Categories
Buzzard Tales

Hungary ’96

In honor of last weeks GP at the Hungaroring, it’s time for a buzzard tale dating back 17 years to the ‘96 Hungarian GP.  On this trip I had the great pleasure to be traveling with Tommy Fogarty and John Niven while we were all in the prime of our collective buzzardly powers.  Niven and I still had the bug from our post college Euro trip two years prior and it didn’t take a whole lot of wrangling to get Tommy on board.  In fact I believe it was Tommy’s brilliant idea to choose Budapest over more logical choices such as the British, Belgian or Italian GP’s.

Our trip actually got started before we even made it out of county lines.  Fueled with the excitement of embarking on an F1 journey, the beers started flowing as soon as we gathered at The Dutch Goose, an infamous little burger/watering hole in West Menlo Park.

After hours of merriment with the usual suspects, we managed to stumble back to the residence owned by Michele Floriani and occupied by Tommy, Michele, Tim B., Picasso the Rottweiler and a live Bobcat called Alesi.  This was as ragtag a group as there ever was and it didn’t take long to get the party rolling again.  At some point we made it through all the beer and switched to the lone bottle of wine that was sitting peacefully atop the refrigerator (more on this later).

I believe sometime in the middle of a dolphin dive gone awry by Chip Congdon getting down to The Greyboy All Stars or Tim B. demonstrating a friends latest creation for augmenting the magnitude of one’s manhood, we came to the realization that we were just 4 hours from departure to lovely Vienna, Austria and desperately tried to grab a quick nap.

The next three days were spent in a jet lagged, hungover daze.  On the buzzard front we did manage to have a Max Papis sighting in the Delta Lounge at JFK International.  And of course there was the little issue with the wine bottle back home.  Somewhere at 32,000 feet over the Atlantic in the middle of a hilarious recap of our pre flight festivities, I mentioned that we drank the bottle of red on top of the fridge.  Tommy suddenly broke out of his playfulness and froze. You could see the wheels spinning and panic setting in.  He had the look of a man that would have jumped on the spot if the door was open and a parachute was available.  As he began to regain composure he informed us that we had erroneously consumed a 1982 estate bottle of Fogarty Cabernet that was supposed to fetch top dollar at a private charity auction event the following day.  Ouch!  Oh and it was the last bottle in existence!  I felt terrible for this gaffe but couldn’t really blame myself due to the fact that at the time of corking I was rolling with 2.5 gallons of Budweiser in my belly and had a lot of thirsty friends to look after.  It took a few days but we managed to regain our bearings and set off in a hydrofoil down the scenic Danube for Budapest.

It didn’t take more than five minutes of standing on Hungarian soil to have our “We’re not in Kansas anymore” moment.  As we have since we were children, Niven and I were engaged in a mock fight in the customs line and two machine gun wielding guards didn’t seem to approve.  With guns pointed in our direction we immediately assumed the Marines position of attention and sweat out the next few minutes in line.

Once we had our official welcome stamps on our passports, we were quickly swarmed by fast talking cabbies who looked like Olympic Greco Roman wrestlers.  One alpha gentleman seemed to win out for our business and stuffed us in his backseat.  We gave him our directions for our lodgings and set off.

When we were in the planning stages of this trip, an old college buddy of mine, Little Ed, got wind that we were traveling to Budapest and informed us that his father, a Hungarian immigrant, was a travel agent among many other ventures.  Little Ed Pomgratz Sr did all of our travel arrangements over the phone and we were flying blind with his word and an address on a piece of paper.

Within 15 minutes we pulled up to what can only be described as a Soviet era drab concrete housing project on the outskirts of town.  Our cabbie assured us this was the correct address and unloaded our bags with reckless abandon.  He then demanded 15,000 Forint for his services.  I think we were too confused to protest and paid the man the equivalent of $70.00 for the short ride.

