This Week in Motorsport
Going forward, we promise not more than one "This Week in Motorsport" post per week, consistent with the feature's title.

Formula Fun!
Formula One World Championship
Round 17
Grand Prix of India
Sunday, 28 October 2012

Four in a row for reigning double World Drivers' Champion Sebastian Vettel ('10 & '11) & reigning double World Constructors' Champions Red Bull (Renault) ('10 & '11)! Vettel started from the pole, his fourth consecutive front-row start, &, with Red Bull teammate Mark Webber alongside, India was the third consecutive front-row lockout by Red Bull, the only team to have done so all year long. Vettel cruised to victory, reminiscent of the dominance he evinced throughout '11, a season during which he took fifteen poles & eleven wins. Vettel finished nearly ten second ahead of the second-place finisher, a margin that could have been larger had not the Red Bull engineers begged Vettel in the closing laps to slow his pace & take it easy. Alas, double World Champion Fernando Alonso ('05 & '06) of Ferrari finished second, minimizing the damage to his Drivers' Championship bid; Alonso now sits thirteen points behind Vettel in the standings. '07 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen of Lotus (Renault), the aforementioned Webber, & '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren (Mercedes) remain mathematically eligible for the championship, but only just; realistically, it is a two-man race 'twixt the double world champions Vettel & Alonso.

Next: The Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi, a race that starts in daylight, races through the dusk, & finishes at night, against a background of staggering opulence & wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Blessed with abundant petroleum reserves, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, the dominant member of the United Arab Emirates, is richer than Croesus.

By Endurance We Conquer
World Endurance Championship
Round 8
6 Hours of Shanghai
Sunday, 28 October 2012

The finale of the inaugural season of the joint F.I.A./A.C.O. World Endurance Championship (W.E.C.) was contest this weekend, at the Shanghai International Circuit, built to be the home of the F1 Chinese Grand Prix. Toyota took their third victory of the year & second consecutive win over Audi, having also triumphed in their home round of the W.E.C., the 6 Hours of Fuji. The sole Toyota TS030 lapped around a second a lap quicker than either of the two Audi R18 e-tron quattros, producing a dominant win.

To my knowledge, the W.E.C. is not televised in the U.S., & whenever I have tried to watch a video on the W.E.C. website I've been presented with a screen telling me that the material is not available in my country. However, China being on the other side of the world & my having still been awake at 2:00 A.M. on Sunday, having been out late to see The Loose Ties, I checked out the live webcast of the race, which is available in this country. The commentary was provided by Radio Le Mans, chaps whose opinions I greatly respect, but I raised an eyebrow & looked askance at their repeated insistence that Toyota's pace meant the team would be favored to be only the second Japanese manufacturer to win the 24 Heures du Mans at the next running in June '13. Winning the 6 Hours of Shanghai is impressive, but winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans is another challenge entirely. Let us remind ourselves that in the two years of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (I.L.M.C.), the predecessor to the W.E.C., Peugeot won both I.L.M.C. crowns over Audi. However, in both years, 10 & '11, Audi won Le Mans over Peugeot. I bear Toyota no ill will, & in fact I'm thrilled that they took up the L.M.P.1 (Le Mans Prototype) challenge after Peugeot's hasty exit from the sport, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, & let's not doom them by setting impossible goals.

So, after finishing second to Peugeot in both years of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, Audi won the inaugural World Endurance Championship over Toyota. That said, the R18s had a tremendous advantage in that no TS030 competed at either the season-opening 12 Hours of Sebring nor the Le Mans warm-up 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, meaning Toyota had to debut at the grueling 24 Heures du Mans, a race that Audi won, & a race that pays double points. Toyota might have a slight edge over Audi in the '13 W.E.C., in that Sebring will be replaced as the North American round by the 6 Hours of Austin, & Audi thrives at the longest races. But I won't believe that Toyota can best Audi around the Circuit de le Sarthe 'til the chequered flag waves on Sunday afternoon next 23 June.

Man alive, I wish the W.E.C. was on American television! Here's hoping that at least the 6 Hours of Austin, at the brand-new Circuit of the Americas, will make the cut.

Blancpain Endurance Series
Round 6
Navarra
Sunday, 14 October 2012

This weekend, I caught a YouTube video of the Blancpain Endurance Series, an all-G.T. (no prototypes) series centered around the 24 Hours of Spa. All Blancpain races are three hours long except for the Spa 24 Hours; what I saw was a fifty minute-long edit of the season-ending race at Navarra, in Spain, & I liked what I saw. I also liked that I could see it, even a fortnight after the race was run, a lovely change of pace from the rights-exclusivity of the W.E.C. site. The last half hour of the race was run behind the safety car due to torrential rainfall, & the race was red-flagged with five minutes to go, but that was the right call given the way cars were sliding off track even at the sedate pace of the safety car. When the safety car pace isn't safe, it's time to call it a day. I'd read about the Blancpain Endurance Series & seen highlights on Mobil 1 The Grid, but this was the first time I'd seen even part of a race. Though not nearly the same priority as the W.E.C., I'd like to see more of the Blancpain Endurance Series.

The Queue
If The Master Mind of Mars was too slight & didn't have quite enough moving parts to its plot, A Fighting Man of Mars is a Rube Goldberg machine of a book, fairly bursting at the seams, switching from location to location & moving along with a celerity not seen since The Gods of Mars, without the skimping on plot that marred The Warlord of Mars. Alas, the many, many threads of A Fighting Man of Mars come together & are resolved just a little too hastily, as was the case with Thuvia, Maid of Mars; there was one plot point, left entirely unresolved, that I hope will be revisited in one of the remaining four books. I will take a break from Burroughs after finishing the Barsoom series, but in the not too distant future I intend to try his similar Venus series, the Hollow-Earth tales of the Pellucidar series, & investigate if the Tarzan series is worthwhile beyond Tarzan of the Apes, which I read not long after the first John Carter of Mars novel, A Princess of Mars. E.R.B. is for me!

Recently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Chessmen of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Master Mind of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Fighting Man of Mars

Currently
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill*

Presently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Swords of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Llana of Gathol
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, The Arabian Nights (specifically, "Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves")
Richard Price, Clockers
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

*The eccentric spellings in the title—"forme" for form, "common-wealth" for commonwealth, & the extra "L" at the end of both ecclesiastical & civil, as well as the inconsistent use of "and" & the ampersand—are from the title page of the original printing of Leviathan. They are repeated here because they tickle your humble narrator's fancy.

The Rebel Black Dot Hallowe'en Song of the Day
Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers, "Transylvania Twist" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "Transylvania Twist" is the faux song & dance referenced in the more famous "Monster Mash":

"Out from his coffin Drac's voice did ring,
Seems he was troubled by just one thing,
Opened the lid and shook his fist
And said, 'Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?'"

There are no lyrics proper in "Transylvania Twist," simply a discussion of the song's merits 'twixt Drac (Dracula), Boris (the uncanny Karloff, after a fashion), & Frankie (Frankenstein's Monster). Drac is most impressed by his "Transylvania Twist" & Frankie likes it, yet Boris worries, "But will the living dig it?"

To this Drac replies, "Of course, stupid!"

In the end, Boris agrees, declaring, "It's a rocker!"