koltregaskes

Hey,

Last one from the 'old news box'...

My brother and I went down to Goodwood Festival of Speed 2007 near Chicester for the middle day (Saturday 23rd June 2007).  We were up early as we thought we'd either get lost like we normally do or we'd get stuck in major traffic.  But the journey down was a doddle (apart from a little tour of a roundabout or two) and it's was dead quiet.  The flyer said to look out for signs to the event but we couldn't see them but we did work it out in the end and rolled into the field/car park close to the top and thus the entrance.

We timed it well as behind us we saw the masses starting to come in.  After a quick sort around in the car (Neal eating a bit of left over pizza, yuck, and complaining he was cold) we walked up with tickets in hand.

Going through the ticket "barrier" we walked up (there is a lot of walking up) and thankfully got to a food store where we had ourselves a small meal and drink.  As soon as that was down us we carried on walking up and came to the old cars section.  Great cars but some were still covered in rain spots, tsch.



Hidden nearby (though you could hear them from miles away) were all the cars getting ready for the day.  We had a wander and saw old cars and some spectacular supercars.  I'm no car enthusiast but this was great and the noise was fantastic!

It wasn't long before a few started going out for their first runs, we were up close and personal at this point as they drove by and disappeared down to the start.



It all cooled down so we carried on walking, yes you guessed it, up!  Here is where all the exhibitions are, as well as a skate/BMX board, mini-concert stand (where all the food stands are - naturally we got a bite to eat, well a hot chocolate drink, and I mean hot) and the F1 paddock (which we somehow bypassed completely all day ).  The main showpiece, though, was from Toyota.  It was pretty amazing to see the set of cars hung up in the air like that.



As we carried on walking up we caught a few of the cars coming down the hill at incredible speeds.  But the giant haystacks that protected us from the cars crashing into us were so high we couldn't see a great deal.  Tip:  spending extra on stand tickets might be a good idea, though the tickets in general are very expensive.  Saying that, we weren't sure, but it did look like there was a free-entry stand.  Unfortunately we didn't investigate further.

We didn't take the option as we went up, but at a certain point you can hop onto a tractor shuttle service that carries about 20 people a time up and down the circuit.  It starts from about half way up then takes you all the way to the top where you'll find loads of food stands and the start/finish point of the forest rally.  Instead we walked it and found small pockets where we could see the main track (and the supercars) a lot clearer.  We kept going until we go into the forest... and the rally. :-D



For us this was the highlight of the day by far!  I've never really watched rally car racing but we came away as massive fans.  It's was fantastic!!  We found and stopped off at several points to watch the cars come down.  The speed was amazing, the way they skidded around corners, dirt and rocks flying everywhere and all in the middle of a forest.  Loved it!!  This is where I captured the best photos of the event, the Sun was creeping out a lot of the time but overall it's pretty dark but the pics came out well.

Sadly, though we of course didn't know it at the time, it was one of the last times people saw Colin McRae race.  RIP.



We eventually got up top, had some lunch, be it with a bit of rain, and watched a few cars come through the start and finish gates.  One or two of them show-boating at the end there.

Then we had to think about heading down (as that's where our car was).  This time we did take the shuttle and it's one of those more interesting rides in a vehicle.  The seats weren't too comfortable, the track was, of course, dirt track and bumpy but the journey was fairly slow and painless.  A different way to see the forest methinks.

We were trying to get down the bottom in time to see the Red Arrows.  We did but a few minutes before they were due we had a massive downpour of rain!!.  I'm so glad Neal brought his big golfing umbrella else we would have been soaked.  It went on for several minutes and thought the Red Arrows would be cancelled but amazingly it stopped and actually started to clear.  It wasn't long after that the Red Arrows came out and did their stuff.  Great display.  Though it was cloudy and a lighter day would have helped seen them, having them on a background of white cloud helped a bit with their smoke trails.  Another tip, make sure you're not standing behind a big tree, some of the display was lost as we were low down, we moved up a bit which helped a lot but positioning is key.



We thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, especially the rally car.  I hope to go again and to see more rally car.  We were planning on going to the Wales World Rally Championship (the final round of the WRC) but we ran out of money by then and so it was canned.  As for the FoS, we were there for the middle day, so we didn't get to see the final rounds.  Plus the likes of Lewis Hamilton popped up on the third and final day, so perhaps a 2/3 day ticket is needed next time. :-D

More shots are here:
www.flickr.com/photos/koltrega…

Note all the links apart from the thumbnails are to the flickr photo pages.