We were shocked to silence as we entered this multi level dreary tenement and wandered about trying to find our unit while under the watchful eyes of elderly ladies hanging laundry and kids playing at their doorsteps.  On the second or third timid knock a little old granny opened the door and welcomed us, or maybe she instantly started scolding us because after a quick visual inspection she was speaking rapidly and uttering “No Pomgratz!!” over and over.  Our windowless 8’x10’ room consisted of a small double bed and a cot and we were explicitly told “No Noise” after 10:00pm.  It felt like a jail cell and I dropped my bags and tried to settle my 6’5” frame onto the cot fit for a jockey.  As I sat gazing at the ceiling in silence, I was resigned to the fact that our trip was a complete failure!

Gratefully Tommy announced “Fuck Pomgratz! We’re out of here!” to pull me out of my funk.  I’m always a gigantic chicken in situations like this and reluctantly agreed.  No more than 10 minutes after we arrived, we were trouncing back through this granny’s apartment with our bags slung over our shoulders and she could still be heard ranting “No Pomgratz!” after we had closed the door and were attempting to find our way out of that institutional maze.

Once on the street we decided to take matters into our own hands and started walking single file down the side of a crowded highway at rush hour towards what looked like the city center.  After 30 minutes of sucking diesel exhaust, crossing a congested freeway, negotiating some tricky train tracks, tossing the bags over a fence or two and passing through a dilapidated building, we found ourselves on some nice cobblestone in a quaint little quarter of Budapest.

It didn’t take long to realize that we were in the midst of an odd phenomenon.  Every direction I looked I spotted multiple beautiful women of all varieties going about their afternoon business in rather provocative clothing.  This wasn’t like Paris, Milan or San Francisco.  It was more like a beer ad where three bums suddenly find themselves on a deserted island with the Swedish Bikini team. I started an inner dialogue where I tried to convince myself that I was just hallucinating from travel trauma until our point man Tommy asked, “Are you guys seeing this?”  Niven and I instantly concurred and we quickly found a sidewalk cafe to sit and further examine this pleasant development.

Budapest in 1996 was still in the process of undergoing sweeping socio-economic changes with the fall of Communist rule only 7 years prior.  You could immediately sense the massive shift taking place with an influx of multinational corporations moving in and the local merchants attempting to adapt at a frenetic pace.  It was a new capitalist frontier where people of all nationalities were present to gain a stronghold in legitimate and illegitimate ventures.  There was still a smattering of elderly folk in plain garb who had likely stared down the barrel of a Soviet tank during the Revolution of ‘56, but the vast majority of the inner city dwellers were youthful people flaunting their new found freedoms.  I still remember speaking to a young slick German mortgage banker decked out in a tailored suit who gave us the lay of the land and made a point of saying that everything in the country was for sale.  Right on cue a gorgeous woman was walking by and we immediately tested his theory by asking, “Everything”?  He nodded and slowly repeated, E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, with a wry grin and an aire of German nobility.

Totally swept up in the wave of capitalism that the locals were experiencing, we decided to pump some money into the local economy by checking ourselves into a 5 star hotel.  Just a few short hours after being homeless on the side of the highway, we were now draped in towels enjoying a nice steam and hot tub. With our trip now on track we celebrated our good fortune with a wonderful traditional meal consisting of assorted meats, cheeses, goulash, foie gras, and royal tokaji wines.

The next day (Thur) we were longing for some buzzardry so we rented a trusty Renault 19 from a guy named Lazlo and made our way 30 miles out of town to the Hungaroring listening to “The Macarena” and The Fugees, “Killing Me Softly” over and over on the local radio.  I was the wheel man and as we arrived at the track gates, Tommy felt emboldened and explained to the guard that we were part of the international press corps there to retrieve our credentials.  We got the reluctant wave through and while driving into the paddock we spotted an opening onto the pit lane and before I could even comprehend what was happening, I was accelerating out of the pits on the run down to turn 1 on the same piece of track that Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell used to do battle on!  What an incredible feeling.  We did two semi hot laps (by Renault 19 standards) and spent the rest of our afternoon observing the F1 circus transform the empty paddock into a small functional town.

