The trip this year took a very different path than last year’s. Gone was the RV, lack of showers, and limited facilities. This year Forsberg and I drove up to my friend Aleisha’s place in Burlington Thursday night. Breaking up the drive into two days was awesome since Friday turned out to be pretty laid back unlike the rest of our group’s trip after work Friday night.
Our lodging turned out to be sweet. The place we stayed is a college dorm during the school year and a hostel in the summer. The rates are super low, except for F1 weekend. They are still pretty low compared hotels an such though. We ended up getting an 8 person place.
So anyway Dave and I went to the race and caught a few of the F1s as they finished their second practice on Friday. After that we did some exploring around the dorm neighborhood. Turns out there is a really cool section of Montreal near us. The place is called Old Montreal and it looks like places in Europe I’ve been. Cobbled streets, stone buildings and outdoor cafe’s. Pretty cool.
Adrial, his brother, Yarin, and their friends showed up late Friday. Apparently they had a slightly better vehicle than we did, it was a BMW 740. Nothing against the Impreza OBS, but the plushness of the Bimmer must have been nice.
Saturday shaped up to be some great racing with Lewis Hamilton taking the pole ahead of his teammate Alonso. I’d like to see Kimi do a little better but really anything that pushes Alonso farther down the standings.
Sunday’s races were great. The Ferraris are generally fun to watch but not super tight racing since it is more of a gentleman’s race than anything else. However we did see a bit of a crash at the farthest corner we could see from our seats. The guy went into the wall without much force, basically just sliding along. For whatever reason though the car got messed up and he had trouble getting back into the flow of the race. At one point while trying to turn it around he stalled the car in the middle of the track just after a blind corner. We saw the guy come just a foot away from getting T-boned at 80mph.
That spirit didn’t leave during the main event. The race was riddled with cautions. Most notably Robert Kubica who went into the wall just before the hairpin. According to the F1 site they are moving around 185mph at that point. The crash was absolutely nuts. As it is designed to do, the car disintegrated. Wheels all over the track, carbon fiber splinters everywhere. The driver safety cell flipped one or two times and finally slid on its side into another at the hairpin. Based on the replay and how much he was bouncing around, I thought he was severely injured, perhaps dead. Not to mention the initial hit to the wall or how the car was airborn before impact. During the race there was very little word about his condition. Near the end of the race it was announced that he had a leg injury but he had regained consciousness. I found out later that he had an ankle injury and a concussion, but that’s it. It is certainly a statement of how well the cars are engineered not just for speed but for safety too.
After that caution there were a number of other caution’s, black flags and stop-go penalties. I won’t even begin to explain because I don’t know the whole story. Check out www.formula1.com for the details. In all there were 10 cars that didn’t finish out of a pack of 22.
So on to the stuff after the races. Well I don’t remember all of it, partially because of alcohol and partly because I’m trying to forget some of it on purpose. Overall it was a great weekend between the racing and the partying. I think it is safer for those involved with the weekend if I keep my mouth shut in case they have future political ambitions. Well I guess it doesn’t really matter what kind of past you’ve had, America will vote anyone in.