Well, it's still a month away, but I'm getting antsy. For the people that have never seen an F-1 car at full chat (ie. full speed, or full braking, or at full cornering), you've missed out. If you've seen all that, but not with your two sons, well, all I can say is that I have.

The first live F-1 I saw was in 1967 at Watkins Glen. Graham Hill (Lotus-Ford), Jimmy Clark (Lotus-Ford), John Surtees (Honda), Denny Hulme (Brabham), Jack Brabham (Brabham - duh), Jean Pierre Beltois (Matra-BRM), Jo Siffert (Cooper). The names are familiar to me. Not to everybody. Wings in those days were non-existent. A couple of years later, in 1969 at Watkins Glen again, for the absolute ultimate transfer of downforce, the wings would be connected directly to the rear suspension. F-1 back then was a totally different animal than it is today. Safety was pretty much an afterthought. There was no advertising on the cars. Hard to imagine that today. The driving in that period however, was truly inspired. Passing was rampant. Outbraking was invented here. The reliablity left something to be desired, but that was assumed to be the norm in those days. Cutting edge technology really could make you bleed. I saw that race, and decided that I couldn't ever get enough of that.

The next time I saw Formula 1 was in 1974, also at Watkins Glen. I was much more involved by then. Carlos Reutemann won it in a Brabham BT44-Ford. It was the end of the year, and things had pretty much sorted themselves out. Fittipaldi won the championship. Look at the results at the link above. Or in this list of qualifyers. The cars had changed considerably. Interestingly there were 30 cars entered. Ever seen that? The winning car, Brabham, was one of four entered. Ever seen that? Fifteen different cars? Ever hear of an Ensign? A Shadow? A March? This was a time when F-1 wasn't even known as F-1. It was "The Gran Prix". I was there with a friend of mine, who had a Formula 'B' March 722 that I'd been crewing with that year, entered into one of the support races, the fairly new Formula 'Atlantic', created to compete with already succesful Pacific coast and further west racing. It was actually cheaper to enter a car in the support race and get your crew in, maybe six people, than it was to buy six tickets to watch the race. Nevermind you had to trash an engine during the very competitive practice and qualifying for the Saturday race. I don't remember how we did that weekend, but I do remember it was snowing as we set up the tent on Wednesday night. After the F-1 race (the last of the year) we somehow managed to buy the nose and cowl of the March 741 driven (but not qualified at this race) by Hans Stuck. He'd had an abysmal year, but would go on to be a serious International Rally and Sports Car driver. We went on, in future years with that March 722 with the F-1 nose, to do some pretty good road racing in the Northeast U.S. It dawns on me now that this whole episode should be its own thought.

Fast forward to about 1997. I don't remember how it started, but somehow we were going to see the Canadian F-1. That would be "F-1 du Canada" in Montreal. F-1 had long ago left the U.S.A. The only F-1 on this continent was in Canada. If you're even a casual fan of road racing, you absolutely must see an F-1 sometime in your lifetime. It's not like just another road race only faster. It's literally a take your breath away event. I've seen lots of fast cars in great venues, but seeing an F-1 car just sitting there is an event in itself. Hearing one of them rev to 18,000 or 19,000 RPM is something that words would never be able to describe. However, there's this. That's not really even close, but, as the months tick by, it will have to do. Montreal has some really great close-up spots to watch the most exotic race cars in the world. Seeing them go by at maybe 160 MPH and only 10 feet from you (just before the Casino hairpin at the north end of the track) is breath-taking in the most literal sense. From that perspective, it's even hard to tell what color they are. Really. And the noise is painful. It's interesting to me that, for years, Formula 1 fans have been able to distinguish the drivers by the paint jobs on their helmets. Well, I know it can happen, but when you first see them at speed, it just seems impossible.

We did that for five years I think. Camping at first. Then finding a hotel that was a close cab ride to the track. Tammy dealt with that in great fashion. There were often other people with us there, too. Steve & Sharon; always great to see them. Hunter. Hunter's Hunter. Enough said. Robbie for a year. It's been an event. Now, and maybe not for long, we'll be going to the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis. There's been an attendance problem. Part of that problem is the fact that I haven't been there. We're finally going to be fixing that this year. I've never been to Indianapolis except for a drive through in 1967, and a few plane changes. I've seen the two and a half mile oval Indianapolis Motor Speedway from the air. The Indy Formula 1 Race is not the Indy 500 Race. The track is carved out of the oval's infield. We're sitting in Section "H" for the race, which should give us a view of 210-215 MPH cars braking hard for turn 1, maybe an 80 MPH right hander. It just might be noisy. That's on Sunday. Friday and Saturday we're in on General Admission for practice & qualifying, which means we can roam around the place, watching from where we want, trying to find the best spot to see the whole thing again next year. We've done this sort of thing before. We know what we're doing. We've been watching races for a long, long time.

It's less than a month away. I can't wait.

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just a thought. bill brower, 22-May-2004

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