America 2015: Day One (30 July 2015)

It's a high school prom, it's a Springsteen song, it's a ride in a Chevrolet
It's a man on the moon and fireflies in June and kids sellin' lemonade
It's cities and farms, it's open arms, one nation under God
It's America

                                                                               

       -Rodney Atkins                                              

Thursday 30 August

America! It’s great to be back. It’s been nearly two years – December 22, 2013 – since I was last here, and for the first time ever I’m here in summer, after six trips here during the fall/winter months. It was strange packing back at home and not stuffing a parka, gloves and beanie into my bag. Instead, it’s board shorts and t-shirts in a bag not nearly as heavy as it usually is.

So, this is my seventh trip to America, dating back to 2006, and I can honestly say that despite being in the midst of some pretty serious weather delays over the years, I’ve never been horrendously delayed getting to a destination.

Until now.

After clearing customs and immigration in pretty much record time, we found out that our flight from Los Angeles to Houston was delayed by two hours due to “aircraft maintenance” which meant that we would miss our connecting flight to Kansas City. If the delay had only been a hour, we’d have been fine, but two hours was too much.

So begins the drama: there were only two later flights from Houston to KC tonight, and they were both full, so we were pulled off the flight – and hopefully, so were our bags – and now we’re going to be doing the mother of all red-eye flights tonight and into tomorrow to get to Kansas City at 10:30am.

At 8:00pm tonight we flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I’m there now, in the airport, fresh off a nice upgrade to premium economy, waiting through a 2-hour gap before we board a flight that will take us to Chicago, arriving at 6:30am local time tomorrow morning. Then there’s another two-hour layover before the last, short leg of flying into Kansas City.

If everything goes to plan, we’re scheduled to arrive at 10:37am. Based on how things have panned out so far today, I’m not holding my breath. We have eight hours of actual travel time, but with layovers, it’s closer to twelve. All I care about now is getting there, and getting our feet on the ground. Oh, and I’m really hoping our bags get there when we do!

I actually don’t mind the stop-start nature of these flights. In fact, getting off the plane and being able to walk around and get non-airline food is better than enduring one long flight, when you’re crammed in like sardines for fourteen hours, with not much to do.

For anyone wondering, Lauryn, who came down from Canada today, expecting to meet us in Kansas City, is actually now reigning supreme in our hotel tonight, after I had to basically convince the hotel that they should let her check in or she’d be forced to spend the night on the floor of the airport. She messaged me before to say that she was in the hotel – I’ve never been so jealous of anyone! I’d kill for a proper night’s sleep. Not tonight, though.

Thankfully, we were able to check into an airport hotel – the Courtyard Marriott – for a few hours of sleep this afternoon. It really made a difference, and although I could’ve slept much longer, I woke myself up so that, fingers crossed, I’ll get some sleep on the plane(s) overnight so I’m not totally wrecked tomorrow. One thing is for sure, I’ll be enjoying a massive sleep on Friday night! Lucky we don’t have anything planned for Saturday morning.

The flight from Sydney wasn't too bad. I got to watch Grown Ups and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as well as a handful of episodes of Friends – forgot how funny that show is – in between reading, listening to music and dozing off. The flight, thirteen hours and forty minutes, went by fairly quickly and smoothly. All the troubles started when we got here.

We flew United, which doesn’t give you a mid-morning snack, so it’s a long time to go hungry between lunch (which gets served in the first hour of the flight) and breakfast, served with less than ninety-minutes to go. I had to buy one of those snack boxes, and it wasn't good. Back to Qantas or V Australia next time, I think.

It’s been a very long two days and I’m really looking forward to getting to departing San Francisco – surprise, surprise, we have a minor delay! – landing in Kansas City and doing something other than shuffling through airports!

Opinion: The Shine Has Come Off NASCAR Racing At Indianapolis

Watching the Brickyard 400 yesterday, it was impossible not to notice two things on the NBC broadcast: the lack of on-track passing outside of the first few laps after the initial green flag or a restart, and, perhaps more alarmingly, the massive amount of empty seats around the 2.5-mile speedway.

No matter how hard the cameras tried, and they tried pretty hard, it was impossible to hide the fact that it a meagre amount of people had arrived at the corner of 16th and Georgetown to watch the twenty-first visit by NASCAR’s top series to the most famous racetrack in the world.

Perhaps it was even the smallest crowd to attend what has, since it’s inception, been one of NASCAR’s more prestigious events – up there with the Daytona 500, Southern 500 at Darlington, the night race at Bristol and the Memorial Day Coke 600 at Charlotte – but we’ll never know for sure, because IMS doesn’t release crowd figures for any of it’s events.

Even so, there’s no disputing the fact that the joint was half-empty, and perhaps that’s being kind. Grandstands inside turn one and across the start-finish line were pretty full, as were the towering bleachers at turn four, but there were just a scattering of diehard fans in the infield, and even less scattered in grandstands elsewhere around the mammoth speedway.

The decline of attendance for the Brickyard 400 has been as quick as it’s been sad. No one likes seeing the great track so empty. Not so long ago, the Brickyard 400 actually pulled a crowd that really gave the Indianapolis 500 attendance a run for it’s money. Back then, the CART-IRL war had fractured the open wheel community, and NASCAR was going through it’s early 2000s boom. Things have changed. IndyCar, thanks to some scintillating racing in recent years, is regaining the upper hand at Indy, helped along, in part, by scintillating racing.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway was never designed with stock-cars in mind. The flat and tight corners mean single-file is the fastest way through them, and passing even on the long straights isn’t easy. The difference between the zippy IndyCars and the lumbering stock cars is a stark one.

One series puts on a great show, one doesn’t. This year’s Indianapolis 500 had more drama and on-track activity than you could poke a stick at. Aside from a few exciting restarts, the Sprint Cup Series race was a snoozer. You know things are bad when even the NBC analysts, including the excellent Jeff Burton, talk about how hard it is to pass. It takes laps to set up passes at Indy.

Let’s be honest, originally the idea of NASCAR stockers racing around IndyCar’s holy ground was good publicity for NASCAR, and a novelty event for Midwestern types, whose attendance has waned. For a while, people attended to see what all the fuss was about, but no longer. The hype seems to have always outdone the actual race quality at Indy. There’ve been tyre debacles and a string of poor races, and the combination is a bad one for the sport, and for the speedway as well.

Not even the presence of local heroes like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman can bump attendance up that much. It was Gordon’s swansong at Indianapolis this year, which surely brought a few extra fans in through the gates, and with both Stewart and Newman mired in rather large form slumps, what sort of promotion gimmick will get fans to turn up again?

It must be embarrassing for NASCAR’s powers-that-be. They routinely say that the Brickyard 400 is one of their most prestigious races – some believe it’s the most important outside of the Daytona 500 – and running such an important event in front of next to no one isn’t a good look for the sport. Indianapolis can’t and won’t pull down seats that they need for the Indianapolis 500, so as long as the Brickyard 400 is run, we’ll see those banks of empty seats beamed into our lounge rooms.

The struggle to draw a crowd at the Brickyard further supports the narrative that the sport, after absolutely booming through the early 2000s, is dying a slow death nationally. It will always be popular in the south, but tracks in other parts of the country are downsizing dramatically a decade after adding more seats when NASCAR was at it’s national peak.

