Ron Howard To Visit Austin For Evening Event

Daniel Bruhl as F1 driver Niki Lauda, speaking with Ron Howard on the set of "Rush." Image courtesy of www.RushMovie.com

I was trying to come up with some sort of too clever by half analogy to compare the post-production of a film with any aspect of racing. The off-season, as teams analyze the gigflooziebytes of data collected over the just-ended season in order to decipher the alchemical formula of God's own chariot for the too rapidly approaching new season? But not really, since all we've seen of the film are a few random photos taken by a casual fan, vertical orientation, on a five-year old Blackberry with a thumbprint on the lens. No, this just isn't possible. There's absolutely no correlation between making a movie and racing a car.

Except when the movie is Ron Howard's Rush, which we've talked about previously, and rather breathlessly at that. It's due to hit theaters in almost exactly one year (and if I might add a personal note, I hope the Alamo Drafthouse pulls out all the stops for some sort of period specific themed bash, as they tend to do so well, hint hint). Lauda versus Hunt. McLarens and Ferraris and six-wheeled Tyrrells and John Player liveried Loti. God I can't wait. Seriously. Let's just drop any journalistic pretense and admit it - I'm going to have friggin' goosbumps all day leading up to the moments the lights go down. I'm as excited about this movie as I was for Star Wars Episode I. Before I actually saw it, obviously.

We're big fans of Ron Howard. By we, I mean the human race. We think his films are almost always walking the fine line that Spielberg so masterfully penciled in, somewhere between fluff and art. I mean that in the best possible way. I mean, his movies do what movies ought to do. They entertain, then they stick with you, and days later you're pondering one short scene or a bit of dialogue, and realizing how clever it truly was. And then you want to see it again.

So for a mere $55, on Thursday, November 1 you will have the opportunity to hear the man himself, and see some exclusive footage from Rush, and maybe even meet him, if you're charming and persuasive enough. It's called The Starting Grid, and it's a special kickoff luncheon at the Downtown Hilton for the 2012 United States Grand Prix here in Austin. For ticket information, visit the official page of the event here. Individual, VIP and group sales are all available. Other speakers include Circuit of the Americas founding partners Red McCombs and Bobby Epstein, as well as Texas Governor Rick Perry and Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. Proceeds will benefit the Seton Breast Cancer Center and Dell Children's Blood & Cancer Center. So even of you don't get to tell Ron how you think Cinderella Man was an under appreciated work that captures the zeitgeist of the early-oughts, or what have you, you still get to bask in some serious Formula 1 sunshine for a couple of hours and help out a pair of worthy causes.

Oh, before I forget...be sure to follow Ron on Twitter - @RealRonHoward. Rush is scheduled to premiere on September 20, 2013. Just in time for Oscar season. Fingers crossed. 

Ron Howard Puts F1 Rivalry on Screen

(All images by Ron Howard, via @realRonHoward)

The Nurburgring Nordschleife. A 14.189 mile purpose-built racing circuit just south of Cologne, in West-Central Germany. The clockwise loop, with scenic vistas of the Eifel Mountains and the Nurburg castle, would be a perfectly lovely route for a Sunday drive with your family. The dog. A picnic. Deep sigh.

A picnic in a place where between 1928 and 2010, the sum of 68 racing drivers has been killed conquering its corners.

Picture... Exiting the pits, only a lap into the race (bear in mind, one lap of the North 'Ring is equal to roughly four or five laps of a modern circuit), Austrian world champion driver Niki Lauda worked to get heat into his Ferrari's new slicks, after swapping from grooved wet tires. Even though he led the championship at this point, he was running a disappointing 10th place after a slow, wheel spinning start on the wet track, trailing the race's pole sitter,  Brit James Hunt.

Upshift, upshift, upshift, full throttle. Brake hard, clutch, blip, downshift. Snap snap snap. In 1976, Formula 1 cars weren't the nanometer perfect technologically terrifying examples of humanity's mastery of physics that they are today. They were hungry, wild and unusually angry animals, barely contained within four wheels. Mechanical pet wolverines.

It's more a sweeping kink than an actual corner. In Gran Turismo 5 you can take it flat out. Supposedly, real racing drivers do, too. The difference between a video game, however realistic, and real life, is that you can't get hurt playing with pixels. But the difference between a normal person playing a video game and a racing driver taking a circuit flat out is that the possibility of pain and death don't factor into the racing driver's conscious mind. They just push. Faster than you can go in real life, and probably faster than you can go in your high-def virtual reality.

