Ancient Yuletide carols were trolled at the alpine resort of Alpe d'Huez recently when one racer tried to deck a fellow competitor.
It happened in the midst of an Andros Trophy ice buggy race when fifty year old Olivier Panis, a Grand Prix driver know mostly for crashing and one lucky win, did not accept being shoved into hay bales as a Christmas greeting.
The well wisher was 25 year old Adrien Tambay, son Patrick, the 1980's Ferrari (and Beatrice Hass) driver.
Oo-la-la, Oooh-pop-pop-pop.... C'est d'homage.
A Gallic version NASCAR ensued.... unfortunately, unlike les amis Americain, French tv cut away just when it was getting good.
Ah, Christmas .... Axis of Oversteer wishes you a merrier one.
In the week or so since the events at the upstate New York dirt track, blame for the accident has been squarely put on Tony Stewart's shoulders: The big bad racing superstar who, in a moment of rage, mowed down "the kid".
Almost the totality of media immediately convicted with headlines that included some form of "...Stewart killed..."
Only Tony Stewart and perhaps an onboard camera know what happened with certainly but at the time I, like almost everyone I know who is in any way involved in motorsport, wondered why Kevin Ward Jr. would crawl out of a wreck and run around a live racetrack looking for a fight with a moving car.
Clearly, I'm not a oval racing enthusiast...
Now, aside from a shocking lack of any safety protection for infield workers, public or drivers, as pointed out by Motorsport Safety Foundation's founder Henrique Cisneros, I would argue that when you have a form of racing where policemen are regularly on hand to restrain drivers, you have a systemic problem.
...I think young Mr. Ward knew this was his chance to get on television and raise his profile as a driver. I think it was a calculated move. I think he wanted to maximize a situation. Face it — even if Stewart hadn’t hit him, it would have made highlight reels and would have put his name on people’s lips...
...So Kevin Ward, Jr. saw a chance to make a name for himself. To get lucky. To be the kid who faced down Tony Stewart on the highlight reel. But in his haste to do that, he didn’t think about the risks. Which, I would add, is a characteristic of nearly all successful drivers. If you sat and thought seriously about the risks, you’d never go wheel-to-wheel racing at all. He made a quick decision, a judgment call. That’s the way racing works.
It cost him his life.
Wasn't Kevin Ward Jr. trying to give what so many of those so quick to condemn Tony Stewart, exactly what they wanted?
Certainly, it was not racing because crowds are regularly whooping and hollering with delight at this kind of crap.
In case you thought bump drafting was only done with tin tops... This was Team Carlin driver Antonio Felix Da Costa of Portugal, pushing Aaro Vainio in GP3 at Monza.
Funny thing happened at the Daytona 500... well, more than one "funny" thing but, to make a long, long, long story short, the Daytona 500 was stopped and a Twitter race broke out.
What you see above is probably the first ever photograph tweeted by a race driver, from a race car, in the middle of a race.
The shot is from Brad Keselowsky who spent the interminable red flag period posting messages from the banks of Daytona. Twitter went nuts for hours, even the jet dryer truck got its own account!
The race? They went round and round, some crashed including Keselowsky and eventually someone won, who? Twitter.
...real racing is rain or shine (photo: Cahier Archive)
This was in 2007, I think today they would both be penalized and sent to a corner, I think this was one of the most exiting duels since the famous Villeneuve-Arnoux battle in Dijon in 1979, what do you thin?
Part of the festivities at the annual Monza Rally show. The course is set up for rally cars, Max takes the gravel line at Parabolica...much to the amusement of Zanardi.
I'll be honest, the only time I can stand to watch NASCAR is when they burn their "tars" on a real race course. They still crash into each other all the time, just like on the ovals though. On a side note, that has to be the biggest safety worker on the planet in the blue jumper.
