Indy 2005

What a weekend at Indy down on the coast! *phew*

As per usual, there was the action that differentiates this event from almost all other race events around the world: girls on balconies who will display their 'wares' with the help of a bit of alcohol.

Of course, many of them are professional types as I see them enter the circuit in the morning and leave in the afternoon. They apparently make some good coin from it, so if they're happy doing what they do then I have no problem with it.

What makes me wonder about is the blokes with the beer on other hotel balconies and down on the street. Anyone would think that they have never seen a pair of tits before in their lives.

Yeah - OK - I tend to agree with Ron The Cable Guy (or was it Ron White?) (rent a copy of The Blue Collar Comedy Tour - VERY funny!) that if a bloke sees one woman naked, he wants to see the rest of them naked as well - even the old bikie molls with their bits hanging down around their waist. "Things that make you go..... Brrrr-rrrr-rrr *shudder*"

But to cheer and chant and then abuse a girl for not lifting her shirt? Maybe I'm just getting old or something. Hooties are nice to look at but treat them like the sun: have a quick glance and admire the scenery and then find something else to look at without making a big deal about it :) This is an especially handy principle to work on should the girl that they're attached to be hanging onto the arm of a bloke that makes your average testosterone-enhanced gorilla look like a 98lb weakling and has the temperament of your average man-hating, rabid lesbian whose 'cycle' lasts the entire 28 days!

There were some interesting things happening while working trackside - I mean, apart from the getting in for free and having a free pass to give to a friend to that they could get in for free as well. Who would have thought that it would be so hard to GIVE away a FREE 4-day pass into the Indy?? I have the FREE passes of 2 other people sitting at home with my own unused pass. Go figure...

Apparently there is also a big fight going on at racetracks all around the country now as those individuals who work the flags (Flaggies) are now seemingly not allowed to do their job and thus show the blue flag to slower traffic thereby allowing faster vehicles to pass. The order must now come from Race Control.

I don't care what anyone says - you can have your sensors on the track and be able to predict when and where a vehicle will pass but having worked on racetracks for the past 11 years, those up in the tower are NOT qualified to make a call about what is happening down on the track. Sure - they are very experienced people up in the tower but there is nothing quite like being on site. This "technology for technology sake" ideal that the wannabe technophiles have can be very disturbing at times. Will the computer push the cars or bikes out of the sand traps as well? I think not.

Anyway, with the events of the past year, we forgot to book the room for the extra night down at Sufferers Parasite (Surfers Paradise) and ended up having to get out of the room on Saturday morning.
Many, many, MANY thanks to Nick & Nora for being the most charming and pleasant hosts in putting us up for the night. I don't know how I can repay the favour but I'll keep trying :)

It rained on the first 2 days, but I can usually fluke it that I will be under a tarp somewhere. Failing that, standing in the rain is a good option as well. Why are people so afraid of rain? Are they all poms or something? Was there a bar of soap on the footpath? :D

It turned out that I was fortunate again on my corner with no major incidents happening. The crowd love to see crashes but some poor bugger has to pay for it! I was also a bit upset about one crew member from one of the V8 Supercar teams having a go at my dad in pit lane because his foot was about half an inch over the yellow line. He redeemed himself by apologising later so I won't make a big deal about which team and giving him a big raspberry over it. Being in a crew can be stressful when there is the money involved that there is and it doesn't help when you get *some* marshals who become wannabe cops when they go on duty (my dad isn't one of them).

So... anyone else want a job at Indy next year? I got my dad a job there and he is now based permanently in pit lane. I get a mate a job there and he's in pit lane in his first year. I've been there 7 years and never been in the lane once! Oh well...

One final note... isn't it amazing how everyone has a comment when they see something out of the ordinary but their comments are so lacking in imagination that you can hear the same thing called out 20 times from 20 different people in about 10 minutes! Since the Indy circuit is so long, we ride bicycles in & out of the circuit at the start & end of the day. It saves a lot of time and makes life so very simple. The mate whose first year it was on track had this loaner bike that stripped the thread on the pedal and needed a hand - so I hooked up a rope to the seatpost of my bike and towed him out and back as we didn't have bits to fix it. by the 4th day, he decided to ride it without a pedal on one side because it was easier to do that than listen to intellectual midgets so lacking in wit that it is almost impossible to put into words.