I sort of spelled out the background for the trip to Indy for this year's USGP in my last entry, so if you want to understand what the hell I'm babbling about in this one here, you might want to take a minute and skim thru the previous entry:
The Fastest Ever Built.

The journey started out harmless enough. I stopped to pick up Colby and we watched the qualifying sessions on Saturday at his place and had a few beers. Then once qualifying was over we drove north to get Colby's dad and our other friend Bryan, and since we were right near I-80, we hopped on the interstate, pointed the little rental mini-van (yes, I was soccer mom for the weekend) to the east, and put the hammer down. I've always laughed at mini-vans, but in all honesty, it was a great way to travel to the races. It was a Dodge Caravan, and it drove extremely smoothly. Not that I plan on buying a mini-van anytime soon, but I will say it's a handy vehicle.

However, there was trouble on the horizon for our brave Stud Mobile. Not problems with the vehicle, no, it was a brain fade on my part. In order to get to the I-65 interchange to turn south for Indianapolis, I-80 passes thru Joliet, the southern suburbs of Chicago, and then Gary, IN. It was a holiday weekend, and there were several huge construction projects on I-80 as it passed thru the Chicago suburbs. I should not have gone that way.

"We could be stuck here a very long time." ~ Obi-wan

At one point I did the math, near the I-294 (Tri-state) interchange it took nearly an hour to go 2.4 miles. I haven't seen a traffic backup like that where there wasn't an accident involved. This was just due to the volume of traffic and the restrictions of lanes by the construction (and one goober that had his car stall at just about the absolute worst spot). This was complete lockup, and it had no end in sight. I am not so much a patient person with traffic backups, so my co-pilot Colby and I improvised and exited the interstate and proceeded to carve a general zig-zag route to the east and the south on state routes just to get to I-65. We stayed in Lafayette, IN to steer clear of the outrageously high hotel rates around Indianapolis. What should have been about a three and a half hour drive turned out to be an over five hour blood pressure test for me, the fearless skipper at the wheel.

Saturday night, we were all pretty drained (especially me) so we just hunted up a little sports bar, had a few beers, and shot some pool. Coors Light as always, and I didn't really play all that bad. Good times.

Sunday, race day morning, we're all pumped again. A good night's sleep and the prospect of seeing Formula1 cars at the Speedway has us all energized, so we hop into our blue-but-kinda-purple Stud Mobile and cruise the last stretch into Indianapolis, get parked, and speed walk to the track.

There are morning races at the track including the Formula BMW and Porsche Michelin Cup series. The Formula BMW cars are smaller versions of the F1 cars, in fact, it is a series designed for young drivers who hope to one day make it to Formula 1. The Porsche Cup (which I enjoy) is for race trimmed Porsche 911 GT3 cars. Both were good races, and they gave us time to get some beers and food and get situated.

Then the F1 boys fired up.

As always, television just doesn't do the noise and speed of these cars justice, and when the Formula1 cars did their reconnaissance lap and staged to the starting grid, I got goosebumps. (Keep in mind it was 95 degrees, sunny, hot, and humid) Everyone was cheering for their favorite car or driver or team or basically just being loud to be loud, and the atmosphere thru the crowd was very enthusiastic. Based upon what happened last year, that was a very good sight to see. The Ferrari cars had looked very good in qualifying, and they were on the front row, but still the way Renault had dominated, we didn't know what to expect.

I snapped a photo of my boy Kimi Raikkonen of McLaren as he rolled past us to stage to his starting position on the grid, and little did I know at the time, but that's about the most we would be seeing of him. Kimi's race would last all of about ten seconds and come to a screeching halt in a second turn wreck that eventually involved about six or seven cars total.

Well, that's the trouble with wearing your fandom on your sleeve and being loud about it, when your favorite driver wads it up real bad, everyone in the near vicinity is fully aware of your pain. The tough part was that Raikkonen got hit and taken out by his own McLaren teammate! The crash also claimed the only American driver in the field, Scott Speed (cool racing name there), and Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber was sent wildly cartwheeling thru the air as a result of the collisions.

"I don't care what universe you're from, that's gotta hurt!"

When things settled down and the race restarted, it was the Ferrari cars that began to dominate, not the Renaults. The defending champion, Fernando Alonso of Renault (who had won 6 of 9 races so far, who had not finished worse than second place, who had yet to be passed on the track) had absolutely no answer for the two red cars. Alonso finished a distant fifth, and he was even passed during the race by his Renault teammate Giancarlo Fisichella (who wound up finishing third).

At the track it struck me that in some ways it was like sitting in the theatre waiting to see Revenge of The Sith. I couldn't wait for the F1 race to get started, and then once it did, I didn't want the experience to end. Just like a Star Wars movie, it always seems to go by too quickly. RoTS was to be the last Star Wars movie, and I'm starting to fear that this year's race might be the last USGP held at Indianapolis. That could be the really bad part, since this is the last year for F1's contract with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and it is not a certainty that they will be renewing the contract for future races.

The FIA (F1's governing body) is currently negotiating with IMS to work out a possible deal for future races, but again, nothing is for certain just yet. I've got my fingers crossed that everything works out and that I'll be going back next year.

"My negotiations will not fail." ~ Palpatine

Michael Schumacher, who is second in the series points to Alonso, managed to "pass" his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa for the lead and then pretty much cruise to the victory. I say "pass" because it was fairly clear that Ferrari worked it so that Schumacher would cycle thru the pit stops out into the front, but there's really no way to prove that. At any rate, it was a great result for Ferrari (they finished first and second), and despite all of Alonso's dominance so far this year, his lead over Schumacher is now down to 19 points - which is a comfortable lead but not insurmountable. Indianapolis marks just over the halfway point for the season, so there is alot of racing yet to go.

Hopefully this marks a resurgence for Ferrari to challenge Renault, and they can make the season interesting all the way to the final race. And hopefully Kimi can manage to get thru the second turn without wrecking. Whatever happens, I'll be there watching all the way to the end.



Here are some photos I took from our day at the track on Sunday:

Disclaimer: Figuring out how to use someone else's camera whilst consuming alcohol and trying to watch everything at a race is actually a little more difficult than I thought it would be. The camera didn't stand a chance of taking photos of the cars as they were flying by us during the race, so yeah, it was all the camera's fault. I did manage to get some decent photos when the cars were slow and/or stationary.

Entrance to the Speedway A great sight to see, our gate into the Speedway.

Merecedes Benz Safety Car This served as the pace car for all the racing over the weekend. It's just a bit quicker than our mini-van.

Porsche car on starting grid One of the earlier races before the USGP was a Porsche Cup race. This was a Porsche 911 GT3 on the grid right below where we sat.

Vintage car during F1 driver introductions I didn't manage to hear what year and model this car was, bit it's old. I think that's the two Midland drivers in the back seat waving to the fans.

Hottie on the starting grid Just because.

Kimi Raikkonen staging to starting grid Unfortunately this was the most I would see of him, his race ended in a second turn crash.

Michael Schumacher staging to starting grid The eventual race winner, Ferrari were on top of their game the entire weekend.

The pre-race mess at the starting grid The teams prepare the F1 cars on the grid for the start of the USGP.

The Start My favorite pic. The red lights are all lit, which means all cars are staged and ready to start. The lights above are about to turn green, and green means GO!

Pit Stop This was a pit stop by Christijan Albers of the Midland team in the pit stall right across from us. This was one of about four stops he made before finally retiring from the race with mechanical troubles (transmission).

Ferrari on pit road Michael Schumacher cruising down pit road towards his second and final pit stop on his way to winning the race.

The Podium The trophy presentations after the race.