Inspiration Required

I hope you'll permit me a moment of non-racing talk, this is quite a self-serving post and I apologise for that!

After 18 months of blogging here on the Blogger platform I have decided to move over to Wordpress. This won't be a for a couple of weeks as I have yet to open an account with them, it'll definitely be by the end of this month.

Why?

I've had a good time using Blogger. It is a great introduction into the world of blogging and if you are a newbie as I was, I recommend it. There aren't a hundred controls and settings to get lost in, you just set up the layout and the colours and start writing. I wasn't even sure I wanted to have a blog and it was great to try it out, gradually adding and tweaking bits here and there. Now I feel the content I want to put on the blog means I need to have those extra controls you find on other services, hence the need to move.

This is where you come in.

I've long felt the name 'Too Much Racing' has been too negative. It was always intended to convey my inability to cover as much of the sport as I wanted to and I think it does that, unfortunately it also comes over as quite negative and as if I'm complaining about all the racing. I'm not, I love it!

I need a new name for the new blog. I am struggling to find one. In fact I've been struggling with this for a while and have asked for opinions in various places, when I came to the obvious conclusion - comments make a blog what it is, so why not ask the commenters here?

Do you have any ideas for a name suitable for the new blog? Like this blog it will cover or at least intend to cover F1, IndyCar, GP2, Le Mans, other sportcars, and hopefully more. The main focus is F1 and I like to dip into the other stuff when time allows.

Guidelines:
- Preferably indicates it is a multi-series blog.
- Positive or neutral-sounding.
- Nothing overly cheesy (I can come up with those myself!).
- It can be any length as long as it can be shortened for domain name and Twitter purposes.

Naturally I make no guarantees that it'll get used, and I get to use the name for free..

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Thursday Thoughts: The Future of F1 Content

Thursday Thoughts visits different blogs and is hosted here this week, so it is my turn to ask the question. Here is my response.

- What innovations would you like to see in F1 content delivery?

I think most of us by now are aware how far F1 lags behind other motorsports, even other sports entirely when it comes to delivering their product to the end user, the customer, the fan. It is quite frustrating to be told repeatedly how F1 teams use the most advanced technology to create these fantastically fast cars and yet the rights-holders are in some cases years behind the game in introducing the technology needed to provide real insight to the fan.

The rights-holders to Formula 1 are the collection of companies owned by CVC and controlled on their behalf by Bernie Ecclestone, I am not sure which company controls which element but I think FOA runs the races or at least the bits the FIA don't run, and FOM handles the TV and online offering. For the sake of argument I'll use FOM.

FOM seems insistent on relying on traditional avenues to get their message across, whether it be TV, magazines or newspapers. They seemingly reluctantly got themselves involved with the web business with www.formula1.com but they only did so in 2002 or thereabouts. Given the web recently celebrated 25 years of existence and most forward-thinking companies have been on it in some for or another since the mid-90s it was a curious oversight.

Why is it that F1 keeps talking about "embracing the internet" as if it's 1994 and it's a clever idea? Perhaps get on with it?

Ed Straw, F1 Editor of Autosport, via Twitter yesterday

Two major gaffes have appeared on Formula1.com. There may have been more.

One was the SMS text service. This was a great idea in principle: sign up to the service and you would receive a text message after every session informing you of the fastest drivers, and the points positions after races. The problem was they introduced it with the pricing structure of a decade earlier and the world had moved on, at least in the more developed mobile phone markets.
While I forget the specifics, the prices would have looked reasonable in 1997 when the mobile market was enjoying rapid growth and a plethora of new applications but in 2007 they looked utterly ridiculous and far too high. I would like to see this adjusted so that the more casual fan who isn't able to watch all the sessions or even all the races can receive updates at reasonable rates. My Dad gets a text message whenever his football team scores a goal. It can't be that hard.

