Back in the autumn of 1985, a seven-year-old child stood by a bridge waiting.
Doug Gilmour Flames Jersey . There were no large crowds around him and, for early October, the south of England was
beautifully warmer than anyone expected. This was a much simpler time. A time
when sports stars had to make their way through some of the public areas to get
to speak to the awaiting media, but they were able to do so without being
mobbed. Each year, the winner of the pole position for the Grand Prix, on the
Saturday, was required to make the journey behind the public grandstands on the
front straight. In a few years, more and more professional autograph hunters
would put a stop to such a simple passage and not much long after the entire
complex was seen as being way below par to host a Grand Prix. But on this day,
October 5, 1985, Brands Hatch circuit was the centre of the Formula One
universe. The next day Alain Prost would become World Champion for the first
time but today was all about that gorgeous black Lotus-Renault that popped and
demanded your attention thanks to the yellow helmet belonging to a star in the
making, 25-year-old driver, Ayrton Senna. Already it was plain to see that the
young Brazilian was remarkable on a fast qualifying lap and an hour or so
earlier he had taken his sixth pole position of the season. The boy waited to
see if he could get a glimpse. And then he appeared, in his civvies, and just
like that he was gone. In between he had taken a second to write his autograph
in the book held tightly by the young fan. The next day the boy and his father
stood on the final turn of Brands Hatch and watched with their very eyes as
Senna, leading the race, collided with the Williams car of Keke Rosberg while
battling for the lead. The crash, which for an added bonus knocked the easily
unlikeable Nelson Piquet out of the race, forced Rosberg into the pits. When he
returned he did so right in front of Senna and the charging Englishman Nigel
Mansell. It was the kind of plot a moviemaker would think up, yet this was
really developing in front of the eyes of stunned seven-year-old. An incensed
Rosberg held Senna up, Mansell saw his moment and overtook the Brazilian. The
crowd erupted immediately, like a football stadium reacting to a late goal.
Mansell would go on to win his first-ever Grand Prix, joined by Senna and
Rosberg on the podium. The boy was hooked. These days it will take you less than
five seconds on Google to find an article preaching to its readers to not make a
sports star your hero. One of the biggest issues surrounding this notion is that
it is being told to you by an adult who has grown to know no one is perfect and
feels the need to protect people from being let down. Children dont have much of
a voice when it comes to adults but they certainly can teach us a thing or two
about the innocent beauty of admiring a sports star for what he/she does in
their chosen field, regardless of what they are like otherwise. That day, back
in 1985, the seven-year-old boy who cried when the race was over, and spent the
five-hour car ride home with his mind full of race cars driven by gladiatorial
figures, didnt have a platform to write about what those drivers meant to him.
Today, he does. I still have that autograph, now proudly placed in a frame
beneath a painting of Sennas first win in Portugal, achieved in that gorgeous
black Lotus. When I glance at it, I am reminded of that weekend in 1985. As we
made the journey north towards home I didnt do it as an Ayrton Senna fan, after
all, an Englishman had captured the hearts of thousands, completing a
rags-to-riches story by winning his first ever Grand Prix. I was a Nigel Mansell
fan. However, the beauty of youth and the sport, meant I could be much more than
just that. This was not like football where you were taught to love one and
despise all others. Grand Prix racers, with the exception of Mansells nemesis in
Piquet, were to be admired and as the years went on, even during epic
Senna-Mansell rivalry seasons, I feasted on the epic greatness from both. Id
witness Mansell winning the British Grand Prix in 1986 and 1987 and in 1991 I
was on the track when he drove by with Senna, hanging on his car as a passenger
after retiring late in the race. By then I was old enough to know Senna was
better than Mansell and that was what made his victories even sweeter; knowing
he had beaten the ultimate standard set by the greatest racing driver I had ever
seen. Id watched from my couch, in the middle of the night, Sennas titanic
tussles with Prost in Japan when the pair clashed for the 1989 and 1990 World
Championships. The drama was incredible and the plots main character, Senna, was
an enormous figure in my life. I never missed a race and the sport back then
gave me memories to last a lifetime. The way my dad talked about Muhammad
Ali-Joe Frazier to me is how I can talk about Senna-Prost to my children. Id
eventually hear the Brazilian anthem played for Senna at a Grand Prix in Belgium
in 1991, the day Michael Schumacher made his first career start, but nothing
came close to what I saw in 1993. This time the weather was far from nice. It
was absolutely awful, in fact. We were no longer in the south either. My familys
love for the sport had taken us to Donington Park, in Derbyshire, in early
April. Remarkably, the crowd was very low, with the nation suffering an F1
hangover from Mansell packing his bags for Indycar. Those lucky enough to get
absolutely drenched that day witnessed true greatness. Senna would win 41 Grand
Prix races but his best happened that day as his McLaren danced in unison with
the rain at the European Grand Prix. It is hard to put into words what he did,
just watch his opening lap on Youtube and see for yourself. The rain master
obliterated the field that day giving the fans and his rivals a lesson in
perfection, every single lap. It was what all sports fans crave. Its one thing
to witness a group of sports stars doing something we could never dream of, but
it is quite something else to see someone take that standard to another level.
