Wheel Play.(Column)(Column)

Byline: Matt Davis

The two best forms of organized racing for spectator thrills are 1) anything that takes place on a quarter-mile track in the good ol' US of A-preferably accompanied by hot dogs that taste like paradise, cheap silk-screened T-shirts and red dirt in your face-and 2) the World Rally Championship and its sister series in the States, the SCCA Pro Rally. But for the lion's share of folks, these are awfully niche-y forms of racing. In the States, NASCAR is the big show. On the rest of planet Earth, it's Formula Ecclestone.

I'm upset. I know that without cigarette advertising plastered everywhere-on the guardrails, on the cars, on the racers' fire suits, on the buxom ladies' buxom parts-most international racing series cannot survive. It's a boring point to make at this point in affairs, but it bears intense study again since it has now resulted in the cancellation of the single best race ever in Formula One, maybe the best race ever-the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

It would be plenty sad to know that the Belgian GP ended simply due to its own problems. Times and tides sort of stuff. But it's far less bittersweet than that. It's such a kick in the gut for me to know that Bernie and his FIA cohorts sacrificed this race not only because the Belgian government has decided to ban all public tobacco ads long prior to the 2006 deadline desired by the World Health Organization, but also because both Bahrain and Shanghai are conveniently willing to give them everything they want just for a piece of the F1 pie. Bahrain and China will make no money off the ...