There isn’t a new generation of fans coming through, and older fans are upset with various elements – the most recent one has been the ban on Confederate flags, which many interpret as the sport turning it’s back on it’s southern roots – of a sport that is also facing slumping television ratings and an increasingly ability to keep up with the behemoths of American sport.

We should probably have seen this Brickyard 400 eventuality coming. Like a lot of IndyCar races on NASCAR ovals haven’t been great because of the drastic differences between the cars, this stock car experiment at Indianapolis was great for a while, and now there’s no novelty value or the lure of knowing you’ll see a top-quality race when you walk into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. At least, when it’s May and the Indy 500 is on, you’re almost guaranteed a barn-burner.

Maybe it’s time for NASCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to look at ending their relationship? It was a good run while it lasted, but if the crowd continues trending downward, it’ll be basically empty in three or four years, and that won’t be good for anyone.

Choose Your College Football Team (Part Three)

After a long off-season since Ohio State were crowned national champions, football is only about a month away! Sunday’s are full of college ball in Australia, with games on ESPN basically all day. If you’re thinking of paying close attention but don’t know who to support, you’re in luck.

In Part One, I offered a few suggestions up based on offensive schemes, primarily a ground game or a passing attack. Part Two was all about powerhouse programs, traditional or emerging. And now, for Part Three.

Teams With Great Quarterbacks

Brigham Young: the Cougars opened 2014 with four straight wins, and the sky seemed to be the limit. Then, their do-it-all quarterback Taysom Hill was injured, out for the season, and the wheels well fell off. Prior to that injury, Hill had fifteen touchdowns to just three interceptions, and was completing his passes at about sixty-seven percent. Extrapolate those numbers out to a full season of, say, twelve or thirteen games, and they’re very compelling. Hill will be back and raring to go after a season’s worth of lay-off.

Texas Christian: Trevone Boykin is my pre-season Heisman Trophy favourite, and I’m definitely not alone in that train of thought. A stunning 2014 season saw Boykin throw for 3714 yards and thirty touchdowns, but he’s a dual-threat quarterback, and added a tick over six hundred rushing yards and eight more touchdowns. The Horned Frogs start the season ranked third nationally, and Boykin seems poised for a huge year.

California: the Golden Bears have emerging superstar Jared Goff lining up under centre for his third season in Berkeley, and his numbers to this point have been eye-popping. There’s a rich history of great quarterbacks in the Pac-12 but none have done what Goff did: pass for more than four hundred and fifty yards in a game five times. Not surprisingly considering that, Goff holds nineteen school records. He ranked top ten nationally in touchdowns, passing yards per game, points responsible for per game, completions per game, and passing yards total. Eye-popping stats, aren’t they? His numbers could get bigger and better this year.

Notre Dame: Malik Zaire is going to be big, according to all the trusted college football pundits. We saw him in relief of Everett Golson in the Music City Bowl, and it was an impressive sample size. Golson has since transferred to Florida State, likely because he saw the writing on the wall as far as Zaire being the starter. A four-star recruit, Zaire can throw it as well as Golson, and is, by all reports, a more committed and capable runner. He should absolutely thrive and prosper in Brian Kelly’s offensive scheme.

Baylor: granted, we haven’t seen a lot of Seth Russell, but when you consider the calibre of quarterbacks Art Briles has brought to the program in recent years, combined with the knowledge that Baylor boasts one of the deepest receiving corps in the country, and a very experienced offensive line, Russell looks set to shine. Starting quarterbacks at Baylor have thrown for at least 3500 yards each of the last five years. Ominous numbers.

Oregon: This one is my smoky. The Ducks lost Marcus Mariota to the NFL and will replace him in a rather unlikely manner, bringing in former Division II star Vernon Adams from Eastern Washington. Adams was twice runner up in the Walter Payton Award, the Division II/FCS version of the Heisman, and has a good track record playing against Division I/FBS schools. He’s torched Oregon State and Washington, throwing for more than 400 yards in both. A little undersized, yes, but a dynamic player with an experienced group of players around him, and he’s in that Oregon system now. You’ll want to keep an eye on Adams.

Teams Who Have A Great Home Ground

Clemson: the Tigers entrance to 81,473-seat Memorial Stadium is one of the most memorable in all of college football. It involves the players running down a hill, a tradition begun when the locker rooms were actually up behind the stadium, and rubbing Howard’s Rock on the way, as the Tiger band launches into Tiger Rag. In 1985, legendary broadcaster Brent Musburger called the entrance “the most exciting twenty-five seconds in college football!” The roar of the crowd when it happens is incredible.

Boise State: by no means the biggest or most historically important venue in the sport, but it is the only one with a bright blue field. In fact, Bronco Stadium was the first venue in the college game to have a non-green surface, painted end zones excepted. Recent renovations have the stadium notching a capacity of just over thirty-six thousand, but the atmosphere is such that it seems like double that number. Wonderful place to watch football!

Alabama: a graveyard for visiting teams historically and also recently, Bryant-Denny Stadium, named for a former school president and legendary coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, is the eighth largest stadium in America, and easily top five in terms of most imposing. Fittingly, Bryant was 72-2 all time in the stadium named for him. It should be on any college football fan’s Bucket List. These days, you're almost guaranteed a Tide win. It takes a super-human effort from someone - I'm looking at you, Johnny Manziel - to beat them at home.

Ole Miss: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium is actually more famous for what goes on outside the field of play than what the Rebels have been known to do on it. Simply put, Rebels fans have gotten tailgating down to a fine art. The Grove, through the Walk of Champions arch entrance, is the hotspot, a ten acre heaven for more than 25,000 fans each home game. It’s not unusual to find things like fine China and chandeliers in some tents. And then there’s the ‘Hotty Toddy’ chant as the players swarm through The Grove on their way to the stadium– all of this before the game even kicks off! Ole Miss sits atop most lists as far as the best tailgating/game day experience goes.

Michigan: Michigan Stadium AKA the Big House is the largest venue in football. The stadium set a record with more than 115,000 fans packing in for a Wolverines game against their arch rivals, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. It doesn’t look as big as other stadiums in the country, but fans are jammed in like sardines, so as long as you don’t mind being pretty close to your neighbours on either sides, you’ll do fine. Singing ‘The Victors’ with so many other people is pretty incredible. They’ve recently added lights, allowing Wolverines games to take place in primetime, and the stadium hosted the NHL Winter Classic outdoor game in 2014.

Texas A&M: home of the 12th Man, Kyle Field is bigger than ever in 2015, with renovations pushing the seating capacity over 102,000, though 110,631 were in attendance when Ole Miss visited A&M in October of 2014. Kyle Field is famous for it’s corps of cadets, who remain standing the entire game, after leading the ‘Midnight Yell’ the night before each home game, which attracts a crowd in excess of 25,000. Incredible spectacle!

Choose Your College Football Team (Part Two)

The 2015 college football season is just around the corner, and if you are planning to watch plenty of it on Sundays throughout September, October, November and into December, but don’t have a team to support yet, you’ve come to the right place!

In Part One, I detailed a few teams who favour running the football or passing it. In Part Two, I’ve listed a few programs boasting Heisman-worthy quarterbacks, a few traditional football powerhouses, and a few schools who have recently ascended to the top of the college football tree.

