Yes boys and girls, it’s that time of year. Winter is breaking and open wheel racing is about to get underway. Along with that come my predictions for how the season will shake down.

Last years predictions were… well, not so accurate. I did get one thing right when I said Champ Car driver Sebastien Bourdais would be a flop. He was. But I predicted Bruno Junqueira would win the championship. He did not.

We can’t all be perfect, and I’ve never been accused of being Jimmy the Greek here. (Throwback to you 80s era football fans.)

What we can look forward to in the big 04?

F1
Kimi Raikkonen will win the F1 championship. Michael Schumacher will be in second and Juan Pablo Montoya will be third.

Fernando Alonso will continue to be the angel. They’ll refer to him as the next great one at least 45 times again this year.

Rubens Barrichello will be treated like “that other driver at Ferrari,” while Jenson Button will be talked about a lot because he’s not Jacques Villeneuve.

My favorite F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya won’t do so well this year. I predict a good race or two, but his differences with Williams BMW will show as the season goes on.

Champ Car
It will be Paul Tracy and Bruno Junqueira fighting it out for the championship, and again, I’m going to predict Bruno to win it.

There will be no big personality stories this year, though they will try to make a few. The big story will be ticket sales. Expect Champ Car to put on a full PR blitz at every race about how many people are coming and how popular they are, then try to keep the half empty stands off camera.

How will it go down? We?ll find out starting on Sunday with the opening of the F1 season in Melbourne.

Dear Congress,
Lately you seemed to have turned part of your attention toward the Bowl Championship System, or BCS. Yes, it seems to be very subjective in a nature and a system the rewards the giant universities while leaving little hope for the smaller colleges.

We know this is something you understand as you often favor big donors while us little people are left behind. But that is for another letter. We, the SpittingLlamas, would like to let you know that we have come up with a plan to fix the BCS that not only makes it more logical, but could make it much more profitable for Universities everywhere. Let’s remember, college athletics funds so many programs that us non-athletic students that were required to use our brains and study could take advantage of.

In short, you can pay attention to the war and we’ll fix this BCS thing for you. After all, there are kids the same age as these college athletes in Iraq coming home in bags right now. So let us, big fans of NCAA football, propose a solution.

The way the BCS works now is confusing and so arguably fluid and subjective that no one is satisfied with the results. The BCS rankings average the two main Top 25 polls - The Associated Press media poll and the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll. After that, they implement another factor averaging the seven highest computer rankings by Richard Billinglsey, Kenneth Massey, David Rothman, Jeff Sagarin’s USA Today, Matthews/Scripps-Howard, The Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times, Peter Wolfe and Atlanta Journal-Constitution rankings. The lowest and highest computer rankings will be disregarded, and the computer component will be determined by averaging the six other computer rankings.

If that wasn’t confusing enough, they introduce a large does of subjectivity with something called, “Rank of Schedule Strength.” This is one team’s schedule compared to other Division I-A teams of actual games played divided by 25. This component is calculated by determining the cumulative won/loss records of the team’s opponent (66.6 percent) and the cumulative won/loss records of the teams’ opponents opponents (33.3 percent). Huh?

Then, they toss in something even more nebulous. They have a “Quality Wins” rating. The quality win component rewards to varying degrees teams that defeat opponents ranked among the top 10 in the weekly standings.

Then, and this is the part you congressmen have focused on, they only allow 6 conferences to participate - ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC. You claim it’s anti-competitive to exclude other conferences, as there could be great teams there, and ultimately hurts their recruiting efforts. And I haven’t even gotten to the “At-Large” factor.

As you wise sages on Capital Hill have noted, this system is too fluid and subjective to amount to a serious, scientific ranking. It’s about as subjective as those no-bid contracts given to Haliburton, but again, that’s for another letter. After you read this and bask in its clarity and logic, you may want to thank us by instituting a new national holiday in our name.

We call our new system the LBS - the Llama Bowl System, or Long Blowjobs, Shizz?

