Bob Barnard Track Engineering

A big weekend of racing. MotoGP turned on their usual good show, but Turn 1 at COTA? Tilke missed a great opportunity to make that a really good corner. Instead we have a crash site. But the commentators were at it again. "The most competitive field we have ever seen." Seriously? Where were you in the late 80's and early nineties when Gardner, Doohan, Magee, Rainey, Lawson, Mamola, Koscinski, Sarron, Schwantz and co. were around?

Indycar at Long Beach had its usual accidents at the usual locations. How anyone thinks this can be an F1 track is beyond me. If they left out some of the petunias around the base of the fountain we might have a track wide enough to race on. The Tudor Sports car race was a yawn. Time was when an LMP2 car could beat an LMP1 car around here, but now it cannot even beat a DP.

There is always the quote that "it's a long race" by drivers, even if it is the same length as all the rest, but Saturday evening we really did have a long race. 500 miles around Darlington took forever. I wondered why it started so early. It was all I could do to stay awake.

Which brings me to the point. I come from a European back ground with a spell in Oz, so I am used to watching a sport event without it being turned into a continuous commercial. Sky manages to show an entire F1 race without ads, so why can't Fox or NBC? I know Sky is subscription, but all the sport here in the US is basically on cable which I pay for anyway. NASCAR is by far the worst, a race being one long ad, even when the race is being shown with every opportunity taken to show a sponsor logo for Kentucky Fried, Sprint, Progressive Insurance etc. Then there are the "infomercials" during the sports car races, and Indycar has to go off and interview anyone they can find that they think is a star of anything. 

There has to be a template for showing sport in this country that includes three old farts in suits and ties blabbing on, and usually a female studio anchor and pit lane or side line reporter. With an average age of probably sixty the boys on NBC for F1 have about as much chance of bringing in a younger fan than I have of being knighted. Take a look at the Sky guys. They are at a race track and dressed like you would expect at a race. NASCAR and Indycar and even the NFL are all the same. Is this just me or is it that the TV guys know what the average American sports fan wants. A blonde bimbo with big tits.

Now that's off my chest, so to speak, let's look at F1 goings on. Domenicali has fallen on his sword, or was he pushed, and his obvious replacement is a car salesman. First guy I would have picked, not. Perhaps Montezemolo is actually the problem. Bernie's problems are about to get worse with the prosecution dismissing his blackmail defense. But the judge is going to give him days off it seems to run F1. Red Bull lost the appeal, as they should. Whining that they could not keep second place if they obeyed the rules is a strange defence. There are probably twenty other cars out there who feel they could win if allowed to cheat a bit. Or is that just me?