Friday, May 26, 2006

Moving onto racing for a moment....

For a moment we will move away from obscure films of the past 50 years and talk about cars wasting our valuable resources and spending way too much money to go really fast for our own entertainment. It's an enormous race weekend around the World. You have right here in our backyard the Indianapolis 500. And way over across the pond in you have the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Monaco.

2 years ago, I got to my first Indy 500 and actually loved the experience. If I had more disposable income I would go every damn year. It's just a huge event and even as someone who did not follow the IRL series at all beforehand I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Of course, since I don't have tickets this year, I am unable to watch it when everyone else in the country is watching it. That's because we suffer the blackout here and it is shown on tape delay later in the evening. This is better than how it used to be when we had to wait till the next day! Still, since I have a dear friend I have not seen in two years stopping in Sunday night, I will be taping it and waiting till the next day as well. Three cheers for nostalgia!

That's probably for the better though since as a Formula 1 fan I am forced to suffer through another tape delay and stuck watching this weeks Grand Prix of Monaco on CBS at noon on Sunday, hours after the rest of the world has seen it. Thing is, the Monaco Grand Prix is gonna be a total bore. Somehow last year's was exciting as Alonso's Renault was passed by two Williams cars in the final few laps as he suffered tyre wear. But Monaco is a notoriously terrible circuit for overtaking and all you have is a bunch of cars in a procession. It's terrible racing, really, a total bore to watch and you are stuck hoping for a crash (which is never good) or a car to suffer mechanical failure (a bit more humane) to shake up the running order. What's more is that this season in Formula 1 it seems only two cars, the Renault and the Ferrari have what it takes to win races. So everyone else is really an afterthought. (IRL is suffering this same fate to a certain extent with Penske and Chip Gannassi). Regardless, as a Renault fan, I can tolerate the Renault drivers fighting it out on the top two rows every race week. And, at any rate, despite the total bore that the race is likely to be I will be glued to my television, feeling somewhat guilty watching it for a multitude of reasons, the least of all being entertainment value.

So predictions? At the 500, I would like to see Sam Hornish Jr win since he is an Ohio boy, but I see Wheldon getting it again with Meira as a possible darkhorse. In Monaco, it's all gonna come down to qualifying (which will likely be infinitely more exciting than the race, especially in the new qualifying format.) But I see a podium of Alonso, Schumacher, and Montoya. My personal favorite Fischella will do something stupid and likely not even finish, but hey, that might be the jolt of excitement the race needs!

1 comment:

scot said...

Take back what I said about Monaco being boring, protests, intrigue, and the whole 9 yards after todays qualifying.

This is great stuff!