Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/06/21

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Subject: [Leica] Formula One Auto Racing
From: summicron at bellsouth.net (Frank F. Farmer)
Date: Tue Jun 21 08:27:42 2005

Marc,

For the most part, you are right on the money.  Of course, I like Camus, 
Formula One (left turns AND right turns - what a concept!), espresso, NPR 
and Opera - not to mention Leicas - which also belongs on that list.  Then 
again, I must be an eccentric Southerner.  ;-).

The problem is just as you say though.  Formula 1's marketing, nay, lack of 
marketing, has put it squarely behind dirt track races or monster truck 
shows in this country.  The marketing machine of NASCAR is an incredible and 
formidable opponent.  Nothing is going to overcome that swell unless a well 
planned assault is launched.  Thus far, there have been no challenges from 
Formula 1.  People paid upwards of $1,000.00 for vanity car tags featuring 
the same tag number as their favorite NASCAR driver's car number in this 
state.  Insane.

Frank

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From: Marc James Small <msmall@aya.yale.edu>
Date: 2005/06/20 Mon PM 10:29:10 CDT
To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
Subject: [Leica] Formula One Auto Racing

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





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