Ferraris a bit rich for your blood? Then move a ways down-market for the Chicago MG Car Club's annual swap meet get-together. Aimed at anybody & everybody who likes racing or old British sports cars (not just MGs) you'll find two whole buildings & a huge parking lot full of cars, parts, treasures, rarities, books, clothing, fan gear, garage crap, go-faster goodies, restoration bits, nonsense, collectibles, memorabilia & outright junk at prices from high-end absurd to haggle-me-down ridiculous. A regular stop for cabin fever-afflicted Chicago-area racers & gearhead types every year. Family friendly & lots of fun. See you there?

Watched some of the 12 Hours of Sebring on Saturday (and wished I was there, of course!) and I must say the turnout was amazing on both sides of the fences and the organizers have done a hell of a job of uniting the two previous series into one. I can remember, not all that many years ago, when an overall or class leader would be a lap or two (or three or four, etc.) over its pursuers and most of  entries would have found their way into the dead car park long before the 12 hours was up. But now we have multiple cars literally in sight of each other and duking it out tooth and nail (in virtually all 4 classes, no less!) right up to the checker. VERY exciting & entertaining! And the job they've done at balancing the performance of all the different car types (particularly in the GTclasses) is nothing short of amazing. Well done!

You can bet your ass I'll be down there again next year.

With the new book, of course!

Then, come Sunday, I watched the very first Grand Prix of the new season (or, more correctly, "watched my DVR recording of the very first Grand Prix of the new season," since I'm far too old and clever to stay up until 1:30am just to see a bunch of overpaid, jockey-sized punks running around Albert Park in megabuck-sponsored F1 cars). But Australia was a damn good race, and especially considering it's a brand-new formula that's laden with green-sympathetic (or at least that's what the sport's spin doctors want us to think) hybrid engineering and all sorts of techno-whizbang mumbo jumbo. Hats off to all the teams (even the stragglers) in rising to the challenge, and it's great to see cars that really have to be DRIVEN for a change. Although the sounds are a little flat (who stepped on a duck?), these things are tightly wound, overpowered, hair-trigger and occasionally diabolical. Which means they're absolutely fabulous to watch (can you say "twitchy", "squirrelly", "opposite-lock" and "slideways motoring")? And US commentators Hobbs, Matchett & Diffey are marvelous, Posey's little pre-race precis are spot-on and I can even put up with the regularly wound-up breathlessness of on-site commentator Will Buxton. This could be a VERY good year for F1 fans.

Only downside (outside of the sound and the expected early-season reliability woes that sidelined several of the favorites) is the questionable beauty of the front-end treatments. Car designers (like my late, great friend and genuine renaissance man Brooks Stevens) have always considered a car's front end as its "face." Which makes me wonder why even one of the prettiest of the new crop (the McLaren MP4-29) looks an awful lot like a proboscis monkey to my eyes (see below).