Unseen Things

A lot of things I like are happening this week: Sochi Olympics' second week, NASCAR is ramping up to the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Formula One teams are testing in Bahrain, and another cold front is approaching the Northern California Coast.

Unfortunately, there's lots of stuff happening that I wish I wasn't seeing...Venezuela and the Ukraine are aflame as their citizens are protesting in the streets against  their respective tyrannical rulers. Many are dead in Kiev, and blood is beginning to flow in Caracas...

NASCAR kicks off their season with their Super Bowl, the Daytona 500. The teams have been at the Daytona International Speedway for a week, practicing, qualifying, racing an All-Star race, the Sprint Unlimited, and running the Twin Qualifiers to decide the running order for The 500. The front row is locked in during qualifying...the two fastest runs take the Pole Position, and the other front row slot.

NASCAR is pretty tame stuff as motorsports go...I do love the Daytona 500 though, it means that Formula One is coming over the horizon, and that Spring is just weeks away. Still, there are surprises from Daytona. Long time readers will remember the weird Red Flag during the 2012 500.

Jet Dryer spewing flaming fuel after Juan Pablo Montoya sideswiped it under caution!

This week, the Sprint Unlimited provided another head shaker...

That's the Chevy SS Pace Car on fire...during the race! Everyone got out OK, a back-up Pace Car took care of things, but it was really weird to see the Pace Car towed behind the Pit Wall by a wrecker!

NASCAR has a new aero package for their Restrictor Plate Races (Daytona and Taladega) this season, and it's the best they've had in many years! The draft looks like the draft form the Golden Years, long trains of cars nose to tail are gone, as are the two-by-two pairings for the last few years. I think they finally got it right!

During Thursday's second 125 mile qualifier, they had "The Big One'" on the final lap when Jimmy Johnson's number 48 Chevy ran out of fuel causing a huge melee...one unlucky racer ran into a spinning car, turned sideways at 185 mph, lifting off the track and did a 360° barrel-roll, landed upright, blasted through the infield grass, and finally drove, under control into the pits! The onboard footage was awesome...good television!

I've mostly forsaken the TV coverage of the Olympics in favor of streaming the events LIVE. Seeing every racer from the first bib number to the last is storytelling in it's most visceral form.

Conditions are a huge part of the Sochi2014 story, you can see and hear the conditions change when you see the whole event. The PrimeTime Package barely qualifies as a 'Highlight Reel', much less storytelling. I will watch the NBC package tonight on Women's SkierCross to see how they handle the mid-qualifying delay while some clouds blew through the middle of the course, causing local whiteout conditions, and holding up the proceedings for 10-15 minutes.

Who knew that Iran sent a Giant Slalom racer to Sochi? Did NBC show their run?

The Formula One circus is in Bahrain testing. No TV, no LIVE Stream...Still there is an information stream or two online. BBC Radio is doing a LIVE Text stream, as are several Grand Prix magazines and websites. These are informative and can be dramatic. Most of these chat-like streams include comments or tweets from fans.

Most compelling is Twitter of course, F1 Teams, drivers, F1 journalists all tweet every interesting tidbit of on-track info-tainment...in RealTime.

As the preeminent technological racing series on Planet Earth, it amazes me that F1 doesn't have an internet streaming service for sale like Major League Baseball's MLB.TV.

This gem  gives you every MLB game, from every team, across every device including your Big Screen HDTV LIVE with your choice of home or visitor audio for $129/year. Every single game is available, except in local blackout areas (generally within a team's 'FanSphere')

All games are available On Demand all season, again with choice of broadcasters...worth every penny to rabid baseball fans.

I'd happily plunk down $130/year for the Formula One equivalent!

That's all for today, the San Francisco Giants are streaming LIVE from Spring Training at 10AM PST Here If you can't stream the full screen version, clear your browser's cache.

Play Ball!

