US Grand Prix 2005, not the best of the races but then again I have never been to any of the previous ones so whatever ... I enjoyed the experience
I along with a friend drove down from Chicago to Indianapolis, a 200 mile stretch. Near the race track every house had turned their yard into instant profit making parking-lots where prices ranged from $10 to $30 depending on the distance to the track. Next on profit-making genre were the mobile merchandise shops, which had plain black polo shirts for $60 (and people were buying them), Ferrari logo hats for 40 bucks, kids Ferrari jacket for 100 bucks; it was just a big money making show. Ah well, i also bought one hat so whatever
...
Once we were inside the stadium, two things were obvious, 90% of the people seemed to be Ferrari fans; I used "seemed" because they were holding flags, to hats, to Schumi's dolls, more or less i felt people hardly knew much about the teams and they were just following who so ever was on top (atleast earlier seasons), either way the fans were just all out for them. The other were the Indian fans, supporting the first ever F1 Driver from India driving the Jordan-Toyota, Narain Karthikeyan, who came in fourth and took his first points of the season and most likely the last. How did that happen? Well just read any news site about this years US Grand Prix.
The funniest part was when all 20 cars came out and went for a practice lap, everyone cheered as all the cars blasted off together creating tremendous roar, and then simply one by one 14 cars pulled in the Pit lane, leaving the Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi to race. The conclusion of the race was obvious right then and there. Jordan and Minardi's were no match for Ferrari.
But I have to say Schumacher and Barrichello didn't take it easy and raced hard, even at one point Barrichello was forced out of the track by Schumacher when they mis-coordinated the Pit lane exit.
Ofcourse no one was pleased and major booing and cursing was on, the whole time even during the customary podium awarding. There was so much happening outside the track, people writing nasty things on posters and posing for cameramen, booing, cursing, it was much more interesting than the race. I took some great shots including the Pit girls and the crowd, which i complied into a
Video Collage.
It was nice experience, even though including me everyone there felt cheated, but I think I still might go back next year because if it was fun when only 6 cars raced, I wonder how would it be with 20 of them blasting together ...
