My knowledge of auto racing is very limited. Occasionally, I watch a NASCAR race on television. I enjoyed Tom Cruise in that movie, 'Days of Thunder'. My kids watched the animated flick, 'Cars' with me earlier this week.
The closest that I've come to Formula One racing is Sylvester Stallone's move, 'Driven'. I seem to recall that these cars used to race in Detroit for a number of years when I
lived there. What I didn't know was that there had never been a Black Formula One racer in history. Not until this year.Not until Lewis Hamilton.
Rookie McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton made history on June 10, 2007 when he won the Canadian Grand Prix for the first victory of his Formula One career.
Britain's Hamilton, also the sport's first black driver, started from pole position and held on to become the first rookie to win an F1 race since 2001. Hamilton is no one-race wonder. It turns out that he has finished in the top three of all six races this season -- something no other racer has done. He took the lead in drivers' standings over teammate Fernando Alonso, the two-time defending world champion.
"When I first started watching Formula One, I was six or seven years old," Hamilton said earlier in the week. "I looked at that and I thought that's something special and something I might be able to do."
From a modest family in England, with a white mother and a black father, Lewis began racing go-karts at age 8 with a go-kart purchased by his father. He went on to win the McLaren Mercedes Champions of the Future series and at age 10 he met Ron Dennis, the owner and director of the McLaren Formula 1 team and told him he wanted to race in F1. At 13 years old McLaren signed Lewis to its young drivers program and supported his career through karting and car racing, signing him as a full-time F1 driver for the 2007 season.
While some may see him as the racing equivalent of Tiger Woods, as a Black man about to break out in a sport long dominated by whites, his parents actually named him after Carl Lewis, the Olympic gold medalist in sprinting and long jump.
"It sounds pretty cool. People have been saying it for a long time," Hamilton said. "But I'm not Tiger Woods. I'm Lewis Hamilton." More and more I am beginning to see the signs that the world is preparing itself for Barack Obama as POTUS!
Villagers, what is your take on Lewis Hamilton?