Win Some, Lose Some

Yin and Yang…whatever…

So I shorted my Reno Air Races week so I could take in at least one America’s Cup Final race…The way things are going for TeamOracleUSA against TeamEmiratesNewZealand, there might not be any more races to see after this weekend.

The Kiwi’s boat is slightly faster until the winds are knocking at the upper safety limit of 23 knots, and it really outshines the American boat on maneuverability. Even the untrained eye can see that the Kiwi’s zoom through their turns while the American’s boat visibly lumbers around the corners…

SturgeUrge and I took in the race Thursday, though as it turned out, through reduced circumstances…back in early August, we took in the first race of the Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals. I blogged about the difficulty I had finding parking info via the AmericasCup.com site. We got lucky and stumbled onto the best free seats in the house!

We headed across the new bridge and back to our Valhalla only to find the Park Services have closed our spot because it was too good…which is to say, neither the National Park Service, or San Francisco Parks & Rec. could be bothered to police the wharf, so closed it was…

Thursday’s race was contested in lightish winds…which favor the Kiwi’s. Our alternative viewing perch was OK, but crowded…some young woman dropped her iPhone5 on my shoulder and into my camping chair (luckily for her, no case on her expensive phone) while her friend kept bumping into SturgeUrge’s hat from behind…

We didn’t hang around for the second race of the day opting instead to beat the afternoon rush across the new bridge.

I’m thinking: “Great, I’ll have time to get packed before the Giants/Dodgers game, and head up the hill after the game, thereby missing Sacramento’s afternoon rush too”…

Ooops…I thought the game started at 6:05PM…1^st pitch actually 7:15PM…who’da thunk it? Yep…extra innings…sigh I finally hit the road at 11PM…Giants lost…Winning pitcher? exGiant’s Closer Brian “The Beard” Wilson…oh the humanity…

Into bed at 0230, alarm rattles me awake at 0800…still not done sleeping…

After doing the post office/post office box shuffle, I wasn’t going to make the Air Races in time to catch the Silver Heat at 1:10PM, so I opted to go later and catch the Gold Heat.

I got out to the fenceline about 45 minutes before the scheduled time…I caught up with the regulars who’ve been out there every year since the lion’s share of the fenceline was closed.

I was anxious to hear how the Silver Heat went at 1:10PM.

Three-time defending  Breitling Gold Reno Champion, Race 7, Strega had some drama in qualifying Tuesday. Just after takeoff, his canopy ‘exploded’. Not the windscreen, but the ‘bubble’, that portion of the canopy above the pilot’s helmet, came apart…Strega may-day-ed and landed safely.

Repairs were made, but not in time to get into another qualifying run, so Strega will have to race into the Gold, by winning the Silver on Sunday, forfeiting the win for entry into the Gold field, and he’ll start last in the Breitling Gold Race Sunday. Drama anyone?

So, there was a Jet Heat, and The Patriots Jet Demo Team before the Gold Heat was scheduled…then some thunderheads began to intrude on Stead Field, a few large raindrops fell, and before too long, all the pylon watchers, got into their trucks and drove towards the pits. There would be no Gold Heat today…

My fellow fenceliners said: “Strega was faster than all the Silver racers…like twice as fast”…

So there’s four genuine contenders for Gold on Sunday…oh, boy!

Sometimes you win, sometimes you have drama…

Niche Sports Apocalypse

The view from over my Gin&Tonic tonight is troubling. Somehow I've lost pace with my cozy little world of niche sports this spring. May flew by comfortably enough, in fact I don't think I even looked for Mt Everest News. Dare I say Everest has become 'So Last Century'?

I'm used to the dearth of Indianapolis Motor Speedway news now. The daily records and breathless headlines of speed are quaint memories from the Pre-Split IndyCar world. Which is not to say the Indy 500 is passé...au contraire the 2013 Indy 500 was very exciting, with double last year's record lead changes, leading to a very popular victory for Tony Kanaan, who's been a bridesmaid twelve times at the Speedway, but never the bride until this year.