And then it happens, and there's nothing you can possibly do to prevent it. Heading into the Bergwerk complex, Niki Lauda's Ferrari snapped around, slammed into the Armco crash barrier, and ricocheted back onto the circuit directly into to the path of hard charging Brett Lunger. Both cars exploded into a firestorm.

Niki Lauda was trapped in the flame engulfed 800 degree cockpit for almost a minute.

Other cars encountered the scene, and Lunger, freed from the wreckage of his Surtees-Ford, along with drivers Artuto Merzario, Guy Edwards and Harald Ertl scrambled to save Lauda's life. It would be more than two full minutes before befuddled race marshals would be able to send trauma support. Conscious, but grievously injured, Niki Lauda was transported to a hospital in nearby Adenau to stabilize his condition, then to long-term care in Manheim, where he slipped into a coma for five days.

Scorched lungs. Disfigured body. Shattered psyche. Most people do not survive trauma of this magnitude.

Six weeks later, he was in the cockpit of a new Ferrari, battling his friend James Hunt for the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship, who had closed the gap during his convalescence.

And this is where the story gets interesting...

Have you seen Grand Theft Auto? Yes, it's a movie, too. It came out in 1977, the same year as Star Wars and a year after (spoiler alert) Niki Lauda lost the championship to James Hunt, after lodging the most improbable almost-comeback in the history of motorsports. Roger Corman produced it. Ron "Opie" Howard wrote, directed and starred in it. It's in Netflix's "Watch It Now" list, for the moment at least. You should do that. Watch it now, that is. It's a goofy Saturday afternoon movie with some well executed banter and even better car chases. I'd go so far as to rate it equal to Smokey and the Bandit, also a product of 1977.

In synopsis, it's the story of a starstruck couple, desperately in love, who decide to elope to Vegas. They are pursued cross-country, Kowalski-style, by the father of the would-be bride and the throngs of cards, cads and characters promised a $25,000 bounty for catching them and preventing the unapproved nuptials. It's a chase movie. Simple.

So when Howard announced he was making a movie called Rush about Lauda and Hunt, it made sense within this context of his entire filmography. It's also a chase. Albeit a multi-million, continent spanning opus rather than a homebrew film project by a first time director with a budget smaller than what it probably costs to deliver the uniforms for the catering crew of the second unit for Rush.

Rush will be released next year. It stars The Avengers' Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as Hunt and Daniel Bruhl, probably best known as Zoller from Inglorious Basterds, as Lauda. It will feature actual, period perfect racing cars like the Ferrari 312-T2 and the fantastically bizarre Tyrell p34, driving on the actual Nurburgring. Racing geeks will squeal and get the vapors.

Can you, racing geek, take your significant other to this film, or will you be sneaking to a matinee on a suspiciously long Tuesday lunch break? And can you, non-racing geek, stomach an entire feature film on the subject, knowing full well the horrors preciously foisted upon unsuspecting ticket holders? Driven... cold shudders. Here's a test.  After you finish The Descendents or the second season of Downton Abbey, suggest Senna as your next cinematic couch date. Put the baby to bed, open that $6 bottle of wine you've been hoarding, and prepare to test the waters. Yes, we at The Austin Grand Prix harp on the excellence of this documentary day in and day out. But to introduce someone who might be put off Formula 1 due to its occasion insularity to the real human drama of racing, this is your in. Forget Frankenheimer's Grand Prix; it's nothing more than hardcore car porn disguised as cinema. Senna is more 50 Shades of Grey, or whatever it is my wife is hiding on her Kindle these days. It has depth. And porn.

Did it work? OK. Time for Phase Two. Rewatch A Dangerous Mind, Cinderella Man, Apollo 13, The Paper (so under appreciated, that one), Frost/Nixon, Parenthood, and/or Willow, if you swing that way. Ronnie can tell a compelling story, no? Elicit convincing and utterly human performances from his actors, no? And consider his tutelage. As a boy, he absorbed the humanism of no less than Andy Griffith, and later essentially apprenticed under Spielberg and Lucas (who not only once worked for Carroll Shelby, but also produced several short films on the northern California racing scene in the late 1960s, and has threatened, if you will, to produce and/or direct a film about the Ford vs Ferrari duels of Le Mans). Ron Howard makes some of the best modern Hollywood flicks going. Not all of them are great art, but they are all based in human drama and they are all eminently watchable. Except for those ridiculous Tom Hanks as a geekier version of Indiana Jones fighting an albino masochistic priest, or whatever the hell that was.

