Warning: Uninitialized string offset 0 in /home/doublede/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-rewrite.php on line 1

Warning: Uninitialized string offset 0 in /home/doublede/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-rewrite.php on line 1
{"id":4981,"date":"2012-10-11T15:09:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T15:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/?p=4981"},"modified":"2014-11-17T10:19:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T10:19:45","slug":"once-upon-a-time-in-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/?p=4981","title":{"rendered":"Once Upon a Time in the West"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
American Gothic<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
Much trepidation over WTCC’s first USA visit. \u00a0Would we be subjected to another European export that can’t survive the crossing, a steaming helping of\u00a0tripes a la mode de Caen —<\/em> the chance to watch\u00a0old men grinding the tires off of a gaggle of front-drive shit-box SEAT Leons that Americans have likely never even heard of?<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Un-American<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sunday, a surprisingly large and enthusiastic crowd turned-up at the raceway in Sonoma to see what it was all about — and the racing was quite entertaining. \u00a0I had to scratch my head about the made-for-television format of two 13\u00a0lappers\u00a0with lots of dead-time before, between, and after, but the open grid for pre-race festivities and plenty of tradin’ paint appeared to keep the youthful throng happy enough.<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Trading Paint<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In this age we’ve become accustomed to their short attention spans — sailing’s America’s Cup World Series was on San Francisco Bay earlier in the month, and Cup defender tech-billionaire Larry Ellison exchanged traditional blue blazer yachting’s endless hours of tacking duels for an explosion of fixed-wing catamarans contesting a series of brief\u00a0high-tech dinghy races.<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Future Ford<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The micro-burst races of the WTCC follow a similar tack in attempting to present our old-school sport to an X-Games audience. \u00a0WTCC’s sprint-race format has the advantage of keeping the field from stringing-out, while the reverse grid assures that there is plenty of action during the brief moments during which\u00a0millennial\u00a0attention-spans can accept stimulation. \u00a0It’s all over before the next round of Tweets can come through.<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Witness Protection Programme<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Of course, I can’t imagine that the tires of a front-driver would hold-up to any more than the required 13 tours, so it works out rather well for teams trying to compete in\u00a0cars\u00a0employing\u00a0on this unfortunate layout. \u00a0The speeds, handling, and size of the WTCC cars is quite well-suited to the Sonoma circuit. \u00a0Real racing, real teams, real drivers, well presented and organized.<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

G ‘n T<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

If the shotgun wedding of ALMS and GrandAm can be interpreted as evidence that the manufacturers are heading back to racing what they really sell, this series presents a fine showcase for the sort of car that the newly-pauperized\u00a099-Percent\u00a0are actually buying today. \u00a0Why, even Morse showed-up in a press-fleet Kia Forte rather than his accustomed Panamera Hybrid or Bentley Flying Spur.<\/div>\n
David Soares, October 2012<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Gothic Much trepidation over WTCC’s first USA visit. \u00a0Would we be subjected to another European export that can’t survive the crossing, a steaming helping of\u00a0tripes a la mode de Caen — the chance to watch\u00a0old men grinding the tires off of a gaggle of front-drive shit-box SEAT Leons that Americans have likely never even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,54,3],"tags":[357,372],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4981"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9162,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions\/9162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}