Australian Grand Prix 2011

This past weekend, HA and I and some friends all headed down to Melbourne (pronounced Melbin) to watch the Formula 1 opening race - the Australian Grand Prix.  HA and I went last year with our friend Clarkie but had horrible General Admission tickets where we couldn't see anything.  I told HA if I was to go again this year, we needed to get better tickets.  So, HA worked with our friends Max and Mack to buy seats in the grandstand at turns 1 and 2.  They were tickets for the entire weekend (Thurs to Sun) so we got to see lots of events.

The weekend started with us heading out to the track on Friday to watch practice sessions 1 and 2 (yes practice sessions).  When I packed for the weekend, I based my clothing options off of the Iphone weather app which said it was going to be 65 and sunny.  Well, Iphone lied.  It might have been 65 but it was definitely not sunny.  It was overcast, rainy, and windy.  In other words, miserable and I didn't bring a jacket.  HA and I ended up buying jackets to keep warm and I ended up buying a hat as well.

It was so cold that HA and MayDay had to keep each other warm.

Saturday we had a practice session and qualifying on the agenda.  Again, the weather was miserable.  I nearly went home from the cold.  There were women walking around in shorts and dresses - I'm not sure how they dealt with the weather.  The best part of Saturday was that we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant that's only located in Melbourne called Taco Bills.  We went last year and really enjoyed it.  Dinner was fantastic - some of the best homemade flauta's I've ever had - and the margarita's and tequila were flowing. 

Fish bowl margaritas and tequila shots

The restaurant also handed out mustaches for everyone which lead to quite a bit of entertainment.  In case you're wondering - the sombrero's were included with the purchase of the fish bowl margaritas.


Mr and Mrs MacK

On the way out of the restaurant, they offered to let us have a pinata.  Due to the number of margaritas and tequila shots I partook of, I cannot remember the exact situation, but apparently, I wanted to take the pinata home rather than beating it senseless.  The restaurant agreed and thus, JabberJaws joined our crew.  He was named after a cartoon I watched as a kid even though no one else had ever seen this cartoon.  JabberJaws lived up to his sharkly nature by attacking everyone.


Thus ended our Saturday which led to a nice long sleep in on Sunday.  Sunday was race day but thankfully the race didn't start until 5pm so we had a good portion of the day to recover from the previous night.  The race was relatively uneventful.  There were no major crashes and the guy that started the race in first place ended up winning.  The Australian driver, Mark Webber, finished in fifth place which was quite a disappointment and to top it off, he didn't do his final lap around the track.  There's a debate on whether or not it was an issue with his car or if he was being a sore loser.

Cars entering turn 1 on race day

JabberJaws didn't make it to the race - he was recovering from the night before.