2019 Indy 500

今年好像過得超快，上星期眨下眼就見電視打Indy 500的廣告，也見到兩屆F1總冠軍艾朗素對車隊表現表示不滿的新聞，星期日錄了來看，發現不見艾朗素的踪影，還記得上次他首度出戰成績不俗，只是被壞車拖累無法完成賽事，但今年竟然排位賽也未能出線！實在令我大跌眼鏡，此報導說了Indy Car賽事對F1（分站或總）冠軍車手也不是那麼容易（雖然從F1過江耀武揚威的車手也大有人在，立時想到的就有Nigel Mansell, Juan Pablo Montoya）而今年Indy 500的冠軍車手Simon Pagenaud其實也是來自歐洲（法國），曾在那邊的初級方程式賽事打拼過，我估他也曾有未能一㘣的F1夢吧。如今他擁有一屆IndyCar總冠軍及一次Indy 500冠軍的榮譽，總算名留賽車史。

Sports highlights: NASCAR Championship weekend

As a big fan of NASCAR, I knew there will be a 3+ month break after this weekend that seems like forever but still I was really excited about this. The truck race was without much drama: Christopher Bell wasn't really challenged during the whole race. The Xfinity race was more competitive: William Byron's car was strong during most of the race but Elliot Sadler was equally if not stronger at various times during the race too. (Daniel Hemric's car had a failure that took him out of the equation and Justin Allgaier's car couldn't find speed, even with the help of 7-time championship winning crew chief, Chad Knaus, in his pit) Sadler was leading the final stage of the race and had a good chance to win the championship. However, he was held up by Ryan Preece, who could have just let Sadler go. And William Byron seized the opportunity to use Preece as a "pick" and passed them both. That was THE championship winning move. Sadler bumped into Preece as a desperation move and hit the wall which made it even less possible for him to catch up to Byron. Sadler was really mad at Preece at the end of the race. After all, looking at the history of the series, this year might have been the closest one where an "old dude" (Sadler was a full time driver at the top level for about 10 years before moving "back down" to this series) win it all. When I look at the list of champs starting from 2001, 6 of them moved on and won championships at the next level. For some reason this series favor young guns.

The cup series championship featured even more drama: all 4 drivers had their moments that look promising for them to win it all. Keselowski's car was the weakest among them (which kinda proved his point that Toyota had an unfair advantage over other manufacturers.) I kinda rooted for Martin Truex Jr who was the only one among the final 4 who has not won a championship yet but was the winningest driver this season (and he has shown huge improvements in the past few years) and have been dominant on 1.5 mile race track like this one in Miami. It seems that he has lost his magic here though. Busch's car has been the strongest, especially in long runs. In situation like this, it's only natural that Brad K's team would play the strategy game by going off sequence, i.e, pit early and try to gain ground with new tires while hoping to get lucky. Harvick and Truex's team followed suit but Kyle Busch's team decided to stay out and pit normally, which would have been the winning strategy if there was no more cautions since his 3 competitors all need to pit one more time then him. However, luck was not on his side. The caution was brought out by none other than his older brother Kurt! Talk about sibling rivalry! So Kyle's car ended up behind Truex's and like Sadler he was held up by another driver with nothing to win: Joey Logano (who was certainly no friend of Busch) but unlike Sadler his car was strong enough to eventually pass Logano but he admitted later he used up his car doing that and was not able to pass Truex even though he got really close.

The other "winner" that I must mention is this year's brand new point system! I think it did make the races prior to the championships more competitive.

Sports highlights: NASCAR "semifinals"

All 3 NASCAR series will have their final races of the season that determines the champion this weekend. And the 4 finalists for each series were determined by last weekend's race which made the races extra interesting, with a few notable crashes involving those fighting for playoff spots. During the truck race, the 4th final spot holder at one point, Ben Rhodes, tried to cut in front of his closest competitor Austin Cindric at a restart and was wrecked. Rhodes' crew chief was very upset about that but the announcers didn't think it's the fault of the latter, who got that final spot eventually, as a beneficiary of the crash of course. Similar issue happened to #48 Brennan Poole of the Xfinity race when he tried too hard to gain around on other competitors. Once he crashed out, the 4th spot came down to either Daniel Hemric or Cole Custer. Custer tried his best to overtake Hemric but just came up short. Another unfortunate #48 was Jimmie Johnson, who also had to fight for that 4th spot for the Cup championship at the bottom of the final 8. And that's not the only drama: Denny Hamlin was leading for a long time and looked promising to get that 4th spot. However,  remember he wrecked Chase Elliott at Martinsville and ruined the latter's chance to win the first Cup race of his career (and more importantly, advance to the championship)? So, no surprise that when Hamlin lost his top spot from the pit and restarted near Elliot, the latter would take revenge (after all, his only chance to advance was to pass everyone else, i,e, win the race to got into the championship 4) Last but not least, Matt Kenseth won his first race of 2017 (by overtaking Chase Elliott for the top spot) which would also be his final season in NASCAR. It's cool to see him going out on top.

