Pop Alert: "Senna" Movie
November 03, 2011, By Craig J. Heimbuch 0 comments
I get to movies about as often as I get to sit down and watch a game, match or race, which is to say, not very often. And hanging out with my friend Rob? That's an even rarer occurence. Life, work, family, more work, commitments with the kids—they all get in the way of the things I used to take for granted. No bitterness about it, no complaints. It's just the way it is.
But when Rob called me recently asking if there was any way I could join him for a movie, I made it a priority—particularly given that the film in question was not about cartoon cowboys or talking cats but about an almost mythic figure in the world of F1 racing, Ayerton Senna. Rob is a huge F1 fan, so big that he's gotten me into it, and having a movie come to the arthouse in town about our shared passion was as momentous for us as the new "Twilight" film coming out is for my wife.
Understanding that we live, as Americans, in a NASCAR world, I offer a bit of background on "Senna": Born to a wealthy landowner in Brazil, Ayerton Senna rose through the ranks of Kart racing as a young man, becoming the South American champion in the late-'70s. He eventually followed go-carts to England, where he competed in the European circuit. His ascendance was quick, and he made quite an F1 debut, with an impressive 6th-place finish in his second and third F1 races.
A few weeks later, at the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, Senna set the tone for what was to come by simply destroying the field on a soaking wet day on an already dangerous course. He was so far in the lead, in fact, that his team manager told him to slow down. He did, and eventually hit a wall, finishing second in the race. He won his first World Championship in 1988 and followed that in 1990 and 1991. His rivalry with McLaren teammate and fellow champion Alain Prost is the stuff of legend—Ali-Frasier at 200 MPH. He set 65 straight pole positions, which rivals anything Tiger Woods ever did at the top of his game, and finished the season in the top four in the championship standings in all but his rookie year, when he finished 9th.
He was, in short, a phenom.
