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Daytona, Jean Todt, Michael Schumacher, MotoGP, Motorsport, NASCAR, Tour de France
Daytona, Jean Todt, Michael Schumacher, MotoGP, Motorsport, NASCAR, Tour de France The Future
Sunday, July 4, 2010 at 01:25PM
Who can question whether motor sport will continue when you read an article from our National Public Radio, NPR, sort of BBC but more independent, about women racers in Palestine! Yes there is a Palestine Motorsport Federation. I would have expected just owning a car in Palestine would be a big ask, let alone risking it in racing! And there is a female team. Where there is a will there is a way. How can you say motor racing is going to die when you see it growing in the most unlikely places. We will always race something running on some sort of fuel.
I know NASCAR is not going to die, but it is going through some pain. The second biggest race at Daytona and the back stretch grandstand is not even open. Even the Budweiser Porch, where they took out seats, was empty, and the RV parking next to it empty as well. Now, it is still attracting probably 150,000, not too shabby, but the glory days seem to be over. I was sucked in by the promise of seeing all the green laps, presuming Coke had paid for the broadcast and there would be no ads. They manage to go 45 minutes of a soccer half without them, so why not. Wrong, while we had picture in picture, it turned out to be one long commercial, if possible more annoying than if they had ad breaks.
If you want to see a sport that draws a crowd tune in to the Tour de France. 450,000 yesterday in Rotterdam, and many, many more on the route today. The most amazing thing to me is that they stand there for hours waiting just to see them go by once for probably less than a minute. How do we explain that or learn from it for our own sports. And this is a sport that they keep saying is a bunch of druggies! I do not think the average Joe is buying that. These guys are real athletes and heroes of sport.
Jean Todt thinks we should worship Michael Schumacher like that, "He demands respect." No one demands respect, you earn it. I do not care what he won, I still do not respect him. I respect his skill, but not the man. Stirling Moss never won a World Championship, but who could have more respect?
Our Japanese stand ins at the MotoGp certainly are not winning any respect. Akiyoshi managed to beat Dovizioso, but only after Dovizioso had fallen off!
I know NASCAR is not going to die, but it is going through some pain. The second biggest race at Daytona and the back stretch grandstand is not even open. Even the Budweiser Porch, where they took out seats, was empty, and the RV parking next to it empty as well. Now, it is still attracting probably 150,000, not too shabby, but the glory days seem to be over. I was sucked in by the promise of seeing all the green laps, presuming Coke had paid for the broadcast and there would be no ads. They manage to go 45 minutes of a soccer half without them, so why not. Wrong, while we had picture in picture, it turned out to be one long commercial, if possible more annoying than if they had ad breaks.
If you want to see a sport that draws a crowd tune in to the Tour de France. 450,000 yesterday in Rotterdam, and many, many more on the route today. The most amazing thing to me is that they stand there for hours waiting just to see them go by once for probably less than a minute. How do we explain that or learn from it for our own sports. And this is a sport that they keep saying is a bunch of druggies! I do not think the average Joe is buying that. These guys are real athletes and heroes of sport.
Jean Todt thinks we should worship Michael Schumacher like that, "He demands respect." No one demands respect, you earn it. I do not care what he won, I still do not respect him. I respect his skill, but not the man. Stirling Moss never won a World Championship, but who could have more respect?
Our Japanese stand ins at the MotoGp certainly are not winning any respect. Akiyoshi managed to beat Dovizioso, but only after Dovizioso had fallen off!
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