NASCAR in trouble?

Readers of this blog all know that I have been a big fan of NASCAR for several years. I probably started following the sports when it reached its height in popularity and witnessed its decline in recent years. I won't blame the NASCAR bosses for their efforts to reverse the trend. Critics actually think they tweaked the rules for the championship too much! For example, stage points and playoff points were introduced for the first time this season to encourage drivers to be competitive not just for the win of each race but also in the middle of it. I guess the goals of these rule changes are (1) having multiple (4) drivers eligible to win the championship and (2) encouraging drivers to win races instead of just accumulating points. It's hard to argue against that, IMO. However, with no such "playoff" system, IndyCar's championship battle almost always come down to the last race anyway. Unfortunately, as this article pointed out, there are just way too many distractions happening in NASCAR right now. The following video shows one of them: young phenom and championship contender Chase Elliot's car was caught "cheating" with illegal modification to give the car an advantage:

2017 Indycar championship

It was a busy weekend for auto-racing fans! All 3 of the NASCAR series, F1 as well as IndyCar raced during the weekend. To be honest, IndyCar normally doesn't get the highest priority but it's different this weekend because IndyCar will crown its champion at this final race of the season with 6 drivers still mathematically eligible! Based on the history of the past few seasons, Penske drivers came to the race leading in points were totally capable of screwing up their chances. I still remember how Will Power squandered his lead years after years until he finally won one. And just 2 years ago, Juan Pablo Montoya was leading the championship entering the last race but crashed with Will Power and losing the championship to Scott Dixon from Chip Ganasse Racing. In fact, I think Dixon has a good chances to do it again this year even though he was behind Josef Newgarden of Penske racing in the standings. The point gap would have been bigger if Newgarden didn't crash chasing teammate Will Power exiting the pit during the penultimate race. (I seriously questioned why the team decided to pit both drivers on the same lap!) Team Penske drivers were again fighting for the lead during this race. The defending champ Simon Pagenaud got ahead of polesitter Newgarden with a different pit strategy. Luckily no crash this time and Newgarden finished second safely and become the first American IndyCar champion in 5 years (the last one was Ryan Hunter-Reay) Glad to see that. (Newgarden's sponsor Verizon, which was also the series title sponsor, should be happy too. Their CEO Lowell McAdam flew all the way to California to present the trophy to their own driver!) These two and fellow American Alexander Rossi (2016 Indy 500 Winner who also won at Watkins-Glen last month) should increase the interest in the sports among Americans in the coming years. (Forbes agreed too)

Sports highlights: three impressive (or improbable) victories

I am talking about golf's British Open, soccer's Gold Cup (semi-final) and NASCAR's Brickyard 400.

Heading into Sunday's final round, Jordan Spieth had been leading the tournament since Round 1 on Thursday. However, blowing his lead in the final round of a major championship was something he has done before (last year's Masters) And he almost did it again with consecutive bogeys in the beginning of the round. Then he finally lost his lead to Matt Kuchar on the 13th: his tee shot went way way wide. It took a long time to find his ball and then another lengthy delay to find a place to drop the ball (ended up somewhere near the driving range) Nevertheless, he did a good job with damage control: he was only 1 stroke behind after this hole. Then he sank a long put to eagle the 15th and never looked back. I didn't have the guts to watch all these live (glad that I switched channel before the "disastrous" 13th) but I am so happy to see a fellow Texas alum winning a big one. (To be honest, I would not have followed it if not for him. Who won the 2017 US Open anyway? I have no clue) He is now the youngest golfer to have won the first 3 legs of the 4 majors since Jack Nicklaus.

The rematch between 2 former Gold Cup finalists, Mexico and Jamaica, happened one round earlier this time, at the semi-final. Mexico has not trailed at any moment in this tournament so far. And they had many chances during the first half, only to be denied by the excellent Jamaican goalkeeper. Jamaica's play improved in the 2nd half. And the game was 0-0 until the very last minutes. Just when I thought it would end with PKs. Jamaica scored an impressive free kick. The Mexican goalie had no chance. Looking forward to the final between Jamaica and USA! (Even though my buddy looked down on this tournament!)

NASCAR drivers and owners consider the annual Brickyard 400 as one of the more prestigious races (other than Daytona) on the calendar, because it races at the iconic Indy Motorspeedway. Kyle Busch won it last year (as well as the year before, but nothing since then) has been strong and leading the whole race, until he was wrecked by the also very competitive (in fact, red hot all season) Martin Truex Jr (who admitted his fault after the race) The crash left the door open to drivers like Matt Kenseth (who lead after the restart) and Trevor Bayne (who was on a different pitting strategy) Then we have 3 drivers stayed out of the pits: Brad K, JJ and Kasey Kahne (who has been in a long slump with a 100+ race losing streak) Kahne was the first among these 3 that pitted and he got lucky: Kurt Busch crashed right after Kahne left the pit so he became the leader after the subsequent restart. He survived the last restart at the OT and ended his drought! This 18th victory could be the one that revived his once-promising career.

