Beetle Cup is still rockin' the races!

[Billsbug]

http://www.crash.net/news_view~t~VW-...~id~129938.htm


Big pic (can't copy): http://www.crash.net/picture_view_si...pid~248358.htm

[marvins_dad]

I'll take one beetle cup with the TDI race engine please
Either one would be fine....green or british flag

[Steinola]

I must be dumb or just behind the times... but... what exactly does it mean to "break" ones "duck"??

[Billsbug]

"A streak of luck, a broken duck....

I have heard the phrase "to break one's duck," a British phrase meaning finally scoring a point, or whatever, after not having scored at all. I have heard it in reference to a racing driver who has finally won a race after a long period of time. Where does it come from? -- David Guy.

Break one's duck? How odd. Wouldn't one then have a lame duck? Hardly seems like a victory, but then I never understood the phrase "hat trick" (originally from the game of cricket) either. Score three points in a row and you get a brand new hat? Be still my heart. Do it again and you get what, mittens?

Onward. The secret of "to break one's duck" lies in the fact that the complete phrase is "to break one's duck's egg." The "duck's egg" (or sometimes simply "duck" for short) in this case also comes from the game of cricket and is slang for the zero that is put next to a batsman's name on the scorecard if he fails to score in an inning. So to "break one's duck" means to score after a period when it looked as if you wouldn't, or, more generally in other sports, to break a losing streak by winning. The phrase "duck's egg" meaning "zero" dates back to 1863, while "to break one's duck" showed up a bit later, around 1878.

The use of the eggs of innocent poultry as stand-ins for the numeral zero is not confined to the cricket-loving countries. One theory about the origin of "love" in tennis (meaning "score of zero") is that the term derives from the French "l'oeuf," meaning "the egg." There's a bit of evidence against this theory, and it may be that the term is actually a bit of a dig at the scoreless player "playing just for the love of the game," but the "egg" theory is still a possibility.

A more exact parallel to "duck's egg" is found in the American coinage "goose egg," also meaning "zero" or "nothing" and dating back to the late 1880s. Oddly, unlike the British "duck's egg," "goose egg" has never developed a figure of speech for escaping the curse of not scoring. No one speaks of "breaking one's goose egg."

But "goose egg" did give rise in the late 19th century to another logical metaphor for losing: "to lay an egg." In the U.S., "lay an egg" became theater slang for producing a performance or show that flopped, and when the stock market crashed in October 1929, the theater daily Variety broadcast the news with the classic headline "Wall Street Lays an Egg.""