[Leica] Formula One Auto Racing

[rhc3vt at hotmail.com (Richard Coutant)]

I have followed F1 very closely since the sixties, although the last race I 
attended was at Watkins Glen in 1968.  And I do confess to being a regular 
spectator at the Lime Rock vintage races.  My friends and I refer to NASCAR 
as 'taxicab racing'.  And I do live in the PRVT.  But this Indy fiasco is 
beyond the pale, and there is no doubt in my mind that the USGP results 
should be stricken forever from the records of this grand sport.  What would 
John Surtees say?  Drastic reform is immediately required.  I hate to see 
restrictions on technical innovation, made for the sake of 'spectacle', but 
it had seemed that the recent changes were working, improving the quality of 
the events without compromising the ability to innovate that has made F1 
what it is.  The proposals for a single tire, a single engine management 
system, will only work if they are imposed in the context of  freedom to 
develop in other ways.  Perhaps a fairer and more interesting way to 
'control' the sport would be to impose an expense cap, almost analagous to 
public election funding, without trying to control how the money is spent.

Richard


>The USian attitude is a bit more complex than a simple matter of 
>nationalism.
>
>Formula One is perceived as an effete method for auto racing and is equated
>with Espresso, National Public Radio, Opera, croissants, und so weiter.  We
>are so large a nation that we can comfortably support authors unknown to
>that 95% of the populace who never read the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS or the
>WASHINGTON POST but, in the end, we do have a ragged resistance to what we
>perceive to be "cultural";  we would much rather have Raymond Chadler than,
>say, Albert Camus.
>
>The result is that Formula One ignites the souls of perhaps one percent of
>our populace and might be familiar to ten percent of our citzenry, but that
>is about the cap.  Formula One has tried for twenty years and more to get
>out of the raised-pinky image and to excape from its Lime Rock apparition
>in the US, but with less success than it had imagined would result.
>Formula One in the US has not been consistent, it has not been interesting,
>and it has generated almost no publicity:  my local newspaper, for
>instance, made only the barest mention of the results of the race and did
>not mention anything about the controversy, but, then, the ROANOKE TIMES is
>never to be regarded as a solid example of journalistic thoroughness or
>consistency.
>
>Formula One is rather a lost concept in the US and has been improperly
>marketed here since the fist US race twenty-five years or so ago.
>
>I recognize that the Formula One dudes want to involve themselves in
>serious US money but I suspect that they would do best to back off for a
>decade and to try again.  Soccer and Formula One do not fit the current
>USian paradigm:  either can be made to work here, but they need a far more
>patient and developed business plan than either has yet produced.
>
>I live some 160 miles (250km) from the situs of the final debacle in
>THUNDER ROAD, an early and deservedly famous Robert Mitchum vehicle, and I
>know a bunch of folks who ran the "hooch lines" which were to produce
>NASCAR.  Still, I have no time for NASCAR or its like and regard Formula
>One as far more interesting.  But it just is not for USian tastes at this
>time.
>
>Marc
>
>msmall@aya.yale.edu
>Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
>
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