Ferko lawsuit

繼上次寫過馬場風雲，今次又寫寫賽車場風雲。美國NASCAR房車賽每年巡迴全國舉行很多場賽事，某些和NASCAR淵緣深厚的賽車場如Daytona, Talladega, Dover Monster Mile，一年必有兩場賽事，其餘的只得每年一場，多年前曾有人因此興訟，結果卻實在令我驚訝，講的是這一單：德州居民Ferko（也是德州賽車場的小小股東，但和管理層無關）以反壟斷法控告NASCAR未有為該場每年安排兩場賽事，勝訴後的一年他如願以償；但對他生活卻帶來重重打擊：首先他工作的食品安全公司認為他成為新聞人物影響團隊而解僱了他，他在外州找到工作搬離德州，其後他留在德州育有一子的廿歲兒子自殺身亡，Ferko覺得如果他還留在德州的話可能可以阻止悲劇發生，最後他太太因為爭取孫兒撫養權失敗和他離婚；種種不幸可以說是源於該次訴訟，只能歎一句命運弄人吧。

Sports highlights: Triple Crown of Motorsports

For the recent years that I have been following auto racing, F1's Monaco GP, IndyCar's Indy 500 and NASCAR's Coca Cola 600 (at Charlotte) always happen on the same Sunday. I guess you can't have a bigger day than this for US motorsports fan (even though only the first 2 is really part of the "Triple Crown" with the third one being 24hr of Le Man) I knew I won't be home the whole day so I recorded all of them and started watching the first one in the morning. It has been a long time that I saw Kimi Raikkonen leading a F1 race. Too bad his Ferrari team decided to pit him too early and have him lost time in traffic so the 2nd place (aka Ferrari's #1 man) Vettel could build a big lead and remain in the 1st place even after he pitted. That's basically the gist of the race. Then it was time to watch Indy 500: the polesitter Scott Dixon was involved in a freak accident in which his car became airborne and smashed at the wall but fortunately he walked away unharmed. The beloved "newcomer", 2 time F1 champ Fernando Alonso did very well and led quite a few laps but his engine blew and ended his day prematurely. Finally it came down to 3 time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves and the driver who "almost won it" a few years ago, Takuma Sato. Both had fast cars this Sunday. Castroneves passed Sato but was overtaken again late and Sato never looked back. The race wasn't decided by fuel saving strategy like last year when Alexander Rossi won it. However, fuel-saving was the race-winning strategy for Coca Cola 600 later that night (really late!) 2 of the stage winners, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr really dominated most of the race but they pitted at lap 368 while Austin Dillon stayed out and gambled with the fuel, along with Jimmie Johnson. Dillon was the "last car standing" (Johnson ran out of fuel) and didn't caught by Busch and Truex (who finished 2nd and 3rd) Finally able to made his very supportive grandpa and car owner Richard Childress proud. (You need both luck and the silver spoon to win a race at this level!) My recording actually ended before these "thrilling" last lap because there was a lengthy rain delay :(

Sports highlights: the new NASCAR season

Watching NASCAR during the weekend has become such an integral part of my routine that I really missed it during its off-season, no matter how short it is (3 months) when compared to other of my favorite sports (NFL's "on" season is about 5 months!) And an uninteresting Super Bowl made me even more looking forward to the NASCAR season opener: Daytona 500! For 2017, it was extra-special: the top series in NASCAR has changed title-sponsor for the first time since I started watching, from Sprint (the phone company who "inherited" the sponsorship from Nextel) to Monster Energy (the drink company who has already sponsored many auto-racing related events) Since I am a big fan of supercross and motorcycle racing, when I first heard of the news, the first question popped up in my mind was: if the NASCAR top series' name changed from Sprint Cup to Monster Energy Cup, how about the existing Monster Energy Cup, which is an annual supercross race scheduled a month or so before the new season begins? (BTW, I enjoy it a lot as it gives fans a preview of things to come. ) Well, they actually renamed the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series to Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. And the move to the new sponsorship is supposed to be very beneficial to NASCAR: after an incredible rise in the last decade in terms of viewership, advertising dollars and broadcast fees, what went up must come down. The sports was actually at an awkward crossroad: on one hand, the younger crowd found that long races and long reasons in which a few cars and drivers could do so well and ran away with championships were boring. On the other hand, the "purists" or old fans of the sports found all those tinkering with the good old point system and the addition of the "artificial playoff" ruining the sports. I guess it's clear which direction (and demographic) NASCAR is going after getting Monster Energy on board as the title sponsor. Still, I am surprised by the reaction to the "new" Monster Energy Girls at NASCAR: Yes, we have fans that complained about those outfits, being too revealing. Not to me. I am used to watching those Monster Energy Girls at the supercross races (with the same title sponsor!) To be honest, what really got my attention was not them but the new race format! When I watch the broadcast of the first race of the new season I saw it mentioned "stage" and "stage winner" and I was completed shocked! It turned out every NASCAR race is divided into three stages. The result at the end of each stage matters: points are rewarded towards the championship! (The actual system is more complicated than what could be explained in one sentence though) And there would be caution laps after each stage ends to bunch up the field. I see several advantages as a fan: (1) the cars would be more competitive among each other not just at the end of the whole race but also near the end of each stage to fight for those points. (2) Less effect from green-flag pit stops and the related "luck factor" that could change the outcome of a race. I always hate to see a driver who did nothing wrong but got trapped in the pit because of somebody else's accident. Now there are at least two more definite points in the race where cars could pit under caution. (3) the stages are short enough that a car can complete without making any pit stop so one could win a stage without any involvement of pit-stop strategy and pit-crew skills. In a way this is "back to basic." Kinda like the format of the GT races of Pirelli World Challenge that I like a lot. I think this new season had a good start: Daytona 500 was won by Kurt Busch, a former champ who tends to be very competitive but has never won this "Super Bowl of NASCAR" We also had Martin Truex Jr winning the race at Las Vegas but everybody talked about "the fight" instead: Joey Logano's car hit Kyle Busch's near the end of the race. Busch was so pissed that he walked to Logano's pit stall after the end of the race. He fought with one of the crew member and ended up with blood on his forehead! Anyway, I am very interested to see if the new point system will produce a different champion at the end of the season (oh well, anyone but Jimmie is fine. Prefer not Logano too as he totally ruined Carl Edward's in 2016)

