DNQ - So Sorry You Nearly Died, Mr. Webber

At the risk of coming across all Negative Nancy, erm, Negative Norm I mean, I feel like we Austinites should be preparing some sort of apology, or better yet

and

proactively a Plan of Action, to assist visitors who wind up lost, shrieking with terror, at the inanity of our road naming "system", the ineptitude of most drivers in the city and I35 in general. 

I'm not sure South by Southwest is a particularly apt control for the

How Bad Could It Be?

experiment, simply because there are so many people in the city, walking, riding, driving, ambling, crashing, and falling on our streets that it really bears no resemblance to what things are normally like here in fair Austin. If you aren't "doing" SXSW with total commitment, and willing to experience and accept any circumstance that might befall you

Courtesy of www.velocci.com

(a friend of mine was run over by a train of Segways, which he finds more of a point of pride, something to tell the grandkids, than an annoyance), then you probably just stay at home and pretend the downtown area has been invaded by

Captain Trips

or

Mongol invaders

or

zombies

until it passes like the mist from Stephen King's mind. But what's going to happen when the comparatively small but nonetheless horde-like throngs of people come for the first ever United States Grand Prix in Austin Texas, in Wheneverber of 2012?

We need an ambassador to explain the clusterfrak that is Austin traffic and assuage the anguish, because if anyone so much as leaves their hotel to wander about the city, I'm afraid we'll never see them again. Could you imagine, as a ridiculous yet terrifying example, if

Mark Webber

decides to take his rented Chrysler Sebring and head from the Four Seasons up to

The Draught House

for a pint? The scandal! All it takes is

one car trip

to MoPac, and they might as well have entered the

Parisian catacombs

without a light. MoPac/Loop 1? And if you're south coming from the airport and need to get onto MoPac, especially going south, how do you begin to explain the route without having them end up in

Albuquerque

? Loop 360/Capital of Texas Highway? Highway 183/Research Boulevard? Or My God! What if they wander up to 290/Koenig Lane/Northland Drive/2222??? The

naming alone

is an Abbott and Costello bit. 

Then there's the elephant in the room. I'm looking at you, Austin drivers. Glass houses and black kettles and everything, but come on. This is just getting ridiculous. My wife and I have a game, more of a contest really, called How Many Times Were You Almost Killed on the Way Home Today? It's a lot of fun, for the whole family even! Points are based on the agreed upon ineptitude of the driver who almost offs you (wandering across lanes, reaching for a dropped cell phone, sleeping are obvious and oft cited circumstances), compounded by the speed involved (double points for combined speed as a result of near head-on collisions) and the number of other vehicles, property and/or pedestrians also nearly snuffed out in the blink of an eye. You do lose points, however, if the nearly-an-explosion was the result of someone deciding within the last 100 feet that, "Oh, THERE'S my exit!" and cutting across four lanes of traffic at a near 90-degree angle while doing 70+ MPH. Because really, you'd only end up with scores more like arena football, and that just gets boring.

Griping about traffic on an F1 blog? Trite and useless, but in terms of bridging that gap between fans and the city? We need a plan NOW.

Austin traffic sucks

. 

Courtesy of www.capmac.org

OK, so did you know there's a race this weekend? And suddenly my incessant,

"Don't count out Button this year

" diatribes don't seem so fanboyish, now do they? This season is potentially low hanging fruit for a driver like Button. Yes, even my grandma knows he's renowned for his smooth driving, but in a year when it's decided

tires specifically designed to suck

should be used, he's poised to capitalize on the situation better than most other drivers, save

maybe Webber

. Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso, all superior competitors to Button, are also far more aggressive. I've seen those guys eat tires like Homer eats donuts. I (and everyone else, honestly) foresee the pits being a lot busier, at least until they can adapt, and Button staying out longer while turning in consistent lap times. Toss in the moveable rear wing and KERS, and slower traffic becomes less of an issue than it has in the past. He could really create some gaps out there. The final practice session in Australia seems to also bear out the fact McLaren didn't know how good their cars were until they decided to stop trying to be too clever for their own good and slap a more conventional exhaust on them. Lo and behold. Never count out Whitmarsh.

