Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts

Thursday, November 20, 2008

"Michestone" Tire Combo Helps Clinch F1 Championship


"Paddy O'Moto wants to turn left on Bridgetones and turn right on Michelins. I'm not going to argue with him. Especially in Brazil."

So said Two Micks Racing chief, Michael McMahon, at the post-race press conference when asked how he was able to get the two largest and most competitive racing tire manufacturers to put aside their multi-billion dollar differences and construct cooperative rubber for O'Moto's championship clincher.

Nicknamed "The Bipartisan" by a cynical American press, the multinational tire package featured the best of both companies. The 'Stones were sticky for the lefts; and the Michelins poised on the rights. But the almost sexual chemistry between the tires was not fully realized until the long back straight of Interlagos, where O'Moto's TMR 2008.75 chassis,  topping 340 km/hr in the speed trap, reached a temperature previously thought possible only during a Teddy Pendergrass ballad.

"You know, honestly, with the conditions the way they were late race, I could have won on my lawn mower with the blade down," said the now 9-time World Champion. "The spray was just heinous. I thought they'd put in a lap pool. Still, it was great watching those two CEO's hug like that."

While the stewards will neither officially confirm nor deny the reported mid-race installation  of a swimming pool, local favorite Felipe Massa did finish second in the championship."

"I just want to thank God and my family," said the native Brazilian predictably.

With the 2008 season officially over, multiple world champion O'Moto heads north to defend his Iditarod title, after which he will almost certainly defeat his nephew at a Go-Cart-themed birthday party.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Equatorial Burnout Visible from Space



Fresh off his wins at Laguna Seca and the United Nations, motorsport luminary, Paddy O'Moto, celebrated another victory by circumnavigating the globe in history's first (and likely only) complete equatorial victory burnout. 

Starting and ending in the small, copper-exporting town of Macapรก, Brazil where he had decimated the field in the State Mining Car Finals, O'Moto's smoky celebration covered nearly 25,000 miles. Only a brief detour south to rekindle a relationship with Brazilian supermodel Ana Beatriz Barros, kept him from finishing in under 250 hours.

"I use the mining car events to improve my braking awareness," said P-Moto, as he's referred to by the hipper kids in some inner city neighborhoods. "You can only late-brake so much when there's a half mile of blackness under your wheels."

A 1969 Bultaco "El Bandido" 350, graciously made available by a local farmer, was used to create the earth-circling rubber smear. 

"It runs better now than it did when I lent him the dern thing," the farmer said in Portuguese. 

Logistics were handled with the precision expected of Two Mick's Racing. Playing the role of blocker was Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cary Savas, who either secured the necessary visas or rammed the border crossings. Warning shots from various navies were wholly ignored. Packs of cheetahs were routinely dusted during the Africa leg. And O'Moto himself made turkey sandwiches with his left hand so has not to disturb the machinations of his right. 

Tire smoke delayed air traffic in both hemispheres, but surfers in several coastal regions reported then appreciated low-level tsunamis.

A chorus of unapprised skepticism regarding the feat groundswelled in freshman engineering classes worldwide. However, it was ruthlessly shushed by Two Micks Racing's Technical Director, Bart Stebbins: "We'll call it an unofficial tire test. The wet Belgian Grand Prix this year was nearly disastrous because we came close to not even lapping the field. So since Spa, we've been working with Bridgestone on a proprietary tread pattern. We've named it "Red Tread",  and let's just say it displaces a heckuva lot of water."

Less concerned about the plausibility of the achievement was noted activist, Sierra Love who likened "this catastrophe" to "permanent marker on a recycled hemp skirt" and "bacon in my quinoa." 

China, whose Great Wall previously held the distinction of being "the only man made object visible from space", has threatened to censor next year's Chinese Grand Prix.

Paddy O'Moto moves on to Fuji this weekend where he hopes to take the Japanese Grand Prix  for a record 8th time.