電動方程式

我想香港人算是對賽車頗有熱情，會特地飛去大馬星洲上海的車迷不少，也出產過多位車手，不過在香港舉辦的賽事可謂絕無僅有，年前一級方程式開拓新市場加入多站亞洲城市，當年香港當局卻完全不見積極爭取，我想其實未必無機會。國際賽車聯會兩年前舉辦資源需求相對較少的第一屆電動方程式，據聞香港賽車界有打算申辦，不過當局仍然安全至上，即是不搞賽車不用封路不會死人就最安全！老實說，我對這個無甚往績可參考的新賽事的吸引力的確有點懷疑，攪不成eprix就算罷。不過看過電視轉播數輪賽事，我開始改觀：車手級數一點不弱，很多曾經是F1車手，競爭相當激烈，第一屆贏得總冠軍的畢奇仔相信頗多fans，第二屆我沒有太留意，轉眼間已是2016年十月，原來香港已成功爭取，更是第三季首站！Formula E賣點是在全球最出名大都會市中心地帶鬥車，香港這條賽道絕對夠級數，雖然賽前車手都認為真正能扒頭只有兩個彎位。而事實上正是如此！第一屆冠軍畢奇仔排頭位出賽一直領先，另一位熱門第二屆冠軍Buemi則耐心伺機在上述彎位扒頭。而世界房車賽WTCC冠軍Jose Maria Lopez指自己賽房車的經驗可能幫助不大，此言亦應驗：他在彎位炒車導致原本領先的畢奇仔要減速閃避，結果後者只能以第十一名完成賽事。 提起Lopez和WTCC，早幾年澳門大賽車是WTCC其中一站，不過去年WTCC放棄澳門，澳門也立即找到新辦的TCR房車賽頂上(其實TCR的前景比WTCC似乎更為光明，後者的多屆冠軍車廠Citroen已宣佈退出!)順帶一提，澳門大賽車還有另一項精英車手及名牌跑車雲集的FIA GT World Cup賽事，去年冠軍Maro Engel除了今年會捲土重來，也在香港eprix出賽，另一位eprix參賽車手Felix Rosenqvist也是澳門常客兼F3冠軍，熱切期待2016澳門大賽車！

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!

香港賽車人

在香港坐爸爸開車,甚少會開動其CD changer,但做乘客的我常常轉他的電台,他好像也不介意(不過如果我開車我不讓別人轉我台!)這天聽到一個很有趣的訪問:港人馬君宇Brian Ma在美國就讀航天工程大學,然後於賽車隊工作,其中包括美國champ car這個open wheel頂級賽事(其後為IndyCar合併)的車隊,2004年他是著名車手Alex Tagliani的總工程師,也有美國的房車賽經驗(Grand Am Series)目前已轉戰中國的房車賽.訪問中他提到美國車隊工作人員在比賽週末生活和歐洲人的分別,以及中國的房車賽由網民投票決定出賽排位的有趣現象(說的當然是買票!) 和我一樣由香港赴美讀書工作的大有人在,不過這位肯定是相當不平凡的一位

以下是在Youtube找到的video:

Sports highlights: football and more "football" plus some auto racing

The first football game I watched on the new Xfinity X1 box was the Monday night game between the Cowboys and the Redskins. Da Boys haven't won any game without Tony Romo as QB for a long time. The last game with Matt Cassel as QB on Thanksgiving against the Carolina Panthers was disastrous. I didn't have high hope for them against the division-rival Skins. And there wasn't much action: tied with 3 FGs each 'til late in the 4th quarter. Dejean Jackson fumbled a kickoff return near their own endzone and the Cowboys seized the opportunity to score a TD with less than 2 min left. Then the Skins marched down the field and Jackson scored a TD to tie. Only to see the Cowboys' kicker Bailey kicked a long FG with seconds left to win the game. What a win! And the 4-8 Cowboys was just one game behind the first place teams (which are all other NFC East teams) Unbelievable. Even though I still have low hope on the team winning the division or making the playoff, it's good to see them having the fighting spirit with such a horrible start after Romo was injured in week 2.