The 'new' IndyCar Series has settled back into it's boring slate of 1-1/2 Mile Ovals, Temporary Street Circuits where the only overtaking is done on Pit Stops...too many Saturday races...IndyCar is trying double headers this year, Saturday and Sunday on the same circuit...I prefer my motorsports to be ennui-free...

June brought back the 'June Swoon' for my World Champion San Francisco Giants. The Giants starting pitchers suffered from one blow-out inning in each outing, while the Giants hitters slumped as a group spectacularly...MLB's worst team batting average for June...fewest home runs in the Majors for June...

Did I mention the injuries? Center fielder Angel Pagan pulled a hamstring, nursed it for a month, then tore it in earnest during his first 'rehab game' with the Class A Advanced, San Jose Giants farm team. Starting RHP Ryan Vogelsong broke the pinky on his throwing hand when hit by a pitch back on May 20th, he's due back sometime in August.

The Giants moved long reliever Chad Gaudin into Vogelsong's spot in the starting rotation where he made two quality starts before struggling in his third outing (attributed to 'Dead Arm Syndrome' by Giants' broadcaster and pitching guru, Mike Krukow) Gaudin was back to form on his fourth start when he was hit...twice! by batted balls.

The first hit bounced off Gaudin's butt, Gaudin picked it up and threw the batter out. The second time the line drive hit Gaudin on this pitching arm just below the elbow, on his forearm. Gaudin was unable to continue, and has in fact missed his next two scheduled starts.

The Giants acquired Gaudin to fill in for long reliever Santiago Casilla who was lost to a cyst in the bone of his lower leg. Casilla had the cyst removed and went on the 15 Day DL (Disabled List) He's been rehabbing with the San Jose Giants and should return this weekend vs the Dodgers at AT&T Park.

Another Giants' Hit Batsman, 2nd baseman Marco Scutaro suffered a dislocated pinky on his glove hand, missed six games and is back playing with his new splint protecting his 'mallet finger'

Future Gold-Glove shortstop, Brandon Crawford jammed two fingers on his throwing hand sliding into second base and missed a couple of games, until his replacement Joaquin Arias pulled up lame with his pulled hamstring...see where I'm goin' here? 

Slugging All-Star MVP 3rd baseman Pablo 'Kung Fu Panda' Sandoval did a stint on the 15 Day DL for a foot sprain, and apparently left his bat behind...he's batting just .152 since returning...

The Giants fell all the way to the cellar in the NL West, displacing the hated Los Angeles  Dodgers...this past week, at least all the other teams in the NL West fell of their barstools too...it's a long season, as they say...

Independence day was Opening Day on San Francisco Bay for The America's Cup Regatta. After a fatal training accident and the subsequent pause to re-evaluate the safety protocols of the scary-fast AC72 catamarans, there's some static background noise of possible litigation of the new safety rules possibly delaying the racing...stay tuned as they say...

The 2013 Formula One Season has been excellent so far. I'm having a little trouble adapting to the new US Broadcaster NBC SportsNet however...gone are the live streaming sessions of Free Practice 1 and FP3. NBCSN does air FP2 and Qualifying LIVE, except during Le Tour de France (read the month of July, plus the last weekend of June, or another way to say it, the British and German Grands Prix)

The F1 season has been a gearhead geek's delight so far, but things looked like they were falling off the rails when a series of high speed tire failures began on Lap 7 of the British GP at Silverstone, when favorite son, Mercedes' Pole Winner Lewis Hamilton's left rear Pirelli disintegrated at 100+ MPH!

Two more Pirelli tires suffered a similar fate during the race, as well as one during Saturday practice. all were fitted to the left rear. No injuries or crashes resulted from the failures, and the racers soldiered on fearlessly.

The silver lining? It looks like the FIA will again allow the teams to test during the season. Germany's GP comes Sunday July 7th at the Nürburgring...it should be exciting...to say the least!

