This story has been appearing in the local media, but today it aired on one of the top and most prescient Formula One websites, www.grandprix.com:


A race for Valencia?
The word in the paddock in Silverstone was that the city of Valencia will be hosting a Formula 1 race in 2008. The event would be in addition to the Spanish Grand Prix and would aim to take advantage of the huge interest in F1 in Spain because of the success of Fernando Alonso. The interesting point is that the stories we hear are suggesting that the race will be on the streets rather than at the Circuit Ricardo Torma where F1 teams currently go testing. The plan is apparently to run a track around the harbour area. This is currently being used as the home of the America's Cup teams but after the cup ends in July next year the teams will move elsewhere leaving the area available for other events. The city within a city cost the city more than $500m and has its own road system complete with a sponsors' village and a 300-seat media centre. There are three new marinas and a large entertainment centre and viewing platform. There are also the various different buildings that have been constructed by the America's Cup teams which could be used for VIP entertainment and so on. There are suggestions that a deal has already been agreed with the local authorities happy to pay race fees of $25m a year.


We will check in with Prof Dr Thiessen, et al., at BMW Sauber, as well as our friend Joe Saward at grandprix.com, to see if any of them can shed come light on this interesting speculation about a GP in VLC. If true, DBS (one of our keen fans in the USA) among other petrol-heads will be very pleased, indeed.


Are BMW Sauber and the other F1 teams on their way, sooner than later,
to VLC -- in a road race a la the Monaco GP no less?

Next week we will be blogging from New York City where BMWOR launches a unique exhibit in midtown Manhattan at Rockefeller Center. If you will be in the New York City area during the next couple weeks, be sure to stop by. Details on our team website, and stay tuned here for some of the fun.


"...it's up to you, New York, New York!"

Congrats to Peter Gilmour's PST, including our own Rod Dawson (NZL, weather/sailing team), for their win at Match Race Germany last weekend. With the win, Gilmour today clinched his third consecutive World Match Racing Tour Championship and fourth ISAF Match Racing World Championship.

Rod has been racing with Gilly's PST for a number of years. "I am the mainsheet trimmer, and from that position I can help Gilly with some of the tactical decisions."

No doubt Rod's keen weather eye is also a big help to PST in consistently getting the first shift off the starting line and picking the correct side of the first weather leg -- same as he does when working alongside BMWOR team meteorologist Chris Bedford on our tender.


Yasuhiro Yaji (JPN, left) and Rod are long-time members of Peter Gilmour’s
PST crew.


Grip and grin at the prizegiving. It was also Gilmour's third consecutive
win of Match Racing Germany.


In winning the world championship Gilmour, the 46-year-old from Perth,
Western Australia, won a BMW X3 3.0i, from Tour partner BMW AG. (World Tour/Richard Walch photos.)

There are a number of posts yesterday and today on the Challenger Commission Blog that may be of interest to team members.


Link me all over.

As someone who grew up in the Detroit area, it was a bit of a surprise to see the Detroit News extolling the virtues of BMW in yesterday's column by Anita and Paul Lienert. They conclude, "For the money, I still think the 750Li is the world's finest luxury/performance sedan."


Shameless promotion of our partners is easy when they get such great
ink -- especially in Detroit.

Today we heard from our old friend Bob Fisher (GBR), dean of the "proper" yachting journalists (not to be confused with bloggers!) in response to our recent post, Friendly Competition. "Fish" is writing what no doubt will be a lengthy and very thorough history of the Cup. He recently turned up an interesting tidbit while doing research in the NYYC library, and writes:

The original Deed of Gift of the America's Cup was handwritten by George Schuyler to the NYYC on May 15th 1852. The date was subsequently altered (in the same hand) to July 8th 1857, the date when it was accepted by the club. The original is safely kept under temperature and humitity controlled conditions in the 'Rare Books and Archives Room' in the Library of the New York Yacht Club at 37 West 44th Street, Manhattan.

Our thanks to Fish for the insight.


George L. Schuyler (in
case you thought it was
an earlier photo of Bob).
Photo: AC Hall of Fame.

The remarkable world-record-holding hydrogen car, the BMW H2R, is on display in our public interactive area (the "BMW ORACLE Racing Experience") here at our team base in VLC. It gets a lot of interest and attention from passersby, and helps draw in the crowds.

When Prof. Dr. Raymond Freymann was here during Act 10, during one of our pre-race morning shows (for our VIP guests) I asked him about the future of hydrogen-powered cars. He said it was not a question of whether but when, the main issue now being to build up the fuel-delivery infrastructure -- hydrogen filling stations. Grinning, he said, in effect, "stay tuned."