Traditional Powers

Southern California: the USC Trojans are my team, and unless you love them, you hate them. For a long time, the Pac-12 was USC and no one else, but the Reggie Busch scandal saw the school hit with big scholarship reduction penalties (not to mention a lengthy probation and Bowl ban) which sent a lot of talent to other schools in the conference. The Trojans are on their way back to national prominence, and will be strong in 2015, behind an offence led by QB Cody Kessler, who has ridiculous skilled-position talent to target.

Notre Dame: like with USC, you either love Notre Dame or you hate them passionately, and most in America hate the Fighting Irish, who have a very rich and influential alumni fan base and (I say this as a USC fan) an incredible sense of entitlement. The Fighting Irish have had a rough trot in recent times, not often figuring in the national championship race, but coach Brian Kelly has brought them back to prominence on a national level, and with highly-touted QB Malik Zaire running the show in South Bend, Indiana, optimism is high amongst the Golden Domers. Notre Dame’s rivalries with USC, Boston College, Michigan and Stanford are the stuff of college football legend.

Texas: a long-time dominator of the Big XII conference, the Longhorns have also suffered through a lean trot in recent years, but the arrival of coach Charlie Strong last year to Austin has begun a rebuilding process, and the massive Texas fan base, used to success and large helpings of it, are looking for a big step forward this year. They get Notre Dame first up in 2015, and, like the Irish, are quick to call for coaching change when things don’t go well. One of the great rivalries in the college game is Texas and Oklahoma, played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas as part of the State Fair of Texas each year.

Michigan: it’s fair to say that this new decade hasn’t been great to perhaps the four biggest programs in college football history – USC, Notre Dame, Texas and Michigan – but the Wolverines, who have 915 all-time wins, the most in all of college football, from the Big Ten have cause for optimism, with school legend Jim Harbaugh departing the NFL for a chance to rebuild a school that hasn’t seen much success in the last decade. Harbaugh is the sort of big-name coach who will bring major recruits through the door. College football is better when the Wolverines are good, and their rivalry with Ohio State is considered perhaps the greatest in all of college football.

Emerging Powers

Boise State: once a gimmick program with their blue turf, the Broncos are now regulars in the Top Ten national polls, and have made a habit of going anywhere to play anyone, usually winning. Aside from famous Bowl victories over Alabama, Arizona and Texas Christian, the Broncos have beaten stacked teams like Oregon, Virginia Tech and Georgia in recent years. A change in coach from Chris Petersen to Bryan Harsin hasn’t slowed down the Broncos, who captured a Fiesta Bowl win last year and have snared some impressive recruits since. Boise is a great town, and Bronco Stadium is a wonderful place to see a game.

Oregon: first Chip Kelly and now Mark Helfrich have elevated this Pac-12 squad to the very top of the college football tree. With lightning offence that’s usually been able to compensate for a sketchy defence, players like Marcus Mariota, LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner, De’Anthony Thomas and the returning Royce Freeman, the Ducks can slash and burn just about every team. Their home base, Autzen Stadium in Eugene, is a veritable fortress.

Baylor: anyone who thought the Bears were only good with Robert Griffin III under centre have been given a rude awakening in recent seasons. Once the also-rans of the Big XII conference, the Bears are one of the success stories of the last few years, fuelled by a group of high-profile recruits wanting to work under coach Art Briles. Nick Florence and Bryce Petty have both put up eye-popping numbers in recent seasons. Petty owns the Cotton Bowl Classic record for most passing yards in a game, notching 550 last year in a loss to Michigan State. Even so, Baylor, with a new stadium and a new lease of life, don’t look to be going anywhere.

Michigan State: For so long, the Spartans were considered the little brother of Michigan football, sitting in the large shadow cast by the Wolverines – and that exact phrase was used by former Michigan running back Mike Hart a few years back – but with the problems the Wolverines have endured in recent times, it’s the Spartans who have emerged as the best team from that state, mixing hard-nosed defence with a stout running attack. It’s led them to two Big Ten championships, a Rose Bowl and a Cotton Bowl win since 2010. And they’ve beaten Michigan for Paul Bunyan’s Axe six of the last seven years – domination!

Choose Your College Football Team (Part One)

Maybe you’re an NFL fan and you got into the college game after watching the spectacular College Football Playoff in January and you’re making a concerted effort to watch more football on Sundays – after all, the timing for us in Australia is perfect, with games for twelve or fourteen hours every Sunday from early September to early December, before a flood of Bowl games over Christmas/New Year.

But you don’t know who to follow? Well, here’s a handy guide that might help you choose a team.

In Part One, we’ll look at teams who favour either running the football or passing it on every down:

Teams Who Primarily Run The Football

Wisconsin: the Badgers, of the Big Ten, are famous for their ground and pound offence. Throwing the football is an afterthought in Madison, and usually only done to open up the run game. The Badgers have had a staggering array of running back talent over the years, most recently Melvin Gordon and James White, and Corey Clement looks set to be a star this year.

Pittsburgh: Out of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), the Panthers have a brilliant running back named James Conner, who quietly ran for 1765 rushing yards and twenty-six touchdowns last year, amidst a disappointing 6-7 record a season ago. Pitt figure to be better this year, and Conner is shaping as being a potential Heisman Trophy candidate.

Georgia: Todd Gurley and Knowshown Moreno have starred in Athens, Georgia in recent years, and the Bulldogs, who compete in the tough South-eastern Conference (SEC), will rely on Nick Chubb to carry their offence this season. Last year, he tied for the best in a very good conference, amassing 1547 yards and fourteen touchdowns. He’s sitting on a nice streak of eight consecutive 100-yard games. Chubb, who is like a tank rolling downhill when he gets going, is going to be a huge star in the SEC this year.

Auburn: the Tigers from the SEC are a team who have a quarterback in Jeremy Johnson who arguably runs the ball better than he throws it. They employ the option offence, and are lucky to have Roc Thomas in the backfield to tote the football when the quarterback isn’t doing the same. Auburn, under Gus Malzahn, are no strangers to scoring big, and to amassing huge rushing totals. They’re also hugely entertaining.

Teams Who Primarily Throw The Football

Baylor: the Bears, from the Big Twelve conference, are famous for lighting up the scoreboard by way of big passing plays. In contrast to Wisconsin, they run the football to set up the pass play, often via the quarterback, and with moderately-experienced signal-caller Seth Russell likely to assume the starting mantle from the departing Bryce Petty, there won’t be that much of a drop-off in production. Art Briles loves his air raid offence, and it’s undoubtedly spectacular to watch!

Washington State: the head coach in Pullman is a man named Mike Leach, who, along with the legendary Hal Mumme, crafted the air-raid offence as we know it today. Quarterbacks under Leach’s tutelage have regularly posted and broken NCAA records. The Cougars have been at the bottom of the heap in the Pacific-12 conference for years, but Leach’s arrival has begun to turn the program around. In 2014, it was not unusual to see WSU quarterbacks Connor Halliday and Luke Falk attempting up to seventy passes in a game. The Cougs can score, but their defence has been a serious problem.

California: the Golden Bears are another Pacific-12 team known for throwing the football like it’s going out of fashion. Some believe that QB Jared Goff is a sneaky Heisman candidate in the pass-happy “Bear Raid” system run by Sonny Dykes. He finished 2014 with 3973 passing yards, thirty-five touchdowns and a completion percentage of sixty-two. Goff seems poised for bigger numbers this year, and Cal look like a team who, with some defensive improvement, may shock a few opponents in the difficult Pac-12 North division. Their games are never boring.

