Checkpoint 10

• Checkpoint 10: or how I got out of the fictional F1 media

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  It was four-thirty on Sunday morning, somewhere on the outer edge of the Formula 1 universe. In the little suburb, twenty miles from the nearest city, the streets lie deserted beneath the lampposts. Only occasionally, there would be a vague roar of a high-flying jet or [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 7:30am EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 9: The Great Automobile Race

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  The following story first appeared on this blog in September 2006. It is republished here with a few modifications.
  
  
  The year was 2014. It was a quiet year for open-wheel racing. The IndyCar Series had folded at the end of 2013 after an unprecedented [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:00pm EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 8: Books

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  I'm an avid collector of auto racing books. Over the last decade, I have amassed a collection of two shelves full of Autocourse annuals, Indianapolis 500 yearbooks, and many other books on Formula 1, Indy cars, and sports cars. Most of my books came from used and specialty booksellers all' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 11:00pm EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 7: Innovation

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  A car with three wheels
  
  A car with three hundred small wheels
  
  A car with no wheels
  
  A car powered by batteries
  
  A car powered by the sun
  [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:00pm EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 6: Simulations

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  In 1995, I got Papyrus IndyCar Racing for my birthday. It barely ran on my 486 and I had no sound card, but it ran okay if I turned off all the graphics options. I learned all the default circuits (including Long Beach, Milwaukee, Portland, Michigan) using the keyboard! I [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 3:00am EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 5: The Speed

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  When I was a teenager, I went several times to SpeedZone, a go-kart/amusement park in Los Angeles. I became somewhat addicted to the "Slick Trax" where you had very little grip and could drift through corners. My friend and I would compete for best times, and inevitably I would be [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 9:00am EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 4: The Art

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  [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 3:00am EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 3: The Event

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  I grew up in the car crazy Southern California during the 1990s. The CART series came to town every year at Long Beach, and for several years they raced at Fontana, too. I was fortunate enough to attend the races there before the decline of the series.
  
  In 1998, [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 12:00pm EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 2: Racing Heroes

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  Indianapolis 500: The Simulation came with a manual that had pictures of Indy 500 winners, arranged in chronological order, and I remember noticing how the cars would look faster and faster throughout the decades (this made perfect sense, as it kept with the progress of technology). I also remember learning [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 6:00pm EST
  by Steven

• Checkpoint 1: Green Flag

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  This is my first memory of auto racing... or, maybe not precisely the event depicted in the video, but something close to it.
  
  From an early age, I always associated Marlboro with racing, even before cigarettes. And I have this vague memory of seeing a Marlboro-liveried, open-wheel formula [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 10:56pm EST
  by Steven