Also never count out Ross Brawn. The Merc team's Rosberg and Schumacher didn't shred in practice, but they were both fast and probably good enough for Q3, with a bit of luck. Because the other half of the stuff that isn't as exciting as the actual racing drama is that pit and race strategy will play a much larger role in outcomes than in the past. Between tire and wing and KERS management,

drivers are going to have a lot to do

in addition to driving perfect lines and not getting killed. Smart team bosses, and Brawn is truly the

Ozymandias

of F1, will be calling those shots from on high. Same as they've always done really, but it just seems the more complicated the cars get and the more aspects of the race the drivers are expected to control, the teams that will do the best are the teams with a General Patton in control, who understands every individual action the entire team performs, from the pit member who holds the fresh tires to the driver in the cockpit, and can visualize the entire clockwork mechanism in motion. This year is going to be a chess match, and probably as interesting from a management perspective as it will undoubtedly be on the circuit. I think it'll be a surprisingly good year for Mercedes, but I'm not going to say better for Schumacher or Rosberg.  

Yet

.

Strap in. Formula 1 2011, here we go.

Exclusive: Interview with Senna Director Asif Kapadia - #SENNAxSW

On Sunday I got the chance to sit down with Kevin and Asif to talk about how social media has affected the release of the movie, our growth of The Austin Grand Prix, and the Formula One community. The Social Media Club House at SXSW in Austin, Texas was the venue, as Social Media Club hosted a full four days of live Ustream broadcasts from the house. We had hoped to patch in the film's writer, Manish Pandey, to join us in the discussion but were unable to do so. Enjoy...

Exclusive: Interview with SENNA Director Asif Kapadia from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

Behind The Scenes Gallery

DNQ - Senna

Ayrton Senna could have been a god. Not necessarily if not for the new documentary about his racing career, but if not for technology… at all. Let me rephrase - in a world where television, photography or print did not exist for some inexplicable reason, but race cars did, Ayrton Senna would have been a god. Here's the proof, thanks to director Asif Kapadia and his documentary Senna.

So first things first - the obligatory "you don't have to be a fan of Senna or even a fan of Formula 1 or even a fan of racing or even a fan of sports at all to enjoy this film" disclaimer. Maybe in the past you've been coerced by this sort of lead-on by a friend or significant other, only to suffer and moan. I asked my wife while leaving the Paramount Theater if she enjoyed the movie. My wonderful, accommodating, supportive wife, who has absolutely no interest in racing whatsoever (strike whatsoever - I think she might have an unhealthy and/or impure appreciation of Mark Webber and Jenson Button), responded, "How could you not?" From across the theater, my friend Eric, whose interest in sports essentially begins and ends with the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, hallowed be thy name, flashed two thumbs up (I'm not sure if this wasn't in honor of Roger Ebert, also in the audience), then pantomimed tears falling. Then two more thumbs up, so as not to end his review on an unmanly note.

If you want to read a professional review of the film, I'm not going to discourage you one bit. I'll try to give you a bit more than, "It was good," but ultimately my appreciation of Senna derives from the perspective of how it immortalizes Ayrton Senna, a god among men, as a human being. If you're disinclined to be all gung-ho about a documentary, I have some encouragement. Kapadia foregoes the typical talking head, television style interview with someone who knew Senna recounting their experiences and memories. Instead he lets the characters, primarily nemesis Alain Prost, McLaren team boss Ron Dennis and of course, Senna himself, tell the story, more or less chronologically, and in the moment. With hundreds of hours of footage available, from interview to candid behind the scenes to in-car, supplemented by more recent interviews specifically for the film, the narrative of Senna's rise to the pinnacle of the racing world is already extensively documented and well known, at least in a mythological sense. The drive and focus of that narrative then is a masterstroke of tireless research and judicious editing. Senna is undeniably a good film, full stop.

Senna, as the protagonist in the drama, develops as thoroughly as any of the best films you could name. One of the most controversial moments of his career, the infamous shunt with Alain Prost (our lead antagonist) at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, is suddenly recontextualized from its usual portrayal, with the background to color the incident (accurately, you could argue) as a righteous middle finger to the sport's governing body, and particularly its then demagogue of a master, Jean-Marie Balestre. In many circles, purists will cluck and bemoan the unsporting intent of Senna's defiance by charging for a gap and holding a line that would likely, and in fact did, retire both drivers from the race. The crash brought cheers from the audience in the theater. Senna went on to clinch the championship. Unsportsmanlike or the very illustration of competitive purity? There's room to argue but the context underlying the whole ordeal is undeniable. 

