Friday, September 14, 2007
Wow.
I was gonna post about how the FIA is screwing the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 team and will but first I want to post this link.
Doc in the Box has a good friend, Lieutenant Commander David Tarantino, who came to the rescue on 9/11/01. It wasn't at the main site of the World Trade Centers or in a field in Pennsylvania. He was working in the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into it. He's a Navy corpsman (doctor) and is trained to react in times of distress and emergency. He did just that 6 years ago and helped save the life of Jerry Henson, a former Navy commander who also worked in the Pentagon. It's an amazing tale and I hope that we can all live up to the example that David has set.
Lt. Comdr. David Tarantino, Jerry Henson, and Capt. David Thomas
Eye in the Sky by Marlane Liddell from Smithsonian.com
Pictures about that day.
Incredible.
Now on to more pedestrian racing concerns. Formula 1 (F1) is the premier racing series. The top 2 teams are Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. I'm not sure how it started but I think Mercedes talked to a Ferrari engineer who had some secret Ferrari information. The issue is whether or not Mercedes used that info for a competitive advantage. I don't think they did. The FIA (governing body of most top motorsports) and the FIA World Motorsports Council disagrees with me, so they fined Mercedes ALL of their constructor's points (they had the constructor's championship almost locked up with 40 or so more points than Ferrari) and fined them $100,000,000. 100 million?!?!?! That's a shit ton of money. It almost seems like the FIA is trying to kill F1! Why would they essentially ruin 1 of their top 2 teams? Mercedes is definitely appealing and hopefully can reduce the fine and reclaim their position at, or at least near, the top.
And the worst part is that the Ferrari engineer has so far gotten off scott-free. No penalty. No fine. Nothing. If anything he basically won the constructor's championship for Ferrari by leaking their info. So fucked up. I'm even a Ferrari fan and I know that's messed up. No one likes to win by forfeit; it's unsportsmanlike.
If you are fortunate enough to get the Speed Channel, definitely watch this weekend's F1 race. It's in the south of Belgium at Spa-Francorchamps. A gorgeous racetrack in the mountains with lots of elevation changes and some very interesting turns. It's also the longest F1 course by about 0.75 miles at 4.33 miles long.
View Larger Map
Gorgeous. If you have Google Earth, I would definitely search for Francorchamps, Belgium and then scroll south a bit. Then you can really check out the elevation change. Let's go see if that works.
Doc in the Box has a good friend, Lieutenant Commander David Tarantino, who came to the rescue on 9/11/01. It wasn't at the main site of the World Trade Centers or in a field in Pennsylvania. He was working in the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into it. He's a Navy corpsman (doctor) and is trained to react in times of distress and emergency. He did just that 6 years ago and helped save the life of Jerry Henson, a former Navy commander who also worked in the Pentagon. It's an amazing tale and I hope that we can all live up to the example that David has set.
Lt. Comdr. David Tarantino, Jerry Henson, and Capt. David Thomas
Eye in the Sky by Marlane Liddell from Smithsonian.com
Pictures about that day.
Incredible.
Now on to more pedestrian racing concerns. Formula 1 (F1) is the premier racing series. The top 2 teams are Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. I'm not sure how it started but I think Mercedes talked to a Ferrari engineer who had some secret Ferrari information. The issue is whether or not Mercedes used that info for a competitive advantage. I don't think they did. The FIA (governing body of most top motorsports) and the FIA World Motorsports Council disagrees with me, so they fined Mercedes ALL of their constructor's points (they had the constructor's championship almost locked up with 40 or so more points than Ferrari) and fined them $100,000,000. 100 million?!?!?! That's a shit ton of money. It almost seems like the FIA is trying to kill F1! Why would they essentially ruin 1 of their top 2 teams? Mercedes is definitely appealing and hopefully can reduce the fine and reclaim their position at, or at least near, the top.
And the worst part is that the Ferrari engineer has so far gotten off scott-free. No penalty. No fine. Nothing. If anything he basically won the constructor's championship for Ferrari by leaking their info. So fucked up. I'm even a Ferrari fan and I know that's messed up. No one likes to win by forfeit; it's unsportsmanlike.
If you are fortunate enough to get the Speed Channel, definitely watch this weekend's F1 race. It's in the south of Belgium at Spa-Francorchamps. A gorgeous racetrack in the mountains with lots of elevation changes and some very interesting turns. It's also the longest F1 course by about 0.75 miles at 4.33 miles long.
View Larger Map
Gorgeous. If you have Google Earth, I would definitely search for Francorchamps, Belgium and then scroll south a bit. Then you can really check out the elevation change. Let's go see if that works.
# posted by Seth @ 8:22 AM 
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