The other was the web shop, again a good idea in principle - yet the original version was stocked with the wrong goods. Like so much in F1 it was pitched towards the premium customer, the more affluent fan who wants something special. Only in F1 could you buy an official carbon-fibre mouse mat, replete with F1 logo, for £200. Which is fine - I actually like the fact these items are there because I appreciate it helps position the brand of F1 - they just forgot to include things mere mortals could afford, a position they have gone some way to correcting in 2009.

Another aspect website is the live timing. When it works it is very informative, unfortunately it has a lot of glitches. It has been used ever since the site went live and is probably due a rethink. It could be bigger and contain more information. F1 is full of data, let's make use of it. Again, this year they've gone some way to making the info they offer open to more fans by creating the iPhone app which I've heard is tremendously useful, if pricey (there seems to be a theme here).

While I'm on the subject of timing, the TV coverage desperately needs to cut back on the "1-stop" graphic and tell us how far apart the cars are! Of course if they borrowed from DTM they could just mark a little '1' on the vertical position graphic that appears to the left of screen from time to time. If I don't have an iPhone or can't get near a computer to access live timing, I shouldn't be deprived of the basic car-to-car gaps, these should be available to all on the main feed and if I want the extra info like sector times then that's when I should look it up elsewhere. With any luck this data will be rolled out to further mobile platforms in future.

I must admit, other than the iPhone timing app I don't know what else is offered officially for mobile devices because I don't own a modern smartphone - but soon I and most others will do, I suspect I am already in the minority among mobile-owners.

I see no reason why FOM cannot offer an app offering short video clips to mobile devices, for a small fee. I see no reason why they cannot offer those same videos on their website, although I think most of us expect web video to be free unless it is of some length. On the website I would therefore offer short, free videos to anyone who visits. I would also offer a premium subscription ('premium' in name only, priced at a level we can afford!) where you can watch entire races, let's say until Jan 1st. They could expand that to show classic races and send FOM TV to each test session to provide us with reports from winter testing.

FOM claim they don't offer these because the commentary and ownership is specific to particular broadcasters, yet the broadcasters claim they can't provide online coverage because the video is owned by FOM. The only notable exception seems to be the BBC's iPlayer (an excellent service) and the FP sessions trialled last year by ITV. At the end of every session aired on the BBC there is a particularly large copyright notice stating that the production is copyright of FOM. If FOM owns the video,can they not put it online, even a version with no commentary? Even better, work with each broadcaster to offer the same footage with different reactions. It would fascinating in the week after a race incident to go to Formula1.com and compare the reactions of crews from BBC, SPEED, Globo, RAI, RTL, etc, etc. They could make a montage and sell it for money.

They also need to bring in High-Def coverage to those who will take it and offer that as a quality option for the downloads. There are HD channels in more and more countries and even the little devices support it now. They've been using HD cameras for a year or so now but they still won't release a true HD feed for broadcast or sale, which is crazy, why invest in the technology if you aren't going to use it?
This is the most technologically advanced sport in the world and it is still in fuzzy-vision. NASCAR has 36 races per year and most, if not all of them, are available in HD in the US (and sometimes in the UK). It doesn't matter if you don't have an HD TV or monitor, you still notice a difference. I think Abu Dhabi was in HD and it looked fantastic on my SD TV on the SD digital broadcast.

Conclusion: FOM are applying 20th Century solutions to 21st Century fans. They need to change. Fast.

There are signs that they are changing slowly. The iPhone app. The F1 2009 Wii and PSP games, and the 2010 PC, Xbox and PS3 games. These should be released annually in the way that the FIFA, Madden and other licensed games are, there is a demand for it.

Perhaps they are starting to wake up?

**
You can read the Thursday Thoughts of my fellow bloggers by following the links in the Question post!

Thursday Thoughts: Question

For the last few weeks I have taken part in the 'Thursday Thoughts' initiative, which calls for bloggers to respond to a question set by a colleague. This week it is my turn to ask the question.


- What innovations would you like to see in F1 content delivery?


