Waiting, Waiting…

The post below may contain some spoilers of today’s qualifying. So if you haven’t seen it yet, I would: a) not read the following post and b) Skip the red flags.

I sit down in my chair, laptop to one side of me, Diet Coke on the other and looking forward to yet another exciting and delightful qualification session on the BBC. I was fully aware that it was going to be wet, having watched 47 minutes of nothing during the final free practice session earlier in the day. But nothing prepared me for the endless, or at least seemingly endless session.

I originally had two options, one was the F1, the other was the Speedway Grand Prix from Poland, championship decider much like it could be in F1 come Abu Dhabi. I opted for the F1, in the idea that I could see the Speedway later on Sky+, since Sky Player is currently not my friend at the moment so to speak. What a mistake.

Qualifying started optimistically, well, for about five whole minutes. Giancarlo Fisichella caught out in the treacherous conditions at the Senna S. Red flag, it looked like a short one as the car was rather quickly craned out of harms way. Then the first killer blow, delayed until the conditions improved. Although it wasn’t too long, it was still highly annoying as it paused qualifying for a bit. But by half past six it was completed and Q2 could get under way.

But, it is never that simple and it was once again delayed before the green flag could be waved. Thirty minutes passed on by as nothing happened but the hope for the improvement of conditions. Which in reality never arrived and it came to no surprise that two minutes later, Vitantonio Liuzzi was going into turn one the wrong way before slamming it into a wall. More delays.

And by more delays, this one was a horrendously, pain staking long one. One hour of nothing going on the track bar the seemingly restless medical driver driven by Alan van der Merwe, who possibly did the most laps out of any car. During this time, I gave up on the BBC coverage, as they switched from BBC1 to BBC2. So on came Harry Hill’s TV Burp, which cheered me up, as well as my tea for the night, pizza to be precise and I opted to take my time with it. Well, the F1 wasn’t going to be on soon was it.

But, at the turn of the hour the FIA gave everyone some good news, just ten more minutes until the return of cars going round in circles. I would not have given it an extra ten minutes though, as the waiting was simply driving me crazy (pun not intended).

So Q2 restarted, a decent session. A big shock with Button failing, didn’t make up for one hour and ten minutes of waiting.

As usual, Q3 was the showpiece, with I’m pretty sure every single driver in the session at one point topping the time sheets. I loved it, the Webber, Barrichello and Rosberg battle for the top nearer the end was simply awesome. I won’t lie, I loved it. Even felt that BMW driver Robert Kubica could do a turn up for the books and grab pole. Alas, that wasn’t going to happen.

But it didn’t make up for anything. I enjoyed ten minutes of an event. Ten minutes. Just that. Considering the whole event lasted for two hours and forty-one minutes, its simply leaves two hours and thirty-one minutes of dullness. Continuing on with the maths, considering Q1 lasts twenty minutes and Q2 lasts fifteen minutes, during qualifying there was a whole one hour and fifty-six minutes of nothing. Don’t get me wrong, that is way too long.

How can you improve it? Well it was obvious that after Q1 conditions were not going to improve for a while and I believe that Q2 should not even have started. Instead I believe qualifying should have been called off for the day, with Q2 and Q3 resuming on Sunday morning. Makes logical sense, would only take forty-five minutes to do it, if not less. So wouldn’t take that long.

But there is possible consequences of doing this, the main one is scheduling. From 9:05 to 11:10 (Brazil time), there is a succession of Support Races (Formula 3, Porsche Cup Light and Porsche Supercup). So a chance of F1 qualification in that period is not possible. There is a half an hour gap filled by Track Vehicle Displays, until a VIP Charity Drive. I do not have an idea what this is, but I have a suspect idea that it being VIP’s and for Charity, it is not going to be budged all that easily. But maybe if push came to shove, that could easily be moved out of the window.

Yet the times for Q1 had already been set so that if the even was postponed, the times from that would have carried on. But it is a ridiculous rule and scary as it is to say this, I agree with the FIA and the men in charge of the even of waiting for a clearance in the weather. There is nothing that can be done with the rules available.

