Auto Racing Commentary

Jody Scheckter had a very unusual Formula 1 career, full of surprises. He literally burst into the scene, a very fast, unruly driver in his first outings with McLaren in 1972 and 1973, proving extremely crash prone. He had a famous come together with Emerson Fittipaldi in France, while leading, caused a pile up in the first stages of the race at Silverstone, plus crashed in Canada. His mount was great, a first year McLaren M23, and he could have scored quite a few points. After all, smooth driver Jacky Ickx in fact scored a podium at the Nurburgring in his first try. Then Jody was hired by Tyrrell for 1974. He was obviously not a first pick. Tyrrell was indeed a very conservative type of guy, at the time very much used to constant success. Unfortunately, things went from excellent to bad at the end of 1973. Tyrrell won the driver's title at Monza, then lost both Francois Cevert and Jackie Stewart at Watkins Glen, one dead, the other retired. I find it unusual that Tyrrell woul

I am always amused when people say "what is this world coming to", whenever they hear reports of crimes, accidents, basic societal decay, as if to say the world was that much better say, 50 or 100 years ago, than today. Most cities had a terrible feces smell just a relative short while back, most of the world had no running water, much less sewage lines, politicians used to put contracts on their nemesis in many parts of the world instead of bad mouthing them, and sexual crime has always been bad. Just to a name a few things. Many people had a very unusual response to the recent Stepney-gate, the spy saga that rocked the F-1 world. As if all types of such improprieties never took place, and decay had finally arrived in the hitherto pristine waters of Formulaonedom, fifty seven years down the line!!! The following borders on the comical, and it just goes to show that bad things happened in F1 in the past too, although this was not an "inside job". Jean P