At this point, you have the leverage to say, convincingly, "You know, I realize you're maybe not that into Formula 1, but Ron Howard has this movie with that hunk/aweseome dude from The Avengers/Cabin In the Woods/Star Trek, etc. and I think you'd really like it. It's Ron Howard!" If you're swaying a male friend, Rush also stars Olivia Wilde. If you live in Austin or a city that is home to an Alamo Drafthouse, promise a drink or six. If your friend/significant other has no interest in racing whatsoever, lie and tell them it has Neil Peart's best drum solo ever. You can do it.

That was bait. These, however, are the insidious hooks... this story that is too fantastical to be real or even based in reality, these characters that exhibit such awe-inspiring resiliency, or monstrous flaws but who remain sympathetic to our sensibilities... that's how you capture a new F1 fan. Is that Ron Howard's intent? Probably not. He's been nabbed frequently enough by the likes of Will Buxton for fans to realize he's in it for the story, even though he is admittedly a racing fan. He's not an apostle of the Temple of Speed. His intent is to tell a great story and put images on a screen that will, with regard to racing, melt your apathy, heighten your fanaticism, or viscerally engage you to the degree that you become fully invested in the story and its characters, and leave the theater with a changed emotional state. It's the goal of all filmmakers. He hopes. We hope. Beyond that however, as long-time fans of the sport, to know that in 2013 there will be an Oscar contending film about one of our greatest heroes, and one of our greatest anti-heroes (as James Hunt was of equal depth, wit, and spirit, plus he once slept with more than 30 British Airways air hostesses prior to the '76 Japanese Grand Prix, during an epic binge that would have forced Hunter S. Thompson to tap out), it makes us excited to be the Apostles of the Temple of Speed. It's validation beyond the often insular realm we inhabit on Sunday mornings.

Cinema relies on great stories and compelling characters. This particular confluence of story and character is perfect fodder for film. But Formula 1 is rife with great stories and compelling characters. Nuvolari, Clark, Stewart, Prost. There's a depth of color in those characters that I don't think exists in most other walks of life. They blend the devil may care bravado of a rogue with the focused stoicism of a monk. And the battles. The crashes. The passes. The season after season of slugging to finally emerge victorious. It's amazing and perplexing to me that there aren't really any great films about racing. They're either too Hollywood, a la Days of Thunder, to truly capture the essence of the sport, or too up their own arse, as the aforementioned Grand Prix (although it is lovely to look at, and there's James Garner being typically, laconically badass and Lucille Bluth all meee-yow foxy). I'm hopeful that Rush hits the sweet spot between artistry and spectacle, fact and fiction, and moments of honest, raw emotion and fingernail-bending racing scenes. This could be the film that breaks F1 into the modern mainstream by drawing from its almost unbelievable past.

Do us proud, Ron. Better yet, do Niki and James proud. They deserve it.

The Art of Driving

Today, on the anniversary of Ayrton Senna's death in 1994, I'd like to propose a bit of a debate.

Can an athlete's performance be considered art?

Art is a word that has the capacity to ignite ferocious debate. Most reasonable folks can agree that the works of Mozart and Shakespeare and DaVinci and Miles Davis are on equal footing when it comes to applying the "This is Art" label. But is "Piss Christ" art? Is Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" art? Are Jackson Pollack's splattered canvases art? Are the works of Ruby the elephant art?

What is the definition of art?

I'm not an art historian, an art scholar or and art expert of any kind whatsoever. I do appreciate art and consider its creation to be one of the defining characteristics of humanity. I think The Who's "Live at Leeds" is as important an artistic statement as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so take my opinion for what it's worth. But that's where I go for my definition. I tend to think of art as any expression of the human condition. Art, like beauty, is all in the eye of the beholder.

So the question is, could Ayrton Senna's performances in a Formula 1 car be called a work of art? Do those drives say as much about the human condition as Charles Mingus' "Epitaph" or Michelangelo's "Universal Judgement"? Can an athletic performance be considered art?

While you're considering it, find "Senna" on Netflix or wherever you get your movies these days, and watch it.

