The Champaaagne Challenge
The trackside commentator at all Grands Prix is a certain Bob Constanduros, and lately he’s been raising his profile somewhat with long-play renditions of his trademark podium “champagne” call.
Stuart commented earlier today that Bob recently managed an astonishing 28 second performance without taking a breath. In the same comment, a challenge was issued to see if any of our brave listeners could beat it.
It’s possible that due to the incessant nattering of a certain ITV commentator, most people may never have heard Bob in action as the drivers cover each other with the bottled sticky stuff, so to give you a rough idea of how it works, Stuart offers up this handy example:
I clocked that effort as a meagre 15 seconds, but you get the idea. Short “cham”, big “aaaang” and a swift “ne” to finish off. After several attempts I haven’t actually been able to beat that attempt, but I just know someone can do better.
Can you surpass Bob C, the “other” voice of motorsport, and a man who’s being doing this for more years than I care to imagine?
Of course you can. Which is why we’re asking everybody to practice for a bit (don’t overstretch those vocal chords now), and either leave us your attempt via voicemail, or if you’re feeling really confident, during Sunday morning’s Parade Lap live on air. The voicemail number from any phone is +44 121 28 87225, or it’s free if you Skype us (just search for sidepodcast).
As ever a couple of necessary rules:
- In the absence of Bob, Christine shall be judging the competition, her decision (as always) is final.
- Vocal emphasis is really important. Take a good listen to the example above - to beat Bob first you have to be Bob.
- The closing date for voicemails is 8am (BST) on Sunday 14th September 2008.
Good luck and maybe if anyone gets close, we can twist Stuart’s arm and ask him to play the winning entry to Bob to see what he makes of it all.
September 11th, 2008 at 8:51 pmR.G (The Nurburgring/Sato/BMW Fan) said:
OKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
I’ll try and do it, if I fail I’ll look like a wally.
Scott, your going down mate.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pmme said:
i’m sure you’ll do better than me. i can beat alex’s 14 seconds, but am some way off of 28
September 11th, 2008 at 10:14 pmScott Woodwiss said:
alright, i’ve timed myself doing it and the longest was 26.2 seconds.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:15 pmme said:
good lord!
September 11th, 2008 at 10:21 pmScott Woodwiss said:
i will say the pitch of my voice wasn’t exactly the same as what bob can do or what stuart did, but it’s similar. I did find out that for some reason if i tried to do it quieter I lost my breath quicker, but doing it louder I found that I could do it longer. Strange, but true.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:43 pmAlex Andronov said:
I had the same experience… Weird!
September 12th, 2008 at 2:36 amLe BOL said:
Dropped my personal robot’s effort on drop-your-yo, 44 seconds, impressive, aye?
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/champagne
September 12th, 2008 at 7:12 amAlex Andronov said:
So having heard last week’s Parade lap I had been somewhat worried about the general health and well-being of some of the Sidepodcast listeners.
But at least none of the listeners had something as crazy as this: http://www.hopelessgeek.com/2008/08/26/krispy-kreme-bacon-cheddar-cheeseburgers
September 12th, 2008 at 8:02 amScott Woodwiss said:
off topic from this post - you know I said i found it hard to believe that it was rumoured alonso was going to be move to bmw? Well, I think i’ve just started to believe it a little, with this.
http://formula-1.updatesport.com/news/article/1221152215/formula_one/F1headlines/Alonso-hints-Kubica-to-be-teammate/view.html
might be something to put into f1 minute
September 12th, 2008 at 8:38 amStuart C said:
Buongiorno,
Ugh!
Viewing today through a slight fug having stayed up until 3am watching the marvellous spectator sport that was Heikki Kulta vs Byron Young. It was a vigorous debate, fueled by rather too many jugs of red wine. The subject was, of course, Lewis vs Kimi.
To my inordinate amusement, at one point Heikki leaned over, put his outstretched palm about half an inch off the floor and said, “You are this low! You can f–k off!”
Bob C is sitting in my vicinity so I’ll grab him if I can once you have a winner.
“Meagre”?
In other news, it’s raining on and off.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:44 amme said:
excellent. thank you.
i think le bol might be cheating with his 44sec attempt. i shall ask the adjudicator though.
erm, sorry.
September 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pmChampagne Supernova | Sidepodcast : Your Weekly F1 Podcast said:
[...] was little more than a week ago that Stuart issued the Bob Constanduros Challenge, where we were encouraged to try and exceed the track commentator’s infamous 28 second [...]
September 19th, 2008 at 7:31 pmshaun said:
Ha ha haaa!, i think my champagne call was the Ferrari of champagne calls - with the ‘and now for the’ added at the start. I’m sure the stewards will let me get away with it though…
Cheers,
S.