Back in the Pest side of Budapest and fired up from our day at the track, we took the advice of our guide book and sought out a restaurant called the Okay Italia.  The book described excellent Italian food being served by excellent looking servers so there wasn’t much of a debate.  What the book didn’t tell us was the patio was a popular hangout for Russian mobsters who had set up shop in town.  It really made for a fascinating meal. Our waitress was a lovely girl decked out in the equivalent of a Hooters outfit who spoke enough English to answer our onslaught of questions and the presence of the mobsters just heightened the cool factor.  These guys looked like a crew of rogue mercenaries right out of a casting call for “Red Dawn”.  They were so blatant with their operation that a different Mercedes would drive up every thirty minutes to make a large envelope drop and they would casually make the exchange in public.  Don’t tell me these guys were there to build a children’s hospital?  Like our German friend had explained, there had to be some sort of “arrangement” with the local law.    My only concern was trying not to stare to the point of arousing suspicion.

When Friday morning rolled around, we were in the parking lot ready to go before the first free practice.  Tommy had put some serious thought into this very moment and entered the track gates wearing an American flag Speedo (yes just the Speedo), casual collar shirt, large photography vest, shades and a bandanna over the head.  It was a flat out incredible look and filled me with national pride.

Barrichello was the first car to hit the track and it sounded amazing but the dirty surface and twisty nature of the circuit didn’t really make you want to jump out of your seat.  But that was fine because just 30 yards behind the grandstand was a man roasting an entire cow with the head still attached and hoards of Finnish Mika Hakkinen Buzzards draped in their national flags hovering around like crazed Vikings.  These fans, numbering in the thousands, had all made the non-stop 900 mile trek in old 1970’s buses and they explained to us that they drank the entire time. Judging by the amount of beer cans that were strewn about their feet at 10:00am, they had no intention of slowing down.

Stepping onto the sidewalk for a big Friday night in Budapest, we were now completely in the groove.  We had rented an old apartment from a lady at the train station for a great price on the Pest side of the river and were playing a hilarious game of phone tag with our travel agent Pomgratz back home.  After leaving a brief message that his arrangements were unsuitable for our travel needs, he appeared to be tracking us as if we were endangered missing persons.

First stop was a few pitchers with our waitress and mob buddies at the Okay Italia and then we were off to The Portside.  This was a little fishing boat themed pub where excellent food was served by beautiful English speaking Hungarian women who loved classic rock.  In other words, the best little place on earth.  After consuming enough beverages to lose all inhibitions, we even found our way into a discotheque to dance the night away in an electro sweaty haze.

On Sat am we were back at the dusty Hungaroring ready to get down to the serious business of F1 qualifying.  I would never consider ‘96 to be a vintage year by any stretch because the Williams-Renault team had a massive advantage over the field.  Two time World Champion Michael Schumacher was still trying to sort the Ferrari out in his first season with the Scuderia, Berger and Alesi were struggling trying to adapt to the Benetton and the McLaren’s of Hakkinen and Coulthard were just plain uncompetitive.

However due to the H-Ring’s street circuit like layout, the aero advantages of the Newey designed FW18 were somewhat negated by the slow corners.  This gave Schumacher a glimmer of hope and he uncorked what had to be one of the better pole laps of his illustrious career. Not only did he beat both the FW18’s of Hill and Villeneuve by a tenth, he beat his teammate and 4th qualifier Eddie Irvine by 1.488 seconds and 5th on the grid Jean Alesi by 1.625 seconds!

Feeling celebratory, a mob of Germans turned to a crew of ten or so Austrian Berger buzzards in our grandstand and launched into song based on the old “Camptown Races” tune:

The camptown ladies sing this song

Doo-da, Doo-da,

The Camptown racetrack’s five miles long,

Oh, de doo-da day.

Only they subbed in Berger’s name to create their own version that went something like Gerhard Berger blank blank blank, Doo-da, Doo-da, etc.  I was impressed but when the Austrians replied with their own song I was buckled over with laughter.  Facing the entire grandstand as if they were The Vienna Men’s Choir, the Austrians launched into a rousing version of:

Schumi ist ein Homosexueller

Homosexueller, Homosexueller

Schumi ist ein Homosexueller

The Austrians then parted with a very feminine “Auf Wiedersehen” and stumbled off while the Germans were all whistling their disapproval. It was a brilliant way to end day two at the track!

