I was very shocked and upset to learn about the death of Dan Wheldon.
I don’t watch IndyCar for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that I don’t have Sky. If I did have Sky, I probably would watch, and I certainly keep up-to-date with the news from IndyCar in general.
Nothing qualifies me to say anything about Dan Wheldon, as I have never watched him race. But I was fully aware of what he achieved in IndyCar. With 16 IndyCar race victories — two of which were the Indianapolis 500, arguably the most prestigious race in the world — and an IndyCar championship under his belt, it is clear that Dan Wheldon was a class act.
It is difficult to escape the impression that IndyCar is a particularly dangerous category in motorsport. There are some horrendous incidents in IndyCar with high-speed cars, narrow oval circuits and inexperienced drivers. All of these are currently being pinpointed as contributory factors towards Dan Wheldon’s death.
But it would be naive to imagine that accidents like this won’t happen in any form of motorsport. I don’t know how it would affect me if I were to watch a fatal accident unfold before my eyes live on television. It has never happened before to me. With drivers and riders that I know of and follow, in categories that I enjoy, it is difficult enough just to hear the news from a secondary source.
As fans of motorsport, we sit down to watch a race in anticipation of being entertained. Usually it delivers. But instead, it sometimes presents this.
I have heard it said that one reason we love motorsport is because it can cover the full spectrum of human emotions. If only that wasn’t true.
I went to see Friends with Benefits a few weeks ago, and it was pretty awful. The highlight is one funny joke about iPads in the middle. The rest is just mush. No harm in that of course. But the great thing is that I saw it in Dundee, at the Odeon, which is about a ten minute drive away from the DCA.
It’s funny because I was only just thinking about how extraordinarily well-served by cinemas Dundee is. I live about a 40 minute walk away from three cinemas. Two are “mainstream”, and the other is the DCA, which usually shows films that the others wouldn’t. The DCA shows some films that I really like. While the two mainstream ones may not be in the “town centre”, at least they are there.
Where I used to live, in Kirkcaldy, no such luck. There is the Adam Smith Theatre, which shows a small selection of films that were on general release six months ago. Besides that, you had to go to Dunfermline, a half hour drive away, then drive to the outskirts of that to get to the nearest cinema.
Off the top of my head, I think I have seen six films at the cinema this year. Three of them were at the DCA; the other three were at the Odeon (one of these films was also shown at the DCA). Maybe it’s just a coincidence, or maybe I’m just a snob. But the three I saw at the DCA were by far and away the better three.
I understand the arguments against the public subsidy for the DCA. But the idea that, if the DCA wasn’t there, a multiplex Odeon would magically sprout up in the city centre, is a tad fanciful.
Cinemas are rare beasts these days. It’s no conspiracy. It’s because commercially it doesn’t add up the way it used to because of changes in society (for the positive) over the past few decades. With this in mind, I have felt lucky to live somewhere with as many as three cinemas nearby.
After moving to Dundee a year ago, the DCA quickly became one of my favourite things about the city and I celebrate its existence. The great thing is that, for those who do not like what is shown at the DCA, there are two other cinemas that are just a stone’s throw away (even if they are not in the “town centre”).
I would hate for the most unique cinema of the three to go.
Last weekend my brother and I headed along to Scone Palace to witness the finish of this year’s Rally of Scotland, the penultimate round of this year’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge. Scone Palace is only about half an hour from where I live, and five minutes from where my brother lives. So it seemed silly not to go.
I have a bit of an on–off relationship with rallying. I used to enjoy watching the World Rally Championship a decade ago, when Channel 4 had some excellent coverage. But even then, it was never as satisfying a television spectacle as watching circuit racing.
Often there is no footage of the major incidents in a rally, and you just have to take people’s word for what happened. Sometimes there is footage, but taken by a spectator at the quality of a You’ve Been Framed camcorder calamity.
This sketchy experience must be amplified if you are standing in the middle of a stage, somewhere remote, in the freezing cold, Thermos in hand, bobblehat on head. A car whizzes past, then you wait for a minute or so until the next one comes. All part of the experience I guess, and something I want to do in the future.
Another slight issue is the fact that the stage you attend is only a small fraction of the overall rally. If you attend a later stage, chances are that the rally has pretty much already been decided. Prior to Scone Palace, Andreas Mikkelsen had a 30 second lead. That is difficult to overcome in a couple of two minute long stages!
But Mikkelsen, driving for the Škoda UK team, was the chosen man for the win. So much was this the case that when we entered the area around Scone Palace we were approached by a girl handing out Škoda flags that said “Go Andreas!” She said that the flags were “for when he wins”.
I raised my eyebrows as there were still two stages to go, and anything can happen in rallying! But it must be said that as a PR exercise it worked out pretty well. Most people had these Skoda flags and were planting them in the grass. Couple this with the several representatives from Škoda staff, and you would be forgiven for thinking that Scone Palace is in the Czech Republic. Škoda had conquered Scone.
Having said that, the Thierry Neuville Supporters’ Club were also there to show their support for the Belgian Peugeot driver.
Škoda’s nice flags could have backfired. Guy Wilks was the perfect demonstration of the fact that anything can happen in rallying. He has had a pretty rotten season, and a pretty rotten Rally of Scotland. He hit a gatepost on the final stage and failed to finish.
As rally stages go, Scone Palace is compact and spectator-friendly. This stage was just two minutes long, and was repeated in quick succession. It also doubled up as the finish. So there was a reasonably large crowd, and commentary from Rally Radio on the loudspeakers.
Aside from the relatively sanitised main spectator area, there was a bit of scope to wander around and see further along the stage from a neighbouring field.
