Italian Know How v US no how

[C M Smith <cmsmith@domain.elided>]

By now everyone who is interested will know that the Italians blew the 
Americans out of the water on the Hauraki Gulf in New Zealand. AmericaOne 
was VERY lucky to win any races, no matter what the 5-4 margin appears to 
indicate. The Italians were just faster and smarter. The US team got lucky, 
beating the Italians soundly only once when, unaccountably, the Italian 
afterguard went brain dead on the first beat. Prada will challenge New 
Zealand for the America's Cup.

   America is falling behind... even though an American coached the 
Italians, an American helped design their boat, etc etc , the world is 
shrinking and the US is showing signs of withdrawing from the competition. 
BTW, the Americans had several "foreigners" on their teams as well, 
including a couple of New Zealanders, one a helmsman and another a 
strategist.... hmmmm.

Ferrari is on top of the Formula One circus with its constructor's title, 
narrowly missing the driver's title with Schumy hitting the wall at 
Silverstone. By comparison, CART is for kids. Formula One drivers clean up 
when they come to CART, the reverse doesn't happen except for one notable 
exception: Jacques Villeneuve proved he can really drive, if he gets a car 
that is strong enough.

Sorry to those Americans I may have offended but the US is travelling down 
a very risky path, especially auto wise. The clean air and crash regs have 
long since ceased to represent real concern for the consumer and now 
represent substantial trade barriers, protecting the domestic auto 
industry. The SUV fiasco just underlines this obvious fact. A significant 
proportion of US built passenger vehicles (i.e. vehicles in fact used as 
passenger vehicles, often with only one passenger, whatever official 
category they fit in ) do not comply and do not have to comply with the US 
regulations applying to passenger CARS. No one else in the world makes 
these ridiculous vehicles in significant numbers. Does anyone care to pick 
up this particular gauntlet? If  a Chevy Tahoe pollutes more and protects 
its passengers less than an ALFA 166 just how does the US government 
justify excluding the latter? It is excluded because although it has 
adequate crash protection and is clean running, no ordinary person can 
import one.

And don't try the tack that the SUV protects better than a passenger car, 
they don't, unless of course you happen to collide with a passenger car 
which then is sacrificed to the non crushable SUV which does protect the 
occupants of the SUV at the expense of the  law abiding occupants of the 
car.Try rolling an SUV or hitting a tree or a bridge and check out the 
survivability...


Michael Smith
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
91 Alfa 164L, White, original owner

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