How I Spent Several Summer Vacations

by Paul Whitworth

            It’s a little early for the above title, since most of the narratives about camping/fishing/sightseeing, etc. usually arrive about September. Well this year Summer Vacation arrived much before Summer, the challenging weather or not.

            My wife and I, along with another couple spent a few days in Montreal last week and while in the Ile St. Helene part of town, we heard there was a formula car race being held on the track on the island. Opportunity knocking, we thought we would wander out to have a look. There was actually four race groups running, A Formula Ford race, a Ferrari Challenge, a Porsche Cup and Vintage Formula One for the cars that ran the world championship in the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, and of course the F-1 cars.

            Having run amateur races exclusively for the past 40 years or so, it was a revelation to see the pro series and actually to see cars that I didn’t have to work on. We all seemed to agree that one of the groups named was the best overall show, but I won’t spoil it for you by naming it. Sort of like the Hollywood director who, when asked to name the best performers he had worked with, named eleven of the ones he liked best and then added, “And one more that I don’t need to name.” That kept everybody in town happy.

            We had seats in the hairpin grandstand which is Turn 10. If you watch the coverage from that corner, the high placed T.V. camera showed about what we could see. We had a Jumbotron® in the apex of the corner directly in front, but across the track from us,. We could actually see what the T.V. feed was sending out to everyone else, but I could only read the side bars giving the track positions or lap times by looking at it through binoculars. Still, people had come from all over the world to sit in the same general area we were sitting, to see the same sights and to hear the same sounds that we were hearing.

            We were staying in a rented suite in Westmont close to the Atwater Metro station for those with a Montreal map and it was 30 minutes from the house to the grandstand and 30 minutes back. I mention this because as things turned out on Sunday, it was critical.

            Not having been to a F-1 race since 1969, I can only say things are different now. What gets your attention the most and the quickest was the sound…no, the noise. They say most of the crowd goes to revel in the sound of all that technology and expensive machinery. The cars are just plain noisy without giving off any kind of song. The best description I can give is they sound like a table saw cutting plywood. One huge high-pitched scream. Off power they sounded like they were doing something rude. Very flat and almost like something was getting broken Because the paddle shift gearboxes allow almost instantaneous shifts, all you hear is the scream with staccato blips in it. Picture the driver, having exited the corner and putting the power down snaps the throttle to maximum revs as determined by the rev limiter and then accelerates the cars simply by selecting successively higher gears. Now imagine up to a dozen of them all doing it consecutively/simultaneously and you get the idea. Even at the distance we were from the cars, and wearing ear plugs, I still would puzzle over the fact that my car has to run at under 105 Db.

            Having gone to the track Friday to watch practice and the Ferraris, Saturday to watch Qualifying and the Vintage Formula One cars, we went Sunday to catch the end of the Porsche Cup (in a gentle but persistent rain) and to see the main event. The rain quit for a while but re-started just as the drivers were taking their parade laps in vintage Austin-Healey 100/6’s and 3000’s. This takes place an hour and a half before the race starts. It sprinkled off and on right up to the start when the rain became steady, if still relatively light. Once we got to the red flag the rain had become much harder than what you could see on T.V. Where we were sat, it began with what looked and felt like hail!. We had taken some light ponchos to ward off the rain, for all the good that did, and when the race was stopped the looks went up and down between us and the consensus was…let’s get out of here. There’s only so much fun you can stand to be having. Half and hour later we were back at the accommodation, warm and dry…and watching it on the set. The Metro system in Montreal has to be experienced to be believed. As fast as the crowd could pass through the turnstiles to exit, the trains could take then back down town. The city police were there to give crowd control and they would cordon off the platforms to let on a train full of people onto the platform, and a train would arrive to convey them away. We were out of the rain faster than you could get out of sight here in Victoria.

            As we sat in front of the T.V. sipping wine and downing snacks, we decided we had the best of both worlds, experiencing the event live and now seeing the finish away from the weather. I’m glad we went, I’m glad we’re home.