F1's hopes destroyed in the US again

[Hello to those from the FB link - just learned this entry was linked there.] Americans don't get Formula 1 racing. It's been said time and time again but it's true. The latest evidence of this is the seating fiasco at the new Austin circuit - "Circuit Of The Americas". The best seats for F1 are the main grandstands opposite the pits, or on turn 1. These seats are generally expensive, but open to all at every other F1 race. In America though, they seem to think that this track is a baseball stadium, because the premium seats are only available as a season ticket (as oppose to per-event) and then only if you first pre-purchase the right to purchase a season ticket.
From their website:
"PREMIUM SEATING IS ONLY AVAILABLE THROUGH THE PURCHASE OF THE PSL. THE PSL (PERSONAL SEAT LICENSE) IS A ONE TIME PAYMENT PER SEAT THAT WILL GIVE YOU OWNERSHIP RIGHTS TO PURCHASE SEASON TICKETS AT COTA FOR UP TO 15 YEARS. OWNING A PSL WILL GET YOU ACCESS TO THE MOST DESIRABLE VIEWING AREAS, EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO PURCHASE TICKETS TO OTHER RACE SERIES, PRE-SALE OPPORTUNITY FOR MAJOR CONCERTS AND THE RIGHT TO PURCHASE ON-SITE PARKING."
In other words, you can't get grandstand seats for just the F1 race - you have to commit to a whole season of events. For 15 years. Nobody's going to do that. My guess is that the FIA will pull the race from the circuit after 2013 once this becomes widely known.The worst part of this is that you have to fill in a 'pre-authorisation' request and then their PSL reps will contact you with a price - ie. they won't even publish the prices online, like it's some sort of exclusive club or something.
Doing this is basically reserving the best seats at the track for the ultra-rich - the Donald Trumps and Mitt Romneys of the world - who are so stratospherically high into the 1% that they don't even know what money is any more.
Look - F1 is an expensive spectator sport - as F1 fans, we know this - but to expect us to pre-pay for 15 years of tickets just demonstrates a comprehensive lack of understanding of F1 and the sort of people who watch it.
Way to go Circuit Of The Americas - I guess you really didn't want to give F1 a chance after all.

Driving one-armed.

A few weeks back I broke my left shoulder and humerus in an off-road accident. Since then I've been living life one-armed, with left arm in a sling. Of course this means getting to grips with driving with only one arm. Fortunately my car has an auto box so that's really what makes it possible. Putting the seatbelt on is easy. Closing the door not so much as I have to lean out of the car and reach over to grab the handle with my right hand. Basic driving is pretty easy but I find myself driving about 5mph slower than normal because I can only have one hand on the wheel. Using the indicators is the most awkward thing though because the control stalk is on the left side. This means I have to pick my moment to indicate because I have to wedge the wheel with my knees and quickly reach through the top of it with my right hand. This isn't particularly safe but I still find it better to indicate my intentions rather than just maneuvering without warning.
For sure it's given me an enlightened view of driving when disabled. I'm going to get better and I'm sure once I am this will fade into memory, but it occurs to me that having able-bodied people designing cars (or anything for that matter) for disabled people is a bit hypocritical. There's a dozen things I'd change right away in my car if this was a permanent condition.
But none of them would be nanny items - I'm still quite capable of determining when to turn on the headlights and wipers thanks very much.

Supercar sunday

About a month ago we were in the UK on holiday and on the sunday we were driving to Portsmouth for a day out. It's not unusual to see supercars every now and then - I've spotted the odd Ferrari and Lambo here and there. But we had a hell of a shock on that day. First, we passed a Pagani Zonda. Then we spotted a Lamborghini Reventon. Now there's only 25 of these in existence (I think). Then we were passed by a second Pagani Zonda. 10 minutes later, we were buzzed by a Porsche GT3RS and a Lamborghini Aventador. We figured something was up at that point and had our suspicions confirmed by a Ferrari Enzo and a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera orbiting a roundabout in front of us. It was only later in the day that we discovered it had been Supercar Sunday at Goodwood. That would explain it. Although think of this : you'd expect supercars to be shown at that sort of event if they were trucked in by the manufacturers, but in this case these were 'everyday' owners. I can only conclude one thing from this experience - there isn't a recession in the southeast of England. I've only ever seen one of those cars before outside the pages of a magazine or TV show. To see so many that close together, out in the wild, was amazing.