Last weekend was mostly "reserved" for watching college football as several important conference championship games were played on Saturday, which would decide who got in the 4-team national championship playoff. For SEC, #3 Alabama vs #18 Floria. For ACC, #1 Clemson vs #10 North Carolina. For Big 10, #4 Iowa vs #5 Michigan St. For Pac 12, #7 Stanford vs #20 USC. And before all this, there was an unimportant Big 12 conference non-championship game between Texas and #12 Baylor in the morning. So glad to see the Longhorns upset the Bears. They got to a quick start which was proven too much for Baylor to overcome. Well, maybe beating Oklahoma earlier in the year and this win saved coach Charlie Strong's job. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing for the 2016 season. However, the team started several younger players in this game and they did pretty well. We'll see.

Next was the Bama-Florida game, which actually started out much less exciting but eventually Bama showed its strength (and the Florida offense wasn't able to do much) And the next 3 championship games all started ~5pm PST! I ordered take out at 4:30 so I won't miss any action :) The Iowa-MSU game was dominated by the defense with the teams trading FGs. The #1 team looked vulnerable against UNC's offense. And USC initially couldn't do anything against Stanford. I was hoping all 3 games would have been decided ~7:30 so I could head to a concert by the local orchestra. However, the teams went back-and-fro and I stayed instead. The last minute TD by MSU was an exciting one (even though I'd rather see Iowa to win) It would have been quite interesting as far as the national championship picture is concerned if UNC upsetted Clemson: who should get that 4th spot? Maybe Stanford leapfrogging Ohio St? Or maybe UNC leapfrogged them all? Well, it was a moot point though. My prediction: another national championship for the Bama (beating MSU and then Clemson) When is Nick Saban gonna leave Bama for Texas? Maybe after winning another one?

The weekend actually started with the other type of football: I woke up at 6:30 to watch Bayern Munich losing to Monchengladbach (can't believe I spelled it correctly the first time!) I am a fan of Bayern but don't mind the result too much as this is only their first loss of the season. Next was the boring 0-0 draw between Man United and West Ham but I was happy to see the defending champ Chelsea suffered another loss, this time to the newly promoted Bournemouth! How low can they go? :P Anyway, the biggest soccer match of the week to me was the MLS cup (yeah. I care enough to record it while attending my kid's orchestra performance) I have been rooting for the Portland Timbers since they beat KC in a thrilling first-round playoff game (Tied 1-1 in regulation. Tied 2-2 after OT and the PK shootout was decided by two goalies shooting against each other!) They got the best start ever against the Eastern conf champ Columbus Crew in this final because the Crew's goalie failed to clear the ball cleanly in the first minutes of the game. And they never surrender the lead since then. Congrat to them!

Speaking of champions, it's sad to see that owners of the San Jose Sabercats, the reigning Arena Bowl champ, has decided to quit the business. I hope another owner pick them up before next season.

While I was preparing for switching to X1, I binge-watched many recorded shows on my "old" DVR, including some Formula E, Pirelli World Challenge and AMA Endurocross races. Congrat to the 3 respective champ of 2015: Nelson Piquet Jr, Michael Cooper (WC GTS division) and Cody Webb.

My weekend

It's that time of the year (free cake, free cake) again. We had a night-out the weekend before at the Mission Street in SF (foreigncinema for drink and Lolinda for Argentinian steak) already. So this weekend was to be with friends and family. The Saturday started with EPL as usual: very happy to see Chelsea fell to Crystal Place. Then it's time for the San Francisco International Pen Show. I arrived ~10:15 and immediately headed to Susan Wirth's seminar. Very educational and entertaining (checking out other people's pen testing samples) After playing with many pens and ink, we left for K&L Wines. The excuse was to pick up my 3 bottles ordered last year. And of course we didn't miss the Sat afternoon tasting there. The theme was Chilean and Argentinian wine. Some were surprisingly good. Dinner time was all to myself. I originally wanted to try the Habit burger and picked the one in Daly City (Serramonte) The line was way long (not expected) so I had Boston Market instead (also had a line! But not as long) Next, it's party at my friends place (thanks to the Tangs!) Awesome ribs :) And we all had fun trying out new bottles of ink (with the cheap plastic pen branded "Dollar", rightfully so)