Finally, July is the time for my favorite sporting event, Le Tour de France. I was looking forward to entering a couple of Fantasy TdF Games, but my favorite places were gone! I found a new spot, this one from Great Britain and began boning up on the Start List.

Where is everybody? American sprinter Tyler Farrar didn't make the Garmin-Sharp Tour Team...Norwegian World Champion sprinter Thor Hushovd...MIA, last year's winner Brit Bradley Wiggins is unable to defend with a knee injury...I gave up...plain and simple...

NBCSportsNet's TV coverage has been as good as ever. This is the 100th running of Le Tour, and the organizers have outdone themselves...more mountains, a team time trial, and get this, they climb L'Alpe d'Huez...twice...in the same stage! Stage 18 Gap to L'Alpe d'Huez, Thursday July 18th.

Today is Stage Six...as is customary, the first week of Le Tour has been mostly about the sprinters...with the attendant high speed crashes, and drama. One fellow is already soldiering along with a hairline pelvis fracture. American Christian Vande Velde was caught up in Stage 5's contretemps and hit the road hard enough to loosen some surgical screws in his collarbone...Vande Velde is still racing today.

One more thing is bothering me about this year's Tour. Being that this is the Centennial Tour, there's lots of Tour History, which for American TV means Lance Armstrong's history. Admitted PED user, this is uncomfortable in the main, but PEDs in competitive cycling is not a Black & White story. Performance Enhancing Drugs have been part of Le Tour since 1903 the first Tour.

I'm not excusing Armstrong's deeds. I'll have more to say in a later blog.

Thanks for reading...

Crud

God I hate colds. You're not sick enough that you want to just go to bed and sleep, but you can't do all the things you'd like to do because you're Typhoid Mary.

My fever broke this morning...but my nose is still running a marathon...to be fair, it wasn't much of a fever...

I didn't do nothing exactly while fighting this thing...there was October baseball. Both Bay Area teams lost the first two games of their best three of five Division Series. Both teams won game three Tuesday. The A's are home for the last three, the Giants on the road for their last three. Do or Die time...

The Formula One race from Suzuka, Japan was great. Kamui Kobayashi was the first Japanese driver to stand on the podium at the Japanese round of the F1 Championship, much to the delight of the enthusiastic Japanese fans. Kobayashi finished third on the strength of his performance on the track...it was fun to see. Tears of joy in the packed grandstands is something you don't see every day.

The America's Cup World Series was incredible! Next year's America's Cup Regatta will be contested in the new 72 ft catamarans. Up 'till now all the racing has been in 45 foot versions of the AC catamarans. The 72s are gonna be wicked fast and should make for spectacular racing just off the San Francisco shoreline.

Tough Duty

Not a great Saturday for Bay Area baseball fans...the Oakland A's lost to the Detroit Tigers, and my San Francisco Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds. There was barely a half an hour between the end of the Giants' game and the beginning of the Japanese Grand Prix.

A very enjoyable race with Championship implications.

It's also when I first noticed I was getting a runny nose and a bit of a scratchy throat.

Wow! I watched the America's Cup racing too...it's wildly exciting compared to the staid old days of the 12 meter boats, khakis and captain's caps. Today's America's Cup sailors wear helmets...for good reason.

Looks like I'll be laying about all day makin' sure I get plenty of fluids...there's the two baseball games and the America's Cup Finale is on NBC from 1:30-3PM LIVE

Me? I feel a nap coming on...

Ouch!

I woke up to hear that gasoline prices went up in California as much as 50 cents/gallon overnight! I'm listening to the top of the hour National News now, and California's gas price hikes are the second story of the package. They say it's a supply problem caused refinery troubles, a contaminated pipeline and California's "only-in-California" low-pollution gasoline regulations.