Formula 1: Man Versus Machine

If there's a consistently insisted, single line of criticism of Formula 1 leveled by fans of other racing series or sports, it's that F1 is all about the technology and the strategy, but the driver is essentially an afterthought; it lacks the human component that drives so much of the drama in NASCAR… It's racing for nerds. That assumption illustrates probably the largest single hurdle the sport faces in coming back to America.

In 2004, Michael Schumacher won the last of his record seven world championship titles in F1. Schumacher holds more F1 records than any other driver, from wins (91), to wins at a single circuit (five at Monza), to pole positions starts (68). His lifetime win percentage is a staggering 31 percent. Yet, at the height of his reign, the criticism of him, his Ferrari team, its boss Ross Brawn, and the FIA were at fever pitch. The "Red Parade" was ruining the sport, according to fans and critics. Imagine Sebastian Vettel's ludicrously dominant 2011 season lasting for five consecutive years.

Schumacher already had something of a bad reputation going into his five season championship streak, thanks to a race ending but championship deciding crash with Damon Hill in 1994, and a similar incident in 1997 with Jacques Villeneuve that resulted in him being the only driver in the history of F1 to be disqualified from an entire season due to dangerous driving. Many fans and members of the press, including the legendary Gordon Murray, still have not forgiven him for actions that in other racing series would likely qualify him as the most entertaining driver, like, for example, Dale "The Intimidator" Earnhardt. For hardcore fans, Michael's reign was stultifying, but F1 has never experienced such a surge in global interest as the years when he and his Ferrari were unbeatable. Even in America, by the way, with both Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan publicly and repeatedly expressing their admiration for him.

Regardless of the frenzy, Michael won, frequently and repeatedly, by simply outdriving everyone else, including his Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello. The point is, that just as in any other racing series, the driver matters. In fact, the driver is key. Coming to that conclusion could be as simple as looking at the final standings for any given season. In 2011 for example, Sebastian Vettel won the championship by a colossal margin, while teammate Mark Webber, ostensibly driving identical Red Bull RB7 chassis, finished in a distant third, with McLaren's Jenson Button, who was the 2009 world champion, in second. Button's teammate, Lewis Hamilton, who was the 2008 world champ, finished fifth, behind Fernando Alonso of Ferrari. Alonso's teammate, Felipe Massa, possibly suffering from Steve Blass Disease after almost being killed by an errant suspension component during qualifying for the 2009 Turkish Hungarian Grand Prix, came in sixth, but 109 points behind Hamilton. If, as some contend, the driver doesn't matter, or at least doesn't matter as much as the car, the team and the race strategy, then why the disparity?

Formula 1 drivers are physically fairly uniform creatures. They are lean, they are fit, they are as highly tuned as the machines they pilot, and to a degree they're fairly interchangeable. But so are most athletes. Mid-season trades don't throw a baseball team into chaos. Usually. The players adapt to the new teammates, the new roles, and they continue to do what they've trained to do. Most professional athletes are also genetically dispossessed of a certain sense of self-preservation. Think about Pete Rose leveling Ray Fosse at the plate in the 1970 All-Star game. No rational person would even think about attempting that. Professional athletes are programmed to compete and to win regardless of risk.

You do have to accept the fact there are F1 teams that aren't as well funded as others, and therefore don't have cars that are as advanced, or mechanics that are as experienced, or drivers that are as mentally and physiologically perfected. Also accept that the heavy hitters like Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull, will absorb as much talent (not necessarily drivers, but designers and engineers) as is available simply due to their ability to pay for it, leaving the backmarker teams to fight over "scraps". It's the same as with the New York Yankees, simultaneously the most successful and most hated team in all of professional sports (at least in the States). Most true fans despise those unsavory aspects of the business of sports, and the governing bodies do what they can to level the playing field, but what can you do? You accept it and root for the underdog, in most cases.

So the assumption now has something of a premise… Do the underlying principles of business that make a sport like F1 possible denigrate the role of driver?

That brings us back to Schumacher during the Ferrari years, aka the Yankees of F1. But what if he'd been stuck in a wheezy Pacific-Ilmor, that in '94, out of 16 races, only managed to qualify for seven between both cars, and finish none of them? He'd have lost. A lot. But would he have given up and tried his hand at touring cars, or would he have shown enough raw talent that he'd have still ended up with a winning career? The question is, can a great driver in a mediocre car can transcend the machine's limitations, and maybe even win with it? If you can honestly answer no, then you’re right, the driver doesn’t matter.

