Project GLOWWORM
Guinness World Records can go to blazes! This fellow doesn't have the world's longest moustache, he has a very, very long beard—possibly the world's longest beard, but that thing's not a moustache: I call shenanigans!-link. The photographs clearly show hairs from below his lips, his cheeks, & his jawline contributing to his "moustache." A moustache is something much more specific than just a beard paired with a shaven chin. It is right & proper that the B.B.C. quotes a member of the Handlebar Club in support of this fraud. Those hypocrites follow the same prejudice, explicitly discriminating against men with beards whilst allowing their own members to have "moustaches" that are massive beards with just the jutting chin cleanshaven. A moustaches-only club is fine, as long as the rules are consistently applied! For shame, Guinness World Records & the British Broadcasting Corporation, for promoting such chicanery.

This Week in Motorsport
Formula Fun!
Sunday's Gran Premio de España was won by Pastor Maldonado of Williams (Renault), the first Venezuelan driver ever to win a Formula One grand prix. The victory was the august Williams team's first since '04; Maldonado's triumph also made him the fifth different driver to win one of 2012's five grands prix, from five different constructors. '09 World Champion Jenson Button of McLaren (Mercedes) won the Australian Grand Prix, '05 & '06 World Champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari won the Malayasian Grand Prix, Nico Rosberg of Mercedes A.M.G. won the Chinese Grand Prix, reigning '10 & '11 World Champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull (Renault) won the Bahrain Grand Prix, & the aforementioned Maldonado won at the Circuit de Catalunya. Rosberg & Maldonado are both first-time race-winners. No one knows what to expect from the rest of the 2012 World Championships. Who will win? Who will lose? The most consistently fast team has been Lotus (Renault), but they've yet to win a grand prix. Traditional powerhouse McLaren seem to be moving backwards after their triumph in Australia, even though '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton has won three* of the first five pole positions (*he won the pole in Spain, but was disqualified after the session, promoting Maldonado from the second starting position to the pole; technically then, Hamilton only has two poles); their pit stops & strategy calls have been suspect. Ferrari are said to have a terrible racecar, but the Spaniard Alonso won in Malaysia & lead much of his home grand prix before losing out to the surprising Maldonado. '10 & '11 World Constructors' Champions Red Bull are leading the constructors' standings, but have only one race win, in Bahrain. It's a topsy-turvy season, & next up is the "grandest grand prix of all"—& the most idiosyncratic—, the Grand Prix de Monaco!

By Endurance We Conquer
Last weekend's coverage of the American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) race at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California was the most satisflying (or, rather, least dissatisfying) I'd experienced since the A.L.M.S. sold its soul to the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network. (The six-hour race was on Saturday, the two-hour television broadcast was on Sunday.) I attribute this to three factors: One, a long time had passed since I'd seen an A.L.M.S. race, even in such a butchered form, & absence makes the heart grow fonder. Two, the nature of the race, being a true endurance race (six hours!) & being held on a spectacular race course, Laguna Seca. Three, the delightful commentary provided by veteran driver Justin Bell; nothing against usual commentor Johnny O'Connell, also a veteran driver, but Bell is simply a more amusing, more satisfying broadcaster.

One of the most beautiful aspects of endurance/sports car racing is the endurance, an area where the A.L.M.S. struggles. The first round of the year, the 12 Hours of Sebring (Florida), is the longest race on the calendar, & also serves as the first round of the F.I.A. World Endurance Championship (W.E.C.); the second round is the shortest race of the year, a mere two hours around the streets of Long Beach, California, held the same weekend as the IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach. Two hours does not an endurance race make. Six hours around Laguna Seca would test any machine, but after that come three races of just under three hours; I cannot say exactly how long the cars must drive to constitute an endurance race, but four to six hours would seem to be a reasonable standard, no? The W.E.C. is a joint venture of the F.I.A. (the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the world governing body) & the A.C.O. (the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the organizers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans), & supplants the A.C.O.'s runaway success the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup as the world's premier endurance racing series. All seven (or eight) rounds of 2012's inaugural W.E.C. will be at least six hours in length, with Sebring & Le Mans being twice & four times as long respectively. Of the remaining seven rounds of this year's A.L.M.S., only one will be longer than four hours, the ten-hour-or-one-thousand-miles Petit Le Mans. The American Le Mans Series must be convinced to make endurance a focus of its racing.

One of the inherent problems of the A.L.M.S. is the two-month layoff betwixt Laguna Seca & the next race at Lime Rock, Connecticut, a layoff necessary for competitors to compete at & recover from next month's 24 Heures du Mans in Le Mans, France; but, without the chance to compete in the "Grand Prix of Endurance," what would be the point of the A.L.M.S.? There's just no way around the two-month break. The plus side of the break? It means there's only one month until Le Mans! Yippee!

Grand Dammit
I watched Sunday's Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race from the New Jersey Motorsports Park live on Speed in its entirety, a situation far superior to watching Saturday's American Le Mans Series race from Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca a day later on E.S.P.N. 2, edited to less than one-third of the race's duration. Yet, I still liked the A.L.M.S. race better than the Grand-Am race. I can't really explain why. Positive association 'twixt the A.L.M.S. & my beloved 24 Heures du Mans? The presence in competition of my beloved Corvette Racing team? The aesthetic superiority of Le Mans Prototypes to Daytona Prototypes? It must be said that the Daytona Prototypes (D.P.) look better this year, the bodywork having been restyled from last year; many of the teams are running Chevrolet engines & are branded "Corvette D.P.s," but those aren't Corvettes. The Corvette C6.Rs that run in the A.L.M.S. (& at Le Mans), those are Corvettes. Whatever the root, the prejudice against Grand-Am that led me to declare on May Day that I could no longer justify using the "By Endurance We Conquer" subtitle for coverage of the Rolex Series (Wayback Machine) persists.

Beyond Thunderdome
Last Saturday, I also watched the broadcast of a trio of V8 Supercars races from the Barbagallo Raceway outside Perth, Western Australia. I can't put my finger on why, but I was less entertained than during previous V8 Supercars races. Mayhap I was just in an ill—or an ill-suited—humor? Maybe the magnificently mad Bathurst 1000 has ruined me for other, lesser Aussie circuits? I've enjoyed watching the Supercars in the past & remain confident that I'll enjoy watching them again in the future.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
First Aid Kit, "Emmylou" via iTunes, (free) Single of the Week (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I'm not normally a fan of those twanging strings, hate 'em in fact, but somehow "Emmylou" works, & it just slays me.