motorsportmania

When I first started to attend motor racing events back in 1968 it was pretty much all thrilling; the sounds and smells, the cars, the drivers and teams all made it a mgical experience and I loved it.

My first meeting was the next European F2 round after the one that Jim Clark died in and whilst the GLTL transporter didn’t arrive there were still plenty of GP drivers as well as all of the coming men plus many other stars in the supporting touring car and sports car races. But most of the arces were fairly processional and teh biggest excitement was when Jochen Rindt spun at the chicane whilst leading vanishing in a cloud of dust through one of the advertising hoardings only to re-emerge seconds laterwithout losing the lead. After that mistake he drove off into the distance and won by a country mile, but I was enthralled.

Since then I have attended a few Grand Prix, IndyCar, NASCAR and many international, national and club events here in the UK. Very few of those have featured wheel to wheel action all the way through other that some of the Formula Ford and F3 (in the one litre screamer era) races. Sure there have been some good battles down the order, but in general at the front someone has pushed off into the sunset and, barring mechanical maladies, that has been it. But that is fine by me because it is what racing is about and I don’t need to have two or more cars slugging it out at the front and changing position several times each lap to make a race interesting.

NASCAR lost me as an avid follower when they started The Chase and I have stopped following it altogether now that they have this stupid, in my view, stage racing idea. Yes I can understand that there are those to whom the new format is great, but not for me. Reading some of the comments on social media after the Austrian GP last weekend I could not understand why so many said that it was a boring race; you had the first five guys pretty much flat out for the whole race and whilst the positions didn’t change much other than through the pit stop cycle it was an exciting race where any mistake could have changed the outcome.

I don’t care if someone wins by three or four laps. I am maybe an old school fan and will have to accept that there is a newer generation that want something different. NASCAR is lost to me and F1 may go the same way. So be it, but it will be a shame if the true challenge of motor sport is lost to a bunch of people with the attention span of a gnat and whose idea of great entertainment is a demolition derby. Sadly racing is already not what it useed to be and it looks like it can only get worse. Thank heaven for Indy.

Filed under: Cars, F1, Indycar, NASCAR | Tagged: AustrianGP |