On to Montreal

Just checking a few headlines before departing for Montreal for qualifying tomorrow and the race on Sunday. I came across an interesting item at the Williams Grand Prix site, a moment by moment recount of what their drivers have been up to since Monaco. It's nice to know how hard GP drivers work during their days off... you can read more about it here

One of my favorite memories about going to Montreal, besides the racing and Crescent Street, was the mechanics "boat" races held before the serious work of an F1 race got underway. The boats were crafted from packing crates and various other bits and "crewed" by experts in water that was, in truth, only a few feet deep. The winners got the glory of being pelted with eggs or whatever else could be thrown at them that would leave a nice nasty mess. It was great fun. I ran across an old Emerson Fittipaldi interview where he talked about the boat races:

"The first thing I remember about racing in Montreal actually happened off-track," Fittipaldi said. "The mechanics always had a boat race on Thursdays of race week in the canal behind the pits. I think the canal was also used for an Olympic rowing race. The team built boats out of leftover car parts and things they found in pit lane. Each team picked one guy and they had to row from one side of the canal to the other. There were red boats made from parts from Ferrari, and so on. A bunch of boats sank because they were all put together half-way."

Toyota's F1 team put out a great video for the Canadian Grand Prix. Take a look at it:


Enjoy and adieu until I blog next - hopefully - from Canada (assuming I can get an internet connection!)