2007 United States Formula 1 Grand Prix
The Formula 1 Road Coarse at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Just in case you are an F1 (Formula 1) newbie there are some differences
between F1 racing and other types of racing like NASCAR. The first of these
differences is that F1 races are run in a clockwise direction, as indicated
by the red arrows in the diagram above. F1 is different from NASCAR in particular
in that F1 is run on a road course having both left and right turns and
they are not necessarily big sweeping turns. NASCAR drivers only make left
hand turns and the turns made are big sweeping turns like the one in turn
13 in the diagram above. Anyway I didn't put this diagram here to pick apart
other types of racing. I included it so that you would have a point of reference
on the overall track when you look at the photos and video I have included
below.
Day 2 - Saturday, June 16, 2007 - Time Trials
As luck would have it, we were not completely successful in our attempt to anticipate the amount of time it would take to get into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday. Lars however gave it his best F1 attempt as he navigated the expressways that encircle and disect the large sprawling city that is Indianapolis. My parents live in Indy so we were not staying in a motel close to the track. I don't think we could have found a room if we had been so inclined. We did make it into the speedway in time to see the ending of the Time Trials and we got to see some of the cars (from a distance) and we learned right off the bat that we needed earplugs if we were gonna stay in the grandstands just off of turn 13 heading for the finish line... the sound comes up off the track and hits the metal overhang and bounces right back down into your ears and it is deafening.
I
am serious about this when I say this dog was wearing shades. There is no
other person in the back seat of that car and we were side by side for at
least 3 miles as we headed down a traffic light laden 40 mph road to the
interstate. You don't have to believe me, you can ask Rob or Lars, they
both saw it and that dog's shades did not fall off or even come close to
falling off the whole time. You know I have seen kids try to dress up animals
and you can put sweaters and stuff on dogs but in my experience they simply
don't like things on their heads and they will shake, paw, roll on their
backs and squirm to get the offending item off... but this dog was stylin
and wanted everyone to see. I couldn't believe it when I looked over my
right shoulder and saw it thru the car window. We were stopped at a traffic
light when I took the picture... it gives a whole new meaning to the term
doggie style...
Time Trial Image Gallery
Click on a thumbnail to see the bigger image.
The Champ Car girl was too hot. I thought I was getting a fever by proximity. If you look at her left hand (yea I know it is hard to do), she is holding a stack of Champ Car stickers which she gave to anyone who wanted one... I think I got 2 or 3... for some reason I kept coming back for more. I wanted more photos of her and I had planned to ask her to pose a few more times on Race Day but she wasn't there on Race Day... believe me I looked! I put one of my Champ Car stickers on the one object that is never far away... *wink* my laptop. :) I also created a 1024x768 resolution F1 desktop background featuring the Champ Car girl which you can download from here.
Day 3 - Sunday, June 17, 2007 - Race Day!
Rob provided me with a ticket for the Time Trials, but he was not able to get a ticket for Race Day so I'm sorry that is all I have... j/k. You see I have two totally awesome brother-in-laws and one of them just so happens to be a master pastry chef who owns a small but very in demand pastry shop in Indianapolis called Rene's Bakery that was featured in an article for USA Today entitled "10 great places to give yourself a cookie"and he just so happened to be asked to cater pastries for 7 of the teams racing in the Grand Prix and he didn't care to go to the track and watch the race himself so he gave his free tickets to me! How awesome is that!? So if you are ever in Indianapolis and looking for an incredibly delicious pastry shop (believe me I know) be sure to check out Rene's Bakery Inc.. Muchas Gracias Albert! Rob and Lars had bought thier tickets in advance online so they had seats next to each other. The were seated in the infield grandstands located between turns 10 and 11. I was all over the place so you will see shots from all around the track... now you understand why I started this page with a track diagram!
Notice the above images, one is of Lars and Rob, the other is of Lars and I. Now that you see the pic of Lars and Rob decked out in their racing swag, I have to tell you the story about the shirts. Lars bought his Red Ferarri racing shirt online before the race, Rob did not. The white Petronas BMW Sauber racing shirt that you see Rob wearing cost him $150.00 US. Well you know what I thought about that? Well I won't leave anything to chance I will tell you exactly what I thought. I thought "OH MY FUCKING GAWD, that shirt better be sewn with gold plated thread and be made of the finest silk in the world!" and let me assure you that is NOT the case. The shirt does have an authentic BMW part number sewn into the shirt so that if you crash it you can get a replacement part from the stealership (for a price). Now I want you to notice Rob's shit eating grin in that picture... there could only be 2 possible explanations for that grin. The first is that he was just given a bend over, no vasoline, throw a lil sand and salt in there screwing and he is clueless or the second possible explanation is that he is having a blast... it must be the second. I think he is having good times and that is always good to see! One other thing you should notice ... Notice Lars' USMC million mile stare as he stands next to Rob, then notice the cheesy grin when he is standing next to me.... hmmm.
Race Day Gallery
Click on a thumbnail to see the bigger image.
Driver Parade Images
- Taken from the infield south terrace bleachers located between turns 12
and 13 -
Warm-Up Lap Images
- Taken from the infield at turn 13 and the entry for Pit Row -
2007 US Grand Prix Images
- The first six race images were taken at turn 4 -
- A couple of images at turn 5 -
- An image at Turn 7 -
- An image at Turn 8 -
- An image at Turn 9 -
- Images from the infield South Terrace between turns 12 and 13 -
- Images from the grand stand bleachers opposite of the South Terrace between
turns 12 and 13 (not taken from the infield) -
That is all of the decent images that I got at the 2007 United States Formula 1 Grand Prix. I hope you liked them. I had a blast. The weather was great ( a little warm but tolerable ) and the racing was awesome. The official winner was Lewis Hamilton of the Mercedes-McLaren racing team. Now I know I promised some video too and I had originally planned to have the clips run in a movie window on this page and simply have them loop over and over but I really don't want to slow the loading of this page down any more than is possible so I will just include links to the video and you can download and watch them. The movies require a video program that can handle the Apple Quicktime Movie format (files that end in .mov). If you don't think you have such a program you can download Apple Quicktime for free.
Both of these clips were filmed from the same location and that is from a grandstand vantage point where you can see the cars coming out of turn 12 and approaching turn 13, the last turn before the finish line straitaway. Here is clip #1 and clip #2