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
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 ...