I recently read a biography of Michael Schumacher and while it did little to change my opinion of him as a sportsman, one thing became very clear. Michael values his family above everything and does everything possible to try and give his kids a normal upbringing. Sometimes unfortunately things go a bit too far in the quest for normalcy.

Schumacher’s 9 year old son competed in his first kart race last weekend. Unfortunately, the boy’s father chose not to attend in order to keep the spotlight away from the young lad. He was entered as Mick Betsch, using Mom’s maiden name and was accompanied by Grandpa Rolf. I too have a 9 year old boy who will be driving in his first race soon. While he would be happy to have Grandpa there to watch, he would be devastated if dear old Dad didn’t come to see his first race.

So much for normal.

Image from AS.com, fully story at F1 Live

That guy giving you the thumbs up is none other than Jalopnik scribe Wes Siler, who took a bit of a tumble last week on a two wheeler. It must have been a pretty substantial whoops, as Wes’ protective gear was all pretty much demo’d. Siler wouldn’t know though, as he can’t remember anything of the event.

Get well soon guy!

Not to be outdone, Mikey Mike Schumacher decided to one up Siler with his own on track escapade. They’re called brakes Mr Mike, you might want to try them some time.

How’s the ego feeling Mike?

Another summer has come and almost gone, so I thought it might be fun to have a look back and see what we were talking about last summer.

Just like this summer, there were car shows. The big one of course was our visit to Autofest at GM Canada headquarters in Oshawa.

Paul Tracy was doing his best Francophone wrestler impression.

Jim Toumaris visited the Woodward Ave Dream Cruise and hooked us up with some great pictures.

Speaking of GM, it was announced that the new Camaro is going to be built in Oshawa.

Those racer types were pretty erratic last August, with Jacques Villeneuve spouting off again and the Unser boys Dads behaving like rednecks.

For 2007, Woodward was last weekend and Autofest is coming up and hopefully we’ll have some images from both.

Amidst all the wondering about Michael Schumacher’s future, who would have thought that he would become a road car tester? Well, it makes sense. Buy one of Maranello’s newest steeds and know that your new Johnson extension was tuned based on recommendations of Ferrari’s best son.

Autocar caught the great one lapping the Nurburgring in a new Ferrari 599 GTB and has posted a bunch of images.

When it was announced that the Uber Champion F1 driver would stay with Ferrari as Jean Todt’s underling, was there any doubt that this would be a temporary role? For a while it began to look like Mikey would in fact replace the little Frenchman at the top of the Ferrari F1 ladder.

Given the return on money involved in owning an F1 team, is it any wonder that Herr Schumacher might be looking for something grander than managing someone else’s team? Even if it is Ferrari, it will always belong to someone else. For that reason, today’s rumour makes sense.
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Andretti. Villeneuve. Rosberg.

These are just some of the families where the Formula 1 bug bites more than one generation. Perhaps we are about to see the scion of yet another famous name move up the ranks. Freddie Hunt, son of the late James Hunt has decided, like so many others to begin his racing career in the British Formula Ford series. Both his World Champion father and his not so famous uncle began their driving careers in Formula Ford, so it’s a good place for a sentimental teenager to start off. Now let’s just hope that he doesn’t become Hunt The Shunt version 2.0

Ford press release after the break
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The sports news world is going crazy trying to figure out what the Ferrari/Schumacher press meeting will bring this Sunday following the F1 race at Monza. Most people are assuming that Schumacher will announce his retirement from Formula 1.

Let’s put a different spin on things here. Maybe Mikey’s retirement isn’t the big news. Maybe he’s decided to join Montoya and Villeneuve in NASCAR. Maybe he’s decided to buy NASCAR!

We’ll just have to wait and see.