Boring, Impressive, and Surprising

by Tammy

The last week in racing was a little bit of everything.

In Formula 1, not content with wrapping up the championship with 3 (or was it 4?) races still to run, Vettel ground the rest of the field into so much dust under his tires, winning the USGP, making it his 12th win of the season and his 8th in a row.

Impressive? Absolutely. Boring? No doubt. As I've said before, I've got massive respect ... but I also had better things to do than watch the race. Again.

In NASCAR, Jimmie Johnson won his sixth championship in smooth style, finishing the final race of the year in 9th place, for a 20-some point margin in the championship. It was a nail-biter down to the end, though, given that he needed to finish 23rd or better to win, and given Matt Kenseth (2nd place) doing all he could. The commentators reported Jimmie having said he wanted 8 championships (the record of 7 is held by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt) ... and no one who's watched him over the last decade would be surprised to see him achieve that.

Surprising? Nope. Impressive? Definitely. Boring? Depends on your point of view.

And in IndyCar, the news that took plenty by surprise, and dismayed many, many fans, was of Dario Franchitti's retirement from racing. The bottom line is that he got one-too-many concussions, and he hasn't been recovering as quickly as hoped from the last one. The medical opinion seems to be that any more such bell-ringers and he risks brain damage (Is this sounding familiar, Simon?), and he made the wise choice to stop. (It does make me wonder how many racecar drivers have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the brain disease that the world of football is just beginning to recognize.)

Surprising? For sure. But rational and understandable.

Lastly, in the media, former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb dredged up the years' old question of whether drivers are athletes. Jimmie wouldn't be drawn into the controversy, but Jeff Gordon had a great response (image).

Surprising? Yes. Boring? Completely. Aren't we past this by now? And seriously, even the notoriously unfit Tony Stewart could take most defensive linemen, am I right?

Best two Twitter hashtags of the week: #peoplewhoaremoreathleticthandonovan and #ThankYouDario.

A New Era? I Hope So

 

By Simon

Tammy’s favorite billionaire Bernie Ecclestone said that Seb Vettel’s F1 dominance is bad for the sport (and probably Bernie’s bank balance).  I’m actually a Vettel fan (although his little breakdown last month’s complaining it wasn’t fair cars were getting in his way was painfully childish) but I get what Bernie is saying. Vettel and Red Bull’s dominance is great for them but not so much for everyone else—especially spectators.  It’s McLaren of the late 80’s all over again.  However Bernie might get his wish with the changes for 2014.  

Essentially the new engine format (tiny turbo charged V6s) means everyone has to design a car from the ground up to accommodate it.  No doubt that Adrian Newey will come up with something amazing, as will McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, etc., but the game changer is the engine.  Who knows whether Renault, Honda, Ferrari, Mercedes can come up with a winning engine in such a short development period.  It could and probably will be a very unpredictable for a season or two.  If Renault doesn’t give Red Bull the engine they need, it’ll be interesting to see how much of Seb Vettel’s success is his driving or Adrian Newey’s genius.  Either way, 2014 will be a very interesting season.

My Spiritual Home?

by Tammy

Since I'm newer to the whole racing world than most of you out there (and most of the racing fans I meet), I'm often playing catch-up. Which is what happened this weekend.

At the urging of a Facebook connection, I finally headed up to Glendale to a wonderful bookstore: Autobooks-Aerobooks. It's, you guessed it, a bookstore that focuses on print and video about cars and airplanes. A bookstore? Focusing on cars and racing? That might just be where I belong.

And I'm really playing catch-up. The store has been around since 1951, and it seems to still be going strong, even in this era of digital books. As Tina van Curen, the current owner, said to me, "The kind of books people buy here, they want to look at in large format, not read on a little screen." And she's right.

My excuse for finally getting up there this weekend was a signing by Vel Milatich and Parnelli Jones for their large-format, coffee-table book, The Cars of Vel Milatich and Parnelli Jones (photographer Dean Kirkland was also signing). In the hour I was in the shop—overwhelmed by the variety of materials and the people eager to stand around talking about cars and racing—the place was buzzing, and Parnelli was kept busy signing that book and his autobiography (and taking photos with us).

But the store doesn't just have signing events, they also have an informal car show every Saturday morning. And it's not just any car show, it's one that Jay Leno routinely appears at. I'd heard "Leno is often at the bookstore," in the past, but I was still astonished to walk into the store at 11:15 Saturday morning and find him there—on his way out, but stopping to sign books and take photos with anyone who asked. Nicest guy ever.

So, anyone who's into cars? This place should be on your list of places to stop when you come to LA. I'll probably take you there myself. (And Simon? Tina's interested in doing a signing event of "car-guy novels" with fiction writers next year ... maybe you can come down?) And if we get there on a Saturday, we might just run into LA's biggest car guy and one of his treasures.

I'm in The Bad Groove

By Simon

The lovely Amy Marbach interviewed me over at Bad Groove. We talked about racing, books and open wheel.  Not bad for a NASCAR site.  :-) 

Any, enjoy the interview here.

