Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/06/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:49 PM 6/20/05 -0400, Kevin Argue wrote: >Greg- The debacle occurred in the US GP not the Canadian. The Canadian was a >success. The American was a disaster and will piss off American fans. But >the reality is our friends from the south are more interested in NASCAR, >Cart and IRL not F1. Until F1 sees another American driver it just won't sit >well with Americans. Kevin 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 b?s fir gun ghr?s fir! NEW FAX NUMBER: +540-343-8505