Category Archives: Motorsports

Indycar Series — Tonight a champion will be crowned

Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves (photo from USA Today/Gannett)

The Izod Indycar Driver’s Championship comes down to the last race of the year once again. Tonight’s MAVTV sponsored 500-miler from the 2 mile D-oval in Fontana, California will determine whether Scott Dixon can hang on for his third Indycar Championship or Helio Castroneves can recover from late season woes to claim his first. Despite the fact that Chip Ganassi’s Dixon has won four races this season to Penske driver Castroneves’ one, a mere 25 points separates them. And the Penske cars’ Chevy engines seem to have the flat out speed this weekend with a 1st-2nd-3rd lockout in Qualifying (Power, Castroneves*, Allmendinger), as well as the comfort level at Fontana having tested there frequently. But the Honda-powered Ganassi cars might have the advantage on gas mileage even with Dixon starting 7th*, so look for a very interesting strategic race to unfold so long as both contenders can avoid crashing out early on this notoriously slippery and windy circuit.

As you might have noticed with that Qualy result, Penske has added a third car to help their Brazilian ace try to win, with hot shoe A.J. Allmendinger joining Aussie Will Power and hoping to recreate his superb Indy 500 run. Power, too, has been excellent in the latter part of the season and he will be hoping to erase memories of last year’s early race wipe out at Fontana, which led to yet another heartbreaking fumble of the championship and gifted it to American Ryan Hunter-Reay.

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RIP Maria de Villota

Pic from F1zone.net

On the eve of Qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix comes the very sad news that F1 reserve and test driver Maria de Villota has been found dead in her hotel room in Saville, Spain. The Spanish police say that “everything points to natural causes.”

De Villota was nearly killed in July 2012 when the Marussia she was driving in straight line tests accelerated into the lowered rear platform of a support truck. She lost an eye in that accident and it cost her her dream of becoming the first female F1 driver. Since the accident and what must have been a grueling rahab, de Villota had married and was about to debut a book about her ordeal entitled “Life is a Gift”. A very sad day for all motorsports fans, Maria de Villota was a much too young 33 years of age.

 

Motorsport Movies: Rush vs. Grand Prix

RUSH-poster-new

Ron Howard’s Formula One blockbuster Rush opened this past weekend across the country to generally very positive reviews from the critics and rather lackluster box office receipts. Most people, particularly Hollywood cognoscenti, will take that to mean that straight up racing films remain box office poison and that films about the Euro-centric world of F1 are particularly lethal. The thinking will be that unless you have Paul Walker and Vin Diesel blowing things up and destroying the bad guys in stolen hot rods while crashing them into jet liners, the general public is just not going to go to a straight racing movie no matter the high profile director or the technical virtuosity on display amongst all that vroom vroom.

That’s all fine and good but the real issue is: Is Rush any good as a racing film, period? One can make a cult classic that does not attract great popular success and yet still have made something special, exciting and valuable to the cult itself. To truly evaluate Rush one has to compare it with arguably the only other really good racing film Hollywood has ever made, John Frankenheimer’s 1966 Grand Prix. (Obviously, the documentary Senna is indisputably fantastic but we are talking dramatized portrayals). Unfortunately it has to be said that in comparison Rush falls short, not on narrative but on the basis of visceral excitement.

Looking at footage from the two films is instructive of the difference between them. The trailer for Rush:

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What we’re watching – C’était un Rendezvous

snapshot
I thought today I’d dedicate a few lines to my favourite short film of all-time, Claude Lelouche‘s 1976 high-speed masterpiece, C’était un Rendezvous. The film is only 8 minutes and 38 seconds long, but if you love cars like I love cars, it’s one for the best films out there.
The premise of the film is simple. A camera is mounted to the front of a car and the audience is given a front row, drivers point of view as an unknown man takes to the streets of Paris just before dawn, and drives fast (and I mean really fast), through the city streets just as Paris is beginning to stir, to finally reach a street in Montmartre where we find a lovely blond woman waiting for him. Hence the title, “It was a date.” Of course what makes the film exciting isn’t the plot, it’s watching the streets of Paris whiz by at breakneck speed as the anonymous driver handles the car beautifully through every dangerous curve he encounters. It’s 8 and a half minutes of adrenaline, screaming engine, squealing tires, great driving, and beautiful scenery. Here’s a clip, showing the last 2 minutes of the film…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAg9fg_523k

After seeing this movie for the first time, I had all the questions one would expect. Who was driving that car?! What kind of a car was it? Did they block the streets or did they really just go for it, outlaw style? Now we know all of the answers. Continue reading →