RACE OF CHAMPIONS, DECEMBER 2005

by Vera

The Race of Champions in Paris is a fantastic show for the spectators and it turned out to be not less fantastic in terms of meeting racing drivers.

After Iryna and her husband went to Paris in 2004 and saw Heikki winning the title and blowing into pieces both Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Loeb, I decided I just must come the next year.

Well, I wasn't really GOING to, but when I saw the list of drivers, it was like "No way I'm missing this event!!!" I'm not even mentioning DC and Colin McRae who don't miss ROC under any circumstances, and Heikki Kovalainen, who just ought to be there to defend his Champion of Champions title, but there also were Seb Loeb and Sebastian Bourdais (French people are just mad about them, Felipe Massa and Nelson Piquet Jr for team Brazil, Jeff Gordon for team USA, Marcus Gronholm, Mathias Ekstrom, Jean Alesi - we all know these names quite well, don't we? And the biggest surprise was the presence of Dan Wheldon, a winner of Indy 500 and IRL Champion, and Travis Pastrana, 5 times X-Games Champion.

We were the lucky owners of paddock passes, that's why we had to arrive 2 hours earlier: go straight there and find Heikki

Heikki was standing at the far end of the underground paddock, under the grandstands of the Stade de France, together with Nelson Piquet Jr, Dan Wheldon and Travis Pastrana - this place proved to have some magnetism in it, because no way we could walk away from these guys!

Heikki was really really nice, he signed everything people were giving him, so were other drivers. But surprisingly (or logically, to be honest), they were not crowded, mostly because back there people might not have realized who they were. Thanks to Sebastien Loeb, DC and Sebastien Bourdais, we could walk and talk freely, I even managed to get inside to take pictures and chat to all of them. It was so much fun!!!

In about an hour we've been told that drivers should have been preparing for the race, so we had to leave the paddock (it was really REALLY hard to do) and went upstairs on the grandstand. We had good seats on the VIP grandstand, right in front of the start-finish line. Still resisting the urge to run back to paddock and spend some more time with all the Champions, we had to sit still and wait till the race begins. I think we were the only ones on our grandstand waving any flags (Finnish for Heikki and Brazilian for Piquet Jr), so people were kind of giving us strange looks from time to time. As if we cared! When drivers went for the drivers' parade and then appeared on the start-finish line, Heikki saw our flag and waved at us! YAY! I can just say, the Race of Champions is the most exciting race in the world!

We had a bit of fun (well, it was sad actually, but still, when Heikki spun twice in the same corner during the 1st heat of the Nations Cup. It was so not like him, and after the race he said he lost control the 1st time, but the 2nd time he spun on purpose - just to enterntain the staduim! That's the spirit, Mr. Kovalainen! :D

The things went wild for us after a while, when in the Race of Champions quarterfinals Nelson won a heat against Mathias Ekstrom (I think that was the moment, when people around started thinking about kicking me off the grandstand with the Brazilian flag, for I was screaming too much), and then when Heikki and Tom Kristensen had the closest finish! We were sure it was Heikki who finished 1st and started jumping and screaming (and waving the flag. AGAIN.), but then we saw that Tom Kristensen was there 0.067 seconds earlier! NOT FAIR!

Heikki was obviously upset, so were we, because we wanted him to win of course, and we lost interest in the race for some time and were barely looking at the track. Of course it had nothing to do with Heikki standing on the grandstand behind us, smiling and watching finals and super-final, noooooo.

Well, in terms of perfomance, all "our" drivers did not like we expected them to do, but nevertheless it was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had! Now I know I AM going next year.

PS. The pictures of Heikki we took in Paris are HERE.