Competitors are often referred to by team as opposed to individual driver or car and for very good reason.  Though the individual car and driver do play vital roles, there are multiple other factors involved here.  The most obvious example of team work might be the very sophisticated or even “art of a pit-stop.”  In a typical 2 hour 45 minute race, teams will usually undergo two pit stops.  In longer endurance races like the upcoming 12 Hours of Sebring, teams might pit as often as once an hour.  There’s a pit supervisor, 4 mechanics, a fueler, a fire extinguisher operator (just in case!), and potentially other industry reps examining car equipment whom all have very specific functions to perform.  Tires are changed and fuel is added in hopefully less than a minute!  Should a car require modification, repair or additional service, pit stops take relatively longer which means less time on the race track. 

In addition to the standard pit stop, another major element to endurance racing is the driver change.  Teams will typically use two or even three different drivers throughout the course of a race.  Drivers, though often well conditioned athletes displaying extremely impressive levels of concentration and perseverance are nonetheless still susceptible to the rigors of racing….especially in the longer endurance tests.  The body becomes exhausted, dehydrated and eventually un-equilibrated.  Reaction time is weakened and mistakes can be made leading to serious consequences.  So, during pit stops, driver changes sometimes are also necessary.  Drivers assist each other with the fastening of safety belts, helmet communication systems, telemetry, driver transponders and even helmet cams when entering and exiting the cockpit.

Finally, it’s not uncommon for teams to field more than one race car.  In fact, many teams field multiple cars like the Flying Lizard Porsche 911s or Rahal Letterman BMW M3s.  By fielding multiple cars, teams can work together on the track to achieve specific goals and strategies perhaps not as efficiently attainable with only one car.  Drivers are in constant communication with a crew member(s) feeding them live info and coordinating on track efforts.  There’s also the obvious increased chance of winning a race with more than one car racing for your team on the track.  There’s also double the cost!

So not unlike the achievement of success in most areas of sports, and life for that matter, teamwork is of the utmost importance in Le Mans racing!

Jason Schiavone

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?

http://baltimoreracingdevelopment.com/home.html

By my reckoning, we’ve played 342 shows over that time span, with all but two dozen of them somewhere other than Baltimore.  When drive days and off days are added in, there’s a year of our lives that was a mad blur of faces and foreign skylines and rest stop dinners and dingy bars and dingier living room floors, with the subtle hum of busted eardrums hovering over it all.  And it only just became my job in November.

Things changed for us in April of last year, when producer Kevin Augunas (Cold War Kids, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) caught wind of some demos we’d recorded in our practice space, and he invited us out to his studio in L.A. to do some recording and to make the rounds of the industry.  By the end of our three-week stay, Kevin had introduced us to a small army of label and publishing folks, most having never heard us outside of Kevin’s recommendation.  On the strength of those demos, we drew interest from a few companies, and we spent the rest of the Summer eyeing up our options.

In the end, we were swept off our feet – and humiliated at Arkanoid – byVagrant Records (which partnered with Kevin’s Fairfax Recording for the album, the same arrangement that accompanied the release of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ “We All Belong” album, which is riding quite a wave of momentum at the moment).  Vagrant has a great roster with several bands we’d become great friends with – especially the Hold Steady and Murder by Death – and we heard nothing but great things about the folks at the label, the atmosphere, and – most importantly within the climate of the current music business – their financial and promotional acumen, making them one of the more stable independent labels in the country.  We signed a deal in November, and within days were on a plane back out to L.A., where we cut 13 tracks with Kevin in the legendary Sound City Studios, where Nirvana’s Nevermind and Weezer’s Pinkerton were made – among several dozen other platinum records – bringing my life full circle.  (I refer you to our website – www.jroddy.net – for a full recounting of that experience via photo blog.)

These are all things to elaborate on at a later date, when I’m not trying to cram all my worldly possessions into a duffel bag for the next two-and-a-half weeks.  Today we’re heading out for a two-and-a-half week tour down to Austin, Texas’s world-famous South-by-Southwest (SXSW) festival.  This will be our second time at SXSW, though the circumstances could not be more different.  In 2008, we played two non-official SXSW shows to a grand total of approximately 100 people over four days, and slept in tents in our friend’s backyard.  To make matters even sweeter, on the first night we were there, some drunken lout decided the best way to “win” the argument he was having with his girlfriend was to punch out one of the side windows on our poor, besotted van.  Between all this and the discovery of Texas’s bewildering frontage roads – which seemingly go everywhere but over the highway to the other side, where we needed to go – I was ready to sell the whole mess back to Santa Ana’s descendants with a box of Ferrero Rocher for their troubles.  Dispirited, but not defeated.

