Sports Topic?

[*Chernaudi]

I was looking around after using the search function, and I'm surprised that there isn't really a sports discussion topic here.  Even Twilight Lexicon (which is dominated by women/girls) has a sports topic that's been fairly active.  But I was a bit surprised that there wasn't one here.

 

Of course, I'm not a big one for stick and ball sports--I was never good at that stuff for one thing--but I've been a motorsports fan most of my life.  Of course, it can be argued that motorsports isn't a sport per se because of no use of a ball and no use of the human body aside from operating that throttle and brakes, and the steering wheel.  But when you consider that drivers of Le Mans Sportscars and F1 cars experience G-force loads of up to 4 G's sustained in high speed cornering, and that NASCAR and Le Mans Sportscar drivers are in 150+ degree cars for up to four hours at a time with all of that, I'd consider racing drivers to be athletes to allow them to do what they do.

 

I do follow NASCAR and F1 as a causal fan, but I'm a huge fan of sportscar racing because of the use of road relevant technology their more open rules sets.  And today, the product of that was Audi Sport shattering their own official Sebring qualifying record for the 12 Hours of Sebring, when both Audi R18 e-tron quattro diesel-electric hybrids swept the front row in qualifying.  Yes, I said the worlds "diesel", "electric" and "hybrid" in the same sentence about a racing car.  For more info and a few photos, there's this:

 

http://audi-motorsport-blog.blogspot.com/2013/03/record-lap-of-audi-r18-e-tron-quattro.html

 

And here's an onboard of qualifying, including the pole winning lap starting at about 7:20:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05IsJYCJCY

 

I just though that I'd post this to get a discussion started in the "whatever" area and just to gauge if there's enough interest for some type of sports/motorsports/vehicle discussion here.

 

[*Jess♥]

We have had some small chats about sports in some other topics, not too long ago there was a little bit of talk about the superbowl.

But nothing major.

so it is good that you started this topic. for those who like sports at least!

 

as a general rule, I have never been a sports fan. I've never been invested. I think sometimes sports comes as part of a social bond between father and son or some other similar relationships.

I think this is why I recently found a real interest in a sport.

 

It's due to my friend that I hang out with every saturday. he watches football (not american football) a lot but I just can't stand it. those boys are just pathetic, crying over spilt milk most of the time. especially when comparing to my national sport, Rugby.

I started to take real interest in Rugby last year when Wales won the Six nations with the triple crown, i.e. won every single match.

Of course, the fact that this also speaks to my national pride is a big deal. watching Wales annihilate England is always going to be exciting and my friend shares the same view.

 

Last nights Six nations 2013 decider match was pretty incredible, I never thought I'd be so excited watching any kind of sports, but that match was just incredible. England played well to start off with but over time they were sloppy and underhanded. They kept pushing the scrum down too early and committed a fair few penalties. Pretty damn good defence though, there was an incredible push towards the line at one point, but they were fairly impenetrable.

 

People compare Rugby to American football but there are some major differences. In Rugby they don't wear armour, but from what I can see, they are just as violent. I think there is a major difference in what I have seen when it comes to tackling. in Rugby there is more close contact, in American football it seems to be more a case of hit and run. I think Rugby really impresses me because it's not unusual to see a player still on the field with blood running down his face. I think that is what a real man is and it makes me proud of our team to see them go through that for our national pride.

Compare that to other sports where a player might go off because of a skinned knee

I think American football is generally more dangerous though. They are wearing armour so they don't hold back as much. it's like boxing. when they started wearing gloves, they started hitting harder and became far more dangerous.

for those interested, here is highlights of last nights match. I hope you can see this in other countries. if not, I'll try and find some other footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyMl7VCP0TE

[Cannibal]

Sports I love/follow: F1, 100-metre dash and various bicycling. I love to watch downhill and freeride videos like those:

I have a bike and ride it almost every day in summertime. But I don't do extreme stuff, my bike not even suited for it because it is very cheap.

I also tried 100 meters in the past, but can't remember my results. Don't know if I will run it now properly.

And in the very distant past I tried karate, figure skating, swimming and even went to gym.

Not much was achieved in karate, I participated in exams only once and gained 9th kyu + awesome badge (2cm in diameter):



From my gym results I only remember doing this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bench_press with 85 kilograms of weight (while my own mass was ~53 kilograms). I pushed it one time
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I also love cybersports. Half Life 1 multiplayer is awesome. It's also cool to watch what pros doing in Quake 3 and CS 1.6. But I'm not playing anything but Half Life.

---------

About F1 - last season I fully followed was 2007, when my second fave driver Kimi win the title (first is Michael Schumacher). That race still my fav - three drivers was battling for the title in that race. And also I was drunk while watching it   And even have tears in my eyes when Kimi finally wins.

I saw a few races from 2012 season and I remember one of the last races was awesome.

btw today was first race of 2013, glad to hear that Kimi wins it. Shame I haven't watched it.

[LordSpleach]

For me, I'm not much of a sports guy, but I am a Baltimore Fan. Really happy, the Ravens won the Superbowl, and I can't wait till the Baseball season starts so the Orioles go to the playoffs again. For those who understand, that's right I said it. I know the Os are going again and last season wasn't a fluke.

[*Chernaudi]

Here's an Audi Sport press release about their victory in the 12 Hours of Sebring:

 

http://fourtitude.com/news/Audi_News_1/another-historic-victory-for-audi-at-12-hours-of-sebring/

 

It's worth noting that the winning car developed a floor issue when it ran over debris from another car, but how did they help fix the issue?  With about $5-10 dollars worth of duct tape!  I wonder if Chronos has any use for that item?