 For our Saturday night we attempted to do it all.  We were dancing, concert going, falling in love with the locals and even managed to talk our way into a black tie gala where every patron looked straight out of a James Bond movie.  I think we may have hinted that we were co producers of Beverly Hills 90210 and flashed our California drivers licenses as proof that we were legit.  One of our side games was to see who could find a Hungarian wife and I remember late in the evening telling a Victoria’s Secret model look alike with ten words of English in her vocabulary that I was the driver of the Gold Jordan F1 car.  Yes, I was desperate and publicly lying that I was Rubens Barrichello!

On our way back to the track for Sunday the cars were lined up at a standstill for over an hour on the motorway.  The previous two days we had zipped right into the track without hitting the brakes but on raceday it was different matter altogether.  The reason being that the Germans had arrived in force!  Our little Renault 19 was starting to act up and when we finally made it to our grandstand, German Schumi buzzards had overrun the security man and occupied every seat.  We tried to grapple for three seats but finally caved and decided to watch the race from the branches of a tree next our grandstand.

The start was exciting because Hill dropped to fourth on the dirty side of the grid and was stuck behind Alesi as Schumacher and Villeneuve vanished into the distance.  After finally getting around Alesi, Hill was driving like a man possessed and set off after Villeneuve, who had passed Schumacher in the pits.  Once ahead, Villeneuve was cruising and even though he let Hill close to within .8 of a second at the flag, he was never threatened by his more senior teammate.  Schumacher retired late and Alesi inherited 3rd, albeit 1:24 seconds behind the leaders. Hakkinen was 4th a full lap down!

Beat up, tired and dehydrated, we cued up to get back to town for one final evening.  Just a quarter mile out of the track gates on public roads, I was accelerating with traffic when our gearbox seized and locked up the wheels.  We came to a rather abrupt stop and managed to trigger a three car/one bus accident behind us.  Needless to say, our friend Lazlo at the rental car place wasn’t very impressed when we arrived at his office in a cab shrugging our shoulders and explaining that his car could be found on the side of the road 29 miles up the freeway.

For our final night in town we had a quiet meal with a Mika Salo sighting and retired to bed early filled with a lifetime of memories created in just 5 amazing days.  All things considered, a buzzardly weekend indeed!

Bottom center is our tree grandstand!
Bottom center is our tree grandstand!
Categories
Buzzard Tales

The Mind of a Buzzard

I have to admit that sometimes even I’m awed by this magnetic draw that I have towards motorsports.  I’ve always had it.  No matter where I am in the world or what state of mind I’m in, if a GP is being televised live I will naturally wake up and go to great lengths to view it.  A few of my favorite junkie recollections are:

  •  Faking sick on a Tahoe vacation with my friends family so I could watch the ’84 German GP.  I had scouted out that they had the cable set-up and knew the broadcast time so when it was announced that we were leaving for the the beach, I suddenly became ill and the moment they left I pounced on the TV with a feeling of sheer ecstasy.
  • After flying all the way to France to attend a wedding, I (and three other buzzards) announced to our newly wedded buddy that we would not be attending the Sunday countryside picnic activities because we had to watch the ’97 Austrian GP in a pub.
  • Being on a family trip at a remote lake only accessible by boat or 4 wheel drive and discovering that the resort owner had a working TV set.  Armed with the knowledge that the British GP was a network broadcast on a same day tape delay, my dad and I slipped away to politely ask the proprietor if we could borrow his living room for two hours.  He seemed reluctant at first but relented after noticing that we were both glaring at him with clenched jaws and balled up fists.  With one hurdle down we quietly walked through the willows to his cabin only to find his wife and kids enjoying a movie.  There were a few awkward smiles and pleasantries as we joined them on their couch and sat in silence watching the film until my dad essentially demanded the remote and told them all to get lost pronto.

Priorities!

I can remember sitting in a 5th grade classroom in a Gilles Villeneuve t-shirt drawing track maps on my binder paper oblivious to the

Always the Joker
Always the Joker

lesson on the board.  I was performing so poorly that parent/teacher conferences were held to discuss my complete lack of interest.  Little did they know that while I may not have been able to recite the capital of Kansas, I could rattle off the name of every driver, team, circuit and country on the F1 calendar.  When I didn’t show improvements I was sent to the school psychiatrist for further evaluations.  If I remember correctly our first session went something like:

 

Psychiatrist: “Ok look at this shape and tell me what comes to mind”

Me: “Silverstone?”

