Cabbies in Mexico define irony

Back in 1994 a young Ben Stiller starred in Reality Bites, portraying the first of many successful "neurotic dork" roles. And by "many" I mean every freaking film in his entire career with the exception of the long since forgotten "Permanent Midnight".

Also in "Reality Bites" was a young and previously unconvicted shoplifter named Winona Ryder, who played the female equivalent of the "neurotic dork", which should probably be called the "chattering navel gazer". Honestly, if you watch a movie like this you'll wonder how my generation ever won friends and influenced people.

At some point in the movie Winona (or rather her character) is at an interview for a newspaper job and gets asked to "define 'irony'", and she falls short of the mark like Marty Roth on Pole Day. Now, the reason I present all of this to you is not because I'm going to define "irony", but rather because this story from the PCM racing team today just reminded me of that part of this long-since forgotten movie.

Remember, the PCM car sported this sponsorship for much of the year.



Statement from Mario Dominguez regarding his traffic accident in Mexico City:

"Unfortunately I was involved in a car accident here in Mexico City on Saturday and thankfully no one was hurt. I was on my way to an early golf tournament and I made an error and hit a taxi cab. I left the scene for help because I was assaulted by another taxi driver that stopped at the scene. It was an unfortunate accident and despite there being no citations issued, I have offered to cover the vehicle damage. I am frustrated by the false interpretations reported of this incident, and I would like the media to know and report the truth, which is why I've asked to include this police report. I hope in the future my good results and charity efforts garner the same type of coverage."

It should be noted that PCM no longer has this sponsorship, so maybe Mario arranged all this to happen. Or not. At any rate, if the "Reality Bites" reference wasn't to your liking then I could always re-write the entire post using "Man of Fire" instead. It's definitely a much better movie.

UPDATE: OK, maybe the irony of cabbies assaulting Mario just went out the window. Joel at IRL-O-Rama has discovered some articles in Spanish, and thanks to the trusty translators of the internet we can see they say things like this.

In an unexpected way, Dominguez, who has the title of sporting ambassador of Mexico City, abandoned his car and tried to escape but was caught minutes later and had to agree with the taxi drivers to pay for the damage and was left with that at large, despite driving under the ingestion of alcohol, according to witnesses of the events.

Oh dear. So what we've learned is that when "Visit Mexico City", even though you can escape a possible DUI with enough cash you should still try to NOT drive anywhere near Mr Dominguez. Otherwise you might end giving him a serious shiner.

UPDATE AGAIN: But wait, there's more from Joel at IRL-O-Rama, who is clearly the most prolific racing blog for fans south of the border.

Today, I opened my e-mail and was greeted by a forwarded message. This message, assumed from someone within the Dominguez staff/mob family, contained the official press release and some pictures (one of which is above). Here is the explanation I was given for the news articles released in the Mexican newspapers.

"The reports in these newspapers sadly, are inaccurate in effort to sell papers.

"Mario was not drunk and as stated in his quote below, he left the initial scene because he was being assaulted (hence the wounded eye) by another taxi driver who stopped at the scene. Mario feared his safety, he did not have two accidents and he is the person who called the police!"

No offense to Mario or anyone else in our fellow NAFTA nation, but regardless of which version of this story is true I'm pretty sure the whole mess hasn't exactly left readers clamoring to "Visit Mexico City".