Except it happens all the time. And if I'm honest, that's why I am a fan. If you still hold the belief that the driver doesn't matter in F1, then you discount the accomplishments of Ayrton Senna in an otherwise hopeless Toleman in the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, or just a few weeks ago, Fernando Alonso piloting a generally disappointing Ferrari chassis to victory at Sepang. All of the amazing come from behind victories, the perfect drives, when the driver seems to be possessed by God. Or a god.

I personally think the misconception that drivers are perfectly interchangeable, and that winning just comes down to the car, at least with regard to American racing fans, is three-fold. First and foremost, lack of familiarity with the sport means assumptions about the drivers’ role come down to preconceived bias. It's just like anything else, really. If you're predisposed to like riff intensive, Zeppelin-esque rock, but cringe at high pitched, whiny lead vocals, you're going to have a hard time listening to Rush even if it's more or less your kind of music. But you can still learn to like Rush if you're a drummer, a bassist, or a Canadian. There's almost always an in. So it goes with F1 for fans of other racing series, or of sports in general. It's competitive. It has history. It's loud. It's fast. Most sports fans have an in.

Which brings us to issue number two: drivers that we as Americans can relate to. Right now, there really are none. That might soon change. Alexander Rossi, a 20-year old Californian with a solid record in several European race series, was named a test driver for Caterham this season. We'll be following Rossi as the season progresses. Time will tell if he's the next Phil Hill. The funny thing is, when you're abroad, F1 drivers are fairly ubiquitous in the public eye. Maybe not quite as famous as football stars, but more or less relative to the fame of NASCAR drivers on these shores. Fernando Alonso's face is plastered on everything from ice cream to buses in Spain, and Jenson Button sells you Head & Shoulders in France.

Which is really a segue to the third point. Drivers are celebrities in most parts of the world. They're endorsing products, speaking about "habits of a winner" to youth conventions, appearing in cameos on television, or being interviewed on a morning chat show. You recognize them, you know something about them, and to some degree you're invested in their success based on their personalities or their personal lives. That's the basis for celebrity anywhere you go in the world.

Unfortunately for American audiences, we don't have passive access to the drivers. If you want to know about Mark Webber, you have to actively seek out that information. At that point, it's something of a chicken or the egg scenario, where you need to be a fan of the racing to discover which drivers you most connect with, but you probably won't become a fan unless you're able to somehow connect with the people competing.

So here's a bold hypothesis, even if it's not that original - if Formula 1 racing is going to be successful in America, then Formula 1 needs to find ways to create access to the drivers. The driver is once again the key. Speed Network's Seat Swap was and is always a stellar way to demonstrate the differences between two very different forms of racing and the machines, but also the similarities, particularly with regard to the drivers. Tony Stewart and Lewis Hamilton trading rides, trading barbs, and hanging out? Why can't we do this every week? And I don’t for a second believe that F1’s European roots hobble it for American audiences. If that’s the case, then how do you explain Top Gear?

Americans need somebody to root for. This is undoubtedly a reason Caterham picked Rossi as a test driver (which is also a way of saying reserve driver who can be subbed in or even take over for a faltering Heikki Kovalainen or Vitaly Petrov), and why we might begin to see other teams signing young American drivers. To be fair, it's going to be a tough sell for a young, talented driver with a professional manager who wants to actually make money to sidestep NASCAR and its many feeder series in favor of politically and financially volatile Formula 1. It's going to require a driver with mammoth talent, patience, and the devil may care sense of competitive adventure of drivers like Dan Gurney to succeed in what was and will likely remain a Europe-centric sport. But where one leads, hopefully others will follow.

Racing has been a part of human society ever since man first jumped onto the back of a shaggy goat and goaded Grog to catch him. Grog slow like sloth. Formula 1 likes to sell itself as the pinnacle of motor racing, but in reality, it's racing like any other. If you can get over your bias regarding its innate European-ness or its lack of "rubbing", or even just be willing to put it aside in favor of everything you love about racing or competition in general, then just like Rush's Moving Pictures, you can learn to say F1 rocks.

And in case I lost you along the way, yes, the driver matters. Not just to victory, but the overall success of the sport.