Overall, I really enjoyed my trip to the rally. It was quite a different experience to the World Series by Renault, which I attended a couple of months ago.
The really striking thing was the sound of the cars, which is totally different to the TV. Something else, that I didn’t get so much at World Series by Renault, was the smell of the fuel wafting slowly up after a car has gone by. Worryingly, I felt myself starting to crave it!
After the rally had finished as the front-running drivers were preparing for the podium ceremony, the access was amazing. Top-class international rally drivers were just standing around chatting, and their cars were right there for all to see up close.
It is the first rally we have ever been to, and we certainly enjoyed ourselves. We plan on attending next year, perhaps even going to a stage further afield if we can plan ahead.
And congratulations to Andreas Mikkelsen. It may not have been clear from what I wrote above, but you cannot begrudge him this victory. He has come so close twice this year, only to be denied his first IRC victory. Then he came to Scotland and this time it was his rally.
Several years ago I bought the domain name duncanstephen.co.uk. I have never really been sure what to do with it, but I have kept it up because, well, it’s my name. I have had holding pages up, but never anything of real note.
I have had a bit of time off work this month, but I hadn’t planned anything. So I decided once and for all to make a proper attempt at putting a good webpage up there. The result is this new design.
I used this as an opportunity to experiment with new techniques. This should look pretty good on both mobiles and desktops — though it’s reasonably straightforward here since there is not really much content to speak of. (I am working on making this blog a bit more mobile-friendly in due course.)
I found it fascinating working on this design. It reminded me of when I was first learning about web design a decade ago. For the first time in years, I truly pushed myself to learn new things, and I was hooked on trying to get it all working the way I wanted it to.
I am a big fan of their less-is-more approach. I have always loved minimalist design, and I have increasingly strived to create designs that are simple and clear. Hopefully I have achieved it here.
It should work fine in all major browsers, although I have noticed a few quirks in Opera Mini, as well as older versions of Internet Explorer. Please let me know if you spot anything unusual.
Today it was announced that the Asian rounds of Superleague Formula have been cancelled. This is on top of the earlier cancellation of the South American rounds. The original 2011 calendar also contained races in Russia, the middle east, Australia and New Zealand. None of these took place.
In the end, the only two races that took place were at Assen in the Netherlands and Zolder in Belgium. This means that the championship was decided way back in July — but we only learned that today!
It was already quite an effort for those two races to take place anyway. Superleague had seemed worryingly dormant over the winter, and many suspected that it was dead.
Following in the footsteps of A1GP
The parallels between Superleague and A1GP (another failed attempt at an ‘F1 alternative’) have always been striking. Both have core concepts that are slightly alien to motorsport.
A1GP described itself as the “World Cup of Motorsport”. Drivers didn’t win races. Teams didn’t even win races. Nations did.
Meanwhile, Superleague was designed as a cross between football and motor racing. Drivers didn’t win races. Teams didn’t win races. Football clubs did. Any football fans I ever spoke to about Superleague were not very interested in the series. For this reason, the format was always going to be a loser.
But on the plus side for both A1GP and Superleague, they both provided some quite entertaining racing. And it is on this basis that they both attracted a cult following — a small but loyal fanbase. But this clearly isn’t enough of a fanbase to sustain a series for more than a few years.
A1GP lasted for four years. Cunningly, the series was run over the winter. Not very traditional for a motorsport series, but this meant that they could draw in motorsport fans suffering from withdrawal symptoms. It was moderately successful, and it led to GP2 (the closest thing there is to an official feeder series to F1) creating a spin-off GP2 Asia series that was run in winter. (GP2 Asia has since also been wound up, having had a troubled 2010–2011 season of its own when it was affected by the unrest in Bahrain.)
Not a super formula
When A1GP closed down, Superleague opened up and has so far continued for three seasons. Superleague runs with the same type of car, with the same type of drivers on the same types of circuits. For want of a better phrase, these are a B-class car, with B-class drivers on largely B-class circuits.
I have nothing against this personally, and I personally enjoyed watching A1GP and Superleague whenever I got the chance. But you have to question whether it is a formula for success in terms of bringing in an audience.
Sad but true: the standard isn’t high enough
There are lots of brilliant series below Formula 1 that provide real appeal. It is a sad fact that the motor racing world revolves around Formula 1, and the most successful sub-F1 open-wheel series are all about finding the F1 stars of the future. GP2, World Series by Renault, GP3 and the many Formula 3 series all stake their claim as being a testing ground for the stars of the future.
But series like A1GP and Superleague Formula cannot make this claim. As a result, their appeal is sadly limited. A series like Superleague is populated by drivers who aren’t good enough to progress further up the ladder. Some drivers almost made it to F1, but didn’t quite have the last bit that was required. If you’re lucky, there might be the odd ex-F1 driver like Jos Verstappen. But the world isn’t exactly set alight by the prospect of a battle between Neel Jani and Craig Dolby.
It is true that A1GP has been a stomping ground for a few future F1 drivers like Nico Hülkenberg. But these drivers had to make their way through GP2 aftewards to get to F1.
Because let’s be fair here. It is generous to describe the drivers in Superleague as ‘B-class’. B-class open-wheel racers can be found in IndyCar. IndyCar struggles enough to survive as it is. But at least some of its drivers are household names like Dario Franchitti or Takuma Sato. Jobbing open-wheelers whose sights haven’t extended to IndyCar end up in a series like Superleague.
While I have always found the concept of Superleague Formula to be shaky, I do hope that it is able to survive this embarrassing season and come back stronger in 2012. But I sadly doubt it will be the case.
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