Bob Barnard Track Engineering

The Statesman, the Austin daily paper, revealed Thursday that the COTA has applied for more assistance from the Texas slush fund for events. The State paid out $29.3 m for the F1 race it is disclosed, and now they are asking for another $5 m to cover costs associated with the MotoGP, V8Supercars, ALMS and WEC races scheduled for 2013. I always wondered how these events were going to help COTA pay for building the facility as it costs money to bring them, just like F1, but on a lesser scale. And the audience is even less certain, not many Mexicans racing in these classes, and not many Americans either. There are two other MotoGP races in the US next year, so apart from novelty value why would you go to COTA. The MotoGP group inspected the track a week or so ago and expressed their doubts about it for motorcycles. If you look at most MotoGP tracks these days they feature long sweeping corners, not the stop-start type currently fashionable in F1. I can see that Texas will end up footing the bill for this facility in much the same fashion as Nurburgring is being bailed out.

While still in Texas and talking of sport, let me digress and express my disgust at seeing the Dallas Cowboys Center, Josh Brent, on the field with the team during yesterday's match after killing his buddy and fellow Cowboy Jerry Brown while driving drunk at 2:30 am the day before a game! Number one why is he bailed? Would most of us get this treatment. Then why is the team "supporting" him? Being out drunk at 2:30am the day before a game should be enough for the coach to bench him, let alone killing someone, and that someone being another player! What does he have to do to not get their support? The New Orleans Saints management were not allowed in the stadium until the NFL gave them special permission after their part in paying their thugs to injure other players in the course of a game. Why would other players even want to play with those guys again? But here we have someone who has killed another player wandering around on the sideline! Is this behaviour so endemic that it is acceptable? We have a litany of on and off field "incidents" like the unfortunate one at the Kansa City Chiefs, and I could go on. It is now reported that the Players Federation provides a service for drunk players to be given a ride home for $85 a time! Is the stress of earning all that money too much for them?