But in these circumstances, I have to say well done to the BBC F1 team for what was excellent coverage after having to fill in for so long. They managed to find people to interview and managed to continue to tick it over during the long waiting period.

The FIA need to adjust the rules in case something like this happens again, or once again, F1 fans could be left waiting and waiting and waiting for another few hours of our life. I’ll be honest, the speedway would have been a better option.

I Promise Nothing

It is a Saturday. It is also very wet outside, I’m still recovering from an illness, so the best option for me is to stay inside, on the computer, listening to The Who, with Sky Sports News telling me friendly results I couldn’t give a damn about even if Spurs happened to be playing today.

With nothing to do at all, I suppose the next obvious option is to scour the internet of fun things to do with my day. However, no online games could capture any sort of youthful imagination and hence, grew bored, and left the internet.

So, I chuck the old PS2 on. I happen to have F106 playing, so I boot up the good-ish Hungaroring for a Race Weekend with Jarno Trulli. After promising practice sessions, I manage the quickest time in Q1, followed by the second quickest in Q2. Down to the final, big, twenty minute showdown they called Q3 back in 2006. Decent start, then BAM. Too much kerb at the chicane, spin and smash the wall. Disaster, I’m left trudging around the track for half a lap with no wing and a punctured wheel. I get back out and with three minutes to go, set pole ahead of Raikkonen. Alonso third. Race time, I get a good start, well, really, it was a useless start, the two behind zoomed ahead. But Trulli had a cunning plan, dive up the inside, I did that. It worked, Raikkonen fell to fifth. Then, at the chicane, BAM, spin, that poor Raikkonen had no where to go. I get annoyed and quit the game.

You may be wondering why I’ve talked about my day so far (which your probably thinking was a mighty boring one, I had McDonalds somewhere in there). Well, this entire post is going to be centrally based around nothing. The theme is nothing, I’m writing about nothing at all.

Which could easily be a problem.

But I’m not stooping to that sort of a level to get out of writing a blog post, I’m sure some people would. But, where is the fun in that? There has got to be some fun in everything, except probably this post, which will aim aimlessly into the clouds of the sky. With any luck, it might find me some dinner.

Dinner today was indeed McDonalds, one of those Summer offers they are doing, so they have changed the good old Chicken Legend. I think they have a new bun. Tastes nicer somehow, but ultimately, it couldn’t have been that hard. I also had one of the new milkshakes, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk I believe. And my, it was lovely. Though, reminds me of a Simpsons scene where the three cops are in Krusty Burger and Lou talks to the other two about the new McDonalds out of town.

Speaking of The Simpsons, when I was ill, I spent many hours watching through Season 6 and Season 7 DVD boxsets. What a buy. Two fantastic seasons, especially season 6. Personal favourite episodes of mine are the Who Shot Mr Burns (parts 1 and 2). These in my eyes are awesome shows, a fine mix of comedy, mystery and suspense. Unlikely culprit, pieced together fantastically. I’d be watching it right now if I didn’t have my greasy mits all over Season 8. Can’t wait to get to watch Season 9, the best season. The one with The Cartridge Family, widely regarded as one of the best Simpsons episodes ever.

Though, season 8 might have to be finished another time aside from today, it is the Speedway Grand Prix again tonight. They all head to the wonderful country of Latvia, which, as described as Sky Sports Pit Reporter Charlie Webster on Twitter is:

Latvia is becoming a bit of an adventure the roads are bad so we've been told it's quicker to jump on train from Riga to Daugavpils...

Only for her to later describe the trains as ‘way back in time’. Which says a not so promising lot about the country of Latvia, the country that never left the 19th Century it seems. The place the meeting is taking place is Daugavpils, and yes, I did have to copy that. According to sources, Charlie Webster again, the place has no where to eat. Which again, says a lot about Latvia. My tip for tonight is rain. Since it is going to rain, I ain’t predicting who is even going to come close to getting the semi finals.

