Formula One! - USGP 2005

Dear You,

Let me clarify that I do not qualify in any way as a Formula One fan and suit any definitions of it. I came to know of such a sport when I saw the mishap that occured to the legend Ayrton Senna. Ever since, I have heard the names Michael Schumacher and Montoya and Raikkonen a couple of times, when my friends used to get lost in F1 discussions or when I used to see glimpses of the race on hitting a wrong TV channel! In fact, the first complete F1 race that I saw was yesterday, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!!

Not to be outdone, I took a crash course on the different cars and the team members and their points and the nuances of the race for almost a couple of weeks before the race. I had got the chance to go there coz some one in our group dropped out at the last moment. I was glad I did coz I had wanted to see the zooming cars and hear that shrill sound as they fly. The more I knew about the game, the more expectant I was to see a good race. I was following the practice and qualifiers and had in fact, made an attempt to memorize the positions as well.

Amidst fans of red and black'n'silver, I had chosen to support the Italian Trulli who was on Toyota! It was just for the thrill of not joining the herd and not supporting the well known faces! Indianapolis, the capitol of our neighbouring state of Indiana, was just a couple of hours drive from my home and was an hour behind in time zone. So, we decided to start early in the morning. We were well out of Cinty by 7 am EST and were at the parking lots by 8 am CST. My ticket was with a couple of fellow UC batchmates and around 7 guys from the University of Minnesota.

The festive atmosphere was amazing and more than a hundred-thousand people had turned up! I could see so many caravans in the parking lots suggesting that so many have been witnessing all the practice and qualifying races. I could see Ferrari support everywhere! Almost three quarters of the entire crowd was dressed up in red! The salesperson at the Team Merchandise shop had gone crazy selling Ferrari outfits! I was not keen on buying in any of those coz I didnt know enough to like it all! I was just enjoying myself by just observing the massive crowd and making new friends with the Minnesota people!

Around 10 am, we were at the stands! The race was supposed to commence at 1 pm. But, we had Formula BMW and Porsche races in the meantime and they were good fun too. The sound was already deafening and I was wondering how loud it would get for the Formula One!

At 12:45 pm, we had the American National Anthem sung and a oath taken before the race commenced! At 1 pm exactly, all the cars raced out of the pits making a wonderful display of the brilliance of the f1 cars. It was the warm up round! I was amazed to see the beauty and design of probably the best cars on earth! The aerodynamic design was evident from the very look of the cars!! The cars, were to take up their positions after this warm up round. It was a grand sight to see the crowds cheering as their favourite team members/cars flew past the speedway! As an Indian, I felt very happy to see many Indian flags amidst German, Finnish and Brazilian flags! All thanks to Narain Karthikeyan! The warm up round was over and I was assuming all the cars were taking positions. So were all the hunderd thousand people. It was around 1:10 pm and there was loud cheering in the crowd as the race was about to begin. I was sitting in the stands next to the paddock and so, I could not see the line up of the cars but had to wait for the cars to emerge from the start point.

The five lights got lit up and the count down began. Bam and the moment occured. Sound of acceleration filled the air and with brute force, the cars stormed out of the start line! I was expecting a Toyota followed by a McLaren as the positions were. But I was surprised to see two Ferrari's zoom out followed by a couple of Jordan and Minardi pairs. As I was wondering what was wrong, I was shocked to see that there were no more cars! Yeah! there were just 6 cars in the race!!! All the others were gone in the pits! For a moment I was wondering if they were playing a trick on the audience. The happy cheers from the crowd died down drastically and all the hundred-thousand faces were confused! Moments later, the announcer, FINALLY decided to inform the crowd that Michelin had pulled out all the cars running on their tyres from the race as they felt that their tyres were unsafe for high-speed turn at the main corner!

What a blow that was! It was pathetic to see the dissapointment on so many faces. The crowd started shouting madly. They were yelling "Bullshit","Cowards","Shame on Ferrari" and such stuff. Even the die-hard Ferrari fans wanted a good contest. And they knew there was no contest happening with no Renault and McLaren and Toyota! The only moment of the race was when Schumacher raced out of the pit stop, he almost made a physical contact with Barrichello that sent out smoke and pushed Barrichello out of the track into the greens. Moments later, Barrichello got back on track and till the end gave a very close fight to Schumacher. Schumi and Barrichello got the first and second. All the Indians hoped that Narain would come third for though a hollow victory it would have been, they wanted to see the Indian flag on the podium! But, there was dissapointment on that front as well. Tiago Monteiro came third and it was the first time a portugese is making it to the podium! In fact, he was the only one who was thrilled with the results and happily opened the champagne bottle. Schumi and Barrichello knew it was a bad win and dissappeared soon from the podium. They probably would not have loved to face the crowd cheering them as Cowards and calling the victory a Shame.

Well, with all dissapointing things of the race said and done, let me pen down the experience of seeing these cars fly. The sound that these cars produce when they cross the stand is absolutely deafening that it can affect the ears very badly. Every one wears a ear plug. I stood in the same level of the race track and tried to catch the car in my eyes as it passed from the right end to the left end, but realized it is just impossible because our neck would never turn at that pace to maintain the car in the sight!!!! The Formula One cars are a pure engineering marvel! To see those cars turn at super high speeds even in the sharpest corners leaves one wondering at the design of its components. And the acceleration is simply amazing. Its impossible to beleive that a man-made beast can roll so fast and yet stay on the ground!

We did reach home with a strong dissapointment of not having witnessed a race. The results should make it obvious. The 3rd and 4th positions were a lap behing Schumi and the 5th and 6th were a couple of laps behind! That was no competition! But still, I now know how grand it would be to see these cars in a real race and that is making me wait for the next one. And I would not prefer going to Indy the next time and take a risk and would rather prefer Montreal!!

Definitely,

Me.