Sport in Australia: Difference between revisions
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The [[Spiritual Successor]] to the old Australian Touring Car Championship, the series is realistically just NASCAR with road circuits instead of roundabouts, though it has overcome its reputation as a sport for knuckle-draggers and is actually reasonably exciting and fun to watch. Since Australia is a land of two choices, the V8s come in either [[Arch Enemy|red (Holden) or blue (Ford)]], and your allegiance to one or the other is expected to be absolute and uncompromising. Mention that your favourite brand is BMW, for example, and you’ll be thought of as a wanker at best, and a traitor to your country at worst. Wistful recollections about ‘Godzilla’ (the Nissan Skyline R32), however, are acceptable - doubly so, since the announcement that Nissan will once again field entrants in the championship from the 2013 season!
These days the V8s’ blue ribbon events are the Clipsal 500 (held on a shortened version of the old Adelaide Grand Prix circuit), the Sandown 500 (Bathurst's "little brother" since it shares the 161 lap-count) and the Bathurst 1000 (which is basically a religious holiday). In the mad old days, the crowd made Bathurst a dangerous place to be when the race was on, with car burnings, epic boozing and even the odd lost limb considered par for the course. In recent years the culture has changed and now it’s become much more family-friendly, so you can take your kids to watch the great race in the knowledge that the worst damage they’ll suffer is a bit of sunburn and [[Cluster F
Australia also features a much smaller, hardcore group of fanatically dedicated [[Formula One|Formula 1]] fans. These are generally the only kind Formula 1 gets in Australia, as thanks to time zones watching a Grand Prix usually involves freezing to death in front of the telly at 11 o’clock on a winter’s night. North and South American rounds are even worse, usually starting at 3am (whingeing Poms are advised to remember this next time they ask Bernie to shift our Grand Prix to a better timeslot). In [[The Eighties]] the Australian Grand Prix was run in Adelaide, until it was realised that views of Adelaide were putting the drivers to sleep at the wheel. [[The Nineties|Since then]], it's been held in Melbourne, which is perfect because as the coffee and culture capital of Australia, Melbourne suits Formula 1 like a pretentious but still exquisitely cut suit. Adelaideans are still sore about it.
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'''Surf Lifesaving'''
Because of Australia's proximity to the coast, Surf Lifesaving has been a national institution for the past century. These culminate in events that use SLS rules in competitive races. The most popular is the Iron Man competition (Not to be confused with the international Triathlon series). Consisting of a Surf Ski (boat) leg, surf swimming leg, paddle board leg, and running leg. It's main event is the Coolangatta Gold: considered one of the premier Water events in Australia, with Volunteer lifesavers from all around Australia competing. Caused some controversy in 2010/2011 when a young competitor was struck by an airbourne Surf Ski and subsequently drowned. Officials spent the better part of an hour looking for him, [[What the Hell, Hero?|While completely ignoring the advice of some 1000 fully-trained Lifesavers forced to stay on the beach.]]
'''Surfing'''
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