[NJSPEEDER]

i dunno how many of you guys follow formula1 closely. last weekend was teh US GP at Indy.
basically what happened was that michelin showed up with a tire that couldn't with stand the forces created running a banked portion of the indy road course. bridgestone(the only other brand in F1) had a tire that could compete and last.
F1 rules have teh team running 1set of tires from the begining of qualifying through the end of the race. since the michelin tires couldn't last and were clearly unsafe all 7 teams running their tires decided to pull off the track after the installation lap(warm up lap) without going to the grid for teh standing start.
F1 decided to throw teh green and run teh race with only 6 cars on the track.

the fall out is that bernie ecklestone(the owner of the FIA who sanctions these events) has decided to place teh blame on everyone but michelin or F1.
he has made several comments about a lack of promotion of the event. amazing that you can say an event attended by over 140,000 people was not promoted well.
he also bagged on danica patrick for not doing press shoots in an F1 car. she declined saying something to the effect of she would be pictured in an F1 car when she earned an F1 ride.
the end result of this mess seems to be a serious threat to even holding a the michelin and F1 web sites are all drownign in stupid excuses at this point. many even consider this a sign of the end of formula one in the us, or at least at indy.

i don't know who i am more disappointed in after all of this.
the FIA stood by their own stupid rules, which is more than i can say for most sanctioning bodies, but it jsut proved how stupid the tire rules are. michelin could have had redesigned, safe tires ready for sundays race. under the rules any car to change tires would have been disallowed though.
the FIA also turned down an appeal requesting that an offset turn be placed on the banked portion of the track to lower speeds so teh michelin tires coudl safely compete. the person who makes this decision was all comfy sitting in england while american race fans got ripped off watching only 6 of 20 cars compete.
michelin just embarrased themselves on an international scale. how can you claim to be a great performance tire company and not show up with a safe tire.
the race distance was 73 laps. the michelin tires were shreading in 3 to 5 laps. although michelin's official statement on their web site is mostly an apology, rumblings at the track actually blamed the facility for putting down fresh pavement for teh tire failures. WTF? give a tire company good grippy pavement and their product fails? how can you blame anyone but michelin for under-engineering their product?

i hope grand prix racing stays in the US. i just hope that they get some actually racing people involved in the management of teh sanctioning body so that the retards don't completely ruin it.
[/rant]

later
tim