Objective SCHWEDEN
I took a brisk walk around my neighborhood today, a route that I'd ballpark at being two-plus miles. This should be much better preparation for Objective SCHWEDEN (the Crim) than running on a treadmill, as I need to break in my new shoes & acclimate my legs to pounding the unforgiving pavement, not the treadmill's springy conveyor belt. The first day is always easy, the real test is if I'll repeat the exercise tomorrow, that second day having so oft proved to be my bugbear. My hope is to arise early & put in the distance first thing tomorrow, before the day's promised heat descends. If I can commit to this routine, gradually extending the distance & increasing my pace, this August's Objective SCHWEDEN should be far less physically damaging than was Objective FINNLAND in August '10.

This Week in Motorsport
Indy Rock
The São Paulo Indy 300, so named because the race distance is a little over three hundred kilometers, was fun & interesting. The course had a pair of uncommonly long straights & more passing opportunities than most street circuits. For the first time in the race's three-year history the race was not shortened by excessive rain. Yellow-flag caution periods are endemic to street circuits, with their limited to non-existent runoff areas, but the Indy 300 featured five, far too many, consuming approximately one quarter of the racing laps. As one of the N.B.C. Sports Network (formerly Versus, originally the Outdoor Life Network) commentators commented, "Yellow breeds yellow," in this case because the post-caution restart procedure had the race cars line up two-by-two, as opposed to single file, a formation almost guaranteed to cause trouble as the DW-12s headed into the tight Turn 1. Three of the five yellow-flag periods happened back-to-back-to-back, as each restart resulted in shunts necessitating a new caution period.

For all that, the racing was tight & interesting, even though Will Power of Team Penske (Chevrolet) won from pole & lead every lap for all practical intents & purposes (the only other leaders being those who benefited from Power's pit stop rotation). Power was closely pursued by Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andetti Autosport (Chevrolet), who finished second ahead of third-place Takuma Sato of R.L.L. Racing (Honda), who started the race from the back of the grid & drove like a man possessed almost all the way to the front. One of the oddest differences 'twist Formula One & IndyCar is that in F1 each team fields two cars in identical liveries, whereas in IndyCar the teams field between one & four cars, each with a unique sponsorship livery. Reigning four-time series champion Dario Franchitti of Chip Ganassi Racing (Honda) started from the front row, second alongside pole sitter Power; was knocked to the back of the field by a shunt with another car; & fought his way back to finish fifth, his highest finish of a disappointing 2012 campaign. Team Penske cars have won all four of this year's races, & championship points-leader Power has won three in a row.



As I've said before in the context of the F1 Grande Prêmio do Brasil, Brazil is a wonderful country with a wonderful people. Hello, ladies.

IndyCar now enters a more worrisome phase of its schedule, as four of the next five races take place on oval tracks, the only exception being the Belle Isle road course at the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix in early June. The next race is the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, which I have twice watched & twice found as dull as watching paint dry. The appeal of oval racing continues to elude me, yet I will try again this year.

A big problem with American racing in general, & the IndyCar Series in particular, is the inconsistent naming of the races. The last race was the São Paulo Indy 300, the next is the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, & the next after that is the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix. "300" meaning kilometers; "500" meaning miles; the Firestone 550, "550" meaning kilometers even though it is to be held in the U.S.; & here & there the Grands Prix of Saint Petersburg, Alabama, Long Beach, Detroit Belle Isle, Baltimore, & Sonoma. Consistency is all I ask!

Grand-Am (title pending)
Over in Grand-Am, the Grand Prix of Miami was a waterlogged fiasco. Rain happens, it is a fact of being outdoors & often adds an exciting element to automobile racing, but sometimes it rains too much to race. Such was the case on Saturday, when qualifying for Sunday's race was rained out, & such should have been the case for Sunday's race. The race started in rain, continued in rain, often ran under the yellow flag due to the hazard of rain, & was ultimately red-flagged about two-thirds of the way through the scheduled two hours forty-five minutes of the race. Yes, all the drivers faced identical conditions, & an argument can certainly be made for the awarding of full championship points for the positions at the time the red flag was shown, but I hold with those who would argue that the race should not have been run in the first place; better to postpone to a day featuring less of a deluge than the risk men & machines in the too-treacherous conditions.

An additional problem with Sunday's race was the track, the Homestead-Miami Speedway, a N.A.S.C.A.R. oval. As is the case with Grand-Am's marque race, the 24 Hours of Daytona, the Grand Prix of Miami was run on Homestead's "roval" configuration: the cars drive around three-quarters of the track's oval, & then veer off into an infield road course section before returning to the interrupted oval. Road course & oval, "roval." As previously stated, I don't understand the appeal of oval circuits, but I do understand road courses, & the conclusion I reach is that a roval, not providing the same thrill as a true road course, must also fail to match whatever excitement there is to an oval, making a roval the worst of all possible worlds. Blast!

