[leadf00t]

Wow i didn't know Reliance too sponsored the Force India F1 team. Look at the rear wing

[tifosikrishna]

Tifosikrishna. Q1 was under way but we managed to hear each other over the scream of the engines & I saw him. Warm handshake exchanged. It was great being able to finally meet up with him.

Yes Suman, it was great meeting you too. Could have conversed better had we known sign language.... with these engine screaming, especially misfire while braking for the turn, one has to really concentrate to hear oneself, let alone hearing the other person out.

Q2 & Q3 (I’m sure Krishna has a whole lot of them, roll them out mate)

Sorry Suman, I dont have anything better than what i posted. As you know, there's no scope to shoot anything better....

Here are few more...

[suman]

DAY THREE - 28th September 2008

The historic day dawned on a leisurely note - the plan was to head to the track in the afternoon. Even though the Grand Finale would be flagged off at 8 pm, there were three other support races of 10 laps each that we wanted to see - The Aston Martin Cup, The Formula BMW Cup & The Porsche Cup (the first & third ones being Saloon Car series).

But first things first - it was DAUGHTERS DAY & we celebrated with the one in our lives by giving her a small gift and permission to buy an Official Ferrari T shirt at the track (Price - censored). This disgusted my Son no end & he wanted to know why there was no official "Sons Day" LOL! After a laid back breakfast, we realized that we had some time on our hands so off I went to Sim Lin Square (the electronics mecca) to try & find some gaming stuff which my son wanted, while the rest of the family headed off to the Orchard Road malls.

We regrouped for lunch at a food court near the Hotel where we sampled some very tasty & spicy fare, went back to the Hotel to change quickly & then headed out to the track.
On Orchard Road



Reached the track, rushed to the Ferrari merchandise stall to pick up the T for my daughter, grabbed some water, chips & Coke & hit our grandstand. In a short while, the entertainment began.
Some action from the Aston Martin Race (I apologize for the overdose, it was just that I was so overjoyed to be able to finally click a few pics of the action in the daylight!)















If only one could sit in the sun all day in such surroundings - that's the Singapore Flyer


The Formula BMW race




(and I now have to continue in the next post because of the 20 pic limit!.......)

[suman]

DAY THREE continued - Post Formula BMW

The Porsche Carreras burning rubber








Each one of the support races had a Safety Car deployment at some point in time or other. I must confess that this made us a little nervous because SC situations in recent times in F1 have led to some confusion or the other when cars have queued up – avoidable! Given the bumpy nature of the track, despite assurances that most of it had been taken care of, we were still fairly apprehensive & keeping our fingers crossed. In the meantime, spoke to Tifosikrishna & we waved out to each other (we were seated just across from his walkabout area) – plan was to go across at some point in time but it eventually didn’t work out.

The moments that we were eagerly waiting for were gradually creeping closer. They had forecast rain during the race and we were armed with our survival kits but praying desperately for "No Rain" because rain meant that Hamilton stood a slightly better chance as compared to our Ferrari boys! The heavens alternated between the dark & gloomy to the not so gloomy till such time it appeared that the rain clouds were finally being banished. Yeeeeahhcheers:

As the light started fading, we had the drivers parade......as the circuit lights started blazing, the crowd excitement was building....and my Point & Shoot was making it amply clear that no good quality pics were forthcoming. LOL (was bloody frustrating at that point in time though I’m laughing it off now).

And then the BIG moment arrived. 8 pm local time, the cars started their warm up lap. I don't think the drivers got such a rousing reception ANYWHERE ELSE during the course of the year, after all it was the Historic Crowd at the Historic Race. Yippee. End of the warm up lap, the cars got into positions, then

THE FIVE RED LIGHTS ILLUMINATED, they went out & the RACE WAS ON!!!!!

The noise was deafening, the crowd went ballistic & we were freaking out as they approached our Grandstand. Massa-Hamilton-Raikkonen-Kubica....WOH, what a feeling! Indescribable!

And all went well for Ferrari till Nelson Piquet Junior crashed his Renault & the Safety Car was scrambled....and as they say, “The rest is History”! Massa finished way below in the points, Kimi Raikkonen crashed into the wall & Fernando Alonso won!!!

A few of the Grand finale





What a disaster for us Ferrari fans! Exactly what we had been dreading - we go all the way to cheer Kimi & Massa & they let us down. It was a repeat of Sepang 2007, would ya believe it - Alonso won that one as well & the Ferraris were outclassed!

You know what? We should send an e-mail to Alonso
Yah, like he should sponsor our tickets & Hotel stay for the next event he wants to win
We're his lucky mascots, right?
Yeah, right!
Ah well, cest la vie but we had fun, right?
Oh YEAH!!!

So, although we were devastated with the results of the race, it was not the end of the world. Rather, it was an awesome feeling as we were finally a part of history!


And then - as we made our way out of the Grandstands & towards the exits, we got another pleasant surprise -

THEY'D OPENED UP THE TRACK TO THE PUBLIC!

So we all rushed to the track, sat on it, stood on it, touched the rubber left behind & had our pics taken. In short - behaving like typical bloody, gawking tourists we were! I guess the excitement got to all of us!


Just about everyone were savoring their few moments on the track!


Woh, that was so much fun! But tiring as well.....by the time we found our way back to City Hall MRT & boarded the next train, we were really tired. But hang on, we were supposed to have dinner somewhere, right? Daughters Day, remember?

There was this nice place right next to the Hotel where we went & plonked ourselves down. They had a setup in the outdoors as well with a giant screen beaming the English Premier League. So we ordered some throat quenchers, some starters to nibble on & rounded it all off with some hearty main courses.


And then we wound our way to the last hundred yards to our Hotel & made our way to our rooms. There was a slightly empty feeling in our hearts as we knew the fun & frolic & all that adrenalin pumping excitement was about to come to an end. Cos we were flying back the next day :(

As we entered our room - Surprise, surprise
What's that?
Hey, it’s a Digital Photo Frame!!
You mean it’s complimentary? Can't be!
Hey, there's a note here!
Gimme that note, what does it say?
Says it’s a gift for us
Nice, very nice!

Amazing! What could we say! At least they gave back some of the money they took from us. But what was nice was the fact that not too many of the Hotels would have done that, whether they made money at our expense or not. So, we'd come to the end of a remarkable day & almost to the end of our historic trip. On that note, we turned in for the night - our emotions were fluctuating between joy, delight & sorrow. Truly mixed emotions one might say. Good night all..........

(to be continued........)

[benbsb29]

Lovely writing, Suman. Hadnt gotten around to this thread till now, and realized what i had missed. And for the pics, if Krishan hadnt come to your rescue with his pics, you would have been grounded.

Now, lets see of you can tame the Rebel, the next time round!

[suman]

Thanks Benny!

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Now, lets see of you can tame the Rebel, the next time round!

The Rebel would have been a cakewalk compared to the Powershot - with ISO 1600 & 3fps, I would have got quite a few. Way way better than these of course.