Goodwood Festival of Speed web site is:
www.goodwood.co.uk/fos/

.kol

.mysite: squashyfrog.com
.myblog: blog.squashyfrog.com
.myflickr: flickr.com/photos/koltregaskes
.mycompany: e-lusionltd.com</i>

Hello,

A couple more from last year...

My brother and I went on the first Friday of the Wimbledon tennis championships (6th July 2007).  We've never been before but it was great and we're hoping to go next year (centre court here we come ).

I train'ed it up from Thatcham while Neal travelled from Croydon - guess which one of us had to get up at 4am?   Eventually we met up at Wimbledon tube station where it started to rain, typical!

Luckily we hopped on a shuttle bus that had just turned up.  It started to really chuck it down as the bus filled with people.  The bus got under way but because of a stupid one-way system and major traffic jams it took us 20mins to go down the road, up, around and back on the road we started just to turn around!  It did get quicker as we got closer and we finally arrived at the grounds - wow!  They were excellent!

Off the bus we walked up the hill and got on the end of the already huge queue at about 8:30am.  We were handed our "queue ticket" to basically say yep you're not too late and you'll definitely be getting in today.  2 hours later we were in the grounds!!  Some tips:-
- take a snack 'cos you're gonna get hungry
- make sure you go to the loo beforehand as it could be ages before you see one and
- don't buy anything while in the queue as you'll either be told you cannot take it in when you get to the fates or will find it cheaper inside, i.e. the booklet).

We, of course, had a security check then went through the turnstiles surprisingly quickly to buy our tickets.

Then we were then inside proper.  Bang on time for the gates to open and for a mass of people to hurl to their prime spot near a court.  No centre or Court 1 seats for us - you have to be either lucky with the ballot months before the tournament or extremely early at the gates (i.e. get out your tent and sleep the night) to buy them on the day.  For us, it was the side courts.

First things first, we were both very hungry by now so grabbed some snacks and drinks from the canteen then sat and watch all these people pour in.  It slowed down eventually so we got up and had a walk around.

It was packed!  The walking area along the side courts are pretty narrow and we struggled to get down them a lot of the time.  We got to Court 9 (ladies doubles) but it wasn't too long before the heavens opened up again and we all ran for cover.  So much so that we had to step 10 metres away from the edge of the covering as it blew in - another tip: have a good umbrella (I got one but as we were leaving - doh) and a light raincoat.  Good that we did as it chucked it down again.  As soon as it looked like it was about to stop we quickly got back to Court 9 and got seats near the middle (the net).  In hindsight perhaps not the best place, I would have perhaps one of the corners but we couldn't complain.  And I think we were on coaching seats but the coaches didn't turn up do we didn't have to move.  The players soon came out for warm up then the match started proper.  Great match, lots of great pics but the Germans won again, lol.



During the match, my brother said the Williams sisters walked behind us.  My brother saw them but I missed them - it does help to be 6 foot plus sometimes.

Then a certain Andy Roddick popped up on the court behind us. He was training with his coach, Jimmy Connors.  At this point everyone switched over.  A load of us stood up on our seats to be shouted out to get down by one of the young stewards.  Didn't matter as by then I had loads of shots but I did get a few more from the corner.



Afterwards, we had another walk around, popping in and out of a couple more matches.  We were running out of time as I had a train to catch but I made sure we got up to the ex-Henman Hill.  Very cool and massive screen but you could tell there was no English player playing as the crowds were pretty quiet.



Sadly we had to leave, so after a little confusion on what was the exit we got off the grounds, round the corner and eventually back on a bus to Wimbledon station.

But as soon as we thought the day was over we saw Roger Federer going some sort of promo in a small area in front of the station on a specially-built mini-tennis court!  We weren't 100% certain but it must have been!

Then guess what, yep it started to rain, so as soon as I had my camera out and snapped a couple of pics, Federer stopped playing, packed up and disappeared.  I guess we'll never know...

More pics are here:
www.flickr.com/photos/koltrega…

Note the links above apart from the thumbnails go to the flick photo pages - I've not loaded all the photos to Da, soz.

Wimbledon:
www.wimbledon.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Championships,_Wimbledon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Wimbledon_Championships

.kol

.mysite: squashyfrog.com
.myblog: blog.squashyfrog.com
.myflickr: flickr.com/photos/koltregaskes
.mycompany: e-lusionltd.com</i>

Hi there,

I was up in London for the Saturday (7th July 2007) Prologue of Le Tour de France in London.  I thought it was fantastic!  Up very early I made my way to Marble Arch.  At this point it was pretty empty and quiet, but as I walked around I found some people already placing seats along the course.  There was still lots of spaces, though  so I decided to walk it, from Hyde Park to the finish, that was a long walk.  I went through the an area where they were selling lots of stuff - that was fairly busy - then carried on to the finish.  Pretty much everyone was here and I could hardly see the track.  I chose to turn back to find a better location.



