Ltd
Make/Model ..... Statesman Custom
  • The July 1971 SA car registrations table on Page 30 of the November 1971 issue of South Australian Motor magazine, shows the following: .......

…..Chevrolet - 1, ......Holden - 1327, ......Statesman - 25….. No separate figures are given for Torana, Kingswood, Monaro etc

  • The November 1974 brochure for the HJ Statesman de Ville & Statesman Caprice does not use the terms Holden or Holden Statesman at all.
  • The October 1977 brochure for the HX Statesman de Ville & Statesman Caprice does not use the terms Holden or Holden Statesman at all.
  • The same brochure refers to “500 GMH dealers throughout the country” whereas the HX Kingswood brochure refers to “500 Holden dealers.....”
  • The August 1980 brochure for the WB Statesman de Ville & Statesman Caprice does not use the terms Holden or Holden Statesman at all.
  • The Green Book Price Guide for Sep-Oct 1984 lists Torana, Kingswood, Monaro etc under HOLDEN but lists Custom, de Ville, Caprice and SL/E under STATESMAN.
  • No “Holden” nameplates or badges are apparent on any of the vehicles shown in any of the above-mentioned Statesman sales brochures.

If "General Motors" didn’t promote these Statesmans as Holdens and they didn’t badge them as Holdens and they were not registered as Holdens, what makes them Holdens?

Cheers, GTHO 11:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it, and you've definitely proved your point. I have since reverted my edits, and will merge the purged contents to List of Holden Statesman/Caprice vehicles. However, before I do so, I feel that the title of the list is inaccurate. Would List of Statesman vehicles be more appropriate, since the Statesman was marketed as the Statesman de Ville, and the Caprice as the Statesman Caprice? OSX (talk • contributions) 06:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think the purged info should be reconstructed under a List of Statesman vehicles title. To be consistent with the List of Holden Vehicles I think it's format should be
  • Statesman Caprice (HJ,HX,HZ,WB)
  • Statesman Custom (HQ)
  • Statesman de Ville (HQ,HJ,HX,HZ,WB)
  • Statesman SL/E (HZ,WB)
I think it will need to include a cross reference to the Holden Statesman and Holden Caprice entries in the List of Holden Vehicles article and that those entries will need to be cross referenced back to the new List of Statesman vehicles, otherwise I'm sure both lists will grow to include everything Statesman and everything Holden Statesman.
If I can help out at all with any of this please let me know.
Cheers
GTHO 23:38, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
The changes have now been implemented, but I am not quite sure about the production years of these models. I have instead left the years as question marks, so if you could fill in what you know that would be great. Also, if I have made any mistakes in the opening prose, feel free to fix those up too. OSX (talk • contributions) 07:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chart styles

I've noticed your recent edit of 1999 FIA GT Championship season, as well as previous edits to 1979 World Sportscar Championship season and various other Australian and Formula series results/seasons. It's greatly appreciated that you're taking the time to add the points results tables for a lot of these things, but unfortunately there is a slight problem. There is an established method to pretty much every sports car article on Wikipedia, in that the style of various things has already been pre-determined and that rule followed throughout Wikipedia. This style is similar to the ones used in the Formula series as well. Really, your charts don't mesh with this style.

If you could, it'd be great if you could adapt to using the style of chart used elsewhere to not only make them easier to understand, but also easier to link and not as glaring on a page when there are other styles of charts immediately above or below. For some help, there are two example pages on the WikiProject that help show the style used: Example Race and Example Season.

This isn't a major thing, and again I'd like to say that adding anything, even if the charts aren't great, is worthwhile. Thanks. The359 07:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. Now I have a problem. My results files, which number in the hundreds, have been built up over many years and are all in Excel spreadsheet format. I had previously been made aware of the Excel / Wiki macro (EXCEL-VBA-Macro format_as_wikitable) so I have been using this to load my results.
I assume from your comments that I will now have to retype everything into these pre-ordained templates before loading, rather than using the Excel / Wiki macro to load them. This seems to me to be very labor intensive and quite frankly does not encourage me to share my data with the rest of the world.
Or is there a secret to converting Excel data into your templates which would avoid all this rework?
Cheers, GTHO 03:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
All the charts that fit the style used in most every other form of Motorsport on Wikipedia are, as far as I know, not able to be converted from Excel. They must be typed from hand. However, if it counts for everything, every sportscar Season and individual Results Page that I've written has had its charts written out, by hand, by me. It is labor intensive but they create a much easier to understand and read chart. The359 01:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World Championship for Makes

You brought this up on WP:SCR a while back, and I've finally been able to come across information that clearly presents the situation in 1976 and 1977. I've divided the pages up into 1976 World Sportscar Championship season and 1976 World Championship for Makes season. The same for 1977 as well. Each now has their own respective schedules as well as the constructors championship standings.

