Formula One World Driver's Championship Goes Down To The Las

JOHN THURSTON is back and eager to discuss Western Martial Arts, especially relating to its history.

Moderator: JOHN THURSTON

Post Reply
Hugh
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Virginia

Formula One World Driver's Championship Goes Down To The Las

Post by Hugh »

Forgive me for going off-topic, but I just had to share with you all. I am no longer the fanatic for F-1 that I once was, not since the death of Mark Donohue, but I still follow the races.

In a rare situation, last seen in 1986, three drivers are in a position to win the World Championship in Formula One Grand Prix racing going into the final race of the season at the Interlagos Track in Sao Paolo, Brazil. They are Lewis Hamilton with 107 points, Fernando Alonso with 103 points, and Kimi Raikkonen with 100 points. Since points are awarded 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 for the first 8 finishers, Hamilton could tie it up with a 1st or 2nd place finish no matter what the other two drivers do while Alonso needs to win with Hamilton finishing no better than 3rd. Raikkonen can win if Hamilton is no better than 6th and Alonso no better than 3rd. Please see http://www.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/ detail... for details.
What is truly remarkable is that Hamilton is an utter rookie in F-1 racing. Yes, he had come up through the European feeder series such as Formula 3 and Formula BMW, but it is huge step from these very much smaller cars to a 700hp F-1 car with all of the sophistication that goes with such a car. He has qualified in the top 2 or 3 positions in every race this year and China is only the second time that he has not finished the race and both of them were in atrocious conditions. In Germany, it was pouring rain so hard that the cars looked to be racing speedboats and in China, he was being told to stay out too long on worn out tires in an effort to see whether or not the looming rain would really happen and he wpuld need rain tires or dry tires. He got into a dice with Raikkonen and slid off into a gravel trap which left him stuck. It was, in the final analysis, his fault as he could have avoided that dice and simply let Raikkonen go or he could have forced the issue and come in for new tires. But he is still learning and it is really remarkable that he has done this well. No other rookie has ever done so well. It is especially incredible when you know that he was supposed to be the number 2 driver to twice and current World Champion Fernando Alonso on the McLaren team. As you may imagine, Alonso has not been a happy camper on that team.

Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen is laying back and hoping that the two McLaren drivers somehow eliminate each other so that he can take the driver's championship for Ferrari who have already won the constructor's championship as a result of a decision from the international federation governing automobile racing. That decision grew out of the discovery that McLaren had participated in an act of industrial espionage against Ferrari and the decision fined the team $100,000,000(!) and took away all of the team Constructor's Championship points for this year.

In any case, I intend to be watching on Sunday, October 21, to see how it all settles out.
Trying to Walk in the Light, Hugh
1 John 1:5
JOHN THURSTON
Posts: 2445
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 1998 6:01 am
Location: MARSHFIELD, MA. USA
Contact:

Sorry Hugh

Post by JOHN THURSTON »

Thanks for the Info. Our most gracious host GEM has pretty well said that we can write about what we wish-within reaso.

My closest affiliation with racing is through My Corvette Z06-175mph-1g force available on accelration braking and on the Turntable.

They were/are sold as out of the box ready to race, just add a quart of extra oil and change the camber a bit..


Image




The C5R's and C6R's do well in their class against AstonMartins, Ferraris and the like.

The car is older an less powerful than the new Corvettes (C6-Z06) and I would very much appreciate it if you could educate us on the classes of racing, the tracks (ie: Watkins Glen, etc.) and generally anything that you might wish, including stock car racing as I do not understand the genesis of the new horsepower limit.

A note---I am saddened (lol) by your assumption that I did not know about MacArthurs ordered retreat from the Phillipines-I am going to post something in this vein based on the John Ford 1946 Movie "They Were Expendable" (John Wayne, Donna Reid, Ward Bond )one of my old favs and mostly accurate, although the types of boats used in the movie were not exactly the same as in real history.

J
"All Enlightenment Gratefully Accepted"
Hugh
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Virginia

Post by Hugh »

I suggest that you read the book. I grew up on it and it is a page-turner. Of course, I now realize that it was written in 1942 and has, shall we say, some unverifiable aspects to it, but it is a great story nonetheless. It is rather better, IMO, than the movie.

