2011 – Page 8 – I Watch Too Much Racing

Appearance on the latest Sidepodchat

Late on Friday night saw the recording of the latest in the occasional ‘Sidepodchat’ series at Sidepodcast.com, and I was one of the lucky people to appear. The concept is a short 10-minute show in which Christine and Mr C chat with a small panel of guests about a particular topic or theme. This week’s other guests included some of your other favourite bloggers like Gavin and Lukeh and SPC commenters Steven and Bassano

This Chat’s theme was the Renault F1 team and specifically the driver line-up for 2011. Who will join Kubica? What is the future of the team? It was fun, it always is! Keep an eye out for future editions, who knows you might even appear on one soon – anyone can.

Be sure to check it out here, at 12 minutes in length you have no excuse not to.

Don’t Go Away

The off-season is the ideal time for people to take a break from racing, but not me. This is when I catch up with all the things I haven’t had time for during the main season. I hope you’ll stick around because there is also plenty else happening around the racing blogosphere too.

For one thing I have been moving house over the last week, and preparing for it for a while beforehand, so my planned blog posts have been delayed – there’s a bit of a backlog now. Over the next fortnight I plan to write about:

– Saturday and Sunday at the Belgian Grand Prix;
– A few short paragraphs on all the F1 races since then;
– A few short paragraphs on the last two MotoGP races of the season;
– My day at Silverstone for the Le Mans Series;
– Some other seemingly-random stuff I’ve been watching;

After that I’ll be catchup on some racing from all over the place as I try to cut down my massive backlog of things marked ‘to be watched’. I insist upon watching it now I have it, no cheating by skipping ahead.

Then we’re into the depths of the off-season and there is the Thursday Thoughts series which will surely make a comeback in a couple of weeks, then perhaps Bloggers Swap Shop could make a return after its triumphant debut a few months ago. Be sure to check out all the various other blogs taking part in these initatives, not only when they are happening but in the meantime because there are some good posts out there.

I’m tempted to start a series of posts linking to good blog articles I find elsewhere. Jackie at VivaF1 does for F1 articles, Tony at PopOffValve does a great series on IndyCar, JOWT for junior series. I’m not aware of anyone doing it across multiple disciplines of racing. In any case, these sites and others need more links to them not just from them. The remit of this blog is to expose people to racing they might not otherwise follow, and act as a discussion place for those of us that already do. The game has done that a little, at the expense of the discussion. Time to redress the balance.

Then there are the F1 launches and tests, Dakar and soon Daytona again. It isn’t that long really.

Don’t disappear this winter – your humble bloggers aren’t.

2011 F1 and IndyCar Schedules

It has been quite the week for 2011 schedule announcements. We’ve seen the provisional calendar for Formula 1, a mostly-confirmed calendar for IndyCar as well as what appear to be firm line-ups for WTCC and BTCC. Leaving the tintops aside for a second, here are the important dates for fans of major open-wheel racing:

13 March: F1 – Bahrain;
27 March: F1 – Australia, ICS – St Pete;
10 April: F1 – Malaysia, ICS – Barber;
17 April: F1 – China, ICS – Long Beach;
1 May: ICS – Sao Paulo;
8 May: F1 – Turkey;
22 May: F1 – Spain;
29 May: F1 – Monaco, ICS – Indianapolis;
12 June: F1 – Canada, ICS – Texas (2 races);
19 June: ICS – Milwaukee;
26 June: F1 – Valencia, ICS – Iowa:
10 July: F1 – Britain, ICS – Toronto;
24 July: F1 – Germany, ICS – Edmonton;
31 July: F1 – Hungary:
7 August: ICS – Mid-Ohio;
14 August: ICS – Loudon;
28 August: F1 – Belgium, ICS – Sonoma;
4 Septemeber: ICS – Baltimore;
11 September: F1 – Italy;
18 September: ICS – Motegi;
25 September: F1 – Singapore;
2 October: ICS – Kentucky;
9 October: F1 – Japan;
16 October: F1 – Korea;
30 October: F1 – India;
13 November: F1 – Abu Dhabi;
27 November: F1 – Brazil;
tba: ICS – season finale venue tbc

It is a shame to see the loss of Watkins Glen and Chicagoland, but in their place we get Milwaukee, Loudon and potentially Las Vegas as the finale. It’ll be interesting to see if the trade-off was worth it. I’m a fan of Milwaukee but I’m not too familiar with the others – it must be said IndyCar fans took the Loudon (New Hampshire) news very supportively and the venue has been missed by many. The Baltimore GP alongside the ALMS will be another interesting weekend to watch for, the track looks promising.

This is a record number of Formula 1 events with the retention of every 2010 GP and the addition of India, however it remains to be seen whether Korea will actually hold a race either in 2010 or 2011. I’m quietly confident about India but Korea looks a shambles. Monaco and Indy on the same weekend is a good double for racing geeks like me, but I enjoyed having them on different weeks this year and allowing each the ‘media breathing room’ they deserve.

I’ll soon revisit my Google Calendars with the new information and also checking the sportscar races, but since these things are usually quite fluid this early in the going I’m in no hurry to do so. I’m also conscious I haven’t been very good at keeping them fully updated as changes have been made through the year, perhaps I’ll try to do better in 2011.

17/04  China
08/05  Turkey
22/05  Spain
29/05  Monaco
12/06  Canada
26/06  Europe (Valencia)
10/07  Great Britain
24/07  Germany
31/07  Hungary
28/08  Belgium
11/09  Italy
25/09  Singapore
09/10  Japan
16/10  Korea
30/10  India*
13/11  Abu Dhabi
27/11  Brazil