It uses the playoff method, similar to the NCAA basketball, but incorporates the best of the current college football system, namely the fat, rich sponsors that make the world go ’round.

There are currently 56 bowl games. Our LBS institutes a playoff system that automatically puts the top 64 teams in a bracket and begins a weekly elimination. At week two, 32 teams play in the next level of bowls, then 16… you get the idea.

Each game would be referred to as a “bowl game,” thus creating the opportunity to keep the sponsors on board and the greenbacks flowing toward the colleges. The first bracket, the 64 teams, would be the lesser-known bowls, like the Bukkakie Bowl, The Motor City Bowl, and the Enron Check Your 401k at the Door Bowl.

The next set of brackets after the first round of eliminations has bowls that are more prestigious. Bowls like the Insight Bowl, the Outback Bowl, and the Florida Voting Bowl (of course, this bowl will be fixed and African-American’s won’t be allowed to buy a ticket much like the 2000 voting practices of Florida.)

At each level the cost of sponsorship goes up. You could find a bidding war going on for the top 4 bowls. A final four could be marketed, helping the 4 final teams in recruiting efforts rather than just the single championship team. With this playoff system, you go from the current 56-bowl line up to a 125-bowl set up. That is thousands of more sponsors! A million more tickets sold! HOLY SHIT, talk about a boost to the economy!

One complaint may be that this would lengthen the season. Good. We should be all for it. NCAA fans will go to these bowl games. Currently the last NCAA football game in November 29, yet the majority of bowls game are not played until the first week of January. Let’s keep these special gifts receiving, THC-steroid using kids playing through the month of December. The Final Four games could all be played on Christmas Day when we are all surrounded by extended family we’d rather not talk to and find ourselves bored. Then the National Championship game will still be held on January 1st.

So there you are, Congress. It’s laid out for you like a third world country ready to be bombed. You just have to say it’s so. Feel free to jam a new highway project or something in there for your district, too. We won’t tell anyone.

You friends,
The SpittingLlamas

The Dawgs go four in a row over Tennessee. This says it all. Made by yours truly.

It’s sensationalism at its greatest, folks. It has all the makings of a TV story of the week, a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and an eventual interview with Barbara Wah Wah. It has a baseball player. A bat. And a giant sausage.

I’m talking about Pittsburgh first baseman Randall Simon and the Milwaukee Brewers sausage mascots that he thumped on the head.

Here is the set up: during the Milwaukee vs Pittsburgh game, inbetwixt the 6th and 7th inning, several people dressed as various sausage products raced around the field. While running by the dugout, Simon hit the Italian sausage in the head with a baseball bat. It was clearly a joke. But the sausage, and the 19-year-old therein, fell down and scraped her knees.

The sheriff’s department then places Simon under arrest for assault. But I’m not hopping mad over the incident. I’m hopping mad over the media coverage. If you listen to CNN, ESPN, or read Yahoo! News, they will tell you Simon attacked the mascot. They are nearly trying to convince you Simon downed the sausage George Washington and the cherry tree style.

In fact, when I first read this, I thought Randall Simon was as bad as one of those other coke-snorting, wife-beating baseball players. So I jumped over to Feedroom.com to watch the video and… well, I laughed.

This is no attack, as the news media wants you to think. In fact, both teams should be thanking Simon and giving him a raise because this is the first time in months anyone has talked about another team besides the Yankees.

I’d like to see Simon go banzai on some news camera next.

From time to time, even the great ones make the dumbest mistakes. They make us mere mortals set aside our awe of their talent and laugh our collectives asses off.

I’m talking about athletes. Those people who are paid a huge sum of money and seem to have a life that us nine-to-fivers wish we could have a piece of.

Then, they do something completely stupid and we turn on them. We toss our arms up in confusion because we see the mistake coming and we realize they don’t see it coming. For an instant, we wish to scream out like they could hear us, but secretly, we are pleased that we are about to see one of these people, these overpriced talents, get completely owned on live TV. For a moment we relish - we savor - then we laugh like school boys.

