Well, as Rosalind helpfully pointed out on the Gone Fishing thread, I am a bit of a late tease with the Trash Talk thread this weekend. Sorry about that,things got a bit catawampus yesterday. Today is my daughter Jenna’s sweet sixteen birthday (scary!!), but somehow the big party got shifted to Saturday. This entailed taking her and a pack of friends to the waterpark. Couple of things notable here: The place is HUGE; it is like Disneyland with water. Second, and here is part of the rub on trash timing, it is literally like halfway to Flagstaff.
Anyway, once back from dropping them off, which was almost an hour drive each way, there were party preparations cake pickups etc. and then my wife picked the girls up and we had a pack of screaming 16 year olds. All very distressing and tiring. But, having survived all that and fallen asleep,I am now up for the Belgian Grand Prix and ready to trash.
This weekend is the Belgian and it is at the historic Spa, simply maybe the most kicks ass track on the Circus tour, featuring the famous Eau Rouge turn. Read about Eau Rouge and the history of Spa at the wiki entry, it is a good read, and you will be glad you did.
AS the Belgian was a key contest in 1961, we will take the customary look back in this the 50th anniversary of Phil Hill’s Yankee Championship year. We have a killer video clip on the 1961 Belgian, just superb. 1961 found the Ferraris dominant in qualifying at Spa. Phil took pole in qualifying, with Von Tripps in P2, Olivier Gendedien P3 and fellow American Ritchie Ginther in P5 in the fourth Ferrari. The race was hotly contested with numerous lead changes, but at the end of the day it was still the Ferraris leading the pack with Phil winning the race, followed closely by Von Tripps, Ginther and Gendebien.
This year, the Red Bulls have again led the way in qualifying with points leader Sebastian Vettel claiming pole and Mark Webber in P3 split by Lewis Hamilton in P2. It weas one of the most electrifying qualifying sessions in recent memory, and certainly the best this year by far. Wow, just wow. There was both wet early and dry late, which caused all the teams to have cars on track every second they could. It literally came down to the last seconds and was influenced by a fairly questionable move on the Williams of Pedro Maldonado by the ever more dickish driving of Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton is really not aging well from the humble and nice young man when he first joined the tour.
There is, of course also football in the air, even if it is still preseason. Last night the Cardinals looked pretty good, but then their scrubs let the Bolts’ scrubs score a TD in the last five seconds to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The other notable game saw the resurgent Lions really do a number on the Patriots. Man, you can just see the confidence growing in the Kitties, this is truly a team to be reckoned with now, and I think it will carry over into the regular season.
So, trash it up folks!