2011 Review Gallery

2011 Shiftin' Gears Quotes Part 2... Others

To start the off season I thought I would review my favourite quotes from this seasons blogs... so here we go...

Part 2...

INDYCAR -

I hope, if not for the sake of the series but for the sake of the Indy 500, that the new car brings life to open wheel oval racing in America.

Congratulations to the winner of the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500... DAN WHELDON!!

RIP Dan Wheldon

BTCC –

First 2011 rear wheel drive entry is... an Audi A4?? Pardon?? When was the last time you saw a rear wheel drive A4?? The BTCC NGTC specs state - "Drive-train layout (i.e. front or rear wheel drive) as per base vehicle." So much for that idea...

Good things - The new turbo engines seem to be working. Anybody can now buy an engine, put it in a car and be competitive! Lots of different cars! Bad things - The driving standards are appalling!

Two weeks ago I watched the worst of the BTCC. Rubbish driving standards with far too much shoving and not enough clean overtaking.

It appears the new spec cars are prone to terminal damage when making contact with another car. This means they will have to give each other room and race cleanly if they want to finish races! That would make a change!

We can now look forward to next season, which I hope will see all the top runners in NGTC spec turbo cars.

F1 -

…the DRS "overtaking" system (Drivers can't Race on their own System),

KERS, (the Kinda E-relvant, but the racing so dull we need to, Recover it System)

Hold the Front page... “Latest Grand Prix, NOT A Turkey!”

How much overtaking is needed in F1?? Well "any or some" would be a start!

What happens when you combine the latest line of young “racing” drivers, the most overtaking friendly F1 cars in quiet some time and the tightest, yet most prestigious “racing” venue? The answer... you get racing!

At Silverstone the track and the grandstands have separate postcodes!

Among the topics in my last post, entitled "British Grand Prix - Quick Thoughts", you will not find any mention of the Red Bull team order issue. This is because I wanted to give the issue more than a quick thought. I wanted to take the time to deliberate, consider if you will. This is the end result of those deliberations... Its rubbish, but that’s F1 for you.

Other -

Ginetta is Betta... erm Better...

I am loving the new G55‘s. They look good, sound good and race great! At last a National series I look forward to watching!

In a word Cars 2 is fun. It is entertainment that never takes itself seriously and just revels in taking you along for the ride.

Cars 2, The Review

I am on holiday this week, so have not seen a single lap of the Brickyard 400 or the latest GP, so...

Sometimes critics take themselves and their chosen art too seriously. Be it a food critic harping on about "cooked to perfection", a motoring journalist getting excited by "feel and balance", or a movie critic boring everyone with "characters and emotion".

There are times when everyday people want food that is good for the price they are paying for it, most of the time people choose a car because they like it, and at times people just want to watch a movie that entertains!

The vast majority of reviews I have read about Cars 2 talk about the lackluster plot, the average this, the not good enough that. It's not as good as the Toy Story series or Wall-E. It doesn't have enough for adults to be entertained, and it only exists as a merchandising money stream for Pixar.

Does any of the last paragraph matter to me...

NO!!

I have just watched Cars 2 with my wife and my 5 year old daughter and we loved it!!

If you are a child you will love it! If you are an adult, and are willing to leave your adultness at the door and let your inner child out for a couple of hours, you too will love it! If not go watch some black and white foreign move with subtitles.

In a word Cars 2 is fun. It is entertainment that never takes itself seriously and just revels in taking you along for the ride.

The plot is good fun, save the world and trust your friends. The script is a laugh, from "Tow Mater, average intellegence" early on, to Flo and Sally eyeing up the Italian racers "open wheels" without letting on to Ramone or Lighning near the end. The film never slows down, from one action sequence to the next, one laugh to the next or from one stunning piece of animation to the next, and the animation is wonderful. The racing sequences are a delight, while the car-ified world is fabulous. One big diffference between the original Cars movie and this sequel is the number of "real" cars in this one. In Italy Luigi dances with a new Fiat 500, and in London the police cars are Ford Mondeos... ok maybe I am taking this a little too seriously.. back to the "fun"...

The in-gags are there to be spotted too, a banner at one of the races for "LasseTyres" is a cool one for the man himself to slip in there, and "Big Bentley" and a train called "Stephenson" and... and...

The film is very much the Mater show. It doesn't have the deepest characters or greatest plot in movie history. It does nothing to move the art of the computer animated motion picture on, even half a step.

BUT as I said earlier, does any of the last paragraph mater to me...

If you are a car person, if you want to have a laugh, if your inner child needs to be let out for a bit...

Watch Cars 2, you will love it!!

This review was written for "Shiftin' Gears" by James age 3.2... going on 32...