It was a big weekend for motorsport but not least because 22 year old rookie Lewis Hamilton won his first Formula 1 race in Montreal. The victory was sweet on several notes, first and most obviously because Hamilton, a British driver, piloted his British built McLaren back into the winner's circle for the first time since David Coulthard's victory at the Australian Grand Prix in 2003. More importantly the young rookie finished well ahead of his team mate and former World Champion Fernando Alonso.

All of this of course is overshadowed by the fact that Hamilton is the first black man to win a Grand Prix in Formula 1. Now you can compare him to Jackie Robinson or Tiger Woods but as I've stated before that doesn't do justice to a guy who is, and probably always will be one of the most talented F1 drivers of the modern era. He, like Alonso, is young, quick and rarely makes a misstep or place a wheel wrong and that is what is needed to secure the World Championship. He is not part of some sort of F1 diversity program and was in fact recruited by McLaren boss Ron Dennis nearly a decade before he ever drove at the top tier of the sport. I think that the entire UK, and in fact the world, should celebrate and remember this moment not as the day that Hamilton broke the "color barrier" but as the launching point of potentially one of the greatest British drivers in F1 history.

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With little over a week between now and the 24 Hours of Le Mans I can hardly contain myself. Circuit de la Sarthe is ready for hot lapping action on GTR2, the cars are prepped and I've already made my selection for the "bring your own meat" grill fest. So what's a motorhead to do between now and then? As luck would have it this weekend is the official running of the 24 Hours Nürburgring.

Nicknamed the "Green Hell" by The Flying Scot because of the track's winding nature and the surrounding trees the Nürburgring proper previously consisted of the Nordschleife (Northern Loop) and the southern loop, which was mostly demolished to create the modern GP circuit. After Niki Lauda's fiery crash in 1976 and due to safety concerns, modern F1 cars were no longer allowed on the dangerous northern loop. However today there are still a number of events featuring performance streetcars, such as those in the 24-hour race. The Nordschleife is also open to the public during certain times though many a car has fallen victim to its challenging turns.

Why banning numbers is like playing god

It's been a strange few days especially with regard to the AACS. These are the guys that designed the HD-DVD copy protection and who have maintained that the scheme is "uncrackable". Well folks if you know any hackers then chances are you also know that NOTHING is uncrackable, and when you issue words like that your only encouraging the few, the proud and the geeky from rendering a solution.

So anyway at some point on Wednesday a few folks decided to publish a now well known AACS decryption key to the social news site Digg. Shortly after receiving a "takedown" notice from the AACS the offending content was removed. However the Digg user community didn't appreciate the censorship and the site was soon flooded with many duplications of the code. Eventually the website's operators backtracked on the censorship and allowed the stories to remain.

Unstoppable Audi no more

Fans may make light of the Audi R10s trouncing on the streets of Long Beach but the fact remains the TDI diesel is one of the most advanced and competitive racing machines ever built. I won't rehash the technical mumbo-jumbo about why the R10 is such a beast of a competitor but instead I'll remind you why the Goliath of ALMS LMP1 went down so easily. The ALMS sought to partner with another racing series for whatever reason other than further promotion of the show. Champ Car was a natural match since the series races exclusively road courses albeit approximately 1/4 of them are temporary street circuits or airport runways.