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This years F1 was a wet and muddy affair. I made it out to the track around 2 on Friday, just in time to have a $10 corn dog and stand under one of the pedestrian bridges for an hour or so and chat with my friend Ralph while it continued to rain. Then they announced that the practices for that day were all canceled. The rain had let up so I was going to check out turn 11 before I headed home. About 15 minutes after I left the cover of the bridge the sky opened up and the winds got seriously intense. (see the first photo). So i spent another 30 minutes or so in a beer tent. Eventually I made it to the shuttle bus that took me to the off site parking where my car was. Of course the grassy field had turned into a mud pit. I was amazed at how many people thought that full throttle was the best way to deal with mud. Several cars were axle deep. I slowly backed out of my spot and proceeded at a slow steady pace and drove right out.
I skipped Saturday as it thundered and rained all day. And while F1 will run in the rain, unlike NASCAR, they will NOT run if the helicopter ambulance can't fly or if the fans are in danger of getting hit by lightning. This was the situation for pretty much all of Saturday. |
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Sunday was much better. There was no lighting and the winds, while still high, were not strong enough to ground the helicopters. The grounds were a total mud pit, and it was a bit on the chilly side but I never heard anyone complain. I fact I got the impression that the many Europeans at the event took little notice to the damp conditions or the cool air. Quite a few were still strolling around in shorts and sandals even though it was in the mid 60's.
The race itself was pretty good. It started out wet but by the half way point I think most cars had switched from wet tires to slicks. You can tell which tires they have by the color of the stripe on the tire side wall. Green is wet tires, the yellow and white are slicks. |
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I've organized the photos by turns. I was hanging out with Ralph again and we spent the first half of the race at turns 7 and 8, one of the only really good general admission spots. I wandered up to turn 9 for a bit too. Then about half way through the race Ralph said he actually had bleacher seats at turn 4 so we headed over there for the second half of the race. We could certainly see the track better from the bleachers, but from that point on I pretty much got the same 3 shots of every car.
In photo 2 on row 2 you can see how extreme the treads on the rain tires are. In the last photo on row 9 and the first 2 photos on row 10 you can see sparks under the cars where they bottomed out. |
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