So, it's that time of year again when I get all ready to slum it in a field in Europe somewhere for 3/4 days with a couple of mates, living like total bums, (well....camping!), just on the outskirts of an F1 circuit with my saving grace, the best tickets I can buy and a pit pass for Friday, maybe Saturday too.

This year I'm off to the Nurburgring for the European GP this weekend.

German race fans are absolutley the most hardcore fans anywhere, when I went to Hockenheim 3 years ago, it was basically a 72hour beerfest with no letting up for silly things like.....sleep....or food. Everything is just Schumacher and as much scarlet red as you can find.
Also the Germans have a hardcore policy on burning things, 2 years ago at Spa, I watched them get all wound up because they'd run out of caravans to burn, so at 2am (this is not a joke......) they got out their chainsaws, went into the woods and started cutting trees down, bought back the wood, put it inside an old MK1 Golf that they'd towed in, and burnt the lot to the ground. For a laugh.

In the morning when I went for a piss, they'd burned down the Portaloos as well.

I find this stuff incredibly entertaining to watch, so I'm really looking forward to mixing with them again.

Anyhoo, hopefully it'll be a good qualifying session and maybe we'll see a proper race like we did at Monaco last week.......otherwise all my time in Germany will just be spent getting pissed up and thinking about fire engines.

Oh well.

I hope to bring back some pics as I've blagged the use of a digi camera....

If I make it back....


TBC.

Get me some gravel or grass from the circuit!!!!

I will take one of the F1 cars

Okay... get him a McLaren.

No need to be nasty, a Ferrari will do.

Nah... maybe a Jaguar or a Toyota?

I'll try for Kimi's.....just after it's broken down....probably about lap 15 or 20.

15 or 20? I say it goes at launch...

Hopefully in front of a Ferrari.

Nope... a Renault.

As per usual the whole weekend was a total scream, nothing out of the ordinary got burned, apart from an old marquee, and the beer levels were......staggering.

Nurburgring is an excellent circuit with good facilities, and if you have the seats that I/we had, you'd have the best ones in the house. Right over turns 1-4, which means that the only incident I didn't see with my own eyes was Coulthard's engine letting go. EVERYTHING else happened right in front me. Too many pics to post, so only a couple here.....

A bit of of 1st bend bunching...



and Button makes a move...




The camera I borrowed wasn't the best, but you get the idea.

I still find it very disappointing that if you are a Ferrari/Schumacher sycophant, then your ideal race is to see them fly off into the distance and wait for the chequered flag (which was pretty much what 95% of the attending crowd wanted).
I got speaking to a Brit and his son who camped next us, they both went along in their Ferrari hats and Man Utd shirts just to see the dominant force triumph.
Sums it all up nicely methinks.
As a RACE fan, I enjoyed the race battles going on and just ignored the inevitable, predictable, boring Ferrari thing.

Not a boring race in the flesh though, loads going on.

The changes to the Qualifying format should help to open things out though.

The whole atmosphere of being there makes it far less boring than watching on TV.

Gotta love those McLarens...

hehe.....

what did I say, lap 15 or 20 for Kimi ?

15 wasn't it.

I think my old rover has an outside chance of beating them.

Tartan rug an' all.

And I do enjoy watching the Ferraris, I just know it's a year until BAR and Renault are strong enough to make the contests at the front of the field.