Ohio State: once we find out who the defending National Champions will have in their backfield, we’ll know more about the tenor of their offence, but the Buckeyes know for sure they’ll have Ezekiel Elliott in the backfield. The hero of Ohio State’s somewhat unlikely run to the national title a year ago, Elliott is a definite Heisman candidate. He’s going to get a lot of the football, and Urban Meyer’s option-type offence will see the quarterbacks tucking the ball away and running with it often, too.

Oregon: the Ducks, who were beaten by Ohio State in the National Championship Game last season, have a potential Heisman Trophy candidate in their backfield. His name is Royce Freeman, and with the Ducks losing QB Marcus Mariota to the NFL, you figure they’ll spend a lot of their time handing off to Freeman. Why wouldn’t you? Despite a few key departures, the Ducks will be a Pac-12 force, no doubt.

Book Review: Saving Private Ryan by Max Allan Collins

 

Published: July 30, 1998.

SPOILERS AHEAD

It’s rare that a novelisation from the script of a movie – an early script, too, given the appearance of a half-dozen scenes that didn’t make the final cut of the Steven Spielberg-helmed epic – comes even remotely close to being as good as the film, but Max Allan Collins’ treatment of the Robert Rodat script is brilliant.

Like the movie, Saving Private Ryan begins with a modern-day prologue (later revealed to be the surviving James Ryan in a Normandy graveyard) and switches to the bloodbath that was the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. Collins’ depiction of the carnage springs off the page like Bernard Cornwell’s battle scenes in the Sharpe novels. It’s gripping, bloody, obviously very well researched, and very hard to put down.

After the Omaha beachhead is secured, Captain Miller and a squad of mostly-inexperienced men from the 2^nd Ranger Battalion, are sent inland to find Private James Ryan, a member of the 10st airborne division, and bring him back to the coast. Miller’s men are working under orders from George Marshall, chief of staff of the US Army, because three of Ryan’s brothers have been killed – one on Omaha Beach, another on Utah Beach and one in the Pacific – and the Army, conscious of a PR nightmare, want to get the sole surviving brother out of harm’s way, and back to his family in Iowa.

The good thing about novels is that they can flesh out characters far more than movies can or do, so we learn plenty about Captain Miller, Sergeant Horvath, Privates Jackson, Mellish, Caparzo and Reiben, the medic, Wade, and translator Upham. The narrative is far more brutal than in the movie, with lots more swearing, and some great humorous scenes involving the wise-ass Reiben. Impressively, all of the characters get their moment to shine, and Collins takes the reader inside the heads of the squad, men who are struggling with the idea of their mission: potentially sacrificing eight or nine men to save one.

Although the circumstances of the mission are made up, the script and novel obviously drew some inspiration from the Niland brothers, four men from Towanda, New York, who fought in the Second World War. At the end of hostilities, it was initially thought that just one brother survived, but a second was found alive in a POW camp in Burma.

Captain Miller’s squad finds Private Ryan with a group of other paratroopers from the 101^st Airborne Division, and Ryan refuses to leave, at least not until he has fought with his comrades at Ramelle, a fictional battle inland from Normandy, but certainly one based on real events, with lightly-armed paratroopers scrambling to stop German armour from rolling over bridges and pushing towards the invasion zone. Like the opening scenes on Omaha Beach, the climactic battle literally jumps off the page at you.

My Verdict: Yes, Collins had a good script to work from, but it’s not always a guarantee that a good script makes a good novelisation. The author still has a lot of work to do, and Collins does it brilliantly here. It’ll make you want to pull out the DVD and revisit the film, too. Five stars out of five.

Book Review: Sharpe’s Escape by Bernard Cornwell

Published: June 1, 2004

Chronology: Sharpe #10

SPOILERS AHEAD

1810. Richard Sharpe and the green-jacketed riflemen attached to the South Essex Regiment are back in action in the immediate aftermath of the Destruction of Almeida. The struggle between the British and Portuguese forces, commanded by the Duke of Wellington, and Marshal Massena’s French army for control of Portugal continues, and the French are facing both an emerging battlefield genius in Wellington and a famine that is threatening to derail Napoleon’s ambitions more permanently than any battlefield loss.

To help aid the French downfall, Wellington has ordered his army to strip bare the land over which they travel, and Sharpe’s men are at the forefront of these activities. He discovers a stash of food, which he burns, but not before making enemies in the form of two Portuguese brothers, one, Ferreira, a major who makes a living as an exploring officer/spy, and his violent brother, Ferragus. They are a formidable duo for Sharpe to handle.

The brothers are desperate to get wealthy, and to do so quickly, so they have arranged to sell much-needed food to the French. Sharpe gets in the way of this action, and cops a serious beating for his troubles, ambushed on the eve of the Battle of Bussaco. Worse, his position as commanding officer of the South Essex light company is under threat, because Colonel Lawford is trying to turn his brother-in-law, Slingsby, into a good soldier, and gives him command of the light company, including Sharpe’s constant companion, Patrick Harper for the battle.

Strange for Sharpe books, the major battle takes place in the first third of the story, rather than as a climax at the end. The Battle of Bussaco nearly ends in disaster, for both the South Essex and the British army as a whole, but victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat, and afterwards, Wellington’s army retreat to a line of impassable forts, the Lines of Torres Verdas, but Sharpe is trapped in a town along the way, hunted by the French and by the two brothers, Ferreira and Ferragus. He meets an English girl, Ms Fry, who works in the Ferreira household, and, as is often the way, Sharpe falls head over heels.

The ‘escape’ in the title of the twentieth Sharpe book published (but the tenth in chronological order) comes at about the halfway mark, and it’s done very well. Cornwell is a brilliant writer, bringing to life these ancient and epic battles, as well as the entire Napoleonic era vividly. He’s the master of Napoleonic fiction.

Sticking to what obviously works, Cornwell slips into a tried and true format, but there is still enough in each of these later instalments to keep a reader interested. You know Sharpe will beat the bad guys – and generally – get the girl, and his command intact, but Cornwell can still spring a surprise or three.

My Verdict: It’s great that the gaps in Sharpe’s long campaign to the fateful Battle of Waterloo, via India, Trafalgar, Copenhagen, Portugal and Spain are being filled in, but these more recent Sharpe novels, despite having good cameos from Major Hogan, Captain Leroy and others, seem a little more formulaic than the original set of novels. Still, this isn’t a bad book. Three stars out of five.

A Message to Lee Kernaghan

I admired Lee Kernaghan for the work he did in raising more than a million dollars for drought relief, an act that saw him awarded Australian of the Year in 2008, and for the wonderful album he recorded this year, Spirit of the ANZACs, an epic musical journey through every war this country has fought in, using diaries, letters, memoirs and other source material gleaned from hours of research at the Australian War Memorial. It was an album fitting of the rich military history that Australia can lay claim to.

Unfortunately, the country’s preeminent country music star has chosen to not join other influential musicians including Jimmy Barnes, John Schumann of Redgum, Midnight Oil and John Farnham in asking the organisers of these anti-Muslim rallies to not use his patriotic anthem, Spirit of the ANZACs, a song that celebrates the diversity of our diggers throughout the years.