The Sunday started with EPL as well: very pissed to see Man U fell to Swansea. Also watched the pre-recorded Arena bowl victory of the mighty San Jose Sabercats (which was 17-1 in regular season. We went to one of those 17!) I finally got to try the Habit burger at lunch time. It's indeed pretty good (and not pricey) Glad that we beat the line by arriving before 11:45. The next activity was people (and new products) watching at the Valley Fair mall (when it's so hot, no one wanna play outdoors with me) I often told my son that as much as we don't enjoy shopping, we don't wanna be ignorant about what's out there either. Then it's preparation for cooking the celebration dinner ("So steak" and "So shrimp", named after my cooking instructor!) And watched more sports of course: Juan Pablo Montoya let the IndyCar title slipped away by crashing with teammate (and defending champ) Will Power. "Mr. Consistent" Scott Dixon ended up winning his 4th title. The MotoGP race at Silverstone was also won by an veteran driver and former champ, Valentino Rossi. It was close between him and Marc Marquez for many laps but the latter fell. This season of MotoGP has been good so far with lots of competitions, lead changes, and polesitter being overtaken at the start! What a happy ending to the relaxing weekend.

Sports highlights: MLB opening week, IndyCar at NOLA, F1 at Shanghai, the Masters

I took my son to his first A's game at Oakland last Fri (got a decent deal from Groupon) It's also the first game he saw after he really learned the rules and played in little league so he enjoyed it a lot. I did too as it was a 12-0 beating of the division rival Seattle Mariners (featuring superstars like Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz. And Oakland lost the next 2 games by 1 run each!) A's offense reminded me of some of the little league games in which batters keep getting on bases!

The next one I want to write about was not a very-enjoyable event: the IndyCar Grand Prix of Louisiana. The track condition caused by the rain was so bad that basically most of the race in under caution. The early race leaders: Montoya and Power got shuffled back for their pit strategy (or I should say bad luck) The sad thing is: it's actually the 2nd race of the season and I had no idea the season has started already even though I work for the title sponsor! Can't believe I miss all those commercials for the season opener as I watch so much sports on almost every channel every day!

The F1 race at Shanghai was also something I should have missed as nothing really happened during the race. The 2 Mercedes (Hamilton, Rosberg), and the 2 Ferraris (Vettel and Raikkonen) went P1,2,3,4 respectively. The only surprise was how well the rookie Verstappen drove (Saw him in Macau GP last year). Too bad his engine broke near the end of the race.

After a disappointing NCAA title game (my Wisconsin Badgers lost) earlier in the week, finally came some good news. It's regarding my other school: fellow Texas Longhorn Jordan Spieth won his first major, the Masters, in record-breaking fashion. The UT Tower went orange to honor his victory! Coincidentally, I also witnessed another Longhorn and former Masters champ, Ben Crenshaw, playing in his last Masters. Very emotional moments! It almost feels like Crenshaw has found a successor in Spieth. Check out this article comparing Spieth to other well-decorated Longhorn athletes!

Sports highlights: 2015 AMA Endurocross season opener

IMO Endurocross is one of the most exciting form of motorcycle racing. Riding a motorbike across the difficult surfaces (with rocks, logs, tires and all those obstacles you can't think of!) is a feat in itself. Let alone riding as fast as you can to beat other riders! I followed it for a few seasons on NBCSN prior to 2013. All those seasons were dominated by the great Polish Taddy Blazusiak. He was simply better than his competitors. Even when he made mistakes (which were rare), he could recover from them like no one else. He won 5 straight titles 'til 2013. Too bad I missed the 2014 season completely as he finally had a challenger in Cody Webb who narrowly beat him to win the 2014 championship. And Blazusiak decided not to race in the 2015 AMA Endurocross season so it's really a changing of the guard. I'm glad that this season is broadcasted by CBS Sports Network. Comcast's TV guide mentions Endurocross explicitly (in info section) under the title 'Motorcycle Racing' for CBSSN unlike what it was with NBCSN (it was lumped into the "general purpose" Motorsports Hour program. I record every episode and won't know what it was until I watch! I really have 0 interest in many of the recorded races, like the tractor pull championship and drag boat racing. On the other hand, the late-modified and sprint car racing on dirt tracks are kinda cool) The most memorable moment of the 2015 Endurocross season opener doesn't have anything to do with the eventual winner though. Before I go into the details, let me explain the usual format of auto racing in US: there's a main event at the end of the day, which determine the winner of the race. (Some motorcross races have 2 main events, moto1 and moto2, and the combined points determine the overall winner.) And racers need to qualify to the main event. (Even for NASCAR with 43 cars racing in the main events, some of those spots are determined by the qualifying race results. Of course there are guaranteed spots reserved for the big names in NASCAR) For motorcross (supercross and endurocross), the first round of qualifying races are called Heat races (heat1 and heat2). Sometimes there's a 2nd round called Semi. And the last round is LCQ (last chance qualifier) So basically if a rider failed to reach the Top N, he will try again in the next round and finally LCQ. For the 2015 AMA Endurocross races, there are heat races then LCQ. Two of the participants are father and son: Destry Abbott (42) and Cooper Abbott (17). Both of them happened to be in the same heat and ran near the top of the qualifying position. When it was near the end of the heat race, Destry got the last qualifying position and was about to cross the line, but he stopped and looked back, saw his son Cooper and let him passed! I guess Destry didn't want his son to take the risk of not qualifying via the LCQ. And perhaps he's very confident that he could qualify for the main from the LCQ and indeed he did. Classic example of the older generation looking after the next one! Oh BTW, the race was won by Cody Webb. Taddy has successfully passed his baton to Cody, figuratively speaking.

