Although they could have named it anything, the owners of the racetrack outside Austin, Texas, chose to call theirs the Circuit of the Americas. I don't know what the other choices were, how they came up with that one, or why they decided that was the best, but there you have it.

The name doesn't make me mad, but it is embarrassing, and I wince a tiny bit in shame whenever I hear it.

For decades Formula 1 has determined its champions by having races at a series of races at different tracks, mostly one in a country and primarily in Europe. Over the years there've been a number of attempts at having one in the US, but for one reason or another, none of them have lasted very long. Last year marked another return to having a grand prix in the United States and this time it was held at a racetrack specially built for the task outside of Austin, Texas.

It's a decent enough racetrack, don't get me wrong, designed by the only guy in the world who seems capable of doing such a thing, Hermann Tilke. It has ups and downs and lefts and rights and all the things I like in race courses. But it also has an unnecessary letter S at the end of its name.

I'm used to the United States calling itself America, and had they called it the Circuit of America, I'd probably have been pretty happy. But, no, they had to go all out and call it the Circuit of the Americas, which I can't see as anything but an implication that it's the only one in the Americas.

It isn't, and isn't even the only grand prix circuit in the Americas.

For quite a number of years now they've held races in Brazil and Canada. Canada, of course, is in North America and Brazil in South America, so I kinda figure those are races held in the Americas. Soon there may even be a race in Mexico, another nation in North America, which would mean there'd be four races in the Americas, all at different race tracks.

It's not only dumb to call ours the Circuit of the Americas, it's factually wrong.

Since I wasn't privy to the selection process, I have no explanation for why Circuit of the Americas was chosen as the best name. If they'd called it the Best Circuit of the Americas, okay, we could argue that, or Hilliest Circuit of the Americas, or Ideal Circuit of the Americas, all of those might be boastful, but they wouldn't be necessarily incorrect. The Circuit of the Americas, however, is.

If we wanted to go all out and insult everyone, we could have called it the Circuit of the World, but presumably that may have been seen as a step too far. So, instead, we just insult Canada and Brazil by pretending their tracks don't exist or count, and call ours the only one in the Americas.

It strikes me as either the owners of the track ignoring or dismissing the rest of the world or not being concerned enough to do some simple research and understand what words mean. I know there are jokes about Texan's arrogance and America's stupidity about geography, but I don't know that we need to work so hard at living up to those stereotypes.

No one would seriously think of calling their restaurant “The Restaurant of Idaho” or any other state, much less “The Restaurant of the United States,” with the definite article implying that your restaurant was, in fact, the only one. It's great that we have our own racetrack for the Formula 1 series and I hope it's successful for quite some time and hosts lots of great races, but, really, we could come up with a better name.

One that doesn't insult other parts of the world would be a good start.

Not that I ever gave it much thought, but ...

17

That sound you just heard is the noise my brain makes when I learn something new and it expands to include the new information. I'm, naturally, pretty used to it by now, but it sometimes frightens children or disturbs those right next to me.

Today, thanks to the Olympics, I actually watched part of a game of field hockey for the first time in my life. Although I'd heard about the game quite some time ago and knew it existed, I'd never seen a match or game or whatever it's called. Now I have, and I must admit to being underwhelmed, if not bored.

My ten or fifteen minute exposure showed me all I need to know about the game, which is that it's soccer (or football or futbol) played with shepherd's crooks and what I suspect to be a harder, solid ball. The main thing I took away from the experience, and the first thing I noticed, is that the game looks to be an exercise in torture for the back. There's a great deal of bending over, which I suppose would make it a natural for anyone who works all day picking fruits and vegetables.

The only reaction I had while watching Germany win the Gold Medal over the Netherlands was ... ouch.

According to many, the Amgen Tour of California is the premiere bicycle racing event on the planet. One reason for this may be that it’s the last event team Jelly Belly will be part of in California, except for the Sea Otter Classic and the mildly less famous Chevron Manhattan Beach Grand Prix.

Anyway, I went to see the finish of Saturday’s race in nearby Santa Clarita.

!@(TDCalif.JPG:L120 popimg "Bike Race")

I could almost feel the sweat, except it was a cold day and they weren’t sweating nearly as much as I’d seen before.