The groups that use his music to support their own abhorrent message have doubtless latched on to the line in the song that talks about soldiers being born beneath the southern cross. They’re good at taking an innocent line and twisting it. Sort of how one commenter on social media actually accused Barnes of supporting the arranged marriage of men to young girls because of the line “he loved a little woman” in Working Class Man.

Don’t get me wrong, Kernaghan’s press release – delivered via Facebook – hasn’t exactly come out in support of Reclaim Australia and the similar groups that we’ve all heard far too much about recently, but nor has he come out and told them to stop using his music.

That’s the problem. Now, there’s going to be a perception that Kernaghan supports the groups I mentioned above. That may not actually be the case, but that hardly matters in the court of public opinion. By all accounts, he’s a good man, and his charitable work backs that up, but he’s made a serious error of judgement here. I don’t believe that he actually supports these groups. At least, I hope he doesn’t.

Already, Kernaghan is being hung, drawn and quartered on social media. I believe it’s called a “cop-out.” He’s trying to placate both sides of this argument – and that’s wrong. If he doesn’t like ‘Spirit of the ANZACS’ being played at these rallies, he should come out and say so. For mine, his insistence that the song be played in a manner that is “consistent with - and respectful of, the memory of ... [soldiers who] laid down their lives for the freedoms we have today."

These songs, so much a part of our history, are being twisted, remoulded and – completely incorrectly – reinterpreted by these Reclaim-type groups to suit their own agenda. It’s sad to see. Sorry, but I can’t see how playing ‘Spirit’ at these rallies is doing so in respectful memory of our dead servicemen and women. I just can’t.

We know exactly where Jimmy Barnes, Midnight Oil and John Farnham stand on the issue. Barnes talked about tolerance. They’re barking up the wrong tree with him, given his wife was born in Thailand. Let it not be forgotten, either, that ‘Khe Sanh’ isn’t the patriotic anthem people assume it to be. It’s the story of a disaffected Vietnam veteran, and it covers some rather unpleasant territory. On both counts, someone hasn’t done their research!

Equally strong in condemnation was Farnham manager Glen Wheatley. He called the use of ‘You’re The Voice’ at these rallies as “disgusting”, and Farnham makes similar comments in recent press releases. Those two have left no one in any doubt as to how they feel. Nor have Midnight Oil. Cold Chisel, although they haven’t come out with any real press release, ‘liked’ and commented on Barnes’ Facebook post saying, “Well said, Jimmy.” So, we know where they stand, too. Not so with Lee Kernaghan.

Before you suggest that the reason Kernaghan hasn’t come out against these rallies is because he knows where his bread is buttered – meaning that country music fans are obviously “bogans”, using the unflattering term, and also backwoods and blue-collar enough to agree with this – take a second and consider a few things.

One, I’m a fan of country music, and specifically of Lee Kernaghan. I’m far from a typical bogan. I just happen to like pretty much all types of music. Secondly, if we’re throwing this dangerous generalisations about various artists and their fan bases, you would want to consider that Jimmy Barnes and Cold Chisel might well appeal to a similar sort of working-class Australian. That hasn’t stopped them from speaking their mind, and saying the right thing. I admire Jimmy Barnes even more now.

Lee, you can’t sit on the fence on this. I doubt that you meant any of what you said in a negative fashion, but the fact remains that there are groups out there who are using your wonderful music and skewing it to portray a message that is dangerous to the racial and cultural tolerance of Australia. Not saying anything is a tacit form of approval, whether Kernaghan means it to be or not. By not condemning the playing of these songs, Lee is attaching his name and his musical creations to the Reclaim group.

What makes Australia great is that we have a wonderful and eclectic mix of people from all walks of life, and from all corners of the world. That should never change. Our country is a melting pot of all sorts of people from all walks of life. That should never change.

It’s time to hop off the fence, Lee Kernaghan. If you don’t agree with your music being played as a rallying call, bloody well come out and say so! If this was a miscalculation on your part – and I wonder what your social media people, if indeed you have any, were thinking, doing and saying. Maybe it’s time to hire some? You’ve still got some time to fix this.

Opinion: IndyCar Takes A Major Step Backward With New Competitor Conduct Guidelines

Despite the fact that the powers-that-be in charge of the IndyCar Series have tried their hardest to alienate fans and scare away sponsors with a series of ridiculous decisions in the recent past – running a season between mid-March and late August, and firing former CEO Randy Bernard, who brought a fresh perspective to the series – but their edict today, officially known as Rule 9.3.8, pertaining to competitor conduct, really and truly takes the cake.

You see, the IndyCar Series have released a list of guidelines prohibiting the drivers, owners and team members from saying…well, from saying just about anything that is considered by the lawmakers at the IndyCar Series to be judgemental of either the series, other drivers/teams, sponsors, broadcasters and pretty much anyone else who has a stake in the sport.

We should have seen this coming after the Auto Club Fontana race, where pack racing ruled, and where Australian Ryan Briscoe was involved in a frightening accident that he was lucky to have walked away from. Post-race, on television, a few drivers, particularly Australia’s Will Power, were critical of the way the race was run, and complained about the pack racing – cars were three, four and sometimes five wide, three and four rows deep, at over two hundred miles an hour – which IndyCar said they would permanently abolish after the tragic death of Dan Wheldon in a race at Las Vegas four years ago.

We’ve also seen a few people in the paddock criticise the compressed schedule. In reality, the schedule is a disaster, beginning in March and ending in late August, before the NFL season, meaning an off-season of more than half a calendar year. Sponsors hate that, and sponsorship is the lifeblood of motor racing.

Saturday night at Iowa, there was friction between Ed Carpenter and Sage Karam. The former was not impressed with what he perceived to be unprofessional driving, and took the opportunity to give Karam a one-finger salute during the race and then to run down pit lane post-race, to further remonstrate with Karam, dropping at least one F-bomb out on international television before NBC turned their sound off. Both moments were replayed multiple times by many different media outlets.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating drivers getting physical with each other, as we sometimes see in NASCAR racing, but a little healthy competition and some actual real animosity between drivers isn’t a bad thing. A little drama goes a long way. It gives the series more media exposure, which is vital for what is undoubtedly a niche sport in America, not to mention getting people through the gates at racetracks, and differentiates it from the Formula One drivers, most of whom are accused – and probably fairly – of being about as personable as wet cardboard.

Well, wave goodbye to any sort of drama, because IndyCar’s new rules do not allow for competitors to engage in any sort of behaviour that, in the eyes of the sanctioning body, does any of the following:

1.    Threatens or denigrates any official, competitor or the IndyCar brand;
2.    Calls into question the integrity or legitimacy of series rules, or their application, construction or interpretation;
3.    Denigrates the IndyCar Series racing schedule or events;
4.    Threatens or denigrates any IndyCar business relationship, including those with sponsors or broadcasters;
5.    Otherwise threatens the integrity, reputation or public confidence of the sport and the IndyCar Series.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake, this amounts to a gag order. It’s a page out of the book of dictatorships everywhere. Mark Miles has lost the plot! See that? I denigrated an IndyCar official. Just as well I’m not a competitor, or I’d be disciplined in some manner.

Under these rules, drivers can’t do a damn thing now. They can’t complain publicly if the rules package promotes a type of racing that makes them fear for their lives, can’t remonstrate with another driver if they feel they’re being blocked, can’t make any comment on a call by race control – no matter whether Blind Freddy could tell it was a bad one – for fear of being sanctioned. Nor can anyone now point to the ineptness of the ABC broadcasts of IndyCar, and tell the truth, which is that the disjointed commentary and pictures are turning people off the sport.