Eventually I plonked myself in what I thought was a good position, a clear view of the riders coming round a bend with a bit of straight before me.  Yep it was good got a lot of good shots of riders practising.  But I later found I was next to the hospitably area and once the procession (which was just a load a French cars and float-type trucks coming down the road at 100mph throwing all sorts of promotion junk at you or some nice ladies dancing for you - see below ) and the time trials started I saw very little.   Hiding in their posh exec room then all flew out and completely blocked my view of the bend and straight.



So I was left with small gaps in the crowd, hence why my pics are of the cyclist side-on.  I had to time my shots very well to get anything.  And the resulting images are just a "handful" compared to what I did take - I got so many photos of just tiny bits of the cyclist in shot where I was either too quick or too slow with the release button.  It was a good test though and luckily we had a nice policeman nearby and people seem chatty.



I didn't stay all day, my legs and feet were aching from standing in one spot for hours but it was very cool and hope they do it again at some point.

Quick tip to the organisers though: more bridges over the track. I had to queue to walk over one and was there for 25mins!

More pictures came be found here:
www.flickr.com/photos/koltrega…

Tour de France:
www.letour.fr/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France

Tour de France London:
www.tourdefrancelondon.com/</i></i>

.kol

.mysite: squashyfrog.com
.myblog: blog.squashyfrog.com
.myflickr: flickr.com/photos/koltregaskes
.mycompany: e-lusionltd.com</i>

Howdy,

More old photos and more old news but an entry nevertheless:

My brother and I enjoyed the Red Bull Air Race on Sunday 29th July 2007. We were up at the crack of dawn, missed the first train out of Edenbridge so drove to Redhill to get up to London. Tube was fine and we found it to be fairly quiet when we first got there (35k turned up in the end, they say). We had bought standing tickets on the South of the river where we could see the end of the 'track' and a big screen showing the whole thing.



The day was good but not great. The racing itself was something else (boy do they get low on the river, one of them was supposed to have been 3-4 metres above the water!!).  It was excellent to see the light aircraft race down the Thames, flip over and race back up it while dodging the 'bollards' or whatever they call them. But the let downs were the commentators who were an American and an over-the-top extreme sport junky Englishman. They just talked and talked and rubbish a lot of the time. The music from their so-called DJ was lousy at best and there were huge delays in between each stage, e.g. the 12 pilots went out just before 11am as a sort of time trial to kick out 4 of them. This was 1.5 hours, then came at least an hour break (yes of commentary and very little else). They played clips to explain the race and the history, which was fine, but some of the clips were repeats, e.g. a John Travolta clip was played at least 4 times that we saw. There was no indication of when the next stage was starting and they didn't really lay out the day well (i.e. what was going to happen after the prize -giving at 3pm? No idea but it was supposed to be open till 5pm). OK, there were the Red Devils and 2 different helicopters performing some amazing moves in the breaks but the event needed a lot more going on. And they just didn't have enough food stands, we queued up for burgers for about 25-30mins!!

It wasn't too crowded, we found it fairly easy to walk about and the weather was good, luckily the expected rain had come overnight. The location was good, the banks of Greenwich are sloppy or have steps so you could see over people in front of you OK.

£30 for a ticket I suppose is cheap-ish in this day and age and paying an extra £10 for a grand stand seat wouldn't have made much different but it's high in my book. Shame also that the mass exodus of people was not well organised by the police at North Greenwich underground station. We went around one side of station to get in, stood there for 10mins before they decided to tell everyone that this is an exit only and we needed to go back round the other side. Hey guys, perhaps put up a sign and communicate that we wouldn't get in this way. I hope they use these events for training for the Olympics in a few years, boy do they not want to screw that up.

I recommend it for a once-off but I'd probably won't go again if it comes back to the UK.

Check out the site anyway:
redbullairrace.com

Oh and we have a Englishman in the final but sadly lost, tsch.

More photos are here:
flickr.com/photos/koltregaskes…

.kol

.myblog: blog.squashyfrog.com
.mysite: squashyfrog.com
.myflickr: flickr.com/photos/koltregaskes
.mycompany: e-lusionltd.com</i>