This weekend marked the start of the F1 season.
The first race was in Melbourne Australia, as it has been for the last couple of years. However, this year there were two major changes.
Firstly Speed is not available in HD which is something I have been looking forwards to for a very long time.
Secondly the time has changed.
It seems that in order to make the race more accessible for Europe, the start time has been pushed to 5PM local time, which equated to 11PM for me in CA.
Which is a little hard to manage when you roll out of bed at 5:30AM to go to Cars and Coffee.
On Friday I watched the qualifying live, also late at night, got a few hours sleep, went to C&C, then did the usual upload to cncpics.com, went out for dinner and eventually watched the race, live, before retiring at about 2AM.
This week it is even more ridiculous, the race is from Malaysia, it does not start until something like 2AM due to the change to the start time (5PM local again).
I am sure that Bernie is trying to make the series less and less accessible to the US audience.
Bastard !
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Strange Morning
I struggled to sleep last night.
I went to bed in a terrible mood and woke up just as annoyed but with a painful shoulder to add to it.
As is usual I went to Cars and Coffee.
Despite a couple of lovely cars, the event was a tad underwhelming, John and Linda where vetting a lot of the traffic, but not all of it and a few cars went 'around back, moved cones and joined in' after being turned away.
Why someone would go to such lengths to display their 2006(ish) BMW 330i I have no idea, it was not even slightly 'special, interesting or unusual'.
Much talk at the gate was over the .info guys, none of which I will repeat here, but suffice to so that the guys that run it are no friends of the organizers nor many of the fans.
I finally made peace with Austin Grade, a long time ago we fell out over a watermark, well today we shook hands, had a chat and have no issue with each other - well at least I have no issue with him......
I left fairly early and took the scenic route, carving a few bends and out accelerating a few Geo Metros' along the way, the Triumph is so much fun it is insane:)
Now I have to wait for the gods of the Internetz to allow the photos to upload......
I went to bed in a terrible mood and woke up just as annoyed but with a painful shoulder to add to it.
As is usual I went to Cars and Coffee.
Despite a couple of lovely cars, the event was a tad underwhelming, John and Linda where vetting a lot of the traffic, but not all of it and a few cars went 'around back, moved cones and joined in' after being turned away.
Why someone would go to such lengths to display their 2006(ish) BMW 330i I have no idea, it was not even slightly 'special, interesting or unusual'.
Much talk at the gate was over the .info guys, none of which I will repeat here, but suffice to so that the guys that run it are no friends of the organizers nor many of the fans.
I finally made peace with Austin Grade, a long time ago we fell out over a watermark, well today we shook hands, had a chat and have no issue with each other - well at least I have no issue with him......
I left fairly early and took the scenic route, carving a few bends and out accelerating a few Geo Metros' along the way, the Triumph is so much fun it is insane:)
Now I have to wait for the gods of the Internetz to allow the photos to upload......
Monday, February 23, 2009
A Busy Weekend
Most Saturday mornings I go to Cars and Coffee in Irvine and photograph the cars, drink coffee, chat with people and then head home to publish the photographs on cncpics.com. This week I took a trip up to Huntington Beach to visit Donut Derelicts.
This is the first time in a while I have been there and despite getting slightly lost (side-note I was on my bike, hence no GPS hand-holding me) I managed to get there before 6:40AM.
The photographs are on line here but needless to say the event was amazing.
Once I had walked around and photographed many of the cars I headed back down the freeway to Cars and Coffee in Irvine.
This week was the first week for the 'new rules'. When the even first started the concept was to take what had been successful at the old crystal cove event and give it more space. From the outset it was an un-written rule that you should only show something that is truly worth showing. Something cool, interesting and unusual. Sadly the events popularity lead to many people not understanding that a bodykit, wing and over-sized wheels did not make your late-model Nissan/Honda/Ford/BMW/etc that interesting and many 'regular' cars started to appear in the lot on a regular basis.
Eventually the situation became ridiculous, the 'tuner' crowd invaded on a regular basis and turned it into a Hot Import Nights Mornings, style event complete with wild smoky exits.
John and Freeman therefore clarified the guidlelines, much to the annoyance of the crowd that had taken the event as their own.
This week when I arrived at 7:30 John, Linda and the crew where directing 'average' cars to park in the public lot.
The effect of this was one of the best events for a long time.
The photographs are here if you want to check them out
Finally on Sunday I headed back up the freeway to Santa Ana, to check out an event at 'Original Mikes'. This is anotyher old-school hot-rod event. The highlights where the aero-engined 30ft long 'thing' and stories behind some of the 'rods. Again the pics are here if you want to check them out.
This is the first time in a while I have been there and despite getting slightly lost (side-note I was on my bike, hence no GPS hand-holding me) I managed to get there before 6:40AM.
The photographs are on line here but needless to say the event was amazing.
Once I had walked around and photographed many of the cars I headed back down the freeway to Cars and Coffee in Irvine.
This week was the first week for the 'new rules'. When the even first started the concept was to take what had been successful at the old crystal cove event and give it more space. From the outset it was an un-written rule that you should only show something that is truly worth showing. Something cool, interesting and unusual. Sadly the events popularity lead to many people not understanding that a bodykit, wing and over-sized wheels did not make your late-model Nissan/Honda/Ford/BMW/etc that interesting and many 'regular' cars started to appear in the lot on a regular basis.
Eventually the situation became ridiculous, the 'tuner' crowd invaded on a regular basis and turned it into a Hot Import Nights Mornings, style event complete with wild smoky exits.
John and Freeman therefore clarified the guidlelines, much to the annoyance of the crowd that had taken the event as their own.
This week when I arrived at 7:30 John, Linda and the crew where directing 'average' cars to park in the public lot.
The effect of this was one of the best events for a long time.
The photographs are here if you want to check them out
Finally on Sunday I headed back up the freeway to Santa Ana, to check out an event at 'Original Mikes'. This is anotyher old-school hot-rod event. The highlights where the aero-engined 30ft long 'thing' and stories behind some of the 'rods. Again the pics are here if you want to check them out.
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