Sometimes, the only pressure that sanctioning bodies bow to us that which is generated by drivers and team owners talking in public forums, thus getting their message out to reporters who follow the story to a conclusion. It seems like there’s a disconnect between IndyCar in their ivory tower and the fan base, and it’s a gulf that’s growing by the day. If you stop allowing drivers to speak their mind, the series becomes bland and boring and unwatchable.

A subsequent press release from IndyCar sought to clarify the situation, and suggested that incidents like Carpenter/Karam on Saturday night would not be outlawed under the new rules – but when you read the new rules, that’s exactly what they’re banning. It’s the very first dot point in the release. Most likely, they didn’t expect such a backlash from fans, and sought to placate. It hasn’t worked.

My major concern is that the series subjectively using the ‘detrimental to the IndyCar Series’ catch-all to slap fines when they want, and ignore events when they want.

What’s the money that headline grabbing situations of the Carpenter/Karam ilk will let pass, but flat-out negativity on TV or in the print or electronic media towards the series structure and race control gets cracked down on?

The fact that no specific penalties have been attached to these offences worries me, too. Punishment could be anything from a fine to probation to massive point loss – the kind that wrecks a championship run.

Just when things were actually looking pretty good in the IndyCar world, the series goes and does this. Another self-inflicted wound. I wish I could say this was unusual, but it isn’t. In fact, it’s just about par for the course these days.

American IndyCar Drivers Excel at Iowa

It was one of those nights at Iowa Speedway on Saturday night.

Not only did the IndyCar Series put on the sort of race – frenetic, side-by-side competition with all sorts of passing, and a pinch of pit-road drama to boot – that it’s become famous for over the last four seasons racing the Dallara DW12 chassis, but the end result was a pleasing one if you’re an American who loves IndyCar racing.

For the first time since 2006, all three steps on the podium were filled by American-born drivers. In a series that doesn’t have the same name recognition as NASCAR’s Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series do simply because there are less American stars than there are Brazilians, Canadians, Colombians and Australians, the final stages of the Iowa Corn 300 were a sight for sore American eyes.

Floridian Ryan Hunter-Reay lead home Tennessean Josef Newgarden and Pennsylvanian Sage Karam was third. A mainstay of the sport over the last decade, RHR is both an IndyCar Series champion and an Indianapolis 500 champion, whilst Karam and Newgarden are up-and-coming racers, who are undoubtedly the future of the IndyCar Series. And, based on what we saw for 300 laps on Saturday night, it’s a rather bright one.

Better still, Ohioan Graham Rahal, one of the pleasant surprise packets of the 2015 IndyCar Series, finished fourth, making Saturday night’s race the first 1-2-3-4 finish for American drivers since 2001 – fourteen years ago, back when the CART World Series ruled the roost and Tony George’s Indy Racing League was an all-oval series attracting a lesser calibre od drivers. Much has changed. It’s been a long, long time between drinks.

You can certainly point to the fact that championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya crashed out early. Chip Ganassi Racing stars Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon had their own issues, with Dixon finishing multiple laps down, whilst TK didn’t even glimpse the checkers. Australia’s Will Power struggled mid-pack for the entirety, and was scarcely mentioned on the NBC broadcast. Kanaan’s absence was the most surprising, given that he’s been a regular fixture on the Iowa podium.

Still, the fact that Hunter-Reay, whose team, Andretti Autosport, have won seven of nine races held at the lightning-fast 0.875-mile oval, was there at the end and displaying race-winning speed is something to be heralded, given the fact that the Andretti squad run Honda engines, and the Honda engines have been down on power compared to Chevrolets, whose power-plants have been dominant all season.

It was equally impressive to see Karam up there. The rookie, driving a limited schedule for Ganassi this year after an impressive run at Indianapolis a season ago, has become a lightning rod for controversy in recent races, and was the recipient of both a memorable one-finger salute and some stern post-race words from another American, Ed Carpenter, who disagreed with Karam’s moves late, when the winner’s trophy was up for grabs.

What can you say about Karam? He’s proven to be fast, doesn’t mind ruffling feathers and is unapologetic about it. In short, he’s your typical twenty-something rookie: head-strong, and of the opinion that he can make every single move stick. He’s shown flashes of speed this year and last, and Iowa was his first IndyCar podium, coming in just his eleventh start.

 

When Karam learns to temper his enthusiasm and look after the car, he’s going to be dangerous. Maybe he already has? The next few races will be telling in that regard. For the record, I didn’t see anything wrong with the way he duelled Carpenter. It was go-time in the race, and everyone was trying to win. It was totally fine in my book.

Of Rahal, we can definitively say that he is back and finally displaying the talent that we all knew he had. A major shakeup at the team owned by his father and David Letterman, has seen Bobby, himself an Indianapolis 500 champion and legend of the sport, step away from race-day duties, and an engineering change has done wonders for a driver who, for the last few years, seemed destined to flame out and not realise his genetic talent.

 

A win at Fontana, coupled with impressive podium runs at Barber, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and Toronto, amongst other races, have seen Rahal leap to outright second in the championship, completely outshining all the other Honda runners, and some good Chevrolet-powered teams, too.

If there is a more deserving candidate for Improved Driver of the Year, I’d love to know who it might be. Rahal, who seems to have his personal life sorted – he’s engaged to Courtney Force, an NHRA funny car race winner – and apparently that’s done wonders for his on-track ability. Imagine how good Rahal could be if he had an engine that could regularly compete with the Chevrolet brigade? He’d be flat-out scary. As it is, Rahal, forty-two points back of Montoya in the points standings, is in the right place to capitalise on any further misfortune suffered by the Colombian. Pocono and Mid-Ohio each pay fifty points for a win, and the season finale at Sonoma is twice that.

I’m always been of the opinion that IndyCar is at it’s best when there are Americans winning and appearing on the podium with regularity. Back in the late nineties, when you had the likes of Jimmy Vasser, Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. winning races, CART was so popular that Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One were getting worried.

Since then, the decline in good American-born drivers as compared to those from other nations, has contributed to the decreasing popularity of IndyCar racing as compared to NASCAR racing in the United States.

A few more race results like we saw on Saturday night, fittingly, right in the middle of IndyCar – and American – heartland, and we might yet see a fresh rise in IndyCar racing popularity.

Opinion: 2015 IndyCar Series Iowa Speedway Talking Points

A short-track Saturday night race in the American heartland delivered a dramatic race as the IndyCar Series enters the final four-event stretch to the championship. Here are the major talking points from a busy weekend in corn country:

Master of Iowa

Ryan Hunter-Reay, driving for Michael Andretti, ended a winless streak stretching out towards twelve months, giving Honda it’s second win in three races after Graham Rahal won two races back at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. RHR, an Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar Series champion, won for the third time at Iowa Speedway and for the second straight year, and I can’t remember a more timely victory for the Floridian.

Andretti Autosport have been behind the times as far as developing their Honda engine this season, and Honda itself has lagged way behind those teams running Chevrolet engines, and RHR’s triumph represents a much-needed shot in the arm for team – Andretti Autosport has won six straight at Iowa – and engine manufacturer, not to mention driver.