I realize that the name of the championship was mostly World Championship for Makes for that period, even before and after the split, but I plan to alter the page titles and intros later.

Just wanted to let you know that these have been split as you pointed out, and you could look over whether or not they are correct as they should be. The359 01:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

You have certainly gone a long way towards sorting this out. Excellent. But I still feel uncomfortable with statements like "The 1976 World Championship for Makes season was part of the 24th FIA World Sportscar Championship" The FIA ran three "racing" world championships in 1976, the World Championship for Drivers, The World Championship for Makes and the World Championship for Sports Cars and I can't see why we would want to call one championship part of any other championship. They were three separate championships. Re this being the "24th FIA World Sportscar Championship" it's probably worth noting that the last time the FIA had used the term "Championnat du monde de sport" (World Champioinship for Sports Cars) was in 1961. Reference "The Automobile Year Book of Sports Car Racing" (1982) Cheers, GTHO 10:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
The naming is simply to imply that it is a continuation of the general "World Sportscar Championship", as it is most commonly known. As I said, the naming of each article and the text in it should change once I complete each season. The359 08:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "inactive" project

I see you've been busy on Aus motorsport articles. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian motorsport has been marked inactive (see discussion at User talk:Kariteh#Inactive definition). You're welcome to "reactivate" it if you like. --Scott Davis Talk 15:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilink

I have begun to notice in your edits that you seem to simply add plain text. Due to the obscure nature of some of your articles, you need to add wikilinks to other relevent articles on Wikipedia. For instance, if Holden is mentioned in something you add, please make it Holden by using the brackets [[ ]]. This helps readers and editors alike. The359 09:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Category "Motorsport in Australia"

OK. I won't remove the category from any more articles for now. Perhaps you'd care to contribute to the the discussion at WP:Australian motorsport. DH85868993 11:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, you do appreciate that I have been moving the articles from Category:Motorsport in Australia into subcategories of that category. This is how all the other "Motorsport in <country>" categories work - see Category:Motorsport in the United States for example. DH85868993 11:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
No problem. I see your point about having all the articles in one category, but eventually the category would just become unmanageable. Regards. DH85868993 11:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brabham BT19 at Surfers

That surprises me! Looking at Brabham's latest autobiography he says (p.202) "Three days later I was on an airliner to Australia, to race my BT19-Repco at the new Surfer's Paradise circuit near Brisbane. We had merely fitted a fresh engine in the car and faced Jackie Stewart in David McKay's 2½-litre Brabham-Climax. I started the preliminary 10-lap race from pole position, led into the second lap—and my engine's distributor drive broke. That was disappointing, but I went down to Melbourne to see Repco, and spent a couple of days with them." Reading that again, it does not contradict your version.

The results at www.oldracingcars.com show a DNS for the preliminary event, which I think must be wrong. The CAMS Gold Star site shows Brabham as DNS for the 50-lap main event, which fits with his having competed in the preliminary, but retired. I took all of the above to mean that he entered for both the preliminary and the main, started the preliminary, retired with engine failure and consequently DNS'd for the main.