My favorite sequence, and the one that honestly caused something to get in my eye, was the 1991 Brazil Grand Prix. Piloting a broken car, but having never won in his home country, Senna drove an impossible drive to cling to his victory. If the story ended here, it would be Roy Hobbs slamming the ball into the lights. Senna winning in Brazil exemplifies my theory that athletic competition can be art, or at least artistic. Senna's drive was a pure expression of the human spirit, and it is beautiful to behold. Seriously, truthfully beautiful. If you could package this segment of the film, a model of Micelangelo's David and maybe a recording of  Mingus Ah Um, and send it all into space for aliens to understand what humanity is and is capable of, you wouldn't be doing the universe a disservice.  Watching the footage of him on the winners' podium in sheer agony, try and fail, then try again to hoist his trophy over his head, and knowing that he wasn't doing so out of a need to satisfy his ego, but to salute his country and its citizens - it's moving. Best scene in the film? Discuss.

But this is all a bit like the Titanic, isn't it? Most racing fans know what happened to Ayrton Senna on May 1, 1994. We know every race, every victory, brings us closer to The Monster at the End of This Book. Raise your hand if you didn't know racing cars was a dangerous profession. Few serious accidents are shown in the film. Only the outcome of Martin Donnelly's career ending but amazingly not fatal 1990 crash is shown, his broken body lying motionless on the circuit. It's a nauseatingly frank shot. Rubens Barrichello's airborne shunt during practice at Imola in '94 that ranks in the majority of morbid but somehow requite top 10 crashes of all time lists. Roland Ratzenberger's fatal crash at qualifying for the same race. And finally Senna. It's jarring, even when you know it's coming.

Throughout the film are shots of Niki Lauda. Although he's never named either in narration or by subtitle, the burn scarred face of the three-time world champion, and still competitive driver at the time, is a frequent, looming reminder of the supposedly bygone age when the life expectancy of F1 drivers was not the job's mot vital selling point. But in the "modern" era, no one expected the greatest driver possibly in the history of the sport could be snuffed with so little effort on the part of the universe. To keep things in  cinematic frame of reference, it's like Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Departed taking one in the brain the second the elevator doors open. Except this is real life. It was tragic and will always be tragic, like the last man to die in the battle before a truce is called, but that doesn't make it senseless. If the Spirit of Racing Future floated down to Senna and handed him a signed declaration of his impending death, he'd likely have strapped into his wobbly Williams and tempted the Almighty's resolve. Because that loving, thankful, but nonetheless defiant middle finger to the institution he loved so much, whether we're talking racing or God, defined him as a human.

There's more to be said about Senna the citizen. The man who fought for Brazil. The man who established an educational foundation for poverty stricken children. The man who never denied or belittled his faith or his family, even at the height of his fame. This film isn't about those areas of his life, really. It's about Senna the driver, which encapsulated all of those qualities, virtues and vices. Go see it at 7:30 Thursday night at the Paramount.

TEDxAustin: Tavo Hellmund Speaks in Austin

Image courtesy of TEDxAustinTavo Hellmund spoke this afternoon in Austin at a satellite event of TED, known as TEDxAustin.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and is a series of global conferences designed to culminate idea-sharing. In his speech, Tavo highlighted several things, not only some interesting things about F1 in Austin, but also his mantra as a person.

He began in a very humble manner, acknowledging the other speakers invited to talk at the event, but Tavo quickly dove into explaining his perspective on the future of Austin and his desire to engage the community.  His vision for the new racing facilities will effect the lives of so many people and in order to succeed, the facility needs to be used year round, capitalizing on the technological and educational potential which Austin culminates.  We think that his message was well received and important to understanding the long term success of his goals.

He highlighted that, not only will this facility bring 300,000 people to the city, create jobs, and attract 500 million viewers in 180 countries around the world, but these are just the F1 weekend numbers and just a the tip of the iceberg of the potential he sees in the overall plan.

Some of the key points Tavo mentioned about the F1 facility itself:

Algae research, like what UT Biology Department conducts.There will be a large focus on the Educational component of the track.  Education has always been a big part of his life, and since the tragic loss of a very good friend of his, Tavo launched his Safe & Sober® campaign to target educational outreach in order to help spread the message of driving safety.

Lance Armstrong in UT's Human Performance Lab, Image Courtesy of UTResearch will be a huge part of this facility and Tavo higlighted two major component of this research: an engineering facility focused on alternative energy research (hopefully partnering with UT Biology Department's research in Algae), as well as research labs in human performance, probably also in close relationship with UT's Human Performance Lab.