Racing Dominance

by Tammy

Was it boring when Michael Schumacher was winning? Because I have to tell you, I'm finding Formula 1 so boring these days I can't even be bothered to DVR the races—I used to always DVR them and watch if the reports were of a good race, but "the exciting battle for 5th" doesn't count.

Partly, I assume, it's a matter of whether I like the driver or not. Take Jimmie Johnson. I tend to like him, so I'm glad to see him winning ... then again, it was less liking than awe and respect when he was steamrolling the competition to five consecutive championships. The last one and this year have been different, more clutch performances. Down to the wire.

But I just can't get excited about Vettel. Is it that he's cold, aloof, reserved? Is it that he's kind of a brat? I figure he's outgrown that by now, but I'm still not warming to him.

I think my problem is the combination of open-wheel cars, fragile cars, no refueling strategy, and then the dominance of one specific driver that means I just don't engage. If I'd been a lifelong viewer perhaps—then again, a friend of mine who's a lifelong viewer isn't watching the end of this season anyway.

I caught a tweet today where someone blamed Jimmie's dominance for NASCAR's viewer woes. But I don't think it's entirely on his shoulders. After all, he's not dominating this season, and someone else won last year. Plus, plenty of other racing series (hello, IndyCar) have seen declining viewership and attendance numbers, so I'd be more inclined to blame the economy and strange broadcast channels (who else misses SPEED?).

But I want to know what you think? Is it boring when a driver or team dominates a particular series? Or just when it's a driver you don't like?

And do you think Jimmie will take it this year?

Mr. Motorsport

By Simon

I love commentators. They are the custodians of the sport. Competitors, teams, coaches and owners can come and go, but commentators are a constant. For they're the trusted voices. They reflect our love of the sport and they keep that love burning. Motorsport is lucky enough to have a number of great people to voice the game, but for me I have one standout.

As far as I’m concerned, Murray Walker is Mr. Motorsport. He’s been commentating on motorsport in the UK, since the end of the 40’s. from 1978 – 2001, he commentated on Formula One, traveling to every venue the Grand Prix circus traveled to. Not only that he voiced the commentary for everything that the BBC aired whether it be rally-cross, touring cars or Formula Three. He knew the sport and the drivers. His trademark was his excitability. His voice would climb into a high-pitched wail when the action reached a crescendo. It was fantastic because it was something that matched the excitement of the viewer. He was always respectful to the drivers, which endeared him to them. The other trademark that endeared him to the public was his ability to get something wrong or jinx a driver whenever he endorsed their success. He’d say something like, “With two laps to go, nothing can stop so and so from winning.” A lap later, that driver’s car would be at the side of the track after being struck by lightning or something. He is a character like no other. I thought it was very cool that when he retired from F1 broadcasting, the owners of Indianapolis Speedway gave him a brick from the original track. I believe he's one of the few non drivers to be given one.

And while there are some very knowledgeable voices out there right now, no one inspires the kind of excitement in me like Murray did.

Losing More

by Tammy

Is it just me, or has this been an exceptionally bad year for deaths in the motorsports community? Allan Simonson at Le Mans, Sean Edwards at a private coaching event, Jason Leffler in Midget cars, Josh Burton in Sprint cars, Andrea Antonelli in motorcycle racing, and Maria de Villota from injuries sustained in her 2012 accident.

And don't forget other freakish accidents and deaths: the course worker run over at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, Dario Franchitti's terrible wreck at Houston or Justin Wilson's t-bone accident at Fontana, even Tony Stewart's Sprint car wreck.

I think 2013 was worse than years past. So why?

Given all the attention paid to making the cars safer (especially in IndyCar since Dan Wheldon's death in 2011), I think it's just the law of averages.

I know that drivers think it won't happen to them—I mean, they have to believe that to get in the car and do their jobs. But I have to believe that some of the losses (especially of Sean Edwards, who I believe would have been racing with the team at Petit, but instead was there on the car above), hit particularly close to home. Or maybe they'll chalk that one up to letting someone else get behind the wheel with you in the car.

Dr. Jim Norman, who's a racer and doctor, among other pursuits, is passionate about the need for safer tracks. In the wake of Edwards' death, he added more information to his article on the why of racing deaths, including one tidbit that surprised me: gravel traps get less and less effective the faster a car is going. If a car is going really fast, they'll skip right over the top of the gravel and hardly be slowed down. Which of course renders them useless for situations in which they're the most necessary.

I met Jim at Petit (photo above), and he was passionate about the need for racetracks to update their safety features. In this day and age, he argues, drivers take plenty of risks, but they shouldn't need to take the risk of running head-first into a concrete wall or a tree, and many tracks are still constructed in that fashion (Road Atlanta included, such as the runoff from Turn 1, where there's grass leading to a wall lightly rimmed in tires).

On one hand, I can hear some of the old-timers saying they didn't need those things when they raced (like they say/complain about lights at the Daytona 24). And I can understand the dilemma of the racetracks, who aren't scurrying to fix these turns and walls, because those are huge costs to compensate for something that's already inherently dangerous. On the other hand, shouldn't we do everything we can to make sure drivers don't die?

I just hope 2014 isn't as traumatic and deadly.