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Grand Prix of Canada ‘07 Photo Gallery

We arrived in Montreal after a very long drive (over 13 hours). We had decided to bring our travel trailer and camp at KOA Montreal South, an excellent facility that reminded us of the urban campsites we had seen in Europe as it was very accessible to the city and featured extensive facilities for smaller rigs. The previous day had been a lot more tiring than expected as we ran into heavy traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike and I-78. Several hours of big rigs cutting us off and impatient commuters riding our tail had left me exhausted by the time we reached the wide-open roads of upstate New York. I was already freaking out about how far we had left to go and whether we would find a good place to stop for the night by the time we entered I-87, but decided to push on until Albany before stopping for the night. Albany proved to be a lot quieter than the mess of South Jersey and, after some driving around lost, we found a Walmart close to I-87 where a couple other campers were stopped despite it not being a 24-hour store. I managed to get a full night’s sleep and the three hour leg to the border the next day was relatively painless. We arrived at St. Philippe de Laprairie, where the campsite is located, just before noon. We quickly checked in and inquired about how to get to the metro. The campsite attendant had a map and directions; however, she couldn’t remember the name of the station where the track was located. Luckily, I had done my research and knew exactly where we needed to go. We would later learn to take the directions we received at the campsite with a grain of salt. I don’t think that the people at the KOA (and elsewhere) were trying to be particularly unhelpful, but it seems like this is one of those laid back places where street names don’t mean much. We have found a similar attitude towards directions in many places around the world.

We hurried to set up the camper and get ready to hit the track. I figured we would watch the second free practice session for a while (which I mistakenly thought started at 3:30 pm when it in fact ended at that time), then check out the casino and have a leisurely supper downtown. For this reason, we overdressed (jeans and long sleeve shirt for me) and didn’t bring a backpack with water and other necessities. This proved to be a critical mistake since it turned out to be much hotter than we expected and the walk to our grand stand was a lot longer than we ever imagined (more on that later).

Finding the Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke Metro Station using the directions from the campsite and the GPS wasn’t difficult at all. Finding parking was a different matter. Not that there wasn’t parking available-I had inquired via email with the campsite about the parking situation at this station and was assured that even on Grand Prix weekend there would be parking available-but the directions steered us towards the smaller of several parking areas that were already full. Asking one attendant where we might be able to find parking didn’t do any good. We were so focused on following the directions that we never looked to our left at the large parking area where there was even space for large RVs to park for the weekend. It took several passes and trying to down a couple of closed off streets before we finally hit the right parking area.

While we were driving around looking for parking, I could hear an annoying buzzing sound outside and figured someone was using a weed-whacker nearby. It took me a few minutes to realize that this was the sound of the Formula 1 cars across the St. Laurent River, which were already doing their practice laps. Once we parked, it didn’t take long to get to Jean-Drapeau station, which is the only station for Ile Sainte-Helene and Ile Notre-Dame, where the track is located.

After emerging from the station, we found ourselves in a chaotic plaza where street vendors hawked programs and merchandise and DJs in booths played electronic music over loudspeakers. We were in a bit of shock and didn’t know where the heck we were going, so we just followed the crowds towards a path to the left of the station exit. Concerned that we would miss practice-by know I could clearly tell by the noise that the Formula 1 cars were probably already out-we stopped to ask a cop if we were going the right way. The cop replied, “That depends on where you’re sitting.” We showed him our ticket but he had no idea where Tribune 12 was. We proceeded towards the left entrance, which turned out to be the wrong one. Upon passing through the turn-styles we were informed by the girl at the gate that our seats were about an hour and a half walk from that spot. We tried to inquire whether there was a closer route but she either did not understand or did not have time. Stunned, we proceeded to push on pass the throngs of people that were already leaving the track after having witnessed more practice than they could handle. We stopped after the bridge that led into Ile Notre-Dame to stock up on $3.75 bottles of water as we had neglected to bring our own thinking it would a “light” day at the track. We regrouped and decided to at least try to find out where we would be sitting and try to find someone to tell us whether there was a quicker way to get there.

We followed the signs on the long slog to “Tribune Douze”, bewildered and a little disillusioned at the spectacle of vendor kiosks, plywood covered pathways and drunks peeing in the streams. This was a lot less glamorous that we thought it would be. Every once in a while we would catch a glimpse of the cars as they sped by on the track below. We stopped several times to ask whether there was a shorter route but the roar of the cars and the translation problems made it impossible to get a definite answer.

