PitterB4 wrote:
What, no babe shots?...
Yeah, really! 
Cool pics, Paul. What do you mean about the french culture?
No babe shots because my wife looks at my photo albums and she gets a little upset when I take pictures of the hotties - and frankly, there weren't that many that were dressed that hot anyway... This was probably the hottest dressed female at the race - and was one of two Umbrella Girls there - the other one had a large chest, but was in a dress that wasn't very impressive - other than showing off her cleavage and my camera couldn't zoom that far.
As for the culture... 1) People are not very considerate. They will stand right in front of you - even when there's >1,000 empty seats all around with the same view.
2) Men will relieve their bladders just about anywhere and nobody gives it a second look. This guy was pissin' in front of several security guards and they didn't care.
It was commonplace to see guys just stop along a busy walkway and piss on a shrub. I even saw one guy just stop smack in the middle of a walkway and piss - right in front of one of the dining establishments. In an effort to keep guys from pissin' on the plants, the track had a few of these urinals around, but they rarely had any users.
3) The facility had lots of restrooms, but almost all of them were unisex. They had a long tub-like urinal (which was rarely used due to the above), a couple of tub-like sinks and stalls with doors used by either sex. Tiolet paper in the stalls was gone by 11:00 AM (even then it was hard to find and usually wet - probably from piss) and as far as I could tell was never refilled all weekend.
4) They had signs as you enter that glass containers are forbidden. That's the extent of the enforcement though. Security never looked in anyone's bags or vehicles that had inside parking, so glass beer bottles were everywhere - and naturally, broken glass, too.
5) Americans may be slobs at sporting events when it comes to litter, but the French are at least as bad - or worse. Considering this was a 3-day event from when the gates opened, part of this might be excused due to the track's lack of a good garbage pickup program as lots of the dumpsters were overflowing before dusk so you couldn't properly dispose of trash if you wanted to, but it was obvious most didn't even try.
6) The French love rev limiters! They seemed to get great joy in the camping areas by doing burnouts or spinning the tire in the dirt/mud or just plain revvin' the hell out of the motor and bouncing the motors off the rev limiters for LONG periods. All day and all night. I kept thinking, "poor motor" and "it's your bike, blow it up if you want to."
Topic: My first spectator experience at a roadrace... (Read 3331 times)