[Leica] Formula One Auto Racing

[ricc at mindspring.com (Ric Carter)]

I?m an old SCCA corner worker. Couldn?t afford to race, but  
volunteered so I could smell the fumes and rubber and snap a few  
frames of the buzzing blur.

I?ve tried to figure this thing out, and so far the best figuring  
I?ve come up with is that Michelin instigated a pissing contest with  
the part of FIA that wants to go to a single tire manufacturer-namely  
Bridgestone. Then again, maybe Michelin was paying us back for  
Freedom Fries. ;-)

The warm up lap before pulling to the garage was clearly intended as  
a thumb in someone?s eye. If they thought the crowd response was ugly  
in Indy, what would it have looked like in Italy or Britain?

Is the US ready for F1? While it may not be the top draw here, this  
is a big enough country that you don?t have to rule the landscape to  
have a substantial and important and valuable audience. I believe I  
heard television commentators say that the US Grand Prix is the  
largest spectator draw in the F1 circuit.

Major auto racing has reached a sad state on this continent. NASCAR  
is smelling more like pro wrestling every day, CART teams and events  
are evaporating, Indy Racing's Tony George power grab created CART  
Lite without road courses or real performance, and now this from F1.

All in all, it seems like the main thing any of them are interested  
in is milking every possible cent from us. Maybe the only thing left  
for us is those outlaw dirt tracks up north and the eighth-mile ovals  
down her in redneck central.

Ric Carter
http://gallery.leica-users.org/Passing-Fancies



On Jun 21, 2005, at 6:36 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org wrote:

> Message: 29
> Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:24:15 -0400
> From: "Richard Coutant" <rhc3vt@hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Formula One Auto Racing
> To: lug@leica-users.org
> Message-ID: <BAY104-F1B3EEB13D65F0973BE86287E80@phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
> I have followed F1 very closely since the sixties, although the  
> last race I
> attended was at Watkins Glen in 1968.  And I do confess to being a  
> regular
> spectator at the Lime Rock vintage races.  My friends and I refer  
> to NASCAR
> as 'taxicab racing'.  And I do live in the PRVT.  But this Indy  
> fiasco is
> beyond the pale, and there is no doubt in my mind that the USGP  
> results
> should be stricken forever from the records of this grand sport.   
> What would
> John Surtees say?  Drastic reform is immediately required.  I hate  
> to see
> restrictions on technical innovation, made for the sake of  
> 'spectacle', but
> it had seemed that the recent changes were working, improving the  
> quality of
> the events without compromising the ability to innovate that has  
> made F1
> what it is.  The proposals for a single tire, a single engine  
> management
> system, will only work if they are imposed in the context of   
> freedom to
> develop in other ways.  Perhaps a fairer and more interesting way to
> 'control' the sport would be to impose an expense cap, almost  
> analagous to
> public election funding, without trying to control how the money is  
> spent.
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>> The USian attitude is a bit more complex than a simple matter of
>> nationalism.
>>
>> Formula One is perceived as an effete method for auto racing and  
>> is equated
>> with Espresso, National Public Radio, Opera, croissants, und so  
>> weiter.  We
>> are so large a nation that we can comfortably support authors  
>> unknown to
>> that 95% of the populace who never read the NEW YORK REVIEW OF  
>> BOOKS or the
>> WASHINGTON POST but, in the end, we do have a ragged resistance to  
>> what we
>> perceive to be "cultural";  we would much rather have Raymond  
>> Chadler than,
>> say, Albert Camus.
>>
>> The result is that Formula One ignites the souls of perhaps one  
>> percent of
>> our populace and might be familiar to ten percent of our citzenry,  
>> but that
>> is about the cap.  Formula One has tried for twenty years and more  
>> to get
>> out of the raised-pinky image and to excape from its Lime Rock  
>> apparition
>> in the US, but with less success than it had imagined would result.
>> Formula One in the US has not been consistent, it has not been  
>> interesting,
>> and it has generated almost no publicity:  my local newspaper, for
>> instance, made only the barest mention of the results of the race  
>> and did
>> not mention anything about the controversy, but, then, the ROANOKE  
>> TIMES is
>> never to be regarded as a solid example of journalistic  
>> thoroughness or
>> consistency.
>>
>> Formula One is rather a lost concept in the US and has been  
>> improperly
>> marketed here since the fist US race twenty-five years or so ago.
>>
>> I recognize that the Formula One dudes want to involve themselves in
>> serious US money but I suspect that they would do best to back off  
>> for a
>> decade and to try again.  Soccer and Formula One do not fit the  
>> current
>> USian paradigm:  either can be made to work here, but they need a  
>> far more
>> patient and developed business plan than either has yet produced.
>>
>> I live some 160 miles (250km) from the situs of the final debacle in
>> THUNDER ROAD, an early and deservedly famous Robert Mitchum  
>> vehicle, and I
>> know a bunch of folks who ran the "hooch lines" which were to produce
>> NASCAR.  Still, I have no time for NASCAR or its like and regard  
>> Formula
>> One as far more interesting.  But it just is not for USian tastes  
>> at this
>> time.
>>
>> Marc
>>
>> msmall@aya.yale.edu
>> Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
>>
>> NEW FAX NUMBER:  +540-343-8505
>>
>