This came up on Wednesday at the Motorsport Business Forum in Monaco in relation to Formula 1's reluctance to embrace new technologies and content delivery systems, and you can read some of the reports from Autosport here and here as well as some excellent entries from Stuart Codling's new blog here and here. The main point coming from it was people want more than just the TV experience, they want more online and mobile content.

All of which was fascinating from those in the industry but what I want to know is what my fellow fan thinks, after all we are the end users. What sort of online and mobile content do you want to see? How do you want to consume F1 in the near future, say by this time next year or going into the following season?

This question is aimed at F1 but if you want to expand it out or talk about other racing that's fine. This is a multi-series blog whose remit is to get people talking about different racing (including how F1 relates to various other racing), which is why I included WRC's fascinating announcement in the links above.

* *
I will update this post as blog entries come in, please feel free to link to your blog in the comments or if you don't have a blog perhaps you may like to post your thoughts here. I look forward to your opinions!

- Ollie at BlogF1 already wrote about this yesterday;

- A month ago Allen from The Furious Wedge wrote about the online services provided by IRL and A1GP;

- StartledBunny of Another Planet and RubberGoat from Making Up The Numbers both mention joining in with the race while it is in progress, which is an interesting idea;

- Over at Sidepodcast they are already a few years ahead of many of us when it comes to consuming video away from the TV, and Christine considers the only way forward may be to change the man at the top. (Mr C also wrote something on online content recently).

- Dylan from the new Triple League Racing blog offers an interesting perspective on how IndyCar and NASCAR approach things.

* *

Must Comment Monday

Eagle-eyed readers visiting the site will have noticed a red logo appeared in the sidebar a couple of weeks ago: Must Comment Monday. You may have seen it elsewhere too.

The idea is this:

- Visit several blogs on a Monday and if there are any new entries that day, you must leave a comment.
- If there are several entries on a blog you only need comment on one.
- If the blog requires a password it is exempt, although if you already have a login you may as well use it!
- Do try and say something interesting or constructive rather than something just to say you commented. The 'first comment!' phenomenon is to be discouraged.

Of course, us bloggers have to keep up our side of the deal too and keep posting blog entries as well as commenting elsewhere. Let's not have our blogs sleep through the off-season! This is a great way to keep comments flowing and every blogger knows comments are everything, the lifeblood of a blog.

This is another initiative from those fine folk of Sidepodcast, who seem to be good at prompting people to blog. You can read more on MCM in this post.

Standards

There is a lot of rumour and speculation in the motorsport world. There isn't anything wrong with a good bit of rumour on fan sites, blogs and discussion groups. It helps keep us all interested and we all like a good "what if" scenario over a pint.

Problems occur when these rumours are presented as hard news and people start believing them to be true. Us hardcore fans can often see through it but I'm sure we've all been in the situation where a casual fan, or just someone who knows we are fans, strikes up a conversation based on a falsehood and you have to patiently explain to them why they are wrong.

The respected F1 journalist Joe Saward has written on his blog about this problem and a fascinating discussion broke out in the comments. It is very long but it is worth reading every comment. This is about the future of web journalism.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/thieving-from-the-thieves/

For a while now a certain agency has presented rumour as news. I will never write an article based on the output of this agency. People like that give the web a bad name among traditional media and among the people being written about.

Why We Are Here

I'm a bit late catching up with my RSS reader, as I am with so many things. Nevertheless, I would like to associate myself with remarks made by Joe Saward recently. If you are disillusioned with the endless politicking in F1 and other motorsports be sure to give it a read - and also the comments, because the second comment is from motorsport historian Gerald Donaldson and there is also a comment from F1 PR man Nav Sidhu.
It is nice know that in a world where we can all write what we will, there is still a place for the professional writer to help us express ourselves more clearly.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/two-crashes/

Back in the world of the bloggers, I also echo Alia's response to that post:

http://formula1home.com/forum/weblog_entry.php?e=844

I don't wish to ride on their coat-tails, merely to pass on some good writing which deserves an audience. See you for Singapore.

