Brent Koppenhaver

Update: the comeback is off due to a lingering neck injury.  Luca Badoer will now be replacing Massa at Valencia.

Some big news coming out of Formula One yesterday, starting with BMW’s decision to leave the sport at the end of the year.  Apparently the BMW board did not see the value in competing anymore, having specifically complained that the sport hasn’t done enough to develop and promote “green” technology.  No doubt the team’s poor performance this year compared with last year didn’t help things, and may have made it easier to pull the plug.  For some good discussion about BMW’s involvement in F1 read this article.

While the BMW news was big, the really huge news for me was Ferrari announcing that Michael Schumacher would be replacing Felipe Massa while the Brazilian recovers from his head injury.  Massa seems to be doing well and is improving but most aren’t expecting him to be able to return to the cockpit this season.  Hopefully he will be back next year, although Cristiano da Matta had a similar head injury in Champ Car and it took him several years before he was ready to race again.  For some specifics on Massa’s crash read this article. The impact of the spring that hit him was four times more severe than being struck in the head with a baseball bat by Barry Bonds.

So, how will Michael go in Valencia?  A lot has changed in F1 since his last race in 2006.  Slick tires, KERS, no traction control, different aerodynamic rules, even the Ferrari team has changed: no more Jean Todt or Ross Brawn and with a world-champion teammate in Kimi Raikkonen. Schumacher has never driven the Ferrari F60, and the testing ban means he’ll have to spend time in the simulator getting up to speed.  There’s no doubting his natural talent but he’s 40 years old and hasn’t driven in a grand prix for 2.5 years.  It’s strange to think of him as an underdog after he dominated the sport for so many years.

The whole situation reminds me a lot of Lance Armstrong’s comeback to cycling and his impressive third place in the Tour de France. Armstrong rode well and didn’t embarrass himself next to his younger competitors, demonstrating a potential that will be further developed next year with his new team.  I think Michael will be able to pull out a similar result.  We’ll be going back to the future seeing him race against Lewis Hamilton and Sebastien Vettel, the newest stars of F1. I always felt that Michael was forced to retire to make room for Raikkonen before he was ready.  Although I didn’t enjoy watching him win race after race I’m still really looking forward to his return.

Last July Sara and I traveled to Michigan to camp with my parents near Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  We had a lot of fun exploring the area and relaxing in the evening around the campfire.  Our first day was spent swimming in Lake Michigan and hiking the sand dunes along the coast.  On one of the cooler days we took a trip to Traverse City for lunch at a brewery and minigolf.  Another day we all took a horseback ride together through the country.  We got to see a really beautiful sunset in the evening from the top of the dunes overlooking the lake.  One of the highlights of the trip was taking a ferry to South Manitou Island for several hours of hiking through mosquito-infested wilderness (although the views were excellent) and also touring the old lighthouse.  On our last full day we took a tubing trip down the Platte river all the way to Lake Michigan.

I’ve finally uploaded the pictures from the trip to my Flickr page. Going forward I’m planning on using Flickr for photo storage instead of Gallery, and the pictures link in the right column has been updated to reflect this.