This year, we’re going down there with a different head of steam.  Once our album was finally mixed and mastered last month, our manager and the label were able to selectively shop it to folks in charge of SXSW happenings, and the response couldn’t have been greater.  We have four amazing shows, including a highly-coveted set at “Mr. and Mrs. T’s and Rachael Ray’s Feedback Festival at Stubb’s BBQ” – yes, that Rachael Ray – which has suddenly become one of the biggest and most highly-regarded best parties down there, no doubt because of Mrs. Ray’s generosity in providing lavish amenities, as well as their annually star-studded line-up. (Performers this year include Bob’s son Jakob Dylan, Andrew W.K., Neko Case, Dr. Dog and She & Him, featuring actress Zooey Deschanel.)  We’re also playing Vagrant’s showcase, held at the 1,200-seat La Zona Rosa and headlined by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.  As if to signify how much really has changed in two years, earlier this week, Spin magazine named us one of the “50 Must Hear Bands of SXSW” and in an interview on L.A.’s KROQ radio station, the editor of the magazine plugged us as the band he’s most looking forward to seeing at the festival.  Suddenly – people know about us.

Our itinerary looks like this:

3/10 – Washington, D.C. @ DC 9

3/11 – Raleigh, NC @ Slim’s Downtown

3/12 – Atlanta, GA @ Star Bar

3/13 – Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge

3/14 – Off

3/15 – Oxford, MS @ Parrish Baker Pub

3/16 – Shreveport, LA @ Hayride Diner

3/17 – Off

3/18 – Little Radio Austin party @ Red-Eyed Fly

3/19 – Vagrant Records Showcase (w/ Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Murder by Death ) @ La Zona Rosa

3/20 – Mr. and Mrs. T’s and Rachel Ray’s Feedback Festival @ Stubb’s; 40 Watt party @ Side Bar

3/21 – Little Rock, AR @ Whitewater Tavern

3/22 – Off

3/23 – Cincinnati, OH (via Newport, Kentucky) @ Southgate House

3/24 – Lexington, KY @ Proud Charlie’s (w/ Afroman “’Cause I Got High”)

3/25 – Chicago, IL @ The Metro (w/ Black Rebel Motorcycle Club)

3/26 – Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar

3/27 – Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant Street

And all of that is happening…now.  I’ve left myself about 15 minutes to throw my entire existence into a duffel bag for the next two weeks, and that can lead to an existentialist quandry no matter how it turns out .  But I’ll be blogging plenty on the way down and back, so keep an eye out for frequent updates.

Over and out…

1. Ravens
2. Orioles
3. Terps Basketball

Those teams, in some order, are consistently the top three listed when the sports lover in Baltimore is polled.

There is good news and excitement on all three of those fronts this week.

On Monday, the Ravens held a press conference to officially introduce newly acquired wide receiver Anquan Boldin (read more about that here).

(Baltimore Sun photo by Gene Sweeney Jr. / March 8, 2010)

Around lunch time on Tuesday, it was announced that Greivis Vasquez was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Player of the Year. Vasquez beat Duke’s John Scheyer, who was second in the voting, by a margin of 39-12.

AP Photo

You Terps fans who were ready to riot all over again should Scheyer win (or even share the award with Greivis): you can put down the couch now.

Just a few minutes later, word came down that Gary Williams had won ACC Coach of the Year. Gary beat down the competition even more convincingly than did his senior guard, besting Coach K 42-8.

AP Photo

Once again, the Terps handed the Dookies a beatin’.

On the orange and black front, the O’s will have their first Sports Illustrated cover in 13 years this week. Second year catcher Matt Wieters graces the March 15, 2010 issue with his “tower of power, next Joe Mauer” presence.

Some of you may worry about the “SI Cover Jinx,” but hey…NOT having any players on the cover for the last 13 years sure hasn’t helped any, so let’s go the other route for a bit.

Next week, Brian Matusz!*

Soak it up, fellow Marylanders. The weather seems to finally be turning to spring, the last bits of that awful snow are melting, and our teams are all representing themselves quite well at the moment.

*Unconfirmed

In some critical circles, indie classical has, rightly or wrongly, been under the microscope for making pop into a ‘longhair’ genre, robbing it of its immediacy in favor of overt sophistication. I’d submit that this vantage point doesn’t give enough credit to indie audiences, who seem to be just fine grappling with orchestral arrangements by Pallett and electronic experiments by Animal Collective alike.

Now listen to Lil Jon’s (well, Dave Chappelle doing Lil Jon) response to this statement:

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Does this seem a little backward to anyone? I’ve definitely heard people bitching about this supposed stylistic marriage’s detrimental effects on new music. But what critical circles are complaining about indie rock becoming too sophisticated and cerebral AS A RESULT of the ‘burgeoning’ indie classical movement? (Play that Lil Jon mp3 again.) I think that goes a little far in terms of what kind of ‘influence’ this ‘burgeoning’ movement is having, especially on the genre it is stealing from. Do indie rock kids even talk about this?

