My 4½ yo son chose to watch F-1 over NASCAR...   He redeemed himself after Talledega started, but still...

Go Formula 1!  8)

let him enjoy the final few races of Michael Schumacher. one of those drivers never to be forgotten.

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In the industry, we say, better your son is a ballet dancer than an air steward. Unfortunately, being a steward brings certain stereo typing. Mind you some of the stewards I know don't help themselves in this area at all. However the privacy of your own room etc.

Matt

I used to watch F1 in the early 1980s...

It was fun and exciting, but headed in the wrong direction, technologically. If I remember correctly.. they came close to introducing a traction-control system that was so advanced; all the driver had to do was stand on the throttle and pick good lines through the corners. Braking, power and even gear selection would have been done by computer.

The engine technology got out of hand too. The computer-controlled engines were running  somewhere in the 14,000 - 17,000 rpm range.. with pneumatic valves; using fuel so exotic and dangerous that for a few years, they didn't even allow refueling; the entire race had to be run on one tank-full.

I'll admit ignorance, as I haven't followed F1 since then; because it was getting to the point where it was just whichever team had the biggest budget, and didn't really matter who was driving.

Ironically.. NASCAR is popular in the USA for the same reason soccer is popular world-wide. It's simple, straight-forward and easy to understand. The engines are pretty much 40 year-old, American V8s. No fuel injection; no multi-valve; no turbo-charging and relatively simple chassis (solid rear axles and simple A-arm front suspensions). Any team with a reasonable budget can be competitive. The sad part of NASCAR is that it's not really NASCAR, and hasn't been since around 1982. The cars don't even remotely resemble their real-world counterparts, and are actually all the same, under lightly veiled sheet metal.

Wouldn't the best of both worlds be fun ? A truly manufacturer-based sanctioning body on a world-wide scale ? An international "NASCAR" where Toyota, Chevrolet, Audi, etc... had to put up race cars based on real cars every weekend !


EDIT:  I know that there's always been something like that.. SCCA, IMSA and any number of smaller sanctioning bodies.. What I mean is.. a commitment from the factories to make it BIG and international and well covered.

There are a number of car racing series that use REAL cars that are closely based on the ones you can buy. Then there is WRC which in its Gp. N guise really is cars you can buy and rally yourself... Gp. A being a bit more sophisticated.
Alas Americans have never really been being on rallying like the rest of the world. It is far more exciting than watching adverts going in a circle at a couple of hundred miles an hour

Ozzy (Gp. B fanatic... flame spittin' Audis and 205T16s) 8)

Sounds like you got a smart kid on your hands Kevin He knows fast when he sees it

Real men don't use restrictor plates!

Let's see you F-1 pansies top THIS!

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Do you really want to go there?  F-1 (and open wheel racing in general) have had some horrific wrecks.

some pretty bad ones in here: http://www.f1crashes.zoomshare.com/1.html

sorry, but....smart kid. like CraigL said, real men dont need full roll cages, a roof, doors, and windows