Your edit suggests that, from the actual race report you have, Brabham was only entered for the preliminary and never intended to race in the main event. That seems unusual. Why go all the way to Australia for a 10-lap race? Should we perhaps be showing two results: Ret for the preliminary and DNS for the main event, perhaps with a footnote to explain? I look forward to discussing this - it's tricky to get any good info on it! Cheers. 4u1e 10:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the key to all this is in the size of the engine in Jack’s car . The Courier Mail says it was a 3 Litre, which makes sense given that the car was an F1. The main event at Surfers on 14/8/66 was the Surfers Paradise Trophy, Round 2 of the Australian Drivers’ Championship (for the CAMS Gold Star). That would mean that the main race was for “Australian National Formula” cars, which could be no larger than 2.5 Litres. Whilst it’s easy to see the Surfers organizers making the 10 lapper a Formula Libre event to accommodate Jack’s 3.0 Litre Repco, I don’t think CAMS would have taken too kindly to the championship event being opened up to engines over 2.5 Litres. Jack’s car simply would not have been eligible for the Surfers Paradise Trophy race.
Why would he come to Oz just for a ten lapper? I don’t really know, but you can bet that Repco, as an Australian automotive parts supplier, would have been very keen for some local promotion on the back of the recent international successes of “Our Jack” and his Aussie Repco engine.
Regarding which races he was entered in, the following quote from the Courier Mail of 13/8/1966 is pertinent. “Racing will start at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow with Brabham’s 10 lapper against the local racing cars and Stewart at 12.45 p.m.” No mention of his participation in the main event. Racing Car News, September 1966 had this to say in its meeting report. “Jack Brabham flew out to Australia for a ten lapper.” Again no mention of his participation in the main event. The grid listing for the Surfers Paradise Trophy in the same magazine does not show Brabham at all. If he was expected to start in that event I would certainly expect him to be shown with a “DNS” next to his name.
Strange as it may seem, the Surfers Paradise Trophy would appear to have no relevance to the race history of the BT19. Cheers GTHO 07:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, interesting. I had assumed the car was fitted with the 2.5 litre version of the engine for that event, a trivial change which had been made for the two Tasman rounds earlier that year. The 2.5 litre unit was the one that Repco were trying to sell commercially (as an alternative to their refettled Climax FPFs). It was to promote the smaller engine that Jack entered the Tasman series, so its use at Surfer's would perhaps have made more sense for Repco in terms of publicity - and would have enabled Brabham to enter the main event as well.
However, regardless of how much sense it would have made, it's what they actually did that matters! As your source is clear that they used the 3 litre engine, then I think your reasoning must be correct. Could I suggest that you contact Allen Brown at www.oldracingcars.com and Dan Shaw at CAMS Gold Star, who I guess would be interested in clearing up this point as well. Both sites would appear to have the wrong results at present.
One more question: Was it normal for the Aussie national championship rounds to have a preliminary race at that time?
Thanks for your explanations! Cheers. 4u1e 13:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it was quite common back in the 50s and 60s for the Gold Star cars to appear in a short preliminary race at some stage prior to the actual championship event. I have sent emails as suggested. Regards, GTHO 07:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] racetime.com.au

FYI: Racetime Computing is essentially defunct as a motor racing website. --Falcadore 07:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Holden Statesman, Statesman WB "Series I" versus "Series II"

Could you please have a look at this: [1]. Thanks OSX (talk • contributions) 04:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

My worst nightmare!! Please see my comments on your talk page. Cheers GTHO 10:19, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aussie Cars

Hi, could you do me a favour? I noticed that you cited the book Aussie Cars for some information regarding the Holden Brougham in the Holden article, but you didn't note down the page number. If you could provide me this number that would be great (see revision: [2]). Also in future when you cite books, or any other publication can you provide a page number(s) as it makes it a lot easer to insert accurate references when this information is given. Cheers OSX (talk • contributions) 09:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The Brougham reference was on Page 102. Regards, GTHO (talk) 09:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks OSX (talk • contributions) 21:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ford Meteor

I see you have a history of working on the article Ford Meteor. I am looking at it from the project Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles where it is one of the longest {{unreferenced}} tagged articles that does not meet at least the barest minimum of verifiability. It has been tagged and completely without references since June 2006. It would be extremely helpful if you had some references you could add to the article to help support its verifiability and notability. Thanks for any help you can give. Jeepday (talk) 14:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think my only edits on the Ford Meteor article related to moving the Canadian “Meteor” information off onto the separate Meteor (car) page. If you are after Australian references on the Ford Meteor I suggest that you have a look at

Redbook

and

[Unique Cars and Parts]


Cheers, GTHO (talk) 11:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Holden FAC

