Carol Ortiz4 said:That might actually turn out to be for the better... much like bringing back that old classic in Germany... how old was it again? 19 miles ??
Are you thinking of Daytona International Speedway?
I mean, honestly, who could possibly memorize a 13-mile track packed with 73 different turns?
Free practice sessions alone would probably need to run for three hours each just to make sense of it all...
Just look at the names of those corners:
Ice Curve, Seesaw man!, Courage curve, Foxhole, Swedish Cross, Great oaks, Animal Garden, Antonius' Beech... (it's so much better than today's boring "Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3" naming convention...)
By the way, I’d love to see what Michael would be doing at his age right now:
The pine trees flew silently past as the Mercedes-Benz 280SE zoomed up, then swooped down like a roller coaster car into a blind bend with a sheer drop-off on the outside. For a second, the 3-pointed star on the hood swept around the precipice, then homed back onto the road ahead. We seemed to be suspended in space as the road snaked wildly beneath us, as if in response to some crazy choreography. But, all was controlled by the iron fist of a perfect, almost inhuman computer incapable of making mistakes.
And yet, every time the road seemed to snake out of the way, I realized that we were the ones who were moving. The strange sensation was aided by the lack of dramatics: no shriek from the tires, no wild roll, no panic braking. Just a smooth, effortless transition from one bend to the other.
At the wheel was a 71-year-old man who not only knew the place like the back of his hand, but also drove as if the big sedan were an extension of himself. The place was Indianapolis and the man was Mario Andretti. In the midst of my astonishment at this unspectacular display of driving, I realized that had I been the passenger of anybody else I would be hanging on, feet braking against the floor, eyes bulging, breathing in short gasps. Instead I was calm, smiling, comfortably ensconced in my seat, looking at the road swirling beneath me, as I listened to the only person in the world with whom I could feel safe at that breakneck speed.
