Operation ÖSTERREICH
A new course record today, forty seconds faster than the old course record, set only a week earlier. "Rumblin', tumblin', stumblin'…" Pardon my swagger.

Also, the dietary component of Operation ÖSTERREICH is as important as the exercise regime. My mother, bless her heart, baked a pair of pumpkin pies on Monday. This was the opening salvo in the holiday season's assault on my bulging waistline; supreme discipline will be required not to allow November & December to undo September's & October's progress. I know that I have not the willpower to resist the cavalcade of Christmas cookies entirely, to quit them cold turkey, so the key will be to reduce my intake to the achievable minimum & to strive mightily to set that minimum as low as possible.

This Week in Motorsport
By Endurance We Conquer
The recent running of the 15th Annual Petit Le Mans has stirred within me a great desire to see this weekend's last race of the inaugural World Endurance Championship (W.E.C.), the 6 Hours of Shanghai, which will utilize the same up-to-date racing circuit built to host the F1 Chinese Grand Prix. There is no television coverage of the W.E.C. in the United States, at least not to my knowledge, & so I shall attempt to watch the race online, even though my last attempt to do so was less than successful. I am hopeful that there might be television coverage of 2013's North American round of the W.E.C., the 6 Hours of Austin, to be held at the brand-new Circuit of the Americas (C.O.T.A.), which next month will host the F1 United States Grand Prix. The 6 Hours of Austin, you see, will be part of a "super endurance weekend" held in conjunction with the American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.): the A.L.M.S. will race on Saturday & the W.E.C. on Sunday. The A.L.M.S. race will be broadcast, alas, on E.S.P.N. 2 or A.B.C., with all the attendant compromises, but I'm hoping a deal can be reached whereby Speed will cover the W.E.C. race, even as a one-off. There is precedent for this in Speed's coverage of this year's inaugural World Touring Car Championship (W.T.C.C.) Race of the U.S.A., even though Speed doesn't normally cover the W.T.C.C. Hope springs eternal!

There will be two other "super endurance weekends" next year, one here in the U.S. when the A.L.M.S. & the Grand-Am Rolex Series share a weekend at Road America, & the other in Europe, where the European Le Mans Series (E.L.M.S.) will share a weekend with the opening round of the W.E.C., the 6 Hours of Silverstone, akin to how the A.L.M.S. & the W.E.C. will share the weekend at the C.O.T.A. Having greatly enjoyed the A.L.M.S. & IndyCar doubleheader at Mid-Ohio, & believing that it provided value for money, I cannot but view this as an excellent direction for the sport, as well as a welcome show of solidarity between the A.C.O.'s three series, the W.E.C., the A.L.M.S., & the E.L.M.S.

All five of the races on the recently-announced '13 E.L.M.S. calendar will be shared weekends, the Silverstone weekend with the W.E.C., one found with a French G.T. series, & three pairs with the one-step-below-F1 single-seaters of the World Series by Renault. The E.L.M.S. struggled mightily this year, motor racing being a luxury, & thus one of the first items on the chopping block, in economically trouble Europe, but I see great potential in next year's slate of races.

I was surprised & encouraged by the success of the A.L.M.S. P2-class prototypes against their visiting E.L.M.S. brethren at the Petit Le Mans. Perhaps as a character flaw, perhaps as a result of A.L.M.S. teams' traditional struggles at the 24 Heures du Mans (except for Corvette Racing, who excel at Le Mans), I presumed that European prototype teams were superior to American prototype teams. Such was not the case at Petit, where American proudly defended our home soil. And lest one suspect that the cream of the European P2 crop fled the E.L.M.S. for the jet-setting W.E.C., it should be noted that the W.E.C. P2 champs are the American team Starworks Motorsports. I hope then to see both the A.L.M.S. P1 champs, Picket Racing, & the P2 champs, Level 5 Motorsports, at Le Mans next June, & still looking strong late into the twenty-fourth hour.

Rally Monkey
A further, sideways note on potentially rooting for Volkswagen in the W.R.C. in '13 & beyond: I have vague but fond memories from the '80s of the late paternal grandfather's V.W. Rabbit, the name under which a couple generations of the Golf were marketed here in North America. Also, The L.A.W. & Brother-in-L.A.W.'s sole motorcar, which sees relatively little use in their urban lifestyle, is a V.W. (I am uncertain as to the model, but I think it's a Jetta.) So there's that, for whatever significance that has.

The Rebel Black Dot Hallowe'en Song of the Day
Champions of Breakfast, "Mummify My Love (The Enchanted Tomb)" from Pleasure Mountain (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The heartwarming tale of a mummy & the girl whose blood it needs to be revived & whose brains it will eat once thus revived.

"Before I died I was a rich and handsome man,
And then the plague came and took me from my land,
Was laid to rest, rotting from the inside out,
But that don't mean that I can't make you scream and shout!"