Ooh, Sheffield Wednesday have just scored, I didn’t care about that. Sheffield Wednesday fans, do you even care its now 2-1 Blackburn? I’m sure to some of you, that would have been up to the minute goal flash. I mean, what really is the point of pre-season friendlies to the fans? You get to see the players at cut down prices. What a load of rubbish, they are not playing to the ability that they can so where is the benefit of watching them then. Wake me up when its 12:45 on Saturday 15th August.

Though I am sure everything following the 15th August will be brilliant. A new season of football, can not wait. Hopefully Spurs have finally got that bad start disease out of the system this year, if not, I'm sure Mr. Levy will happily take the Sack the Manager Pill, that he obviously has a lot of. Suppose I better be careful what I say, the papers could confuse me with Luka Modric and I end up having to follow the new Spurs policy.

Hopefully next season can be Modric real shining moment. The season where he steps out and shows the world he is a class player. He is one for sure.

Speaking of class players, Pedro Mendes is on tv. I always liked him, mainly for that goal against Everton, was a corker of a volley. That of course was followed by the goal that never was against the team that never is robbed by the linesmen who wasn’t there and taken away from the points we didn’t actually need. Though if Manchester United had of won the league by one point that season, I’d have sworn evil revenge upon them. Gladly however, they finished third. We finished 9th, those two points would have meant we finished eigth. One point off Europe. So we could find some other useless referee mistake to blame for us not being in Europe once again. Of course, following season and all…

Europe is overrated anyway, who would want to compete in the Europa League? What sort of ridiculously titled, uselessly planned competition is it? Organised by an over-egotistical, moronic, evil, sinister, well, he is the one person I would like to get rid from football personally. Mr Platini.

Another rant, for another time. I’ve overran my stay of talking. This post, is true to the blogs name actually, one big waffle. Hope you enjoyed. Made me less bored, if thats possible. Speaking of which…

Speed, Dust and Fighting

 

A warm day in Cardiff, few clouds in the air and the temperature is high. Cardiff City Centre is littered with makeshift stores, selling flags, air horns and t-shirts. They were swarmed with crowds all heading to one destination, the Millennium Stadium, for the Speedway Grand Prix.

This year marks the 9th time the SGP has visited the wonderful city of Cardiff, but this year marked the first time that I had managed to make the trip down. The day started early and finished late, but that is not what I cared about. From mid-afternoon to late evening I got one hell of an entertainment show. Excluding Killer Queen, who were awful.

The seats we had were at the lower tier of the stadium, meaning we were one of the closest people to the track. And the referee, which allowed heckling to be a whole lot easier. Awesome seats still, though the television above us (as we couldn’t see the big screen) had to be the one that didn’t work. Typical luck.

The Parade starts, pretty sure the British drivers – Scotty Nicholls, Chris “Bomber” Harris, wildcard Edward Kennett and the two reserves in Tai Woffinden and Simon Stead. But they did bring out some snazzy tri-bikes to showcase the the drivers around the track.

Scotty Nicholls Hiding From Me

The races had earlier started with some British Junior heats. However they were cut short due to a rather nasty looking crash involving one of the youngest riders. This required an ambulance to come on track to sort things out.

The Speedway Grand Prix started off, with Heat 1 consisting of the Russian sensation Emil Sayfutdinov, Nicki Pedersen, Kenneth Bjerre and Rune Holta. This also saw the first crash, Rune Holta losing control at turn three causing a red flag and his eventual exclusion. Impressively, it was Kenneth Bjerre who ended up managing to win the heat, starting off a fairly dismal night for Sayfutdinov and Pedersen.

Then came heat two and the first one involving British riders, my personal favourite, Scotty Nicholls. The reception of Nicholls coming on, as well as other Brits was unbelievable, the flags flying high, the air horns blasting, it was immense. Sadly, Nicholls could only replicate his current form and ended up last in the heat. And it relied on Chris ‘Bomber’ Harris to save the day for the Brits in the first round of heats. He duly delivered, with a lovely second place finish behind the unstoppable Jason Crump.