Psychiatrist: “Good how about this one?”

Me: “Spa? Or wait maybe Zolder”

Psychiatrist: “Great!”

Essentially I was home-schooled by Grand Prix International and On Track magazines.  The excitement I would get racing home from school to check the mailbox for my British F1 bible still gets the juices flowing.  Side note – It’s still fun to get a great magazine in the mail!  These publications opened up my world and taught me valuable lessons about courage, competition, love (Sylvia Piquet), business (Bernie’s empire), politics (Jean-Maria Belestre and the FIA), mathematics (lap charts and point tabulations), science (ground effects) and fun (any picture of Jacques Laffitte).

I’m reflective because even as a married, middle-age man, the pull is still strong.  This past weekend I taped the Saturday night Indycar race and waited calmly for my dear wife to pass out while we watched a boring movie.  The second she hit the land of nod, I had the green flag flying in mere seconds and a big smile on my face.

And yesterday I had social obligations while Montreal was televised live so I had to keep my composure over breakfast and lunch while a part of my mind couldn’t stop wondering if it was a rain race or how Valteri Bottas was faring from the second row.  When I finally made it back to my

beloved TV, I had a surge of adrenaline and let out a “Yeah!!” just over the thought of witnessing another GP.

Buzzardry is a funny thing.

The Piquet's
The Piquet’s

 

 

Categories
Buzzard Tales

Hockenheim ’94

While participating in the ritualistic post college graduation tour of Europe with my fellow drifters in search of that one final adventure before the inevitable transformation from free spirit to working stiff, I was fortunate enough to be traveling with one hardcore buzzard and a few curious sorts who all had Hockenheim on our list of events to conquer that summer.  Our two car caravan of Renault 19 diesels rolled out of Barcelona  a couple of weeks prior to the race and while I was at the wheel for my daily stint, I must have been influenced by Adrian Campos because I charged a stretch of open road and managed to lose our sister car.  These were the days before cell phones, internet or backup plans so it was c’est la vie and see you at Hockenheim.  That is unless they were to have the good fortune of running into a group of Swedish girls seeking American companionship out on the open road.

When we arrived at the circuit on the Thursday afternoon the day before the first free practice started, there was still a dark shadow cast over F1 with the tragic death of Senna not even four months old.  But while the world at large was still coping with the loss of one of the all time great sportsmen, it was readily apparent that a large sector of Germany had moved on and was totally swept up in Schu-mania!  The campgrounds surrounding the track were sold out and the party was already in full swing.  There may be a perception that all F1 fans are sophisticated wine and cheese types but what we were witnessing was like a

Schumi Buzzard
Schumi Buzzard

bizarro Bristol parking lot.  Take your prototypical 245lbs Dale Jr. loving redneck and remove the Bud in a coozy, Dale shirt and cap, Chevy pickup and Toby Keith tracks.  Keep the jean shorts and the grill.  Now replace with a 245lbs Schumi loving redneck with Bitburger beer, Dekra hat and shirt, BMW or Mercedes sedan and a techno soundtrack and you can see the parallels. It could have been Billy Bob or his cousin Deiter.  It was unquestionably Dieter when we stumbled upon a group with a smoke machine and a strobe light in their 4 man pup tent pumping the jams to 11 at 5:00pm.

Through our interaction with the locals there was a rumor circulating that the FIA was going to penalize Schumacher and not allow him to drive due to the DQ he received the previous race at Silverstone for passing Hill on the formation lap and the subsequent two race ban that he received for ignoring the black flags.  Benetton had appealed the ban so he was likely going to race, but the whole affair added intrigue and an element of danger to the camp ground.  Many there had placed the blame on Hill and there was a swelling lynch mob gathering at the circuit exit waiting to let Hill have it should he dare leave the circuit.  We managed to find Friday/Saturday tickets but were told by all that Sunday was completely sold out.  As we left the circuit that evening to find a suitable piece of dirt to lay our tents for the night, we were envisioning the scenario of Schumacher not being allowed to participate and the Germans literally tearing apart the race track by hand.

