The last shall be first

It doesn't matter whether you win or lose -- it's all in the spin.

Imagine tuning in to watch the World Series and finding wall to wall coverage of Japanese minor league games. That's how I feel when trying to watch sports car racing on Speed Channel. Laguna Seca at Monterrey, California held the last race of the 2007 IMSA American LeMans series Saturday. These races, based on the French LeMans 24 hour endurance classic include several categories of cars together on the same track, from look-alike prototypes to production based sports cars compete with passenger seats, windshield wipers and brake lights.

I have stayed awake a day and a half watching the real thing in person, but this endurance race was unendurable for more than an hour. I confess that although I love sports car racing, I love to see the Corvettes win - and for the last few years, they always do. I enjoy it partly because I own one and partly because I love to see the dance of denial done by the stuck in the 80's traditionalists who see foreign manufacture as the prime factor in judging what is and what isn't a sports car. To watch the beautifully televised High Definition coverage, you'd think the race was all about the not-for-sale prototypes and the GT-2 class sports cars; the slower, less competitive vehicles like Porsche and Ferrari. The audio sounded like nothing else but a farrago of Audi-Porsche-Mazda-Lexus-Accura commercials.

Call me a traditionalist curmudgeon, but in most sporting events the name of the winner or the season's champion team gets mentioned at least as often as the runners up and the minor leagues are generally seen as less important than the majors. Not once during the hour I watched, was the GT-1 category; the fastest sports cars which include Aston Martin and Maserati, either mentioned or shown. Not once during the festival of foreign name shouting was it mentioned that the Americans were about to win again.

But Automobile racing is not about cars, it's about global consumerism, unless you're talking about NASCAR and I'm still trying to figure out what that is all about. It's about winning in the magazines and TV commercials. It's about maintaining the profitable illusion that the guys who are 20 years behind are the cutting edge; that the competitors who finish a distant second and third are really winners.

Anyway, another season of America bashing, flag pin wearing, Toyota driving Americans pretending that the Axis powers are unbeatable even after we beat them year after year is over and the point standing is 19 points for Aston Martin, 38 for Maserati and 238 for the technological wonder from Bowling Green Kentucky. Who knows, maybe some day they'll come with heated Latte holders just like the real sports cars.

Audi Doody

Oh wow - golly gee whiz - all the automotive press are gobbling like the overpaid turkeys they are about the New Audi R8. According to one reviewer who I would never accuse of taking money from the people whose cars he reviews (yeah right) even Porsche drivers are impressed and it only costs about $110,000!

Corvette Drivers aren't impressed. A base model Chevy is faster for half the price. Comparing the R8 which looks like a 1990's Toyota, to a Corvette Z06 would be even more risible. Porsche? They don't even compete in the same class as the domestic product. Never mind which car has been the IMSA GT-1 champion every year in this century so far and dominates international endurance racing -This is better because it's Foreign! Wow! It has bluetooth and a TV camera because the rear visibility is so bad! High tech!

More money, less performance, usefulness and driveability - what more could you ask for - and oooooooh that German engineering!

Time and chance

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Whoever wrote Ecclesiastes 9:11 would have understood racing. The number 63 Corvette was hot on the heels of the Aston Martin and gaining nearly 30 seconds per lap. The American entry, having higher mid range torque, was having an easier time in the rain than the smaller displacement, higher RPM cars. Only a dozen laps to go at the most famous endurance race in the world and another Le Mans victory in the LMGT1 class would belong to the Americans, making for a total of 6 firsts out of the last 7 tries. Last year Aston Martin had reliability problems; a major factor in a 24 hour race and had to settle for second, but this year time and chance favored the Brits but with a bit of help, as some claim, from the French.

Deciding that there was too much rain, the pace cars or as the French call them "safety cars," came out and the race ran under the yellow caution flag under which there is no passing. Then, with a few laps to go, the green flag came out again even though there had been no change in the weather leaving the bright yellow Corvette C6R to finish second. Fans are still mumbling to themselves, asking what just happened and comparing the finish to the last episode of The Soprano's.

Who really understands the French? Losers always have reasons and the reasons nearly always have to do with the French juggling their arcane rules and procedures. It's not hard to understand their animosity toward the US at the moment since French Bashing has become the national sport of the American idiot class, but the race is over and it didn't go to the fastest car or to the most reliable. It went to the winner. Second place is second place but overall, the Corvette C5Rs and C6Rs have dominated the highest power sports car category at Le Mans and in the American Le Mans series for a number of years now.

This battle may not have gone to the strongest, but the war will go on for a long time.