Rush

Yesterday  I saw Rush, the movie by Ron Howard with Daniel Brühl and Chris Hermsworth that depicts the rivalry between Nikki Laura and James Hunt in the 1970’s Formula 1. I like that movie, and it shows as it was the third time I watched it, pure entertainment.

However, only yesterday I found a scene in Rush that got me thinking, when Lauda/Brühl joins the BRM team and works overnight with the mechanics to fine-tune the car and make it 2 secs faster. It all seemed so easy to be true, some welding and some skills were enough to make a Formula 1 car leap to the front of the grid. Fiction and drama apart, that’s no longer the case with the circus, you have tight regulations, materials are super-expensive, an average team employs hundreds of people and the handicap of aerodynamics even with all the low entry barriers CFD brings makes it almost impossible to a group of semi-pros to join the business not to mention to fight for a decent result. The 70’s seemed like THE good time to try these things in the F1, risk was huge but so was the glory compared to what it took money-wise.

This reminded me of another movie I like a lot too: Wind, the story of the defeat and come-back of the USA sailing team in the America’s Cup. Same story here, after screwing it and losing miserably, Matthew Modine is able to put together a winning team with some money and the help of his girlfriend and a crazy aeronautics engineer, and just with average tools that include sewing machines, welding gear (A-Team we love you) and a swimming pool for tests they eventually came up with a 12m yacht that beats each and every other contender, recovering the trophy from the Aussies.

Two movies about having fun and tech-sport describing a time where it seemed much easier to accomplish things and make a difference only with your skills and your genius.

We tend to think about those moments, those opportunities, always as a thing of the past, as if there is no way of being there at the right time. But what if the same thing that happened in F1 in the 70s and Yachting in the 80s is happening to construction in the 10s? What if now, and who knows for how long, a group of enthusiasts, with some building, computation and soft skills are able to change the way we build, helping turn this industry into a professional, highly technical field?

I feel exactly like this at Modelical, like we could take on any problem and maybe fix it, maybe help improving the solutions, make things go two seconds faster.