So it was interesting to see an article pop up on one of our search engines this morning with this long but illuminating title, "BMW takes the next step to a hydrogen-powered automotive world by teaming with Total." The gist of the story:

BMW may be on the verge of launching a new range of petrol-electric models powered by new hybrid technology developed jointly with General Motors and DaimlerChrysler, but that hasn’t stopped the German car giant announcing a joint-venture fuel distribution network with petroleum producer Total to promote the next big step in alternative vehicle power: hydrogen.

BMW last week announced it has signed an agreement with Total to "co-operate closely in future in promoting hydrogen as a source of energy in road traffic".

As with the America's Cup, the name of the game is technology and innovation -- and making it work for the end user.

OK, given all the Kiwis, Aussies and Americans on our team, probably more of us follow rugby or American "gridiron" football than soccer-football.

But we also have a large number of Europeans and Latin Americans on our team, especially Germans. So with the "Football World Cup" due to start in Deutschland later this week, it seems only fair to give this some electronic ink here on the BOB.

For the record the 32 teams that have qualified:


Seven of the ten countries with AC32 teams are represented, so over the next few weeks we would expect some friendly World Cup rivalries developing among our teams here in VLC. FIFA's official website is particularly good.

Given the June-July schedule of the World Cup matches, the timing of Act 12 came in for much debate among ACM, the Defender and the Challenger of Record when we were setting AC 32 up in 2003-04. We knew we wanted Act 12, if possible, to be a dress-rehearsal for the grand finale in 2007. That meant running Act 12 as nearly as possible over the same dates in 2006 (with hopefully the same wind/weather) as the LVC finals and AC Match in 2007. But we realized that would place Act 12 in the midst of the World Cup elims.

Would that be bad for Act 12 TV coverage? Some said "for sure, yes" as we might not be able to get the airtime, and it was assumed most would rather tune in the World Cup games. Others said it would actually be good for the AC, given the propensity of TV viewers (especially men) these days to channel surf. "Get them in front of their tubes watching the World Cup, get the AC televised live at the same time, and you will end up with more eyeballs than would otherwise catch the AC on TV."

We'll see. It will also help if the ACTV production is particularly good. The jury's still out on that (and our Challenger Commission colleagues will appreciate the pun).

Having Act 12 during the World Cup has hurt the VIP guest counts expected by other teams, or so we hear. Not so for BMW ORACLE. Mirko Groeschner (GER, marketing director) reports we have even more VIP-guests booked for Act 12 than we had for Acts 10 and 11. Great news, and nice work by our sponsor-partners and marketing team.

And there's also BMW ORACLE Racing action in New York City the last two weeks of June (stay tuned -- suffice for now to say we'll be blogging from NYC 12-16 June).

So with five days to go to the first match, likely this is the BOB's one-and-only post on the Beautiful Game's 2006 World Cup. Meanwhile, Ian "Fresh" Burns (AUS, design coordinator) and his Aussie mates will be cheering on their entry, as will some of the less-parochial Americans if our highly ranked (for the first time) USA national squad does well. Juan K (ARG, design team) will be leading the charge for the Argentine side, our French Connection is of course led by Laurent Esquier (FRA/USA, operations director) and Bert Pace (FRA, sailing team). Kazuhiko Sofuku (JPN, sailing team) and Craig Christensen (NZL, sailing ops, but his partner is Japanese and he speaks the lingo) are our fans for Japan. All our Spanish colleagues are aficionados, especially Team Doc Francisco "Kiko" Espi-Escriva. And the aforementioned mega-fan Mirko will be commuting up to Germany for a match or two whenever Dicko gives him a 36-hour pass out of VLC.

Many of our families will be following the World Cup action on TV as a number of our kids are playing soccer-football on youth/school teams here in Valencia. And after all, like the America's Cup, it is a Beautiful Game.


An approach road to one of the stadiums in Germany where the matches
are to take place has this clever archway in celebration of the World
Cup. Photo courtesy of Valencia Life.


The French Connection lunching together at our Base last week. Were
they talking about their highly rated World Cup team? Or our team's
highly-regarded Austrian/Kiwi cuisine? Vive le schnitzel!

"This Cup is donated upon the conditions that it shall be preserved as a perpetual
Challenge Cup for friendly competition between foreign countries." --America's Cup Deed of Gift.

