During the opening sequence of 'La Carrera Panamericana,' an unidentified someone says: "motor racing is a disease of the brain, you know? You get affected by it!" After buying and watching this video a couple of times, I felt that the same could easily be said for being a Pink Floyd fan ... especially in light of this. As if making myself sit through a dozen or so hi-gen VOIOs of the band in concert over the last 30 years wasn't enough, Pink Floyd also saw fit to sling out a pro-shot home movie for me to sit through one more time for the sake of completion (and to remind me of what I utter clod I was to buy this thing in the first place).

In October of 1991, Nick Mason and David Gilmour decided to indulge their shared interest in vintage motor car racing by taking part in the recently-reinstated La Carrera Panamericana -- a six day, 2500 mile race from Guatemala to the southern border of Texas. Amusingly enough, it doesn't appear that they actually *drove* these restored pre-1960s hot rods, but delegated that job to band manager Steve O' Rourke (with whom Dave rode shotgun) and a guy named Val Lindsay (whom Nick accompanied). It's not clear if the film crew who shot this feature was hired by the Floyds to cover their little adventure, or if they happened to be at the right place at the right time, but for whatever reason, Gilmour decided a few months later to release the footage under the Pink Floyd brand name. Bless his big ol' heart for sharing. Truly.

As the first officially released Pink Floyd product of any kind since Roger Waters' 'The Wall Live In Berlin' fiasco, 'La Carerra Panamericana' actually *surpassed* the former release as far as leaving even the most devoted Floyd freaks struck dumb with dismayed incredulity after viewing it. This is, without a doubt, Waters' worst nightmares about the uncaring, cynical abuse of the Pink Floyd brand name come to life. Aside from the soundtrack music, this video has nothing whatsoever to do with Pink Floyd in any kind of capacity -- instead, it's a purportedly whimsical ode to (as Gilmour puts it) "lots and lots of overgrown schoolboys getting together and having heaps of fun driving fast cars around Mexico...beautiful country. What more could you want?" Indeed! What more could I want? An hour-plus endurance test watching rich white limeys hot-rodding through Bumblefuck, Mexico in a kind of semi-legalized Cannonball Run, set to the strains of 'A Momentary Lapse Of Reason' and the 'Delicate Sound Thunder' version of "Run Like Hell"? Damn straight! Sign me the fuck up!

Presold to retail as containing the first new Pink Floyd material in 5 years, 'La Carrerra' delivered...in a sense. The new songs are all instrumentals, and all of them are hatefully mixed well below the level of the near-constant narration and incessant "VRRROOOOOMMMM"s of passing vehicles. Whether this was done in order to thwart possible bootlegging of the songs is unknown, but whatever the reason, the new music is so unobtrusively bland that you wonder why they even bothered in the first place -- "Pan Am Shuffle" sounds like the second half of any 1987-94 live version of "One Of These Days," "Country Theme" sounds like the coda to "Lost For Words," "Mexico '78" sounds like some Satantic fusion of "Run Like Hell" and "Blue Light," and the stately sweep of "Big Theme" feels like a leftover from the 'About Face' era. While these new pieces are nothing to write home about, they at least prevented the use of *more* 'Momentary Lapse' and 'Delicate Sound Of Thunder' material as musical beds for all the unending racing footage (I kinda preferred the imagery I had in my mind for these songs to all of the whizzing cars, gawping spectators and occasional T&A shown here).

(A quick aside/warning while we are on the subject of the music -- the artwork on the back of the video lists the inclusion of a fifth unreleased song called "Carrerra Slow Blues" that appears nowhere during the duration of the program or after, for that matter. Research on the subject has uncovered not a word of it's existence anywhere else. Discuss.)*

Trying to watch 'La Carrerra' from the viewpoint of a car enthusiast is impossible for me since I am one of those guys who wouldn't know the difference between a Mustang and a Buick unless they drove up and introduced themselves. Having said that, I'll grant that the racing footage is well shot and watchable, if numbing in its unending sprawl. The only point of any real interest I found here is the middle section, in which Gilmour and Mason narrate an early history of the race which at least gives us an idea of how and why it was run. Apparently, the initial years of this event were violently anarchic in nature -- more akin to a high-speed Demolition Derby than the Old Folks Cruise it apparently is now. The newsreel films accompanying the narration are kinda like watching a live-action version of the Wacky Races as cars fly at sick-dog speeds down narrow city streets and over the sides of highways, crashing into everything in sight. If nothing else, this is certainly more diverting than the rest of the whole affair.

Now, from a Pink Floyd fan's standpoint, 'La Carrerra' is a frustrating experience since Gilmour and Mason are onscreen less than half of the running time of the video and rarely do or say anything worthy of remark in this forum. During the aforementioned recap of the race's early years, a bottle of Mezcal sits barely touched between them -- thus any hopeful thoughts of seeing our heroes three sheets to the wind on tequila are squashed in a hurry. Hell, the most interesting that happens to *anyone* in the video (Gilmour's car crash, which he apparently walked away from having suffered barely a scratch) happens off screen, which is too bad considering their car was equipped with a video camera which allows us to watch them shifting gears and steering through corners the rest of the time. Worse, terminally uncool Steve O' Rourke, of all people, seems to take center stage more often than his clients, though he usually spends his onscreen time saying "this race is FUCKED!," or "these people are FUCKED!" or "call out the corners, Dave!" (obviously, Peter Grant he is not).

So, there you have it, fans. If you're really into looking at old racing cars and watching them zip around the middle of nowhere for minutes at a time, you might actually find this worth your while to hunt down. For anyone else, consider this a raising of the yellow flag for "proceed with caution."

* - NOTE : 'Carrera Slow Blues' only appeared on the version telecast by the BBC