Guilty BJ? I'm sorry. Didn't mean to. Garry really liked Senna but only for his driving skills. Senna's attitude sucked Big time! If you can separate the two, it's easier. I personally find most of the F1 drivers to be "above it all" and look upon us, the corner workers, as the lowlife. That's ok. I'll still run out there and save their lives if I need to. That's my job!
I currently work with one of Senna's former team managers who's a total jerk. We've gone our rounds for sure. He's inches from being slapped for some of his comments.
I love F1 cars, and Indy. The US folks that don't know much about racecars don't realize there are significant differences between F1 and the Indy Cars. After all, to the unexperienced eye they look so much alike. The aerodynamics and the engines alone are significantly different.
I can tell you that the Indy cars, although they run on the Oval tracks quite a bit, they also do road courses as well, i.e. Long Beach, Vancouver, and Laguna Seca (My home track), etc. Each year I get the enjoyment of standing right in front of the grandstands at Laguna Seca and I get to feel the rumble in my feet and the piercing winding of the engines as they fly up the Start/Fi nish Straight. It's INCREDIBLE.
I met Mansell at Laguna Seca. Didn't care for that man at all.
We did have an American F1 driver at one time... Anyone remember Mario Andretti? And Michael had a go at F1 also but since the European teams are so "anti-American" they gave him inadequate equipment to work with. He finally came back to Indy/CART.
So, I'm sorry BJ. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I didn't particularly like the man either, but I did appreciate his skill.
I think it's a celebrity thing though. You get in the limelight and it all goes to your head. But with the limelight comes a huge amount of freedom that you have to give up. You can't go anywhere without hoards of fans following you. I'll take my regular life over that anyday.
