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Weekend round up – 14 November 2010 #NASCAR #F1

Posted on November 15, 2010 by thatconsultantbloke

#NASCAR Well done Todd Bodine on a second truck title. Families likes the Bodines are part of the backbone of racing. Over at the duel in the desert, the Spring Cup rumbles towards a conclusion with just 15 points between the top two and three possible winners. Roll on next week.

#F1 Well, it’s all over for another year. It would be nice if the title could go down to the wire at one of the classic circuits rather than a glorified slot car track, but never mind. “Watta mistake-a to make-a” as Bertorelli used to put it in ‘Allo ‘Allo as Ferarri make amends for the Hockenheim team orders issue by covering Webbo and spoiling Alonso’s chances. Some you win, some you lose. Easy to be right after the fact.

Having said that, the Mineral Water Kid deserved the title with 5 good wins, so no arguments there, and a good result for the sport. Also good to see the McLarens back on form.

Nice also to see Petrov do well. The lad has had a traumatic season, but is learning the ropes and has the right to be on the grid. He had Alonso welll covered for two thirds of the race and that is pressure.

Filed under: Cars, Circuits, Drivers, F1, NASCAR | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on October 31, 2010 by thatconsultantbloke

#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.

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#webbogate – the Webber/Rosberg crash at the #KoreanGP #F1

Posted on October 30, 2010 by thatconsultantbloke

So did Mark Webber really try to take out some championship rivals when he dropped it and ruined his own race at the #koreangp?

It may, at first, seem strange that he didn’t seem to try and stop the car when it slid along the wall, but would he risk his own well being by allowing the car to become an obstruction? Come on boys and girls; think about it. That was a pretty quick part of the track and he was sideways across it with a real change of taking a hit amidships. Not a great idea is it?

When he lost it the back end came round and he slid across the track into the opposite wall sustaining obvious race ending damage. The car slid a little way on the wet grass where the brakes would not have had any effect, and then it snapped round and speared across the track. At that point if the brakes had worked, assuming that there was much braking effect on a car with one side wrecked and the front wheel on the other side up in the air, they would have stopped the car broadside in the middle of the esses.

That would have been a stupid place to park from a viewpoint of personal safety but, with the momentum that the car had, the safety of the verge on the other side was getting closer, so why not let it run to there? Yes there was a risk of getting clouted, but that was diminishing as the car rolled. He just didn’t make it and Rosberg paid the price which was a shame as I reckon, as I said in my round up Sunday night, that he would have won the race.

In my view Webbo was caught out when the car snapped off the wall and shot across the track. He was just a passenger at that point and, having gone that way, needed to let the car get to the other side and out of the way before trying to stop it.

So did he deliberately try to crash someone? Of course he didn’t. Case dismissed.

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Weekend round up 24 October 2010 #F1 #NASCAR

Posted on October 24, 2010 by thatconsultantbloke

#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 😉

Filed under: Circuits, Drivers, F1, Indycar, NASCAR, Tin Tops | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

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

Posted on October 10, 2010 by thatconsultantbloke

#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.

Filed under: Circuits, Drivers, F1, NASCAR, Tin Tops | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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