One Year On

Eighteen Months Ago I Was Just a Fan.
When the 2008 season started I was just discovering blogs after years residing in a newsgroup community, and reading the news and rumours on the popular racing news websites such as Autosport.com and GrandPrix.com.

This was the time of the death of Champ Car and the absorption into the IndyCar Series, I had been watching both in 2007 for the first time in about six years, and when they came together - while sad about CC going down - I was tremendously excited that they'd finally done it! The problem? I couldn't find many other people who were excited with me within my existing racing circles - so I looked elsewhere for news and rumour and gossip about the merger. Who was moving over? Who wasn't going to make it? I NEEDED to know.

The first places I found were MyNameIsIRL and Pressdog, very quickly followed by IsItMayYet? and Meesh's blog which Pressdog has since dubbed "SHWIT!".
If there were any F1 bloggers working as hard as this quartet I hadn't discovered them by this stage, although in fairness my F1 needs were already catered for elsewhere.

In actual fact, some of the above began to start talking about F1 in the absence of Champ Car, because they wanted a second series to cover alongside IRL. It was interesting reading their experiences as they learned the ropes, coming from a completely different perspective to the one I'm so used to here in the UK. I found myself commenting on their posts with increasing regularity and length, usually about F1 or connecting an IRL thing to F1, because that's what I knew. Sometimes I tried to explain something about F1 they didn't know (and sometimes pretended not to know for comedic effect, which I'd missed!!) in return for their excellent posts educating me about the world and culture of IndyCar racing.

These bloggers also frequently post notes which they write during the races. I thought this was a fantastic idea but by mid-season I'd identified something - they were all commenting on the same feed! Not too much of a problem because they each have their own views... yet I couldn't help but think the F1 coverage I was receiving was better than what was being described to me, and that I could offer a different take on IndyCar, perhaps describe a similar journey as above but with that series.

Over a period of a few weeks I gained the desire to write similar posts from the UK perspective and TV feed, because not only would it be different to the above but I also hadn't seen anyone else approach the UK feed from that angle before. Not that I expected many readers, it was just a nice idea to have somewhere to keep a record of my thoughts.

I'm also interested in a broad range of motorsports and I'd hoped to be able to relate F1/IRL goings-on to what else was happening in racing. To be fair this only really came up trumps when Mike Conway moved to America and nobody there knew who he was, whereas I'd spent two years watching him in GP2.
That's probably the highlight of the last year for me. In the preseason break I'd described him in more than one place as fast but erratic, looks odds-on for a really good finish before the magnets pull him into a wall, or a light knock just ends his race. I haven't been able to pay as much attention as I would have liked, but I'm getting the impression this is how his 2009 has been so I'm pretty chuffed with the original assessment!

So by July '08 all I needed was the guts to actually start it. In the first week of August I decided to bite the bullet, set up a blog and write an introduction.

One Year On
It seems to have been reasonably popular. I mentioned the site around a few places and was amazed to find people not only visiting, but returning! I was getting 10-15 regular readers every week after just a few months. It trailed off heavily over winter, I got the impression it was the same for everyone though, yet as soon as the F1 car launches started happening in early 2009 the number of readers actually rose above previous levels! I was stunned. This was helped in no small part by copious plugs from the bloggers I talked about above.

Then a friend from the F1 community I was on at the time suggested I check out Sidepodcast. Not only a podcast about F1 - bear in mind I'd never listened to a podcast in my life before - but also an interactive community with daily discussion about racing and everything else in life. I said hi. Was asked to plug the blog. Not only did readership jump again (!!!) but I found a really great group of people to hang out with, many of whom now have their own blogs. SPC were even kind enough to plug the blog on the show, more than once!

By the time the F1 season started in March I'd joined Twitter, connected with lots of other bloggers in comments or on Twitter, appeared on various Sidepodcast and PlanetIRL podcasts and I even got a mention on Midweek Motorsport!