Instead of hanging out on the side of the road, I was near the finish line, at the 100m mark. I tried to watch myself on TV, but my TiVo improperly changed channels and I ended up with two hours of pretty exciting weather channel broadcasting. I tried, again, to catch the later showing, but the channel that showed the race started the program half an hour late, which meant I never saw the last half hour of the program which would have featured me and the thrilling climax.

The one thing I noticed this time, being on flat ground, is that the peloton, or group of 100 or so riders who are all bunched up, generate one hell of a lot of wind. It wasn’t noticeable the first couple times they passed (they had to do a few short laps to finish the race for some reason, probably something American), but on their last pass they were right next to the barrier that kept me from interfering with the race.

They generate, I’d say, as much wind as an eighteen wheeler.

The other big difference about being at the end of the race is that you can spend quite a bit of time and money buying souvenirs and crap from the many vendors, including Health Net whose team, ironically enough, was nearly all wiped out from illness. I bought a pair of bicycling gloves for the reasonable price of $5 and a thermal shirt for the less reasonable amount of $35. It says Rock Racing on it, another new, hip team, whose designer owner has so much money to burn his team’s support cars are Cadillacs.

Not that the other times use Toyota Corollas, mind you. Racing, at this level, is all about money and the burning thereof. It takes money to win, and winning is just about everything in this competitive sport.

We left before finding out who won. There was one of those incidents, one of those judge review things, that can take forever. Also, the rain was nearing our location, and while my UCLA knit cap has much to recommend it, sheltering one from the rain is nowhere among its many benefits.
If you’ve never seen a bike race, I’d recommend it. You get to spend hours eating chips waiting for a brief glimpse of what looks remarkably like lots of guys riding bicycles for a living flanked by motorcycles and cars carrying spare bikes, yelling managers, and first aid. Plus, sponsors come by and give you free shit. I snagged a can of Xcito energy drink, a product proudly produced in the USA by CytoSport, which I’ve never seen before.

One can expect it to stay in the fridge until someone really sleepy drops by.

It's nearly July and that can mean but one thing: hunting season. I just printed up my hunting license to kill (the small version) and was preparing to begin my annual onslaught against the ants when a singular event occurred. I was in the kitchen scouting out ideal locations for the sweet, sweet nectar of death that ants crave when a rodent bumped into my ankle.

It surprised me more than her (or him), not the least because I don't, in fact, resemble the old lady from the nursery rhyme. Also, and more importantly, it led me to exchange my ant hunting license for the varmint variety.

Although I didn't leap onto a chair, I didn't get a good look at the critter, either. It may have been a mouse, it may have been a small rat, but I wasn't convinced there's any functional difference, anyway. It was an unwelcome guest in my kitchen.

Ideally I'd devise a means of catapulting the critter out of my property. I've had luck in the past with putting a handful of dry dog food in the bottom of a plastic bucket near the steps that lead to the back yard, but not often. What's ideal about that method is the mouse smells the food, steps off the step to get it, and ends up trapped in the bottom of the bucket. Then, it's a short ride in a shoe box in the early morning to the refuse bins behind some fast food place I never go to.

But that takes two things: luck and time. While rodent hunting season, I've decided, doesn't officially begin until the first of the month, housecleaning may begin this weekend.

I went to the store and bought some traps. Two of the old, wooden and baitable variety and two plastic ones ("Power Kill Rat Trap") that trip when stepped on. I think that should be enough, but I'm never convinced they're ruthless enough. A cat or terrier, I think, would be much better at hunting down my enemies.

It would be better, of course, to use poison, but there's a couple problems with that tactic. One, if successful, there ends up being a smelly corpse stuck in the wall or under the house half the time and while that stench doesn't last long it's hardly conducive to enhancing my appetite. The other is that I have the unwarranted fear that one of the dogs will find and eat the poisoned remains and follow the little rodent over that rainbow bridge.

Yeah, I know, it's completely unrealistic. My dog has never eaten roadkill or even expressed much interest in it, but it's not a logical impossibility. These traps will have to be set in places the dogs can't get to or step on, but I'm optimistic that they'll be more successful than I would be if I got a pellet gun and played Rambo.

So, the traps are set and while you're reading this, I'm huting.

This weekend marks the return of Formula One racing, the 2007 edition. The cars sound better than ever, especially when listened to very loud, look better than ever, and with the notable exceptions of Michael Shumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, the drivers are all back, too (even the one who most resembles a twelve year old girl).