Sports highlights: NASCAR@Daytona, Pirelli World Challenge

I guess among all these different sports, it's the best to be a junkie of auto racing because I've got races to follow all year long. Even in December there's Race of Champions. And I still got to watch re-play of the Global RallyCross races which finished a month before. And of course some races that I recorded but didn't watch until I have nothing else. Those included the races from Pirelli World Challenge. Its "selling point" was races being ~1.5 hour long without the need to refuel and change tires so it's all about driver's ability to drive and pass without pit strategy involved. I agree and that's why it's one of my favorite series. And you get to see the fastest and most expensive sports cars in the world, like the Ferraris, the Porsches, the Maclarens, the Bentleys, the Audis and the Cadillacs, as well as the more affordable Kias, Ford Mustangs and Chevy Cameros, which race in a different class but on the track at the same time. And the road to championship is simple: the point leader wins it all. Even with the simple rule, the champions were decided in the last race with lots of drama, which is totally different from NASCAR who tried very hard to tweak its system to "generate" drama.

Speaking of NASCAR, believe it or not, we're already 2 weeks into the new 2015 season. I guess the biggest change to the Sprint Cup cars is the reduction of horsepower, which is supposed to make the races more competitive. It's still hard to tell after 2 weeks 'coz the Daytona 500 (at least in the recent years) features tons of lead changes no matter what and Jimmie Johnson had no trouble holding his big lead towards the end of the Atlanta race. I guess the most memorable scenes from NASCAR's season opening weekend at Daytona were still the crashes: Kyle Busch broke his leg and foot during a hard crash in the Xfinity race and polesitter Jeff Gordon's car were doomed on the last lap in the Cup race (his last Daytona 500 before retirement) which gave Joey Logano the win under green-white-checker rule. (Logano deserved the win to a large extent 'coz he ran well overall) Joe Gibbs Racing has to use a replacement driver in Matt Crafton (the reigning truck series champ) to drive Kyle Busch's #18. As unpopular as he is, I think most fans are still sad to see him getting injured so bad. And his older brother Kurt also lost his seat because of domestic violence related suspension. There hasn't been a Daytona 500 without either of the Busch brother for a long time!

Sports highlights: College Football playoff, 2015 Supercross Season opener

A new chapter in the history of college football has been written on 1/1/2015: the first ever playoff games (semi-finals between the top 4 teams) were played and were completely opposite to my expectations: I thought Oregon vs Florida St would be a close one since Florida St was undefeated while Oregon had 1 loss in Pac-12 (showing my East Coast bias. Well, the AP voters are biased too! Look at this analysis of how teams are overrated in the AP Polls during the BCS era. Guess what was the most overrated team? Florida St!) It turned out Oregon blew out Florida St in the 2nd half. And I thought Alabama vs Ohio St would have been a blow out by the former since Ohio St has shown nothing until the Big 10 championship game (in which they blew out Wisconsin :( and leapfrogged the very strong TCU and Baylor to #4 in the ranking) And Saban has a 2-1 record against Meyer in bowl games. Indeed, Ohio St was behind as much as 15 points in the 1st half but built a lot of momentum near the end of the half, which continued in the 3rd quarter. Bama tried hard to come back but fell short. Now we are all waiting for the 1/12 championship final.

Other notable non-playoff bowl games included:

• Wisconsin over Auburn in the Outback bowl. The Badgers were almost neck-to-neck with the Tigers but Tigers got ahead by 3 late in the game. The Badgers fought hard to tie with a FG and forced OT. The Tigers missed their FG in OT and that's the ball game. We barely won it but a win is a win.
• Michigan St over Baylor in the Cotton bowl. I was watching this game instead of the Outback actually. Baylor built such a big lead in the 3rd quarter and I thought the game is over so I switched and completely missed Michigan St's 21-pt comeback in the 4th quarter.
• Houston over Pittsburgh in the Armed Force bowl. Again, Pittsburgh was so far ahead after the 3rd quarter that I missed the 3 TD (and 2 successful onside kick) by Houston in the last 4 minutes of the game! This is gotta be among the most dramatic finishes in the history of college bowl games.