These days I'm getting roughly 40 regular readers and I'm truly amazed to have as many as that, especially since the blog has been pretty quiet since the season started because I have been working on accountancy studies (which are thankfully over for the time being). I honestly expected to stay at just a small handful of readers, if that, because I'd started this as somewhere to keep a note of my thoughts.

I hope to continue this for the forseeable future, and in fact I've got a lot planned as I begin what I call the Big Massive Catch-Up to watch a lot of the racing I missed while studying. I'm in two minds over whether I'll post much about that, right now I'm leaning towards very short updates on all but F1 and IndyCar. I'll probably skip most of the news because this has never been a news site. I do plan to write notes on the IndyCar races but they won't be as long or verbose as last year or like the other bloggers' notes. I hope you stick with me!

So, there's only one thing left to do:

For their regular links, comments, tweets and general encouragement, my thanks goes to:
Bill / Pressdog
Jeff / MyNameIsIRL
Meesh / SHWIT!
Christine & Mr.C / Sidepodcast (and everyone there!)
Dex / MidweekMotorsport @RLM
Kohl / PlanetIRL
Allen / FuriousWedge
Andy / TheSpeedGeek
Gavin / F1Numbers
Duncan / vee8
Everyone else in the sidebar and anyone who has linked me (I can't list you all!!), and last and not least to all the other readers and commenters who have dropped by over the last 12 months.

Here's to another year!

To London!

Tomorrow I and a large group of fellow listeners to the world's greatest F1 podcast will be hooking up with show host Christine and her trusty sidekick known only as 'Me' (or Mr.C). We'll take a wander around the Science Museum in London where the McLaren F1 team have set up a series of exhibits under the title, "20 Ways F1 Is Changing Our World".

There's a lot cool techie stuff about applying F1 knowledge to real life and I think there will be about 20 of us going so it should be a lot of fun!

Here is the Sidepodcast post about the meetup including a video from the BBC which I think is UK-only but others might as well give it a go anyway.
Here is the Science Museum web page about it all and the New Scientist had a gallery of it. I hope to bring you a little report on Thursday as well as some photos if they'll allow us to take any. I also hope to make use of Twitter and Twitpic from my mobile, if I can get them working.

I've been to London several times before but only once in the guise of a motorsport fan, this back in 2004 for the "F1 In Regent Street" demo runs where I stood three feet from F1 cars and didn't see a single one! Pics! But don't click that, there's nothing there worth looking at.
Let's hope that hyped up F1 fans will not be blocking all of the exhibits tomorrow in a frenzy of excitement. Look, a KERS device, crowd around it!

You may think I am mad for going all the way to London to meet some internet people in a museum, and you would be right. I started to wonder about my sanity when I saw the increased train prices..

Red Bull's mistake

Today one of our fellow humble bloggers received a letter from a Formula 1 team - not just any Formula 1 team but the very group he spends his time blogging about, you see his is a blog devoted to the Red Bull F1 family of Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso. Fantastic! Or so you might think.. read his own words..:

Excitedly I opened it, wondering what was contained inside. My enthusiasm quickly turned to sheer bewilderment when I realised that I had in fact received a letter from Red Bull’s legal people with regards to this blog.

..and the words of Red Bull:

Your use of the domain names and the Bull Logo misrepresents some affiliation between the famous Red Bull brand and the Websites. Potentially, this could confuse members of the public.

Utter stupidity! Confuse the public? How? Perhaps they think there is money being made? It's a fan blog. Someone writing positive stories about his favourite racing team. I'm sure we're all fans of the atmosphere Red Bull brought into what had become a stale F1 paddock even if we may not be fans of the team. Personally I respect them a lot but I'm generally indifferent, but that's irrelevant. I like the things they do elsewhere such as the Red Bull Air Race World Series and sponsorships throughout motorsport. RBR/STR are good teams. But let's face it there aren't many Red Bull Racing fan sites out there, so why try to stamp out this one?

