I'm not a big fan of most American sports -- football, baseball, and basketball (the one I find particulalry boring if I tell the truth) all leave me cold. I can dig watching a good Rugby match, or Aussie rules football, but our stuff just doesn't appeal all that much to me. The same could be said for good old American circle track racing -- much like 98% of all NASCAR races you see televised -- I just don't get into it. F1 though....
I started watching the Formula One races about 10-15 years ago, back when Alain Prost was tearing up the circuits in the Porsche powered Tag/McLaren cars, Ferrari was being driven by Michelle Albereto (and not exactly with the best of results), Nigel Mansell was in the blue and yellow Williams car, Aryton Senna was still alive, and a young upstart named Michael Schumaker was driving the multi-colored Benneton car. Then I kind of lost track for a while (about the same time Porsche went out), and when I got back into it, a not so young Schumaker was driving for Ferrari, the McLaren's were now Mercedes powered and being driven by an ice man from Finland named Mika Hakkenin, and Benneton was racing with Ralf Schumaker (I think). It was a very interesting year watching Schumaker and Hakkenin battling it out -- that first year I was back Schumaker won the championship, the next year he broke his leg mid-season and lost it to Hakkenin, then the next year McLaren aparently forgot how to build a reliable car, and Schumaker won it again -- and Hakkenin quit out of frustration. Last year, it made it down to the last race -- Schumaker was the favorite to win, but Kimi Raikonnen (another Finnish iceman) and Juan Pablo Montoya (the big Indy car winner) were still in the race. He came in 8th place in the race -- earning 1 championship point, just enough to shut everyone else out. That made 6 championships for Schumaker, breaking the old record held by Juan Fangio since -- well, practically forever. There was speculation that he would retire after that accomplishment, but after 3 races this year he's showing no signs of slowing down -- 3 races, 3 poll positions, 3 wins.
So what's the point of all this excitement, and why am I even bothering to mention it here? Well, the last race (the inargual Grand Prix of Bahrain) I watched with my son Alex -- he's 2 1/2 years old, and a little developementally delayed -- but for over an hour he sat on my lap and watched Schumaker blow the doors off yet another race. It was a nice thing to do on a Sunday evening. I hope to do it again.
ed. note -- Schumaker ended up winning almost all the races that year, earning him a 7th world driving championship, and the right to drive car #1 again.