Brendan Lines May the 4th be with you, 2020

The world’s of Star Wars and motorsport would not generally parallel each other, but anything is possible in Hollywood and on the day when we are all entertaining our inner Star Wars geek, the link between force power and horsepower might be stronger than we think.

Star Wars creator George Lucas with (from Left) Red Bull’s Christian Klien, Christian Horner, Ian ‘The Emperor’ McDiarmid, Vitantonio Liuzzi and David Coulthard surrounded by Stormtroopers, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Vader, Monaco GP 2005 – Image Red Bull.

Star Wars creator George Lucas recounts in his biography George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones, Lucas had aspirations to be a racing driver. Fuelled by his love for racing and his first car, Lucas ‘hotted up’ a two-cylinder Autobianchi Bianchina.

A close brush with death in a car accident, changed Lucas’ focus to filmmaking (and we’re glad he did), it might just be a case of art imitating life in Lucas’ 1973 coming of age hit American Graffiti, which depicts 1950s hot rod street-racing, akin to the racing Lucas says happened around his US hometown of Modesto, California.

Which does suggest some of the Star Wars/motorsport cross-overs that have happened since might be more than a happy coincidence.

The most well-known Star Wars/motorsport cross-over was in 2005 when Red Bull’s Formula 1 team ran a special Star Wars inspired livery, marking the release of the prequel trilogy’s concluding chapter “Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.”

David Coulthard in the Star Wars liveried RB1 at Monaco 2005 – Image: Red Bull

Red Bull Team principal Christian Horner agreed with creator George Lucas’ Lucasfilm to incorporate the Star Wars theme into the RB1 livery for the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix.

But it would not be in the ‘glitz and glam’ spirit of Monaco if the cross-over stopped there.

Over the Grand Prix weekend much loved characters Chewbacca, Stormtroopers and even the Sith Lord himself Darth Vader could be seen around the pit paddock.

In true imperial style Darth Vader and his Stormtrooper henchmen took over the Red Bull garage and pit crew, even running the RB1 on the power of the dark side.

Stormtroopers take over running Red Bull’s pitstop in Monaco – Image: Red Bull

2005 was Red Bull’s first year in Formula 1 and perhaps a touch of the Force helped the team on its way to taking consecutive Driver and Constructor World Championships in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Strangely enough, we suspect perhaps the McLaren garage was under the influence of the Dark Lord during its Mercedes powered days back in 2004.

Darth Vader and McLaren team members from 2004 – Images: Starwars.com & F1.com

In 2015, the Holden Racing Team (HRT) marked the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, producing two liveries inspired by both the light and dark sides of the force respectively for its Bathurst 1000 challengers.

Perhaps it was just the ‘will of the force’ that HRT driver Garth Tander and his co-driver Warren Luff placed their First Order inspired Commodore in third for The Great Race, earning Tander the nickname ‘Darth’ Tander.

HRT’S Light side and Dark side liveries – Image: Supercars & Starwars.com

The synergy between motorsport and Star Wars does reciprocate to the ‘big screen’ as seen, or heard in 1999’s Episode I: The Phantom Menace. A key sequence in the film is a young Anakin Skywalker channeling his burgeoning force powers in Podracing.

It makes perfect sense that Star Wars sound-designer Ben Burtt sampled real world engine sounds for the Podracers.

J.W Rinzler’s 2010 book ‘The Sounds Of Star Wars documents Burtt’s team creating individual tailored sounds for each Podracer to make them stand out. Sounds from Porches and Mustangs were sampled and manipulated with various pitch-shifting and doppler effect added.

Anakin Skywalker’s Podracer takes on rival Sebulba in ‘Episode I: The Phantom Menace’ – Image Starwars.com

Watching Anakin’s Podracer whizz across the desert through Beggars Canyon to win the Boonta Eve Classic, is very reminiscent of races on Earth like the Dakar Rally or The Fink Desert Race — and is that a Formula 1 car we can hear?

The parallels between motorsport and a galaxy ‘far far away’ might be closer than we think, between technology, racing and the power to sell merchandise.

It may just be a while until we see a hyper-drive powered F1 car blasting into lightspeed, so for now the Millennium Falcon will remain the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.