 

And here's an onboard from where the two Audis battled for position for nearly 4 hours (and yes, the video is really almost four hours long, and the banging noise is the floor that was damaged):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5xmOJUe95E&list=UUlI9BO6C5v7MQdWuxlPYJhQ&index=4

 

Also, if I may comment, I think that cleaning and degreasing a deep-fryer should be a sport!  I've had to do that tonight.  I'd say that splitting wood should be a sport, but the old Timbersports stuff that used to be on ESPN had that covered

[*Chernaudi]

Sorry I haven't posted any thing on this forum at all in like forever, but I've been pretty busy lately with work and other things.

 

Tomorrow and into Sunday is the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race.  Audi have dominated in the WEC so far, and have won the 12 Hours of Sebring, and 6 hour races at Silverstone and Spa.  Toyota are hedging their bets on whether or not they can run 12 lap stints at Le Mans compared to Audi's 10-possibly 11 laps.  So far, though, the furthest that Toyota has run in testing is 11 laps at Le Mans.  On top of that, Audi have often been 2-4 seconds a lap faster in practices and testing so far.  That's more than fast enough for Audi to knock out Toyota's range advantage.

 

I'll be back to more routine posting possibly starting Monday, or at least soon afterwards.

[*Chernaudi]

Well, I did say that I'd have more about the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and here I go. I already mentioned the some of the stuff about Audi winning it yet again in the post I made about Rob driving either the Tesla or the A5 he was photo'd with, and I mentioned the Audi R18 e-tron quattro diesel-electric hybrid car in that post. That's the car of which one example won Le Mans yesterday.

It was the first win for 2013 pole winner Loic Duval, the third for many years Le Mans and Audi veteran Allan McNish, and it was a record extending 9th win for Tom Kristensen, AKA "Mr. Le Mans". Though I enjoyed the outcome of the race and the fact that Toyota was able early on to make a race out of it (the Toyota threat faded once the track dried out and the Audis were consistently a couple of seconds a lap faster), my enjoyment of the race was tempered by two things. First, with mixed weather conditions and tons of caution periods (mostly due to barrier damage), the race lacked flow and it was frustrating waiting out caution periods for those barrier repairs. And also, if anyone has read news about the LM24 this year, you'll know that a driver named Allen Simonsen, a friend and countryman of TK, died shortly after an early race accident when his Aston Martin slid off the road into a barrier and impacted a tree behind the barrier. Simonsen was attempting to avoid a spinning Ferrari when the fatal accident occurred. After that, it was definitely less fun watching the race for quite a while, and it's a dark cloud that will hover over the race for quite a while, too.

I enjoyed the outcome and the battles, but I didn't enjoy the caution periods and certainly didn't enjoy hearing that someone died in an accident, let alone one that it seems that the death could've probably been prevented. It all sort of reinforced my reasons why I won't likely be watching the full race next year. It's just getting harder and harder for me to stay up and watch the whole race. A 6 hour race, fine, a 10 hour race, OK, a 12 hour race, well, it's long but easily manageable. 24 hours? A pretty big stretch for me now. Not that I could watch the whole race next year even if I wanted to anyways, due to Speed Channel's rebranding as Fox Sports 1. If it's not NASCAR, I don't see it getting a ton of coverage there as far as motorsports go.

But at least some of the guys who I hoped would win did, and Porsche in the two GT classes did get their 99th and 100th Le Mans class wins.

With Le Mans out of the way, I went back to work today, and I had a pretty good day overall, but it's hot and nasty where I live, as it is though most of the American Mid-West. And it'll be that way most of the rest of the week. At least I have plenty of fans here at home, and I have the AC installed in my bed room. So that'll help when I'm in there playing VG's and such.

Aside from the weather totally sucks, I'm fine right now. At least I'm not one of the guys who goes to LM and and gets hungover from all the partying that happens in the infield of the track, and at least I'm not the guy who mooned the camera during Speed's coverage of the race. I'm glad that Speed reporter Justin Bell (who's father Derek won LM 5 times) didn't see that happen until later LOL.

I'll be back later

[*Chernaudi]

Sorry for reviving this basically dead topic, but since winning the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship--including the 24 Hours of Le Mans--Audi has been flooding the internet with teasers of its 2014 R18 e-tron quattro, including this reminder of the car's official launch on Dec 18th, and I'm pretty sure that Audi chose that date for obvious reasons...

 

 

And I wonder why all the hub-bub from Audi on this?  The R8, R10, and the original R18 e-tron quattro didn't this much press before public unveiling.  There, you have the most successful sports racing car, first diesel-powered Le Mans and major championship winner, and first hybrid Le Mans winner and championship winner respectively.  They've released a teaser video, and press photos, all before launch, and all within the past week or so.

[*Chernaudi]

Some motorsport news from Audi: 2013 World Endurance Champion, three time American Le Mans Series Champion, and three time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Allan McNish has decided to retire from full-time racing, the announcement being made today. Aside from testing, the only Scottish World Drivers Champion title holder will not race for Audi next year, though he's expected to continue with the team in an advisory and ambassador role.

The Le Mans grid won't be the same without him, even if he's serving as a TV commentator--a likely future career for Allan--or if he's in the Audi paddock area, though not slated to drive.

 

Also for Audi, they've been releasing a promo trailer a day for the new Audi R18 e-tron quattro.  It's like they expect us to have the patience of Griselda to wait until tomorrow for the public launch.  And by Griselda I mean the Griselda from folklore, or Shizu from Guyver, well, you can have your pick--I think that they both apply to the phrase "patience of Griselda".