In America, we have this national holiday called the
Super Bowl, our national football championship day.
And for me, it got ugly as the team I wanted to win, the New
England Patriots, did not.
I grew up in Boston.
It's going to get uglier still for me, as I had a bet with
that New York Giants fanatic, Derek deAngelis from "Fast
Lane Daily" and his Giants won.
We'll deal with the bet over at FLD, but the ugly stuck in
my mind and as such became the theme for today's
"Shakedown," ugly.
Because in racing, we seem to be surrounded by it.
F1, those stepped nose beaks.
There are more new cars announced today,
including Red Bull.
And have you looked at the new IndyCar?
Ugly.
World Rally Championship, where the ugly is in the fact
that the FIA series has no promoter and, by
extension, no global TV.
So this weekend's Rally Sweden has a problem.
And I got an engine rumor for the ugly DeltaWing.
But we can cheer ourselves with MotoGP and the news from
their testing.
They're going pretty fast.
Get it?
Pretty versus ugly.
Hey, look, it's the best I could do because my mind is
occupied fearing the evil Derek has planned for me with
his Super Bowl bet payback.
Going to wait a bit before talking F1.
But we can find ugly in this thing, the 2012 IndyCar.
Fat fender flares, safety bumpers in the back, and I
think it needs more rear wing.
Oh yeah, it's slow, unbalanced and tough to drive.
Which I guess offsets the ugly?
Spoke with Dario Franchitti At Daytona about the new IndyCar.
We spoke engine first.
He races the Honda single turbo.
Chevy and Lotus are twin turbos.
He said it feels different from the old IndyCar V8 and
from the really long ago CART Champ Car V8 turbos.
But the driver's are embargoed to really comment.
So I said, hey, at least I didn't ask about the chassis,
which he responded, don't get me started on that, and gave
me a shoulder bump.
So Rubens Barrichello calla went to Sebring to test the
IndyCar to keep his racing going, deciding whether to
race this ugly, not even sure it's fast, whatever.
Which begs the question, which series do you think an
accomplished F1 pilot like Rubens should move to that
would not diminish his stature as a top
caliber racing driver?
Remember, Mansell went to CART.
Ralf Schumacher and David Coulthard and many
others went to DTM.
And a ton of racers are in LMP sports car.
Then Kimi to NASCAR, well.
The bottom line, would you respect Rubens if he does the
IndyCar thing?
And is IndyCar worthy of Rubens?
Rally Sweden.
I live in the business world, and sometimes I hate the
business world especially when it effs up the racing world.
Somehow, the FIA has lost control of the WRC promoter
agreement and therefore the TV package to feed rallying to
the fans across the world.
North One Sport was the promoter.
But they sold themselves to Convers Sports Initiatives,
which is backed by one Vladimir Antonov.
You may recognize this guy, as he was attached to the funding
for Spyker and trying to buy Saab.
Well, Antonov was arrested on fraud charges.
And by extension, that puts CSI into what the Euros like
to call administration, which I define as effing the FIA by
no longer having a WRC promoter or TV.
So the FIA tried to do a last minute Hail Mary deal with an
agency called Eurosport.
But like the Patriots' final fling at end of the Super
Bowl, it too failed.
So FIA told each rally, you've got to set up your own TV deal
if you want the fans to see the cars, the
stars and the action.
But WRC is still online at Best-of-RallyLive videos.
They're on YouTube.
See, the internet saves all.
OK, MotoGP testing, getting ready for the
April 8 season start.
This year, the new 1,000cc bikes, and it took Casey
Stoner only two laps to go faster than the old 800 bikes
and smash the lap record.
Rossi seems happier with the new Ducati, the GP12, which
now has a twin-spar aluminum frame and an
unstressed engine mount.
Just like his old Yamaha.
Speaking of which, Lorenzo and Spies are still fast in their
real Yamahas.
Plus, AutoMotoGP bikes do not look ugly.
Here's an ugly with a soon to be happy ending, Drift ace
Tyler McQuarrie.
His season ending split with sponsor Falken Tire had some
rumored ugly elements.
But we spoke with him at Daytona, remember?
And he gave us a little bit of a hint.
Now, I can't say where Tyler is headed, but we know in just
about any car he can cook.
I got more ugly with another rumor.
I hate the DeltaWing.
Sorry.
It hurts my eyes.
But Michelin's the tire supplier, Marino Franchitti's
the announced driver, but we're waiting for an engine.
Well, I was told Ford turned them down.
But Nissan will lend Delta a motor for the shakedown and
then see how it goes before fully committing.
I would've guessed Mazda.
OK, the F1 cars.
By now, you've seen the Lotus.
Today, [INAUDIBLE].
Another beak, but they painted it black to hide it.
I get it.
Here's the Red Bull.
TorroRasso's later today.
And you know that McLaren knows.
The more I think about it, I think they're
hiding their beak.
We'll see what happens in testing.
OK, but are we getting distracted by the ugly?
The knew specs are supposed to negate the big advantages of
the double diffuser teams.
The new Pirelli tires are supposed to only have a closer
time differential between compounds to make for better
racing and strategy.
We have Kimi back, so maybe we need to forget about the ugly
and focus on the speed and the racing to come.
What do you think?
Should racing be defined by performance only, or do looks
matter and winning ugly is still ugly and off-putting?
By that I mean, look at NASCAR and this IndyCar.
Well, now I have to go man up with Derek on
the Super Bowl bet.
And that's ugly.