Finally, the long wait (~1.5 months) for auto-racing was over on 1/3 when the 2015 Supercross season started. Ken Roczen won the first race at Anaheim just like 2014. And I thought he could unseat the then 3-time and defending champ Ryan Villopotto (who eventually won his 4th consecutive championships) Well, we know for sure Villopotto will be unseated in 2015. Why? He is leaving America for Europe to race one season there before he retires. I guess the many injuries he suffered here factored in the decision. He has won everything possible here in the States so the only challenges left would be the MXGP series in Europe. I wish him good luck there. (To be honest, if he still races here I would not be rooting for him. Look at JJ. Villopotto's move is as if JJ joined DTM or WTCC)

Autosports highlights: WTCC finale, NASCAR finale, F1 finale

The biggest races during the 2-day Macau GP were the WTCC finale and F3. WTCC rookie Jose Maria Lopez has been dominating all season by winning 9 races before coming to Macau and has already won the series championship. Then he won 1 more (from the pole): the first race at Macau, to break the all-time single season win record of 9, previously held by Muller, who was also the defending champion, ousted by Lopez. I think he could have swept both races given how strong his car was if not for WTCC's interesting qualifying rule: the top 10 starting drivers in race 1 start in reverse order in race 2 (i.e., #10 in race 1 starts from the pole in race 2) That gave another former champion and Macau "specialist" Huff a chance. He climbed up to P2 shortly after race 2 started and eventually passed the leader (whose power steering malfunctioned) after a late restart. The other WTCC highlight was 9-time rally champ Sebastian Loeb showing off his drifting technique on the famous hairpin of the Macau street course. Not sure if WTCC will come back to Macau in 2015 (I'm pretty sure I'm not coming back to Macau GP in 2015 though :( ) The F3 race featured future F1 driver Max Verstappen (who will be the youngest ever at the age of 18)  The race didn't start well: a big crash in the front collected many cars, including the 2 frontrunners. Vestappen didn't get a chance to show off his ability. Rosenqvist was not challenged much after the restart and won easily.

The 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup series finale started a few hours later on the same Sunday in Miami. The 4 remaining drivers eligible for the championship: Harvick, Hamlin, Logano and Newman, were up front for most of the race. Harvick, Hamlin and Gordon all looked strong. However, Hamlin faded after a late restart, leaving Harvick up front with Newman chasing in P2 but the challenge was too late and Harvick won his first NASCAR Sprint Cup championship. Newman almost completed THE "mission": winning the championship without winning one race all season long prior to this final race (He would have won this race if he passed Harvick on the last lap) and thus proving how ridiculous the current chase format is (but he didn't. So this chase format is safe for now :P Ironically, the 1-win Kenseth winning the cup over Newman, the winningest driver in 2003, was the reason that NASCAR started its 1st chase format) Check out how ESPN ridicule this 2014 season with its "awards"

Then we had the F1 series finale one week later in Abu Dhabi. It took me a while to find a bar that showed the race live (found in East TST) The pressure was on the point leader Hamilton and the 2nd place Rosberg, who could have leapfrogged if he won and Hamilton finished worse than P2 because of the double-points rewarded to this final race. Rosberg started from pole while Hamilton from 2nd but trouble with Rosberg's car dropped him all the way outside top 10 and Hamilton kept his lead over a strong Massa to win the race and the 2014 championship for the 2nd time in his young career His previous championship was won in 2008. Coincidentally, Massa won the final race of that season but lost the title by 1 point. That was the last season that the championship was decided on the final race prior to this one! As much as people hate the double-point rule (and likely to be abandoned,) that's the only reason this last race matter :P Let's hope for a more competitive 2015 F1 season!

How much money do NASCAR drivers make?

I was chatting with my co-w about sports (which is our favorite topic 'coz you can't do no harm with it) and was trying to convince them to follow the Chase for the Sprint cup. I was asked whether it's a big deal to win the chase (i.e., the overall championship) in terms of prize money. For comparison, the overall championship for golf (FedEx Cup of PGA) pays $10 million. And for baseball, each player on the 2013 World Series winning Red Sox got $307,322.68. I have no idea how much the prize money for winning the Sprint cup was! It doesn't seem to be well advertised: I googled and found the money comes from what is called a "points fund" (the term is used for NASCAR's lower-tiers too) When Brad K won it in 2012, he got $5.7 million from it. Not sure how much the runner-up gets these days. The only number I got was from 2002: the runner-up got a bit less than half of what the champ got. And of course, top drivers got a lot of endorsement deals and high base salary from team owners too. Check out Forbe's list of the world's highest paid athletes. Top golfers do make a ton: Tiger at #6 and Phil Mickelson at #8. The top of the list also features a lot of soccer, football and NBA stars. For the whole motorsports, F1 star Lewis Hamilton made it at #19, Dale Jr at #28 and Jimmie Johnson at #42. It's a bit surprising to see the top baseball player was Cliff Lee at #30. Don't get me wrong: he's a great pitcher but not the biggest name out there today.

Back to the topic of NASCAR, so how much does a "below average" driver makes? Here's the story of Landon Cassill: From his stats at NASCAR.com, he finished between 28th-32nd (out of 43) on average for the last 4 Sprint Cup seasons. He made ~$300k from each of his 2011 and 2012 season, which I think is pretty good (double the annual salary of a Python coder!)