Those simple but powerful words were penned in in 1857 1852 [see Historical Footnote post above], six years after the yacht America won that most famous race around the Isle of Wight. In today's highly mobile, networked global economy it is easy to forget that competition (friendly or otherwise) between foreign countries was a novel if not radical idea in those pre-Civil War days in the USA -- forty years before the modern Olympics.

From time to time during the Cup's history that concept of "friendly competition" has been severely tested. Last evening, however, the donors' spirit and intent were alive and well in the Port America's Cup.

Following an afternoon of intermural racing between our two teams, ETNZ invited us around for an adult beverage or two. "The invitation and acceptance," a senior ETNZ manager joked, "is clear evidence that Dalts and Dicko are getting old and going soft."

Truth is it's just another example of Cup world growing up a bit, or maybe getting back to the more fraternal times in Newport before the controversies of 83, 87 and 88 caused teams to wall themselves off from each other -- figuratively and literally.

Last night was a chance for many old mates regardless of nationality to catch up after a good, hard day at the office. The Kiwis present (and between our two teams we have something like 150 New Zealanders) had no trouble drinking a healthy quantity of Spanish beer, and for some it was a reminder of just how much we enjoy a good NZ Pinot Noir.

A fun, relaxed evening. With thanks to our ETNZ mates for the hospitality.


A toast to friendly competition by a few of the 100 or so members of
both teams who gathered for a QLD at the ETNZ base last evening.


Clay Oliver (USA, ETNZ design team) and Juan K (ARG, BMWOR design team)
were sharing design and performance information (relax, Hamish) on forms
and shapes often found in Formula One.

You can imagine some of the ribald comments at Thursday morning's Daily Ops meeting when Jane "Bubbles" Eagleson announced that a photog from the German edition of Playboy magazine was in town to get some shots of our team for an upcoming feature -- thanks to BMW's media maven Nicole Stempinski. But, come on, Nicole, next time can't you get them to come here and shoot the swimsuit edition? ;)

And speaking of Bubbles, best wishes today to Jane for a very Happy Birthday. One hears she turned 29 again this year, and no doubt the Moet will be flowing tonight somewhere in VLC.


You can tell who's the photog because he's dressed in black? Klaus Polap
(GER, design team) is the focus of attention on the bow of Chase 1. And
there's no truth to the rumour that ran through the Base on Thursday
that it was really Playgirl magazine doing a story, and that David "Duffy"
Duff (NZL, sailmaker) was going to pose in the sail loft on a pile of sails
wearing a speedo.

Few New Zealanders have packed as much into their lives as Penny Whiting. Best known as a yachtswoman and the owner-operator of the Penny Whiting Sailing School, she has also been a swimming champion, international surfing competitor, rugby coach, writer, celebrity speaker, mother of two, (and grandmother of two), America's Cup and Whitbread commentator, and Auckland city councillor.

An NZL Sailing icon, Penny also happens to be the mother of Carl "Tiny" Williams (NZL, sailing team). She's in Valencia this week and next for Tiny's birthday, and "to be sure all the Kiwis here in Valencia, regardless of team, are behaving themselves."

"I'm enjoying the entire scene enormously," she said before going out yesterday as 18th man on USA 76. "It's a terrific set-up here, and I look forward to being back for the grand finale next year."


Russell Green (NZL, business director) catching up with Penny
yesterday, and giving her a visual tour of the Port America's Cup
from the deck of our Team Base.


Looking across to the ETNZ base she said, "I had no idea there
are more Kiwis on BMW ORACLE than Team New Zealand."


Stu Clarke and Joe Spooner (both NZL, sailing team) spotted Penny
and came out to say hi and give her a welcoming hug.


Paul Wallbank (NZL, team trainer) had of course heard of Penny but
never met her. Penny is revising her popular layman's book on the
America's Cup for AC 32 here in Valencia.


Penny had heard from Tiny about the tough boxing workouts Paul is
putting the sailing team through (and some of the admin team as well),
which led to a friendly comparison of technique.


Then it was time for Max "Hello" Hoellerl (AUT, marketing department) to
get Penny suited up for her sail on 76.


Penny at the wheel of USA 76 during a break in yesterday's two-boating
with USA 87. Son Carl "Tiny" Williams proudly looks on.

A reminder from Anna Salek on behalf of the Family Committee....

The monthly coffee meeting will be next wek on Tuesday the 6th at the Team Base at 14:15. Coffee, juice and croissants plus a chance to catch up with friends and make a few new ones. If you haven't been before please join us -- don't be shy.