This may also, because of proposed rule changes, be the last year I follow the sport. One of differences between F1 and any other motor sport is that the cars had to be constructed by the teams from scratch. The teams built the cars, hired the drivers, and tested them against the other teams. Starting next year, a proposed rule change would allow the teams to buy cars and race them, and I think that would render the Constructor's Trophy just plain silly. If they go that way, they may lose me as a follower, and I'm sure they're taking that into consideration.

This year, also, they've added a little light just in front of the cockpit that will indicate if the car and its driver has suffered excessive g-forces during a crash. This would alert rescue personnel about the wisdom of moving the driver, and I expect something like this to be on all cars in the future. It's a simple thing and could save many neck and spine injuries.

Of course, the little light would have blown up when David Purley set the record for survivable g-forces back in 1977 when he and his LEC experienced 178 gs (!!) when they went from traveling over 100mph to zero in about two feet. The fact that he lived through it prevents us from saying it came to a dead stop. Yeah, he was messed up and broke not a few bones, but he lived to race again. I've heard his car is on display somewhere, Doninghill I think.

So it may be a bitter-sweet season for me. I guess it's progress and all for the best, but it's also another indication that the world I grew up in and loved is the also past.

If you were wondering what Toyota was doing with all that money they make selling the Camry and 4-Runner, meet the TF-107, which was debuted this past weekend. I don't know what they do with their profit from hybrids, but one can only hope it isn't hosting banquets featuring whale.
!@(TF107.jpg popimg: "TF107)

This year Toyota promises to win a grand prix for the first time, ever! “Our fundamental target this year is to get the first victory,” says Chairman and Team Principal Tsutomu Tomita. I wish him luck. As he noted, "We announced that a year ago, but we failed to succeed in 2006. And therefore we want to repeat that challenge in 2007." I'm sure some of the Toyota executives are wondering when they'll get a payback for the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars they've spent chasing F1 titles.

They could do a much better job of winning if only McLaren, Ferrari, and Renault weren't coming out with new cars, too. McLaren's already introduced their 2007 challenger, the Vodafone MP4-22 McLaren Mercedes, which is as beautiful a car as one would ever wish to see.

!@(MP4-22.jpg popimg: "MP4-22)

The TF-107 is a pretty car, but I've got a fondness for red and white, my high school colors. This year's car carries the same sponsor, tires, engine, and drivers as last year, so they've got consistency going for them. Still, they keep finishing behind Honda, which has to really piss them off.

They also keep losing to Ferrari, who've also launched their new car.

!@(F2007.jpg popimg: "F2007)

As always, if you like Italian racing, red is where it's at.

Over the weekend I began receiving gifts, the kind that come from those who care. Among others, my neighbors installed their Christmas lights and due to their generous use of extension cords I can now run portable heaters and other high energy devices. I can hardly wait to begin smelting iron and welding up some wrought iron goodies for all the people on my list!

I have some of those electric icicyles, too, and should probably put those up some time today, but it isn't as if this house is dreary as Scrooge's would have been. This year there's a couple of those inflatable things resting out front, one snow globe and one waving snow man. Very festive.

Except during the day, when it looks as if there's been some sort of industrial accident that resulted in puddles of plastic.

While the weekend started off poorly with Army losing to the Navy, a game I stumbled on and that I watched in respect of my late father, later on, of course, my Alma Mater triumphed over the hated men in skirts. I've yet to visit the campus, but I want to see all the cardinal taunts painted on the Bruin walk so I can be smug. In the meantime, I have to console myself with this article from the Daily Trojan, which I saw on Saturday.

It's always good when UCLA wins. I don't know why, since the athletic departments have little to do with the school, but it quiets some unwelcome noise and reminds me of the days when my car had a bumper sticker.

No, not the last word. I'm not that presumptious.

With the end of the 2006 World Cup (vai Italia!), message boards across the US are pretty much done with talking about soccer. As could be expected, many in the US deride the sport, mock it, and remain as partisan and chauvinistic as they do when they talk politics.

I don't see the glorious and fulfilling future promised me, nor does it leave me much hope for humanity.

