Shelly surprised me this past weekend and told me that we were going to Montreal.  This happened to coincide with the return of F1 to Montreal, after having been dropped off the calendar for the 2009 championship.

Yes, that’s two racing events in two weekends.  Except this time I drove the 5+ hours there and back with nary an adult to say “Yo, keep it between the white lines dawg”.

But that’s the means to the end.  And the end was the event itself.  For some time I had deliberated about attending an F1 race.  Montreal seemed like the most logical choice, given its proximity, but I always balked at the cost.  Grandstand seats seemed to be in the $500+ range, and by all accounts the general admission option was to be avoided unless you felt like becoming a sardine to see a sliver of race track.

So pricing kept me away.  But in this case Shelly set up the surprise, and it’s not often that she gets to surprise me – so I figured that this would be my one and only time attending an F1 race and, therefore, it was deserving of a grandstand seat.  Fortunately said seat was <$300 – which included Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

And I must say, I’m very happy that I was able to see, in person, this spectacle that I’ve been following on TV.  It puts things into a very different perspective.

The first thing that took me aback is the raw noise that F1 cars generate.  I had scoffed at the need for ear protection, but quickly ate crow as I felt that inner-ear pain was imminent every time a car drove by.  They’re crazy loud.

The second thing that surprised me is how narrow and close the Montreal track is.  And in fact, the Montreal facilities as a whole are something like 30 years old.  Canada is one of the “traditional” stops in the championship, and being there in person you completely lose the glamour factor that the sport tries  hard to promote.  I don’t know what to make of that, to be honest.  On the one hand it became very evident that F1 is motor racing, like any other form of motor racing.  On the other hand, the idea of F1 being the “pinnacle of motor racing” was diminished somewhat when you see these high-tech marvels in such a low-key environment.

And you hear the noise, and you smell the fuel… and you realize that regardless of how Bernie and co. promote the sport, on race day F1 really is about cars racing around a track.  That’s not a damning thing – it’s a fact of the matter.  And in some ways it’s good because the guys at the track – mechanics, drivers, team bosses, etc. – are in a competition.  They’re not worried about celebs, they’re not trying to prove anything to lesser formulas.  They’re racing, period.

So that’s cool.  You see the driver’s parade, you see Lewis hop out of his car on track and start pushing it, and ya, all of a sudden Formula1 actually seems accessible – despite its stuffy airs.  It puts various driver comments in perspective, when they talk about not caring about the politics and what-not and instead just wanting to race, on the track.

I imagine that some of the modern circuits might have a different spectator feel to them.  Something closer to what you witness on TV.  Abu Dhabi, Yas Marina… the bonus is that the cars are more in their element, what with aero efficiency becoming more important in long sweepers.  The downside is that the plush and pomp starts to creep back in and I suspect you lose that close connection to the race and the drivers.

But what do I know – given the chance to attend, I might find them just as enjoyable as Montreal.

The short of it all is that I enjoyed attending the race.  And even though the 3 CF-18’s also did two low speed passes over the track at the start of the event, I was definitely happier in Montreal than I was in Windsor.

Pics to follow.

I attended the Red Bull Air Race this past weekend.

Notwithstanding the unpredictable weather – complete with a tornado warning the previous night and 3-days worth of torrential downpours – the event itself was very ho-hum compared to my 2008 experience.

When I think Red Bull events, I think “extreme” and “spectacle”.  And so it was with great shock and awe that I witnessed a near-Mach1 demonstration by a fighter jet in the 2008 pre-race show… greater shock and awe when the filming helicopter ran the course and did things No Helicopter Should Do.  And finally, continual shock and awe as these propellor-driven planes raped the challenging course mere meters above the Detroit River.

I mean, that event was the s–t.

By comparison, this year’s event was s–t.

Even without the lame course adjustments that were made, the course layout itself paled in comparison to 2008.  The pre-race show had fighter jets, oh yes, but they did two low-altitude low-speed passes and bugged the heck out.  The helicopter didn’t run the course, and even the RB105 acrobatics seemed tamed down a few notches.

For a Red Bull event, I was not impressed.  Which really sucked, since I dragged my friend out to Windsor and he spent an unholy amount of money on a jacket to protect him from the elements.  Elements which, by the way, decided to remain at bay for the duration of the event.

So that will likely be it for my Red Bull Air Race attendance career.  This weekend I’m off to Montreal, rather unexpectedly too, to partake of the Canadian Formula 1 GP.  This will likely be the one and only time I ever go to a Formula 1 event, and I am looking forward to it – rain or shine, it will be fun just to be there and feel the atmosphere that goes along with an F1 race weekend.