At about 15:00 our guest speaker will be Libby Johnson McKee (USA, wife of Luna Rossa's Jonathan McKee) who will talk on Agua Limpia, the clean-water education project started by a group of dynamic America's Cup partners. She's a great speaker, well worth hearing.

See you on Tuesday!

We have just learned that our team doctor, Francisco "Kiko" Espi-Escriva (ESP), was recently featured in an article in the Spanish national newspaper El Mundo, as well as on several television news shows.

Kiko is a young orthopaedic surgeon of growing repute here in Spain. He recently introduced a new, non-invasive surgical technique for feet which has proven very successful and helpful to many.

According to the El Mundo article, with the new technique the cut is so small that most of the time there is no need for a suture. In addition, with the traditional technique the patient had to be off the foot for a month, and with this new technique the patient enters and leave the operating room walking. In the General Hospital here in Valencia, Dr Kiko and his colleagues have already made more than one hundred interventions and none has required a second surgery, nor have there been any complications.

Kiko brushsed off all the publicity with a modest, "Just doing my job."

Nice ink for a cool, competent guy who is universally popular within the team for his ability not only to treat, or get fast treatment for, team members and our families whether an emergency or minor malady, but also for his friendly, spirited support of our mission in general.


Dr Francisco "Kiko" Espi-Escriva: another of the innovative
professionals staffing our BMW ORACLE Racing team.

...to our sponsor/partners, supporters and suppliers without whom this campaign would not have been this well progressed, let alone possible. Cheers to all of our sponsor-partners!


The "Honor Roll" next to our Team Base's main entrance. Without their
"commitment to the commitment", and especially the early commitment
of Larry and BMW, likely we would have all been committed by now if
even here as a Challenger.

CFO Diana Puketapu (NZL) keeps the money flowing by day,
and kept the Moet flowing the night of the barbecue we
hosted for the other teams at the end of Act 10. Moet et
Chandon is a "super" Supplier if ever there was one. Photo
courtesy of Anna Salek, partner of data whiz Martin Dack
(AUS, design team).

With this we start a new, hopefully regular feature. Rather than just Gilles and your Ed. taking photos (his the good ones, mine the shoot-and-runs), we ask other members of our extended team (including family and friends) to quick-capture with your digi-cams (even phone cams) interesting, illuminating or just plain fun moments during your day. Email or MMS them to me and we'll post here ASAP. Please send a brief explanation, too, by text or email.


Our first PCC was submitted by Grant "Guthrie"
Davidson (NZL, Logsitics/Base Mgr) of Tim Hacket
(NZL, Shore Team Mgr) taking his first ride around
the base on the new yard cleaner. Step by step we
strive to become more professional in our daily work,
even when it comes to scrubbing the "hard."

This afternoon the Regatta Director issued the pairing list for next month's Act 12. Here is the schedule of our matches, and a simple summary of the regatta format:

Thu 22 Jun - GER & RSA
Fri 23 Jun - FRA & ESP
Sat 24 Jun - SUI & SWE
Sun 25 Jun - ITA/39 & CHN
Mon 26 Jun - reserve day
Tue 27 Jun - ITA/LR & ITA/ML
Wed 28 Jun - NZL
Thu 29 Jun - reserve day
Fri 30 Jun - Semis*
Sat 1 Jul - Semis/Finals*
Sun 2 Jul - Finals*
Mon 3 Jul - reserve day

*After the Round Robin, the 12 teams are split into three groups based on wins -- upper four, middle four and bottom four. Over Saturday and Sunday each group of four teams sail their own knockout semi-finals, finals and petit-final (consolation). All semis and finals (and petit-finals) are first to-win-three races. The winner of the upper group final will, of course, be crowned the winner of Act 12.

The full Act 12 pairing list as published on the ACM website is here.

A more printer-friendly copy of the full Act 12 Pairing List (.pdf file courtesy of the Regatta Director) is here.

“It has been the most amazing contest with the most amazing team. Juan Kouyoumdjian [the naval architect] has done an amazing job with this boat along with Killian Bushe [the boat builder] and the rest of the team. They gave us exactly what we asked for and it is a very special boat.” --Mike "Moose" Sanderson, in an article by Ed Gorman in The Times (London) about ABN Amro One's winning the VOR.

Hearty congrats to Moose (who was a member of our team in AC 31) and Juan K (design team member of BMW ORACLE Racing), and all others involved, for their impressive performance.


Design team member Juan Kouyoumdjian (ARG), who designed ABN
Amro One (and Two) that has dominated the VOR, at a recent team
function at our Base.