To this day when I think of Senna I think of Donington Park for two reasons. I
was there the day he won that race and I was there on May 1, 1994 when we lost
him for good. That day he was in Italy for the San Marino Grand Prix, where ten
years earlier I had been to see a race, the only one in Sennas career he failed
to qualify for. A decade on he had different troubles. Troubles with his new
Williams car and troubles with the sports safety after witnessing brutal,
violent accidents on the Friday and Saturday of that race weekend. Young Rubens
Barrichello survived his on Friday, Roland Ratzenberger wasnt so fortunate on
Saturday afternoon, becoming the first F1 driver to be killed at a Grand Prix in
12 years. Id heard of his death on Saturday night on the new BBC Radio Five Live
station and remember to this day how they teased it with Formula One loses its
first driver since 1982, coming up well tell you who. I sat alone terrified,
waiting for the answer. I was sixteen now but had been fortunate enough to watch
these incredible men drive these amazing machines without ever getting the news
that all motorsport fans fear. They were immortals, to me, true heroes inside
their helmets guiding rocketships on wheels and leaving you with the most
wonderful sound as they blasted by. I was part of the lucky generation. My dad,
who had gotten me into the sport, had watched many of his favourites perish in
years gone by but, for kids like me, we never faced such heartache. Until that
weekend in 1994. That night I did what many teenagers in England did on Sundays
- I listened to the Top 40 charts. Each song that came on provided background
music to the career of Ayrton Senna da Silva that played out on my mind. I was
overwhelmed by many different feelings, sadness being one of the main ones, of
course, but, to this day, I remember the strongest emotion of all was pure
disbelief. I kept wondering in mind, over and over, what it was going to be like
to go to a Grand Prix without him being there. Twenty years on, the answer I got
that night remains the same. The truth was it was never, ever the same. I had
watched true greatness at a time when I was allowed heroes. After that, nothing
could come close.
Dennis Wideman Flames Jersey . The Montreal Canadiens goaltenders dogs Motty ("short for Mozart") and Duke got loose
overnight.
Dougie Hamilton Jersey . LOUIS - Matt Adams hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the St.DUBLIN,
Ohio -- Matt Kuchar is the 10th player to have Tiger Woods as a partner in the
Presidents Cup. Woods and Kuchar are in the fifth of six matches, taking on
Angel Cabrera and Marc Leishman in fourballs. This is the seventh Presidents Cup
for Woods, and the second for Kuchar. International captain Nick Price has put
Jason Day and Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Sask., in the opening match against
Huunter Mahan and Brandt Snedeker.
Al MacInnis Flames Jersey. Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson also have new partners. Mickelson, the only player to have
competed in every Presidents Cup, has Keegan Bradley. Thats his 13th partner in
this event. Els got his 10th partner in Brendon de Jonge, one of seven rookies
on the International team. Its the first time since 1996 the opening session is
fourballs.
Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Cheap NFL Jerseys Authentic Wholesale Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys China NFL Cheap Jerseys Auston Matthews Maple leafs Jersey ' ' '
