A day at the races

>>Deafening noise. Scorching sun. Deep pinkpot-bellied men. Welcome to the classiest event in car racing

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

Last Friday, June 11, I found myself sitting in the scalding hot metal bleachers on Île-Notre-Dame, squinting through my black shades beneath a blistering midday sun. Perched next to me was a man wearing a white towel draped aloft his head, over top of which were what appeared to be large headphones (helicopter earplugs). I can recall feeling rather lightheaded as a single trickle of sweat slid slowly down my back and I tried not to move my aching, hungover head. Although it seemed like a fine idea the night before, I don't recommend anyone ever spend the morning after a fun-filled (read drunken) evening spent out on the town at the Grand Prix.

My friend's mom had tickets she couldn't use, so we had offered to not let them go to waste. This is how we came to brave the traffic, the crowds and the sweltering heat to see the world's fastest, noisiest cars go round and round in circles just a few metres below us. As we sat washing down our aspirin with cold bottles of water, all of a sudden there came a startling roar: the sound of a thousand giant mechanical insects swarming us, plunging towards us then pulling away over and over again.

"Welcome to the Grand Prix!" my buddy barked hoarsely in my ear. And those piercing words felt like an engine bursting into flames in the throbbing pudding that had replaced my brain. Still, I was determined to enjoy the high-speed spectacle of big boys playing with their big toys, so I stuck my fingers in my ears, kept my head very still and tried to follow the cars, repetitive movement with my eyes (which only made my headache worse).

Hooray for accidents!

In recent times, following an apparently mundane Spanish Grand Prix in May, the press had been slagging the Formula One for being boring. Critics claimed that new safety regulations sapped all the thrill and exhilaration from the race and rendered the event, well, un-eventful. Many of these regulations were put into place after the May '94 deaths of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger and Brazilian national hero and superstar, Ayrton Senna. I guess it's a catch-22: too much danger and people die. Too much safety and it's a snooze-fest.

Thankfully, the situation was remedied this past Sunday at Montreal's very own thrilling, smash-up derby-style (fatality-free) Grand Prix. Drivers kept spinning out and mysteriously crashing into a Welcome to Quebec sign, as if they were hapless pawns in some kind of fiendishly orchestrated advertisement for provincial tourism.

Not that there aren't already enough ads plastered across every square inch of F1 racing to begin with. Everything from the drivers, the cars, the engineers to the circuit itself, is emblazoned with the names of corporate sponsors. It's basically an enormous sped-up commercial. Browsing through the official glossy F1 program, you encounter images of high-class elegance and speed: ads for sexy European liquors sit pretty next to ones for expensive Swiss watches and glamorous cheesecake pictures of the drivers in their sleek cars.

Where's the Eurotrash?

Although the Grand Prix crowd is famous for its fancy classy rich folk, the audience we mingled with was a solidly middle-class, middle-aged male bunch (perhaps the glitzy Euro-trash jet-set types were sequestered in their private boxes behind the pits). Most of the guys I chatted with were either too tipsy to make any sense about cars or were so overjoyed to be hanging with their buddies for a weekend that they hadn't much to say about the actual politics of F1 racing.

In line at one of the fast-food booths, I met Steve and Dave, two deeply tanned guys in their 40s kickin' it in shorts and no shirts, up from Colorado. Dave said he got to go to the British Grand Prix in Silverstone last year because his wife's from there and it coincided with a family wedding. "I told her I wasn't going, I wasn't interested in going all that way just for a wedding. But then I found out the race was going on, so I ran out and bought the plane tickets right away!" he laughs. At least he's got his priorities straight.

Later in the afternoon, as my comrade and I were beginning to feel a little better as we leisurely enjoyed a piece of pizza and a cigarette in the shade of the stands, two First Aid volunteers from St-Jean strolled up and started a conversation. They informed us that the most common illness or injury they had to deal with at the Grand Prix was people puking from the combination of heatstroke and over-consumption of alcohol. Indeed, as I surveyed the scene, I began to notice how many sunburnt people were standing around glued to a beer can.

For the average car-spotting punter like myself, going to the races is not unlike such summer pleasures as witnessing a parade or a fireworks display: bright colours whiz by, loud noises sound off and, before you know it, the whole thing's over and done with and you're packing up your picnic wares and heading home. Ah, the delicious joys of a hard-earned Montreal summertime... in the end, it doesn't matter what the spectacle is, just as long as we come together to frolic amongst a shirtless mass of deep pink, pot-bellied men and communally bask in the warm weather.