Quite rightly he's decided to close the blog rather than agree to strict terms of operating, and that's a shame.

Let's hope sense returns to the legal department on Monday and they reconsider stripping one of their biggest supporters of his freedom to big 'em up.

Read more here:

http://www.red-bullog.com/2009/03/28/the-end/

News and Notes to October 4th

Apologies for the sparseness of updates since Singapore, I know a fair amount has happened this week however I've been focussed on other things. It'll likely be this way until June when I've completed my accountancy course. Hey this ain't a news site, I don't need to keep to schedule.

So let's recap, with the aid of Sonador 1556, a lovely Cab Sauv / Merlot blend red wine from Argentina which I picked up cheaply from a booze warehouse near Calais a couple of months ago, and with Winamp running at random through my 2500 MP3s (check out my Last.fm profile - get one yourself!), as the autumn wind and rain hammer at the window.


- Helio & the Taxman
I'm sure you've all read about Helio Castrovneves (et al) and the trouble with the tax authorities in the US. Like all racing fans I truly hope Helio is innocent in all this, that he got screwed by a manager or advisor or someone. In saying that, I have a bad feeling about it, that maybe he isn't entirely clean. Just my gut, hope I'm wrong.

The official position of Too Much Racing is this: Let's wait and see, we don't have enough info as yet.


- Gerry & the Lawyer
Since the Helio story broke the otherwise big news of Paul Tracy suing Gerry Forsythe has hit the backburner. Basically, Tracy wasn't paid monies due by Forsythe according to the contract between them. Will at IsItMayYet? looks like he has some good access on this.

I don't trust Forsythe as far as I can throw him, though he has some good people under him. I was amazed when he announced his Indy Lights team.

The official position of Too Much Racing is this: "Go Paul Tracy!" I hope he gets the money owed to him, plus interest. I also hope he hooks up with an intelligent sponsor for the '09 season. I still think he'd do wonders for KV or Conquest. There's a part of me that still wants him to join an ex-Champ Car team, it wouldn't seem right any other way, and right now I can't countenance his o/w career being over.


- Andretti & the Europeans
Michael Andretti is in the Netherlands, apparently choosing to go to Zandvoort for his new A1GP venture rather than see his team's last attempt (for now?) at Petit Le Mans. I respect that decision greatly, it would have been easy for him to just go to Petit, but he wanted to see his A1 team off from the start despite the much-reported troubles of the series as a whole right now, despite AGR's involvement apparently only existing for mere weeks.
Make no bones about it, his presence and that of AGR boosts A1GP immensely right now, perhaps more so than Ferrari given it is they who seriously dropped the ball on car supply.

We're two weeks after the scheduled series start, which was cancelled, and still five teams are unable to participate due to lack of cars. Four teams this weekend have seriously struggled because their cars only arrived at the circuit on Friday, meaning some of the teams missed practice. A1Team.China still hasn't turned a wheel as I write this. A1GP had to schedule an extra practice on Sunday to compensate. This is after they introduced a 'dropped score' rule to compensate for the guys who don't have a car to run.

Back to Andretti. I'm pleased it is he who got the US franchise. He has unfinished business over here and it would clear his name, especially if he attends most of the races, gets his face about. The F1 fraternity has branded him as tainted after his McLaren run so Europeans often see him in that light rather than based on his Indycar credentials. Yes I know most of A1 takes place in Asia but most of the teams and personnel are European.
It is a big step for A1 to have an American team, rather than Brits in US clothing as most teams are (or have been - actually I've lost track of who runs what team now). More A1 teams should take this step. It is also better to have a true racing guy running the team rather than some businessman we've never heard of.