The next day we were seated bright and early in the grand Hockenheim stadium with 50,000+ buzzards raring to go for the first practice of the weekend.  Schumacher was there suited up and Hill was still in one piece so cooler heads had prevailed.  In fact there was a story going around that Hill had evaded the

Truce Mate?
Truce Mate?

mob by leaving the circuit in the trunk of a car.  Regardless you could feel the electricity in the air as F1 cars took to the track.  On Schumacher’s first flying lap, the stadium exploded as personal bottle rockets, Roman candles, M-80’s and airhorns went off in unison.  I need to say it again: personal bottle rockets being fired over the cars by the fans!  I still can’t wrap my head around that one.  Can you imagine taking your seat at Indy and pulling out a Roman candle to fire past the ear of the guy in front of you every time JR Hildebrand went by?  Buzzardly!  This pyrotechnic display became just as entertaining as hearing the Ferrari’s blast off into the forest with their screaming V-12’s or watching Schumacher balance his Benetton on a knife edge.  As more beers were consumed for the afternoon practice the trajectory of the bottle rockets began to vary with the occasional rogue rocket blasting sideways through the crowd.  Usually the culprit would be a swaying, shirtless redneck with a cig dangling from the lip in the final moments of coherence before settling into a nap on the concrete slap style seats.

And then there was our introduction to false buzzardry!  Every time that Schumacher’s teammate, Jos Verstappen aka “The Dutch Devil”, would enter the stadium he would get the Schumi greeting from the drunkards that saw Benetton colors and started blasting.  This would often be met with a ribbing from those that refrained creating a scene that was straight out of a Saturday afternoon primate special on PBS.  The stadium was brilliant to behold and it all came to a thrilling climax when Berger dropped oil in turn 1 and the next 5-7 cars all ended up in the gravel against the tires right in front of us to finish the day off in style.

Heading out to our car in a lot of 20,000 cars, we were still riding high but became a little confused to find a bunch of new stickers from an Austrian youth

Renault 19 Wagon
Renault 19 Wagon

hostel called Balmers plastered on our trusty Renault hatchback.  Was this some sort of German joke?  We did have French plates after all.  But before we could launch an investigation our long lost friends that we dropped somewhere back down the road in Spain materialized out of nowhere with mischievous smirks and we had a joyous reunion.  This really got the juices flowing and we set about the grounds to get our hands on some frosty cold stuff to celebrate.  It wasn’t long after we had our hands on some of Bavaria’s finest that we witnessed a men’s choir unlike anything else on earth.  Standing arm in arm were 40 men all singing Amazing Grace but the only lyric was Senna.  It was phenomenal!  There were tears all around.  It was a good old fashioned group cry in honor of the fastest driver ever.  I’m not afraid to admit that I cried like a baby for days after Ayrton’s passing but to see that I was not alone was astonishing.  For the next few hours we all shared our personal stories of grief and the raw emotions that we experienced.  It was therapeutic and a truly remarkable experience which I will never forget.

But before I get too sappy, this tale quickly shifts back to hardcore buzzardry.  Sometime shortly after leaving our sensitive brothers behind, we fell in step with some professional Belgian buzzards hell bent on getting to the box.  If that sounds confusing I have to admit that I didn’t know what they were talking about either until they produced a bag of tools and pointed at the fence.  Their leader was a strange dude that cackled like a hyena but it certainly didn’t deter our pack from signing up for the mission.  Within minutes we had a mag light out and a set of wire clippers chomping away at the fence until we had our way in.  I couldn’t believe it.  I suddenly found myself standing on the track under the moonlight on the run out of turn 1 off into the forest.  To celebrate I started peeing on the racing line and while doing so I started to feel the ghost of Jimmy Clark looking over me.  Keep in mind Jimmy perished at the track in 1968 so it was a bit of an eerie feeling.  I felt ashamed but I didn’t get to think about it for too long because suddenly there were flashlights coming at us fast from all directions.  Our Belgian counterparts coolly slipped off into the darkness to continue their quest but our group of amateur Americans froze and I was immediately envisioning being interrogated by some SS officer while strapped in a chair looking into bright lights in a dark room.  I was terrified but after a stern lecture in German that I couldn’t understand yet still managed to produce butterflies in my stomach, they herded us up and led us back to the party without inflicting bodily harm.  We dodged a bullet and left to squat on the side of an industrial river for the night.