Every four heats there is a little break to allow the television companies an advertisement break. Normally, its just a good time to have a quick visit to the toilet or get yourself a quick drink (of coke, I’m not drinking. But the way some people were buying there beers, they would be drunk be heat 4). Can only describe how massively useful ad breaks can be sometimes.

Then the big drama. Heat 5. Fairly standard heat, Sebastian Ulameck edging out Chris Harris. But a late battle between Scotty Nicholls and Emil Sayfutdinov resulted in a fight at the track entrance. The way the crowd rose to their feet and cheered on Scotty was incredible. Watching replays of it, still unsure why Tai Woffinden got involved to stop them. If you haven’t seen it, look below. Would also recommend that you watch all the way through.

The reaction of that eventually died down and it was back down to the good reason I was there, speedway. The following heats were formulaic, Jason Crump showing he is the best rider out there and the popular Leigh Adams struggling to find anything at all.

Half time allowed me to stretch my legs for an even longer amount of time, whilst listening to hear some pretty dire music sung by someone I have never heard of before. This also allowed me to look at the number of different banners littered across the stadium. My personal favourite being in support of the ever lovable American, Greg Hancock.

If you don’t understand the story, basically his new main sponsor for this season is the energy drink ‘Monster’ which also sponsored Jenson Button at Silverstone. There were loads for Scotty Nicholls and Chris Harris, even the odd one for Tai Woffinden.

The heats restarted, Rune Holta managed to crash out again in Heat 16 and the biggest shock in Heat 17 was Jason Crump slam into the comfortable air fence. However, he picked himself up and Swede Andreas Jonsson was excluded for an avoidable collision. He picked himself up, and inevitably won the re-run.

 Crump is down

But before that, Scotty Nicholls has managed to win his first heat of the season. And the reaction of the crowd was unbelievable. The stadium had absolutely erupted, flags at an even higher mast, air horns, somehow, louder. It was incredible.

And when Chris Harris won his heat, I think we managed to deafen the whole of Cardiff.

Due to the fact Chris Harris had managed to get into the top 8, he was in the semi finals. And was involved in the second semi, a close tussle with the Brit, Nicki Pedersen, Greg Hancock and another Dane, Hans Andersen. Then this is where being close to the referees helped. At the second corner, Hans Andersen lost control of his bike, Harris, who had a bad start himself barely touched Andersen as he fell to the ground. Everyone expected Andersen to be excluded, but when the light flashed Blue, it was instead Chris Harris excluded. And how the crowd booed that decision. And it wasn’t just to the referee, Hans Andersen got a full boo for when he came out for the re run. Second attempt, the same thing happened. But this time, replace Andersen with Pedersen and Harris with Andersen. Pedersen was excluded. Whilst this was still good, with everyone hating him after the events of last year, the real decision was that it should have been Andersen excluded. More boos followed. This left the third re run with just two riders, Hancock and Andersen and they finished in that order.

So the final arrived, the so far unstoppable Jason Crump on course for a 100% record. Then was the loveable Greg Hancock and the hateable Hans Andersen. Finally, there was the quiet and unfancied Swede Fredrik Lindgren, who I decided to tip for a surprise win.

There was no surprises. Despite disappointment on the last lap with Hancock losing third to Andersen, it was a comfortable victory for Jason Crump. He finished ahead of Fredrik Lindgren easily.

When the interviews took place, the crowd deafened Jason Crump with blasts of the air horns. We appreciated his victory, show how much we really do like him. Lindgren and Hancock got a similar response. Andersen, unsurprisingly, didn’t

And with the events coming to a conclusion, a fireworks display celebrating the events, I decided that it was a fantastic day out in the Millennium Stadium. I loved the out of this world atmosphere that would be unachievable without a roof. It is a great place for this event, wouldn’t want to see it anywhere else. I want to go again for 2010. The 10th anniversary of the event at Cardiff, and I’m sure it will be even better than 2009.