2005 USGP

Hello all.
Hanging on the live dohickey with Sidepodcast.com from time to time the 2005 USGP has been mentioned and I thought I would expound on my experience.
I was working at a Fire Dept in SW Fla and one of the other guys there was an F1 fan, and if you're an F1 fan in the US, you know how hard it is to be able to talk F1 with someone else. We would discuss F1, while others rolled their eyes at us. But one day I suggested that we go to the USGP, I mean, why not? He mentioned that he has a nephew that lives in Indy, so we could stay cheap, spending the bulk of the money on beer. The decision was made and time crawled until it was time to fly out to Indy.

We arrived on Wednesday 15 June, got the rental car and drove to John's nephews house that was about 35 miles from the speedway. The next morning we got up to tempatures in the mid 50's F. When I left Florida, it was hot and humid, even at 0600 so this was a very welcome change. The trip to the speedway was very fast, as traffic was light and it was pretty direct. We got there about the time the gates opened and walked through the tunnel to the infeild. Now, I am a huge Indy 500 fan and recognize the history of the track, as well as the presence of the greatest racing series in the world...Formula One. As I walked out of the tunnel and could see the pagoda, I remember distinctly getting choked up. I was at hallowed ground.

The first thing we ran into was one of Michael Schumacher's cars, I think it was a 2003 possibly 2004. It was beautiful, I mean I just wanted to hug the car. As I stood there marveling at it, I wanted my eyes to drink it all in. Around the Plaza (the infeild area just behind the pagoda), were vintage Indy cars and a Fosters F1 car. The grid girls were standing around the cars having their pictures taken...some seemed uncomfortable, not just because they must have been freezing. I began talking with one and we had a nice conversation. At the end, she said, "Thanks for talking to me, I really felt self conscious standing her half naked." A lesson learned. We moved on to another vintage Indy 500 car and the grid girl stationed there stepped forward and told us, "This is a 1926 IRL car that ran in the 500." John and I looked at each other knowing that the IRL hadn't been in existance for more than 10 years, so I guess everything was retroactively tagged "IRL".

In the Plaza, there would be interviews of many of the drivers by the Speed TV Formula One broadcast crew. First up was Michael Schumacher. He gave a good interview and it always struck me as a neat thing when you see someone as famous as him for the first time. "Oh, so that's him". I did correctly predict his answer when he was asked, who in sport do you admire the most. Answer: Lance Armstrong. He also related a funny story. Apparently he has a ranch in Montana that he visited following the GPC (Grand Prix of Canada). He and his family drove to a lookout area that was very beautiful and just took in nature with other people. A bear ambled into the area and he started shouting to a car full of people to be careful there is a bear about. He said they stared at him, mouths open. Come to find out, they were Germans that spoke no english, being cautioned about a bear from their country's most famous sports guy.

A little while later, the pit walkabout began. I'm sure that all F1 venues have the same thing, but I was giddy about seeing an F1 car and it's mechanics up close. As we filtered in, we passed the safety car and the medical car and then made it into the huge crowds in front of the Ferrari, Mclaren and Renault garages. It was tough to see anything at those three garages, so I moved further down the pit lane as the crowds thinned out. The best veiwing area was of course, the Minardi garage. After a while, they started the engine and began revving it. It was like a rock concert. When they would shut down the car, people would scream and clap. Further up the pit lane, I found a great spot in front of the McLaren garage. There was a crewman that was pulling the "Kimi" off of the sidepods in order to replace it with "West". The guy got the K off and started to crumble it up when that drew a huge reaction from the gathered fans. The guy was taken off guard by the reaction and handed the K to a very pretty girl, who stuck it to her chest. I saw her numerous times the rest of the day, the K moved from her chest to her arms and back to the chest. A perfect excuse to not look a woman in the eyes.

After the pit walkabout was closed down, we went to the Indianapolis Speedway Museum. If you are ever near Indy, go to the museum. It was great and there were some older F1 cars as well as nearly every Indy 500 winner, even the first 500 winner. There was an old Barrichello Steward car and one of Michaels old Benettons. By the way, Christine asked for who's our favorite liveried car? Ding, ding, ding the Benetton's. We headed back to Fishers, Indiana (John's nephews home) in the late afternoon.