This Week in Motorsport
Hip hip hooray, Formula One isn't going to fall apart just as I was beginning to love it: F1link. Also, thanks to the modern marvel of videotape, I was able to watch Sunday's British Grand Prix even though I was asleep at the actual time the race was being run on the Silverstone Circuit and in the air when it was (delayed) broadcast on American television. Woot! I knew the winner beforehand, but that's my own fault for waking up to the B.B.C. news on the radio.

The bad news is that the telecast of the British Grand Prix was on icky, icky Fox, but the good news is that N.A.S.C.A.R.-obsessed Fox is (and this is just a guess) too cheap to put together their own, almost certainly inferior broadcast crew; so, they use the same folks who call the F1 action on Speed. This includes audio promos for F1 practice and qualifying coverage on Speed, which raises the question of for whom those chaps formally work? There are seventeen races on the 2009 Formula One calendar, eight are now past, three I have watched, and only four—the Turkish, British, German, and Hungarian Grand Prixes*—are broadcast on Fox. I understand why it would not be worth their while to recruit their own individual broadcast crew, but that still means those men could be temporarily employed by Fox; they might be lent to Fox for a fee by Speed and so still technically in the employ of Speed; or they might be employed by the F.I.A., Formula One's governing body, for use on all Formula One broadcasts in these United States. I am speculating with little initiative to ferret out any answers. In any event, given the horror show that is Fox's B.C.S. coverage, I am glad they use outside contractors for F1.

Next up, the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, nicknamed by no less an authority than the irrepressible Jackie Stewart as "the Green Hell." I can't wait!

Science!
Before men from the Planet Earth again set foot upon the Moon, we dispatch our plucky robot scouts. Go forth, you magnificent mechanical minions, make your masters proud! L.R.O.link. Because these reconnaissance missions are a prelude to Project Constellation's manned moonshots, I thought about labeling this a "The Stars My Destination" post, but as you can see I chose to prize consistency above flourish. Plus, those feisty automatons really are marvels of science.

Science!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Murray Gold & the B.B.C. National Orchestra of Wales, "Doctor Who Theme" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

*Grand prix is of course French for "grand prize" and adopted into English as grand prix, denoting a motorsport race. The French for grand prizes is grands prix (or prix grands according to the Babelfish website of murky reliability), but how to render the plural of the English grand prix? It's easy enough aloud, "grahnd pree" becomes "grahnd preez," but how best to write that? Grand Prixs or Grand Prixes? A puzzlement. I wrote Grand Prixes, but I'm not really sold on the idea.