Grand-Am Road Racing's Rolex Sports Car Series is endurance racing, after a fashion, but it just isn't up to snuff with an A.C.O.-sanctioned series, even one as woebegone as the American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.); so, I just can't bring myself to subtitle this post "By Endurance We Conquer." I'm going to continue my flirtation with Grand-Am, & hope for better things on the true road courses that make up the rest of the calendar. Meanwhile, I'll try to devise a fitting subtitle for Grand-Am posts. "Grand Damn" maybe?

By Endurance We Conquer
I might, in a fortnight's time, make one more attempt to watch the Entertainment Sports & Programming Network's coverage of the A.L.M.S.'s next race, from the devilishly tricky Laguna Seca road course (formally, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca). Dare you to challenge the twisting series of corners known as the dreaded Corkscrew? The Corkscrew isn't the equal of Spa-Francorchamps's Eau Rouge, but it is its own special kind of hell.

Beyond Thunderdome
After the IndyCar race, I caught the back half of a pair of V8 Supercars races from Hamilton, New Zealand. The competition was fierce betwixt the Ford Falcons & the Holden Commodores, but the blue bastards got the best of it, Ford Performance Racing winning both the weekend's races. There is a big push on currently to internationalize V8 Supercars beyond its home in Australia (& New Zealand); there has been a pair of races at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi for the last couple of years & there is to be a race in the U.S. in 2013. Expansion throughout Asia & beyond—in India, Korea, South Africa—is in the works, & more manufacturers are being enticed to enter the sport, disrupting the traditional Holden/Ford rivalry. V8 Supercars is so thoroughly Australian, can it expand throughout the world & beyond Australia's two leading marques & still remain the sport its always been? I fear the days of the V8 Supercars as something other than a cheap, international N.A.S.C.A.R. imitation are numbered. I intend to enjoy the Supercars whilst I still can.

Rally Monkey
The highlight of Sunday's racing was the return of (television coverage of) the World Rally Championship (W.R.C.) with the Rally Argentina. Man alive, I missed the W.R.C.! Rally Argentina was, pardon my French, batshit crazy! Sweet fancy Moses, it was nice to again see the Citroëns & Fords battling it out, each pair of driver & co-driver (navigator) flying along at death-defying speeds, sometimes pulling it off brilliantly & almost as often as not dashing the car to pieces on a stone & rolling off the road into the surrounding countryside. As gloriously mad as is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, I know of no other form of racing as proudly bughouse as rallying. Reigning eight-time World Champion Sébastien Loeb of Citroën Total won, because he almost always wins, but he was in a dogfight until '03 World Champion Petter Solberg of Ford Abu Dhabi, the last man other than Loeb to be Drivers' Champion, suffered a mechanical failure & subsequent delay for repairs late on the first day. After that, with substitute Ford driver Dani Sordo falling behind (Ford regular Jari-Matti Latvala having injured himself in pre-rally testing) & team orders keeping at bay Citroën's № 2 driver, Mikko Hirvonen, Loeb cruised to victory. Solberg was fasted in the bonus-points-paying Power Stage, the finale of the rally.

The W.R.C. is third favorite motorsports series, after only the immortal 24 Heures du Mans & the Formula One World Championships. It's back! Hooray!

Bier!
Oliver T.'s has Carlsberg in stock. Yippee! When in Ohio this weekend, I hope to have the opportunity to pick up some Yuengling, which is newly available in that otherwise benighted state.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Skip Bayliss (remix by unknown) "Tim Tebow—All He Does is Win" courtesy The Watergirl (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: A fun little bit of frivolity that I thought would make a nice change of pace away from ska-punk. My thanks to good friend of the blog, The Watergirl!

Also, it should be noted that young Tebow was nigh-unstoppable during his collegiate career, leading his epithetless Gators of the University of Florida to two national championships & three B.C.S. bowl wins in his four-year career. Night-unstoppable, & yet only three bowl wins in four years? What happened during that fourth game? In Tebow's sophomore year, the season betwixt the two national titles, he & his Gators ran into a buzzsaw called the valiant Wolverines of the University of Michigan, playing for the final time under head coach Lloyd Carr. Should valiant Wolverines fans tremble in fear of Urban Meyer, the new head coach of the hated Buckeyes? Nay, for we've beaten Meyer before, even when he had as formidable a weapon as Tebow at his disposal.