Don't miss the excellent profile on Lewis Hamilton in last Sunday's New York Times mag. I just got around to reading it (two days late ... not too shabby), and I must say the first couple of pages are an excellent primer on the sport of Formula 1 racing. Hamilton is F1's 23-year old prodigy, and current golden boy.The article was written by Cathy Horyn, who is normally a fashion reporter, and she did a much better job of introducing the sport to American readers than a sports journalist would have.
For the uninitiated, F1 (aka Grand Prix racing) is the kind of racing that's actually good and exciting (ergo, it's popular in Britain and the rest of world, but is largely unknown here). They 're the cool-looking machines that go 250 miles an hour through city streets and around hairpin-turn tracks ... in short, they make NASCAR vehicles look like tinker toys.
If you've heard of Hamilton, you've probably heard of him as "Tiger Woods of racing." Ignore the similarity in their skin colour. I think the analogy has more to do with the fact that Woods took a game for rich old men and made it cool. Hamilton, the son of a former London Underground and British Rail employee, is poised to do the same thing.
When I was a kid, some of my friends watched English soccer on PBS. I myself, went to a couple of NY Cosmos games feature Pele. Still, footie as a spectator sport still hasn't caught on here as everyone predicted -- despite the fact that it's a rite of passage for the entire generation coming up today.
It's a lot to put on the shoulders of someone so young, but I really feel like Lewis Hamilton really has the ability to make history here and to bring this sport to unwashed masses on this side of the Atlantic.
Go Team McLaren!
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