Category: Too Much Racing

I’m Watching… #1

The introduction to my TMR Game posts is often a recap of what I’ve been watching over the weekend just past, but as I was writing the post tonight I wondered if it would be better to write it as a post on its own every Monday/Tuesday. It gets across my thoughts on that week’s racing and cuts the Game posts down to size, which I’ve been pondering how to do for a while. Win-win!

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”false” link=”term=IndyCar+Texas&iid=9040101″ src=”http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9040101/firestone-550k/firestone-550k.jpg?size=500&imageId=9040101″ width=”380″ height=”248″ /]

I stayed up most of Saturday night / Sunday morning to watch the excellent Texas IndyCar race along with the gang at Sidepodcast (and Twitter of course). Really good to get back on the fast ovals with Indy and Texas – I love the road courses but there’s something different about their oval races you just don’t see anywhere else. *cough*  Great to see the Andretti team back up front with a 2-3 finish. It was unfortunate what happened to de Silvestro – I’d planned to expand on that (and also recap Indy) in a dedicated IndyCar blog post but that has been delayed as I’ve been busy.

DTM and MotoGP clashes – as usual – and I watched the MotoGP as that’s usually the more entertaining of the two plus I can get it on my TV and the DTM would require a stream, though I wonder why I bothered because after the Pedrosa/Lorenzo thing was settled it was fairly boring. I’m just not getting excited about the current crop of riders, who the hell are they?

I don’t watch NASCAR Cup races (I’d watch highlights if I could), but I did catch the tag between Harvick and Logano on YouTube. What was that about? Commentary said they were going for the same gap, looked a little more suspect to me, perhaps not deliberate but maybe one didn’t back off when they may have done had it been someone else, apparently these guys have history..

Since I missed last week, what did I think of Turkey? Tense all the way through, the top four were pushing like hell throughout – it may not have come across on the TV screen but following the live timing a different member of the quartet set Fastest Lap with every pass. Then the clash! I jumped out of my seat. I never jump out of my seat. Vettel’s fault, clearly. Then the Maccas tried it! Sane heads prevailed and they took the 1-2.

What of the big race of that week, the 500? I LOVED IT. I’ve watched the Indy 500 since 2006 and this was the best yet. That’s not just for the racing but also the atmosphere, which was the most positive and forward-looking I’ve seen in my short tenure as a 500 fan – “unification” and the new management of the series are turning things around already. Many, like Pressdog, complained it was too much like an F1 race. So? It was like a very good F1 race or a very good sportscar endurance race. It had mystery, strategy, balls-out passes into tight corners (despite being an oval, at 230mph those turns are tight and the place only has one effective line), and top it off most of the front-runners hit trouble, so we had some different people in the top ten. Dario and team executed a near-perfect race. That’s fine – we watch this stuff to see the best of the best, this isn’t amateur hour – and if they hadn’t, we would’ve seen a non-Ganassi non-Penske winner. Roll on next year.

Another big one this week – Le Mans! Should be great. Mixed in with the welcome return of the Canadian GP and the stat of the World Cup, we’re in for a hell of a weekend.

[Photo credit:  IZOD IndyCar Series at Texas Motor Speedway, Getty Images, via Picapp]

TMR Game – Week 20

Welcome to Week 20 of the Too Much Racing Game!

I usually use this space to write about the racing I watched over the weekend, but I’ve decided to do that in a breakout post which will follow shortly. All I’ll say now is this week will be crucial, so be sure to make your picks! On with the game report.

Quick-Start

Racing this week:

LM24 – 24 Hours of Le Mans;

F1 – Canadian GGP;

Sprint Cup – Michigan;

Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 10 drivers, no more than 7 from one race. Toughie this week.

The cutoff is Saturday 12th June at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT.

For the full results from Week 19, read on.

Continue reading “TMR Game – Week 20”

A thank you..

Word emerged Wednesday that long-established IndyCar blogger Jeff Iannucci, of MyNameisIRL.com, has decided to stand down for personal reasons. You can read his ‘letter of resignation’ here.

I very much respect the decision, it shows certain priorities are in order. Many lesser bloggers would attempt to carry on under what I presume to be difficult circumstances (without knowing details, without needing to). Sometimes a break is needed to focus on more important things.

Nonetheless, My Name Is IRL’s absence in the community will be greatly felt. His was one of the first racing blogs I started to read, and became one of the first of what I consider the ‘big’ IndyCar blogs. This was at the time of the ChampCar/IndyCar ‘merger’ and his site had been running for a while by then. It has grown in popularity quite substantially since.

Personally-speaking, I said it in my very first post at the old site and I’ll say it again, without My Name Is IRL, Pressdog and Meesh, I would never have started blogging. They were the first to link little ‘ole me, even when I had little to add. I was astonished they’d even give me the time of day. Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m no way comparing my humble efforts to any of them, just they were jointly the inspiration to start writing.

I get the impression from the comments to his post, there are others who can relate similar stories. Jeff, I thank you for that, even if it were unknown and unintended. Not only that, but the quality of writing was always impeccable, whether it be a race report, a snippet of news or hilarious piece of satire. I like to think that attitude rubbed off on several bloggers.

Jeff: the blogging community owes you, mostly in the IndyCar community but also in a wider sense in the racing world, maybe even wider than that. I wish you well going forward, and hope that some day you will be able to return to take your place, whether it be weeks, months or even years from now. We’ll keep the seat warm. Stay in touch..

TMR Game – Week 19

Welcome to Week 19 of the Too Much Racing Game!

Dario
Dario Franchitti on his way to winning the Indy 500 (c) Bret Kelley, IZOD IndyCar Series

I hope you enjoyed this fantastic weekend of racing, I certainly did! It was a tense F1 race in Turkey with an all-out battle between the current fastest two teams, ending in tears for one of them – I wonder if this is the tipping point for McLaren to take the lead, or if Red Bull will douse any flames?

This was followed by an excellent Indy 500, spoiled a little by poor TV and online coverage. It took a while to get going due to several caution periods, and then developed into one of the most tense and on-edge fuel strategy races I’ve seen in a long time. It was all building to crescendo when Conway’s crash happened on the final lap, and all thoughts of the race evaporated as we thought of his safety. Thankfully he’s safe with just a broken bone, it could have been far worse. Very lucky.

Speedgeek was at the 500 and he has some pre-race updates on his blog – I hope you’ll have a race report at some stage?

I didn’t see the Cup race, it was getting late and my eyes were hurting after staring at screens during the previous two races! I don’t think I could’ve stomached Fox’s ads after the copious commercials on the ABC feed. I also missed the WRC recap show as it was on during the 500.

Quick-Start

Racing this week:

IZOD IndyCar – Texas 550k;

NASCAR Sprint Cup – Pocono;

DTM – Lausitzring;

Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 10 drivers, no more than 7 from one race.

The cutoff is Saturday 5th June at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT.

For the full results from Week 18, read on.

Continue reading “TMR Game – Week 19”