Will Power once labelled Hunter-Reay as the most rounded driver in the IndyCar Series, and I definitely subscribe to that theory. The sad thing is that RHR just hasn’t had the car to do his driving talent justice this year, leading just three total laps coming in here. Hopefully Honda can improve on their package for 2016, and the Andretti group, one of IndyCar’s Big Three along with Penske and Ganassi, can be serious championship contenders again.

Championship Points Race

We’ve marvelled at Juan Pablo Montoya’s consistency all season. Even his bad days aren’t bad, but this Saturday night was a disaster for the only man to sit atop the IndyCar Series points standings in 2015. Not even twenty laps in, and the Colombian was hard into the wall and immediately out of the race.

It was supposed to be good news for Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon, the two other drivers in the championship hunt, but late race restarts doomed Castroneves, who came home in eleventh on a night when he needed much more in order to peg JPM’s points lead back a little. For Dixon, a late-race pit stop became terminal and he finished at the back of the field.

Graham Rahal, third place in points coming in, had a forgettable night, stalling an engine on a pit stop and went down laps due to running over crash debris. But the second-generation star drove like a man possessed late in the race, took advantage of some timely caution periods, and roared back to fourth.

This race was supposed to be an absolute disaster for Montoya, but the upshot is that JPM has a forty-two point lead with three races left in 2015.

Great Racing

The aero package IndyCar has for the short ovals is perfect. We saw a great race at Milwaukee six days ago and another at Iowa. There was more side-by-side racing than you could poke a stick at but, crucially, there was none of the dangerous pack racing that we saw a lot of at Fontana. The last twenty laps tonight were as good as any we’ve seen all season.

Ganassi Struggles

Other than rookie Sage Karam, who came home third, the powerhouse Chip Ganassi squad had an uncharacteristically bad night. Scott Dixon finished in eighteenth, Tony Kanaan in twenty-first and Charlie Kimball in twenty-second. Expect a rebound from these guys at Mid-Ohio.

Even Field

Ryan Hunter-Reay became the ninth different winner in thirteen races this season. He and Sage Karam become the seventeenth and eighteenth drivers to stand on the podium. I can’t recall a better and more even IndyCar Series field than we have in 2015. It’s such a shame that the season has just three races left in it.

Stars and Stripes Success

What a day for American drivers in the American heartland! The Iowa Corn 300 saw a memorable 1-2-3-4 finish for local-born drivers, with Hunter-Reay leading Josef Newgarden, Sage Karam and Graham Rahal home. Saturday night was easily the best night for American IndyCar drivers in recent memory, and continues a season in which we’ve seen Americans Newgarden, Rahal and now Hunter-Reay visit victory lane.

Short Track, Short Tempers

In something approaching a post-race NASCAR scuffle that we see at Bristol or Martinsville, Ed Carpenter and Sage Karam were involved heatedly on pit road. The two were involved in some close racing in the last twenty laps, which Carpenter objected to – we saw him give a one-fingered salute to Karam at one stage at about 150mph – and that boiled over after the race, with Carpenter stalking pit road, looking for his fellow American.

Whilst we don’t want drivers coming to blows, a little more aggro between drivers isn’t a bad thing. IndyCar drivers seem too nice to each other most of the time. People like to see rivalry on the track, and, certainly, the confrontation between Karam and Carpenter is going to make news around the world, and IndyCar certainly won’t mind that!

Opinion: 2015 IndyCar Series Milwaukee Mile Talking Points

After a 250-lap race on the historic Milwaukee Mile in Wisconsin, there’s plenty going on in the IndyCar Series paddock:

Attendance

With recent comments by Michael Andretti, who is a partner in the group who has promoted the Milwaukee Mike event for the last few days, about the possible discontinuation of the race without a good crowd, the attendance was not as bad as what I expected.

Despite the ridiculously late 4:40pm green flag – on a Sunday, no less – the crowd was estimated by various IndyCar scribes as being around 12,000, but track officials suggested it was a bigger attendance than that. Robin Miller, the veteran IndyCar reporter, decided that probably a third of the 37,000 seats at the oldest racetrack in America were full on Sunday, so that puts the attendance at around the above figure. The sad fact is that oval races, outside of the Indianapolis 500, just don’t draw crowds like they used to.

The late start is another example of IndyCar not looking out for their fans. Maybe a Saturday afternoon 4:40pm green flag might’ve worked, when fans coming from across the Midwest had Sunday to drive home. If you lived in Chicago or somewhere like that, you’re looking at a minimum 2-hour drive to get home, meaning a pretty late arrival back in your neighbourhood on a Sunday night with work on Monday. Sunday afternoon races should have a 1:00pm green flag, at the very latest.

I still believe the Milwaukee Mile – a staple on the IndyCar Series schedule since the very first IndyCar-type race – should reclaim it’s traditional date, the weekend after the Indianapolis 500, but with Roger Penske’s race on Belle Isle in Detroit, heavily sponsored by Chevrolet, Quicken Loans and others, that’ll sadly never happen. We can only hope that the Mile continues to be on the IndyCar schedule for years to come.

Sebastien Bourdais

Back in the CART days, Bourdais dominated at the Mile like he did on Sunday, but the fields weren’t as stocked with talent as this year’s IndyCar Series grid is. That makes Bourdais’ drive on Sunday even more impressive. For want of another descriptor, what the Frenchman, more known for his ability on road and street courses, dominated the second half of the race, scoring his thirty-fourth IndyCar victory, good enough to tie him with the legendary Al Unser Jr. on the all-time win list.

Bourdais led 118 of the last 150 laps, actually lapping the field at one point before a round of pit stops. He was as fat as anyone we’ve ever seen at the historic 1.0-mile flat speedway, and even Paul Tracy, Bourdais’ old nemesis and now a commentator with NBC, was effusive in his praise, calling it “nothing short of impressive!” High praise from a guy who never, ever saw eye-to-eye with the Le Mans native.

Sunday’s win for Jimmy Vasser, Kevin Kalkhoven and James Sullivan was definitely one for the ages.

Graham Rahal

After the year – or, more accurately, about a decade’s worth – of struggles, Rahal is the lead Honda runner, scoring yet another podium in a year that’s featured a bunch of memorable ones, not to mention a memorable win last start at Auto Club Speedway Fontana. Rahal, son of Indianapolis 500 winner, Bobby and the fiancé of NHRA funny car driver Courtney Force, is having himself an epic year, showing the multi-car Honda operation of Andretti Autosport, and trailing only Juan Pablo Montoya and Scott Dixon in the overall IndyCar Series points race.

Points Race

A bad day for Australia’s Will Power – the victim of someone else’s mess – saw him drop to third in the overall IndyCar Series points championship. Juan Pablo Montoya, whose own bad day, featuring a drive-through penalty, was nullified by Power’s on troubles, extended his lead, and New Zealander Scott Dixon took over second in the championship. Power is tied for third with Rahal.

The wily Montoya has lead the points since his victory at the season-opening Grand Prix of St Petersburg, and will be tough to catch from here – but, even so, with four races to go (Iowa, Mid-Ohio, Pocono and Sonoma), anything is possible. He wouldn’t be completely comfortable with Dixon now surging into view.

As for Power, he’ll need one or two more wins to get back into the fight, and probably have to rely on Dixon and Montoya having issues of their own. Given their consistency, I’m not sure how likely that is to happen.

