Full Throttle

On a day that brings out all sorts of ghosts, goblins and witches, Halloween also hosts one of the symbols of an everyday superstition. The Black Cat.

Whether one believes crossing the path of a raven colored feline will bring bad luck is a matter of choice I suppose, I for one don’t, but others take it as a serious matter to the point of crossing the street to avoid what they feel is the inevitable. A piano falling on their head or other such catastrophe.

Racing drivers as a whole, even if most deny it, are superstitious people. It took Harry Gant, and then sponsor Skoal Smokeless Tobacco, to finally lay to rest a decades old superstition against driving green race cars.

On this All Hallows Eve it’s appropriate that a current driver, and his superstition. has come to light. Recent Brazilian Grand Prix winner Felipe Massa has revealed an odd superstition that he says could have contributed to his success this past season.

“If my weekend begins well,” Massa confessed, “I use the same underpants on Saturday. If that is also a good day, I wear them on Sunday.”

“That is what I did in Brazil.”

Three days! That might explain a lot of things, not the least of which why he appears to be so fast at the wheel of his Ferrari. No one wants to get too close.

“Getting too close” also seems to fall inline with the belief by some that having sex before a big athletic event hampers performance.

I suspect Mrs. Felipe “SpongeBob” Massa might feel that to be true.

On another note and continuing the “Black & Orange” theme of the day, is this piece written by Roy Madden of Formula One LinksHeaven.

The crib notes would read, F1, Monaco, a soon-to-be-married couple, a former F1 driver and a ghost. Don describes it as “a mixture of Mills and Boon meets Poltergeist meets a creative writing class for 7 year olds.”

It’s all that and much more.

F1, Formula One, Felipe Massa, Ferrari, FIA, F1 Circus, Sports, Monaco, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle