Practice day at Sepang F-1 Circuit, Kuala Lumpur

This is not NASCAR, but is is similar, you've got your noise, your expensive hats, shirts, beer, not so good food, and crowds. The crowd is very very different though. Not a Confederate flag in sight. German, Australian, Finnish, Spanish, well yes, there are. Valvoline, Cheerios and Budweiser, no, Stantander (a Spanish Bank) yes, and well you get the idea. Average weight here is probably a little less too.  

This crowd also had cameras on practice day as it was not crowded and a person could go pretty much anywhere in side the main facility grandstand areas. We did.

See that race car photo, there are about 15, no exaggeration,15 photos deleted to get that one, perhaps more. They are hard to photograph coming by at about a bazillion miles per hour. I had to pan the ole point and shoot Cannon whatever kind of point and shoot it is and it was quite a bit of luck to occasionally get a car in one of the pictures. This car is from Team Red Bull - they will not do well in the race I understand. Renault, their engine supplier, is struggling this year.

and without verification this is, I think, Sebastian Vettel, from Team Ferrari. He is German and is a crowd favorite. He finished third at the first race of the season two weeks ago in Australia (after the number 1 and 2 Mercedes drivers). His helmet is white and if you look close it has a famous line from Maya Angelou, 'Still I Rise', on it.

An Englishman - Lewis Hamilton - driving a Mercedes - is the favorite to win - go figure). We are going for Sebastian because Linda does. Can't help it. Go figure. Might as well not pull for Duke or Kentucky either.

Charles and me, "on the front row"

still on the front row

and Patt got a car too, 

look at that!

(She did take several)

--for frame of reference and future blog —

This is along pit row, where we were on the front row, looking down the straight-a-way and away from the start / finish line. If you look closely at the grandstand at the end of the straght-a-way you can see a green stripe going up and to the right. Our seats for the race Sunday are in that section at the level of the top of the letter S in Sepang. Now you know where we will be siting.  

At practice day we enjoyed watching the teams practicing the tire change routine. Some teams were awesome. Good ones completed the switch in something like 2 ½ seconds (or so it seemed).

I think I counted 17 people working on changing red wall to white wall tires, not counting the guy filming standing to the upper left.

We walked around and went to the top of one of the towers at an end of one of the turns. Check out that blue sky. Pretty day too.

Yes, we bought some of the race gear. We also brought ear plugs - we were prepared.

Because we bought some of the gear we got a chance to race simulators in the game tent. When your screen is white like that you are looking at the wall. I think also crossing your arms is probably not good driving technique.

About to get back onto the track and start gearing up to race down the straight-a-way prior to having trouble again in the turns. Never did figure out the track in the three laps and finished last I think of about 10 or so participants in my heat. (I had a death grip on that wheel too.) Check out that jaw — man I am getting ready to rip— that was a fun part— getting out of trouble was not so much, but my going fast was.)