The announcement came this past Spring. My dream. 10-20 years in the making. Something I've been wanting so long that now I may be too old to get much enjoyment out of it.
This year's F1 video game by Codemasters introduced a new game mode: a multi-player career mode. I know that might not sound like a big deal to many people out there, but it really is. Contract negotiations; driver movement; competing R&D. Two human players. Working their way (hopefully) up the grid. Maybe teammates at times. Maybe not. Two. Humans.
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The whole thing reminds me of the coffee table book I acquired at a Hasting's many years ago, Realization of a Dream: The Creation of British American Racing. Unsurprisingly loaded with pictures that varied in quality and subject from good to charming to seamy, the pictures were also a hint that the team and those they employed were not nearly as ready for the elitist environment of F1 as they thought they were. The book travels through the few years leading up to BAR's debut, talking a lot about Pollock, his successful efforts to snag Villeneuve, the hiring of Adrian Reynard, development and testing of the car, the ill-fated attempt to get two differently-liveried cars onto the grid and the bizarre compromise the team settled on, and their debut at the 1999 Australian Grand Prix, where Villeneuve qualified 11th, briefly ran as high as 7th and ultimately lost his rear wing.
The parallels are innumerable: a lofty idea beautifully visualized in the mind, the number of half-steps taken toward the goal, the challenges involved, and the ultimately half-baked result that we are left with. If you grab your binoculars and squint into the future, you can even predict the next decade: the dream becoming more and more realized following a series of buyouts, to the point that the end result is no longer recognizable. Not that you're complaining about the improvements.
Hang on. Let me start over.