American Success

If you’ve read any of my IndyCar commentary before, you know that I often say how IndyCar is better off when there are Americans at or near the front of the field. 2015 has been good for the local contingent, with Tennessean Josef Newgarden really coming of age with two victories, and Graham Rahal making himself a feature on the podium. If this continues, the future is bright for IndyCar racing.

Breaking Down the 2015 V8SC Townsville 400 Television Ratings

With the new era of V8 Supercars television (and online streaming) upon us, I’ve noticed on social media that there’s a lot of conjecture and confusion as to how the final ratings numbers for each V8 Supercars event are arrived at.

Following an article written after the Perth weekend that referred to what appeared to be drastically low numbers for this year’s event on Foxtel as compared to a year previous on Channel Seven, I am now included on the V8SC mailing list for ratings information, receiving an e-mail with a key metrics comparison breakdown after each round of the championship.

I know now that the way ratings are arrived at this year is significantly different this year to previous years. It’s fair to say that singular race numbers – as they are presented by outlets like TV Tonight and others – don’t look that great, but it’s important to remember that this figure is only one part of the total ratings number, which is not always indicated. To that end, I thought I would pass the details as they were presented to me, in an effort to spread awareness of both the figures and how they are split into particular categories.

Summation of ratings to and including the Townsville 400

The two-race Townsville 400 weekend, measured race-on-race, saw a six percent increase on the comparative event in 2014.

Cumulative Total Average Ratings – Year To Date

This number includes all races, practice, qualifying, highlights, and other V8SC programs, both live and replays, and including magazine-type shows like the Ten Network’s RPM, and FOX Sports shows Inside Supercars and Supercars Life. Although it is not specifically stated in the report, it’s fairly safe to assume that this number also includes digital streaming via FOX Sports Go and Play.

To the week ending 12 July 2015, the cumulative total average ratings are as follows:

2014: 20.376 million
2015: 19.419 million

Whilst the number, year on year, is down five percent, it’s important to take into account the fact that, to this point in 2014, there had been seven V8SC championship rounds, but only six to the same date this year.

On a like-for-like basis, comparing events year on year, the 2015 audience is up nine percent.

Cumulative Average Ratings – Weekly (6-12 July 2015)

This figure includes any and all V8SC-branded programs appearing during the week: live races on FOX Sports (including Go and Play streaming figures), FOX Sports race replays, live on-track sessions (measured as a weekend total), replayed on-track sessions, Channel Ten’s live broadcast of Saturday and Sunday, and magazine shows.

Individual figures for each broadcast are:

FOX Sports live races (including Go and Play): 227,000
FOX Sports race replays: 76,000
FOX Sports live other (all weekend sessions): 539,000
FOX Sports other replays (all weekend sessions): 6,000
Channel Ten Live Races: 905,000
Channel Ten live all other (all V8SC sessions): 768,000
Magazine shows: 84,000

[Note: numbers sourced by OzTam and Regional TAM]

Cumulative Average Ratings – Race Weekend (Live and Replay)

These numbers include all races and highlights.

Sydney.com SuperTest: 197,000 viewers (debut broadcast; no available comparison to previous years).
Clipsal 500: 2,335,553 (Up 12% year-on-year event, up 21% year-on-year cumulative).
Australian Grand Prix: 1,170,000 (Up 10% year-on-year event, up 17% year-on-year cumulative).
Tasmania SuperSprint: 791,300 (Down 23% year-on-year event, up 8% year-on-year cumulative).
Perth SuperSprint: 679,000 (Down 30% year-on-year event, up 1% year-on-year cumulative).
Winton SuperSprint: 719,000 (Down 27% year-on-year event, down 3% year-on-year cumulative).
Darwin Triple Crown: 967,000 (Up 4% year-on-year event, down 2% year-on-year cumulative).
Townsville 400: 1,176,600 (Up 6% year-on-year event, down 1% year-on-year cumulative).

[Note: numbers sourced by OzTam and Regional TAM]

Digital Footprint

Website Visits: 8.420 million (up 17% on comparative 2014 figures)
Website Page Views: 22.719 million (up 3% on comparative 2014 figures)
Facebook Reach: 52.589 million (up 16% on comparative 2014 figures)
Facebook Impressions: 226.455 million (up 20% on comparative 2014 figures)
Video Views: 7.630 million (up 187% on comparative 2014 figures)

[Note: numbers sourced by Google Analytics and Facebook Insights]

Opinion: Five More Pre-Season 2015 Heisman Trophy Possibilities

Want to look a little further afield for Heisman Trophy candidates? Well, here are five more players capable of playing a part in the discussion:

Taysom Hill (Quarterback, Brigham Young)

If you didn’t get to see Hill play last year, make a point of doing so this year. He’s a livewire of a dual-threat quarterback who runs Bronco Mendenhall’s spread system to absolute perfection, and is one of the most dangerous guys in all of college football when the intended play breaks down.

Before a season-ending injury last year suffered in the fifth game, Hill had fifteen touchdowns to just three interceptions, and was completing his passes at about sixty-seven percent. Extrapolate those numbers out to a full season of, say, twelve or thirteen games, and they’re very compelling.

The only problem I see with Hill in 2015 is the BYU schedule. Their opening month is tough: a visit to Nebraska, and also UCLA and Michigan on the road, with Boise State on the docket, but at least the Cougars get them at home. If the Cougars can somehow snag a few wins during this stretch, you figure it’ll be a lot to do with Hill, so his stock should rise. Of course, if they get embarrassed, it’ll go the other way – in a hurry.

James Conner (Running Back, Pittsburgh)

Lost in the craze over Melvin Gordon, Jay Ajayi and Samaje Perine, the Pitt back had an incredible season, stacking up 1765 rushing yards and twenty-six touchdowns. Not bad for a team that went 6-7.

There's no doubt that Conner would definitely have been more nationally recognised if the Panthers had actually had a winning season. As far as his 2015 hopes go, if Pitt can start winning more games than they lose, they’ll start to get noticed on ESPN and other influential outlets, and Conner will be amongst the Heisman hopefuls.

Nick Chubb (Running Back, Georgia)

With Todd Gurley gone from Athens, Chubb is really The Man on campus this year, and if he builds on an impressive 2014 season, the sky is just about the limit. Ran for 1547 yards and fourteen touchdowns (equal best in the SEC) whilst Gurley had his injury struggles. Chubb appears set to continue his streak of eight consecutive 100-yard games – and had two 200-yard games, as well – into the early season, and if Georgia fire all season, Chubb will be right in the Heisman race.

Dak Prescott (Quarterback, Mississippi State)

Prescott decided against declaring, and will return to State for his final year of eligibility. He was a big part of the early-season conversation in 2014, and should be again this year, if he can go anywhere close to replicating his numbers (3449 passing yards, 986 rushing yards, accounting for forty-one scores).

One caveat: State lost a big chunk of their receiving corps from a year ago, and Prescott may struggle to find viable targets. Because he’s from a school that isn’t a ‘traditional power’ – whatever that means these days! – State are going to need some big-ticket SEC wins if Prescott is going to vault up into Heisman consideration.

Corey Clement (Running Back, Wisconsin)

Wisconsin have another 200-pound monster in their backfield in 2015, and if recent history is anything to go by, you can pretty much guarantee Clement will run for at least a thousand yards, and that would put him at least in the conversation for a trip to New York City. The way Wisconsin traditionally favour the run means he’ll get plenty of carries, which means plenty of chances to impress the national press.