Pretty extraordinary onboard camera shot from Juan Pablo Montoya's car at Infineon last week. Amazing the amount of talking the spotter does, a long way from the "C'mon Felipe, baby" of F1!
In this other clip, ever resourceful teams break new frontiers in sponsor sticker placement: Kevin Harvick's crew has them on the steering column.
Yup that's a recent spec McLaren F1 car running turn 11 at Watking Glen. The picture was posted by Nathan Sunseri who was on hand to see the Mobil 1 organized promo event. Lewis Hamilton and Tony Steward swapped a tight F1 for a big NASCAR . It's going to be shown on SpeedTV later tonight.. 2:10 for the NASCAR..really?
Cole Trickle: (v.) To avoid a crash by the narrowest of margins. Example: "In today's video, Axis Pete takes his chances and successully Cole Trickles his way through the nastiest club racing crash we've seen in a long time."
Bonus Entry: Pete Trickle: (n.) Mysterious, pot-bellied, little-known cousin of Cole who drives for Axis of Oversteer. Thought to be intimately familiar with Dick Trickle.
So you get the idea.
After the jump: A few more perspectives from Pocono. -Freep
Seriously, you can race on public streets high on cocaine, get all charges dismissed on a ludicrous technicality and get full reinstatement in the Grand -Am racing? Seriously?
NASCAR owns Grand-Am of course. No word if the Florida cops kindly returned his stash as well as drop all charges....
All charges dropped for driver France By LYDA LONGA and GODWIN KELLY, STAFF WRITERS
DAYTONA BEACH -- J.C. France, grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., will be behind the wheel of a race car soon, now that a technicality has wiped out the charges lodged against him in an October arrest.
On Thursday, France was reinstated to Grand-Am Road Racing to compete in Rolex Series events after a five-month suspension following his arrest last year by Daytona Beach police.
Grand-Am spokesman Kevin Hinson confirmed that the 44-year-old France was issued a competitor's license earlier this week after a circuit judge granted a motion to suppress all the evidence collected against the race car driver when he was stopped in Holly Hill.
Therein lies the technicality.
France was stopped in Holly Hill by a Daytona Beach cop.
The officer, Charles Fields, initially heard a BOLO (be on the lookout) on the police radio by Daytona Beach Capt. Steve Szabo. The BOLO concerned two cars racing westbound over the Seabreeze Bridge. Police said France, in a 2007 Lamborghini, was racing against his half-brother Russell Van Richmond, who was driving a Porsche Cayenne.
Fields, who was northbound on Ridgewood Avenue, said when he saw France, the latter was running a stoplight at Ridgewood and Mason avenues. Fields said France then headed north on Ridgewood. Richmond had gone in the opposite direction into Daytona Beach and was stopped a few minutes later by a policewoman.
But France's stop was unlawful, said his attorney Mike Lambert, because Fields was outside of his jurisdiction when France was pulled over at the 200 block of Ridgewood Avenue.
According to Fields' report, France smelled of alcohol. The officer also found a baggie with cocaine inside the pricey ride, the report shows. As a result, France was charged with possession of cocaine and DUI and hauled off to the Volusia County Branch Jail.
But the charges evaporated like a cloud of engine exhaust off a racetrack. Circuit Judge Patrick Kennedy agreed with Lambert, saying that when Fields observed France run a red light at Ridgewood and Mason Avenues, France was already in Holly Hill.
Holly Hill begins at Beach Street and Mason Avenue in the westbound direction off the Seabreeze Bridge. A city engineer confirmed that at a suppression hearing March 22.
"As a general principle, police officers of a municipality have no official power to arrest an offender outside the boundaries of their municipality," Kennedy said in his order. "Obviously, there are exceptions to that general principle; however, none were offered or could be applied to this case."
If Fields had seen France run the red light in Daytona Beach, he could have stopped him in Holly Hill, prosecutor and State Attorney's Office spokesman Chris Kelly said.
