hey guys,
just went for the CP show here in Chennai. im not gonna just post some pics and end it there.. heres the 'WHOLE STORY'
1545 hrs: im on fb and chatting with fellow tbhpian scorcher. i was actually making him jealous that he couldnt come!! he cursed me saying a certain part of my body would get smashed in all the crowd which was gonna gather at bessi to watch the master work his magic.
1600 hrs: im supposed to have left my house, but my friend, the guy who was supposed to pick me up, didnt turn up, and without any other means of transportation i had no other option but to wait for him.
at this point coffee and biscuits happen.
1630 hrs: my 'friend', finally arrived, and instead of bringing his car, he got his bike, which im ok with usually, but in the Chennai summer, my (recently shaved) bald head was gonna be like a disco ball on wheels when i was on the move. not to forget the massive headache i would have. but there was not other option. *sigh*. i hopped on..
1700 hrs: we were insanely late, we were insanely lost (cause my friend said he knew a shortcut, which i later found out he didnt), and i was insanely mad by this time coz of the headache i was started having!!
1715 hrs: after a LOT of direction checking (and gaalis from me), we finally reached bessi, 15 minutes left for the show, and we are frantically searching for a place to park the bike, and 'surprise surprise', there wasnt even a 'cycle gap' left anywhere. after finding a spot,(rather making a spot, by me, moving many bikes inch by inch) we finally dumped the bike there.
1725: we run to find a spot to stand and watch, but again as my bad luck turned out, the place was JAM PACKED!! we had to squeeze our way through, ignoring the stares and gaalis of the other people there, and Halleluyah!! there was this tiny gap, near the barricades, of about a foot or so which was free and we wrestled and pushed our way into it.
1735 hrs: eagerly waiting for the mayhem to start, still no sign of Chris. minutes pass by, finally he arrives, gives interviews to the press blah blah blah. crowd gets frustrated!!
1745 hrs: show finally starts, but its not CP who starts of. this little kid, on a pocket dirt bike, and wearing a Red Rooster Racing shirt is up first. something like starters before the main course perhaps. he barely even starts off, attempts a wheelie, but sadly falls off. his bike gets switched off, and despite of numerous efforts by one of the crew, his bike just wouldnt start. while all the crowd felt bad and went 'ooh no', 'che paavam'(tamil for 'so sad') and so on so forth, i was actually a bit happy. the aloo pakodas were out of the way, and it was time for the Tandoori Chicken!!
Its Pfieffer Time!!
the crowd went insane just by the sight of him sitting on his bike. and he conveniently took his own sweet time to put on his lid, then posing...
then there was a sudden hush in the crowd,
the liquid cooled parallel twin shotgun of an engine of his BMW F800R CP Edition had come alive, and how!! the bike was atleast 200m away from me but it was still louder than a pulsar revving from close range, thanks to that lovely Akrapovic exhaust. its only a matter of seconds before he is all over the place. he pops a wheelie, and before i could even say wheelie, hes doing an endo stoppie.. then he does a few wheelspins, burnouts and then goes back and get off the bike. to get on his trail bike, or so i thought. there were cops, and they werent there to cheer him.
you see, CP had only 10 minutes to use the stretch of road near bessi beach.(i got this info from a friend, whos brother, i later found out, was organizing the event!!) and most of this was used up in the interviews, posing and of course the little kid on his pocket bike. there a lot of boos from the crowd. after a LOT of negotiations, CP gets a mere 10 more minutes. Chris get back on his F800R right away, not wasting any more precious time, and gets back to his antics, wheelies, stoppies burnouts, and then he gets on his trail bike, and goes mad once again!! he had a bunch of dudes from the audience lay down on the road and then jumped over them... with his bike ofcourse!!
in between all this, there was this dude in a blue shirt who was sort of like a coordinator, controlling the crowds a bit, and asking everyone to cheer. infact it was this dude who selected the people from the crowd and asked them to lay down their lives, err i mean themselves on the tarmac so CP could bunny hop over them. CP later took him for a ride on his F800r, popping wheelies, stoppies, etc..
that man was
MTV VJ Rannvijay.
after dropping Rannvijay off, CP then did one of his signature moves, he sped up, then skid, then stop, while getting the stand on, and then frontflipping off the bike!!
after this, CP left his bike, and pretty much vanished from the venue. but his bikes were still there, and while the crew were trying to get his bike into the back of the transport truck, all the crowd had surrounded them. one of the crew members had come down to begging the crowd to back off.
im gonna stop right here. there nothing else significant to say i guess.. and now you must be wondering why all this mammoth write up? well, to be honest, all of this is an excuse, and a token of appreciation aswell.
excuse, because, i dont have many pics, just a few, and they are all blurry. not because i had a bad camera, or im a bad cameraman, but because its just near impossible to click pics, AND watch CP doing what he does best at the same time.
and thats why its a token of appreciation. to all the guys who managed to take some amazing pictures despite all this. i never understood what a good photographer could do, until today!!
ok i guess you guys are pretty irked by now...
nuff said!! here are the pics and vids!!
Cheers!!