For those who complain about the lack of scoring, or of ties, I sob. One of the neat things about soccer is that it isn't easy to score. I know Americans like that more than just about anything, but I like things that are hard. Hell, in basketball you can score a couple times every minute, so that can't be hard at all. American football has five to ten scores each game, and baseball isn't all that far behind. Used to be there were pitcher duals, but those went away when the American League came up with the Designated Hitter. Between that and aluminum bats, I'm surprised the sport, long my favorite, still survives at all.

The other knock against soccer is all the diving, writhing athletes. Yeah, it bugs me, too, but isn't any worse than basketball's final two minutes of intentional fouling nor football's use of intentional grounding. If you can overlook those, you can overlook soccer's acting.

I love the World Cup. If that makes me less a man, or less an American, I admit guilt.

Hah! Fooled you! You probably thought I was going to write more about soccer, and maybe I will, but first I need to write about the other big sporting event going on now, bicycle racing.

I created a new page for my website, one that shows the results of the Tour de France in a more conventional scoring format. On that page I indicate some of the things about the Tour's scoring that annoy me, and I also mention how I get around them. I wouldn't be me if I didn't find things to complain about.

Russ's World Famous, Formula 1 Scoring Tour de France page.

Like I say there, I was going to make a column showing which bikes are in the lead, but for a racing-type event I'm astonished by the utter lack of talk of which bikes are used. Motorsports talk a great deal about cars, engines, body designs, but none of that is mentioned in the TV coverage here in the US. It looks as if each team rides one bike, and no two teams ride the same ones, but the bikes are never mentioned.

Nor are the gears (universally Campagnola, I think) or any other elements of the bikes. In fact, the emphasis is so limited to the riders that the bikes don't matter at all. In other endurance-type rallies (and I'm thinking of the Dakkar now), if your vehicle dies so do your hopes of finishing.

But in the Tour de France, the bikes are a replaceable commodity, and I think that's a shame.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be remembered by headbutting someone, but since I've never done that to anyone, it's unlikely. Also, I'm not likely to be remembered very much, anyway, not unless I get off my ass and do something spectacular like be abducted by aliens.

My quadrennial love affair with soccer has gone back into hibernation. This year's Cup was a good one for me because I'd heard of many of the countries. Also, my souvenier is a good one that should last for years.

For those of you who weren't paying close attention, the match was won by Puma. It's now safe to say that their clothing will make you the best.

I didn't know that soccer had a rule that televised evidence is inadmissable, so I expect people who follow the sport more closely than I do will be all over the Zidane incident. There's already calls for the referee's blood, and I expect it to grow over the summer. It's too bad, actually, since while I don't agree with all these replay decisions, the ref can't be looking eveywhere.

Also, I've come to a conclusion. No matter the injury, the best cure is water. Everyone who's down gets it poured on them, on the spot of their complaint. Maybe that's in keeping with futbol's universality. American football players need frequent and expensive care, oxygen on the sidelines, state of the art medical supplies, to ply their craft, but simple water is all that's needed for soccer. I find that very inclusive.

Had I been dreaming of the World Cup since I was four, I'd have kissed it, too.

I wonder if it's merely a coincidence that the only two European countries I've slept in are going to be battling it out for the 2006 World Cup.

While it would have been fun for the only two Portuguese speaking nations to be in it so the players could yell at each other and leave everyone else in the world wondering what they were saying, I can't object to an Italy-France game. I'll be rooting for Italy, but not wagering on the result.

It's a good matchup, too, because Italy is wearing Puma jerseys and France is in Adidas. I was considering for a short time looking at the matches that way, by corporate supplier instead of nationality, but too many of the games were being waged by teams outfitted by the same company. It was interesting, to me at least, that while Adidas was sponsoring the World Cup most teams chose Puma. Nike, of course, was there, as was Lotto, but now it's between the warring brothers, and I can hardly wait to see who'll win.

Someday, and it may be someday soon, I'll need to buy some new clothes. It will help me no small amount to know which global corporation makes the better clothes.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

I have no idea what I'll feel like later today, but odds are that it will include numb and blind. The United States Grand Prix is this weekend (held at that most hated of tracks, Indianapolis Motor Speedway), which means the American TV coverage will be extensive. The Speed TV people, a proud subsidiary of Fox, who normally only show one hour of practice, qualifying, and the race itself, are inflating their coverage quite a bit. They want to make the USGP a wildly successful event, gain tons of American support, and promise something on the order of eleven hours of coverage, some of which has already occurred.