Szabo could have stopped him in Holly Hill as well, because the captain initially said he saw France and Richmond racing over the Seabreeze Bridge -- street racing is against state law -- and the bridge is in Daytona Beach.
Kelly further explained that if Fields had observed France commit a felony in Holly Hill, he could have arrested him with a citizen's arrest.
"This is so technical, it's borderline ridiculous," Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood said. "Who knew that little stretch of Mason from Beach Street to Ridgewood is Holly Hill?"
While Chitwood and his officers learned geography that day, the chief said he hopes France learned something also.
France underwent rehabilitation and drug testing required by Grand-Am, headquartered in Daytona Beach and owned by NASCAR.
"He addressed the legal issues that were outstanding. Based on the fact those issues were resolved, and successfully completing the program administered by Dr. David Black, we made a decision to reinstate him," Hinson said. Black is a forensic toxicologist.
Meanwhile, France won't compete in this weekend's Rolex Series at Virginia International Raceway. He's not expected to attend Saturday's Bosch Engineering 250.
"Being out of the car was tough,'' France said Wednesday. "Sometimes it takes losing something to understand its importance. I was getting a little ragged and needed a good kick in the butt; I got it."
Chitwood thinks France was lucky nonetheless.
"Some people lead a charmed life, that's all I can say," the chief said.
-- Correspondent D.C. Williams Jr. contributed to this report.
OK, trick headline but check it out: this from an interview Jarno Trulli gave Gazzetta Dello Sport (Italy) after his NASCAR test in Florida with Michael Waltrip Racing.
Q. What was the biggest adjustment coming from F1?
JT. Getting used to fenders, a closed cockpit and of running such mass. The proximity to walls? no big deal, you get used to them.
Q. What struck you about the experience?
JT. The car management and the tuning, which allows for infinite possibilities, definitively superior to Formula1. To give you an idea, to have the same level of adjustment in Formula 1 as is available in NASCAR you would need to completely redesign the cars. Another thing that struck me is that you need to be extremely clean in your driving, something I'm good at.
Q. And what's missing in NASCAR compared to Formula 1?
As part of its viability plan unveiled yesterday, GM's racing division announced dramatic cost savings achieved by running a NASCAR platform in all racing series across the globe.
"It's a no-brainer really..." said GM spokesman Lazarus K Pocketslop. " Not only are the cost savings obvious but we are promoting our green credentials by recycling the same body and simply apply different stickers to simulate different brands, models and aero setups".
Newly named global team "czar" and former ice racing celebrity Jasper Bullbanger indicated Danica Patrick and Scott Speed would be tapped as sole drivers and comply with the "Buy American" provision of the bailout.
The new GM Global Racing Platform, seen here testing in a combination endurance racing/tarmac rally form, is expected to debut in late 2009 and be powered by leftover Hummer, Saturn and Saab motors.
Tiff's NASCAR love? Well, maybe it has to do with UK's channel Five carrying the races on Tuesday nights, but the Fifth Gear crew certainly looks amused, at least by Montoya's now standard answer as to why he left Formula 1 ("...you pass more cars in one race than in a whole F1 career..." right, more passing and more burgers, gotcha Juan!).
In the end though, this is the best piece on NASCAR I have ever seen, it almost makes you want to watch. It certainly points out precisely what NASCAR has and Formula 1 seems to be trying it's best to completely lose: contact with the public.
Say what you will about the Viagra pushing left turners but they don't apologize and they most certainly have no guilt feelings, no biofuel hybrid requirements there.... and for all their lardy low tech race barges they have high tech services for fans, on demand internet feeds, rental close circuit multichannel personal screens at the track... huge access.
F1 could certainly learn a thing or two there don't you think?
Seriously, you can race on public streets high on cocaine, get all charges dismissed on a ludicrous technicality and get full reinstatement in the Grand -Am racing? Seriously?
OK, trick headline but check it out: this from an interview Jarno Trulli gave 
