FRYING IN CIRCLES

Germany, the country that brought you Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen etc, has launched a new era in motor sport - the 200 jet-horsepower racing wok.

In this case, it's actually two woks welded together, fitted with two 100 hp turbines.

The Germans are daft enough to race them, but it took a Japanese motor company, Nissan, to build the prototypes, in an attempt to woo young German consumers and make them believe a Micra is more fun than a Porsche.

And the wok racers, being German, have to take themselves a teensy weensy bit too seriously. So instead of just accepting it's another silly sport like dwarf-throwing or wife-carrying in Finland, they have to proclaim it's a "satire" on Formula One racing.

If their definition of satire is that you attach a jet engine to your arse and scoot around a track on a frying pan, then I'm right with them.

The guy who got the sport/satire going is a German talk show host called Stefan Raab. He also wrote and performed the official German entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000 with a nonsense song called 'Wadde Hadde Dudde Da' so he can't be all bad.

A six-day wok racing championship will be held in Dortmund, Germany, at the end of October.