So, I have that to look forward to today, but that's not all.

Also, of course, there are two quarter-final matches for the World Cup.

And, the start of the Tour de France.

My poor TV.

Other than a few, regrettable, lapses, I've managed to see all, or some, or part of every World Cup Match so far. This might lead you to conclude that I'm some wild-eyed football fan, but that's not true, or, at least, I don't think so.

I don't follow soccer at all when it's not the World Cup and couldn't name more than a handful of players. I grew up before soccer had become fashionable in the US, but I have a vague recollection of sometime in Jr High, around age thirteen, hoping to be a goalkeeper when I guess we tried it once in PE. I wanted to be a goalie not because of my lightning-like reflexes or the desire to wear those silly Mickey Mouse gloves they all do now, but because that would mean I wouldn't have to do any of that hated running.

I have no idea if I ever played as a goalie, or at all, but I've been a fan of the Cup for the past twenty years. For romantic reasons, the teams I prefer are Italy, Croatia, The Netherlands, and Brazil, and I think a couple of them are advancing. The US isn't, which is good news, because I don't want us to dominate another sport, and certainly not one we don't care about like they do in the rest of the world.

What's so special about the World Cup is seeing the passion, the fit men in shorts that don't look like culottes, the acting. To keep myself from knowing far too much about what's going on, I've limited my lifetime's viewing of the Cup to the Spanish speaking stations. It's much more like being there that way, without any annoying play-by-play, and I can imagine myself soaking in the sun and surrounding seated next to some particularly talkative Mexicans.

Yes, they yell "Goooooaaaal," but they also say "Ai-Yi-Yi," which I find charming. This year I've found an Asian station that broadcasts the Korean games, so I watch those, too, and am grateful I don't have to see any of it with English speaking broadcasters.

Today was a sad day for the Croats. They got eliminated, and my "official" jersey isn't even here yet. It's not the real one, it's the one they wore in the prelims, before FIFA ruled it illegal. It will still make a good biking shirt, though.

The two homes I was watching last week were equipped with competing satellite services for their televisions. One had DirecTV, the other the Dish Network, and while they are as different as Daisani and Crystal Geyser waters, I was able to render them both unworkable.

All it takes, see, is accidentally pushing the wrong button and being unaware of both what you've done and how to fix it.

Still, I was able to view some of the Olympics, and I'm now more conversant with curling than I was before. My parents were raised in Northern Minnesota and most of our family still lives there. I don't know if my parents ever curled, but one aunt did and was rabid in her devotion.

Curling, I'm afraid to say, is a great deal more technical than it needs to be. This is true of most everything, and I credit our age of specialization for that. Now that we have so much knowledge, it's possible to drown in any subject. Not only are our lives influenced by what we consider important, it becomes our reality. There's no such thing as a hypochondriac who doesn't follow medical breakthroughs.

Anyway, one of the commentators likened curling to "chess on ice," which pretty much accounts for the thrilling spectacle. What struck me, first, was that the sport (?) is played pretty much by younger people. There's a few people in their fifties, but nearly everyone looks to be no older than thirty-five. Sure, the rocks are heavy (about forty-two pounds), but I don't think that explains it.

The second, and more disturbing, feature is that in spite of the sport's name, the rocks don't really curl very much. You slide this heavy rock down ninety feet of ice and at the end it curls a bit because of the rotation, but it's nothing dramatic. They make a big deal out of blocking rocks, of starting off the rock with the correct amount of weight (speed), but it's pretty much just what you'd think: Sliding rocks toward a target.

No, I wouldn't be as accurate as these Olympians are, but I'm firmly convinced that this is more a pastime than a sport. That's true of billiards and bowling, too, and the rule of thumb is anything you can participate in while enjoying beer and cigarettes isn't, really, a sport.

They make a lot of strategic decisions, few of which seem to have any noticeable effect on the play. This may be where the specialization comes in, since I think people have studied and played this game for years and years. I'd really like to see how some team inexperienced with the evolved knowledge of how to play, but as skillful in rock placing, would do against these acknowledged "experts."

I just wonder how they'd fare if, instead of "having" to take out the guarding rocks, someone just went ahead and tried to score points and play the game as simply as it started.

