Formula 1 Auto Race

By Uncle Hans

Neil, Jake,  Barry , and I recently had a road trip to Montreal to the Formula 1 auto race there.  Neil found a four star hotel online for cheap.  We drove all night and checked in to the hotel on Saturday.

  It took us a long time to find a bar ("You're not in Kansas (Wisconsin) anymore, Dorothy!"), and when we did it was a brewpub where NONE of the beer was drinkable.  But it had a huge TV with the qualifying races on.....

Sunday, bight and early we set out to find a parking spot and found we had to walk a mile or more with our coolers slung over our shoulders.

  We crossed this bridge over the Hudson river with a nice view of downtown Montreal.....

We found a great spot, accidentally, along the fastest straightaway in the road course about 20 feet away from the cars.

  The first race was Formula 3 (like the minor leagues) and it took me 30 tries to catch this car with my fancy phone camera. (gotta love new and improved technology , one try with my old film camera at 1/1000th would have produced a perfect shot, not this blurry mess).  Yes there is a car in there, it is white.

 

  The next race was for only Ferrari "stock" cars and this took another 30 tries to catch this car.  The lap times were about 1 minute 40 seconds for around 2.4 miles per lap......

The feature race started at 2PM with an elaborate ceremony before.  They paraded the drivers around the track riding vintage English Austin Healy Mark 3000's.

  The race itself was fun and interesting.  The lap times dropped to 1 minute and 14 seconds, so I gave up trying to photograph one of those blurs.  Take it from me, they were fast, approaching 200+ just 20 feet away from us.  This guy was fascinating.  With his big belly, camo hat, missing teeth, Budweiser can, and Earnhardt Senior shirt, he was the poster child for NASCAR.  But he spoke only French!......

....After the race (The car from Red Bull, a Swiss company,, powered by Ferrari won), it is a tradition to walk the track.  we dicided to join in.

 

Jake was so carried away by emotion (Bud Lite) that he kissed the track.  We had a great trip and drove through the night to get back to reality.  2300 miles round trip and one sobriety checkpoint, which we somehow got by.......

By Uncle Hans