Saturday, October 22, 2011

New Jersey 2013

I have no idea what is going on in Bernie's head these days. Why does the US need ANOTHER GP?? The track in Austin isn't even done yet, barely started, and there is already talk of yet another US GP. How about testing the market a little better? Why not give Canada another race, or somewhere in South America? Has he not seen the financial crisis? With ticket prices as much as they are (I can only speak for Canada, but holy crap are they pricy), how does he intend to support this?

I remember the last US race in Indy, and the pissed off people there, how can he want to put 2 races in that market, without even having decent coverage of the current races? Speed TV spends more time in commercial breaks than they do actually showing the race, and the commentators dumb the whole thing down so much that there is no way to enjoy it in the slightest. I say this actually having tuned into the Speed TV coverage for a few GPs this year, and it was abysmal.

I'd just rather see a race added in a market that was proven, than expanding into so many countries who haven't embraced F1. Bring back some of the European GP races that were cut in the expansion to Korea, or Turkey. I liked the French, and even then Austrian GP was fun (though if I am not mistaken, Red Bull now owns that particular track...)

Bring F1 to proven markets, don't ask unproven countries who are obviously struggling financially, and don't show a ton of interest in the sport to invest millions and billions into tracks that you may only use for a few years.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Sadly, at the time of my last post I had no idea that Dan Wheldon had died. Again, I don't follow Indy, so I am ignorant to a lot of the rules, but it is no less sad that he was involved in a racing accident that took his life.

Race red-flagged and cancelled.
I just watched the BBC f1 intro. It looked almost like Vettel had died, the montage that they did. I'm watching it just after finding out about the HUGE Indy car accident in Las Vegas. That is the part that I like the least of the whole sport. I don't watch for the crashes, I dread them.

Unlike NASCAR in the States, where huge crashes are expected, there is something slightly more civilized in Formula 1 (and perhaps Indy, it isn't a series I follow). Then again, there aren't rollbars and windshields to protect the drivers, so that when there are accidents in open-wheel racing, they are a lot harder to watch.

Take today with Schumacher and Petrov, Petrov tried to drive over the back wing of Schumacher, taking them both out of the race. It wasn't as bad as a few other incidents last year, it is still terrifying. As much as I love watching the sport, it isn't something that I would be able to do, I just don't have the balls these guys do.