F1

[Mb82]

AprilMay I try and watch the races when they play them on Speed on Sunday mornings. Luckily the timing works with my sleep schedule. I also tape all the races if for some reason I can't be home to watch them.

[AprilMay]

Here both speed and TSN cover the races, but for the most part TSN plays the race and Speed just gets blacked out, so I end up recording both just in case. I did have an unfortunate incident where for some reason TSN was blacked out instead of Speed and all I got was 3 hours of black screen.

I can never decide if the Sunday afternoon replay of the race is a better edit that the live one or not. Sometimes the commercial breaks are very badly timed in live racing.

I also wonder if there will be an American feed of commentary this year since there is an American race. As knowledgeable as David Couthard is, sometimes his downright hatred of Schumacher is laughable. Also the British boys just fawn all over Hamilton and ignore Jenson Button for the most part. Favoritism, bleh.

[Mb82]

Here both speed and TSN cover the races, but for the most part TSN plays the race and Speed just gets blacked out, so I end up recording both just in case. I did have an unfortunate incident where for some reason TSN was blacked out instead of Speed and all I got was 3 hours of black screen.

I can never decide if the Sunday afternoon replay of the race is a better edit that the live one or not. Sometimes the commercial breaks are very badly timed in live racing.

I also wonder if there will be an American feed of commentary this year since there is an American race. As knowledgeable as David Couthard is, sometimes his downright hatred of Schumacher is laughable. Also the British boys just fawn all over Hamilton and ignore Jenson Button for the most part. Favoritism, bleh.

The Speed Commentators are not bad a little biased towards McLaren GP but oh well. Personally I hope they don't use any of the NASCAR commentators for the USGP, those guys are all morons who put me to sleep. Unfortunately I don't have TSN. Also I have never noticed Speed getting blacked out.

[Arashi]

I stopped following F1 in 94 when Senna died. That day also cemented my complete hate for Schumacher.

Since then, I find F1 boring as hell. There's no competition anymore, it seems the pilots are not willing to go to extremes, to really try. No races with two pilots competing for the first place in every single minute for 77 laps. I think I have watched some.. I don't know... eight races since then? The last one was a couple years ago, the last of the season, when three pilots could win the tournament and Raikkonen, the one with less chance, won. That was probably the only race in 18 years that left me with a smile on my face. I think I saw a race when Barichello won, too, but who knows how long ago that was. It just stayed in my mind because he never wins anything, anyway.

[AprilMay]

Also I have never noticed Speed getting blacked out.

I think this is a Canadian phenomenon.

I recently went to see the Senna documentary and I really enjoyed it. Some of the footage was a bit shocking to see on the big screen, mainly the guy laying on the track literally broken, but they did a really good job with it.

Schumacher is racing again after retiring, but he hasn't been putting up much of a fighting chance for the front row. I think it may be the car. I have never been a huge fan of Schumacher, I find him a bit too arrogant and he pulls some moves that I find really unsportsmanlike.

[Arashi]

Schumacher is racing again after retiring, but he hasn't been putting up much of a fighting chance for the front row. I think it may be the car. I have never been a huge fan of Schumacher, I find him a bit too arrogant and he pulls some moves that I find really unsportsmanlike.

I think he's a bit of a jerk, even though he is a talented pilot. But quite frankly, most of his fame comes from not having any competition. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was not anyone who could really compete with his car, so he was made this god of racing when, frankly, he is not all that. If you watch the late 1980s races, with Senna, Prost, Mansell, they competed against the others. Ability was a differential.

Also, he laughed when he won the race in which Senna died. Two pilots had died in two days, and there was Schumacher, laughing like everything is right with the world. I wanted to get in the TV and punch that smile out of his face. Guy like that is not worth my admiration, no matter how good he is (and he isn't even that good, let's face it).

[UncleTone]

I have recently begun liking NASCAR and plan to watch F1 and become a fan of that as well.

I like Nascar because growing up my grandmother's second husband worked on a few pit crews and I was able to putter around in the pits before and after the races.

I am interested in F1 for totally different reasons. The technology, engineering, skill...and of course the competition!

[Arashi]

I just remembered how much of an F-1 fan I was... on my last year of middle school, our group's science fair project was Physics in F-1. We rented a slot car track and explained about acceleration, constant movement... it was so great, the best science project I've ever made (and the only year in which my project was actually selected to the science fair!). We even made the teacher cry when we showed a video of Senna by the end of the presentation - to be honest, half of the class was a bit teary-eyed.

That was back in 95, and though I didn't watch F-1 anymore because damn, I didn't want to see Schumacher win, I loved the tech and the skill it required.

[She-Ra81]

I am looking forward to seeing Kimi again too!

I'm so excited for Kimi to be back. I'm really hoping he comes back full force since he got such a beating before he left for not giving a rats a$$. I'm hoping for a tight pack of front runners this season and think there'll be some awesome scraps midfield

[KAllen]

I'm sorry...but f1 is NOT racing on any level. Bunch of panzys driving on a road course...not racing. Didn't they go like 2 or 3 seasons w/ NO competition passes, and you call that racing.

Same goes for Drag racing...I don't really care about watching dudes in dresses running!!!

Ya want REAL racing NASCAR is it. ASA is pretty good too. IRL isn't bad. They race, they pass, the bump, the go faster than f1(I've seen f1s go slow enough to read the lettering on the tires). Drivers actually drive the car...not a computer.

[AprilMay]

Ok boys and girls, I just want to take the opportunity to brag a bit here.

I went down to Austin a few weeks ago for the F1 expo. I got there nice and early and not only did I get to see some sweet sweet cars, I put my hands on Schueys 2000 Championship Ferrari....

We will ignore the fact that the nice man guarding it saw and me and told me not to touch the racecar....too late....I touched it. I may have drooled a bit.

[lemongranita]

Heh, AprilMay, I had a similar reaction to meeting Schumacher's F2004 in the Ferrari shop in Rome!

My fave current drivers are Webber and Button (not just great drivers, I'm also quite fond of them for organising mass-participation cycling/triathlon events in the UK). And Heikki Kovaleinen, who may not be getting great results but makes me laugh a great deal on twitter.

I drove an open single-seater car (a modified F3000 car) around Brands Hatch a few years back (for work! that was an awesome job). Fantastic experience.

[AprilMay]

Also, I would like to know if there is anyone here who is going to the Austin GP in November.

I have my tickets already. General Admission, gonna be in the grass somewhere.

[AprilMay]

Is anyone attending the Austin Race????

[jjhatch]

Is anyone attending the Austin Race????

I'm not, but I live in the area and I went to the 5k that was held there last weekend (Formula Run), and it was so cool to run on the track and stuff.

Only thing is, for anyone going to the race... Good luck with traffic. It was an absolute nightmare to go there, even though it was less than 5,000 people. I can't imagine what 120,000 people will look like.

[AprilMay]

Yea, I am taking the shuttle from downtown, and staying with a cousin in N. Austin. No way I could afford a hotel or do I plan to fight that traffic.

[AprilMay]

Anyone planning to attend the US Grand Prix in Austin this year??

[humanperson832]

I'm not a fan per se, but I got the opportunity to shoot last year's Petit Le Mans race with the rest of my photojournalism class. It was pretty cool. Got some great shots out of the day, and I even got a couple of photos published on Autoweek.com! Don't know that I'd ever go as a fan, or do it again as a photog, but I'm grateful for having had the experience. I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day (hit the road at 6am and got back at 11pm), but it brought me and my photo friends closer together in a time when I really, really needed friends.