23 November, 2009

Macau!

I'm back from Macau. I'm rolling on about 30+ hours with no sleep, so bare with me if this blog doesn't make any sense. Overall, I had a blast. Macau is an interesting place. The day-to-day look and feel is Chinese, but with a strong European influence thanks to the Portuguese rule up until 10 years ago. All the street signs are in three languages, and even the Police cars/motorcycles say "Policia" on them. Pretty much everyone spoke enough English for me to get by, and those that didn't understood to type the prices into a calculator to show us white folk.

Now, onto the races. We spent 4 days wandering around the entire track, with full "press on course" credentials. Meaning we could essentially stand right next to the track and take pictures. Pretty much wherever we wanted to go. And speaking of photos, here's a bunch to show what we were doing:

Motorcycles at the hairpin corner


At Maria bend

More hairpin action. We would be able to touch the bikes on corner exit if we were dumb enough


Formula BMW at Hospital Hill, one of our favorite shooting locations


Formula 3 car at the hairpin


F3 car lifting an inside front at the hairpin


Ginetta GT car


Gaggle of World Touring Cars through the hairpin after a mess of oil dry was laid down


Chinese Formula BMW driver retired at our photo station. He was hit by a wandering Petronis car. After e helped him over the guardrail, and gave him a bottle of water to drink, his comment was "I'm ok, but the car is fucked." Classic.


Alan Menu's hood lifts open on the Chevy WTCC


Ferrari F430 driver hit a TON.


They had about 30 cranes all around the track, so they could quickly lift the crashed cars off the course to avoid full course yellows. Note the Ferrari in the air about 50 feet, and the Lamborghini racing underneath.


Craig standing in one of our photo locations.


Corners workers assembling the pads for the guardrail for when the motorcycles took to the track.


After I sort through some photos, I'll post tomorrow. for now, I'm just glad to be home.

C'

1 comment:

sean said...

Awesome!

Great photos, amazing access to the track. Very, very cool.