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Mark knopfler and his racing story

J

joe bob

Charter Member
This may be old news to some but it is new to me. I was catching up on what Mark Knopfler has been up to post Dire Straits and came across this song Speedway at Nazareth.
I would imagine it is an allegory but it is clearly based on early 90's CART
I doubt it is intended to define a specific series or driver though.
He seems to enjoy picking seemingly random professions or events and telling a story about them in song since leaving Dire Straits.
Not his best, but it is an interesting subject and I don't know if there is another song that has been done about CART


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeBAOC2u_Gw
 
I think he mentioned a death at 'Ontario', which I think was the name for the California oval owned by Roger Penske at the time.
Without ratting through my CART yearbooks I remember all too vividly the death of Greg Moore in the mid to late 1990s.........he was a thorough gentleman and his loss shook me.
He was over here for the Surfers Paradise CART races in the 1990s and always had time for the 'fans'.
Actually, all of that generation were generous with their time, except for Nigel Bloody Mansell of course.

Good bunch of clips BTW, Emmylou was looking good!!!
:triumphant:
 
I remember that race well. Richie Hearn had lost control and hit the wall and then the inside retaining wall at the same spot 6 laps before Moore's accident. The accidents were almost duplicates of one another, the difference was that Moore's car hit top first while Hearn's did not get airborne, such a fine line between walking away and a tragedy.
I would be lying if I said I was a Greg Moore fan but it was so sad to see his grieving parents have to deal with losing a son. Such a tragic event.

In my opinion Nigel Mansell was arrogant but he was good for CART. To have a F1 champion move to the series gave it a cred with many Europeans and got respect for F1 drivers by coming to the series and doing so well on ovals.
I think he smoothed the way for some of the later drivers moving to F1 without the animosity that was involved before and for younger guys who would have hung on hoping for a ride in F1 coming to the States and running CART.

This song was written well before then though. I think it is more a song about perseverance and drive rather than any one person or series. To get background for the writing of the song he consulted Stefan Johansson in the early 90's
I believe it is suppose to be generic though since the opening lines refer to 2000 2001 season. It doesn't sound unusual now but when written, referring to the 21st century would clearly stand out as being a fictional season.

Knopfler's little journey in the song brought back so many fond memories. I loved open wheel racing with a passion bordering on obsession at the time. The TV coverage of the time was so good as well, it was geared for true fans of auto racing and less for boggity boggity boggity type fans that were to come and was filled with technical details of the car and how they were set up.
 
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