The Winter Olympics are full of things that I don't consider sport, but I watch 'em, anyway.

I'm a creature of programming, and when the Olympics come around I have to watch. Even the Winter ones.

I'm one of those who enjoy the Olympics but hate the emphasis on USA. I know it's good for ratings, but I try to enjoy the pure spectacle of sport, which is harder every year. The network coverage (this year it's NBC) knows that more people will tune for hockey and ice dancing, that the desirable demographic is all over snowboarding and freeform skiing, and that American audiences want to see Americans do well.

I, of course, am different.

I've been on skis once in my life, but there's no coverage of snowplowing. I've never been on ice skates but read Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates when I was young, so there's a little connection there. About the closest I've come to any Winter Olympic sport is having shot a .22 rifle at some cans in the desert, so I'll be all over the biathalon. Them's my homies.

Since I can't, really, relate to the sports and wince whenever the US celebrates some senseless victory over countries who compete without the obvious advantage of multi-national corporate sponsors and arrogance, the countries I root for are mostly those associated with women I've known.

To that end you can expect me to be watching Croatia, Italy, the Dutch, and France to do well, as well as every country that sent fewer than five people.

The emotional coverage had me blowing my nose for the first fifteen minutes, until they switched to some lame reports on the USA training program and interviews with our hopefuls. I guess no one in the rest of the world is interesting to the Americans, and that makes me sad. It doesn't take much to make me get all stuffy, just pictures of Italy and the sounds of the language, the tears and smiles of the contestants, and the proud looks as they march into the stadium.

My ex taught me to see how well the countries dressed, and I hope if she saw it she was pleased with the silver Italian suits. I know! I expected blue, too! I was glad to see the Mongolian athletes wearing their fur caps, and if any PETA idiots complain, shame on them. My guess is the people in Mongolia, somehow, have managed to figure out over the past thousand years living in the mountains how to keep warm.

Interesting fact: I don't think they're participating, but the people from Ivory Coast are called "Ivorians."

I'll be watching for the Italian blue, the Dutch orange, and the Croat red and white checkerboard, and you can count on me muting the TV whenever the USA! USA! chant fills the stadia. I loved how the Italians used opera, how the hockey rinks aren't bill boards, and how delightful Italian sounds when spoken by a native.

A last note: I really wish Bob Costas and the rest of the American announcing crews would listen. "Giorgio" is two syllables, not three or four. There's no "ee" sound anywhere in the name, and it's simply jor-joe.

I once had a bike that had a Tour de France sticker on it. I seriously doubt that bike, a Follis, was ever a contender.

I've watched a little of this biking classic this year and I have to say I'm perplexed. Yes, the scenery is breathtaking and watching the bikes flow over the course is hypnotic and oddly beautiful, but I find the sport puzzling. Right after college, about the same time I got my Follis, I was attracted to a classmate and ended up moving in right next to her and her boyfriend. He'd met some guys while working in a bike shop, and they were all serious riders. Also, they liked Frank Zappa and getting wasted, so we all get along fine.

None of which has anything to do with the Tour de France, but from them I did learn a lot about track bikes, the various racing contests, and a lot about strategy. None of that has proven overly useful, but I hardly discount any knowledge on those grounds.

Anyway, back to the Tour de France. The first thing I've noticed is that only teams compete, no individual riders. Much worse, out of the the twenty-one teams of nine riders, twenty-one of the teams are sponsored by corporations. That's every one of them!

I realize Formula One is getting that way, but motorsport at least has privateers. Evidently there's none of that in bike racing, which I have to say pretty much turns my stomach. The only reason a company would sponsor a bike team is for advertising exposure and I'd prefer it if some people who loved the sport itself could have some teams.

Another thing I don't like is the broadcast team. Yes, I know, sports commentators are never decent grammarians or speakers, but another of my pet peeves is brought up by this group. No, it's not the overuse of the superlative this time, nor even the laziness often evidenced by those who confuse motors and engines. This time it's the misuse of the word race.

What the Tour de France is, is a rally. The difference between a rally and a race is a rally is a series of races with the winner the one with the fastest combined time. Dakkar is a rally, the Indy 500 is a race, just like the Kentucky Derby.