They Were Expendable (Bluejacket Books) by William Lindsay White (Paperback - April 1998)
Buy new: $19.95; $15.56 from Amazon
Trying to Walk in the Light, Hugh
1 John 1:5
Hugh
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Virginia

Post by Hugh »

In answer to the other portion of your post, I suggest that you go to http://www.f1-live.com/f1/ and look around there. It has the rules, etc. for most of what you are asking outside of the very insular world of NASCAR that I do not understand and cannot even try to explain. If you want a couple of entries into that particular world, try the film "Talladega Nights - The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" which I am told by NASCAR fan friends is both very funny and very accurate. Oddly enough, there are two books by Sharan McCrumb that deal with NASCAR, one from the fans point of view, Saint Dale, and one from a car team's pont of view, Once Around the Track. The first is a riff on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in that it is a trip by a group of Dale Earnhardt fans around the various NASCAR tracks to lay wreaths in honor of their hero and it contains the stories of several of them and how they interact. It is bothy very touching and extremely funny, in turn. The other is about a bunch of high-pwered women who decide to sponsor an all-woman Nextel Cup team and it is, on the whole, very sympathetic to the grunts who carry the spears in the NASCAR operas rather than the stars. McCrumb is a PhD professor in Applachian Studies and a well-known author of stories set in the South.
Trying to Walk in the Light, Hugh
1 John 1:5
JOHN THURSTON
Posts: 2445
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 1998 6:01 am
Location: MARSHFIELD, MA. USA
Contact:

They Were Expendable

Post by JOHN THURSTON »

Hi:

I was so young that I was unaware of the book.

Thanks Hugh.

I hope to get a thread going on Leyte Gulf where PT and destroyer torpedo attacks left the "Old battle Line" to mop up.

I do not speak, of course, of the the decoy force or Kurita's unexplicable retreat in the face of the attacks by the "little boys" at San Bernadino.

Gambier Bay was one of, what, 3 American carriers sunk during the war..

The japanese feints did draw off the fast battleship force and, perhaps, a substantial number of fast cariers.

Nonetheless, PT's were extremely effective at the "southern most' fight. at night on the Leyte Gulf force.

Without the courage of the Little boys to the northeast, the landing forces would have suffered dearly or been destroyed.

Kurita's decision is inexplicable.

The nickname "Bull" Halsey did signify courage, dash but a certain amount of impetuose moves.

I shudder to think of the outcome of Midway had not Spruance (a destroyer man) orchestrated the american forces, as that battle seems more of a chess match and not a 'charge'.

I know I do not mention the breaking of the Japanese Naval code here-and I hope to discuss Midway and Leyte Gulf in some detail-but not today.

Best to you pal!!!!

J

j
"All Enlightenment Gratefully Accepted"
Hugh
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Virginia

Post by Hugh »

I grew up on those old books. If you want to read another, try The Cruise of the Raider HK-33 by Jochen Brennecke. Amazon has a couple of copies available on their Used Book Exchange. It is the story of the German Commerce Raider, Pinguin and it is sort of like reading of the CSS Alabama and Shenandoah. The German Navy tended not to be NAZI oriented as you may know, Navies tending to be the most traditionalist and conservative of the armed services.
Trying to Walk in the Light, Hugh
1 John 1:5
Hugh
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Virginia

Post by Hugh »

Well, the most improbable of the possible results occurred. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari finished first with his teammate second, Frrnando Alonso was third and Lewis Hamilton was seventh. This gave the Driver's Championship to Raikkonen, a most deserving of champions even if I was rooting for the rookie sensation, Hamilton. Hamilton made one of his very few mistakes of the year by letting himself be drawn into a duel with his teammate, Alonso, in the early laps and being run off the course. It apparently screwed up something in the electronic gearbox controls and Hamilton lsot a total of some 50 or more seconds before he could reset the electronics and get racing again. Well, you hire drivers for their competitiveness but their experience teaches them to control it so that they can use it only when it is to their advantage.

There a possible roblem with the refueling of two of the teams that might have resulted in the fourth, fifth, and sixth placed cars being disqualified but the decision was not to proceed with it. Had they been disqualified, Hamilton would have become World Champion, but races are to be won on the track and not in the boardrom as a result of a technicality. McLaren needs to put this year behind them and get o9n with winning next year.
Trying to Walk in the Light, Hugh
1 John 1:5
Post Reply

Return to “Western Martial Arts & History”