This is the Stig

The Stig.
There is many a debate about who he/she/it is.
Ex-F1 drivers, current F1 drivers, Darren Turner, Ben Collins etc etc...

Well, last night I got an interesting phone call.
A friend of mine has this year taken up a senior role with a European-based carmaker. During filming for the new season, he was invited on set. With his companies test driver. Who was then filmed as The Stig.

Apparently, the deal is this. The car makers got very nervous at some stage about letting someone who was unfamiliar with their car [understandable] take it for hot laps. It started off with one maker, the one my friend is at, before the others began demanding their drivers be allowed to drive their cars - or their cars simply would not appear on the show any more.

Makes sense to me. Your thoughts?

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Is Craig Stanaway an Idiot?

Today on BSport he was having a go about Dan Carter not playing enough.
His main bone of contention was that Carter has played less than 1000 minutes of rugby during this season's Super 14, which is apparently very little in comparison to top players in other sports.

Newsflash Craig. The Crusaders played 15 matches this year, including the semi and final. If he were to have played every single minute of every single game, that's 1200 minutes. Adding on the 3 pre-season matches, that's 1440.

But let me take you back, to a match between the Hurricanes and Crusaders, held at Westpac Stadium. Remember that? Remember Carter getting injured? This Herald article says it happened on March 28, while this one is shortly before his return.

So March 28 - May 5 = 5 games. 5x80=400. 1200-400=800. Plus the pre-season match against the Waratahs [he missed the first two due to injury] = 880.

Do some research before you go and try and drum up a lynch mob, Craig. While you were right about him playing less than 1000 minutes, you simply cannot claim this was his decision.

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Sporting Funnies: We Interrupt this Broadcast...

UPDATEDThe Bill and Ben Party launched their campaign on BSport last Friday.
Here it is:

Part One
Part Two
Update: Today they appeared on Paul Holmes Breakfast.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Bill reads an advertorial

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Talkin' about a TITANic Effort

At the start of the NFL season I was reading the ESPN Magazine - which had picked the Titans for the playoffs. Sure, I agreed. They're an above average team which should have no problem making the playoffs. But they aren't winners.

Boy was I wrong. 7-0 run this season [helped by misfortune to other teams, though...]
The rest of the season looks pretty good for their playoff chances too, with games against the Bears, Steelers and a rematch with the Colts seemingly their only obstacles. Next question... Conference winners?

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The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

I was going to ignore the F1 Brazilian GP which was held yesterday, but I can't.
Last year's F1 was by far the best I've seen, but this year's series was just its crappier hangover.

A year that started off with BMW adding more dangly bits than anybody else [Note: three links there] but not as a result of Honda's lack of a decent crack at it.

The season then quietened down for the first few rounds, with the first really good bitchfight at Bahrain, where Hamilton was a douche to Fisichella. On Lap 1 oif this year's race Hamilton got a poor start, which eventually damaged his wing. On lap 2, he ran into Alonso. Both camps then attributed the crash to each other, with McLaren-Mercedes claiming Alonso brake-checked his former teammate, while the Renault camp believed Hamilton's lack of downforce caused the crash. Fanboys on the internet were much aggrieved.

Next up, cult favourite Super Aguri began its descent into oblivion.

A few boring rounds followed, before heading to Canada, where BMW and Robert Kubica got the win in a race where the F1 cars [apparently] pulled up the tarmac. Hamilton won at Silverstone, giving Bernie Ecclestone's hard-on some justification, yet he still moved the British GP to Donnington, which will have an altered layout.

Sept 08: The Hamilton camp gets penalised 25 seconds for passing Raikonnen after 'cutting a corner'.

Alonso came from seemingly nowhere to win the Singaporean GP. Then backed it up the next round in Japan. Then ran his mouth.

The season was dominated by commentary, as all good motorsport should. Unfortunately, this series' commentary never fails to reach new levels of awful. I've included an excerpt for your pleasure [just imagine it is being screamed in your ear by a Briton who sounds as though he failed as a greyhound announcer].
HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON ALONSO HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON, massa pits, HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON, RAIKONNEN, COULTHARD, HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON, massa pits again, HAMILTON HAMILTON WEBBER'S OUT HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON.

The two coolest things about this season were:


and when I discovered this

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Monthly Blog Spotlight

I'm going to try and start this monthly, if I can remember.
For November, I've chosen ruggerblogger, run by Ferdy.

Her writing is good and her insight is valuable - a lack of real technical analysis and the fact there are only news posts after the All Blacks play are both a positive and a negative, however.

Keep up the good work, Ferds.

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One Rule for you, another for us.

Lesley Murdoch talking on the John Dunne show about the netball between the Silver Ferns and Australia.
'What on earth are two men doing umpiring an international women's fixture like that?'

Sorry, but what?
Sexism isn't cool, Lesley.

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No Chop Suey for Dingo

So the All Blacks beat Australia last night in a very, very average test match.


The gameplan for both teams was made obvious from the outset [with some bourbon-marks on the table helping me to demonstrate to those less obvious] - All Blacks kick for territory, knowing the Australians will run it back and 'play what they see in front of them'. Sure, they can do that in the freezing night-climes of Eden Park, but Hong Kong? With 80% humidity? C'mon Robbie.

Referee Alan Lewis has drawn a lot of criticism, but I think he did well. While the game did not flow flawlessly which is what the crowd wanted to see, I think this is simply a flow-on of the adjustment to playing two different sets of rules. Talkback today was claiming Lewis over-reffed the scrums, but I disagree. How many times in the past few years have coaches complained that scrums aren't watched enough? Or called for new rules? There is no point introducing new rules when the current trend for scrummaging requires them to be reset five times. In my opinion, the game would be better removing scrums completely. They just make it look clumsy and slow. If we're trying to 'promote' the game to new markets, what kind of signal does this send?

Don't get me started on the pitch quality either.

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'Allo 'Allo 'Allo, What's goin' 'ere then?

Rioting in Gaza?
The fighting on the Gold Coast?

Nope, it's fans celebrating after the Phillies won the World Series of Baseball 4-3.
Incidentally, for those who wonder 'why is it the WORLD series, when it's only American and Canadian teams?' The answer is that it was sponsored by the World Newspaper.
EDIT: It appears I was wrong, thanks Hadyn.

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Check this out

www.blackoutrugby.com

It is a rugby manager game - completely free - which allows you to create your own teams and take on other users. If you've ever played Battrick or Hattrick, the layout will be very familiar.

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