Laguna Screwups

Playing Waltzing Matilda instead of the Australian National Anthem at
the end of the 1st WSB race was a masterstroke. Was it a hilarious
practical joke or an unforgivable screw up?

Vermeulen said that his poor start in race one was because he was
watching the wrong red lights. WTF? It's his own silly fault but how
could there possibly be red lights facing the riders that weren't the
starting lights? What were they really?

The fiasco of the end of Superpole with a rider trying for a fast lap
with waved yellow flags all round the circuit is not completely the
AMA's fault. Are there any FIM rules about what happens here? And what
was actually wrong with Haga's rear tyre and how did that happen?

 

Just think about that for a moment in reverse. A US sports person
appears at a world event outside America and the local organisers can't
find the US National anthem so they play My Darling Clementine or Swing
Low Sweet Chariot or maybe Born in the USA. Don't you think that sports
person would be just a tiny bit pissed? They're fine songs and lots of
us know at least some of the words but it's not quite the same, is it.

And what did they do between races, download an MP3 of the Australian
National Anthem off the net? As it is, Vermeulen and Martin just look
bemused and I'm sure they just brushed it off as "No worries, mate, it's
just what happens in America" and then went back and had a good laugh
about it.

And this is a circuit that is bidding for MotoGP? What would they play
for Rossi? La Cacuracha? (actually that would be quite appropriate!)

But hence my question. I have to think it was a practical joke because
the alternative that the organisers didn't give a f*ck is really deeply
offensive. Still, mostly I find it hilariously funny and just bloody
typical, which is why I couldn't resist bringing it up here.

 

AFAIK La Cucaracha is a Mexican song (not Italian for sure, it's sung in
spanish). Tipical Italian stereotype song would be "Volare" or "O Sole Mio"
and IIRC in fact it happened sometimes that one of those song was played
instead of national anthem at some official events.

But when it comes to anthems, Dorna screwed up as well. The first time
Poggiali won a 125 race, they didn't play the S.Marino anthem, just because
they didn't have it.

 

It seems you will do anything to defend the AMA and American racing.
I think all of Julian's points were valid.

--
Shane

be

 

A screw-up I think. A few years ago (can't remember exactly when) they
played the Austrian national anthem after an Ozzie win. They came out
with a rather scratchy version of Advance Australia Fair after race 2


Not that it matters, about 99.9% of us don't know the words for our
anthem, better chance of being able to sing Waltzing Matilda.

Cheers

 

So do I, it was reprehensible though I don't believe it was AMA's fault, at
least that's what they said... However, how would you feel, 6000 miles from
home and you won a couple of "world class"(well, maybe not real world) races
and they played something other than your National Anthem... I'd be PO'd and
so would you!!!!! Who cares about the Star Spangled Banner,hmm, ok, next
time you get on the top of the box we'll all sing the Mickey Mouse theme.
Sorry Mark but there are "some people"(like a whole F'ing continent) who do
care about Waltzing Matilda and they deserved to hear it....


T3

 

Ah well. Clearly I didn't phrase that neutrally enough to get to the
issue. Let's say somebody crashes badly enough on their Superpole lap
that there's a waved yellow flag. What do the rules say the organiser's
should do? If the next guy is on their warm up lap, pulling them in gets
messy because they'll probably want fresh rubber and a top up of fuel.
And since the theory was always that it's made for TV it will throw out
the schedule[1]. The alternative as we saw was that the next guy doesn't
get a clean run for his lap which could hurt his starting position.

As for Haga, once he's past the flag, he's got to go round again to get
to the pits. Should he have just pulled off the track? Where? And what
was his problem anyway?

[1]Even in places with good M/C TV coverage we don't always get
Superpole.

 

It's just yet another reason why "Superpole" is rubbish.

His rear tyre was over-inflated, supposedly nobody had put it to the
correct pressure after it was over-inflated to seat it when fitted.
I guess that has to count as a screwup by the Renegade team.

Cheers,

 

Here we do always get it. Sometimes even official WSBK practice.
It seems nowadays we are more a motorcycling country than you.

 

Heh! Italy's always been and probably always will be more motorcycle and
scooter oriented than the UK. Well a bit anyway. What channel is this
on, Eurosport? Or local?

 

I don't want even to start talking about scooters, these have nothing to do
with real motorcycling.
But well, back in good old golden days of motorcycling, UK had even more
public and more riders than Italy and your heroes - Les Graham, Bob
McIntyre, the Iron Duke, Surtees, Mike the Bike - were winning more than
Ubbiali, Pagani and Liberati.
The shifting happened later, somewhere in the '70s or early '80s, maybe
because of the World Championship dropping the road races, maybe because
you had no more real champions after Sheene, maybe for some other reasons.

A local FTA channel, called LA7. It has been broadcasting WSBK for years.
They lost it last year in favor of the statal network, RAI. But RAI did a
really bad job with it and Pirelli sponsored the return of WSBK rights
broadcasting to the former channel.
Eurosport here has the general central Europe programming, which is quite
thinner on motorbike than the UK version.

 

It reminds me of this movie called "The Dish" about a radio telescope in
Australia used to support the moon landings. Fun film.

In one scene there is the American Ambassador at the little town where this
dish is based. The local band strikes up the American National Anthem and
it's the theme song from Hawaii Five-O!!

Great fun!

Regards,

Will Hartung
()

 

Umm - Waltzing Matilda _isn't_ our National Anthem

And most Ozzies would have thought it was quite funny actually...

Cheers

 

Well - it's a sort of pseudo-national anthem, at least we know the
words to that one

Cheers

 

Whoa there big fellow....Back up a few...
Mark, you're the one who brought up the "Waltzing Matilda" thing, not
me....I said they deserved to hear it, whatever "it" might be. Sorry if you
misunderstood and apologies to my friends down under if they did.(which I
doubt) However, as much as everyone seems to blame the AMA for that fiasco,
it really wasn't their fault, this time. It was, after all a WSBK deal..
(Uh, Mr. Flamirico should I bring all the National Anthems to LS? Hell no
son, don't you know how much international freight cost these days? Just
bring the Brit, Spanish and Italian stuff, that'll cover it all and if
somebody else should sneak in, we'll fake it or blame it on the
'merkins'........Maybe not!!!)

Regards,

T3

AMA Proracing-The people "you love to hate"...

 

On further reflection I think it was a plain old screw up. SNAFU rules
as usual. I don't know, but I kind of doubt that Flammini (or Dorna)
would be in charge of this bit. I think it's more likely that any venue
that hosts any international event would just have a copy of the
"National Anthems of the World" CD. Maybe it went missing and the only
CD to hand was "Folk Anthems of the World".

BTW. Laconi's French and is doing fairly well in WSB last time I looked.
It's not just a BSI conspiracy, you know ;-)