Thursday Truckee's Local Newspaper posted an article on Facebook: "Gas Prices Soar Above $5 a Gallon in Truckee" Here's the accompanying photo:

This reminded me of a photo I took on February 25th, of the Chevron station's price sign across the street from the 76 station's sign featured in the Sierra Sun's story.

The $4.59/gal was outrageous at the time...

No new photo for Friday's freight...yet...

I don't know what they pay for petrol in Japan, but the Formula One cars are burning it as fast as they dare this weekend. The Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit is Round 15 of the World Championship. The race is LIVE on SpeedTV Saturday night at 10:30PM PDT

Ghosts

I looked under the hood of CorduroyPlanet over the weekend, and I noticed some readers dug extra deep and looked at my take on the fatal crash at the Reno Air Races last year again.

"Chilled" is my most-viewed blog by a longshot. Over 14,700 pageviews to date. I reread it again, and there's a few things that are a little more clear to me now. I wrote about it back in April. I penned "Old Wounds" after the NTSB held it's first presentation on the Galloping Ghost crash...Jeez, it seems so long ago!

OK, here's what I think happened, given the NTSB comments:

The Galloping Ghost was a highly modified P-51D Mustang aircraft from the WWII era. Many features of the airframe were modified to reduce aerodynamic drag and weight.

Modifications were made to the elevator trim tabs: The starboard trim tab was disabled by design and faired into the elevator control surface, leaving the portside trim tab to do all the trim duties, saving drag and the weight of the control mechanism.

The stock hydraulic elevator trim system was removed and replaced with an electric actuator, adjusting the trim tab via a control rod.

As Jimmy Leeward ran the Galloping Ghost around pylons 8 and 9 there was a failure of the elevator trim system...the actuator may have failed, or it's mounting failed, or it's connection to the control rod, or the control arm on the trim tab failed, sending the aircraft into a 9+ G climb, rendering Jimmy  unconscious instantly. The rest was the Devil's Arithmetic, only the grace of God kept the crash from killing hundreds. Jimmy never regained consciousness. Flutter of the uncontrolled trim tab ripped it free of it's mounts as the craft was winging over, as visible in the photo posted in "Chilled".

In the days after the accident, I read an account from a corporate pilot who was in the grandstands directly behind the point of impact. He said he saw the Ghost pull up suddenly, and he was on his feet and running up the grandstands before the Ghost finished the wingover at the top of the climb. When the craft impacted the tarmac, this pilot was halfway up the grandstand and he was suddenly soaked with avgas and hit with bits of shrapnel. Miraculously, no ignition spark was generated by the crash preventing a truly horrendous tragedy.

The "Missing Man" pit stall

The ghost of the tragedy hung heavy in the air at Stead during Race Week, Jimmy's pit stall was kept vacant as a memorial, and there was a minute of silence each day during the Opening Ceremonies.

It's hard to say which was responsible for the semi-subdued atmosphere out at Stead, the smaller crowds or the raw emotions given the tragedy last year. I expect the crowds to return next September. This year's crowds were suppressed by the late word (mid-August) that the show would go on. Air Race Fans will return, you can be sure.

I know I'll be back in the Valley of Speed in 2013!

October Baseball!
The San Francisco Giants just defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine, eliminating the Dodgers from the Wild Card Race. Barry Zito pitched a good game before the Bums came back to make it 4-3 in the 7th. The Giants bullpen by committee pulled it out in a game that seemed like a playoff game!

Loose Ends

I'm amazed at how tired I am from my week at the Air Races. I've been slacking a little, but it's for a good cause...

Saturday night the San Francisco Giants clinched the National League West title with ten games still to play in the Regular Season. They have been on a roll as they say. Last night's win was their sixth in a row. AT&T Park sold out for the 150-somethingth time in a row. Three and a half million fans have been to the park this season.

Like I've said before, the Giants are playing a very enjoyable version of Major League Baseball this season. The starting pitchers have escaped whatever demons were giving them pause, and pitching like the World Beaters they were in 2010 when they did beat the World to become World Series Champs.