This weekend, such an event took place. And event that defied common sense and turned one respected sportsmen into the joke of the week.

I’m talking about Swedish Formula 3000 driver Bjorn Wirdheim.

Sure, he’s not a household name, but let me tell you his story.

This weekend was the running of the Monaco Grand Prix. In the Formula 1 and Formula 3000 world, this is the piece d’resistance- the great race EVERY Formula driver wants to win. It’s the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 wrapped up in one.

And for a Formula 3000 driver, it’s important. A win at Monaco is a boost to their resume. It can be the one solid entry that helps lift them to a Formula 1 ride.

That is, unless of mess it all up like Bjorn Wirdheim. Wirdheim is currently leading the Formula 3000 championship points race. So clearly, he’s doing something right. His stock in the Formula racing world is rising. Boy, it’d be nice to add a win at Monaco to his list of achievements…

He certainly started off on the right foot. After claiming pole position on Friday for the Monaco Grand Prix, Wirdheim totally dominated the race. In fact, he had a huge lead of 24 seconds by lap 35. It couldn’t get any better! The race was his, it was in his hands… until he got to the last 20 meters of the finish line.

You see, as Wirdheim was rounding the last few corners, he did something no one could explain - he slowed down. Bjorn Wirdheim slowed WAY down… to wave at his pit crew.

Nicholas Kiesa, running in second place, was a might bit shocked when he came around only to see Wirdheim meandering to and fro. So Nicholas Kiesa did what anyone would have done. He blew past Wirdeim as fast as he could and won the race, leaving Bjorn Wirdheim to wet his shorts as he realized what he did.

This would be like Tiger Woods leading the Masters by one stroke, then suddenly picking up his golf ball and pitching it into the drink for the fun of it.

At this point Bjorn Wirdheim could move on to become one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers in the history of the sport, but the announcer will always add, “Remember when he threw away Monaco in 2003 so he could wave?”

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Champ Car World Series, one of the few sports I know a lot about. Since then F1 and the IRL have opened their seasons. And again, what would an article about opening season be without some opinionated predictions? First IRL. It hurt me to no end when Dario Franchitti left CART to go to the IRL. And not just because he’s married to Ashley Judd. Dario is a road racer at heart. He’s going to get bored in the IRL, I’m afraid. I think he secretly longs to be in Formula 1, but realizes that to do so, he needs to stand out here in the States. For as much skill as he has, he’s always come up just a tad short in the end. He’s a surgeon in the racecar.

I pretty much cared less when Michael Andretti left. His best days are over and now he can chum around with his other retired racecar friends, Al Unser Jr. and AJ Foyt. Michael is no longer the throttle demon he used to be.

People forget that Michael Andretti used to be like Paul Tracy. In fact, several rules were made because of Michael Andretti. The most notorious being the tire-slashing rule that forced a front wing design change. The front wing on a Champ Car used to have a leading edge on the sides that stuck out about 2 inches. It was very thin. Thin enough that if a driver pulled up on the car he wanted to pass, they could “accidentally” put that leading edge into the tire. Oops. Michael did it so often officials outlawed the leading edge and dubbed it “The Michael Andretti” rule.

But Michael is a puppy dog now. The winningest active Champ Car driver could barely finish in the top 5 the last two seasons.

Tony Kanaan leaving to the IRL was also a non-factor. He was always regarded by the media as a great talent waiting to break out and show us his stuff. But the only times he’s demonstrated the ability to even challenge for the lead was on ovals. So it’s probably better for him to be in the IRL.

Sarah Fisher is once again driving in the IRL. Her major accomplishment is crashing. It’s a good race for her if she finishes. In the season opener, she was several laps down before the race was even half over. CART’s version of Sarah Fisher is Roberto Moreno. Those two should start a team together. That way we’d know who would be in the back row, and on lap one they could crash into each other and let the real drivers finish the rest of the race.

I actually helped build the current version of the Team Rahal Web site. So I’ve always paid a lot of attention to them. I’ve met many of his drivers, like Mad Max Papis and Kenny Breck.

