The early bus today left at 5:30 AM. Since we were awake at 3:30 and ready to leave at 4:30, it wasn’t tough to make. This time I kept my camera ready, in case I saw more cranes in the rice fields. So of course I didn’t. Since there are limited places to sit once you’re at the track, we lingered as long as possible over breakfast. We watched practice from the pits, clinging to a shrinking sliver of shade at the back of the pit area. By the time practice had finished at 10:30 the shade was completely gone and the day was starting to heat up. Several people told us that this is the hottest they can remember it being for the Japan race. We apologized, as clearly we are continuing the trend of bringing hot weather to the track.
In between our designated meal times and the day’s practice session, we hid out at a table in the back of the Grand Turismo Cafe. Clearly the tables were intended for people purchasing food, but there seems to be a squatters rule here, where if you claim table you can linger at it as long as you want. Many people leave belongings unattended for prolonged periods of time in order to save their spot. No one seems to worry about anything getting stolen.
Qualifying was less than stellar, with the Penske cars taking the top 3 spots. Dario was on the pole prior to that, so he ended up 4th. At least Will Power didn’t get the pole again.
Dinner was served at the big tent starting at 4:30, so we were able to consume our 4 different proteins before getting in line for the first bus back to the hotel. The whole drill is starting to remind me of prison work camp, without the hard labor. We get bused everywhere, eat together in a big tent and can’t leave the premises. We had enough people on the bus by 5:30 to warrant a 30 minute early departure. Of course this meant it took 30 minutes longer to get back to the hotel than the previous night. Our total bus time is now about 6 hours. This bus happened to be filled with a lot of loud, redneck IRL officials, so it wasn’t the most soothing ride.
When we got back to the hotel I splurged by having 2 drinks, courtesy of Tim’s duty free Stoli and some lemon soda from the hotel vending machine. (70 Lemons Worth of Vitamin C in Every Bottle!) Did I mention they also sell beer in the vending machine? I’ve seen vending machines on the street with cigarettes in them. Crazy. At any rate, it worked better than a sleeping pill and I was out by 8 PM, again.