NZFF

The Friday and Saturday were absolute scorchers - the Ferrari safety car reported that the temperature where it was parked on the dummy grid on Saturday was in the mid 30's, and the teams were astonished to find track temperatures the same as Malaysia.

Sunday started off better - at 10.30 the top of Taupo mountain was still in the middle of a cloud, but the sun won through and it turned into another cracker.

We were pretty much at ground zero for the red chequers displays and I think Trolly got some shots of that, and the gliders and tug and what I think was an Islander kept distracting us from the airfield next door. We were there for the racing though ... In a last minute change we were moved by the A1 officials from the team garages to the pit wall where it has to be said it was a lot easier to observe whether the pitstops were done properly which is what we were there for - and the view was a lot better too . Tom was the only one out of all 19 of us who really had anything to report - he was observing Team China who left with their rear jack still attached. Unauthorised cameras were forbidden in Pit Lane while the track was hot, which somebody really ought to tell the fire marshalls, so I had to sneak these shots with my clunky cellphone camera. The full size files live here, choose 'original' size.

Waiting for Team Italy to come out and play on Saturday afternoon


Team Italy is Go !!


Tom checks out the view about 90 seconds before the green flag


And the race is on - Action Stations !



There was a young guy with Team Portugal. He seemed to be a bit of a fetcher and carrier and polisher, he was the one who got stuck in the car for half an hour in the sun on Saturday afternoon while they practised pitstops, and he was the one who hung the pit board out as the car went past. But ... during Sunday's pitwalk ... he was the one standing out the front of Team Portugal signing autographs and posing with the pit girl

Was this his reward for being the team's gopher ? Or was he actually Somebody ? He was in the garage every time the car went out this weekend as far as I could see when I was in their doorway instead of Italy's with Tom and Andy (guess who had their TV closest to the door !! ) so he certainly wasn't their driver ...

Turns out he is António Felix da Costa, one of their 4 rookie drivers. Born 31 Aug 91, which does indeed make him 17.


That's all from me for now, I'm off to find some sunburn cream

Cheers
Gary

Cool day out thanks for sharing

Cool stuff, shame New Zealand didn't do a bit better but I suppose it can't always go our way.

Looks like fun! A must for next time?

cool pictures ,got a all right video of the red checkers vs drag car and them landing on back straight which i will one day up load .u must been taupo car club members to get into the pits.great weekend,van gisbergen put on the best kiwi show


ashton

Not TCC members, I just work in Pit Lane or sometimes in the start line flag box at that sort of race meeting (and I'm a Timing Crew Post Chief for the WRC rally, and Service Park Management for the Asia Pacific rally at Whangarei, and run one of the speed guns for the Targa rallies, and do track photography at Huntly Speedway and Meremere Dirt Track when I can get there ...) and I've got enough seniority to invite people along to most things without them having to go through the usual reserves waiting list.

Back in November in the "Targa Video" thread I said

Chairman wrote:

QUOTE (Chairman @ Nov 3 2008, 04:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If anyone else wants to do the petrolhead thing I think I have a couple of other jobs going, next week at Pukekohe we probably need a spare body or two to work in pit lane for the NZV8 meeting, and in January I'm pretty sure we'll be looking for extra people in pit lane for the A1GP weekend in Taupo.

Trolly and VAC said they were keen, so in they came ... and having been blooded at Taupo they're now as far up the the reserve list for the Aussie V8's in Hamilton (where we do exactly the same thing) as I can push them. Can't queue jump anyone else into that one I'm afraid

Gary

yea looks like a sweet job ,yea give me a pm or i ll be looking on the forms of any more events u have jobs at, witch u need man power.and how did u first get involved (just asked at a event or have family involved) .I am a mashel for the hill climb that runs up trig road north on the 30th of march each year that's about it .

Cool pics Gary- thanks for posting.

I'll upload some of my own next week, don't have any time to do them now as I only just got home, after missing the flight from Taupo this morning, I ended up driving back down to Welly with Tom and then flying up on a 737. Will be heading off to bed now as I've got another early start tomorrow driving down to Hawkes Bay with the family!

ashton wrote:

QUOTE (ashton @ Jan 26 2009, 11:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yea looks like a sweet job ,yea give me a pm or i ll be looking on the forms of any more events u have jobs at, witch u need man power.and how did u first get involved (just asked at a event or have family involved) .I am a mashel for the hill climb that runs up trig road north on the 30th of march each year that's about it .

I'll put the next invite in a thread of it's own so it doesn't get buried All that I can think of on the calendar at the moment are Hamilton for the V8s (full) and Rally NZ (not sure if I'll be doing timing or service park), but there will almost certainly be other things at Pukekohe that I haven't been told about yet - e.g. on 13-15 March there's an NZV8 round there, nobody has said anything to me but we'll probably be looking for people for it ...

Then there are the three Targa rallies which I'm starting to think about finding a navigator/assistant for ...

(actually Pukekohe sounds like a good weekend - NZV8, Porsche GT3, Toyota Racing Series, Production Racing Series, Formula Ford, Mini Challenge - anyone want to come along ? all days is good but for this one just doing the saturday & sunday should be ok)

Cheers
Gary