We finally arrived at the grandstand just as practice was ending and, in a final act of ineptitude, ended up in the yard in front of the stands opposite to the stairs leading to our seats. I had seen an information kiosk nearby in one of the maps, so we pressed on looking for it and by “mistake” wandered into the VIP area as the guard was arguing with others trying to sneak in. We walked a bit further and notice that there were some boats taking folks to the Casino and made a mental note in case we could bum a ride on one of those (although I doubted it would be easy to sneak in again).

Not having found the information center in the VIP area, we exited again towards our grandstand not knowing that we would get to the exit a lot sooner if we had kept walking towards the other side of the VIP area. We talked to the usher on our section and she pointed out our seats. We asked if there was a quicker way to get there and she pointed towards the VIP area. She said the guard there would know better where to go. As we started to climb down, she caught up with us and said she wanted to know the answer in case anyone else asked. After some back and forth in French between the guard and the usher, it was obvious that he would not let us go that way even if it indeed was shorter. I was pissed off but thanked the usher anyway and complained that these seats were “tré cher pour ce merde”.

We walked back to the casino and settled at the Café for a beer and snack. The casino was remarkably not crowded for being so close to the end of practice and we figured that at least we could use it as pit stop and staging area as it was relatively close to our seats. We roamed the casino floor and used the facilities. We’re not really into gambling and the appeal of the whole thing was lost on us. Brenda was disappointed at the less-than-glamorous atmosphere not at all reminiscent of Casino Royale, her new favorite movie of all time.

The trip to the Casino paid off however (even though we did not gambled) as there was an information center in the basement where we could get directions. I hesitate to write this as I plan to go back to Montreal for the Grand Prix in the future and I don’t want this secret getting out too much but, if the secret does get out, I guess it means people are reading this blog, which is a good thing. Bus 187 goes from La Ronde (near the Jean-Drapeau station) to the Casino, which greatly reduces walking distance to the nearby grandstands. We decided to put this tidbit of information to the test and walked outside past the long lines waiting for a cab at the casino to the bus parking where, after a short wait, the bus stopped and the few people in line at the bus stop started to climb on. We flashed our three-day transportation passes, which by-the-way more than paid for themselves, and were back at La Ronde in no time. We could not believe our luck at stumbling upon this nugget of wisdom on our first day there.

At Jean-Drapeau, we took the yellow line to Berri-UQAM where we changed over to the green line towards Angrignon and downtown. Over the weekend we would come to appreciate the transport system’s ability to swallow up crowds of people. They run very long trains here and, as a mildly claustrophobic person that has been packed like a sardine into trains and buses in at least two continents, I never felt such at ease with so many people trying to get from point A to B at the same time.

We got off at McGill and right away we could feel the festive atmosphere that permeates the entire city on Grand Prix weekend. On McGill College Street there was a fashion festival complete with a runway and open makeup area. My wife, the fashionista, immediately began to forget that she was tired and stinky as we emerged onto St. Catherine where many boutiques were located. After some window shopping, we continued to move towards Crescent Street, the location of another festival and where a rumored Formula 1 store was said to be located. On the way we stopped at Peel street where an exhibition of vintage cars was underway.

At Crescent Street things were just getting started as the live music hadn’t yet begun and the bars were beginning to fill up. Later that night, things would become a lot livelier and would continue to escalate until Sunday into “spring break for thirty-somethings” as Brenda would aptly describe it. We decided to have dinner at a nearby sushi fast-food kind of place. The food was quite good despite our doubts that the teenagers manning the sushi bar were Japanese master chefs. This turned out not to be one of our best trips for food as we did not do much research on restaurants beforehand and usually had a big breakfast on the camper, a pack lunch at the track and dinner at the first place we could find once we were too hungry or tired to go on.

While we were at the sushi place a guy, part of a group of teenagers-two boys and Paris-Hilton-look-alike blond-seemed particularly interested in the rest room. While I stood there trying to figure out what to order, he pulled on the door and I told him it was occupied. He shuffled around nervously and I could sympathize as we had been looking for a toilet earlier with no luck; however, while we waiting for hour food, we saw the girl enter the bathroom shortly followed by the guy trying unsuccessfully to be discrete. Brenda and I looked at each other like, “uuuuh!” There have got to be better places…

Grand Prix of Canada ‘07 Photo Gallery

Next Page: 02 – Qualifying