Reno Air Races:
The Unlimited Breitling Gold Race winner, Steven Hinton was interviewed after the show by SpeedTV's Dave Despain for his weekly racing wrap-up/bench racing show, Wind Tunnel:

 

Cookin' with TruckeeDave:
I'm tired, but I still tried a couple of new recipes Saturday:
From the Coconut & Lime Blog: Dill Broccoli Slaw I've been looking for the broccoli slaw in the grocery stores in the Inland Valley for a month. When I got back up to Truckee, my neighborhood Safeway store had it in stock. It's good stuff, crispy, tangy and a nice change from green salads.

My Safeway also had a great sale on fresh raspberries, buy one, get two free! I had planned to make a raspsberry tort, but Saturday I defrosted the garage refrigerator and found a pair of frozen deep dish pie shells, so Deep Dish Raspberry Pie it was!

This was the third pie in a row after making my Lumpy Peach Cobbler most weeks this summer. The pies have been turning out "a little sloppy" to put a kind spin on it...

Who knew there was so much juice in the little rascals? When I went into the kitchen this morning for some coffee, there was a note on the pie:

Sister K...whatta Kidder! I like "Head Wound Pie"

Space Shuttle Fly-By:
I watched NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour Friday morning as it flew around San Francisco Bay on it's way to it's Retirement Home in Los Angeles. I can't bring myself to opine on this today. I'll weigh in next week.

Reno Air Race Aftermath

I found a story from Reno's ABC-TV affiliate KOLO8 on the attendance at this year's Reno Air Races to be a little off" from years past, but the story doesn't give any numbers...the numbers they do report are staggering. RARA's insurance premium went up more than six times! From $300K to $2Million

That ain't hay!

 New Camera Update: 
Without time pressure from the Air Race schedule, I had the time back at the DaveCave to diagnose the new camera’s problem. When making 1080i videos, there’s a visible spot just to the right of the center of the image. It’s in the top third of the field of view, so it’s really obvious when the sky is the top half of the images…

After Thursday’s action, I found a speck of who knows what on the lens. A spritz of Windex on a Q-Tip, a little rubbing then dried with a special No-Lint microfiber LCD Cleaner Cloth, and I was good to go for Friday.

I didn’t drag the computer out to the show Friday because the car would be parked in a lot far from my location until I headed out to the Fenceline after noon, so I didn’t see the blemish again until I got home and downloaded the photos and videos…the blemish was still there…

Interestingly, the blotch doesn’t show in the still photos, or in videos made at 720i, just at Full HD…exactly why I bought the thing! I hope getting a replacement camera isn’t a long drawn out story

Precious Metal Update:

When I last saw Precious Metal, she was turning on final to land after losing a landing gear door on lap three of the Breitling Gold Race Sunday afternoon. PreciousMetal’s Facebook fan page reports:

“Hi all, yes we were forced to mayday out of yesterday's Gold final. Ended up 7th but could have taken 3rd had the right clamshell gear door not blown off during the start. Apparently a spring broke on the uplock mechanism and allowed it to open up. No wonder we don't operate the gear over 170...

The airplane will be ferried to Teeters shop in Salinas this afternoon for repairs. We'll keep you all updated.”

Autumnal Light

Regular readers will remember that every year I write about seeing with my own eyes the first traces of what I call the Autumnal Light out a the races. Um, that was a No-Go this year. It could have been the high cirrus cloud deck early in the week, or the smoke haze for the weekend. Tuesday morning, there's a snap of Fall in the air and the haze is still hanging in around Truckee.

 Evening Camera Update: 

Well I spent another hour trying to clean whatever’s mucking up my images on the WB750. With an illuminated magnifying glass and a can of compressed air, I Q-Tip-ed and Windex-ed, blew DustOff into every possible orifice…all to no avail. She’s going back to sender just as soon as I have a secure broadband connection.