Not a brilliant night – mainly caused by my coughing (and snoring!). I wanted to be out at the track by about 8:30am so we headed over to the railway station to purchase tickets. The ticket office was closed. On the platform was a machine but the sun’s glare, not to mention the foreign (to us) language instructions, made it just about impossible. Fortunately a local was there to assist so we legally rode the train in – which is more than can be said for several others, who didn’t manage to suss out the machine.
We had been told by others that Saturday, you could probably spectate from any stand, but this proved to be incorrect (the rules apparently change day by day...) so we had no choice but to head for our ticketed stand of K8.
Our tickets were for row A (front row). Several of our group were right at the top of the open stand so we headed up to join them.
This proved to be a great spot as just behind the stand was the start/finish line and the pit exit, so with the long lens on the camera, I could face forwards and catch the speeding cars through a narrow gap in the catch fencing, or, I could stand on a seat at the back and try and catch them as they hurtled past and almost fill the camera frame. By doing that I had to pan very quickly to catch them at all, so if I managed to actually get them in the frame, I considered I did quite well. I did get a lot of good pics!
The sun was out and the dappled shade from the trees did make it even more difficult, but I persevered.
Like Friday, we soon got quite frustrated at the slow pace of the proceedings, with half hour gaps between the action and by the time the lunch break (of two hours!) rolled around, we’d had enough. So, we managed to find the right platform (eventually) and headed back to Beaulieu, where we grabbed a sandwich from the supermarket and relaxed for the afternoon.
The limited access to spectator areas at the track and the constant delays really made it tough for an enthusiast, but even tougher for a partner, so I used the free time to download two days worth of photographs and start the laborious process of culling and cropping from a start point of about 1200.
Dinner was at the same restaurant as before with Barry and Jeannette, fellow Hampton Downs Amon block supporters. Incidentally, there are four couples with an interest in Hampton Downs and all four are from the Amon block.
Bed at a respectable 10:30, with tomorrow being the only day of racing.
Seems a very odd structure – one and half days of qualifying and one day of racing, with only one race per group. Considering the massive entry fees, transportation and accommodation costs, I am sure that for many competitors, it would be cheaper to come over to NZ with their cars, and do three meetings in three weekends, where they would get far more track time, as at most two day meetings, they would get one practice session and three races.
No pics this time as I try to catch up – I‘ll probably do a separate post for those.
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