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I was thinking this way too…

Bubby had her first school sports day this week. We didn’t go, but Brad did, and he forwarded a couple of photos. Usual place.

Oh yeah – a classic, classic lap. Brilliant stuff. And I’ve finally found a copy without the annoying American voiceover that plagues most copies of this lap.

Those familiar with Suzuka will notice how insanely late he brakes into Spoon and how hard he attacks the chicane (old configuration, and all done one-handed because of the manual gearboxes used back then). This lap put Senna on pole by about half an hour; there was just daylight back to second.

Step through the chicane frame by frame. You’ll notice there’s a moment just in the middle of the right-left transition where the car is perfectly stable and pointing directly ahead. The advertising signs you’re looking at are perfectly still and focused. Very, very rare, and the mark of a truly great driver. Most drivers would fling the car from right to left; there wouldn’t be that small moment of stabilisation and balance in between. Total, total control.

The race victory is recorded as belonging to Gerhard Berger, but that doesn’t tell the real story. Senna completely dominated the race, then handed victory to Berger on the last lap. Second place was all he needed to secure the world championship, and handing Berger the win was a thank-you for on-track “tactical” help throughout the year.

Oh yeah! Anyone thinking of going?

Update: The masses have spoken. Besides… this will be slower than many of the cars that already cruise that area late on a Saturday night.

I was wrong! England actually won a game of cricket this summer. Amazing…

I said the other day I’d have a few words to say about the cricket on Friday night. It was the opening match of the ODI series between us, England and New Zealand.

Well, here’s those few words:

• Winners: Australia. Of course.
• Crowd behaviour: Pretty bad. The Barmy Army have class; the Australian crowd Friday night was just a bunch of drunken yobs.
• One handed catch by person in crowd with mobile phone: Excellent; better than at least one of the fielding teams. I’ve heard that whoever it was has since been on TV and radio… there’s your 15 minutes of fame.
• Andrew Symonds: Dead set legend. Brilliant in the field.
• MGC food: As disgracefully organised and priced as usual. Didn’t spend a single cent at the ground. Never planned to, but browsed anyway.

I have a suspicion that this England team will leave here at the end of summer without a single win. Someone at work suggested that if we arrange for them to play the Bayswater under-16 blind team maybe then the poms will have a chance.

One that was interesting was when Pietersen got hit in the ribs charging McGrath – not one single Australian went to help. When Strauss got hit in the test match everyone was worried. Big contrast.

I’ve been very busy the last day or two, so pretty quiet posting to the blog. Busy day planned for today too: visit a few grave sites and bake some choc chip cookies for Jacob to thank him for looking after Adelaide last Wednesday.

More later, including a few words about the cricket last night. I was there.