Sunday was a day to relax, stay out of the heat, and watch some racing, for professional purposes mostly.
The day started early with a real Grand Prix from Spa, that wonderful track that never fails to deliver a good race. Having the La Source hairpin right after the start is my one criticism as it inevitably leads to a first corner crash, and we saw a really scary one yesterday thanks to Grosjean, who has rightly been excluded from the next race as a result. With the topography of Spa it is hard to see where else they could start an F1 race, so I guess it is down to the drivers. No hope then. The crash seems to have revived the closed cockpit calls, which I for one will not be happy to see. Are we going to mandate closed sports cars, Formula Vee etc?
For me Spa has delivered the three most memorable passing manoeuvres of recent times. Hakkinen on Schumacher at the approach to Les Combs, Webber on Alonso at Eau Rouge, and yesterday Raikkonen on Schumacher at Eau Rouge. They all combined immense skill and commitment, trust, and a large dose of balls.
And so to Baltimore, another "Grand Prix." When will America stop devaluing this title? There is a great post about doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result:
The ALMS "race" was won by an LMP2 car, with an LMPC third and GT car fourth. The chicane, complete with tire stacks, claimed a number of victims, and the commentators thought it a great joke how many cars were damaged. I doubt that the owners were laughing. After the first Adelaide race the teams thanked me for saving them a lot of money due to the lack of damage. ALMS is reportedly "merging" with Grand Am. How it has continued this long has been a question for most of us seriously following it, but how can you combine LMP cars with DP's, especially as Grand Am is to be the sanctioning body? Presumably Sebring cannot now be a WEC round, so how about keeping Petit Le Mans as a stand alone race as a WEC round? This was after all the original concept of the Petit, the series was an after thought.
Then we had the Indy Lights race with eleven cars, and the Indycar race itself, with everyone tip-toeing around to stay off the walls. No breathtaking passing manoeuvres here. And when will US commentators actually commentate, instead of being hucksters for the series? It was noticeable that the stands were half full at best. Spectators do not want to pay to watch a non-event.
And so to Sydney, Eastern Creek to be precise, even if they want to change the name. V8Supercars racing on my original layout, and it still delivered good racing after 23 years. I tune out of most V8 races as they are on tight little tracks with nowhere to pass unless you biff and barge your way past. May be good fun for the average fan, but not my cup of tea, or glass of red in this instance. The cars could spread their legs, and clean passes could be made, made for good TV to see these at full song as intended. I will admit I am biased as I designed and built it, but EC is a good race track. And no, they did not call it a GP.
Then to Atlanta for the NASCAR race. My main interest was to see if one of the partners of The Motorplex, Michael McDowell, was standing in for Joey Logano in Joe Gibbs #20. Joey had recovered enough from food poisoning to race, and after several glasses of red wine I admit I fell asleep, that is how exciting that race was.
So, with apologies to Charles Dickens, that was my four cities, and happily no one died in this story.
Monday, September 3, 2012 at 08:50AM
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