Weekend Racing Recap
-J.F. Musial
Two great races came and went this weekend; the U.S. Grand Prix in Indianapolis and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. Le Mans started in the rain yesterday with the three factory diesel powered Audi R10s leading the field. By dawn this morning though, two of them had dropped out, one mysteriously due to a lug nut failure caused by the car jacks coming down to early in the pits nearly an hour before the accident. The most famous endurance race of the world was thought to finally have a true battle upfront as Peugeot entered a diesel car which was hopefully going to finally stick it to the R10s. The lack of sufficient testing began to show for the new French creation as the 12 hour mark hit on the big Rolex watch. In the end, the #1 Audi Sport of North America R10 was victorious, completing 369 laps of the famed circuit. As an Audi Fanatic, I am a bit disappointed. I feel that even with a victory, the Audi factory team was not as prepared as they were in years past. Team Peugeot will most definitely be coming back harder and stronger in 2008. Who knows, maybe we will see another diesel entry? Factory teams would be stupid not to even contemplate the idea. The rulebook is for the most part, thrown out the window as to what restrictions are placed on the diesel beast
On the other side of the pond, we yanks hosted the 2007 U.S. Grand Prix at the Brickyard. What a race it was. Lewis Hamilton took the victory even with the defending champion Fernando Alonso pushing hard from behind for the entire race. I can not say anything many of you may already know about Hamilton. He has only started in seven Formula One races and he has had a podium position at the end of each one of them. He is my age and is dominating a sport which some say takes years to master. I also hear that the champ is quite friendly in person and has one hell of a personality. Maybe one day I’ll get to interview him for VODCars or FastLaneDaily... Or maybe I’ll continue to pour massive amounts of my money into my ten year old Audi which seems to not like second gear when it’s sunny out.
I’ll have more on both of these stories because I have much more to say...
