This Blog is Still Alive

Sorry guys - time has flown away, and I haven't time to write a full story or post yet

I do however have several ideas in the pipeline, and they'll come up pretty soon, hopefully sometime this Friday.

The 24 Wrapped Up

Its what Le Mans is famous for. Unpredictability was out in force today, with the Peugeots of the front transforming into Audis. It was an incredible race, and although Mansell's car was out early on, it would be foolish to rule him out completely for next year (although you never know with racing drivers!)

It was another great year, shame we'll have to wait a whole year for it again, despite that making it even more special.

Normal articles will resume next week, with a quick look at Communism and Motor Racing!

See you there,

dyewat808

The 24 Hours of Le Mans - UPDATE #2

More retirements were seen in recent hours at the Circuit de la Sarthe, with one of the Peugeots unfortunately dropping out.

However, Peugeot still maintains its monopoly of the top positions, with the Oreca-run Peugeot car also up there.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans - UPDATE #1

Well ladies and gentleman, the greatest race on earth has begun, and the news is not good for racing fans.

Mansell and Co are already out, having a crash at over 200mph, and brought out a whole host of safety vehicles.

Peugeot are still out in front, with Audi already dropping behind

Car? Or the Driver?

An interesting debate has popped up on the backdoors of the Raceconnect.com forums, and although it was being applied to virtual sim racing, the same could be said of the real-world.

What makes someone drive quickly? The car? The driver? Or the setup?

Its an interesting question, and one whose answer could prove to be invaluable to series like F1, where there is little to no overtaking, despite oddities like the Turkish Grand Prix.

Perhaps its a mix of all three factors? Certainly, James "jab" Bennett of the Welsh Grand Prix blog seems to think so.

And to an extent so do I. Drivers are now so good, as they make so few mistakes, a primary reason of any overtake.

Yet the difference in the performance of the cars has a part to play, too. However, this is usually most applicable to the slower backmarkers.

And the setups - these are tailored to the driver, so to some extent, these represent a mix of performance of driver and car.

Whatever the answer is may prove to be a slippery figure. There were 5 pages on this thread last time I checked, certainly one of the longest I've seen on the rather small Raceconnect forum, so its proving to be a debatable subject.

What do you see?

Well, its a sad end for Monday evenings for me, as the rather good "Flashforward" drama, another import from the States, has ended, quite possibly for good.

For those of you who didn't hear, many shows are being cut from the schedule this year because of rising costs and falling ratings, in preparation for the networks to announce their new line-ups. Its a sad thing, because although I don't know about the other shows, "Flashforward" for me, deserved more attention.

Compared to rather more popular dramas like "Lost" and "Heroes", it was better written.

End of.

Why? It had a story that moved - a story that progressed, and didn't just continuously swim around in circles amidst its own glory, like "Heroes". Sure, at times, the acting was a little dodgy, perhaps "overacted" is the word that some people have used to describe it.

But I didn't, and still don't, care about this [and anyway half the time it simply wasn't true]. This is because I watch a drama for its story, and "Flashforward" had a brilliant one. Every episode, something different happened. The story was different in its very subject matter, too. Full of originality, it seemed [to me], to have so much potential.

It also played around with the themes of time. Never before have I been so absorbed by a TV show about the future. So many get it wrong, and have a simplistic plot where you can go into the future, or the past, do whatever you want, and then leave. Most TV shows use the idea of time merely as a setting.

Not "Flashforward". It played around and explored so many ideas about time - whether you could change your future, whether it was destiny and fate, or something else like free will. For such an original show to be dropped is nothing short of a tragedy, and amongst its fan base at least, it shall be sorely missed.