As much as I like to cheer on the home team, I don’t think Kenny is going to have the success in the IRL as he has in the past. Kenny wants to be a rock star. He wants to be more famous than Jeff Gordon. I question a driver whose motivation seems to be more about fame than winning.

In the IRL, I expect the old CART contingent to do the best. Tony Kanaan will do well and win 2 races. I think Scott Dixon is going to be a front-runner. But I think the big winner at the end of the season will be Tomas Scheckter. He has his best chance this year with Team Target and a HUGE racing budget. I expect him to bloom in mid-season and never look back.

Now let’s get to the real fun, Formula 1. I’ve been watching Formula 1 for the past two years. Even though the races were won in qualifying and not during the race, I kept watching. The cars are lighter than their Champ Car cousins and dart around the tracks with more eloquence.

But I think even the more rabid F1 fan would admit that a lot of the races were real snoozers. Who wants to watch a race where the cars are 30 seconds apart from one another? There isn’t even any exciting pit action.

F1 changed their rules and I have to say, it’s about damn time. F1 racing is looking exciting again. There were more passes in the first race than there was all last season. OK, an exaggeration, but at least it looked like racing.

The “flying lap” qualifying is even fun to watch now. And best of all, you couldn’t guess who was going to win until the last 10 laps of the race.

Hell, even Mike Gascoyne at Renault F1 is convinced that the team will win a race this year.

But we have to remember that Ferrari has yet to bring out its new car. Right now it looks like the BMW P83 is the most powerful engine. But we’ll see when Schuy gets his new wheels under him.

OK, time for the line. Michael Schumacher will be champ again. In fact I don’t think it’ll even be close. He’ll win 8, maybe 9 this year. Rubens Barrichello will win 3, and I put Juan Montoya will win 4. Yes I said 4.

Ralf Schumacher might win one, but he’ll be second fiddle to Montoya - again. I’ll be surprised if David Coulthard wins another race, but he might. Da Matta will end up at the bottom, as the rookie everyone thought could, but didn’t.

The real excitement will be between Jacques “how’s come no one loves me” Villeneuve and Jenson “I really am better than Jacques” Button. The fun part won’t be on the track, but how they taunt each other in the media. It’ll surpass the Juan - Ralf media flames by far.

10. Their Coliseum has been referred to as “The Tub” and the “Jir-cuzzi” but most folks know it as “that round building where football pep rallys are held.”

9. Dominique Wilkins is the only basketball player from UGA that anyone can name. He played 20 years ago. Wilkins played only three years at Georgia. His most successful season ended in the NIT Final Four, he never played in an NCAA Tournament game and the school’s best season ever came the year after he left. During that same period, Herschel Walker led the football team to 2 SEC championships and one National Championship.

8. The players routinely get beat in pickup games at the Ramsey Center. The average GPA of the pickup team is as high as the blood alcohol level of the players’ team. 7. The basketball players’ hall in the athletic dorm has its own fog advisories. Strangely, the fog seems to make people laugh a lot and eat Funyuns.

6. The players’ Escalades only have 20″ Dayton Dubs. Everyone knows that pimps only skate on 22″ dubs.

5. Tubby Smith, one of UGA’s winningest (percentage) basketball coaches and most promising to bring the team to true national consciousness left after only 2 seasons. One of his sons stayed, but the other found greener pastures with his dad. Tubby has since taken UK to the NCAA tournament 5 consecutive years, including one national championship and a 75.4% winning percentage. Good thing we let him go.

4. Sellouts at Stegeman Coliseum are as rare as players attending class.

3. Practices at UGA often break down the team into 2 groups: “On Parole” and “On Probation.”

2. Coach…er…President Adams insisted on hiring Harrick, only to make Vince Dooley do his dirty work when it came time to fire him. Adams’ ham-handed meddling in the Athletic Department office is like Jim Donnan careening through the buffet at Golden Corral.

And the number one reason UGA basketball sucks:

1. Jim Harrick