A day at the races…
(This image was originally posted to moblog.co.uk by Steph)
A couple of weeks ago we spent an afternoon at Silverstone, the home of British Motor Racing. By pure chance we ‘won’ a pair of tickets, so we headed down there (Steph, Jordan and I) along with my folks to see what was going on. Someone we knew loosely through Jordan’s old school had made the tickets available in a competition and when the original winners were unable to attend, we were offered them.
We spent the day sitting on the grass in the sunshine around various parts of the circuit. The place was pretty deserted (I get the feeling it’s only ever packed out for the Formula One Grand Prix), so there was plenty of space for Jord to run about and enjoy himself, and plenty of angles for Steph to take photos. We visited the circuit cafe next to the paddock, ate ice cream and generally had a very pleasant day.
After watching numerous types of cars racing, from mini coopers, to classic 60’s cars to jedis (which resembled mini F1 cars) the final race of the day was upon us. Tony (the chap who had donated the tickets) was lined up on the grid in his distinctive blue and white striped car - we should have seen the writing on the wall when we noticed he was 13th on the starting grid. Before long the warm up lap began, and a couple of minutes later the cars filed past us one by one (we were in one of the grandstands at this point) with Jordan going nuts shouting ‘come on Tony!’ perched upon my shoulders.
As the lights on the grid turned to green, the roar of engines intensified and they were off! We saw them disappear out of sight and awaited our next glimpse of the pack - before long we spotted the first car appearing around a corner, then the second, the third and so on. Jordan was on tenderhooks looking for Tony, Steph’s camera was aimed and ready, I was looking for the distinctive blue and white stripes…but something was not quite right. Within a few seconds the entire pack had come past us, but there was no sign of Tony!
Seconds later red flags were being waved by the track marshals and the commentator announced “Red flag! We have a car in a dangerous position on the track!”. Tony! The race was stopped and everyone lined up on the grid again. Everyone that was, except for Tony.
Poor, poor, Tony. He had waited all day for his chance to race - we’d waited half the day (although we enjoyed ourselves while waiting) and what happened? Someone rammed him from behind on the first lap of the race! The remaining cars finished the race, but it was stopped again before the end, so it wasn’t much of a race in the end - just a few laps around half of the circuit.
We bumped into Tony on our way back to the car and commiserated with him. He seemed a little put out, but philosophical - the important point being that he was ok and his car was ok, which is what we were concerned about!
All in all we had a great day and I think we’ll be going back to Silverstone at some point!
[tags]Silverstone, Racing, Motor Sport[/tags]
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.