I don't think the event sponsors ever call it anything but a rally, but it's the weirdest one I've ever seen. Instead of the pure accounting of time I'd expect from a rally, the winners are given "bonus" times, a subtraction of time for the top three finishers. In a race for time, time shouldn't be a prize -- it's the goal! So not only does the winner win, he wins even more than he does on the road.

This may be justified by the most bizarre rule I've ever seen in sport: According to article fourteen of the rules, "All riders finishing in the same bunch are awarded the same time." That's right: a bunch of riders, who may be separated by a minute in real time, all get the same score. I have no idea what this does to inspire anyone to race, but I guess it makes it easy to keep score. They could use a sundial.

Oh, sure, it cuts down on crashes, but it completely ruins any sense of a race.

I guess the designers thought along these lines:
"Let's have a race around France."
"Great. We'll make it a rally."
"The thing is, we'll give just about everybody the same time. That will reduce hurt feelings."
"How can we tell who won, then?"
"Oh, we'll give bonus times to the winners."
"So, let me make sure I have this straight. We'll have a race for time, but won't be all anal about keeping track of that. Instead, we'll award time as a prize...in a race for time."
"Sure."

Still, nothing beats the scenery, and, like I said, watching the riders is hypnotic in the same way watching a lava lamp is. You may want to watch a part of it, just don't expect much of what you may think of as a race.

I once had a bike that had a Tour de France sticker on it. I seriously doubt that bike, a Follis, was ever a contender.

I've watched a little of this biking classic this year and I have to say I'm perplexed. Yes, the scenery is breathtaking and watching the bikes flow over the course is hypnotic and oddly beautiful, but I find the sport puzzling. Right after college, about the same time I got my Follis, I was attracted to a classmate and ended up moving in right next to her and her boyfriend. He'd met some guys while working in a bike shop, and they were all serious riders. Also, they liked Frank Zappa and getting wasted, so we all get along fine.

None of which has anything to do with the Tour de France, but from them I did learn a lot about track bikes, the various racing contests, and a lot about strategy. None of that has proven overly useful, but I hardly discount any knowledge on those grounds.

Anyway, back to the Tour de France. The first thing I've noticed is that only teams compete, no individual riders. Much worse, out of the the twenty-one teams of nine riders, twenty-one of the teams are sponsored by corporations. That's every one of them!

I realize Formula One is getting that way, but motorsport at least has privateers. Evidently there's none of that in bike racing, which I have to say pretty much turns my stomach. The only reason a company would sponsor a bike team is for advertising exposure and I'd prefer it if some people who loved the sport itself could have some teams.

Another thing I don't like is the broadcast team. Yes, I know, sports commentators are never decent grammarians or speakers, but another of my pet peeves is brought up by this group. No, it's not the overuse of the superlative this time, nor even the laziness often evidenced by those who confuse motors and engines. This time it's the misuse of the word race.

What the Tour de France is, is a rally. The difference between a rally and a race is a rally is a series of races with the winner the one with the fastest combined time. Dakkar is a rally, the Indy 500 is a race, just like the Kentucky Derby.

I don't think the event sponsors ever call it anything but a rally, but it's the weirdest one I've ever seen. Instead of the pure accounting of time I'd expect from a rally, the winners are given "bonus" times, a subtraction of time for the top three finishers. In a race for time, time shouldn't be a prize -- it's the goal! So not only does the winner win, he wins even more than he does on the road.

This may be justified by the most bizarre rule I've ever seen in sport: According to article fourteen of the rules, "All riders finishing in the same bunch are awarded the same time." That's right: a bunch of riders, who may be separated by a minute in real time, all get the same score. I have no idea what this does to inspire anyone to race, but I guess it makes it easy to keep score. They could use a sundial.

Oh, sure, it cuts down on crashes, but it completely ruins any sense of a race.

I guess the designers thought along these lines:
"Let's have a race around France."
"Great. We'll make it a rally."
"The thing is, we'll give just about everybody the same time. That will reduce hurt feelings."
"How can we tell who won, then?"
"Oh, we'll give bonus times to the winners."
"So, let me make sure I have this straight. We'll have a race for time, but won't be all anal about keeping track of that. Instead, we'll award time as a prize...in a race for time."
"Sure."

Still, nothing beats the scenery, and, like I said, watching the riders is hypnotic in the same way watching a lava lamp is. You may want to watch a part of it, just don't expect much of what you may think of as a race.