HI, GTHO, you may or may not be already aware that I have nominated the Holden article for featured article status. If you don't not mind, would you be able to give a review (oppose or support) here? OSX (talk • contributions) 09:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Will do. GTHO (talk) 02:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I have done my best to respond to your issues on the FAC, however, I cannot justify including information on every single model. As I've said on the FAC, does the VX Commodore's new taillight lenses and revised headlight design really warrant a mention? The answer is simply no. The history really acts as a summary of the Holden brand as a whole. If someone wanted to read in more detail about the Commodore's evolution, they would go to the Holden Commodore article. In all other areas I think I've fulfilled your requirements, so if you could strike out your comments and support, that would be appreciated. OSX (talk • contributions) 00:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
OSX, Done. Cheers, GTHO (talk) 01:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I really appreciate your extensive review. I have now added a mention of the FC model into the 1950s section. OSX (talk • contributions) 05:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

(indent reset) Just one more thing. I've used page 62 of the September 1971 edition of Modern Motor magazine to reference the fact that Statesmans were not marketed as "Holdens". I got this from the list of sources you provided me back June 2007. However, if you could provide me with the article's title, the author of the article and the publisher of Modern Motor magazine at the time, that would be appreciated. OSX (talk • contributions) 05:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The article was “Bold New Breed” and the author was Rob Luck. I don’t have the origin magazine myself but the February 1974 edition of Modern Motor claims that it was “Published by Modern Magazines (Holdings) Limited”. Well done re the Holden FAC. GTHO (talk) 05:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citing books

I've noticed the style you've used to cite your books on several pages, and I figure it'd help to point you toward the Template:Cite book. This can help you better reference your books to match Wikipedia's style, as well as include all information necessary, such as author, publisher, dates, and so on.

Just a useful tip. The359 (talk) 23:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Phillip Island 500 references

Hi GHTO. I recently moved the references at the bottom of the Phillip Island article to a Further Reading section and added a couple of in-line citations for one of the facts in the article. You reverted that change. Instead of changing it back I thought I'd explain the reasons for my original change.

I changed the heading that the list of books was under because they are not correctly referenced. See How to Cite Sources in Wikipedia:Citing sources. Your comment was "see General Sources" which says that sources can be general or in-line. Clearly you've gone for general. However, if you also see Provide Full Citations and Provide Page Numbers from the same article you'll see that the references aren't complete.

When I edited the article to add some in-line citations and added a {{reflist}} in with the existing references I found that the formatting of the two different reference types was very different. I decided to separate them because it looked untidy and because the books weren't proper references anyway. If you have a look at Standard Appendices and Descriptions in Wikipedia:Layout you'll see that the References section is for listing "books, articles, web pages, et cetera that you used in constructing the article and have referenced (cited) in the article." The Further Reading section is for "resources on the topic that are not specifically cited in the article."

I don't really mind what heading is above the book list. It probably doesn't matter that much but in reverting the change you also removed a pair of valid references from the article. I'll add them back in and leave it all under the references heading. Maybe you could update the book references so they're more complete? --Fruv (talk) 23:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] re: Changing image name

Hey there!

Regarding your question over at Helpdesk, most images can't just be moved. Unlike with articles, only the original uploader or a sysop can change an image title. What you can do however is reupload the image under a the new title, and then tag the old image with {{isd|Full name of image excluding the "Image:" prefix}} (a sysop should come along and delete it fairly quickly). You'll need to change the image link on the article manually however. Mister Senseless™ (Speak - Contributions) 18:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of Audi 5+5

A tag has been placed on Audi 5+5 requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Audi 5+5

Hi, just noticed your additions regarding the Audi 5+5, and specifcally that you list it against the Audi 80 B2. However, upon checking your online reference, it clearly shows that the 5+5 is actually a renamed Audi 100 - which is a very different car. Can you provide further references to clarify, and correct your edits. Thanks -- Teutonic_Tamer (talk to Teutonic_Tamer) 13:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Will do. GTHO (talk) 12:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
If you drill down to the Vehicle Specifications for one of the 5+5 models listed in redbook.com (eg to [3]) you will see that it shows the LxWxH as 4380x1680x1370mm. The German publication Auto Katalog 1980, pages 196-197, shows the 80 as being 4383x1682x1365 and the 100 as 4587x1768x1390. Motor Manual, February 1982, page 54 gives the following slant on the issue: "Easily mistaken for its big brother Audi 100, the 5+5 is in fact almost 300mm shorter overall, with 142mm less wheelbase." I have no doubt that the 5+5 was an 80 but will keep looking for a better online reference. GTHO (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)