I wish I could say that Saturday topped Friday but to be honest it was really just another excellent day at the track.  Ferrari locked out the front row of the grid, Ukyo Katayama qualified 5th, there were still firework hijinks and drunken

Legends Ukyo and Alesi
Legends Ukyo and Alesi

shenanigans galore and as a bonus Mika Hakkinen proved that he was insane by attempting to take turn one 30mph faster than anybody had carried all weekend.  He hung on mid corner but lost the car on the exit and went into quarter mile spin that ended against the inside barriers.  His experiment may have failed but just the attempt alone spelled future World Champion.

After the F3000 race won by Franck Lagorce over JC Boullion and Gil De Ferran, we took to our Renault 19’s and headed to Heidelberg for a taste of civilization.  We had been shut out in all attempts to find Sunday tickets so as I sat at a table munching on a plate of spaetzle I was resigned to the fact that my GP weekend was over.  Thankfully the beers started to kick in and in a moment of bravado I proclaimed that I was going back and marching into that stadium for the race come hell or high water.  I managed to rally one fellow maniac and spent the rest of the evening devising a strategy.

On Sunday July 31st, 1994 I found myself pacing the perimeter of the Hockenheim gates in an attempt to witness my 11th F1 race in person.  In my hand I held my Saturday ticket and after a detailed reconnaissance mission I found my mark.  Manning a busy gate solo was a man who looked to be around 70 years old and was clearly getting flustered with the flood of people trying to get through.  I took a deep breath, straightened the back and cued up.  When it came time to meet face to face I gave him the annoyed, all business flash of my ticket with my finger over the date and kept moving.  He tried to focus but it was too late. I was in.  I kept waiting for the tap on the shoulder but it never came.  Buzzardry has been very very good to me!  I watched as my friend Timmy tried various strategies to no avail until he spotted a hole under the fence.  Like a bunch of convicts running for the hills, buzzards were racing for the breach and Timmy was rolling like a dog with the rest of them.  We were both in.  Buzzard mission complete!

Looking back at the race is just a blur.  We sat near the start finish line and I was shocked when the field came around to complete the first lap with 10 cars missing and was punching my thighs in anger after we lost Jean Alesi seconds later and Ukyo Katayama after lap 6.  There was a strange vibe to the race and it

became downright scary a few laps later when Jos “The Dutch Devil” Verstappen’s car went up in flames during his first stop.  I’ve never seen flames surge like that in person and I had a panic vision of the entire garage, hospitality suites and all, going up in flames.  Just as I was getting over that shock Schumacher retired from 2nd place and the entire stadium let out a collective sigh and started to sober up.  The only redeeming fact from that race is F1 avoided another dark day and Berger brought home the win and dedicated it to Ayrton.

A buzzardly weekend indeed!

 

Gerhard Wins
Gerhard Wins
Categories
Buzzard Tales

BUZZARDRY

Definition:

buzzard

n

  1.  Any of various North American vultures, such as the turkey vulture
  2.  Any racing fan displaying behavior that goes beyond what a rational person may consider normal

Exhibit A- Out of Control Buzzardry: Wild Buzzards

Exhibit B- Euphoric Buzzardry: Our Nige!

Origin:

 Like many great ideas throughout history, the term Buzzardry wasn’t derived from academics but rather was coined by regular folk over spirits in a sleep deprived state of mind at a racetrack sometime during the mid 90’s.  But before I delve into the meaning of the word further, let’s back track for a moment to examine how the noun buzzard first became used in a racing context and eventually found its way into the lexicon for, at my last tally, a total of three living human beings.

In 1983 I attended my first European GP at the Osterreichring in lovely Zeltweg, Austria.  Although only 11 years old I was already a veteran of 3 Long Beach F1 GP’s and multiple Can-Am, Trans-Am and IMSA races at Sears Point and Laguna Seca.  Due to the unfortunate circumstances of being on family holiday that summer with my mother and younger sister, my dad and I were only afforded the Sunday to attend the race.  It didn’t take more than ten paces through the ticket gate to realize that the circuit and crowd enthusiasm was far beyond anything that I’d experienced to date.  This was Disneyland on steroids.   I was so

The Run Up to Turn 1
The Run Up to Turn 1

caught up in the moment I sprinted off towards the sea of people in the Mercedes grandstand with nary a word to my bewildered parents.

