Richard (Rick) Hubbard
After working at Keyo's for fifteen years without a day off we decided an away day was in order to celebrate Richards epic milestone.
The choices for an enjoyable, and most importantly, a relaxing break boiled down to a trip to the shrine of real football 'Anfield', a weekend of carp fever at a local lake or the motor racing experience of a lifetime. Unsurprisingly we went for the latter!
After battling our way over to Belgium we collected our hire car for the final leg to the circuit and were pleasantly informed that we had an upgrade from our Ford KA to a Renault Meganne diesel - with Satnav. Result!
However, after what seemed like hours of trying to get the handy integrated navigation aid to work we decided surrender was the best part of valour. You see, the stumbling block was that the thing was in French, not unreasonable for a French car, but you would hope that the instructions to change it from French to the international language of navigation might not also be in French. In view of the fact that neither I nor Rick parlez any modicum of this Gallic gobbledygook we decided to revert to my old charts and pocket compass for the rest of the trip.
A couple of hours later we found ourselves in the centre of a busy Spa-Froncorchamps and proceeded to get our bearings for the following day; locating all the necessary facilities- the track and most importantly our parking area. So we retired to our lodgings for the evening and a good nights sleep in readiness for the disorganised chaos we had both read about.
Both being country boys we were up to the sound of a lark mooing on high and the cows singing in the meadows and after a hearty breakfast of locally produced muesli we set off to the track. Following the race signage that we were convinced would be wrong and the directions of the local police and organisers, that seemed far too good to be true, we drove with dignity and a lack of fuss straight to our allocated parking spot, a matter of yards away from the entrance to the track.
After walking straight into the track, pausing momentarily to have our passes scanned by the jolly staff at the gate, we reflected on what happened to the chaos. All we could think was it was that British dependence on having to queue and be given long lists of what you can and can't do in order to function properly and not become disorientated and totally confused.
We walked around the track stopping to watch where and when we pleased, with no difficulty at all. The photo opportunities were governed by the chain link safety fence to a certain extent but it was not impossible to get close and take some decent snaps.
F3 (1st Richie Stanaway) and GP2 (1st Luca Fillipi) were perfect support races and built the atmosphere beautifully leading up to the main race. But before that we had some spectacular viewing of the Porsche Mobil Cup (1st Kuba Giermazik) before we broke for lunch.
After starting our race at the top of the Eau Rouge just inside the DRS zone we moved along to Les Combes and watched a bit of the action, albeit through the chain link. Unfortunately we missed the Hamilton Kobyashi incident but did later see McLaren being recovered on a truck. We finished the race in our private grandstand at Rivage, well actually, it was a flat stone we shared with 150 other people to be precise. The end result was we throughly enjoyed out first F1, the noise, the vibrations and smells as well as the intense atmosphere thats only on offer trackside. After Vettel had taken the chequered flag it was our turn on track. We walked down to Blanchimont collecting tyre marbles along the way to make friendship bracelets on our return to Blighty.
Our safe journey home concluded a weekend of good weather, good racing and good company enjoyed by two old friends.