Overall, the talk allowed Tavo to really set the stage for the future of not only Formula 1, but the long term success of the region to help ensure true sustainability through a year round calendar at this exciting new facility.

 Here are some of Tavo's unofficial quotes that Kerri tweeted during the speech:

"It's going to be an awesome track!"

     "We're going to have the closest thing to a traditional grand prix track, like the ones 30 years ago, here in Austin."

     "I'm hoping this project, which is getting all the attention, gives Austin more than the economic impact."

     "Recognize the power within you and realize how to develop and use it."

     "What drives you? Fear of failure."

"It's not about how fast a car can go, it's about how fast that PERSON in the car can go."

Tavo Hellmund speaking at TEDxAustin on February 22, 2011. Image copyright The Austin Grand Prix.

     "F1 is the most cutting edge of technology-the advancements in your car were developed in last 35 years from F1."

     "Everyone knows about the splurges of success over central TX" (...becase of relocation of huge companies to Austin).

"If you build it they will come...will that work?"

     "Kids today are more impressed with the delivery of the message, more by the method; than with the message itself."

      "We're going to design something to use the other 362 days of the year - including an educational component; we're working with university and elementary school systems..."

      "What happens after the [F1] weekend? Of course we're going to do other events outside one weekend."

It was exciting to see Tavo on stage with many other creative minds. It was also great to hear him interact with and update the Austin community on this large and exciting project. We hope this is the beginning of many more public discussions.

Update

on 2011-03-24 22:01 by Kerri Olsen

Here is the official TEDxAustin video of Tavo's presentation.

Track Site Visit and Highlights of the Facilities

Today we want to introduce you to a few exciting things:

1.   Kevin and I shot our first on-location video at the future track site in Elroy, Texas. It took a few takes (HA!) but we’re really pleased with being able to share with you actual footage of us at the track site and an in-person perspective of what is currently in Elroy and what is to come. Though we do expect track construction will ramp up in the next few weeks, we wanted to give you a view of the site before things start to really change on the ground.

Track Site Visit January 30th, 2011 from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

2.   We’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about our interactions with you, our fans and readers, and how to deliver the most unique experience. Why do you want to keep coming back to TAGP website? Why do you follow us on Twitter and interact with us via our Facebook page? We launched this site on May 25, 2010 because we, ourselves, were having a hard time finding interesting and credible news. We were literally scouring the internet for any and all news surrounding the official FIA announcement of F1 coming to Austin. We didn’t want you to have to go through the same trouble so we launched this site as a hub for all info with the hopes of becoming the #1 fan site for F1 fans worldwide who want to learn more about Austin, and Austinites who want to learn more about Formula One racing. As more sites begin to populate the web, we’ve discovered a deeper niche that needs to be filled: sure you can Google “Austin” and read all about it on Wikipedia. But what does Austin look like when you step off the plane? What does the drive from Elroy, Texas to 6^th Street look like? With our combined love, respect and excitement about Austin, we’d like to re-introduce ourselves as your “Austin Ambassadors.” We’re committed to taking the two-dimensional approach of information delivery and amping it up to three-dimensional: engaging videos and interviews so you start to familiarize yourself with this great city as you prepare for your many trips to Austin starting in 2012!

3.  Choices Choices Choices! We’ve been listening to fan feedback and are expanding our merchandise line. We will soon offer a different style of t-shirt (a more traditional make with a heavier fabric), a different cut (women’s tees) and more COLORS! We’ll also be adding additional products in the coming months as we continue to market The Austin Grand Prix via our adopted slogan: COME AND RACE IT©!

Thank you for an amazing eight months. We are extremely excited about continuing to expand our reach as the #1 fan site for Formula One returning to the United States via Austin, Texas in 2012!

Here are some photos from our visit in November, 2010 as well:

 View of Track Site from the South West Corner

View of Downtown Austin from Highway 812

Thank You - Our Fans ROCK!

A giant Texas-sized THANK YOU to everyone who responded to our Calls to Action and have been diligently writing emails and picking up the phone to share their support with City of Austin and Travis County officials these past few months.  It may seem like a small task but every single one of your actions adds up and you've made your opinion known loud and clear to city officials who now know that Formula One racing can and will take place in Austin, Texas in 2012!

THANK YOU!