The race was a solid contest highlighted by Alain Prost prevailing in the Renault over the Brabham of Piquet and the Ferrari’s of Tambay and Arnoux.  Other notable moments were witnessing an annoyed elderly lady brain the man in front of her with a beer bottle in an attempt to get those in her in section to sit prior to the start and an Austrian air show that was so spectacular it must have been based on a WWII air raid and no doubt endangered the lives of all 100,000 plus in attendance.  But it was what happened right after the race that shocked me and brings this entire longwinded story full circle back to buzzards and buzzardry.

Race highlight clip: Austria ’83

On lap 11 during the race the late Elio de Angelis retired his JPS Lotus 94T directly across from our grandstand and well off of the track so that there was no need for a safety crew to have to fetch the car.  As the race progressed the deserted Lotus sat under the shadows of a few hundred crafty fans that had erected their own personal scaffolding stands, some reaching nearly three

Elio by a Nose in '82
Elio by a Nose in ’82

stories high.  They looked like a boisterous lot enjoying their beer in the afternoon sun until just seconds after the checkered flag flew. Without hesitation this group sprang into action like a trained Seal team and quickly scaled the fence and descended upon the poor hapless Lotus.  Immediately you could sense they were in the throes of primal rage as they set about tearing apart the cockpit, bodywork and both front and rear wings with their bare hands.  I was mesmerized and in the chaos remember an Austrian crying out, “Stupide Italians!”  Within 2 minutes there was security on the scene and the situation was diffused but to my developing mind I had witnessed something I would never forget.  I had experienced my first brush with buzzardry.

It was 19 years later while watching “Our Nige” win at Silverstone that I remember David Hobbs referring to the people running onto the track as

Nige Buzzards Track Storm
Nige Buzzards Track Storm

buzzards.  I had an epiphany where I shouted back, “That’s it!  Buzzards!  These people are Buzzards!”

Fast forward again a few more years and I found myself with a group of hard core racing fans at the Portland CART weekend talking shop and enjoying a few pints.  When I recounted my Austrian tale of the unruly mob and Mr. Hobb’s subsequent use of the term Buzzards, it seemed to strike a chord with all present and immediately sparked a round-table discussion on the topic of crazy fans.  The basic use of the word buzzard quickly became the practice of buzzardry and from there it was off to the races.  Granted it helps to be young, dumb, drunk, dehydrated and lacking sleep but Buzzardry has withstood the test of time and much to the chagrin of my wife, is a part of my daily vocabulary.

Examples:

 “We are going to go buzzard into the pits”

Translation:  We are going to go attempt to sneak into the pits

“Check out the Dale buzzards”

Translation:  Look at the dudes with the painted faces and #8 tattoos

“I’m having a buzzard breakdown over Katayama”

Translation:  I’m so excited after Ukyo Katayama qualified 5th

Question-“How was your Long Beach trip?  Answer-“Buzzardly”

Translation:  I went to the LBGP and snuck into the paddock, ate breakfast next to Gil de Ferran and stayed at the track 10 hrs a day

Other Uses:

False Buzzardry:  This is common in F1 when the home crowd goes nuts for the wrong driver, usually the teammate.  Take the 1998 German GP free practice 2 for example.   When Irvine would arrive in the stadium section the masses would blow their airhorns and ignite their fireworks only to notice seconds later that the helmet was in fact the orange of Eddie and not the red of Schumi.

Over Buzzarding:  The practice of talking too much about racing to non racing fans in a setting like a dinner party or family function.  Often happens when you meet somebody from Europe and automatically assume that he/she watches every GP and has an encased, autographed Johnny Herbert helmet on top of their television.

Cross Buzzardry:  When you see something in every day life that is clearly racing inspired.  One example would be to name your company Grand Prix Audio and call your products names like Monza and Monaco.  Check it out:  http://www.grandprixaudio.com/