Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: Racing

If you're not an F-1 fan (or one of our resident Canucks), you might want to skip to another thread...

I had a conversation with someone the other day and we were talking about simple pleasures. What were some of the small things that never failed to make us smile? Well, without putting much thought into it I said, "Watching old footage of Gilles Villeneuve driving."

Now, I thought it was kind of funny that that was one of the first things that popped into my head, but I guess it was an honest answer. I've got a couple of video tapes of Gilles racing, including the '79 French Grand Prix and his duel with Rene Arnoux. I'll pop them in maybe once or twice a year and they never fail to make smile and lean a little closer to the TV, and occasionally laugh out loud. The guy was absolutely insane. Completely brilliant, but insane.

So I guess if I have a question, it’s for the Canadian members of this board: Is Villeneuve a legend in Canada? Has he been largely forgotten? Is anyone here old enough to actually remember seeing or attending some of his races? Any stories to share?

This doesn't answer your question as I am not Canadian! I justed wanted to say that it is great to have another F1 fan on this forum, I have an MPEG file of Dijon '79 (with Murray Walker commentary if that means anything to you) on my PC and I watch it every now and then to remember the good old days of overtaking.
I have been to the Montreal GP for the past 3 years and from what I have seen Gilles is definately not forgotten!

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...the good old days of overtaking...

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Oh, man...I don't know if that's overtaking or if that's just a death wish! Rene and Gilles acting like it's a NASCAR race, bumping tires in open wheel racing, passing on the inside, then on the outside, kicking up dirt, locking up the brakes...it just makes me giggle thinking about it.

Here's a really lousy quality clip of the race we’re talking about, if anyone’s interested. (MPG, 1.9mb)

Whoa! That was really cool!

I uh, "follow" F1 by reading about it Road & Track (mainly because when I was a kid, and still now, it was the only thing Ferrari raced in). That clip is amazing. I understand that they don't race like that any more. Sad...

I've tried watching NASCAR on TV. It was truly dull, I'm sorry to say. Maybe I'm just not cut out to watch racing.

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I understand that they don't race like that any more. Sad...

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No, they don't race like that any more. Love him or hate him, Michael Schumacher is one of the most freakishly talented pilots to ever get behind the wheel of an F-1 car. Combine that with the engineering and financial resources of Ferrari, whose annual budget would make most third world nations cry, and you have a juggernaut in every sense of the word.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Schumacher race, and the unfortunate truth is that it's one of the most hopelessly lopsided events in the history of motorsports. I'll wave the Ferrari flag until the day I die, but he has absolutely nothing left to prove. My humble opinion is that it's time for him to gracefully bow out; the sport might be better for it if there was some element of actual competition involved.

I'm just really happy that Ferrari cars don't suck any more. I agree with you about Schumacher. Man, it would have been amazing to see him race against Senna at both of their primes...such a tragedy.

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I'm just really happy that Ferrari cars don't suck any more.

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The late 80s through the mid-90s were a dark time for Ferrari. I don’t know if I’d say the cars sucked, but the company certainly lost focus. On paper a car like the Testarossa was a brute, but it had the soul of a guy wearing gold chains and a satin baseball jacket. When Luca di Montezemelo took the reigns the company made a dramatic turnaround.

I never had the good sense to appreciate Senna at the time. In those days Ferrari was lost and all of the races ended with Senna, Prost or Mansell on the podium - very distressing for a fan of the Scuderia. A race with both Senna and Schumacher on the grid (in their respective primes, as you said) would be amazing fun. They did race each other (Schumacher had been in F1 two seasons when Senna was killed), but he was still basically a rookie.

I was lucky (??) enough to see Gerhard Berger drive Senna's JPS Lotus-Renault at Imola last year to commemorate the 10 years since Senna had died at the same track - it was quite emotional. I also visited the memorial inside Tamborello corner. Not a weekend I will ever forget.

Yeah, I was the same way during that time, although I don't know if I think that about the Testarossa! After all, that was also the time of the F40, which was my favorite car for an awful long time...

I know that they raced, but I'd have loved to see them race each other at their respective primes.

Wow! I bet that was quite a weekend!

The thing that most struck me when I finally got to see my first F-1 race (Indy, 2001) was the sound. I have never in my life heard anything as ear-splittingly loud as an F-1 car echoing off the concrete walls at Indy, and that's from the son of a fighter pilot. We parked six blocks away from the track, and even at that distance it was like having the TV up way too loud.