I know a few people here are raised well enough to be interested in motorsports rather than the drull field sports. Do we have enough informed opinions of the pinacle of human competative achievement to make a whole thread? I personally love MotoGP, WSB, BSB & especially the FIA World Endurance Championship. I love F1; but really, to me as far as 4 wheels goes, the WEC is the apex of development, teamwork and engineering. F1 held it once, but they have stripped it out with the rule changes and made it nothing more than another sprint race with crazy rules and stupid costs. Though I still have alot of love for the sport, I just don't feel it anymore. At the moment I am re-watching the 2012 F1 championship, 2012 MotoGP championship and most time consumingly the 24 hours of 2010-2012 Le Mans 24 hours, every painstaking hour of it. Is anyone else as enthusiastic about racing and watching things they consider the "golden era" of racing? I measure my year as starting/finishing as the 24 hour of Le Mans race, which is something of a religion to me. The journey and the experience is like no other. I will attend the Le Mans 24 and the 6 hours of Silverstone also; to check the form & get my eye in. 2013 will be an amazing battle in LMP2 with Lotus being there & in the GT classes, I cannot wait - a mere 112 dasy or so to go. But I will have to wait until 2014 when Porsche, Audi (both VW Group) and Toyota show up for the real show. To me the 24hr of Le Mans even dwarfs Monaco, I am sure plenty will disagree with me. What Motorsport races will you guys go and see / watch live? What gets your heart racing? (pardon the pun). If you could go and see any race in the world, with any access, what would you do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Fjsc90364 Of road sports, kinda. But Air racing takes the crown. The skills the pilots have and the shit they put the planes through is insane.
I thoroughly enjoy F1, and have done for several years. However, I do enjoy watching the old races from the 80s/70s, back when aerodynamics wasn't such a huge part of it. I don't think I could really manage a 24h Le Mans race, I start to struggle when an F1 race passes 90 minutes. I did enjoy watching both of those "Le Mans in 24" films or whatever they were, narrated by Jason Statham. They were really well done, especially given that I had no idea what the end outcome of each was. But yeah, just 2 weeks to go until the Formula 1 season starts. I've been watching the testing progress religiously to try and work out who might be quick off the mark but it's so difficult to tell this year. It's really just a case of waiting for that first race in Australia.
That is amazing. I watched the air race from a friend's flat when it came to London. Thats crazy Gs he is pulling, I would have thought that many Gs would rip your insides apart and compress your spine. I'll be watching this season, I skipped the last two. How has DRS changed the game? I have to say I find the whole idea really unappealing. I understand "active" DRS will be disallowed and only "passive" DRS allowed in 2013. But I don't understand the difference between them! Who are you favoured teams / drivers? Quite right. Well said. Edit: but Trickster.... http://www.astonmartin.com/racing/series/le-mans-24-hours
I hate F1 so bad for one reason. For some reason, they always had it during saturday/sunday morning cartoons. So instead of my favourite shows, it was F1 racing on tv and it made me so mad I still hate it to this day.
it has German Papers , but I unrestricted it and it is nolonger considered a "small" motorcycle by German standards I Think
I miss my 'prilla rs125, polini 154 bore kit, arrow full system, Stan Stephens port work and jetting. Anyone following motogp? Can't wait to see Rossi fighting for podiums now he is back with Yamaha. I wonder if they will ever get that Ducati sorted without repackaging the engine.
I knew I forgot to reply to some post first. Yeah, I find red bull air racing boring, because it's still time trials at the end of the day. And besides that, most of the manoeuvres they pull aren't actually that special, they're just doing them close to the ground. Honestly, aerobatics is not difficult on your own, I was taught to do at least 90% of what you see in Red Bull Air Racing within the first 5 hours of learning to fly. They do it faster, and closer to the ground in planes built for that kind of thing. But they're still doing it on their own. You want to see real flying skill? Watch formation stunt teams like the British Red Arrows, the American Thunderbirds etc. I even saw a team of ex-RAF pilots (some ex-Red Arrows in there) doing some insane aerobatics with the same kind of planes you'd see in the Red Bull Air Racing (Extras, for anyone wondering). That totally blew my mind, just how close they got to eachother before they just put the planes into a flat spin. So yeah, Red Bull Air Racing is for pussies. I did however watch the Red Bull X-Fighters last year in Dubai. That's basically where they have a stunt arena with dirtbikes and compete with eachother under the judges, to pull off the most ridiculous shit they can. That was really awesome. DRS is a bit faggy, but it does help get drivers out of the way who really shouldn't be there. I prefer KERS to DRS. Also I think you have it backwards. It's passive they're stopping, active is staying as is. Basically, on a zone within the race (or 2 zones sometimes) if they're within 1 second of the car in front before the detection zone, they can crack open the back wing. This lowers drag immensely and allows them to go a fair bit faster. It's used for straight-line overtaking, which is by far the faggiest kind of overtaking. However, some teams were exploiting this to also direct the air downards, through the front of the car and actually lift up the front of the car (Mercedes last season), thus lowering the downforce at the front and providing an even larger speed boost. This is what got banned for this season as far