2016 Grand Prix of Sonoma

For us racing fans in the SF Bay Area, there are 2 race tracks that feature major races: Laguna Seca (Monterey) in the South and Sonoma Raceway in the North. The latter seems more high profile these days with the top 2 of US Motorsports: NASCAR and IndyCar both race there, but the former was not without its classic moments too. I am glad to have the opportunities to go to several races: MotoGP (Laguna Seca), NASCAR and IndyCar and enjoy the great atmosphere. In the past few years I had become a fan of Pirelli World Challenge (wrote about it in this post), of which the races last ~50 min and pit stop for tires/fuel were not required. You might think races like these are easier for the polesitter to lead from start to finish but it's actually not the case. Even though the leader enjoys the clean air, he could still not manage his tires carefully enough and be caught by the following cars. Thanks to tickets from my bro, I got to watch the WC's 2016 stop at Sonoma last Sat (IndyCar was actually the "headliner" but the "main event" happens on Sunday. Still, we watched the IndyCar qualifiers and saw the eventual winner of the race and the season championship Simon Pagenaud winning the pole in convincing fashion. The 22 team was just strong, most of the season. )

My daughter and I arrived at the raceway ~10am and took our time to walk around visiting the booths. And was able to catch the autograph session from the WC drivers. We got to meet these young and legendary drivers, including multiple championship winner Johnny O'Connell, Pat Long as well as the young gun Austin Cindric (son of Will Power's team strategist Tim Cindric) They all raced in the GT class. O'Connell fought Cindric for the whole race and passed the latter for victory on the last lap!

The 2nd WC race of the day was for the GTS class. In addition to the more "conventional" Ford Mustang, Porsche and Aston Martin Vantage, there are also many more "exotic" sports car you normally won't see, like Ginetta, KTM X-bow, Sin GT4. The top 3 were battling each other for most of the race. And former champ Lawson Aschenbach has to start from the back because of his absence during qualifying and had to fought his way up to the top 10 lap after lap.

WC lived up to my expectation and some more. I am looking forward to the season finale at Laguna Seca next month!

World Cup of Hockey 2016

北美四大體育/聯賽中的冰上曲棍球是我最喜愛觀看的比賽之一,而四年一度冬運,頂尖球員為自己國家全力爭勝,可觀性極高!捷克由綽號Dominator的守門員及另一位名將Jaromir Jagr領軍奪金那一屆,我印象尤深;以Sidney Crosby為主將的加拿大激戰美國奪金一役,亦算經典.其實NHL職業球員能參與奧運,始於1998年那一屆,在此之前他們能參與的國際賽,是加拿大盃(1996年改為世界盃),這世界盃在2004年也舉辦了一次,停了十二年今年終於舉辦第三屆!基於全球有頂級實力的國家其實不多,就以2014冬運十二國的比賽為例,多次出現勝負相差五或六球的一面倒比數,今屆世界盃八隊中找來六個實力最高的國家,再加兩隊"明星隊":Team North America由美加U23(該歳數或以下)球員組成(主辦機構靈感當然來自奧運足球),Team Europe則是由除俄羅絲瑞典芬蘭及捷克四國外的歐洲球員組成.八隊可謂叮噹馬頭.Team North America一班初生之犢表現尤為矚目,而其有型的球衣據報相當好賣,現場觀眾很多年輕人穿著!

目前四強中三個席位已由加瑞歐奪得,美國兩戰兩敗,實在另人失望.餘下賽程越來越緊張精彩,熱切期待!