Ferrari 599 vs taxi = bad for everyone

I enjoy spirited driving. I admit I speed - show me someone who tells you they don't speed and I'll show you a liar. But even I draw the line at speeding in built-up areas. Sadly, this isn't the case for some of the bottom-feeders of this world. On May 12th, there was a horrendous accident in Singapore when a guy driving a Ferrari 599 GTO at 180km/h blew through a red light with the inevitable result. It was caught on a dashcam by another driver. Sadly, the passenger and driver in the taxi that the Ferrari hit were killed. The Ferrari driver was also killed, but that's no biggie - he got everything he deserved. Bizarrely, his passenger and the motorcyclist he also hit both survived. When you see the video and photos, you'll understand why I use the word 'bizarrely'.
Look - I can understand buying a supercar. I would if I had the money. I can understand wanting to show off to the women - I'm a bloke - we're hard-wired to do stupid things like that. And I can understand wanting to drive fast. What I can't grasp is the logic that this guy applied where he thought all three of the above would be just fine and dandy in a busy city street. I've driven at 180km/h (faster, actually). It's quick. Bloody quick, even on a dead straight, wide open county road with no intersections and miles of visibility. I can't imagine how mental that must be in a city environment. Well - I can now thanks to the video.
It's not particularly graphic but it is shocking if you've never seen a traffic accident (for real or on video) before. You've been warned.

The right gear will save your life

When I see the helmet and seatbelt campaigns I always wonder how there are still people who don't see the benefits of safety gear. There's plenty of them though. I'm a career motorcyclist - I've been riding since I was 16 so I've always worn helmets for motorsports, and if the vehicle in question has a racing harness or seatbelt, so much the better. Case in point, last week I flipped a Razr 800 off-road buggy. Not sure how - we think the left front tyre came off the rim in a corner, but it went end-over-end and barrel rolled. I came out of it with an arm fractured in two places. I was harnessed in and wearing a helmet. After some on-site triage by some friends, we drove back to civilisation and I checked in to the ER. The doc said he knew I'd been wearing a helmet because the people he sees who've done the same sort of thing without a helmet typically arrive by air ambulance. There's nothing particularly gruesome here but if you want to see the outcome, here's some pics. Razr crash. Wear the appropriate gear. It will massively reduce the seriousness when something stupid happens.

Auto stop start

I recently rented a car that had one of those auto stop-start systems on it for fuel efficiency. The idea is that when you're stopped, the engine turns off and then as you get ready to move off, the engine starts again. The car I was driving was a manual so the system keyed off the clutch pedal. When I was stopped, if the car was in neutral and I took my foot off the clutch, the engine stopped. The first time this happened I panicked and put my foot on the clutch and turned the key to re-start the engine as I assumed it had stalled. Of course as soon as I pushed the clutch down, the engine started itself so by the time I turned the key, I got that awful "you're killing your engine" noise you get when the starter tries to engage with a running engine. That noise made me take my foot off the clutch again so then the engine stopped again. It took me one complete green cycle of the traffic lights, parked with the hazard lights on, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. In the end I found the "off" button to turn the stupid function off completely but in this particular car it reset to "on" every time the car was parked. If you're a regular reader you'll know I despise in-car gadgets like this and auto stop-start has shot right into the top three of my most hated functions now, right next to auto lights and auto wipers. It's a pointless system that wastes more petrol than it saves (according to Auto Express and Motor Trend at least), and certainly induces far more stress on the engine's starter than it needs to. The additional complexity in wiring, sensors and ECU coding seems illogical and unnecessary too and it strikes me that on cars fitted with this system, we can probably guess with 100% accuracy what the first thing will be to fail. Either the stop start function, or the starter motor itself. Fortunately this particular car was a VW Golf and because of the ready availability of products like the VAGCOM (which I already own for my Tiguan) it would be child's play to turn this function off for good.