Posted on 06/20/2005 12:40:18 PM PDT by Arkie2
Thanks for playing, now get the hell out. This was the message sent loudly and clearly Sunday by the slightly less than 100,000 fans that had traveled from all over the most powerful country in the world to see what is supposed to be the greatest auto racing series on the planet.
Take your giant transport planes and your Kevlar-coated motorcoaches and your big fancy remote control cars and go drive them elsewhere.
Formula One racing has always been a hard sell in the United States, despite the fact that facilities elsewhere can't seem to build enough grandstands to contain all of their enthusiasts, from Europe to Malaysia to Bahrain. But in America, Formula One has always been limited to a fiercely followed cult sport, alongside cycling, triathlons, and cricket. It is soccer without the short pants and yellow cards.
However, the last half-decade had seen a stateside resurgence by the sport of Juan Manuel Fangio, Mario Andretti, and Jackie Stewart. Our most hallowed piece of racing real estate, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, welcomed the likes of Ferrari and McLaren back into Gasoline Alley back in the summer of 2000. IMS President Tony George ripped up said holy ground, putting a new 13-turn road course in place, as well as a monstrous new garage complex at the edge of Gasoline Alley. For the first time since the glory days of Watkins Glen and Long Beach, the United States Grand Prix was back and had NASCAR and Indy Car fans studying up on the finer points of higher tech racing.
And so the royals of racing arrived ... and the complaining commenced. Turn 1 was too tight. Turns 12 and 13 were too fast. The newspapers weren't giving them enough ink. There was nowhere to eat.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.foxsports.com ...
If I want to watch left turns all day, I'll watch McCain doing the talk show circuit.
Drivers: "Hey, it wasn't our fault, it was these damn french tires!"
Modern Grand Prix cars make other forms of racing look like donkey carts they're so high tech and fast around corners.
I wish there were a good American driver or two competing in F1.
The worlds best drivers and the biggest budgets in racing and the show isn't as good as a local dirt track saturday night show.
Sure, it's a hell of a spectacle, but watching 2 red cars, followed by 2 blue cars followed by 2 yellow cars isn't very exciting. In most race series, the excitement starts after the race starts. In F1, is not too thrilling after about 2 corners.
What's so much fun about watching people drive at high speeds in a circle? I can set up a lawn chair overlooking the Interstate to see that.....
I'd like to see them go three-wide, 4 deep at 180mph. My guess is that they would puss out, just like they did last week because the turns were too fast for them.
Now if only America would turn it's back on NASCAR, then this country would be a better place.
We need more shifter-kart racing to get the drivers for F1. Ever drive one? It will rip your head off with the cornering g-force & acceleration.
Why?
For a second I thought this was the "breast feeding snobs" thread.
The cars are amazing technical achievements, but the racing usually isn't very good. Every F1 race I've seen on TV (admittedly, not much in the past few years), there is very little close racing. Usually, one car (whoever the dominant driver is that season) pulls away and it's a boat race, and the field ends up spread out with multiple seconds between cars and no lead changes. And the obligatory first-turn spinout-and-crash that always seems to happen gets really old after a while.
I like close racing--not wrecks, but close racing, tactical racing, watching people pick lines and set up opponents for passes, dicing in traffic, pit strategy. I don't think I've ever seen an F1 race with a close finish like so many NASCAR races. I know you can't go wheel-to-wheel in F1 or IRL like you can in NASCAR--although I swear some of the IRL guys try it--but still, F1 just comes off as boring.
I'll grant you one thing, though--I don't like seeing NASCAR cars running on road courses. They're too heavy, they look like they're wallowing around out there.
}:-)4
I thought I'd post this to see if F-1 fans would continue to claim it's the greatest motor sport on earth after the Indy debacle. Too bad they'll now have to travel to Europe to see it. I expect it's days in the US are finished.
My boss was talking about this, and I still can't quite believe it. It was a big upraised index finger to the fans.
Still, while F1 is very a high dollar sport, I am kind of glad it died here. I like the bump and grind of an old dirt track.
If ya want to see some REAL racing, check out MotoGP when they come to Laguna Seca in a week. No whiners / pansies here folks....just incredibly talented young riders from all over the workd racing motorcycles with 220+ rear wheel horsepower and rock hard tires with a contact patch smaller than a pack of cigarettes. These bikes do 200+ mph and can break the rear tires loose coming out of corners at over 140 mph. They get up close and personal too... banging fairings and elbows at over 150 mph. Roll cages are for pussies.
Valentino Rossi is da BOMB!
I'll have to remember that!
Now, I do like watching Nascar now and again - but for the most part it's "put the pedal to the floor and turn left for 400 miles."
Personally, my favorite are the Rallys - back country roads, and the weather doesn't matter.
I got hooked on racing at an early age - my next door neighbor in Colorado Springs used to race in the hill climb, and always took me along with his son to watch.
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