Florence Rena Sabin’s life was full of firsts. In 1896, after saving up money for 3 years as a schoolteacher, Florence Rena Sabin enrolled in Johns Hopkins Medical School. From a mining town in Colorado, Sabin was the first woman to graduate with an M.D. from Johns Hopkins. After graduation, she joined the Department of Anatomy with the support of a fellowship from the Baltimore Association for the Promotion of University Education of Women. She was the first woman faculty member at Johns Hopkins, the first woman to hold the rank of full professor, the first woman president of the American Association of Anatomists, the first woman elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and the first woman to be appointed a full member at the Rockefeller Institute. In her obituary in the British Medical Journal, she was referred to as “the greatest living woman scientist and one of the foremost scientists of all time”.

Her research contributed more than a hundred papers to the literature on the lymphatic system, tuberculosis, blood vessels, cells, and connective tissue. Contrary to popular belief at the time, Sabin demonstrated that the lymphatic system structure was formed from an embryo’s veins rather than from other tissues. Among her other research, she perfected a cell staining technique use to visualize live cells. As a scientist at the Rockefeller Institute, she made major contributions to the understanding of the human immune response to tuberculosis.

Upon accepting the Pictorial Review achievement award in 1929, Sabin said:

I hope my studies may be an encouragement to other women, especially to young women, to devote their lives to the larger interests of the mind. It matters little whether men or women have the more brains; all we women need to do to exert our proper influence is just to use all the brains we have.

Rest assured, Dr. Sabin, you are an encouragement.

See the National Library of Medicine for a more detailed biography of Sabin.

Then I read Deborah Patterson’s post on Open Society Institute-Baltimore’s Audacious Ideas blog, in which she expressed indignation at the fact that Austin, with its “Keep Austin WEIRD” slogan-campaign, topped the list of Best Cities for Artists and Designers with Baltimore not even cracking the top 25. Yeah, seriously, like WTF? In Deborah’s opinion, Baltimore has “never fully claimed its identity.” I’ll agree with that too. I just don’t think WEIRD is the brand we ought to be pushing.

I realize that’s kind of a provocative stance to take in this city, but I think defining Baltimore’s arts scene based primarily on it’s irreverence and quirkiness is a major hindrance to the scene’s growth and respectability. The comment section is open.

Should we ‘Keep Baltimore WEIRDER’ than Austin?
Is being weird ‘pure brilliance’ or just good marketing?
Do we want to go ‘all in’ with the quirkiness?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/money/bal-bz.ml.ambrose07mar07,0,4991370.story

• The best part about this Vijay Iyer watch heist video is what you might imagine this guy was thinking as he carried out the act. Like, he’s standing there text messaging something at first. Maybe his txt was like, “I m gonna jack this watch. TTYL.” And then he’s all, “Hey, yeah, I’m gonna check this piano out. Oh cool, I love playing chords in the really low register.” Then the quick glance around the room before snagging the watch and then gesturing that like “this is totally mine. I left it here before Vijay started playing. He asked me to.” when he realizes he might have been spotted. The little finger point is classic. But then! But then he’s like, oh, I’m gonna go to the bathroom and the door is already open because some girl was coming out when he was grabbing the watch. I love the little fumble as he tries to pocket the watch when he realizes this happened. What do you think he did when he got into the bathroom? Did he txt his friend again and say, “Just stole VIs watch. I m the man”? [Mind The Gap]

• The Peoples’ Diva Renée Fleming will release a new indie album called Dark Hope this summer featuring the music of Arcade Fire, Death Cab For Cutie, and The Mars Volta, among others. This has raised many important questions about the ‘burgeoning’ indie classical movement, including is it all over now? No word on what the album cover is going to look like yet though you are encouraged to speculate openly. [Guardian]

• The New Statesman, in association with the Royal Academy of Music, launched a brand new Young Music Critics competition this week. The competition is open to kids under 30 with an equal passion for music and the written word and hopes to cultivate a new generation of classical music critics who aren’t smug musicologists bent on telling you how much smarter they are than you. Among the members of the star-studded jury are BBC Radio 3 presenter Suzy Klein, tenor Ian Bostridge, and “America’s Own” Alex Ross. [New Statesman]

• Twelve British classical taste-makers were asked by The Times Online what they would do to start selling classical music to the masses. The responses ranged from the practical (make concerts later (10 p.m.) and/or earlier on the weekends) to the strange (keep the lights low so they can focus on the stage. N.B. that one was from Nicola Benedetti). My personal favorite, however, came courtesy of Marcus Davey, chief executive of the Roundhouse: “Authenticity is essential. If you’re doing Mahler’s First Symphony don’t put a rock band in the first 20 minutes just because you think it would engage a younger audience.” Glad to hear somebody else thinks that’s pretty much the dumbest idea ever. [Times Online]

• In the midst of California’s Prop 8 trial, there’s been a call for Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears to become the unofficial mascots of the same-sex marriage movement. Although same-sex couples can’t reproduce together biologically, their chemistry can result in the birth of lots of really beautiful music. There’s definitely not anything wrong with that. [SFist]

Figure 1.

