Domestic Appliances
Not being a fan of any variety of motorsports, I generally do see them as stereotypical worlds. There is of course the standard southern good ole boy notion of the NASCAR world. Is it to a large part true? That should be irrelevent, and is not the point of this post. I'm more concerned with my stereotype of open-wheel racing. For me, open-wheel racing has always meant the Grand Prix, which for me conveys a feeling of snooty people in Monaco. While I don't give it too much thought, I see it like this: I'm in the middle--fans of NASCAR with their Pontiacs up on blocks in the front yard below me and fans of Formula One above me with their Ferraris whipping around the Autobahn above me on the social ladder.
However, this morning, I had to rethink the latter assumption after what Bernie Ecclestone, president of Formula One told a gathering of reporters last week. He was talking about rookie Danica Patrick, whose fourth place finish at last month's Indianapolis 500 was the highest ever for a female driver and was the only racing news story in the build up to the Indy 500. Ecclestone, whose $3.7 billion fortune has come from his 25 year control of F1, first said that Patrick did an excel job, better even that he thought she could do. Then he said this: "You know, I've got one of these wonderful ideas that women should be all dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances." What? This weekend he called Patrick in theory at least to apologize, and while she did say that he was somewhat complimentary, he repeated the same idea.
Who gets white appliances anymore? As a billionaire, Ecclestone should know this. It's all stainless steel in the modern kitchen.
So what is the lesson here? All people associated with autosports are idiots? Maybe not. There is one thing that I have glossed over in this. Danica Patrick is not actually an F1 driver. She is part of the Indy Racing League, which broke off from Formula One a few years ago. Perhaps this IRL is the happy medium, neither redneck nor Eurotrash. Maybe they know what a decent kitchen looks like.
However, this morning, I had to rethink the latter assumption after what Bernie Ecclestone, president of Formula One told a gathering of reporters last week. He was talking about rookie Danica Patrick, whose fourth place finish at last month's Indianapolis 500 was the highest ever for a female driver and was the only racing news story in the build up to the Indy 500. Ecclestone, whose $3.7 billion fortune has come from his 25 year control of F1, first said that Patrick did an excel job, better even that he thought she could do. Then he said this: "You know, I've got one of these wonderful ideas that women should be all dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances." What? This weekend he called Patrick in theory at least to apologize, and while she did say that he was somewhat complimentary, he repeated the same idea.
Who gets white appliances anymore? As a billionaire, Ecclestone should know this. It's all stainless steel in the modern kitchen.
So what is the lesson here? All people associated with autosports are idiots? Maybe not. There is one thing that I have glossed over in this. Danica Patrick is not actually an F1 driver. She is part of the Indy Racing League, which broke off from Formula One a few years ago. Perhaps this IRL is the happy medium, neither redneck nor Eurotrash. Maybe they know what a decent kitchen looks like.
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