[From Craig] We arrived in our favorite Sacramento Mobile home park, hooked up and settled down to watch the America's Cup racing today. Oracle Team USA made its comeback complete with two victories over Emirates Team New Zealand. "Comeback complete" means that the two teams are now equal in the scoring, including the two-race penalty that a sports court imposed on Oracle for something involving a small amount of weight added somewhere about two years ago. We rode on a streetcar in SF two weeks ago with several Kiwis who were carrying on about how Russell Coutts (GM of Oracle) should be banned from all future sailing because of his role in this weight-shifting. Which amazed us because Coutts is himself a Kiwi.
That's not important anymore. However much weight was added where and when, and who should be banned from sailing, are for the moment blown away by the amazing comeback of Oracle USA. We think they were down by 8-1 (8-3 in races) before they have gone on what may be the greatest comeback in sports history. 120 years of US baseball history can provide some comparable comebacks, but baseball has had 240 or so seasons to do it, compared to 34 America's Cups.
Please try to watch tomorrow's head-to-head race for the Cup. It will happen about 1:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time, and will be broadcast live on NBC Sports (previously known as Versus), on youtube.com live outside the USA, and on youtube.com in the USA after an hour or two delay.
Try to watch! Trust us, it's as good a sporting event as we may see in the rest of our lives.
From Merikay: took this picture on Monday. The distance between ORACLE and Fly Emirates as they passed by us was such that it was almost impossible to get them both into the same picture! :`)
As someone who is not a sports fan, this series of races has been quite fun, and not just because it has been the USA that has come from behind. Both teams have sailed spectacularly, and the boats are both things of beauty and engineering achievement.
May the best team win. Whatever the outcome, it will be memorable.
FINAL Race for the cup is on Wednesday afternoon! We will be watching.