Breaking news late this afternoon has the Ravens trading their 3rd and 4th-round draft picks in this year’s Draft to the Arizona Cardinals for wide receiver Anquan Boldin and a 5th round pick. Adam Schefter of ESPN has reported that the Ravens and Boldin have already agreed on a new 4-year deal for $28 million dollars.

Anquan Boldin. A name that has been tossed around in Baltimore for what seems like forever. Now, finally, it is a reality. Entering this offseason, wide receiver was at the top of the Ravens’ list of priorities, as it seemingly has been since Michael Jackson and Derrick Alexander departed Charm City. They started to address the issue last month with the signing of Donte Stallworth – but they obviously weren’t finished their work just by signing a guy who hasn’t played since 2008, and only caught 17 balls that year. Many of the mock drafts had the Ravens picking a wide receiver in April, whether Brandon Lafell, Arrelious Benn, or Golden Tate. Last week some had the Ravens VERY interested in (ugh) T.O., and rumors this week had them looking into Texans’ free agent WR Kevin Walter. Then there were the omnipresent rumblings about Bronco Brandon Marshall.

Early this afternoon, I saw Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times was reporting that the Patriots were the leaders in the clubhouse in the Boldin sweepstakes, with the Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs out of the running. Wilson’s source proved to be mistaken over the next couple hours though, as many, including Wilson, began tweeting that the Pats had ducked out, and the Ravens were now the favorites to land Boldin.

Personally, I believed that Boldin would wind up wearing another shade of red in 2010, in Kansas City. With a bidding war supposedly going on in the desert, I definitely expected it to take AT LEAST a second round pick to acquire Boldin. If this was the case, I figured that Ozzie would go ahead and give up the chase.

Obviously, I was sorely mistaken. Why Kansas City and New England, if they were indeed interested, would not be willing to give up a 3rd and 4th-round pick, as the Ravens were, is beyond me. Whatever. Their loss. Let’s look at what the Ravens have gained.

Boldin’s Bio:

Photo: Associated Press

Name: Anquan Kenmile Boldin
DOB: 10/3/80 (29 years old)
Height: 6′1″
Weight: 217 lb
College: Florida State Seminoles
Drafted: 2003 Round 2 (#54 overall) by the Arizona Cardinals

Career stats, from NFL.com:

One concern with Boldin is regarding his health. As you can see above, he has played in all 16 games just twice in his seven year career. It is not a matter of toughness, that’s for sure. In 2008, Boldin’s face EXPLODED in a game against the New York Jets. He needed surgery to repair the bones in his face, but missed only TWO games. No, Boldin’s problem is that he is, perhaps, TOO tough, if anything. He is a guy that seeks out contact, and prefers to be the one delivering the blow if he finds a defender in his way. As a result, he takes a lot of hits, and gets tweaked fairly often as a result.

The other concern some Ravens fans will voice is that Boldin is not the big deep threat that the Ravens really need. While this is true – Boldin is more of a yards-after-the-catch guy (one of the best in the NFL, mind you) – if Stallworth can regain the form that he showed several years ago, he and Boldin could be a very well-matched complimentary pair, with Stallworth providing the vertical threat and Boldin catching balls underneath and racking up the YAC. Throw in the fact that this now frees the Ravens up even more with their 1st-round pick this April – perhaps to draft a pass-catching tight end such as Oklahoma’s Jermaine Grisham – and Joe Flacco could suddenly be a very happy man.

And let’s not forget Derrick Mason. Mason, as long as he doesn’t let his “I’m not the number 1 anymore? Forget that!” diva side get the better of him, and resigns in Baltimore, the Ravens’ overall WR corps will be quite formidable.

Those of you that still aren’t convinced that the Boldin move makes the Ravens an instantly better team – I ask you to simply think back to 2007, when Arizona came to M&T Bank Stadium. The Ravens took a 20-3 halftime lead, and appeared to be on their way to an easy victory. The Cardinals, though, stormed back and nearly won the game – it took a 46-yard field goal from Matt Stover as time expired to preserve the 26-23 win. The main culprit in the Cardinals’ furious comeback was Mr. Boldin, who had 14 catches for 181 yards and 2 touchdowns. Number 81 still has the ability to take over a game, in 2010, like he did in 2007.

I get the feeling that someone, somewhere, is VERY happy about this move…..

Also, Boldin once did this….

which I wouldn’t be sad at all to see him repeat in Pittsburgh one day.