I've seen many blog posts deriding the choice of Marco and Danica. I disagree. I think it is huge boost to A1GP to have these more established drivers race rather than a bunch of younger guys who've grown out of F3 but couldn't get the budget for GP2 or WSbR, as it has been lately. No offence to Charlie Kimball who is a talented guy, I hope AGR gives him an IndyCar test. Also my nerdy-senses are tingling at the prospect of those two up against Bleekemolen, Carroll, and Jani who in my book are the clear frontrunners and are no slouches.

The official position of Too Much Racing is: to wish A1 well, after all it is a superior concept than Superleague. When the season gets under way properly, all problems ironed out, it'll be something to watch. I intend to find a way to watch it, albeit delayed, as I cannot afford Sky's prices. Apparently there is no US TV coverage at all so you'll have to use the same methods as me.

Hey - maybe Paul Tracy could be the driver for A1Team.Canada!


- F1 Fans & the Annual Survey
For the last few years, the FIA in association with AMD and F1 Racing have offered a survey to the fans of Formula 1. The questions were usually loaded so they got the answers they were looking for, but it was still worthwhile.
The new survey is out and apparently drops the association with the FIA. This year it is run by F1 Racing and ING (sponsor of RenaultF1 and several GPs).

http://www.ingf1racingmagazinefansurvey.com/

I've just completed it and it seems less loaded than in years past.
I strongly recommend to anybody who watches F1, complete this survey, tell them what you think, and forward the link to your friends or your own blog. It doesn't matter if you religiously watch every race or just a handful every year, this is your chance to be heard. All I ask is you don't put in stupid answers to fuck up the results, let's make this count people.


- TMR & the Bloggers
I've only been blogging for 8 weeks or so so I'm no old-hand, but it is always nice when you visit a site or blog you'd never taken the time to read before (for whatever reason) and find that you've been linked. One such blog is The Open Wheel. Having just read the last few updates I wish I'd known about it sooner. Thanks for the link, consider yourself reciprocated.

It is just as good, perhaps better, to find yourself linked at places you've been reading for months and - so I'd like to thank Pressdog, MyNameIsIRL and Meesh (you're blog name is too long!) who's links are in my sidebar already.
Final mention goes to The Starting Grid, who like this shit so much they invited me to post it at their site! My latest post is the thing about Singapore, check back there soon for a report about Petit Le Mans from Void who is there right now. I'm assuming he's doing a report. If I had a blog I'd be doing a report. Oh. I do have a blog.

While I'm here, check SniffPetrol.com on October 10th for the monthly update. Brit-biased, lots of in-jokes for regular readers, and very much Not Safe For Work (or kids). Meantime, spend a little time reading the history. You'll love it.

Given the wine consumed I think this last section has been the blog equivalent of the drunken "you're my besht mate, I luv you".


Sorry, I know blog posts are supposed to be short and snappy and I could have done 3 here, that's not how I do things.

One thing I've learned today: red wine improves my writing. Must do this again sometime.
Catch you later.

The Starting Grid

The few of you who read Too Much Racing will hopefully have noticed my two links sections. The second set is your usual collection of links to racing news websites, forums, and Firefox.

The first set, the one in the prominent position underneath my profile, that's more important. It is a selected group of blogs I spend a large amount of time reading and I recommend you check out each of them.
The box the links live in is actually quite a nifty Blogger widget which lists the links in order of most-recently updated blog, it is a regular pastime checking to see who has jumped to the top of the list lately. I thought I'd post a bit about each, at random intervals.

The first choice is The Starting Grid, by Mark and Void. Not least because... drum roll... I've been invited to contribute!

I'd like to say thanks to the guys for the invitation. I'm flattered that I was even asked. Either you like my stuff or you are desperate.

Starting Grid is a kind of a news/humour/opinion site, all mixed together sometimes in one post. You get some good forthright opinion without beating around the bush, along with some snarky or sarcastic commentary and Photoshops. I like that.
If I got that wrong then I apologise! I still like it though.

Make sure you check out the site and add it to your links and/or blogroll:

http://www.startinggridnews.com/