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Weekend round up 31 October 2010 #NASCAR #DTM #F1

#DTM Heck of a wreck for Alex Premat, but good to hear that he walked away. The series lead changes again, so all to play for still at the top of the table.

#NASCAR All the fun of the fair at Talledega. Good to see Junior doing his stuff at the head of the field for a time, but what was all that between him and Burton? Wasted day. Also good to see Front Row Joe do a great job in qualifying and got a lap led. His home town of Lakeland is just up the road from my place in Fla, so he sort of got adopted back in ’93 as my local driver and we’ve followed his fortunes since. Shame he got in wreck so close to the finish.

So, with the wreck at the whiteflag, it looks like Bowyer has the win by inches over Harvick, with Johnson edging Hamlin for seventh (at the time of writing). That should put the #48 just 10 points ahead of the #11 in the title race by my reckoning. (I’ll update this later when we get a provisional result). The Dinger is apparently OK after getting flipped as the white flag flew. JPM a good 4th.

#F1 Comings and goings at Williams? I’d like to see the Hulk get another season. He is a promising talent and hasn’t been shown up that much by the Barrow Boy.

Weekend round up 24 October 2010 #F1 #NASCAR

#NASCAR Well done The Sheriff on winning the truck race at Martinsville. One of the real NASCAR heroes. Over in the Nationwide, you get one guy dominates, someone else leads into the last lap and another guy wins it. That’s racing!

Nice one Marcus nearly getting pole for the Sprint cup race. Good to see him up on the front row anyway, and good to see Kenny Schrader in the field again as well, and leading some laps, if only under caution.

Hamlin gets the win and closes the gap to the #48 a little and a great run for my man in the #5 to second. More shoving and pushing from a Busch, this time the older one. Park ’em I say.

#KoreanGP #F1 I tweeted concerns about the pit entry having watched some of qualifying. Don’t like the track generally, but that pit entry is pretty dumb, and the exit isn’t a lot better: They could have run the entry behind the wall rather than put it on that kink where it must have been obvious that everyone was going to straight line it, and why not extend the exit further round after the double left hander?Basically the pits are in the wrong place.

Sorry, just another dreadful track in the middle of nowhere than can screw public money to keep Bernie & co sweet. At least they did seem to attract a crowd despite the dismal conditions, so maybe they do deserve to have a race. If the planned development of the area goes ahead, maybe they can sort out the pit area and make it into something worth its place on the calendar on merit and give the Korean fans something to look forward to.

As to the race? I struggle with the issue of F1 and rain. I can understand why the yanks don’t run NASCAR or Indy in the wet on ovals, but F1 should be able to cope with the wet stuff. In the end we got a race and the fans had plenty of excitement. The biggest disappointment for me, other than the boring stuff chasing Maylander round in his Mercedes* was that I believe that Webbo’s accident deprived Nico Rosberg of a maiden win in his Merc. I don’t know what they were up to on his car during the red flag period (or if it was legal), but he was on a charge and I feel that he had everyone covered there ’til the Red Bull took him out.  A shame; but his day will come.

* Maybe this is the answer to the “can’t run in the rain” issue; have a fleet of pace cars and make the drivers draw lots and run them 😉

Comings and goings at #RPM #NASCAR

Is it just me or is Kasey Kahne acting like a jerk? A shame, because the guy has talent, but RPM must be glad to see the back of him. Marcus Ambrose is a straight up guy and will be good for them next season.

Weekend round up 17 October 2010 #NASCAR #DTM #F1

#NASCAR A good weekend for just outside the chase Jamie McMurray with a great win. JJ still looking strong for a 5th title on the run though – unprecedented, but would you bet against the#48 car and crew? Will we see the title decided before Homestead?

Danica doing well at Charlotte in the Nationwide and will be staring off 2011 with another part time programme. The lady has the talent, you only have to look at her Indycar record.

On the subject of NASCAR I can recommend Humpy Wheeler’s book Growing Up NASCAR as well worth a read. Packed full of stories, many hillarious. I loved it.

#DTM Di Resta puts up a hat trick. The boy is doing well, and has the series lead now with Bruno having retired at Hockenheim. Fingers crossed for him to take the title. Also great news that BMW will be back with an M3 based contender. The DTM is a fantastic series now and can only benefit from this move.

#F1 off to Korea next time out. Another new market, but will we see packed grand stands or is this just another case of a fat wallet talking? I haven’t looked at the track layout as yet, but we really need circuits that will give us the chance of a competitive race rather than a procession. If Bernie wants to plunder these dollars he ought, at least, to give us the chance of a decent race. After all, he’s depending on the TV coverage being worth watching. Indy gave the USA a good track for overtaking, but we’ve lost that and now have this plan for a new track in Texas. Good for them if they come up with something, but I’d like to see the US GP back at Indianapolis; it’s a classic venue with all the right credentials.

Weekend round up – 11 October 2010 #NASCAR #F1 #BTCC

#NASCAR Danica in the news again! She’s showing signs of getting there and I applaud that. Smoke takes the Sprint Cup win! Could he remember where victory lane was? Of course he could. My man MM led most laps, so some signs of a late recovery with that and 6th at the finish.

So the much vaunted Fontana can’t support 2 races. The daft and greedy mob at NASCAR should have left the race at Darlington. Bring back the old tracks where there is tradition and support. Same argument as in #F1; lets keep the races where the fan base is and stop chasing media cash.

#F1 Japanese Grand Prix. So the Mineral Water Kid wins again at long last. It’s going to be a tight race to the finish. I’ll stick my neck out at this point and predict that Webbo and his team mate fall over themselves or each other and Alphonso pinches it for Ferrari. That should jinx it!

Lotus (or whatver they end up having to call themselves) could be looking good for the mid race pack in 2011. With Renualt power and a Red Bull transmission they ought to to well.

No obituary from me this week for Peter Warr. Met him a few times back around 69 – 71 and couldn’t stand the bloke. His later treatment of Mansell just re-inforced my feelings.

#BTCC Good job Jason Plato taking another title and commiserations to Matt Neal. Two great tin top drivers. Whils on that subject, news from Bathurst has 8 Holdens in the top ten! With my Queensland connections I was always a Dick Johnson fan, so the blue oval gets my vote over the bow tie and its brands every time (I’m cool with Plato winning the BTCC in a Chevy; go count how many titles Ford has), so 5th and 9th in the great Australian race is not too good.