as I know. They also banned them from using DRS in non-DRS zones during practice/qualifying. DRS is faggy. KERS however is pretty ok, and I look forward to them doubling the capacity next season (2014). Last season of F1 was really special. Lewis Hamilton should have won by miles but Mclaren just fucked up over and over and over and over again. It was really dire. He had the best car and he was the best driver by miles, but the car just kept breaking down, or they fucked up his pit stop. It was so depressing. I don't tend to support a team, though I like Mclaren. I'm a huge Lewis Hamilton fan. He's the driver who's willing to push it further than the rest, take the biggest risks. There are a lot of fast drivers on the grid, but not as many fast racers. Lewis is easily the fastest racer there, closely followed by Alonso, whom I've also taken quite a liking to. After Lewis, Alonso deserved the title last season. He had a shitty car all season and he dragged it kicking and screaming to the very last race for the title win. If Grosjean hadn't wiped him out earlier in the season at Belgium, I really do think Alonso would have (deservedly) taken the title. Vettel only got where he was because Lewis was taken out of contention by his car failing 3 races in a row or someshit. I'd be surprised if it's as open as it was last year. We had 7 different winners in the first 7 races last year. That's going to take something to beat. Also, I like Aston Martin but I don't really care for their racing stuff, I just want an Aston Martin Vantage, which I am determined to buy this summer. Oh also, @ McGyver. I get where you're coming from, but in terms of physical preparation, most F1 drivers are on a par with Tour de France cyclists in terms of fitness and overall physical condition these days (minus being doped up). It really is a physical sport now. I know that in the Malaysian race, they lose several kg of weight over the course of the race, just from how much they sweat out in water.
But Aston is a racing Marque. I don't think you are allowed not to like their racing stuff. I am very upset indeed. The Vantage is a GT car built for competition. In this centenary year they will race no less than 4 of the V8 Vantages in Le Mans 24. The V12 forms the basic engine package used in the DBR1-2 Prototype LMP1 race car (which with #007 & #008 nearly won the petrol class in 2010). Thanks for explaining DRS active/passive. I think Toyota brought their aero from F1 to endurance racing on the TS030 & I guess it came from the passive tech. They certainly seemed to have a better aero package than Audi last year & their car looked closer to an F1 car than anything else out there. Audi used kinetic storage with a flywheel & Toyota used a super capacitor which was an interesting contrast. I'm a sucker for Lotus, so I'll be watching Lotus-Renault team, I think Kimi is a fantastic driver but I don't know anything about Romain Grosjean. If I'm not mistaken Lotus worked on the pneumatic valve trains that came out of F1 development and it'd be nice to see an innovative british manufacturer at the top flight of prototype racing, I read they finished 4th last year so I'm kind of sorry I missed that, though I seem to remember something to the effect that Renault just bought the Lotus Team and used the badge - that it had very little if any actual invovlement from the Lotus factory. My favourite F1 driver when I was watching it was Alonso. I like watching Hamilton but any time they gave him a mic I found him kind of boring, I know he was very young but he lacked the charisma to convey the sport to the fans. I always got the impression he was just doing a job (really well). Following WEC I would say I pay most attention to Giancarlo Fisichella with the AF Corse Ferrari & Allan McNish with Audi. But Toyota have a great chance this year with their car, I just don't think they have a driver line-up to match the Audi (who pilfered alot from Porsche I think). In bikes I, like the rest of the world have a man crush on Valentino Rossi and am a big fan of Marco Simoncelli (R.I.P). Its great to see some British riders in MotoGP and I wish Cal Crutchlow & team could recapture the promising form of his debut season. I've always wanted to go to Monaco, but I'm not sure I could ever justify the cost of that kind of short holiday. It would probably mean I wouldn't have another for 18 months. As far as spectating World Endurance Racing goes, it is long but it isn't boring at all, I'd say it has alot more action that sprint races. In 2011 the difference between Audi 1st and Peugot 2nd places was 13 seconds, after 24 hours, with the 2nd place gaining ~20 seconds since its final pit stop. There are a hell of alot of cars on grid for these races. In 24 hour races there is often as many retirements as there are cars on a whole Formula grid. With up to 56 cars of 4 different classes doing different top/corner speeds & a mix of Pro/Am drivers there is more drama per minute than anything I have watched except British Touchring Car Championship. The LMP1 cars are ~550/830bhp prototypes (/KERS) driven by F1 riders on tracks composing public roads, overtaking amateur drivers in 911's. Its one of the few formats where there are more people trying to race than there is space on the grid for, everywhere else they are trying to cut costs to keep teams racing. McGyver, Trickster is bang on the money there, even in clubman racing you would be suprised how fit drivers/riders are. Its not like darts, in motorsport today these guys are extremely well conditioned and have to be.
R.I.P Allen Simonson http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...ocId=CNG.e7ffbaff669afde962c086e8d6eb45f4.121 I've been to the TT when people have died, but you don't expect it in car racing and it did kind of cast a shadow over the post race festivities. His family insisted the team keep racing in the spirit of the sport but it drives home how dangerous it is and how much these guys risk to do what they love.
