Saturday, March 13, 2010

Zooom!

Back in the early 90's when the cable thing was growing, my dad decided to subscribe one at Sun Cable, now known as Sky Cable since they've merged. I remember the weekends when we glued ourselves to the tv and the frequency was at StarSports, we were watching the F1 GrandPrix and it was ahhhzzzing and ooohhhzing as the cars made some sort of noise when they pass by, it was awesome.


The only person I knew back then was Schumacher, he was on that red hot Ferrari together with his wing man Eddie Irvine, but things changed on a sudden. I became a fan of that so called Formula One Grand Prix, so I tuned every time when there was a race. And luckily as I never thought, the season runs for almost the whole year. So tuning in was a treat every weekend or two. I still remember the hot feud between the Ferrari and the Mclaren-Mercedes who both have cigarette brands as their major sponsors, the Marlboro and the West brands, and not to forget about the Lucky Strike cig sponsor for the BAR-Honda. Damn, I can still name a few from back then.


Jordan-Honda was that yellow car, which was below average amongst the pack. While Williams BMW with their drivers Juan Pablo Montoya (competing at NASCAR nowadays) and Ralph Schumacher(little brother of Michael) was at the third rankings. Euro-Minardi was always at the bottom, so it was a no brainer to know their drivers back in the days. On that green car was Jaguar, where Irvine transferred because he wants to be the main man instead of a wing man at Ferrari. The battle for tire brands was also there, Michelin vs Bridgestone, until that controversy from the Michelin brand for their poor performance that made other teams that supports their brands to withdraw from the Indianapolis race that left 6 cars or so racing. Bridgestone became the major tire sponsor for all the team the following year. It was Hakkinen-Coulthard against Schumi-Barrichelo, it was head to head and toe to toe. Point after points as they battle for that Constructors championship and individual aclaims as the season nears to an end. The two manufacturers are almost identical as if their the only ones competing.


I remember those days, season after season as I've watched and anticipated. Wondering what changes on the cars, teams, drivers and rules from the FIA could have been made. For me it was the most anticipated sport to watch aside from the NBA.

Well.. it's F1 season once again. To make it more exciting, Schumi is back but racing for the Mercedes-Benz GP (former Brawn GP) and two more additional teams are added (Hispania Racing and Lotus). It's F1 season y'all!